Sculpting for Dummies

AN: Once again, sorry for the delays. I had hoped to get another chapter out before moving back into my dorm room, but I got to go on an unexpected beach trip with a friend, so this chapter had to wait until after moving day. Sorry. At least I've had plenty of time to brainstorm, un?

Oh, random happiness. My spell-check thinks 'Iwa,' Deidara's home village, is 'Iowa'. Hah!

Chapter 6:

The shift on Tobi's face from a drowsy grin to a startled jaw drop was more satisfying than Deidara had imagined. It felt good to finally be free from that blanket of helplessness that had enveloped him since the artist had woken up in Sasuke's lair. He should have taken matters into his hands from the start. 'I won't make that mistake again,' he promised himself.

The tip of the kunai dug into the pale skin of Tobi's throat. A tiny red bead of blood welled up against the metal point, then rolled down his neck, painting a crimson stripe.

"…sempai?" Tobi whispered. The maskless man at least had the since to keep still.

The blond kept one hand firmly gripping Tobi's captured wrists as he leaned down to look the brunet straight in the eyes.

"I'm not playing your games anymore, Tobi. Release this jutsu or I'll kill you, un," he told his partner. Beneath him, Tobi sighed. Deidara had seen his share of scared, threatened people in his lifetime, and typically, their reactions weren't sighs. He pressed the kunai in a little deeper.

"I mean it, you idiot! Do it or you die," he warned.

The edges of Tobi's lips wrinkled into a frown. "You know that won't work, sempai," he said gently.

"I'll do it, Tobi! I'll slit your throat and watch you choke on blood and I'll laugh at your last pathetic moments of life!" There was desperation in his voice, even to his own ears. Why wouldn't Tobi just listen to him?

"That's not true. You won't kill me because you need me to undo the jutsu," Tobi reasoned. "But the problem is, even if you catch me and have a kunai to my throat, you have to release my hands so I can release the seal. And if my hands are free, I can use my chakra to escape." The captured man paused and gave the blond an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, Deidara-sempai, but that seal is going to stay in place until I'm sure that you won't kill anyone when you get your chakra back."

For a brief, irrational moment, Deidara thought about shoving the kunai down and killing the lying bastard just to spite him. He stayed his hand because, like it or not, he needed Tobi to get him to the Market village. Instead, he brought up his knee and jabbed it into Tobi's groin. The taller man screeched and rolled on the ground in agony.

Deidara laid out on his blanket and closed his eyes. "It's your watch," he said, and fell asleep and dreamt dreams about kicking Tobi's ass with his reclaimed chakra.

………………………………………………………….

The next day's travel was slow and quiet. Tobi was still angry with Deidara, Deidara was angry with Tobi, Tobi was limping, and Deidara was trying to kill his partner every opportunity that presented itself. The normally hyper man found himself shrugging out of headlocks, dodging rocks thrown at the back of his head, spitting out food laced with poisoned herbs, and reclaiming stolen weaponry from his sempai every time he let his guard drop just a little.

Tobi really missed the old times, when the most he had to worry about from his sempai was the occasional exploding bird when he fell asleep during Deidara's lectures. Usually when they traveled together, the artist would talk nonstop, about art (and Tobi's lack of artistic abilities), or Akatsuki business (and Tobi's lack of Akatsuki-like qualities), or anything else that popped into mind. Tobi would follow along, doing cartwheels and summersaults. Occasionally he'd pop up right in front of Deidara and do an impression of another Akatsuki member. His 'blind Itachi stumbling over a rock' always made Deidara laugh, no matter how much the blond tried to hide it.

'Blind Itachi' wasn't going to help in this situation, though. Tobi wondered if he'd ever be able to joke around with his sempai again, or if their brief companionship was beyond recall. As things stood at the moment, they could barely talk to one another. Could they have even a temporary alliance?

"Truce, sempai?" Tobi asked suddenly. Deidara dropped the acorn he'd been about to lob at Tobi's head.

"Are you kidding, un? A truce, with you?" Deidara snorted, then laughed outright. "Shit, you're serious! My god, Tobi, with a brain that small, I'm surprised it doesn't fall out when you tilt your head, un!" His sempai continued chortling.

