I do not own Naruto. And this is the Deidara one shot, dedicated to Sis, for the four hundredth review of Ashen. (Thanks for making sure that I always keep on writing.) I hope you like it!
"If you want to shine like the sun, first burn like a sun."
-A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
A string of fireworks goes up outside the house. He's happy because the crackling pop sounds like meat sizzling over hot stone that Tou makes when things are good.
"Now, Dei-kun." Tou's hand lands in his hair. "Watch carefully, un." He picks up the end of the string, and with a twist of energy, tosses it into the air. "Katsu."
Another string of fireworks goes up in a cloud of sparks and sounds. "This is our heritage, un." Tou whispers carefully as he leans down to pick up the third string of fireworks, pale blond hair plastered to his face in the noonday sun. "Now, you try."
Deidara takes the string with both hands, and tries to remember how the energy felt. It'd been hot and warm. Bubbly? He tries to find it in himself.
"What are the two of you doing?" Kaa appears in the doorway, her hands on her hips. "Anata! Are you giving our three year old fireworks?" She flips her long golden hair over her shoulder and drags Tou towards the house by the ear. "Dei-chan, come inside for lunch." She calls over her shoulder.
Deidara finds the bright bubbly energy inside of him, and with a twist, he tosses the string into the air.
It sparks, and he leans back. "Katsu." Deidara whispers. And the crackling red blossoms in the air so vibrant it looks like blood.
"Iwa no Deidara!" Kaa's standing in the doorway again. "If you do that again, we won't be making pots after dinner." Kaa is a potter, and sometimes she would let him help.
"I'm coming, Kaa, un." He hops back from the still crackling fireworks and trips over his own feet. "Oww."
And Kaa's there to help him up, set him back on his feet, and lead him inside. "Oh, Dei-chan." She sighs, a fond smile on her lips. "Always so clumsy."
The year he turns four, Tou goes away and doesn't come back. Four shinobi in flak jackets come to the house, sitting about in the front room, talking with low voices to Kaa.
She cries over the dishes when they leave.
"Kaa, un?" He tugs at her pant leg. "What's the matter?"
She wipes her eyes, and does her best to smile bright, though it's a bit cracked around the edges. "There's nothing the matter, Dei-chan." She leans down to hug him, and she smells like flowers and sunshine. "Be brave, alright?"
He nods. "Un!" Tou always thinks I'm brave. Kaa should think so too.
Kaa puts on her flak jacket in front of the mirror, and kisses him goodbye. "I'll be back soon, Dei-chan."
It is the last he sees of Kaa.
It takes him a week to move into Kaa and Tou's room. He builds a fort of their sheets and blankets, and it takes only a day or so for the room to stop smelling of flowers and sunshine.
It had never smelled of Tou at all.
He stares at the photographs on their dresser. Kaa. Tou. Himself. And a picture of two little boys who both looked like Tou. He had too much of Kaa's sun yellow in his own hair, but Tou's hair is paler, and both the boys in the picture have pale hair.
He tries not to think about it too much.
An old man comes for him as he sits alone in the house, holding onto a string of fireworks. "Iwa no Deidara?"
He rubs his eyes with a scruffy sleeve. "Un." His name is Iwa no Deidara. Kaa had-had said it when she was upset with him.
The old man looks at him for a long moment. "You're coming with me."
"Where're Kaa and Tou?" He has to ask. They said they would be back. They would want to know where he is. He can't go away with this strange old man.
"They're dead." The old man replies. "I'm your teacher now." He looks about the room, and it seems that something about this causes him discomfort. "Pack your things."
The word echoes about in his head. Dead.
Never to be seen again. Kaa and Tou are gone. He sways slightly as he climbs to his feet. He tugs the string of fireworks behind him rather mechanically, and begins packing his clothes, which have all migrated to the floor of Kaa and Tou's-
He takes the photographs as well. All of them.
"Where're we going, un?" He musters up the courage to ask. They've gone deeper into the village than he's ever been before, and his legs are so tired, and he must be slow.
"The tower."
"Who're you?" They pass houses, and more houses, and then shops.
"The Tsuchikage." Deidara blinks. The Tsuchikage? "You may call me Jiji."
"Okay, un." Kaa and Tou had mentioned the Tsuchikage at times, in tones that made it seem like he was important, but the old man before him doesn't look all that important. Still he supposes that it does not matter.
He's shown a bare room in the tower with no more than a chair, a desk, and a bed.
It's only after he sets out the photographs on the desk, and pushes all of his clothes in the new closet that he begins to cry, shoulders shaking, messy and unrefined.
Kaa...Tou...
"Deidara, you have no time to play." His shishou tells him when he is five, when the sun's rising over their rocky homeland. "You are a shinobi and my only student. That is why you must study hard."
And he nods. "Yes Jiji, un." But somewhere out there, the hot dry wind and the muddy creek bed calls to him. The white clay urges him to pull more shapes from its flat forms than merely shattered explosions, but to give in would be playing, and Jiji has already said that he has no time to play.
