Title: Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining, Even Red Ones.
Fandom: Naruto
Type: Multi-chaptered
Rating: M 16+
Pairings: OC/Hidan/Kakuzu
Word count: 3,538
Summary: Follows the story of my character Kaida Yuki originally from Yukigakure "Village Hidden In The Snow" but at a young age moved to Kirigakure "Village Hidden In The Mist". Who, somehow, gets roped into joining the Akatsuki. Revolves around life living with the Akatsuki.
A/N: This an OC Fanfiction, if you don't like it don't read it. This is actually a revamp of an old fanfiction of mine that I made on Quizilla many many MANY years ago, upon rereading it, I discovered it sucked. (to put it bluntly.) I'll be updating this as I please. We'll see how things go :) Please feel free to message me, I don't bite 3
The Akatsuki. Even the word strikes fear into people's hearts. The very image of the black cloaks and the red clouds is enough to send some people into a frenzy of fear.
It's understandable, who wouldn't be scared of them? An organisation which deals with the capturing and harnessing of the tailed beasts, as well as slaughtering any who dare to come between themselves and their objective, is obviously a force that nobody dares to reckon with. Especially considering their members tend to go along the lines of S-Rank ninja, who are in fact, wanted criminals for numerous crimes that in any civilization, can be considered barbaric.
At least, that's what we were told.
At the time I'll be honest, I hadn't really given a thought into the group at all, the topic never seemed to crop up in conversation, and we never really spoke of them anyway. Maybe because it was too boorish or perverse to mention such an incredulous group of people? I couldn't really say for sure. But to me, they seemed like distant fairy tales. They existed - that much I was sure - but having never seen one of their trademark cloaks in person; I couldn't comment on how I felt on the matter. I guess you could say I was lucky not to have come across any of the psychopathic criminals from their group at the time. There was nothing in our neck of the woods to draw them to our village anyway which, I think to everyone's relief, was a good thing.
However, like many other ill-fated ninja who have had the misfortune to cross paths with these notorious criminals, I too failed to see the silver lining in our untimely encounter.
I glanced over at my team leader whose face was strained with his constantly narrowed eyes. I don't think I'd ever seen him without a scowl or at least a frown across his face. It was his default expression; he was a serious man who took his work to heart, no matter what the mission. Even if completed successfully, his face would never hint at a smile or a smirk. Still, our mission to escort a very important member of the Konoha government back to the hidden leaf had gone well, and we were now on our way back to our own village for a well earned rest and dinner.
My team was laughing and tossing banter back and forth, I simply listened – I didn't feel like talking at that moment. I was usually quite willing to contribute to the days general chit chat, however today; I was in the listening mood. I giggled to myself as we walked quite relaxed along the gravel path, tree's either side of us swaying in the sunset breeze. The sun just peeking over the horizon with the sky radiating a calming orange tinge, it felt like paradise.
Suddenly though, our leader stopped, voices echoed from just over the horizon. A slight annoyance lingered in one of their voices, while the other had a deep grumble frosting the ends of his words. Their shadows peeked over the hill and stretched across the path as their heads, shoulders, and torso's emerged from behind the hill in front of us. Because of the sun behind them, the figures appeared as silhouettes that continued bickering to one another while our leader gestured to us to be quiet and stand on guard. The two figures became a little clearer as the sun disappeared behind the hill again. The two men were fairly tall, one more so than the other. The taller of the two had a mask of sorts on, revealing only his eyes. The other sported a large scythe weapon that hung behind him, and slicked back silver hair.
Both however wore a cloak that we had only heard of in tales told by passing tradesmen in our village. There was no doubt, the word caught in my throat as I felt it rise up from my stomach. We all wanted to say it, but the word choked us as we came to terms with what our eyes were now resting upon.
"Akatsuki" my leader murmured his lip twitching slightly as we all took in a sharp breath. The word sent shivers down our spines, one of my teammates gulped down his anxiety, a bead of sweat forming on his brow. I'll admit it, I was scared, the air had become thick with angst, it even seemed to press down heavier on us like their sheer presence made our bodies feel the air drive down on our shoulders. I felt my mouth set in a thin line and my jaw tense as I clenched my teeth together.
