Relative Immortality
Abby Ebon
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or Naruto.
Notes; long chapter is LONG...pfft!
Dedication: for Phantom Thief Kyuubi, who asked for something like this, where Harry has a brother; Hidan.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
-Brother-
A cloak, a wand, and a ring; it sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Harry Potter would not disagree, if life is a joke, he thinks his…yeah; it's been a pretty bad one. With his silver hair braided with black, pale skin of alabaster, and living green eyes; he looks impossibly ancient in a frail young shell. Harry knows most of all, appearances are deceiving. With the ring on his finger, with the cloak on his shoulders, with the wand in his hand – he is Jashin's.
His life is a joke - why?
It's never going to end.
"This isn't going to work; you know that – don't you?" Speak –no, don't even think - of Death, and it hears. Harry glances at the slender girl wrapped in silk. She smiles like he's being seduced; her colorless eyes are bleak and starless. There is nothing human in them; even so, Harry feels the urge to weep: he remembers them, always, as blue.
"It's worth a try." On tiptoes, she leans up in his face.
"It's worth shit, ask me – I know." Harry finds the idea of falling even more in the debt of Death – distasteful, more so, dangerous. Temptingly so, Harry closes his lips against the questions plaguing him; where is my brother – what have you done to him? Who has taken him, buried him away, why?
There is no question which he could ask, which he could not find an answer for – here. He says nothing, looking away from her as if he can't see her or remember when she fell victim to the final mortal flaw.
"Fine, fine, you're stubborn, I like that – you know I do, but there is a difference in stubborn and stupid, Harry – don't be stupid." When Harry looks, Death is gone. Harry clenches his hand around the wedding ring he wears, and thinks Ginny. It was Ginny's body which Death wore to mock him, with flaming hair and slender long limbs.
He has lost Ginny, has lost his unborn children, he's lost so much for someone seeming so young – but his brother? He will not lose his brother. Not for nothing, not for anything.
Harry stops mid-stride because he's reached a gate, and there is someone standing in his way.
"Welcome to Konoha, sir; your business here?" A shinobi – a ninja they are called- masked and solid, is standing in his way. Harry tilts his head, and smiles in a way that someone would say is disturbed. The ninja does not sway out of his way, or flinch. Harry is almost disappointed, but he answers the question. It would not due to be impolite; Jashin, after all, has never been polite.
"Family, I would say." Harry is dressed all in black, but that means nothing to this nameless shinobi, here, the color of mourning is white.
"Very good, sir, and how long will your visit be?" Beneath the cloak, his shoulders shrug. He does not know, it will take as long as it takes.
"A day, no more – probably less..." Harry looks to the horizon, the sun is setting, but that means nothing to him.
"We hope you enjoy your visit." Harry looks into the man's eyes, unhidden and unhindered by the mask. He could know this mans name if he blinked, but he does not, because he chooses not to – and so this man is safe from him. Harry smiles, and if the masked man has second thoughts, he wisely says nothing.
"I will." Harry purrs softly, and walks in. He knows he'll be watched, and does not mind – he wants to be. He wants these people to learn what happens when you mess with the brother of Death's wizard.
With a twist of the ring, Harry knows the location of the guilty, for when murder is done – the dead know the name of the guilty, and scream for vengeance upon the living. So claims Jashin, who shares what he knows willingly with Harry. It rings in his head like a bell; Shikamaru Nara. If the boy has not killed his brother, not really – that is no matter – he has as good as.
'I've found you.' Harry thinks in furious triumph, more fury then triumph – but both are there within him. Shikamaru Nara is staring up, puzzled, at the darkening clouds. As above, as below, Harry knows.
"Hello." Harry says, mockingly like Death himself. Harry, as a wizard, is as good as a force of nature unto himself; he can not be avoided or cast aside, but dealt with and lived through – or not – the choice of either is not yours. That is what it means to be a force of the nature of Death. Shikamaru turns to regard him, and it seems to take forever to meet the boy face to face. When they do meet, Shikamaru's eyes widen, and Harry takes one step forward.
"You hurt my brother." He hisses, and flings his fingers forward from a curled fist.
Shikamaru is slammed into a tree, and his mouth gapes open– because he can't breath.
"W-who?" Shikamaru gasps, struggling uselessly. Harry sneers, and leans in closer to whisper in the other's ear, like a lover at midnight.
