Sasori wasn't sure what to expect the rebel base to be like, but it definitely didn't match up to the reality. The ship landed in the middle of a thick jungle, and from what Sasori could tell, the only buildings on the base were ships that had crashed a long time ago and later had been hollowed out for the Verden Underground Movement's use. Supply crates were piled between the ships, creating crude pathways from one vessel to another, and the only protection the base was afforded came from the surrounding foliage (not necessarily a bad thing; from Sasori's point of view, the vines growing between trees formed a tightly-woven Technicolor mess that blocked the view of anything further than a few yards outside the grounds. Judging from the size of the ships, no more than a hundred people could live on the base at any given time, which may have accounted for its lack of fortifications and supplies if it were just a small rebel outpost. "It is not much, but we must make do wiz what we 'ave," Konan murmured.

The redhead turned to look at the Falk commander. At the moment, the two of them were standing in the bay area of their ship, watching through the front window as the local rebels unloaded the supplies to disburse throughout the base. The Akasuna was sticking close to Konan; several of the rebels had already given the humans less than kind looks, and from the way they whispered to each other it was quite obvious that not all the locals thought Konan should have brought the "enemy" to their base. The Akasuna was beginning to think it would be a bad idea to wander about the base without Deidara…speaking of which, where was he? "Konan, do you know where Deidara went?"

"Deidara got off ze ship almost as soon as we landed," Konan replied without taking her eyes off the workers before her. There was no doubt that the supplies she'd brought in had caused her a great deal of trouble to acquire and sneak back, so anyone dropping, damaging, or stealing the equipment would be met with swift and harsh retribution from the rebel leader. "I believe 'e is exploring ze local area and relieving 'is, as you say, 'omesickness." She finally turned to look at Sasori, and the look on her face was one of nervous discomfort. "I realize you might wish to see 'im, now zat we 'ave landed. 'Owever, I must insist you do not leave ze ship wizout Deidara. Ze locals are…less accepting zan I would wish."

"I understand," Sasori replied, placing his hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture. She gave him an odd look though, and the hand was soon removed. He'd probably need to explain that later, or have Kisame do so for him. "I'm very grateful for everything you've done for us so far, Konan. Is there anything I can do to repay you?"

"Zere is one zing. You see, I fear zat monsieur loudmouz will be unable to keep 'imself in check on ze base, and we cannot afford any incidents. I 'ave a plan to make sure problems don't 'appen, but I will need your 'elp convincing 'im."

"Just tell me what to do."

-mm-

Once the supplies were unloaded, Sasori followed Konan back into the depths of the ship. The blue-haired woman made her way down the hall and eventually turned into a side room, shutting the door behind them so quickly she almost caught Sasori's sleeve in the door. Inside he found Hidan, Kisame, and another man sitting around a table. The newcomer was bundled up in a trench coat and a mask that obscured his entire head, save for a pair of green, hawk-like eyes. He was even bigger than Kisame, and from the way he was slouched down in his seat it was rather obvious he didn't want to be here. "Konan? Who's he?" Sasori asked.

"Exactly what I want to know," Hidan snapped. "We've been sitting here for fifteen fucking minutes, and that jackass hasn't said a damn thing!"

"Kisame, 'Idan, zis is Kakuzu," Konan explained. "Ze reason 'e cannot say anyzing is because 'is vocal chords were permanently damaged in a prior mission. Kakuzu is, 'ow you say, a mute."

"…Oh."

"Yes yes, you feel like a jack's ass now. Ze reason I 'ave brought you 'ere is to ensure zat monsieur loudmouz does not cause problems on ze base. As such, Kakuzu 'as been asked to accompany you when you choose to leave ze ship, or participate in any future missions-"

"Wait just a Jashin-damned minute!" Hidan interjected. "You're telling me that dumbass is supposed to be my babysitter?"

"In a matter of speaking, yes," Konan replied in a tone that left no room for debate. "Zere is a very good chance zat if you take one step off zis ship without someone to watch you, you'll cause an incident and be buried in a shallow grave. We need you alive and in one piece to return to ze 'umans when zis mess is over and done, so Kakuzu is 'ere to preserve you."

