Silver & Cold
Chapter Two : Partners
Kakuzu's lips turned with a silent snarl. He couldn't believe he'd let himself get caught off guard. Yet, there was something in the unfamiliar voice that told Kakuzu the thief's foolish confidence wouldn't last long. The one advantage of the ridiculous cloaks that Pain made them wear was that his hands were hidden by the ends of the sleeves.
"Jiongu." He whispered as he placed a hidden palm against the earth beside him.
"I said, don't move! Don't talk either, no trouble OK?" The thief leaned over to reach for the briefcase, his other hand still holding the kunai to Kakuzu's hooded throat.
Just as the thief started to pull the briefcase out from behind Kakuzu's back, he let out a strangled gasp of surprise. Kakuzu's hand burst from the ground and squeezed the thief's kunai-holding hand with a bone-snapping strength. Kakuzu reached up with his other hand and caught the falling kunai before it landed in his lap.
As Kakuzu lept up to pull the thief forward and finish him he noticed a thin and bloodied line across the man's throat. He knew he hadn't done that and it would have been impossible for the man to have done it to himself. The thief let go of his hold on the briefcase and put his free hand to his throat to obstruct the blood that was leaking from his painful, but non-fatal, neck wound.
"Wha-what are y-you?" The thief coughed, his eyes wide with horror.
Kakuzu released his hold on the man's broken wrist and tossed the kunai away as he looked over the man's shoulder to see Hidan standing a few yards behind the thief and licking blood off the end of his top scythe blade.
"I think you should be more worried about him." Kakuzu said with a nod that made the whimpering thief turn to look at Hidan and then promptly fall to the ground in horror. Kakuzu pulled his threaded hand from the ground and drew it back to his body.
"I couldn't exactly let you have all the fun, now could I, 'eh Kakuzu?" Hidan grinned just as he took an extra lick from the blood stain on his blade.
Kakuzu said nothing, pleased that his plan had worked so far. Hidan had shown up later than he'd expected, but at least he was there. He looked down at the thief and resisted the urge to bash his brains out with the briefcase. It was better to let Hidan have a sacrafice, butter him up some.
"Of course not, partner. He's all yours." Kakuzu was really outdoing himself, but he needed Hidan for his mission in Yugakure.
~!~
Partner.
Hidan scoffed at Kakuzu and threw off his Akatsuki cloak. The terrified thief began to back away, crawling as best as he could with his flopping wrist and bloodied throat.
"Uh-uh," Hidan said, waving his scythe as if it were a pointed finger, "not so fast my thieving friend." With the remaining blood on his scythe he drew the encircled triangle that would bind the thief to him. He tossed the scythe into the grass and slipped his retractable javelin from his belt. The javelin extended with a graceful snap of his wrist.
"This is going to hurt," he said with a giggle of pleasure as the curse began to take effect and his skin polarized to the black and white of his ritual form. He spun the javelin in his hand so that the needle sharp end was facing his exposed belly. "Let's see...the small intestine?" He traced the sharp end along his skin and watched with joy as the thief stopped, frozen in fear and turned back to face Hidan as he too felt the teasing scrape of the javelin on his torso.
"Nah, it's always a little too messy... let's go with a kidney!" Hidan shouted in gleeful triumph as he slammed the pointed instrument into his left kidney and thus into the thief's as well. Hidan's groans were drowned out by the deafening shriek of the thief.
"Hidan! Stop playing with your sacrafice and let's get on with it." Kakuzu growled.
"But you said he was all mine." Hidan said darkly as he panted through a mouth-full of his own blood.
"Yes, I did say that didn't I...but I have business to attend to in Yugakure and you're holding me up."
