Author's note: I intended this to be ready much sooner than it actually was. I know I promised a few of you I would hurry it up...heh. Sorry.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, if I did Naruto would have a lot less screen time, to make room for all the other characters that need development.
Beautiful Liar;
Chapter thirty-four: My Danna.
The ticking of the clock sounded obnoxiously with every passing second, filling the room with noise Kiba's nerves could have done without. He felt himself tensing at the minutes went by and Tsunade said nothing as he hands trailed over the exposed skin of his stomach. It was true, his stomach was a little more pronounced than it should have been at this stage, but Tsunade had explained that sometimes...that sort of thing happened. After all, some women could go through pregnancy without displaying any symptoms whatsoever.
"Well..." Tsunade said, more to herself than Kiba, judging by the way her eyes were still fixed upon his stomach. He felt the warmth of her Chakra as he lay on his back, waiting for her to be finished with his check-up. He still wasn't any happier about being at the hospital, but at least, he thought, he wouldn't be forced to stay this time. Come to think of it, when this was over, Kiba was going to smack Kankuro for that jab about Shino.
Sure, if Shino had been around he probably would have simply carried Kiba bodily towards the Hospital with an apology and a word of warning. But that didn't mean that Kankuro had to rub it in. Sometimes, he wondered why he was even friends with the puppet master "Well?" He pressed, for lack of anything better to do. Besides, his growing anxiety was doing nothing to calm his fears about being locked in hospital again, or even that something was wrong with the child.
"Your baby-"
"It's not mine."
"The baby," Tsunade snapped at last, frowning slightly in annoyance as she finally stood up straight, allowing an equally irate Inuzuka to sit up and pull his shirt up over his slightly perturbing stomach "Is growing just fine." said offered, causing Kiba to raise a brow.
"Is that it?" He asked, having thought by her um-ing and ah-ing through the brief examination that he was in for something more serious.
Nodding, shifted her weight from one side to the other, resting a hand on her hip "I thought that you were growing too quickly for your development to be normal" She started, holding up a hand when Kiba tried to interject with an undoubtedly unhelpful exclamation "But you're not." She stated pointedly "So I thought I would check for twins."
For several moments, silence filled the room, and Tsunade watched as the colour drained from Kiba's face at the very thought. No doubt, carrying the child of ones rapist was a difficult thought to deal with, but to potentially be carrying two?
The thought was petrifying.
The hidden Rain village was, as usual, miserable. It was raining...as usual. Yet, it seemed today that the sky was forlorn enough to forgo even the clap of thunder, let alone brighten the sky with bolts of Lightening. However, it was not the village that was of interest, but instead the outskirts of the village, and the tree-line that formed at the edge of the clearing that surrounded the village.
Out there, in the rain and the woods, sat a man in a tree. A blond man with one eye covered with wavy locks and donned in a black cloaked, adorned with red clouds. Above said blond sat a large clay bird, its wings out-stretched to shelter the man from the rain., and below him, directly beneath the branch upon which he sat, was a grave.
This grave was marked only by the slightly raised ground and a clay slab, propped up against the tree with its lower half securely buried beneath the earth to keep it from toppling over when strong winds hit the clearing...not that the shear weight of the thing wouldn't stop that...it was just easier for Deidara to talk all the precautions he could.
There was no writing on the slab, save for:
Akasuna-no-Sasori
The blond had thought long and hard about adding the words 'My Danna' to the inscription, before the thought of Sasori calling it sentimental rubbish caused the blond to leave the space below the name blank.
A boring grave for a boring, tasteless man. Deidara had always thought his art was superior, but did Sasori really have to go and prove the blond right by dying the way he did? He could have at least stayed alive long enough to make his own headstone...the ass. That way he could even be perfect in death...not that Sasori ever believed he was ever going to die...which Deidara supposed, would stop anyone from making a tombstone of their own.
There was nothing spectacular about Sasori now he was six feet underground, and not even really decomposing the way a normal body would. After the Konoha Ninja's had left with the Sand-nin, Deidara had returned to the Akatsuki's cave wherein they had extracted the Ichibi...only to find nothing but rubble and piles upon piles of lifeless puppets. It had taken no time at all for Deidara to find the last traces of Sasori's 'body'. It was pinned to the wall, and it had taken some time for the blond to pull it free from the contraption that held it there. He had been unaware, at the time, the Kankuro had taken Sasori's other body as well as that of his Mother and Father puppets.