This was not going to end well.
The two figures stood at a distance, I couldn't say how far away from us for sure, but a good 10 metres or so. They had stopped bickering now, and stood in silence as we all shuffled uneasily, each giving a concerned glance at our leader who had yet to speak up to these criminals.
Stuttering a little; my leader called out, quite pathetically if I'm honest, as boldly as he could with a quivering lip "What is it that you want?"
I felt a knot form in my stomach as neither of the two replied.
My eyes flickered between the two of them, the masked man's eyes moved along the line of my team, seeming to study their body positions, clothing, physical appearance – everything - until finally setting on me. And there they stayed, not wavering. His eyebrows raised slightly as he gave me a penetrating stare that made my face grow hot, I hesitated for a moment, gazing deep into his eyes I could feel the knot in my stomach tighten and I was forced to cast my eyes to the floor.
"Hmm, interesting" he said under his breath, a crease in his mask forming which suggested a smirk.
One of my teammates reached for a kunai in his bag as discretely as he could.
"Oooo I'm shaking now, a Kunai! Tsk, what a genin…" said a smug and mocking voice that came from the silver haired man, a menacing grin stretching across his face and an obnoxiously quirked eyebrow sent a tremor through my spine. My teammate stopped, his hand trembled slightly at the Akatsuki's remark. "Eugh come on Kakuzu, let's go. These brats are wasting our time; I'm already starting to feel annoyed." He growled, taking a step forward.
"No..." The other replied still glaring directly at me.
"'No'?" His partner repeated questioningly, stopping and looking back perplexed. "Kakuzu we have no business with these morons, let's go!" His partner urged, obviously unwilling to waste any more time.
The masked one fixed his partner an icy glare, "I believe you are mistaken, Hidan...You may not have business here but I most certainly do." He retorted blankly refocusing his eyes on me with his cold stare, indicating to his partner to look. I gulped slightly, unable to comprehend what the Akatsuki would want with me.
"Hmm?" Hidan turned his attention to me. "What about her?"
"Don't you recognise her?" Kakuzu said while arching an eyebrow, annoyance creeping into his tone.
"Eh..." Hidan looked me up and down for a few seconds, his eyebrows creased as he concentrated, trying to figure out if he recognised me. His partner's patience grew thin as he gave his squinting friend a look like he'd sprouted extra legs. I could see his frustration rising in his stern eyes. "Mmm...No…..do you…owe her money?" he asked raising both his hands, palms facing upwards, in manner as to suggest he had no clue what his partner was getting at, his shoulders also rising up to his ears in a shrug motion. One corner of his lips curled upwards into a smirk which was accompanied by a snicker.
His partner, growing ever more infuriated, flared his nostrils and a crease formed between his eyebrows as they lowered down to lying almost horizontally parallel to his eyes. "No…" ignoring Hidan's last remark, which was obviously a stab at Kakuzu's business tendencies. "She is in the Bingo Book."
"What?" I heard being whispered around me, my team mates all exchanging glances at this new turn of events. My leader, currently unaware of the doubt now rising in his team, spoke out again.
"What is it that you want?" he narrowed his eyes at the two criminals who, by now, were both standing in such a manner that radiated danger. There was a few seconds of silence. "You leave me no choice…" my leader raised his hands as if to perform hand seals but, without warning, was abruptly stopped as his hands were now no longer attached at the ends of his arms. They fell to the floor and the blood erupted from his severed wrists. An agonising roar of pain then followed, one of my allies had little time to react before they were faced with a sickle to their terrified eyes and a swift kick to their back. I jumped backwards out of instinct to get away from the situation. One of my comrades remained and had also jumped backwards, we stood side by side. I looked frantically over to my partner who was breathing so quickly that I don't think the air even had time to circulate around his body before he exhaled it.
My friend quickly grabbed a kunai he had strapped to his thigh and guarded against the incoming scythe from above. I dove to my left behind a tree and performed a few hand seals.
