DEATHLESS

Minami made a vague little grunt; Sasori didn’t need to worry himself with her, especially not with… Supporting her? Motivating her? Whatever it was, it was unnecessary. She’d fight all day and all night if he never told her to stop… Plus, Minami just felt bad about it (though she couldn’t place her finger on why).

“A steak??” And for just one more kill! Oh, she could smell it already — bloody and sizzling and tasty!! “I can do it! I can! I’ll find them myself if ya want!”

“Temper yourself. If asked to do something, never burden yourself with more.”

Still, her high spirits were infectious. Sasori let Minami sprint ahead of him, patient and sort of... amused... by her levity. She wasn’t a normal child. Maybe that was for the best. By now, a normal brat might’ve broken, but she was made of different, tougher stuff. Someone like that... someone who could one day be his bridge to humanity.

Sasori’s lack of subtlety never failed to make a part of Minami jolt. He was everything Hanako, rare as her presence was, taught her to despise, to see and think ‘what a horrible little man!’ Mother dearest wasn’t a straight forward person, you see; her words were as flowery as her namesake, soft and vague and sweetly perfumed for the sake of other’s enjoyment. Love was her weapon, and it was one she never stopped gripping —

— but Sasori didn’t need love because he was powerful. Powerful enough to bare his teeth freely and have others whimper. Strange as it remained to her, even after two years under his wing, Minami only found him that much more admirable for it. Growing up in the shadow of her father and the gaze of her meddling mother left Minami tired of politics, of hidden meanings — her new guardian was much more bearable, even if a little offputting to some. There was no hidden, cowering prose with Sasori; he said what he wanted when he wanted.

“I’ll cut their tongues out!” She grinned, tempted to tell him how she knew the truth of his words (not that Sasori would ever tell a lie, ever!!). Minami was bullied, once, when the Academy first began her year’s schooling. A boy pulled her hair and gagged every time he saw her, starting the infamous nickname of ‘Vomit Head’ — so she broke his arm with the classroom door, and the next girl who uttered it was forced to eat garbage at lunchtime. Nobody looked her in the eyes for a whole term. So! So!! “I promise, if anyone tries…”

Minami’s words trailed off into a choked breath. There was a hand. On her head. It was warm. Gentle. And what was that? Proud..? Proud! Proud! Sasori was proud of her!! Even though she let herself be grabbed and hurt and took too long —

Why was she so mad, again?

“Hehehe, ya — ya don’t have to do that, seriously, hehe! Let’s get going already!”

“Endure a little longer.” He’d heard someone say that once. To him. His old squad captain, probably, back when he was still a lowly chuunin. That man had always been too soft for his own good, puttering after his squad like a pecking hen, especially after Sasori, who he treated differently. Endure, he’d always said, it’s all going to end soon.

Minami landed without a sound, almost daintily, and watched the cockroach die. Their erratic death dance brought back memories of being much younger, when her hands were too small for spears and legs too slow for hunt. She used to smack fish out the water and watch them suffocate, wriggling in a way that never failed to make her giggle. After that, she would…

Minami stabbed the woman’s cheeks, twisting her blade to make sure it went all the way through. It was partly pragmatic, checking the target was truly dead, but it was mostly spiteful. Killing her wasn’t enough to soothe the tantrum just waiting to burst. If only humans were more durable, like the Inoue were… Oh, well. Minami placed snow onto her ‘scratches’ as Sasori worked, finding seals too dull to watch.

“Not really.” The cold stopped her from properly gauging pain, but it felt well enough. Plus, there was something bothering her. “…Umm, Master Sasori… Why did she… Why did she say those things? Ya heard, right?”

“She called you a whore.” Sasori rolled his scroll up, the body stored inside. He snapped it shut. “Your mother too, I believe. And that I wanted to have sex with you.”

He looked down at her steadily, his flat gaze giving away nothing. Sasori was taciturn on the best of days, only flaring up when his temper was stoked, but now, he was like the lake itself -- frozen, and still.

