Chapter Text
Deidara, when he awoke, was fairly certain he shouldn’t have.
He’d never used his Ultimate Art before, for reasons that should be obvious, but he was looking forward to having taken himself out alongside that damned Uchiha.
Finishing Itachi’s job for him, hm. Taking his kill away—that was something Deidara had won.
Except….if he had survived, it created the possibility that Sasuke had too. Clearly something had gone wrong, given that there were trees around him, and not a ten-kilometer-wide crater.
It clearly hadn’t all been a dream: his Akatsuki cloak was gone, and he wore only the pants he had when he’d gone up.
When he was meant to have blown up.
Deidara laughed, the sounds drawn out of him until they hurt, until his lungs felt as ragged as his unstitched chest. Then, he began screaming.
With a snarl, he pulled himself back together.
While he was an artist first, Deidara still recognized the practicalities of reality. He would need to find clothing, more supplies, and locate where the clown had vanished off to, so he could get back in contact with the Akatsuki.
On his feet, now, he began walking, sculpting the dregs of clay he had left into basic shapes. Spiders, birds.
Where was Tobi, anyway? He’d never managed to shake his partner before, and now he was nowhere to be found? Had the explosion harmed only him—?
Deidara stilled. There was someone approaching. Even mostly unarmed (though still had his two arms stitched on, thankfully), he was hardly someone to mess with.
But he was—he hated to admit it, even to himself— exhausted beyond belief, and still somewhat certain he was meant to be dead.
He could still probably take whoever was up ahead—but he might pass out again afterwards. And then, who knows what would happen?
If he died, not in a grand explosion, but instead while unconscious, what was the point? His death would be—not the culmination of his art, but something imminently forgettable.
His death was meant to be unignorable—!
“Sir, are you alright?” a man repeated himself. Deidara looked at him, and growled in recognition.
“Shouldn’t you know that? Look what you’ve done to me!” How had that Uchiha escaped so unscathed? How long had Deidara been out, that he’d had time to change? Granted, Sasuke did look different without the… cursed seal altering his appearance. But Deidara could recognize that face! It was meant to be dust by now! Exploded to pieces! Smithereens, even!!
“I—what?” the man looked dumbfounded. Deidara forced through a kai, and dilated his eye through the scope. But everything was the same—! Damned fucking Uchiha!
“What manner of genjutsu have you put on me now, Uchiha Sasuke? You will not keep me under again, hm!!” He tried to cancel the genjutsu again, though nothing happened. Fucking Sharingan.
“Calm yourself,” Sasuke ordered, bizarrely calm in tone. “You have me mistaken for another. Though there is no Uchiha Sasuke in the clan.”
“Itachi killed everyone but you, yeah. I think I can keep track of the last two Uchiha out there,” sneered Deidara.
This brought the man up short. He went pale(r), then red.
“I am Uchiha Izuna, heir to the clan head Madara. Tell me what you know about this Itachi, and I may let you live.”
Now, Deidara had studied the history of the Uchiha more than he was generally willing to admit. He did have some face to keep regarding what Tobi had inaccurately described as a crush and Sasori had raised a wooden eyebrow over. He knew it was mission prep, but others kept misinterpreting…Agh, it had been so frustrating being the only reasonable person.
But even so, he’d actually first heard of Izuna in those few years he was at the Academy. Rather, he’d heard of Senju Tobirama. Iwa’s lessons had been half-awe, half-horror. The Second Hokage’s role in creating the Hiraishin, the technique responsible for the single most devastating attack in Iwa history—had perhaps been emphasized over his other achievements.
He refocused on the Uchiha.
“Well, two issues there, yeah. Uchiha Izuna’s been dead for, like, 70 years now.” Deidara studied the man’s face more. The more he looked at him, the more slight differences he could see between his face and Sasuke’s. The man was definitely older than Sasuke, certainly, probably between twenty or twenty-five years in age, and his hair was…much longer.
The man took a moment. “And yet, here I am. What is the other issue?”
“I’d beat you in a fight, yeah.”
The man snorted and grinned for a quicksilver moment, before returning to his elegant, annoying neutrality. “You’d try. Awfully confident that you can defeat the heir to the Uchiha.”
“Just coming off of doing that, actually. No one could have survived my Ultimate Technique, yeah, not even Sasuke.”
“Again, there is no Uchiha Sasuke, and he’s certainly not the heir.” The man paused, then. There was a look of deep consternation on his face, like he couldn’t believe he was about to ask. Then: “…What year do you think it is?”
Deidara took a moment to appreciate the look of despair on those Uchiha features. “Hah, you think you’re traveled into the future?”
He ignored the muttered, other way around.