"No way in hell," Hidan snapped. The zealot had already risen from his seat and stormed around the table to stand face-to-face with Konan. "If you think for one fucking second I'm going to-"

Hidan never got a chance to finish his threat. Kakuzu had taken one look at the position his leader was in and rushed to her aid, in the form of lifting Hidan off the ground by his throat and glaring him down.

"What the hell?" Sasori and Kisame both moved to help their incapacitated friend, but were stopped by a wave of Konan's hand. "Konan-" Sasori began.

"Shh. Just watch, monsieur."

Hidan kicked at Kakuzu and attempted to pry the man's fingers away from his throat. Kakuzu, for his part, stood as still as a statue and allowed the silver-haired man to struggle for several minutes. At last Hidan stopped moving and settled for glaring daggers at the larger man. "All right, I get it," he growled out. "Now fucking put me down."

Kakuzu immediately released his grip and let the human soldier sink down to the ground. "Fine, he can follow me around," Hidan conceded. "But if he pisses me off, you three are going to pay!"

"Why am I involved in this?" Sasori groaned as the zealot stormed past him with the Falk soldier close behind. "I didn't do anything."

"Yes, I apologize for wasting your time," Konan offered weakly. "I thought I would need you and monsieur fishy to convince 'Idan to go wiz my plan, but, well…it appears to 'ave worked itself out razer well."

"Speak for yourself," Kisame groaned. "I just earned myself another round of headaches from Hidan. I guarantee that by the end of the week, if that Kakuzu guy hasn't strangled Hidan, I'm going to want to."

-mm-

Later that night, when both humans and Falks had settled into their quarters for the night and all was silent about Konan's ship, Sasori grew tired of waiting for Deidara to return and decided to sneak out and find the blond. The Akasuna wasn't familiar with the local terrain at all, but from what he understood neither was Deidara, so the Falk couldn't have gone too far.

Sasori was somewhat grateful that he only passed by a handful of Falk soldiers on his way out of the ship. All the members of VUM had been briefed on the humans' presence and shown pictures of what the refugees looked like, but there was still the off-chance some trigger happy rebel would shoot him a few times by accident. Or at least say it was an accident when explaining themselves…no, he shouldn't think like that. The refugee humans and VUM were in the same predicament, and he needed to give them the benefit of the doubt, as allies. Keeping these thoughts in mind, Sasori rushed down the hallway as quickly and quietly as he could, with only the eerie glow of the red overhead lights to guide him.

After what felt like an eternity but couldn't have been more than a few minutes, Sasori reached one of the emergency exits that currently functioned as an entrance for medical supplies while the ship was on the ground. The main entrances were tightly guarded, of course, but a lack of rebel guards meant the supply doors had a much more lax security setup, making it perfect for a late night getaway. A quick press of a door pad, the barely-audible hiss of a door ghosting along its tracks and sliding into the wall, and a hop outside was all it took for Sasori to make his escape.

Sasori's first impression of Verden wasn't too terribly good, as he was quite certain that he'd broken his ankle jumping off the ship. The drop couldn't have been more than a meter or so, yet there was an immense pain around his left ankle, and stars were currently dancing across his vision like his own private meteor shower. Somewhere in the back of his head he remembered Konan warning him about her planet's higher gravity, and even if she adjusted her ship's interior, his fragile human body would still get a shock when confronted by the real thing. All this was secondary though, because now the Akasuna couldn't breathe.

"Don't panic," Sasori told himself as his lungs refused to expand. "It's just a different atmosphere than what you're used to. The nanobots will kick in soon." Sure enough, the air around Sasori seemed to become much more breathable in only a matter of seconds, and the pain in his ankle was subsiding. Relieved, the redhead gulped down huge lungfuls of air and began moving his arms and legs about in an experimental fashion, testing his limits in this new world. The soldier part of him growled that this entire mess could have been avoided if he'd just worn his armor, but that would have disguised some of his physical features, and thus increased his chances of getting shot. While Sasori was quite sure the VUM could handle a swollen ankle and oxygen deprivation, he wasn't as certain they could properly treat a gunshot wound to one of his major organs. Thus, less was more in this case.

