Hello! This is the first chapter of my very first fan fiction! It's all about Hidan and Kakuzu. It's a bit AU, but the events can roughly be situated before their encounters with Asuma and the like. In future chapters I'll be taking a lot of liberty with Hidan's past, so bear with me! Any comments, suggestions, or words of encouragement are greatly appreciated! Thanks for taking the time to read, and please comment to let me know if you're interested in more. ^_^ *DeiSara
((The world of Naruto Shippuden, and the characters contained therein, belong to Masashi Kishimoto.))
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Silver & Cold
Chapter One : Not Friends
Hidan sat against the cold stone wall of the collection office. For the past two hours he'd been thumbing the beads of his necklace- at first in prayer, then in counting, then in mere boredom. He understood why he'd been paired with Kakuzu, but sometimes he thought that Sasori may have been a better partner for him, at least Sasori would have never made him wait for anything.
Hidan looked up at the sky and squinted against the sun. It was already very late in the afternoon and they still had at least a day's worth of walking to do to get back to the only Akatsuki hideout in the area, and the place where they were supposed to meet Pain. He stood up and stretched, his scythe scraping the wooden porch as he did so. He adjusted the rope that held the scythe across his back before he walked to the front door of the collection office and stepped inside.
The bodyguard outside the door scowled at him.
"Could you get out of the way?"
"You're with the other guy in the cloak?" The bodyguard asked as he examined the clouds on Hidan's coat.
"You're a real smart one. Stop being a jerk and let me in there!"
The bodyguard rested a hand on the kunai strapped at his hip. "Wait just a minute-"
" 'ey! Kakuzu! Get the fuck out here!" Hidan yelled over the bodyguard's shoulder.
"Keep it down, there's important business deals going on in there!"
Hidan arched a brow. He was unimpressed and getting more annoyed by the moment. "Just open the fucking door and let me get my partner."
"I'm afraid I can't do that." The bodyguard said, pulling a kunai from his waist and holding it in front of him in a rather pathetic defensive position.
"Oh? You want to play with me? Just a moment-" Hidan took the metal pendant of his necklace in hand and whispered a quick prayer to Jashin. When he was finished he swung his scythe around in one quick motion, knocked the kunai out of the man's hand, and pressed the cold point of his top blade against the man's throat. Hidan wet his lips and laughed, "Finally some fun! You'll make a pretty lame sacrifice, but it'll be enough for now."
The bodyguard trembled and started yelling for mercy, which only made Hidan grin. Just as Hidan was putting more pressure against the blade, the door behind the bodyguard opened and there stood Kakuzu with another man behind him.
"What's going on out here!" The man behind Kakuzu shouted.
Kakuzu's eyes lit up with anger as he realized the situation. "Hidan!" Kakuzu was squeezing the handle of his briefcase so hard that his knuckles were white.
"Kakuzu, you're just in time! I was just about to sacrifice this jerk!"
"Hidan! I'll tear off your head if you touch that man!"
Hidan growled in frustration, but finally backed down after a tense moment of staring at Kakuzu. "You really owe me Kakuzu." Hidan hissed through gritted teeth.
Kakuzu's jaw tensed as he pushed past the thankful, now weeping, doorman who'd fallen to his knees. Hidan stepped back and returned his scythe to his back. The boss of the collection station, Yasashiko, who'd been standing behind Kakuzu stepped forward to help his doorman to his feet.
"Kakuzu-sama, next time you come in, leave your friend at home?" the Yasashiko chided as Hidan and Kakuzu made their way outside.
"He's not my friend." Kakuzu growled under his breath.
Once the two of them were outside, Hidan stopped at Kakuzu's side. As they stood on the side of the road, Hidan looked down to see Kakuzu testing the weight of the briefcase in his hand.
"Not friends, Kakuzu?" Hidan said with a light laugh.
"No." Kakuzu said coldly, but even under the chilly tone there was something unconvincing about his answer. "Let's go."
