Narika's Note: Happy Halloween! I hope everyone dresses up, gets lots of candy, and enjoys this fic!
Ghost: The Legend of Sleepy Suna
By Narika
There were rumors of a terror roaming the hot deserts of Suna. No one knew the true nature of the monstrous being, only that he sought blood, loved pain, and was avidly religious, which makes for a pretty bad combo. It is said that he carries a weapon with not one, but three scythes, each increasingly larger than the first. There were even reports of his head sometimes detaching from his body, so all the parents told their kids this scary man would kill them if they ever would not go to bed and stay in bed.
He really wasn't that scary in Kakuzu's opinion. Hidan looked reasonably good-looking for one of the Akatsuki and his penchant for preaching only made him seemingly good-natured. The part that made everyone go "EWWW!" was simply the fact that Hidan's head could detach itself. In Kakuzu's opinion, it wasn't Hidan's fault that he was basically immortal, but it was his fault for being an ass and getting his head sliced off. It was sort of like Deidara blowing his arms off. Stupid. At least that's what Kakuzu thought, but no one really cared much for Kakuzu's opinion. Poor Kakuzu.
Once Kakuzu got back to the Akatsuki hideout with Hidan and his head, Kakuzu submitted a form for a new partner. It was a joke of course, but Hidan totally overreacted by flipping over a few tables, damning Kakuzu and his future generations, and stomped out of the Akatsuki hideout to find things to share his suffering.
And so, the legend of Sleepy Suna sprouted overnight with the ninja on watch spotting a dark figure chasing his head in the midst of a small sandstorm. It was quite amusing. Really. Until Hidan finally caught up to his head and headed for one of the ninja on guard duty, slashing quite relentlessly. The other ninja had quickly escaped, the only person to witness the headless haunt, and blurted out the entire thing to the Kazekage.
Needless to say, Gaara was not pleased. He hated the Akatsuki with a passion, due to the extraction of his biju and his near-death experience. He vowed to protect his village as well, so Gaara was genuinely worried for the shinobi of his country. The course of action he decided upon was to let his brother take over the night watch whenever possible and to write a letter to Konoha ask about this headless haunt. He was quite sure Naruto was still being pursued by the Akatsuki and perhaps Konoha could inform him how to deal with this nin and his strange ability to walk around without a head.
The news reached Konoha rather quickly, and unfortunately for Tsunade, Naruto just had to burst in the room while she was discussing the letter's contents with Shizune and Asuma, who had been gravely injured by Hidan.
"Akatsuki?!" Naruto exclaimed. "Send me on the mission to take care of them! I'll definitely beat this guy with my new technique!"
"No, Naruto! According to my knowledge, this man is extremely dangerous, maybe even more so than Itachi."
"But I—!"
"No, Naruto," Asuma cut in. "This is not a matter of assigning a team to go assassinate this man. For one, he's immortal…ish."
"IMMORTAL?!"
"Ish," answered Asuma.
"We're not quite sure yet of how he is immortal or the extent of his immortality." Tsunade added. "But no matter what, no nin will be sent to dispose of him. We can only stay on guard and tell the Kazekage what information we have."
Meanwhile, Hidan wandered back to the Akatsuki hideout, but he did not enter. He simply sat down in front of the great doors and started yelling in coherently for a good ten minutes before falling asleep in front of the doors.
Hidan woke up by his head hitting the ground as Kakuzu opened the front doors.
"Oh. It's you." Kakuzu said. "I heard you were terrorizing Suna."
"Can't you be more considerate? I mean, I'm sure you could've sensed me so you didn't have to let me just hit the ground you jerk."
Kakuzu said nothing in response.
"FINE!" Hidan shouted. "BE THAT WAY! DON'T APOLOGIZE! I'M NEVER HELPING YOU COLLECT BOUNTIES EVER AGAIN!"
And with that, Hidan gave Kakuzu a sharp jab with the end of his staff and stormed off, yet again.
