A/N: This chapter is short because I delayed working on it until the last minute. That's not wise.

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Deidara

Clone Hidan turned out to be unavailable. He said via text that he and his original were experimenting with techniques related to that religion that he could not name. Thus, the only person at hand who had ever held a leadership position was Kakuzu. Kakuzu was unhappy to learn that someone had done something impulsive and dangerous without telling anyone else. He shot Yahiko a withering look. "You can explain why you did such a stupid thing later. For now, let's do our damnedest to avoid war." He turned to Itachi. "Any recommendations?"

Itachi turned to Yahiko. "Why was Obito chosen to take the dolls to their lesson?"

"He chose himself," Yahiko replied. "I told him that I'm not happy with how Soye's been punishing the dolls. He insisted on going to vampire territory so that he could speak up in their defense. I told him that if he wanted to go there, the only safe time to do it would be during a lesson, because the demon boy always accompanies the lessons."

Itachi ran some quick mental calculations. He then turned to Kakuzu. "I recommend that we not intervene."

"What?! But he could get killed!" Kisame protested.

"The odds of that are unlikely," Itachi replied in a calm voice. "In contrast, it is 100% guaranteed that the usual pattern of the daily lessons has been disturbed. We are all aware of the vampires' dislike for changing their patterns. Soye has proven herself unusually adaptable, but that only means that she can tolerate one challenge to her rules. Two may be beyond her limits."

Kisame continued to sputter. Nagato looked down at the ground. Even Sasori got a worried look on his face. Kakuzu narrowed his eyes at Itachi. "Are you seriously proposing that we leave one of our own to face who knows what consequences at the hands of people who detest him?"

"Yes."

Kakuzu blinked in surprise. Then, he chuckled. "In a group like this, that's very brave. I respect it."

Itachi tilted his head. "You said the top priority was avoiding war, did you not? Given that as the objective, this is the most efficient way to achieve it."

"Even so."

"I hope Madara keeps himself hidden," Sasori murmured.

"I hope Konan doesn't cut off the meeting with those church people to ask us why her phone is blowing up with threatening texts from Soye," Kisame said, rubbing his forehead. "Goddammit, they all left with the full expectation that we could safely handle ourselves for a few hours."

Deidara frowned. "You make it sound like Konan and her friends are our parents. They're not, hm. If the vampires get upset, we'll handle it." He shrugged. "Personally, I think it's really cool of Obito to speak up in defense of the dolls, yeah. If someone punted Stitchy across a room for no reason, I would want someone to speak up."

"Me too," Yahiko said with a grin.

"What if he's hurt?" Nagato asked.

"He'll handle himself," Yahiko replied. "That's how these trials work. He has to look after himself."

Kisame lowered his hand. "Wait, what? I thought he already passed the special training."

"Konan wasn't the one to decide that Obito needed special training. He decided that for himself. She was satisfied with his performance, but he wasn't. That's why he insisted on being the one to talk to Soye. He still needs to prove to himself that he's strong enough to do the right thing."

Deidara was even more impressed now. Holy shit! He went through a super tough test of wits and guts, and thought it was too wimpy?! Konan designed that thing and Original Nagato said he passed! Those two have high standards!

Sasori echoed his thoughts. "Seriously? A performance good enough to satisfy Original Nagato wasn't enough? What is, then?"

"I think he needed to design his own trial," Yahiko guessed. "He told me he just figured out what Konan wanted from him and did it. That didn't give him a feeling of being able to do things by himself."

Kakuzu crossed his arms. "Arguing with a vampire will certainly get him that. I just hope it doesn't drag the rest of us into war in the process."

He had to know, Deidara thought. Yahiko said they talked about the safest time to do it, so it's not like he forgot he was banned. He knew he was breaking a rule, and that the rest of us would probably be mad at him for doing it, and did it anyway. That's way beyond the first special training. When he went out into the woods with Original Nagato, we were all cheering him on. It's easy to be brave when all your friends are cheering you on. Being brave in a way that nobody supports is much harder. Would I be brave enough to do something like that?

