A/N: Jashin and Diamond are pretty much an audience surrogate, just with some influence on the story. Really, all they do half the time is stand on the sidelines and eat popcorn while mocking or badgering the poor little humans.
o.o.o.o.o
When they first found each other, they were two.
Saturday tea between the matriarchs of both the House of Zabini and the House of Malfoy, at Malfoy manor, was where and when the two women decided to finally bring their sons to meet each other. It was supposed to be a one-time thing, but the two boys had demanded to see each other again, pouting until their mothers cooed over them and agreed to the boys' bright, and quite possibly faked, smiles.
The first meeting had gone as such:
o.o.o.o.o
Little Draco was sitting on his mother's lap, biting into a biscuit from the table as he stared across the table at the boy on the other side. The boy was rather boring at first, but then again, he was two.
Only at first, though. The boy had been looking around, and then Hidan heard a mutter.
"Looks like solid gold. Must be rather expensive. Inheritance and investments? Probably a…"
Not something you expect a two-year-old to say in any language, in any location. It especially wasn't something you expected to hear when it was said by a British two-year-old in Japanese.
It probably sounded like mild-mannered gibberish to the women, but for little Draco, it was a something eye-opening. It was something exciting. It was something infuriating.
Only one member of Akatsuki would act like that. Of course, of all members, Kakuzu would be the one that would be reborn near him. It just had to be the—
"Old miser." Draco, now quite irritated, muttered under his breath in Japanese.
Brown eyes landed on grey and narrowed. Simultaneously, the boys got off their mother's laps and walked off into a different room, ignoring the surprised and confused women they left behind.
"Kakuzu." Hidan, for he now was more than just the Malfoy heir, he was an S-rank nukenin in a two-year-old scion's body, spoke with venom once they were in a different room. "Still a money obsessed heathen, I see."
"Hidan. I wish I could say I was pleased to see you, but that would obviously be a lie."
A crack sounded as Dobby appeared into the room with a crack and some drinks, ready to carry them in for Narcissa and Aphrodisia. The poor house elf stopped dead as he saw what basically amounted to a pair of two-year-olds in a standoff that, had it not been for several rather glaring details, would not have looked out of place in an old western.
"Dobby?" Narcissa called from the parlor. "Are those the drinks?"
Dobby squeaked and quickly ran off, not spilling a drop. "Yes, Mistress Malfoy!"
Kakuzu's head tilted. "A house elf? Then your family's affluence must…"
"Stop talking about f***ing money, d***it!" Hidan hissed, taking a step forward. "Is that still the only c*** you ever think about?"
Kakuzu stared back, and then lowered himself down onto the floor. "Of course it is. What else am I supposed to do? It's not as if I can go around stealing hearts like this."
Hidan deadpanned. "Yes, because a two-year-old running around and tearing people's hearts out is completely unnoticeable."
"Idiot."
"Miser."
"Zealot."
"Heathen."
"Now, now, girls, you're both pretty. I even came to visit, after all."
Slowly, ever so slowly, the two boys turned to look at the mirror. In the reflection, there was a lounging figure, one that sat on the ground lazily and leaned against the frame.
Hidan's eyes grew wide, and his voice reverent. "Jashin-sama."
The man with the blue hair smiled and lifted a hand in a nonchalant wave. "Yo!"
Kakuzu glared. Hidan noticed and hit him. A small scuffle started, ending with the attention-drawing cough of the god. The pair of 'mature' two-year-olds slowly turned to look at him, still frozen mid-brawl.
"Where did you get that popcorn?"
"I'm a god. Where wouldn't I get it?" Jashin shrugged away Kakuzu's question, still munching on his warm, salty, buttery… ahem. "So, are you two liking the arrangements?"
"Of course, Jashin-sama!"
"They are adequate."
Jashin snorted. "Adequate? Jeez… See, there's a reason why Hidan's my favorite."
Hidan smiled cheerily at him, ignoring the disdainful looks sent to him by Kakuzu.
"Did you know," Jashin began, "That the collapse of our dimension was actually a good thing? The dimension, compared to others, was a travesty. That dimension was one of the worst ones out there, and you know what? I got some time off. I got substantial time off, for the first time in centuries. I am very happy right now. After we finally finished transferring souls about a year ago, I finally got a chance to go out drinking. I only ever got to do that for maybe a few hours every couple months before, and not at all after Hidan got buried and—"
"Why didn't you get him out, if he's so important to you?" Kakuzu asked. Hidan elbowed him, but managed to not start another fight.
