Jashin's Angel
Five Years Later
Chapter One
-
Sakura, at this current moment in time, was pretty damn sure she was supposed to be cold. Then again, did the insane get cold? After all, that lady in the last town had called her 'insane', and Sakura found herself wondering if she really was. There were no monsters here, of course. There were never any monsters outside, only inside.
And they melted the floor.
Which would probably be why they weren't outside, since you couldn't fall through the floor outside… Sakura sighed. Right… Cold. She was supposed to be cold. Why? Because that, she paused in her thoughts long enough to point down at a clump of snow, was snow. Snow, up until now, was cold. And snow on a mountain was colder.
Ergo, she was supposed to be cold.
However, before Sakura could continue her mental debate, she tripped over something, which proceeded to cry out in pain. She looked. She screamed. It was a disembodied head.
"Aaaaah!!! It's talking!" she shrieked.
"Jashin dammit, woman! Shut up! You're giving me a headache!"
"Shikamaru killed you!" she shouted, suddenly, in a rare moment of lucidness in her daily insanity, realizing who he was.
"No he didn't!" the man shouted at her, looking annoyed. "Now shut up or I'll bite your ankle!"
She stared at him. Then… "What if I moved out of the way?"
He glowered at her. "Shut up."
For some reason, she did, her mouth clamping shut. Instead of talking, however, she leaned forward, her face an inch from his, staring into his rather pretty crimson eyes.
He bit her nose.
She yelped and jumped back, rubbing the offended piece of her face, calling chakra to her hand. "Don't make me squash you!"
He snorted. "Ha! Like it'd kill me!"
"It would still hurt!" she retorted.
"Hn, shut up and let me think, woman."
She pouted, but obeyed, watching him curiously. Or would 'he' be an 'it', seeing as how he was… well, just a head? Sakura's brow furrowed and she raised a hand, as if waiting for him to call on her.
He ignored her, muttering to himself, apparently thinking.
"I can hear you," she commented, when he muttered something about tricking her into helping him.
He paused, his eyes going from her face to her upraised hand. "Oh. What do you want?"
"Um… Are you a 'he' or an 'it'?" she asked, her face blank.
He stared at her for a moment, not failing to notice that her hand was still raised. "I'm a he," he answered after a moment, looking skeptical.
"Oh. Okay." She lowered her hand and stared at him.
He stared back. "Are you completely nuts?" he asked after several silent moments.
"I dunno," she answered. "But a lady called me insane last week. I don't think I'm insane, though." She grinned. "'Cause the monsters don't bother me outside!"
He sighed. "Great, I called a nut…"
"Look who's talking," she retorted, sniffing and crossing her arms across her chest.
This, of course, drew his eyes to them, and he was barely able to look away before she noticed. "Right, so here's the deal. I want you to help me with something-"
"You mean getting your body? What's in it for me?" She had heard him muttering, remember.
"Yeah, and… er…" His brow furrowed as he thought that bit over for a moment. "Fine. Name something."
Sakura touched her collar bone thoughtfully. "You're some sort of evil magic man, right?"
His eyes narrowed. "Yes, why?"
"Could you…" She paused and bit her lip, before continuing on. "Could you bring Sasuke-kun back?"
"No," he answered instantly. "That's not within my abilities, I'm sorry."
She sighed, her eyes closing, and she could still see that final battle. She could still see Naruto's kunai plunging into Sasuke-kun's heart. Her eyes snapped opened, and she looked straight into Hidan's eyes. "I'll help you," she decided.
His eyes narrowed. "… if…?"
The smile she gave him was rather scary in its saccharine sweetness. "I'll help you, if you help me in return. I want Uzumaki Naruto's head on a stick, and then I'll do anything you want."
He smiled back. "Now that's something I can do."
"Great!" she chirped, her smiling widening. "Now! Let's start, huh?"
"Indeed. We'll start off in the direction of the west."
"O-kay!" She grabbed a small towel out of her bag, wrapped him in it, though leaving some space where he could see, and started walking, smiling happily the entire time. Something told her the monsters wouldn't come back for a long time.
-
"Nothing, Hoshigaki-sama," Shisuke announced, bowing in front of his master.
Kisame sighed, looking up at the ceiling. "Keep searching, he can't be dead; he's immortal, idiot."
"Yes, Hoshigaki-sama," Shisuke agreed before disappearing out the door.
Kisami glanced out the window, watching all the other, silly little humans milling about in this third-rate town. Going about their lives as if it was the best thing in the world. Che, idiots. They didn't know the meaning of struggle, and they probably never would. Only ninja truly knew, and then only half the time. Like that brat Uzumaki. He hadn't known shit about struggle.
