By now, Sasori was used to waking up before Deidara. Usually, he'd poke the blond until he groaned and groggily sat up, and then Sasori would smile and ask for food repeatedly while Deidara got dressed. Today he decided that he would let his uncle sleep in a while. Konan had brought over food that Sasori could just grab and eat without having to make Deidara cook it, so he climbed over his bed mate and got out of bed.

He wandered into the kitchen and noticed Hidan sitting at the table. The older man smirked upon seeing Sasori. "Hey, kid."

"Good morning, Hidan." He walked to the pantry and pulled out one of the snacks, opening it. He turned toward the table and saw that Hidan was holding out a kunai.

"Here, I got you something to play with. It must be pretty boring having to entertain yourself." Hidan's smile widened as the child stared curiously at the knife. "Go on, take it. You know, one of Deidara's favorite games is dodging these things when you throw them at him."

"Really?" Sasori crossed the kitchen and stood next to Hidan, looking at the weapon but not yet taking it. "Is it safe?"

"As long as you don't trip and fall onto it," Hidan drawled, thrusting the kunai further toward Sasori. "Come on, it's perfectly fine."

"Well…okay." Sasori reached out for the weapon but gasped as suddenly it was kicked out of Hidan's hand. The Jashinist drew his arm back in shock, holding it to his chest as the kunai clattered to the ground.

Itachi moved in between the two, bending down and grabbing the weapon. Hidan immediately stood up, glaring at the Uchiha. "What's your fuckin' problem, Itachi?"

Without any warning, the kunai was thrown, barely missing Hidan's head and sticking into the wall behind him. Itachi flashed his Sharingan in warning. "Pein's orders were to keep him safe and unharmed."

Hidan scowled. While there wasn't any pain Itachi could inflict on him that he hadn't felt before, the Jashinist despised having the Sharingan used on him. He growled, boldly staring the Uchiha in the eyes for a few seconds before looking away and shoving past him and out of the kitchen. Itachi watched him go before turning to Sasori, who was staring up at him in both fascination and fear.

"Don't take anything Hidan offers you. You've already nearly been decapitated fooling around with his scythe," Itachi scolded lightly, flicking some of Sasori's hair out of his face before walking to the stove to make some tea.

Sasori nodded, still recovering from the shock. After a few seconds, he grinned and bounded toward the Uchiha, crashing into him and hugging him around the legs. "That was so cool!"

"You almost gouging your eyes out is cool?" Itachi asked, trying to sound stern but Sasori didn't miss the smile on his face. He giggled, releasing the raven.

"Why's there a kunai in the wall?" Sasori turned toward Deidara as the blond stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"Finally you're awake!" The red head ran toward Deidara, making him sit at the table so he could tell him how cool Itachi was. The blond listened, rolling his eyes every couple seconds. Even though Itachi's back was to him, he knew that the raven was smirking as Sasori blabbered on about the incident that had happened just moment ago.

What should have been a thirty-second story was finished five agonizingly long minutes later, and Deidara stood up and stretched before grabbing one of Sasori's snacks and munching on it as he glared at Itachi's back. His eyes shifted to the entryway as Kakuzu entered the kitchen.

Before the miser got three steps into the room, he spotted the kunai sticking in the wall. "Why the hell is that there?" he growled, immediately glaring at Deidara. The blond held his hands up in defense, scowling.

"Hey, why do you always assume it's me?!"

Itachi turned away from the stove, a cup of tea in his hands. "I apologize, it was me. I was trying to get a point across to Hidan."

Kakuzu's glare shifted to Itachi, but he didn't hold any real malice in it. "I should've known that idiot Hidan had something to do with it." He plucked the weapon out of the wall, pocketing it to use on his partner later.

"You should have seen how cool It-"

"Finish eating already," Deidara interrupted, grabbing Sasori's arm and making him sit down. "I'll show you something really cool after you're finished, hm."

Sasori grinned. "More explosions?"

"More?" Kakuzu questioned; Deidara chuckled nervously.

'Kids say the darnedest things, don't they?"

After the long and awkward wait for Sasori to finish eating, Deidara led him out of the kitchen and back into his room. "We can't do any explosions today since that moneygrubber's here, but I have something else you can do, hm."

Deidara opened his bedroom window and climbed out of it, motioning for Sasori to do the same. "Are we sneaking out?" Sasori whispered.