Hidan scratched the back of his head, his smirk tilting into an expression of annoyance. Kakuzu stepped onto the road, but began walking in the opposite direction of the hide out.
Hidan stepped out into the road after him, but stopped a few feet back to watch Kakuzu. "'ey, 'ey, Kakuzu! You're going the wrong way you know."
"No, I'm not." Kakuzu answered but did not stop walking.
"Hey! Kakuzu, what is this?" Hidan said as he jogged up to Kakuzu's side.
"I'm not going to meet Pain-sensei just yet. I've been given a bounty that I cannot refuse."
"What?" Hidan stepped in front of Kakuzu and turned to face him.
Kakuzu stopped in his tracks and slowly looked up, into Hidan's lavender eyes. Such light, pretty colored eyes for such a psychopath... Kakuzu thought. "Get out of my way Hidan. Yasashiko-san just informed me of a bounty that is worth three times what I just collected, and I am not going to miss out on the opportunity. Now, get out of my way."
"Have you forgotten that Yasashiko is not who we answer to?" Hidan said, plucking at one of the red cloud over his own chest.
"Pain-sensei can wait, this money is more important. No one has been able to kill this man, but I know that I can do it."
Hidan sighed in frustration, "You remember what happened last time we were late?"
"Yes, you mean the last time that you made us late because you had to stop and pray for four hours out of guilt from visiting that adults-only bath house near Kumogakure?"
Hidan reddened a little in the cheeks and gritted his teeth, "That's different! I had a good reason, and your's is just greed!"
"You don't have to come with me. I am perfectly capable of claiming this bounty in Yugakure and then returning to the hideout on my own." Kakuzu said with more calmness than usual.
At the mention of Yugakure, Hidan's scowl turned to an expression of surprise, and sudden distraction that was wholly unlike him. "Yugakure?" He said slowly, after a moment of recovery.
Kakuzu nodded. There was no way that Hidan was going back there. He'd left Yugakure- his home village, and his master, in a bloody rage several years earlier. Not only was it dangerous for him to return there, but he was afraid of what he might do if he went back.
"No. I won't go there... it's... too far, and I don't want to hear Pain bitch for the next year."
Kakuzu's gaze was steady as Hidan spoke, revealing no emotion. "All right. I'll return when I've completed my bounty."
Hidan shook his head and spit at Kakuzu's feet. Even if they did fight and sling death threats at each other all of the time, they were supposed to be partners, and it ticked Hidan off that Kakuzu didn't even blink an eye at the idea of them separating. He also didn't seem to care what Pain would think of the idea.
Kakuzu didn't say anything more as he walked around the speechless Hidan and on down the road. Hidan almost looked back at him, but he set his jaw with annoyance and instead forced himself to start walking towards the hideout. Before he even noticed what he was doing his fingers had found the prayer beads and began kneading them in a whispered prayer of rage, and a desperate plea to forget.
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Kakuzu switched the briefcase he was carrying to his other hand. He didn't like carrying such a large, and obvious, amount of money around but he didn't have much of a choice at the moment. Shortly after he'd left Hidan, he'd turned from the main road, favoring the less traveled, and more concealed route, through the forest. Yugakure was too far away for him to make it by nightfall, and he knew he'd have to stop and rest along the way if he would want a chance at killing his bounty quickly and efficiently. Yugakure had once been a powerful ninja village, but had long ago given up its place in the ninja world and instead opened up it's healing and recreational hot springs to the traveling public and the leisure classes. One of the bath houses sounded much better than the forest floor, but Kakuzu didn't want to push himself and he wanted to allow time for his secret plan to germinate.
He walked until the sun had set and he found a small clearing to rest in. The weather was nice enough that he didn't have to start a fire and so he rested against a tree, with his briefcase of money tucked safely between his lower back and the tree trunk. As with any ninja, Kakuzu more or less slept with one figurative eye open, but in the early hours of the morning he was taken by surprise at awakening with a Kunai to his throat.
"Don't move. All I want is that briefcase." An unfamiliar voice hissed from his right.
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