A/N: Uhh... gore warning? Sorry for any mistakes. This and the previous chapter are like 1 big chapter split.
Suigetsu was born in Kirigakure, also known as the Bloody Mist for their frequent social unrest which stemmed from having a totalitarian regime.
At age three, his mother had carried him in her arms as she fled from the country, his brother, Mangetsu, running by her side.
At age six, he was accepted into Tsukigakure along with his family as refugees.
At age ten, his mother had died from illness, and Mangetsu never returned from fighting in the Suna-Konoha war, Tsuki being an ally of Suna.
At age sixteen, Suigetsu had watched an innocent woman—a mother and a wife—be beheaded while her husband screamed, pulling so hard against his chains that blood bloomed underneath his manacles.
Juugo only watched in pity as Suigetsu wiped his mouth, bile and chunks of food dripping toward the drain at the end of the cell.
The only other being besides them in the cell was a body slumped against the wall on the far side. The 60s didn't know her very well, only her number: 71. From the looks of it, she had succumbed to whatever illness she had been afflicted with during her miserable life. The bacteria in her wounds would have sped up the dying process.
"You okay?" Juugo murmured as Suigetsu stormed out of the cage.
The white-haired male didn't answer or look back. Sighing, Juugo shut the cell door behind him with a flower-decorated vine that emerged from the large bud on his back.
The 60s returned to their own quarters: a measly room with only a table with a lantern in the centre.
"You couldn't have saved her," Juugo said as he put a plate of stale cheese between them to share.
"Yeah, but I could have done something," snapped Suigetsu, a vine sneaking over the collar of his brown cloak and stabbing the cheese with immense force. It went through the cheese, the plate, as well as the table.
There were already multiple holes in the rickety wood.
"This is so shit," Suigetsu muttered, clutching his head and propping his chin on the table. "Hey, Juugo, you're not a bad guy. How can you deal with this?"
Suigetsu had asked this question many times before.
Juugo breathed out another sigh. "I just tell myself that I'm going to get out of here one day. And once I do, I'll give back what I've taken from the world. Do you remember the little girl who begged us to let her go?"
"... Yeah?"
"We couldn't do anything... but when we leave, we'll be able to make a difference. For one life, we'll help many. It's sad, but..." Juugo shrugged, his shoulders feeling heavy. "It's the best we can do. If we try and help someone now, we'll just send them and ourselves to hell as well."
In his lap, Suigetsu's hands clenched. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Get out of here first chance and then we'll be the good guys." He didn't sound convinced, and Juugo didn't blame him.
Juugo gave him a look. "Go take a walk. Kabuto's operating on one of the kids right now, so he won't bother you."
Suigetsu nodded. "Yeah, okay. Thanks, Juugo." He exited the room, closing the door behind him.
It was when he left that Juugo got up and tucked the cheese away with resignation.
The first thing that she was aware of was that everything hurt. In fact, it hurt like hell, and when she tried to lift her head, an overwhelming feeling of nausea hit her like a tidal wave.
She groaned, trying to shift her body. Her wounds were burning, and the particles of dirt from the floor that had infected her open gashes chafed against her flesh. She managed to lift her arm after a good few minutes of struggling, blinking feverishly at the string of sticky redness that connected her forearm to the floor.
Blood...
Deidara was tired of seeing blood.
Eventually, she managed to sit up, breathing heavily, her legs shaking as she fought her bladder. She'd already pissed herself several times on Kabuto's torture table—like hell she'd give him the satisfaction of knowing that she couldn't control herself in the periods without him.
The chains were long enough to give her a bit of range to walk around. Slowly, with gritted blood-stained teeth, she twisted her damaged body and began the humiliating crawl toward the drain at the back of the cell in an awkward hop-shuffle, cradling her right hand uselessly to her chest.
Once she had finished her business, she weakly sank to her knees in the centre of the cell, putting a hand to her head and checking for the inevitable fever.
Her forehead was burning.
Every sound that she heard was muffled and numbed. The woman in the next cell appeared to be shrieking something, clutching her head as she rolled across the floor, but Deidara's fuzzy brain wasn't allowing any of the cacophony to be processed properly.
Lying down awkwardly and feeling a venomous fire lace her wounds as they stretched and strained, her left hand felt around the cell floor on its own. Her fingers brushed against a clay sculpture, and she found herself clutching it moments later.
She tried to summon her chakra, but the manacles on her legs and wrists were doing their job a little too well.
If she had had the energy to hurl the sculpture across the cell in a fit of frustration, she would have.
There was the muffled but unmistakable sound of footsteps, and Deidara's body twitched, her right eye moving up frantically to try and see who was approaching?
Oh, gods, it was Kabuto, wasn't it?
Fear shrouded her entire being, and she heaved herself up, her limbs trembling with strain and paranoia as she tried to get as far away as possible from the sliding door. No... No, not again! She wouldn't let him take her again, not without a fight—a fight that she knew she couldn't give, but—
Deidara almost sobbed with relief when a different face showed up. The man's purple eyes were gazing curiously into her cell; his lips were slightly parted in his intrigue, giving her a perfect view of his filed teeth, a less extreme version of what she had seen in the gaping maws of the true Zetsu.
"You're finally up." He pressed himself against the bars, and in the dimness, Deidara could make out that he had white hair. Pity dripped from his entire demeanour, as well as a certain anger that she couldn't quite place. "And—holy crap, how are you still alive?" She could just decipher his words.
She supposed that she looked just as bad as she felt.
"Dammit, that Kabuto—!" The white-haired man abruptly started cursing softly, his hands curling around the bars. "So much blood..."
If you hate him so much, then help me.
Her throat was parched, and even swallowing her own saliva hurt, so no words were able to escape. Instead, she stared at him piercingly, as if she could deliver her desperate message from the sheer force of will.
The man's hands were shaking now, his eyes glazed over as he fought an internal battle with himself.
He won, in the end. She just didn't know what part of him had won.
He walked away slowly from the cell, back the way he came from.
Deidara briefly wondered if she would bother counting the minutes. Would he even come back?
But he did, in the end, with a friend in tow.
The cell was unlocked and they quickly rushed in, the white-haired man's flower-bud friend looking over his shoulder warily.
"Suigetsu—"
"Don't question me! Just—gah, Juugo, just—just help me on this! I can't just sit back any longer!"
"... Alright." Juugo' voice held a quiet determination. "I will."
The smell of alcohol was overwhelming for a few moments, and Deidara bit out a hiss when the disinfecting swab brushed over her skin.
"Idiot!" Suigetsu scolded. "Wash the blood off first!"
"Sorry." Juugo held up a sponge. "Water?"
Deidara stared as Suigetsu poked the sponge with his finger and the thing suddenly began to grow puffy and wet, its pores stretching. Was this fever-induced or was it actually happening?
It was reality, it seemed, as she felt the sponge on her skin seconds later, scrubbing firmly, yet gently. Her eyes followed the bloody water as it dribbled toward the drain like an unholy river. There's so much... No wonder 'Suigetsu' freaked out.
