Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me.
Title: originally fromShakespeare – Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5 scene 2. But for me it'll always be Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More
Prompt letter: D
Words: defeat, doll, deep
Nouns: drink, devotion, development
Verbs: differentiate, define, dissolve
Adjectives: dramatic, dangerous, difficult
Character letter: H
Serve God love me and mend
Blood was dripping between the rocks, crimson paths marking the soil with the holy liquid of life – wasted and spilled, left to rot and turn to dust. Rubble was quiet and peaceful; no one ever came to the place of a cursed one's final rest, too disgusted by the defiled grounds to come close. Or maybe too scared.
Hidan was immortal.
His body broken and torn to pieces lasted in agony, buried deep down in a dirty pit full of darkness and ghosts for days (weeks. Months…) eaten slowly chunk by chunk by the hordes of vile earthlings, voracious, ruthless and justice starved.
Hidan was immortal.
Yet without the sustenance, the water, without the prayers and holy sacrifices painting world in the shades of red, even his gracious gift was wearing thin. Slowly. Painfully.
There was a price to pay for every deed and a price for every deed undone. But Gods don't take heed of circumstances. Gods do not take mercy of those who fail and failure can be granted only one reward.
Hidan was immortal.
Yet he was dying, defeated – Slowly. Painfully. For weeks and months and months to come – in a dark, filthy pit, filled with worms and regrets and the stench of death. And there was no one around to wish him goodnight. Good luck. May the peaceful be your path.
o0o
Afterlife was not what he expected it to. There was no blood, no screaming, no cauldrons filled with tar and fire, ready to host those who sinned the most. No dust and no ashes to cover the floor and mark the fall of those capable of nothing but crawl.
Everything was… clean.
White, beaming emptiness as far as he was able to see and a quiet, steady sound of drums to fill the silence, that could've been once the rhythm of his heart wasn't he dead and cold and torn to pieces.
"Baby-doll..." Voice that spoke volumes and yet no louder than a hiss, coming from everywhere and nowhere at all.
"You did so well, Baby-doll. Made me proud."
There was something overwhelming in experiencing the absolute, the first and the last, the one and only, the undefined. Something fishy, too.
Hidan never thought the Great Lord Jashin would speak to him one day, nor that he'd call him names of fondness and relish in the land of pure. He failed after all, thrown ludicrously into a pit with no prayers on his lips that were no more and no praise, sweet praise on his tongue for it was difficult to sing with only a half.
But Hidan had faith.
Always faith, strong and unwavering, the kind to make him dangerous and to make him nuts.
Afterlife was nothing he expected it to be, though.
No word in the holy scrolls he devoured so long ago, one by one by one by one until there was nothing else of him left to question words of wisdom and devotion, burned deep into his willing brain by the Great Lord Jashin's purging hand had left him believing in… this.
The mercy and grace of Great Lord Jashin made him immortal, made him unable to differentiate pleasure from pain any longer, made him something more.
Until now.
For it was all gone, destroyed by a kid with an overdramatic flair and a head full of strategies that will never be.
"Rest now, Baby-doll."Voice that spoke volumes from everywhere and nowhere at all was soft and soothing as his mind and soul dissolved slowly into the white nothingness, never aware of what great privilege he's been bestowed with.
o0o
Hagoromo smiled sadly from his spot beside space and time, thinking that maybe some techniques should stay buried and forgotten forever.
Judging by how Edo Tensei'ed Zabuza and Haku had no idea what happened to them after death, there's no conscious afterlife in Naruto. And personally I think that Hidan mastered just one hell of a forbidden technique.
Cross-posted from AO3