"No, hm. We're sneaking in." He smirked, walking to Sasori's bedroom window. The seal Konan had used on the puppet's door was still there, and Deidara hadn't been able to release it. He had discovered, however, that she had left the window intact, and he pulled it open, picking up Sasori and helping him through it before climbing in himself.

He clicked on a light and sighed at the familiar sight of puppet's lining the shelves in the room. He saw Hiruko in the corner the same time Sasori did, and they both walked toward the puppet, Sasori staring in awe.

"Since we can't make explosions today, I thought I'd let you play with the puppets again, hm," Deidara explained, kneeling down next to the huge puppet and placing a hand on the side of it, feeling around. He'd watched Sasori open the puppet countless times, he was sure he could do the same. "But you can't tell anyone I let you do this, okay?"

"I promise."

"Good, hm." Deidara bit his tongue as he continued sliding his hand across the puppet before finally finding what he was looking for. He fumbled with the latch for a bit and smiled as he heard a click. Feeling proud, he opened Hiruko, revealing the inside compartment Sasori usually inhabited.

"Whoa," Sasori said in awe, stepping inside and sitting down. Deidara couldn't help but laugh at the sight. His partner always did look smaller while sitting inside Hiruko, but this was ridiculous. "How do you work this thing?"

Deidara was caught off guard by the question, as he realized that Sasori must not yet know how to make chakra strings. "Oh, well, you have to be a puppet master to control this one. Hm."

"Oh, like Granny Chiyo," Sasori nodded. "And like…" He suddenly went silent, deep in thought.

"Sasori?" Deidara put a hand on the child's shoulder. "You okay? Are you remembering something?"

The redhead frowned, his brows furrowing. "I…there was a weird…memory, but then it passed." His face relaxed and he shrugged, turning to look at Deidara. "I can't remember it now."

"Oh, hm." How odd. Could it be that Sasori was remembering that he was also a puppet master? If that was the case, this could be a major clue about how to reverse the jutsu. "Hey, Sasori, can you play in here quietly for a bit while I go talk to Itachi?"

"Yeah, of course," the red head answered, happy that Deidara trusted him enough to leave him alone.

"Don't touch anything that looks like it could be dangerous, and if you see any purple liquid, leave it alone, hm."

"Okay, I promise."

Deidara ruffled his hair before jumping out the window and back into his own. He left his bedroom and went into the kitchen, sighing when he saw that Itachi wasn't there. He walked back down the hall and knocked at the Uchiha's door.

His ears caught the sound of a faint gasp, and then Itachi's footsteps crossed the room and the door opened. "Were you sleeping?"

"What do you want?" Itachi crossed his arms over his bare chest.

"I need you to tell me everything you've learned about the jutsu so far. Sasori was acting weird just now, hm."

Itachi's eyes softened and he nodded, stepping away from the door to allow Deidara to enter. The room was dim, confirming Deidara's suspicions of the raven having been asleep. He must have stayed up all night working. "How was he acting?" Itachi asked, slipping on a shirt and pulling his hair into a ponytail.

"He looked like he was remembering who he was."

Itachi's eyes widened slightly. "Really? That's good news." He moved to his desk and picked up the scroll. "I still haven't gotten everything pieced together, but from what I can tell so far, he isn't going to be returned back to normal until he's remembered something important from when he was that age, something that changed his life."

Deidara hummed. "You mean his parents."

"Yes." Itachi lowered his eyes. "But like I said, I haven't finished decoding it completely, so that's only a theory. I want to wait until I completely understand before we do anything drastic like that."

"Yeah, I getcha, hm." Deidara bit his lip. The only way they were going to get Sasori to remember his parents' deaths would be to tell him, and he certainly wasn't looking forward to having to do that. He hoped that Itachi's theory was wrong, but as much as Deidara hated to admit it, the raven's theories usually proved to be correct. "So when will you have a concrete answer?"

Itachi frowned. "Well, even when I finish analyzing it, all of the reversals I come up with are just educated guesses. Orochimaru's a crafty bastard, he doesn't make anything clear or easy. There are no guarantees that there even is a way to reverse this." He took a deep breath. "Still, everything's pointing toward this theory."

"Yeah, okay, hm." Deidara furrowed his brows. It wasn't like Itachi to talk this much. "So, again, how long until you're finished? Quit beating around the bush."

The Uchiha flashed the blond a glare before looking away almost sheepishly. "I was up all night studying the scroll. I need to rest my eyes a bit before I continue-"

"Oh, hm." Deidara rolled his eyes. "You need to sleep first, you could've just told me that."

