paixaorpg | Of Catboys and Feeling Sounds [Complete]

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Of Catboys and Feeling Sounds [Complete]

Character(s): Deidara, Haku, and Zetsu
Content: Zetsu takes Deidara and Haku, both of whom are affected by the poisoned water, back to a hotel to get a handle on the situation.
Setting: Actua Are [F3]
Time: Night
Warnings: Cannibals, bomb-nins, and poison, oh my!

Deidara was sitting on the bed--it had a soft (soft looks yellow) blue (blue feels rough) blanket, and right then Deidara would have liked nothing more than to crawl beneath it and sleep this entire thing off. Of course, that was exactly what he couldn't do, so he was sitting.

The walk to the hotel had been an interesting one. Deidara had allowed Zetsu to lead him along, something that he would have normally protested against, simply because the ex-Iwa nin's senses were entirely overwhelmed. Every noise provoked bursts of color and sensation, and walking through crowds was enough to make him want to curl into a ball and hide in a dark room. Haku had come along as well, and Deidara just wasn't sure what to make of his sudden feline traits. He hadn't even been here a day and already things were insane.

Of course, he had been careful not to show that, and was wearing a rather neutral expression at the moment.

"So, what the hell did they drug us with, un?"

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Haku was quite grateful that Deidara and Zetsu had waited for him, and glad that he was able to join them at the hotel. It was certainly better than being left alone. And the walk to the hotel had been just as interesting for Haku as it had been for Deidara.

Everything seemed louder, as if amplified by something. By trying to cover his ears, the effeminate shinobi had discovered the additional appendages on the top of his head. Curiosity had lead him to run a hand over the ears, and realise the extent of what had happened. It explained his balance, too.

Haku took care to keep his tail out of the way as he sat down on the other bed.

"I think I'd rather know why," he commented. "The what we can figure out somehow, but the why is the one we really need to know."

Their room had been paid for the night, and likely would be kept if this poison didn't wear off or get cured relatively quickly; the glass of water sat atop a dresser for further analysis. Zetsu had taken a quick look at Deidara's chakra system while they were walking here; it had looked relatively normal, though he had recognized the way the cross-connections had been so thoroughly scrambled. It was an unholy tangle, from the looks of things.... Could medical jutsus even straighten that out? He wasn't sure if he was willing to try, and risk the possible repercussions of a failed effort. Either way, it looked like an altered version of one of the few offensive, underhanded medical jutsus that could readily be used in combat.

He was sitting at the small table across from the beds, journal resting nearby and given mininml attention as he typed; most of his conscious thought was devoted to considering the problem they were facing now, and looking fixedly at Deidara as he contemplated what the odds of being able to undo that snarl of chakra was. Haku's ears and tail, though, he had no idea about--it was as if the appendages had always been a part of the shinobi's body. "We've never come across any type of poison or drug like this before, unfortunately." Sasori would certainly like this stuff to analyze, if he actually was here--he was the poison master, after all.Zetsu fancied himself to be pretty good with them, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he couldn't--and wouldn't bother--to stand toe to toe with Sasori's skills.

"Judging by the fact that Naruto-kun is sick as well," There was a mild tone of disbelief in his voice; the Kyuubi jinchuuriki didn't just 'get sick' or anything like that without it being a sign of something drastic. "we're inclined to think that the two of you were not targeted in particular, but rather that the water supply in general is contaminated."

Poisoning the water. Really, wasn't that just cliche? Not that it wasn't effective. Danna would have liked to test out this poison indeed--Deidara paused only a moment to think of the puppet master before pushing the thought out of his mind. The last thing he needed was to be reminiscing while something like this was going on. He smirked a bit, trying to pull confidence from his usual confident face.

Deidara knew nothing about healing, and even if he had, wouldn't trust himself enough with anything that finetuned, his senses being as they were. Even listening to Haku and Zetsu brought strange connections he just wasn't used to. It was interesting, though, when it wasn't overwhelming him, and he watched Zetsu carefully as the plant shinobi spoke, trying to figure out some sort of pattern to what was said and the colors and sensations that went with it.

"Do you think it'll go away on its own, un?" Even his own voice had colors and feelings to go with it. He hoped it went away at some point--this could be fatally distracting if something happened.

It was certainly good to know that they weren't specifically targeted, though really, who would target Deidara when he had just arrived in the city? That wouldn't have made any sense!

Deidara's question raised questions in Haku's mind. If it was a drug, how could it affect people so differently? They had sipped from the same glass, after all. That, in and of itself, seemed strange. Couple that with the fact that it was easy not to notice changes, and Haku was wondering just what it was. This wasn't anything he had ever encountered before.

