A/N: If I had written this chapter anytime before just now, I might have had time to put some extra thought into whether I want to throw such a bombshell into the middle of my story. I did not even plan for it to happen. I don't have the slightest clue what it will mean, or how I'm going to handle it, or anything. But I don't exactly have time to reconsider since it's already an hour past noon, so I guess we're switching ourselves over to a far more interesting ride, yeah! Let's hope it doesn't plunge straight into the underworld of your choice. I will not be at all surprised if I lose followers after this chapter.

Heeheehee!

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Deidara

At the bar with Itachi. Deidara figured it was good to check in at least a little bit with the rest of the group. He felt safer doing so. He smiled as he realized that. They'd fought off the demon and warded off other dangers together. It might not ever feel right to be separated from people like that again. I love you guys, he added.

You safe there? Kisame asked.

Deidara looked around. "Do you see anyone skeevy-looking?"

Itachi looked around with the Sharingan. They sat at a table in the middle of the table section, with three other tables occupied nearby. One of them was occupied by a person in a black apron, which Itachi had explained the meaning of. Beyond the tables, there was a very normal-looking medley of people walking around, sitting, laughing, and sometimes looking sad. "I see nobody sitting alone trying to look inconspicuous while actually studying the whole bar. I see nobody ready to attack or move suddenly, not any more than usual. That woman over there is probably a succubus, but my view of her is constantly interrupted and she is concentrating on the three people trying to flirt with her." Itachi looked away and took a deep breath, counting silently to three before letting his shoulders relax.

"In other words, no." Deidara reported, We're safe. Spotted a succubus, but she's with other people and looks friendly. An employee's nearby. Nothing strange happening.

Updates requested, Kisame replied.

Sure, yeah. Deidara smiled and put his phone away. It was nice to be looked after.

"Are you not curious about what happened earlier?" Itachi asked.

Deidara shrugged. "Those messages are there, yeah. I can check 'em later."

Itachi had yet to deactivate the Sharingan. He looked around the bar again. "Interesting. It appears that being in a dangerous place is activating ninja instincts."

Deidara nodded. That would explain how much better he felt, both from having contact with others and in general. His thoughts seemed clearer, more focused.

"By which I mean that I want to be fully informed," Itachi elaborated.

Deidara blinked. "Oh! Yeah, hm. Sorry." That also made sense. I can't be thinking that much more clearly if I missed that, yeah. He read the messages that had bothered them so much earlier. "Nothing related to us," he told Itachi. "Just some stuff about Hidan acting weird again, and about how Konan installed the symbol, things like that."

"What variety of weird?" Itachi asked.

"Sleepwalking." Deidara narrowed his eyes. "Or at least that's what everyone's calling it."

Itachi deactivated the Sharingan. One of the bartenders came by with the drinks they'd ordered. Itachi stared into his as he took a sip. "Ah." Pause. "I remember now. You don't think that's what it is."

Deidara shook his head. "I don't know what sleepwalking looks like, yeah, but I can't believe it looks like that."

"What did it look like?" Itachi asked.

"So fucking creepy!" Deidara was surprised by how the words rushed out of him. He'd been secretly holding his breath, just waiting for someone to ask. He raced to describe how Hidan had spoken in such a dull monotone, and his eyes were purple, and he looked like he was asleep, but then he sat up so smoothly and unnaturally, and he was just staring the whole time looking blank when he never looks blank, and…

Itachi sat very still and very quiet, listening to all of it. Deidara was glad for that when he finally finished. Merely remembering Hidan as he had looked that night sent shivers down his spine and made his heart race. Deidara gulped down half his drink just to have something to do. He slammed it down, still breathing heavily but not about to start shaking anymore. His face had been pale before, but now it was red. I can't believe this shit! Everyone calls it sleepwalking even though they know it wasn't sleepwalking, and nobody will tell me what it really was, yeah! I get that they looked all scared, and it's hard to talk about something scary, but don't I deserve to know what's going on? I was there, too!

"Deidara?"

Maybe Itachi will finally fill me in on what's going on, yeah. Nobody else is telling me a damn thing. "Yeah?"

Itachi steepled his fingers. "I have an idea."

