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Chapter Five

The Greatest Treasure

October 8, 1:27pm – Iwagakure Swamp Mansion

"Meet me at the Fat Gator Coffeehouse by 1pm sharp."

Sasori had so cryptically texted Itachi as soon as his eyes fluttered open. He'd miraculously woken up minutes before noon and had ample time to prepare. To his irritation, Deidara was a heavy sleeper and had little interest in getting there by the decided time. They had been up all night playing the most random games from gory first-person shooters like Call of Duty to classic board games like Monopoly. While Deidara, being more experienced in video games, had been winning the first few rounds, Sasori had almost immediately caught up with him as soon as he got used to the controls. But, for some reason, no matter how much practice and effort Sasori put into his Monopoly business skills, he lost every round.

He cringed. He was supposed to be the one with the flawless prediction skills. Deidara was supposed to be the goof. But he was a ridiculously lucky goof. Sasori was standing in Deidara's balcony now. His eyes were flitting about, having given up on trying to see through the fog and into the small lake behind the ancestral home. Deidara was taking his sweet time showering his long blonde hair.

While waiting was something Sasori normally couldn't stand, the wonderful antiquated feeling that emanated from around him was more than enough to keep him somewhat settled. The walls were filled with layer upon layer of creamy carefully preserved wooden shingles. Separating each story were thick friezes with detailed pictures carved into them by skilful hands.

Deidara's work table had been pushed to the side. It was filled with all kinds of metallic scraps that Sasori couldn't make sense of. He couldn't understand why such a gifted painter would waste their time with ugly, rusted trinkets. But there was something else in there...

"A stuffed bear?" Sasori murmured as he ran his unfeeling fingers over the old and worn toy. It could have been a rich golden brown when it was new. Traces of its former sheen were still visible if one were to look closely. But it was washed too much now and looked more grey than brown. One of its eyes had fallen off. Deidara had tried to replace it with a black button that was only slightly bigger than the original eye. The ribbon around its neck looked new. Buttons of different colours were stitched down its belly.

"His name's Sergeant." Deidara's voice startled Sasori. He turned around to see that Deidara was still dripping wet, wearing only a towel over his lower half. He wasn't particularly burly, though he did have a promising structure. He was lean, though, with every muscle much too visibly sculpted on his skin. Sasori never realized that Deidara had in fact been sporting a nearly permanent tan all that time, most likely from his years in the military.

"A name. Really." Sasori mused.

"Yes, un. And before you ask, no, I don't always sleep with him." He ran his fingers through his soaked hair, glancing to the fog momentarily. Sasori took it as a sign that he was either uncomfortable or hesitating. "Someone gave them to me on my first mission. I was a kid then, seven years old, un." Deidara winced, as if remembering a long-forgotten or suppressed memory.

"And you never got rid of him?"

"How could I, un?" Deidara laughed weakly. "He reminds me of the monster I am."

After a few silent seconds passed between them, Deidara proceeded to hastily dressing himself in white trousers and an olive pullover. He just shoved his fat wallet, his beloved Blackberry and his keys into his pockets and was good to go, a trail of water droplets following him.

2:12pm – Fat Gator Coffeehouse

"I'm not convinced." Kisame muttered, eyes narrowing into his closest friend's face. Itachi only smirked at him in that way he always did, the way Kisame had already gotten used to before, the way that he liked it. "That's just not the way he would do things, Itachi."

"So now you claim to understand him perfectly?" Itachi raised an amused brow. If there was anyone – anyone at all – in Akatsuki whose mind operated remotely similar to Sasori's incredibly systematic one, it was Itachi's. No one else could compare.

"He's a book; to be specific, the rule book." Kisame snorted.

"You don't know the rules." Itachi rolled his eyes. "You don't even like to read."

"But you do that enough, you know, for both of us. Sometimes I feel as if I know it all just by looking at you." Kisame shrugged. "You can try as hard as you want, but your eyes will never be the same as his."

Itachi's face remained composed, but Kisame knew he'd gotten to him just by the seemingly insignificant twitch of his fingers. "They're here."

The sound of wind chimes wafted in the air as Sasori pushed the coffeehouse's heavy oak doors open. He had a green scarf on, his favourite one. He always had something on to cover the mark on his neck, even though it went against the weather. He was arguing with Deidara, the two men sneering at each other. But the friction between them was of something else.

They crossed the old wooden parquet floor, Sasori pacing and Deidara seemingly flitting around him as he tried to reason with the stubborn redheaded man. Itachi hid a smile. The place was very nice, very homey. It was an antiquated place with a humble history. He and Kisame were sitting at the very end of the place, his blue-skinned friend leaning back on his chair.

