Chapter 1
Kakuzu glanced at the overturned carriage and wondered what was taking Hidan so long. He'd said he had to do his ritual, but he hadn't heard any taunting whatsoever. At this point, it was going to take forever to get back to the hideout, and Kakuzu wanted nothing of that.
Hidan knew that Kakuzu had a short temper. And he loved that about his partner. Relished every instant where he could annoy, bother, and generally piss off the stitched man. And Hidan was damn good at it too. Then again, annoying Kakuzu was not the hardest task. Just now, for instance, Hidan knew that all he had to do was delay Kakuzu from getting back to counting his precious money. Hidan grinned. This would prove to be interesting.
"HIDAN, get your
ass back here, you KNOW we're supposed to be done here already."
The stitched man was NOT HAPPY. It had been at least ten minutes, and
he had no clue where the preacher was. It probably wouldn't bother
him as much if Hidan had gotten patient from his own, stupid,
long-ass rituals, but that apparently didn't happen if he complained
so much. He waited thirty seconds with no reply and turned around,
completely pissed off. "Hidan, if you don't get back here in
three seconds, I'm leaving without you and telling Leader that I
accidentally lost you down a ravine. And then you'll have to find
your way back on your own."
Hidan needed somebody to complain
to. Kakuzu knew. It was his trump card for "Get the hell back
here" kinds of times. Times like these.
"Shit," Hidan murmured. He was relatively new to Akatsuki, and still wasn't able to get back to the hideout without his partner. "For the love of Jashin..." he muttered to himself as he wrenched the bloodied pike out of his chest and got up. "Learn some patience, Kakuzu. Seriously, you're gonna give yourself a heart attack if you don't fucking chill out."
Kakuzu would have
rolled his eyes if he didn't want to keep up his impatient front.
"I'd have to have four for it to matter, you fucking brat."
He took a breath, he felt like beating the crap out of his partner
right now... but then they'd be even later. "You sound like a
five-year-old, Hidan. A five year old with no manners." He
paused and sighed under his breath. "Did you cut anything off
this time? I don't want to look unless I don't have to."
No,
organs and blood didn't bother Kakuzu; quite the contrary. They
excited him. The fact that his partner couldn't die just made it even
more appealing than usual to steal organs from him for his
collection, but he couldn't exactly say that out loud.
"Hahaha, sorry to spoil your little fantasies, Kakuzu, but I'm alive and whole." He failed to mention the blood spurting out of his chest, but he figured Kakuzu wouldn't mind. It wasn't anything the greedy bastard hadn't seen before. He walked over to his partner. He wanted to say something to annoy him. He really did. But for the first time in decades, he had nothing to say.
"Hm? What fantasies?" He kept the look on his face though, saying it offhandedly. Kakuzu left the silence... silent, and was grateful for it as he started on their merry way to the bat ca- errr... Akatsuki lair. He'd have to lock away this shred of time in his memory as one of the few moments that he wasn't about to hypothetically kill the zealot.
Hidan walked beside his
partner. The silence was deafening. Hidan couldn't take it anymore.
"Nice weather we're having, isn't it?" he blurted out,
instantly regretting his feeble attempt at normal conversation. After
all, the pair was the farthest from normal that you could get. Any
and all conversation they ever had usually went along these
lines:
"Hey, Hidan?"
"What is it,
fucktard?"
"Jashin is stupid."
"Well your
mom is stupid."
"Not as stupid as yours."
Etc.
Hidan
bit his lip, praying to Jashin that Kakuzu would ignore him.
He ignored him. Until
he saw his partner bite his lip. His stitched lips curled upwards
into a twisted, maniacal grin.
"I hate it. It's so gloomy and
humid... it's slowing me down. Kinda reminds me of you..." He
trailed off and let the preacher fill in the blanks. Hidan was good
at making things up to make himself more pissed off than usual.
After
all, almost all of their conversations ended up with Hidan fuming and
nothing left to say. Then he'd start preaching about his stupid
Jashin-sama. Luckily, that was easy enough to block out.
Hidan was indeed fuming. "Okay, I get that I'm annoying and I slow you down. But gloomy? No fucking way. Seriously, you have got to be kidding me." And why the hell was Kakuzu grinning like that? What was so damn funny? He knew what Kakuzu was trying to do. Trying to get him pissed off. Unfortunately, the only coping methods Hidan had were fuming, preaching, and blowing up at the stitched bastard.
"Ah, yes. Because
all of the time that I spend with YOU encases my in a joyless fog of
loud noises and complaints. Therefore, yes, I associate you with
gloom."
It was fun to hear Hidan complaining, but only when
he was making him do it on purpose.
"What's it like to know
that I'm the only person you can't kill, Hidan?"
"Stop bragging, fucktard. I could kill you any time I wanted. Sure, it might take a while, but hey, I've got all the time in the world. Seriously, there's no way you could beat me." Sure Hidan was getting a little cocky, but he was confident in his ability. After all, he was immortal. No one could beat him as long as he had Jashin's favor. "Anyway," he continued haughtily, "Leader might become angry with me if I killed his banker."
Kakuzu raised an
eyebrow. He wondered where the brat's logic had gone running off to,
especially since if he killed the only person that could or would
stitch him up again, he'd technically be defeated too.