"Hidan, my mother's son, my elder brother – where is he?" Human eyes flicker with a hundred connections, a thousand thoughts, a dozen answers, a handful of clues - and all for naught, because the boy can't think and breathe.
Instead of answering, he shakes his head, brain caught in a loop – a trap.
"Impossible – you, you can't be." He gasps, and struggles like a butterfly pinned to paper, all for naught. Harry, despite his fury, becomes intrigued. Very few know him for what he is at a glance. But then, he has forgotten, this is a ninja – a shinobi: they know a wizard at first sight. Still, very few would even today think 'wizard' at a glance from him.
"Can't be what?" Harry asks, flicking his eyes around, the people watching are becoming impatient with waiting for Shikamaru to save himself, to play some trick up his sleeve; they do not yet realize that Shikamaru can not be saved. Not from him.
"Real – you have no shadow. No soul, you're dead." Shikamaru shouts, in a rush, as if worried that Harry's attention will sway.
"No, not dead – far worse, I am death." Harry, as if to prove his words, takes the wand from his wrist halter and it grows and twists – a scythe, the metal presses against the throat of the Nara heir.
"Wizard" Shikamaru accuses with a sneer: finally.
"My brother, boy…." Harry does not put his force upon the blade of the scythe that had been a wand, he does not need to. He can eat this boy's life, his soul, just from where he stands – not touching, untouchable.
"My usefulness, hell – my life – may be forfeit once you know where he is, so…" Shikamaru does not finish, does not get the chance to, for Harry puts his finger to his lips, and the other finds he can not speak.
"Shush, now." Harry looks around, and finds he is surrounded.
"Let him go." It's demanded by a blond with a familiar demon in him, and Harry smiles for that demon and shakes his head.
"Let me think now? No." Harry snaps finger and thumb together, and with that sound, he – and Shikamaru Nara – is gone.
Without the tree to support him, Shikamaru falls to the ground, reaching for his throat as if to keep away anything that might deprive him of air. It's a silly effort, but Harry watches him until Shikamaru is breathing normally, staring down at the ground, as if he does not want to look up and acknowledge what has happened to him. Harry can not give him that mercy.
"You will take me to him." Harry tells Shikamaru, as if there is no other purpose to the boy's life – and there might not be anymore, Harry recalls - if he fails to obey.
"No." Shikamaru protests, denies, and glares up at Harry as if this is his fault – clearly the boy does not remember who attempted to kill whose brother.
"We have time." Harry reassures silkily, and sitting suddenly onto the ground beside Shikamaru.
"You…you're a wizard." The ninja boy can't help but pull away; his very nature urges him to do so. Harry smiles at him, thinking of such instincts, primitive – but useful to unnerve the other boy. They are the same age, but the both of them have old minds, ancient eyes.
"Don't be silly, there are no wizards, it's a myth." Harry mocks. Harry pulls the scythe into a wand, curling his hand around the smooth wood and pressing hand and wand to the side of his face, as if he's too tired to keep his head up. Let the boy think Harry is tired by those small displays, that Harry has a weakness, and the boy a chance.
"No, no it's not – you are one, I don't know how, but I do know a legend when I see one. You are, aren't you?" He doesn't ask as if he's insecure to his answer, but as if he expects Harry to deny it, to threaten the boy with a different truth – the one laid out between them; Harry has this boy's life – or death - in his hands. Some truths are easier to realize then the more imminent one.
"I suppose you think you're clever." Harry regards him, face to face, and finds himself mimicked; Shikamaru facing him and holding his head up with his hands, his arms upon folded knees.
"Naturally..." Shikamaru inclines his head, as if departing with a truth unseen.
"How…how did you survive?" Shikamaru does not quite look him the eye, so Harry knows this boy of the same age as he, is not without some respect and knowledge of him. Harry sighs, looking away.
"I did not. Not in truth. I am in the debt of Death, but I was not supposed to die – so I became…this. Jashin calls me a reaper, a deathless god of death, but he can not explain me – how I am the way I am." Harry's lips quirk in amusement, and when he looks aside from Shikamaru – like looking away from fire and flame – he sees Jashin come sulking out of the darkening wilderness.
