"Oh, yes, you can definitely have one of them I found," the Nibi purred, smiling as if drugged. Shukaku made a noncommittal sound in reply, staring ahead of him. He knew Nekomata had a soft spot for him, but he hadn't ever expected it to pay off like this. "Just just, ah, need to wait for it…"
"What?" He turned to face her, narrowing his eyes. "What do you mean?"
She laid her ears back against her head, frowning. "Nothing! It's just that one of them got away from us earlier, but-but it will definitely come back to rescue the others, so it's just a matter of waiting."
"…" There was a certain amount of logic in it, even if it was her logic. "…Fine."
She purred happily, ears perking up again. "It really is a pretty body. Akatsuki, too. The hair's a bit long, but you can always cut that--"
They had just come around the corner to find a sleeping Sanbi with a blonde human perched on top of his shell.
The blonde human--the one Nekomata had let get away--gave a guilty start, leapt off of Isonade's shell, and made a run for it. That awoke the Sanbi, just as Nekomata jumped over him to pursue the Akatsuki member.
Shukaku just sighed.
-.-.-
Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit--Deidara thought, sprinting down the hall. Thank the gods that he had restocked on clay, otherwise he'd be screwed. As it was, he might've very well been screwed anyway. He was in an unknown building swarming with Bijuu, heading away from his only allies in the entire place.
He threw out a hand to steady himself as he rounded a corner, his other hand greedily chewing on a mouthful of clay. Behind him, the Nibi howled something unintelligible. Deidara swallowed heavily. He was slower than the Bijuu without a bird, and his head start had been tiny.
Just as the cat demon was about to pounce on him, his left hand-mouth spat out a phoenix. Deidara couldn't help but grin as he ducked under the demon's paws, maximizing the bird and grabbing its tail feathers to haul himself up. The bird wove its way out from under the Nibi, shooting up towards the ceiling of the corridor. As it was, he was about level with the demon's ears. It made several lunges at him, but he managed to dodge each time, just centimeters from death.
Deidara rounded a corner on his bird, the cat right behind him, extended claws clicking on the stone floor. He looked back towards it, eyes wide as he noticed that the Nibi was much closer than he'd thought--and he thought it had been cozy to begin with. The blonde turned his gaze forward again.
The Rokubi was running down the other end of the hall towards him, six tails waving in excitement.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit--
He had already passed the only door in the entire hall. Perfect. Deidara looked back and forth between the two demons in the spare seconds before he would get crushed or killed or captured. There was no way out of this; no handy rooms or other hallways to escape into. Nothing but the two Bijuu and the stone--
Deidara grinned. It wasn't a happy, gleeful, or even manic grin (like his usual ones). It was a grin of pure uncertainty. He was an Iwa-nin, but it had been years since he'd last attempted an escape via stone. Oh well. It wasn't like he had any other choice.
Making seals just as they were about to collide, he jumped off of the phoenix. The two demons, barely skidding to a halt before running into each other, watched in horror as the blonde artist sunk into the rock below like it was water. Then, in their faces, the clay bird exploded.
Deidara had no idea where he was coming back out. He hoped it was relatively close to where Hinata and Hidan were, though. He stepped cautiously out of one of the walls, keeping half of his body in it in case he needed another getaway. No signs of any malicious beasts. That was good. He heard a distant explosion echoing down the massive corridors. That was good, too. At least he was far away from two of them.
Oh well--they were bound to know he was here now, and he had a fast escape if needed. "Heeeey! Bya-chan, where are you?!" Deidara cupped his hands around his mouth, amplifying his voice. It echoed back at him, his only reply.
He jogged down the hallway, peeking around a corner first to make sure it was demon-free. Oh, shit. It wasn't; the Sanbi was sitting there, looking miffed. That meant that he was back near the prison, right?
Deidara melted into the stone again, calculating roughly where he should reappear. If it was a room they were trapped in, he should be able to gain access to it. He reappeared in another room. The thing that first caught his attention was the solid tang of chakra in the air. The second was that the Sanbi was sitting right next to him.
"Waa--" A hand clamped over his mouth, preventing his shout of alarm. Blue eyes slid up to look into white ones.
