Jack and Jill: Keke… yeah I get what you mean. I've changed some of the dialog that I thought were a bit stagnant, so hopefully the ones I ended up publishing are improvements.

AtomicPlant: You give such good encouragements XD Thanks. It really boosted my spirits. I will try to finish the story then. It's hard to stop when I know there is at least someone who's looking forward to my chapters. I love your screen name btw =) Is it like… "factory" plant? Or like… the organic plant? XD Ha… Either way, it's cute.

BBang: Keke… your "lousy" review did change my mind. I had a lot of fun writing about Kimimaro and his cookie jar, so I'm glad that it was something memorable.

katarauchiha653719: Aw… thanks :D Here's your update!

JigokuShoujosRevenge: Yeah, I've noticed…. Why the hell is that? =[ Kimi's still one of my fav characters, tho XD

.: You bring up a really good point, and yeah, I think he would, but I'll explain Kimi's reasons more in future chapters.

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Always

Chapter 3: That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles

When Kimimaro had to go later tonight, Akira had nowhere else to go but back to Sasuke's room. She loitered as she went, her feet making slow, rasping drags against the brick floor. A disgruntled frown creased her face, but she couldn't be too unhappy about Kimimaro leaving, because he had just spent the afternoon with her.

"Sasuke should do his own dirty work," she said loudly. Her voice bounced off the walls and echoed down the hallways. Akira froze, listening for approaching footsteps, eyes darting to search for people around her, but it felt like the entire nest was empty.

Soon, no matter how much she tried to delay the inevitable, she was standing in front of Sasuke's room. She stood there, arguing with herself whether he was in there or not. She didn't want to see him. Wisps of hair shot up from her forehead and settled back down when Akira tried to blow them out of her eyes. She sighed, leaning against the wall across the door. Maybe she'll just sleep out here.

It had been three days since that night.

It wasn't as though Sasuke made moves on her since then. He understood that Akira didn't like him, that she hated him after what he had done. The past nights, Sasuke had slept on the couch, which Akira knew was comfortable enough. Still the gesture was nice. She would think him to be a perfect gentleman if he hadn't raped her.

It made her think what she meant to him. Did he feel a connection because she was an Uchiha? Or was she a commodity he would later discard after he had gotten what he wanted out of her? Did his thoughts matter to her? And yet… Akira felt the beginnings of sorrow manifesting in her thoughts. What would happen to the baby? Would she even get to visit her child?

"Hey…." The voice that called out to her was ominously low.

Akira looked up to see a woman with magenta hair emerging from Sasuke's bathroom.

"Are you supposed to be here?"

"I'm um…," Akira began hesitantly before trailing off. What was she exactly? "The Uchiha heir's human incubator," she wanted to say. Although she managed to quash a tiny giggle, Akira couldn't help smiling at her private joke.

The woman bristled, her eyeglasses gleaming malevolently in the torch light. "Something funny? What are you doing near Sasuke's room?" she demanded.

'Whoa, this woman is crazy,' Akira thought when she heard how she had pronounced Sasuke name, like she was savoring it, like it had a delectable flavor.

The woman took a slow, intimidating step forward. "Are you one of Hidan's whores? Trying to make a move on Sasuke?"

"Wh-what? N-No." Akira couldn't still her voice. This woman's presence was so menacing. "I… I'm—"

Karin leapt forward and fisted her hand into her dress, wrenching her forward so Akira couldn't escape the backhand that came arcing towards her face.

The slap was a loud crack! in the still air. Too stunned to speak, too scared to move, Akira watched as, this time, a fist came flying towards her. 'This woman is crazy!' she thought for the second time, her inner voice a squeak of horror and indignation. The second blow to her face was tremendous. Akira reeled, her head spinning uncontrollably. She could taste blood on her lips. Her knees buckled and gave way, and she fell when Karin dropped her.

Rolling onto her back, Akira recoiled as Karin straddled her and yanked on her hair to expose her throat. "I'm gonna tear out your long, shiny hair, and cut away that pretty face of yours," she whispered.

Akira's eyes widened when Karin drew out a kunai knife. Desperately, Akira tried to find her voice so she could scream for help. The edge of the kunai knife pressed under her jaw. Akira's heart nearly stopped. She was convinced Karin would make good of her promise and peel away her face. For the third time, her mind screeched, 'This woman is crazy! What the hell is her problem?' Her hands scrabbled uselessly against the arms imprisoning her.

Suddenly, as if someone had pulled the plug on her, Karin's arms dropped to her side and she paused a moment before she scrambled to her feet.

"Sasuke, this woman was outside your room—!"

Akira first heard footsteps before she saw Sasuke's feet. She didn't look up at him. Her head spun from Karin's fist and the nauseating taste of copper in her mouth.