It is a shame though. There is so much beauty to be coaxed from the clay, from the rocks, from the earth itself. His hands itch to shape and mold and pull shapes from the putty that he's to practice with.
He tries very hard not to play though.
Sometimes, it works.
Most of the time, it doesn't.
He believes that he has resolved the conflict between play and work one summer afternoon. He'd sculpted a spider, and it did everything that fireworks and clay pellets were supposed to do.
It is with this thought in mind that he barrels into Jiji's office. "Hey, Old Man! I did it, un!"
"Iwa no Deidara." It's Jiji's son. Deidara believes, in his heart of hearts, that Kitsuchi-san does not like him, although he can't think of why. "You know that Tsuchikage-sama has no time for you right now."
But I got it to work properly this time! "You don't have to be so mean about it, un." There's no use in complaining loudly though, he's just an investment, just a little boy who can make explosions, not the Tsuchikage's flesh and blood son.
"That's it." Jiji snaps his fingers. "Deidara, go stand next to that girl over there." He's pointing to a...girl with a Konoha headband.
"Why'd I have to go and stand next to a leafy ninja, un?" He goes though, he might complain, might be able to complain, but it's still necessary to go, even though he hates to be compared to a tree hugger.
"You two have identical looking noses." Deidara examines the girl. Huh. Un. She does have my nose. Jiji comes to a stop before them. "Why is that?" I wanna know that too, un! Why does she have Tou's nose?
"A lot of people have noses that looks similar, Tsuchikage-san." She does not call Jiji Tsuchikage-sama. She calls him Tsuchikage-san and doesn't look particularly impressed by it.
"Not everyone has noses that look exactly identical." Jiji crosses his arms and glares heavily at her.
She gestures to her cheeks, towards those prominent red triangles that he'd noticed before even thinking about her nose. "I am an Inuzuka, Tsuchikage-san. A shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato and proud. Not one of us has ever belonged to Iwa." She sounds so weirdly proud of that. Although, he supposes, if he were to grow up with tree hugging leafies, then he'd probably think that leaves were the best too.
"Can I go now, Old Man." Deidara whines. "That one dog looks like it's about to eat me, un." He edges away from one of the girl's dogs, which snaps at his clothing.
"He." She corrects, and it takes a moment for Deidara to realize that she's talking to him, in defense of her dog no less. "Ichi is a he, and if you keep calling him it, he might just eat you." Then she turns around, and half growl-barks something to the dog, and that is fascinating. Do dogs talk back? Can I learn the dog language too?
"You all are dismissed." Jiji rises from his table, and strides away. "Kitsuchi, take them to their rooms." He doesn't turn back to ask about what Deidara wanted to show him.
Blue eyes follow the retreating old man for far too long. I'd wanted to show you, un.
But he drags his mood back up to buoyancy. I can show him later, un! And then he'll think the idea is great, and I'll be able to make all of these that I want. He looks down at the spider in his hands, and smiles almost to himself. And I can go find the leafy and see why she has my nose.
For the first time, in a very long time, he has some feeling of wild hope. Maybe she'd know who the other boy in Tou's picture is.
He finds her again in the market, a day or so later, while Jiji's in some sort of meeting or other. She's looking at feathers, which is a little odd, because she doesn't wear feathers, but her nose still looks the same as it did a day ago. Which means that it's still like his. I must endeavor to be brave.
Still, he stands there awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot for a full two minutes before cupping his hands about his mouth and yelling out to her. "Oi! Leafy Ninja, un!"
She pauses. "My apologies, Vendor-san." Her smile is polite, but plastic-like, which is not a good sign. She'd been plastic the entire time in Jiji's office too. "I seem to have been summoned by a rocky ninja." Finally, finally she turns around. "Did you want something?" She tilts her head to the side, the same way Kurotsuchi did when she wanted to emphasize how much he was not a relation. "Rocky Ninja, un?"
A vein twitches in his temple. "Don't copy me, un!" He jabs a finger in her general direction. "I wanna talk to you, un!" I wanna talk to you. I have to know.
She sets a hand on his shoulder, and her hand is so warm, and smiles a sunny smile at him. "We can talk somewhere far far away from everyone else got it?"
He peers up at her face. That's the first happy smile I've seen from her. "That is my nose, un." He remarks.
"No." She says, and then promptly pokes his nose. "That's my nose, un. You stole it from me." He considers it. She is older...but I did not steal my own nose, un!
"Why'd we have to talk in here?" Deidara sulkily sips his tea. The matron had forgotten that he's an only child again. He thought she would remember after what had happened last time.
Last time still brought a bad taste to his mouth. He'd been here with Kurotsuchi last time. He had a burnt tongue last time.
The tea house makes him uncomfortable, like there are a thousand fire ants marching up his back.
"Well, if you kept screaming leafy ninja in the street we'd start a riot, un." She tilts her head to the side again, and he has to remind himself that she's not doing it because she's looking down on him. She seemed to be thinking absently. It doesn't even look like it's a conscious gesture to practice the head tilt.
