Before the Iwa nin could collect himself, draw a breath and stop the rabid pulsing of his heart, an arm wrapped itself around his waist and pulled him up into the air. His feet dangled awkwardly in empty space as Tobi shot forward, carrying Deidara under his arm. Flying shuriken, gleaming in the thick moonlight, dug deep into the ground where the two had been a second earlier.

Blond hair fell before his face and whipped at his skin. It was irritating. Almost as irritating as the God damned cricket! Amazing how such a small insect could fill his mind, even in a situation like this.

When at last Deidara found his bearings, Tobi slowed down to a halt in front of a fork in the road. His head twisted right and left, and he whined impatiently. "Go left, un!" the blond shouted, blowing a piece of hair away.

"Right!"

"No, left. And put me down," he added, kicking his legs and just barely skimming the ground with his toes. Damn Tobi's height!

"Roger!" But before Tobi could set the blond down a set of five shuriken targeted them again. The masked shinobi managed to leap away just in time. "Whoa!"

Deidara grunted. He hated being jostled around like this, like some doll or piece of luggage. "Tobi let me go, un!"

He would've, if only whatever enemy hidden away would stop throwing pointy projectiles at his feet. He leapt back again and again, then turned and ran, still carrying Deidara under his arm. Whatever or whoever was following them was fast. They needed to get away. "Soon as I can, sempai!"

Deidara had to tuck in his legs or else have his feet scratched and bruised by the ground and obstacles in the road. No matter how many times he protested, Tobi kept running. At least the man was fast.

At last they stopped in a small grove of trees. As Tobi set Deidara down, he noticed the striking resemblance of this grove of trees to the grove of trees they'd been in just over an hour ago. "Uh oh," he sang slowly. This was the same place.

Deidara muttered an obscenity as Tobi gathered a kunai from Deidara's pack in his hand and stepped before the blond. He ordered for the taller to hand him a weapon. At first the brunet was skeptical, and merely glanced back to make sure Deidara was still in one piece. The seriousness of the Iwa nin's face, the way he furrowed his brow in preparation for battle, assured him of Deidara's intent.

He fished out another kunai and held it out for Deidara to take, wondering how he would be able to hold one without hands. Deidara answered by clamping onto the handle with his mouth, nipping Tobi's fingers. Now he didn't feel so helpless. He'd managed to fend off several ninja single-handedly before, armless. This time should be no problem.

The incessant chirping of the cricket, which had been going on since their departure from camp, came to an abrupt halt. An eerie silence of night fell in.

"We know you're there! C'mon—OW!" Deidara kicked the back of Tobi's leg. Way to reveal their position, dumbass.

More weapons flew in response to the cry. They shot from behind, and Deidara was able to dodge most of them. Two needles plunged into his left thigh while one hit Tobi in the back. The masked man quickly pulled the weapon out.

The blond turned to face the enemy ninja, pressing his back against Tobi's. A soft chuckle emanated from the shadows cast by the trees. "Just like a mouse cornered." The cocky voice sounded female, and young.

Hand on her hip, the raven-haired kunoichi of the Sound walked into the moonlight. She wore the regular Sound ninja uniform: dark blue-gray camouflage and headband, tied around her throat. Earrings in the shapes of small bells jingled with each step.

So this was who had been following them? Deidara nudged Tobi in the back. But the tall man did not move. Biting hard onto the leather surface of the handle, Deidara guessed there must have been more than one person tailing them. He was right.

The teenage kunoichi jerked her head, signaling for the others to move into place. Deidara glanced right and left. There were two others, each having a similar outfit to that of the female. One wore a large butt-bow, the other sported a sword sheath upon which his hand lay. "I see you're not from these parts."

Fuck. He only noticed just then the cold pressure on his forehead. "Explain."

"Deidara-sempai and I are just passing through," Tobi answered flatly, keeping his mask on the two.

The kunoichi's coal eyes narrowed. "Passing through to where?" her slow voice dripped with suspicion.

"To the Aka—gah!" Tobi yelped as the blond nudged him roughly. One dark eyebrow rose on the kunoichi's face.

"Akaga? What's that?"

"Oh, um…" Tobi straightened up and tapped the bottom of his mask. "Just a small village on the outskirts of the Land of Rice Fields. On the northeastern side. Yeah, that's where."

