A/N: This is an excerpt from chapter one. The rest of it is censored.
To read the rest of this chapter, please visit please-notice-me-sensei over at Tumblr.
Because I can't link directly to NSFW content, just look at the Tumblr's sidebar links to find Neophyte on AO3.
Faint rays of afternoon sunlight danced upon the darkened ground beneath his feet, swaying and glimmering silently within the quiet echo of a summer breeze. The gentle, flickering glows were watched carefully by the Shinobi standing within the forest below: a man who was just waiting for his opponent to slip up with her trap and accidentally cast a shadow.
A clever weight shift and a simple flick of the wrist was all it took to catch the girl off-guard; the second swing from the bar of his scythe managed to hit her spot-on, sending his target crashing back-first into a nearby tree. At the moment, she was hunched over herself a few yards away, holding a hand against the ground for stability as she waited a second or two to recover from the folly.
The opportunity she let slip during battle had been an honest mistake, but it was nothing Hidan wouldn't take his rightful advantage of.
Another soft groan pervaded the air. The pain lining across the girl's upper abdomen throbbed once again, making her strain as she looked back over at the man, grinning. "First strike wins, Sensei."
"Like hell it does. Stand the fuck up."
She blinked, her complaisance fading into an expression of vague curiosity.
"I'm sick of letting you waste my fucking time here," Hidan said, folding his arms and looking extremely bored with himself. "I always knew you were weak, but this is just fucking ridiculous."
Sighing, the young woman brushed the back of her hand across her face, wiping a spot of blood away from the corner of her mouth.
"I apologize for my behavior, Hidan-sama," she responded firmly. "I guess I've been...kinda distracted lately."
"Seriously, I don't remember saying I gave a shit. I said get up."
She gave herself another second to regain her equilibrium before obeying the order and rising shakily back to her feet. Of course, Hidan kept a watchful eye on her as she did so.
Even though these pointless sparring matches were more than common during their 'outings' together, they never failed to establish which of the two Shinobi remained the superior fighter. Life's training had done nothing special to prepare the kunoichi for the superior combative skills of this runaway. She could try repeatedly to execute a successful assault, yet rarely have her tactics make the slightest difference in changing the battle's outcome; this in itself was a fact Hidan loved to exploit at every given opportunity.
Still, save for a few empty threats and a couple of harmless scuffs during battle, Hidan never really tried to hurt his student. He may have had no problem treating her harshly, or calling her every conceivable name in the book, or using random outbursts of vulgarity that would make even the steadiest of people flinch, but he never went as far as to honestly, physically injure the girl.
No, he made her do that part all on her own.
Yuni brushed the fresh marks of dirt from her gloved hands, shaking the brown tint from the black and silver cloth. "Hidan-sama, I need to ask you something."
"Oh, yeah?" he asked, readily grasping the base of the weapon re-tied around his back. "What's that?"
"Are we friends?"
The disconcerted Jashinist stared askance at the young woman standing in front of him, noticing her silver eyes glaze over with the wonder and fascination expected from a person who felt the need to ask such an irrelevant question...like a four-year-old.
The only reason Hidan even put up with this girl was because she was his latest inductee into Jashinism; unfortunately, she had been the only willing inductee he could find so far. Since she wasn't nearly strong enough to abandon her village without getting tracked down and killed by the resulting ANBU, the Chuunin would vie for an away mission every so often, secretly meeting with her new teacher for a few days at a time to train and discuss new ways to rid the world of the irreligious cads polluting the earth with their existence.
To avoid unnecessary complications, Hidan told his Akatsuki teammate that he had to start taking a couple of days off each month to perform a diversified array of religious ceremonies solo; although it wasn't regarded as 'fiscally ideal' at first, Hidan managed to fully convince Kakuzu into letting him go by using an ancient and powerful mind-controlling technique known as 'bitching one's mouth off'.