Tobi's pale cheeks burned red. He was used to the Akatsuki members laughing at him, but it always felt different with Deidara. Strange, how it made his heart soar to make his sempai chuckle at him impressions, yet it hurt so badly being laughed at like this. He swallowed the lump in his throat and pretended like he didn't care that Deidara was mocking him. It was much harder without his mask to hide behind, but he made an effort.

"Your trying to kill me is slowing us down, sempai," he explained in a monotone voice. "The more you do it, the longer it'll take us to get to Market. So, if you'll stop throwing things at me and poisoning my food, I'll be quiet and try not to get on your nerves, and we'll both reach Market village faster. Truce?" Tobi asked. He held out a hand to Deidara and waited.

The artist eyed the hand like it was covered in mud, but he growled and took it anyways. A few joints in Tobi's hands cracked at the tight squeeze Deidara gave them, but without chakra, Deidara lacked the physical strength to actually break anything.

"Should we stop here for the night, sempai?" Tobi ventured when the blond released his hand. Deidara scowled at him.

"I'm not camping here, dumbass. We're in a valley, and it's going to rain. We need to move up to higher ground or we'll get soaked, un." The artist looked down at his bare feet, then at Tobi.

"We'll take a break if you're tired," he told Tobi, who nodded eagerly.

"I can't take another step until we stop to eat," Tobi lied. Anything to get Deidara to stop when the blond needed rest.

Deidara sat down and left Tobi to do the chores once again. The taller man spread one of their blankets out and laid out a picnic of their stolen food. Tobi dug into his share with vigor, shoveling it into his mouth with minimal pausing for breathing. Deidara huffed, just like he always did, and mumbled to himself, "fucking moron can't chew his food properly. Disgusting."

Their hurried dinner was almost like the meals they used to share. Deidara picked at his food and complained about Tobi's black hole of a mouth. Tobi looked up when his food had been demolished and smiled at his sempai. He wiped the crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand, but he could feel some still clinging to his face. Usually, Deidara would tell him where it was, get frustrated when Tobi couldn't brush off the crumbs on his own, and eventually lean over and wipe Tobi's face clean himself.

Now, Deidara merely kept picking at his food, and told his former partner to 'go wash his fucking face.'

………………………………………………………..

Deidara had finished only half of his meal when Tobi started fumbling through his pockets. The pale man pulled out a kunai, a sewing kit, and a second blanket.

The kunai ripped through the frayed old blanket with ease, cutting a square out of one corner. Tobi cut the square into a couple oddly shaped pieces and sewed them together. Deidara turned his attention back to his food when Tobi looked up and caught him staring.

"Do you want to know what I'm doing, sempai?" he asked in that whiney tone he loved to use. Deidara took another bite of his dinner and ignored the other man. Tobi continued talking anyways.

"I'm making this for you, sempai." He held up his pieces of cloth, mostly sewn together now and in the vague shape of a doll. "I know you're still angry at me, and it's not healthy to bottle up your feelings." Tobi scampered up and into the foliage, and started stuffing leaves and dried grass into the doll. He sewed up the last side and held up his creation for observation. "You can pretend it's me, and take your anger out on it without slowing us down."

The doll didn't look anything like Tobi. It didn't really even look anything like a human. It was lumpy and misshapen and made of blue fabric. But when he looked at it, it reminded Deidara of Tobi's stupid ideas and his idiotic smile as he told them, pretending like he was so helpful. Deidara snatched up the offered doll and ripped one of its arms off, just to wipe that smile off of Tobi's pale, goofy face.

……………………………………………………………..

Tobi really hadn't expected the Tobi-doll to last long, but he'd thought it would get them through the night at least. Deidara had destroyed it before they even stopped to set up their camp site. Its limbs had been ripped off one by one, its stuffing pulled out, and then its head wrenched off and shredded into ribbons. Deidara hadn't even had a kunai to work with, only his bare hands. The artist could be very scary when he wanted to be.

The second doll, sewed hastily before lying down to sleep, didn't survive through Deidara's night watch. By the time he'd shaken Tobi awake and settled down for the night, the poor fabric creation had been left dangling by one leg on a branch over a stream. Its cloth head was submerged, and when Tobi untied the doll, he found it had been weighted with rocks.

