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Deidara often wondered what Sasori had meant that day.
"He's the type to die young."
He always wanted to know why that was the first thing his partner thought of him when they first met—when innocence met jaded, and innocence took the hit. Had it been written on his face? Had he said it? Maybe it was his art itself.
Maybe this moment had been written on his chest, right around the gift—the curse?—he kept there, spelling out his demise in pretty calligraphy.
Maybe Sasori had simply lived long enough to know better.
Still, he had been right. Deidara felt something settle inside him as he created his last sculpture—his masterpiece, his final catastrophe. Sasori was right about everything. He always was. The red head was perfect, smart, brave.
Could you really be considered brave if nothing could destroy you?
Deidara often wondered what the process had looked like. Had Sasori created his new body entirely separate from himself, or had he slowly replaced pieces of himself, slowly becoming something more than human? He was certain it was more—Sasori's art surpassed human life, while his often took it.
Maybe Sasori had been right all along. Maybe he was the superior artist. Maybe he had really secretly loved everything too much to let any of it go.
Deidara laughed, his words spilling from his tongue on autopilot. His last words ever on earth... he didn't even know what they were. Although he assumed it wouldn't make a difference; this Uchiha wouldn't be around to remember them. No one would.
What had his partner's last words been? Did that pink haired brat even remember them? Did she know how lucky she was to have even seen his masterpiece?
Deidara thought again about his body. The doll had been perfectly crafted, and his last words were surely just as beautiful. Would they have made a difference to him though? What would he have done differently? What could he have done differently?
All he knew for certain was there was no body. The doll's human form had died—worthless and cold and disgraced—no matter what method Sasori had used. There was nothing to bury. Even his puppet form—as beautiful and wonderful as it was—was no where to be found when he returned to the site. It's expertly carved face and perfectly vibrant hair were dulled. He couldn't tell the difference between the discarded pieces of clay and his partner.
There was nothing to mourn.
So why did the pain in his chest pursue him—hiding in the dark nights, lurking behind Tobi's pitching voice? The entire world seemed to dull. Only in the moments of his explosions did he remember beauty.
Sasori had been wrong after all. Art was not eternal. If it was, he would not be dying alone.
He did the math. He knew his radius. He knew the impact his life would carve into the earth. The aching in his chest was deeper than his chakra condensing. It was soul-deep. This was it. His final show.
Sasori had summoned one hundred puppets; he had summoned the Third Kazekage. Hiruko had shattered. He died among his creations like any god should.
Deidara closed his eyes, expecting the pain to come first. He felt nothing.
His mind was filled with nothing but red—rare smiles and knowing glances, rolling eyes and annoyed voices sticking strings to him to catch him before he fell, bandages staining before they were even secure, scoldings from standing too close to his creations. He would die with them, like any good god should.
They say you live a lifetime in the second before you die. Before meeting Itachi, he wouldn't have believed it possible. Now, his life was condensed even further—into five years of bickering and five years of blood red sunsets and five years of the best days of his life.
And as the red faded into white, then into nothing, he consoled himself with the fact there would be no body. No mourners. No funeral. Nothing to bury.