Juugo hefted up her right arm to clean it. She yelped when the sponge jostled her broken wrist and fingers, her throat aching.
"He really did a number on this hand," Juugo murmured, glancing at the unhurt one.
Suigetsu snarled in displeasure.
An eternity seemed to pass by before Juugo and Suigetsu were done with washing her wounds. They patted her dry with a clean cloth (or the cleanest one they could find at any rate; it still had dried-up bloodstains on it), stepping back to observe her condition. Her wounds were now completely visible and throbbing with an angry red.
Next came the cotton swab and disinfectant stage.
"We should get her clothes off," Juugo pointed out.
Deidara didn't protest as Suigetsu and Juugo slowly eased the brown uniform cloak off her skinny frame. It was strange, of course, for two males her age to be essentially washing her and patching her up, but she was beyond caring.
Suigetsu's hand hovered above the stitched up mouth on her chest, unsure.
"Leave it," Deidara croaked, wincing as the inside of her throat chafed.
"Right." He dabbed at a laceration between her breasts instead, his eyes focused on her face, checking for any hidden injuries in her hairline.
Eventually, they finished up with bandaging her bigger wounds with as much gauze as possible. They had a limited supply, so all of lesser her cuts and bruises were left to throb and sting in the open air.
They weren't sure what to do with her hand, so they left it.
Then they helped her back into her clothes, Deidara's shoulders sagging slightly as she felt the familiar weight of the heavy cloth descend upon them once more.
"Shit," she heard Suigetsu swear after feeling his cool, slightly damp palm on her forehead. "She's a fucking furnace. Get me the cloth again."
The rag was nearly soaked through with blood at this point, but it ended up pressed on her forehead, the two teenagers trying their best to reduce her fever. Suigetsu had soaked the cloth with water, which he seemed to produce naturally from his body.
A kekkei genkai?
What an awfully useful one it was.
She didn't know when it had happened, but Deidara found herself lying on her back, her body desperately trying to fight off the infection and fever and maintain its constant temperature.
"Suigetsu... Juugo...?" She burst into a coughing fit, her wrist trembling as she wiped the back of her hand across her chapped lips. "Fuck."
"If you're wondering where Kabuto is," Juugo said to her, "He's currently busy with one of his more... receptive soldiers."
I don't give a flying fuck about where that snake-bastard went. "Where..." Her throat throbbed painfully then, and she cringed. The next thing she knew, Suigetsu had stuck his finger in her mouth and sweet water trickled down her oesophagus.
"Okay, now talk," said the white-haired man after removing the unwanted appendage.
Deidara glared up at him. "Where's Izumi, hm? And Itachi? Hm?"
It could have been the fever, but she saw very clearly how Suigetsu's face slowly turned expressionless. Juugo looked away.
Clapping her good hand against the wet cloth on her head, she sat up with a heave, eyes narrowed at both of them. "Where are they?"
"Suigetsu," Juugo began, only to be cut off by Suigetsu holding up a firm hand.
"Don't," he seethed. "Let... Let her see for herself."
Deidara lurched against her chains in anticipation, and both males shot her a wary look. Trusting her to be compliant, Suigetsu undid her chains, leaving just the chakra-suppressing manacles around her ankles and wrists. Her right wrist, he noticed with a small pang of guilt and pity, was completely swollen black and blue, the area where the swelling was especially prominent telling Suigetsu where exactly the worst of the damage was.
Izumi. There wasn't a logical explanation, but she couldn't shake off the feeling that something was undeniably wrong. She'd felt it almost immediately after rousing, but had chalked it up to her poor condition. Her heart clenched in dread, her stomach forming a knot in her belly. No, please... Don't... Please be okay. Deidara's mouth suddenly felt dry again, despite Suigetsu refreshing her not long ago.
Neither of them had offered, but she knew that they would probably carry her if she asked. Why? She didn't know. They were supposed to be the enemy, but the lines between enemy and fellow victims of circumstance were growing increasingly blurred these days. The world had never been black and white, but there were more shades of grey than she could possibly count now. But, in any case, she would never ask for their help.
Kabuto had taken every shred of sense of being from her and crushed it. Deidara, for all her stubborn, hard-headedness, had already been fractured before she'd run into him. But within her was still a small, minuscule sense of pride and dignity—one that would ever allow her to require help with such a basic task like walking.
She pretended that she wasn't wobbling on her legs like a newborn fawn as they made the slow walk to the next cell down. The one on the other side of the screaming woman's cell.
Her senses had been recovered some time ago, and she could hear much clearer than she could before. The woman was no longer screaming, but holding her legs to her chest and crying hopelessly, as if she had just witnessed the most horrible atrocity on earth.
The heavy, metallic stench of blood hit her nose, and her arm lashed out to grab Suigetsu's shoulder in order to steady herself from the wave of nausea that suddenly overwhelmed her.
"Easy," the water-affiliated man said unsteadily. "You... Might want to brace yourself," she felt him brush her hair away from her nape, "72."
72! That wretched, horrible number. It would brand her skin for the rest of her life, but she refused to let it consume her. "Deidara!" she snapped, glaring viciously at him. The knot in her stomach tightened, and the world swayed with every fast action, but she ploughed on, "My name isn't fucking 72, hm."
"You're like us then," Juugo murmured. "Numbered with names."
She ignored him. Deidara squinted into the dark cell, able to make out a dark, hunched over shape.
"I..." The name became stuck in her throat. "Itachi?" she whispered, pressing against the bars. "Itachi, is that you?" Her chakra sensing ability had been dulled by her suppressors, but she could feel his signature flickering. Barely. "Itachi, I know you're there." Why aren't you answering me? Was he hurt? Dead? No, no—she could feel his fragmented, distressed chakra, even if it was only barely. It was a mirror of her own.
The door was unlocked, and Deidara took a shaky, tentative step inside, her bare foot immediately landing in something slick and sticky.
Blood.
Now that she was closer, she could see... She could see...
It took all of her willpower not to scream.
Before Itachi was a headless corpse, its limbs splayed in an awkward position. Suigetsu, having acquired a lantern from the outside corridor, brought it inside with him, and Deidara almost fell to her knees when she saw what the body was wearing.
Izumi's clothes. Those are Izumi's clothes.
"No," she choked out in a strangled whisper, her eyes wide and burning with anguish. "No, this can't..."
Was this real?
Her legs gave out then, and she slumped to the ground, the cloak rising and falling behind her.
The universe... It was playing a cruel, sick joke on her.
It didn't feel real. None of this felt real. She could only feel the pain from the physical wounds that Kabuto had carved into her skin—everything else was cold, and numb. It was as if she had been dunked into a black, empty sea and left to drown.
Almost mechanically, Deidara shuffled forward on her knees, which were beginning to bruise, toward the huddled shape at the very back of the cell.
