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“Tobi… I need to talk to you yeah”
Obito looked up from where he was perched on the uneven surface of a boulder. They had stopped hours short of the Akatsuki compound, in a narrow clearing by the river. The current dragged noisily at the reeds, the air restless with gusts of wind. Deidara was crouching, pants rolled haphazardly to his knees, cloak flung aside in a careless heap. He was almost elbow-deep in the mud, fingers busy sifting through for the right texture of clay.
Obito watched him quietly. There was something disarming in how absorbed Deidara could be—utterly careless of dirt, utterly unselfconscious of the way sunlight cut across his shoulders. Obito tried not to notice. Tried and failed.
“Tobi?” Deidara snapped upright, hair whipping across his face. “Are you even listening to me? I swear if you’ve fallen asleep again…”
“Senpaiii,” Tobi sing-songed immediately, clasping his hands together in mock devotion. “Tobi would never fall asleep while Deidara-senpai is working so hard! Tobi was only admiring how passionate senpai looks digging in the dirt. Like a little mole!”
Deidara’s eye twitched. “A mole?”
“Yes!” Tobi leaned forward eagerly, tilting his mask as if in innocent wonder. “Small, grumpy, always underground. Very cute!”
A vein pulsed visibly at Deidara’s temple. “I’ll blow you up, you idiot.”
Obito suppressed the sigh that rose in his throat. He could end wars, manipulate nations, orchestrate a plan decades in the making—yet somehow baiting Deidara was the most satisfying thing in the world. And the most irritating. And perhaps, though he’d never say it aloud, the closest thing he had to fun.
“Senpai is so scary,” Tobi whimpered, rocking back on his heels. “Tobi only wanted to compliment you. Tobi loves his senpai, after all.”
Deidara pinched the bridge of his nose. “God, shut up hm. Just… shut up. I was trying to talk about something important.”
“Ohhh,” Tobi tilted his head. “Important? Like how senpai always brags about his art, but Kakuzu says it’s overrated—”
“Not that hm!” Deidara snapped, sharp enough to scatter a couple birds from the reeds. He exhaled hard, forcing the words out before Tobi could derail him again. “I mean about the Akatsuki. About Pain.”
At that name, Obito’s pulse gave a sharp, instinctive jolt. He kept his posture loose, kept his tone light—Tobi, not Obito. Always Tobi.
“What about him, senpai?”
Deidara leaned closer, lowering his voice like he was passing along classified information. “I don’t think he’s really the leader.”
Obito froze, every muscle a coil beneath the mask.
“There’s someone else,” Deidara went on, eyes narrowing with fierce conviction. “A secret leader, yeah. The real mastermind behind everything.”
For one terrible heartbeat, Obito thought Deidara had seen straight through everything.
He was sharp—sharper than the others gave him credit for. His temper and theatrics disguised it, but the boy’s mind cut fine as a wire when he focused. If anyone outside Nagato and Konan could piece together the truth, it would be Deidara.
The breeze pressed cold against Obito’s neck. His mind raced—how much did Deidara suspect? How close was he, how dangerous?
“…A secret leader?” Tobi repeated, tilting his head with a perfect mimicry of vacant curiosity. “Ehh? Senpai is making scary theories again! Who could it be?”
Deidara jabbed a clay-smeared finger at the air, certainty blazing across his face. “That’s what I’ve figured out hm. And it’s obvious once you think about it…”
Obito braced.
“It’s Hidan.”
Obito almost choked on his own breath. That—that was where Deidara’s suspicion had led him. He felt something sour and relieved tangle in his chest all at once. Gods above. The genius who had just dismantled Pain’s legitimacy in a single sentence had also landed on the single stupidest conclusion imaginable.
Still, Deidara barreled on, oblivious to the storm of conflicting emotions behind the mask.
“Think about it hm,” he said, voice fever-bright. “Pain just sits there, giving orders from that creepy statue. Half the time he doesn’t even explain why we’re doing things. You can’t tell me someone like that’s in charge of the whole organization.”
Obito fought to keep his head tilted at a Tobi-like angle of idiot curiosity. Inside, though, his pulse drummed. He had underestimated him. Too perceptive. Too close.
“And Hidan,” Deidara went on, warming to his theory, “is too much of a liability to keep around otherwise. He’s deranged, he’s annoying, he tries to fight everyone. The guy is immortal and a complete nuisance. Why hasn’t Pain gotten rid of him yet yeah? Because he can’t. Because Hidan’s the one really pulling the strings.”
Obito blinked.
Deidara’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial growl. “Nobody is that fucking stupid and still part of an S-ranked criminal organization. It’s an act. It has to be.”
For a moment Obito just sat there, caught between hysteria and despair. Deidara’s conviction burned so bright it was almost admirable. If only he knew how close he’d been to discovering something dangerous. If only he knew how utterly wrong he was now.
