Deidara grunted as he wriggled out of the bush. The injured ninja winced at every prick and poke that added to the scratches on his tattered cloak. Upon untangling himself from the discomfort of his hiding spot, he bitterly dragged himself into the relative comfort of the grass, sighing in relief as he was finally given the chance to catch a break.

Damn...

The blonde laid exhausted on the field as he took in the whiff of burnt air that remained of his clay clone's explosion; or at least what it was supposed to be. He recalled the beauty of the bright orange fireball as it tumbled towards his attackers, yearning gleefully for the split second of satisfaction before the land was torched and excavated into a crater.

But his explosion never came. It grew and fizzled right before he could claim his victory.

Those damned eyes…

Deidara scoffed at them. The Sharingan. Those damned eyes that challenged his ideas and punished him all those years prior had defeated him yet again. Rage flurried his mind as he turned to hiss at the damage on his right arm, bitterly recalling the unusual jutsu the jichuriki's guardian unleased to remove his hand.

The angered blonde kicked against the ground as he determined to lift himself back up, only to be forced back into the dirt as bone shattering pain shot up his remaining two limbs. He shrieked internally, his face collapsing back down for a mouthful of grass and grit. The fallen ninja gritted his tongue in disdain, causing blood to stream out from the corners of his mouth.

My legs…

As if having both his hands disrespectfully ripped off wasn't degrading enough, the brutal skirmish earlier left both his legs broken as well. Agonizing pain flooded his body as adrenaline gradually left his system with each passing second. Deidara grunted into the ground while he felt every cut, burn and strain that destroyed his defeated body; from the searing lacerations on the decimated ends of his stubbed arms to the acrid aching of crunched, dislocated bone in his chest and legs.

Damn those eyes…

Deidara's vision darkened with his senses as the ground grew damp with his blood. His joints grew numb while he whimpered his remaining breaths into grass, a wake of denial and dread pooling into his mind. Hatred slowly remanifested into a harrowing sense of anguish when the realisation dawned on him; that he was going to die here, alone. The delusional ninja instinctively chuckled to himself; he had always dreamt of the day he unleashed his ultimate art, knowing full well that he would have an unfortunate audience to leave a mark upon. It would've been a spectacle, one that would take a sizeable mass off this ugly world.

It would've been beautiful.

However, those damned eyes took it from him.

There was nothing left for him.

He was alone.

Sasori struggled in silence as he worked strenuously in the pile of broken puppets, scrapping together what he could with the remaining chakra strings the tips of his fingers. Piece by piece he rearranged his arm, joining together wooden pieces and metallic joints to form a crude but rudimentary arm. He painstakingly repeated the tedious process, creating an entire limb, then another, and another.

"So the puppeteer lives," Black Zetsu's tone arose as they manifested from the rocky aftermath of the battleground.

The emotionless puppet ignored the plant as he continued to repair his chest, clearing out segments from the damaged sockets where his new limbs would go. He carefully pieced himself together, ultimately making himself a crude but rudimentary body.

"Aw really?" Tobi voiced out his disappointment as he arrived, dropping one of the puppet heads he toyed around with, "Tobi thought Sasori-sama finally bit it this time."

The puppeteer continued maintained his cold, indifferent exterior. He slowly affixed his new feet on the rocks, pushing his might until he stood up. Sasori felt like he was walking for the first time again; shifting his weight and catching himself to balance his weight on the stilts of his makeshift legs.

"I was ready to commemorate you on the awesome run you had. Like when Sasori-sama defeated the Third Kazekage and made him your weapon... Ooh, and how you almost killed the legendary Orochimaru..." Tobi paused, gripping the chin of his mask, "Wait, I think Deidara senpai did that..."

The annoyed puppet grumbled silently while he adjusted his fists, rotating the wooden palms before wrapping a series of strings within its tips.

"It would be quite poetic too," he teased, "Dying to your grandma and the puppets you made..."

Tobi's childish remark prompted the wooden ninja to stare at the shrine of his supposed death, where his body; his greatest creation was stabbed in between the iron maiden of blades and swords that were driven in by the embrace of his parents. It irritated him; the untimely end to his self-portrait; the one he worked so hard to keep eternal.

Guess your art isn't eternal after all...

The puppet master could almost hear the boastful tone of his partner, slyly reminding him of his flawed artistic opinion. Antipathy arose in his mind as he saw Deidara's smirk form under his blond hair, paired with the unbothered aura he gave off while he mocked.

"T-"

"Shut up," Sasori shot a venomous monotone at his masked comrade, cutting him off before he could say another word.

He lifted a palm to the capsule that held his heart, delicately shifting its connections to secure it into place. The purple poison that kept his chakra alive stained his wooden fingers while he worked, pushing the misaligned veins back to their required positions.

At least the core part of him remained eternal.

Sasori chuckled.

"We found Deidara's body," Zetsu's other half spoke nonchalantly, "10 kilometres south-west of here."

Is he dead?

The puppet asked himself, a feeling of curiosity and solace flooded his head.

He sure looks dead.

Sasori noted as he arrived on the scene. Deidara's dying body lay in front of his feet, his messy blond hair covering the entirety of his face. The puppeteer stood silently over him as his beaded eyes darted across the pathetic injuries he observed of his body; from the bleeding ripped sleeves of his arms to the crooked and misfolded form of his legs.

"Found it!" Tobi reported as he leaped out from the forest, waving what looked to be Deidara's right arm above his head.

Sasori watched quietly while he removed the ring from the index finger of the rigid hand before tossing the body part towards its owner. His detached hand now lay lifeless before the redhead, its palm open to the sky. The noise that surrounded him faded as he focused on the frothing mouth that stared back at him.

The ninja wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel. Perhaps he was angry that his partner had died on him, maybe he was oddly satisfied. He was never the one to be bothered by a comrade's death as well, likely due to the fact that he had never trusted anyone fully as an ally. While he always commented that the brat would die as young as he was, he never truly believed himself, seeing how stubborn the kid had always been.

It was his own fault after all, for flying off solo.

"So what's Sasori-sama gonna do with him?" Tobi commented as he admired the cyan ring in his gloved palms.

"I would leave him to die," black Zetsu replied in his sinister voice, "What's an armless ninja worth anyway..."

"Maybe we should consult leader-sama about the situation," his other half advised.

"Deidara senpai lived a good life... He died doing what he did best... although Tobi never understood what he really saw in explosions..." Tobi spoke semi-respectfully as he gripped a fist.

Sasori observed the fainting respiring of his partner's body, sluggishly pacing down as the stream of his blood finally reached the tip of his wooden foot.

"Perhaps Kakuzu would like to use his Kekkai Genkai," the shameless ninja continued oblivious to the negligence, "Or Sasori-sama could turn him into a puppet?"

Danna...

His voice rang in his head again.

"Either way, it's your call." white Zetsu ended the conversation before he sunk back into the grass below, leaving no trace of his existence.

"Wait... for me!" Tobi shouted as he pocketed Deidara's ring, following the pair of spies beneath the ground.

Sasori kept his eyes on his unconscious partner, trying to rationalize whatever options he had. The thought entranced ninja slowly crouched down beside his partner's unconscious body before brushing a grip of his blond hair to reveal the side of his cheek.

Watching his complexion grow whiter by the second, he instinctively connected his palm over his face.

He felt Deidara's warmth and chakra slowly radiate off his body, signalling to a person's eventual release to death. Having worked on countless near-corpses in the past, he knew his partner had not much time left. He had a decision to make.

Swallowing his qualms about his emotions, Sasori tore out a jumble of strings from the cavity beside his heart, ejecting them out towards his partner. He skilfully manipulated them as they slid into the collar of the dying ninja's cloak where they travelled under his shirt and into his chest. With a firm focus the puppeteer directed his chakra through the connecting strings into his partner's heart, replenishing his dwindling life force at the price of draining his own.

You get to live this time brat.

Being once a medical ninja, Sasori was confident in his ability to heal others, though he never appreciated the moral implications of it. As puppet master who mastered the art of reanimating the dead as weapons, he'd always thought that it was a waste of time to save someone only to have them die again, when they could've been undying under his command.

Armless puppets are useless anyway.

While his chakra control worked on restoring his partner's, Sasori moved over to Deidara's side. Spreading his arms under the fragile ninja he carefully shifted his back onto the hilt of his elbow joints. He slowly arose whilst keeping the blonde's limp body relatively unmoved, as to not further disturb the open wounds that riddled his body.

Light.

While Sasori wasn't as strong as he was with his optimized puppet body, he was able to carry him almost effortlessly. For a ninja his size Deidara was already lightweight, and it also helped that he lost close to a third of his body weight from the missing blood and limbs.

Speaking of which, the puppeteer reached a stray string over to retrieve the detached hand, stacking it on top of his partner whom he carried bridal style.

You owe me for this.

Sasori grunted while they left.