The little impromptu meeting dispersed. Since they had agreed not to launch a rescue mission, there was nothing to do but wait. Deidara went outside to the garage where he kept Clay. He had the bird squat down so that he could easily lean against its side. "I've done things that pissed people off before, but I didn't realize that they would piss people off at the time," he said to Clay. "It's different when you know in advance. I don't know if I could deliberately make all of my friends angry at me, hm."

"It would be easy."

Deidara jumped. "Sasori! Why'd you follow me?"

"I wanted to talk to someone instead of wrestling with my thoughts alone," Sasori replied.

"What sort of thoughts do you have to wrestle with, yeah?"

"They're based off what you said, actually. What would I do if one of my creations was abused?" Sasori looked at the ceiling. "I'm scared at what the answer might be."

"Scared? Why?"

"Remember what happened to my former boss?"

Deidara had to think about it. After a while, he remembered. His eyes widened. "You could fuck somebody up, couldn't you?"

"Kakuzu was intimidated once by a glint of megalomania in my eyes. I've only acquired more power since then. How could pondering this question not send shivers down my back?"

"You're sending shivers down my back, hm!" Deidara shook his head and switched to a topic that would hopefully be more comfortable. "What did you mean when you said it would be easy?"

"Easy for you to piss off the people who live here," Sasori clarified. "All you would have to do is refuse to serve as a flying taxi."

Deidara looked up at Clay. Huh, it's true. Konan's the only person with the ability to fly. Anyone else has to ask me for a ride. That makes me important, doesn't it?

"Try it," Sasori urged. "You can find out how well you handle pissing people off without actually endangering anyone."

"Why would you encourage that?" Deidara didn't think Sasori was wrong to. He was just curious about the engineer's reasoning.

"Stress-testing is important. You need to know how much each part of a system can handle. That's true of machines and of people; it's how Itachi determined what to do, after all."

Deidara couldn't help but smile. "Sounds like you're saying that I'm important, hm. That if something big happened and I cracked, the whole group might just fail because of me."

"Not immediately, but over the long term," Sasori replied. "If a muscle around the knee snaps, you fall down. You don't finish the step you're taking. If the cartilage breaks, you finish the step, but now bone is rubbing against bone and things aren't aligned right. The whole joint gets more and more crippled until it grinds to a halt. I think you are like cartilage. If you cracked, everyone would want to help, everyone would be distracted and upset, and there go our operations."

Deidara's smile faded. "That's just because they'd want to help anyone. Face it: I'm not really central to anything, hm. Everyone else has something that only they can do. Not me. My only unique skill is being a flying taxi."

Sasori narrowed his eyes. "You're just saying that because you're scared."

Deidara blinked. "Huh?"

"If being a flying taxi really is the best way for you to contribute to the group, then it would be morally wrong to refuse to serve, wouldn't it? You wouldn't be fearfully avoiding the possibility of anyone being mad at you. No, you'd be nobly doing the right thing." Sasori stepped closer. Genuine shivers ran up and down Deidara's spine. Sasori went on in a low voice. "You know you're better than that, Dei. If you're afraid of being typecast, then refuse the role. Find something else to be. Stop whining and stand up for yourself."

Deidara stared back wide-eyed. Time slowed to a painful crawl. He had to swallow before he could speak. "Are you trying to scare me out of a bad mood? Because it's kind of working."

Sasori stepped back. He murmured, "I need to explore this power. That's what Konan would say."

"Yeah, totally, man. Explore your power. You're weirdly good at intimidating people and it'd be a shame if you let that talent go to waste, yeah."

Sasori smiled. "Thanks. I'll think about it." He turned to go. Deidara let out a big sigh of relief. "Dei?"

"Hm?"

"Think about what I said. What talents are you letting go to waste?"

Sasori left. Once more, Deidara was alone with only his clay bird and his thoughts. He leaned back against Clay's side and wondered. It's a good question. What AM I good for?

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A/N: I've received several messages from the universe in the past week telling me to grow the heck up and stop hiding from my problems. That's why of all the characters whose perspective I could have chosen to use, I chose Deidara's.

Anyway, see y'all next week! I'll try to begin the next chapter sometime before Sunday morning.