Heaven Forbid
Disclaimer: Naruto and all of its characters/plot elements are not within my possession, but rather that of Masashi Kishimoto.
Author's Note: For my previous story, Of Sneezes and Weasels, someone reviewed my epilogue requesting another Akatsuki MemberxTemari. And thus, I respond with this Akatsuki MemberxTenten. It shows how well I take requests. Anyhow, this pairing...I don't believe it has been done before. If it has, my apologies. Oh, please take into consideration that my idea of drama may not be too dramatic as I truly prefer writing humor above anything else. My drama tends to be the overused type, and often the characters are OoC, which has been pointed out by reviewers. I apologize for any OoC-ness in this particular story, which is most likely present as I am not too familiar with the character of Tenten.
Thanks for reading! Enjoy!
Chapter One: Violence
Tenten was living a good life.
Of this, everyone was aware. The chuunin—soon-to-be jounin, as the exams were coming up quickly—was renowned around the village of Konohagakure as their unofficial weapons mistress, possessing the ability to hit a bulls-eye one hundred out of one hundred times with ease. Her team consisted of Hyuuga Neji, prodigy of the Hyuuga clan, and the taijutsu master Rock Lee. Her mentor was Konoha's Green Beast himself, Maito Gai. Sure, her accomplishments might not be as impressive as others', like Sakura the Godaime's apprentice, but she was undeniably happy with how she was living, despite its undoubted plainness compared to her peers.
So how the heck did she end up being tied up and slung over the shoulder of an S-class missing-nin?
The kunoichi wished she knew. She recalled the most recent events in order to try to piece together the puzzle…
She had been walking back to her apartment, having just returned from another mission with Neji and Lee. Gai-sensei had been absent due to a cold he received from exercising too long in the rain.
She chuckled lightly. Her sensei had never been one to give up, even if his health was on the line. It was one of the things that both he and Lee were identified by, for it was one of the attributes passed down to the young chuunin along with the strange outfit and ridiculous hairdo. It was one of those things which Tenten recognized them by and loved them for it. Despite their numerous oddities, they made up her team, her family; how could she not enjoy their presence?
The weapons expert fumbled slightly with her keys, trying to get it into the corresponding slot. When she finally forced the stubborn door open, she threw her pack onto the couch as she did every day. However, it wasn't every day that she received an "Oof! That fucking hurt!" back.
She immediately turned to meet the owner of the vulgar voice. A man with light-colored hair slicked back, wearing an open black cloak adorned with red clouds, lay sprawled across her couch, her bag now askew on the floor as a result of him throwing it off.
"Who are you, how did you get in here, and why the hell are you on my couch?" the girl asked, narrowing her eyes dangerously as she subtly reached for a kunai. She tried to remember the significance of red clouds on a black cloak.
He seemed to roll his eyes before answering, "The name's Hidan, I picked your lock—which was fucking easy, by the way—and I thought you would react better to me being on your couch than on your bed. By the way, you need some better fucking furniture, girlie." A lethargic, yet nonetheless arrogant, smirk graced the mysterious Hidan's face as he gestured around the entire room, which was void of any other furniture designed to be occupied by humans. No, instead there were cupboards and cabinets stocked with all her various weaponry: knives, swords, shuriken, and the like.
Tenten glared viciously. "Did you pick my lock just to insult my taste in interior design?" Red clouds…black cloak… What did they mean? She delved through her memories to try to recall the importance of the unusual design.
The man's—Hidan's smirk, which the kunoichi decided was extremely irritating, remained plastered on his admittedly handsome face (although she wouldn't admit it at that particular moment). "Nah. The old bastard says you'll bring in some pretty money. I wouldn't fuckin' know, but he insisted on me going in and getting ya. Can't see how you're worth much though—I've definitely seen prettier."
"So now you're insulting me?" She immediately flung her kunai at the man's face. He merely tilted his head slightly to avoid being impaled by the weapon. Suddenly, it clicked. "You're Hidan of the Akatsuki?"
"I believe that's what I said, yes." He was instantly holding out a large, three-bladed scythe, standing up to face her for the fight sure to come. "Tenten's your name, right, girlie?"
"If you know my name, call me by it," she sneered, now throwing a barrage of senbon and disregarding the fact that she was severely redecorating her living room walls with needles and knives.
That infuriatingsmirk never left his smug face. "Just making sure, girlie," he said, dodging the storm of sharp metal projectiles with seeming ease. He was not swinging his own weapon, but that was to be expected as her cramped apartment did not happen to have been built for combat within.
"Get the hell out, Akatsuki." Throwing her weapons was not too easy either, but it was probably much less difficult than swinging that hulking thing he wielded.