And he wouldn't, the stupid shit. He'd killed both Uchihas, and then got away with it scot-free.
Kisame sighed. Well not for long. Soon, he'd get his.
-
"BLONDIE!!!"
"Bitch!"
"Bodiless freak!"
"Over-weight nutcase!"
"Oh, you didn't!"
"I did! Whatchya gonna do about it?!"
"Ha! There! Check-mate!"
Hidan sighed, rolling his eyes. It was kind of hard to play chess without any hands, and because of this, she always won. "Dammit."
Sakura grinned. "I won, I won, ha ha ha ha haa haa!"
He glared at her. "Bitch."
She laughed. "Anyways, we should probably get going, huh?"
"Yes, probably." He glanced at the box containing most of his left hand. They just needed to find the rest now. "Right or left?"
She bit her lip, standing and looking both ways. They had camped in a small cave in the mountains the night before, and therefore only had two directions to go the next morning. "Well, we came from the right, so let's go left!"
"Fine, then pick me up and we'll start on our journey."
She grinned and scooped him up with his towel, dumping the chess set they'd stolen from a dead foreigner – that they'd killed themselves – into it's carry bag before shoving that into her own bag and pulling the ties closed. She put the bag on her back and went left out of the cave. "Do you think we'll find anything interesting today?"
"I don't know," was his annoyed answer.
"Too bad you can't shrug," she commented, amused when he growled. "How can you talk, anyway?"
"Practice."
She giggled. "Oh." That made sense. Duh, Sakura, don't be an idiot. "Okay, then we'll find something interesting."
Hidan sighed. "And why are you so dead-set on finding something interesting, huh?"
"'Cause then things won't be boring, right?"
His brow furrowed, as he was still trying to get used to her rather odd logic. "I suppose."
"Then," she said, smiling and turning his head around to face her, "wouldn't it be better to find something interesting than to be bored all day?"
"I guess."
"Well, then! I think we'll find something interesting, don't you?" she asked, turning him back around.
"Very well."
She bopped his cheek gently, grinning. "And don't just agree with me because it's easier."
Hidan rolled his eyes. "Oops, you caught me," he replied in a monotone, his voice definitely conveying his 'humoring her'.
She sighed, swinging her legs over the rocks and dropping down, much to his surprise. The fall wasn't all that long and they were soon on another path, all that much closer to the ground. "Oh, wasn't that fun, Hidan?" she asked.
"Loads," he replied, sure that if he'd had his chest with him, his heart would be beating heavily from the shock.
She snickered. "Scared ya, didn't I?" she asked, guessing correctly.
"Not really, you just surprised me. I can't die, and I don't really care if you go off and do something stupid to get yourself killed."
"You're mean, Hidan!" she protested, and for a moment, he wondered if she were always this 'happy-go-lucky'. It must have been the insanity.
"And you're stupid. You're point?"
"I could drop your head in a river and walk away, you know," she pointed out.
"I won't die."
"So, it would probably still be annoying. And it burns when water goes up your nose."
Ah, a valid point. "But would you be that mean?" he hedged.
She paused, physically, to consider this. "You know, I might. I don't think I can distinguish right from wrong anymore… Would killing that foreigner be considered 'wrong'? Even though he had that little girl with him, and he was quite obviously not keeping her for love-"
"Not to mention you killed her," Hidan pointed out.
"I was getting to that. So… Would all that be 'wrong'?" She started walking again. "Or would killing that man be right, and killing the girl be putting her out of her misery?"
"We could have raised her as a Jashinist," was his only reply to this incessant rambling.
"Hm, you could have." She hummed thoughtfully. "Actually, I don't even think she was completely dead when we left her. Should we go back and check?"
"And waste the six days traveling there and back? I think not."
"Oh, well… Maybe we'll run into her again." She smiled at this thought. "It would be kind of neat to have my own daughter."
Hidan rolled his eyes. "No, I wouldn't let you. You're not sane enough to raise a child, and I don't have a body."
"You mean you'd be good enough to let her live?"
"I'd raise her to be a Jashinist," he answered. "As for 'letting her live', only if she didn't annoy me."
"Oh."
It was silent for a moment, before she spoke again. "So, it's all a rather moot point, asking if I'd be that mean, because I really don't know. Honestly, at the moment I'd probably drop you into the water, then leave to go find an apple. Of course, being alone means seeing the monsters, and I don't really care for that, so… I might just keep you around, if only to avoid that."
He snorted. "So you can be selfish, I see."