In preparation for the last two days of the trip to the Market village, Tobi spent his watch shift cutting up the rest of the blanket and sewing as many Tobi-dolls as he could. One was burned at the stake in their next campfire; one found itself coated in honey gathered from a hive and pinned on top of a fire-ants' nest with sharpened sticks. They had to pass by a steep cliff, so a third Tobi-doll was weighted with rocks and tossed down. Tobi shivered every time another one of his little effigies was destroyed or maimed, but at least Deidara was directing his violence towards them instead of him. And it was fun, in a morbid kind of way, seeing what brutal method his sempai would use next. The artist was nothing if not creative. At one point, the blond even managed to coax a rabid-looking badger out of its burrow to feed it a doll.

Since he'd spent most of the day relieving his anger on the Tobi-dolls, Tobi hoped that Deidara would talk to him that night as they camped. He wanted to help his sempai, and he couldn't do that if he didn't understand what motivated him.

"Did you have a dream when you were little, sempai?" he asked when Deidara lay down.

"I had lots of dreams, moron. Everyone has dreams and nightmares too, un."

If he was trying to dodge the question, there might be something important about it. Tobi pressed him further.

"Not sleeping dreams, sempai. Goals. Aspirations. What did you want to do when you grew up?" Tobi sat up and looked at Deidara expectantly. Deidara was a naturally talkative person, and he usually couldn't resist talking about his artistic visions and things like that.

"I've told you that before. I want to perfect my art, un," Deidara proclaimed. He looked down and frowned at the invisible chakra seal.

Tobi snorted. "So, you were born wanting to blow yourself up?" he asked sarcastically. Deidara's eyes narrowed.

"My artistic dream is to make the perfect explosion, the most radiant, transient show of beauty this world has ever known, un. If I get caught in the blast, so much the better; people aren't meant to outlive their dreams."

The look on Deidara's face was so serious it made Tobi's stomach twirl. "Sempai," Tobi tried to explain, "when you achieve your dream, you aren't supposed to kill yourself! You make a new goal! There's always something else to strive for."

The Iwa ninja shook his head like Tobi was a whiny child that needed to be humored. "Maybe for you there is, Tobi. But my art is the only thing I've ever had."

"Sempai, that can't be true!" Tobi protested. "Isn't there anything else you ever wanted?"

Deidara paused for a moment, lost in memory. Then he spoke again. "There was one thing…" he began.

…………………………………………………

Deidara hadn't thought about it in years. He'd blocked most of his childhood memories from his thoughts so he could concentrate fully on his art.

"I was six… or I might have been seven," he guessed. Age hadn't made much difference back in the Iwa orphanage. No one there celebrated birthdays, so one year just faded into the next. "Someone told me a story about a place up in the clouds. She said that her parents lived there, and that it was perfect, un."

"Sempai…" Tobi whispered. Deidara could tell he was trying to think of a gentle way to say that the place didn't exist. As if Deidara didn't already know! Did Tobi think he was that naïve?

"So, when I was nine, I made a clay bird, filled it with my chakra, and flew up there, un. Up above the clouds."

Tobi gasped. "Oh, what was it like, sempai? Was it amazing? Could you see the stars?" He could be just like a small child sometimes.

"You want to know what its like above the clouds, Tobi, hmm?" Tobi nodded. "There's no air to breath up there. I got dizzy and started choking. And it's cold. My bird's joints froze up and I fell back to earth. If I hadn't had the clay to cushion my fall, I would've died. And do you know what I saw up there, Tobi?"

"What, sempai?" he asked obediently, horrified yet captivated by his story.

"Nothing. No paradise. Nothing but emptiness. So, tell me, Tobi, what's left to achieve of that dream, un?" Deidara waited. Tobi didn't say anything.

"That's what I thought, un," he stated, and turned away from Tobi to sleep.

…………………………………………….

The next morning, Tobi still didn't know what to say to his sempai. He wanted to tell him something comforting, but how could he help Deidara with the demons of his past when Tobi couldn't even remember his own youth.

Deidara seemed gloomy as well that morning. He picked at the seams in his hands where his palm-mouths were growing closed more than he had the day before, and he kept his eyes trained to the ground. Tobi knew there had to be something profound to say that could drain away the tension and offer new hope to his hurting sempai. There was something right to say in a moment like this, but Tobi didn't know what it was.

In the end, there was only one thing he could think to do. He put on a mock serious face and called to Deidara, "Guess who I am?" He walked directly into a tree. "Kisame, is that you?" he said in his best Itachi-voice.

