omg, anonymous reveiwer, i love your idea about elemental fights. i might seriously use that ^^
After the show, the Akatsuki had a traditional meal of pizza and popping candy – though the candy was really only for Tobi and Deidara.
Sasori felt too sick to eat and ended up back in his caravan. They were moving within the hour.
When Deidara came back, he lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling and watched with little interest as the brat took a pink marker from a box and scribbled on the wall, a simple sentence;
I miss feeling free.
Sasori noticed there was a pattern here, the wall consisted of dark, trapped little words and phrases and small little lines that bled false happiness squished into the corners. Despite the smile on his face, Deidara clearly had issues.
Deidara put his maker back and lay down, lying on his side after a while, azure eyes staring back into tired brown depths. He opened his mouth to speak but Sasori beat him to it.
"How do you do it?"
Deidara frowned for a moment before he said, "do what, un?"
Wake up every day and know you're a freak.
Spend every day here with these people.
Get up on that stage every night and know you can never be normal.
"The trick. How do you do it?"
"Oh un," Deidara smiled, eyes lighting up but he tapped the side of his nose and said, "a magician never reveals his secrets."
You're not a magician, you're a freak.
Sasori rolled his eyes. Of course he would say something like that.
Really though, he didn't understand why Deidara was here. So he was a little, flexible? Or however he managed to do that trick, which was really nothing, though Sasori had a feeling there was something else weird he was hiding. Like he himself was hiding a pretty strange secret.
Sasori hated to think of the brat having some weird, physical abnormality. He was by no means shallow – despite his reaction to the rest of the Akatsuki – but he had a tendency to… react badly to those sorts of things. Like Kisame's appearance for example, or Kakuzu's scars – oh, that had been a big mistake – but that didn't mean he didn't like them because of it, they were alright people, even though he'd only met them earlier that day, but he felt like they'd gotten off on the wrong foot.
However, he liked Deidara, he was interesting and friendly. He didn't want to hurt the kid but it seemed at this point, it'd be inevitable seeing as he couldn't be in the Akatsuki simply because of that one trick.
Deidara smiled again, shifting to lie on his back.
"We'll be in Ame by tomorrow, un. We should get some sleep."
When Sasori opened his eyes, light was shining into the room through the single window and a new line was written on the wall in red;
Had that dream again. I don't want it to be dark.
But Deidara was nowhere to be found.
It was still early and they were still moving so that meant he must be in one of the other carts.
He took a moment to collect himself before moving through the other carts. Small metal bridges closed the space between the doors. Like a train that travelled along the road. The first few carts were for sleeping, most of the beds were empty and unmade though a few still had people sleeping within them. Sasori knew these carts were for Akatsuki use only and actually hadn't met anyone from the other part of the camp, yet.
However, it was clear who slept where just by the way the rooms looked as he had learnt enough about his fellow Akatsuki to know who was likely to keep their room in a sickeningly clean state and who was likely to have stacks of candy crammed in every spare space in the room – as well as who was more likely to have locks on their closet door.
He ran into Konan and Pein in an empty cart – though he surprisingly, hadn't seen anybody else – with only seats along both walls, supporting the appearance of a road train. The top half of those walls were glass, fiving a strange view of a place he'd never see. Actually, he'd never left his own village which made this experience all the more terrifying.
"It feels weird to be home, do you think it'll rain?" Pein asked. Both of them were facing away, sitting on their knees on one of the seats, staring out the window. Sasori remembered there were no windows in Pein's office which would make this the best place for them to view outside – without actually being there.
"Yes, it will be raining when we stop," Konan said.
Pein couldn't help but laugh at that.
Well that was all fine and good and whatever but where was –
"He's in the dining cart, three down," Konan said before Sasori could even finish his thoughts. How had she – "a magician never reveals his secrets," Konan turned around and made a big show of tapping her nose.
Sasori frowned. That was exactly what Deidara had done.
"Well uh… thanks I guess," he mumbled.
When he was gone, Konan said, "I don't like him."
Pein sighed, "What's wrong with him?" she always had a problem with new recruits and had in fact declared war on Deidara when he was twelve. It took her a year to warm up to him and three more to call off her war.
As for Itachi… well that had been a disaster. As it was with Kisame and Kakuzu, as well. In fact, the only one she didn't hate, oddly enough, had been Hidan.
Of course, she was over most of it by now.
"He's indecisive."
"So...?"
"He clouds my mind. I don't like it." She gazed out the window, ignoring the other visions in her head, "he's not like the others. I can't tell what he's going to do. I know what he's thinking but… other than that, there's nothing."
"No darkness in his future?" Pein smirked, recalling the generic prediction she usually gave Deidara.
Konan rolled her eyes. "I see nothing; I might as well be blind!"
Silence.
Pein thought about it for a little while.
"Kakuzu thinks you're a quack."
Sigh.
"I know."
In the dining cart, Deidara sat with a few of the normal performers; the ones who had weird talents but no physical features that qualified them for being a part of the Akatsuki,
A lot of them were younger than him; about the age he was when he first came here but he had no problem getting along with them.
"Dude, that show last night was sick!" as these words were spoken, a dog rain into the room before its owner, presumably to make sure the room was safe, "there was blood everywhere!"
