So. Kisame's POV. Yup.

Maddie is technically an OC, but of course I based her off my dear, dear friend. You see, she has her own story, in which she tortures me to no end, so I had to put her in mine. By this point she is dead, because Eris got fed up and killed her. She has a nasty tendency to run her mouth, Itachi hates her, and she has ribbons instead of fingers, which we call "fribbons".

And just to avoid confusion, when Zetsu talks in italics or not it indicates which personality is talking.

And Now Kisame Tries to Muscle in on the Happy Story

"I don't understand it, yeah!" Deidara wailed morosely, flapping the knife through the air. "I used to be able to cook just fine!"

Kisame heard him from out in the hall, but he did not even try to imagine Deidara actually being good at the process of making meals; it just didn't seem right. As far as he was concerned, Deidara didn't do anything right - at least, that was the mantra Itachi advocated. Although, maybe it wasn't entirely true, because something certainly smelled heavenly.

Led into the room by the nose that dragged him along of its own volition, Kisame treaded carefully over to the tray sitting provocatively and unguarded on the island counter in the middle of the kitchen. There appeared to be a massive amount of some sort of meat patties cooling, and since Deidara was holding his forehead in one hand and muttering to himself, Kisame figured they were free to whoever could take one up without being noticed.

The one he plucked off the small mountain was still hot, so he blew on it quietly and wolfed it down before Deidara could possibly object. Despite his initial worries, seeing how Deidara was the one who had made it,Kisame found that it actually tasted… great.

"Hey, Deidara," Kisame hailed conversationally, reaching for another slab of meat, "it looks like you're not a total waste after all; these things are pretty good."

Deidara twitched and glared at him murderously, a strange and evil-looking glint in his eye. "I did not make those," he growled, clutching at the knife like it was the only thing that tethered him to the sane world.

"Oh. Sorry," Kisame murmured. "… Then who did?" At this point he was really just trying to fill up the dark and threatening silence building up like a terrible storm.

"How the hells should I know? They were sitting there when I walked in, yeah."

And that was it. Nothing else was coming from Deidara, so Kisame shrugged and was about to bite into his second when a scornful voice interrupted him with his hand halfway to his mouth.

"Those are mine," Zetsu sneered from the door. "Yeah, mine!"

Kisame froze, eyeing him suspiciously. "Really? It's real tasty. I didn't know you could even cook, Zetsu."

"You actually like it? Well, that's probably because I rarely get the opportunity to bring back a fairly fresh corpse."

Kisame gagged, unconsciously hurling the traitorous meat from him. "Are you serious?" he wheezed. "And I actually enjoyed that?"

"It's not really all that bad, is it? And I will thank you not to take any more, no matter how much you enjoyed them."

Zetsu loomed over and swept the tray off the counter, muttering to himself - quite literally - as he glided away about the deplorable condition of the world when you couldn't even leave your flesh patties out to cool without someone helping themselves.

Kisame tried wiping the taste out of his mouth with his fingers, but it didn't help that much; now the taste of human flesh and his own skin lingered in his mouth.

"It's funny how when you have a preconception of how something tastes you know it tastes horrible no matter how much you actually like it, isn't it?" Deidara sneered pointedly, curling his lip back at Kisame.

"Thuyup, Gheyawa," Kisame snapped, trying to find something with which to erase the taste in his mouth. Spotting a bottle on the counter, he scooped it up and stole a large swig before he even knew what he was drinking.

"And now you've nearly emptied my bottle of cooking alcohol, yeah. Thank you."

"Augh!"

Deidara was spitefully blocking the faucet from Kisame's reach, and the first thing that occurred to Kisame was to speed out to the bathroom and stick his mouth directly under the cool water. The stream that glided over his tongue smoothly and soothed the foul tastes burning his mouth. Wiping off the droplets loitering at the corners of his mouth with the end of his sleeve, Kisame trudged back to through the kitchen on his way to the main hall, where he would undoubtedly wait purposelessly for something interesting to happen.

"And he returns like a plague to wreak havoc upon the kitchen," Deidara muttered loudly, slicing with renewed vigor at something that looked suspiciously like cucumber.

"Pipe down, you little mutant."

"Oh, yes, that's right; I forgot that everyone these days looks like the missing link between man and fish."

Kisame felt his temper flare before he turned and snapped his hand around Deidara's neck, shoving him up against a stretch of bare wall.

"I've had it up to here with your quips," he snapped, subconsciously gnashing his teeth. "You've always been a pest, but I have to admit you've really outdone yourself this time." He punctuated his words by putting more force behind his hand and repeatedly slamming Deidara into the wall.

