Chapter Text
When Deidara awakened, it was with an abrupt start. His senses came to him suddenly, his body tensing up. He could feel eyes on him even if he couldn’t sense any chakra except for his own, admittedly pretty low chakra levels.
He popped his eyes open and sat up, hands automatically going for his clay pouches, but they were missing, which was never a good sign. He was in a small, simple room with little more than the bed he lay on and a table cluttered with a few items. There were two other people: a woman in white, medic-like clothes, which Deidara could only compare to the ones the medic-nins wore back in the Iwa hospital, but much more impractical. The other figure was a tall, black man. Both appeared surprised and alarmed to see him awake, speaking rapidly in a language Deidara couldn’t understand, which was actually pretty surprising.
Deidara could speak most dialects of every nation; it was good for business. Even after the Second Shinobi World War, when Common became the default, he had kept up with regional tongues. But whatever language these people spoke sounded completely alien. What was more concerning, however, was that somehow they had masked their chakra so well that Deidara couldn’t sense it at all. He had no idea who they were or how he had ended up here, but the obvious answer was that he had to get out and meet up with the Akatsuki. Weren’t they supposed to be extracting a bijuu? And where was Sasori?
The sound of more people approaching finally pushed him into motion. He was pretty sure the medic-looking woman had been trying to talk to him, but Deidara didn’t understand a word of it, and who cared, really? He stood up and flash-stepped toward the door. Now his captors seemed really alarmed, and both of them pointed some strange sticks in his direction.
When he got out into the corridor, more people appeared, and for some reason, they also didn’t have chakra signatures and carried sticks as well. Deidara wished fiercely for his clay, or even a single kunai, but it wasn’t like he was completely useless without them. He lunged for the nearest target, a man with sandy blond hair. However, the man did something with his stick, and when Deidara tried to reach him, he bounced back off some shimmering air.
Then the others joined in, firing strange beams of light in Deidara’s direction. He had no clue what kind of jutsu this was or why they needed sticks for it, so he dodged the projectiles and ran in the other direction, where no new people had come from. He was chased, obviously, and after a few turns, he nearly collided with a man with such a disfigured, scar-littered face that Kakuzu would have been jealous of his ugliness.
Not being able to sense chakra was a bitch, and Deidara got hit square in the chest by a red light thanks to the ugly guy, which sent him flying into a wall. It hurt, but Deidara had sparred with Kisame before, and his kicks definitely hurt more, so he was on his feet a moment later. Sadly, the thin, beam-like attacks were fired pretty rapidly from those sticks, and around six people were trying to catch him now, so it wasn’t long before he took another hit.
This one made his muscles lock up, and for a terrifying few seconds, he couldn’t move at all, falling backward. But flaring his chakra worked just like it did for non-Uchiha-level genjutsus, and his muscles obeyed him once again. His pursuers must not have expected him to break free, because most of them lowered their sticks, and that gave Deidara enough time to flash-step a good distance away again.
He burst into an open courtyard with a small fountain at its center and a breathtaking view of distant mountains. He also got a better look at the building he had woken up in, and holy Kami, it was breathtaking. The only comparison he had was the massive castles built by the wealthiest daimyōs, only this one was ten times grander.
The scenery distracted him enough for the pursuers to catch up, and Deidara realized there was nowhere left to go. He jumped on top of the railing, but looking down on the other side, there was nothing but a seemingly never-ending rocky chasm. Deidara was from Iwa, where this was a fairly common sight. Still, if he jumped here, his chances of not getting severely injured were low.
Looking back up, he could see the people fanning out in the courtyard in a half-circle, all of them pointing their sticks at him. One of them, an ancient-looking man with long white hair and a beard, stepped forward, and his words were the first Deidara could understand.
“Please, calm down, young man. We do not intend to hurt you.”
His pronunciation was shit, and his voice was annoyingly calm, not even mentioning the “young man” part. Deidara scowled automatically. He didn’t believe him one bit, so to the horror of everyone present, he threw himself off the railing into the abyss below.
Deidara wasn’t stupid, so he finished off some hand signs lightning-quick and engulfed himself in earth. When his body collided with the rocky slide of the chasm, the jutsu absorbed most of the impact. It still hurt like hell, he probably cracked a rib or two, but it wasn’t fatal.