Sure, Hidan sometimes surprised himself with the convoluted lengths he was willing to go just to keep his interaction with this girl a secret, but he remained half-interested in the fact that there was someone else on this earth who wasn't interested in going to hell. Yet, even though the little neophyte from Konoha had acted as a more-than-faithful apprentice for the past four months, there were the unexpected instances when her asininity could play her off as someone a quarter of her age.
This instance, for example.
"Remind me..." Hidan started, not taking his suspicious eyes off the girl as he spoke. "Why in the fuck I would want to be friends with someone like you."
Shrugging off her recent injury with indifference, Yuni put a hand on her chin and glanced thoughtfully up at the sky. "Maybe not 'friends', exactly...but we do, I don't know...like each other, don't we?"
"You're fucking kidding me, right? Seriously, just because you exploited my ass and got me dragged into this whole fucking mess, that doesn't mean I have to like you. As a matter of fact, I hate you. With a burning fucking passion." He shrugged. "I'm just waiting for you to screw something up so there's an excuse to kill you and get it the fuck over with."
"Of course, Hidan-sama," she said, nervously pawing at the back of her head. "I-I was just making sure, is all."
"Yeah, well, now you know. The hell's got you so interested all of a sudden, anyway?"
"Nothing! I...if there was anything I could do to change your mind, you know I'd-"
"I seriously doubt it, kid."
"...sorry for bothering you, then."
"Whatever," he sighed irritably, ignoring the look of dejection on his disciple's face.
Alright, alright, so this girl's apprenticeship wasn't exactly something the Akatsuki loyalist had planned on. Yuni was nothing more than a mediocre, seventeen-year-old kunoichi who had lost a battle to him once before, and yet somehow managed to escape death's grasp and find him again three years later. Then, after putting him through all that troublesome, time-wasting bullshit, decides to throw in the towel right when the fight was getting interesting! The persevering jackass even asked him for 'guidance to salvation', so of course Hidan had no choice but to take her under his wing. Jashin wouldn't have liked it if one of his most dedicated servants turned down a heathen's request to be redeemed.
...goddamn it.
His pike must have been blunt that one time, or something.
Nevertheless-even though he wouldn't admit it in a million years-Hidan observed that this girl had proven herself an extremely diligent follower of Jashin so far. She kept true to her word and obeyed his every command without objection. She maintained a steady count by sacrificing the targets of her assassination missions. She performed the wide range of ceremonies to the proverbial tee, no matter how bloody or painful they all turned out to be.
But, most importantly, she always made sure to stay the hell out of her teacher's business.
She knew nothing about him, his partner, or his organization, and he...well, he took advantage of that by asking her seemingly-innocent details about her village and reporting them back to Pein. Besides that, their relationship was on a strictly professional need-to-know basis; asking whether or not they were 'friends' was the closest they'd come to a personal conversation in nearly half a year.
Yup.
Hidan had a devoted, gullible, seventeen-year-old virgin waiting on him hand and foot.
Who would do absolutely anything he asked.
Without question.
Hidan's forgotten ire faded into oblivion as found himself slipping into a momentary reverie, the devious potentials already springing to mind.
'Oh, fuck.'
...ha, ha.
Thank you, God.
"Well, if you're so fucking desperate," he said, rolling his eyes and tilting his head restlessly to the side, "there's this one...part of your training you haven't gone through yet, and I'd really like it if we got that shit out of the way. You know, before we got on to the more complicated...stuff."
"Really?" Yuni queried, looking strangely hopeful. "And you'll tell me what it is?"
"Sure, I'll tell you. Seriously, it's not a big deal or anything...just a favor."
Before Yuni had a chance to respond, Hidan swiftly withdrew his scythe and charged towards her, shoving the back handle forward and pressing the metallic bar hard against her throat. He held his student high up against the side of the tree, using nothing more than a single hand to wield the enormous weapon now pinning her to the bark.
"You don't have a problem with favors, do you?"