Deidara hardly even reacted. He certainly didn't even quiver - if anything he looked smug. "Thank you; I try, yeah. And now, if you could so kindly release me, I could proceed with make myself some dinner," he added, pulling at Kisame's fingers with both hands.

"You really think it's that easy, don't you?" Kisame marveled.

"Yeah," Deidara replied. And that was when he bit Kisame's hand,

"Ech!" Kisame whipped back his hand and examined the tiny teeth marks on his hand. He wiped it off on Deidara's cloak and looked up at him oddly. "That's really disgusting."

Deidara seemed about to wretch. "You taste disgusting," he retorted, bending over the sink like he was about sick up. He shuddered several times and gave a few dry heaves before he sighed dramatically and relaxed against the counter.

"I'm so sorry," Kisame said with venomous courtesy, observing curiously while Deidara held his hands under the faucet and gargled the water for a minute before spitting it out. "We can't all be perfect, you know."

"I have come reluctantly to grips with that fact, Kisame." Deidara dried off his hands on a handy towel. "I'm sure that must have come as such a blow to you."

"You know what? I think we should just stop," Kisame suggested wearily. "I think you're so used to having Sasori around to scrap with you've started taking it out on everyone else. Namely, me."

To Kisame's surprise, Deidara actually looked like he was mulling it over.

"Maybe you're right," he conceded, "but you must remember that we're both short a partner here, and your partner is the one who ran off for no apparent reason, whereas my partner has been sent to fetch your partner back again."

Kisame felt the flaring again. "I don't know what the hells is your problem, Deidara - although I can surmise there is more than one - but you need to stop. Now. Leader's going to be really pissed when I kill you."

"You don't have the guts," Deidara stated frankly, flirting with disaster. "You're too afraid of the repercussions."

"True," Kisame admitted, holding his chin in his hand, "but why don't you try not being so sore about getting left behind while Michiko partners up with Sasori to go find Itachi."

Deidara gave no sign that this disturbed in the slightest, turning back to his cutting board, picking up the knife, and violently dicing the squash lying there, defenseless. "Well, the logic behind it makes sense; neither of them are bothered by the cold." He paused to scrape the squash into a small bowl. "But in reality Sir Leader thinks that Michiko is more likely to find Itachi than the rest of us because they lu-urve each other," he explained bitterly, attacking the ham.

"You say that like you have evidence to refute it."

Deidara's scowl darkened and he muttered something that sounded an awful lot like, "Of course." He proceeded to stab the meat repeatedly, mutilating it beyond recovery.

"Jeez, take it easy there -"

"IwillnottakeiteasyyouhavenoideawhatI'mtalkingaboutorwhatit'slikesojustshutupandleavemealoneyoublastedskulk!"

Tension hung in the air to go along with Deidara's expression of bent and twisted fury. Kisame was about to turn and leave Deidara alone with his issues when there was a heavy knocking - more of a pounding, really - at the door, and moments later it burst open and hit the wall with enough force to begin slamming shut again until Sasori straight-armed it.

The snow still swirled around powerfully and escaped the outdoors; a few adventurous squalls forced their way through the main hall and straight into the kitchen, which sent Deidara shivering.

"C-c-cold," he muttered gruffly. "'S not s-supposed to b-b-b-be this c-c-cold."

Kisame could not quite describe it later when he tried recalling the scene, but when Deidara realized who had to be there he transformed completely. He warmed and opened up like a flower (and Kisame tried not to think of the word "gamboled", because it did not befit an Akatsuki member, but that's the only word that captured the way Deidara skipped and flounced playfully over to the door).

Kisame followed somewhat close behind, arriving in the main hall just before Eris slammed the door shut behind herself and Sasori, who managed to carry Michiko in between them. Deidara paused at the sight and hung back a moment before he assessed the situation and swung off his cloak, wrapping it around Michiko and taking her up in his arms.

"What happened, yeah?" he asked, suddenly all business-like, as if he hadn't just been as plastered as a puppy when its master comes home after the first separation.

Sasori tried to respond, but Deidara cut him off.

"Never mind; she's really cold. Did you leave her out to chill in a drift or something?"

"She's always cold, Deidara."

A few of the other members began to filter into the hall at this point, wondering what the commotion was about.

"Not this cold, yeah."

"And you have a reliable reference more Michiko's body temperature, do you, brat?"

"Of course I do," he replied indignantly. "Myself." And Deidara swept out of the room with Michiko curled like a rag doll against his chest.

The others were mute a few minutes, looking at each other silently, trying to piece together what they had missed. However, Kisame was the first to make some sense of it all.