"I've never encountered anything like this," Haku admitted, and he had come across quite a lot in Mizu no Kuni, as both an Oi-nin(Hunter) and a Medic-nin. "I wouldn't even know where to begin to fix it."

Zetsu watched back, curious but unperturbed by Deidara's stare, though he did wonder what was so interesting. "It might; we don't know. We've never ran across such a thing either. We'll see about analyzing it....:" If only Sasori were here. He was a fair hand with poisons himself, but gladly admitted that he paled in comparison to Sasori's skills. "Neither do we; we'd have to synthesize an antidote to it after we figure out what it is and what it does, and that takes time.... The best we could do beyond that is to try and help acclimate Deidara-san to the symptoms." There wasn't much he could do about the feline features; they seemed fully attached, as if a genjutsu had become real.

Deidara was too busy watching Zetsu to really notice he was being rude--he hadn't had a chance to really analyze what was happening to him. There seemed to be an overall color to go with the tone--in Zetsu's case, for the moment it was a pale yellow. Then the syllables had colors to go with them, and they flashed before Deidara's eyes as the words were processed--Zetsu's tended toward greens, blues, and purples. His face was far more open than usual, due in part to exhaustion and in part to the overwhelming nature of the poison's effect. There was a bit of a wide-eyed curiosity in Deidara's features at the moment--putting colors and words together was interesting when it wasn't making his head hurt.

"It doesn't make sense that one poison could have such weird effects like this, un," Deidara said with a bit of a sigh--Deidara never had bothered to learn much on poisons and antidotes, but he had been partnered with Sasori. "Acclimate how?"

Haku seemed only to nod. There didn't seem, at this point, to be much that he could do to contribute to the situation. At least, not beyond words. And for as strange as the ears and tail were, they were hardly noticed as being different from usual. In fact, the effeminate shinobi has adjusted to their presence rather swiftly and now felt like they had always been there. The increased volume of the sounds was still a little weird, but even that was slowly working itself out.

"It doesn't have to be just a single poison," Haku pointed out. "I've seen them work in tandem before. I've made them work in tandem before. And different poisons combine differently to produce different effects." All of this was knowledge from his days as a Hunter, which was when he had learned a lot of his medical knowledge. "It's also possible for a person to not be as affected by one type of poison as they are by another.

"At this point, anything is possible."

The staring made Zetsu shift a little, plants pulling a little close around himself to shade him from view; he was starting to fee an odd mix of the old shyness and general discomfort, considering that most of the people who stared at him were hostile--and thus, an easy answer, in the past at least, had been to hurt them for it. He couldn't do that with Deidara, of course, and nor did he want to..... Still, it put him at a loss, with no clear way to handle the situation; he settled for watching back and trying to ignore the awkwardness, taking in the open expression and wondering whether this was what he'd looked like while he had been amnesia'd.

"You're right." Zetsu nodded at the suggestion. "But a custom mix for so many people, when it's distributed in the water in general, is impossible, even if different proportions of many poisons settled unevenly. And if people are affected to different degrees, the difference would typically be a matter of quantity, not quality. Either your senses would both be scrambled to some extent, or you would both have become somewhat feline. If you have a working knowledge of poisons, Haku-san, then we might be able to make some headway with this." Even without Sasori.

His attention turned back to Deidara. "When a shinobi needs to build up a resistance to a poison, do you think they gulp down a few cups immediately? They grow a tolerance for it. They work their way up, from a few drops, to a spoonful, and so on, until they could drink a pure glass with their meals to no ill effect." He folded his hands. "This type of therapy is usually used for shinobi who have taken damage to their sensory system and need to restore themselves to being able to move and feel again after being healed. Basically, we would use chakra to stimulate your sensory nerves, starting with short, mild pulses and working our way up. Once you're used to it enough to function properly, then we move on to the next level."

Deidara couldn't contribute much to the poison talk--he stuck to explosives, and left the poisons to those who knew them well. He suddenly became aware he was staring, and wasn't sure how to address the issue. He settled with stopping--it was the polite thing to do. It was strange, though, to look at people. He was feeling and hearing things just by looking at different colors, and while some colors were good, some were bad, and some combinations were absolutely jarring, Zetsu's seemed to mesh together well. Of all the swirls of colors, sounds, and feeling in the room, Zetsu was just easiest to look at.

He listened to Zetsu's explanation carefully. Letting someone do anything to his chakra system was dangerous, especially if that someone was a medic-nin. But Deidara really didn't have a choice here, did he? And if he was going to trust someone to do it, it might as well have been Zetsu. Akatsuki had a vested interest in the bomb-nin, and Deidara was more useful with working senses than being constantly overwhelmed. "If you think that's best, un."

Deidara didn't trust easily, but he was willing to trust Zetsu with this.