The girl frowned. "Is that so?" Tobi nodded, still not turning to face her. "Never heard of it." Deidara breathed in sharply. Distrust was obviously growing. If Tobi didn't learn to lie more convincingly, they were doomed.

"Well, it's pretty small. But they've got some good plants there," he added quickly. "And I have this friend, see, who likes plants."

The kunoichi regarded the back of his head like the idiot he was. Slowly she lifted a hand to her ear and flicked the bell. Both Akatsuki flinched as pain shot through their ears. "You actually expect me to believe that?" she chuckled with a sly smile.

Deidara bared his teeth at her, his face twitching from the throbbing pain.

A kunai twirled in her hand, then came to an abrupt stop, she eyeing the pair with a proud smirk. "Orochimaru-sama told us to capture any suspicious characters," she said and held up the weapon menacingly. "So I suggest you not resist."

All three Sound ninja approached. Deidara heard the screech of a sword being drawn and the jingling of chains. Both Akatsuki stepped back, pressing against each other, surrounded. Blue eyes kept glued to the kunoichi while Tobi's darted between both shinobi.

The masked man yelped again as something pushed him, sending him tumbling forward. The Sound shinobi, not far from him, moved out of the way as Tobi tripped twice, stopped in mid-fall, then bounced into a run. "Fuck! Get him!" the kunoichi, hypnotized by the show, screamed to her comrades.

They listened and followed. She turned back to the blond. "You," she growled, then chuckled.

Deidara scowled; he knew what she found so funny. Finding the need to clarify, the kunoichi started a series of insults to make at the armless blond. "You gonna fight me, Stubby? Don't you need your partner to give you a hand? Ha!"

The blond growled, wishing to the heavens to shut her up with a good bomb. His foot scratched against the dirt and he burst into a run. But before he could get more than a few feet, a piercing, drilling, shrill sound rang in his ears. It hurt so badly that it paralyzed him.

Squinting his eyes, Deidara turned his head back to the girl, who smirked triumphantly, her hand to her ear and ready to flick again. The blond's eyes widened with realization. So that was it. The sound of the cricket returned.

Meanwhile Tobi also came to a stop. But it wasn't because of a pain in his ears. It was because of a pain in his chest. He stopped before a pack of trees to face the two ninja. Though they'd probably run for some time (at least a few seconds), their distance wasn't that far from the clearing. If he concentrated, he could just make out the gleam of Deidara's yellow hair in the moonlight.

Cursing, Tobi held out his kunai to the ninja, and announced boldly, "We mean you no harm. Just leave us alone. Please?" he added weakly in a sweet whimper. Butt-bow chuckled, swinging the chain with a blade at the end faster, making a sound like a fan. Gulp.

Deidara tried to side-step again and again, trying to get away or find some area the sound waves faltered in. But each time he tried the kunoichi interfered. A log, stone, tree, or clump of leaves would suddenly appear or disappear each time he moved, and the pain would returned, sending a stale shiver up and down his spine. Like nails on a chalkboard.

She was using a sound technique. By manipulating her chakra, she could control the sound waves the bells made, increasing or decreasing their pitch to her liking. And by doing that, she could mess with the enemy's senses, in this case Tobi and Deidara's.

The blond artist couldn't help but smile a little, silently thanking Sasori no Danna. Despite the situation he felt a small twinge of remorse in his stomach, and probably of longing. Nothing like a puppet's quick scorpion tail to take care of enemy ninja.

Instead he had…Tobi. The idiot better have gotten away. "So you gonna give up? Put your hands in the air and say you surrender." Damn her.

He didn't know what caused him to do it (maybe it was her horrible puns), but suddenly his legs were moving, fast, and the girl's shocked form was coming up. Bending his leg, Deidara roughly kneed her in the stomach, making her grunt and gasp.

Turning his head, Deidara slashed at her throat with the kunai in his mouth. Recovering quickly, she blocked the kunai with her own and grabbed onto the blond's leg and flung him down onto his back. Air whisked out of him, and his brain felt ready to explode out his forehead. The hard surface of the kunai handle banged against his teeth and rattled the rest of his skull. Deidara kicked his leg out of her grip and used his other leg to swipe her off her feet.

