I am so sorry for not updating like I promised. I suck, I know.

Warning: Gore, etc.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.


It had been so long, without the contact of another human being…

Humans need each other. They need the contact of another individual, the words that they share, the touches, the mutual emotions. Every action and word becomes so intimate, delving into the mind of another, sharing feelings. It was an intimacy that I never desired.

My thoughts were best kept in my mind, where they couldn't be dissected for hidden meaning. There were no alternate connotation in my actions or words; everything was purposeful, done only with my final goal in mind. There was no room in my brain for conflicting emotions or questioning my motives.

Not that my motives were ever questioned by others either. I was rarely around the living and the dead weren't exactly a talkative bunch.


"Let go of my fucking hair!" He screeched, trying to wriggle from my grasp. His small frame attempted to slide out from under me, muscles straining against the abuse that I was putting his body through. His skin was red and angry, a dark bruise in the shape of my hand rested against the back of his neck, showing just exactly where I had held him down.

My hair was soaked and hung loosely in my face, droplets of moisture rolled down my forehead. My hands - so used to handling cold unresponsive corpses, and shaking the sweaty palms of various bounty hunters – were clutching at the warm flesh beneath, holding him down through all of his screaming and thrashing.

It was sick, but I loved it, loved watching the child in pain, seeing his angry face, fierce magenta eyes glaring up at me in defiance, a look that just made me want to break him…

I wanted to make him complacent, show him what defiance brought him, and maybe if I was lucky, teach him to curb that awful tongue of his.

"Get off me, this fucking hurts like a-" Hidan was cut off when I shoved his head underwater again. I held his head under, scrubbing the hair to rinse off some of the soap. I only let him resurface when he needed air, well… I might have held him down a little longer than needed, but why couldn't I make this fun for me? "God damn it! Let me finish a fucking sentence bef-" His impact with the water caused it to splash me, but it didn't matter, I was already soaked from his earlier thrashing.

Pulling him out again, I started to lather his hair with more soap, the muck had provided to be more difficult to wash than expected and Hidan had asked for my assistance, which I hoped by now he would have realized how horrible of a decision that had been.

"It is getting in my eyes you asshole!" Why did he only ever focus on the small injuries as if it were one of his limbs were being hacked off? Shouldn't he be complaining that I had scrubbed his skin raw? Or the bruise on the neck, or even about when I punched him in the chest when he tried to run? All of these seemed to be far worse than a little soap in his eyes.

"Stop moving." I didn't bother saying anything else. Extra words meant extra effort. Effort which I didn't want to put forth.

We continued like this for a while, me cleaning off the bits of muck that he had missed and pretending to drown him, Hidan screaming about the pain whenever his head was above water.

When he was finally clean I loosened my grip, letting his head fall away. Hidan used that moment to scrabble away from me, pressing his back against the wall, chest heaving, and magenta eyes wide and fearful, looking like a drowned rat.

"What the fuck was that for?" He whined, combing his silver locks back. There was a patch of skin on his torso that looked like it had been ripped off, I assume that it was my fault, but I felt no guilt.

"You asked for help." Asked, whined insistently, not too much of a difference.

"You fucking drowned me!"

I didn't answer; instead I turned around, looking for the door that supposedly led to the hot spring, leaving the little brat where he was.


The hot spring was quite beautiful, slabs of red rock stacked high on one side, creating a makeshift waterfall. Smooth river stones surrounded the water, and the steam was so thick that I could barely make out the copse of trees at the edge. The gentle trickling of water and the heat calmed my nerves, gently easing away the headache that had been steadily growing in Hidan's presence.

He had gone off somewhere after the bath incident, presumably trying to be as far from me as he could possibly manage, and he didn't return for almost an hour. In that time the calming water had washed away what had to be at least a year's worth of stress, relaxing my body, and lulling it into a peaceful stupor.

That is, until Hidan decided to jump into the water, getting my hair wet. He splashed about like a child, trying to swim in the shallow water, and God was it annoying.

I wasn't sure what prompted me to do it, or why it brought me such enjoyment, but one of the thin tendrils snaked its way out of my leg, wrapping itself around the boy's ankle and dragging him below the water. I held him under for a minute, longer than an average person would last, before letting him claw his way to the surface.

Hidan looked disgruntled; sticking his head beneath the water to find what could have possibly tripped him. After a few more trips under the water he finally gave up, and went back to splashing about and generally pissing me off.

We went back and forth, him splashing around like an asshole, me drowning him for my own sick amusement, until he finally stopped being annoying and settled by the edge of the water.

It was silent for a long time, but I was starting to assume that there was something in Hidan's brain that kept him from being quiet for too long.

"… I was top of my class." He announced proudly, as if he actually believed that I cared, even in the slightest. I just gave a noncommittal grunt and went back to ignoring him, which he must have taken as an acknowledgement to keep talking. "Yeah, I was so fucking awesome, that they put me in the big boy's class, I skipped a few grades." He puffed out his chest a little, trying to make himself seem more important.