“Lousy attempt at a trick. Don’t bother, Uchiha, even an Iwa nin like me knows the Second Hokage killed Uchiha Izuna. It was a bad name to pick if you wanted to fool me, hm.”
“Second what? Who killed me? Was it this Itachi?” the man got very close indeed. His eyes were red and spinning. Deidara tsk-ed at the sight.
“The second leader of Konoha?” At the lack of comprehension, Deidara rolled his eyes. It was somewhat uncomfortable with the scope on, but worth it for the pinched face it earned him. “Didn’t you read anything to prepare for your role? Senju Tobirama killed Uchiha Izuna, which ended the war between Senju and Uchiha, enabling the creation of a village. And then all the Earth nobles got all weird about it, and for generations after sent clanless children of great talent to a literal rock pile for instruction.”
Really, he was meant for explosions, not expositions! Why was he helping this guy in whatever fake identity—
Deidara took another moment, ducking back as the claimed-Izuna lunged for his neck, to study his surroundings again. The blast might have sent him further away than he anticipated. Because there was no way this forest should still be standing, and no way it could have regrown in the next century. Unless, perhaps, he was in a time where it had not yet exploded.
In fact, he considered, as he handily dropped beneath the surface to yank the man’s feet into it, things were increasingly suggesting that he might actually be talking to Uchiha Izuna. In the past, even.
There was a twenty percent chance that this was still a Sharingan induced hallucination.
He surged to the surface again to get out of the way as maybe-actually-Izuna set the very ground on fire around his feet.
He caught his breath, eying the man who had become somewhat flushed.
“What a technique!” the man said, beaming. The concept of a smiling Uchiha brought Deidara’s thoughts to a deadstop, and it was only the fireball spat at him that got them moving again.
“I’ve never seen anything like it!”
Deidara, who had been Hiding Like a Mole since before he could walk 1, doubted that was true, but … if he truly was in the past… “Wait til you see this!”
KATSU !
Increasingly-Likely-to-be-Izuna backflipped away from the explosion a touch too late, long ponytail flipping elegantly in the motion, until the blast forced him into an awkward landing.
“How—an explosion? How did you manage that?” the man’s eyes were large and red. Fucking Sharingan.
“Oi, put those things away, yeah,” Deidara said, irritated.
The man paused, face setting back into a dignified expression rather than the blatant joy that had overtaken it. Both expressions looked uncanny on that face so much like Sasuke’s. “I — apologize. Are we not going to fight?”
He had the temerity to sound disappointed. Deidara twitched. But he was exhausted, and nearly out of clay, and not close to ready for another fight with an Uchiha.
“No, and I’ll answer your questions, yeah,” he said, finally. “Get me some clothes first though!”
“Ah, of course,” the man stumbled forward, pulling a high collar blue top from one of his pouches. Deidara sneered at the clan emblem at the back, but tugged it on.
“Alright, what did you want to know?” The shirt hung long on him, likely due to him being a reasonable height compared to Izuna.
“Tell me, what is your name? What clan do you hail from?”
Now that was a loaded question. Senju Tobirama had invented the hiraishin to kill Uchiha Izuna. If it hadn’t been for him, the Senju wouldn’t have invented it, then Yellow Flash wouldn’t have had it, and then Deidara wouldn’t have had to deal with snide comments about his hair and eye color as a child in the aftermath.
He was pretty sure he would’ve been told if he were an actual war child, much less of the most feared man in Iwa history. Blond wasn’t that rare a phenotype.
“I am Deidara, hm.” He didn’t answer the second thing, because who he was was more than enough.
“Then let’s talk, Dei-gongzi.” The sudden Earth honorific was unexpected, if mispronounced and more than a little misapplied. Young master Dei, Izuna had said, like there was a family behind him. It was rare for Fire citizens to recognize Earth naming structures, and rarer still to mistake his mononym for a traditional name.
And the man had also referred to himself humbly despite being a professed heir to a noble clan—who the fuck was he? If he truly was Uchiha Izuna, then he was the fucking gongzi, not a random orphan like Deidara.
Ah, but how long had it been since Deidara had been addressed properly for his skill?? Tobi had always sounded half-sarcastic saying senpai, but it had been better than nothing.
Izuna must have studied politics, or something close to it. But Deidara lived in the present, without ties to his ancestors or desire for descendants. There was no need to address him as anything but himself.
Finally, Deidara replied.“My family name is not Dei. Deidara is …my art name, I suppose.”
Before Izuna could recover, he continued, “And your tones are way off, my man. Gōngzī means wage. Gōngzǐ means son. And it’s Deidara to you, anyway.”
This brought the man up short, though only in the figurative sense. regrettably, he kept his unfortunate height advantage. “Are you very educated then, Deidara-xiansheng? I have not met many artists before.”