"Why do you look like me?" He asks, and something about him is horrifically hopeful. "I've never met someone from somewhere else that looked like me, un." Would you be able to tell me about the other boy in the photograph? Would you? Do you know him? You...you look like him.
Deidara had spent many hours staring at that photograph. He can see the photograph boy in the girl before him more clearly now, it's in the cut of the jaw, something about the cheekbones, but it's subtle. He has to go check the photograph again, later. Has to.
She shrugs. "I don't know."
You don't know the photograph boy? "I thought we might be related, un."
"Don't you have more relatives?" She asks.
And it hurts. He wants to bawl. No I don't. I have Jiji, Kitsuchi-san and Kurotsuchi. I don't have a family. "No." He twiddles his thumbs and doesn't drink his tea, because the tea is burning hot, and he doesn't want to hurt his tongue. "Kaa and Tou died early." Kaa and Tou are dead. He has to make sure to look at the photographs often.
Otherwise it's so hard to remember their faces.
She pours him another cup of tea, and slides it across the table. "I don't know if we're blood related, Deidara-kun."
He looks up at her. You called me Deidara-kun. "But we might be then, if you don't know." It's almost, almost like-He doesn't finish the thought.
She frowns. "I don't think we are."
Deidara closes his eyes, and reminds himself that he is not allowed to cry. Knew she wouldn't like me. "Okay."
"You can call me cousin in private if you'd like."
"Cousin Hana?" You would? You want to be my cousin? "You'd let me call you Cousin, un?" He picks up the tea that she's offering him and gulps it down. It scaddles his tongue and his throat but he doesn't care the least. Cousin Hana? She can be my cousin?
"Yeah." She sighs.
It's enough. He overturns the table in the space of a breath and he's laughing breathlessly against her neck. "Thank you, Leafy-I mean, Cousin Hana, un. You won't regret it ever, un." Mine. I have a cousin. I'm not a penniless orphan beggar.
"Deidara-kun?" She peels him off of her gently after a few minutes. "I have to keep shopping now, okay?"
"You're going shopping?" She'd been doing that before, but it hadn't seemed like it was something she actually wore. "What for, un?"
"I want to find presents for my family." She sets the teacups he'd overturned back onto the table.
He doesn't want her to go. You are just my cousin. It's not enough time. He's struck quietly by a sense a fear. Maybe she'll change her mind. He takes her by the hand and pulls her out towards the door. "I can take you, un!" And I'll be nice and everything and you won't ever change your mind. Not ever. Not ever ever ever.
"Slow down, Deidara-kun." She laughs as he pulls her along. "I'm not in that much of a hurry, un!"
"Look at this one, Cousin Hana!" He pulls out an extension that had been lost beneath the crow feather. "It has so many pretty colors in it, un." It is burnt orange like the setting sun, fading into deep red at the ends. It is something bright and colorful to match those red triangles.
"Oh, that's a good pick, Deidara-kun." She reaches out, and ruffles his hair. He pats his head gently after her hand has left. "Oh, does that bother you? It does always bother my Otouto."
"No..." Deidara pauses there in the middle the street, his hand still over his hair. "No one's ever done that before." I, I don't know if Kaa or Tou ever did.
Don't remember. And shame wells up, hot and guilty and leaves him flushed and upset. Why can't I remember?
"Well, I'll ruffle your hair for you." She does it again, and he finds something else to focus on.
"You have an otouto, un?" He bounces towards the next stand. "What's he like?"
"Kiba-chan is my sun and sky. He likes lemon candies, like me, and he has the same fangs on his cheeks as I do." She has a fond smile on her face. Deidara doesn't want to share, but he supposes that it's fair.
Can't ask for so much. Can't.
"He sounds nice, un." Deidara pauses in front of a fruit stand. "Do you think he'd like me too?" Do you think he'd like to be Cousin Kiba?
"Why wouldn't he like you?" She taps him on the nose. "I like you. That's all Kiba-chan needs." It's such an absurdly simple statement, but.
He frowns. "No one likes me really, un." But he forcibly cheers himself up a moment later. "Someday I'll be great at the explosion release, un! And then they'll all love me, un! And, and they'll all be nice to me, and I'll have lots of nice things, un!" He waves his hands around, trying to describe what he meant.
He'd show Jiji his spiders, and then he could make other things, and then art wouldn't be a problem, it wouldn't be a problem, and then maybe Jiji will stop being disappointed, and Kurotsuchi would think that he's cool instead of no fun.
She kneels down in front of him. "Just know that I like you, okay?" Cousin Hana brushes his hair back away from his face. "Never forget that in this world there's someone who likes you."
He nods very seriously. "I'll remember, Cousin Hana, un." He feels warm. It's like Kaa. And maybe it's okay to forget.
Cousin Hana pats him on the head. "That's good. Make sure you keep that promise, alright?"
"DEIDARA." The crowd parts. Jiji appears, his arms crossed over his chest as he strides forwards. Deidara wilts. I'm going to get yelled at for slacking off. I thought that he'd be at the whatever meeting a little longer. "What have you been doing all day?"