"Tell me." Deidara took another long gulp. "Nobody else will even talk about that, hm! I'm left out of, like, almost everything! I hang out with the people who know things, like Konan and Nagato, but I don't know anything more than anyone else does! I don't get to take the lead on dealing with anything."

Itachi leaned over the table. "Dei. Neither do I. Neither does anyone else. Most of what we have to deal with cannot be dealt with, or requires some very specific skillsets that only a few of us have. If something appears which you are perfectly suited for, I trust that you will be given the lead."

"And until then, I'm going to be left even further out of the news cycle than everyone else," Deidara groused.

"I doubt that." Itachi raised his drink and clinked it against the drink in Deidara's hand. "What you called 'hanging out' is the main way information passes along in this group. You spend time with Sasori, and now with me. This is progress."

Deidara sighed. "I know that, hm. I'm an outsider in more ways than one."

"You don't have to be."

Deidara's lips twitched. "Maybe. It seems like nobody's interested in what I'm interested in, but everyone liked those pictures I took of Kakuzu." That was awesome, yeah! "Hidan helped with that, and even Sasori, yeah. Yeah, maybe I am pretty important!"

"Those pictures are the reason we have a group chat," Itachi recalled. "You already are."

Deidara smiled and put his drink down. "Thanks, Itachi. You're really cool. Why didn't I talk to you before, yeah?"

"I'm sorry for that too," Itachi replied. "Perhaps we could fly on your bird and discuss clay animals together." Deidara nodded.

Best hangout ever, yeah! He basked in the warmth of it, allowing himself to be filled with hope. But eventually, he remembered that they were supposed to be talking about something. "Uh, Itachi? What were we just talking about?"

Itachi's gaze slid to the right as he perused an imaginary timeline. "I had an idea. I think I know what Hidan's 'sleepwalking' really is."

Deidara threw himself onto the table. "Oh, yeah! Tell me, hm!"

"This is only a hypothesis," Itachi carefully specified. "I cannot be sure."

"Any hypothesis is better than no hypothesis, hm. That's fine."

"Do you remember what Konan said when she was describing your training battle to Laurie?"

"Nope."

"She said something very interesting. To me, at least. She said that when Hidan was retrieving his scythe, he looked like he was possessed. To clarify, she said that meant he looked as if he was not in full control of his own body." Itachi drummed his fingers on the table. "I had not thought of possession that way before, but in the days since, I've realized she's right. That is exactly what partial possession would look like."

Deidara's eyes widened. "You think Hidan's fucking possessed?"

"It would explain a lot," Itachi said. "He has manifested powers and knowledge he doesn't usually have. What you describe sounds like another, more advanced form of being unable to control his own body. His eyes even changed color. That wouldn't mean anything if we were in the real world, but this miniature world is at least half-fictional. Changing eyes signifies changing people in fictional worlds."

"Fuck," Deidara whispered. Can that happen to anyone else? "Possession by what, hm? Who or what were we talking to?"

"I don't know," Itachi replied. "In order to know that, I would have to understand what manner of being Hidan's scythe is."

"His scythe?" Deidara's mouth dropped open. "You think he's being possessed by his own fucking weapon?"

"No," Itachi said quickly. "I do not think that. I think the phenomena underlying Hidan's scythe and his own strange behavior are related. If I can figure out why Hidan's scythe manifests strange powers, that might tell me why Hidan does. If I know how an inanimate object with no engine, motor, or other ability to move under its own power can be made to move, that might tell me more about how possession works. It is like studying fire to learn more about how a lightbulb works - both things produce light and heat, so if I study one I might learn something about how the other does it."

Deidara blinked. "The first lightbulbs were just like fire. They made light and heat for the exact same reason fire does: something in them got really hot and glowed."

"Yes."

"But it was really a lot more complicated than that, because lightbulbs heat up from electricity and fire heats up from chemical reactions."

Itachi sighed. "Yes."

"That isn't a good strategy, hm. You aren't going to learn very much."

"I know." Itachi sloshed his drink in a circle to stir it. "There's nothing else I can do, though. Hidan's memory problems stand in the way. I have heard that they exist in order to keep him from pain, but I suspect they have another purpose. They prevent him from knowing anything about his situation. It's as if whatever is invading his mind does not want him to know about it."

"Shit." Deidara was pale again, almost white. "He could be in a lot of trouble."

