In Maddie’s humble opinion, being a ghost wasn’t really the best thing in the world.  For one thing, she really couldn’t do anything other than mess with Deidara’s culinary exploits… attempted culinary exploits.  There was no denying that, entertaining as his howls of despair were, it quickly got old.  Then again, it was better than being back… there.  She would do just about anything to stop from being shipped back there.  If torturing Deidara was what it took, then she would do it willingly with a smile and a whistle.  Well, not literally, of course, as things like that depended on stealth, but she whistled in her mind.

Of course, things were a lot more interesting than usual around here, what with Itachi killing himself and Michiko hooking up with Deidara and everyone generally being in a state of uproar.  Maddie, who had more time to think about these things than those who were actually taking part in them, suspected Eris had more than a little to do with the current state of affairs, but that was just a suspicion and no one paid attention to a ghost anyway.  At least, they probably wouldn’t if they knew she was here, which they didn’t, so any thoughts on such things were merely theoretical.

And then Itachi himself showed up in her oven, bringing his bloodstains and his brooding attitude to completely ruin her peace of mind.  It was all very well to chuckle at the naïve stupidity of the living from the safe vantage point of death, but it was quite different when she suddenly found herself a principle player in the game that was life.  Or, at least, the game that was the drama of life.  She couldn’t exactly partake in the game of life itself, seeing as she’d struck out long ago.

It had been pure instinct to call out to Kisame like she’d done.  And then she’d improvised from there, taking a gamble that he’d accept her story and winning.  So now she was exposed, and Itachi was officially back, and she had no idea what to do next.  Her inspiration had run dry, and, when faced with a frowning Sir Leader, this wasn’t the best thing in the world.

“And you chose not to alert us to your presence because…?”

“I… um… didn’t think I’d be an asset to the organization and did not wish to be a liability.” There.  Straight, to the point, polite, and reasonably educated.  Heck, she’d even used those big words he liked so much!  Surely that had to count for something, right?

Apparently not, because his expression didn’t soften a single iota.  “You made yourself into a liability by not informing us of your presence immediately.  It will not happen again, do you understand, Maddie?”

She ducked her immaterial head.  “Yes Leader.”

“Good.  Now, Kisame, tell me about Itachi.”

And that was that.  Sir Leader grilled Kisame about Itachi’s death and subsequent reemergence into life without so much as glancing at Maddie even once.  It was so unfair!  After all, Maddie was the one who had met Itachi in the first place, not Kisame.  Yet here the shark-man was, answering Sir Leader’s questions as though he knew everything in the world about it.  

She glided away, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her eyes blazing fire for anyone who cared to look… which wasn’t anyone, since they were all with Sir Leader and Kisame, thinking they knew what was going on.  Well, she would show them!

She found Eris, the only one of the gang not to be glued attentively to Sir Leader’s interrogation, sitting cross-legged on the roof, merrily blowing up fruit-flies.  She didn’t look up as Maddie joined her, but the ghost-girl knew the goddess had seen her.

“Back to be killed again, Maddie?”

“No, not really.”

“Then why are you here instead of sucking up to your mutant boyfriend?”

“First of all, Eris, I’m kind of a ghost, courtesy of you know who.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Sure you did.  Anyway, apart from that small fact, Kisame is busy right now.”

“Busy?”

Maddie nodded bitterly.  “Busy being Sir Leader’s favorite person.”

Eris stopped dead for a short yet momentous moment.  Maddie wasn’t sure anything had ever brought the Goddess of Chaos to a complete standstill before, and she felt momentarily smug to know that she’d been the one to do it.  Eris’ paralysis lasted mere seconds, though, and then she was once more fully functional.  “Would you care to elaborate on that?”

So Maddie did.  Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, she poured out her story to what she hoped was a sympathetic audience.  When she finished, there was another long silence but, this time, Eris wasn’t shocked into immobility.  She was thinking.

Finally, she turned to look straight into Maddie’s translucent face.  “You want to be recognized?”

“Yes.”

“You want to once more be a part of the Akatsuki?”

“Yes.”

“You want Kisame?”

“Ye… How did you know that?”

Eris laughed, a soft, mocking laugh.  “I’m the Goddess of Chaos, dear.  Of course I know this kind of thing.  You do want him, don’t you?”

Maddie nodded.

“Then you really only have one choice: you have to kill him.”

