A/N: This chapter explains how Jashin can both have a sense of humor AND still demand sacrifices, since some people seemed interested in that. It makes the first part of the chapter a bit dramatic, though. Still, it helps me actually make Hidan somewhat sympathetic.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara was lying on 'her' back on Hidan's bed, staring at the ceiling as she tossed a clay sphere up and down. At this point, Hidan was the only one near her age—they were only three years apart, after all—that knew the answer to the Gender Question, so she'd understandably grown rather close to him. Not as close as she was to Sasori, of course, but the two were about as close to being best friends as a pair of nukenin could get.

"Hidan, I'm bored."

Hidan didn't pause in his prayers.

"Danna kicked me out of our room for being too loud. I wanna do something fun. Hidan, are you listening to me?"

"I'm trying not to." Hidan said, seamlessly going back to his prayers.

Deidara pouted. "Fine, I'll wait for you to finish up."

It took another seven minutes and thirty-two seconds—Deidara kept track for lack of anything better to do—for that to happen.

"Yay, you're done!"

Hidan flinched and put a hand to his ear. "You're loud and high-pitched. Can you at least fix your f***in' voice back to normal when you're not around people who don't know?"

Deidara gasped, shock written across her features. "Of course not! I'm an infiltration specialist; I can't break character at any time!"

Hidan's expression was remarkably deadpan. "Ah. Of course. I should have known. Silly me."

"Meh." Deidara shrugged. "Haters gonna hate. How're things going with your dear 'Jashin-sama?'" She smirked at him.

Hidan actually frowned. "I need to send up more sacrifices, and soon. Jashin-sama's starting to get a bit worried."

Deidara blinked. "He gets worried if you don't send up enough sacrifices?"

Hidan nodded, before glancing at Deidara with a serious expression. "I've been given permission to tell you this, but you can't tell anyone else, alright?"

Deidara stared for a few seconds, and then nodded seriously. "You've been keeping my secret for months now, so I can keep yours, no problem. I'm listening."

Hidan took out a piece of paper from the desk in his and Kakuzu's room, and plucked a pen out of the cup on the desk. He drew a trio of large circles, and what looked like roads between the three. He drew a symbol in each one, though Deidara only recognized the Jashinist symbol in the bottom circle.

"There are three realms that exist for us. We live in Kami's realm, that of the living." He pointed to the top left circle, writing in 'Kami' above it in surprisingly good handwriting, and 'Living' below.

"When a person dies, they generally go to the realm of the dead, which is under the Shinigami's control." He wrote 'Shinigami' and 'Dead' above and below as he had with the first circle.

"The last dimension," He pointed to the bottom circle, the one with the Jashinist symbol, "Is the realm of the demons, and is run by Jashin. This doesn't mean that Jashin himself is a demon, just like Kami and Shinigami aren't human. Jashin himself is the most laidback of the gods, but there's a problem there.

"Chakra exists in everything, right? The thing is, chakra in creatures is created by their bodies and all that, but that doesn't explain the chakra that's in the air or the ground or anything else that isn't alive."

He drew his hand along the 'road' between the Realm of the Living and the Realm of the Dead. "Energy is generated by the traffic of souls. With the Living and Dead, the soul lives and dies in the Realm of the Living, and then comes to the Realm of the Dead. It stays there for about two hundred years, and then goes back to the Realm of the Living to be reincarnated. Kami and Shinigami have enough energy to keep their worlds running like that, but it locks Jashin out of the loop. The problem is that the gods themselves can't do anything to fix this. The demon realm's been running low on energy ever since the Juubi was split and sealed, and it's been on the verge of a power outage for the past couple decades."

Deidara held up a hand for Hidan to stop and just stared for a couple of seconds. "The what? I thought the bijuu only went up to nine?"

Hidan frowned at her. "Right, I have to explain the Juubi thing. The Juubi used to be the most powerful and malevolent thing on the planet, but the Sage of the Six Paths split its chakra in nine pieces, which became the bijuu, and sealed its body in a giant rock, which became the moon. Are you with me so far?"

Deidara blinked owlishly, her eyes rather glazed. "Give me a few seconds on that."

Hidan waited patiently until Deidara finally nodded and gave him the go-ahead. "The Juubi use to be Jashin's most powerful subordinate, but it got cocky and rebellious. I won't go into the whole story right now, but I will say that Jashin didn't exactly give it permission to do all the weird s*** that it did while in the Realm of the Living, or even to come here at all. When the Sage of the Six Paths sealed up the Juubi, it did several things, though the good ones are the only ones that humans generally focus on. The creation of the moon probably drove a couple of species extinct,"

Deidara blinked in surprise.

"The Juubi's chakra dissipated into the air and a bunch of other things and caused the meta-passages between the Living and Demonic Realms to stiffen up and make travel more difficult."

