Reading Guide
"Hello" Talking
'Hello' Thinking
(Twenty Minutes Later) Time
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece or Naruto.
Laughing to himself he rolled over and went back to sleep. Exactly one hour later he woke and stood, stretching. Smirking he left the apartment and wandered down the streets of Iwa, taking in all the sights and sounds, it was the last time he would be seeing them.
Nodding to himself he made his way to the back of the city. Iwa was built to be defendable, and that it was. Surrounded on three sides by mountains it was nearly impenetrable, and the one side that was left open involved going through a narrow pass guarded by Iwa shinobi. Of course, it was only difficult to deal with if you couldn't fly.
Iwa had made preparations for airborne opponents, but seeing as Deidara had been sure to place bombs in all of the anti-air guard towers on top of the mountains he didn't expect them to be much of a problem.
Reaching the base of the sheer cliff that was the rear border of Iwa, Deidara made a small gesture and waited. A mere moment later one of his special clay birds pulled itself out of a small hole in the ground, and a puff of smoke later it wasn't so small anymore. Looking over his shoulder Deidara eyed the sun. 'Hn, 6:51, I'm early.'
The sun was setting, but there was still plenty of light to be had. 'Fine, I'll wait, un.' As he stood he went through a last minute checklist to see if there was any flaw in his plan that had managed to escape him, but he found none. The nine minutes passed quickly, but even so the ten year old arsonist was ready to go. Hopping onto his bird he soared upwards. 'First off is the guard towers,' he thought to himself. Focusing on the clay that he had planted in each he flared he chakra. "Katsu!"
A ring of explosions occurred all around the mountaintops that surrounded Iwa, rivaling even their greatest fireworks show. Now that the threat they posed was gone and he had gained sufficient altitude Deidara leveled off and floated above the city he had until recently belonged to.
He was about to detonate all of his bombs when something stopped him. For a moment he had no idea what it was, but then he looked down and the lights of Iwa seemed to shiver. 'No,' he realized, 'they're shaking. It's an earthquake.'
Still, the events didn't end there. A moment later there was an explosion of wind from the eastern side of the city, by the entrance. From above Deidara got a prime seat to watch the chaos travel in a straight path across the landscape of Iwa, but as he watched he became aware of two more presences. Looking over to a mountain in the distance he spotted two figures looking down at the city.
Flying upward once again he arched over them before dropping silently behind them. Slowly he took a step forward, and then another. A third step later and he found himself covered head to toe in sand.
Reacting immediately he commanded his bird to jump between the two strangers which it did.
"What's with the bird?" one of the two said as he turned around, red hair glinting in the moonlight.
"It seems to be some sort of explosive," the second figure answered, "So I guess we're at each other's throats."
"Not really," Deidara answered as he crumbled into dust.
Neji's eyes widened. 'What?' Before he could react Deidara dropped from high above where he and the original bird had been staying out of danger.
"Sensing my clone was pretty good, Hyuga," Deidara said. "But you don't seem to have any experience with combat usage of your Byakugan. And you," he looked over at the other kid before it registered. "Wait, who the fuck are you, un?"
"Gaara Haedus," Gaara replied immediately.
"Not what I was going for," Deidara muttered. "And what type of shinobi gives information away like that?"
Gaara shrugged, "I do."
Deidara sighed as he literally facepalmed. It was just a moment, but when he was distracted by the apparent stupidity of the shinobi in from of his bird dissolved into dust. The second remained intact, but the first that he had been using to threaten the two was simply gone.
"Your sand," Deidara realized. "Not bad, Haedus, un. Still, what I really want to know is why two five year olds are sitting up here without a care in the world."
"What are you doing up here?" Neji countered. "A pre-teen girl wandering around after dark is pretty suspicious too."
Deidara closed his eyes. In, out. In, out. Keep the breathing steady. In, out. "KATSU!" he screamed and down below a dozen buildings erupted into flames. In, out. In, out.
Calmed down, Deidara opened his eyes to see the two children staring at him. "She's scary," the Hyuga whispered to his companion. Deidara was livid, but a quirk of fate saved the lives of the two shinobi-wannabes. Just when he was about to blow them to hell and back, the Hyuga's eyes widened and he turned around.
"Gaara, Zoro's found a vault of scrolls."
"Got it," Gaara responded as he slipped into a meditative position.
"What's he doing?" Deidara asked. They Hyuga eyed him distrustfully before sighing.
"My name is Neji Hyuga, and along with Gaara and Zoro we've come to Iwa to stock up on some forbidden jutsu scrolls."
"You're freaking attacking a hidden village?"
"Not really, Zoro is. We're staying back here. I'm using my Byakugan to monitor the situation and Gaara is controlling his sand seals remotely, so it's not that bad."
"Hn," Deidara snorted. "Well, you're about to see why you don't just attack Hidden Villages."
