It hadn't taken him long to traverse back down the mountain, for in his rage, he found that he could walk much faster than he normally would be able to. Must have been the adrenaline rush. He'd found a nice spot to sit, away from the rest of the world, and had carefully sculpted a squirrel out of some of his clay. He released it, watching it in envy as it scrambled up the trees, jumping and seeming to dance in the leaves. Angrily, he blew it up, and smoldering branches fell all around him. There wasn't much left concerning sunlight, and as soon as night fell, he'd put on a show that no one would have expected. It would be seen for miles around. Eagerly, Deidara grabbed another chunk of clay out of his bag and began sculpting a seagull…as the hours drove relentlessly on, he had managed to make 4 more seagulls, 16 bats, 40 butterflies, 2 screech owls, and a small dragon. It had to be about midnight, though he doubted everyone was asleep yet. Akatsuki often stayed up until dawn throwing wild drinking parties. He half hoped that one or two would fall drunkenly over the side of the cliff. He took a breath. Now was the time. First, he sent out his bats. They fluttered into the air, spiraling overhead, and Deidara blew them up. They emitted a starburst pattern of green and purple streams of fire, with silver sparkles in their wake. Next went 10 butterflies. As they exploded, each made a different pattern in the sky. This was what Deidara always loved about the butterflies. No two were exactly the same. Most of the colors were extraordinarily vivid, except for the one in the center of the blast, which blew a dark red mushroom cloud laced with purple sparkles. Then the seagulls. They flew up in a figure 8 formation and blew up as the crossed the middle of the 8. They were generally all the same blast (a five-point green starburst with a gold sparkle orb for a center), except with each explosion, the color position would alternate. These bangs were exceptionally loud (an excellent reason to love the seagulls). Deidara knew some of them were already on the cliff wondering what the hell was going on. If Sasori was one of them, he was going to be pleasantly pissed. In fact, Deidara hoped he lost his head and came all the way down the mountain to beat him senseless.
"What the hell is the commotion about?" Hidan demanded. "Not sure," Zetsu growled. "But whoever is doing it is going to find their way into my digestive tract pretty damn soon…""No," Sasori barked. "I know exactly who's doing it, and I believe that there is a rule stating that you do not kill your comrades!" Hidan and Zetsu glanced back up at the sky and the brilliant fireworks that were detonating before their eyes. "I do agree he should be punished," Sasori added calmly as an afterthought. "People are going to be watching," Hidan said. "Doesn't he realize he's putting us in jeopardy?" Sasori chuckled. "He probably does. And if he gets himself killed while he's down there making a mess of things, Zetsu can have his body if we can recover it." Zetsu grinned, and looked towards the ground. "You don't suppose Leader's gonna have it in for the little asshole after this?" "Quite possible," Hidan murmured. "I wouldn't put it past him to kill him on the spot."
Next were the dragon and the screech owls. As they took off into the air, the dragon breathed a thin jet of white-hot flame into the sky above it while the owls spiraled around it, their wings shedding red sparks. And they were the first to blow up. One pink, the other lime green, they erupted much in the manner of a supernova, all the while the dragon breathing its white fire all around them. Then it was the dragon's turn. With an earth-shaking roar, it blasted to smithereens. The fire took the shape and color of the ant nebula, then spun wildly before emitting one final high-pitched, screeching jet of green sparkles from its center, and faded away. Deidara fell to his knees. It had been his most beautiful combination yet. He had doubted he'd be able to pull it off—dragon explosions were so difficult to regulate. But he had done it… "WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM?!" Sasori's voice boomed through the trees. "Are you fucking INSANE!? Do you realize you've put the organization in danger?! We'll be lucky if a hundred people didn't see your little display out here tonight!!" Deidara couldn't see well in the dark, but Sasori seemed to be mere inches from his face. "I told you I was gonna do it, un!" "NO! You told me you were going to go blow something up! This—this is—WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, DUMBASS?!" "You may want to quiet down, Danna," Deidara warned timidly. "If they saw that, they can definitely hear you, un…" "Do you think I care?!" Sasori hissed into Deidara's ear. "Do you really think it fucking matters to me what happens now? You've already probably revealed our location to a hundred ANBU, and we'll be lucky if Leader doesn't send us into Protection Formation!!" "What?" "EXACTLY. You have NO idea what that is, and therefore you will be useless to us!! GOD DAMN IT, DEIDARA!! I—I—" Sasori fell silent and ran a hand through his hair. Deidara hung his head in shame. "I promise I'll never do it again, un…" More silence. He was sure Sasori was thinking of how best to insult him next, but he didn't dare say anything to him, for he deserved what he was getting, and what was coming to him. "But hey, that was one hell of a fireworks display," Sasori said with a chuckle. "I have to admit that even I was impressed." Deidara was taken aback, and merely sat with his mouth gaping for a moment, trying to think of something to say. But not a single word came—not a syllable, even—and he shut his mouth again. "I kind of liked it. Just don't do it again, Dei." With that, Sasori began to walk away.