"Remember you're not supposed to call me cousin in front of other people, ne?" Cousin Hana whispers in his ear, and yes, her request is a little strange, but he wants her to like him. Wants it, wants it so bad.
"I was spending the day with Leafy, un!" He steps forwards towards his teacher, a slight quiver in his step, because he's about to tell a lie, and he doesn't like lying very much. "Leafy has my nose, so I though maybe..." He trails off. "Maybe she'd like me." It's a very bad lie, because it's almost the truth, but Cousin Hana's still smiling and she looks happy, so he takes what he can get.
"You should stop consorting with weak Konoha shinobi, Deidara." Jiji sets a hand on Deidara's shoulder and marches off with him, but Deidara doesn't entirely believe in the horribleness of Leafy Ninja anymore. Cousin Hana is from Konoha. Cousin Hana is wonderful. "Didn't you want to show me something the other day?"
He looks back at her. She's standing in the light of the setting sun, her hair bleeding orange slightly in the light, and he thinks that the group of feathers he'd chosen was a good choice.
But it's back to the subject at hand. "I did have something, un." He looks up at his shishou for a moment. "Can I go back to my room to go get it?"
Jiji waves a hand at him. "Go on."
He does not seem angry, but Deidara's long come to accept that he doesn't know a lot about what made other people angry.
"This is it, un." He holds out the spiders. They're made of white clay, and chakra imbibed. They'll explode on command, but they're also very pretty. It is a, a-I forgot the word to use. It is better than it was before.
Jiji's eyes darken. "Didn't I tell you that you weren't supposed to play?"
"It's not playing, un!" He doesn't want Jiji to think that he was playing. He wasn't playing. He'd put a lot of thought into this. He'd worked hard to find the-the com-oh. Compromise. That's the word. "It's a compromise." He tosses it into the air. "Katsu!"
It explodes into fine dust. It works just as well as his boring round balls, but he's a little sad that this one is gone now.
Normally it is the explosion that captivates him, but making the spiders had been fun. He is sad that it has to disappear, but that's what the explosion does, and in the one moment that it goes, it is the most beautiful thing in existence.
Jiji picks up his other spider. "And how do you propose you'll use this on the battlefield?"
Deidara blinks. "Un?"
"How will you make this when you are about to be killed by some enemy nin?" Jiji shakes the spider at him.
He had not thought of that. "Can make them faster." He offers, but it's a weak, half hearted mumble. This conversation has been nothing like how he'd pictured it would go. Why can't I do something right?
Jiji drops his spider on the ground. It cracks slightly. And then Jiji steps forward. A foot raised, then lowered.
He wants to scream. No. No. NO! But he can't scream.
The spider is ground to dust beneath Jiji's foot. "Do not do this again, Deidara."
He nods once, something jagged and rotten in his heart, and turns and races out the door, a hand over his eyes. Don't wanna. Don't. Wanna.
He spends a day in his room, looking over each clay spider that he's made. He picks one up, and drops it on the floor.
It cracks, but it hurts something deep inside him to see the spiders like this. He picks it up, and with a quick burst of chakra, it's whole again.
He gathers up all thirteen remaining spiders, the first batch of test subjects, in his arms, and wanders out towards his training field.
They are only beautiful if they explode, and he can't bear to destroy them needlessly. Just dropping and stepping-No. Un. They deserve to die like they were supposed to.
He sits down under a rocky outcropping, and tosses his first spider into the air. "Katsu!" He is showered with dust. Only, only another twelve.
Each one cuts something new from him. By the seventh, he tears up, and can't blink it away. By the tenth, he can barely see through the film over his eyes. By the eleventh, his hands are shaking so badly that he doesn't toss it up quite high enough. A clay shard cuts his cheek just below his left eye.
By the twelfth spider he has to sacrifice, he hunches over and weeps silently, rocking back and forth. But his pity party has gone on long enough. He tosses it into the air. "K-katsu."
It splinters into a shower of white dust motes.
He brushes himself off, rubs a sleeve over his eyes, and starts molding hand signs. He is not supposed to play.
He's practicing, but the sound of a fight out on the water draws his attention towards the river. That's Cousin Hana's team, un.
That's the dark man that came with them, the boy with pale eyes and the other nondescript dark haired boy, and the three large dogs that he recognizes as Cousin Hana's
But there's no Cousin Hana. Where'd she go? Why isn't she with them?
He dusts himself off, and heads towards them, careful to not attract their attention. Oh. The dark man is watching the sparring match between teammates, and the dogs are sprawled all about him.
Cousin Hana is practicing something. He peers around a rocky outcropping at her. She has her hands against the earth, an earth ring rising all around her.
"Is it the fact that I'm not shaping the chakra correctly before release?" She seems frustrated, a small pout as she chews lightly on her bottom lip.
He hops over her earth ring. "What're you doing?"
She jerks, a kunai in hand a moment later. It was a bad decision. "Deidara-kun, it's better to announce yourself from a bit farther away." She puts the kunai away, and smiles at him."And to answer your question, I'm attempting to make the Earth Spike jutsu work."
