I was about ten weeks along, half into my third month when I was competent to enough to start reading up on ninja skill, but I was cautioned by my doctor that I shouldn't be using any sort of ninja business at my first check up. I took to studying instead, and walking out to take Jiro the horse treats sometimes.

However, sometimes at night the battle that happened nearby still had me bothered. I decided one day to ride out to have a look at it. I had no way of knowing if my husband had been involved that day. I never got a notice of him being hurt or killed but I received no more letters, though I had written a few myself.

Since letting him loose, Jiro had not only gained weight but a better body condition over all and he was much nicer to ride on now that I actually had a place to sit rather than balancing on his spine. We talked idly as we walked until we finally reached the battle field. I could smell it before I began seeing the charred flora. Sulfur, black powder and some other earthy smell I couldn't place permitted the air. There was a very clear line of healthy, growing plants and those charred and burned, and crossing the line was like a thresh hold. Everything had been blown to pieces, even the trees had nothing left but the ghost of a stump in the ground. I wondered vaguely how many family's got a body to burry after this fight.

"Looks pretty barren," Jiro noted. The area was quite litterally leveled off straight, everything except for the dirt. Craters littered the ground, some of them so deep I'd been afraid to go down inside of them.

"Yeah," I agreed.

"He was here?" The horse asked, referencing my husband. He seemed too unintelligent to be able to remember a name other than his own, so he simply referred to Deidara as Him.

"I don't know," I muttered, giving him a pat on the neck, "I'd like to ask around."

We wandered further into the forest, so deep I was sure no other human had ever been here, though that was probably a stretch. I touched both of my ears, hoping to increase and fine tune my hearing to comprehend the words of any animal we might come across.

My first attempt to talk with a song bird left me with split ear drums and my second attempt to speak with a rabbit meet its end before I'd even finished my sentence. Third time must have been the charm because my last attempt to speak with a raccoon dog ended in success.

"I'm just interested to know if you've seen any large white birds in this area, ones related to the fire?" I asked, trying to stay polite. The tanuki was a bit weary of me, but replied anyway.

"Lots of 'em, with people ridden' on 'em, but not since the fire went out."

"Do you know anything else?" I asked.

"Lot of 'em blew up with the people still on 'em. Lots more didn't," he munched on some sort of nut as he spoke, making his words slightly hard to understand.

"Do you know who won?" I felt sort of stupid now, I was giving him far too much credit.

"Some people camped here, n' then some other ones showed up, started screamin' bout gov'ment, whatever that means, and then the fire started. That's all I know," he then expressed that he had to leave, and scampered off.

On the way home I thought hard about what could have possibly happened. We're the rebels the ones camped there and the new government guys attacked or was it the other way around? I knew going into this there was only so much I could gather from wood land creatures, it I sort of expected more. I made a vow that today would also be the last day I spoke with the animals, any animal, remembering what my doctor said.

I had just marked off my eleventh week when I received another letter. This time it was from the village, addressed to the misses of the house, which could have been either one of us. I let Miku open it, but when she found it written in English, she handed it over to me. I read it out loud for the both of us.

"I hope you and my mom are doing alright. I can't tell you much more than that I'm safe now. May," I cleared my throat, "they keep telling us that it will be over soon, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I love you, good bye."

He never was good at English and it was unbelievable he did such a good job writing it. I assumed it was for privacy reason, only he and I could read it. I shredded the letter after reading it a second time. It was such a short letter, and though the paper was folded, it wasn't dirty like I thought it would be.

Something about the shortness of it was strange. Miku passed it off as him being busy, but something about it just didn't seem right.

Camp was dirty, discussing and unpleasant to say the least.

I couldn't stand the guys I worked with. I knew as soon as I got here that it was gonna be some sort of pissing contest, every one of these assholes had to show they were tougher, more macho, more bad ass than the next. First it was just verbal spats and then it turned into all out fist fights, and I wondered if we are going to kill each other before the rebels did. For me it started like it usually did, smart remarks about my long hair, my gender, about how short I was or how skinny, and then it escalated. I found cum once in my supplies bag and then another time somebody threw water on my clay bag, making it unusable for the new few days until it dried guys were bullies. They went out of their way to annoy other people, and it wasn't like anyone could reprimand them.