Three days had passed since Sasori had last talked to Deidara. This lack of contact was leaving the poor boy a nervous wreck, and as much as Sasori loved to watch him suffer, he also needed to build trust between them if their working relationship was going to work. He wondered whether their last little chat (if you could call it that) had rendered Deidara frightened, confused, or whatever else he might be feeling that would negatively affect the working relationship. Personally, Sasori couldn't care less whether the moron liked him. He just wanted to be able to work as effectively as possible. "I'd better go talk to him," he muttered, and rolled off his cot, onto the floor. He then got up, dusted himself off a little, and went in search of his partner. He searched through as many of the various caverns as he could, through the main ones, the stupid little side ones, and even the ones that held water. There was no sign of Deidara anywhere. But Sasori knew he couldn't have run off—he left his shoes behind, for one thing. "Dei!" he finally called out at last, feeling quite defeated. "Deidara, where the hell are you!? We need to talk!!" No answer…a minute, two minutes, five minutes…there had been no indication whatsoever that anyone had even heard him. Sasori began to walk again, making it up to the cave where he slept. As he peered in, he saw Deidara laying on his cot, and felt like a complete retard. "There you are," Sasori murmured, stepping in. "I just searched this whole god damned cave…you and me need to talk." "About what, un?" His voice was soft and passive; his eye contact was minimal. "Look," Sasori said. "About the other night…I said some things that I didn't really mean…I was just really pissed off and I had nothing else to say." "Didn't your mommy ever tell you that if you didn't have anything nice to say, don't say nothing at all, un?" Laughter danced in Deidara's eyes, but Sasori remained solemn. "Ironically, no. She and my father were killed when I was only about a year old…I was raised with my grandmother, and she never said any such thing…" Deidara sighed. "I'm sorry, un…but I sort of know how that is, yeah. As far as I know, my mother was a prostitute, and my father was a drug cook. I was taken away from them at a pretty young age and raised in a Catholic orphanage. But no one wanted me because of my…deformities…but then someone came along who'd heard about my art, and he took me in when I was twelve…he was good to me…made sure I ate right and everything…and he put me through ninja training because he thought I had serious potential…" "Yeah, you know what? Your life sucks way worse than mine, dude…" Sasori sighed. "It's just too bad, you know? Sometimes, when I wish I could go back to Suna and play in the desert again with the lizards and the bugs…and then spend a few hours each night learning about different toxins and antidotes from Grandma Chiyo…life hits hard, doesn't it, Dei?" Deidara nodded his agreement, staring thoughtfully at his feet. "It all moves too fast, yeah," he muttered to no one in particular. "One day you're playing with plastic dinosaurs, then the next day you're running away from ANBU and at the same time fighting off an enemy in front of you, un." "Yeah, that sounds right." They sat in silence for a moment, wracking their brains for more interesting subjects. There wasn't much else to do in the early afternoon, as the sun was far too hot to enjoy the great outdoors. All they really had was speech. "Dude…you said your mom was a prostitute?" Deidara nodded. "You don't have any nasty diseases or rashes or anything, do you?" "Oh, hell no, un. I've been checked multiple times…I mean, I couldn't care less if I did, but I'm sort of glad that I don't at the same time, yeah." Now the conversation was just awkward. Sasori scolded himself deeply for asking such a brainless, perverted question. "Why do you ask, anyway, un?" "I—uh…well, if your mom was such a whore—" "Never mind, yeah," Deidara laughed. "And don't call her a whore, un. Use a stronger word, like…" Sasori went blank. "What's a stronger word than whore, un?" He shrugged. "Skank? Slut? I dunno…" "Sperm dumpster, un!" "PERFECT." They spent the next few hours coming up with new names to call Deidara's mother by, and had actually bothered to write some of the stuff down. They compiled a list containing words and phrases like, "gene soup," "AIDStravaganza," and for some reason, "squash." Already they could not remember why they had written it down, but they decided to keep it anyway. Then the conversation turned back to Sasori's family. "So, your mom…do you know anything about her?" Sasori sighed. "Well…all I know is that she was married into my clan's poison business…Chiyo was my grandmother on my father's side, you know, so…we never saw too much of my mom's family. I couldn't name any of them off if you gave me all the time in the world…but I do have a picture…" He began digging in the pockets of his cloak, pulling out things like dismembered arms to small marionettes, newspaper clippings, vintage candy wrappers, and finally, a couple of photographs. "This one," he handed it to Deidara. "Was apparently taken the day before my parents were killed. Behind us there, that's our house." "How old are these, un?" They were black and white pictures, and this particular one was just the three of them standing