Tobi’s voice came out in its practiced singsong, a buffer against his own whiplash of thoughts. “Ehhh? But senpai, Hidan is always yelling and getting scolded. That’s not very leader-like.”
Deidara waved a hand, dismissive. “Exactly! That’s the brilliance of it hm. Keep everyone convinced you’re useless, and nobody notices when you’re running the whole show behind the scenes.” He smirked, clearly pleased with his own reasoning. “Classic misdirection. I almost admire it.”
Obito pressed his fingertips against his mask, hiding the way his mouth twisted. Admire it? He could almost laugh. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to applaud Deidara’s intelligence or shake him until his theory rattled loose.
Instead, he forced the cheerful lilt back into Tobi’s tone. “Wowww, senpai is amazing! Tobi never would have guessed. Senpai is like a detective!”
Deidara scoffed, straightening as if the matter had already been settled. “Well, obviously,” he said, smugness settling comfortably over his features. “It’s practically airtight hm. I don’t know how no one else has figured it out yet.”
Tobi let out a high, delighted giggle. “Tobi is sooo impressed.” he tilted his head to the side. “So what do we do now?”
Deidara paused.
His brows knit together as he stared down at the riverbank, thumb rubbing absently at a smear of clay on his palm. The bravado didn’t vanish, but it shifted, gears turning behind sharp eyes.
“Well,” he said slowly, “first we talk to the others. Subtle-like.” He shot Tobi a look. “They might’ve noticed things we haven’t. Kisame’s not stupid, Kakuzu pays attention, even Itachi—” his mouth twisted briefly, “—would’ve seen something if it was there.”
Obito nodded along enthusiastically, heart thudding a little harder. Involving the others was dangerous.
“And once we’ve got enough proof,” Deidara continued, confidence returning full force, “we corner Hidan. Force him to drop the act and tell us what his real plan is.”
Tobi clasped his hands together again. “Ehhh? Cornering sounds scary.” His voice dipped, conspiratorial. “What if Hidan’s secret plan is really, really bad? Like… super bad.”
Deidara snorted. “How bad can it be hm?”
“What if,” Tobi said slowly, sing-song stretched thin, “it’s something like… murdering all the babies in the world?”
The words were ridiculous on their face, but Obito felt the familiar, suffocating weight of his actual vision pressing in around them. A world rewritten. Trapped. Silent. Artless.
Deidara didn’t even blink. “Then he should’ve said so from the start,” he replied flatly. “I don’t give a shit.”
Tobi hesitated, just enough to sell the act. “And what if it’s something else? Something that would stop senpai from making his art ever again?”
Deidara went still. The easy confidence drained from his posture, replaced by something sharp and cold. His eyes hardened, focus narrowing to a lethal point as he straightened fully, mud forgotten.
“Then I’d kill him,” he said without hesitation. “With my own hands. And then I’d leave.”
The river rushed on beside them, indifferent.
Obito felt something twist painfully in his chest. Of course that would be his answer. There was no world Deidara would accept without his art. Without motion, without explosion, without choice. Good, a treacherous part of him thought. You still have teeth.
Deidara glanced at Tobi then, sharp and assessing. “So?” he asked. “You in hm?”
For a moment, Obito said nothing. Then Tobi straightened, hands flying up in exaggerated excitement.
“Of course, senpai!” he chirped. “Tobi will help you uncover the evil mastermind and save the Akatsuki!”
Behind the mask, Obito smiled thinly.
If only you knew, he thought.
---
Kisame’s laughter filled the safehouse long before Deidara finished kicking the mud from his sandals.
It was one of the smaller Akatsuki waystations. Stone walls sweating damp, a single low table in the center, the faint smell of old blood clinging to everything. He lounged against the wall like he owned the place, Samehada wrapped and resting against his shoulder, shark-like grin already stretching wide as Deidara paced in front of him.
“Ha!” Kisame barked, slapping a hand against his knee. “You’re telling me Hidan is the secret leader of the Akatsuki?”
Deidara scowled. “You don’t have to laugh like that, hm.”
“I kind of do,” Kisame said cheerfully. “It’s very funny.”
Despite himself, Deidara huffed, a corner of his mouth twitching. For all their differences, Kisame was one of the few people in the Akatsuki whose presence didn’t immediately grate on him. They understood each other in a loose, instinctive way—an appreciation for spectacle, for excess, for things done loudly and without apology. If not for Itachi’s constant, suffocating proximity, Deidara suspected they might’ve shared more than missions. Drinks, maybe. Arguments that ended in laughter instead of blood.
Instead, Itachi lingered like a shadow in the corner of the room, and whatever easy camaraderie might have formed between them never quite had the chance to breathe.
Obito hovered a step behind Deidara, swaying on his heels, hands folded behind his back. He could feel the weight of Itachi’s gaze, steady and unblinking, pressing into him like a blade between the shoulders.