My ears rang so loudly from the last battle, I almost couldn't hear the insults being thrown at me now as I stuck to my own little corner of camp best I could. They had a few higher ups watching us just to make sure we didn't fuck anything up, but with three people dead just from a single night of arguing over a glass of literal spilt milk I didn't have high hopes for us.

May always told me that I was hot headed, but I never thought so, not until I started using the majority of my energy getting back at my so called team mates. Exploding spiders in their food, flash bomb owls, little stuff that I used to prove my art better than anything they could throw at me.

Though, no matter how long I bussed myself, I eventually had to face the aching loneliness I felt.

It was sort of a new feeling. Never in my life had I gotten the desire to see someone, especially a woman, like I had the desire to see my wife. For the first time in my life I wanted to go back to my mothers house, spend time with the both of them. I felt horrible. If they never caught May, if I never split up from her, I never would have ended up here. Right now she was pregnant and I was missing it. This was all my fault and I couldn't even be there to hold back her hair.

"Deidara, letter," the voice of my commander brought me out of my thoughts. He was a red headed, stuck up, four eyes that was pretty much a waste of space, he'd tortured me after I'd gotten caught though, so I was more than bias. I narrowed my eyes at him as I took the pink slip of paper from him and I watched his every move as he left.

Currently I was sitting on the ground and leaning against a tree away from the rest of the guys, so I dreamed it safe enough to let my guard down to read.

The envelope was a pastel pink, something my mother probably picked out. My name was written in such a way I knew it couldn't be my mother. It was sloppy, not written in a straight line, like a kindergartener wrote it, and thinking about it a little more, I realize it was my wife's writing.

Tearing open the letter, I pulled out the starch white page inside and started reading.

Half of it was in the same messy writing, a few words of English thrown in where she didn't know the word she was looking for, the other half written completely in English. The Japanese portion explained in very simple words that she was learning to read and write, and that made me happy, though I wished I could have been there to help her like she was there for me. The second part of the letter was much more detailed.

She told me how much she missed me, how much she loved me, and at the bottom was a red lipstick mark that reminded me vaguely of a pair of lips. My wife never wore lipstick. She'd gone out and bought lipstick just to kiss a piece of paper and send it to me.

Turning the letter over in my fingers, I found a small drawing on the back of what must have been us on the back. It wasn't very detailed, but the bump on her body and my ponytail were the most defining features. She loved me, I'd always known that, but I found that I was having to remind myself more often than not. This was not a worthless war, this was a war for her. She loved me and that, and just that was enough for me to make it worth it. This fight, no matter who I killed, no matter the effects, no matter what it did to me, was worth it.

Week twelve was probably the hardest. I'd fallen into some hormone induced, depressed mood swing and nothing seemed to help me. All I could think about was my baby and my husband and about how horrible of an idea this was. It wasn't too late to get rid of it I decided, but then I fell into a horrible sobbing fit over the baby.

My mother in law tried to console me, but it didn't do any good.

That month when my money came, a marriage license came with it and so did a card with 'the village' listed as its sender. Every time something came I always thought it was something telling me my husband was dead. Every second I wasn't tearing open the paper and reading what was happening I thought I might go insane. When I finally did open it, I was very surprised.

In the letter enclosed was an invitation to a pardoning dinner for pervious criminals who were at war right now, however I had no intentions of going. I handed the letter over to Miku and asked her to go in my place. I had no intention of going anywhere near these pompous assholes that threatened mine, my mother in law's and my husband's lives. Miku seemed to accept the corruption, she acted like it was no big deal and agreed to go in my place.

Depressed and angry were a horrible combination, the woman running public records would come to find out. I demanded all the information of the Akatsuki the village had access too, and when she refused, I exploded.

"You dumb bitch!" I screeched, "it's not even that big a fucking deal! Could I just have the son of a bitching papers?"