"Itachi," she called, stopping next to him. He was lying on his side, his face hidden in his chest and his arms wrapped around... something. Gingerly, she got on her side as well, pulling herself up with her left arm until they were face-to-face like lovers on a bed of nails.
Slowly, he lowered his arms, revealing his bloodshot Sharingan eyes, staring right through her. There were tears running down his cheeks, but he didn't seem to be aware of them, or anything, really.
Only that... There was a presence next to him now, at a distance that most would consider incredibly intimate.
There was an awkward shuffle of limbs as he hugged her in a slow, deliberate manner, almost as if he wasn't sure if she was actually there or not. He jostled her arm, and she hissed in pain.
Whatever he'd been holding was now squashed between their chests, and Deidara looked down to see what it was.
Izumi.
Or, rather, her head.
She looked back up, unblinking as the back of her eyeballs started to burn with a familiar sensation.
In the close proximity, she could see that there was blood trickling from both corners of his mouth and staining his lips, and she could hear his shallow, ragged breathing. The conditions of his cell had worsened his illness, and likely accelerated it to a dangerous degree.
Itachi cracked a smile that could barely be called that. It was so hateful. Hopeless. "I couldn't save her."
He was trembling uncontrollably; coughing without opening his mouth, and sobbing so extremely violently that his body didn't even seem to be registering the tremors anymore.
How long had he been like this?
Deidara touched her forehead to his, the feeling of his skin against hers completely foreign and... detached.
Then his tears touched her cheeks and she surfaced the still ocean, gasping desperately for air. Next to Itachi, Deidara's lips pulled back as she was forcefully shoved back into her own upside-down reality, her eyes squeezing shut as she wept for her friends and those she had loved and lost.
A friendly, open smile on her lips that made her trust her right away—
For Izumi.
A sheepish grin as he set his training post on fire for the third time that week—
For Obito.
Teasing and bantering had always been second-nature thanks to his wit; "Good morning, sunshine—!"
For Shisui.
Her endless demands that had her exasperated almost all the time, but something that she would have loved to hear again in its absence—
Hitomi.
The grateful sheen in her eyes, even when she threatened to kick her sorry ass—
Ino.
The civilians she hadn't managed to save in her apartment building, the children who had loved to see her explode her clay beasts, children who had had their childhoods torn away from them in one fell swoop, women who had lost their husbands; widows and widowers; sons without fathers, daughters without mothers—
She took in a deep, shuddering breath, her tears pooling at the side of her face. Her left hand clutched Itachi's firmly, desperately.
They mourned together—their own individual losses, and losses that they'd shared together.
There was a music box, a clay bird, and a woman with long, flowing blonde hair and hands on her mouths—
"Okaa-san?"
She pressed her flute to her mouth, smiling into the mouthpiece. "A song passed down from the women in my family—it is called Mirai."
Future.
From her position, Deidara stirred.
"Itachi... Itachi, get up. We have to get up now, yeah. Kabuto will probably be coming soon." She swallowed thickly, sitting up. "Itachi, please. Don't... don't stay like this. There's still her child. Your child, yeah, goddammit—" She abruptly cut herself off with a wretched sob, untangling her left arm from his limbs and using it to wipe her face. Most of her tears on the left side of her face had ended up absorbed into the large white patch on her cheek, where there were numerous lacerations beneath it. The cotton on the outside of the wide bandaid was now puffy and stringy at the same time.
From underneath her damp lashes, Deidara glared at him, grabbing his hand and squeezing it, as if she could incite a desire to live in this broken man in front of her by the sheer force of will.
She didn't know how long they stayed there for, how long she kept holding onto his hand because it was the only thing she could do for him—a semblance of reality that had yet to leave him behind.
He was fighting with himself, Deidara could tell. He was wrestling something—a part of himself, perhaps—back under control. In the end, his breathing evened out and his Sharingan faded to black.
"How did you do that, hm?" she prodded gingerly. "The Sharingan... It requires a lot of chakra to activate."
Chakra that he wasn't supposed to have. Tentatively, he set Izumi's head to the side, and showed her his hands. The manacles were black and smelled of charred whatever-it-was-made-of, the blood seal on the outside of the material peeling away. Awed, she touched it, merely brushing her fingers against it, and it pretty much turned into powder.
He shook his wrists, free of his chakra confines. "The ones on my feet are in a similar state." Itachi turned to stare unnervingly at Suigetsu and Juugo, who were loitering at the mouth of the cell.
Deidara sniffed, her nose completely blocked. "Have you met? They... They helped me, un."
"We're... acquainted," Suigetsu began hesitantly, only to shout when Itachi dove straight at him, squeezing his hand around his threat and slamming him into the wall. "Khhh...!"
"Release him!" Juugo's vines snapped out, but Itachi practically blurred, dodging out of harm's way. Suigetsu slumped to the ground, rubbing his throat and gagging.
"Itachi," Deidara began, rising to her feet. But Itachi wasn't listening to her, his Sharingan spinning faster than she had ever seen as he regarded the 60s with a dark countenance. They stared back warily, Juugo's tense form shielding Suigetsu's fallen form.
Itachi flicked his hand, and a chakra blade appeared around his forearm. Deidara almost flinched back with recognition. Sasori's scalpels. He must have copied it with his Sharingan.
He lifted his arm.
Deidara winced slightly, closing her eyes. There was nothing she could do to save them from Itachi's wrath, even if she wished to. From the way Itachi was reacting to them, she briefly questioned if they even deserved to be saved, but banished that thought immediately. They'd helped her at the risk of their own lives, going behind Kabuto's back.
When she opened them again, Suigetsu and Juugo were still standing, and Itachi was right in front of her, the scalpel gone from his arm. It was then that Deidara noticed that the binds on her wrists were much looser. He'd cut the chain connecting her wrists, and the manacles themselves...
They fell off her wrists.
Then he did the ones around her feet, and her ankles were liberated of their confines.
Immediately, chakra began to fill up her body again, gradually, and she released a breath that she hadn't even realized she'd been holding.
"Later." Itachi's voice was cold, and held promise of bodily harm. It was not directed to her, but rather the two fidgety guards behind them. He turned his accusing gaze on them, saying, "You've come this far. That hole you've dug for yourselves isn't going to be filling up anytime soon."
Suigetsu opened his mouth to protest.
And then, with the sound of an accompanying explosion, the whole world lurched.
Hanabi's serious stare never wavered once as she gathered with the other fighters on the tree, preparing to set out soon. The sycamore was abuzz with conversation, and flooded with tears that accompanied heartbreaking farewells and agonizingly optimistic see-you-soon's.
Most of them were going; they needed as many fighters as possible to draw this diversion out.
