The thing that Kakuzu notices first when his awareness returns after an indeterminate passage of time is the whispering. A sound that he is unable to place, too soft and garbled to distinguish as anything specific; muted tones in the darkness. He blinks weary eyes, heavy and tired, and sight slowly creeps back in- blurred shapes chasing across a shadowy landscape. There is a dark power here, rising all around him. It tints the air and lights this strange land with a reddish light, and he thinks, is this hell? There is pain, it is very painful, a deep throbbing burn in his chest, and although he feels empty inside he thinks it might be his heart- his real heart- being laid to waste, ravaged in this featureless, darkened wasteland. And now that he is aware of it, he feels the throbbing solidify, become more real, a heavy weight seems to settle itself on top of him, the dull burn concentrates, becomes a blazing, raging fire inside of him and he looks down half expecting to see real white-hot flames licking and scorching his flesh. What he sees instead is silver-white hair atop a head, bent low over him. The world suddenly bleaches white, the darkness evaporating away like a dream, the searing pain guttering out until all he feels is the steady rhythm of his heart, beating life through his body. It feels warm and full, unlike the icy-hot pseudo flames and hollowness of moments before.
Feeling spreads slowly throughout the rest of his body as the phantom world disappears and his awareness pulls his senses out. He feels uncharacteristically heavy, like gravity somehow pulled more heavily on him, draining his energy and bringing him like a stone to the ground. He finds that he is lying flat on his back, and although the unnatural pressure that weighted his limbs has dissipated there is still a foreign heaviness lying atop him. Blinking remnants of haze from his vision, he recognizes what he had been looking at. He is staring down at the top of Hidan's head; hair dirty and ratty, hanging in tangled strands and coated at the ends in blood. Hidan's bare shoulders rise and fall in rapid jerky movements beyond that, the alabaster skin is also streaked in blood. The priest seems to be situated atop him curled into a tight ball, and as the feeling in his body becomes more detailed he realizes that they are both naked.
Hidan is sitting just above his pelvis; he can feel the sharp jut of hip-bones against his abdomen where Hidan is pressed close against him. Hidan's legs straddle him, thighs running along his sides up to just below his ribs and then calves extending backwards to land at his own hip; bony ankles pushed in tight, feet curving underneath. Hidan's arms are crossed over his body; one of his hands is fisted against Kakuzu's sternum, pressing something metallic hard into his flesh. The other arm is wrapped around his own body, palm spread out, clutching at his chest. Kakuzu can feel the harsh panting, gasping breaths where the priest's face is buried against his skin as they rasp in and out of the pale body. Kakuzu's first instinct is to push Hidan away, and as he tries to shake the torpor from his limbs to disentangle himself, Hidan jerks violently against him.
Hidan lifts his head, and with weariness and exhaustion written in every movement, pushes himself up shakily. His normally fair skin now appears ashen; his face is drawn and tight, his eyes and expression closed off. His torso is drenched in blood so dark it is almost black- his life's blood, oozing out from beneath the hand pressed against his slick skin. Hidan raises the hand that was clasped against Kakuzu's chest and the falls nin recognizes the Jashinite pendant as the metallic object that was pressing into him. Hidan's mouth moves in breathless chanting as he brings the rosary to his own breast, pressing it harshly into the skin there and letting his head fall back as he cries out. It looks as though the metal is branding his flesh, searing the mark deep. Hidan's body shudders as it disengages, leaving a fierce, ugly wound when he pulls it away. Hidan wavers dangerously, nearly collapses forward, but Kakuzu manages to lift shaking hands to steady him, and they stare at each other for an endless moment in which the full understanding of the situation crashes down around them like breaking glass.
The dawning realization hits Kakuzu like a punch to the gut, the memory of the fight with the Copy Nin and the Kyuubi boy rushing back in vivid detail; losing, dying, fading away into nothingness. He's not sure how long he was dead- the passage of time in the ruddy twilight land warped and fragmented. He's not sure how Hidan managed to retrieve his body, or even if this is his original one; perhaps he has been entirely reformed through the supernatural rite. He's not sure at all how Hidan got his soul back either; if there was a ritual already in place for such occasions, what type of sacrifice was needed to placate the shinigami or if the power of his God was enough to recall the spirits of the dead. He does know that the heart beating within him now is not his own, that it came from the fist-sized wound sealed behind the brand in Hidan's chest. He isn't sure he'll ever get a answer out of Hidan - for all the zealot proclaims about the teachings of Jashin, he's kept most of the specifics of the rituals, the holy and sacred prayers an enigma; obscured behind a wicked tongue and sharp eyes, quick anger and bloodlust.
Hidan struggled now with trembling arms and legs to push himself off and away; Kakuzu helped to lift him off with gradually returning strength. Hidan collapsed immediately onto the bloody soil beside him, rolling so that his back was to his partner, sprawled ungracefully for several moments before levering himself up to take a few drunken steps before crashing back down onto hands and knees and retching. Kakuzu turned his face away; it felt wrong to stare at his partner's naked form, his weakness, his sickness when moments before he himself had laid in ruin by death. When Hidan is through, heaving dryly several times before he wipes his mouth on the back of one bloody hand and reenters the large symbol in the dirt: a triangle circumscribed within a circle. Slowly, he makes his way back to where Kakuzu is now sitting in the center and slumps down behind him, propping himself against the scarred back that is for now maskless, placing one of his hands over Kakuzu's.
"Welcome back"
"…It's good to be back"
~Owari