Itachi resumed drinking, giving them some space. Deidara finished his. As he was wiping his mouth, something occurred to him. "Wait a minute. I talked to whoever that was. Hidan needs to drink blood because he's like those vampires. He physically needs to. They said that he can't, because of the pain. But they don't feel pain. They didn't look like they felt anything we felt. Nagato was, like, terrified, and Purple Eyes didn't show any sign of that," Deidara recalled. "They can do what they need to do to live, and Hidan can't. They even told us some helpful stuff. Maybe Hidan's not in trouble?"

"Maybe his situation is benign or helpful."

"Yeah."

Itachi finished his drink. "Even so, I must know more. There is too much unexplained, and too much of what is unexplained is dangerous to us. Hidan was also the reason why the first succubus attacked. I still have not figured out how that can be related to anything else about him."

Deidara and Itachi stared at each other. Slowly, their eyes slid in the same direction: towards the group of people laughing and trying increasingly contrived pickup lines, at the center of which stood a woman Itachi couldn't look at without losing track of his thoughts. They looked at her until someone passed by, breaking their lines of sight. Then they looked back at each other. Itachi took a deep breath, but he nodded.

Deidara took out his phone and updated the group chat. Still safe. Nothing's happened. Going to interview a succubus, brb.

Itachi

Itachi's mind churned with plans, all of which were still in their beginning stages. He realized too late that there was one crucial flaw in what they meant to do. "How will we ask coherent questions when she is in this form?"

Deidara paused in the middle of putting his phone away. He'd already hit Send. "Um… We'll just have to ask her to turn into a guy, I guess."

"How are we going to ask that?"

"Crap."

"Perhaps we should wait for someone else."

Deidara shook his head. "No turning back now. I already told everyone we're going to interview a succubus."

Itachi sighed. "The sound of her voice is as alluring as the sight of her. It seems her powers extend to all sensory abilities. In order to approach her without losing our senses, we would have to sense her without directly sensing her."

"She has a bunch of people around her making noise, yeah. Follow the voices," Deidara said hopefully.

Itachi said nothing. What have I done?

"Itachi? What's wrong, yeah?"

Itachi closed his eyes. "I mean no offense, Deidara. I am glad for your company, and I appreciate what you have to say. However, the influence of your company and the atmosphere here and my own frustrations has led me to do things I regret. Deeply."

Deidara blinked. "Itachi. There's nothing wrong with coming up with ideas, yeah. Even if it's not right, it helps organize a lot of what I've seen and helps me make sense of what's related to what. Thank you for that, yeah. I know we kinda sorta forgot it was supposed to be a hypothesis at the end there, but that's how we got the idea to ask her about things, yeah. Whatever she has to say has got to be useful, yeah."

Itachi began to twitch after the second "yeah." "Ideas are often not accurate. I appreciate your attempt to make me feel better, but there's a reason I don't share my ideas until they're fully formed and I have every reason to be confident in them. Even then… I don't have the slightest backing for this idea of mine, but already we're saying things like 'No turning back now.' That is a very bad thing to find yourself saying, Deidara." I have some ideas I am particularly fond of. I can admit that. But I never, ever, should be so attached to an idea that I can't let it go. This is wrong. Not only was it unwise to make a course of action based off incomplete information, but Itachi also felt it to be morally wrong. Not being able to let go of an idea was a great advance on the journey to being a bad person.

Deidara ignored the pinging of his phone. "Itachi. Come on!"

Itachi opened his eyes, but only a little. If he was an ordinary person, he might have turned away from their self-assigned mission. But he was not an ordinary person; he was a ninja. That was how Itachi chose to explain the force that motivated his next words. "Oh, well. We must do what we must do. I will have to avoid this in the future." He looked up at Deidara. "Ignore the ideas. Let them play no role in what we ask her. We will only ask her about what the first succubus said. Nothing else."

Deidara's brow wrinkled as he nodded. "That's exactly what I was just saying."

"Was it?" Itachi tried to remember what Deidara had said while trying to console him.

"Yeah, hm. Even if your ideas aren't right, asking her some questions is still a helpful thing, yeah. The reasons why we thought to ask her stuff don't matter, yeah."

"Oh." Itachi quickly scanned his body for excess tension and forced himself to relax. I was so busy reacting to that one part of what Dei said that I didn't even notice the other part. That's another thing I should not do. "Thank you."

