Part 23 Home Truths

The wind rushed through my hair and I felt branches snagging at my clothes but I didn't want to lose sight of them. Makaiko and Hiroaki were rushing up far far ahead and Deidara was going at a break neck speed, I tried to keep up as best I could, I was about five metres behind him but I was further up in the trees. I saw Deidara reach for his clay. Surely he wasn't going to blow them up?! Mind you Makaiko was due to die this year anyway. I could hear Deidara mumbling to himself. But then Makaiko and Hiroaki transformed in to two identical birds and flew off in to the night. I jumped down beside Deidara and drew level with him,
"Fucking hell, what were you trying to do? Kill me?" I glared at him, I really didn't like him and had a lot of reasons to. However I didn't know why he hated me so much. I hunched over wheezing on dramatically before I poked me in the shoulder. "Anybody home?"
He grunted and shrugged my hand off of his shoulder. Grunting, the typical male response. He looked up at the sky seemingly deep in thought, but the cogs in his head had spider's webs all over them. It was more like... elevator music.

His hand spat out the clay but he just let it spiral to the ground, what the fuck was he doing?! Was the femi-man getting angsty? He glanced up at the sky one last time, the two birds were gone.
"Deidara, are you going after her?" he shook his head, "Aren't you going after her?"
"No, I have to find Tobi...hmm." He turned and began to hop back to the clearing.
"Wha-? Wait!" I followed him again, "What do you mean you're not going after her?"
"She doesn't want me too be anywhere near her, yeah. She's made that clear." The male species seems to have the acute feelings of a bloody teaspoon, the memory of a fish and the brains of a bald eagle. I looked at Kotaro who flapped on to my shoulder.
"You've got it all wrong! Her running away like that is her testing to see if you care! She wants you to follow her and comfort her. Trust me, I know how she feels," I'd grown up with Makaiko and I had read between the lines on occasions, I knew that she wouldn't even pretend to love someone as a joke,
"Really." I despair with the male species sometimes I really do, especially when they don't get their own way.

"Deidara can't you see you're letting go of a good thing? She may be the most arrogant, selfish, conceited bitch you will ever meet but she does care for some people and not many at that. You have to be special in her eyes for her to take an interest, for her to willingly protect you and keep you company. She told me long ago..." I turned away. The one reason I never abandoned Makaiko is that she'd once stopped my father, even though she was just a small child, she'd never liked my father after she found out what happened day in day out. She was the one person who wasn't just friends with me because she was in it for money or popularity. I knew she thought Deidara was special and the fact that he was so big headed as not to go after her was just plain stubbornness and stupidness. I felt the tears course down my cheeks, but I wasn't going to let Deidara the S-rank and one of Akatsuki know that I was weak because I wasn't!

I could feel him looking at me he sighed.
"What did she tell you, hmm?"
"She's my best friend and she accepted her fate so easily. She accepted the fact that she'd die by your hands. I don't know how she does it. Everyone she cares for either betrays her or gets killed, and she just carries on waiting for her death to happen. I don't know how she can do that, it would drive me insane." I wiped my tears away and looked at Deidara who was in utter shock, I had a feeling that she hadn't told him.
"What do you mean, she'll die by my hands?"
"Demons, a messed up race they are. They see their own deaths in their dreams. Their actual death. They see the future when they sleep, but only that little bit, over and over. Until they know who, how, where and when they'll die. They can pin it down to a matter of days, they can be that accurate with it. They know exactly how much time they have left, and Makaiko has hardly any. She told me when she'd die, she didn't know for sure, could only calculate the years but..."
"What? What is it, yeah?! I won't kill her! I'd never do such a thing!" He yelled at me as though it was my fault as we both skidded to a halt.

