Sorry for the HUGE WAIT with this - I got it into my head that I was going to do illustrations for each one of the previous chapters and illustrate every new one as it came along, but it ended up holding me back way too much SORRY. ANYWAY I was also majorly unhappy with how some things were panning out, but I've made some minor edits to past chapters that have me much happier with things now.

ANYWAY. Seventh chapter – first chapter of PART TWO. Bluescreen will be in four parts, and I think this second section might be the longest, but you never know.

2.1

This is gonna be well good, yeah. It's better than anything I've ever put together before. It's inspired. It'll take the target to bits in one point three seconds and all that's gonna be left is a crater and fire. Obliteration.

Sasori said it was overkill, when I was working on it and I told him how it was gonna work. I told him there's no such thing as overkill when it's art, and he just laughed his horrible rusty laugh. I think he understands, though, cause he's the same way with his robot stuff. A couple of weeks ago he finished something for a job he'd been given like months ago, and he'd built this robot specially for it. It was supposed to be for some espionage thing or something, just to record some meeting or whatever – and it was the slickest thing you ever saw, yeah, any big cyber company would kill to employ him, I bet – but it had all this built-in extra stuff like ... like a blowtorch and poison gas and darts and guns and shit. I asked him if it needed all that and he said probably not but it never hurts to be prepared. He says that, but I think he just likes putting like eighty more weapons than anything needs on everything he makes.

Half the time the jobs he gets he doesn't actually go on all the way, just goes to a little way off and sends a robot depending on which one does the job best or whatever. They're remote-controlled or something, yeah? Sometimes I have to go with the robot. I don't really mind that much, really. Somehow his voice sounds less awful when it's crackling out of speakers, yeah, like that's how it's supposed to be. From a distance. Yeah? He doesn't always do that, though. This time he's with me – well, not really with me cause I'm waiting outside. He's in there – this lab warehouse a little way south of Fougere – nicking something for the Leader – we're supposed to call him that, yeah, no-one will tell me what his name is or anything and I still haven't seen him IRL, he wasn't even there when they stuck the goddamn implant in my arm for the communications shit. I said I don't need it, I got an implant, but Kisame says like this is some special one or something and even Sasori has one and he's like made of implants ... but anyway, yeah, I'm waiting outside waiting to wipe the warehouse flat, but obviously I gotta wait for him to get out of there first, yeah? He's taking a while so I message him cause I don't like how the Akatsuki implant works.

"You done yet or what?"

He doesn't reply right away, and then when he does it's just "STFU". I guess he's busy or something. If that warehouse is anything like the one from the labs I was in it's probably pretty guarded, yeah, and this one's way bigger. But I've seen him fight, yeah? It's kind of amazing. Whatever he said, he must've really been trying not to hurt me when he got me after all, 'cause when he actually wants to kill something it's dead just like that. It's well banging how he moves all metal shifting and way faster than anything that heavy should be, yeah, raps, and I hate robots but it's just, like ... Jah. Wow. I kind of wish I was in there to watch whatever it is that has him busy enough to just STFU me, yeah, but I'm stuck out here waiting for him. He bitches about waiting for shit all the time and I kind of know how he feels but when I think about the explosion that's coming, the time building up to it isn't so bad. Anticipation's all part of it, yeah? It's not the moment, but it makes the moment better.

So I wait. It's a good fifteen minutes or something, yeah. I don't see him leave the building straight off but he IMs me – he usually does that, too; I reckon it's cause he didn't make the Akatsuki implant, and all the other metal shit in him he did. He's like that, yeah. Proud.

"I'm out. Set it off when I say."

I grin. I wouldn't, 'cause the bastard's telling me what to do like I don't know again when he could've just waited til he was clear and then said he was, yeah, but this close to setting it off I can't help grinning, so I don't argue with him, just message back "Yes, Master", and wait.

The whole 'Master' thing started a few weeks back. He's bossy as hell, yeah? Acts like just cause he's technically my superior or whatever means everything he says goes. Problem is he's like made of metal and he's got built-in poison knives and guns and shit, and it's like, what am I gonna do, gnaw him to death in four places at once? So basically whatever he says does go. But only cause he makes me, yeah. And you can tell what he really wants is for someone to call him 'Master' and mean it, yeah, so I make sure he knows I don't mean it every time he gets up himself like that, just to remind him the only reason he's in charge is cause I'm not the one who built a rocket launcher into my own back. Because I know it pisses him off. Lots pisses him off, but that pisses him off a lot. I think he takes his time messaging me again on purpose 'cause of it, yeah, but I don't mind. Point is he does eventually, and I don't reply, just click the button, and ... bang.

Every single explosion is its own perfect blast of ... of beauty, yeah, but there's something really satisfying about taking a lab to bits. It's not the one that I was in – fucked if I'm going anywhere near that place – but ... any lab, yeah. Seeing it burn down ...