Jashin pointed straight at Kakuzu. "That. That is a very good question. There was a rebellion in the demon realm that I had to take care of, and by the time I got it handled, the dimension was collapsing already because we'd stopped getting souls in. I had to be hooked up to some sort of generator so that I could provide energy for that realm personally. I sent a couple subordinates off to handle it, but it wasn't soon enough."
There was a lull in the conversation then, until Jashin spoke again. "Hidan, stop making that face. We both know you're not that uptight around me. Just because your old partner is here, you don't have to act like you're in front of Shinigami or Kami. That woman's got enough vanity for all three of us."
The light in Hidan's eyes dimmed, if only slightly, and he relaxed, leaning against a chair near the mirror. He smirked in amusement. "Oh, I know."
"Just doing it to p*** him off?"
"Absolutely."
"Can you stop talking about me like I'm not here?"
"Anyway, I was tapping into the Hive Mind last week, and you wouldn't believe what happened in Sector 3…"
It was interesting to Hidan. It was infuriating to Kakuzu. It was amusing as all h*** to Jashin.
o.o.o.o.o
"What are you doing?"
They were five now. Hidan had gotten his scythe at his birthday, and was rather ecstatic about it. It was usually miniaturized and stored in a seal that was imprinted on his Jashinist bracelet.
"Tracking the stock market."
Draco stared. "You're five. What kind of five-year-old tracks the stock market?"
"The kind that has investments to track."
"What kind of five-year-old has fr***in' stocks?!"
"My kind."
Draco simply stared at Blaise. "I hate you. So very, very d*** much."
"Tch. Let me stare at my lovely IKEA."
Draco just glared at him for a few seconds, and then walked off.
Five minutes later, Blaise was glaring at Draco, who was currently sticking out his tongue at him, as the two went to a Quidditch match with Narcissa.
"I hate you. So very, very d*** much."
"Tch. Let me look forward to my lovely violence."
o.o.o.o.o
He was six.
Draco had a book open in front of him, sitting on a comfy armchair. Narcissa smiled and went over to him.
"Hello, sweetie. What are you reading?"
"Cien Años de Solidad, by Gabriel García-Márquez." He replied, and then looked up to see his mother staring at the book in slight confusion.
"What language is that book in?"
Draco smirked a smirk that he would commonly smirk in his future smirking days, but hid it from his mother by 'glancing' back down at the book. "Spanish."
Narcissa tilted her head slightly to the side, still leaning over to have her head at the same level as her son's. She was trying to stay calm. "Where did you learn that?"
Draco stood and walked with somewhat unnatural grace—grace befitting of a shinobi, grace that most civilians, Narcissa included, could not detect—to one of the bookshelves. He pulled out a book, and showed it to his mother. It was a book designed specifically for an English-speaker to learn Spanish. There was nothing incriminating about it.
"I tried some of the other books," He pointed to the ones meant for early Arithmancy, Transfiguration, and a number of other subjects, "But the language ones are the only ones that were easy."
"How many others did you read?" Narcissa asked, still a bit excited that her son was so talented in at least one field.
Draco frowned for a second, and held up two fingers. "French and Japanese. Japanese was the easiest."
"Okay, sweetie. You can keep reading."
She walked away, thoughts circling on the fact that her baby boy could already speak four languages.
Hidan, no longer Draco, smirked. English, and Japanese, and Spanish, and French, and Bulgarian, and Mandarin Chinese, and even Korean. Really, it's quite easy, with this much free time paired with an adult mind that's already geared for it.
…I've got way too much time on my hands.
o.o.o.o.o
They were seven.
"Kakuzu…"
"I'm fine. I'm going to kill that b******, and no one will even suspect Mother this time."
"Are you going to take his heart?"
"Of course. The man's been abusing my mother for weeks. You are my alibi for tonight, and the gala is hers."
"Dude, you're seven. I don't think you need a f***in' alibi."
"I need to be prepared in any case."
"Death by?"
"Trust me when I say that it's going to be something very ironic."
o.o.o.o.o
"How did you do it?" Hidan asked, sitting on his bed. This was the first time he'd had to ask Dobby to clean up blood and bloodstains, and convincing him not to tell anyone was actually easier than he'd thought. Apparently, he was the kindest of the Malfoys.
