So for the time being I'm out for the summer. I finished the semester with flying colors! Uhm... I figured out precisely in which direction I want this story to go in, now I just have to figure out the journey to our destination XD Please excuse any and all OOC-ness. I try to stay faithful but it's inevitable.

Pain.

There was so much pain.

It was blinding.

Incapacitating.

It was driving him insane!

Sai's face twisted in displeasure. That smell, it's sickening! Where is it coming from? Metallic and repulsive; rotting and retching. This scent... It seemed familiar somehow.

Death.

That's what it was. This is the smell of death.

His eyes opened slowly, blearily; his vision glazed over with sickness. The walls were white, the bed was hard, and there was a familiar annoying beep of a heart monitor in the background.

No, there were two monitors.

Impossible. Sai was in a solo room, not a double.

But unmistakeably, before his eyes was the form of a girl in a bed mirroring his own. She lay on her back, mangled and bloody. Her arms, legs, face, her everything covered in small scratches and blood pooling on the back of her head, soaking into the bed, blending with her light brown hair darkening it a crimson shade.

'So pale...' He mentally remarked, 'Like a corpse...' Inching his hand up to eye his own skin tone. 'But still darker than myself.'

Garbed in a familiar uniform that was torn and haematic with her own body fluids, she lay limp and unmoving.

The doorknob twisted and the door creaked open with a high pitched squeal. Sai closed his eyes, feigning sleep.

'Please don't bother me about it anymore,' He pleaded to himself.

Silence was his only answer to his mental cry; hesitantly his eyes reopened. Revealing only a small sliver, just enough to close his eyes if he didn't like what he saw. A flash of red hair and empty reddish brown eyes, a man he'd never seen before. But he wasn't the recipient of the male's attention, rather the maimed soon-to-be corpse of a girl was. Sai's eyebrows pressed together as he took in the doctor's coat, not only did he appear to be too young to be a doctor but he was unfamiliar with this man. It struck him as odd, with all the time Sai had spent in the hospital he knew just about every doctor by name.

'Is he new?' He wondered, his eyes slowly beginning to fall closed as the stranger began to wheel out the girl.

'Good, she was starting to stink.'

"NO!"

She screeched, her form flashing behind his closed eyelids angrily. His eyes shot open and the scene had reset itself. Just him and her, the way it had been before the doctor. But this time, her blue eyes were open and staring straight at him, glimmering in emotion.

Defiance.

"Just die already," He told the girl.

"This is the least you can do for me," Her voice was distant, he could barely hear her; and Sai was confused. 'What has she ever done for me?' He wondered to himself.

Involuntarily he stood, approaching her slowly. When he reached her bed, he stopped and stared down at her.

"You reek," He mentioned distastefully.

"No, not me. You." She corrected cryptically.

Her broken arm moved, cracking and popping painfully as she balled up her fist and held it out to him. Sai almost wanted to tell her to stop, she was really revolting him.

He lifted his hand, not even questioning how he knew she wanted to give him something. Pressing her fist into his palm, she unfurled it and release the item she once held. Sai's vision dropped, eying the jewelry in his palm.

A black cord bracelet with a silver sideways eight on it.

Infinity. That's what the symbol meant.

"Why are you giving this to me?" His gaze rose but she was gone. In fact, everything was gone.

He now stood in front of the school beneath an old cherry blossom tree, the leaves were still green with no traces of its pink flowers just yet. Sai looked back to his palm but the jewelry piece was gone. His arm dropped to his side and he rose his gaze once more.

There.

There on a tree branch dangled the bracelet, but torn this time. It'd been pulled off her wrist. Without a second thought, Sai approached the trunk of the tree and began to climb. In a matter of time he was there, scooting along one of the top branches to get to the bracelet. But the second his hand enclosed around the artifact, everything faded into darkness and he shot up.

'It was just a dream.'

Sai gulped a few deep breaths as he looked around the dark room, hearing the small breaths of his mother and soft snores of his brother. It must be sometime in the middle of the night, he reasoned to himself. Pushing the blankets off of himself, Sai pushed himself to his feet and went for the door to get his shoes. 'This is stupid,' Sai thought. He should wait until morning to deal with this. But he knew this would be one of those things that would keep him awake and wondering until he faced it head on. Making sure the door was locked behind him, Sai secured his jacket and pressed his hands in his pockets.

It was dead quiet and the male found himself wandering over to the school with only the street lamps to guide him. "Kohana," He yelled in a whisper, looking for a way to get into the school considering the locked gates.

It took a little while, but Sai found a spot in the back of the school where a portion of the gate was wearing away. Unceremoniously he climbed it and promptly fell to the ground on the other side, looking around for his spirit friend. "Kohana where are you?" He questioned, though he was more speaking to himself than his pal.

The only sounds audible was of an owl none too far away, had it been anyone besides Sai they'd probably have been thoroughly creeped out. Then again, had it been anyone else they probably wouldn't have been at school in the middle of the night.

