Summary:

Once upon a time, there was a girly-looking guy and a boyish-looking girl who argued. A lot. "I do not look like a girl, brat." "Yes, you do! And you thought I was a guy when we first met, un!" "We were 5 when we first met." But they were friends anyway. "Eternal." "Transient!" Yes, very good friends. In, um, their own ways. [AU] [Non-chronological Connected Drabbles] [SasoDei] [Fem!Deidara]

Disclaimer:

I don't own Naruto. Or the cover picture. I edited it, though.

It was indisputable that Deidara had the best hair possible in the entire Elemental Nations, even at 13 years and 3/4 months.

Easily reaching knee-length when let down, it managed to retain all of its glossy shine, smooth luster, silken texture, and perfectly split-end-free softness.

She smugly proclaimed it to be the result of special shampoo, custom-ordered conditioner, regular brushing with a bone comb, good genetics, and 'pure fucking amazingness and sheer skill'.

(When asked what kind of bone the comb was made of, she'd breezily answered, "Does it really matter if it's human or animal? Ashes to ashes and dust to dust and all that. Frankly, whoever or whatever the bone is from should be honored they have the privilege of brushing this gorgeous hair.")

The latter referring to how she, a kunoichi and killer by trade, could afford to upkeep such extravagantly long hair, even if most of the time it was either bound into an intricate bun or allowed to hang loose in a long braid.

And it was true.

Deidara had reached A-rank, and was predicted to become S-rank fairly soon, the rising star of Iwagakure wielding their Explosion Corps' most signature Kekkei Genkai; she had earned the right to have a potential combat safety-risk hanging around, and it was just another silent brag.

Arrogant, maybe.

But, well, no one had ever accused Deidara of lacking confidence.

It helped that she was a long-distance fighter, bombing from above, usually safely out of reach.

Her own special trick was always keeping an assortment of different-grade clay animals entwined with her braid, carefully painted to match her cornsilk strands.

If someone managed to get close-up, her go-to strategy was to let the snakes, the spiders, the ants and bees and newts and eels slither out from her hair, covering her exit with flashy obscuring smoke and plenty of very-much-fatal explosions in her wake.

She had hundreds more stored on her at any given moment, sealed away in scrolls, sometimes being sealed away in larger scrolls, and dozens sealed directly into her skin.

Preparedness was key, and her Kekkei Genkai made it viable to prepare most of her attacks well beforehand, leaving her more than enough chakra to burn in making more.

It wasn't exactly what one would think of when they heard the words, 'weaponized hair'.

That would be Jiraiya, the Toad Sannin.

Still, interpreted less literally, it was correct.

.

.

.

Sasori had, actually, a five-and-counting years back, asked Deidara once if he could have some of her hair for a couple of his puppets.

"Human hair is preferable to any other hair," he'd explained, "because it adds a spectrum of reality, making it more difficult to see it is a puppet. Better for infiltration, and other things along the same line, than animal fur or dyed fibers would be. I've been working on covering up the joint-lines, too, which are another dead giveaway."

If it had been anyone other than Sasori (and her mother, theoretically) asking her for her hair, she'd have automatically turned them down.

Her hair was a status symbol: showing her skill in lasting in the ninja profession, showing the vanity she could afford to upkeep.

(A certain element of sentiment was involved, too, even if she wouldn't easily admit it.

It might be childish, but at that time they were children, just 8 and already fighting in a war that wasn't their own to inherit.

Her mother always said she loved Deidara's soft hair, constantly brushing and braiding it.

And she, well, she greatly respected her mother's opinions on everything and anything.)

"How about this," she'd compromised, lounging on the tree branch above him (they were in one of the minor countries along the Earth-Wind borders, resting after running missions in Konoha; they weren't allowed to tell the classified contents, but Suna and Iwa weren't really fighting each other, and it was easy to guess that they had both run sabotage missions), and contemplatively running a hand over the smooth ribbed expanse of her braided ponytail.

"If I ever decide to cut it, or rather, have to cut it, yeah, I'll save it for you, okay?"

He'd returned her smile with a thinner one, privately uneasy.

