Senko: Hello everyone! Welcome to the third chapter of "The Devil's Embrace!"

Note: I was just wondering in case any of you read this story and go WTF Deidara seems OOC! Well...uhm...in my defense, I'm trying to make Deidara befriend Sakura and get close enough to find information on Naruto. Therefore, he can't be cold and mean, right? So ehm...yeah.

Hamstergirl597: OH! I didn't know that xD fixed it :D

Thanks to Anime-freakazoid-101, Spread-My-Wingz-And-Soar, bluflamez, bLoodY vEngEfUl sOul, cherz, blackxheart, Tofu-Master, sillymail, Hao'sAnjul, kalista315, Lady Azura, pilar-ayesha, RubberDuckiesWhoLikePieAndC..., midnights-dawn, D.K.-Missy, Alory Shannon, arichan, rebel-girl, YinYang-Animal, mmmmmmmm, InuKeifer, shira-yuki, Auel Nader, Cloudwatchers, Ymue, TheFoxGirlKitsune, Delacie, Cherry Blossom Girl, Life's Little Problem, pureHEARTS09, kunoichikeiko13, Coeur Casse, and Rii.MAYORI for reviewing!

October 20

A sighed escaped from my lips as I gently closed the door to my patient's room and stood in the hallway. There was one thing that had been bothering me lately...a thing called...

Boredom.

When I thought about it, at first it had been exciting. Of course it was sad that Sasuke had left the Leaf and I was very disappointed in myself for not being able to do anything about it because I was weak. Then I sought training from Tsunade-shishou and I was so overjoyed that I was becoming stonger and stronger with each passing day.

The days when I met with Tsunade-shishou every morning to learn from her are gone now since Tsunade-shishou deemed me capable of being an adequate medic-nin. Now I was to improve through helping out at the hospital and I'd meet only a few times a week with her.

I never realized until now how unexciting and boring my life would be. There was no more hyperactive blond to greet me every morning, no more fights between teammates, and no more time with Team Seven. Now, it would be the same routine everyday...wake up, eat, hospital, lunch, either hospital or studying scrolls at the libary, back home and eat.

Naruto had finally returned from his journey with Jiraiya and he, Kakashi-sensei, and I had to leave for the Sand to aid in rescuing the Kazekage. That moment when Naruto returned...I thought we would be like a team again and we would stick together, train together, and do missions together. Of course I was greatly disappointed in the end.

Kakashi-sensei wishes to train by himself and Naruto is still learning from Jiraiya. Me...I'm stuck with that same building with a plain white interior.

I realized I had been standing outside my patient's door for a while and turned around.

Deep, shimmery blue eyes.

I blinked.

I stopped for a moment before realizing who had just popped up out of the blue in front of me. He looked awfully familiar. Ah, I remember. It's Deidara. But there was something that caught my attention; I wondered how he was able to sneak up on me. Perhaps I was just too absorbed in my thoughts, yes.

"Sakura-chan!" he beamed.

"D-Deidara," I said in surprise. "Don't scare me like that!"

He backed away from me and straightened up, a smile adorning his pretty face. "Sorry, sorry. I saw you and couldn't help but to say something, yeah."

"How are you enjoying Konoha so far?" I asked.

He sighed. "It's so boring, yeah. It's also so calm, nothing good happens here, huh?"

I sent him a glare. "Konoha is not boring. We have lots of fun around here. It would be so loud and noisy and chaotic if...if..."

"If?" he drawled.

I exhaled, bringing myself to admit it. "If only Naruto was still here."

"Naruto? Is he your boyfriend?" he asked with an all too innocent face.

I growled before bursting out, "HE IS NOT MY BOYFRIEND! WHAT IN THE WORLD MAKES YOU THINK THAT?"

A door opened and I could see a nurse's head pop up from behind the door. "Shh! We do have some patients trying to rest here!"

The door instantly closed after that and Deidara and I stood alone in the hallway. He frustrated me. Why was it that he, someone who seems and talks so innocent and friendly, say the right things to anger me. The first time we met, when I fell on him while chasing after Konohamaru, was a good example.

Flashback

WHAM!

I fell on all four. Squinting my eyes for a second before greeting the world again, I saw an attractive guy's face in front of mine. He looked to be an adult and had blond hair and cerulean eyes that glittered beautifully in the light. He wore a black t-shirt with a dark blue stripe in the middle outlined with a white stripe and a red cloud emblem in the center of the stripes. He had on faded jeans ripped a bit on the knee of one of the legs, giving him a rebel appearance. His dumbfounded expression made him more adorable than ever. It took me a couple of seconds later to realize that I had been rudely staring at him. Quickly, I got up off of him and straightened out my clothes. "S-Sorry, sir!"

