I lied! No quick update for you because I'm a liar!

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That's one of those paradoxes, isn't it?

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Well, I went to a fencing tournament today. Luckily for you guys it was about a five hour drive from my house, so I could write this. Luckily for me I won. Hooray! Now my coach gets a bonus!

Anyway, I wrote this on my ipod, so if there are any weird things like bit instead of but just ignore it, okay. I have a killer headache right now and am in no mood to fix anything.

Thank you to my reviewers: Miko Hayashi and Kyoki no Megami. Yay! Love you guys in a totally Platonic way!

Disclaimer! We've been over this…

Chapter Ten! The Alamo

xXxColette's POVxXx

I quietly shut the door of Kisame's room so as not to wake up Italy. She fell asleep almost instantly. It was cute...

Anyway, I went back to the kitchen where Sasori was for some odd reason or another, seeing as he didn't eat and all. "There you are, brat," he sighed irritably. "I've been looking for you. We have a mission."

I said, "Oh, when did we get it?"

"About an hour ago."

I glared at him, "Why didn't you tell me this before I left to find a room for Italy to use?"

Sasori shrugged, "Let's just get going. You've already kept me waiting long enough. Now where's Deidara?"

"How would I kno- oh, yeah," I laughed sheepishly, having forgotten about my skills as a sensor. I reached out for his chakra. "He's just in the living room."

Sasori sighed, "Brat..."

We collected Deidara and set out on our merry way. Well, as merry as two bickering people can be.

Of course, Deidara finally brought up the big, defining thing about the duo. The topic was none other than art. How cliché, but I had yet to hear them talk about it except for when Deidara would go off on his tirades about Itachi. However, those could have easily been seen as the lack of appreciation for his fighting style than his art.

But I knew.

"So, Sasori-san," still no nickname... "Have you ever given a thought to what true art is, hmm?"

I suppressed a cringe. Wasn't I in for a treat?

"Yes actually," Sasori paused a bit. "If I had to give you a definition of art, I'd say that art us a piece of beauty that is left to generations to come. A piece of eternal beauty, per say. Is there a particular reason you asked, brat?"

"Just curious, yeah," said Deidara. I could just see the retort boiling in his eyes. "You know what, Sasori-san? Me and you've got different opinions on art, yeah."

"Alright. So what exactly do you think about it then?"

Deidara smiled a bit, "I think that the nature if true art is a moment if irreplaceable beauty that appears suddenly and disappears just as quickly, un, because no one understands how precious something is until it's gone. I would have to say that art is the exact opposite if what you said, yeah: a piece of..." Deidara snapped his fingers in search of the right word.

"Fleeting?" I offered.

"Yes!" I could see the passion glowing on his eyes. "Art is a moment, a short, fleeting moment of beauty where something is destroyed never to be seen again, yeah."

Sasori rolled his ugly traveling puppet's eyes to Deidara. "You're right, Deidara, we do have different opinions. Colette, what do you think?"

I thought a bit, "Well, Sasori-san, your speech was very brief and blunt whereas Deidara's opinion was longer but more supported and persuasive."

"I meant what you thought about art," Sasori sighed.

"I know!" I said. "But, I don't know..."

"You just contradicted yourself there, yeah," Deidara sweatdropped.

"I did, didn't I," I thought out loud. "I meant to say I've never really thought about it."

Deidara just shrugged and let it drop. The, what I assumed to be first, debate of art went quite better than I thought it would. I guess I just read too much fanfiction with much more heated arguments...

We fell into a silence. I entertained myself by sensing the signatures of all the different animals. I had been practicing telling the difference between animals by their chakra. I was getting quite good and could tell most of the forest folk apart. I especially liked the birds' because they were very lyrical and calm, especially after spending so much time around highly trained ninja.

I sighed in content upon finding my favorite chakra signature of any bird: the nightingale. It was just... more eloquent... I don't know, something along those lines.

I felt the graceful contours of a nearby nightingale's chakra. It was slick, definitely a water natured animal.

I think water was my second favorite element to feel; it was so smooth and graceful most of the time, however it could be so rough and restless. It was just like a storm.