Whatever could make her cut her precious hair was guaranteed to be an injury, or if not a physical one, than a mental or emotional one.

Should he be happy his request was somewhat granted, or should he be worried about how it would be eventually granted?

It was wartime, and while Deidara was good for her age, she had was also arrogant and overconfident and still so young.

N- Not that Sasori cared too much about what happened to the loud blond brat who thought art was an explosion, of all things.

But…

She was tolerable in small doses, and at least she could properly appreciate the importance of art, unlike most of the people he was unfortunate enough to have to be acquainted with.

So it was in his best interests to keep around a fellow artist he could stand, and that was all there was to it.

Really.

"Okay," he quietly consented.

"What's with the gloom?" she quickly teased, leaning down from her perch to flick at his flak jacket, a flick he swiftly evaded.

Tossing her long braid over her left shoulder, swaying amid the leafy branches, Deidara cheered, "Congrats on making Chuunin, yeah? That's new. Fresh from a promotion, finally."

He neutrally jabbed, "Says the one who's still a Genin. I outrank you now, don't I?"

"Just you wait and see, yeah!" she scowled, mood changing abruptly, raking her fingers viciously through a tangle in her hair and flashing her fingers into a twisting motion, resulting in a lob-throw movement.

Knowing better than to let her throw anything at him, especially anything she'd taken from her hair, Sasori wisely dodged once more, lashing out with chakra strings to hit the three objects off to his side, where they exploded into puffs of smoke.

"Are you trying to kill me again?" he dryly demanded.

She pouted and whined, "They were just some little itsy bitsy smoke bombs, C-.5, not even any force behind them like a C-1, yeah. Well… not much, anyway. You could of at least let me hit you once with them, yeah. Not like they'd hurt you with your shiny new jacket."

"Is that jealousy I hear, brat?"

"Stop calling me a brat, yeah!"

They devolved into a scuffle.

When not going for lethal or the more powerful injury-inflicting moves, Sasori won 7/10, since Deidara's jutsus were nearly all meant to destroy, not capture without grievous injury, though she did have some animal-bombs that could coil around someone.

It's usually a competition to see if she can destroy all of his puppets and/or catch him with a large clay constrictor-snake and/or make him surrender before he can nick her with a paralytic and/or cast something to disorient her beyond fighting capability.

She was working on learning some other things to add to her moveset, but at age 8 she relied almost solely on her Explosion Release.

Meanwhile, Sasori had the versatile chakra strings, his puppets, and his wide array of poisons, many of which were meant to disable to make it easier to take prisoners on the battlefield.

Understandably, it ended with Deidara stomping off in a huff and Sasori smugly marking down another win for himself.

Also, mentally marking down on his to-do list to gather a lot of wood before moving on from the area.

He had to repair all of the puppets Deidara had damaged/broken, of course.

(Totally worth it to prove the superiority of his art.)

.

.

.

Months later, a couple days past his 13th birthday, instead of the letter he was accustomed to, he was instead given a box at the post office, which by now was a one-room shack with parcels spilling out the back door onto the tarp-covered shady area behind it.

(All non-vital spaces had been taken over for the war effort, as temporary housing, temporary infirmaries, temporary storehouses, all temporary, temporary, temporary.

People were starting to lose hope, though, lose faith in the 'temporary' status not turning into 'permanent'.

The war effort had taken up 6 years, thousands of lives, miles of square feet, far too much money, and most of the positivity from everyone.

In Iwa, battlefield corpses were starting to be burned and placed in containers before being sealed away, in order to preserve storage scrolls and graveyard clearance.

Suna was just either leaving the bodies to mummify under the ground, or burning them and mixing the ashes with the sand.

Kiri supposedly pushed them off into the water to save on land capacity, Konoha zealously guarded their fallen no matter the amount of storage scrolls they needed [which wasn't a problem for them and their resident sealmasters], and who knew what Kumo did, up in their lofty mountains all blocked off by the neutral Land of Frost and by vast ocean on three sides of their isolated peninsula.)