happily outside their house. Well, Sasori was actually sitting in the sand playing with a toad he had just caught, but altogether it still made a pretty sweet picture. "I think they're 43 years old," Sasori murmured, handing Deidara another one, this time of Sasori's mother and father trying to clean birthday cake off Sasori's face. "WHAT?!" Deidara shrieked. "43," Sasori repeated. "Yeah, that has to be right, un, because you're seventeen!" Sasori busted out laughing. "What's so funny, Danna?" "Nothing, Dei, nothing…it's just…I'm not seventeen!" He tried to get a hold of himself, but somehow the prospect of Deidara drastically miscalculating his age was beyond hilarity. "Well then…how old are you, un?" "Forty-four!" Sasori exclaimed, still on the verge of hysterics. "How the fuck is that possible, Danna?! Look at you!" "I know," Sasori said, suddenly going serious. "I'm a sexy mother fucker…" He burst out laughing again. "And you aren't gonna believe this, Dei, watch this!" He shot a jet of flame from the palm of his hand. "I come with flamethrowers for the sadist in you!" "You've got a hell of a lot of explaining to do!" Deidara shouted, handing the pictures back to Sasori, who was finally getting over his laughter. "How the hell can you be this old, but look so young, un!? None of this adds up!" Sasori sighed. "You're almost right, Deidara, but once you know, you'll find that it does add up…" He began undoing his cloak, and Deidara looked quite confused, but remained quiet. Finally, he dropped his cloak, and it landed in a crumpled heap at his ankles, and Deidara gasped. "What the hell did you do, un?!" "I underwent a procedure when I was not a year older than you to turn myself into sort of a human puppet. They had to kill me to do it, and while my heart still had energy, they had to transfer it into my new body." He indicated the end of a sort of canister that barely rose above the surface of his wooden chest. "This allowed my soul to be transferred as well as my chakra and all that beautiful stuff. I made this body myself, and I have several replacements in some of our outpost houses, as well as one that I can summon through use of a scroll in an emergency situation. That's where you might just have to come in, Deidara. You might have to be the one to take me from this body and shove me into another as quickly as you can." "Why did you do this to yourself, Danna?" Deidara's voice was shaking. "I wanted to keep my youth," Sasori continued. "To stay beautiful forever. But to never taste your favorite food, or enjoy the scent of a flower that you just so happen to cross…those things are a mere memory. Sensations of touch are limited only to what you would feel in the first few layers of skin. Temperature, however, I cannot feel, nor does it affect me…I'd say one of the true advantages to being made of wood is that when you fall in the water, you float." Deidara did not find this funny in the least. "But Danna! What if you hadn't joined Akatsuki? What if you would have wanted to start a family or something, un?" "Then I would have killed myself," Sasori spat. "What woman would want this?!" Suddenly, ten large blades held by two steel arms erupted from his back, and the thing in his stomach (which Deidara suddenly realized was a very thick cable) fell out and coiled around Sasori's left leg. "I can add more if I very well please," he continued on the verge of a rant. "But it isn't like I can remove anything. Once it's there, it's there, there's nothing I can do to take it off but make a new body from scratch!" With that, Sasori threw a punch at the stone wall of the cavern, and knocked off a chunk about as big around as a deep dish pizza back in Iwa. "I'm a fucking machine, that's all I am!" Sasori screamed, punching the wall again. "A machine meant to kill, not to enjoy!" "Danna, calm down," Deidara said shakily, slowly backing away. Sasori's head spun around a whole one hundred and eighty degrees, and he said, "I'm a machine, Deidara, I can't calm down…" This had to be the freakiest thing Deidara had ever seen. He was shaking, not sure whether he should run or hit Sasori with something to try and snap him out of it, but he knew that either way, if Sasori didn't calm down, he'd probably eventually take the whole mountain down. He already had a hole six feet wide by two feet deep gouged out of the wall. Deidara did NOT want to find out what Sasori was truly capable of. "Danna…please…you aren't a machine, un…you have a mind of your own!!" This didn't seem to help. Sasori's head spun back into its original position, and he rounded on Deidara. "I have a mind of my own, do I? I think that makes me a fucking robot, which is still a machine, which means I am—" "Machines don't have souls, Danna!" In a stroke of incredibly stupid courage, Deidara reached out and pulled the canister containing Sasori's heart from his chest. Suddenly, all facial features disappeared, and his eyes turned into black pits. Sasori's body collapsed, leaving an empty wooden shell on the floor. In his hand, Sasori's chakra seemed to almost burn his skin. He quickly replaced his partner's heart and watched in amazement, as everything seemed to melt back into place. Deidara was silent, waiting for the punishment that was sure to come. Sasori, spread-eagle on the floor, blinked stupidly, then murmured hoarsely, "Touché…"