'Monkey, Dog, Serpent, Bird, Drago-' suddenly I felt something grip tightly around my ankle and some sort of strings strangle the circulation in my wrists, clamping them together before I could finish my dragon seal.
"Damnit!" I muttered wincing at the sharp pain in my wrists. I looked down to see a hand firmly clasped around one of my ankles. Quickly I noticed more threads were winding their way around the tree and me, fixing me flat against bark. "Shit…" I grimaced as the threads got ever closer to my neck. They stopped however at my shoulders, although not before being pulled tighter so the fine edges dug into my skin. I heard the clatter of metal on metal as my remaining friend battled desperately against the silver haired creep. There was a moment of silence; the sound of metal clanging off the ground brought me to me senses. A sharp intake of air was heard, and then a 'flump' as a body fell to the floor.
"Hmph, nothing like a good harvest to end an already pretty fine day." An obnoxious chuckle followed the snarky comment. The hand around my ankle vanished back down under the ground, and I tried fiercely to break free from the black threads that had trapped me. Although to my surprise, the threads slowly loosened, I concentrated the chakra into my feet to prepare for a jump.
"Not so fast small fry." A deep grumble remarked from behind me as I felt the fabric on my shoulder get clenched tightly and then lifted up audaciously. My feet left the floor and I was now hanging by my clothes in the hands of an insanely tall man. The air caught in my throat as I realised just how bad the situation was. Sooner than I was expecting, more strings wrapped around my arms and ankles quickly, making it impossible to move properly.
I sneaked a glance behind me to the man who was now holding me like a dead rabbit he had just shot and was now showing off to his fellow hunters. His eyes sent my eyes quickly in the opposite direction. His eyes were so indescribably haunting that it took me a couple of seconds to register what I had just gazed into. His eyes had an extremely unusual colouring: green irides, no pupils and red sclera. I felt a familiar uncomfortable knot settle in my stomach. The tanned man grunted and walked over to his partner who was wiping a few drops of blood of his face. The scene didn't entirely take my mind of his disconcerting eyes.
Blood.
Everywhere, pools of the red liquid had formed around the corpses that lay strewn all over the ground. A faint cry of pain echoed in my ears as I noticed my leader lying on the floor rolling side to side. His agonising screams were still being blurted out, however I had almost blocked out the noise of them as they had been going on for so long, I barely noticed them if I'm honest. I felt something creep up my gullet, a vile taste tickled my tongue and I knew if I looked for any longer the liquid in my throat would abruptly end up splattered across the floor like the bodies of my fellow team mates.
"Why don't you shut the FUCK up!" as the words 'fuck' were spat out of Hidan's mouth he sliced my leader straight across his waist, cutting him in half.
Silence.
I felt my whole body heave, clamping my eyes shut a tear trickled down my cheek and I swallowed all of the vomit and dread that had made its way up to the back of my throat. I felt Kakuzu's eyes on me as my entire body clenched.
"Really Hidan, was that necessary?" Kakuzu queried blankly staring at his partner.
"Oh come on, you can't say his screams weren't pissing you off too!"
"No but did you really have to silence him in such a drastic manner?" Kakuzu looked up at me briefly, I was breathing heavily and felt sweat drip off my brow. My wrists burned with the sharp sensation of the threads and my feet now felt like dead-weights at the end of my legs. "Oh not now Hidan…of all places." Kakuzu protested rolling his eyes. "You can be a real pain sometimes with you're stupid religion."
Hidan had started drawing a strange circle with a triangle in the middle of it with blood on the floor. Taking the sickle he had used to stab the last member of my team in the stomach with, he examined it briefly.
"Hey it's a pain for me as well, you know I have no choice. The laws are very strict about this sort of thing." His tongue grazed the side of the sickle and my partner's blood coated his tongue. His skin slowly became darker; gradually it became an almost onyx black. White markings appeared on his body highlighting his magenta eyes that seemed to burn with malice. He grinned, turning the weapon towards himself.
I knew the Akatsuki were known for being crazy…but I underestimated just how fucked up they really were.