"So you found him, big whoop. What's this boy going to tell you that I can't?" Death pouts, Harry knows, but you can hardly see such with the bushy beard he wares all around, like a tree.
"Who…who are you?" The only living mortal in the company of three asks, wide eyed and surprised. It's a look that does not suit him, but does, for who is not surprised in dying? Regardless, they answer at the same time.
"Death." Harry answers, dryly in what might be sarcasm.
"Jashin – and he's Harry." The big bodied giant of a man chirps in an impossible voice, while Harry frowns at him.
"Is he…your boss?" Shikamaru asks in a whisper, leaning in close to Harry's ear.
Jashin laughs like he isn't sure he'll ever stop, in contrast, Harry silently shakes his head. Shikamaru can't help but think he's missing something. When the older deathless god of death finally regains his breath – not that he needs it – he speaks first. Harry allows him this, if out of nothing else then in respect to the fact that Hidan gains life from worship of Jashin: not that Shikamaru need know this as well.
"You kidding me, right - kid?" Jashin sighs, wiping tears from the corners of dark eyes. He looks first to Harry in the corner of his eye, as if he can not quite bring himself to meet the other's eyes, but whatever he sees there agrees with soothing the questions from Shikamaru's eyes.
"It's the other way around; green eyes here, he's so un-killable compared to me – and when you're a death god – not dying is kind of the point, you know? Death gods are what his culture would call a Grim Reaper, a harvester of life and souls good and evil – I suppose for you, the closest you might come to understand us is as shinigami, death deities." Jashin taps a finger against the corner of his mouth, frowning as he stares into empty oncoming night.
Shikamaru shivers, wondering if the night is truly as empty as he perceives, and Harry catches his small movement and decides to do something about it – he taps the wand to the ground at an arms reach away, and breathes, and it seems like smoke or more reasonably, fog – but its not cold – and when Harry's breath reaches the point of his wand, sparks flare and a fire roars up. Flames lick up into the sky, as if to reach into the abyss – or light up the dark – Harry draws a circle around the flame and it does not cross that thin line in the dirt, for all that the fire seems to consume nothing else save air and dirt – it does not cease and die out. It is not, after all, a natural flame.
"How…?" Shikamaru can't help in asking, all his life it seems he's been bored, a genius unchallenged, without the motivation to seek out a challenge and then – this – just drops into his lap. It seems impossible, or maybe there is a simple answer and he's only gone around the bend. That isn't nearly so hard to believe.
"Well, two things really – when Harry here died, he did it big, not that he needed to – he was already practically worshiped while still living. You see the stick, the ring, the cloak?" Jashin waits until Shikamaru nods, but it's when Harry gives him a glace and raised eyebrows wondering where Jashin is going with this, that he continues on as if he hadn't been waiting for any such signals.
"I may be older, but he's got Death's hallows – the original Death mind you – the holy items, you might say if you were the religious sort. Death's hallows all shinigami seek – for the sheer gall, raw power, and kicks and thrills. Bit of an adventure – or an obsession, you might say. Death literally followed the hallows, as us – shinigami – of course, that hardly stopped wizards from looking." Shikamaru and Jashin both peek at Harry, but if he cares what Jashin is talking about, he hides it very well.
"We shinigami couldn't really touch the Deathly hallows, you have to be mortal for that, because Death gifted them to mortals, after all. You can't take a gift like that back, sort of like spitting in your own face, that. When Harry died, and as Harry had 'owned' them, the hallows followed him into becoming a death deity - we guess the hallows like him and leave it at that, because not even Harry can lose them if he tries, and he has believe you me! Those three humble hallows, combined with hundreds of magical hero-worshipers during his short life, and a prophesy that says that Harry can only be killed once by a man already dead and buried – his dust forgotten whose already had his fair share of chances, frankly guarantees he'll never, you know, be killed or just fade away. You my little mortal friend are looking as closely into the abyss as anyone can – this boy here is Death's heir, death in other words, incarnate on earth; and all but royalty – or as close as we shinigami come to it. What the noose is around your neck is, is this – are you ready?" Jashin pats Shikamaru on the shoulder, confidingly, but grinning as if he couldn't be more pleased with how pale the boy is. There is an inhuman threat to that eerie giant's grin.
He leans in close and whispers it.