The woman sitting behind the desk paled, I watched her glance at her desk phone and then to her computer monitor. For a second I thought she was going to call security on me but instead she sighed and started typing.

"Your not supposed to be back here, so we'll know if you steal anything," she threatened, "Next time you need something, try holding your tongue. Your husband isn't the only one at war," she spat, writing something down on a piece of paper. She instructed me to fallow her into the restricted section, and once we reached it she handed me the paper and walked away without another word in a huff.

Retrieving the necessary files from the many cabinets, I sat down, leaning against the wall and started reading. Much to my distain, Deidara was apparently the only one left alive in the organization, though something even more surprising was the information on Madara Uchiha, who was supposedly long dead by the time we encountered him, and made it apparent whoever it was, was impersonating him. I read something I couldn't understand very well about the person called 'Tobi' and a dimension hopping technique and how he was killed in some great battle. I'd watched him die, so clearly this information was incorrect. I wondered how many other people had been supposedly put down but still lingered somewhere, hiding, just like my husband was when I found him.

I continued reading and found something on my husband former partner, Sasori, and some of that crazy shit just blew my mind.

The more I read the more I realized how horrible of a person my husband used to be. I was once again reminded that he was not a valiant knight in shinning armor, he was an outlaw trying to well for himself, and by extension, me. I knew he was a killer, but I had no idea he'd kidnapped and killed the leader of another country. Not that it particularly stood out anymore, I'd dubbed him mostly safe already, but that was some gutsy shit. This really put things into perspective for me, it was a horribly big deal that they were pardoning him, I knew it was a joke, but it was a good joke.

And as much as I hated to admit it, I understood why they wanted him to fight.

I swallowed my pride as I left the records room and apologized to the lady. After I took myself home and thought about things a little longer. I had to go to that dinner. For once I had to suck it up and be an adult.

I'd been awake for some time now, dreading actually having to get up.

It wasn't my turn to stay up to watch over our large group, but I was so nervous my body wouldn't let me sleep. My commander, the red headed asshole with glasses had gotten called away somewhere and left us with the second in charge, a push over short guy with no confidence. Needless to say we walked all over him.

Currently he was tired to a tree and we were taking turns watching out for the group.

We were united in the fact that we were all criminals and we all agreed this was bullshit, but we could not reach consensus about anything else. We sent the entire day arguing about battle plans and breaking up fist fights, so focused on each other the enemy could have jumped us at any minute and we would have had our asses handed to us.

My ears still rung, so loudly it hurt.

I reminded myself this was the reason I took medication in the first place, because I couldn't sleep, and kicked myself for being such a close minded idiot. If I would have refilled my prescription, I might have been able to make my pills last this long, but no, here I was, exhausted and unable to sleep with my mind racing faster than... Faster than something, I couldn't concentrate or think straight about anything.

Somehow, without anyone noticing him nearing our group, a man appeared in the middle of our camp and I was ready to make a mad grab for my clay when I realized it was my commander. Upon noticing what became of his second command, he signed, pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. After he rousted the entire group and demanded push ups. The guys in my company flat out refused. The village might have had our families, but if they wanted continued cooperation, they knew how far they could push us. We'd already tested the system once, and they knew a ton of these guys could care less what happened to their families.

My commander sighed again and started on an hour long rant that could have woke the dead. Honestly I was surprised he didn't give our position away as loudly as he spoke. I largely tuned him out as did everyone else. Finally when the commander was out of breathe and red in the face, he stopped talking. I took my eyes off of him for just a minute to focus on the surrounding area until a large paper document was shoved into my face.

"You've been reassigned. Return to the village for further instruction," my second in command barked. I hadn't had anything to do with tying him up, so I wasn't sure what he was so pissed at me about, but I wasn't about to argue, especially not if I was heading home.

"Hold on," my commander shouted, "you've got someone tagging along."

When Miku and I arrived at the dinner, I instantly felt a bit over dressed. Families filled the room in casual clothing, and here I was in a maternity dress.