Deidara crossed his arms. “I’m serious hm. Think about it. Pain never explains anything. He just sends us out like attack dogs and expects us to obey.”
Kisame hummed, rubbing his chin. “True. But that doesn’t exactly scream ‘puppet.’ Just screams ‘bad manager.’”
“That’s what he wants you to think,” Deidara shot back. “Meanwhile Hidan—”
“—is loudly threatening to sacrifice everyone to his god,” Kisame cut in, grin sharpening. “Not exactly subtle.”
“Exactly!” Deidara snapped. “Too obvious. Nobody looks twice at the idiot shouting about rituals while the real work gets done.”
Tobi nodded enthusiastically. “Kisame-senpai, Deidara-senpai is so smart! Tobi never thought about it like that before!”
Itachi’s gaze sharpened by a fraction.
Kisame’s grin widened. “You’re telling me you’re thinking about it now?”
“Ehhh?” Tobi tilted his head. “Tobi doesn’t think very much.”
From the corner, Itachi continued to stare. Obito could almost feel the irritation rolling off him—stop pretending, stop breathing, stop existing.
Deidara turned back to Kisame, undeterred. “You’ve noticed it too yeah. Hidan never actually gets punished. He screws up missions, antagonizes everyone, and somehow he’s still here.”
Kisame shrugged. “Immortality’s hard to replace.”
“That’s not enough,” Deidara insisted. “Pain’s ruthless. You know that. He wouldn’t tolerate that level of incompetence unless there was a reason.”
Kisame considered this, one eyebrow lifting. “You’re saying Hidan’s incompetence is… strategic.”
“Yes!” Deidara said sharply. “Finally.”
There was a pause. Then Kisame laughed again, lower this time. “I’ll give you this—you’re convincing. Still think it’s ridiculous, but you’ve got a decent pitch.”
Tobi bounced slightly on his toes. “Sooo, does that mean Kisame-senpai is helping us catch the evil mastermind?”
Kisame glanced past Tobi, just briefly, toward Itachi. “What do you think, Itachi?”
The room went quiet.
Itachi’s gaze did not move from Tobi. Seconds passed. Long enough for it to get uncomfortable. Long enough for Obito to wonder if he was doing this on purpose.
When he finally spoke, his voice was flat. “Speculation without evidence is dangerous.”
Deidara bristled. “That’s why we’re gathering evidence.”
“Mm,” Itachi said. His eyes flicked to Deidara, then back to Tobi. “Be careful where curiosity leads you.”
Obito resisted the urge to bare his teeth beneath the mask. Is that a warning? A threat? Or just your usual moral superiority?
Tobi waved cheerfully. “Don’t worry, Itachi-senpai! Tobi will be very careful!”
Itachi did not respond. Kisame let the silence stretch, one finger tapping idly against Samehada’s wrappings. When he finally spoke, the laughter was gone from his voice, replaced by something more thoughtful.
“I’ll tell you what, kid,” he said. “You bring me something real, not just irritation fueled conspiracies, and I’ll back you. Until then… I haven’t seen anything suspicious myself. But I’ll keep an eye out.”
Deidara’s grin sharpened. “That’s fine hm. I don’t need everyone convinced right away.” He turned away from Kisame, already pacing again, mind clearly sprinting ahead. “If Hidan’s hiding something, there’s only one person who’d have noticed,” he said. “Someone who’s watched him long enough to see past the bullshit.”
Kisame hummed in recognition. “Kakuzu.”
“Exactly.” Deidara smirked. “Nobody pays attention like he does. And nobody hates inefficiency more.”
Itachi finally spoke up from his corner. “Kakuzu and Hidan are rarely separated, you won’t get one without the other noticing.”
Deidara shot him a glare. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, Uchiha.”
Itachi’s expression didn’t change. “You’re proposing an investigation that could destabilize the organization.”
“Good,” Deidara snapped. “If it deserves to be destabilized.”
Obito kept his posture loose, his weight rocking faintly from heel to toe. Inside, something ugly and irrational pressed against his ribs. He didn’t want Itachi advising Deidara. Didn’t want him warning him, or guiding him, or placing himself anywhere near the center of Deidara’s attention.
Kisame raised a brow. “And how exactly do you plan on getting Kakuzu alone?”
Deidara’s grin widened, feral and pleased. “I have a plan.”
For the briefest moment, something sharp passed through Itachi’s eyes.
Obito noticed. Behind the mask, he felt an almost shameful bloom of satisfaction.
Tobi, mercifully oblivious, bounced on his heels. “Yay! Then it’s just us!”
---
The meeting place was Deidara’s idea.
An abandoned quarry carved into the earth like a wound, walls bordered by half-collapsed tunnels. Wind threaded through the broken scaffolding with a low, mournful whine, tugging at cloaks and loose grit alike.
Obito didn’t like it.