"Everyone has the ability to be selfish, Hidan. It's only human. Some people just show the trait more often than others, that's all."
If he'd had his body, he would have shrugged. "Whatever, it doesn't matter." He stared out ahead of them, glad to see that they were almost to the bottom, when he caught sight of something moving. "What's that?"
Sakura clutched him and hid behind some rocks. "Shit," she muttered. It was Sai. Had he followed her? Did he track her? Why was he here? She'd been gone from Konohagakure for nearly five years, give or take a few months. Were they seriously still searching for her, after all this time?
"Sakura," Hidan hissed. "Who is that?"
She shook her head and placed him gently down, behind some smaller rocks along with her bag. "Be quiet, Hidan, let me deal with this," she snapped, before edging out behind another rock away from the head.
Sai was walking toward the mountain, a pack on his back and his face as blank as usual. He held a wooden block in one hand and seemed to be talking to it.
"No way," she muttered. He had a wood-clone of Yamato with him, meaning Yamato taicho himself probably wasn't far off.
"Damn it all," she mumbled, pulling a kunai from her weapons' holster.
Sure enough, seconds later, Yamato himself came up out of the ground and handed Sai a scroll, saying something to him as the block in Sai's hands vanished with a 'poof'. Sai nodded and Yamato sunk into the ground again, leaving Sai alone.
He reached into his own holster and pulled out a kunai. "Who's there?" he demanded, his eyes searching the expanse of rock. "I can sense your chakra so come out!"
Wait, why didn't he know it was her? Was it possible…? No, it couldn't be. Sakura shook her head and decided she'd ask Hidan about it later, before stepping out into view. Without waiting for Sai's reaction, she called chakra to her fist and slammed it into the ground, sending a crack in the Earth toward him.
Predictably, he dodged, his eyes widening. "S-Sakura! What-!"
Sakura sent another punch to the ground and lunged at him when he dodged. Somehow, he dodged yet again and countered with his ink lions, though she punched right through those, pathetically easily.
"Sakura!" he gasped, dodging another hit. "Why are you attacking me!?"
She finally managed to land a hit, sending him flying in the opposite direction. "Why? Don't ask me!" she said, laughing. "It's just fun!"
Sai gritted his teeth and rolled away from her next punch, which created a small crater in the ground. "What? Fun? You're attacking me because it's fun?"
She grinned. "Yep! Stop following me around!"
"Sakura!" came Hidan's annoyed voice from the rocks.
Sai froze, looking in it's direction. "Who's that?" he demanded, starting toward Hidan.
Sakura punched him out, getting between him and Hidan as he staggered to his feet. "None of your business, Sai," she growled.
Sai wiped some blood from the corner of his mouth – blood, which probably meant he had internal injuries as well as the physical ones she could see, her inner medic pointed out – and shook his head. "I don't understand, Sakura-chan. Who is that? Why'd you run away?"
"Why'd you kill a man and child three days travel from here," Yamato added, coming up out of the ground, arms crossed.
Sakura frowned, tipping her head. "Oh, she didn't survive?" she asked, sounding disappointed. "Well, that sucks."
"You don't seem contrite," Yamato pointed out, glaring at her. "Haruno Sakura, you're under arrest."
She smiled. "See, Hidan!" she called to her new friend. "I told you something interesting was going to happen!"
"Don't get killed!" was his annoyed reply.
"Hidan?" the two men in front of her chorused, though she was already talking over them.
"Oh! So you do care!" she chirped happily, grinning ear-to-ear.
There was a derisive snort. "Who else is gonna help me find my body?"
Oh. "You're so mean, Hidan!"
"Duh. Evil," he pointed out.
"Come out, Hidan!" shouted Yamato, pulling out a kunai.
Sakura snickered. "Sorry, Yamato taicho, but he can't. He's just a head," she stated.
"Gee, thanks," Hidan muttered sarcastically, staring evilly at the rock in front of him. He heard a few more crashes and grunts before Sakura came trotting happily around the rocks into his view, two tied up, knocked out Konoha ninja with her.
She tossed them to the side and scooped up her stuff and his head. "Well! Let's get going, shall we?" she asked, humming happily.
"Fine, fine, just stop talking," he muttered, annoyed. Though, in her defense, he sure wasn't going to piss her off any time soon, at least not until he regained his body. After all, both of those ninja were ANBU status.
-
Well, yes, I've gotten out the first chapter! Yay for me. I think I'm gonna stop for a bit now, though, 'cause my muse is getting… weird. I hope you like! R&R! Review, people! Don't just fave or alert it! I want feed-back! I wanna know if this is good or not, you know!