My favorite element was obviously lightning. I felt an unnatural attraction to lightning-natured people since that was my nature, too. Their chakra was frisky and energized but strangely controlled.

The nightingale flew away much to my disappointment. I was in such a zone, however, that I reached out for the closest signature, Deidara's. He was earth of course. It was solid yet flakey like real dirt. I preferred this more than only wind. It was simply too overbearing.

Wind was naturally my least favorite chakra to be around. It could be gentle as a soft summer breeze or as ferocious as a hurricane at any given time since it changes constantly. Italy, however, is one of the calmest wind-natured people I've ever been around. She's usually at the summer breeze end of the spectrum, and I've only see her go anywhere remotely near hurricane vivaciousness during battles.

That's quite a rare sight, too.

I may as well continue my tangent by describing fire: the element I have a neutral opinion on. I feel the instinctual human fear and attraction towards the bright chemical reaction. For the mixed feeling I have about it, I don't care whether or not I'm around it, really.

I had been so tangled up in my monologue about chakra that I barely noticed how we were at our destination. Times sure flies by when you're having... a one sided conversation in your head?

Okay, really we had been trekking for about three days, and there was no need to describe the trip to whatever city we ended up in with any great detail. If you want to know that much about what it was like, take a long family road trip and subtract the radio, car, and comfort. Don't forget to add a nice batch of cold, too. Yep, me and Dei even did the whole "are we there yet?" and "I'm not touching you!" spiel. We did that for a good four hours before Sasori finally threatened us with his tail thing. I thought it would have only taken four seconds...

"So, this is the place?" I said.

Sasori double checked his map, "Yes."

"What exactly are we supposed to be doing here, hmm?" said Deidara from right next to me. It had gotten cold enough he was huddled in his cloak. No self respecting ninja should 'huddle'! The biggest downer of the whole trip was that no matter what the fanfics say, there isn't a jutsu to keep you warm.

"A mission," said Sasori.

"Really now?" I said.

"No," Sasori retorted. It seemed that the fanfics did capture Sasori's sarcasm, however.

Deidara huffed, "Seriously, Sasori-san, what are we doing here?"

Sasori said, "Apparently there was this charity organization called the Nijihashi that has been killed off over the past six or so months. Their parter organization seems to have just now noticed and has traced the slaughter back to the Akatsuki somehow. Any ideas, Colette-chan?"

I laughed nervously, "Well, it's a funny story, really..." I explained to them how the Nijihashi had been hired to kill off Jashinists and, seeing as I was a Jashinist, I decided to go on a journey to kill all Nijihashi members to appease my god. "Well, I guess this group has some good sources."

"Yes, but we must get going if we're going to finish on time. We simply must destroy their base of operations here and move out quickly," Sasori said. I could tell he was slightly irked that I was kind of the reason he had to waste his time to go here. "Okay, Colette, distract the guards, and, Deidara, lay low until the base is free of opposition then blow it up or however you destroy stuff."

"Alright," I said, a bit unsure how I got all tangled up in this mission. Wasn't I just suppose to be a girl they got for information they were suppose to protect? Apparently not.

Deidara said, "Okay, Sasori-san, I'll show you what art really is. Watch closely, un."

"Hn, just get going, brat. Colette, you go ahead," ordered Sasori.

"Okay."

Sasori pointed me in the direction of the base, and I went off to go distract the guards or whatever. Time to show the what Colette Landon can do!

I picked out active chakra signatures. Yes, you can tell if someone's sleeping or not by how active there chakra is. I came up to a building with five guards situated arLund the entrance. One of them pointed me out. "Hey, isn't that one of the Akatsuki?" I could just make out.

"Naw, don't they wear those crazy robes?"

"Yeah but she's got the hat."

"Maybe she works for them."

"How would I know?"

"I dunno! Ask her."

"Okay," the guard called out to me, "Hey, girl!"

I pointed to myself, "Me?" I had kind of been standing in the middle of the path. I'm not a ninja for a reason, you know.

"Yeah. You work for the Akatsuki?"

