Reborn!

43: Beings of Myth

Naruto skipped through the front door, brazenly entering Akatsuki's HQ.

"Deidei!" he exclaimed as he glimpsed a flash of blond hair around a corner.

"Ah, Naruto!" cried the excitable bomb enthusiast as he bounded over, scattering a strange assortment of puppet materials in his wake as the sack he was dragging fell open.

"Isn't that Sasori's stuff?" inquired Naruto, picking up a ball joint that had rolled by his foot.

Deidara nodded. Noticing, belatedly, the mess he had made, he quickly bent down to shove the items back into the bag.

"Could you get Sasori for me?" Naruto requested, then added as an afterthought, "And Itachi, too."

"Sure. Just let me drop these off at Sasori's first," Deidara responded, lugging the sack over his shoulder.

He skipped away, the large sack bouncing with every step.

Naruto felt somewhat sympathetic as he watched Deidara's departure -- the more delicate puppet components were unlikely to survive such a journey. He hoped -- for Deidara's sake -- that there were no fragile items in that sack. As accommodating as Sasori might be of the bomb-obsessed blond, there was no way he would be easily forgiven for damaging Sasori's puppet parts.

Naruto claimed a comfortable sofa chair, sinking into the soft leather as he waited for the three missing-nin to show up.

Sasori was the first.

He walked into the lounge, his pace measured and unhurried.

Looking at his calm expression, Naruto supposed that the parts were undamaged. Either that or the damages were currently undiscovered. If it were the latter, it probably would not end well for Deidara. Simply forgetting to report the little hiccup during the delivery... was very much like him. The redhead was also very likely to interpret this as a delaying tactic, thus worsening Deidara's eventual punishment.

Taking that into consideration, Naruto thoughtfully told on Deidara.

"Deidara dropped the puppet parts he was carrying for you."

Sasori blinked slowly, the corners of his lips quirking up subconsciously.

"That brat is so clumsy," Sasori mumbled, exasperation belying the hidden fondness. "I wouldn't let him transport anything of importance anyway. Those were just recycled parts from puppets I made when I was young."

It was almost funny to hear how he treated his blond partner as a junior. Whether in this life or the previous, Sasori's juvenile appearance made him seem younger than Deidara. Sasori never had the privilege of being tall, but in the ruined timeline, Sasori had chosen to turn himself into a puppet during his prime. Even in this timeline, Naruto's immortality seal halted Sasori's ageing at the same point -- granting the puppeteer the equivalent of eternal youth. Sasori was still very young, chronological age aside, and would remain as such for the rest of his prolonged existence.

"Recycled parts?" Naruto raised an eyebrow. "I don't suppose you're feeling sentimental?"

Sasori snorted quietly. "Of course not. They're for Deidara. He wanted to try his hand at making puppets. He thought it would be great to have a bunch of indestructible puppets run all over the place tossing explosives."

Naruto tilted his head to the side.

While that was a terrifying thought that made him glad that Deidara was his ally instead of an enemy, his attention was caught by something else.

Deidara wanted indestructible puppets as a proxy in planting bombs.

These little details revealed quite a lot about the change in the former Iwa-nin's mindset.