"Your not over dressed, your pregnant!" My mother in law gushed, waving me off as we made our way though the building. I had to remind myself why I was here again, to support my husband and not the crooked politics this sham of a dinner represented. We were given some speech about what an honor it was that we had family fighting in the military for our safety and how sorry the village leader was about the few that made the few that made the ultimate sacrifice, and efficiently tuned them out. I wasn't about to let them fill my head with nonsense and I hoped to God my baby couldn't hear them. After that drawn out, nonsensical bullshit we were lead into another room to be seated.

The servicemen had already been seated when we entered the room, and though the other families had no problems finding their loved one, I didn't see Deidara. I stood still, my eyes scanning the crowd. He wasn't here, I didn't see his face or the back of his head with his long, gorgeous hair anywhere.

"May,"

I twisted around the instant I heard his voice, and there he was about fifteen feet behind me. Seated at a table with his hair cut short was my husband.

"Jesus Christ what happened to your hair?" I exclaimed, covering my mouth right after, not meaning to be so loud. I rushed to him and hugged him as tightly as I could.

"They made me cut it, I'm sorry. I hate it too," his voice sounded so much lighter, happier as he pressed my body to his with his now much stronger arms. I'm sure they'd tried to give him a reason to cut his hair and used safety or some such shit, but I knew it boiled down to them exercising their control over him. His blond tresses only extended down to his chin now, but his hair wasn't the end of the example they tried to set. I seated myself next to him, feeling like a kid again around him. He smiled and I smiled, holding his hand in mine. I couldn't believe he was still alive, Jesus Christ, but here he was.

"Your so uh, pregnant," he whispered. I was fairly sure he'd stopped himself from saying fat.

"I'm not that big, I mean, but uh, not compared to how big I'm gonna get," I told him, the last thing I wanted was a bunch of knocks about my stomach and my tone made sure he knew laughed at me, a whole hearted laugh that ended in another hug.

"I missed you so much," he sighed and I returned the sentiment. Seconds later Miku found us, I honestly hadn't realized I'd lost her.

"Oh, well, seems like you've found him! That hair looks good on you Dei, " she laughed, giving her son a hug, though it was a but more awkward than the one we shared, "and who's this?"

Dei and I turned then to see the the only other person at the table, a man I perviously hadn't noticed.

He was a big man that reminded me vaguely of a gorilla. He had huge hulking shoulders with muscles far larger than normal, his entire body seemed to be squared off. His black hair was short, almost cut to his head and spiked upwards. Deidara cleared his throat.

"This is my new special ops partner," Deidara said in a tone so threatening, he might as well as been a rattlesnake.

"Nice 'ta meet ya' ladies," the man extended a hand for me to shake, and upon taking it, he raised my hand to his mouth to kiss, "names Daisuke."

"May, sit down," my husband growled, and Miku didn't dare shake his hand after that. When did he get so possessive? I did as he asked and watched the situation further unfold.

"I ain't gonna hurt 'er," Daisuke grinned, "jus' 'cause I was a crim'nal don't mean I still am. Just like you, eh?"

"Yeah, and you still wouldn't want me touching your wife," my husband smirked. His new partner shrugged.

"What's special ops?" I asked, interrupting.

"Suicide missions without the suicide," my husband stiffened as he spoke, "I was perfectly," he paused for a second to find the right words, " happy where I was at, and then this jerk ass goes and starts complaining. Our officer tells him to shut up and he gets his thugs to tie him to a tree."

"You knew I was behind that?" Daisuke grinned like a Cheshire Cat.

"Of course, and so did the commander," my husband hissed, some sort of sinister smilie crossing his face too.

"What you gon' do about it, little man?" Daisuke grinned.

"I could shut that shit hole you call a mouth permanently." Miku has been watching this all unfold too, and looking at her I thought maybe she was going to scold him, but doing a double take I could see she was very clearly still too afraid of her own son.

"You' gonna die young, af'er you get killed little man, I'll make sure your lil wifey gets da body if I'm still around," Daisuke laughed, I would latter find out, used to be some sort of mob boss. He had no money to his name, it'd all been confiscated, and he was desperate to remake his legacy. He was a nasty piece of work, and in my eyes I didn't see a reason to pardon him.