Truth be told, he never considered it until he heard the rumors himself. Then he’d thought about, if nothing else but as a thought experiment, wondering about what was possible. But it was pointless. Pursuing the girl in that way, with that intent? It would only damage her -- and then where would he be, after spending time on saving her life? He might as well have just killed her back then. No, Sasori didn’t believe in half-baked experiments. He wasn’t going to just start something and then fail on the follow-up. Minami was a long-term project, one that required careful cultivation and attention, and allowing isolated factors that could contaminate his efforts was just wasteful.

“She was wrong,” he finally said. After a moment of reflection -- he probably needed to say more if he was going to do this -- he added, “People... people will always have something to say. Many of them are wrong and foolish, but they have tongues to wag, so they will. If you cannot bear what they have to say, then destroy them. Make it so that they’re too afraid to speak.”

That felt appropriate. Sasori had observed teachers who gave similar advice to their students, giving them both advice for the future and a solution for the present. He just had to finish it with...

He pet her head. She was damp and bloody, her skull small under his soft palms.

Sasori told her to practice close combat. He told her and she never listened because taijutsu was dumb and hard and now here she was, desperately trying to flail free from the nobody’s hands because it hurt, oh, fuck, it hurt.

Amidst the screaming, a woman spoke.

What?

What?

There were lots of things Minami didn’t understand, so much kicked beyond a child’s reach, but… She knew enough to realize what the other meant. She knew what a ‘whore’ was. Minami heard it all her life, aimed at her family with amusement or disgust or jealousy or something different altogether. It was an ugly word — and it made her blood boil.

“…” Minami released a blade from its wooden sheath on her forearm, taking advantage of the woman’s disgusting, distracted state. There was no hesitation when she stuck the sword down her open throat.

For a moment, her hand tightened, her nails breaking Minami’s skin. Then she dropped her, clawing at her throat, screaming past the blood gushing up her mouth. She jerked violently, her hair flying, the pale strands stained pink, and fell to her knees, gurgling, desperately trying to stem the flow. She fell and jerked two more times, then went still.

Sasori looked up from the two corpses in front of him. He smelled blood on the wind.

Packing up the corpses in a sealing scroll, he returned to where Minami should be. His face didn’t change as he examined the bloodstained snow.

believe it

“Yer mouth’s too big for yer face,” she snarled, “I’ll rip it off!”

Minami dug her palms into the snow, feeling it melt to something she could work with. A water whip formed around her arm soon after, whistling as it cracked towards the woman. 

“What does being pretty have to do with anything?!” She didn’t get it. Prettiness didn’t override orders. Prettiness didn’t save lives. It didn’t do anything. Her mother was the most beautiful woman in the village and she watched them drown her in the bathroom. Sasori especially… He’d never care for something so silly, right?

Minami split the whip into two, going for another attack on the legs.

“We’re not the same!” I’m useful. They won’t kill me. “My blood isn’t gross.”

“Filthy, filthy, filthy!” she taunted, flipping back to avoid her whip. “You know what? I bet he’s going to kill you once he’s done with the clans. I can see it now -- you’re gonna wipe out the last of us and then he’s gonna finish the job with your pretty little head-”

She darted around to avoid a slash, then burst forward, her hand splayed wide. She grabbed Minami by the shoulder, the vibrating chakra around her fingers ripping into her, and lifted her up with surprising force.

Deidara cautiously eyed the figure before him, examining his behavior carefully. Sasori was already trying to place a power dynamic on this relationship. That’s how killers introduce themselves, is it not. He’d play his game, but Deidara was more interested in getting to know his new partner in crime, and what made him tick. A voice came from behind the black mask. 

The blond was taken aback and had to think for a second, he wasn’t used to people being interested in his art. He grew suspicious of the scorpion. 

“What’s it to you, hm?”

“Can’t I get to know my new partner?” Hiruko’s head tilted with a creak of wood. His staring eyes bored into Deidara’s face. A part of him just wanted to attack and really see his mettle -- ah, but he was on a timer. There’d been a sighting of the Rokubi recently and they were supposed to go investigate. Fighting and killing Deidara would put him behind schedule, and that wasn’t even accounting for the potential damage to his puppets.