Her reaction wasn't about him. He sighs and snuggles a little closer.
"You have an earth affinity too, un?" He tilts his head back with a smile. "I have two affinities, un!"
"You already know your affinity? That's impressive." She's smiling up at the sky, and he feels something warm and happy bubble up.
He giggles. "You're trying the Earth Spike one, un?" He stands with his feet shoulder width apart and uses only three hand signs before slamming his hands down. A line of earth spikes rises with varying intensity and speed. "'S easier if you make the chakra pointy." It is difficult to explain why it is so, but bubbly chakra and pointy chakra and smooth chakra and rough chakra is better at making different things.
"Alright." She ruffles his hair. "I'll try it your way."
She raises her hands in a seal, but he remembers another question. "Cousin Hana, un?" There'd been a Chunin Exam thing going on, Jiji had mentioned it last week, but he hadn't been paying attention.
It's only recently that he remembers that Cousin Hana is only here for the Exams. She will have to go away. The thought disquiets him.
"Yes?" She slams her hands onto the ground, a series of seven spikes wobble their way into existence.
"Did you get hurt during the test, un?"
She turns to him, confusion in her brown eyes. "Nope, un. Why'd you ask?"
He scuffs the ground with the tip of his shoe. It is embarrassing to be caught worrying. "It's super dangerous to take the chunin exams. The Old Man said so, un."
"Don't worry, Deidara-kun." She sits down next to him. "I don't think I'm going to get hurt much this time around."
"This time around, un?" He leans closer. "There was a last time?" Cousin Hana isn't very much older than me. Not much at all, but she's already gone to a Chunin Exam?
"I took the exams during the last rotation in Suna." She shrugs. "It went a lot worse there." There's an edge of something raw in her face. He doesn't like it.
"I don't want to exams to end, un." He sets his head against her shoulder and taps his foot against the ground. "Then you'll have to go away again, and no one will like me anymore." She lets him stay instead of pushing him away.
She smells like sunshine and earth.
She wraps an arm around his thin shoulders. "I'll still like you even if I'm two countries away, Deidara-kun."
He sniffs. "It won't be the same, un." And suddenly he can't stop the tears that have gathered in his eyes. "The Old Man didn't like my spider, Cousin Hana. He thinks-" Deidara gasps and shudders. He's not supposed to. It isn't right. He's not supposed to cry, but he can't stop. "It was just a game." He buries his face back in her lap, and she does not push him away. "He thinks I play too much. The Old Man doesn't like art, un." She runs her fingers through his hair, and he pulls himself back together slowly.
"Show me your spider." She take his hands. "I want to see what it looks like." Deidara turns his face up to her and she brushes his tears away with a sleeve. "I think it's nice that you made him a spider."
"I'll show it to you later, un." He's glanced at the sky and realized that it's almost noon. "If I don't go back, I'll get yelled at again." Not supposed to be playing. But her words give her hope. Cousin Hana believes.
Cousin Hana wants to see my spiders. He is almost sorry that he's katsu-ed all of them now.
"Alright. Show me your spider later." She lets him go.
He smiles for her, wide and warm, the same as her smiles. "I knew you'd like to see them, Cousin Hana, un!"
And as he leaves, he hears her laughter ring out behind him. It is bright, brighter than the noonday sun.
He's sitting in his room again, rolling clay between his hands, fingernails blunted and cracked slightly around the edges. When he's happy with his creations, he likes to think that he has an artist's hands.
Cousin Hana wants to see his spiders, so he'll make her some new ones.
It is just difficult is all, to think of shaping eight little legs and attaching a head when his hands a trembling. I'm not supposed to play.
And he sees Jiji's foot come down once more, and feels the shattered edges of something hard in his chest scrap together. Don't want. Don't want.
He closes his eyes, and thinks about Cousin Hana, about her long brown hair, her smile, the way she never seemed to mind that he wants and takes and is pushy. She deserves more than his spiders, which are just not, not enough. They're just a game. He thinks about how her jaw curves the same way the photograph boy does.
He doesn't think that Jiji ought to know about it.
He sets the clay down, and goes to look at his photographs again. Jiji shouldn't know about the photograph boy.
But it's also a photograph of Tou. This is our heritage, Dei-kun. And the fireworks are twisting up into the air again, exploding.
He sits down at his table again, and pulls the block of white clay towards him. He has more purpose now. Cousin Hana is cousin. Cousin Hana needs her heritage too.
The morning of the third test, he runs late. He sees Cousin Hana and her team about to enter the stadium, and he forces himself to run faster.
"Wait, un!" He remembers that he is not supposed to call her cousin. "Leafy, take this." He shoves two round spheres into her hand. "Put it in your pouch, un. Throw it at someone dangerous and it will explode." He whispers. "I'll show you my spider later, un."
And there's that small sharp smile, that's brighter than the sun. "Thanks, un. I'll hold you to it."