Karin faltered when she saw the murderous look in Sasuke's eyes. "S-She was…," she tried to explain, and then swallowed her words when sharingans flickered from Akira to Karin. She froze.

"Did you do this to her?"

Who knew such softly spoken words could sound so malicious?

Sasuke waited for Karin to answer, listening as she stumbled on her words. He cut her off by looking away, extending a hand to Akira, who looked at it blankly. "Can you stand?"

"Yeah…," she said, pushing her up herself.

"S-Sasuke…," Karin began as he followed Akira back into his room.

His gaze was piercing, and it held the promise of pain. "I will deal with you later." Sasuke shut the door behind him and retrieved some bandages, cloth, and antiseptic from his desk drawers.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Akira was sitting on the couch, sloppily wiping the blood away from her chin. She didn't answer him.

Sasuke sat next to her, dumping the first aid onto the cushion between them. "I asked if you were alright. Were there any blows to your stomach?"

Of course… that's what it was about. Everything was about the well-being of his heir. Akira was stupid to think otherwise. "Yes, your heir's container is okay," Akira snapped scathingly at him.

For a moment, there was genuine confusion in Sasuke's eyes before it melted away into understanding. "What else did you think I was concerned about? You?" he asked tonelessly.

Frustration and anger set her cheeks aflame. Even though she hated him, even though he didn't even try to hide the fact that he was using her, Akira wanted him to feel something towards her. She wanted to think that the passion he had showed when he slept with her was genuine. Akira didn't want him to love her, or even like her. That was the last thing on her mind, especially since she could never reciprocate those emotions.

But she wanted him to feel something towards her. She didn't want to be a moving, breathing tool. More than anything right now, she wanted Sasuke to acknowledge that she could think, that she had emotions, that she was human… that she was worthy enough to be subject under his hate or love, his benevolence or ruthlessness.

His indifference was infuriating.

It proved that he viewed her exactly as he had treated her — a device.

Sasuke approached the blood on her chin with a wet cloth.

When Akira turned away and scooted away from him, Sasuke sat even closer, trying again. "Don't be stubborn," he said brusquely when she tried to push his hand away.

"I can do it myself," she insisted.

Inwardly, Sasuke rolled his eyes. Women sure were complicated. 'Fine…," he thought, 'It's obvious what she wants to hear.'

"I want to do it."

"Can you say that with a more deadpanned face? My god…," Akira groused, snatching at the cloth Sasuke held out.

Holding it out of her reach, Sasuke leaned close, his hand pressing against the back of her head so he could force her face towards him.

She leaned back as he leaned forward, way, way back until Sasuke fell on top of her. "I can do it, I said!" she snapped, wrenching her head to one side while pushing him away.

"And I said I want to do it for you," Sasuke snapped back, trying to wipe her face.

"I don't want you to!"

"But I want to."

"Why does it matter if you want to? It's my face!"

They looked at each other for a second, their noses a centimeter apart, before they both realized how ridiculous they were being. Akira's laugh was a tiny hiccup of amusement. Sasuke allowed himself a fleeting smile.

"I know you want Kimimaro to do it, but he's not here right now," Sasuke murmured as he cautiously held the cloth to the cut on her lip.

Akira watched him, studying his onyx eyes as they wandered to the blossoming bruise on her jaw, and then back to the split on her bottom lip. The entire time, Sasuke's hand dabbed gently at the cut. His eyes flickered upward briefly once to meet hers before they returned to the cut on her lip. She didn't look away. She could feel the callouses on his fingers and palm as he gently tipped her head to one side to get the blood better. They were hands that had obviously gone through a lot of training, suffered many hardships, and killed many enemies. Akira resisted the urge to shudder. But for someone referred to as the strongest, more formidable shinobi, he was amazingly gentle and sensitive to her pain threshold.

"This is going to hurt a little," he warned her, moving further into her lips, where the split was the deepest.

Her eyes watered.

"I know. Just bear with it…." When the blood was dabbed away, Sasuke saw that it wasn't too deep after all.

"Let me sit up," Akira said, pushing him back a little.

Sasuke realized he was still lying on top of her, which was probably way past her comfort zone. "Sorry." He palmed his hand against the couch and pushed away.

"What did I do anyway? Who was that woman?" Akira asked, hissing a little as Sasuke moved to the cut under her jaw, where the kunai knife had rested.

"Probably nothing. Karin is a little… crazy."

"No shit."

An eyebrow on Sasuke's head rose. "Have you been hanging out with Hidan?"

"With who?"

"Never mind. No one."

"The good-looking guy with silver hair?"

Despite himself, Sasuke could feel the beginnings of what he realized, in amazement, was jealousy. He was used to women drooling after him, that's all. For Akira, it seemed like she thought positively of everyone else in Taka except for him. Coercing her into giving him an heir wasn't even the issue here, because Sasuke noticed her dislike the moment Akira set eyes on him.