Sasori crossed his arms immediately as he took his seat beside Kisame. Deidara pulled out the one between him and Itachi, attention focused on Sasori still. Whatever they had been arguing about had been dropped the moment Itachi spoke.

"You're late."

Sasori gritted his teeth together. "The brat's fault." It just slipped, but Sasori didn't care anymore even as Itachi raised a brow at mention of the little nickname.

"Still, it's not like you." Itachi shrugged. "So why are we here? It can't be that you only missed me." Sasori rolled his eyes at him.

"You know exactly why, Itachi." He sighed. Then, as if to set the decision on stone, or only because his own ears still refused to believe it, he said it again. "We're going on a rescue operation."

Itachi's smirk was evident. Deidara was watching it all unfold before his eyes. Kisame was already shaking his head.

"You don't mean this." He said.

"We have no choice." Sasori insisted. Kisame squinted at him.

"Who are you?" He asked. The Sasori he knew weighed all options before saying anything. The Sasori he knew always found a way around the obvious 'rescue mission.' This was not the Sasori he knew. "We always have a choice, isn't that what you always said?"

"Not this time, Kisame."

"You're finally acquired a conscience then?" Itachi asked smugly even though he knew very well that he should have never said it given his own personal history. But no one called him on it.

Sasori look to Deidara for a moment before answering. "I don't know."

"Even if we did do this thing," Kisame said loudly and irritably, "Deidara cannot. He doesn't have the training, the experience, or the affinity—"

"Yes I do, un!" Deidara raised his voice, catching the attention of a few other people. But they had better things to do and soon there was not a pair of eyes on them anymore.

"You don't know anything about him." Sasori said very seriously. "He's willing to give his life up for this, not that he has to. Because even if he were not able to keep up with us now, he will be; I will see to it personally."

Still, Kisame was not convinced. But Itachi spoke up before he could say anything else.

"I will inform Pein right away." Itachi did not allow for anyone to go against him now. Sasori's eyes silently thanked him.

"Does this mean—" Deidara's eyes were wide as he spoke, but Sasori was already tugging him up and towards the door.

"Let's go, brat." Sasori said impatiently. "Let Itachi handle Kisame. We have things to do."

"But food, un!" Deidara tried to reason with him, but it was hopeless. Itachi watched them go.

"He'll die." Kisame said as soon as the silence settled. Itachi stirred his coffee and drank the last of it down. It was his second cup now.

"It's just as Sasori said; you don't know him. You cannot say that."

"But I knew Orochimaru." Kisame said sadly.

"As did I." Itachi said in a similar tone. "But Orochimaru is a bad man. Deidara is not. Fate's most likely in Deidara's side."

Kisame chuckled. "Itachi talking fate and goodness; well, this is officially the weirdest dream I've ever had. As if it wasn't odd enough that Sasori was actually late."

Itachi half-smiled. "Just because Sasori hates unpunctual people doesn't mean he isn't one himself at least sometimes. You just never noticed due to the fact that you're sleeping half the time."

"Only in headquarters." Kisame narrowed his eyes at his partner who grinned. He ran his fingers through his hair and laughed a little to ease the tension.

"Kisame?" Itachi said as he placed the cup to his lips.

"What?"

"Table Four. He's all alone." His gaze didn't falter. Kisame tensed.

"I hate snitches."

"As do I, but they make for a convenient past time. And this one's going to lead us to our next step. Don't lose him." Kisame was already on his feet, grinning.

"I don't plan to."

"And Kisame?" Itachi said before he could leave and chase the snitch down.

"What now?

"Clearly, I won the bet. The bill's on you." Itachi smirked as he slid it Kisame's way.

Kisame's grin was lost the very same second.

6:42pm – Deidara's House

Bang. Bang. Bang.

"You missed the last one." Sasori stated flatly. Deidara turned to him, pinching his golden brows together in irritation.

"I'd like to see you get it all right, un."

Sasori raised his own weapon and shot seven small branches consecutively without pause, hitting the mark each time and causing them to fall to the moist ground.

"Show off, un." Deidara muttered.

"Not really. You asked me to do it." Sasori smirked as he pocketed his nine millimetre handgun. "We're getting nowhere at this rate, you know."

"Not even in the military did anyone know how to shoot that good, un." Deidara mumbled. "Except maybe those guys with the rifles, but they took forever and most of them had nearly zero actual combat skills. I have that, so I don't know why we have to bother with this anymore, un."

