I don't know what this is. I know I'm in no position to be working on other stories right now, but hey, just a silly idea that I've always wanted to try out! So yeah. Slight crack, nothing serious here, written purely for fun and giggles; I didn't bother with going much into depth about anything. This won't be a long story. Enjoy!

Thick plumes of acrid, black smoke billowed around his field of vision.

"Hidan, above you!"

The sound of his partner's voice reached him just in time for him to see the flash of metal. He jerked his head away, the blade missing him by mere inches.

But dodging had been a mistake. The tags remained dormant, and each second that passed by felt like an age.

...

"We've been had."

Hidan snarled as the infuriatingly familiar sensation of the shadow technique washed over him. He could barely twitch his fingers and toes, let alone reach out for his weapon. "Fuck!" he roared. "What the hell happened, Kakuzu!? You can't just go and get caught too, you asshole!"

"Shut your mouth," Kakuzu growled somewhere from his left. "I've had it with your nonsense."

"Oh, you think I'm responsible for this bullshit situation when we're both tangled up in this mess?"

"Victory was never yours to begin with," said the Shadow kid from ahead, approaching them with an easy step. "You will be paying your prices today." And then—

"Get out of the way! I've got this!" The unexpected shout of a female voice threw them all off guard. In the far distance, the rest of the Shadow kid's team had emerged from their hiding places. Even from his poor angle, Hidan could see that the girl was signing something.

"Wait!" He heard the large one exclaiming frantically. "You said before that this Soul Switch Jutsu isn't complete yet!"

"I can do it! Let me try, Chouji, please!"

The Shadow kid, who was about to open his mouth probably to spew more revenge bullshit for his dead teacher, went visibly ashen as he heard this. "Ino, stop!" he yelled, abandoning the Akatsuki members at once to sprint towards his team. "STOP! They're too close to each other! It's d—"

Hidan failed to hear the rest of that sentence, because a rush of distorted air from the girl's final seal slammed into his chest at a frightening speed. Suddenly it felt like his lungs had simply vanished and he had no other means to breathe.

He seized up, eyes bulging in surprise. Also gone was his ability to speak, because he would have screamed if he could. Overwhelming pressure was building up inside his chest, and something was buzzing and ringing within his head with a maddening intensity. His vision undulated, and the vertigo sickened and exhausted him. This was it; he knew he wouldn't be able to stay conscious for more than a few seconds from now. The effects of the shadow binding had suddenly vanished, leaving Hidan to crumple to the ground and twitch.

The last he ever saw were the tiny figures of the Leaf brats in the distance, struggling to hold up a limp, unmoving figure with long, swaying blonde hair.

Then there was nothing.

~*o*~

The first thing Hidan woke up to was a skull-splitting headache that rivaled being trampled by a thousand Tailed Beasts. Every movement felt like a thousand pins and needles assaulting his muscles, and his eyes burned like he'd just had a staring contest with the fucking sun. Hidan uttered a single groan, the sound unable to convey the true extent of the misery he was experiencing at the moment.

He wondered if he'd gone half-blind too, because most of his field of view was blocked by hundreds of thin, dark strands. Funny thing was, if he blew at them they fluttered away, like hair. Like it was actually there and not a result of some permanent optical damage.

Hidan tried to roll onto his back, and convulsed when white hot agony shot through his temple.

"Ohh," came Kakuzu's pained, rumbling voice, "fuck me..."

Had he been in the right condition, Hidan would have shat himself.

The Jashinist swore that he was the one who had just spoken. But then why was Kakuzu...?

His heart thundered in his ears, and shit; was it his nerves? The rush of blood sounded particularly loud to him for some reason, almost to the point where he thought he might be on the brink of heart attack. But there was no squeezing sensation in his chest, so that probably wasn't it.

Everything about the way he was, felt... wrong. Like he was himself, but not at the same time. The way his neck muscles stretched when he turned his head, the width of his shoulders, his center of mass—hell, even the way his teeth were positioned inside his mouth.

Something was clearly off.

In a sudden bout of panic, Hidan scrambled to stand on two feet, migraine be damned. But his legs did a funny thing then, almost as if they couldn't remember how to walk. Within a few seconds he was back on the ground, grunting at the impact.

Fucking hell, that really sounded like...

"Hello," he tried cautiously, startling again when he heard Kakuzu's voice.

...It couldn't be.

Maybe this wasn't real. He was hallucinating, stuck somewhere between the void of dreams and the cruel depths of reality. He looked down at his hands, where his skin was tan, and he was wearing Kakuzu's ring on his left middle finger. His nails gleamed black instead of the usual teal coating.

He couldn't accept it. He refused to.

Not just yet.

Not until he really, really saw...

Shit.

Five yards away, Hidan watched with horrified awe as his own body stirred jerkily back to life. He listened as his own voice muttered a few choices words. The Hidan currently clutching at his head with a pinched expression was definitely not the real him. No; he was over here, watching his own fucking body be controlled—

The Jashinist watched in awkward silence as the not-Hidan froze with a look of sheer bemusement. It would have been hilarious to see such a ridiculous expression on his face, if not for the terrible churning in his gut.

Their eyes met—damn, who knew how creepy it felt to stare at yourself—and for a couple seconds they simply exchanged equal expressions of dumb, blank shock. It was also in that specific moment that their suspicions were finally confirmed.

For the first time, Hidan and Kakuzu shared the same, unified thought:

I am fucked.

I'm only expecting this to be about 3 chapters long, so yeah LOL. It'll be interesting to see the two of them trying to deal with this new discovery!

Like? Love? Hate? Please tell me what you think; your reviews will be greatly appreciated! :)