"Death gifted those hallows to Harry's great-great-grand daddy, they were are meant for Harry all along, hundreds of years of carnage and killing for those gems, guess why he wants his brother so bad – his mother's son? Makes you wonder, kid, who is their mother – your smart, don't worry, you'll figure it out." Jashin gives him an almost playful wink, but Shikamaru is all but baffled.
"You, in other words, really screwed it up, if you know, you were hoping for a boring long life." Harry is looking at Jashin, waiting, and when with a lurch of startling movement, the older shinigami looks back to meet his expression, it isn't pleased.
"Leave." One word, but it feels like Harry just wants to lash out and kill Jashin, and Shikamaru has to wonder – is that possible? Can you kill a death deity? Jashin hints that he himself can die, even being what he is. Evidently, whatever it is – death or something else – Jashin can fear, for he stands shakily, and bows, never meeting Harry's eyes as he speaks.
"I humbly beg your apology; I was merely trying to assist you." With those words settling between them, Jashin as good as flees. He hadn't sounded like he was joking.
Leaving Shikamaru alone, usually, this would be ideal – his perfect solution for dull and troublesome happenings. Yet he finds himself uneasy, sharing an unnatural fire side with a deity of death, the offspring of Death, if Jashin – a shinigami – is to be believed. Who else would know better, though?
"I will not harm you." Harry says softly, as if it isn't a reassurance – merely fact.
"Thanks, for that." Shikamaru mutters, knowing that this isn't a favor Harry is paying him. Still, it is a chance, at redemption – at life. He's fair sure his after life (if there is such a thing) would suck if Harry was truly moved to hold a grudge against him.
"He had no place to tell you such things." Harry states, as he does everything else, passively. As if he just doesn't care about things the way anyone else would. It fascinates Shikamaru, that lack of true life – of tired passion. The only hint that he had that there is something else under that persona is when Harry had gone after him for Hidan, but now that he has Shikamaru – what's he going to do with him? He wonders if Harry really knows, either.
"So, the question really is - why did you let him?" When, this time, Harry turns to look at him, he seems surprised rather then threatening – Shikamaru is unspeakably grateful for that small pardon.
"That is not the face of Jashin." The certain infliction that Harry puts on that word makes Shikamaru think that the word means more then he thinks he does, closer to expression - appearance – or body.
"Whose body was he wearing, then?" Living green eyes are impossibly haunted, if it is possible for someone to merely have hurting eyes, and leave no other trace or hint to expression, that is exactly what Harry looks like.
"My first friend, his name was Hagrid." Harry looks away, and Shikamaru is grateful again.
"He's dead?" Shikamaru closes his eyes the moment the words leave his lips, knowing it to be a stupid and tactless question.
"Yes." Harry answers very softly, and Shikamaru has to wonder if there is a question that Harry would not answer, no matter how painful it must be to acknowledge.
"I'm sorry." Why it is that Shikamaru feels like a bumbling idiot, instead of a genius, he can't say. It might have something to do with being what he believes is called 'tongue-tied' – but it feels more as if he's brain can not control what his mouth says.
"You could not do anything to have changed it, even if you had been there and tried to." Harry falls back on the grass, looking to the rolling sky above him. They follow him everywhere, those dreary black clouds.
"You can't be sure of that." Shikamaru doesn't know why he felt the need – the necessity – of challenging those words, he just does. He's never felt this way – so alive – and right there, that is the irony of his life. That he only feels like he's truly living when sitting beside a deity of death incarnate.
Harry slips off the ring, looking at it and the dark sky above, its stone is darker still.
"Put this on." Harry rolls onto his side, facing Shikamaru and putting the ring between them challengingly. He doesn't know which of them is more surprised when Shikamaru does, slipping it onto his finger and meeting Harry's eyes the whole time.
The sky above is empty of thundering clouds without lightning, and below, no fire burns. No one is there at all.
"Where…where are we?" Shikamaru feels impossibility upon impossibility piling up around him, and it won't be long before he either accepts everything he sees or is broken by it. He stands inside a room of stone, filled with smoke, and he is not the only one there.
"My memory, my past." Harry answers softly from beside him. Shikamaru had, for a moment, almost forgotten him – he was too still, inhumanly so. Then again, Harry had never been human – a wizard, apparently (but did that count as human?) – But never normal.