"You son of a bitch!" My husband was near shouting though his gritted teeth as he lunged at the other man in such a way I was sure the antagonizing had been going on far longer than I'd originally thought. Chain rattled and just as soon as he stood up, he was jerked back down into his seat. Hidden by the deep red table cloth was a large, heavy chain pulled taunt to the floor even at the sitting position. He was quite litterally chained to his spot.

My husband wasn't my husband in that moment. His fingers twitched angrily, the mouth on his palm drooling and bearing its teeth. His eyes were somewhere else, gone, empty and stone cold. he wasn't Deidara my husband, he was Deidara the murder. His face controlled into some sort of snarl that told me this wasn't the first time this has happened.

"Dei, foods here," I muttered, pulling gently on his sleeve. He twisted around and I was afraid he might turn on me, but after blinking once, his eyes returned to normal and his face changed emotion as if he'd was able to see again. His pupils dilated again and he drew in a sharp breathe. Seconds later the waiters set out the food for our table.

He was bat shit crazy without his meds. What Daisuke said wasn't horribly offensive, probably to him it was but he had some sort of twisted symbolism with death I knew.

"I was readin' 'bout you, what's all th's about art eh?" Daisuke was litterally rattling my husbands chain.

"Explosions," my husband explained, "you wouldn't understand."

I was trying to eat, but I found myself unable to pull my eyes away from the men.

"Try me," Daisuke hissed.

"Life, death, fleeting moments of beauty, but I bet a jar head like you wouldn't know anything about that," Deidara seethed, bringing a fork full of food to his lips, "eternalizing art is defeating its purpose. Live in the moment, get it?"

"Deidara, please," my mother in law took up an 'are you kidding me' sort of tone, "not at dinner, in fact, I don't want to hear about it at all."

My husband didn't look at her. I didn't want him to talk about it either, after all, his 'art' is what put him off the deep end in the first place.

"I do get it," Daisuke said, his smilie falling off of his face, "live 'n the moment, worry 'bout tomorrow when it comes. Not my style, but I get it."

He didn't get it. Nobody understood it but Deidara, and I wasn't about to open my mouth and tell him that. I thought I did at one point, but now I knew no one ever would but him.

"May, you like mixed rice don't you?" Dei caught my attention then, pulling me away from my thoughts. The dinner consisted of pork, rice and something I learned was called miso soup.

"That's all she eats is rice!" My mother in law laughed, "she throws up everything else."

"I haven't thrown up in the last week," I noted, sort of meekly. My husband only smiled and handed me his bowl. I traded him my meat, because I knew I still wouldn't be able to keep it down even if I wasn't pregnant. We ate the rest of our meal in silence, and all too soon it was over. He couldn't come home with me, not even for the night, but he promised a letter would be along in the next few days. I didn't cry that night, instead I thanked my lucky stars he was still around for me to see him.

Daisuke was not only an ignorant asshole, but he was a disgusting pig too. He was unbearable to work with and the way he said my name resembled the way May's mother used to, annoying and purposely in correct.

The fucking gorilla belched constantly without even so much as an excuse me, and didn't seam to care at all as he tracked though easily avoidable mud, refused to wash any part of himself at the military base and before our first mission, and then on said mission proceeded to skin a rabbit rather than eat solder pills.

"The smokes going to give us away," I told him, folding my legs to sit Indian style agenst a tree a ways away from him.

"'T's not gonna give us away no more 'han yo bombs," he returned, spit roasting the poor rabbits guts rather than the actual meat. There was in fact more nutrients in the guts yes, but it only continued to my negative opinions about him.

"Just because I'm flamboyant doesn't mean Im not effective," I spat, causing him to shrug.

"I never said you wasn't," he said seriously, he knew he'd insulted me and wouldn't apologize, but he also hadn't mean to start a fight. I relaxed a little, as much as war would allow. I took our map out of my coat pocket and unfolded it, showing him where the foot solder group we were supposed to take down were allegedly using as a base.