…Considering who and what he was in his past life, he didn't really want to think of what that must have meant about his parents.
"How did I what?"
"Take his heart and kill him the way you did."
Kakuzu shrugged, scratching at his neck; he'd had pride in his stitches before, and shown them for that reason, but he knew now that he needed to hide them, and did, albeit reluctantly. A genjutsu hid the ones that he had now: the ones on his wrists and neck, though a new set had been added to his chest just minutes earlier.
"I incapacitated him. Tortured him for a bit. Took his heart, and kept his blood pumping using some muggle technology."
"Where did you—?"
"Black market. I have contacts. Then I took the car battery, hooked him up to it, and…" His grin grew and he shuddered mockingly in imitation of the man's death. "I think you know the rest, even if you aren't all that intelligent. As I said, irony; he was as bigoted a pureblood as they come, and so got taken out by a muggle device that's not even supposed to be used that way."
"Kakuzu, you scare me right now. Very much." Hidan deadpanned, rubbing his temples. "A seven-year-old should not be doing this. A seven-year-old should not have contacts in the black market. A seven-year-old should not know how to keep a man alive after taking away his heart. It's f***in' creepy."
"Would it be helpful if I mentioned that I left a note to indicate that it was done by a non-existent third party from Venezuela that had a grudge against him for embezzling funds from some illegal drug trafficking trade routes?"
"…You scare me very, very much."
o.o.o.o.o
Two weeks later was the first time that Kakuzu cut Hidan's head off in this dimension. After the initial panic, Dobby had agreed to clean up so long as he could be sure that the young master wasn't going to die or be hurt by this.
"Of course it f***in' hurts!" Hidan yelled. Kakuzu rolled his eyes.
"It's not permanent. Now get to cleaning. Keep it a secret and I'll give you a five Sickles per month."
Dobby stared at him for a second, and then bowed low with a smile. "Of course."
And thus he became the first paid House Elf, via bribery.
o.o.o.o.o
They were eight.
They'd gone to Diagon Alley, where Kakuzu hassled some goblins about muggle money and currency exchange rates before being dragged out of the bank by his 'friend' of sorts, and Hidan grew bored after being told that he wasn't allowed in Knockturn Alley. The trip started out as most of their trips to the area had, and neither expected the visit that they got.
"Hello, boys!" The sickly sweet voice sent shivers down their spines, and they turned to see a rather short but still undeniably beautiful redhead standing behind them, though she was still taller than the two, being an adult. She was also showing off her midriff and wearing a rather short skirt with body-hugging leather everywhere else, even leggings, but the threatening waves of danger that came off of her easily kept men from getting a little too fresh.
"Diamond." Hidan actually sounded a little… scared. Nervous, even.
"Hey." She smiled down at them, but the smile served more to unnerve them than to make them more at ease. "Why don't you two come with me?"
It wasn't a question, despite any and all appearances to the contrary. The two found themselves being steered towards a table in front of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, where someone familiar was smiling at the three of them.
"Yo." Said Jashin, raising the hand with the ice cream as if in salute. Hidan's face burst into a grin and Kakuzu looked relieved, if only slightly. This seemed to amuse Diamond.
"Oh, you two don't hate me that much, do you? After all, it's already been, oh, a decade or something since you last saw me, hasn't it? Give or take a couple years? Well, it's been that long to you, anyways…"
They flinched as she lightly squeezed their shoulders, reminding them of just what she was, or at least of her power in comparison to their own.
All Kakuzu really knew about her was that she was a drinking buddy of Jashin's, and that's it. Just that fact, though, implied that she was on the level of the gods. Hidan knew more, but…
Jashin rolled his eyes at her and motioned for the two to sit down and take the small menus. "Go on and choose something. We took care of the ever-so-illustrious Madame Malfoy. She's not going to come looking for you, or think anything of it afterwards."
"Pistachio." Kakuzu said in seconds. "With chocolate syrup."
"Lemon sorbet." Hidan decided. "And rainbow sprinkles."
"Rainbow sprinkles? Really?" Kakuzu questioned, sneer on his face.
"Why care?" Diamond butted in before they could get the argument on the ball, lollipop hanging out of her mouth. "You're eight. To each his own. Any other valid excuses or phrases that explain things so that I don't have to listen to you two bickering over something this stupid are allowed. Good thing I got you early."