An expensive bounty had been seeded through the right channels; inflated just enough to draw interest, detailed enough to sound real. A wealthy client. A discreet job. High risk, even higher reward. Exactly the kind of thing Kakuzu never ignored.
Hidan, conveniently, had not been invited. He was occupied elsewhere, chasing the promise of violence through a trail of carefully placed explosive traps Deidara had laid days in advance. Enough to keep him busy, loud, and very far away.
Kakuzu arrived without ceremony. He stood at the edge of the stone shelf overlooking them, cloak fluttering slightly as if irritated by the breeze.
His eyes fixed on Deidara instantly.
Obito had always thought Kakuzu felt ancient in the wrong way. A man who had outlived his patience and now rationed it carefully, spending none of it on theatrics. There was no tolerance in him for spectacle, no curiosity, no interest in why people did things — only whether they were worth the cost.
“Of all the idiotic stunts,” Kakuzu said coldly, “this is the one you choose?”
Deidara scoffed. “Nice to see you too, hm.”
That was all the warning there was.
Obito didn’t decide to move. His body made the choice for him
Black tendrils erupted from Kakuzu’s sleeves like living wire, snapping through the air with a sound like tearing cloth. They didn’t hesitate, they went straight for Deidara’s throat.
Obito lurched forward with a sharp, exaggerated stumble, foot catching on loose gravel. His shoulder slammed into Deidara’s side hard enough to knock the breath from him, sending them both staggering — Deidara sideways, Obito directly into the path of the tendrils.
The impact was brutal. Something wrapped around his torso, crushing tight, ribs screaming as the breath was punched clean out of his lungs. Another tendril snared his ankle, yanking him off balance entirely. He hit the ground hard, stone biting through fabric, mask clacking sharply as his head snapped back.
Pain flared. Bright, immediate and familiar. Good.
Obito let it show.
“AIEEEEEE—!!” Tobi wailed, voice pitching high and frantic. “W-Wait! Kakuzu-senpai, Tobi’s not— Tobi didn’t do anything!!”
The tendrils tightened reflexively, hauling him half off the ground. Obito flailed with convincing panic, limbs jerking uselessly as if caught in a net.
Deidara whirled, fury detonating instantly.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” he snarled, spinning to face Kakuzu, one hand already flexing as clay slid into his palm. “Let him go hm!”
Kakuzu didn’t release him. His gaze flicked between them, flat and unimpressed. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked. “Luring me out here with a fabricated bounty?”
“Put him down,” Deidara snapped, fury crackling through every word. “And I’ll tell you.”
Kakuzu’s eyes narrowed. “You think you’re in a position to bargain? You were supposed to be a client, and you’re clearly not. Which makes this a trap. A sloppy one.”
He paused, something clicking into place behind his eyes.
“…Is that why I haven’t seen Hidan all day?”
Obito felt the tendrils tighten again, just enough to remind him how easily Kakuzu could tear him in half. He let out a sharp whimper, shoulders shaking, playing the part down to the last nerve.
Kakuzu’s mouth thinned. “What did you do to distract that idiot?”
“Nothing you should be concerned with hm.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
Deidara’s jaw tightened. “Fine,” he snapped. “I did this so I could talk to you about him. Without him around.” His hand clenched, clay kneading softly between his fingers. “Not my fault your asses are always glued together hm. I needed five minutes where he wasn’t shouting in my ear or trying to stab something.”
Kakuzu stared at him. Then his gaze dipped pointedly to Obito.
The tendrils jerked, lifting him higher, giving him a short, dispassionate shake. Obito yelped, limbs flailing wildly as the world lurched.
“E-Ehhh—?! Kakuzu-senpai, careful!!” Tobi cried, voice wobbling into hysteria. “Don’t tell him anything, Deidara-senpai! We don’t negotiate with terrorists!!”
“Shut the fuck up,” Deidara snapped without looking at him. “We literally came here to talk to him.”
“But—!”
“I said shut up!”
Obito obligingly went quiet, subsiding into panicked sniffles and shaking breaths. Inside, he listened.
Deidara spoke quickly after that, words tumbling over each other. He laid out his reasoning in sharp, jagged pieces. Hidan’s constant insubordination, the way he antagonized everyone and yet remained untouched, Pain’s intolerance for inefficiency. A liability that should have been discarded long ago unless it served a purpose no one else was meant to see.
He finished with the same conclusion he always reached: that the act was the point. That the idiot god-cultist routine was misdirection. And that if anyone would know whether that suspicion was bullshit, it would be the man who had spent the longest time at Hidan’s side.
For a moment, Kakuzu said nothing.
The tendrils holding Obito slackened slightly, as if their owner’s attention had shifted elsewhere. Obito hung there, breathing hard, heart pounding from anticipation.
Without any warning, the tendrils released. Obito dropped.
He hit the ground with a startled yelp, landing hard on his side, rolling once before coming to a stop in the grit. He lay there for a beat, stunned, then groaned loudly, clutching at his ribs.