Hidan thrusted the weapon forwards impaling himself. My eyes shot open as blood dripped down from the wound. I heard the final cry of pain escape my comrades' lungs.
'H-He wasn't…dead?!' I felt my heart get heavier as I realised the silver haired mad man had kept him alive, simply for the sake of delivering that final blow.
"OW! SON OF A BTICH!" I heard Hidan cry out.
Rolling his eyes, Kakuzu sighed while stepping backwards against a tree and slowly sliding down it until he was sitting on the ground, he dropped me by his side and I hit the deck with a thump. I let out a little squeak of pain as I already felt my tailbone start to bruise. "Make it quick Hidan, I don't have all day to sit and wait for you."
"Yeah, yeah whatever…" Hidan lay flat on the floor in the middle of the circle and went into a sort of trance.
My mouth fell slightly open, what the hell had I just witnessed? It felt like it had all happened in a moment, I didn't even really have time to react. One minute we were staring cautiously at some figures in the distance, the next…my team was incapacitated on the floor while I sat trapped watching a psychopath lie impaled on the ground…yet, wasn't dying?
It made no sense! My mind was bursting with confusion, I couldn't get it straight in my mind. The man sitting beside me didn't even seem dazed by the fact that his teammate had just stabbed himself and was now lying bleeding to death on the ground while he casually had a snooze.
I glanced to the masked man sitting next to me, then over to Hidan who lay half dead on the floor. I was too afraid to speak, too afraid to even ask what had happened.
I simply sat in dismay, as the orange tinted sky had now faded to a deep purple, a few stars had become visible and some clouds had started to blow across the sky. Taking in a deep breath I felt my heart beating uncomfortably loud in my ear. I concentrated on my breathing, and slowly it returned to normal.
Kakuzu cranked open one eye as he heard my breathing become steadier "What's wrong with you pipsqueak?" My body froze as the familiar deep voice once again had caught be off guard. My head sunk into my shoulders as my eyes stayed wide open and my breath got stuck in my throat. I slowly turned my head towards him so our eyes could meet. As soon as our eyes connected I cast them away, unable to look into his nagging eyes. He grunted, folding his arms and shuffled a little so that he was comfier against the tree.
"What are you two doing now?" an eloquent voice said seemingly coming from nowhere.
All of a sudden, some sort of plant emerged from under the ground, as it surfaced it opened slightly revealing…a man?! My eyes shot open and I felt my chest become tight. I tried in vain to scurry away, however Kakuzu simply grabbed hold of my leg as I crawled (which is very difficult when your wrists and ankles are bound) past him, and dragged me back to where I had been sitting.
"Yes, you appear to have stopped…AGAIN!" another, much deeper and brash voice said.
"Yes, Hidan decided he wanted to go on a killing spree and so we are waiting for him to finish with his ridiculously lengthy ritual." Kakuzu replied staring blankly at the newcomer with bitterness in his tone.
"Can't you just control yourself at least a little Hidan? Seriously, if the time spent doing this embarrassingly long ritual was used instead for capturing jinchuriki, then we'd have caught them all by now." The deeper voice grunted.
"You are simply wasting time that cannot be regained…" The other voice continued.
"Hey don't even get me STARTED on wasting time! Kakuzu's the one who always gets us sidetracked with his stupid side job; we always have to go on some far-fetched mission to get a bounty!" Hidan retorted sitting up sharply. "Have you jerks got NO respect?!"
"Yes Hidan but your ritual is in no way profitable, so technically I should be the one who is complaining." Kakuzu retaliated.
There was silence for a brief moment.
"Well anyway, you two better pick up the pace and get back to headquarters…"
"Leader-Sama is already beginning to lose his temper, and you know just how detestable he can become when things don't go his way." And with that, the plant…man…thing descended back into the ground.
I stared horrified at the scene that had just unfolded in front of my eyes, my mouth hung open, as it had done for the entire conversation. Kakuzu casually cast his eyes down at me, I don't think he was certain whether I was more stunned over the plant-man, the fact he came out the ground, or the fact that Hidan was still alive.
Either way, you could tell he was smirking.