"Sit down, Di." Jashin muttered. "Fr***in' ginger midget."
"Oi." Diamond muttered, mock-glaring at her friend. "I don't have freckles, so I'm not a ginger, and I'm not short. I'm fun-size. Besides, the legal cut-off point for being considered a midget in order to get disabled services in the US is four foot ten. I'm an inch taller than that."
"We're in the UK."
"Do I look like I care?"
Jashin just snorted and motioned for her to sit down as he glanced around. "Send a clone for the ice cream, will you?"
Diamond rolled her eyes and threw herself down into a chair. "Yeah, yeah, you little b******."
She brought a wrist up to her mouth and lightly ran her teeth over the skin there, which split like hot butter. The blood slopped out, more and more, until it formed a clone next to her. The clone smirked and went off for the ice creams, swinging her hips a little more than strictly necessary.
"I've got stronger illusions than even Itachi, so you don't have to worry about anyone seeing what just happened, or that there are two of me." She informed the two ex-nukenin. She put her elbow on the table and propped her head up on her hand, reaching out with the other to the boys to shake hands. "I never did properly introduce myself. I'm Agent Diamond of the Phoenix Corporation, also known as the Blood Mage and a few other names. My spheres of influence are blood and demonic and supernatural forces, with some dabbling in mind arts and illusions. Pleased to formally meet you."
"I knew all that already." Hidan mentioned. When she turned to him in question, he quickly pointed to the blue-haired man at the table. "Jashin-sama told me."
"Of course he did." Diamond muttered, using her tongue to flip her lollipop to the other side of her mouth. "He always does enjoy ruining my fun."
"Don't be a b****." Jashin said lightly, ignoring the clone that had come back with the ice creams. It handed one to each of the boys, and then seemed to simply evaporate.
"You want a blood-pop with that?" Diamond offered a lollipop with a black stem like her own to them. Jashin went to hit her, but she ducked.
"A**hole." She muttered, fixing her hair. "And here I was, actually being friendly."
He waved her away, turning to look at Kakuzu. "It won't work."
Kakuzu raised an eyebrow and denied everything. "I don't know what you mean."
"We don't have much money on us, and whatever scheme you try to employ get more money will backfire if we're involved. Don't bother trying."
Kakuzu shrugged. "Too bad. I probably could have made a fortune."
Hidan tried to slug him in the face, but the miser ducked out of the way. "A**hole."
"Idiot."
"Girls, girls, you're both pretty. Can I go home now?"
"Yes." The boys said without hesitation. Diamond pouted, looking remarkably put out. Jashin looked amused, as always. Maybe he was remembering years earlier when he himself had used almost that exact line on the two as well.
"C'mon, you two. You not only took it seriously, you didn't even get the reference. I guess that's what we get for placing you with purebloods, though…" She mused over it for a few seconds, and then slapped the table as she seemingly came to a decision.
"I'll tell you what. Once a month, I'm taking you guys to a muggle movie theater for cultural osmosis."
They felt a shudder go down their spines.
"I'll come too." Jashin offered, grinning.
Aw, h***.
o.o.o.o.o
At nine, Kakuzu did it for a second time.
He killed a wizard, another stepfather.
"I took the heart again. That should probably be enough to convince the authorities that it was at least similar to the reason from last time."
"D*** it, Kakuzu. You have to stop this. Why are you even taking the hearts?" Hidan muttered as he dabbed at a scratch on Kakuzu's cheek that had occurred since this new 'victim' was slightly more capable than the last one, and Kakuzu had both underestimated the man and overestimated his own nine-year-old body.
Kakuzu shrugged. "Contingency plans, for one. I don't want to die. There's also the fact that it just feels comfortable to have them."
Hidan stared for a few moments. "Comfortable." He sounded pretty dubious. "Where the f*** do you even fit them all?"
Kakuzu shrugged. "It's part of the kinjutsu. The ones that I have aren't enough, though. I want five. I won't feel complete without two more."
Hidan was silent for a few minutes. Then he said something rather unexpected.
"You can have mine."
"What?"
Hidan turned to look at Kakuzu, face more or less blank of emotion. "It's not good for you to just go around f***ing killing people. I mean, yeah, it was fine with these two because, h***, they deserved that. But seriously, those hearts probably aren't even any good."
