Ino
When Itachi had approached Inoichi to speak to him about Deidara, it wasn’t at work, and it had been far too long since he first asked about him. So imagine his surprise when he answered his door and Itachi was standing there with a neutral expression, greeting him calmly, “Inoichi, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“I mean…I guess…” Inoichi is confused by this because it’s been so long since he’s actually spoken to the guy, but the fact he came here while it was dark out has him asking right off the bat, “Why are you here, Itachi? Is there something you need from me?”
“Yes, there is something I do need from you. Do you mind if I come in?”
“No, come on in.”
Itachi is let in through the door and immediately is asking him, “Are there any traditions surrounding mating in your clan?”
He found this to be strange to ask, though he didn’t stop himself from answering him, “No, in our clan if the child wants to mate with an alpha, beta, or omega then they are free to do so whenever, wherever, or however they please. All I ever ask of my children is to tell me before or immediately after it happens. Why are you asking me about mating traditions? Is this something to do with Deidara?”
“…I’m glad you said it, actually.” Itachi doesn’t mince words; he never has, he never will. He knew this and yet he was still caught so very off guard when he asked him the most simple yet important question he could have heard then, “In the Uchiha clan, the mating tradition is one of arrangement. Deidara has met all the requirements to obtain the approval from my clan for the mating. All I need now is for you and Deidara to sign your names to go forward with it.”
Inoichi couldn’t believe he would ever bypass Deidara to just ask him himself. For one, it didn’t seem like him to do such a thing given how blunt he could be and for another, if he had tried to reason with Deidara, maybe he could have this happen someday…which is why this felt so gross to him, “Have you spoken to Deidara about this?”
“I’ve tried, but regrettably, he’s been rather…hard to work with on the matter.”
“Which means you did something to upset him.” Inoichi regrets the notion all together on the spot, “I’m sorry, but I cannot approve of anything if Deidara doesn’t want it for himself. Deidara has to want this mating too or else I won’t want it for him.”
Itachi had been about to argue with him on the subject—he could tell by the way he subtly narrows his eyes at him—but was stopped by the presence of the very omega he had come over to ask about, “What the hell is he doing here, un!”
Deidara’s angered shout is heard loud and clear, his father mentally groaning at the latest addition to this argument, “There’s no need to be here… I was going to make him leave.”
“Make him leave now then or else I’ll blow him away to smithereens!” he hissed at the sight of the alpha, “What the hell is he doing here, father, un! Tell me!”
“I’m here to ask you to mate me according to the Uchiha tradition of arrangement. All I need is for your father and yourself to put your names in a book—”
“No, not happening in my lifetime, un!”
Inoichi hand rest on his nose bridge and a headache is coming on when, instead of backing down out of respect for his son’s wishes, Itachi keeps going, “Realistically speaking, how do you know this for fact? People change as they age; how am I to know you will not want to by my mate one day?”
Oh if looks could kill…Itachi would be reduced to ash right about now, “I mean it when I say it: not happening in my lifetime, Uchiha. If you think you can come in, acting all alpha and treating me like I’m some piece of property that can be bought or bartered for, then you have another thing coming, un!”
“Fine, believe as you wish…but one who cannot defeat me in battle has no real room to be rejecting me.”
“What?”
Itachi said it all so effortlessly, “Realistically speaking, I am the best choice for anyone to mate: I’m a prodigy member of the Uchiha clan and I am far more skilled in my Sharingan than most in my clan are. There are a very few who can defeat me in battle and even then, it’s not because of skill or power; but more of them exploiting whatever mistake I may make in battle.”
Deidara is getting angrier and whenever he gets like this, Inoichi cannot stop him from doing or saying whatever it is he does next, “I am powerful myself, un. I don’t need a mate to keep me safe—I don’t need a mate for anything! Mating is a backwards tradition I refuse to participate in, un! No way will I ever consider anyone to be my mate, not when I can take care of myself.”
“Deidara…no, please—” Inoichi attempts but his son is already pushing away his hand as he marches right up to Itachi and meets his eyes, “You think I can’t defeat you in battle, un? I think you’re sorely mistaken.”
Itachi didn’t take back anything he said earlier, thus escalating things further, “Funny, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you use your jutsus for anything outside of attacking innocent people. Are you sure you can hold your own in a fight against me?”
“Positive, un! I will not only fight you, but I will win right here and now!”
He swore for a moment that he could’ve seen a shadow of a smirk on Itachi’s impassive face, but that could’ve been in his head for all he knows. Though it wouldn’t shock him, if he’s being honest—on some end or another, he believes Itachi gets joy in riling Deidara up, “If you’re that confident, then fine. We can fight here and now; if I win, you and I will be arranged to mate, but if you win, there will be no arrangement.”
“Deal! And when I do win, you better leave me alone for life, un!” he seethed and the Uchiha was as impassive as ever, “Very well, though I do not believe I’ll be doing any such thing.”
