Chapter Two

Crows cawed and circled him in the air, as Hidan's journey continued. It was his third day of freedom, and he and Kakuzu's creature, which he referred to as "Kuzu" in his own mind, had reached a lake. The fields they had crossed had been abandoned, as evident by their wild nature, but at the end of it Hidan had found a small shed where a farmer must have once lived. Hidan's joy had been unsurpassed when he had found a scythe, meant for reaping the fields as it were, and he had taken it with him. Soon they were bound to meet another person, and then God would be given another sacrifice.

It got easier with each day to treat Kuzu as a pet. Hidan could forgive it for not responding to him, if he saw it as a dumb animal.

"Still," he rambled on, as they walked along the waterline, in no clear direction. "It feels a bit lonely without that fucker. Not that I like him or nothing, but it was more fun to rile him up than it is speaking to a fucking sewn together heart with a mask like you, like a fucking lunatic, seriously."

The cawing persisted above him, but the sound did not bother him. The lake was tempting to bathe in, but he wanted to keep searching for a sacrifice, before taking any such pleasure for himself. Serving God was more important than keeping clean, and more important than chasing off birds.

Hidan scratched the stitches on his neck in boredom as he followed the aimlessly crawling monster, before he realized what he was doing. Quickly he withdrew his hand, not wanting a scolding from-

Hidan groaned so loudly that the crows scattered. "Why the fuck does that fucktard keep coming up in my head?" he questioned no one, angrily swinging his tool scythe. He pointed the edge against the monster. "You," he called with a dangerous tone. "You're just one heart. I probably wouldn't have been able to kill that old bastard when he had fucking five of you, but you're alone. I can kill Kakuzu for good, you know. Never have to bother with that old miser again…" He licked his lips, before making a swing with his weapon against the monster.

Instead of piercing the heave of thread, the blackness struck out against Hidan and crawled around the edge of the scythe, making it immovable. Forced to retreat, Hidan jumped backwards to escape the suddenly hostile monster. At a distance, he braced himself for the impact of a dangerous technique, readying himself for fire, wind, water of lightening, only to see the monster immediately drop the scythe again, and continue to crawl away.

Was it a challenge? Was it telling Hidan to try again and kill it? Once more, Hidan pondered on how the monster even thought.

"I'll let you go this time," he grumbled as he walked after it, picking up his scythe again on the road. "Kakuzu's damn lucky that I am such a nice guy."

Beyond the lake, Hidan and the monster reached a narrow road through a thick forest. It had been a long and lonesome walk, as the company Hidan found in the monster was lacking in all the ways that truly mattered. Yet he followed it, hoping for some sort of miracle, his prayers answered, that it would lead him somewhere worth his time.

Ever since his lame attempt at killing the thing, Hidan had not conversed with it. Much as he wondered why he had attacked it, he wondered even more why he was still following it, instead of setting out to search for sacrifices on his own. How far could a debt owed take him, in comparison to the service to God?

As he pondered on his next course of action, the monster suddenly stopped, in the middle of the path. It had never stopped unless Hidan had grabbed it before, so he quickly pulled out his scythe, readying himself. In the distance, he spotted what the monster must have sensed; first one human and then a second one. Two sacrifices.

Hidan grabbed the threads of the monster and pulled it off the road. So far, it had attacked any living creature that it saw, other than Hidan, and he could not afford to lose his first sacrifice in what must have been months to Kakuzu's heart.

"Stay here," he ordered the clueless creature with a hushed voice. He pulled out some of the threads and tied them hastily around a tree, all while the mask's soulless eyes stared at him indifferently. But it did not attempt to get away. "You trust my judgement more than Kakuzu ever did," Hidan muttered to it, before leaving.

The humans approached, and Hidan peeked out through the trees' cover. They appeared to be civilians, both women, carrying only crops. Hidan turned his gaze to the blue sky above, waiting patiently, though his body was itching for a fight, and his mouth thirsted for blood. The moment the women walked past he opened his mouth for a shout.