"Deidara talks like he is intimately familiar with Michiko's internal thermometer."

Everyone turned to stare when Zetsu spoke surreptitiously from the corner of the room. "He's shamelessly libidinous," he murmured.

Awkward shuffling at the bluntness of Zetsu's remark. But they all turned on Sasori soon after. Hidan was the first to get a question in.

"What the fuck happened out there?"

Sasori glared at him noncommittally. "It would be best to wait for Sir Leader to join us, since he will undoubtedly want to hear as well."

But the whole purpose of the mission niggled at the back of Kisame's mind, and he could not help but notice that Itachi was not there. "But, did you find Itachi?"

Eris turned to him and might have pulled off looking apologetic if it weren't an emotion obviously foreign to her. "Of course we did; I only hope you get landed with a better partner next time around."

It took a moment for the intention of the words to fully register in Kisame's mind, but once they did his mind made itself oblivious to what it meant.

"Stop talking in fucking riddles, Eris. And I thought we left you behind…?"

Eris bristled and shot Sasori an "Oh, really?" look that made Kisame shiver.

"Itachi's not dead," he muttered unconvincingly. "It just doesn't work that way…"

"He was stabbed," Sasori explained carelessly, trying to clarify while skirting the main issue. "He was several days dead when we found him."

"Itachi actually got himself killed?" Kakuzu asked shrewdly. "I figured that would take a while yet; he seemed unnaturally astute."

"It was sort of unavoidable, you see," Eris started, "because -"

"We are waiting for the Leader, Eris," Sasori reprimanded, scowling very pointedly and very briefly at her.

"Fine."

"I'm glad you agree."

"I'm sorry you can't tell that I don't agree."
"I'm sure you are."

"Shut up."

"Fine."

The silence that ensued gathered force and became a very loud silence. The kind of silence made by people who are absolutely not talking to each other. It made Kisame grin; Eris had been back hardly several minutes and they were at each others throats again.

"What is all this fuss about?" Sir Leader asked imperiously as he swept into the room. After a lull, he pinned Eris with his hawkish gaze. "Nice to have you back," he grumbled.

"Pardon me if I don't believe you, Sir," Eris replied just as awkwardly.

If they had all been a little more cunning they might have noticed something off about that situation, but they were instead rather eager to hear the results of Sasori and Michiko's excursion. Kisame did notice that Sasori did look a touch shaken, but he dismissed it when Eris spoke, seeming about to burst with enthusiasm.

"Itachi stabbed himself!" she exclaimed. "Pinned himself to a tree with his own katana!"

While everyone else busied themselves being stupefied, Sasori jumped down her throat. "You amaze us all with your subtlety and perceptive grasp of the situation, Eris."

"Leave off, you chauvinist pig!"

Eris disappeared in a blossom of octane fire.

The hush when she left was an appreciative one, and Kisame was sure everyone else enjoyed the silence as much as he did. "Hey, Sasori," he called, smirking sharkishly, "did I miss something, or have you always chased Eris off that quickly?"

Sasori seemed not to hear him, turning instead to Leader and elaborating on Eris' blunt remarks.

"And you are sure he was dead?" Sir Leader asked when Sasori finished.

"There was no evidence to support anything else; it must have been at least half of his blood pooled and dried down his chest. Itachi and Michiko now have the same skin pigment," he added with what might have been a smile. "None."

Leader groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well, we'll have to find a replacement, obviously. Preferably someone equally as incisive, cold-blooded, and callous."

"Shit; we're going to be hard put to do that."

"Why not ask Michiko?" Kakuzu put forth perceptively, trying to shut up his partner. "The two of them were almost identical in composure."

"Tobi has been waiting for a long time, though. I'm not suggesting we take him," Zetsu added when the others gave him disturbed looks. "I was just pointing it out."

"Zetsu's right," Sir Leader agreed. "Tobi is a fallback. I only wonder if Michiko can be convinced…"

"Maybe if -"

"Sorry, what was that?" Deidara asked, reentering the room. "What's going on, yeah?"
"Itachi's dead, Deidara," Sasori remarked offhandedly. "Suicide. Anything you might be able to explain about that?" he added, surprisingly cutting.

"What?" Deidara spluttered, surprised by the audacity of the insinuation. "What are you talking about? I just set Michiko down and came back -"

"You were gone a rather long time for having simply set her down."

"I was gone maybe, what, five, ten minutes at most?"

"Still."

"Yeah. What the fuck were you doing?"

"What's going on, guys?" Michiko asked softly, skulking up from behind Deidara and flowing to wobbly stop next to him.