So, there Sasori lay, beneath several feet of dust, nothing but quite literally a shell of his former self. Sasori wouldn't have liked it, but his death had been immortalising in a way, just not the way he had hoped...to live, through his art.
In a way, Sasori had gone out with the bang that Deidara was so desperate himself to achieve. Of course, he wasn't suicidal, he just hadn't found the right moment in which to use his greatest artistic development.
This tree...this place of mourning, was also a place of reflection, and where two artistic minds had made a kind of connection, seen a certain understanding of one another that neither would admit to. This was the place where partners had become...friends. That was why Deidara had gone to such effort to retrieve and bury Sasori, even if everyone in the organisation thought it pointless. It didn't matter to Deidara what any of them thought. But he knew that most of them thought he had lost it a little bit when the red-head had died. His kidnapping of Kiba and his subsequent release was testament enough to that, in their minds.
It had been several hours since the group had established that Kiba was, in fact, pregnant. Pein-sama had stared sceptically at the Inuzuka, taking in the seriousness in his eyes and the firm set of his jaw, teeth bared. For a moment, Pein could see the charm Deidara might have found in that slightly feral-looking face. Far be it for Pein to judge, but 'wild' wasn't quite his cup of tea. No, Pein enjoyed the type of man he could no longer be. Of course, none of those emotions rolled across the Akatsuki leader's face as he stared at the blond and the brunette before him. It had been so odd to see Deidara turn, and block his path to the boy before him, arms out-stretched, acting as a human shield upon hearing his command.
Even Kiba looked bewildered.
"Move." Pein demanded, his tone full of dark authority.
"No." Deidara retorted in indignant defiance.
There was movement behind Pein that for a moment captured Deidara's attention. "The hell'd we miss?" Hidan piped up, panting slightly from his place in the doorway.
"You can't kill it, yeah. I won't let you. It's...just some dumbass kid." Deidara said at last, ignoring Hidan's interruption. They had begun to attract quite a crowd, and most of the Akatsuki was present to witness this...bizarre exchange.
Pein, it seemed, was resisting the urge to frown "the Inuzuka has proven to be of little use to us."
"Right." Deidara agreed pointedly "so just let the little freak go."
"I would rather have him killed." Pein stated bluntly, unamused by this display of insubordination. "Move."
For a brief moment, it seemed like Deidara was going to back down and step away, when he turned to eye the brunette over his shoulder. Kiba was smaller than him, weaker and feeble, but he wasn't cowering the way the blond had expected him to be at the thought of his imminent demise. His form was tense, ready to pounce, despite knowing that he was in no condition to fight anyone, let alone a room full of S-rank Shinobi. There was a strange kind of resolve in Kiba's eyes that Deidara could not place...but only for a moment. He soon realised, that for whatever reason, Kiba was acting on his instincts to protect his young, and that...Deidara was doing the same. He didn't exactly believe it to be true...but then again, Kiba had been asking Hidan for a bigger shirt...or so he had heard.
"Look," Deidara said "I don't fuckin' want it but that's my baby." Deidara said seriously, turning his full attention back upon his leader "I'll personally make sure that Kiba gets home safe...and that he won't be able to trace us back to base." Which thankfully Kiba had seen very little of. The drank smell of the caves blocked any other, fresher smells, from filtering in from the outside. "And then I'll come back and I promise I won't go AWOL."
Yes, Deidara had gotten into quite a bit of trouble for his 'artistic clay Ninjas', which it seemed, had been the devise that enabled Deidara to get his hands on the young Inuzuka. Pein narrowed his eyes. It was a childish promise to make, given how old Deidara was, but it was hard to get the blond to agree to anything he disagreed with without coercion. Deidara had gone missing one too many times for it to be entirely acceptable to the Leader of the Akatsuki. After all, should there be a crisis, what happens if Deidara is exactly the person they need to solve it? The disappearing acts had to stop.
