The next days proved to be the hardest of my life. Religiously I went to the temple each morning and night to pray. I never saw him, except in my vivid dreams. For weeks I dreamt only of him- the first touch on my hand, the things he'd told me, the things we'd shared. I told no one of my pilgrimage to the top of the hill every morning – but never again did I see his village picked out in golden sunlight. I pined away inside my damp shed by day, eating nothing never speaking. I only left at night to secretly practise my killer Jutsu, then the other dreams began.
It began one stormy night about two moths after the night we said goodbye. I had barely closed my eyes when I was hit with a vivid flash, I shook in my bed as the full force of the vision manifested itself in my mind. It was him. I cried out and reached forwards through my tears just for one utterance of his holy voice, one last grip of his hand. He seemed to be reaching for me too, but something was coming between us. The heavy scent of earth reached my senses. NO! The scent of the grave! Purple eyes! And I awoke.
Since then I'd had more of these dreams, and I realized they meant something. He was leading me somewhere, leading me to him. Every time it was the same, the flash of his eyes and the scent of damp earth. A feeling of suffocation, hatred and despair. Sometimes a face other than his would appear, it was a young boy with dark hair scraped back in a pony tail, a scent of burning always followed this boy's apparition and a feeling of eternal rage. I was trying to research the symbol which this boy had on his headband but no one seemed to want to speak of it. Sometimes, and this was very rarely, I would see another man in my dreams. He was tall and had haunting glowing eyes, nothing much else was ever explained to me about him. Only a flimsy feeling of casual hatred was attached to him, and I had never seen him before in my life.
I documented all these separate things in the hope of making sense of them and finally re-uniting myself with my beloved priest, but I could never put them together and work it out.
Well, not until this morning. I was walking slowly back from the temple when I came across a group of young ninja. And that boy was amongst them, the same smell of burning followed him here. He had the same hairstyle and the same lazy look in his eye. He barely looked at me, and why should he? I looked like a peasant. My clothes were dirty and thin, my hair was wild and I wore my headband under my clothes where no one could see it. He passed by with little more than a sneer, and his female companion (who was frankly dressed like a tart rather than a konoichi) dared to ask me directions. I gave them the wrong directions on purpose then followed them.
I had no idea what mission they were on but I was determined to find out what connection they had to Hidan, and hopefully extract what information I needed. I would stop at nothing to get it. They took a lot of breaks and never placed guards when they slept. On the third night I jumped them.
Landing stealthily in amongst their camp I raided their bags looking for anything that might point me in the right direction. Since I'd followed them, the dreams had gotten stronger as if Hidan was prompting me – telling me I was on to something here. I rummaged through the boys discarded jacket and found exactly what I was looking for. A photograph. Hidan and the other man I'd seen in my visions were in it, and over it were the words stamped in red APPREHENDED. This proved their guilt!
The temptation to kill them was too great and even though I might have needed him for information or maybe as a bargaining tool, I slit the throat of the fat member of their 3 man team. He barely had time to cry for his mother before his crimson life force was spilled at my feet. Next was the whore girl, I clamped a hand over her mouth and bound her to a tree. With a kunai held to her throat I kicked the lazy boy awake.
"Tell me where he is, teme!" I cursed and brandished the photograph. I shook then, and a feeling of joy passed through me – it was Hidan I knew. We were connected in an impossible way and he was urging me on.
"I'll kill her, don't fucking think I won't!" I screamed and pressed the blade on her neck harder.
"Calm down" the arrogant boy tried to reason with me, but I'd never been one for words.
"three...two...on-"
"STOP" he squealed holding up both hands. Obviously he was soft – trained to talk his way out of situations like this. "Don't kill her! I love her!" he scrunched up his fists and exhaled – the smell of smoke reached my nose and disgusted me.
"Like I loved Hidan!" I wailed as tears rolled down my face. "Where is he?" I narrowed my eyes and chakra began to flow out and around me.
"I can't tell you!" he miserably sighed, so I pushed the knife on the girls throat until she bled, the warm blood cascaded over my hand.
"Shikamaru please!" she pleaded to him to give away information in exchange for her life. Stupid konoichi. Whichever village they were from it was an ignorant one. They needed to be more forwards thinking with their fighting.
"He's..leaf village, Nara clan forest...just go!"
"You buried him in the ground, don't you know he can never die?" I laughed at their simple stupidity. "Jashin-sama lets us live forever"
"Oh not another one" The girl laughed, and without hesitation I pushed the blade into her so fast she was dead before the next snigger could escape her rouged lips.
"Ino!" Shikamaru wept. In an instant I was gone, with the picture clamped between my fingers. I left him cradling her dying form in the presence of the corpse of his friend. The leaf village was my destination, Hidan awaited me in his earthly prison.