Deidara tilted her head. This was way more interesting than she'd expected it to be.

"And it sent a message to all the demons in Jashin's realm that they couldn't come to the Realm of the Living without being persecuted, which was confirmed by a few that did try to go so that they could deliver messages to the bijuu, asking for them to come home."

Deidara nodded, somewhat understanding. "Okay, I think I get it. It's interesting and all, but what does that have to do with your sacrifices?"

Hidan nodded. "A few of the demons managed to get messages to several humans and set up Jashinist temples. When someone or something was sacrificed at one of those temples, the soul would go to Jashin's plane."

"Plane?"

Hidan shrugged. "Plane of Existence is the technical name for that level of differentiation, even if we call them realms. When the soul went to Jashin's realm, it generated energy there, and it was kept there for a while, generally only a few months, before being passed on to the Shinigami. If a soul goes through a lot of pain, especially right before it dies, it creates more energy upon its entrance into the Demon Realm. It also generates more while leaving. Like I said, the traffic of souls creates energy, not the souls themselves. There's also the fact that sentient souls like humans, demons, and summons generate more energy. Demon souls can't be sent to Shinigami too often either, because their presence is corrosive there. Sending a soul from the Realm of the Dead through Jashin to be reborn generally makes weird abilities pop up in the reborn soul, even weirder than normal Kekkei Genkai. Not to mention that when the Sage died, and every time he's been reborn and died since then, there's been trouble with the demon and dead barriers that make transfer of souls troublesome for all the parties involved."

Deidara glanced down at her gloved hands. Hidan caught the glance and smiled grimly. "Let me guess, that's not actually a part of that kinjutsu that you stole? And it's not a Kekkei Genkai, either, huh?"

Deidara shook her head, biting her lip. Hidan chuckled softly. "Yeah, looks like you were one of the unlucky ones that snuck through. Situations like yours are the reason they try not to do stuff like that. It generally creates new Kekkei Genkai, and that's a problem for everyone.

Deidara bit her lip. "But why is it such a big deal? Can't Kami and Shinigami, I dunno, donate energy or something?"

Hidan shook his head. "No, and more's the pity. The fact that they can't is the biggest problem. Send out a hundred units of energy, and only about seven units will make it across the borders. That's even more of a problem, because if any one of the three realms runs out of energy completely, it collapses. If it collapses, the other two do too, and everything is destroyed. And now…"

Hidan buried his head in his hands. "I'm the only one of Jashin's priests that's left. If I don't make sacrifices every couple of days, the Demon Realm starts running even lower on power. Sacrificing is the only way to force a soul through the barrier at this point, and even that only happens if the priest doing the sacrificing, like me, has undergone countless rituals, been hit with a lot of specialized seals, goes through daily prayers and tons of other things."

Deidara stared at him, and a small smile came onto her face. "So you're pretty much all that's keeping the universe from collapsing, then?"

"Just the dimension, but yes." Hidan answered, completely deadpan.

Deidara blinked at his clarification but let it go for the moment. "Why join Akatsuki instead of going around and recruiting people?"

Hidan shrugged. "It was for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's not like I even had much of a choice, and I know that you didn't join willingly yourself."

Deidara nodded, acknowledging that.

"Second, I get more access to people that I can kill this way. Not by much, but I do get more kills like this. Third, I can't exactly go around recruiting people to be Jashinists because all the temples were destroyed; I don't know anyone that can build me a new one; temples are necessary for a number of the rituals; and I'm a nukenin that almost no one is likely to trust."

Deidara snorted a bit at the list, but motioned for him to continue.

"And the main reason is that Jashin-sama told me to."

Deidara facefaulted. She got up, giggling. "That's it?"

Hidan shrugged. "We're collecting bijuu, right? Jashin-sama said that there's several people influencing events here, even if he can't really tell me who for some reason. At least one of them is planning on resurrecting the Juubi."

Deidara's eyes widened. "Wait, you mean…"

Hidan nodded, face set. "If the Juubi is resurrected, all three gods will work together to pull him back into the demon realm if the barrier is still too stiff, and Jashin-sama will do it alone if things go as planned and the barrier opens up, and then imprison it for insubordination and almost destroying, well, everything. The chance that its resurrection will trigger the barrier to weaken again is small, but they're willing to try almost anything at this point."

Deidara fiddled with ribbon around her waist. "Um… is there any way I can help?"

Hidan shrugged. "Do your job for Akatsuki, I guess. Like I said, turning someone into a Jashinist priest takes a lot of resources that I just don't have available right now, and you're not suited for it anyway. Long range doesn't work all that well for sacrifices."

Deidara nodded, grin on her face. "Okay, then! I'll do my job to help you save the world!"