"Just a headache and a bit of nausea she said," Sasori growled. "Nothing to worry about, she said. I'm going to have a few choice words for that woman the next time I see her." The Akasuna sighed and tried to push his frustration levels down to a more reasonable setting. The woman had given him fair warning that his first few days on Verden wouldn't be all sunshine and rainbows, and had gone out of her way to make sure the artificial gravity and atmosphere in her ship remained functional for a few days longer. Besides, annoyance at Konan could wait. For now, he needed to find Deidara.

Sasori had a remarkably easy time navigating through the settlement, much to his own surprise. There were no lights outside the ships, electric or otherwise, lest some human or Falkian satellite pick up on their location while flying overhead. However, the VUM's base had to be miles from any sort of civilization, and thus there was no external source of light on the ground level to obscure the stars and moons overhead, which illuminated the area as well as any artificial light source could. True, there were some blind spots when Sasori had to pass between ships wedged unusually close together, but mostly it was smooth sailing over calm seas for the soldier.

It didn't take him long to decide that he was going to have to confine his search solely to their camp, and if that didn't result in finding Deidara, the blond would just have to stay missing until morning. For one thing, Sasori had wrongly assumed that when Konan said a rural area, she was talking about sparse settlements and fields, like the tiny rural towns he was used to seeing back on Earth. In truth, the base seemed to have been set up in what could only be called a jungle, and now that he could actually see the fauna up-close, he noticed several native plant species doing their best to encroach upon the grounded ships and reclaim the area for the forest once more. It didn't take a genius to figure out that going into such a place would surely result in getting impossibly lost (at least until you became tangled in vines or whatever was making those hisses and growls found and ate you). Besides this, the boxes around the Falks' camp seemed to have been set up as an intentionally confusing maze, full of paths that dead-ended into a solid wall of spaceship or circled about until you felt more lost than you'd been at the beginning of your walk. Twice Sasori swore he'd been walking in a perfectly straight line, only to arrive back at the door to Konan's ship with no idea as to how this could have happened. He spent nearly an hour like this before finally calling it quits and deciding it would be best to just return to his room and wait for the blond to find him.

A soft thump coming from several feet behind him caused these thoughts to quickly vacate his mind. Adrenaline began pumping through his veins as he tried to remain calm. There were plenty of good reasons for a thud behind him, namely that the Akasuna was sleep-deprived and simply hearing things-

A pair of hands suddenly descended over his eyes as a muscular body pressed into his back. Crap! "If I was an enemy, you'd be dead by now, un."

Deidara! Why that little-! A rather mean plot suddenly came into being within Sasori's mind, and while the nicer part of him would no doubt regret this later, his vindictive side cheered him on with everything it had. "Really now." Sasori grabbed Deidara's arms and fell to his knees. The blond was caught off guard and was forced to follow Sasori downwards. Quickly the puppet master used the momentum to flip Deidara forward, making the Falk gasp as he had the wind knocked out of him. A few flips of the wrist and a well-placed knee soon had Deidara pinned to the ground face-down with both hands held behind his back by Sasori. "Because it looks like you'd be the one dead."

"Whoa, where'd you learn to do that, un?" Deidara marveled through a mouthful of dirt.

"My grandmother also taught me martial arts alongside my puppeting skills when I was growing up. Probably one of the reasons the old bag will live forever. So try to avoid sneaking up on me in the future. There were about a dozen different ways I could have taken you down when you pulled that prank on me; this was the only one that wasn't guaranteed to break some of your bones. Understand?"

"Got it. Don't mess with Sasori danna or you'll die, un." Satisfied with the Falk's answer, Sasori climbed off the younger male and offered him a hand to get up. Once they were both standing and dusted off, the pair began making their way back towards the base. "Why were you out here, un? You could have gotten lost or shot, you know."

"I was worried about you," Sasori admitted. "You'd been gone for quite a while, and considering the position we're in right now…it's not too far-fetched to assume the worst."