"Ow…that hurt," he said, getting up as well. He chuckled. "Well, it's alright, yeah. It wasn't intentional."

I flashed him a smile. "Did you see where a short and extremely annoying boy ran off to?"

"Yeah, he went that way," he said, pointing behind him. "Is he your son, yeah?"

…

"M-My child!" I screamed. "He is not my child! What the hell gave you that crazy idea!"

A woman passing by covered her child's ears, pushing him gently away from us. I could hear her mutter, "Young couple's quarrels nowadays are filled with such hatred and foul language."

I turned and glared at her. "We are not a couple!"

Looking around, I realized that I was causing a scene in the middle of the street and nearly everyone's eyes were fixed on me. For a moment we stood there as the center of attention until he took my hand and lead me away from the crowd. "Come on, honey. We'll discuss this issue at home."

End Flashback

"Do you work here?" he asked.

My mind returned to reality. "Uh, yeah, sort of. I do volunteer work here as training."

"Training?" his blue eyes lit up. "Are you a shinobi, yeah?"

When he didn't say such dumb things, I supposed he could be a nice person to have a chat with. I smiled. "Yeah. I'm a medic-nin. I'm done for today. Say, have you eaten yet? Let's go out and eat, my treat."

"Oh! Like a date, yeah?" he said in excitement.

My fists clenched in irritation. "NO. It is not a date."

As I walked through the hallways and out of the hospital, he followed beside me. He had such a carefree attitude, smiling and laughing at this and that. When we reached the main shopping center of Konoha, I turned and asked him where he would like to eat.

"Hmmm," he pondered for a second and looked around. Then he finally spotted it and pointed behind me. "There!"

I turned to where he had pointed. "Ichiraku?"

"Yeah," he beamed. "I've been there a few times since I got here and I really like the ramen they have, yeah."

We entered the stand and gave our orders. As the ramen was being prepared, we sat by each other and waited in silence until Deidara spoke.

"Hey, hey, Sakura-chan?" he turned to me.

I had barely realized he was calling me with the -chan suffix and glared at him. "Don't call me that, ever."

"Call you what, Sakura-chan?" he asked with that oh so innocent light in his eyes.

"THAT," I growled.

"Oh, okay. I won't call you 'that,' Sakura-chan, yeah. Why would anyone call you 'that'? After all, you do have a name, Sakura-chan, yeah," he folded his arms, closed his eyes, and nodded his head as though he completely understood me. I could only intensify my glare at him.

I sighed at this absurdity. I must be professional and mature, yeah. Oh gosh, now his talking habit of the word "yeah" is rubbing off on me! Our orders finally arrived and I had barely begun to consume my food when Deidara stole my attention.

"Sakura-chan, Sakura-chan!" he gleamed.

I turned to him. "Hm?"

"This is just like a date, yeah," he said through his eating.

I choked on my food and gave off a few coughs.

"Eh...Sakura-chan? Are you okay?" he turned to me and asked.

"This is NOTHING like a DATE!" I snapped.

He sighed. "You're right, yeah. I bet you've been on tons of them already so this is nothing like a date, yeah."

I stopped for a moment and stared down at my food. Haruno, Sakura...fifteen years of age and I had never even once been on a single date. "N-No...I've never been on a date before."

"Really?" his eyes looked at me widely in shock. "I had expected for you to be popular, yeah."

I gave off a nervous laughter. I wasn't popular at all. I wasn't beautiful like Ino, intelligent and strong like TenTen, or polite and completely adorable like Hinata. I could only dream that one day someone (other than Lee and preferably Sasuke-kun) would hold any interest in me.

"Sakura-chan, let's call this a date, yeah," he grinned.

"W-what? No way," I looked away from him and to the side. There was no way I would be going on my first date with someone other than Sasuke-kun! Or...I wonder had it been any other boy what would I have said...could it be...that I am only rejecting him because...my gaze returned to him.

"Why not, Sakura-chaaan?" Those similar sapphire eyes I'd known for years.

"It's just a date, yeah." That same shade of blond strands of hair I longed to see whenever he left and I had no one from Team 7 with me.

"It's not harm, right?" That same goofy grin that would irritate me because it would accompany a foolish statement.