Maddie’s eyes went wide and she shook her head.  “No!”

“Why not?”

“I won’t kill him!  That… no.”

“Then you’ll never have him.”

“I… I know that.”

Eris looked at her steadily.  “How much do you want your revenge?”

“Revenge?”

“That is what you want, isn’t it?  You want to be recognized for the contribution you gave to the Akatsuki, and you want to punish those who don’t recognize you.  That’s revenge in my book.”

“I suppose.  Can you… will you help me?”

Eris laughed again.  “Smart, to make that distinction.  As it is, I both can and will help you.  I wanted to get back at Sasori anyway.”

“Sasori?”

“Long story.  So, do you want my help or not?”

“Yes please.”

“Good.  Then here’s what you need to do.”


Maddie crept through the deserted halls of the base, thanking her lucky stars that ghosts didn’t have to sleep.  It made such things much easier if one could accomplish them by night.

“Come on!” she muttered, dragging Itachi’s limp form behind her.  He still spent most of his time in the oven, brooding over the past and generally reducing himself to a state very much resembling catatonic.  Maddie found herself avoiding the oven more and more these days.  But she needed him for what she was going to do, and so had steeled herself to haul him along.  

“Where are we going?” It was the first thing he’d spoken since she fetched him unceremoniously from his kitchen retreat, and she was in no mood to celebrate that.

“So you can speak.  I was beginning to wonder.  We’re going to see Deidara.”

Itachi balked, digging his immaterial heels into the very material carpet.  This
action, naturally, did all of nothing to impede their progress, and Maddie sighed.  “You really don’t know how this works, do you?”

He didn’t answer, and she offered nothing more, continuing to drag him through the base, bothering neither with doors nor with the floor as she went.

Finally, they reached Deidara’s room.  As Maddie had known it would be, the bed was filled with, not one, but two bodies, entwined together in a grotesque parody of tenderness.  ‘Here we go,’ Maddie thought to herself, and pushed Itachi forward.

“What…?”

“Let her know you’re still here!  She wasn’t at the meeting, so she won’t know.”

“How?”

“You’re a ghost, aren’t you?”

“And?”

Maddie sigh of exasperation ruffled the curtains on the far end of the room.  “Dear gods, you don’t know anything, do you?”

“No.”

Suddenly, Maddie had had enough.  All she wanted was her revenge, to be recognized and treated like she existed.  This was only an intermediate step, one of the things she’d promised Eris she would do in exchange for the goddess’ help.  It had seemed like a small thing at the time.  ‘Get Michiko and Itachi back together.’ What could go wrong?  Itachi loved her, and she, despite her protests to the contrary, loved him, so all they both needed was a good shove in the right direction.  But she hadn’t counted on Itachi being the helpless lump he’d morphed into.  She wondered vaguely what had happened to the Itachi she used to know, the ruthless and heartless killer of anyone who annoyed him.  Clearly that Itachi had vanished and been replaced with this Itachi, a spineless and emotionless creature of emo-ish despair.  Maddie wondered momentarily about the likelihood of it being an invasion of the Pod People, then shook her head.  It was probably just Itachi’s mid-life crisis coming out in force.

“Look at me, Itachi.”

He did so.

“I don’t give a damn about you and Michiko.  You know that, right?”

Ignoring the shudder that spasmed through his body at Michiko’s name, Maddie continued.

“All I want is to get my life back.”

“But you’re dead.” It was nothing more than a whisper, so filled with dejected pain that she could almost feel sorry for him.  Almost.

“And?  I can still have a life, you know.  And so can you, if you’d let yourself admit it.”

“She loves him.”

“She’s playing with him,” Maddie snapped.  “And anyone with half an eye can see that.  Actually, the only ones who can’t are you and Deidara.”

“What does it matter?  She doesn’t love me anymore.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yes I do.”

She hit him.  A hard slap across the face, one filled with pent up frustration and anger.

“Will you get a grip?!” she screeched, not caring who they woke up.  “All you do all day is sit there and whine.  ‘Oh, she doesn’t love me!’ ‘Oh, my life sucks.’ ‘Oh, I wish I was dead again.’ Well face it.  You are dead and you’ll stay that way, but that’s no reason to make yourself into Itachi the dead emo brat.  You are Itachi, the number one member of the Akatsuki, and you are hurting the entire organization with your moaning and your whining.  So either grow up and face life, or go away!”