Hinata-nee... Hanabi glanced backward once at her fretting sister, who was sending her and Neji worried looks. Her sister could not fight, regrettably—not at a level, at least, that would prove even remotely useful to them. She'd only be a burden. Hanabi, on the other hand, was the spare and not the heir, and her father had been training her for military service since young. It was a tradition, in older clans, that if any 'spares' were readily available, they would be expected to pay their dues by serving their country in the military. The Uchiha Clan's Sasuke was an example of this tradition—but since there'd been the whole thing with the Uchiha being local enforcers of the law, Sasuke had joined the police force instead.
Looking back at her trembling sister now, Hanabi was glad that she was the spare. She would never want for Hinata, bless her kind heart, to be thrown on the battlefield. She was too soft for that, and it would utterly ruin her.
One of the mothers—Asagi, the pregnant one—came up from behind Hinata and gently placed her hand on her shoulder, murmuring reassurances. Hiding behind her legs and looking more haunted than Hanabi had ever seen him was Asagi's son, Shogo. Of course he was spooked, she told herself, who wouldn't be after what he had witnessed yesterday? Itsuki had been his best friend, after all.
Then there was Naruto.
"Don't worry, Hinata," the blond said, smiling at her as he spun his three-pronged kunai around his fingers. "Neji and Hanabi will be fine—they're real strong, y'know?"
"Are you going, too, N-Naruto-kun?" Hinata's expression melted into further angst. "Please be careful!"
"Don't worry," Sakura told her, coming up from behind Naruto and dragging him back into position. "I'll be on the field, too, and doing my best to make sure this idiot doesn't get himself killed." She shot Naruto a wry smile, which the blond returned sheepishly.
Then it was time to move out.
Hanabi bade her sister a silent before the muscles in her legs stretched, and she was bounding through the closely-set trees with the wind at her heels. She was vaguely aware of Neji, who'd been next to her, separating from the group with Sasori, the latter's monstrous white hand disappearing into the foliage.
Replacing him was Sasuke. Hanabi gave him a single glance before continuing to focus on what was in front of her. She was leading the front of the pack, her Byakugan turned on.
"High concentration of Zetsu in the east side of the camp," Hanabi reported. In one collective motion, they swerved east. "The ravine gets shallow nearby—we can set up the explosives there and..." She swallowed fearfully. "Engage. It'll draw the largest amount toward us."
"Remember the plan," said Kakashi, acknowledging Hanabi's insight with a grateful nod. "When I say retreat, retreat. We just need to keep them distracted. Use the trees if possible, and stay with another person at all times. Don't let them get you alone."
"Hai!" came a chorus of solemn voices.
Most of them in their squad were civilians, Hanabi realized with a jolt. Some were only civilians by name, like her and the other clan kids (Sasuke, Shikamaru, Choji), but some were genuine goddamn civilians. At some point during their journey, the civilians had been taught how to fight, but...
Without warrior chakra reserves, they had the highest death rate. It made Hanabi's skin crawl, thinking about how she might never see Tenten's unwavering determination, Lee's youthful spirit, or Naruto's cheeky smiles again. Sakura's hot temperament but well-meaning heart, Iruka's kind, quiet support, Izumo and Kotetsu's steadfastness; heck, even Hitoshi's arrogance.
She didn't want to see anyone die. Nobody here deserved that. All they wanted to do...
Was live.
The treeline entered here, and they all stopped abruptly, some of them nearly falling from their places.
It begun faster than Hanabi could keep up with.
The box that Kakashi was holding was suddenly flying through the air in a perfect arc, the explosive seal on the box side glowing red. In approximately seven seconds, the box would explode.
BOOM!
The TNT exploded with the loudest, most ear-shattering noise that Hanabi had ever heard, just before it hit the ground. Monsters that had been caught up in the explosion howled before their screams were cut off, their hearts melting in the sheer intensity of the heat.
"Go, go, go!" someone ordered, and individual chakra signatures spiked more boxes flew through the air, explosions following. While they were distracted by the initial explosions, the ones who had painted the exploding seal on the box with their blood instead of chakra-conductive ink jumped down from the trees, scattering their TNT boxes all over the dirt pathway that led to the camp. Amongst them were Sasuke, Kakashi, Anko, Kisame, and Gai.
"There's a mass coming our way!" Hanabi shouted over the noise. The diversion had worked almost too well, and Hanabi's heart plunged into her stomach as she witnessed nearly every monster in the camp coming toward them in a rushed but terrifyingly organized death march.
The front Zetsu were exploded as soon as they reached the dirt path leading up to the trees.
But there were still more than half of them left.
Beside her, Sasuke half-smirked half-grimaced. "Well, shit." He unsheathed his katana, the action creating a metallic whine that reverberated through the chemical-scented air.
Hanabi removed the metal neko-tes from the weapons pouch she kept hidden in her sleeve, the claws something that Hiashi had given her on her tenth birthday. They gleamed in the sunlight, brand new, as she slipped them on, moving her fingers to test the flexibility.
All around her, everybody was removing their weapons and brandishing them, their mouths pressed in a firm line.
Hanabi estimated around two-hundred monsters to be left standing at the moment.
They would make sure that there would be none at the end.
"W-What was that?!" Suigetsu yelled, his ears ringing from the explosion that had sounded directly above them.
"We're under attack!" someone shouted from down the corridor. Their voice made it sound like they were gargling rocks.
Deidara smirked grimly. "So they came through..." Do they know that we're down here? She clenched her left hand into a fist. Then she blinked, concentrating her chakra. In her cell, bloody pieces of clay bugs and other critters came to life, scuttling out of the prison and making themselves at home in places that even Deidara didn't know. All she could do was project her will onto the creatures.
"Explosions," Juugo suddenly said, looking up cautiously at the ceiling. "Her last words—"
"Explosions will kill Zetsu," uttered Itachi, mulling over the words in his head. What Neji had said also came to mind, "They are called Zetsu, named after their progenitor."
Progenitor.
It took only a few seconds for his genius mind to piece everything together. "You two!" he snapped at Kabuto's experiments. "Do you have any idea about where Zetsu is located?"
There was a distinct ozone-y smell in the air now, and Deidara pinched her nose, her mouth a firm line. "I'll find him," she vowed when both Suigetsu and Juugo revealed that they had little insight on Zetsu's location, just that he was somewhere underground. "Itachi, they'll need you up there, and I have my bombs." She blinked back a few tears before closing her eyes, her brow twitching. "For Izumi."
"Aa." Itachi's voice wavered from his steel resolve for a second. "For—for Izumi." The love of my life. For a brief moment, her grinning, carefree face swam to the forefront of his mind, and he almost keeled over, his heart aching as if he had been physically struck. "Go, Deidara." Suigetsu and Juugo almost jumped into a salute when Itachi turned to them, Deidara fleeing from the cell with a frozen heart. "You're with me. Gather your forces, we're moving out. Not a single Zetsu will live when I am done."
"What about—?"
"Kabuto?" Itachi's flinty gaze went to Suigetsu, who stared back evenly. "He won't matter anymore."
Suigetsu had to look away when Itachi brought Izumi's head to eye level, her cold, dead gaze boring into his red, pulsing Sharingan orbs, eyes that promised life and death.