“Owww… Tobi is broken…”
Kakuzu had already turned away.
He didn’t spare Deidara another glance as he stepped back toward the edge of the stone shelf.
Deidara stared after him, disbelief flashing hot across his face. “Hey—!” he barked. “I’m not finished!” He surged forward before Kakuzu could disappear entirely, boots skidding loose gravel as he cut across the quarry floor.
“Don’t walk away from me,” he snapped. “You heard what I said.”
Kakuzu didn’t even slow.
“I’m not entertaining this,” he replied flatly, stepping onto the path that led up and out of the quarry. “You’re paranoid, reckless, and wasting my time.” His gaze flicked back just long enough to cut. “And the fact that you think that idiot could orchestrate anything beyond his next tantrum is proof enough of how far you’ve overreached.”
Deidara bristled, teeth bared. He moved again, sharper this time, cutting in front of Kakuzu’s path.
“Get out of my way,” Kakuzu said calmly.
“No.”
The air shifted. Black tendrils twitched at Kakuzu’s sleeves, restless, impatient.
“I won’t repeat myself,” Kakuzu said. “Move, or I will remove you.”
Before Deidara could answer, something small and orange blurred into Kakuzu’s path.
“W-Wahh—!” Tobi cried, throwing himself forward dramatically, arms spread wide. “No please!! If someone’s getting ripped apart, take me instead! Tobi is very expendable!”
Deidara spun on him, incandescent with rage. “Go away, Tobi!”
Tobi wilted instantly, shoulders hunching. Kakuzu stared down at him, unimpressed.
“You’re all pathetic.”
He stepped forward anyway, and the ground exploded behind them.
Stone and dust blasted into the air, the shockwave rippling through the quarry. Deidara stumbled, bracing instinctively; Obito dropped back into a crouch, playing startled as debris rained down.
A figure vaulted effortlessly through the settling dust, laughing.
“Man, you would not believe the day I’ve had,” Hidan announced cheerfully, swinging his scythe onto his shoulder. His cloak was torn, splattered, singed in places, grin sharp and satisfied. “I swear, every time I think you’ve run out of surprises, you pull some new explosive bullshit—”
Deidara spun toward the sound, disbelief flashing sharp across his face. “What the hell—?” he snapped. “How did you even—”
Hidan walked forward, boots crunching against loose stone, grin already wide as he straightened. “You think you can keep me away? C’mon, Deidara-chan. Any time someone tries real hard to stop me from getting somewhere, Jashin just tells me I should want it more.” He tilted his head, eyes gleaming. “Your little bombs were cute, though. Worked for a while.”
Obito watched him carefully.
Hidan always arrived like this. Loud, grinning, soaked in violence. But underneath it, Obito knew, there was a feral instinct that never missed an opening. He wasn’t clever in the way Deidara was clever, or Kakuzu, or Itachi — but he was relentless. Once his attention locked onto something, it stayed there, worrying at it like a blade scraping bone.
And right now, his attention was very much on them.
“So,” Hidan continued brightly, swinging his scythe down to rest against the stone. “What’s all this, huh? Secret meetings? Explosions? You guys planning a surprise party for me?”
“E-Ehhh—!” Tobi piped up instantly, flailing his arms. “N-Nope! Nothing suspicious at all! We were just, um—standing! Talking! Very normal Akatsuki things!”
Hidan’s gaze slid to him. Slow and assessing.
“…Yeah,” he said after a beat. “Okay. That’s fucking weird.” He squinted. “So what are you actually up to?”
Kakuzu inhaled as if to answer.
“No—!” Deidara barked, lunging forward. “Don’t—”
“I don’t have time for this,” Kakuzu said flatly, already irritated. He looked at Hidan. “They think you’re the leader of the Akatsuki.”
Silence fell. Even the wind seemed to falter, caught between one gust and the next.
Deidara stared at Hidan. Hidan stared back.
Obito felt his pulse stutter.
For one impossible second, he wondered if Hidan might laugh it off. Deny it. Shrug and call them idiots.
Then Hidan’s mouth twitched.
The sound that came out of him was low and deliberate, a slow, rolling chuckle that climbed and curled in on itself. It grew louder, richer, until it echoed off the quarry walls like something rehearsed.
“Well… well… well,” Hidan drawled.
He lifted a hand, pressing two fingers theatrically to his face, head tilting back as his grin sharpened into something wickedly pleased. “Looks like you’ve figured out my master plan.”
Deidara’s breath caught.
For a heartbeat, his expression went utterly blank. “You—” he started, then stopped, eyes wide. “You’re joking,” he said weakly.
Behind his mask, Obito’s thoughts screamed.
No fucking way.
Hidan peeked through his fingers at them, grin never wavering. “Took you long enough,” he said lightly. “I mean, I was wondering how long I could keep pretending before someone caught on.”
Kakuzu closed his eyes. Just briefly.
