A/N: Just a twisted little something. Mm, one-thousand-four-hundred-and-forty words condensed into just the three. Not bad, huh?
Enjoy it, though I really don't see who could.
Under Moonlight
The moon is high, lancing in the midnight blue of the night sky, so dark as to appear black at first, second glance, and the third, too: mere glances were insufficient; one had to stay still, still enough to meld seamlessly into the landscape, and observe, a pattern familiar – if not laced deep within as second nature – to any predator, or indeed any verging decent shinobi.
But then again, no decent shinobi would spend their time gawking up at the sky at so ungodly an hour, in a stretch of woods where twisting pitch shadows merged to form unnatural, convoluted growths that lay low over half-defined lines, sliding on its belly over the silver splashes of moonlight that illuminated the bark of a tree, its smooth, paper-like texture giving way to harsh, raised lines like the ridges of scars, the edge of a leaf, dark green with a barely discernable line of silver running its jagged rim, like the fine, sharp point at the very edge of a blade.
No, any shinobi would be able to feel the pure malignance that hovered like the icy touches of mist in the air, or at least see it in the poisonous mercury that coated the tips of pointed branches, of overhanging leaves. And they would pound panicked feet into the ground, cracking twigs in their surely irrational haste and not even pausing to disguise them, as they hurry to their mission or the promise of home sweet home – because no-one in their right minds would ever just come into this place – with no room in their minds save for the certainty that something was very, very wrong here.
Perhaps they would notice the utter and absolute stillness in the air, the lack of any sound at all to pervade it, not even the rustle of a moth's wings as it took flight from under one shadow to rest behind another, or the pattering of the footsteps of a solitary ant scaling the steep incline of a slanting, silvered line. It'd be impossible not to notice it, when every shinobi was trained to detect minute details and subtle shifts in their surroundings, and here, their senses, more valuable over any weapon and any jutsu, threw a blank back at them. That, and the reverberating sounds of their own footfalls, amplified and sonorous against the sheer nothingness. Illusionary, of course, but the acrid night air that permeated the mind right onto the verges of the soul hissed otherwise, and that alone would convince most.
Chilled to the core, they would flee.
Underground, though, was a different story entirely. Even the moon knew not to let its reach stray there, and the faulty electrical fixtures in fractured plastic cases, shed only enough light to further accentuate the leaning shadows of the too-tall, uneven stone walls that exuded an air of frigid rawness, which like the shadows was a permanent resident of the subterranean complex. Hewn into the rough surfaces, however, were doors, their straight lines and angular edges almost laughable in their statement that died, stillborn, before made. The wood looked thin, weak, brittle, humanised beside the hard, coarse irregularity that would, surely, crush them to mere splinters soon, soon.
The ground slopes downwards along the corridor, forking into sudden sub-branches at erratic intervals, so that one might despair that there was even a ground plan to this, or even the barest hints of a structure, let alone anyone who could possibly know their way around. …Why, don't be ridiculous. Left, right, left, right, left left right, until you lose count and wonder if you weren't wandering in circles, and there he stands, silhouetted in the doorway, Mr Willy Wonka himself.
No purple velvet coat with flapping tails, no pearly grey gloves, no bottle green trousers, and above all, no shiny little top hat perched jauntily atop his head. His cloak, though standard Akatsuki fare, sweeps round his frame, colours flawlessly pristine but broken in nevertheless, in the manner entirely his own, and could be summed into the slightly uneasy sentiment of inscrutable, distant command. The collar curved high, throwing into shadow the parts of his face that weren't already, as he stands. Simply stands, pausing, because he never waits upon uncertainty, he never stalls, and he never looks back.
The room behind him is one for interrogation, though it's just been put into use for a different purpose. Or maybe not so different: after all, torture (and he does not try to hoodwink himself, soft-heartedly, that it is otherwise) is just interrogation with a different driving force than need, want, lust for information.
And one step down the line, was the conclusion that discipline was the natural successor to insubordination, and the take on that was to be stringent and intolerant to boot, any common-or-garden leader who could stay in that position for more than a few hours could give you that.
So what is it to anyone, that Pein's very own brand of discipline is tantamount to torture? That the rooming arrangement had to be organised accordingly?
He draws his cloak closer around him, although he hardly feels the slithers of chill air that pervade every crevice, leeching every ounce of heat that it hadn't already from the rocky walls: by day it is perhaps a fraction warmer in comparison, the only indication of time down in this twisting complex where agony flits about the stone like the pallid ghosts of the souls that had departed here. He may well be part of them, a wraith-like spectre half-formed in the shadows, but there is no denying that his core is cold through. And it would take significantly more than the red-hot bite of brands plunged through him to change that. However, that would be quite the meaningless endeavour, and Pein would suspect that if someone attempted – and attempted only, because its success needn't be considered – it with that particular objective in mind, his annoyance for its sheer pointlessness would contend bitterly with his extreme dissatisfaction with the perpetrator for predominance.
But Pein did not abuse his time so, as to give way to fleeting, immaterial fantasies of so unlikely and idle a nature, no, he has time only to conceive, to pragmatise and to rationalise, and then, to execute. A moth watching from the darkness rather than the excessive showiness of a butterfly, and his venom more potent by far than that of a bee, his aim, truer, but the concept was there and the concept was acted upon.
Just as the concept of leadership outlines the need for respect, it also stands to reason that the same respect needs to be maintained. And so it is quite lucky that Pein is the type of character who was prone to acting rather than chasing butterflies, as the result is that rather than he being impaled upon rusted spokes of glowing iron tonight, it is in fact Hidan who has that, ah, pleasure. Just in that room there beyond.
Immortality, so you see, has its benefits.
The conveniences of having nerves that could re-join even when severed, of ligaments that could meld together over and again, of torn muscles that could amalgamate back into one mass, the joys of a body that can stitch itself together infinitely no matter the havoc wreaked upon it, the invisible needlework that welded seamlessly until the skin stretched smooth and unblemished. All taking only the slightest sliver of recuperation time necessary for the average, unendowed shinobi.
Though all things considered, this time it could take a stint longer, since half of Hidan's bones, brittle and pale, fragile glass rods quivering in their wait to shatter, and more recently unrecognisable as such, just so happened to reside in a different place to the other half. To mention but one factor. And as always there was the slight issue of the removal of dozen upon dozen rows of steel teeth, all of which were loath to part with Hidan, when living tissue surrounded them in the form of a nicely healed body.
Something passes behind the rims of the rinnegan: the lilac flare of galaxy bidding its farewell to the vacuum of its black surroundings, the underside of the tail of a nova, the ash already cold. Humour, maybe, as Pein finally detaches himself from the dark ink that spills from the walls to the corridor it enfolds, and the swishing of disturbed spirits are all that gives testimony to his striding away. Why, don't give yourself white hairs over it.
Overhead, the dim white fluorescent light flickers and buzzes behind cracked plastic.