"Is it real?" Are we really in the past? He wants to ask, but does not dare say. A giant enters the room, and Shikamaru recognizes him – Hagrid, the real one – alive. 'How' he wants to ask, and so much more besides, he's never felt so alive himself, he's never been baffled or challenged, it's always so tedious and boring – even being what he is, there are so few things that truly intrigue and interest him, but this – this impossibility, it's a lot like what he imagined life truly being like, a adventure – never a dull moment. So much is out there, and with Harry, Shikamaru can touch it all.
Harry has opened up the world for him, like a flower unfolding for the light of the sun. He wants to know everything, see everything, because there is so much out there – and maybe Harry has seen everything, but maybe not – maybe Harry could be surprised alongside him – and wouldn't that be the rarest sight of all?
"Yes." It's so soft that Shikamaru barely hears the word, but when he does it brings back his focus, the reality he finds himself in. He wants to ask if Harry will be okay, but it's clear from the glance Shikamaru gets of him, that he isn't.
Harry none the less surprises him by moving in close, draping his cloak over both their bodies. It somehow fits, and when Hagrid looks around, having heard whispers, he sees nothing. His eyes squinted, unconvinced that his senses had deceived him.
Out of the shadows at the other side of the room, where Hagrid wasn't looking, came Hidan.
"Don't take this personally." Hagrid still narrowed eyed in his surprise, turns quickly about, quicker then such size reasonably would suggest a movement be made; Hidan is smiling his hands on a chain – when they meet face to face, that chain wraps itself around the width of Hagrid's waist – at it's tip is a scythe, the blade resting at his neck.
"But you've been outmatched, and in this bid, size doesn't matter. So sorry, wizard." Hidan sneers, and if any part of him his 'sorry', it does not show. Hagrid struggles and snarls, and when Hidan twists his wrist in a movement that clearly makes the binding all that more tight and painful, Hagrid ceases moving – but not in despair – no, he is waiting.
Waiting for help, Shikamaru realizes.
"What do you want, shinobi?" The word is spat, a curse.
"The boy, of course..." Hidan's eyes roam the room, as if Hagrid might have stashed who he was looking for here. Shikamaru is aware he isn't breathing, he's holding his breath as the tension building – and finally breaks at Hagrid's words.
"The likes of you can't have him." Hidan is abruptly furious, because as far as he's concerned this man – this oaf of a half-giant – is the one obstacle standing in the way of what he wants; his one goal he's prayed for all his life, his brother.
"A pity you can't be of help to me, but fine, fine then – say hi to Jashin for me?" A jerk of his fist, and the chain snaps, and the scythe runs through the body like a knife through butter – Hagrid does not even make a sound, it happens so quickly. Hidan stalks from the room, unknowingly leaving witnesses alive.
"He - that was your friend, wasn't he?" Shikamaru says gesturing to the body, shaken, but not removing his eyes from the body on the floor and the spreading blood. Shikamaru had seen death before, being shinobi practically guaranteed the encounter; but not this cold slaughter – death was supposed to mean something, be somehow between trained equals – for the greater good; not this. He shuddered, revolted, and was aware of Harry, so damned eerily still.
"Yes." A whisper he almost ignored, instead he spun to face the wizard, disgusted by him for the first time since setting eyes on him.
"Then why didn't you do anything to save him?" It was hissed at the taller boys neck, because Shikamaru had become suddenly aware –with those eyes measuring him now - of how much smaller he was, how much more vulnerable.
"He betrayed me." A small smile curled those lips, pleased – and amused, that Shikamaru was so furious for the sake of one wizard. Shikamaru closed his eyes; counting slowly though the moments and memories, he had never been so confused! It wasn't in his nature to not know what was going on; he was after all a genius. Still – the history of the man beside him was nothing but reflections dancing upon shadows– his thoughts raced, and things began to make sense; finally.
What he really needed was answers, and Harry had proven to reply faithfully with a truth, but never, perhaps, the whole truth. No, that was because there was someone else involved here, and Harry would protect his elder brother by simply letting Shikamaru jump to conclusions with incomplete answers. Harry would let him think the worst of him, he didn't seem to care, but for Hidan…there was something he was missing, and it was so big he could almost see it overshadowing events.
"What is going on here?" Shikamaru didn't expect Harry to respond as he did, with action rather then word, but when Harry took off after Hidan, Shikamaru had to choose quickly between staying with a dead man, or following. He stepped swiftly after, unwilling to be left behind.