He grins and runs away up into the stadium seats. "I'll watch you fight, Leafy!" He has to sit a bit away from Jiji today, because 'pparently another old man is around so he can't sit there, but he sits close. The dark man is sitting with the other old man and a few guards and stuff. Deidara doesn't know him particularly well even after a month. Deidara is fairly certain that the man wouldn't like him anyway.
It's only about then, that he realises that he forgot to tell her what she was supposed to do with those round things.
They needed chakra.
Dread wells up in his stomach. What if something bad happens? What if? What if?
The nondescript dark haired boy fights first. And Deidara has to admit that he is good, very very good. His opponent gives him trouble, but it isn't a true struggle.
Sure he bleeds, but Deidara bleeds daily for his craft.
The explosions don't come easy. His nails are always cracked and broken.
The scratches on the boy's arms are not serious, but as he heads back up to his team, Cousin Hana surges forward to check on him.
Deidara looks down at his hands for a moment, notes his own bruised knuckles, and scratched and calloused fingerpads.
He is too far away to hear what her team is saying, but it looks warm. It looks fun.
Even though it should never actually have been right of him to stare so blatantly at Konoha Shinobi without a hint of dislike.
Cousin Hana is the next to fight. The dark man's hands are clenched in his lap, shaking almost imperceptibly from the strength of his grip, Deidara can see it. He's a sensei, isn't he?
And he doesn't understand, because a sensei is supposed to care less for their students than a Jiji, but he hasn't seen it. Every sensei that I've met cares more than Jiji. He puts the thought away in a box in his mind.
The clamor in his stomach grows worse. But maybe she won't have to use them. She doesn't know how. Maybe she won't. But he knows that she will, because she trusts him, trusts that it's fine. And that makes him afraid, makes his palms sweat and his hands shake.
He puts them back in his lap, where they twist around each other in nervous motions.
"Will Inuzuka Hana of Konoha and Ishimaru Masato from Suna come down for the fourth match?"
She flips over the railing and into the ring, her dogs following her down.
"Let the fourth match, begin!" Kitsuchi-san leaps back, and she melts into the earth, her dogs leaping and spinning in the air.
The boy dodges, and makes three hand signs, slamming his hand down on the dusty earth. Static electricity rises up from the ground.
Cousin Hana bursts back across the surface, her hands reaching for his ankles.
She tosses something at one of her dogs, who leaps up into the air to catch it, and then there are four dogs down in the stadium, growling, snapping reaching for the boy.
The boy makes another raiton jutsu, and Cousin Hana is Cousin Hana again.
Deidara leans forward, and sucks in a breath.
Her hand slides towards her pouch. Deidara makes four hand seals discreetly, and reaches, reaches, reaches. It's close enough.
His chakra connects, the same moment it leaves her hand, but there's another chakra already there. No. No. No.
She'd added chakra of her own.
The explosion that results is something that he never wants to see again, but Cousin Hana is safe. Cousin Hana is fine. Cousin Hana has rolled out of the blast radius. His heart comes out of his mouth, but he sets his hands on the seat in front of him, and gasps.
It was too close. Too close. Cousin Hana has a lightning affinity. Two affinities, just like him.
The wheels begin to turn. She doesn't know the photograph boy, but to her he might not be the photograph boy.
The next match in the exam marks the first death. Deidara's too distracted to care.
The sun rises high.
The second death comes between two genin from his own country. He hears Kitsuchi-san curse under his breath when it happens, something about politics, but Deidara doesn't care. They weren't people who were nice to him to begin with.
He doesn't care, he tells himself, but the blood staining the sand turns his stomach anyway.
The next match is the match with the nondescript boy, and Cousin Hana. He doesn't know who is better.
As happens, he doesn't find out.
"I forfeit." Cousin Hana crosses her arms over her chest. Her voice echoing loudly over the silent stadium.
Kitsuchi-san raises an eyebrow at her. "You're mostly fresh, are you sure?"
Her own eyebrow rises. "I'm sure." Deidara doesn't understand. Why would she let him win without even fighting?
She steps toward her teammate, and slips something into his hand. That's the other-He isn't sure how he feels about her decision. It is supposed to be hers, why is she sharing? But he remembers that his cousin is kind, kinder than he is used to. She is trying to help.
"A smart girl." Jiji leans forward, his voice carrying over to where he sits. "She doesn't stand a chance against the Uchiha." Cousin Hana isn't-
"Hmmm." The other old man, the Hokage, leans back, puffing on his pipe. "I don't think she did it out of self defence."
So Cousin Hana is not worried about being hurt by her teammate. Deidara thinks back to how they'd stood together, all three of them, how she'd been concerned for her teammate's scratches, how Cousin Hana is just nice.
She wants to help him. Deidara realizes at last. Her Uchiha teammate is important to her, in such ways that she would give up a gift for him that she would probably never see again.
Deidara watches the fight intently, his hands held in a focal sign in his lap.
The Uchiha fights well for the first half, he's trading taijustu, matching an older opponent blow for blow, but he's still younger. He wouldn't be able to hold off the onslaught for much longer. He's used too many katon jutsu.
When is he going to use the help? A bead of sweat drips down Deidara's forehead. It is hard to hold the chakra like this, but Cousin Hana wanted to protect her teammate.