"I'll see you again." Itachi resisted the urge to cough up black blood from his damaged lungs, simply gazing at her face. Then he brought his bloodied, chapped lips to her forehead. Her skin was ice cold. Soon, Izumi. He did cough then, putting his palm to his mouth, shoulders wracking. With his other hand, he set down the head of his wife, closing her eyelids. The Uchiha removed his hand from his mouth, staring blankly at the black sludge that dirtied his fingers. Soon.
"The rest aren't like us," Juugo explained mildly, once the Uchiha was done with his grieving. "They're like her," he pointed to the woman in the next cell, who was busy torturing herself to notice the chaotic noises coming from above, "completely out of their minds. They used to be like us, until Kabuto pushed them too far. They're broken."
"Then I'll make do with you two."
"W-What exactly are we going to—?"
Chakra scalpels formed around Itachi's hands. "The only thing we can do. Thin the hoard. You two go—I'll be joining you soon." Then he melted into the shadows, leaving Suigetsu and Juugo to stare at each other.
"Well, you heard him," Suigetsu ground out in the end. "If we're gonna start bein' the good guys..."
Juugo nodded. "Come on, this way."
Her robes, once heavy, now felt as light as the wind. Deidara swept through the corridors, surprisingly empty, a large clay centipede crawling across the walls. It kept pace with her easily, its many legs clicking against the stained metal.
Left and right, with a burning vengeance, she killed Kabuto's wretched experiments. Most were strangled, or ripped apart by her centipedes when they struggled. Which wasn't often. It was as if they all wanted to die. They were also extraordinarily weak compared to the true Zetsu, and it made her sneer triumphantly at the thought of Kabuto's furious expression when he realized just how badly he'd failed.
Where are you, you bastard?
She'd searched through the entirely facility by now, but there was no sign of Zetsu. Or Kabuto, for that matter. Then a drop of water fell on her nose, and she sneezed, glaring up at the ceiling.
Wait... She halted as she considered her location. How many levels does this hellhole have? She sacrificed one of her smaller centipedes for the job. "Katsu!" The roar of an explosion, then a cloud of dust that she was used to smelling, one that didn't bother her in the least. When the dust cleared, there was a hole in the roof, revealing two more levels. Without waiting, Deidara hopped up to the next level, relishing in how light on her feet she felt.
There were no experiments or anything resembling Zetsu on this level. It was almost devoid of life.
She was about to move on.
But then she felt it.
It made her pause, made her feel like her feet had turned to stone, and she shuddered as the overwhelming flow of foul chakra washed over her like a tsunami. Involuntarily, she took a step back from where the chakra was coming from—a dark corridor with a sticky slime splattered all over the walls. Even her clay creatures had ceased all movement.
The overpowering fear almost compelled her to run back and never return.
I can't.
Deidara swallowed a lump in her throat.
Then she took a step forward. The only thing that reassured her was the scuttling of her centipede guardian.
Deidara broke into a run, summoning an army of clay animals to her. Ones that had hidden in corners now rushed over to where their master was, and Deidara's left palm-mouth was frantically chewing the last of the clay in her pouch. Her heart nearly stopped when her fingers brushed the bottom of the pouch, and she nearly stumbled on her feet.
This was all she had now. There were remaining clay animals somewhere else, but she didn't need them. When the ground got too sticky for her bare feet, she jumped onto her centipede, letting it take the lead.
"Zetsu, hm?" She bit down on her teeth. "You'll be nothing but dust when I'm through with you." Deidara hated to admit it, but her body was already feeling drained. A side effect from all the abuse she had endured from Kabuto, and the fact that even half of her chakra reserves had returned.
The chakra was getting more concentrated as she got closer, so much so that it was a battle against her constitution to not keel over and throw up. The walls around her were a blur, but she felt as if they were closing in on her. Yet, they never touched the white hide of her centipede.
Finally, she found it.
She grinned almost manically, her heart pounding as she got off her ride. "Finally.
"I've finally found you, you damn asshole."
A thick, slimy pulsing cocoon obstructed the middle of the hallway, though from what she could see behind it, she'd reached the end of the corridor anyway. A disgusting smell permeated the air. It was reminiscent of burnt vegetation rot, and she scrunched her nose up at it.
Holding out a trembling hand, Deidara commanded her clay creations to gather around the giant cocoon. The animals pressed and wrapped themselves around the huge behemoth, squelching sounding as their clay skin sunk into the soft, plant-like flesh of the silky case.
"Survive this, monster."
Of course, if she were to do it now, she would be caught up in the blast. Not to mention, with all the chaos above-ground, she wouldn't be detonating the bombs anytime soon.
So she swerved on her heel and ran as fast as her feet would take her.
Sasori, his expression utterly impassive, sliced open a Zetsu's chest with his chakra scalpel, the tear opening up with a spray of blood that splattered all over his front. Without missing a beat, his Zetsu arm disassembled like a well-oiled machine, thorn, plant-like ropes digging through the monster's open chest cavity and wrapping around its shriveled heart.
Then he squeezed, crushing the vital organ like a grape.
The Zetsu howled, immediately going into death throes, but Sasori paid it no heed.
He cut down two more when Neji landed from beside him, wearing his monster skin. His Byakugan was activated—it was how he kept track of everything going around him, as well as where the best places for planting the explosions were.
"Eight Trigrams: Sixty-four Palms!" In seconds, Zetsu monsters had been reduced to nothing but twitching heaps on the floor. Sasori carved out their hearts with his cruel chakra scalpel, which he occasionally morphed into neko-tes. Neji gave him a look, sensing his unspoken question. "Their chakra pathways aren't exactly the same as ours," he stomped on a monster's head until it exploded, "normally, they'd be completely paralyzed." His clawed fingers stabbed through the Zetsu's heart, and the creature practically exploded into a geyser of plant juice. He grimaced.
"Right." Sasori glanced around him. "This area's nearly clear." Chakra strings suddenly appeared at his fingertips and shot toward the thick, tall trees that towered above them, pulling out crates of TNT from the foliage. It was merely sheer luck that his chakra strings weren't concentrated enough to accidentally explode the black powder.
"You're looking for someone," Neji remarked as they went through the camp, planting explosives everywhere. He gave Sasori a knowing look. "Deidara, I presume?"
"Don't be a wiseass." Sasori's vines took out another Zetsu that was approaching them from behind. "I—" He cut himself off when he noticed the clay spider at his feet, his eyes widening. She's alive. It almost knocked the breath out of him as the spider circled around his feet once, as if acknowledging who he was, before disappearing somewhere. Moments later, more clay bugs and animals crawled out of the mouth of a nearby cave, which led somewhere underground. But he couldn't dwell on that now. "Come, Hyuuga." He broke into a dash, boxes and boxes of TNT flying behind him, attached to his chakra strings. "Don't keep me waiting."
Shaking his head, Neji followed.