When he opened them again, he took in the scene — Deidara frozen in disbelief, Hidan basking in his own theatrics, Tobi hunched and silent, mask tilted just so.
“…I’m done,” Kakuzu said.
He turned without another word, boots crunching steadily as he walked away, cloak settling around him like a door being firmly shut.
He didn’t look back.
---
The safehouse Hidan chose was, predictably, awful.
It was little more than a gutted watchtower overlooking a ravine, stone floors cracked and uneven, the walls stained with old soot. The ceiling sloped too low in places, forcing Deidara to duck as he stalked inside, jaw clenched tight enough to ache.
Hidan had dragged in a table.
Not a real one. It was just two planks balanced atop a stack of crates, wobbling slightly whenever he leaned against it. On top sat an assortment of objects that made no sense together: a chipped mug, a length of chalk, a half-eaten ration bar, and—most concerning—a crudely drawn diagram scrawled directly onto the wood.
It was a circle. With arrows. And several words misspelled beyond recognition.
Hidan clapped his hands together loudly.
“Alright!” he announced, grinning. “Since you caught me, I figure it’s only fair I explain everything. Transparency is important. Builds trust or something.”
Deidara stared at the table.
“…You’re fucking with me,” he said flatly.
“Nope,” Hidan replied cheerfully. “This is real. Sit down.”
“I’m not sitting hm.”
“You’re gonna want to sit.”
“I absolutely will not—”
“Tobi will sit!” Tobi chirped, immediately dropping cross-legged on the floor. He tilted his mask up at Hidan. “Is this like story time?”
“Exactly like story time,” Hidan said approvingly. “Gold star, Tobi”
Obito’s hands curled slowly into his sleeves.
Deidara remained standing, arms crossed tight over his chest, every line of his body pulled taut with barely restrained violence. “You have exactly one minute,” he said. “Start explaining why you just admitted to being the secret leader of the Akatsuki, or I start removing body parts.”
Hidan waved a hand dismissively. “Relax. You’re gonna love this.”
He turned and picked up the chalk, tapping it against the table as if gathering his thoughts.
“Okay,” he said. “So. The Akatsuki. Big scary criminal organization, right? Everyone thinks it’s about power. Money. Control. Big spooky eye plans. Typical villain shit.”
Obito’s stomach sank.
Deidara’s eye narrowed. “Get to the point.”
“I am getting to the point,” Hidan said, mildly offended. “Jashin, you’re just like Kakuzu! No patience. The point is—none of that matters. Because the real goal?” He spun dramatically, chalk squeaking as he underlined the circle. “World peace.”
The word hit the room like a dropped blade. Deidara stared at him.
“…World peace,” he repeated slowly.
“World peace,” Hidan confirmed, nodding. “Total global harmony. No more wars. No more borders. No more annoying little villages squabbling over shit like children fighting…over shit.”
Deidara let out a short, incredulous laugh. “Do you have any idea,” he said, voice rising, “how many intra-country relationships I have personally sabotaged?”
Hidan blinked. “Uh.”
“I have destabilized governments for fun,” Deidara snapped. “I’ve blown up diplomatic envoys. I’ve started wars because I was bored. You literally killed the head of Takigakure last week! How is any of that going to help with ‘world peace’?!”
“Yeah,” Hidan said easily. “Necessary sacrifice.”
Deidara spluttered. “Necessary— for what?!”
“For peace,” Hidan replied, as if this were obvious. “Sometimes you gotta crack a few skulls to make an omelet.”
“That’s not—!” Deidara cut himself off, dragging a hand down his face. “That’s not how it works, hm!”
Hidan shrugged. “Worked for me so far.”
Obito sat very still.
The words pressed against him from all sides, wrong and warped and uncomfortably close to something real. World peace. Sacrifice. Necessary violence. He could feel the edges of his own vision reflected back at him in funhouse proportions, distorted until it was almost unrecognizable. Almost.
“But here’s the genius part,” Hidan continued, warming to his speech. He began pacing, scythe clanking softly against the stone as he gestured wildly. “Everyone expects the leader to be some quiet, brooding asshole sitting on a throne. So what do I do? I preach, I pick fights, I piss everyone off. Nobody takes me seriously.”
Deidara’s mouth tightened.
“Meanwhile,” Hidan went on, tapping the chalk against his temple, “I’m pushing the world toward unity. You know what unites people better than anything?”
Deidara did not answer.
“Shared suffering,” Hidan said brightly. “Common enemies. Fear. You take away their sense of safety, and suddenly everyone’s on the same side.”
Obito’s breath felt too loud inside his mask.
“So what—you get big and powerful enough that the whole world has no choice but to unite against us?” Deidara said, then stopped. His voice came out colder. “That’s not peace.”
Hidan waved that away. “Details.”
“No,” Deidara snapped. “Details matter. Art matters. Conflict matters. You don’t get meaning without contrast.”