She doesn't know that Deidara's the one doing the protecting, doesn't know that he offered. She wouldn't know. He didn't tell her.
And then the two boys in the ring flash through hand signs together and the Uchiha breathes fire again, but-he misses.
He misses, and something is clearly wrong because his eyes are bleeding and he's completely unfocused. Deidara feels another bead of sweat drip off of his chin. He holds the sign, chakra waiting, humming beneath the surface.
Cousin Hana is depending on him, even if she doesn't know.
The Uchiha staggers, his shoulder bleeding freely. Maybe he's poisoned?
"ITACHI! GENJUTSU!" So that's what it is. He's always been bad at genjutsu himself, so of course he wouldn't be able to identify it. I must remember that I ought to. Not everyone has a Hana to remind them of it.
The Uchiha punches his opponent in the jaw, and then his hands fall to his pouch. Deidara tenses. This is the moment.
And he reaches, reaches pushing chakra faster and faster towards his clay. His aim is unerring. The resounding boom that shakes the stadium brings up a cloud of sand large enough to bury four grown men.
"Katsu." He murmurs, as another bead of sweat crawls down his neck.
He wipes his sweat away with a sleeve, breathing slightly uneven. What if I killed the Uchiha? What if I hurt him too?
The Uchiha rolls out of the dust cloud, and climbs, swaying, to his feet.
His other teammate forfeits, but Deidara leans his head against the back of the chair before him, and understands.
He's also trying to protect his teammate. They love each other. It is so simple now that he understands. It is so easy. So clear.
The dark man is on his feet-"Shit. Fucking hell."-cursing under his breath as he makes one hand sign, and just flat out disappears, a black shadow streaking down the wall and across the sand.
"ITA-KUN!" Cousin Hana races across the stadium floor as soon as the forfeiture is called, and then everything is thrown into pandemonium. "MEDIC!"
Deidara climbs to his feet, and the world spins a little around him. Jiji's moving forwards, hurrying, and Deidara knows just knows that he's headed towards Cousin Hana.
Her sensei gathers the Uchiha up in his arms and bundles the three of them off of the stadium floor, heading straight for the medical tent.
Deidara trails along behind Jiji on swaying feet. The ground before him moves and he is exhausted and trembling, but he's done his job. Cousin Hana is safe, is fine, and his heart can stop feeling like a fluttering bird.
He is ashamed to say that he collapses soon afterwards.
He wakes up in his own bed, Jiji sitting by his bedside. "You lived." It's as a short description as ever of his circumstances.
He nods carefully, and feels the room shake. "Yes, Jiji, un."
"What happened?" There's a tight cast to Jiji's lips, and he's got angry eyes.
Deidara blinks. "Too much chakra." The lie is as easy as breathing. He'd expended too much chakra, so the pressure of Jiji's killing intent had been terrifying.
Jiji frowns, eyebrows drawing together, but says nothing more on the subject. "I'll leave you to it then, Deidara." He pauses before the dresser, eyes tracing the photographs, but Deidara's shoved photograph boy behind Kaa and Tou's wedding portrait.
Jiji sighs. "Let the dead lie, Deidara." He sounds tired, but he wants Deidara to forget that there was anything before his life now.
He isn't willing to forget, but it's a reminder to put his photographs away. "I'll move them later, Jiji, un." He promises. I'll never forget.
As Jiji leaves, his hand knocks against the table, and his pile of notes teeters precariously. "And clean your room, Deidara. There are too many notes here."
Too many notes. Jiji disappears out the door.
Deidara climbs to his feet, and grabs a bucket to head down to the river. There's a lot he has to do if he's going to finish everything. Cousin Hana needs her heritage. He needs to make spiders, and then he has too many things to copy and not enough time tonight.
He doesn't know when she's leaving, but the exams are over, so he has to make this quick.
It's late morning when he finishes, and tucks his spiders in his pouch. He rises, and rubs the sleep from his eyes with his right sleeve, pins and needles shooting through his legs and feet. He bounces from one foot to the other, to make it better, and washes his hands in the sink, the white clay flaking off in large chunks.
He's torn a fingernail again, digging clay from the river bank with his bare hands, because that is the best way to get clay, and the water stings against the open wound.
He hisses, and dries it carefully.
Then he goes back to the medical tent, because he doesn't know where else to find Cousin Hana.
There's a guard in front of the tent flap, and he knows that Cousin Hana is there. Knows she is, but the masked guard probably won't let him through. Luckily, the man seems asleep.
He steps forward and tries to duck under the guard's arm. He's snatched up by the collar not a moment later. "Hey! Let me down, un! I want to talk to Leafy, and you can't stop me, un!" He lands against the dirt, hard, a tanto pointed in the direction of his chest. "I'm the student of the Tsuchikage, un!"
Sure, Jiji might not mean too much protection from his own granddaughter, but the dumb, leafy guard from a village of tree hugging shinobi won't kill him. Probably.