'There,' He supplied to himself. 'There's the tree I saw in my dream.'

Approaching the greenery, he looked up, examining for any sign of glimmering the bit of jewelry would have provided.

Nothing.

But everything was set up just as he saw in his sleep. 'Maybe there's not enough light, it's too dark to tell.' Taking a few steps toward the trunk, he grasped a few branches and pulled himself up.

"This was a lot easier when I was asleep," He muttered as he slipped and fell a few times in his attempts. Once he was safely on the branch he needed, he wrapped his legs around the branch, leaned back, and took a few deep breaths. His onyx hues shifting to his red palms with angry slices in them from the rough bark.

Pushing himself back up, Sai straddled the branch and examined it for the bracelet he was looking for. But there was nothing. Nothing but damn bugs, leaves, and bark. 'What a waste of time, I should have just went back to sleep. Why would I think my dream even has a meaning like that?' He chided himself in annoyance.

Inching back to the trunk so he could climb down, a voice cut him out of his thoughts.

"Mr. Okuda, is there anything I can assist you with?"

Sai sucked in a deep breath and looked down, sure enough there stood Deidara himself. Still wearing what he wore to school that day, a dark red long sleeved, collared shirt with a black vest over it and black slacks. His blond hair cascaded past his shoulders as he peered up at the boy, and while his bangs had shifted over enough to contour to the angles of his face, it wasn't enough to reveal his left eye. Leaving just the single, solitary blue eye to stare back up at him with an amused gaze of his own.

"Uhm... No Mr. Suzuki... It's just..."

"Did you lose something?"

"No sir... I just... A... Ahh... A friend did and I thought I knew where it was..." Sai trailed slowly.

"I assure you Mr. Okuda, whatever you think is up there is not." The art teacher informed, a dark smile crossing his lips.

Sai's eyes narrowed in suspicion. It was strange enough that Deidara was here in the middle of the night, but did he know what he was looking for too? "What's that supposed to mean?"

Without batting an eyelash, Deidara answered. "It means the janitor takes his job very seriously. If there was something up there then it has already long since been disposed of. I assure you, whatever your friend is looking for, if it hasn't turned up yet then, it's gone by now."

"How can you be so positive about that?" Sai questioned, his own eyes darkening. This teacher wasn't just weird; he was starting to get the sense that there was something more surrounding Kohana's death and he had something to do with it or at least knew more than he was letting on.

"Go home Sai, breaking into school is grounds for expulsion," Deidara quipped warningly, his blue eye gleaming with impatience.

Obediently, Sai began to climb down the tree, making a mental note to pull Naruto aside at a later date to question him about the art teacher. Once on the ground, Deidara rested a hand on Sai's shoulder and began to guide the boy towards the now cracked open gate. Guiding him out, Deidara turned and began to lock it up as Sai began to walk home.

"Don't go too far Sai, as your teacher it's my task to make sure you get home safely," Deidara called after him.

'You're just worried I'll sneak back in,' He mentally noted. Pausing, Sai looked back to his art teacher as he once again secured a hand on Sai's shoulder and guided him to the only car parked on the opposite side of the road. Deidara opened the passenger seat to his car for Sai and held it open for him with a friendly smile, allowing Sai to realize at least one thing.

'Is this what a false smile is? Is that how I look when I smile to others?' Pressing his lips together he climbed into the vehicle and buckled up, tossing one last glimpse to the school. 'I suppose even ghosts are entitled to a little sleep at night.'

The car ride home passed in silence, his eyes flickering around to take in the car. It was a tad messy, with bags of clay deposited carelessly in the back seat. Though there was a box of fireworks on the seat behind the driver's side. "Having a party?" Sai inquired, turning to watch any possible reactions from his teacher.

A smile curved on his lips, "Fireworks are the best kind of art, fleeting and beautiful. Explosive." He explained as Sai shifted back in his seat. He wanted to ask what Deidara was doing at the school in the middle of the night, but he read somewhere that was rude to do so. Sai should have asked how Deidara knew where he lived, but perhaps that was something Deidara could discover from his teacher files he reasoned. When they arrived to his home, he unbuckled and climbed out. "Thank you for the ride home," He murmured. That's what people are supposed to say right?

"Don't thank me just yet Sai, for the next two weeks report to my room after school. Breaking into school is a serious offense and needs to be dealt with properly." He ordered and flickered his eyes up to the male. "Sleep well," He ordered and waited patiently for Sai to close his door. Sai shut it and watched as Deidara drove off, leaving him in the silent dark once more. Turning to his house, Sai walked up the walkway and silently entered his house, hoping not to disturb his sleeping mother.

It's short, I know. But I figured it's been so long since my last update that it wouldn't kill me to throw you guys a bone while I work on the next part. I hope you enjoy it c: