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Chapter Nine

An Honest Mind

October 12, 7:14pm

"I can already hear our lives ticking away, un..." Deidara muttered. "Which way out?"

"We're on a tall building. Top floor. We'll never make it." Sasori sighed. "It was nice knowing you. Really."

"Oh, shut up, un." Deidara quipped. "I don't want to hear that coming from you. Just leave it to me, un."

Deidara could only go so fast with Sasori riding on his back. His puppet body was gravely injured, having been attacked by Orochimaru's termites, incapacitating him. Only bits and pieces of his body were left intact and able; his legs were, unfortunately, not one of them.

Deidara had not bothered closing any of the doors he'd opened as he frantically searched for his missing cousin. Sasori thought that it made everything seem that much more hopeless.

"Hold on tight, un."

"To what?"

Deidara was gaining speed as he approached the glass wall that led to the outside world. They only had a few seconds now...

The impact was hard. Deidara managed to shatter the glass with it, leaving both he and Sasori airborne. He only had a moment now. He tightened his grip on Sasori's working shoulder, refusing to let go. He spat a fat wad of white clay from his mouth as they were propelled by gravity to the cement pavement of the streets.

"Hang on. We're almost there, un."

The clay Deidara had puked out began reforming itself into the form of a large bird. It was big enough to carry them both to safety. As Deidara landed on its soft back, Sasori still with him, the modern glass building behind them burst into flames. They had made it just in time.

"What is this?" Sasori hissed. The fact that they had narrowly escaped death had not sunk in yet.

"My secret project, un. I've been saving this little baby for weeks."

They were now soaring higher and higher into the endless blue sky. Soon they were so high up Sasori didn't think any of the city folk could see more than a black silhouette in the distance. Nothing strange here, folks; move along.

"Where to, un?" Deidara asked cheerfully much later on.

"Anywhere but here." And then he closed his eyes.

"Home it is, un."

October 13, 8:35am

"This looks like heavy damage, un."

"You think?" Sasori sounded sarcastic and bitter, but Deidara ignored him.

The blonde-haired bomber had Sasori lie down calmly on a large king-sized bed as he inspected the damages the termites had done to Sasori's carefully crafted wooden body. At the state he was in, Sasori could barely move, let alone cure himself as he did before. Deidara knew that it was time to take matters into his own hands.

"It's wood. Your entire body's made of wood." Deidara remarked as he began feeling the material. It was broken and crumbling at his touch.

"It wasn't always so." Sasori said wistfully. "Do you think you can fix it?"

"Maybe." Deidara shrugged. "Just so you know, I've never handled wood before, un. I may not be very good at it."

"I expected that." Sasori sighed. "Just do what you can, and I'll try to do the rest."

"Alright, un."

In the end, Deidara wasn't so bad with wood after all. Sasori had to verbally instruct him the entire time, but the boy had a natural talent for sculpting things. Deidara had completely redone Sasori's entire body, from his delicate fingers to his stubby toes. Sasori had been very nervous during the short time Deidara had spent fixing the wood around his heart container. Luckily for him, the heart container remained more or less perfectly intact.

"So this is your life source, un?" Deidara mused, fingering the writing on Sasori's heart container. Sasori winced.

"Don't do that. It's scaring me." Sasori quipped.

"I thought you were immortal."

"That was foolish of you to think no. There's no such thing as true immortality in this world. Not even Hidan or Kakuzu are really immortal when it comes down to it." Sasori said tiredly.

Deidara remained quiet for some time after that. His brows were furrowed together as if he was concentrating on something, but he did not leave the room. Sasori had tested moving his fingers and his toes over and over again, initially to test the joints Deidara had made for him and then again just because he was quickly becoming bored.

"What are you thinking about?" Sasori finally asked after a long time.

"Nothing, un." He sighed. "It's just that I can't believe how close I was to getting her back, you know? It's confusing me, un. And," He lowered his voice, "I'm getting scared. I'm not concentrating on getting her anymore the way I was before. I'm losing my drive. What if I end up not caring anymore, un? I'm getting to comfortable with her gone."

Sasori looked at him thoughtfully. "Your worrying only means that you do care, brat. You should worry more about not worrying in the future, if that makes any sense."

Deidara smiled sadly. "I guess you're right, un."

Then, out of nowhere, Itachi and Kisame barged into the room. Kisame looked upset, but Itachi's face looked no different than usual.

"What happened here?" Itachi asked right away. He took in the sight of Sasori's freshly sculpted body and sighed. "I suppose you two fell into his trap."

"Great observation." Sasori quipped.

Kisame spotted the remains of Sasori's old body stashed in the corner and gasped.

"Termite damage." Sasori explained before Kisame got the chance to ask. "He stuffed me in a room filled with termites."

"Well, at least you're alive." Kisame said, feigning relief. "After I didn't hear from you for hours, I thought that you might have died."

Sasori shot him a scary glare which in turn made Deidara laugh.

"He's alright, un. I don't think it's that easy to kill Sasori."

"Itachi would know." Kisame agreed.

"Enough with the small talk." Itachi said in a dismissive tone. "I need to speak to Sasori privately. Kisame, Deidara, would you two mind—"

"Certainly. Of course. Okay. Let's go, Deidara." Kisame said as he exited the room. Deidara shot one last glance at Sasori before following Kisame's lead out.

As soon as Deidara shut the door behind him, everything went quiet. Even the little click sound the door made became much too loud for Sasori. Sasori refused to look Itachi in the face.

"You're a traitor." Itachi said bitterly. Sasori narrowed his eyes but said nothing. "Do you have any words to defend yourself?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then think." Itachi ordered. "Who was that man you chasing during the carnival? And why did you set him free?"

"I can't say." Sasori muttered. He turned to his side and closed his eyes, as if it would make Itachi go away. He had just had his body infested with termites. He was tired.

"I don't know whose side you're on anymore." Itachi shook his head in contempt. "Give me a reason to trust you again."

A long moment passed. "He's my spy."

"What?"

"The man I was chasing. He's my spy. I sent him years ago to spy on Orochimaru."

"Why didn't you tell anybody this before?" Itachi didn't know whether to act relieved just yet. "Why didn't you tell even just me about this?"

"It didn't occur to me."

Itachi narrowed his eyes at him. "You know, all this time, I thought you had changed. But now I see you're still the same. You're heartless and secretive and loyal only to yourself." He sighed. "And even if I did forgive you for this, for hiding such a crucial thing from me, it might take a while for my anger to dissipate."

"I know that." Sasori half-smiled at him.

"So," Itachi said slowly, "what are you going to do about Orochimaru?"

"I'm going to kill him." Sasori said nonchalantly. "It's me he's after, anyhow. I'm the reason he had launched this whole kidnapping fiasco. I have to be the one to kill him."

"Question is, are you capable of doing just that?"

"I've killed many men in my lifetime, Itachi. Soldiers and traitors and civilians. I'm not particularly choosy with my victims—"

"I don't doubt your strength. But this time your target isn't a total stranger. It's Orochimaru. Are you willing to destroy your old partner?"

"Partner?" A stunned voice repeated from behind the door. It opened to reveal a bewildered Deidara who had been listening in on the conversation. "The enemy was your partner?"

Sasori said nothing. Itachi only grimaced, seeing that Kisame failed to distract Deidara until the end of his little talk.

"Is that true, Sasori?" Deidara asked, still in denial. "He was your partner, un?"

"I've made many mistakes in the past." Sasori said nonchalantly. "He was one of them."

"I'm going to leave you two alone." Itachi said, clearly not interested in the imminent spat between Sasori and Deidara. Just as he said it, he disappeared into the long halls.

"Why didn't you tell me this, Sasori? Why, un?"

"I don't like to talk about it."

"Not even to me, un? I thought that...that..."

"That what?"

"That you trusted me, un!" Deidara almost yelled it out loud. He could barely control his temper now. It was quite obvious. Sasori furrowed together his dainty little red brows.

"This can't be the first time someone's failed you."

"It's not." Deidara said bitterly. "But I expected more from you, Sasori, un."

"Then you've been too optimistic."

Deidara turned away. "Perhaps, un."

Sasori patted on the empty space beside him, urging Deidara to come to him and sit there.

"Would you like to know now?" Deidara nodded. Sasori hesitated. "It goes a long way back. Orochimaru and I met when we were a lot younger. I may not look like it, but I'm thirty-five years old. He was a rogue that time. A fugitive, if you must. And I was my grandmother's pride and joy, the youngest Akatsuki member at the time at the age of fifteen. I had only just transformed myself into this, a living puppet, then. How that happened is something I chose to forget. Anyway, moving on. We were best friends, complimenting each other in the best ways. We were both poison experts, you see. We just had so much in common. Our partnership was blissful and easy. And I had thought that everything was going well, going perfectly well; at least, until that last day. I had come from my night walks, expecting nothing when I got home. I was so, so wrong. I ended up walking into my best friend's execution. You don't know how it feels like, when the person you trusted the most, is about to be decapitated right in front of your eyes. By your other friends, no less! Itachi and Kisame were there holding him down. And Pein was holding up this big butcher knife he'd picked out from the kitchen. They were all surprised to see me. Orochimaru asked for my help. Itachi, Kisame and Pein suddenly didn't know what to do. I helped him escape; him, Orochimaru, the worst man in the world. I didn't know it that time, of course. Pein only explained to me the situation afterwards, but by that time Orochimaru was already gone."

"So you're the reason he's still alive, un."

"Everybody makes mistakes." Sasori sighed. "It's my fault. I was so blind around him. He was secretly leading one of the worst criminal organizations in the world. The only reason he joined the Akatsuki was so that he could personally sabotage our actions toward him and his people. I was so foolish. I left Akatsuki soon afterwards. I couldn't bear it any longer."

Deidara narrowed his eyes. "There's something you're not telling me, un."

To this, Sasori said nothing. The two sat together in silence for a long time. By the time Deidara stood up to go to his own room to rest, Itachi and Kisame were gone.

Sasori wondered if he could sleep now. The pillow was too soft and puffy for his taste. The sheets were too silky and the mattress hard. And the more he stared out in darkness the more sadness and regret he felt. He began tracing the floral pattern of the bed sheets quietly. Hours had passed quietly and slowly. It felt like an eternity before Sasori's phone began to beep.

"Hello?"

"Sasori, its Kakuzu. We found Orochimaru."