The moment the words left his mouth a chilling aura washed over all those present, including the entirety of the village below. "See? Now your friend's gone and disturbed Han's nap. Normally I would sit back and laugh, but this is bad for me too, un. Good thing I'm prepared until some idiots. Katsu!"
A small explosion appeared down in the valley. "That should keep him out of the fight. For now, at least. I'd estimate about a half-hour," Deidara said as he stretched.
"Well, if you'll excu. . ." he started before he was interrupted by a figure dropping into the conversation. Looking up he noticed that the figure had been riding on a platform of sand.
"We're going," the newcomer said as he grabbed the two other children and disappeared. Deidara stared at where they were dumbly, not really getting it. 'The fuck?'
Deciding that he would wonder about it at a later date, he detonated the remainder of his explosives before talking off in the direction he had felt the newcomer fly off in. 'This should be interesting,' he thought to himself. 'I was wondering what I would find to destroy first once I wasn't held back by the village, and it seems my first target has just gone and volunteered.'
Itachi and his father at in the Uchiha clan's secret meeting room, an uneasy silence in the air. "It's only a matter of time, you know," Fugaku reminded his son.
"Perhaps," Itachi agreed, "But perhaps not." Fugaku's face darkened.
"As long as this continues there are no what if's. We have contributed so much to this village and yet we have received nothing in return. Even that was bearable, but that line was crossed six years ago during the Kyubi attack."
"I know," Itachi spoke up, but he was silenced by his father.
"Our Sharingan might have allowed us to control the beast, and so in an attempt to stop it's rampage we took to the front lines. While the Fourth was preparing for the sealing our clan's shinobi were dying."
"Shinobi die," Itachi said in his ever calm voice. By comparison his father wasn't holding up so well and was noticeably upset.
"Yes," he growled, "They do. But, have you ever looked closely at the Monument to the Fallen Shinobi of Konoha? On that rock is the name of every single shinobi who died in the fight against the Kyubi, but not a single Uchiha is listed. You know as well as I do that dozens of us died, but not one was acknowledged. Not only that, but we were even accused of controlling the beast to begin with!"
"So we rebel?" Itachi asked.
"Yes," Fugaku growled. "So what if we fail? In the end that will just make our point even more clear. We can hardly walk the streets the citizens hate us so much! We have it worse that Naruto, at least he doesn't have to worry about getting hurt. Just last week Usuma was hospitalized because a mod attacked her. The villagers would never attack Naruto, they're too scared of the demon, so any non-shinobi in our clan winds up taking the blows instead."
"So we simply give in?"
Fugaku's eyes narrowed, his pride was on the line. "That's exactly what we're not doing. Even if we die in the attempt, we'll make this village see just what it's been doing to us. Hell, we'll even make the lives of those in other clans better, you know how the civilians look at them to. Not like us, something to be feared, but rather as something foreign."
"By rebelling we would only worsen the image of the clans."
"No, they have brought this upon themselves and we shall make that abundantly clear. We can tolerate not being respected. We can tolerate not having a single Hokage come from our clan. We can even tolerate being openly despised, but I and the rest of the clan are not willing to simply sit by and allow ourselves to by blatantly attacked by the civilians. Some shinobi have even joined in on it."
"You'll be villanized," Itachi warned.
"So? In the end we are in the right, and that is what matters."
Itachi sighed. 'This wouldn't be so difficult if we were as arrogant as everyone seemed to think. The reason things even got this far was because the arguments my father made are entirely true, we're suffering while others make us out to be the bad guys.'
"I have an alternate solution," Itachi offered. Fugaku raised an eyebrow as he waited for his son to continue. "You know Naruto, right? Even we've taken the brunt of the Kyubi hatred, he has felt it as well. I feel that we should take him in and train him, if we can clear Naruto's name then that will clear ours as well."
"And of course, worst case scenario we are forced to rebel for the very reasons you've already mentioned and we have a trained Jinchuriki on our side."
Fugaku was silent for a moment, but then he smiled slightly. "Fine. I'm actually rather glad it came to this, I know all about Danzo and your orders from the Hokage."
Itachi's mask broke at that as he displayed open shock. "And you were still going to rebel?"
"Of course, we all knew. We knew we were going to die, but it would make this village a better place. You know as well as I do that over the past few years most of the civilian Uchiha have been moving to other small non-shinobi villages, they didn't want to get caught up in this. The ones who have stayed, we're willing to die for what we believe in and that's that."
(A/N: Hello all, what's up? I recently received a comment from a guy called Luciano and if said guy is reading this it would be great if you could contact me in some way, I didn't get your email via the comment because this site filters them out. On another note, we now know why the Uchiha have backed down. It may seem out there, but when you actually look at the series it's hinted that the Uchiha were being targeted every bit as much as Naruto was and that was the main reason why they rebelled. Well, either way see you next time and please review!)