"Or else what, girlie?"
Tenten snarled "I'll killyou," seeming to have forgotten she was up against an S-class criminal, and continued her excessive onslaught of sharp, flying metallic objects. To her great surprise, this time he simply stood there, allowing his partially bare body to be stabbed by the numerous weapons.
To her even greater surprise, they didn't seem to affect him in any way, other than that blood now running freely and staining his skin.
"Ouch, that fucking hurt!"
"Why…" She trailed off before she started again in a fearful whisper, her eyes wide and incredulous. "Why aren't you dead yet?"
Hidan gave another wry smirk, wiping some blood away from his lips with the back of his hand. "Because, girlie, I'm immortal." Rolling his peculiar violet eyes at her disbelieving facial expression, he muttered, more to himself than to her, "That was damn painful, but it would've been too bothersome to try to dodge them all."
"You…you freak!" the girl screamed, running for her door. How could she think that she alone would be a match for an S-class missing-nin? She wasn't even a jounin yet! Why did she let her stupid pride get in the way of her better judgment? She should have run to the Hokage and reported him, not pick a fight with him!
Unfortunately, her door was as uncooperative as ever, insolently refusing to open upon her frantic shaking of the doorknob. Panicking slightly, she tentatively turned to face the undoubtedly more powerful man. "W-what do you what with me?"
Snickering inwardly at her question, Hidan walked slowly and purposefully to the trembling kunoichi. She was so frightened by him that she was shaking as she took a step back in the hopes of distancing herself from the missing-nin. However, her back soon met that insufferable front door of hers.
When he finally reached the terrified girl, he bent down slightly to be at her level and whispered with a faint malicious tone in her ear, "You, girlie, are coming with me and my partner…to be a ransom."
"Damn it, Kakuzu! Jashin-sama is going to fuckin' murder me for neglecting the ritual for so goddamn long! It'll only take thirty minutes! Thirty fucking minutes!" The words were loud… The speaker sounded familiar… Tenten tried to think, to remember whom the voice belonged.
"I don't think Jashin would blame you for not being able to perform that ritual of yours while you were incapacitated and missing several limbs." The second voice was a new one—quieter, calmer, yet almost as irritated as the first.
"But now I'm not, so now he can blame me! Fuck, I don't want to go down to hell with you, shithead!"
"Shut up, Hidan!" the formerly quiet voice lost its temper, lashing out verbally at Hidan.
Wincing slightly, Tenten made a painful attempt to twist her head towards the volatile person. Barely within her peripherals was the speaker, a tall masked man—taller than Hidan and herself, at least—with a Hidden Waterfall hitai-ate and glowing green eyes. Kakuzu, she presumed.
"You shut up!"
His voice—Hidan's voice was so loud… A splitting headache began to plague the brunette girl. Her skull was still smarting from painful blow she had received earlier. In her agony, she let out a soft groan.
"Looks like someone woke up the captive," Kakuzu commented dryly, apparently having heard Tenten's almost inaudible cry of distress. "How hard did you hit her?"
"Hard enough," Hidan grumbled. "She had it coming. The little bitch hit me in nineteen fucking places with her toys. Not to mention the arm I lost."
The kunoichi was undecided on whether to be insulted at being called a 'little bitch' or to be proud that she was able to pierce the Akatsuki so many times. Regrettably for her, she soon found herself much too impaired to actually feel either.
If he did not have his mask on, Kakuzu would have been seen to be grinning maniacally at Hidan's plight of pain. "You should have expected it—she's a kunoichi. Did you really think she would have just let you, an S-class missing-nin, take her hostage?"
"I sure would have appreciated the fucking gesture."
If Tenten hadn't been so overcome by distress at that moment, she would have growled, hit Hidan hard, and ran away as quickly as her legs would take her. Unfortunately, she was too weakened from her prior blow in the head to even consider the aforementioned ideas as a course to take.
And because of her weakened state, the girl felt her eyes gradually close, giving in to her drowsiness. The darkness once again pulled her into unconsciousness.
Tenten was abruptly awakened by a violent shaking. When she didn't immediately respond, she felt someone's fist connect with her head. Seriously, what was it with her kidnappers and injuring her head?
She let out a quiet moan and immediately regretted it. Her throat was dry and scratchy, and it burned if she even partially exerted her vocal cords.
"So you decided to finally wake up, eh?" asked a voice.
She wearily tilted her head up to face the speaker, Kakuzu, ignoring the stiffness ailing her neck. Having been kidnapped by two S-class missing-nin who were part of the Akatsuki, her neck was most likely among the least of the kunoichi's worries.