"Watch me, Jashin-sama, as I do your bidding!" he cried out as he sprang from the forest towards the chosen sacrifices. His scythe was rusty and not made for reaping humans, but he handled it like it was his old one with skill, and made a clear cut towards the first woman before he could even finish his shout. Her scream died when her neck was severed, but her companion's voice carried above even Hidan's. She started to run, but Hidan's strength had been returning steadily, and he took a quick leap to land before her.

The woman fell down on the ground, shaking, with her crops dropped and scattered around her. Middle-aged, black hair, and tears running down her cheeks defined her appearance.

Hidan pointed the scythe at her, letting the tip scratch her neck as he stared down at her pathetic figure. The rush from his last kill ran through his body in an almost perverse way, and he licked his lips as he witnessed her misery.

"Please sir, please," she sobbed. "I have three children, please spare me."

"Jashin-sama forbids mercy," he informed her, his grin spread with glee and arousal. He scratched her just enough to draw blood with the scythe, making her cry out, and as she clutched her wound and stared up at him with terror in her dark eyes, he lapped up the blood from the blade.

Entranced by his actions, her eyes never left him as his body turned black and white, transformed into the disciple of his wicked god in flesh. When he cut open his wrist, and moaned at the familiar pain, she scrambled away.

The pain from his cut excited Hidan, and he was shaking as he watched his blood fleck the earth to finish the rite as it should be done. He drew God's symbol on the ground with his blood, and felt a wave of pleasure only to see it finished. Finally he would feel that sweet rush of pain the way it should be experienced. Finally he would satisfy himself and God both.

The woman managed to stand up and she started to run. Hidan grinned as he watched her back, before he jabbed down his scythe through his left foot. It was hard to be as precise with pain as he liked to be, with only a scythe, but the suffering of the woman as she tripped still surged through his body. He had missed doing this, all that time he had spent immovable underground. Nothing in the world could compare to this sadomasochistic joy.

The woman was lying on the ground, and Hidan saw that she was losing much blood from the wound on her shoulder. If he played around with her organs first she would simply die by blood loss. There was no enjoyment in a death like that.

It was time to end it. He placed the scythe on the ground before him, and held the back of its head, directing the edge to his chest. His body started to tremble anxiously, and he could no longer contain himself. He drove the scythe right through his heart, and became overwhelmed with the ecstatic feeling. The blood rush, the arousal, his climax, all combined as he claimed her life. The feeling of his heart stopping was a sensation like none other.

Weak to his knees from the sensation, Hidan dropped to the ground. The scythe still impaled him as he lay in the symbol of God, showing his gratitude. As long as it pierced his heart he would not feel a single beat, and it was the best form of meditation and contemplation there was.

Hidan lay in the symbol of God for hours. He almost forgot how it was to live. Part of him was expecting to be rudely interrupted, but none bothered him, not even the black monster he was following. Eventually he simply stopped, and pulled the scythe out. His body regained its original colour, and he stretched his stiff body before getting up.

The dead women lying on the road were both lying in pools of their own blood, soiling their garments. Hidan had never been one for crossdressing, but even a woman's garb was better than itching deer skin, so he stripped the headless corpse of its pale green yukata. To give it something of a more masculine character he cut off the sleeves and tied the sash around his hip, rather than waist, and though it stopped at his knees it would do for the moment. The top half was stiff with dried blood from the woman's neck, but the taste, smell and look of blood had always been appealing to him, and it bothered him not.

"Well then," he said as he slung his scythe over his shoulder. "Time to get Kuzu-chan." The nickname sounded like part mockery, part endearing, as he said it.

Walking off the road back into the adjacent forest, Hidan looked for the tree which he had tied the monster to. He just needed to untie it, and then they would be on their way again, he thought as he looked around. His mood from before, when he had struck out against the monster, had been much lifted, and now he was eager again to find Kakuzu's body. But oddly enough, though he could recognize the trees, he did not find the monster anywhere. He looked further in, and started to look for the normal traces on the ground from how it crawled. No matter how much he looked, however, he found nothing. During his ceremony, the monster had disappeared.

It was gone.