Inoichi instantly tries to stop his son from going outside to fight, begging him, “Deidara, do you know what you’ve signed yourself up for! Itachi is powerful—I’ve seen his skills and Sharingan in use before: he’s a formidable opponent even I couldn’t defeat. What makes you think you’d be better off? Just reject him and go to your room; I can make him leave for you if you want—”
“No!” Deidara reacts with such intense anger it makes Inoichi take ten steps back as a sculpture is made quickly and detonated just as quickly as it was made, “The damn bastard, the nerve he has to make such comments to me, un! Screw him, un! I will win and make him leave me alone forever, un!”
He’s really mad if his speech impediment is acting up this bad, “Deidara—”
It was only his luck that Ino would step in then and ask so innocently, “Dei, what’s going on? Why’s the Uchiha here?”
He didn’t snap at his sister—to which Inoichi was grateful for—but then he said so calmly with a demeanor detached from what he was like before, “He’s here to get his ass kicked by me. Nothing more, nothing less, Ino. You should go up to your room now…I wouldn’t want you to get hurt by the shrapnel from my explosions.”
“Oh…alright.” she shot Itachi a dirty look before heading up to her room, and immediately when this was done, Deidara followed Itachi outside to fight him.
Inoichi followed them to a wooded training area, hope within himself building that the further they got from his home Deidara would eventually snap out of his anger and come home to hide in his room while he made Itachi go away.
Such a thing never did happen.
Instead, what happened was Itachi and Deidara stopped at a clearing in the training area. There, he unleashed his explosions immediately—while Inoichi was impressed with their strength and how quickly he could make them, it was ultimately no match against an unaffected Itachi who had managed to avoid the damage from the explosions far too easily. Before he knew it, the young man was looking at Deidara in a bit of awe (or was it pity? He couldn’t tell with Itachi), his first words to say to this display were, “For one who once deemed the life of a shinobi a vain and meaningless pursuit, this was impressive. However, it all means nothing in a battle against me.”
Inoichi didn’t have time to step in and stop him or save his son from it.
Itachi used his Sharingan on him. With that, the battle was already won.
“Deidara!” the concerned father cried out while rushing over to his son’s side, “Let him go, release him, please Itachi! This has gone too far!”
It took Itachi a mere minute after this was said to release Deidara from his hold, with the blonde artist fainting into his father’s arms immediately afterwards, “Looks like I have won… Let Deidara know you and him can come whenever you two want to do what’s needed of you for the arrangement to work.”
The audacity he had to say such a thing after what he did to Deidara!
“You can go ahead and believe whatever you please—but I made no such deal with you! Deidara did this without my consent and as his father, I refuse to go along with your plan when I know you enraged him on purpose to get what you wanted out of him.”
“It’s all Deidara’s decision, is it not? If he chooses to go through with following my clan’s traditions, then who are you to reject him it?”
He was about to counter when Itachi shrugged it all off, “It all doesn’t matter now. What matters is whether or not Deidara chooses to go through with our agreement. An agreement made in anger is still an agreement regardless of how it was made. All we can do is wait until he wakes up to decide.”
Inoichi didn’t bother with him after this.
All he did was take Deidara home before things could escalate into the Sharingan being used on himself when he tried to strike at the young man for doing such a thing to his son.
“How did Deidara take it?” Jiraiya wondered, to which Inoichi scoffed, “How do you think he did?”
Kakashi and Asuma shot each other knowing looks while the father answers the question.
When Deidara woke up, he was on the couch in the living room and he was mad, “Damn Uchiha! He cheated, un! I want a rematch!”
Inoichi stared at him incredulously—he had been by his side, waiting for him to wake up and beg him to make Itachi go away…all to get this instead.
“Deidara…that’s crazy! You can’t beat him, why bother trying again?”
“Because I know I can if I try hard enough, un! Just you watch, I’ll train really hard and one surpass that bastard!”
“But Dei—”
“Don’t doubt me, un!” he snapped right at him, “I will defeat that Uchiha bastard and make him regret ever using that dirty trick on me! No way in hell am I ever mating him, un!”
“I spent a whole night trying to talk him out of it…but Deidara never budged. He just kept challenging him to rematch after rematch only to lose each and every time afterwards. I never saw the point in it, but he was always so insistent that I knew nothing I could do would ever convince him otherwise.”
They were all silent upon hearing this, each one trying to come up with something they could use to better figure out what to do regarding Deidara…only then does Kakashi mention, “Iruka and Naruto are staying with me for the time being…Naruto also happens to be dating Sasuke Uchiha right now.”
“What would that have to do with anything?” Jiraiya asks with a side eye, “I’m not interested in spying on preteens, Kakashi.”
