Deidara was running out of breath; he had been racing for what seemed like an hour and half to him and was probably just a split of second in Tsukuyomi. The wood was just as monotone as everything else; none of the black trees seemed alive and he hadn't met any animals either. It sure looked like the worst kind of nightmare, but the artist was almost twenty years old and had seen far worse in his real life than that. He preferred a thousand of those nightmares to the butchery he had to assist to at Iwa. The reason why he became a rouge ninja and a terrorist was mainly his ruined childhood. Konoha shinobi attacked Iwagakure constantly and vice versa. The people of Hidden Stone started killing each other out of panic after a while, accusing even their family members of being spies. Deidara's brother had killed their father for the same reason before committing suicide out of regret. The horrified boy who was 11 at the time, ran away from home. After that, the Explosion Corps became aware of his capacities and took him in. During his work with the team, however, he had always felt like something was missing: explosions only used for technical purposes were not the way he wanted to express his artistic tendencies. Deidara found no purpose in serving the village he despised, so later on he broke into the archives of the Explosion Corps and took two forbidden scrolls: the recipe of explosive clay and its supplement, the jutsu allowing to grow chakra-molding mouths on any part of the subject's body. Being a clever and talented nin, he performed the technique the same night, in a cave somewhere near Iwa. After that, he burnt both scrolls. Being a shinobi from the Hidden Stone, it took him no time to build a house, massive enough for him to be able to practice his art. He had only lived two years there, hidden from the war. Soon the Akatsuki paid him a visit; the one where he first met an Uchiha and started loathing them. He was forced to join the organization and was dragged away from his home where he had planned to spend his whole life.
Just thinking about his past made Deidara clench his fists. His village, other shinobi, the Akatsuki, the Uchiha... The whole world was conjuring against him! What did that damn, selfish bastard know? He had probably lived his life normally in his rich and arrogant family. True, Itachi had killed them all, but apparently, Obito was on the Weasel's side, so it couldn't be such a great problem for him... He must be the absolute worst of mankind.
But as much as he didn't want to admit it, he was interested. Why had that guy worn a mask and played stupid for such a long time? Who else knew about him? He may never find out. Deidara stopped running for a minute to regain stamina. That's how he spotted the only interesting thing in the woods since he escaped from Obito. Nearly 50 kilometers further, there was an open-air space where the trees didn't grow. The blonde man couldn't make out what it was from that distance, so he directed himself to the change of landscape. The closer he walked, the more discernible it was.
It was something like a crater with a diameter of 5 kilometers, but in the middle, a height with a flat top shadowed part of the pit. In fact, it was a huge, ring-shaped swale. But what intrigued Deidara was the actual color of it; the inner walls of the crater were white, unlike the greyish-brown ground he had seen so far. Curiosity brought him closer and closer, but he still couldn't figure out the explanation of the whiteness. He stopped at the edge of the pit. Since he didn't have anything else to do in mind, and this was the most decent place in Obito's "perfect" Tsukuyomi so far, the blonde artist decided to climb down and explore it a little more. The walls were sheer, so he soon figured out he would need chakra control. He closed his blue eyes and concetrated all his spiritual energy in his feet, then walked down until he reached the bottom of the pit. Deidara looked up at that crazy sky, with fast clouds and a black sun. He was almost twenty meters deep. But what interested him was the material of the walls. He touched the white substance with his fingertips. It was powdery, easily breakable and slightly wet... The blonde man grabbed a fistful of the white material and started fondling it with his hand, his mouths almost opening by themselves from the anticipation. No, that had to be a dream... It was clay! Identical to the one he had used in his life! A desperate, but sadistic smile appeared on Deidara's face, an expression he thought he would never make anymore. And also, there was a whole goddamn mine of it! With his hands shaking with excitement, he started molding chakra into the clay. The artist quickly ran up the perpendicular wall of the height in the middle of the pit, jumped up, and before he fell back on the ground, formed two C1's, throwing them on the platform. A bang followed by two twin explosions resounded in the pit.
"A beautiful piece of art, un!" Deidara smirked insanely.
The discovery of the clay mine made the man feel a little less hopeless. He tore away two stripes of cloth from the sleeves of his black cloak and folded them around a bunch of the white substance, making a small bag. He sat down under a tree close to the mine, resting pleasedly. His hands were still dirty from the clay, but that was a dirtiness he liked. But that reminded him... Did he even have any physical needs in this world? Would he get hungry or thirsty? Was there even water in Tsukuyomi? As long as he didn't feel it, it wouldn't bother the blonde, but as he thought about it, he started worrying. That wouldn't be a problem if he stayed with Obito, but that wasn't an option either. Anyway, he knew something for sure: he felt tired when he fell asleep in the house, even if there probably weren't such things as day and night in this world. Just like he felt tired now. Deidara yawned. It would take him a while to get used to this place. Once again, he collapsed, unable to move from exhaustion.
The dark haired Uchiha couldn't imagine how Deidara even thought of running away from him in his own head. Didn't he already tell him there was no other choice than staying with him? Obito's pace got faster. He couldn't quite explain why he was going after Deidara, when the other man was eventually going to come back to him. To make things faster? He had plenty of time in Tsukuyomi. He was also too used to human life. But living like in the real world was a mistake, in another dimension. Everything was different, so people who entered Tsukuyomi by meditating had to change their whole way of thinking while they were there. It wasn't a nice, heavenly place since its main use was torturing people, but Obito liked to think it was perfect. After all, the only difference between it and Eternal Tsukuyomi was the jutsu's scope, besides, everything was the way he imagined, everything except for... He slightly lowered his head. He couldn't take any living people to normal Tsukuyomi, nor bring back the dead. That's why the appearance of that annoying blonde brat bothered him to no end: suddenly, the two only laws of this dimension were broken at once. Sure, he had been lonely until then, but he had soon to discover that being around Deidara was far worse than being alone since the artist couldn't overcome his hatred for the Uchiha. As for Obito, he didn't get why the bomber was still particularly mad at Itachi. Sure, the Weasel had forced him to join Akatsuki with the sharingan, but it seemed to him that Deidara enjoyed his time in the organization after a while. And did Itachi really belittle the guy's art? He never said so. On contrary, he went to recruit the blonde because his explosions were a strong and useful power, and considering his young age (he was 17 when they had visited him) he might have even been a genius. There was nothing to complain about. Thinking about himself, Obito could even be a little jealous.