Itachi cleared his throat. "I should be finished late tonight."

"With your nap?!"

"With the release for the jutsu!" Itachi growled. It was uncharacteristic of him to have outbursts like that, but he'd barely slept at all the past week, and it was starting to get to him. Not that he usually slept all that well anyway, but this whole situation was draining him. He made a mental note to scare Deidara with the Sharingan after this was all over and he was well rested.

"Alright, alright, I'll leave you to your work," Deidara smirked, slipping out the door before Itachi could yell at him again. He snuck back into Sasori's room, chuckling when he found that the kid was still entranced by Hiruko. "I know puppets are…cool and everything, but you still like Uncle Dei's explosions, yeah?"

"Well, yeah," Sasori smiled, tracing along the insides of Hiruko with his small fingers. "But they don't last a long time. And they're loud. And then when they're gone, they're gone. You can't look at them forever. You can't take an explosion and bring it into the house and stare at it or play with it for hours."

"That's why they're so great, hm!" Deidara ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. "What's the point of having something for that long, anyway? It would get boring after a while, don't you think?"

"…Maybe." Sasori shrugged, climbing out of Hiruko. "Or maybe not." He playfully stuck his tongue out at Deidara and the blond returned the favor with the palms of both his hands, making Sasori laugh almost hysterically.

Deidara rolled his eyes, watching the little red head curl up inside Hiruko. "Hey, does anything about that puppet seem…familiar?"

"Umm…no?" Sasori cocked his head a bit.

"Nothing at all? Think hard, hm." The child closed his eyes and sat there deep in thought for a while. Deidara didn't see any expressions on his face that would indicate any familiarity, and a moment later Sasori confirmed it.

"Nope. I've never seen this thing ever."

"Okay…what if you saw that the third Kazekage had been turned into a puppet?"

Sasori furrowed his brows. "Why would someone make a puppet of him?"

"Not of him. Out of him. Like they killed him and made him into a puppet? Hm."

There was a long silence while Sasori pondered this, before he shrugged. "No one can do that, silly. I don't think puppets work like that."

"What if someone found out they could work like that?" Deidara pressed, hoping to see some sort of reaction from his partner. A confused, almost-irritated look formed on the child's face.

"Well, they can't!" Sasori huffed. "And even if it did work like that, they'd have to kill the Kazekage, and no one can kill him. He's the strongest guy in the world!"

"In the world, huh?"

"Yes!"

"Alright, alright, you got me. But what about if someone made puppets of their parents?" Deidara continued. Maybe if he just reminded Sasori just enough, it would trigger something and reverse the jutsu without him actually having to break the news that his parents were dead and had been dead for a long time. "Like if maybe they were lonely-"

"Just shut up," Sasori interrupted, a cross look on his face. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. You're being weird and creepy and you're making puppets seem bad." Deidara's eyebrows rose in slight shock at how suddenly Sasori's mood had darkened.

"Alright, I'm sorry. We won't talk about it anymore, okay? Hm."

Sasori nodded slowly. "Let's go play something else now."

"Okay, hm." He helped Sasori out the window and back into Deidara's own room. Sasori immediately left the room, telling the bomber that he was going to get a snack and that Deidara didn't need to come with him. Slightly offended, the blond only nodded before falling back onto his bed, breathing out in a huff. That had gone just peachy.

If Sasori became aggravated when Deidara was only entertaining the idea about human puppets, how was the kid going to react when – no, not when, if – he had to tell him the truth about his parents and what had really happened? What if Sasori didn't even believe him? Could the jutsu even be reversed if Sasori still believed his parents to be alive? Deidara doubted it.

He would just have to break the news as if he were just hearing about it. Maybe he could scribble out a letter from Granny Chiyo explaining that his parents had fallen during their mission. But how cruel would that be? Having a child read from a note that the two people who cared about him most were suddenly gone?

Deidara sighed, putting his arms over his head. Who cared? As long as it got the point across, right? It's not as if Sasori would remember any of this when he returned back into his normal, creepy, human-puppet self. Right?

He sat up, shaking his head. He shouldn't even worry about it yet. After all, Itachi did say he wasn't a hundred percent sure of the theory anyway. No need to stress about it when there was a chance that that route wouldn't even need to be taken. He'd just need to be patient and wait until tonight.

But, man, he hated waiting.