Hidan's hands shot up to his ears. "Still too high pitched, you d*** blonde!"

Deidara flipped him off, simultaneously using said finger to pull down an eyelid so that she could stick a tongue out of her other hand and her head mouth.

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori stared at his partner. The charade, for lack of a better term, had been going on for several months now, so he really should have been used to Deidara's insane antics at this point. He really shouldn't have been all that surprised at the newest development. He really should have just let it go. He really should have done a lot of things, but he didn't.

"Is that a girl mag?"

Deidara turned another page, legs kicking back and forth above her as she lay on her stomach. "Uh-huh."

Sasori resisted the urge to sigh. "…Why?"

"I'm keeping up on the newest fashions." Deidara stuck her strawberry flavored lollipop back in her mouth, tracing a girl's eye shadow pattern.

Sasori groaned silently. "Why bother? All you ever wear is Lolita dresses, and those are only ever patterned after Akatsuki cloaks."

Deidara looked up at him, grin playing on her lips. "Sasori no Danna, you have been a fifteen year old boy for the past seventeen years. I don't expect you to understand fashion."

"And you have been a sixteen year old boy for the past ten months. I don't see much of a difference." Sasori deadpanned.

Deidara giggled and flipped over to lay on her back, magazine held above her head and legs splayed out childishly. "The difference is that I spend half my time as a sixteen year old girl. My mindset is completely feminine right now. I feel the urge to read about fashion and drive myself to read celebrity gossip, even if I don't really want to do the second one. The fashion is something that I want to know about even as a man, so… Besides, your fashion sense is, like, twenty years out of date."

Sasori stared at her, as emotionless as a puppet could be. "You are one of the oddest people I have ever met, Deidara. I'm rather unsure if that's a good thing or a bad one."

Deidara shrugged, still looking up at her magazine. "Go with it being a good thing. It'll make you feel better about yourself. Hey, look! It's a black and red hat on a hairband! That would go great with…"

Sasori sighed and walked over to his desk, ready to start reworking the arm to one of his puppets again and fix the aim in its senbon launcher. Deidara could wait. Hopefully, she could wait for a very long time.

o.o.o.o.o

Kisame actually figured out Deidara's gender faster than anyone gave him credit for. He just kept his knowledge to himself, for two reasons.

One, Itachi still didn't know. It would be a lot harder to be around the Uchiha if Kisame admitted to knowing, while Itachi still had to deal with Deidara being… Deidara.

Two, it was amusing as h***.

The reasons were pretty understandable, really. It really was too bad that Deidara figured out that he knew pretty soon after he had.

"How?" The question fell from both their lips.

Deidara tilted his head, smirk present. "Okay, you first, un."

Kisame shrugged. "How did you know that I figured it out?"

Deidara waved a hand at him flippantly. "Infiltration, remember, un? Been there, done that. I know the signs of someone getting the info they were looking for, un. My turn: how did you figure it out, un?"

"Blood."

Deidara stared blankly. "Heh?'

"I've got a better sense of smell than most people, and I'm especially tuned in to the smell of blood."

"Like a shark, un." Deidara murmured. Kisame nodded in affirmation.

"Exactly, but I'm not going to explain why; that'd take too long. In any case, the days you faked a period you didn't usually smell like blood. Simple enough, but I doubt anyone else would be able to smell it."

"Zetsu might have."

"He already knew, though."

"True." Deidara allowed. He laced his fingers together behind his head, grin on his face. "Do you find all this as amusing as I do, un?"

"No." Kisame answered promptly.

Deidara's face was a picture of horror. "What, un?"

Kisame stared him dead in the eyes. "I think it's funny, just not as funny as you do. It makes Itachi irritable. When he's irritable, he's not exactly fun to be around. And since I'm his partner, I have to be around him."

Deidara pouted. "You're no fun, un."

"I wasn't trying to be."

Deidara glared at him, single eye narrowed. Then he grinned nastily. "I'm gonna go bug Uchiha now, un."

o.o.o.o.o

"…Itachi…" Deidara whispered, poking his head out above the couch. He grinned as he saw the Uchiha stiffen. "I've got about three dozen bombs on standby right now, un."

His grin widened as he saw Itachi's muscles tense, ready to fight.

He chuckled, a manic gleam entering his eyes. "Run, Uchiha. Run, un."

Insane laughter rang loud that day. So did terrified screaming once Pein found out.

And there was much rejoicing. Not.

o.o.o.o.o

A/N: Did you like my method of making Hidan not evil? I've never really seen anyone do it successfully, so I hope I managed to do it without making it too contrived. I got the power outage idea from The World God Only Knows, which I enjoy. I'm not sure if it counts as Shonen or Shojou, though. It's a bit weird.