The kunoichi fell with a small scream. Two inner thighs and the heals of a pair of feet digging into pulsing veins encompassed her neck. He had her.

Now who's laughing? Deidara thought, and, just for the hell of it, That's what happens when you try to get ahead of yourself.

Unlike another dark-haired ninja, however, this girl was smart. She grabbed Deidara's shins and tried to pry them away. Deidara started the process of choking her. The familiar gag that followed made him smirk delightedly.

It soothed him, made him feel as though nothing could defeat him. He couldn't be defeated. Even armless, he was better than a Sound ninja, better than any ninja. Only a good explosion could make that moment perfect.

Then it all disappeared.

A sharp pain rippled up and down his leg. Something sharp and wide was forcing its way through the side of his foot, digging and moving right and left, through muscle and bone alike.

It hurt like hell! Deidara opened his scrunched eyes to see what it was that was causing this agony.

The kunoichi was hurriedly drilling her kunai into his foot, and though her face was a dark shade of red, her strength did not abate. The blond bit down, hard, on the kunai handle.

Now it was a race. Who would give in first? The shinobi or kunoichi? It had to be her, he decided.

As the pressure on her neck increased, so did the ferocity of the knife. It pierced his skin with minimal effort, sliced through the thin layer of tissue, and scrapped against the bone. Nerves in the bone pounded with pain as she carved. He could hear it, sickeningly scratching away.

At last he couldn't take it any longer. He released her, recoiling his legs away and sitting up. She gasped and coughed as oxygen filled her lungs.

Deidara winced at the sight of his injury. On the inner side of his right foot a deep crimson clouded and spread across the white fabric of his sock. He dared not look into the side hole from where the warm liquid dripped.

"You fucking piece of shit!"

A sandal connected with Deidara's face, sending him sideways into the dirt. Somehow the kunai stayed in his mouth.

Before the Sound kunoichi could have a chance at another kick, Deidara scrambled to his feet and belted into a run. He let out a muffled howl of pain at the first step her took, then stumbled and fell to his knees two seconds later.

Deidara stood up, his knees shaking with pain. He tried moving his weight to his left but when he did, the needles from earlier, still plunged deep into his thigh muscle, sent out small shocks of pain. There was no choice. Somehow, he had to fight and defeat the kunoichi with both legs injured.

Right on cue, the female appeared, as if a ghost, out of the shadows cast by full tree branches blocking the moonlight. "Enough of this game of cat and mouse already!" she hissed.

Slowly the kunoichi reached up to her ear and held the bell with her thumb and forefinger. Immediately the sound of the cricket, which had been present throughout the battle, ceased.

Tobi, noticing this, turned his head. "Gosh, I hope Deidara-sempai's okay," he mused, putting a finger to his mask.

He looked down from his perch. Below him hunched the two tired and panting Sound shinobi. So far their own battle was going pretty okay. It was fun throwing these guys off and messing with their heads with quick movements. "You guys gonna give up yet?" Tobi asked them, hands on his hips.

They glared up, baring white teeth. Guess not. The brunet let out a low groan.

Forefinger and thumb ran over the golden surface of the bell earring, glinting in the opaque lighting. She was toying with him, waiting for him to keel over.

Deidara glowered at her, hating her to the core for fucking up his ankle and thigh. If only he could reach his clay. Even without hand-mouths, he could still force chakra into the white matter and make it explode on command. But that would require complex movements of which he was unable to conjure thanks to the bleeding hole in his foot.

She clicked her tongue, bored with this waiting. Slowly, the raven-haired kunoichi released the bell and spread her hand, curling in her middle finger and thumb. In one quick motion she set the bell into a ringing fit.

Deidara scrunched his eyes, prepared to feel the needle pain in his ear. But nothing came. He blinked, then blinked again. Still nothing.

He blinked a third time. Nothing. But…

The blond shinobi stumbled back. The heel of his foot banged against a fallen log and he stopped. Eyelids suddenly heavy he swayed. The kunai, which he had been holding onto fiercely, fell from his mouth with a thick coating of saliva on the handle.

His eyelids drooped down, connected, and glued together. They broke apart seconds later and fell again. Solid ground which had stood just beneath him disappeared as the world turned sideways. Deidara was unconscious before hitting the ground, and a good thing too. Needles digging further into one's muscle tissue had to hurt.