Naruto: I Became Orochimaru's Apprentice-Chapter 57: Deidara’s Swagger

The stone halls of the Akatsuki hideout echoed with quiet footsteps. Teriyaki adjusted the high-collared cloak around his shoulders, the signature red clouds stark against the black fabric. The moment felt... heavy. Significant.

Then Deidara strolled in with that smug grin and a chuckle.

"Look at you. Trying to play dress-up? That cloak means something, yeah?" He tilted his head. "Gotta say, it does suit you... but let's be real — clothes don't change what you are. We all know you're just a horrific piece of art."

Teriyaki raised an eyebrow. "Which is?"

Deidara smirked wider, licking his lips like he tasted the insult already."A slave. A genetic abomination. That's how you got your powers."

"Your jealousy is showing."Teriyaki muttered. Trying to stay level headed.Deidara tossed a clay bird into the air lazily. "Orochimaru's pet. You still bark when he whistles, yeah? Maybe I should start calling you something else. You wanna call me master too?"

Teriyaki's eyes narrowed. His voice came out low, cold. "Do you want to fight me or something? If that's the case then just say so... Or are you scared?"

Deidara laughed. "Touchy! All I'm saying is, maybe you're wearing our symbol, but you're still on a leash. You're still beneath us."

The clay bird exploded — not lethal, but blinding. Boom! A flash of light filled the room. Teriyaki vanished in a flicker of speed, appearing above Deidara mid-air, his fist drawn back. Sage mode flickered and the serpentine marks rolled down his skin, his eyes shone gold.

"Already showing all your cards?" Deidara chuckled.

Teriyaki tried to blitz Deidara."I don't care how loud you talk — you're still just some loud-mouth side character who doesn't amount to anything in the grand scheme of things."

He launched his fist downward. Deidara barely leapt back in time. The punch shattered the ground where he'd stood, sending dust flying.

Deidara's grin twisted. "Side character? You got jokes for someone who scrubs blood off a creep's tables. I am jealous of your powers, not because I think you're stronger than me, but because I can tell you got them easily. Just look how young you are!"He flung three clay spiders, "KATSU!" — explosions lit up the room, forcing Teriyaki back.

Teriyaki coughed, smoking filling his eyes. "You think I got these powers for free? You don't know anything."

Teriyaki flickered next to Deidara launching a punch that shocked the air, Deidara had already leaped back, sending explosions infront of him.

I want to use water jutsus but this area is so dry... Plus I'd just wreck the base more... 

Deidara landed with a graceful slide, arms crossed. "You hit hard, I'll give you that. But you're not the only one who's been through hell. You think pain makes you special?"

Teriyaki's eyes flashed with rage. "No. But unlike you, I don't need validation from a terrorist cosplay club. I don't need to belittle someone else to feel powerful."

Teriyaki unleashed a hidden snake binding jutsu.

"Snake binding." He whispered.

The snakes shot out.

"Too easy kid."

Deidara blasted them apart with explosions from his hands.

Deidara scoffed. "Terrorist cosplay? You're here now, genius. Welcome to the club. And I'm just saying the truth, don't put words in my mouth kid."

Without warning, Teriyaki blitzed forward, slamming a punch into Deidara's gut, crashing him into the wall with a crack. The stone buckled.

"Now what?" Teriyaki smirked, power infesting his eyes. Am I going too far? Will I get in trouble if I punch again? 

Deidara coughed, then chuckled. "You hit like a guy with something to prove, I'll admit. But strength makes you blind."

He clapped his hands. KATSU!

The main room erupted in a thunderous explosion. Flames licked the ceiling. The cloak on Teriyaki's back was half-torn. Rubble fell from above.

Silence.

Then — a low hum. A ripple in the air. And suddenly, Pain stood among them, framed by smoke and ruin. Rinnegan eyes pierced through the dust.

Pain looked around, not even fazed by all the smoke."Children. Why is my room in this state?"His voice was like thunder wrapped in ice.

Teriyaki and Deidara looked up innocently. "Failed experiment?" Deidara murmured, his confidence sinking.

"It's over now." Teriyaki admitted, feeling fear as he stared in Pain's eyes that seemed like endless purple ripples. But it's not really a human is it? Just a doll or something? 

Pain looked around the room, anylasing the chaos."You will repair this room. After that, you will both go on a mission. Together."

Deidara groaned. "Tch. With him?"

"This is your fault." Teriyaki muttered.

Pain spoke lower now. "Fushiro Tenga. Rogue strategist from the Hidden Cloud. He possesses intelligence the world must never see. Don't kill him. We need him alive. And we need his dissapearance to be as smooth as possible. The villages must not catch on."