"Itachi's committed suicide, Michiko."

"What?" She looked mortified, her expression crumpling, eyes tearing up.

Kisame shot a questioning look at Sasori. "I thought she was there."

"Eris erased that particular memory of hers," Sasori replied, as if Michiko weren't standing right there.

"She what? And you let her? You bastard! Who are you to decide what memories I get to keep?"

"You rather 'snapped', Michiko, and I thought you might not want to have that memory haunting you. Maybe I was wrong."

"What… What happened?"

"Are you sure you want to know?" Sasori asked in a tone that implied Michiko really didn't want to know. "Are you sure? In front of everyone?"

"It can't have been that bad…"

Kisame eyed Sasori speculatively, wondering where this odd, slightly considerate puppet had come from.

Sasori sighed, resigned, and gave a half-hearted explanation. "You see, first thing when you found him - yes, you found him - you sort of froze, and you had this cracked grin on your face. And - be sure to stop me if you start to feel you would rather not know… no? Okay then. After the initial shock you laughed. That was all for a while, the laughing, and then you started messing up his hair like it was some sort of victory, and by that time Eris showed up, and next thing you've dug yourself space in the snow so could cuddle with and kiss his corpse. And then Eris put you to sleep because she was worried about your mental health. We came back. You were out like a light and then Deidara just swooped in like a starved vulture and carried you off… And here we are now. Whoop-de-doo."

Michiko was shaking, leaning heavily against the wall as if trying to garner support from it. "…Lies…" she mumbled, barely pushing that lone word past her quivering lips. "Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies lies lies lieslieslieslieslieslieslieslies…"

She went on like that for a while, repeating it like some sort chant that would help everything, somehow. Everyone was drifting away, bored by the prospect of listening to her moping, and yet not wishing to talk over her. Somehow it didn't quite feel right to Kisame… as right as anything can be in a group of eight homicidal men.

Seven, now, Kisame reminded himself. Dammit. I don't want her as a partner…

"I want it back." Michiko startled everyone with her sudden recovery, domineering all over again. "My memory; I want it back. Now."

The proposition of another argument tugged at them all, drawing them slowly but surely back to the hall. Realizing that the demand was directed at him, Sasori was the first to return. Besides Deidara, that is, but that didn't count because he hadn't even left to begin with.

"I'm not really at liberty to promise you anything, Michiko, due to the fact that Eris is nowhere to be found."

"Oh bull. You haven't even looked."

"True, but once I start she'll be nigh on impossible to find until she wants to be found, and even then -"

Sir Leader silenced Sasori with a wave of his hand and cut in smoothly. "I think I can persuade Eris to give back your memory, Michiko, no matter how difficult."

There it was again; the disturbed look that Sasori got, like he was missing something.

"Good. Get it back, then."

"It will be difficult, however, and I would like something from you in return, to ensure that the effort I put into it does not go unpaid," he continued as if there had been no interruption. "You understand me, right?"

By now Michiko and Deidara were both looking at the Leader askance, and did not move until Michiko folded her arms in front of her. "What do you want?"

"Why, I would have nothing more than your consent to join us, Michiko," smiling with his mouth only.

"… Join you? And I assume by this you mean the Akatsuki as a whole and not you all personally."

"That's right."

"… Doesn't sound too bad," she mumbled speculatively, chin in hand. "I assume also that there is good reason," she added, as if she wasn't already fully aware of the reason.

"We need you to replace Itachi," Leader responded drolly, humoring her.

"And that's where you go all wrong," Michiko pointed out satisfactorily. "Someone may supersede Itachi, and substitute for him, but no one is ever going to replace him. No one can ever fill the void left behind by his swollen ego."

A small silence followed as everyone pondered this revelation, marveling at the poetry of it as well. (Except Hidan, who merely waited for the next exciting bit of conversation to crop up.)

"We-ell, alright then. Would you like to be the next in line, then? I understand that aside from the disturbing memory you have no real reason to remain with us now that Itachi is gone. Besides the fact that if you try to leave now we have to kill you."

Michiko twitched to the defensive. "Whoever said I don't have reason to stay?" she asked heatedly, hugging Deidara's arm.

The room filled with arched eyebrows, including Deidara's until he smirked in a very self-satisfied way. Hidan snorted, Kakuzu left, Zetsu went to enjoy a meat patty, Sasori set off in search of Eris, and Sir Leader was the only one left with the two of them. Kisame tore himself away from the spectacle and wandered back to the kitchen once he remembered Deidara's food was unguarded.