"What?"

"I said, you work for the Akatsuki?"

"Oh!" I called back. "Sorry, I couldn't understand you through all of that improper grammar!"

The guard gave me what I assumed to be a sour look. I had gotten in the habit of teasing people before I killed them.

"Tsk, tsk," I said playfully. "You should've stayed in school," J suddenly became serious. "It might've saved your life."

Before they could even blink in shock, I had them caught in a genjutsu. To them it seemed as if they were being suffocated by feathers, but the reality was that they were just standing there stiffly. I couldn't help but feel sorry for them as I cut them down with Nancy. What a lousy sacrifice; I couldn't even make it fun.

Well, I had a repeat of the guards about three times before Sasori came in and pretty much took everyone out. Most of them were just civilians... Anyway, Deidara blew the place sky high and we left on his bird thing as a group of actual ninja came. We lost them easily since we were flying and they weren't.

"Alright, brat, you can land us now."

"What?" said Deidara. "We aren't even near the base yet, yeah!"

"We're going to meet up with Zetsu instead of going all the way back to the base."

"Okay," Deidara guided the bird to the ground. "Where is this Zetsu?"

"He'll be here," said Sasori.

In barely five minutes a giant plant popped out of the ground. "What do you want, Sasori?" I think Deidara nearly fell off the log he was sitting on when Zetsu appeared from the ground. I suppose we hadn't seen him thus far...

"Oh, dear," said Zetsu. "It seems as if we've startled the newbie." "That's his own problem." "That's not very nice!" "Shut up!" "You shut up!"

Sasori cleared his throat loudly, "Remember us? Your bickering is wasting my time."

"Damn, Sasori, wait a bit, can you?" "Okay, how did the mission go, doll?"

Sasori sent a bit of killing intent at the plant. "Never call me that again."

I decided to speak up, "You sounded a bit like a suburban mom when you said that, Zetsu-san."

"Hey!" "Oh, so you're the other one Leader-sama was talking about. Colette was it?"

"Yeah, nice to meet you," I said with a smile.

Deidara, I think, was still hiding behind his bird. Sasori cleared his throat again, "So the mission report."

He went on to rely how the mission went to Zetsu. Deidara eventually came from what I assumed was hiding behind his bird. He murmured to me, "I hate how Sasori hates to wait, but then he goes and makes us wait for him, un."

"Mm-hmm," I nodded.

"It's like he expects us to act like his dogs, and he's our master or something, un!"

"Let's get going, Colette, Deidara," said Sasori.

"Coming, Danna!" Deidara called.

"Master?" "Seems like you've got him in check."

Sasori gave Deidara a slightly puzzled look but hopped on the bird anyway. Zetsu said, "Hey, Colette-chan, if you ever need help with training as a sensor, just ask me, okay?" I could have sworn I heard Deidara snort a bit, but it might have just been my warped imagination. "What, we don't have time for that!" Zetsu hissed to himself. "Sure we do!"

Deidara said, "We have to go!"

"Okay!" I hopped onto the bird.

Back at the base!

"How'd the mission go, doll?" Italy said. I got a strange sense of déjà-vu.

"Fine, fine," I answered vaguely, grabbing milk from the fridge.

"Good, good," Italy flipped through the newspaper.

I took some cereal and made my favorite meal: cereal. I enjoy simplicity, I suppose.

Itachi randomly walked into the kitchen. It was noon wasn't it? Well, in that case, Itachi walked into the kitchen to get some lunch.

He nodded slightly at the both of us, recognizing our presence.

Cereal and newspaper.

Life in the Akatsuki wasn't all that fabulous after all.

Wait a second. How the hell did we get newspaper?

I don't know, Colette, I don't know.

Well, that's it and I want to go play Minecraft or something.

I'll probably update soon. That goes for my other stories, too.

Okay, I'm running out of ideas for this story. You might want to help me out with that. If there's anything specific (besides pairings) you want to happen, please tell me because the only ideas I have for later chapters consist of go fish. Yeah…

So, review or whatever and I'll get around to updating.

-Ciao.