Hidan rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”
“You can’t freeze the world into some stagnant, silent nightmare and call it harmony,” Deidara said, anger sharpening every word. “That’s not peace. That’s death.”
Hidan laughed. “Man, you artists are all the same,” he said. “Always so dramatic. You ever think maybe the world’s just fucking tired?”
Deidara stepped closer. “I don’t care if it’s tired hm. I care if it’s alive.”
The words scraped against Obito’s ribs on the way in. He stayed still, hunched where he sat, hands tucked into his sleeves like he could hide the tremor crawling up his arms. The light flickered, shadows stretching and collapsing along the walls, and for a moment all he could see were fragments. Snow falling endlessly, a world held in perfect stasis, dreams without pain or loss or contradiction.
A world without explosions.
He’d known this, of course. He had always known. Deidara would never accept it. Not the Mangekyō’s promise. Not the Infinite Tsukuyomi’s stillness. Deidara lived in the brilliance of things that burned and vanished. Asking him to embrace eternity was like asking fire to apologize for heat.
And now Hidan was circling it. Clumsy, crude, but circling all the same.
“Nah, that’s bullshit,” Hidan was saying, grin sharp as ever. “Alive doesn’t mean screaming your head off. It just means you didn’t die.”
Deidara scoffed. “You don’t get to redefine life just because you’re afraid of it.”
“I’m not afraid of shit,” Hidan shot back. “I’m just going to make it my bitch and have everyone live happily ever after.”
Before he could stop himself, before he could soften it or wrap it in Tobi’s singsong nonsense, he spoke.
“If you take away the choice to suffer,” Obito said, “you take away the suffering too.”
Deidara reacted instantly, snapping toward him like a struck wire. “That’s—!” he barked. “Danna, that’s not—”
The word slipped out before he could catch it. Deidara froze.
His mouth shut with an audible click. Heat rushed up his neck, sharp and unwelcome, and he looked away too fast, like if he didn’t meet anyone’s eyes it might not have happened.
Across the room, Obito felt the impact like a blow. Tobi slammed back into existence with a startled flail.
“E-EHHH?!” he yelped, jumping to his feet and pointing at himself with both hands. “Danna?! Tobi got called danna?! Senpai finally acknowledges Tobi as a respected mentor figure?!”
He spun in an excited little circle, nearly tripping over his own cloak. “Wow! Tobi is so honored! This is a huge moment for Tobi!”
Deidara’s face flushed hot with anger and something dangerously close to panic. “Shut up!” he snapped. “That’s not— I didn’t—! You were just going off on your stupid existential bullshit and it reminded me— it was instinct, alright?”
Hidan stared at them. Then his shoulders started shaking. A beat later, he doubled over, breathless, one hand braced on the table as he howled.
“Oh Jashin,” he wheezed. “I can’t— I can’t believe this.” He slapped the table, chalk rolling off and clattering to the floor. “You guys are killing me. I come up with this whole evil mastermind act, and you’re over here having identity crises and calling each other pet names?”
Deidara rounded on him, fury snapping into place like a detonator. “You—!” he snarled. “You absolute piece of shit! I knew it. I knew you were fucking with me!”
Hidan straightened, still grinning wide, eyes bright with manic delight. “Buddy, I’ve been fucking with you since the quarry. Since before the quarry. Honestly, I didn’t even have a plan until you started yelling.”
Deidara’s hands clenched, clay sliding into his palms with a soft, dangerous sound. “You wasted my time,” he hissed. “You dragged me into this—”
“And it was great,” Hidan cut in cheerfully. “Ten outta ten. Would do again.”
Deidara’s breath came fast and shallow, jaw tight as he stared Hidan down. The humiliation burned off quick, replaced by something far more familiar and far more lethal.
Hidan’s grin only widened.
Deidara’s hands were already moving. Wings formed first—clean, elegant lines—then a narrow body, a sharp beak. The bird took shape in seconds, small but precise, cupped close to his chest.
Tobi noticed immediately.
“E-EHHH?!” he yelped, scrambling forward and flapping his arms. “Senpai— no, no, no, not in here!! This place is super enclosed!! The structural integrity is very bad!!”
Deidara didn’t even glance at him. “Move.”
Hidan laughed softly, eyes fixed on the bird, on the way Deidara’s thumb hovered just a little too close to its spine.
“Oh,” he said, voice dropping into something delighted and dangerous. “It’s like that, huh.”
The light flickered as Hidan shifted his grip on the scythe, knuckles tightening. His posture changed, not relaxed anymore but coiled.
“Good,” he went on, grin splitting wide. “I was getting bored of talking.”
He lunged.
The movement was sudden, his scythe slicing through the air with a metallic hiss as Hidan closed the distance in a heartbeat. Stone scraped under his boots, the table rattling violently as he shoved off it, crates wobbling behind him.