He had a feeling something in the mixture was missing, but he picked up a handful of cucumber, squash, and cold ham, stuffing it into his mouth. Kisame thought it had the potential to be succulent; if stewed the squash would probably dampen the sting of the ham, and the cucumber could add the moisture the ham lost during the cooking process. It was altogether an innovative combination, and Kisame assumed that he had gotten the best of the deal, because it seemed that it was the step that involved some sort of cooking that screwed Deidara up.

Kisame sat back and helped himself to another handful, not really thinking about anything but the fact that Michiko would most likely end up as his new partner, and how she would most likely end up totally ignoring him and obsessing over Deidara just like Itachi had obsessed over her.

The way Sasori cross-examined Deidara about Itachi's suicide had helped Kisame piece it all together. Something had happened between Michiko and Itachi in The Land of Lightning, that much was for sure. So Itachi had already been depressed and probably flirting with the idea of suicide, and then he most likely walked in on Michiko and Deidara doing something. Maybe what everyone had thought back when Michiko had first escaped, maybe not. The rest, as they say, was history.

Kisame was proud that he had figured it all out with so little effort on his part. He picked up another victory handful of Deidara's concoction and had it in his mouth when he heard a voice he didn't recognize in the room.

"Kisame!"

Needless to say he was a little disturbed at first, but then recognition hit him like a stale potato. "…Maddie?"

A translucent head adorned with tousled mouse-brown hair poked out of the oven door and grinned. "Hi," Maddie said exuberantly, waving at him.

"I thought you were dead." Not one of Kisame's best moments.

"You living people are so biased like that," she teased, emerging in full from inside the oven.

"I thought people who died were supposed to stay dead."

"Well, you know, there was a fork in the road, and I took the one that looped straight back around. I thought you'd be happy I'm not gone," she added morosely, floating in mid-air with her arms hanging limply perpendicular to the floor.

"No, I am," he corrected expediently, instinct telling him to pat her on the shoulder until his hand passed through her shoulder blade and out her chest. He stared it blankly a few moments before he went on. "I just totally wasn't expecting you to show up. Especially after such a long time. Have you been here all along?"

"Yes," she sniffled, wiping at her eyes with her a fribbon. "I just didn't feel like making my presence known, you know? It was better to lie low and sort of mess things up surreptitiously."

Kisame froze. "What do you mean 'mess things up', exactly?"

"Well, don't you think there's a reason everything Deidara touched that I could get my lucent little fribbons on went horribly wrong?"

"… Do you mean physically or metaphorically touched, Maddie?" Kisame asked, grasping at the flaking straws of his patience. He could feel his grin stretching to a snaggle-toothed sneer. "Because if you're the reason Itachi plus Michiko got so screwed up you really messed things up."

Maddie drew herself up haughtily, ensconcing her fabric fists on her see-through hips. "No, I stuck to things like burning the food and breaking things. I didn't do anything that drastic."

"When did you take such a disliking to Deidara? You weren't even around that long."

"Well, I didn't take a particular disliking to him; in fact, I always thought he was sort of sweet in a wiry, klutzy sort of way. You see, it was Eris who told me how to come back - she said she felt sort of bad for just killing me like that, but I'm not sure how far she's stretching the truth - and she said if I was going to hang around I might as well make Deidara's life comically woeful because if I didn't she could just un-ghost me. So I thought, 'It's in my best interest to put the screws on him.'"

"So you didn't do anything to Itachi and Michiko?"

"I had no reason to; splitting them up would have made Deidara happier. On that note, I'm not sorry to hear that Itachi has joined my number. I'm sorry for Michiko, not him. Although she seems to have bounced back rather quickly."

"Yeah," he groaned. "And now she's going to be my partner. This sucks." And then he realized what the ghostly girl had just said. "How did you know about Itachi?"

"I met him going the other way," Maddie replied simply. "Looked pretty hung over, too." She brightened from her almost somber disposition and chirped, "That reminds me of something."

Maddie ducked back into the oven for a few minutes, and Kisame thought it sounded like she was arguing with someone, but that couldn't be right. She was a ghost now; there was no one else to argue with inside the oven.

She flew back almost ungracefully, as if she had been thrown out, and tried to sit on the table next to Kisame a few times before she stopped sinking through the surface. She sat there a while, staring expectantly at the oven door.

"Oh, fine," someone muttered from inside the oven. "What the hell."

Itachi floated until he was halfway out of the door, ghostly blood dripping from the hole produced by the ghost sword sticking out of his chest. He stared balefully at Kisame with tired, abused puppy eyes.

"Why am I still here?"