This was the basic reason why he couldn't understand the other man. But the fact he was there was undoable, and woke a small hint of a hope in the Uchiha. Maybe Deidara wasn't the only one who could come back from death to his Tsukuyomi. The memories flowing back became too strong to bear and Obito had to stop and fall on his knees, massaging his temples. He spent every single moment thinking about Rin, and he knew it was stupid, but he couldn't give up on her, even though she had been dead for almost twenty years. He felt himself becoming that young boy again and almost started weeping. But he couldn't cry anymore; he just couldn't. He stood up again, brushing the dust off his clothes. He quickly reminded himself who he had become. The evil bastard, the Akatsuki leader, the one who was going to reveal himself as the strongest shinobi, the future ten-tails jinchuuriki and the one abusing and breaking the only presence in his lonely inner world.
And there he found Deidara, curled up near a tree, so peaceful compared to when he had jumped him in anger. The smaller man moved a bit on the ground as the Uchiha stepped near him, looking down at that neutral, sleeping expression with his rinnegan and sharingan. There was also a small package next to him. Obito quietly moved to the artist's other side to take a better look at it. When he opened it, his brows furrowed. Clay? He looked around to see where he could have possibly obtained his sculpting material. The sight was so stunning, he wondered how hadn't he noticed before. He ran towards the enormous pit and ended up in the bottom with a single, chakra-filled jump. All the walls were covered with clay. It was rare for him to see an unknown place in his own Tsukuyomi. Even if he hadn't literally been everywhere, every forest, desert, canyon and mountain reminded him of something in his past life; they were all part of his subconscious after all. But a clay mine? He had never been in such a place... The fact that Deidara strangely found exactly what he was looking for had something not quite right about it, too. How could the bomber have any kind of power over his inner world?
Obito decided he would go back to the other man. He wasn't planning to interact with him in any way; what he wanted to do was spy on him a little. Maybe, just maybe, there was something he didn't know about. Some hidden jutsu or a scroll. He was a ninja after all, so he knew he should never underestimate his enemies. He quickly got back to normal ground level, but an unexpected explosion blocked his way. The Uchiha dodged it in the last second, but he fell and rolled over on the ground to do so. It was quite obvious who had just attacked him.
A certain blonde terrorist had to thank his fate again; he woke up just at the right time to throw a C1 at the muscular form approaching from the direction of the pit. Obito was pursuing him... What was his reason again? Of course, to mistreat and humiliate him. The evil man disappeared behind the flash of the explosion. Did Deidara manage to blow the Uchiha up? No, he didn't, he sighed disappointedly. He could spot the contours of the intact form behind the smoke.
"Are you having fun?" the dark haired man asked, his voice completely calm (he and Itachi were so alike, after all).
"You cannot imagine how much, un!" the blonde smirked confidently. With his weapon back, he wouldn't let Obito have his way anymore. Yet, the ruler of Tsukuyomi seemed pacific right now, so Deidara kept himself from tossing more bombs at him.
"The mine. Where does it come from?" the dark haired man asked when he stopped, keeping a comfortable, five meters distance from the artist.
"You should know better; I have no idea." he said, lifting his shoulders and his mouthed palms. After a few seconds of silence, Obito closed his eyes and said:
"You need to come with me, you have no clue about how things work here." the words just slipped out of his mouth. It was the most logical thing to do if he wanted to find out more about how exactly did the other man enter Tsukuyomi, but it still sounded strange, coming from him. And Deidara thought so, too.
"In your dreams, Uchiha! I might be just a replica of my real self in your head, but that doesn't mean I'll do whatever you say, un!" the artist's attitude indicated that the once-masked man needed to change his approach, and he had to do it fast. He stepped a little closer to Deidara, who immediately reacted by backing.
"All right. I won't hurt you anymore and I will treat you as my equal from now on. I'll give my word for that."
"Your promises are of no value, un."
"Then, let's make a deal." Obito said as he walked to the tree where the blonde had been sleeping earlier. He traced a line in the gray, dusty soil with his foot, starting from the black trunk.
"If you come now and answer my questions, everything past this line is your property, including the clay pit. You do whatever you want with it, I won't interfere in any way. Apparently, I created this place unintentionally, so it has no importance for me."
"Why do I have to answer your goddamned questions then? You wouldn't do anything with the mine anyway!" Deidara said, crossing his arms and tapping with his foot on the ground impatiently.
"Because, in order to keep the perfection of this world, I will destroy every useless thing." the taller man looked so proud, selfish and serious, it was hard for the artist to believe he had ever been Tobi, even if he'd been acting. Still, the tone of his voice was recognizable, and his build and smaller gestures were alike. If he could only keep on playing stupid! Even if the masked idiot was annoying, he was way better than this tirannic bastard.
"How is that a deal? Sounds like threatening to me, un!"
"Whatever, in the worst case, I would annihilate something created by me, that doesn't mean harm for you, right?" Deidara realized he couldn't have the upper hand here. This was the guy's own world. He ruled everything. There was no way for the bomber to compete with him; it actually surprised him what Obito said about treating him like an equal. Even if it was utterly impossible.