... I feel guilty then, though, 'cause I realise the reason I'm staring like it's the only thing that ever happened in the world isn't 'cause of the art. It's, like, revenge or whatever, yeah. It isn't right. I'm so skewed about it I don't notice Sasori coming until he's right over by me, but when I do, he doesn't give me time to think about stuff much longer, just snaps at me and swishes his tail around my feet to get me moving, and suddenly I'm back and I can hear the broken alarm sputtering in the wreckage of the lab.

"What are you doing standing there like that?" (I don't think I'm ever gonna get used to Sasori's voice. Not just cause it sounds like an old man dying in a scrap metal heap, but there's still something in the way he talks that I've heard somewhere else, but I can't work it out. I don't think about it very long ever, but it nags at me practically every time he speaks.) "Come on, you idiot."

We run. He's faster fighting than running, and I move quicker than him, but he hasn't got muscles; he doesn't get tired. We're gonna have to leg it all zig-zag across the mountains cause of the floodwater until we can get to some tunnels, and if we go the way we came it's gonna take us a good while to get to the next hole, yeah. It was easy on the way here, dry, but the clouds are gathering now. I dunno if he pays attention to that stuff or not, yeah. I don't think he does notice til he sees me looking up.

"We have time," he says. I frown, cause I'm not too sure, and go to check the weatherforecast.

It's weird. It always pissed me off so much how as soon as I started wondering about something my implant would google it automatically or open up wiki or something, so when Sasori finally took the spyware off it I got him to stop it doing that, too. But I guess I was used to it or something cause it's really weird having it not do that any more. I mean, I had three years to get used to it, yeah? And looking back I guess it was kinda handy, meant I could just let it do that while I was doing something else, yeah, but ... I like it better having control and stuff. Better than like having something else in my head telling me what to do. Yeah.

So I go to the bookmarked weatherforecast myself and –

"There's no rain warning," Sasori cuts in, like point three seconds before the page finishes loading – the internet's slow out here. I frown at him. Sometimes I wonder if he left the spyware in, yeah. I say so. He snorts. "No. You're just predictable. Come on."

I look back at him all annoyed – and then I realise he's not carrying anything.

"Hey."

"What?"

"I thought you were stealing something from in there, yeah. Where is it?"

"I've got it."

"Where?"

"It's not very big," he says, looking at me like to say if I ask again he'll shank me.

I figure it must have just been data or something, so he could've just downloaded it or whatever, but I don't get why he didn't just say so. I'm not gonna ask, though, cause he's giving me that "piss me off any more and I'll sedate you" look – and I don't mean that like fictionally ... uh, figuratively or whatever, yeah, he does actually do that. I'm not kidding. Sometimes he doesn't even warn me or anything, just I'll be talking and he'll be sort of grumbling and then I feel a little pinprick and the next thing I know I'm waking up back at my place – not where I used to live back in Three Wizards, yeah, it's a different flat, nearer the base, up in Swannereich. None of my old stuff is in there, but I cope; if I send a list to base of the stuff I need to make my bombs, I get it. I don't even have to pay for it – I only gotta handle the bills and food and stuff, so considering that with the fact that I got a pay rise when they took me on I think it's a pretty good deal.

Apart from the fact that I have to work with this bastard, anyway. He's glaring at me, now, over his shoulder – he's really good at not looking where he's going, I guess it must be a robot thing – so I glare back all like "what" and he says, "Can't you go any faster?"

"What? We're making plenty good time, yeah."

"If you could stand floodwater we'd be making it better."

"Yeah, well, I can't, can I. Just cause you're rainproof. Here, tell you what – I'll race you, yeah, back to the tunnels –"

He narrows his eyes. "No, Deidara. There's an advance."

"– What?"

"You heard me. You can check if you want."

"Hnn." I don't. I believe him – the clouds are all threatening and dark and I've been waiting for a warning the entire time we've been out here. You can practically feel the rainfish starting to gather under the surface, waiting for the rain. I think I can see the feelers of some of 'em sticking out of the water, but I might be imagining it. It's gonna rain, though. You can tell. We're far enough from anything that we're practically begging it, yeah – there's reasons no-one comes out this far in the rainy season. "So what. What are we gonna do."

He pauses, fixing me with this snooty no-nonsense look he's got that always makes me feel like he thinks he's talking to a five-year-old. "I am going to find a way round this, and you are either going to do what I say, or die." I open my mouth to reply, but he cuts me off. "Don't. I'm checking maps – if the erosion hasn't hit it too hard there should be a cave around here somewhere, or an overhang, at least – this way."

He sets off straight away, veering away from the course he'd set himself before, and I follow him. We keep tight to the side of this huge wall of rock, and it figures he's right – or the maps were, or whatever – there's this cave burrowing into the side of it. I don't reckon it's all that deep, but it's dark. But whatever, the clouds are rumbling, and it's shelter. I'm not complaining. Sasori shuffles under, too. I look at him all "what're you sheltering for, Mr Rainproof?" and he snorts.

"Just because I can withstand rain doesn't mean that it's good for me."

I laugh. "What – takes off the chrome, yeah?"

He doesn't reply, but then I spot the first raindrop dot onto the rock outside, and after a moment or two anything else I might've wanted to say is drowned out by the patter and hiss of the rain.