He couldn't see the blond because his eyes were watering (he'd hit his nose pretty hard on the tree), but he thought he heard a quiet chuckle. When his eyes cleared and he looked over at his sempai, Deidara pulled out another Tobi-doll, ripped open its side, and turned it inside out.

…………………………………………………………………..

They reached the Market village early the next evening. By then, Deidara had artistically destroyed two dozen crudely made dolls. They stopped at the village's gate and looked at each other.

"Maybe it would be better if you let me speak with Kakuzu-san's bankers, sempai," Tobi offered. Deidara was immediately mistrustful.

"Why shouldn't I speak with them, Tobi? You're trying to get my money so I'll stay with you, aren't you, un?" Tobi had proven time and again he wasn't to be trusted. Deidara wasn't about to let the little rat get a hold on his money.

"Of course not, sempai. It's just, the leader and the others probably think we're dead. If you go into the bank, people will recognize you and we might not want Akatsuki knowing we're still alive yet. No one is going to recognize me without my mask, so I'll be safe going inside."

Deidara disemboweled his twenty-fifth Tobi-doll. Tobi read the message in his action: 'I'm not happy about it, so do it quick and know that I'll kill you when I get my chakra back, un'. He scampered off quickly.

Since it wasn't a hidden village, Market had a lax defense. Deidara was free to walk around the outer walls without notice. Did Akatsuki really think he was dead? Well, probably. For a little while, Deidara himself thought he was dead. Just, the leader had always come across as all-knowing.

One thing was certain, though; the leader was no financial planner. Kakuzu had taken care of Akatsuki's finances because he loved money, and the rest of the organization had let him because they were useless at managing it. Had Kakuzu still been alive, he would have closed the emergency bank accounts for Tobi and Deidara at the first mention of their deaths and pocketed the money for himself. Deidara doubted any of the other members had even thought about the accounts. With any luck, the money would still be there, without any instructions to apprehend them or alert the Akatsuki when it was withdrawn.

And surely no one had tampered with the lock boxes. Each Akatsuki pair had a bank account and a lock box in every major country, so that no matter what the circumstances, they wouldn't be without their tools. Deidara's contained a change of clothes, a second scope, a kunai kit, and most importantly, a sealed jar of his exploding clay. It would be useless to him until he got his chakra back, but it would be comforting to have it by his side, and he'd certainly be making use of it when the seal was removed…

As he paced around the walls, Deidara looks for flaws in the structure out of habit. Identifying weak points that would crumble under the pressure of one of his bombs was second nature to him. The thought of blowing up the wall was tempting. Seeing the pieces of aged stone fly in every direction, hearing the stillness boom with sound, smelling the smoke wafting in the air, feeling the warmth of the pure energy soak into his skin, and knowing that the beauty and the art of the moment was his alone to witness; that was the perfect of his art. Many were subjected to it, but few lived to remember it. The world had denied Deidara joy, so he took it for himself, and he didn't share.

He walked along and appraised the wall until Tobi, wearing his normal black clothes and balancing more bags than he could really carry in his arms. He dropped the load at Deidara's feet, and opened one up to reveal an orange and black swirled mask, identical to the one Sasuke's group had confiscated. Tobi tugged it on, and once again every inch of his skin was hidden from sight. It was no wonder the man was so pale.

Deidara sifted through the other bags. To his delight, some of them were filled with money, and one thankfully held his usual black mesh outfit. He tied back his hair with a hair tie, and while it was still more in his face than usual because of the absent hitai-ate, he at least had the weight of it off of his neck. He slipped into his clothes (Tobi was blushing furiously behind his mask, Deidara could tell) and hooked his bag of clay to his belt. Damn, it felt good.

With his sandals on his feet and his half of the money flung over his shoulder, Deidara turned to Tobi. "Bye Tobi, un," he said casually, and walked into the village with a spring in his step.

………………………………………………..

An hour later, Deidara's step wasn't so springy. His plan to pay a rogue ninja to unseal his chakra was unhinged by the fact that the rogue ninja in the village were completely incompetent.

"Five Element Seal? I thought there were four elements," said the most promising-looking ninja Deidara asked.

"Well, there's water, fire, wind, ice, earth, and thunder, right?" his companion replied. Deidara bit back a frustrated groan.