Haku nodded again. His knowledge of poisons was not infallible, and he knew he still had a lot to learn with regard to a lot of the medical field. The effeminate shinobi listened intently to what Zetsu told him, committing things to memory so that he wouldn't forget. That was, after all, the last thing that he wanted to have happen.

"I'll do what I can," he offered. "I don't know that my knowledge is up-to-date or up to scratch, but I can try."

And watching Zetsu work with Deidara was going to be interesting. A new form of medical therapy was always something that a good medic would want to know. Always.

"It's better to have two people with at least rudimentary knowledge working on the problem, even so." Haku could learn as they went along, if he needed to; Zetsu just wanted to have someone to sound his ideas off of that would have an idea of how to judge them, a second potential source of inspiration to slog through this whole poison ordeal and hopefully come up with an antidote quickly.

"We do." Zetsu confirmed, rising to his feet. "Kusagakureans tend to like poisons that leave lasting damage to their victims, even with an antidote; while treatments like this still aren't that commonly taught, they're still definitely effective." He sat down on the bed in front of Deidara, glad to see the trust--it was a rare thing, to find someone so willing to risk themselves under his hands, even poisoned like this. Considering that both of them were S-class nuke-nins, the implicit message in his acceptance was all the more profound, and Zetsu didn't intend to abuse it.

He took his time making the seals, more slowly and clearly than he otherwise would have done--not only would Deidara be able to see and decipher it if he wanted, but Haku would be more easily able to learn from his example. "This will feel strange, and somewhat overwhelming; you;ll need to actively adapt to new levels of stimulation in this condition, so be prepared. Ready?" With that warning, he took Deidara's hand into his for a point of contact, a soft blue glow surrounding it as he started a series of brief, gentle pulses sweeping through Deidara's nerves. Pain receptors were avoided for obvious reasons, and taste and smell seemed simply too inefficient to waste time on; still, there was nearly the entire range of tactile, visual, and auditory sensations to meddle with--and though they were probably less recognizable, the somatic, kinesthetic, and vestibular as well.

Deidara nodded in response to Zetsu's question and watched the seals as a cursory measure, but was more wondering exactly what would be done to him. The way Zetsu had described it seemed vague, but then again, how could the plant-nin know exactly what Deidara was feeling? At the feel of Zetsu's hand he shifted a bit, not used to letting people this close to him but still trusting in the medic-nin's knowledge and in his own usefulness to Akatsuki to keep him from harm.

The first pulse, despite the warning, took him almost entirely by surprise, and his expression reflected this--his eyes widened and he felt his face flush ever so slightly as his mind lit up with sensory input that made Deidara wobble ever so slightly. He felt like he was hallucinating, except everything was connected wrong so even the hallucination wasn't coming out properly.

The first pulse set him off-balance; the second pushed him over. As gentle as it was, it was still more than Deidara had experienced even in the crowded streets on the way back, and Deidara was falling forward and trying to catch himself but feeling rather hopeless as his muscles failed to respond under the sensory overload. He could only hope Zetsu would catch him--which was rather embarrassing.

He wasn't entirely overwhelmed, however; he was still conscious and alert, at least. And slowly he was starting to process what was happening. Still, such weakness in front of other shinobi was not something he was proud of.

Edited 2007-11-28 19:11 (UTC)

Haku nodded, keeping his attention on what Zetsu was doing with Deidara. He followed the seals easily, committing to memory their order as he watched. As a medic, the effeminate shinobi was always open to learning new techniques, new things.

Even without the Byakugan, it was easy to see what Zetsu was doing, to understand what his intentions were. Carefully, he watched Deidara's reactions, not surprised by the intensity of them. This was certainly something that would take time to get used to, strange as it was.

And, with all that he's seen, he would never consider Deidara weak. It took strength to be willing to submit to something that could be considered invasive. He had seen shinobi who were so weak, they would never, never submit to a medic-nin in general. No, Deidara was far from weak.

Of course, none of this had happened to him before; he was a medic-nin, and a pretty damned good one; those tended not to be used on the front lines so much, and were spared needing the treatment that so many others did. He just described it based on the process he knew to work with, and what he knew from the patients' experiences, which admittedly wasn't that much. Who would want to talk about something this fundamentally intrusive? Regardless, Deidara was in good hands, safe ones, that knew what they were doing and valued Deidara's place in their organization; unlike Kakuzu, he strictly waited for orders before killing anyone that Leader-sama had seen fit to give a ring to.