"And what do you think you're doing, Hound-san?" And Cousin Hana appears. "He's just a child! Why are you pointing an unsheathed blade in his direction?" She sets her hands on his arms. "Deidara-kun? Are you alright?"
He buries his face in her shoulder. "Leafy." He mumbles. "He wouldn't let me in to talk to you, and you'll leave soon, un." It is true. He needs to talk to her, needs to give her his present.
She picks him up, and they head back into the tent together. "Well, now you're here, on the inside where everyone else is."
It's only when he pulls away that he notices how truly terrible she looks. She was trying to be happy because she doesn't want me to be concerned. "Were you crying, Cousin Hana, un?" He brushes his fingers under the dark circles under her eyes, which are red rimmed and swollen. "Your eyes are red and puffy."
"I don't know, Deidara-kun." She sets him down. "I was asleep, un." You don't look like you were asleep, un. Did her teammate's injuries really affect her this much?
He frowns and jerks his head at the Uchiha. "Is it because of him?" Is he so important to you? But then he sees that her Sensei is also in a hospital bed. That he also looks pale and wane. The dark man's green eye makeup makes him look worse.
"He's a part of it." She threads her fingers through his hair, a comforting gesture, and she's still looking to make sure that he doesn't worry."But we're not here to talk about Ita-kun, right?"
Deidara shakes his head. No. I need to give you something. He reaches into his pouch. "I wanted to show you my spiders, un." He thrusts his hands forwards. "I made three better ones for you, un." and that's not exactly what he wants to say, but he's sure that Hound-san has not gone away. So he can't say anything, because that is dangerous.
"They're very cute, Dei-kun." She ruffles his hair, and it's good that she doesn't know. If she knew, I'm sure that she'd say something. But that's okay, she'd learn soon enough. "I'm glad you made them better this time." She takes them, and holds them up to the light.
He climbs onto her lap and wraps his arms around her neck. It is clear that she will leave soon. That she has to, and he can't keep her with any sort of force. "They'll explode too, if you say katsu and add chakra." He whispers. I hope you'll try it sometime. His fingers are stinging again. "You're my cousin, un." He'd never asked Tou about the boy in the photograph, but he has thought about it. He laughs a little without looking up. "I'm glad it's you, Cousin Hana." Always glad.
She pokes his cheek. "Why are you giving a foreign shinobi explosive weapons, Dei-kun?" If only you knew. But it's best if she doesn't know.
He pulls back. "M not giving any foreign shinobi anything, un." He leans in to whisper in her ear. "I'm giving Cousin Hana a present." He frowns. "Can't teach you how to make them, un." He mumbles. "But you're cousin, should know how." And his notes would teach her just fine.
She'd know how to pull shapes from clay, know how to make two types of chakra and she'd know art too.
She runs a hand through his hair. "Remember that I like you, Dei-kun." She pulls him close, and he can smell the sunshine and earth under the stench of blood that clings to her like a shroud. It's all the Uchiha fault. He muses. He bled too much, and now Cousin Hana smells like blood. "Don't ever tell anyone what you did today, un. And never stop being nice." She's still worrying for him, and she'd worry more if she'd known what he'd done. But he feels warm, he doesn't want her to leave.
He nods, and they break apart. "I'll never forget you, un." He whispers, and makes sure that her hands are clenched tightly around his spiders. Take them with you when you go. Please don't lose them, Cousin Hana. "I love you, Cousin Hana." He flushes, and his eyes fill with tears. He takes one last look at her, her tired eyes, but pleasant smile that he does not expect to see again, because they'd meet again when their villages are fighting, and traces a hand down the fangs on her cheeks and then the hitai-ate that she wears about her neck.
It's all their fault. He thinks wildly. It's all their fault that she has to be from Konoha. Why can't she always have been here? Why couldn't I have been from there instead?
Then he runs out of the tent. He can't ask her to stay.
She can't stay.
But he promises himself that he'd see his cousin again. I will see you again. I will.
And it won't be because I have to hurt you.
"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides."
-David Viscott, How to Live with Another Person
A.N. And there we have it. Deidara's head space. (It's really kind of...well, he tries to be happy, and there's plenty that he doesn't see, but the best word for it is attention starved.
Thank you so much to AnimeFreak71777(:P), OddShadow (Sort of. And addressing last review: I think I was responding to CasJeanne's review on where Hana was during this.), libraryrockerr (Kihona has no idea what the shadow is, only that it's hurt her waste of space. Thus she's quite mean.), Cooked Ghost (Surprisingly, this was the first time that Kaito...exploded people. And he did not know what would happen before hand. And Ensui's perspective is always, "AHHH people I love are getting hurt! Protect them! AHH! And not quite, she has several other missions which were also fairly awful.), zilese (I'm so glad! Fugaku is one of my favorite characters in Bloodless, and Ino's perception of him was really quite interesting.), fernandfeather, Rileyyheartt (Yeah, Danzo is interesting, but I've more planned for his character than simply bad person.), and Forgotten Lost Ancient (Kakashi and Hana interactions are always interesting...) for reviewing!
And everyone else who favorited and followed!
~Tavina.