"But, that makes six," the third man in their group whined. Deidara didn't think it was worth it explaining that water and ice were basically the same, and that the last element was lightning, not thunder. There was no helping some people.

"Are there any…other unaffiliated ninja around here, un?" Deidara asked them. He made sure to keep his distance in case their stupidity was contagious.

"Un-a-what-tiated?" They asked together. Amazing. Deidara had never met a group with the collective brain matter of a rock.

"Are there any more rogue shinobi, un?" Deidara rephrased.

"Rose ninja?"

"Are there any other ninja here that don't belong to a hidden village?" the blond asked slowly.

"Oh! Nope, we're the only other ones," Incompetent ninja number one answered.

Deidara sighed. "I'm probably going to regret this, un," he murmured to himself. He turned to the rogues. "I'd like to hire your services. I need you to escort me to the nearest hidden village and make sure no one hinders me while I'm there." He explained the job very deliberately, hoping that the main ideas would penetrate their thick skulls even if the finer details couldn't. The amount of money he was offering as a down payment seemed to get through to them just fine.

"Yeah, we can do that," Rogue Two said with a smirk. "Just give us a half hour and we'll be ready to roll."

……………………………………………………..

Tobi wandered through the Market village in a depressed stupor. Usually he enjoyed visits to Market. There were so many street vendors with food and drinks and shiny trinkets to sell. Now he trudged along, dragging his feet because he lacked the motivation to lift them up properly. Deidara was gone, and Tobi would never see him again…

Unless he decided to hunt Tobi down and kill him for that seal. If Deidara were there, Tobi would've taken the seal off himself. If his sempai were going to get it off anyways, he might as well be the one to do it.

But it was no use now. Deidara had left, and he would soon be free and blow himself up because he thought it was art. His sempai didn't understand that the art was Deidara himself, with his golden hair and blue eyes and fierce, beautiful smile.

Maybe sake would help. He'd heard that it made these sorts of situations seem less bleak. Tobi headed toward a bar already half-full with the evening crowd. He waved to the bartender for a drink. He sat down in a shaded corner that he didn't mind having to take off his mask in.

The alcohol burned on the way down, so Tobi tilted his little glass up and gulped it down quickly. He didn't normally drink, so it didn't take long before he started to feel a buzz. He waved for another drink. The bartender looked him in the eye, and must have seen something about Tobi's miserable existence, because he plopped the whole bottle down in front of Tobi.

A second drink made his vision start to swim, and a third had him swaying in his chair. Drink number four almost made him forget about his sempai, until he heard voices at the table behind him.

"…bounty's gonna be huge!" someone exclaimed. The others at the table hushed him.

"And Rai's willing to let us in on it?" someone else whispered.

"He figures that this guy's big. Real big. He thinks the three of them might not be enough."

"More than three? Just how big is this guy?"

"Word is, he's Akatsuki." The first ninja whistled in surprise. "That's why he wants us as back-up. Between the down payment this guy offered and the bounty on his head, we can score a nice cut, even as backup," The third man explained.

Tobi swayed closer on his bar stool. Did they mean sempai? They couldn't.

"Akatsuki? I don't know, man," the second ninja wondered, "do you think six of us is gonna be enough?"

The third man laughed. "That's the best part! Rai thinks he can't defend himself. He came around asking about some chakra seal, and he needs an escort to a village. Rai thinks this guy isn't gonna be able to defend himself at all!"

The three ninja laughed. Tobi slammed his glass down and pushed it away from him.

"So you're in?" The men nodded. "Good. They've already left, and they're camping at the gorge tonight. We'll meet them there for the ambush." The ninja nodded and left their table.

"Crap, I-I've got to s-save sempai!" Tobi slurred. He stood up unsteadily, tossed some coins mostly in the bartender's direction, and staggered out of the bar. "Don't worry, Deidara-sempai, I'm on my way!" he yelled before tripping over the threshold.

……………………………………………………

AN: Ok, suspense! Oh, and I must mention the side story. The first chapter is up, and it is entitled "What Deidara didn't tell Tobi." It talks about Deidara's past, and there will be a second chapter corresponding to details in this chapter which will be up in the next couple of days (I have to start classes, but I will strive to get it written for you, believe it!). To find it easiest, you can click on my penname, and it'll be there.