“I don’t care what weaklings know.”

Minami exhaled through her mouth, feeling her blood pump a beat faster at the mention of the extinct clan. There had never been any love while they lived, not for her or each other, but something about how the woman uttered their name struck a deep, sore nerve. 

She dodged the slash, feet too light for any attack so obvious to connect, cringing at the sound of the ice cracking where she just stood. Minami reached beneath her poncho for a kunai and flung it towards the woman’s eyes; that kekkei genkai was an unknown, a variable for which she couldn’t strategize for… It was best to play it safe and slow until a weakness showed itself, like Master would want.

“Hurry up and die.”

The woman danced away from it, though not fast enough -- the kunai cut just above her brow. Blood began to bead up but she only smiled.

“The guppy can bite, eh? Not bad, I’d expect that from Sandaime-sama’s get. But do you bite as fiercely when it comes to Akakiri? I hear he plucked you up because you were real pretty, with a face as round as the moon -”

She yelped when Minami got too close and nearly cut her Achilles’ tendon; though she managed to twist away at the last moment, another thin cut bloomed on the meat of her calf. She spat at her for it, her eyes flashing angrily.

“Yessir!” This wasn’t the first time Sasori let her operate alone, but Minami couldn’t help but feel tickled anyways. It was strange, considering she’d been independent her whole life, but everything just felt different when he let her be.

She laid eyes on the target, watching the woman’s erratic behaviour with an expression colder than the snow she stirred. An animal trapped in a corner — that was all Minami saw. Like the cats at home, she sure liked to hiss, didn’t she?

“No cheating..?” It didn’t seem fair to leave her to deal with a kekkei genkai user with just blades and a handful of suitons. Though, thinking about it, that was exactly the sort of stuff Sasori liked to throw at her… “Uhmmm, nevermind.”

“Use whatever tools you need,” Sasori said, pulling Giyuu back. The runner snapped at him, then at Minami when she got too close. Her hands flexed into claws, the air distorting around her roiling chakra. When Sasori sharply withdrew, the woman turned on the girl.

“Aren’t you a cute one?” she leered, squaring her shoulders. Her hair was wet, clinging to her face and neck, and when she bared her teeth, they stuck out like little jagged triangles. “Little fish, all itty bitty, I heard about you. Akakiri no Sasori’s blood guppy, plucked right from the Inoue after he murdered them.”

@chakrastring​

Deidara could never read his partners’ emotions, it was frustrating. The two would go on missions together for days on end, he dreaded each time more than the last. He felt so defeated by his partners’ complete dissatisfaction in him. Never once did Itachi show interest in him, god forbid he had one good thing to say about his art. How was Deidara supposed to formulate witty remarks with such a cold dreary man. Although, deep down he was strangely jealous of the Uchiha clan– it amazed him how they controlled their sadness and turned it into rage. 

There was a long pause of silence. An ominous voice broke from the corner of the room broke it. 

—- 

He wasn’t mad. He was slightly relieved when Pain told him about the switch. Deidara was eager to find out who would be killing with next. 

Sasori examined the brat in front of him silently, unimpressed by his latest partner. He was... what, twelve? Somewhere equivalent, surely, he still had puppy fat clinging to his cheeks. Upon closer examination, Sasori had to begrudgingly admit that he wasn’t too bad -- he’d survived this long with them, after all.

“Who’s going to partner with Itachi, then?” he said.

“That will be resolved at a later date,” Pein said, and that was that. Itachi was already gone, having deposited his partner before setting off, and Sasori was here to pick him up. Hiruko’s tail shuffled along the ground, disturbing the sand restlessly. He waited until Pein’s projection blinked off, then slowly began to circle his new partner.

Sss. Sss. Hiruko’s tail rattled, shaking out the grit lodged in the hinges, and then slowly lifted, its pincer waving in Deidara’s general direction. He wasn’t threatening him, no, not yet. He just wanted the potential to exist. As he walked, he examined Deidara. Not much changed since the last he saw him. Still thin, still slight, still blonde.