He turned away. "You leave at dawn. Fail, and you'll both be dust. And I want this place repaired quickly."

Deidara glanced at Teriyaki, grin returning. "Guess we're teammates now, slave boy."

"Even as a slave, I'm more powerful than you. And that's all that really matters in this world." Teriyaki tried to walk away, but Deidara kept on yapping.

"Yes, but it's because you're a slave that you are that strong. I know what Orochimaru did to you... That body is not even your own anymore. You are an abomination of art."

Why has there already been two fights with my co-terrorists? Teriyai groaned in his mind.

The ruined main hall was a cratered battlefield of singed beams and dust-choked air. Pain had given them six hours to make it livable again.

Three hours in, the scoreboard read:

Teriyaki – sweaty, sore, built half a wall.Deidara – three exploding clay ducks and one aggressively unhelpful song about "working smarter, not harder."

Teriyaki slammed a plank onto a support beam. "I swear, if you don't start helping—"

Next to Teriyaki his snake clones were doing extremely light labour, too much and they would falter and be no more than a waste of chakra and flesh.

Deidara, sitting cross-legged on a pile of bricks, raised an eyebrow. "I am helping. I'm supervising, yeah? Besides your clones can work in place of me."

Boom. A small clay beetle blew up next to a pile of rubble, puffing smoke in Teriyaki's direction and destroying a small part of the wall he had built.

Teriyaki flatly said. "You aren't even trying to be remotely helpful. You're just a manchild."

Deidara only grinned merrily. "And you're still a slave. Should I get you a little hat? Maybe you wanna start calling me 'master' too?"

Teriyaki dropped the hammer. "Can you stop making the same 3 jokes!?"

Deidara leaned in smug. "I could explode all our hard work right now! So don't test me. I am the superior here. In fact I am the-."

Without missing a beat, Teriyaki hurled a brick at Deidara's head.

"Side character with a god complex." Teriyaki huffed.

"It's called art." Deidara coughed. 

The brick came flying.

The clay artist dodged, laughing. But a glance at the crooked wall behind them sobered his grin. Three hours down. Three to go. They were maybe a third done — max.

"...Okay," Deidara sighed, dusting himself off. "Let's blow some stuff up. Productively."

Teriyaki blinked. "You're going to be useful? That's new."

Deidara scowled. "I'm always useful. Watch and learn, hammer boy."

With a few hand seals and a puff of smoke, Deidara summoned a dozen small clay spiders. Instead of lobbing them at someone's face, he sent them crawling into deep cracks in the rubble.

"Controlled micro-explosions," he muttered. "Clear the debris without bringing the whole place down. Precision, baby."

Pop-pop-pop.Chunks of broken wall and old timber disintegrated into manageable piles.

Teriyaki whistled. "Alright. That's called actually doing something."

"Told you. My art has range."

They found a rhythm. Teriyaki rebuilt; Deidara cleared. Where Teriyaki reinforced beams with chakra and brute strength, Deidara shaped custom clay anchors that hardened into makeshift supports.

There were fewer insults now. A quiet rhythm settled between them, the clink of tools and faint sizzles of clay charges echoing in the dusty air.

I guess we're actually going to finish this without Pain getting more angry. 

Midway through securing a ceiling brace, Deidara muttered, "The urge to destroy all our hard work is a little too much."

Teriyaki, without turning: "You mean the urge to make Pain want to murder us? Who cares about your desires to destroy everything."

Deidara paused. "...That's very un-artistic of you. You don't see my side of things."

"It's called logic."

"...Gross."

By the five-hour mark, the room looked... usable. Maybe not Pain-worthy, but definitely not explosion-wreckage-esque.

It's nowhere near as pristine as it was before, but it certinaly has a new smell to it since we used new materials. 

Deidara leaned against a newly plastered column. "Well, it doesn't have a personal mural of me, but I'd say we nailed it."

Teriyaki dusted his hands. "You didn't actually nail anything. You just blew a few things up."

Deidara snorted. "Whatever. Next time you mess with me there won't be a room left to rebuild."

Teriyaki walked past him toward the hall exit. "There won't be a next time unless you're really that stupid."

"...Aww, there is emotion in your art."

Teriyaki didn't respond, but Deidara noticed the corner of his mouth twitch — almost a smile.

Teriyaki stood, his back and arms aching.

"And we still have to hunt that random guy down."

"I have a feeling he'll be important... A key turning point in the path of destruction." Deidara smirked.

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"Whatever, whatever appeases Pain." And with that, despite their hard work rebuilding the base, they left quickly for the cloud village.

"Let's go." Deidara led the way, Teriyaki followed. They jumped into the night, their silhouettes were like illusions in the dark night.