She clenched onto either side of the intruding pole and focused all of her remaining strength, relieving the pressure on her neck just enough to allow herself to speak.
"S-since when do I ever?" she choked out, winking at him and forcing a smile. "I'm here to be trained, remember? If it'll help my progression...just tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it."
'Of course you will, kid.' He revealed a smirk. 'That's what you're here for.'
But their fight wasn't over just yet.
The individual he had held to the tree disappeared in a large billow of smoke, replacing its own form with a large tree branch. Hidan wheeled around, predicting the assault rushing in from behind him and clashing the suddenly encroaching blade against his own. Before he was given the opportunity to serve a punishing counter-attack, an extraordinarily shrill pain shot through his body as he felt something sharp wrench itself into the base of his spine. The clone he was facing disappeared in yet another cloud, and it quickly became obvious that the wooden 'replacement' had been the kunoichi all along.
Shit.
She was getting good.
Usually, Yuni was an extremely friendly, extremely naive, extremely obedient girl who was respectful to those she looked up to, and who never dared to risk upsetting anyone by disobeying a direct order. She always tried her hardest to prove her skills were improving under her new teacher's instruction, and fighting was the only time she could ever get his attention.
Sparring was the only instance she ever dared to lay a finger on him.
To this day, the young woman strived to do everything in her power to show Hidan that her devotion had never faltered and will never change; no matter what he said or how he treated her, she'd always value his guidance above and beyond anyone else's. As for this 'favor' he wanted, whatever it was...he had already gone through the trouble of teaching her during the course of their stays together; the least she could do was perform whatever menial task he needed of her.
Because, as his apprentice, she was there to serve him.
Nothing more.
Standing on her toes to take on his height, Yuni wrapped an arm around Hidan's chest, pulling him backwards onto the knife so that his ear and her mouth were made level. "You know I'd do anything for you, Sensei."
"You slimy little prick..." he barked, cringing. "I swear to God, I'm making the next thirty seconds as painful for you as humanly fucking possible."
She twisted the kunai in an inch or two further before violently ripping it out of her master's body.
"'Humanly'?" she whispered, a mischievous grin curling the edge of her lip. "Come now, Hidan-sama, we both know you can do better than that."
'Darn it, why haven't these healed yet?'
The brunette in the bar stool shifted uncomfortably, attempting to ease the stinging pains manifesting themselves within her back. The wounds caused from her last self-flagellation had been inflicted during a penance ritual two nights ago, the night before she left her village to resume training with Hidan. Yuni wasn't a medic-nin, nor could she heal at the alarmingly fast rate her teacher did, but two days should have been more than enough to recover from something as minor as a sound lashing.
Regardless, the girl sighed, glancing up at the clock on the wall just in time to mark the second hour she'd been sitting here in wait.
It had taken an entire half a day just to reach the next town, and she was sure she wasn't the only one praying to Jashin that tonight was going to prove worth the walk.
To pass the time, the kunoichi even denied her better judgment and welcomed a conversation with a masked individual at the far end of her table. A heavy black overcoat was draped over the man's massive shoulders, the mark across his hitai-ate's plate branding him a runaway Falls-nin. Yuni became less and less apprehensive towards the mysterious stranger as their casual dialogue continued, realizing that if someone with his immense Chakra levels had wanted to kill her, he would've made his intentions known a long time ago.
They had nothing more than a well-mannered discussion that ended with a abrupt goodbye, followed by him dropping a few coins onto the table to pay for his untouched drink before he made his departure.
'Sir', she had called him.
She never asked him his name.
After retrieving the payment the second Shinobi had left behind, the barkeep behind the counter strolled over to idle in front of the first; he polished a long, white bottle of sake as he eyed the girl's features with suspicion, attempting to calculate her age on sight.
"Just water for me, thanks."
"Yeah, obviously."
She gave the bartender a glance as he set the small cup of clear liquid down in front of her.