"You still haven't explained why you think I should take yours." Kakuzu groused.
Hidan shrugged. "There's a little thing called a healing factor. I have it."
"You're saying you can grow a new heart."
"Yes."
"Why didn't you ever tell me this before?"
Hidan rolled his eyes. "Well, it's not like you would have wanted it, right? You were concerned about getting specific types of hearts back then, and that'll be d*** near impossible here so it doesn't matter. Besides, you probably would have tried to harvest them for the black market or some s***."
"I could retrain the hearts for a certain element, if they're blank like the ones here. I've already tuned the last one for Katon jutsu." Kakuzu was rather irritated by this point.
Hidan glared. "Listen, do you want it or not?"
"I'll take it."
"Snrk…" Muffled laughter was heard from a mirror on the far wall. They saw a figure in it that had become far more familiar over the past several years.
"Jashin-sama!" Hidan called out in surprise and happiness, assuming that Jashin's own powers would already be up to keep any noise from escaping the room and prevent anyone from walking in on them. Then his face soured slightly. "Why the f*** were you laughing?"
Jashin grinned. "You're giving him your heart, huh?"
There were several seconds of silence after that, and then the boys' faces simultaneously colored, Hidan starting on a loud, embarrassed, and impassioned rant.
Jashin just threw back his head and laughed.
o.o.o.o.o
They were nine, and Draco was still playing to expectations, nodding and smiling along when he was told things, and pretending to agree to his parents' extremely bigoted views. Blaise didn't need to, because he'd already managed to show people that he functioned primarily on logic and money. Not on logic and money alone, but definitely to a significant extent.
"Muggle or not, they have money. Many have prestige. I am not going to try to kill off potential future customers. They are just as susceptible as wizards. Wizards are more gullible, and muggles more frivolous. They are a way to make a profit, just like wizards."
He waved away all questions about his thoughts on purist philosophy like that. He was brutally efficient when it came to money, and all the stepfathers and even his own mother gave up on educating him in muggle-hatred. His view on things was clinical, and he saw no difference between one group of people to exploit and another. He just focused on the money, and while the goblins at Gringotts didn't necessarily like him, they certainly held respect for the boy. It may or may not have had something to do with the fact that they were also aware that he was a dead, reincarnated, really old shinobi—information that Jashin and Diamond may or may not have had any involvement in when it came down to it—but that had no bearing on their transactions.
Wonderful, wonderful transactions that both sides found to be extremely beneficial.
o.o.o.o.o
Draco nodded, a childish pout on his lips, as his mother told him to go into Madam Malkin's.
He discretely rolled his eyes as she told him that she'd be up the street looking at wands. Really, wands? What was the point when each wizard was suitable to one wand? He didn't think he would have fallen for it even if he really were an actual eleven-year-old. He knew she was probably just going up to Knockturn Alley, or maybe she'd just left to get a drink or something. She was doing something that her innocent son should have no contact with.
And of course, she'd left him and Madame Malkin with strict instructions on just what kind of clothing she wanted him to get. And of course, this meant that it would last about twice as long as if he were just getting normal robes like he was supposed to. And of course, she had to nag him about the bracelet again.
Narcissa didn't quite understand the bracelet that her son had started wearing when he was three. It was little more than a strip of black leather with some sort of shiny circle and triangle symbol inlaid on the inside of the wrist. There were a number of problems that Narcissa had with it: she didn't know where it came from; Draco seemed obsessed with it; he never took it off, whether it went with what he was wearing or not; lastly and most importantly, it reminded her of Grindelwald's symbol. For a family that had been suspected of Death Eater activity, and rightly so, this was not a good thing to carry around. Unluckily for her, Draco never cared, and vehemently defended his choice to wear the bracelet.
The bell chimed as another boy walked in, and Draco glanced out of the corner of his eye at the other. Average height, slight build, and the coloring were all quickly taken into account, and subsequently disregarded as boringly average.
He nodded towards the boy in acknowledgement. "First year?"
The boy nodded. "Yes. I'm Harry Potter. You?"
Draco raised an eyebrow, but did little else when he heard the name. "Draco Malfoy, and I'm a first year, too. Any idea on the houses?"
The boy, Harry, shook his head. "No. I do not believe I have any particular leanings. I would enjoy becoming a Gryffindor, though, because that is the house that my parents were in."
