I don't own Naruto. Sad day.

This couple is my new favorite, and the story kinda came to me out of nowhere. Villains are always my favorite, and I love to explore the darker sides of characters. Sakura is jaded, done with decency and just tired of the world in this story. She's still Sakura, but she may seem fairly OOC on account of the turns the story has taken that will all be explained therein.

That said, here goes chapter one. Enjoy!

One thing was certain to Deidara, it had been far too long since he'd had a woman.

"Look at that." Kisame's voice next to him gave away that the shark was absolutely inebriated- and horny. Deidara snorted. Like that was odd. He glanced to where Kisame was gracelessly pointing with his index finger. "Ahh I'd like to get me one of those hot little whores to warm my bed tonight."

Kisame, though normally crass, was simply making an observation. The women were whores. After all, Deidara, Kisame and Hidan had found their way into the seediest bar in town on purpose. Their Akatsuki cloaks earned them free drinks in bars like these- and free company. Hidan had disappeared immediately upon entering the bar, saying that drinking was against his religion. Apparently a veritable orgie with a gaggle of hookers who had no idea what they were dealing with was a better usage of time to him. Deidara and Kisame had hit the bar together and already Deidara was regretting it. Usually, he got a kick out of Kisame drunk, but tonight he just wasn't in the mood to hear Kisame drooling over every woman he saw walk by.

"Why don't you go talk to her, yeah." Deidara suggested, tossing back another shot of the cheap, stale whiskey he'd been given. "If you wait too much longer you won't be able to stand up."

Kisame considered drunkenly for a moment, staring at a blonde hooker who currently was seated on the lap of a short, fat little man in the corner of the bar. "S'pose I should take him off her hands, eh?" he chuckled stupidly at his own drunken fumble.

Deidara simply nodded. He'd glanced around the room several times and there didn't seem to be any decent women anywhere. He wasn't desperate enough to bed a hooker. Unlike Kisame and Hidan, he had taste. Sex was another form of highly-valued art in his eyes, and he couldn't make art that belonged anywhere but in a scrap pile with a whore.

He groaned, pouring himself another shot and tossing it back, ignoring the burn. He wasn't getting anywhere in a place like this. Soon enough he knew he'd be approached by one of the house girls, drawn to him by the red clouds of his black cloak, curious no doubt as to what a member of the Akatsuki was like in bed. He smirked. Hidan had taken enough of them upstairs with him to keep them talking for ages, if they made it out of his sexual "ritual" alive, that is.

A crash across the room startled him and he turned around. Kisame had just laid the fat man and his entire party out in a drunken rage, grabbing the blonde woman like she was some sort of ragdoll. Deidara chuckled. Kisame for the life of him could never do low-key.

And then a flash of color caught his eye.

Pink hair. The girl who had just walked in the door had taken down her the hood of her heavy cloak and Deidara instantly recognized her.

Pink hair and large emerald eyes. Her skin was pale but flushed from the cold, her lips quirked surveying the sleazy scene before her.

Deidara remembered her as though he had just seen her yesterday. A few years had passed, but she looked remarkably the same aside from an overall maturing of features. It was that hair and those eyes, they'd struck him when he'd first seen her and he knew he'd always remember.

She was the girl who had killed Sasori.

Her eyes met his from across the room and a strange look filled them. Puzzlement first, and then a faint recognition, and then the most bizarre look of...elation? She began to make her way to him, her strides purposeful. Deidara blinked a couple of times, trying to clear his head. Was he that drunk or was the kunoichi beelining straight for him? People didn't just approach him, or any of the Akatsuki for that matter, yet here she was. He slipped his hand down to his side and brushed the cold metal of his kunai. If she was crazy enough to attack him in a bar that for all she knew was crawling with Akatsuki, she was even gutsier than he had given her credit for in fighting his old partner.

As she reached him though, he could feel absolutely no killing intent in the slightest. Stranger still, she smiled at him. "Mind if I sit down?" her voice rang out clear as a silver bell and still taken aback, he nodded slowly.

"You're just who I wanted to see." She told him, reaching for his bottle of whiskey. Before he could protest, she raised it to her lips and tipped it back for a long drink.

He watched her in fascination as her eyes watered and she slammed the bottle down.

"I hope that's not the first liquor you've tasted or you'll be out like a light within minutes, yeah." He chuckled. While he'd started out the evening agitated, this turn of events had thrown him off enough to lighten his mood. Was it coincidence that right as he'd been wallowing in self-pity about how long it had been since he'd gotten laid, the beautiful pink-haired kunoichi had stepped into the bar? Of course he had yet to know what the hell she wanted from him, but he could be optimistic.

Or flat out delusional, he chided himself. He didn't have to remind himself that the last time he'd seen the girl he'd made furniture out of her friend and attempted to blow everybody in the vicinity up.

"Whew." The beautiful kunoichi closed her eyes as if to steady herself. "Well, I guess we'll see about that won't we Deidara?"

He wasn't surprised that she knew his name. He was infamous of his own merit after all, and being in the Akatsuki added more to that fame. He tilted his head in her direction, deciding that it was obvious that despite their past interactions, she had absolutely no intent to attack him. If anything she seemed like she was maybe already drunk and that last chug would have her passed out before she could even think to be dangerous.

"We've met before, but I don't remember your name, yeah." he offered apologetically. Maybe it was just her sheer beauty, or the knowledge that she had killed her former rather formidable partner that had him being so good-natured toward her. He wasn't sure himself yet.

"Sakura..." she trailed off as if thinking. "Sakura." she repeated, giving him another small smile. "Nice to 'meet' you."

"Likewise, yeah." He reached over her hands folder in front of her and grabbed his whiskey bottle to pour himself another shot. "So, Sakura...what brings you here tonight?"

He wasn't sure what he was expecting her to say, but what followed threw him for a bigger loop than he had ever expected.

The kunoichi wrung her hands with a nervous chuckle and then met his gaze with eyes that were clear and almost defiant.

"I want to join the Akatsuki."