"Because it only takes one moment, one dastard situation to end a life or a hundred of them," Sasori sighed. "And the enemy knows that just as well as I do. We can't risk leaving even one base uncovered or unprepared."

Deidara shook his head. "Sometimes it's better to live in the moment, you know? Being so meticulously prepared...doesn't that take all the thrill and excitement away from the action?"

"This isn't about fun, brat. It never was."

"But then what is it about to you, un? I know what it is to me, to save my cousin, but to you, what is it? Why do you do this of your own will, why did you choose this as your path, un?"

"Why do you ask these questions?" Sasori narrowed his eyes at the young man before him.

"I'm curious, un. I've always been the questioning type."

"I don't doubt that." He paused. "It's all I've ever known, this lifestyle. For the longest time, it was what had fuelled my art—"

"Only you fuel your art, un." Deidara interjected argumentatively.

"Has anyone ever told you that it's rude to interrupt someone especially when all they're doing is answering your questions?"

"Maybe. I'm not the best listener, un. But I'm not stupid."

"I never said that." Sasori murmured. His eyes trailed off to the dark sky. The fog had lifted more or less now. Deidara had told him earlier that it was to be expected if only because the fog itself was unexpected, whatever that meant. "Perhaps we should rest for a while. Besides, I haven't briefed you in anything at all yet."

"Maybe you're right." Deidara grunted as he trudged back to the manor.

Sasori followed him without another word, his body following the man before him absent-mindedly while his thoughts drifted to the impressive mansion's architecture once more. Traces of Greek Renaissance were evident now from his current point of view. The elaborately sculpted friezes were even prettier now than they were that morning. The house could have been chiselled out of stone; at least, some parts of it.

"You're always staring into space, un." Deidara said as they kicked off their muddy boots and plopped themselves into the living room again, Deidara nearly bouncing off the overstuffed couch and Sasori not even sinking into it fully. "I never pegged you for the type with a short attention span."

"I don't have a short attention span." Sasori said mutely as Deidara flipped through channels, his right hand around the remote control and rested on a throw pillow. "I was just admiring the house."

"But you live in Florence, don't you? You must be surrounded by homes like this every day, un."

"Just because they are abundant in my life doesn't mean that makes them any less beautiful or any less of worth." Sasori shrugged. "They continue to take astound me, each piece that I see, no matter how similar to any others that I've come to love in the past and even in the present. But that's what art is, I guess, something that it timeless and ageless and—"

"Are you seriously bringing that up again, un?" Deidara asked flatly. "I can accept any and all forms of art for as long as it is art, even if it goes directly against my own. But I don't have a large supply of patience. In fact, I run out pretty fast. It's a wonder I haven't bombed you yet, un."

"Just try it." Sasori chuckled. Deidara ignored him.

"Just as much as it is a wonder that I have managed to stay caged within these walls for so long, un," Deidara said mutely.

"What do you mean?"

"As beautiful as this home is, I'm so much more into contemporary architecture, un. It would be a dream to just get the hell out of here and drive to New York or something. I've spent too many years stranded in these murky waters and swimming with these slimy green frogs and my beloved fat alligators."

"Why don't you, then? You have the money." Sasori tried to hide his interest.

Deidara barked out a sarcastic laugh. "Look around you. Onoki's moved to Washington a long time ago in an effort to keep up with politics, un. Kurotsuchi's family did the same, only they've relocated to Nevada instead in hopes of a more exciting and fulfilling life. I'm the last member of the once great Iwagakure family left actually living in the great Iwagakure manor of Iwagakure Bayou, Louisiana." He paused. "I think its history that bounds me to this place. I'm afraid that I may never leave for as long as this place stands, un."

A youthful modernist chained to history's unyielding embrace. It was clear that he wanted out of the very same thing Sasori had spent his life chasing after. The Italian flat was a failed attempt at finding the beautiful olden times, Sasori now realized, at feeling the overwhelming ambience of the Renaissance era's timeless art. The flat's antiquity could never come close to that of Deidara's mansion here.

"I'll buy it from you." Sasori argued now. "I've never felt so at peace anywhere else."

"That's actually tempting, but no." Deidara smiled sadly. "It wouldn't feel right, un. The Iwagakure mansion is an inheritance, not a purchase. If you're not an Iwa, you're never going to get your hands on this place, no matter how much you want it."