"Shh!" Hinata hushed, slowly letting go of him. Deidara grinned and pounced on her, picking her up and twirling her around. "Deidara-kun, put me down, now's not the best time--!!"
"I'm just glad you're alive, yeah!" he replied in a whisper.
"Yeah, nice to see you to. Fag." Hidan looked up from where he was leaning against the wall, arms crossed. "'Bout time you got your ass in here. So how are we getting out?"
"I barely know how I got in," Deidara responded flatly, glaring at him over Hinata's head. "I have no idea what this place is, what its layout is, or if it's completely stone--"
"Yeah, it's all fucking stone, okay? It's an old Akatsuki hideout." Hidan pushed off of the wall, glancing at the Sanbi just outside the cell. "Now get us the hell out of here before the shithead notices you're in here."
"How?" the blonde proposed, letting go of the kunoichi. He planted his fists on his hips. "I can only get around via the rock, and I don't know how you two could, yeah."
"I can get us out of the cell itself. After that, I have no fucking idea." The immortal shrugged. "If you can cause a distraction…"
"That I can do!" Deidara chirped, grinning evilly. "Open the cell door and the Sanbi won't know what hit him."
Hinata fretted, but kept silent. She watched, worrying, as the two men strode over to the metal bars. Hidan walked to a specific corner of it, and then grabbed the bar nearest it, lifting upward. Most of the wall fell forward without the support of the ground, unfortunately clanging to the ground just in front of the Sanbi.
"Do you really think that accomplished anything?" the demon inquired dryly.
"Yeah!" Deidara held up a miniature of himself towards the Sanbi. "Meet Karura."
-.-.-
The three shinobi sprinted down the hall. Karura--or what had looked convincingly like the C4--had been nothing but a regular bomb. It made sense; Deidara wouldn't just disintegrate them all to try to attack the Bijuu, but it meant that it did minimal damage and little to distract the Sanbi; mostly just pissed it off.
The Sanbi tore down the hall after them. It was slower than the other demons, but it wasn't skidding around corners or anything like the Nibi had, and it kept shooting water at them that made the stone underneath their sandals slick. After rounding a corner and nearly sliding into the wall, they all kicked off their sandals and continued barefoot. It helped at first, but soon even that was lost.
Then, Hinata noticed that the stone beneath their feet was getting rougher. She activated her Byakugan to look downward--and was horrified at what she found.
The floor was coated in an inch or so of sand. And the volume of it was increasing.
"Stop!!" she screamed, sliding to a halt in the loose sand. Deidara and Hidan both stopped, just a moment after her, clearly about to ask why the hell they wanted to stop when a demon was chasing them. "There's--"
Then the sand below them leapt to life.
Almost all of it went straight for Deidara, wrapping around his body before he could do more than raise his arms. He was lifted into the air as the air was pressed out of his lungs. The Ichibi almost languidly walked around the corner they had been heading towards, single tail raised high with pleasure. "Looks like I caught myself a body," the demon remarked casually. The Sanbi came up behind them, panting slightly from its run, glaring disdainfully at the Ichibi.
Deidara gasped in pain as the sand twisted. Hinata heard a crack, but--what could she do? She was a genjutsu and taijutsu specialist, both of which would do little here; she didn't even have her weapons. She watched in dismay as Deidara gave one last groan, and then his head lolled limply to the side. "Deidara-kun--!"
"Is now mine," the Ichibi finished for her in a growl. He regarded the other two with flat expressions. "Looks like you almost made it…but then again, Pein almost kept us contained, and he almost beat us, and this one--Deidara--almost made it out of here."
"Fucking asshole of a badger," Hidan snarled, narrowing his eyes. Hinata couldn't help but silently agree with the statement. "You were all idiotic animals, unworthy for even slaughter, and now you're thinking you're higher than the gods? Than Jashin-sama? Just because you catch a bunch of fucking kids and destroy a few villages?!"
"Shut up." Behind them, the Sanbi flooded the corridor, much to the Ichibi's irritation. Most of the sand floated loosely to the bottom of the hall, while the ninja were suddenly given one last chance at something, if they didn't drown first. Hinata swam over to pull Deidara out of the weakened sand, trying to pull him upward to the dwindling supply of air at the top of the hall.