Three weeks later, border guards saw a lone woman entering Konoha, she was carrying no visible weapons and there was a strange glint in her eye. She was bone-thin as if she hadn't taken enough breaks in her travels and hadn't bought food for days. Anyone else would have died from exhaustion but I, Shuya am blessed. No one looked at me as I passed amongst the market stalls and noodle bars of their village. I saw a pair of lovers kissing in an alley one with pink hair and one with yellow, the later had whiskers. This place sure was strange.
I elbowed my way through the masses until I came to a great house. The Japanese characters spelling out 'Nara' were painted on the white gates and beyond a forest filled with deer stretched to the horizon. So far I'd been lead here by my dreams – they kept me going, as if promising what would be waiting for me at the end. I knew I would be too conspicuous if I travelled through their land in this form, and so I changed.
I'd been able to do this for a while, I closed my eyes and imagined myself slipping slowly as If into sleep. I could transform into any reptile I wished, maybe that explained my hostile personality. Most of the time I chose a dragon or perhaps a crocodile, this time though I'd have to think smaller. I focussed, then opened my eyes and blinked. This form would get me past their shadows and sharp eyes, I scampered across the dry leaves and into the forest. My chosen form was a gecko. I had spikes along my back and I was about 10cm long, my scales shone multicoloured as I ran on 4 legs through the forest to the clearing I'd seen in last nights vision.
No one knew I was here except maybe Hidan, deep below me in the earth, my little clawed feet skipped along the ground and between the sun dappled tree trunks. I could tell I was drawing closer, and sure enough up ahead of me the trees thinned out, and a wide space was visible. In the centre of the space the earth had been recently disturbed. I knew this wouldn't be easy.
A hundred shadow lines supported numerous charms and exploding notes. If I tripped even one of them the place would explode, I wasn't going to go about this in a delicate manner, however. I'd been training my ultimate new jutsu and now was the time to use it. I crept amongst the shadow lines and beneath my feet I felt sure I could feel a heartbeat, his heartbeat. It was reverberating up to me through metres of cursed earth and binding jutsu. It was time.
I transformed back into my human form, careful not to trip the wires until the right time, then I drew the sacred symbol of Jashin into the earth around myself. I drew it with a thin stand of light then prepared for my ultimate attack. I focussed some chakra then dropped to the ground and sent out a shockwave into the earth and the air and all my surroundings. Everything was blown to shit, trees were ripped up and the grass was incinerated. A crater was blown out of the earth around me and debris went flying a mile into the sky. To my satisfaction I wiped out their pathetic forest for miles around and dead deer rained down on their lawns.
I was surrounded by a halo of rainbow light, it was supporting me above the chasm that had opened up in the forest floor. When the dust settled I looked down – a body lay in the pit. Oh hell had I killed him? I broke the jutsu and slid down the slippery mud and into the shadows below.
From Hidan's P.O.V
She came tumbling from above as I picked myself up from my prison and stretched for the first time in months. I was so fucking hungry you wouldn't believe and my akatsuki robe was all ruined. I'd lived for centauries but only got caught up with those villains recently, before then I'd just been wandering about spredin' the faith kinda thing. After the decline of my village there was nothing for me to do so I travelled. But however far I ran I never forgot that girls face – the girl from the 'ruined temple' all those years ago. Now it seemed she'd caught up with me – or had I caught up with her?
Anyway she came plummeting from above completely out of control and with scales down her back, she'd ripped my leg to ribbons before she even said hello – friendly eh. Our eyes locked for the first time in months – for her, for me it seemed like millennia. She stepped towards me in the narrow hole and our closeness set my heart racing. I looked down on her and inhaled sharply when I saw the necklace glinting around her delicate neck – so she still wore it! I reached out to her and drew her close, we embraced in the cold and the dark of my former prison as she lit up a disk of power under our feet to lift us to freedom. I was weaker than I'd ever felt in my life, and she wasn't looking great.
"We have to get out of here" she whispered ever so lightly into my ear. I felt the tickle of her breath and it made me lightheaded – we were so close now after so much time. It was like a fairy tale. Except that I was told fairly tales didn't happen in real life. I sank to my knees on the cool grass in the forest and she cupped my aching head in her hands.
"Come with me" she breathed, and the sweet cinnamon of her breath awoke me, I realized those were the exact words I'd used all those years ago, and I smiled at the memory. As I sat cleaning the mud from my rosary she pulled out her old headband and tied it firmly around her waist. We stood. With the light of the dying sun in the west to illuminate our way, my lips met hers for the first time and our partnership was complete.
Once glance was all we needed, and we turned hand in hand to run towards the sunset. Never stopping, never looking back. Eternity was ours.