Kiba was one of those kids that were hard to get along with at first. He was headstrong and often over confident but enjoyed senseless violence – unless it was against animals – and was friendly enough. Once you got past all his weird hang-ups.
"Yeah! It took like, ages to keep the crowd calm!" and Naruto, not able to sense the mood and tell the difference between praise and complaint, always had something to say. He was a bubbly kid, not dumb but just sort of dense. "And do you know how long it took to clean that damn tent?"
"Naruto," then there was mini Uchiha, Sasuke or something like that. He'd never been much of a morning person. "It's too early for you to be yelling like this."
"Yeah and besides, it wasn't that bad, we got a good show didn't we?"
"Tch, speak for yourself. You didn't have to play nurse for that idiot."
Sakura, she was one of the only girls around here. It seemed not many girls had skills employable by a circus, of sorts and he wasn't quite sure what hers was meant to be. More often than not, she'd end up as a nurse for anyone – mainly Hidan and sometimes Itachi – who was injured. Her blonde counterpart Ino, had a talent for taking over people's minds but it left her body vulnerable. Still, it made for a good show.
Deidara listened to the kids talking and arguing as he ate, ben down close to his good so his hands wouldn't get to it first.
A lot of the kids, who were part of this circus, were here without parents. Kiba and Shino both ha parents in the business, as did Shikamaru, Ino and Chouji, however, everyone else was here alone. Most of them lived in Konaha, the last stop one this annoying tour before they could break for a month or two.
Deidara had only been to Konaha once. It was a great place; big and easy to lose yourself in. the people could be mean and untrusting but he still found it better than Iwa.
Itachi had a home waiting for him in Konaha. He was lucky.
The children soon calmed down and ate quietly. He didn't like the quiet or the echoing sound of tyres hitting the road. So he was happy when he felt somebody sit down beside him.
"This place is weird," Sasori immediately said.
"Un, you've yet to see the start of it," Deidara said simply.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"What am I un, your keeper?" his words were angry but his tone was its usual happy self and he was smiling. Sasori noticed briefly that his hands were uncovered but he kept them flat. Could that be the physical abnormality that got him into the Akatsuki? Sasori suddenly thought of the phrase, curiosity killed the cat. "Un, I didn't want to disturb you."
Sasori looked around to see a group of kids staring at him.
He stared back.
"Oh un, guys this is Sasori. He's the newest member of Akatsuki."
"Wow, so he's a freak?" Naruto asked.
Sasuke immediately reacted before anyone else could, hitting him across the back of his head.
"I told you not to call them that."
Sasuke was very protective of his older brother and if that meant he had to defend the Akatsuki, then so be it.
"Geez, sorry," Naruto remarked sarcastically, rubbing the back of his head.
"these are the kids who go on before us un," Deidara continued as if nothing had happened, "I mean, it's not all kids, there are adults too but they're probably all still asleep."
The children nodded in agreement.
"So what's the hell's wrong with you?" Kiba was the first to ask as Naruto had a sneaking suspicion that if he were to ask, he'd get in trouble.
"Excuse me?" Sasori asked, rather annoyed.
"He means, what makes you a fre… um, what makes you different?" Sakura asked, quickly correcting herself.
"Nothing."
Deidara rolled his eyes, "he doesn't want to talk about it kids."
But of course, being teenagers, they were overly persistent.
"Come-on, there must be something!"
"Yeah, they wouldn't have chosen you for no reason!"
"You've gotta at least have like, six toes or something!"
Sasori frowned, "why six toes?"
The kids stared at each other for a while before Sakura decided to step in.
"Well you know; because one of the common qualifications for the Akatsuki, is a weird physical attribute. Like Deidara's ha –"
No time was wasted in kicking somebody anybody under the table, leading to Sasuke quickly covering Sakura's mouth. It appeared Deidara didn't want to share his abnormalities right now.
However, Sasori had already heard too much.
I knew there was something wrong with his hands.
But how to find out for sure..?
Grabbing the brat's wrist wouldn't be very subtle. But Sasori had never been one for subtly; he was more of the overly curious, impatient type and he just had to know!
It couldn't be that bad.
Like, a tattoo or something?
A weird, ugly scar?
A prophetic?!
But what he saw was a normal hand. He could practically feel Deidara's heartbeat through the vein in his wrist, beating out of time in shock and… anxiety?
And the reason was suddenly so clear.
The road train – as Konan liked to refer to it – had come to a stop. Like she'd said, it was raining, something she didn't particularly like but she only saw the future and couldn't control it. She'd still make sure everything got done before their show that night; tickets had been sold in advance and everything was set to go off just fine…
Hold on.
She frowned slightly, her forehead creasing slightly as she read a new future, one that was clouded and indecisive like that boy she hated. One that had many possible outcomes and one certain starting point.
"What's wrong?" Pein asked, sensing that something was wrong.
"Three, two, one…"
The door connecting the carts opened and slammed shut quickly, colliding loudly but the blonde stomping through couldn't possibly have cared less. He'd noticed the road train – everybody referred to it as that – had stopped and didn't care in the slightest that it was raining and if he stepped out, he'd probably get sick.
"Going to town un, be back later."
He offered a simple vague explanation as he left, slamming the door behind him.
Konan sighed, "I told you I didn't like that boy."