A Thousand Mornings [Deidara Love Story]

X - Test

I was surprised when I woke up this morning; there was no Hidan yelling at me to wake up like yesterday. Today, I was able to wake up on my own time - which was considerably longer than what I had been used to waking up at. Though, it was hard to tell which time of day it was because I was still in the hideout where no sunlight crept through even a single crack. Still, when I woke up, I felt well rested.

The food was there, as usual; but as I ate, I anticipated Hidan or Kakuzu-san coming to get me so we could train again today. Yet, when neither one of them came, I began to worry - maybe they thought I wasn’t good enough to join their ranks so they decided to just skip out on training me and disobey Leader-sama. Then again, I did my very best yesterday and ignored Hidan’s insults and Kakuzu-san’s strictness as much as I could and tried to improve my skills more so than usual.

I think I had gotten a lot better due to yesterday’s training: I tried the Earth Spear again yesterday and managed to make my arm into what seemed like sand-rock material. It was definitely an improvement from the day before, but it still wasn’t good enough. I had to be able to make my whole body solid rock - not just my arm. Kakuzu-san told me I had a ton of training yet to do. Then after that, I practiced more on the move Kakuzu-san taught me the day before - Earth Flow Wave. It took much work and determination, but I eventually got the hang of the hand seals and the procedure. Next, I had to perform the follow-up attack for Earth Flow Wave. That jutsu was called Violent Heavenly Earth Needle; it turned the spire that I made during Earth Flow Wave into a needle which I could use to attack my opponents with. The hardest part about this move, I found, was getting the point of the needle just right: If the needle was too pointed, it could collapse on itself - or if it was too dull, then it wouldn’t have much affect on the opponent. Kakuzu-san told me that I had a ways to go to master both moves, but I could derive that he was actually telling me that I had the potential to master them.

After learning and practicing those moves, I was trained in taijutsu with Hidan again. This time around, Kakuzu-san confiscated Hidan’s scythe and refused to give it back to him until he sparred with me. Hidan was annoyed seeing as he took his fury on me during our match; a lot of his attacks were powerful, but mostly slow due to that. I was able to dodge most of the attacks he threw at me, but when I did get hit, it hurt so much that I was pretty sure that I was going to barf out my guts. Still, I didn’t want to give up and kept trying to improve my taijutsu and didn’t cease getting up no matter how many times I fell until our sparring was over.

By the time I went to bed yesterday, I was in so much pain, even my heavy eyelids couldn’t get me to sleep. I had to give myself some more herbs that I had which would be used as painkillers so I could get some well-earned rest.

Yet, now, I was sitting in the room provided for me, but there was no one. Only my shadow made by the pathetic light that I had was with me. It was kind of lonely - but it was virtually safe. That loneliness was probably also a part of my training that the Akatsuki wanted me to undertake - since I was usually always surrounded by people, they wanted me to realize that there wouldn’t always be someone around for me. So I waited impatiently in the mean time, hoping that this independence training would end soon and I could get to work on my training some more.

Finally, the door slowly creaked open and I got to my feet, prepared to get started in my training. My eyes widened when I noticed that it was actually Leader-sama who opened the door rather than Hidan or Kakuzu-san. He stood in the doorway, giving me that passive look that he wore the time I first joined the Akatsuki.

“Chiasa Yamaguchi... I have a task I wish for you to perform.” Leader-sama told me. I stayed quiet, waiting for him to continue, “I’ve been updated on your progress thus far and I believe you are ready for a... well, let’s call it a ‘test’.” I frowned at this.