Eventually, after a rinse-and-repeat, they agreed to split up. The hoard had somehow thinned considerably faster than they had thought. Across the camp, Uchiha Itachi made his return.
She would never admit it, but Tenten had never been more scared out of her wits in her life. When her parents had trained her in bojutsu and other weapons, she never thought that she would be using her training to fight monsters that looked like they crawled out from hell.
But as she decapitated a Zetsu by using her staff as a club and its head as a ball, it dawned on her—quickly and suddenly—that this was not just a horrible nightmare but reality.
The last few weeks felt like a blur.
She wished that it would be the opposite—that she would be able to see every detail vividly, so that she could relish in the few good memories that she had made before what facing the jaws of death.
She wondered if others felt the same as her—if Kakashi or Lee felt like they'd be chained to a rock and dumped in the ocean, left to drown with nothing to ease the burning in their lungs.
Lee and Gai were fighting beside her with all of their hearts. Both of them were covered with blood and look worse for wear, but they kept on fighting.
"Hanabi, your left!" Tenten heard Sasuke yell over the noise. From her periphery, she could see little Hanabi dodge the monster's swipe with a nimbleness that Tenten—with her broad shoulders and muscular legs—could only ever hope to achieve. Almost as if he were exacting revenge for her near death, Sasuke bisected the monster in half, cutting through its heart while he was at it. His face was completely black with blood, and his only distinguishable feature were his Sharingan eyes. He had to be at least on Manegekyo now, she reckoned as she rolled to the side to avoid what would have been a fatal blow.
Slowly, she could see that they were being pushed back.
Someone grabbed her arm to steady her. Shikamaru.
"Get your head in the game," he said tightly, his eyes focused on the approaching monster in front of them.
Numbly, Tenten nodded. Her head was spinning from the heavy, metallic stench of blood. She held up her bo staff defensively, eyes narrowed to pinpricks as she regarded the enemies around them.
Everything started to mesh into one again as she fought side by side with Shikamaru, having been separated from Gai and Lee. He was using a blade—she was too deep in to even consider what kind—and wielding it with an expert hand. He must have been trained prior to everything, she realized; he'd mentioned something about an academy—
A Zetsu broke through their defense, jaws snapping. Shikamaru flinched backward, but the monster raised its knee and slammed it into Shikamaru's sternum, knocking the wind out of him. He fell, his blade falling into the grass beside him.
"SHIKA!" Tenten fought back the Zetsu with her staff, but she was losing steam quick. Her vision was growing blurry, but barely—just barely, she could see monsters being cut down from behind. No! NO! A sob escaped her throat as her legs wobbled. The Zetsu slapped her staff from her hands and punched her away, stepping over Shikamaru's fallen form.
"NNgggghh... Ten... Tenten!" Shikamaru wheezed, crawling toward her. He was vaguely aware of his father's shining chakra—it was like a beacon to him—approaching them, held back by hordes of Zetsu.
Tenten had fallen to the ground, the Zetsu advancing on her in an eerily predator-like way. It swayed like a willow as it cornered her—she scrambled back, but she was too weak to get to her feat, the blow she'd received still rattling her bones. It was as if she was underwater again, Shikamaru's terrified screams a lifetime away as the monster grabbed her face and slammed it into the tree trunk, toying with her like a cat would a mouse. She felt her nose break sideways, but her squeals of pain were lost halfway up her throat. No sound ever escaped other than a slight wince.
Then it brought her head back up—
—and back down.
Again.
And again.
"TENTEN! TENTEN, NO!"
Lee... is that you? What did you do now? she thought groggily. I'm sorry, Lee... I was always yelling at you. You're so... ridiculous sometimes... But that's just you... She felt her skull crack. By now, her entire face, she felt, was just one massive bruise.
"TENTEN!"
The monster released her, drawing its arm back to pierce her chest.
Tenten, with her torso pressed against the tree, blinked slowly, uncomprehendingly.
There was a sickening squelch.
For a whole second, the world stopped. Stopped, then started again.
Tenten rolled her eyes up, wondering why she was still alive.
Red Sharingan eyes met hers, and Uchiha Itachi tossed the body of the Zetsu aside, its heart—which he held like a macabre trophy—shriveling up in his hand.
She could feel the outside. It was a minuscule feeling, but it was still there. It was real.
Deidara lifted her chin, taking a deep breath of the outside. There.
After wandering the facility, everything had begun to look the same to her. But now—she'd found it—she'd found the exit.
Her future.
Mirai, her mother whispered in the back of her mind. It was a voice she hadn't heard in eons, but one that was not entirely unwelcome. It wrapped a blanket of security around her.
Be safe, Danna told her.
Clenching her muscles, she began to run toward the exit. Her legs were weak—her entire body was weak—but they were enough. Her right arm dangled uselessly at her side, but she would take care of that later. She would never be able to craft her art properly again, but she almost didn't care at this point.
She'd wanted to die.
But, Deidara told herself, I have a future.
Light.
Light.
Hope blossomed in her heart.
She was nearly there—it was where her clay animals had gone, she was sure—her instinct would not lead her astray—
Shff!
And then her balance was off, and she was falling—
Deidara had the wind knocked out of her as she collapsed to the side, landing on her left side. Panic filled her immediately. Somewhere outside her underwater grave, she could feel the absence of something. She could feel her own blood bloom beneath her fallen form, smothering her—
"You." Kabuto hissed at her with a cold fury as he emerged from the shadows. He looked singed and beaten, and Deidara almost triumphantly crowed at his defeated expression.
"Yeah," she confirmed, "me." Her features twisted into something hateful and horrible. "What have you done to me, hm?!" Something was missing—she could feel it—she could feel it in her very bones. "KABUTO!" she howled, her body feeling like lead.
Oh, how she loathed him. And now he was standing over her, his vines spread out behind him like some perverse version of peacock feathers.
"Merely..." Kabuto grinned manically, showing off his black, forked tongue and jagged teeth. "Made a minor adjustment!" Laughing gleefully, he raised her amputated arm—the limb had been cut off near the shoulder—and wagged it in front of her. "Everything has gone to waste, 72! It's a wasteland up there!" He stepped toward her, and she cursed herself for being so helpless. "But at least... AT LEAST I STILL HAVE YOU!"
Fear glinted in her eyes and she used her remaining arm to try and drag herself away from him. Each breath was coming out of her mouth raggedly and uneasily. Her feet were suddenly stone, and her legs were jelly.
His vines raised, all of them sharpened at the tip.
Deidara squeezed her eyes shut.
Mirai? Not everyone has one—
But Danna, and mother, and IZUMI, Rin, Shisui, I—I—don't want to die—
"Be safe."
"Good morning, sunshine!"
"The future is everything, musume-chan. Remember the past, but never forget what lies in the future. That is the message that we bring—the message the world needs to know—the secret of Mirai."
"72!"
"WHAT?!"