"You
have no logic, it's like trying to talk to talk to a fence post."
Kakuzu picked up his pace a little bit, leaving no trace of emotion
in his voice. The haughtiness thing is what made him kill his second
to last partner, the bastard couldn't go for a minute without looking
in a mirror or a piece of ice or a river... it pissed him off.
Hidan fumed. Kakuzu
insulted him all the time. But a fence post? Stitches had crossed the
line. "A fence post?! Who are you calling a fence post?"
Hidan
was definitely losing his cool. He couldn't stand it, the way Kakuzu
could manipulate him like this. No matter how hard he tried, he knew
that he always ended up doing exactly what his partner wanted him to
do. And it pissed him off.
"Obviously you,
baka." He kept his tone and pace even, but was smirking inside.
He could play Hidan like Sasori a puppet.
"You don't move, it
takes forever to uproot your ass from wherever you've decided to nail
yourself with that damn scythe of yours, and you haven't proved to me
that you have any brain cells to your name. It's that simple. Only,
fence posts don't complain."
"Oh, Leader, why couldn't I
have had a fence post for a partner instead?" Kakuzu muttered
under his breath, intending for Hidan to hear it.
Hidan hated his partner. Hated him more than anything else. At least that was what he told himself. Hidan knew that Kakuzu wanted him to say something. Was begging him to just say something so that he could piss the priest off even further. Jashin-dammit, how had he gotten the tables turned on him so easily? Hidan forced himself to think of something to do. Something that would surprise his partner, something that would put the odds back in Hidan's favour. "Crap..." he muttered. Hidan wasn't the sharpest nail in the box, especially not in the creativity department. He contented himself to walk silently.
Kakuzu raised an
eyebrow but said nothing. Finally. Sweet, sweet silence.
...God,
Hidan was turning him into an autistic 6-year-old. He was getting too
into these fights, and the repetition wasn't boring yet. He prayed
that he wouldn't actually get a mental dysfunction from it.
Hidan was getting bored of Kakuzu and his eyebrow-raising. He sighed. "Are we there yet?"
"What, do you want
me to carry you or something?" Kakuzu hated Hidan's voice
whenever he asked this question. It reminded him of nails grating on
a chalkboard, or more accurately, a triple bladed scythe grinding
against an infinitely long chalkboard with folk music playing in the
back.
...okay, it didn't sound like that, but that was about how
annoying it was.
"Just answer my
question, please."
Hidan trudged along, bored as hell. He
needed something to do, but conversation with Kakuzu was out of the
question. He contented himself with humming a hymn and fantasizing
about tearing Kakuzu limb from limb. It would be rather easy, with
the stitches... he mused.
"Yeah, we're almost there." Stupid whiny zealot preacher... Kakuzu looked at the sun, or whatever sun was passing through the mist, and down again. "Hidan, we should move back into the cover of the trees for now. Those stupid Iwa villagers start herding their sheep around now... and the road isn't a good place for a missing-nin to be." Even though he's so brainless, he'd fit right in with the sheep... Kakuzu mused quietly to himself.
"Okay." Hidan replied flatly. He had promised himself he wasn't going to let Kakuzu play him again. He walked faster, veering off to the side of the road into the trees. Indeed, he noticed several sheep munching on the grass. He smiled. "They would make good sacrifices..." he muttered.
Kakuzu chuckled, almost
completely silently. The last record the Akatsuki had of a Jashinist
sacrificing hooved animals was... what was it... Mexico. Those bloody
fools still thought that there was a Chupacabra, or whatever it
was.
As long as Hidan was quieter than he was when he preached,
Kakuzu could stand him. His little obsession with the sheep was
adorable. But he wouldn't admit to it out loud.
Hidan had found something to take his mind off of boredom. Sheep. The fluffy white creatures entranced him. The way they moved, the way they baaa-ed, the way they ate grass. He also had to admit that they were pretty damn cute.
Kakuzu watched his
partner out of the corner of his eye. He smiled a little bit, but
shook it off quickly. "Don't watch too closely, or you'll fall
asleep and we'll waste even more time trying to wake you up.
Hidan
slept like a rock. Everybody knew it.
Hidan jerked his eyes away from the sheep. Actually, he was feeling a bit drowsy. He ran to catch up with Kakuzu. "Are we there yet? And don't give me your little rant on folk music."
"Not quite yet.
Maybe 5 more minutes."
Kakuzu had to admit that his partner
was quite adorable. That is, when he wasn't killing people and raving
about his Jashin-sama. He put his hands in his pockets and strode
onwards, trying his best not to leave Hidan behind.
"Glad to see you're in a better mood now," Hidan said, elbowing his partner amiably. Hidan was in a better mood too, Kakuzu could actually be considered a nice guy when he wasn't trying to get on Hidan's nerves or freaking out about how much Hidan spent on hair products. Hidan grinned. Kakuzu would make a good Jashinist if he would quit worrying about trivial things like money, and started worrying about his eternal soul.
"Hn." Honestly, he didn't really want to ruin it either, but he didn't want Hidan to think that either. Luckily, the lair was coming up on their right, so Kakuzu was saved the awkward silence and rantings. "We're here."