But then, all of the water rushed back out, quickly enough that they actually dropped back to the floor. Deidara got back up to his hands and knees, coughing wetly; the impact had awoken him. Hinata helped him to his feet, biting her lip. What had that accomplished? What was it supposed to accomplish?
The answer soon became apparent as she noticed the Rokubi standing beside the Sanbi, its golden fur crackling with static electricity.
"Oh, shit," Hidan said, just as it unleashed a bolt of raw electricity at them.
-.-.-
He had no idea how long he'd been out when his eyes reopened. It was dark. But that was to be expected--after all, the Bijuu couldn't operate light switches…
Deidara sat up, rubbing his head. He felt sore and his chest hurt. From experience, he figured he had a cracked or broken rib. Maybe two. Hinata was laying in his lap, eyes closed and face flushed. He looked down at her, wondering if he should try to get up any further with her on him. Better to; she would need to wake up, anyway…
There were voices outside. They were dim and somewhat hard to hear, but the echoing hallways made it possible. Deidara slithered out from under her and carefully stepped over Hidan, walking over the cell door. It was a wall of bars again, but this time it was obviously cemented quite deeply into the stone. Nothing he couldn't handle…
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a voice said. Deidara's head snapped around guiltily, beholding the Shichibi sitting against the far wall. The badger demon cocked its head to one side, grinning playfully. "I'm under strict orders to squish you all if you try another escape attempt."
"…Squish," Deidara repeated, sparing him a flat look.
The Shichibi waltzed over, seven tails swinging. It was smaller than the other Bijuu, he noted, but he doubted that it was any less powerful. After all, they were ranked by tail number, weren't they? Seven was the third highest… "Oh yes. Just like you, Deidara-san, I am…well, the demon equivalent of an Iwa-nin. This entire structure is stone, as you well know. I can control and manipulate any part of it better than you could ever hope. Now, you wouldn't want your entire cell suddenly collapsing, hmm?"
"Don't call me that, yeah," he snapped.
"What? Deidara-san or an Iwa-nin?" it asked innocently, putting a paw to its mouth. "I'll call you whatever I damn please, human."
Deidara didn't reply. The other voices were slightly louder now, echoing down the hall. The Shichibi sat down by the entrance, folding its paws casually in front of it. Sitting down, it was only about as tall as he was. "…You can listen all you like. It'll probably only be all the worse for you. After all, ignorance is bliss, isn't it?" the demon said mysteriously, eyes glittering.
He scowled, and just tried to listen harder.
"…Yes, I know… That has yet to be decided, Hachimata…"
"…I say we just do it now…"
"I agree…!"
"But… gets who… and how can we decide…?"
"There's three of them now… Later… Only eight of us, so it'll…"
Eight?! Deidara shouted mentally. There were only eight demons?! One of them had died? Or been destroyed…? Neither he nor Sasori knew anything about this. Hidan hadn't done it; otherwise he would have mentioned it, so he doubted that Kakuzu did it, either. That left only Zetsu, or even some other mystery shinobi… at least it lightened their load. A little.
He couldn't help but wonder which it had been, though. Deidara mentally counted them off. Ichi, ni, san, yon…did the Gobi bite it? It was the only demon he hadn't seen yet, aside from the Kyuubi. But somehow, he doubted the world was lucky enough to have lost the Kyuubi already. The logical choice was the Gobi. That had been the one Zetsu had captured. So Zetsu won against it! Deidara pumped a fist in the air, his own situation temporarily forgotten with the rush of elation. Only eight more demons to go!
"Oh, I suppose you shouldn't have heard that," the Shichibi remarked, but it didn't sound overly worried. "No matter."
Most of his joy was lost with that.
Down the hall, the echoed voices floated back to them. "…Nekomata should definitely… she caught them…"
"I should…!!"
"But the… shouldn't go to just anyone…"
"One of the higher-ups should definitely receive that one…" They were probably talking about Hidan. Deidara looked back over his shoulder at the sleeping immortal. Yeah, he was some catch.
"Since Nekomata was the one to have been captured by the immortal, and because she was the one who brought him in, she suddenly has a lot of power. That's what they're arguing about," the Shichibi explained, tapping its claws against the stone. "Of course, it doesn't matter. Hachimata, Youko and I all have already decided who gets who."