Somehow the stone room, seeming entombed in the earth, led to a balcony upon the heights of a castle. Below bright lights of differing colors, red and green and blue and more, were flung wildly and with propose between distant figures. They seemed so far away and yet too close. Shikamaru took a moment to realize what he was seeing.
"This is a…wizard war?" For the first time with Harry, he had answered his own question, and perhaps that was the point. Harry must have known he'd caught onto the truth of his not quite complete answers; he wasn't going to answer anymore what Shikamaru could answer for himself.
"This is impossible, Harry you can't be this old – the wizards – these people, they died out before I was born." If he expected a reaction, some comforting word or gesture, he received none.
"How long do you perceive seventeen years to be?" It wasn't the sort of question Shikamaru expected Harry to ask him, but it wasn't a joke. This wasn't some delusion because of the ring that he now wore because of a challenge, it was real, they were really here (wherever 'here' was) - for the first time he realized that with a jolt – and it left a fear that choked him into silence.
"Hidan would say he spent a lifetime, his lifetime, trying to find me, he ignored boundaries he did not see or heed, and territories where being mortal can get you killed. He couldn't have done any of it alone, without Jashin, so you see I owe him a debt." It explained why Jashin had had such freedom, to have that sort of debt hanging over you and knowing it could be called in – and if Shikamaru wasn't missing something, there was a connection between Hidan and Jashin that Harry didn't dare interfere with.
"That doesn't explain how or why we are here – or how Hidan is." Or was, as the case may be – Shikamaru corrects mentally, but he's taking everything in, and it's almost too much – and yet almost just enough.
His eyes focus on the man he's talking about, and Hidan is cutting though wizards and witches like they are nothing – the lights, the spells, he's realized – have no effect. Shikamaru can understand that, if nothing else, if Hidan used jutsu they wouldn't work on wizards, so it's why he's just slicing through them like he is. Everything has a counterpart, and so have a balance – and a shinobi balances a wizard, which is how they know the other by instinct upon sight.
Shikamaru can lip read the words Hidan is saying, he says them often enough – over and over: "Where is he!"- it's a shout, a scream, a battle cry.
And no one answers.
Shikamaru understands abruptly how lonely Hidan is, how desperate –it's a sickening sympathy to have with a murderer, his once-enemy. He also realizes just as suddenly that he isn't alone in watching Hidan. There is a answering, no - equal, loneliness in Harry, that longing is as strong as any bond between brothers, and it must be, to have survived…this.
There is a reason Harry wants him to see this, so he says nothing – he watches.
Hidan works his way though the blood, and at the center of it is…is Harry. No silver hair, but blazing green eyes and a wild mane of black, they find themselves face to face with each other, and some part of them must recognize each other in the same way that every wizard and shinobi does.
Hidan laughs, as Harry draws his wand – but Hidan only says two words that give this younger Harry pause.
"Mother's eyes…" Harry's eyes, their mother's eyes, are impossibly wide, his mouth gaps open and but he says nothing. Hidan snarls, as he looks about them – all around they are surrounded, he moves into a stance as if to put himself between Harry and all the rest. A man comes forward that both Harry and Hidan recognize – that much is obvious, he draws all their attention to himself. It isn't necessarily positive attention- quite the opposite, but it is his.
"You gave your promise, that if I would kill him, you would find my brother – lying cheat – if I had killed him, I would have killed my own little brother!" Hidan screams in defiance, and despite the bloodshed he's spread so thick, he's lusting for one last death.
Harry, the younger Harry – the little brother of this murder, is shaken and pale.
"From his brother's own mouth he is guilty!" Bald and serpentine, the words are hissed but the only sound upon this battlefield.
"Harry Potter must die – he's is the blood of his mother, of shinobi!" With a long finger, the shinigami beside Shikamaru traces the lighting bolt scar on his brow; it was a jagged silver memento. Shikamaru had wondered why this death deity, who seemed able to do so many impossible things, had not gotten rid of the very visible scar which could be perceived as a weakness, he knew now that Harry had his reasons – and they were likely painful.
There was no outcry of protest or agreement among the throng below, but they were – in this terrible moment – unified. It was obviously what the serpentine man wished, for his smile was full of malice for the two brothers.