Her vexation receding almost as quickly as it came, the kunoichi folded her arms upon the wooden countertop and picked up the porcelain glass with her left hand, swirling around its contents before finally raising it to her mouth.
She smirked into the cup as she heard the customer behind her giggle shyly.
'About time.'
By now, that woman was probably bringing a softly closed hand to her lips; she'd turn away and blush discreetly while the man in front of her fondled at the length of her hair, breathing lines of harmless, beguiling temptation into her ear. His hand would then move, slowly but surely, to brush across the surface of her wrist, the one she rested so unintentionally, so welcomingly upon the tabletop. Her red-stained lips would part unwittingly at the contact, eliciting nothing more than an irresistibly charming smirk from her handsome courtier.
As always, Yuni kept her back turned and stayed the hell out of her teacher's business.
The apprentice would label generally anyone 'suitable' as an immolation to Jashin, with rival Shinobi and mission objectives being her most common targets of practice. But her teacher...no, her teacher wasn't as blatantly arbitrary as she was. Hidan would give a quick scan of the room and become transfixed on a single individual.
Whomever he decided on would die that very night.
Despite Hidan's naturally seductive charm, his apprentice could sense the bloodlust building in his light red eyes, ready and willing to escape whatever shithole they were stuck in and claim the crimson reward hiding beneath the unsuspecting victim's skin.
Hidan always managed to sweet-talk his way into getting his sacrifices.
"It's almost as if God put me on this earth...for the sole purpose of finding you."
It was a closing line that had been rehearsed in front of countless other women, countless times before.
Yuni glanced over her shoulder as she heard the chairs behind her shuffle and scrape loudly against the hardwood floors of the tavern. Rising from the table, Hidan took the stranger's hand into his own and charged swiftly towards the exit, his newfound prey skipping off and tittering behind him. The lady was probably just excited towards the prospect of having someone take her out of public's eye and retreat to a hidden place-like his hotel room-to 'talk'.
But he was eager for a completely unrelated reason.
"Looks like someone's getting lucky tonight, eh?" the bartender leered, noticing the Leaf-nin as she watched the two adults leave the area.
Yuni turned back and took another wordless sip of her drink.
That wasn't luck.
That was skill.
When Yuni first joined the religion of Jashin, she didn't have the slightest clue what 'celibates' did differently than 'normal' people. Hidan simply told her that it was the presence of a strict promise made to God, and that any follower who broke that vow would burn in the depths of hell for all eternity (the heathen). Although she still didn't understand the finer points of what such a responsibility entailed, the priest assured that no bastard alive would get their fucking hands on her as long as he was around.
Yuni just kept her mouth shut from that point on.
She knew she swore an oath the day she became a Jashinist, vowing to follow every phase of her training under penalty of death, to practice any given step until the execution was flawless.
Whatever he asked of her wasn't a commitment, it was an obligation.
Hidan returned to the rented inn room later on into the night, enveloped by a wistful air of unease as he dropped his scythe and slammed the door behind him. He always felt a vague sense of restlessness about himself whenever he got back from these ceremonies, but as soon as his unsettled gaze fell upon his student (sitting so fucking conveniently on the bed, too), he remembered the fortunate fact that, for the next few days, it would be her waiting in this room, rather than his usual teammate.
To be honest, these loud, bloody, painful rituals had the tendency to leave the man so incredibly turned on at times, he rarely knew what to do with himself by the time he got back...at least, the things which normally came to mind couldn't be done with Kakuzu listening in three feet away.
Yuni didn't even seem to notice Hidan as he stepped across the room and stood to tower over her unmoving figure.
"You. Knees. Now."
A/N: This is an excerpt from chapter one. The rest of it is censored.
To read the rest of this chapter, please visit please-notice-me-sensei over at Tumblr.
Because I can't link directly to NSFW content, just look at the Tumblr's sidebar links to find Neophyte on AO3.