"Far-fetched?"

"To out of the question."

"Un?"

"Reasonable. It was reasonable to think something might have happened to you."

"Ooooh. Why didn't you just say that, un?"

"Because…never mind."

"Argh, you humans wouldn't have so many problems if you would just say what you mean, un!"

"Konan decided to stick Hidan with one of her guards," Sasori stated, intending to change the subject before Deidara could go off on an unintelligible rant. "He's built like a brick wall and scares the living daylights out of me. His name's Kakuzu; any chance you've heard of him?"

"No, but VUM's really good at keeping their membership secret, un. I just happened to know that a large part of their forces spoke French as their primary human language, un." When Sasori gave him a confused look, the blond went on. "Well the stories say that the part of Verden where VUM, umm…springed up? It was supposed to be near a French human colony. The settlement's leveled to the ground now, but the language stays. So what's this Kakuzu guy like, un?"

"Big, as I said. His voice was damaged in some sort of accident, so I don't know if he speaks or understands us, but I think he may know some English. Green eyes, dark skin-"

"A meridic then."

"What?"

"Well there's different groups of Falks like with humans, un," Deidara huffily stated as though such a notion should have been quite obvious to Sasori. "Like there's people like you with pale skin, and blue people like Kisame, right?"

"Well, yes and no. Humans don't usually come out blue, but I get what you're saying."

"Right, and Falks are the same. Green eyes with darker skin are common for Falks on the southern plains, meridics. Konan and Pein are probably occassi; Falks from western forests and characterized by colorful hair and sharper vision from an eye…mutitation, I think, un. I'm septentrio; northern forests, and most human-ish in looks."

"Wow Deidara," Sasori murmured in an uneasy sort of awe. Deidara had suddenly gone from unaware kid to knowledgeable conversationalist in under ten minutes, again forcing Sasori to rethink the true level of Deidara's intelligence. Then again, he'd probably sound the same way explaining the difference between the people in South America and China, so was it really that big of a deal? Best not to think about it now…

"I can tell you more about them in the morning, un." Suddenly, the blond let out a yawn and clicked something to himself. "For now though, let's go to bed. I'm exhausted, un."

"Busy exploring your home?"

Much to the redhead's surprise, Deidara shook his head. "It's not my home, danna. It's Verden, but the trees and flowers…they're different than what I had in my town. Does that make sense, un?"

"Oh." What was the appropriate response to something like that? "Do you think you could take me to your home when the war's over?" Probably not that.

Deidara turned to Sasori with a genuine look of surprise on his face. "You would want to do that, un?"

"Sure."

"Why?"

"No idea." And that was the truth; Sasori had no idea why he'd suggested such a thing, or why he had affirmed that it was something he'd like to do. "When the fighting's over, some of our troops will probably remain on-planet to rebuild. I could request being stationed near your village-"

"It's nothing but stone and grass now," Deidara cut in. "So there's no point to go back, un."

"Don't you ever miss it though?"

The blond shrugged. "It's gone, and I can't change that, un. Falks don't get as…um, it means sad or...mushy, I think, when you think about stuff…"

"Sentimental?" Sasori guessed.

"That's it, un!" At that moment, the duo arrived at the door to Konan's ship, which caused them to briefly cease their conversation as they re-entered their temporary lodgings. "Urgh, finally," Deidara grunted as he hoisted Sasori back inside the ship.

"Right. I'll see you in the morning, then." Sasori nodded to the blond and began to walk off, only to be stopped by a surprisingly strong hand wrapping around his wrist.

"Sasori danna?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks for your offer, un. But you don't have to be so nice; I'm sticking with you until I pay you back for saving me, un."

"Oh. All right."

"Great. Goodnight danna!" Smiling, Deidara scurried down the hall towards his quarters, leaving a very confused Sasori behind.

The redhead was experiencing a mixture of surprise, confusion, and a bit of apprehension. Falks may look human, but there were clearly some fundamental differences between species that he was completely clueless about. It was time to take a crash course in Falks. He needed to speak to Kisame.