"Hidan's crazy, too," Sasuke blurted out, and immediately felt petty trying to sabotage Akira's potential friendship with the Jashinist, even though he believed what he said was true. The rare times Sasuke had to visit Hidan's room, he would find at least one dead, naked woman, sliced up with multiple stab wounds, and slumped against the wall outside his door. The hallway outside his room was a bloodied mess, red drenching the floor, the walls, and even speckling the ceiling.

"Really?"

"He's a Jashinist."

"What's that?"

"… Never mind," Sasuke muttered, feeling more and more like a jealous schoolboy.

"It doesn't hurt anymore," Akira insisted when Sasuke was about to apply ointment onto the cut.

"Kabuto made this ointment. It'll heal the cuts soon, considering how shallow they are."

"Kabuto? The cute nerd with glasses?"

Sasuke gritted his teeth. In his opinion, Kabuto was far from "cute."

"Cute?" he voiced aloud. "Do you think ill of no one?"

"Well, I think you're hideous," Akira said flatly, "…If that counts for anything."

"It doesn't," Sasuke snapped before he could reign in his uncharacteristic outburst. "And I think you're hideous too… if that counts for anything," he retorted viciously. Inwardly, Sasuke was confused. What the hell was wrong with him? What happened to his composure? His grace? His reserve? Why was he being so petty?

Akira sneered. "A lot of normal men feel otherwise. Besides, what does my appearance matter? It doesn't change the fact that you're ugly."

"Many prettier girls feel otherwise."

'Stop! Stop! Stop!' Sasuke's mind shouted desperately. 'What's wrong with you? Stop acting like a child! Her replies aren't worthy enough to be acknowledged. Stop feeding her ammunition.' It was ridiculous, but he couldn't stop. Sasuke waited expectantly for a reply, having already prepared a retort.

"Hn."

"That's my line," Sasuke said sourly.

"Whatever. Thanks for treating my wounds," she spat, standing abruptly, and then collapsing back onto the couch after suffering a head rush. "Ow…," she groaned, clutching her head.

"Hmph," Sasuke said smugly as he moved to put the first aid back. "Where are you planning to go anyway? You can't leave the nest when it's dark."

"To find some company, because yours sucks," she snarled, attempting to stand again. Akira did it carefully this time, rising slowly.

"No one's going to want to talk to someone who looks like you," Sasuke jibed, even as his mind howled, 'Stooooopppp! Stop this foolish insult match!'

"You would know. Ugly loner." And then she slammed the door shut behind her as she walked out.

Sasuke stared dumbly at the closed door for a few seconds. Then he smiled when he felt a thrill he couldn't find in fighting.

Outside, Akira couldn't help the grin that crept to her lips as she leaned against the door to try to calm her escalating heart rate. "I hate him," she said softly with a small smile.

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Akira found no one in the kitchen. She felt disappointment settle, but after her stomach growled a few times, she decided to cook herself something. Soon, amidst pots, pans, ladles, spices, and ingredients, Akira forgot about her solitude. She hummed a tune, reducing a lump of beef into thin slices in seconds. Smoke rose from the oiled pan, hissing and crackling as Akira tossed in the sliced up meat.

Her attention turned to the handmade gyoza bathing in boiling water. They were already rising to the top. She quickly scooped them onto a plate and tended to the meat again. After she showered some of her special seasoning onto the meat in the pan, Akira flipped it with a deft flick of her wrist.

A head appeared next to hers. Akira heard sniffing. She yelped, nearly flipping the meat out of the pan as she jumped.

"That smells really good, seriously."

Akira's heart settled back into its normal pace after it had skipped. "Um… thanks." She smiled nervously at the man standing close behind her. "Would you like some?" she asked, trying to be friendly in case the person was a homicidal maniac like most of the Takas she'd met so far. "I made more than I could eat."
Hidan was enthusiastic. "Fuck yeah. I haven't had good food in ages."

"Hidan, right?" she asked as he sat at the table.

He pushed his foot against the table and leaned his weight on the back legs of the chair. "Yup. You're Uchiha Akira, huh?"

"Ta-ke-da Akira," she enunciated crossly as she mixed the meat into the noodles before drizzling her special sauce over it.

Hidan smirked. "That's a shitty cover-up."

Akira ignored him. She set the dishes onto the table and handed Hidan a plate and chopsticks before she sat down. "So I heard you were a Jashinist," she began.

Perking up, Hidan replied through a mouthful of food, "You know about Jashin?"

"Sasuke told me you were. I have no idea what a Jashinist is."

Hidan proceeded, in the most passionate, animated fashion, to explain what being a Jashinist was. By the time he was done, Akira had decided that the Jashin religion wasn't exactly dinner conversation.