"Oh, I'll be paying for her too, yeah." That same attitude that would annoy me yet at the same time...

"Are you done with your food, Sakura-chan?" ...take away the loneliness...

"Sakura-chan?" ...Naruto.

"Hello?"

I blinked. "H-huh? Deidara? What is it?"

"You've been staring at me for quite some time, yeah. I know I am just that good looking but please have some control, yeah, Sakura-chan," he joked, causing my hand to form a fist. Of course, I restrained myself from harming him. Had he really been Naruto, though, I might have done something else.

When we finished eating, I was about to pay for the food when I discovered that Deidara had already paid for it. Odd, I didn't remember him doing that. Perhaps it happened when I was looking at him...I mean, when I was dozing off, yes. He had insisted on walking on me home even after I assured him I'd be alright. He argued that it was only correct for the guy to walk the girl home after a date. I reminded it again that it was not a date...although it did feel like one.

"Have you made a lot of friends yet?" I asked him as we trotted along the path to my house.

He paused to think for a second before answering. "Sort of, yeah. I met this girl...uhm...Hinata, I think. She's very shy."

I let out a small laughter. "Yes, that's Hinata-chan."

"What about this Naruto person?" he asked.

I glanced at him before answering. I wondered why he would bring up Naruto right now. "What about him?"

"Is he really your boyfriend?"

"N-NO! I told you already!"

Deidara chuckled. "This Naruto person seems interesting, yeah. I wonder how it'd be like to meet him."

I hesitated before answering. It would be nice, wouldn't it? For him to meet Naruto. Even though Naruto is completely immature and stupid, I have to admit that he definitely has the ability to touch many lives. I wonder if Naruto would touch Deidara's life as well. "It's...too bad you can't meet him. It would be nice, though."

"Hm? I can't meet him? Why?" Deidara questioned. "Where is he?"

"He-" I stopped as I remembered what Kakashi-sensei had told me. He had said that Akatsuki was out for Naruto and since they fear leaving Naruto in the village too long for Konoha might be attacked, they had to keep Naruto occupied. He said I must never tell anyone where Naruto was. No one at all. "It's confidential."

"Ah, I see."

There was a silence as we walked on and it bothered me. I decided to do something to lighten up the mood. "HEY!"

He turned to look at me. "What?"

"Let's play a game!" I chirped. "Let's use words to describe each other. The person with the most words in the end wins."

"Sounds fun," he commented.

I pondered for a bit before I began. "Something about Deidara...friendly!"

He paused for a few seconds before answering me. "Short-tempered."

I sent him a glare. "...what."

He only chuckled. "Well, you're always growling or glaring or something, yeah."

I decided to forget it and continue the game. "And you're also...nice!"

"Loner."

I stopped in my tracks and glowered at him deadly. How could that idiot be so mean when I was simply trying to be kind? ARGH. He frustrates me so much! "WHAT."

He stopped too. "Well, you're a loner because you don't go on dates, yeah. You never went on one and you don't want to go on one with me. You're also odd, yeah, and doze off a lot and..."

He stopped to look at me before answering.

"Big forehead."

That was it.

Forgetting that he was new to Konoha and I must be kind to him, I had gathered up chakra into my fist and launched myself at him. Somehow, I had missed and punched a dent into a nearby pole. Then when I realized what I was doing, guilt consumed me for attempting to hurt him. But...then there was something else that I realized.

I turned around to see him behind me. "Y-you..."

"Huh?" he said, with that innocence on his face again.

Was it that I was getting too dull? No...the only way he could have dodged that would be..."Are you a shinobi?"

"Shinobi?" he laughed. "No, no. Of course not."

I looked back and forth between the dent and my fist. "B-But...but...then...I...how could you have dodged that? My shishou is very powerful and she's trained me very well."

"Ah...er, I had some basic lessons before," he answered.

"Basic...lessons?" I questioned.

"Y-yeah," he said, bringing his right hand up behind his head. "When I was young, I, er, enrolled into a ninja academy, yeah, but I dropped out."

"Oh..." that would make sense that he was able to dodge it because he had basic training. However, he was right there in front of me; he couldn't have moved so quickly to be able to evade that blow. Maybe I'm getting dull, that was it. Yes. I must train tomorrow and get back into shape.

"I think we should hurry to get you back home, yeah," he said, bringing out of my thoughts. "It's getting dark."