Not waiting for an answer, the masked man grabbed her upper arm and tugged her upwards. It was rather painful for the girl as her wrists and ankles were bound tightly together by ropes. In a weak attempt to struggle against her ties, Tenten wriggled slightly despite Kakuzu's firm grip on her arm.
"Don't bother," he said. "Even if you could get out of those ropes—which you won't—you have no idea where we are. You have nowhere to go, little girl." The man gestured around him as though to prove that he was right about her position, although it was blatantly obvious in the girl's eyes.
Tenten glared at her abductor. The bastard. As if she needed a reminder that she was stranded in the middle of a forest with two very possible murderers.
Noting her silence, Kakuzu gave a simple smirk, but it went unnoticed beneath his mask. He held out a canteen. "Thirsty?"
Reluctant to trust him even though she knew it wasn't poisoned for they could have killed her already, the weapons mistress replied with a stubborn shake of her head. However, she quickly became alarmed when she saw his eerily glowing eyes narrow dangerously. Her alarm grew more intense as he stood up, stalked over to her, and tightly clutched her chin, tilting her head back in the process.
"You are not going to die because of pride, got it?" he hissed into her face.
Eyes wide in fear, she nodded as best she could with her head suspended as it was.
"That's a good girl." With that, he put the canteen to her lips and tipped it so that the water entered her mouth.
While the feel of the cool liquid slithering down her parched throat was extremely refreshing to Tenten, she wasn't too pleased with the fact that she was being given the water as though she were a baby. And she found a plan formulating in her head…
Halfheartedly tearing herself away from the canteen and Kakuzu's strong grip, she snapped, "I can drink by myself, thank you very much!"
"Not with your hands tied like that you can't."
"Then untie me!" the brunette exclaimed. "Like you said, it's not like I can go anywhere."
With a frown at the stupidity of the situation as well as her undeniable logic, Kakuzu contemplated the pros and cons of releasing the girl from her ropes. It was much more difficult than it should have been for him as money was not directly involved.
"Sure, why not."
As he moved to unbind her, Tenten almost let out a sigh of relief. Once her hands were freed, she reached for her ankles only to be stopped by Kakuzu.
"Those stay bound," he told her.
Nodding, she brought the canteen to her lips once more, subtly working with her leg-imprisoning ropes. Then, in a sudden simultaneous kicking and throwing motion, she broke through the ropes and hit Kakuzu in the head with the canteen. Not wasting any precious time, she ran.
She sprinted through the forest without knowing where she was going, past all sorts of trees she did not recognize and no familiar landmarks nearby. She suddenly came upon a clearing and tripped over something, her fall as a result.
"Ow! You bitch!" cursed the 'something' she had stumbled over. She recognized his voice—Hidan.
Facing him, her chocolate eyes were met with the ghastly sight of the man lying on the ground with a pike impaling his chest.
Tenten screamed.
"Shut up!" The bleeding shinobi stood and stomped over to her. He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her vigorously. "Shut the fuck up!"
Ceasing her incessant screaming, the utterly disgusted girl stared in horror at the gruesome sight before her. After finally managing to regain her composure, she murmured, "What the hell are you?"
Relieved that she had stopped being incredibly loud, Hidan answered with that ever annoying smirk of his, "Immortal. I thought we went over this already, girlie."
"Bastard." Swiftly, she reached for her weapon holster…to find that it was gone. "No!" she cried, searching the rest of her body for her missing projectiles. Even her summoning scrolls were absent from their usual place on her hips.
"Did you really think we'd be so stupid as to think that we would leave a 'weapons mistress'—" Hidan obviously doubted her mastery in that department, "—with her fucking weapons?"
Her fists clenching nothing as she was lacking her weapons, Tenten considered aiming a fist at the man's face—or more specifically, his nose. Oh, how she dearly wanted to break that nose.
"I see you caught the little vixen," Kakuzu's voice spoke behind her as the tall man gripped her upper arm, pulling her to him. "You should be glad that you're actually worth something. Otherwise, I would kill you right now for that stunt you pulled."
Hidan studied his partner, noting the askew head cover of his. "You were beat by the brat?" He began laughing.
"No," the older man said. "She threw the damn canteen at my head, that's all."
The sentence only caused Hidan to laugh harder.
"Shut up, Hidan!"
Tenten winced at the loudness of the duo. Her headache still had yet to subside, and the screaming she did earlier had only worsened it. Now with even more shouting and raucous laughter, courtesy of Kakuzu and Hidan respectively, the brunette furiously rubbed her temples in a futile effort to wish the pain away, as well as her current situation.