"When we were little, about seven years old, Makaiko told me how many years she had left. She said she had loads of time left and could do loads of things in such a great amount of time. I thought she was going to live to a hundred or something, but instead she said she would die during the year that was eleven years from now. She was seven then and now she's eighteen, sometime this year she'll die and it will all be your fault! So go and apologise to her! Go comfort her! Go after her and make her last few moments happy! She deserves it no matter how much I complain about her! No-one deserves to go through what she has. No-one could bare it..." I dropped my gaze from his and looked behind us at the sky. The stupid piloc had no idea, I hated him because he was going to kill Makaiko and it was breaking her heart to love him and know she must die by his hands, not to mention his village was Iwagakure which killed my whole family and oh yeah don't forget Gaara!
"Where will she have gone, yeah?"
"Huh?" I looked back at him. I had forgotten he was there, lost in my own world of losing, my family, friends, the person I loved and now I was going to lose my best friend as well!
"Can't I just stay away from her, un?" I laughed, remembering saying that myself when she'd told me.
"You know, I asked the exact same thing. Why didn't she just not turn up on that day or just never go to that place? She just looked at me like I was mad and said what's already happened can't be changed. I still haven't figured out what she meant exactly but I gathered that you can't change it no matter how much you want too. She'll die, by your hands at the time and place she's seen and nothing can change that. If you avoid her, you'll bump into her accidently, no matter how careful you are around her you'll still hurt her. There is nothing you can do, it's out of your hands. Good job too, you'd probably end up eating it." I looked disdainfully at his hands, they really were disgusting things, "How does she let you come anywhere near her with those things? Well, guess I'll never know." I shrugged. He seemed really confused about how I could change from utter deep sadness and woe to my normal self in the space of ten minutes.
"I see you've recovered, yeah." he said, "Where will she have gone?"

"Probably to that shrine she always visits. It's a relic of the demon world that fell from the sky centuries ago. It has sentimental value to her. Apparently she knows what it is through the memories of her ancestors. If she's so upset as to run away then she'll go there. She can get back to the demon world through it. Don't tell her I told you about it though, she doesn't know I know that she goes back there from time to time to go over her childhood there."
"But where is it, yeah."
"Take me with you and I'll direct." I beamed at him, finally I'd gotten somewhere and without blackmail, god I was good. Kotaro hopped onto my shoulder we smiled and gave Deidara a peace sign. He looked really scared. Poor, poor Deidre.

"Fine, hmm." He sighed. Before long we were ready to go. But Kotaro was petrified of the giant clay bird. "Can we hurry this up, yeah?"
"We're coming, don't worry. It's alright baby." I cooed at Kotaro,
"What did you call me?!" he snapped, oh he didn't really think I meant him did he? God he had cheek.
"I was talking to Kotaro,"
"Oh, the bird."
"Yes, the bird." I said angrily. I returned to cooing to Kotaro. It seemed to fuel Deidara's anger further.
"Oh for the love of God, hurry up!" he bellowed at me.
"Don't get your lace covered knickers in a twist, Deidara."
"I- what?" He asked confused as I hopped up next to him on the birds back.
"Oh, I know, I know." I said the last bit softly and evilly. I could see that I'd freaked him out with the amount of danger and venom I could impose on him, he shivered even though it was warm.
"Did I ever tell you you're strange, yeah?"
"Did I ever tell you that you look like a girl?" I asked sweetly.
"Yes, did I ever tell you I don't like you?"
"Many times, did I ever tell you I don't like the fact that you have four friggin mouths?"
"Too many to count, hmm. Did I ever tell you that-" but he was interrupted mid Oscar speech by none other than the brainless, gormless form of Tobi.

"Senpai!!" He trilled Tobi knocked him off the bird and flat onto the ground.
"Tobi!!" He roared as he jumped to his feet and began to pound the living daylights out of him. I sighed dramatically.
"Men," Deidre snorted in disgust, he was really starting to bug me, "Wait, let me correct myself." I sighed again, "PMSing women." I crack myself up sometimes, his eyes widened. Then I was ready for the typical hand movements and head dance then him saying, "Oh no you didn't girlfriend," with clicks of course. But what he did so caught me off guard.
"Keitii!" he roared at me and began to chase me instead. Tobi sat in the middle of the clearing, the insult had either washed over him or he was too stupid to care or realise what had been said about him. Tobi obviously hadn't been around women at that time of the month but like hell I was telling him, he'd have to find out for himself.