"Oh give me one more fucking second!" He slowly pulled the javelin out and paused a moment to admire the sunlight as it glinted on the dark ruby liquid that sheathed the weapon. "I think it's time to shut you up." He pressed the end of the javelin between his ribs and gasped as he felt the needle sharp end pierce his left lung. He twisted the javelin and shoved it in deeper. Two of his ribs snapped as the wider part of the tapered weapon pushed between them. The pain was so sweet, and he could already feel the thief dying, the blood filling both of their quivering, punctured lungs.
"Ah," Hidan gasped, enjoying the final rapid thuds of his heart that were echoed and intensified by the thief's own. In a few moments the thief gave a bubbling groan then collapsed back onto the grass and laid motionless. Hidan had started to tremble as he felt the other man's death move through him. At the same time he felt waves of electricty through his body, the sensation of mighty Jashin's healing powers.
Hidan yanked the javelin from his ribcage and knelt to wipe it off on the grass. Dark blood gurgled from the chest wound, but the entrance to his kidney wound was already starting to heal. He retracted the javelin and said a quick prayer to Jashin, bloodying the pendant as he did so.
~!~
Kakuzu had watched the ritual with his usual expression, one that was slightly angry but mostly impassive. While Hidan's fighting style was often haphazard, careless and bordering on pure insanity, Kakuzu did admire the precision with which Hidan chose vital organs and various ways of torture. Of course, he would never tell Hidan this.
"There's a river three hundred yards in that direction." Kakuzu said with a nod as he picked up the briefcase. The direction and the river also led to Yugakure. "That is, if you're planning on going with me."
"Why do you think I came back, baka? At any rate, you're lucky I did or this guy could have been the end of the great Kakuzu. What was that you always tell me about never letting my guard down?"
"Yes, I am so fortunate." Kakuzu said in a rare attempt at sarcasm. The mistake had been ambrassing and frankly, Hidan's teasing was enraging but it had all worked out tremendously in Kakuzu's favor.
Hidan gathered his things and walked past Kakuzu in the direction of the river.
"How did you find me anyway? You've never been very good at tracking people." Kakuzu asked as he stepped after him.
"Don't be an asshole Kakuzu, I just followed the stink of all that money you've got on you."
When they reached the river Kakuzu set about preparing a breakfast of wild rabbit, captured and heated a la fire-style via his tiger masked heart. He sat on his briefcase and dug into a rabbit leg while behind him Hidan washed off in the river.
~!~
Hidan's flesh wounds were now closed but he was still sore on the inside. The pain didn't bother him so much as he reveled in the feeling of it. It made him feel like he'd accomplished what he had sworn to do, and that was to live a life of death and destruction. Yet, the smell of cooking rabbit was enough to pull his mind back to earthly matters.
" 'Ey Kakuzu, don't be a dick and eat that whole thing. I'm hungry too you know, saving your life is hard work."
"Aren't you more worried about how Pain is going to react, considering how late we are now?"
"Fuck him. I mean, he can wait right?"
"Yes, he can, but does this mean you're going with me to Yugakure?"
Hidan stumbled into his pants and padded across the grass to reach over Kakuzu's shoulder and steal the other leg he'd just picked up to eat.
"I guess it does," he said with a sigh, "Can't leave an unguarded jerk like yourself to wander alone in the world now can I?" As he chewed on his rabbit he tried to push back that wave of darkness that rose within him at the mention of Yugakure.
"I couldn't do it without you," Kakuzu replied with an odd sincerity as he sliced a piece of breast meat off the rabbit without turning around to look at Hidan. "Let's make some money."
~!~
Author's Note:
So, I apologize for taking two years to update this story. A lot has happened in my life in that time and I was completely pulled away from this. However, I now feel like I have a better sense of where this is going and there are at least three more chapters and an epilogue in the works. :) And, yes, one of Hidan's lines and one of Kakuzu's lines have been shamelessly stolen from the Wii game "Naruto Shippuden Clash of Ninja Revolution III" and it is used as an homage to that game being the best fighting game ever! Especially when it is played with four of your friends and inapproriate comments are made... o.o Don't look at me like that, you all know who you are!