Deidara smiled. "Okay." He looked at the group of people the succubus was with from the corner of his eye. Her teasing remarks sent shivers down his spine and paralyzed his mind, but she spent most of the time not talking. Deidara memorized the sound of the voice of one guy who apparently got chatty when he was lustful. "Got it. Let's just follow that voice, yeah."

Itachi's stomach flipped as they stood up. Of course. I'm still frightened of approaching a demoness. I might have been overexaggerating the downsides of spinning ideas out of fear. I can't accurately judge how bad it really was to have this discussion. As usual, Itachi mourned his lack of precognitive powers. If he could just know the right thing to do before he did anything! I am not like Hidan. I can't simply act and make whatever results from my actions into 'the right thing' as if I had intended it all along. But that might be the only way to make myself act at all. He was grateful to Deidara for insisting they go along with what they had planned, no matter how flawed the plan was. He needed to learn how to go out on a limb like that.

Deidara took his hand and led them both towards the sound of the chatty guy, keeping his eyes on the ground so he could only see people's feet and weave around them. Itachi was grateful for the hand-holding. The feeling of Deidara's hand-teeth against his palm was a very good distraction. He squeezed Dei's hand twice. Distraction. Deidara obliged, licking Itachi's palm with his hand-tongue. It tickled. Itachi was smiling and trying not to laugh when they made it to the succubus' group.

Deidara let go of Itachi's hand in order to push aside one of the eager admirers. "Hey," he called, raising a hand to shield his eyes. "Can we talk to you?"

"Maybe," the succubus said. The way she drew out those two syllables, rolled them around her mouth, made them seem like the softest and sweetest sounds in existence, made Deidara's knees shake.

Itachi called up the memory of his previous encounter with a succubus and used the fear to bring him back to his senses. "Regarding important business unrelated to recreation," he added. "If you are too busy, could you direct us towards another who is not?"

Deidara shook his head, visibly driving away the effects of her voice. The succubus looked at the two of them. They were serious. The guy with his arm raised to block her out and his friend who looked at the ground really were not here to have fun. Who the hell would come to her for any other purpose? People didn't do that. She had no idea what they could possibly be asking about, and the mystery fascinated her. Immediately, she switched to the least threatening male form she knew. Most of her admirers backed away disappointed, but the chatty guy remained. The incubus took him by the shoulders and physically turned him around, giving him a push in the direction of the bar. "I am not too busy. May I order drinks?"

Deidara lowered his arm, wincing at that voice. Itachi didn't like the mental images it conjured either, but it did not cloud his senses, and for that he was grateful. "No, thank you. This will hopefully be short."

For convenience' sake, they invited the incubus back to their table. A third chair was found for him, which he lounged in. The least threatening male form he had was completely clothed, but the sight of him lounging was still rather uncomfortable, so Deidara and Itachi did not so much as glance at him. Deidara kept his gaze locked on the table, and Itachi closed his eyes.

Itachi began. "We've had non-recreational interactions with your kind before. We were with a group of our friends, here at this very bar. One of them, who is very unusual and has divine connections to a god which doesn't normally exist in this world, approached a succubus. She touched him. It hurt him, so he kicked her in the genitals and stumbled away, and other things happened which cannot be explained by normal laws of cause and effect. It was a chaotic night. You may know of it."

"I do," the incubus answered. His eyes lit up. "Jule. That was her name. She was so unhappy about the changes in the climate around here. What happened to her?"

"Um…" Deidara gulped. "She, uh… Was she a friend of yours?"

The incubus' eyes darted between the two of them. "I'm not sure how you use that word. Maybe, maybe not. What happened to her?"

"She was more upset than you knew," Itachi said. "After the events that night, she came after us. Knowing that we were friends with him, she attacked in the hope that he would somehow go away, despite the fact that there is no indication that that is possible. We had to defeat her. I am sorry, but she no longer exists."

"Not possible," the incubus answered easily. "Her essence -"

"Was swallowed," Deidara interrupted. "By the same friend of ours she had a problem with. He can change his form now."

"The one with divine connections?" The incubus had to be sure he was hearing that right. A demon's essence, in a body with divine connections?