"Maybe it's just a dream," she muttered to herself, ignored by the two arguing males. "It's just a dream, and I'll wake up soon, and Lee will barge into my house without permission, and we'll go to the training fields together, and Neji will call Lee an idiot, and Gai-sensei will tell Neji to be more youthful, and I'll sigh in exasperation, and—" She stopped her rant, noticing that Hidan and Kakuzu were staring at her like she was missing a head and grew five extra arms. "What?"
Hidan ignored her question and said instead to Kakuzu, "We've kidnapped a fucking psycho."
She flushed. Being observed talking to herself by her kidnappers wasn't exactly going to be at the top of her 'things to be proud of' list.
"You don't have the right to say that, Hidan. You stab yourself with a stick," Kakuzu pointed out, obviously referring to the pike that was still embedded in Hidan's chest.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot about that..." He pulled it out with a sickening squishy sound. "Fuck, this never gets any less painful."
Tenten couldn't help but ask, "Then why do you do it?"
At first, he just stared at the younger girl. Then he shook his head, as though in remorse. "Another misled one, eh? Well, maybe you're not as far lost as this asshole here." He jerked his head in the direction of Kakuzu, who rolled his eyes.
"You look after the girl. I'm going to do some scouting." He left, leaving no room for either Hidan or Tenten to protest.
"Fuck you, Kakuzu! I'm not some stupid babysitter!" the light-haired man shouted after his absent partner. To the weapons mistress he said, "You suck."
"What the hell did I do? This whole thing is your fault! You're the one who went into my apartment, insulted me, hit me on the head—which still hurts, by the way—and took me to Kami-knows-where so you could do Kami-knows-what to me!"
"For your information, Kakuzu and I entered your apartment together—he was searching your drawers for a money stash when you came in. And don't flatter yourself. I'm not about to do anything to you."
Her cheeks reddened in rage at the last part, and she glared spitefully at him. He glared back with piercing violet orbs.
"Bastard," she said at the same time he said, "Bitch."
The glaring continued.
Suddenly realizing that Kakuzu no longer had a grip on her arm since he had long since left, Tenten seized the opportunity and leapt past Hidan and into the forest once more. At least, she would have if he hadn't dove and caught her ankle, pulling her to the ground with him.
"Let go!" she yelled, trying to kick his face with her free leg.
"Stop moving!" he yelled back, reaching for his scythe that lay forgotten on the ground. "Or else I'll chop your legs off. Try running away then!"
She looked back at him to see if he was joking. He wasn't.
Letting her body go limp, Tenten calmed herself down, suppressing all her emotions. The last thing she wanted was to completely lose her cool in front of the enemy. Perhaps something good might come out of this dilemma.
She snorted at the idea.
"What the hell are you laughing at?" Hidan snapped.
Calm, she told herself, like an ocean's waves at low tide. Slow, gentle, relaxed is how she should be. Don't bite back; it's what he wants. These words in thought, the girl closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Needless to say, she was completely taken aback when the man grabbed her hair, most of which had fallen out of her customary buns, and jerked her head back to look directly into her brown eyes. "When I ask you a question, you give me a fucking answer, you got it, girlie?" he growled into her face. Wincing from the pain of her hair being almost ripped from her scalp, Tenten gave a slight nod. "Give me a fucking answer!" he repeated, this time in a loud shout that caused her to cringe as their faces were only centimeters apart.
"Y-yes…"
"Good." He released her hair, and her hand immediately shot up to clutch her throbbing head with one hand, her other wrapping around her legs, which were now tucked into her chest, as though it would keep her from harm.
"Sorry to interrupt the happy couple," Kakuzu said dryly, "but we better get going. There's some ninja coming up behind us." Tenten looked up hopefully at this new information, but quickly hid the expectative expression with one of curiosity. Noting her action, the masked man continued, "A team of chuunin from the Sand Village. They're not following us, but after what happened to their Kazekage, they're probably on the lookout for all the Akatsuki members."
The girl's face fell at the added knowledge. There was no way a couple of chuunin could take on two of the Akatsuki—S-class shinobi in their own right. It didn't ease her distress any that one of them was immortal.
Apparently, Hidan had seen her dismay, for he cooed sarcastically, "Aw…is the little girlie upset that she's not gonna get saved?"
"Asshole," she muttered beneath her breath, holding in tears that were threatening to emerge. Don't lose hope, she reminded herself mentally. Surely, Gai-sensei, Lee, and Neji would have noticed by now that she was missing. Of course they would follow in pursuit. Of course they would want to try to save her.
So why hadn't they come yet?