When he finally came to a stop, he was a good fifty meters below the courtyard, and the people looking down from there were just small, ant-sized figures at this distance. Still, he shouldn’t waste time, so with another earth jutsu, he created an alcove to shield himself from attacks from above, then dug his hands into the earth. The rock was dry and stubborn, extracting even a handful of clay took far too long, and it was the worst quality he’d ever worked with. Still, he couldn’t complain.
He molded three birds, using every scrap of clay he could extract, and enlarged one of them. He leapt onto its back, and within seconds, he was in the air. Flying felt amazing as always, and when he was high enough to see the dumbstruck faces of those stupid stick-holders, he sent the other two birds toward them to blow them up so they could experience a little art while dying. However, there was always someone ruining his artistic endeavours. For this someone, it's an annoyingly common occurrence.
Itachi appeared among the strange stick-holding people, and with two small, quick, and very precise fireballs, he made Deidara’s birds explode early, too far from anyone to cause any harm.
Deidara snarled in anger.
“You!”
“Come back, Deidara,” Itachi called calmly. The bastard somehow didn’t even have to shout to be heard, even though Deidara was up in the air, circling on his bird. “They won’t attack you. They are helping us.”
Deidara just scowled, but at least he could finally sense some chakra besides his own, even if it was Itachi’s. The others still seemingly didn’t have any. He’d rather be anywhere else than near the Uchiha, but Itachi probably had answers about where the hell they were and what had happened. Cautiously, Deidara landed the bird on the railing, its claws locking onto the stone and balancing perfectly.
The people obediently didn’t point their sticks at Deidara, and nobody fired a jutsu, but he still eyed them warily.
“What the hell is going on here, yeah?” he demanded, not yet dismounting his ride. “How did we get here? And where is here?”
“Hm, it’s a bit complicated,” Itachi said.
“Then you better start explaining, yeah!”
Itachi looked at the gathered people, then locked eyes with the old man with the white hair and beard and said something in the language Deidara didn’t understand. Though of course, the fucking Uchiha did. Whatever he said, the old man slowly nodded, spoke to the others, and everyone started to leave, even if they didn’t seem too happy about it.
In the end, it was just Itachi and Deidara, so he hopped off the bird.
“We are in another dimension,” the Uchiha stated flatly, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
“I’m sorry, what?!”
“The bijuu extraction went wrong somehow when the other jinchūriki attacked us.”
“Ahh, there was an explosion,” Deidara said, suddenly recalling fragments. He remembered the strange colours of the blast, the suffocating, concentrated chakra lashing out. “And we… ended up in another dimension? Isn’t that a bit far-fetched? How do you know it’s not just some faraway corner of the world?”
Itachi hummed.
“I have been here for a while now. And there was no chakra. Yours is the first I came across.”
“But that’s…” Not possible, he thought, but he himself hadn’t sensed any other than Itachi’s. “And those people? They were definitely using some strange jutsu.”
“It’s not jutsu. The source of it is not chakra. They call it magic.”
“Magic. Seriously?”
“It’s quite fascinating.”
“Of fucking course it is,” Deidara sighed. He hadn’t signed up for dimension travel when joining the Akatsuki. He hadn’t even signed up for the Akatsuki. “And now what? How do we go home?”
“As far as I could tell, the cause was a huge amount of chakra, so we would also need at least a similar amount.”
“But… didn’t you just say there was no chakra here?”
“Yes.”
Deidara threw his hands up.
“Great. Just fucking great, yeah.”
Itachi, the fucker, just hummed again.
“You should meet the others properly. You gave them quite a fright.”
“Maybe they shouldn’t have fired stupid non-jutsus at me.”
Itachi levelled him with a stare that made it clear who he thought was responsible, but his face quickly smoothed out.
“It was partly my responsibility. I should have been there when you woke to avoid this. But now it’s done, and we should try to calm things down.”
“I don’t want to play nice with these people,” Deidara complained. “I couldn’t even understand a word they said. What language even was that? And how come you were speaking it?”
“They called it English. It is what everybody speaks in this country.”
“English, huh? And let me guess, you learned it in a few hours thanks to your fancy eyes?”
“It did not take me an hour,” Itachi said with a straight face.
“Egotistical motherfucker,” Deidara grumbled. “Whatever. But I don’t have stupid eyes, so how am I supposed to understand anything? And don’t you dare say I don’t need to!”
Itachi’s mouth twitched upward slightly, which was practically a smile for him. Deidara was sure the bastard had been about to say that.
“They will have a temporary solution for you. Their magic is very versatile. Now come,” Itachi said, then headed back inside the building.