"Oh really," Deidara replied noncommittally.
The Shichibi smiled thinly, exposing a few fangs. "Oh, yes. Nekomata gets the female, by her own choice. It's still up in the air who gets the immortal, but from what I understand, you've been given as a gift."
"What." That didn't sound fun. Deidara scowled, wondering why the demon was even sharing this with him. To drive him crazy, or just make him mad, provoke him into a fight?
"You see, Nekomata is quite in love with Shukaku. She is trying to convince Youko to allow you to go to him. Since he had such a part in your capture, I'm fairly certain that he'll allow it."
Shukaku…wasn't that the Ichibi? Of course it is, he thought morosely. But there was still a chance he could get out of this. From the sound of things, the Bijuu all didn't get along perfectly. And there was still arguments over who should get which human body. If he played his cards right… "But…wait. Don't you want me, yeah?" Deidara asked innocently, facing the Shichibi with wide eyes.
The badger looked affronted. "Why?"
"You said so yourself. We're both of the rock and stone. Shukaku can only control his little sand. Wouldn't you like to have a body that already has an affinity for what you use, yeah?"
The Shichibi smiled at him, clearly not taking the bait. "It was a nice try, and I'll admit that it was clever of you. You probably would have succeeded, too, if it wasn't for one very important thing."
"And what is that?" the Iwa-nin asked sourly.
"Right now, I'm the top candidate for the immortal body. You would just be a silver medal, and why would I honestly want that compared to immortality?"
"But--you didn't do anything. The Nibi and Sanbi brought us in, and it was the Ichibi, Sanbi and Rokubi who captured us all again. Why the hell would--" Deidara burst out, but the Bijuu raised a paw to silence him.
"First off, I have seven tails. I'm higher-ranking than all of those."
"So then why not the Kyuubi take Hidan?"
"He doesn't want him., and the Hachibi is holding out for the other immortal. A vain hope, I think, but I'm not going to tell him that. By default, I get next pick."
If the Kyuubi didn't want an immortal body, who in the world did he want? Everyone else was dead. Deidara didn't ask. He was fairly certain that the Shichibi wouldn't have divulged that, but it was already useful information… "So you want him?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the albino man.
"I'll admit, I am less than pleased with the overall physical appearance of the body, but immortality isn't something to pass up. Moreover, in addition to powers of the earth, I can shape shift, so appearance is no problem for me. What's a few scars, anyway?" The longer this conversation continued, the more Deidara hated this demon.
"So then, why are they even arguing?"
"To decide when to seal. Now, while we have you, or wait for more bodies so it isn't 'unfair'? So childish…" The Bijuu gave a mock sigh, setting its head in its paws. "I'm biased, though, so what can I say? …And it's really up to Youko, anyway?"
Deidara found it only mildly interesting that they all seemed to have actual names for each other, and that they were assigning genders as well. How alive did these chakra beasts think they were? "Well, you had better seal us pretty damn fast, yeah, because I can assure you that we're not staying in here for long." He turned his back on the Bijuu and sunk to the ground, drawing his knees up to his chest. The Shichibi chuckled.
"I'll keep that in mind, Deidara-san."
Bya-chan is going to the Nibi. Hidan's going to the Shichibi, and I'm going to the Ichibi. The Gobi is dead, and the Kyuubi seems to have supreme power over the rest of them. They also don't seem to get along with each other, and actually have a hierarchy based on number of tails, he summarized in his mind. They have names and genders for each other and appear to have mixed feelings toward one another, too. …Now let's hope we can get out of here before they turn us into Jinchuuriki so I can make use of this information.
Deidara could only feel hopelessness. There was nothing they could do inside, then. They'd have to wait for outside intervention…like Sasori or Kakuzu, even Neji, he'd be glad to see at this point. Unless they brought an army with them, it was unlikely they would do anything… It was just hopeless. Unless a miracle happened, and fast, it looked like the Bijuu would gain their first three weapons.
-.-.-
Next Chapter: We return to the kids, who are staying in the village until Sasori comes back for them (that's if he does). The boys 'bond' with each other, while Hitomi meets up with a woman that shouldn't be alive... Things move on, until they reach Iwa land. Then--disaster.