A weary, injured ninja, probably a Chuunin declared unfit for further duty due to her lost leg and hand, nudged a beaten-up cardboard ensemble, taped together with copious amounts of duct-tape, towards him after he gave his ID and showed his hitai-ate for security purposes.

"Enemy ninja are starting to go after the courier ninja," she grimly explained upon seeing his eyes move, gravitating to the scatterings of maroon staining the brown-and-silver of the cardboard and duct-tape.

Tapping it with her surviving hand, she further elaborated with a gesture of her other wrist stub, "We've been sending what help we can, as stretched thin as we are, and it seems like we've gained at least a little favor with the them. Reports say they've officially blacklisted Kiri and Kumo from their services, and might start refusing Iwa any service if they don't stop antagonizing them as they cross their border.

"The bans are temporary, of course, since the courier nin can't afford to keep on refusing service after the war ends, but they also can't afford losing any more members right now, so they're starting to lock down.

"You're lucky; your package made it through without too many problems, and the deliverer was only shallowly injured. If he'd died in the process, all his packages would've been lost in transit, either left abandoned or seized by the attackers for intelligence. They're supposedly going to start trapping their packages to automatically blow up when the courier dies, and they'll be alerted by some special seal to know which shipments need to be issued an apology."

Sasori nodded thoughtfully and took the box, with a quiet murmur of "thanks."

Both for the information and as courtesy for doing her job.

(Duty, duty, duty... everything was a duty nowadays. Combat vets chipping in however they could, active ninja only retired once they were as grievously injured as the post office woman had been. Even then, the 'retired' ones were still given positions like that, filling in for civilian casualties or to free up another ninja to be sent into the warzone. Genin as young as 6, speed-rushed through the Academy and shoved out into battle, destined to die, afraid and weak, like all prey in this world of legends.)

Walking out of the office, he glanced up at the sky, one arm shading his eyes from the glare, and estimated that he had about an hour left before he had to report back to the barracks and receive his assignment; border patrol again, most likely.

Skirmishes were more numerous and more vicious day by day.

Sunagakure's obvious position from an aerial view was only balanced by their relative secrecy from a grounded view.

Gaze returning to the parcel, continuing to walk forward, Sasori waited until he was seated in his uniform gray bunk, the stiff mattress unyielding under him, to open the taped-shut flaps of the package.

A standard-issue shuriken, being flatter than the diamond-shaped kunai, was used to neatly slice it open, fitting smoothly under the folds.

He replaced the shuriken, mindful of careful weapon handling policies, and unfolded the flaps without any particular particular anticipation other than a faint curiosity.

It was most likely something Deidara had sent him as a birthday present; he personally didn't put much stock in celebrating birthdays, and he wasn't quite sure if she cared much, either, but she was peculiar like that, and a spontaneous action like a gift was along the lines of her spontaneous personality.

Looking down, he paused.

Sasori blinked, slowly, and reached in with a perfect-complexioned hand, just as slowly, dropping it onto his lap.

Fine, sleek ends tickled his palm, pliable flaxen strands burying his fingers into the supple fluidity, woven sunlight pooling over the sides of his legs.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Sasori-san! The Captain is asking for you to come now for help in breaking down a new poison! Report to the south-west labs, and disregard reporting for your assignment today!"

Blinking again, as if landing back in reality, Sasori delicately lifted the long blond ponytail, shorn off into a sheer edge, back into the box it'd arrived in.

Then he quickly sealed it into a scroll, stashed the scroll into his box of puppet-making odds and ends, and hurried off to answer the Captain's call.

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Quadruple-update, from saved-up snippets.

Don't expect any more updates anytime soon. I'll probably work on finishing the Academia chapters cluttering up my docs.

Yay, more world-building.

The courier nin are neutral, yeah, but they also aren't just going to lie down and take any of that shit.

Kinda like the Land of Frost (Iron) and their samurai's reaction to ninja in general: back the fuck off, buddy.

Also, remember, Deidara is older than Sasori, so when it says a few days after his 13th birthday, that means it's been a couple of months since part 1 of this chapter.

Correction for the chapter before this' endnote: Onoki is already the Third Tsuchikage before Deidara (or Sasori) was even born.

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