The Kazekage sighed. The whole town was freaked out by the reappearance of the headless haunt. He also received information from the Hokage about this particular man. Apparently immortal, Hidan's head had been sliced off by Asuma and Hidan disliked his partner. From what they could hear him yelling, Hidan was currently pissed off at his partner, Kakuzu, and was rampaging around, losing his head. Literally.
Gaara was at a complete loss. He couldn't do anything but cause a few sandstorms whenever Hidan came by and Gaara had to stay awake all the time, watching for him. He sighed. His dark circles were getting too dark and more visible (not that they weren't visible before).
Sasuke awoke with a start. What in god's name was disturbing his sleep! He cursed the idiot that was shouting and hollering at three in the morning. And he had just fallen asleep!
His eyes were flaring red as he sourly greeted the person outside. The cloak gave away his identity, but the drunkenness was unusual. Was there some Akatsuki party last night? The guy was singing way off-key and he yelled spontaneously.
Sasuke, spotting an opportunity, threw an explosive tag at the guy. The explosion set the surrounding trees aflame and the guy was burned. Sasuke waited for all of the smoke to clear. He was something weird. The guy's head had been blown off and was shouting profanities. Sasuke decided to go leave quickly and sleep in one of the rooms at the opposite side of the mansion.
Meanwhile, Naruto set out to find Hidan. Now Naruto was normally very afraid of ghosts and such, but Hidan wasn't a ghost. So Naruto figured he'd test his luck and see if he could find the so-called headless haunt. Of course, although he'd never admit it, he wasn't brave enough to venture out there in the dark of night alone with a headless murderer so he opted to ask some of the others to join him in his midnight stalking.
He went around the village to find Sakura. He couldn't wait to ask Sakura to go stalk—star gazing with him. On second thought, if he said that, Sakura would probably pound him to the next dimension and back. Naruto stopped by Ichiraku, all the while pondering how he should ask everyone to go with him.
Ayame asked, "You okay Naruto? You seem a little down."
"I'm fine. I'm just thinking of what to say to my friends," he replied.
"Sometimes it's easier just to tell the truth," Ayame said with a bright smile.
"Maybe I will!" Naruto exclaimed. Feeling much better, he slurped up more ramen and ordered his average five bowls.
Afterwards, Naruto met up with the Konohamaru Corps and asked them if they wanted to come along for some midnight stalking.
"What are we stalking?" Konohamaru whispered.
Naruto glanced around secretively and whispered back, "The Headless Haunt!"
Moegi gasped. "Isn't it too dangerous to be out at midnight looking for that guy?"
"Yea…I mean, I heard that he curses people and kills them slowly and painfully." Udon added.
Naruto retorted, "He'll never find us! And I promise to protect you guys! So don't worry!"
"Okay!" the three replied.
Naruto, deciding it was unnecessary to ask anyone else to go with him, started walking home to prepare a bunch of supplies. He ran into a few people on the way though, and he also convinced them to tag along for the midnight stalking. So tonight, he would meet up with Konohamaru, Moegi, Udon, Lee, Kiba, Shino, Hinata, and Tenten. He continued home contentedly, skipping and singing silly songs. He couldn't wait until midnight.
Hidan woke up with one hell of a hangover. He couldn't remember what happened the previous night, except that he was now holding his head with his hands. Hmm…what happened that made his head fall off? Hidan sat beneath a burnt tree contemplating the possibilities while holding his head in his hands. Quite literally.
And that was how Kakuzu had found Hidan. It was pitiful, really. Kakuzu could smell the stench of alcohol and burnt trees, but he saw no way how the two things had to do with each so he simply shrugged it off.
"Oi. Hidan."
Hidan placed his head back on his shoulders and looked up at Kakuzu. "What do you want?"
"Let's go back. Stop destroying Akatsuki's reputation."
"How am I destroying it? I'm merely making our reputation better by showing our killing power." Hidan hmphed.
Kakuzu rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Let's go."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because…"
"…"
"Because…"
"…well?"