Was this fury Sasori felt? The creeping and heavy feeling that now seemed to make his movements hard and weighed down? No, it must have been sadness. Heartbreak. And that made sense, because now only his heart actually remained. But the feeling was still very alien to him.

"It really is tempting, though, to give this place to you, un." Deidara breathed finally, his expression that of worry and something else. "Never had I ever met anyone who I trusted so completely with my home, un. Collectors had asked me for it for the longest time. They like it because it's historical and it's beautiful and because it's mine. But they don't love it and I'm afraid they never could, not in the way you love it now anyway, un. I know you can take care of it better than anyone else, and that would mean the world to me, but...this is my burden, not anyone else's."

"What can I say to you now that may change your mind?" Sasori whispered.

"Don't say anything, un." He looked to Sasori now. The older man couldn't help but notice how moist his eyes were now and how much they twinkled in the light. But the tears were not enough to escape. Perhaps he was fighting them. Perhaps he wasn't. "The paintings, un. The paintings tell you everything. I have to show them to you, un. Come with me."

But Deidara was feeling awfully light-headed and out of balance. He was a compulsive drinker, susceptible to the allure of alcohol and yet so perfectly immune to its effects most of the time. But this feeling he hadn't felt in a while. He grabbed hold of Sasori's shoulder to steady himself momentarily.

"This way, un."

Through the main hall and into another, and across this room and into that they went. They were at the very edge of the house now, facing a heavy set of oak doors that probably led to nowhere. And it was locked, too.

"The key, un..."

Deidara fumbled as he reached down his shirt and pulled out a long chain that he had somehow hidden from Sasori's notice the whole time. There was an old-fashioned key that hung down from it, likely having been crafted of gold. The first time he tried to slide it through the keyhole, he missed and hit the wood instead.

"Shit, un." He cursed under his breath. At that moment Sasori wrapped his own hand around Deidara's to steady it and guided it into the proper place. They turned the key together. A heavy feeling was lifted the moment the click sounded, such a small sound with such a big impact on something neither of them could pinpoint as of yet. "Thanks."

"No problem." Sasori said mutely. He dropped his hand to his sides. He could almost feel the warmth of Deidara's hand there still, as if he himself could still feel.

"Inside, un."

Down a spiralling staircase and into a basement Sasori didn't know was even there they went until finally they came across a metallic set of doors. There was no lock this time, at least not one that required a key to open.

"My greatest treasure, un." Deidara murmured as he threw open the doors to unveil the contents of the large rectangular room.

Was it even possible for Sasori to be breath taken anymore? But it did happen, for the sight of it was certainly breathtaking. The entire collections of everything Deidara had created in all of his eighteen years save for of course what was upstairs, was right there, displayed right before his eyes. And these weren't copies of other great artists, no. These were original works of art, original ideas, original inspirations. And that struck such a chord of epiphany in Sasori that he didn't think he could think anymore. No, thinking was just not an option anymore.

Feel them, Sasori. Visualize them with your touch. His heart, which also functioned as his brain, demanded of him. But he was shaking, he, the puppet master, shaking. But he could have sworn, god, he could have sworn, that when his fingers touched the first sculpture before him, the one of Adam and Eve and the snake and the forbidden fruit all intertwined in fate and in body, that he felt the smooth stone tickle his fingers. Not even for just an instant, no. As he continued to run his hands through them, both hands now, feeling the slim leaves and the grapevines and the eyes of the snake and its small sharp fangs, he could feel. He was alive.

And then Deidara spoke and the moment was broken and he couldn't feel a damn thing again.

"I've never sold a single painting or sculpture, un. Every one of these is mine."

Did he expect an answer? Sasori didn't care. He did the only thing he could. He fell to his knees and wept, but of course, he didn't have any tears left.


A/N: Long wait. Was lazy. But now that I've got this chapter over and done with, we can move on. I was supposed to post a preview of the next chapter here but decided against it. Let's just say that it has something to do with a carnival and Sasori (finally!) and...yeah. As for the high emotional content of this chapter, you can blame it on Anne Rice. I just reread some of her books recently and...it rubbed off on me again. It's a shame she's so against having fanfictions of her own stories here.

By the way, I've decided to halve this story in two parts. Part I, which is where we are, will be filled with chapters focusing on Deidara and his past. Part II will be focusing more on Sasori and his past and other deeper, more interesting things. Yes, I've had a lot of plot laid down since the beginning. And most of it will take off there. Like, Akatsuki drama and all that. More Akatsuki appearances next chapter. I'm actually looking forward to writing Hidan and Kakuzu, those jerks (but I love them nevertheless).