I looked around to see that it was indeed beginning to get dark. The sun was setting already and I noticed that I had been with Deidara for hours already. I guess it's true that time does fly when you're having fun. Er, of course it wasn't that fun.

October 27

"Sakura-chan!"

That voice caught my attention and I turned around to see Deidara running up to me. It had been a week since our "date" (or so Deidara calls it) and since then, Deidara would come every afternoon, around 2 or 3 pm, to fetch me from the hospital. Then we would walk to the main shopping center and eat somewhere. He'd always pay, though. I guess that's one thing that separated him from Naruto.

We had finished our food early today and walked around the streets of Konoha. I sighed.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "Just...sometimes, when I think about it all my friends are off training or on missions. Then I think about me and how I'm stuck going to the hospital everyday. Shishou said to think of it as training, but I think I heal pretty well already. I used to be able to spar with my team before it was broken up. Now, everyone's progressing faster than me."

"Why don't you ask your shishou for training, yeah?" he suggested.

I exhaled and let my shoulders drop before answering. "She said I just need improvement for now since she's busy. But...I'm falling so far behind."

We continued to walk a bit more in silence before Deidara finally broke off the quietness. "I know! Why don't you train with me?"

I looked at him and narrowed my eyes. "Train? With you?"

"Yeah," he grinned. "I probably won't be the best but I might be able to be of some use. What do you think?"

I returned my gaze to the road, careful not to bump into anyone. "No...no offense, just...you only have basic ninja skills."

"Let's make a deal, Sakura-chan."

"A deal?"

"If you can corner me to where I'm trapped and can't do anything, then it's obvious I'm weaker than you, yeah. However...if I can survive a sparring session with you, then consider sparring with me, yeah?"

I sighed. "Alright then. We'll head to the nearest open field."

Deidara stood a good distance in front of me. I wondered if I was doing the wrong thing. After all, he only had basic training. What if I were to accidentally cause a big injury? Then again, it was his offer to have this first training session. I found it funny that if he were to be some sort of enemy that was befriending me, right now he'd be having the perfect opportunity to study my skills. But of course, Deidara is a kind person. He'd never be some sort of enemy.

I decided to limit my chakra usage in order to prevent him from being seriously harmed.

Then I launched at him with my chakra focused into my fist. I caused a hole in the ground and smirked at having caught him, but when the sand and dust cleared I was shocked to find that I had missed. How could this be?

A shadow fell upon me from behind and I turned to see Deidara's figure standing above me. Anger rose in me knowing that I had missed to some person with only basic ninja training and I quickly kicked across where he stood in an attempt to trip him. He had jumped up and avoided my attack. When he landed, I dashed towards him and delivered punches and kicks to him...all of which he managed to dodge. It continued for a while until I had back him up against a tree and focused my chakra and punched a hole into the tree.

I was more shocked yet again to find that he had escaped that blow as well. My fist was still against the tree when I realized his left hand was stretching across my left side and it was gently placed against the same tree. I could feel his right hand reach into my holster, bring out a kunai and hold it against my throat.

"Dead," he whispered in my ear.

My breath quickened. How was this possible? Had I...really gotten this dull? No...it can't be.

He pulled away from behind me and I turned around to see him twirling my kunai with his index finger. He grinned. "You attack meaninglessly. I'm impressed with your chakra control and the damage you can do, yeah. If you had devised an intelligent plan to catch me, I think I might have lost."

I shifted my gaze from him, unable to look him directly in the eye. I was disappointed in myself. "Y-yeah...maybe..."

There was a part of me that questioned who this Deidara was. On the outside, he smiled and laughed like an innocent person. But the way he was able to evade my attacks and move so swiftly acted as a contradiction to that exterior facade he has.

Then again perhaps I was just thinking too much about this. It was just lack of training, yes...lack of training. If I keep training more and spar with him more, I'll be back in shape in no time!

Senko: Guess what...do you like this fanfic? If so...

Would you like to see a doujinshi version of "The Devil's Embrace"?

Senko not only likes to write but also loves to draw :D yes, yes, and one day while I was working on my original manga, I thought of scenes from this fanfic. Then I sketched out a couple pages...and soon, I realized I had sketched out about 10 pages of doujinshi for this fanfic o.O; if you would like to see this in doujinshi form, tell me :D

One last note...I wasn't sure how to finish this story but when I started to sketch out the doujinshi...I had some great ideas pop up in my head :) I have the outline for this entire story laid out! Think it'll end sadly? Perhaps. Happily? Could be :P