“I still have questions, you know,” Deidara complained as he followed, then got distracted by the interior. While escaping, he hadn’t really had the time or capacity to look around, but now he noticed the strange decorations: funny-looking swords, human-sized, human-shaped steel sculptures that seemed hollow, like you could wear them, and people in the pictures on the walls who were definitely moving. He decided not to question it in case he had a concussion.
Itachi predictably ignored him and led the way through long corridors and down a staircase to a door. There, he paused.
“Dumbledore can understand our language somewhat, so it would be beneficial if you didn't reveal that we were part of a criminal organization, nor your lack of care for innocent life. These people have a strong moral compass and would not tolerate it.”
“I’m not stupid, yeah,” Deidara said, rolling his eyes, even though he had no clue who Dumbledore was.
Itachi nodded and opened the door to a community room with couches and a big table in the middle, where all of Deidara’s previous pursuers were waiting. There were even more of them, and just as he and Itachi stepped inside, two redheaded adults stepped out of green flames lit in a big, fancy fireplace. It looked pretty badass, but nobody batted an eye, not even Itachi, so Deidara didn’t mention it either.
Every eye was on him, but it was the old man again who stepped forward.
“Mr. Deidara, it is good to see you are okay,” he said. Deidara definitely had a few cracked ribs, but there was no way he was going to tell them that. This man had to be Dumbledore, since nobody else looked like they could speak Common.
“I’m fine, yeah,” he said. Then, after a beat, and Itachi’s subtle elbow in his already aching ribs, he added, “Sorry about the whole chasing-me-around thing.”
“It is quite all right, young man. We should have handled the situation much better as well.”
After that, Itachi spoke up, using English and addressing the others. Deidara heard his name and saw a few nods. Most of them were eyeing him, especially the disfigured man who had blasted him into the wall. His stare was intense, every shinobi could be envious of it, even with having one really fake-looking eye. Well, that eye also seemed to be able to move, so maybe it wasn’t fake?
Dumbledore spoke again, this time introducing himself properly, and the others gave their names as well. At least, Deidara assumed those were their names. The words sounded strange, and he doubted he could pronounce most of them perfectly on the first try. He probably wouldn’t remember most of them either.
At least he got a good look at everyone. Most of them were men, with the exception of the medic and the late-arriving, plump, redheaded woman who had come from the green flames. All of them seemed to be adults, the youngest-looking one being the sandy blond, slightly ragged man called Lupin, whom Deidara remembered trying to attack but failing to reach because of some weird shield.
Lupin was the last to introduce himself, so Deidara was still eyeing him when the fireplace flared green again, and another youngish, black-haired man stepped out. This caused some commotion; multiple people turned toward him and started talking at the same time. The old man himself grumbled something, then turned back to Deidara.
“I would like to cast a translating spell on you. It will help you understand us, and vice versa,” he explained. “However, there may be some inconsistencies, since the Japanese you speak seems to differ from ours a bit.”
Deidara looked at Itachi, who simply nodded.
“Fine,” he said, even though he wasn’t too happy about being the subject of these people’s “magic.”
Dumbledore smiled at him, waved his stick, and suddenly the background noise became actual words.
“ …stayed in Grimmauld Place, Sirius!”
“I came to see if you needed help!”
“You know if anybody were to see you here…”
And on and on. Deidara still had no idea what was going on, but he had to admit it was fascinating that he could suddenly understand them just like that.
“This was pretty cool, yeah.”
“I’m glad you like it,” the old man said with a nod. “I did try to elevate the effect of the spell, but only time will tell how well it works. Also, it is temporary and will wear off in a day. I will try to find a solution so we do not have to repeat it every day.”
“He will learn the basics in a few days,” said Itachi. Deidara didn’t know if he should be more furious about Itachi volunteering him to learn a language or to say he needed a few days when Itachi managed it within an hour. The old man looked doubtful for a few seconds, but then probably remembered that Itachi already accomplished that in a shorter period of time and just gave them a nod.
“Very well. As you can see,” gestured vaguely behind himself, where the arguing still didn’t really calm down. “I have a few things to smooth over. I’m sure the two of you would also like to discuss some matters and get Mr. Deidara caught up. Maybe show him the temporary rooms we could provide?”
Itachi nodded and, without another word truned around and left. Deidara dared to presume that towards the mentioned lodgings, but who knows what went on in an Uchiha’s mind. At least he was not only rude to Deidara but to everyone else, even if Dumbledore didn’t seem to care. For lack of a better thing to do, Deidara followed after Itachi.