With his experience, any weakness was seen simply as the treatment at work as it should be, and neither a cause for mirth nor concern. He just twisted a little, the jaws of his flytrap gaping wider than usual so he could catch Deidara and let the shinobi lean against his shoulder. One arm snaked around his waist to hold hm steady, and the leaf curved up behind him, topmost fronds arcing gently over his head as though the plant-nin intended to shelter him from the world. Zetsu kept at his work even as Deidara fell, eyes fixed on the bomb-nin with attentive curiosity.

Deidara stiffened just a bit at the widening fly trap jaws, but was more thrown off by the sensations that fell out of the pattern--the feeling of Zetsu's shoulder was yellow-warm-soft, and the arm around his waist pulsed reds and greens for reasons he couldn't understand. It was closer than he'd ever gotten to the plant-nin, closer than he'd gotten to most anyone, but it wasn't as uncomfortable as he thought it should have been. He didn't move for a bit, letting his senses re-orient, and then slowly he returned to a sitting position.

Of course, that would probably just be Zetsu's signal to increase the strength, but Deidara was feeling a bit more confident now. It was still strange, but his brain was starting to get used to the other senses that accompanied the one that should have been going to his brain.

Somewhere in the back of his head, he thought an explosion while affected by this would have been a spectacular sight.

Haku continued to watch what Zetsu was doing, continued to take note of Deidara's reactions. It seemed to him like this kind of thing would be very good for disabling an enemy, if used in the proper way. Then again, most medical skills were as good for harm as they were for help. That was just the nature of the medical. Certainly, it made doctors and medics a rare breed of people, those who could garner trust such that complete strangers would knowingly place their lives into the hands of these people. It was a powerful feeling to have, almost as addictive as a drug, and Haku wouldn't give it up for anything. He'd already come to close to doing so before.

Deidara's reactions were interesting, as much so as Zetsu's working. And so, Haku continued his observations.

Zetsu sat and watched, eyes bright as he patiently studied Deidara's expression. He seemed to be readjusting well.... That was indeed the plant-nin's signal to increase the strength of his treatment, one frond brushing Deidara's cheek as he sat up. He felt no need to hurry along, no pressing boredom to distract him to his work, no annoyance at having to treat something this obscure and seemingly incurable, with a treatment that would only acclimate Deidara to it at the very best. He just worked, because that was all he really could do; he didn't intend to give up on his teammate or abandon him. And maybe, by the end of this course of treatment, he would have made some sort of difference.

Deidara spent the remainder of the treatment in a haze of senses. It seemed as soon as he was sitting up he was falling forward again when the sensory stimulation increased. And he was grateful for Zetsu's presence especially; Deidara had no idea what he would have done had he had to deal with this on his own. The ex-Iwa shinobi may have not been happy with his forced recruitment into Akatsuki, but now that he was in it, he knew there were at least some people he could trust to at least not kill him when he was like this. After some time, Deidara was sitting steadily under the treatment; functional at last.

He was surprised how gentle Zetsu could be, actually. Deidara had not interacted with the former Kusa shinobi often beyond strictly professional measures (and even then it was less than some of the others; Deidara's art cleaned up after itself), and past the "cannibal, spy, and medic-nin" labels, Zetsu was mostly an unknown. Deidara decided Zetsu was certainly worth getting to know better, at least to see if he could gain another close ally in Akatsuki beyond his partner.

Haku closed the distance between himself and Deidara and Zetsu as Deidara fell forward again. Zetsu was right there to catch and steady the bomb-nin, but that didn't mean that the young medic wasn't still concerned with the actions. After all, both of these Akatsuki members seemed to be very strong individuals. Such displays of weakness were unsettling, even for a spectator.

The effeminate boy's feline ears drooped as he watched Deidara, concern evident on his face. "Deidara-san, are you okay?"

Zetsu was relieved to see Deidara functional again--loner though he was, he appreciated the idea of strength in numbers and allies over enemies. Besides, as little as he cared to admit it, he was a nurturer at heart, and Deidara's condition worried him. There was a faint but audible crackle as he taped down his chakra use, easing his patient down from the height he'd assumed would be most useful--about that which he would expect from being in a busy crowd--without going overboard to finally cutting off the flow altogether. "It's a disorienting treatment as a whole, Haku-san; he should be fine once he has a minute to recover and get his bearings."

He let go of Deidara's hand, but left the other arm where it was, willing enough to lend support to the bomb-nin until he felt well enough to stay steady and move around on his own power. In the meantime, Zetsu pulled his journal closer to him, tapping away with interest. Before long, his eyebrows rose. "It looks like Itachi-san and Naruto-kun could use some treatment, too.... They're even in this very building." He couldn't in good conscience leave Itachi in a poisoned state; they'd been traveling together before the amnesia incident, after all. And while he had no obligations to help out Naruto, he was fond of the boy in spite of himself; it still seemed like the right thing to do.

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Of Catboys and Feeling Sounds [Complete]

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