Akatsuki Bloopers 2

Itachi couldn’t sleep. He lay on top of his mattress, staring at the top of the ceiling.
   He still hadn’t gotten over the humiliation Deidara had caused him earlier that day. That filthy, cheating little……..He had to get revenge.
    Itachi slid off the mattress and crept out into the hall. He knew exactly what to do.

   “Morning.” Deidara rubbed his eyes blearily as he stumbled into the kitchen.
   “Good morn-…” Tobi started to sing, but was cut off as he stared at the twelve-year-old in disbelief. Not noticing, Deidara sat down at the table across from Itachi, who was almost thirteen.
   “How’s your groin?” Deidara snickered. Hidan and Kakuzu started to laugh, remembering the previous day’s events, but suddenly stopped when they got a good look at Deidara.
   Itachi stifled a laugh.
   “What? Do I have bed head or something?” Deidara asked, feeling the top of his head. His hair was a little stiff. That was weird.
   Konan entered the kitchen with a plate of pancakes. Then she nearly dropped them. “Er, Deidara? Have you looked in the mirror at all this morning?”
   “Huh? No. Why?”
   “You might want to…” Konan said faintly before spilling the syrup all over her Akatsuki cloak.
   Deidara got up from the table and bolted to the bathroom.

   Oh, no. No way. No…….. Deidara looked at himself from all angles. It wasn’t an illusion. It wasn’t genjutsu. It was real.
   His hair had been turned purple.
   Deidara remembered washing his hair last night. Grabbing the shampoo, he squirted some on his palm and inspected the mixture.
   The usually white shampoo was a light shade of purple. Deidara hadn’t seen it last night- the light in the bathroom wasn’t very good. Now that it was daytime, it was clear that Deidara’s hair had been dyed.
   Deidara knew exactly who to blame.
   Okay. Itachi had set the challenge. It was war.

   “Today we’re going to practice shurikens.” Tobi told the motley group of boys assembled around him. “You all get four shots at the wooden post from this line. Try to aim for the middle.”
    Deidara’s stomach growled. He clutched at it, trying to muffle the sound, but Hidan was already staring at him. Itachi started chuckling.
   Deidara rolled his eyes. It was all that Uchiha’s fault. Because of Itachi, Deidara had skipped breakfast to wash the dye off. His hair was still tainted purple in some places.
   He had to wipe that smug look off Itachi’s face somehow. And he knew how to do it.

   Hidan was elected to go first- actually, he pushed and shoved until he got to go first. They all watched as Hidan stepped up to the line, missed all four shots except for one, and sweared passionately.
   “That target is rigged.” Hidan muttered as Deidara passed him to take his place. Deidara shrugged. Everyone knew Hidan wasn’t good at much except for performing Jashin rituals.
   Deidara did considerably better. Three of his shurikens lodged firmly into the wooden post, and one grazed the edge and took off a chunk of wood. He stuck three tongues out at Hidan and Kakuzu took his place.
   “Manipulating the wind element heart is cheating,” Tobi said in a bored voice as Kakuzu slowly guided his shuriken through the air, biting his lip in careful concentration. The shuriken was moving so slowly, it was easy to see that Kakuzu was manipulating it.
   “Pumpkin eater.” Deidara snickered. Kakuzu stuck his tongue out.
   Kakuzu’s last three shurikens didn’t even go as far as the post. One of them may have, but it went in a totally wrong direction and nearly impaled Tobi’s mask.
   “Why don’t you show us how good you are, Itaaaaachi?” Deidara sang as Kakuzu collected his weapons. Itachi smirked and stepped up to the line. If Deidara could hit three, he could hit four- with his eyes closed.
   “I will, Deidaaaaraaaaaa.” Itachi knew he had a better singing voice too. He took a shuriken out of his bag. For some reason, it felt surprisingly light and comfortable. Itachi smiled. All those pushups were paying off.
   He closed one eye and drew his arm back. Without vision on his left eye, he didn’t see Deidara’s smirk…or the blonde’s fingers moving in hand signals. He was so concentrated on the target; he didn’t even hear Deidara whisper “Katsu.”
   The shuriken exploded. Itachi’s bag exploded. With a yell, he threw himself backwards and held both arms up to protect his face from the heat of the explosion. It didn’t do much- his eyebrows were totally singed off.
   “What do you think off my purple hair now, Itaaaaachi?” Deidara drew out his archenemy’s name while flipping his purple-stained ponytail. “Prettier than your eyebrows, at least?”
   Itachi growled and retrieved his weapons- the ones that weren’t made of clay. The war wasn’t over. In fact, the war had just begun.

   “Sasori-danna!” Deidara yelled as he jumped into the older member’s room. Sasori jerked up from his puppet with a start. It was Deidara. Damn that kid.
   “Sasori-danna, you’re gonna be proud of me today.” Deidara sat down on Sasori’s bed and kicked his legs excitedly. Ever since Pein brought him back from the orphanage, Deidara had been totally attached to the other artist, even if they didn’t exactly share the same views on art.
   The relationship was kind of one sided, though. Sasori liked to ignore the kid most of the time, even if he was a little interested in what Deidara called art.
   “What’d you do now, Dei? Blow up your room?” Sasori growled and studied his puppet. The entire leg was ruined, thanks to the annoying child.
   Deidara smiled as Sasori used the familiar nickname. It didn’t sound as feminine as his real name. “Eh, no. I tried to, but the bomb always detonates before I can get out of the room, so I have to figure out how to time them before I can do that. Besides, where will I sleep if my room gets blown up?”
   Sasori nodded as he fished another wooden leg out from underneath his bed. The boy was crazy, but at least he had common sense.
   “Anyway, I almost killed Itachi today.” Deidara said excitedly. Sasori rolled his eyes.
   “You want to be careful about that. Leader’ll get mad.”
   “Well, yesterday, I kicked Itachi where it hurts so he stained my hair purple so I replaced his weapons with bombs and now he’s out to get me so can I stay in your room for a while because I think my room might be booby trapped?” Deidara said it all in one breath.
   “No.”
   “Please, Danna? I can blow up your puppets for you. It’ll be artistic!”
   “Only idiots like you would accept that offer, and since you’re the one making the offer, that’s really no help to you at all.”
   “It wasn’t an offer, it was a threat.”
   That got Sasori. He stood up quietly.
   “What?”
   “I said, if you don’t let me stay in your room, I’ll blow up your puppets.”
   Sasori sighed and put down the wooden leg. Deidara would’ve had the foresight to implant little bombs into the puppets.
   “Fine. But you have to shut up.”
   
   Itachi had been right about one thing. The war had only just begun.
   At dinner, Deidara discovered that his rice was made of oats. Itachi found out that his lemonade was really a human waste product. Both of them had broken silverware.
   Itachi spent the night shivering, because someone had blown his blanket to ashes. Deidara spent the night under Sasori’s bed, trying not to look at the eerily grinning puppet beside him.
   The next morning, Itachi couldn’t find a hair tie. Strangely, Deidara couldn’t find his either. Both of them spent the day looking like girls.
   When it was time for Itachi to depart for Konoha to spend time with his family, he found out that there had been a chakra-limiting pill in his breakfast; therefore he had to walk the entire way.
   When Deidara headed out to the training field alone to develop new explosives, he discovered that his bag of clay had been replaced by a bag of dough, the kind Konan used to make buns.
   By the end of the day, both boys were irritated, annoyed, but triumphant. One thing was clear: they would not be reaching a truce anytime soon.
   The war was in a full-fledged rage.