She waited, her face slightly flushed and her breath coming in short gasps.  

Amazingly, no one had woken up.

“Then I guess I should be going.”

She stared in shock as he turned and glided morosely away, her eyes wide.  She hadn’t been expecting that result!  She wanted to go after him and drag him back, but there was no point.  He’d made it perfectly clear that he was going to give up on death just as he’d given up on life.

She looked back down at the sleeping couple, and sighed.  She really hadn’t wanted to do this, but there didn’t seem to be any choice.  She would have to talk to Michiko herself.

With a long sigh, she glided over to the bed and touched Michiko’s shoulder.  Her hand went through, but the older woman shifted.  

“Michiko.  Wake up.  Right now.”

The eyes popped open and Michiko glared through Maddie.

“Right here.”

“What do you want?”

“Come with me”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“NO!”

Maddie lost the few vestiges of patience she still possessed and, with it, the remnants of caution.

“You will come with me or, heavens help me, I will make your life a misery for as long as you live and then keep haunting you after you die.”

Michiko glowered.  “What do you want, Maddie?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“It can’t wait?”

“No.”

She grumbled incoherently, but shifted and made as though to get up.  Deidara shifted in his sleep, bringing an arm around her and dragging her back down.  Maddie noticed that she didn’t fight against him very hard.

“I’m apparently not able to leave right now,” Michiko informed Maddie smugly.  “Come back later.”

“No.” Maddie closed her eyes, clenched her fists, and lifted the blanket off them.  Michiko stared for a moment, then reached up to drag it back down.  Maddie whisked it away, then got to work on the window.  It clacked noisily, making Michiko jump despite herself and Deidara mumble something in his sleep.  Leaving the window to clack as it wished, Maddie turned towards the bed again and began to dismantle it, hanging the various pieces in the air as she unhooked them.  The exertion tired her out, but she bit her lip and bore it, determined to see this through.  As she began yanking the stuffing out of Deidara’s mattress, Michiko sighed.

“Fine.  But stop destroying his things.”

“Get up and I’ll stop.”

Michiko gently moved Deidara’s arm and slipped out, stepping off the remains of the bed and onto the cold floor.  Maddie let everything stop, allowing the window to clack shut one last time, the cover to flop back to the floor and the various pieces of the bed to drop down where they wished.  She hoped that one of the legs would land on Deidara, but no such luck.  He didn’t even wake up.

Shaking her head at that – no evil villain worth his salt slept through an attack – Maddie led Michiko through the base out into the open.  There was no sign of Itachi, though Maddie supposed he was still around here somewhere.

“What do you want, Maddie?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Then talk!”

Maddie sighed slightly, but talked.  “Look, you know I’m a ghost, obviously.  Well, I’m not the only one here, and the price I pay for being a part of the Akatsuki again is to make said other ghost stop feeling sorry for himself and send your new boyfriend spiraling into depression.  So, you need to break up with Deidara and go off with Itachi, slap him enough times in the face that he comes to his senses, and then rejoin the team.”

“Itachi?  But, Itachi’s… wait.  You said another ghost?”

“Honey, have you gotten slow over the years?  Of course I meant Itachi.  He’s out here somewhere, probably sulking and plotting ways to become un-ghosted.”

It showed how much this news disturbed Michiko that she didn’t react to being called slow.  Instead, her face went through an incredible series of transformations, beginning with shocked disbelief and ending with flat out despair.

“What am I going to do?” she whispered.  “I can’t… Deidara… Itachi… the Akatsuki...”

“Get a grip,” Maddie snapped wearily.  “Go talk to Itachi.  You should be able to find him soon enough, if you look hard enough.  I’ll talk to Eris, and get me into the Akatsuki in your place as Kisame’s partner.  Deidara will just have to cope.”

Maddie left without waiting for Michiko’s answer, going to find Eris and deliver her news.

The goddess was waiting for her, as Maddie had known she would be.

“Well?”

“I’m fairly certain Deidara’s heart will be broken – again – within mere hours.”

“Good.”

Maddie sighed.  “What do you have against him, anyway?”

Eris smiled, showing pointed teeth.  “He suffers so prettily.”

“Okaayy.  Will you get me back where I belong now?”

“Of course.  I’m true to my word.  Come on.”

Maddie trailed the goddess to find Sir Leader, carefully not thinking about how much trouble they would all be in for this.