"Fine." He snapped in agreement at last, after a length, painful silence "But I do not wish to set eyes upon him again." He told Deidara "Or I will kill him." This sort of behaviour is exactly why ninjas should forgo the thought and act of breeding.
A shout broke Deidara from his reverie, and he scowled warningly in the direction from which the voice had come "Tobi!" the blond growled, being his usual, spectacularly unfriendly self. "What the fuck have I told you, yeah?!"
From his place at the base of the Tree, Tobi looked up at his sepai, a hand on his head as he laughed nervously "Not to come here?"
Deidara nodded slowly, "And what have you done?" He asked, tone blatantly condescending.
"...the opposite?"
"And what are you going to do now?"
"Leave?" Tobi replied, his tone small, but he remained rooted to the spot.
Realising of course, that Tobi was not planning on moving, the moderately pleased look on Deidara's face fell and he was once again scowling "So?"
"Well, I was just thinking Senpai.."
"Sounds dangerous." Deidara retorted impatiently, his hand reaching into his pocket, frowning as he pulled clay from its depths and slowly began to mould the clay wining the palm of one hand.
Tobi jumped on the spot, perhaps fighting the urge to say what he was undoubtedly about to say. But, like most things when it came to Tobi...it didn't work out quite as he had planned "I just think you should stop crying over Sasori-san like some kind of pansy!"
"I was right." Deidara concluded pointedly as he released a small clay bird from his palm and sent it after Tobi with every intention of blowing the little shit sky-high.
"No..!" Tobi protested as he turned on his heels, hastily making his way back to the village, arms flailing wildly in that bizarre fashion that he had "I'm sorry, Danna~!" The ebony-haired man wailed, his voice getting smaller and smaller until it could no longer be heard.
Then, when his partner was little more than the size of his thumbnail from where he was in the distance, Deidara raised his hand and shouted out a very deliberate "Katsu!" Only to be disappointed to find that he had, in fact, somehow missed the odd-ball ninja.
Deidara hated to be interrupted here.
This was his spot, the place he shared with Sasori and Sasori alone.
Of course, it wasn't long after that that Kiba found himself in a clearing with Tobi's hand on his shoulder and Deidara preparing a clay bird. "Don't worry about it~" Tobi was saying, his tone as gratingly cheerful as ever on Deidara's ears "We'll get you home nice and safe and I'll make sure you don't fall off the bird!" Tobi babbled, Kiba listening only to placate the man who seemed...a little to nice to be a criminal. Maybe...he was insane? Kiba wouldn't have put it past Akatsuki to employ the mentally unstable.
Deidara kept to himself as Tobi spoke, entertaining Kiba with his nonsense, and the occasionally inappropriate remark about the baby growing inside him. It was times like that that Kiba, Deidara was sure, judging from the reactions he could see from the corner of his eye, that Kiba fought the hardest to keep himself from hurting the ninja whose face was hidden behind that retarded orange mask.
Deidara rounded on the pair of them "Do it" he growled. With that said, Tobi positioned two fingers as the base of Kiba's neck, even before he younger male had a chance to open his mouth. His vision blurred and his knee's gave way and his mind fell into unconsciousness as Tobi reached out and caught him. Then of course, Tobi moved to hoist the Inuzuka up onto the bird's back, ahead of Deidara, who was taking a moment to double check supplies as Tobi settled both himself and the other male down. It was only when Deidara was settled and in the air that he turned to look at the pair behind him. He wasn't very fond of carrying passengers, since they slowed him down, but he knew it was the easiest way to travel. It would be at least an hour before Deidara enough registered the chill in his bones, and turned to look at the pair, Tobi holding an obviously freezing Kiba close. Deidara wanted to curse, not because he was allowing the...mother? Shifting, Deidara moved, yanking off his cloak and turning around so that he could pull Kiba's limp form from Tobi's grasp "Don't say a word." The blond snapped as he set about struggling to get the cloak on the Inuzuka. Wisely, Tobi said nothing. At least not until after they had set back on the journey home after dumping Kiba in the woods nearby his precious village. I hope you enjoyed it! Forgive me!))
((A/N: So...the long away and hopefully not-too-disappointing chapter has finally arrived. I know I promised this to a number of you "soon" but soon often turns into "later" when you suck at life.