"My parents want me to be in Slytherin. I think I could make it there. Probably better than in any of the others." Draco mused.
"Why Slytherin?" Harry asked, glancing over through bored, half-lidded eyes. They were, by this point, conversing more out of politeness than any real interest.
"My family's been in Slytherin for centuries." Draco shrugged. "According to my parents, it's the only house fit for 'the scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy.'" His voice turned mocking towards the end. "I guess they might not object to Ravenclaw, but I'm not smart enough for that. They'd probably send three letters a day warning me against muggle-borns, anyway."
He rolled his eyes as he said that, but it had apparently caught Harry's attention. "What?"
Draco looked over. "Do you know anything about pureblood supremacy?"
Harry nodded, and Draco sighed. "My father says that anyone with less than pure blood shouldn't be allowed at Hogwarts, especially not muggleborns. My mother agrees with him."
Harry raised an eyebrow at that. "You don't seem to agree."
Draco snorted, happy to have someone other than Blaise that he could vent to without worrying about his parents somehow catching wind of it. "I don't. It's all a load of bulls***, if you ask me."
He raised a hand and ran it through his hair in exasperation. He froze as, a second later, a stream of amused Japanese streamed from the Potter boy. "That's good. From what I've heard from Kisame, it's rather a bit too much like the Kekkei Genkai fiascos back in the Elemental Countries. The civilians feared them; Kiri hated them; the other villages loved them if they had them, and Konoha practically revered them. I'd rather hoped to leave such nonsense behind when I was told that I'd be reborn in a new realm."
He sucked in a breath and turned to look at Harry. A tiny flare of chakra and his miniaturized scythe was in his sleeve, turned just so, so that it didn't cut him. He wasn't Draco anymore. He was Hidan of Yuugakure, S-rank criminal with a streak of rampant insanity. "Who…?"
Potter, or whoever he really was, turned and smiled at Hidan. A Sharingan appeared in each eye, spinning in the same hypnotic way that Hidan remembered. "It's nice to see you again, Hidan."
The breath hissed out, and Hidan reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Uchiha. At least tell me that I'm talking to Itachi and not Tobi."
"Hn." Probably Itachi, then, and he was smirking. "Have you found anyone else yet?"
Hidan glared, not caring that he was staring straight into a spinning Sharingan. He cursed Itachi quietly under his breath in English and a few other languages for a few seconds before replying in Japanese again. "Yeah, Kakuzu's the same age as us, first year; he's just a couple months older. Still a miser, and somehow got born to some gold digger lady with half a dozen different fortunes to her name by now. No word on anyone else."
Itachi shrugged and nodded, looking past Hidan. "I knew Kisame from my neighborhood, and he went last year and found Konan, Leader-sama, and Zetsu. Zetsu got split somehow, though, so he's actually a pair of twins on his own now."
Hidan nodded back. "So is Sharky still blue, then?"
"Yes, I am." Kisame spoke up from behind him. Hidan, in true ninja fashion, spun and swung his half-sized scythe at the blue boy, but it was half-hearted, since he realized who it was less than a quarter of the way through the swing. Kisame just ducked and then held out his hand to shake, which Hidan ignored, and introduced himself, in English, with his latter name. "Berilo Krahsson, and I'm pleased to meet you."
"Seriously! What is wrong with you people?" Hidan was speaking Japanese again, though what he really wanted to say was 'F*** you!"
"We're reincarnated, formerly S-ranked, former criminal shinobi with access to magic." Kisame said cheerfully, ignoring Hidan's anger.
Hidan grit his teeth for a second, but calmed down as his bracelet warmed up a little, possibly in warning. He smirked at the two in front of him enjoying their on guard expressions. "I was right." He gloated. He deserved to gloat.
The other two tilted their heads as Madam Malkin bustled in and started taking Kisame's measurements. Itachi asked the next question. "What were you right about that we doubted you on?"
Hidan let his irritation show for a second, but then wiped his face of emotion and everything else, pointing at the bracelet and the symbol on it.
"Oh." Kisame said, looking somewhat uncomfortable. He was obviously fishing for a new topic, and quickly asked, "So are you still immortal, then?"
Hidan scoffed. "Of course I am. If I wasn't, I'd be dead fifty times over by now. Kakuzu cuts of my head almost every time he sees me. Since my mother and his are friends, and they're convinced that we are too, it's inevitable that we see each other a lot."