She opened them again to see a tall figure with his back to her, vines stretching out to intercept Kabuto's.
The scientist shook. "No... you are true-blooded. THIS CAN'T BE! THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! YOU MINDLESS FOOLS HAD YOUR FATES SEALED THE MOMENT HE BIT YOU!"
Hyuuga Neji deadpanned at the shaking man. "Fate?" His vines quickly overpowered Kabuto's, and the bespectacled man stepped backward fearfully. "What is fate, in the end?" His pupil-less eyes turned to Deidara for a second. "Go," he mouthed.
It was as if the chains of fear had been released. Slowly, she stood, her face almost completely white from the blood loss. She screamed when Neji pressed a chakra-infused vine to the stump of her arm, cauterizing it without even batting an eyelash.
The smell of her own burnt flesh made her want to hurl, but she pushed it back down, instead trying to regain her bearings. Her entire body throbbed, but there was nothing she could do about that.
So she did the only thing that she could do at this moment.
She ran.
The sounds of two monsters fighting echoed in her ears as she crawled out of the tunnel exit and into the light.
Though they weren't with her at this very moment, she could feel her tiny clay monsters everywhere. They had, cleverly, found all the best spots to explode. Now it was only a matter of time. Deidara glanced around frantically. The clearing was empty, but she could feel a dark cloud of chakra to her right.
More clay animals emerged from the mouth of the escape hole, and she raised her arm, controlling their paths and their fates, her legs moving on their own.
Find Danna, her mind whispered to her. Find him or find everyone else. Her eyes fell to a discarded, bent sword that had once belonged to one of the Tsuki soldiers occupying this camp. As she ran past it, she grabbed the hilt and lifted it from the ground, her brown cloak flapping in the wind and a look of sheer determination on her face.
Then she felt him. His glowing chakra. It was slowly becoming smothered.
Sasori was tired.
Actually, he'd been tired for a long time now. Fighting these things just made the constant weight on his shoulders seem heavier than ever. Whatever was happening over at the far side, he couldn't tell. The only thing he knew was that...
These things had planned a tactical retreat and he happened to be unlucky enough to be right in their way.
The last crate had left his hand just seconds before they showed up, quickly surrounding him.
"Get out of my way," he said lowly, the fingers of his Zetsu arm twitching.
They only stepped closer.
Sasori's lip curled into a sneer. "Hmph." Then, lightning fast, he threw open two scrolls that he kept hidden on his person, and two puppets appeared in a poof of smoke. He gained control of them instantly with his left hand, and weapons of all kinds shot out from their wooden bodies.
One of them howled as a spinning fan of a shuriken sliced through its body, getting its heart as well.
It was a dance of death—his puppets against the multiple Zetsu that had suddenly cornered him. His agility saved him from death ten times over, with him dodging and rolling and occasionally defending himself with his boneless white arm.
There was a familiar chakra probing at the back of his mind, but he ignored it in favor of slicing a monster from the groin to the head, taking inspiration from Sawako's gruesome demise.
Warm blood splattered against his cheek and his lips quirked into a slight, hesitant smile. There were more coming his way. He was already tired from fighting, and the hordes of Zetsu were endless.
He was going to die.
He was going to die alone, without ever seeing Deidara again or hearing his voice.
Somehow, he felt that such a death was fitting.
Poetic, even.
Sasori had never been fond of poetry, despite everything. The paper scroll of letters detailing his feelings on matters suddenly felt heavy in his shirt pocket. So this is it, then? One of the monsters sprung a trap in one of the puppets, getting a blade in the eye, and then the heart. Going out on the battlefield. Tsk, not at all like I would have imagined when I left Suna for good. Disappointing.
He didn't want to die in the midst of fire.
He didn't want to drown either.
He didn't want to die at all.
He would be more grateful, perhaps, if the universe simply let him be.
Sasori almost scoffed. It'd be foolish to hope that Neji would rescue him now. He was sure that, after that moonlit night, Neji would surely prefer him dead. A surge of anger reached him, and he felt himself get carried away by the undertow as he stabbed his chakra-tipped fingers up the ribs and into the heart of a charcoal-black Zetsu with beady yellow eyes.
They swarmed to him as one black mass.
Sasori closed his eyes, awaiting death.
"DANNA!"
And opened them to see his future in the form of his blade-wielding partner.
Deidara didn't know where she'd gotten the energy from, but, suddenly, she was cutting down monsters like they were stalks of grass.
Only because I caught them off guard, she quickly realized, the crooked sword she held bending further against the tough skin of a black-grey Zetsu arm. But I won't let them get to him!
He was her partner, her familiar, the one that she loved with every fiber of her being—so much so that she wondered how she had any love left to spare for everything else around her.
She sliced a hole in their formation, her blade already blunt by the time she reached him. She reached her right arm out, only to remember that there was no appendage for her to do so. So she settled for skidding her feet in the dirt and landing so that their backs were pressed together, holding the sword in front of her face defensively.
Deidara could feel his surprise radiating from his countenance, despite his ever stony expression. She smiled crookedly. "So you came, yeah. Funny how I'm the one that's saving your ass..." Suddenly, Izumi was at the front of her mind, and she nearly sobbed. But she shook it off, not waiting for a reply, instead focusing all of her time and energy into making sure that they were both safe.
At the edge of the camp, where the diversion squad were, they'd retreated as soon as the Zetsu made their own retreat, heading for the heart of the camp.
"Itachi, where are you going?!" Naruto demanded when the Uchiha lingered behind while the rest took for the trees. A crying Lee was holding Tenten's bruised body in his arms, promising to her that she was going to be okay. The blond himself was covered in blood. They'd been very careful not to get their skins split by the monsters' teeth or claws, where the transforming poison was contained. Their field medic, Sakura, was looking over everyone was they retreated, administering the remnants of the medicine she had created from Kisame's blood to those who needed it.
Itachi shook his head. "Don't worry. Just go. Now!" he added sharply when Naruto faltered. The blond nodded and hopped away, disappearing into foliage.
"Wait."
Itachi turned again, this time to see Sasuke, all bloodied and ruffled. "Otouto."
Without warning, Sasuke lunged at him. Itachi stiffened when Sasuke wrapped his arms around him before he melted into his brother's embrace. Sasuke...
"Don't die, aniki. I'll be waiting for you. So is Izuna."
"I'll come back." Smiling gently, Itachi poked his brother in the forehead. "This won't be the last time, Sasuke."
Pressing his lips into a hard line, Sasuke gave him a curt nod after withdrawing from the hug. "I'm serious," he warned before disappearing into the woods.
Itachi gazed after him for a bit before turning the carnage that awaited him. "So am I."
"Where are we, Danna?" Deidara bit out as she blocked a fierce blow from a large Zetsu with nothing but a half-broken blade. "If shit were to blow up now, yeah, where would we be, hm?"
"Close to the edge if we're being optimistic," was the clipped answer from her partner.