The lights of a dozen spells –or more - are hurled at one individual, there is little that either Hidan or Harry could have done to avoid the unexpected barrage. Hidan does try, but it is too little – too late. On the dirt of the battlefield is his little brother, he cries out – dragging himself to Harry's side, taking his cold hand and screaming to the sky in protest, keening his pain unashamed to let all the world hear.
It's as if he expects an answer – and, indeed, there is one. A woman with flaming auburn red hair, like blood, is kneeling in black beside them. She is just there, as if she always has been – and always will be.
"My sons," her words echo in every ear, she touches Hidan's cheek, brushing away the tears there.
Harry is stirring between them, and when he sees her, he's still – as if he thinks that if he moves, she will flee, never having been there at all. Her eyes are the green of living things, and if fire is meant to mean destruction and death, there is a force in life that makes fire bow to be only the renewal of green things, the remover of the old, so youth would have room to grow.
"How..? I…I felt you leave us, mother." Hidan pulls her attention away from Harry, as if to protect him.
"My boys," she breaths, as if she lives for this moment, this day, and he realizes that in a very real way – she does, "I haven't much time, I have moved onward, beyond, without you; I am so very sorry to have abandoned you – I meant to raise you both beside me. I had to hide you, my Harry, for while a shinobi will always know a wizard, it is not so of wizards – to know shinobi. I had hoped to protect you, I have always been beside you, and you are everything I have hoped for, a noble protector." She sadly traces the lighting bolt scar, tears shine on her cheeks.
"A weapon, you mean - am I a weapon, mother?" Her forehead touches his as she brings his head next to hers.
"Never, son of mine – never merely that, so much more then a tool – do not let them trick you to think otherwise." The words must seem to be meant a whisper for Harry alone, but every ear hears her words, as if they can't help but hear her. As if they were meant to.
"Lily Evans, I killed you." Serpentine eyes don't flinch from the living green fire of death, he steps forward, wand raised as if to do it again.
"Tom Marvolo Riddle, do you think it so easy to slay what I am? I am not merely an idea, and whimsy element of nature – I am inevitable, I am the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end; I am Death." She stands, elegant and graceful with every sinister movement; she steps forward, shielding her children from harm. "I am their mother, and I am not a mere mortal; you will learn well what that means this day. You have hurt my sons. I end you now." Her finger pointed at him in this declaring, and he burned to embers – the wind scattering his still burning ashes. Like fire, it spreads and catches, and wizards and witches scatter, screaming – attempting to flee her wrath. None succeed. She spares one glance behind her, and smiles softly to see her sons' safety, and still smiling she fades – as if she had never stood there at all.
Evidence of her presence is all around them, in the swirling clouds of dust and the burning grass.
Shikamaru takes a shuddering breath, drawing his focus away. He looks to his hand; it's clenched into a white fist. It's shaking, but he isn't cold. He is afraid – terrified, and yet – it's like this is what he's been waiting for all his life.
Proof - in immortals, in gods; in something more then human, in a reason why. Harry looked to the horizon, as if sharing a secret thought; and Shikamaru dared not disturb him, or he'd lose all the little threads that were needed to tie up the mystery, the truth.
Shakily, he hands Harry his ring, the silence enfolding them. Harry twists it once, and they stand where Hidan is buried. Harry kneels in the dirt, taking his cloak and laying it full length on the ground. He closes his eyes, and it's as if Shikamaru can hear his thoughts.
Where are you, brother? Slender fingers danced over the cloth, reaching and searching.
It's as if the earth is heaving up the remains, and something is breathing out and in underneath the cloak. From below, the cloak is snatched off; Hidan is – of course- beneath.
"Finally..!" Hidan snarky and sarcastic is Hidan at his best – he sees Harry, and continues, grinning.
"You have no idea how damn boring…you!" Hidan ceases speaking abruptly, and he's glaring at Shikarmaru who has no small suspicion he's the reason for the sudden silence.
Hidan sneers at him- the outsider in this little brotherly reunion, the elder is looking very displeased.
"Brother," Harry greets softly. He's not grinning or looking pleased with himself or anything of that like – still, Shikamaru can't help but feel used. Like it's some sort of game between Hidan and Harry, and Harry just made an unexpected move.