"He still cuts your head off whenever you irritate him?" Itachi asked incredulously. "Isn't he worried that someone will see? Or at least about the blood stains?"
Hidan groaned inwardly, knowing that this would be a sensitive topic. "Do you know what a House Elf is?"
Their eyes darkened. Itachi spoke first. "I hope you don't approve of that."
Hidan tilted his head to the side, raising a hand and tilting it side-to side as well. "If he didn't like it, I wouldn't. The problem is that most House Elves love to work, so disapproving would actually make it worse for them. I don't approve of the abuse that my father puts him through, though."
Itachi frowned. "It just occurred to me that you're not being anywhere near as coarse as you were the last time I spoke with you."
Hidan snorted mirthlessly at that. "Malfoys aren't crude, apparently. If I could talk however I wanted to, I'd be cursing up a storm like a sailor whenever I talked. As it is…" He shrugged.
"You're done, dears." Madam Malkin shooed all three of them off the stools, and Hidan began to walk over to his mother.
"Goodbye, Potter, Krahsson." He saw his mother glance over when she heard the Potter name.
"I hope to see you at school, Malfoy."
"See ya, kid."
Hidan just waved with one hand and discreetly flipped them off with the other. Good thing his mother didn't notice.
o.o.o.o.o
"Oh, so I'll finally have intelligent company." Kakuzu mused.
"F*** you, a**hole." Hidan muttered. "We've gotten everyone but Deidara and Sasori. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
Kakuzu blinked in slight confusion. "What about Tobi and Orochimaru?"
"You mean Obito." Hidan corrected. "And remember: speak of the Devil, and he shall appear. If we pretend that they never existed, the s***s might not show up."
"Your oh-so-illustrious Jashin didn't tell you?" Kakuzu mocked.
"He's in this for the entertainment." Hidan deadpanned. "Ergo, the popcorn at half his visits."
Kakuzu rolled his eyes.
o.o.o.o.o
"C'mon, 'Kuzu." Hidan tugged his friend's sleeve. They'd ditched the so-called bodyguards that had been assigned by Lucius about half an hour earlier. Crabbe and Goyle were utterly useless. "We're going to go find the others."
Kakuzu smacked Hidan's hand away but followed along anyway. They heard a bored, bland voice coming from down the train's hall.
"Uchiha. It appears that Deidara was right after all."
Hidan shot Kakuzu a grin which was not returned, and hurried down the corridor to slam open the door and find some old friends.
o.o.o.o.o
A/N: I just want to say that Jashin and Diamond will not be showing up as often as in this chapter, but they will pop up from time to time, usually sharing a box of popcorn. They are NOT romantically involved. They never will be. Diamond has a boyfriend, and Jashin's not interested in getting himself a girlfriend. They're just buddies, originally drinking buddies.
Aphrodisia Zabini is a name I've used before. If you can identify from where, you get a digital cookie.
I'm going outside of canon here, and just going to go and say that I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of Mrs. Zabini's husbands would have been abusive. They're rich and powerful; ergo, they're used to getting what they want. Due to Kakuzu killing them off before she could, she's also married a time or two more than she would have by this point in canon, which is why Hidan says half a dozen, while in canon, in HBP some five years after the comment, the number of dead had hit seven.
READ THIS: Alright, I've been getting questions about other former/somewhat Akatsuki members, including:
Team Taka
Madara
Obito
Yahiko
Orochimaru and Kabuto (can't have one without the other)
And for the people requesting Madara, there's also the first and second Hokage, as well as Uzumaki Mito.
Okay, here's my answer: WAIT. I've decided on everything. I started writing this story over half a year ago. I know where I'm going with it. For some, you'll get an omake or something. Maybe soon, maybe not, but the point is that I've already decided where/when they all ended up. I did mention that this wasn't the only universe people ended up in after all, didn't I? There are other places they could have gone. Most of Konoha ended up in Twilight, after all. Fr***in' Twilight.
I can promise one surprise addition next chapter, but none of you will be able to guess who it is unless I already told you, I guarantee. It will be with Sasori and Deidara, but due to the length, the next chapter was split into two, possibly three. It's already hit 12K, and I'm not even done with it yet.
Ja ne,
Phoenix.