Deidara frowned. The edge, huh...? Then she breathed out a small sigh, slicing a monster's hand off. "You feel it, too, right...?"
"Deidara," he rebuked sharply.
"I'm serious, Danna. If I'm gonna go out, it'll be with a bang, hm," Deidara promised, her countenance darkening. "You're not an idiot, Sasori, I know you can feel it. It's waking up." She almost grew hysterical then. "If we don't do something soon, we're all fucking dead!"
"You think I don't know that?!" Sasori whipped around to glare at her. "That is an option I'd rather leave as the last!" He was too selfish to ever let go of her that easily, but—
"It's the only option."
Something flickered in his eyes. "Hyuuga and Itachi are down there, somehow. I can feel them. Barely." He was stalling and he knew it. He didn't want their story to end this way.
Sasori wanted to spend an eternity with her, but it was there was anything that she could not give to him, it was time. Ever since the war began, they'd both been living on borrowed time and they knew it.
"Five minutes," Deidara murmured, her voice unusually soft, an eerie contrast from the cold, efficient way she killed and maimed those around them. "I'll give them five minutes and then I'm blowing this place to hell, yeah."
"Head count, head count," muttered Shikamaru, his gut aching at random intervals. They were stopped somewhere in the treetops—he didn't know where; he did't care—but they seemed to be all here. There were even newcomers—two half-Zetsus that had introduced themselves mid-battle as Suigetsu and Juugo.
No, wait.
Where are Izumo and Kotetsu? And Anko? Iruka? And... And...
Father.
"Shika!" Choji appeared next to him. Tears were spilling out of his eyes in fat, watery drops. "Shika—your—your dad, he—" He covered his face with his hands.
Shikamaru could only slump against the tree trunk in a stupor. Otou-san... He looked around him. At their absent group members, at Tenten's grevious injuries, Lee's anguish, the solemn silence that enveloped them—
Choji looked up when Shikamaru thumped his fist against the tree, sending a spray of leaves drifting down. "Shika..." His best friend was crying unabashedly, slamming his fist in aggravation as he wept for his parents—for Ino, Hitomi, and all those who had died around him.
"Goddammit, Choji. Dammit all to hell."
Naruto was shouting, too, now. About Iruka. It just made Shikamaru's tears flow harder and faster, becoming hotter each time Naruto's voice pitched in grief, the blond lost in his own pain.
Choji could do nothing, merely hold on to Shikamaru's trembling shoulders as he grieved, the brown-haired boy's own tears becoming dry stains on his round cheeks.
"He died to save me," Choji confessed in a whisper. "I'm sorry, Shika."
Kabuto spat out a tooth, eyeing Neji with an animal-like wariness. "Why haven't you killed me yet?" He was toying with him. The tables had been switched—now it was time for Kabuto to play the mouse. But this mouse—this rat—had bitten back. Neji was greatly weakened, and covered with enough wounds to make the average man bleed out.
Neji stared at him blankly, his gaze slowly shifting to where an approaching chakra signature was growing bigger and bigger. "I bear no grudge against you." For a moment, Kabuto relaxed. Then he immediately tensed as Neji continued, "But I had a feeling that somebody else might."
Itachi melted from the shadows, his Sharingan eyes Kabuto's glimpse into hell.
Neji was unfazed. "I'm correct, it seems."
"Get out of here," Itachi ordered, not unkindly. "You've done enough, Neji. I take it you've seen the escape passage on the east side." A nod. "Then take it and go. This one's mine."
Death. Destruction. All of those things Uchiha Itachi could promise.
And it was those things that Kabuto feared.
"Stay back!" Kabuto shrieked as Itachi took a small step forward. "I'm warning you, 73, as your master, I—"
His eyes gleamed. "I have no master."
And Kabuto screamed.
"He's done it," Deidara confirmed with a hollow voice. Both of them had been pushed back to a small mound of dirt and rocks, still actively fighting the Zetsu. Deidara's arm was beginning to hurt now, her muscles screaming in protest. "It's growing stronger, Danna!" Shit, I don't want to die. Terror struck her heart but she pushed it back. At any second, it would come out—Zetsu would burst out of its protective shell to wreak havoc on the world, and they would all die.
"I don't want to die either, brat."
Had she spoken out loud?
There was a rumbling from the ground that Deidara couldn't quite place.
Itachi's chakra signature was heading away from them.
Why isn't he coming to help us? she screamed in her head, betrayed.
But, inherently, she knew.
Sasori knew.
Itachi knew, too.
Zetsu was emerging. Itachi would barely be out of the blast zone himself before Deidara forced her own hand. If he helped them, it would merely equate to all of them being dead. Not to mention that he had family to go back to—Sasuke, Izuna, Rin, Daichi, Hikari...
How selfish of you, Itachi, but how utterly right as well, Deidara thought bitterly, taking in a deep breath. I'm ready. I'm ready to die now. She looked up at her Danna's face—the partner she decided that she'd chosen for life—the one that she would love forever.
The rumbling beneath the ground grew louder than ever.
"Don't cry, Deidara."
What? Am I really...? She lifted her hand to her cheeks. One side was still plastered with a bandaid, hiding the crescent moon scar that would inevitably formed if she lived past this day. But there was no future. No Mirai.
One of his puppets obscured her view, blanketing the monsters for a second. And in that one precious second, it was as if the world around them didn't exist, and it was only them.
"After all..."
Deidara shakily lifted her fingers up, a "katsu" lost on her lips.
Around them, the blood seals on the crates—all connected to Sasori's blood from when he'd spent the night cutting his arm open and using his blood as paint—began to glow, pulsing red.
7 seconds until detonation.
Behind the puppets, the Zetsu were starting to get through, tearing Sasori's creations apart.
It pained him, but he paid it no heed.
Sasori pulled her toward him, her face buried in the crook of his neck. He could feel her tears soaking through his shirt.
6.
"Danna?" He could barely hear her voice over the crowing of the Zetsu, smashing themselves against his puppets.
5.
"Wasn't it you?" he murmured, placing a soft kiss on her forehead.
4.
"Who told me that art—"
3.
"—is a bang?"
2.
Thick sturdy vines emerged from the ground, swirling in a spiral formation as it closed in on them. Around them, the world flashed in colors and light. Her eyes widened, tears spilling down her cheeks. "I—"
1.
He kissed her, mouthing the words into her lips, "I love you."
Then the world was white.
The explosion was deafening. Fire erupted throughout the entire ravine, smoke billowing outward.
Itachi landed on a tree branch, looking back behind him.
The rest merely watched with open mouths and salty tears.
All was quiet.
A/N: Finally! It's finally done! The end of Part III!
Sorry if this disappointed you. But, frankly, I'm just glad it's done.
Yes, Deidara, too, has a backstory that will tie in a bit later. It involves her mother and music. Sasori's past will also come back to haunt him, but Sakura's mom is a badass and I hope I can do her due. Go Mebuki! Civilian council needs some love. I mean... I hope so?