SASORI POV

Nine hours… nine long hours later and we still have one more hour until we reach the relay point and Zetsu. All I have learned in these past nine hours is that Deidara can stay on one topic for over three hours. He is also able to wear my nerves down in half that time.

“For the last time,” I growl, “I am not going to give you a piggy back ride. I don’t need your weight on this thing, it weighs enough!”

“Oh c’mon,” Kisame shoots me a grin, “I’ve seen you carry way more weight than Deidara even comes close to with Hiruko.”

“That was dead weight, which Deidara is incapable of acting as for an hour,” in an undertone I add, “sadly.”

Itachi smirks, apparently catching the undertone word, though no one else seems to have caught it. Deidara pouts and crosses his arms over his chest.

“I can so sit still, danna!” he protests.

I roll my eyes as he comes up alongside me to get a better position to argue. I do not openly answer him, though I do allow my real hand to reach out through Hiruko and gently rest it on his arm. He doesn’t stop walking, but I can feel the sudden freeze of his upper body muscles as he looks down to my hand.

Though the conversation could have lasted the entire hour, it stops now. Kisame starts to catch up to us, Itachi being at the front of the little parade we have going, and I drop my hand before either decide to look. I dropped my hand just in time too, it seems, as Itachi turns to watch Kisame approach and manage to keep up his pace enough to be alongside his partner.

“I thought you were going to be the lookout at the back of the group,” Itachi glares at the shark man.

Kisame shrugs, “It gets boring.”

“It’s important.”

“Not to me.”

I step in between the two as Itachi turns to make the conversation more heated and possibly violent, “Hey, hey, you two, save it for the mission. Itachi, if it’s really that important to you I’ll go take guard at the back.”

He huffs at me but then shrugs, “Fine.”

Deidara moves to follow me and I shake my head, watching Kisame drop back from Itachi, knowing he angered his partner/lover even if he didn’t mean to. Yes, I know they aren’t really open about it, but the two have to have something going on between them, and Deidara and I exchange glances knowingly.

Kisame turns to Deidara, “So this is your first big mission, what did you have to do as a trainee?”

“Spying, infiltration, stuff like that, un,” Deidara smiles up at him, his famous perk of one side of his lips.

“They’ve made it much easier on the trainees lately,” Kisame grumbles.

I nod, “I hear you. Though, then again, how many trainees did they lose the year you joined?”

“About twenty,” he turns to me.

“I think I know why they give us the harder missions now.” He nods in agreement.

Itachi then turns, “Yeah, but if you think about it, doesn’t it only count as you losing two that time around?”

I turn to him, and then think about it, “No, not really, it still counts as losing twenty.”

“That’s not to say,” Kisame grins, “that all twenty were lost to the enemy.”

Deidara turns to him in shock, “What do you mean, un?”

Itachi’s eyes flare red, swirling, “I killed the other eighteen.”

“They were the highest ranking,” I admit.

Kisame laughs, “That got Itachi boosted to first choice, which is the only reason most of us agree he managed to get the position he has.”

Itachi turns back to the road, “Tch, they were nothing. They were weak.”

“Speaking of weak,” Kisame hurries to Itachi’s side again, “You might want to save your chakra. I think we can survive without the sharingan for an hour, ne?”

Itachi looks at him for a second, and in that second I fear for Kisame’s life, but then Itachi simply nods, and deactivates the sharingan. Deidara watches this, and then stares at the Uchiha’s onyx eyes.

“What?” Itachi shoots at Deidara after a moment.

“Sorry, un,” Deidara turns away, “I’ve just never seen you without your sharingan before.”

“Hn,” Itachi turns, “this’ll probably be the only time you do.”

“Your eyes look better without all that red, un,” Deidara nods, “The red may match your cloak, un, but your natural eyes make you less scary.”

“Who says I want to not be scary?” Itachi turns to him, giving him a looming glare.

Kisame pushes Itachi’s shoulder, “Stop picking on Deidara, Itachi, you’ll give the impression that you’re not a people person.”

“I’m not,” Itachi turns to the blue skinned man.

“True, but try not to give that impression,” I grin at that.

“Yeah, Itachi, wouldn’t want to blow our cover,” I chime in.

“What cover?” he scoffs.

“Good point,” I shrug.

We stop talking, and for the first time on this long trek the silence is comfortable. I look at the sun, only a couple minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour, before we reach our destination. I shake my head, only imagining whom it could be if all of us were sent to take care of them. It could be that Leader just wanted to make sure the job got done, but this is over kill.

As the clearing comes into view, Itachi reactivates his sharingan, and Kisame shifts Samehada to a better striking position. We don’t intend to fight, but five known murderers, missing-nin, and akatsuki members in one place is ANBU heaven, they would instantly attack and try to destroy us all, or at least one of us. One is always better then none.

We reach the clearing and the exact border and all of us realize one thing right away. Zetsu’s energy trace is no where near us. None of us can even find it.

We exchange glances before Itachi’s sharingan swirls to life, and scans the area. In the mean time I watch Kisame go to wander the land, a worried expression on his face. I look over to Deidara and he can sense the tension, he knows something is wrong, and that no one likes it.

“What’s wrong with Kisame, un?” Deidara asks.

“It’s not like Zetsu to not be at a relay point,” I answer.

“What’s wrong,” a voice, a different voice, an all too familiar voice, “looking for this?”

We all turn, and time slows as all of our eye lock onto the pale man at the top of the nearest hill in the clearing, holding Zetsu’s body as if it were the unwanted carcass of an animal. His eyes lock with mine and time freeze. Why are you here Orochimaru?