I do not own Naruto or any of the characters. Naruto and all the characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto and Jin belongs to me.

Sasori, face concealed by his Hiruko puppet, eyed the child that Deidara was holding at arms length as if she were some highly disgusting disease that he would catch if he got too close to her.

'Why do I have to look after this thing, hmn!?' Deidara snapped, at no-one in particular. 'Look at it!'

Currently, Jin was doing nothing but watching Deidara with a rather blank expression on her face, but Deidara was acting as if the baby was smirking wickedly and holding a sign that said "Deidara must die".

'She's got it in for me, I can feel it, hmn.'

Jin blinked at Deidara, probably wondering why he was glaring at her with such loathing in his one visible eye. Deidara disliked this child extremely, in fact, he and Hidan had complained heatedly to Pain about his decision to allow Jin to stay at the base. However, they had been kicked out of Pain's office with the threat of being fed to Zetsu if they returned.

'Why could't Konan look after her? Keeping the little brat was her idea in the first place, hmn,' Deidara moaned. 'But no! She goes off to try and find the little urchin's family and tells me to look after it!'

'Deidara!' Sasori's very limited patience had reached it's end. 'If you utter one more word about that child, I will kill you and turn you into a puppet!'

Jin, understandably terrified by Hiruko's threatening tone and raised scorpion tail now pointing at Deidara, burst into tears, waving her arms and kicked her legs so that Deidara nearly dropped her.

'Sasori no danna!' Deidara yelled. 'She hasn't cried for nearly an hour and now you've gone and set her off again, hmn!'

'Shut it up, then!' Sasori replied, having to yell over Jin's wailing.

'How!?' Deidara demanded.

The door flew open and there was Hidan, scythe at the ready, a burning rage in his eyes.

'I AM SERIOUSLY GOING TO KILL THAT THING!' he screamed.

Deidara was tempted to let the immortal finish off the screaming brat and let that be the end of it, but he had a feeling that bot Pain and Konan would make life a living hell for him if he allowed anything to happen to Jin. Maybe he could pass it off as some kind of accident? Or perhaps he could somehow pin the blame on Tobi? Yes, that would work! Thankfully for Jin, Itachi appeared behind Hidan at that moment.

'Hidan, put your scythe down,' he said, just loud enough to be heard above Jin's crying and Hidan's angry prayers to Jashin.

'Make me, Uchiha!' Hidan turned on Itachi, scythe poised to do some serious damage.

Itachi silently looked into the Jashinist's eyes, his own eyes turning an unmistakeable Sharingan red. Hidan, hsving previously experienced Itachi's genjutsu and, not in a hurry to repeat the experience which, even for him, had been horrible, reluctantly lowered his scythe. Itachi, now satisfied that Hidan wasn't going to sacrifice Jin to Jashin, made his way past the quietly swearing immortal and walked over to Deidara, who's loathing glare was getting worse and worse as he approached.

'Give her here,' Itachi said, ignoring the look that Deidara was giving him.

'Fine, take her,' Deidara shoved Jin into Itachi's arms. 'Now shut her up, hmn!'

Itachi gently rocked the baby, as he had done so many times when Sasuke was a child. Deidara, Hidan, and even Sasori, were both shocked and slightly impressed when Jin ceased her sobbing and looked up at Itachi, an unmistakeable pout on her little face.

'And that, Deidara, is how you calm and crying child,' Itachi said, while the blonde sculptor sared incredulously at the now docile baby.

Jin snuggled up against Itachi's body, as quiet and still as ever. Sasori didn't want to admit it but he was rather amazed at Itachi's ability to transform the baby from a wailing demon to this calm little angel.

'Since you obviously have no idea how to handle a child, I'll take care of Jin.'

'Knock yourself out,' Deidara replied, scowling at the Uchiha.