"Tomorrow, we should just ambush them, don't even engage them in a fight just try and annihilate the base and as many shinobi before they even know what's going on," I told him. He seemed to consider it a moment before taking the map and looking at it closer.

"There's a secon' platoon fitty miles the o'her way, we should take 'em both out at da same time," he said handing it back to me, I shook my head.

"That's not our objective, the base needs to be destroyed above all," my voice reflected my flaring temper. He shrugged again.

" 'nd you don't think once da second group f'gures out we killin' 'here friends they gon be okay wit' it? I dunno bout 'ou little man, but I wanna live ta see da end o' dis war," he sneered, leaning in. I didn't care of that was a good point, I only cared about doing the minimum and getting home fast.

"Do what ever you want," I spat, "but don't go calling for me when your ass is dying."

He shrugged one last time and I turned away, leaning my head against the tree to go to sleep. I'd need as much as I could get if I'd be covering both our asses tomorrow.

Daisuke was gone when I woke up the next morning, but the fire was still smoking so he hadn't been gone long. I couldn't Believe that ass just left me alone in enemy territory! I was on my feet in seconds, making myself a clay bird and started on a few thousand tiny clay spiders, I was finished with them when I reached my hiding spot near the rebel base, and after prepping for a few minutes, I buried the spiders like land mines and took off once again on my bird and flew out over the under ground base. I only hand to drop a few other bombs before the rebels came squirting out like ants.

When I had planned this in my head the night before, I never imagined it'd go this smoothly. I hadn't given myself nearly enough credit. I detonated my spiders, the ground below me collapsing like the under ground base as the smoke stack Id grown so fond of seeing billowed up into the air. It was over.

Or so I'd thought.

Through the smoke in front of me came a black bird, made of clay and not unlike my own, shooting out in an areal spin that forced me to jump before the explosion resulting from the collision. I was fast enough to make myself another bird, but my opponent was ahead of me, launching more bombs before I could regroup.

My bird lost a wing and sent me spiraling down until I could repair it, flying myself away from the growing mushroom cloud and efficiently drawing my opponent out into the open. He was someone Id never seen before, clad in an outfit that I recognized as the explosion corps.

"We heard a lot of story's about you in training, but I never thought I'd actually get to fight you," my black haired opponent spoke. How cocky, I thought, setting my jaw.

"Fuck off," I growled, beginning to forum myself some smaller birds to attack with. He rushed me again, and I evaded upwards, scattering my smaller birds in a way that looked like an accident.

Much to my surprise, my opponent abandoned his bird and jumped upwards, aiming a punch for my face. I was able to evade it and grab him, flipping him off of my bird and to the ground, however he was faster, catching himself with his own bird. I prepared to attack him again when I was interrupted by a large bolt of lightning, cast backwards from the ground up.

The bolt moved so quickly the black haired man opposite me had no time to react and it efficiently split him in half, his bird combusting and erasing his dead body before it hit the ground. I looked down, half expecting to see another attack coming my way, but way down on the broken up ground was Daisuke waving up at me.

I landed on the ground, reforming my bird into a lump of clay I tucked into my clay pouch and approached him, just a little confused.

"I took care o' da o'her base, I figured 'ou needed some help," he smirked, I was instantly annoyed.

"I didn't need any help! I was handling it just fine without you!" I shouted, throwing my hands up in the air.

" I know, I jus' was bein' friendly," he returned, frowning now and folding his arms.

"Be friendly with someone else," I seethed, walking off into the woods jumping over large rocks and chunks of broken ground. I stepped over bodies only to noticed they too had met a similar fate as my black headed guest. They smelled like burnt flesh, however the halfs of each body were black and cartelized from the heat of the lightning. It only served to piss me off, these were mine to kill not his.

He was no use fighting or trying to kill him, his lightning attacks were strong against my clay, and it'd probably been planned that way so I couldn't kill him.

"I won't meddle in 'ou fight next time," he called after me, seconds later I heard his foot steps fallowing me.

"I'd appreciate it," I growled back. We needed to move on but I was so seething mad I wasn't sure if I could.