“No, we wouldn’t be spying on them—we’d be asking Sasuke questions about Deidara and Itachi. Who else would be a better source of information than him? Unlike Ino, he wouldn’t be blinded by a rose colored glasses point of view of his brother and he would be able to tell us everything regarding both of their behaviors accurately in the days before they left the village together.”
Inoichi sees nothing wrong with this, although, “Are you sure it’s wise to ask him about Itachi? I’ve never ventured to ask because I always believed it would cause the poor kid more trauma than doing anything to help him.”
Asuma doesn’t see anything wrong with it, for what it’s worth, “Look, he’s got a point here. Talking to Ino about Deidara is pointless—I’ve tried numerous times myself and it always ends up in her believing her brother was perfect human being when he wasn’t. We’ve gotta be realistic here if we want to draw a proper conclusion on this matter—it’s time we ask Sasuke about those two so we can decide what to do about your son from here on out.”
“Do you truly believe there’s a chance he’ll be a threat to the village?”
None of the men say anything…their silence said it all, “I understand…then, I suppose it’s time we speak to Sasuke to better decipher my son and his motives.”
All four men headed out to find Sasuke to ask him some important questions about Deidara and Itachi.
Inoichi doesn’t want to believe the worst about his son, though there’s a very damned good chance he truly could be a criminal intending to harm their village now the Hokage is gone. If that is the case, then he will have to do all that he can to stop him, no matter how much it kills him to think so.
Ino, on the other hand, hadn’t ever found her father. He left too early and was far too quick in his movements for her to keep up with, ultimately leading her to head over to Hinata’s place to see if she was willing to help her on this mission she had to figure out what information her father most likely has at the moment.
She was on her way there when she smelled it in the air…
The scent of roses and carnations…yes, she knows it from anywhere because only one person had this scent and it’s a scent that is burned into her mind even now.
Itachi Uchiha’s scent.
She wasted no time, moving quickly to track him down, not caring if she was in casual clothing, not caring that she was alone and he could be with anyone right now—no, all that mattered was killing that man and bringing her brother back regardless of the consequences.
He’s moving quickly, though even with her eyes constantly darting about, it seems he is practically invisible to the naked eye. There’s the scent of someone else with him, someone who smells of water crest and campfire smoke, though she didn’t care at that point.
She kept moving, trying to find him before he could do anything to this village—anything to her home, to be exact. She knows that monster probably came back to kill Sasuke, probably came back to kill her entire family off for trying to look for Deidara, and she wasn’t going to let that happen!
She hasn’t seen or spoken to her brother in years.
She doesn’t know if he’s truly safe, if he’s being hurt, tortured, or worse. All she knows is he’s with Itachi Uchiha and he’s being forced to be a member of this Akatsuki group because of that man’s wishes.
“Ino, wait!” she heard a voice call out, though she wasn’t paying attention—she couldn’t, not when that man was here, not when the monster who stole her brother had the gall to come back to this village when it was at its weakest, to finish off whatever sick, evil plot he had in his twisted head.
“Stop, Ino!” she felt a hand on her arm and immediately was stopped by Hinata, “What’s going on? I saw you coming near my home when I was outside, but then you ran like you saw an enemy. Tell me, please, whatever it is you’re doing, I can help!”
She knows Hinata will help; the girl who is in love with her brother will always be one of the best ones to have on her side in a situation like this, “Hinata…I’m sorry I didn’t stop earlier, but I can’t stop now. Itachi is back in the village; I can’t stop until I kill him for taking my brother from me.”
“Wha—how do you know that?”
“His scent…roses and carnations…it’s reeking in the air, but he’s moving so quickly—he has someone with him too, smells like water crest and campfire smoke. If we keep moving, we can find them and I can kill him for stealing Deidara from his home.”
“That’s not a good plan! You’re not armed with anything and to face Itachi unarmed is—”
“What other chance will I get! I have to do this for my brother!”
She’s strong on her stance, her resolve unmeasured by any in that moment, “I will not let him get away with stealing Deidara from me. I will not let him continue to hold him hostage and make him into a criminal when he doesn’t want to be one. I will kill him, then he will be free enough to work on a plan to leave on his own and come home. If you’re not going to help me, then fine. I’ll handle him on my own.”
Hinata had been training that morning so she was still armed and ready to strike. Knowing Ino was so hellbent on facing Itachi that she’d fight him unarmed and alone was beyond crazy to her.
Knowing she won’t be able to talk the stubborn girl out of it, she decided to at least go along with her to keep her safe, “…I’m going with you then.”
“You mean it?”
“I do; I said I’d help you bring back Deidara and I meant it. I won’t let you or Deidara down, Ino! We’re going to defeat this guy together!”
Ino smiled at her and declared, “Great, now let’s get going before his scent disappears! We’re going to make that Uchiha bastard regret ever coming back here!”
As they head off to face Itachi, Inoichi, Kakashi, Asuma, and Jiraiya are tracking down Sasuke to get their answers from him regarding Deidara and Itachi.