“Tobi is not emotionally prepared for this!!” Tobi shrieked, throwing himself sideways in a panic. “WAIT— WAIT—!”
Deidara snarled, snapping his hand up. The bird twitched.
“Tobi will dieeeee—!!”
The room exploded into motion.
---
“Hold still, senpai,” Tobi chirped, tone light, fingers pressing just a little longer than necessary as he wrapped the cloth snug around Deidara’s side. “If you move, it’ll hurt more.”
Deidara sat on the edge of a crate, one knee drawn up, cloak half shrugged off his shoulders. There was a bruise blooming dark along his ribs, another purpling beneath his collarbone where a falling beam had clipped him. He looked furious about it.
Obito told himself not to stare.
It was always the quiet moments that got him—the ones without explosions or shouting, where Deidara was reduced to something stubbornly human. Bruised skin. Grit under his nails. The way his jaw stayed tight even when he wasn’t speaking, like anger was the only thing holding him upright.
Tobi knelt in front of him, hands careful as he fussed with a strip of bandage. Obito let the persona guide his movements. Cumsy, earnest, a little too close. It gave him an excuse to touch without being questioned. To stay.
“I don’t care if it hurts,” Deidara snapped. “That idiot doesn’t even know how to swing properly. He just charges in like a lunatic and hopes for the best, hm.”
Tobi hummed sympathetically. “But senpai still won.”
Deidara scoffed. “Obviously.”
Tobi’s hands lingered again, thumbs smoothing the edge of the bandage flat. “Senpai is the strongest,” he said brightly. “And the bravest. Tobi was very impressed.”
For a moment, Deidara didn’t answer. Color crept up his neck instead, faint but unmistakable, the flush stopping just short of his cheekbone. He shifted on the crate, rolling one shoulder like he was trying to shake the words off along with the pain.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Well. That’s why I beat him.” He flicked a dismissive hand. “I didn’t need you to tell me that, hm.”
Tobi tilted his head, mask angled in pleased confusion. “Ohhh? But senpai still looks happy.”
“I do not,” Deidara snapped, then paused. He scowled at the floor, jaw tightening. “…Shut up.”
Tobi giggled softly and finished tying off the bandage, fingers finally retreating. The loss of contact was immediate—and noticed by both of them. Deidara leaned back against the stone wall with a huff.
“Still,” he went on, more to himself than to Tobi, “I can’t believe my theory wasn’t right.”
“Oh?” Tobi said, perking up. “About Hidan-senpai being the secret mastermind?”
“Yeah,” Deidara said, frowning. “It made sense. Too much sense. I hate when that happens hm.” He tapped his fingers absently against his knee, gears turning again despite himself. “If it’s not him, then it has to be someone else. Someone who doesn’t draw attention. Someone who’s always around, but never really—”
He hesitated, eyes narrowing.
“Do you think Zetsu—”
“No.”
The word came out before Obito could soften it.
Deidara blinked, thrown off-balance. He turned his head, brow furrowing as he looked at Tobi. “…What?”
For half a heartbeat, Tobi didn’t move.
Behind the mask, Obito felt the moment stretch thin. The truth pressing up against it, insistent and ugly: this cannot last. Not the quiet. Not the closeness. Not Deidara turning his mind inward, fitting pieces together.
He didn’t want to keep pulling at the thread. Didn’t want to imagine where it would lead. Didn’t want to picture Deidara’s face when the shape of the truth finally snapped into focus and there was no pretending left. He didn’t want to lose this moment to the future.
Tobi lurched back into motion with a nervous laugh.
“E-Eheh!” he said quickly, rubbing the back of his head. “Tobi just means— there’s really no need to bother with all that complicated stuff!” He waved his hands in a broad, flailing gesture, cloak sleeves slipping down his arms. “Zetsu-senpai is suuuper creepy and weird, right? Always watching, always popping out of the ground— Tobi thinks it’s better not to think too hard about him!”
Deidara frowned. “You’re being weird.”
“Weird is Tobi’s normal!” he chirped immediately. “Besides! We’ve got important things to focus on, right? Like missions!” He leaned in, voice dropping into a conspiratorial sing-song. “The Three-Tails. Big splashy beast. Very exciting. Much better than conspiracy theories!”
Deidara stared at him for another second, weighing it.
Then he huffed, pushing himself up from the crate with a wince. “Tch. Whatever,” he said, tugging his cloak back into place. “You’re a freak.”
Tobi beamed. “Tobi gets that a lot!”
Deidara started toward the exit, boots crunching softly against the stone. “Next time,” he muttered, “I’m trusting my instincts and doing my investigating myself.”
“Ehhh?” Tobi scampered after him. “But what if senpai gets hurt again? Tobi is very good at bandages!”
They stepped back out into the narrow pass, wind curling in to fill the space they left behind.
Tobi followed a half-step behind Deidara, mask tilted just enough to watch him. And did not let himself think about how close he’d come to saying too much.