"But we never really did anything cool in this shithole, missions were always shit like 'my cat ran away' or 'I am too much of a lazy cunt to harvest my own crops. Do it for me!' and shit like that." He gave a disgusted click of his tongue. I couldn't say that I wasn't even mildly disgusted at least, back in my day ninja weren't so grievously misused, ninja were tools for destruction. You don't use a kunai to till fields, and you don't use a hoe to kill people; at least not when other, better weapons are readily at hand.

"They wouldn't give a child high ranking missions. You need to pay your dues and learn your place."

"But I had graduated! Why the fuck would I have to do boring ass work like farming? I am a fucking ninja!" He hollered at me, as if I had some power to send him on proper missions.

I spoke slowly, hoping that the words would somehow find their way into this dim child's head. "They would not give an B or A ranked mission to a-" What, he looked about 14 now, this had to have been about three years ago, perhaps an 11 year old? "-an 11 year old."

"Huh?"

I wasn't sure how I could make what I said even more straightforward. "You were about 11 then, right?"

"I am 12 right now. It the village was destroyed when I was 10."

I was stunned, that both of my estimates were wrong, I was almost never wrong. I wouldn't know till later, but I would experience that feeling a lot in the years that I knew Hidan. "Only 12?"

He gave me a look like he believed that I was the idiot here, and it just made my blood boil. I hated it when people patronized me, and I hated it even more when I knew that I was bigger, stronger, and smarter than them. This thought alone made me want to shove his head under the water, making sure that he never resurfaced. However, he was an orphan, I had yet to sully my hands with the blood of a parentless child, and I didn't plan to make tonight the first time.

I let the silence hang in the air; it was comfortable for me, but most likely stifling for him. He did not break it, either out of stubbornness, or fear of being the first to talk I did not know.

Hidan smoothed his hands over the surface of the water.

I didn't know when I stopped looking at him, or how long we had just sat there in the silence, but when he spoke again it startled me.

"How did you get those scars?" I turned to see large magenta orbs.

"Got hurt."

He cocked his head to the side, as if what I had said was hard for him to grasp.

"How?" He asked like a child who didn't exactly want an answer, but a way to stop the silence.

Shouldn't someone his age be a bit more mature?

"Too long to remember."

"…" He was silent, and yet his eyes would not leave me. "Did it hurt?"

"…More than anything." I could see his fingers rising to his cheeks, tracing a line across his pale skin.

"I can't remember the last time I got hurt. It's 'cause I am such an awesome ninja, people can't hurt me." He beamed, flashing pearly white teeth at me. They were clean, white, untainted, just like everything else about him, even that disgusting church had an air of purity to it. I hated it. I wanted to see those clean white teeth stained crimson, his hair messed up, that tiny pale body resting in a red pool of his own fluids.

"Don't challenge me."

"Pff, I bet I could beat you, I am an awesome super ninja!" He preened in a way that just made me want to snap his tiny little neck.

I knew what I was to him. I was a new toy, interesting now, but he would grow bored of me. It is human nature, fickle creatures with short attention spans. They showed kindness and respect when it suited them, but once you had served your purpose they cast you aside.

The bitterness rose in my chest, anger seeping though past wounds that I thought had closed. It filled my body, looking for an escape.

"You know, you are the first person in a very long time that I liked. You're a bit of an asshole, and you hurt me, but I like you." He smiled up at me, a picture of childhood innocence. "You talk to me, and you don't talk down, or lie to me. You are the first person I liked since my mother die-" If I had to say that I acted in anger I would have been lying. The only thought that I had during that time was that I didn't want him to say that he liked me, I didn't want any more of his lies.

His skin was warm from the hot spring, the water making it slick, so much like earlier, but not. Before, I was teasing, humoring a child, No I could feel the bloodlust growing inside me.

"Stop talking." I wasn't sure why I said it, I usually loved to hear my victims beg for their worthless lives, but at that moment, all I wanted was for Hidan to stop talking. All I wanted was for him mouth to close for the rest of eternity. "I don't care if you like me, or if anyone does. All I want right now is for your pitiful little existence to end." I squeezed till the pink faded from his lips, and those damn eyes finally misted over, however if it was in death or unconsciousness I did not care. I dropped him, face down in the water, leavening him, if he wasn't dead yet he would be soon.


The meal that was laid before me was amazing. Splayed across the table were dishes of sashimi, nabe, miso soup, and even yakitori. Hidan had even collected a very good looking bottle of nihonshu.

At the time I didn't question where he had gone. I hadn't cared. If I had known… if I had known I still would have killed him that was not a question. Perhaps I would have killed him quicker, a painless slit of the throat? Maybe I would have even just left him in this little hellhole to rot instead of killing him.

I like to think that nothing would have changed.

I felt no gilt for his murder.

I told myself that as I ate the meal he had prepared in the last hours of his life.