Pronunciation off again, though it was flattering to be recognized as a master.
“Just say my name if you can’t speak Earth. Do it right, or not at all,” Deidara griped. Still, despite the man being one of those Uchiha bastards, Deidara couldn’t resist an active audience for his art. “I went to the Academy, sure. But art is an explosion!”
“You received schooling!” Izuna looked impressed. “And an explosion….like the technique you used…? oh, but it was very beautiful. Could you show this one again?”
Deidara formed a small clay bird with barely a thought. Izuna’s eyes spun slowly as he watched.
“Remarkable details on the feathers, in such a short time! I have never seen jutsu like this. Do you sell these?”
“Art isn’t about money,” Deidara scoffed. The clay bird flew off, looping and flying. The Uchiha looked spellbound, and Deidara figured, with such an audience, he could show off a bit.
KATSU!
With some careful control of the activation, the explosion took the shape of the bird.
“Incredible, absolutely incredible!” Izuna said, noble countenance completely lost to the joy on his face. His damned red eyes kept spinning. “It lasted only a second, but I will remember it forever.”
“You’re missing the point,” Deidara replied, but was pleased nonetheless.
“You might have to teach me then. I am not familiar with the art. I had always thought them—well, scroll paintings and calligraphy. While certainly lovely, I can remember a nature scene more precisely than any brush stroke can capture!” Izuna sighed.
The wide grin on his face turned somewhat melancholic. “In this world, lives are so short. Even poorly made art often outlives us. But that was a beautiful instant, and how could I forget that?”
Deidara stared at him, shocked, barely feeling the tips of his ears as they went red.
“Huh,” he said, clenching his fists to stop the mouths on his hands from smiling. He looked away. “Maybe you do get it.”
“It’s a celebration of the moment,” Izuna said. “And we have so few of them.”
“You less than most, yeah,” Deidara said bluntly, and enjoyed the man’s flinch.
“I think you come to my present from the future, Deidara. How old am I, when I die?
“Why would I know that? It’s less than a year before Konoha was founded, but I don’t know the way of dating years before the Village Era, hm.”
“Village Era…” Izuna mused. “Referring to my brother’s childhood plan to live with the damned Senju, I assume. I thought I had long since persuaded him against that foolishness. But you say it worked? Because…. because I died?”
“Don’t be so emotional, hm.” Deidara rolled his eyes. “The villages are stupid.”
“Yet they’ve lasted, decades past my death,” Izuna said. “I don’t think the Uchiha can last seventy years the way things are.”
“They didn’t either way, yeah.” Deidara checked his nails, seeing if the paint had chipped. Hopefully Izuna would get him some food after all this.
The man flinched again. “You said a man named Itachi killed them all, and suggested…that he was an Uchiha.”
“Ugh, that guy. What a freak, hm. He just snapped as a twelve-year-old, and instead of leaving, decided to kill the whole clan except his brother.” Izuna’s face had gotten, somehow, paler.
“Why?”
“You tell me. I blame the eyes, yeah. Makes you lot all crazy.”
“You’re remarkably close-minded for someone dressed so revealingly.”
“Ha, you should’ve seen what that Sasuke bastard was wearing,” Deidara said. “Get me some food. I’m hungry, my man.”
“That does remind me… I have to take you back to the compound either way, and you will catch some attention, being an outsider wearing my clothing like that.”
“If they’re looking, I can give them a show,” Deidara said, letting a small sculpture explode.
Izuna flushed. “That is to say, people will assume I’ve taken someone into the family.”
“I’m going to your house,” Deidara said. “That’s kind of part of it.”
“In that they’ll assume we’re married,” Izuna said, looking almost alarmingly red, if Deidara were the sort to be alarmed by that sort of thing. He was focused on something else, though.
“….That’s legal now? Neat.”
“I feel you are missing the point,” Izuna said. “I am the heir to the clan. If they make that assumption...”
“Why would they?”
“Well. You have an advantageous face, if no one has told you.”
“No one needs to,” Deidara said, somewhat flattered. “All of this seems like your problem, and not mine, yeah.”
“You are very rude,” Izuna said, still pink. “Yes, I’ll take you back and feed you now. We can sort the rest out later.”
Whatever. Deidara could shake off anything, even time travel, but he was hungry, increasingly tired, and annoyed at the number of Uchiha he’d had to deal with in a day.
He strode forward in step with Izuna.
1. Iwa has a much larger population than visible from the surface. Not because of digging into caves, (though there is that). Just that in their version of coffin cubicle apartments, they just stick promising toddlers in the ground like turnips and hope they come out before they suffocate. return to text