"I see…," she said, turning a little green after his unsavory details of a human sacrifice. "That's interesting."

Hidan smiled at her, failing to catch the slight look of uncertainty on her face. "That's what I'm fucking talking about. You're one of the few who listened to me talk about Jashin. Those other cock sucking heathens'll go to hell. Seriously." He stuffed two more gyozas into his mouth. "This is some good shit. I'd give my left nut to eat like this every day. So tell me something about your —" He stopped, the chopstick halfway to his gyoza stuffed mouth. "What the fuck happened to your jaw?"

He had been so caught up with the explanation of Jashin and so busy stuffing his face he hadn't noticed until now.

Akira's hand rose involuntarily to touch her bruised jaw. The cut on her lip had already healed, but was still slightly red. The thin scratch under her jaw was already gone. That ointment was good, but it couldn't heal bruises.

"Um… a little run in with Karin, who thought I was trying to steal Sasuke away from her," she muttered, slurping up some noodles.

Hidan scoffed. "That bitch's crazy, seriously."

Akira laughed a little. "I can't agree more."

A crooked smile tilted Hidan's lips. "I like you. You're a good cook, and you're pretty. If you weren't Sasuke's woman, I'd bang your fucking brains out and—"

"Sacrifice me?" Akira finished for him.

Grinning, Hidan said, " Damn straight. You're a girl after my own heart."

Akira supposed she should be flattered.

After he had finished inhaling the noodles in his bowl, Hidan leaned back on his chair and sighed, patting the slight bump on his stomach. "Goddamn…," he began, but couldn't finish, because he didn't know what to say.

But the best compliment was his satisfied sigh. Akira beamed. "I'm sorry I didn't have time to make dessert."

He waved his hand dismissively. "Naw, no need. I have something."

Her eyebrows crept up her forehead. "You do?"

Hidan got up and went to the cabinets overhead, searching.

Akira's eyes widened when Hidan came back with Kimimaro's jar of cookies. She watched as he examined the seals on the jar with a befuddled expression. For a few seconds, he picked at the red slips of paper with blunt, blood-crusted nails. Then realization dawned. "That little fucker…." Hidan muttered.

A few "kai!"s and some manual prying later, he began to realize that Kimimaro had set up a very effective seal.

"Are you sure those cookies are yours?" Akira asked as his fingers scrabbled uselessly against the lid.

"'Course they're mine," he murmured distractedly, turning the jar around and around to search for a weak spot. After a few more minutes of fruitless examinations, Hidan growled, "Fuck it," and slammed the jar onto the table. It shattered, and out rolled Kimimaro's precious cookies.

Hidan grinned widely at her. "Come on! Dig in!" he said, already stuffing his mouth with chocolate chip goodness.

Laughing, Akira got out some milk from the refrigerator and sat back down, taking a few cookies for herself.

Hidan the Jashinist scared her a little, but he was vulgar, foul-mouthed, and twisted in a strangely endearing way. Akira whiled away part of the night with him. A little after eleven, however, Hidan left, saying he had a ritual to complete before twelve.

"Really?" Akira asked. Hidan had delved into some concepts of the Jashin religion and the overall procedure of the sacrifices, but he had never mentioned rituals. "You never told me about a ritual. Can I watch? What do you do in the ritual? Can I take part in it?" Akira couldn't help feeling excited. He sure was devout.

"I guess you can take part…. Why not…?" he said dubiously, more to himself than to her. "First, I draw a diagram with my blood and lie over it. Then I stab myself in the chest."

"Oh."

There was silence.

"I can let you stab me if you want."

Her wide-eyed silence continued.

"And you can help me get some towels to wipe away the blood afterward."

… And continued.

Hidan waited for her to get up and follow him. She had wanted to take part in the ritual, right? "Well?" he said expectantly. "Comin' or not?"

"Ah… no thanks. I think I'll skip out on this one," Akira told him with a weak smile, and remained fixed on her seat. Hidan would have to drag her screaming and thrashing out of the kitchen to get her to watch his ritual. Otherwise, she was staying put in the kitchen until she couldn't hear his footsteps walking away anymore.

"It's not fun," Hidan frowned, "But I gotta do it. Anyway, there are plenty of rituals, so you'll have chances in the future. See ya later. Thanks for the food. It was um…." He tried to look for the right words to describe the miracle that had happened on his taste buds.

Akira smiled. "Good shit?" she guessed.

Hidan grinned. "Yeah. Good shit."

She waved him goodbye as he left.

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A/N: Karin sure is scary o____O I thought I would like her in the manga until she proved to be an insane, Sasuke obsessive psychopath XD

I really liked this chapter. The Hidan portion was really fun to write kekeke…