"I'm going to kill you!" Hidan lunges for Shikamaru, his bony hands stretching for his neck. He looks like a starved man, Shikamaru jolts away, but Hidan follows, hands clenching and unclenching with a longing to wrap around his throat. He looks almost surprised when Shikamaru gets out of the way.
"What did you expect?" Shikamaru mocks, anger fueling him as he twists and dodges away. They are rolling in the dirt, jutsu forgotten along with all the skills of shinobi; they are simply trying to kill and not be killed – survival.
"You killed my mentor – he was expecting a baby, you know? – you made his child an orphan!" Hidan has him pinned, and then he stops, frowning down at Shikamaru as if he isn't sure if he's being lied to.
"Well sorry, how was I supposed to know?" Hidan may be sarcastic, but his regret in making an unborn child an orphan is plain to see – Shikamaru finds he's surprised. Hidan is a manic, a freak with a thing for slaughtering people – but not, apparently, a murderer in cold blood- or a heartless monster. Even he can see the connection between the unborn child and Harry.
Hidan risks a glance at Harry, trusting Shikamaru to stay put. As he doesn't see anyway to move without dislodging the man straddling him, he complies – but doesn't like it at all.
"What did you do to him?" Hidan asks softly, and Shikamaru looks up enough to see Harry – which is the only 'he' who Hidan could mean, he's sitting back waiting for them to get over and work out the fact that the one man Shikamaru admired was killed by Harry's brother, who Shikamaru then tried to blow up. He succeeded in the blowing and burying part – not so much the killing-the-murdering-son-of-a-bitch bit.
The son-of-a-bitch, who happens to be Death, Shikamaru remembers only then.
Shit.
"Uh, nothing – I swear!" Hidan scowls like he's considering punching Shikamaru in the face on the off chance that he's mistaken.
"Are you done, brother?" Harry has never sounded so tired.
"I suppose…" Hidan seriously looks like he's considering re-thinking that later, so Shikamaru, for once, knows when to shut his mouth.
"Very good, we have a problem." Harry stands, and Shikamaru sees Death – his mother – in his graceful and sure movement.
"What…?" Hidan whines only a little, drawing out the word like Harry is ruining his fun; Hidan might be the elder, but Harry is most assuredly more mature – maybe dying does that.
"Your Akatsuki has returned Tom Marvolo Riddle to this earth. Incase you have forgotten, brother: in prophesy, and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives." Hidan lets out a bark of laughter at the end of Harry's recital, while Shikamaru doesn't think that the least bit appropriate, because the last thing Konoha (not that either brother cares about his village – but Shikamaru does) needs is another snake face.
"Well, little brother, I don't see the problem – you're the living dead, and I'm the living that can't die." Hidan doesn't sound particularly pleased with what he says, but its fact all the same to him.
"Be that as it may, I would rather be living then a shinigami…" Hidan sighs, glancing down at Shikamaru beneath him before standing up clumsily, he looks again to Harry and everything for a moment about him seems to soften just a little bit.
"Fine, fine, we'll go play with Tommy boy and try to fix you so you're alive and kicking– again." Hidan waves a hand absently back and forth as if dismissing what is clearly important to both Harry and him as frivolous, walking (or rather, stumbling) off for parts unknown, or perhaps only known to him. Shikamaru sits up to watch him go, and when Harry offers his hand to get up – he takes it.
"You should go home." Harry tells him, and there is something so earnest in it that it makes Shikamaru take a second look at the taller man.
"Nah, I'm good." Shikamaru's grip on his cold hand tights to reassure him- this is what he wants; to be beside Harry, at the center of something his genius barely grasps – to be challenged in ways he has never understood that he needs a challenge before, he does something then that he's never done before winking at the taller boy in all-out mischief.
"I said you should, not that I want you to." Harry reassures in his own way, and Shikamaru is pulled along in his wake, as his shadow, as Harry follows Hidan. He'll be Harry's shadow, because Harry doesn't have one.
He's okay with that.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Note; much like the first four pages of before (AKA, first chapter: 'Buried' and this is as LONG as that was SHORT) I have no idea where this is really going or what's going on either - other then the obvious. I haven't really written anything in -oh - two months, my gawd.
Much thanks to GrimmHearts who asked about a story I'd sort of figured for 'oneshot' and made it come to life, because I can't help 'what ifs'.