Itachi tilted his head. "Good question. I hadn't considered how the two might interact. He seems to have no problems, nor has anything strange happened. He merely changes from male to female and back now. No other strange abilities, no unusual effects. As far as I can tell," he qualified. "There may be some I don't know about." Deidara pulled out his phone and typed something.

"What kind of divine connections?" the incubus asked suspiciously.

Deidara and Itachi looked up just long enough to glance at each other. Itachi guessed they were both thinking the same thing. There are many deities at work around here, obviously. He must have thought we were talking about another one. Let's hope he doesn't become angry…

Itachi looked away, using his Sharingan to quickly identify escape routes in case the incubus did become angry. "The succubus accused our friend of being responsible for theological disturbance around here. Jashin sama did not have influence in this world before he came here, and it's possible his existence is the direct cause of Jashin sama being present now."

"You already implied that," the incubus huffed. "I mean what kind of divine connections? Servant? Worshipper?"

Deidara and Itachi stared at each other. Itachi inclined his head. Do you know? Deidara shook his, adding a small shrug. "I could ask," the blonde said while reaching for his phone. "The vampires might have said something."

To fill time while Deidara asked, Itachi answered the succubus with, "Neither of those. Something else, but we don't know what."

"Hey," Deidara announced. "Yahiko says Hidan's other power, the one where he can feel people's feelings, causes him to take the same form as anyone who has feelings in certain parts of their anatomy. Hidan says he hasn't noticed anything else, hm."

"A fairly straightforward interaction that appears to have nothing to do with divinity." Itachi glanced at the incubus to see how he was taking this.

The incubus met his gaze. "Not a servant and not a worshipper?" Thank the gods, he does not sound angry. Just in disbelief. Whew! "What else is there?"

Deidara scrolled down to see the newest message. "The vampires said something about a 'prophet.'"

General

"A what now?"

Deidara and Itachi flinched. Oh crap. They leaned away from the incubus, whose eyes were bulging. "Give me that." The incubus took Deidara's phone from him by force. Deidara gave it up with a shiver. Fuck, demons are scary! He remembered that they had needed the whole group to defeat just one. I forgot they were so dangerous. Interviewing one might have been a bad idea, hm.

The incubus scrolled up, huffing at the lack of context provided. Serious claims needed serious proof. A prophet? No. I don't want to believe that. But as he scrolled, he saw a particular chain of messages that made his blood freeze. These humans had serious proof, and did not know it. Oh gods. A prophet.

He looked up. They both leaned away from him, ready to run. He remembered that they had already been attacked once, and handed the phone back slowly and gently. "My apologies," he said. "I had to know more."

The blond one swallowed. "About what?"

The incubus sat back, looking at them both with wide eyes. "You don't know what manner of being you associate with, do you?"

"Evidently not," the quiet one said.

The incubus leaned forward and lowered his voice. This was Very Serious Business, and these humans were like helpless little lambs. He felt bad for them. "Listen to me," he whispered. "Prophets are Very Important Beings. They are rare, and unusual, and between that and their powers they always cause upheaval. You are at Ground Zero of a time where the entire course of history takes a turn, and you don't even know it."

"What's a prophet?" the blonde one whispered. "When we use that word, we just mean someone who goes around predicting future events or talking about a new god that nobody's ever heard of. New religions can totally change history, but the people themselves aren't anything special, yeah." He swallowed again. "You sound like you're talking about something different."

"You think prophets are ordinary humans?" The incubus shook his head. "What, do you think the amazing powers they always have are just stories? Think again." He saw the quiet one grow white as a sheet and begin to tremble. That was good. They should all be trembling.

"Jesus," Deidara whispered. A second after saying it, his eyes widened and he clamped his jaw shut.

"Yeah, good example."

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A/N: The very thing that makes him such a good example is the thing that makes using his name such a bad idea. Gonna have to hope most of the readers are agnostic. Ah well. It's good I don't have very many of you.

Okay, so I must admit this was half-planned. The vampires did mention a prophet; the nature of prophets was planned. I didn't plan for any real-life figures to qualify, though. I thought that would be an entirely fictional construct for my stories. Whoops. So cool though! Exciting!

I didn't initially plan for the succubus to have a name at all. It only occured to me that she was going to be named as I was writing that exact line of dialogue. It's pronounced the same as "Jewel." We might learn more about her, maybe. I dunno.