"Because…oh, whatever! I can't even remember what's happened last night. I'm hungry! Let's go."
Kakuzu thought for a moment. "Itachi made sushi again."
"Again? I'm surprised his partner hasn't left him."
"Whatever," said Kakuzu, dully noting that Hidan was still not a very cooperative partner.
Itachi answered the door. Surprisingly, it was Hidan and Kakuzu. They didn't really say anything except that they were hungry and they brushed past him to raid the kitchen. Itachi, not bothering to ask how Hidan and Kakuzu had made up, went back to his room to search for his well-needed nail polish.
Naruto and the rest of the midnight stalkers met up at the training grounds an hour before midnight and worked out a plan. They all checked their equipment, muttered a few prayers that they wouldn't be seen, and then set out.
"Hey, Naruto!" Kiba whispered.
"What?"
"Is that him?" Kiba pointed towards a mean-looking guy in the far, far distance.
Naruto and everyone else squinted, trying to discern whether or not the guy was headless.
"Umm…I don't think so," answered Hinata, "but he seems to have a large amount of chakra."
"Could it be one of our sensei?" Moegi asked, worried that they'd be found.
"No," Shino said, "I overheard that there's a jounin party tonight."
"A JOUNIN PARTY?!"
"Shut up Lee!"
"SORRY!"
"…"
"Naruto-oniichan, when will the headless guy come?"
"I don't know."
"So we won't see him?"
"Shhh!"
"IS THAT HIM?"
"Whisper, Lee!"
"…sorry!"
"Ow! Kiba, was that your foot?"
"I didn't kick you!"
"Rarrf!"
"Quiet Akamaru!"
So the midnight stalkers were experiencing some difficulties in locating said Headless Haunt, talking way too much as well. They kept watch for hours already and soon all of them started getting tired. One by one they fell asleep.
The following morning, they were heavily scolded by the Hokage for venturing out to find a dangerous criminal past their bedtimes. She lectured and yelled and finally kicked all of them out of her office.
"That sucked!" Konohamaru remarked.
"Yea, she was more pissed off than usual," Naruto replied.
"No! I meant that we didn't get to see the Headless Haunt!"
"Yea…that's too bad. I was really excited too!"
"No you weren't! You were afraid!"
"What!"
"Yes you were!"
"Whatever! I'm going home!"
Naruto walked home to his apartment and went inside. Boy was he tired! He wanted to just lie down on the floor and fall dead asleep, but his floor was too cluttered. He slowly made his way over all the junk on the floor and flopped into his bed, falling fast asleep.
Someone was poking him, trying to wake him up. He lifted his eyelids just a bit and screamed at the top of his lungs.
Asuma and the rest of Team 10 were laughing their asses off from the apartments on the other side. Well, Shikamaru only chuckled, Ino had a shrill fit of giggles, Chouji choked on his chips, and Asuma laughed wholeheartedly.
"Serves him right for not asking us to go midnight stalking with him!" Ino declared.
Asuma had sent a clone of Hidan down to Naruto's room to give him a good scare. Needless to say, Naruto had his pants scared off and from that point on, was absolutely scared senseless of even the mention of Hidan's name.
Naruto also would not leave his closet of ramen for quite some while after that.
Meanwhile, at Akatsuki…
Kisame continued, "That nail polish just smells awful!"
Itachi merely continued to paint his nails.
"I'VE HAD IT! I'M LEAVING!!" Kisame shouted.
Kisame left the room, slamming the door, and went outside for a bit. He bumped into Hidan, who was fuming quietly to himself outside.
Hidan asked, "Are you leaving Itachi?"
"No," Kisame replied, "I just need some fresh air."
"Oh…"
After Kisame left, Hidan continued fuming. Why couldn't his partnership with Kakuzu be as simple as Kisame and Itachi's? Hidan tried to calm himself before his head blew off.
The Akatsuki leader had said that Hidan had already reached his merciless killing quota so Hidan was not allowed to go on mass rampages until next year. Hopefully, by then Hidan would get along better with his partner.