First: I'm alive, I'm alive!! It's a miracle! No really, I am so sorry about the abnormally long wait. Really. So sorry. It's just that I have had a terrible motivation problem and the writers-block of Doom. I, personally, don't think this chapter was worth the wait, but I hope you do. Aaanyway, enjoy; I have no idea when the next (and hopefully last) one will be published.
The briefing was a short one, and the zombie brothers - though not yet known as it - set out early the next day. The weather was perfect for travelling; it was not to hot, nor to cold. The sun was hidden behind the clouds, but there was no threat of rain. It was somewhat windy, but not bothersome. Yes, the travel-part of the mission would have been perfect... had it not been for the travellers. Though none of them were speaking, there was a tension between them, an ominous foreboding that they would not enjoy the other's company for long. So far they had actually nothing to complain about, save for the fact that they pissed each other off, without actually knowing why.
Fed up with the silence, Hidan spoke.
"So... I haven't been told where the fuck we're going yet. Or why, come to think about it. You gonna tell me any time soon?" he said, poking Kakuzu's arm to get his attention since the man was - quite obviously - not listening.
Too caught up in his thoughts, trying to find out what it was, exactly, about his new partner that annoyed him so, Kakuzu almost did not hear him. Only when the priest growled and poked him harder did he remember the pale man beside him.
"Oi, fucker. You should answer when I'm speaking to you."
"I apologize. I was thinking." Kakuzu, who wanted to avoid an argument, which would almost certainly lead to him killing his new partner not even two days after his arrival, excused himself (and rather uncharacteristically too). No point in getting pissed of this soon. Or pissing the priest of, for the matter. He did not want that either. Either alternative would lead to him getting a serious talk from Leader, and possibly a pay-cut. He really did not want that. He needed the money; in a world where nothing ever remained the same for long money was the only thing in his life as a shinobi he could really trust and depend on. Losing that because of a man such as Hidan was not an option. Not if he could help it.
"What were you saying?"
"I said, I still haven't been told where the fuck we're going. Or why." Hidan repeated, thinking along the same lines. The money-part excluded, of course. Kakuzu sighed, at himself, for forgetting that Hidan had not been present while Leader explained the mission details.
"We are heading towards Iwagakure, looking for a man called Aikia Hiashi, who is to be captured, alive, and delivered to Leader-sama. There's no need for stealth; Leader-sama wants people know it was Akatsuki."
Hidan grinned.
"Like a warning, eh? Sounds like a hell of a lot of fun."
The taller of the two silently and very, very secretly shared the enthusiasm.
--
If anyone had seem the pair as they were running, jumping between trees on their way to the hidden village of Iwagakure, they would have thought them strange travelling companions. The tallest one - Kakuzu - was covering as much of his body as he absolutely could. Mask in place, to hide either his identity or some deformity, possibly both, were carrying no visible weapons, only a briefcase that could contain anything. The smaller man - Hidan - was running a few steps behind him. His cloak was open, showing of his shirtless torso, carrying a large and unusual scythe on his back. Where his companion had dark skin and piercing green eyes, he was pale enough to be classified as albino, magenta coloured eyes to match. An odd par indeed.
But alas, since their surroundings were deserted these observations were, sadly, lost.
Not even a bird could be heard and, not being able to sense a single chakra signature but their own, they knew for certain that they were alone. According to them, though, that was one ninja to many. Kakuzu, trying hard not to lash out and kill his partner in a very brutal but satisfying way, was ignoring the man while chanting Leader-sama's warning in his head again and again. 'If I kill him my pay will be reduced to half, if I kill him my pay will be reduced to half...'
Hidan, in turn, was getting pissed off at the fact that Kakuzu was ignoring him, causing him to bitch and snap at the other as much as he could. He soon turned this into a game, trying various childish and highly annoying antics to see which Kakuzu reacted to. This, of course, was angering the latter even more, leading to their current predicament of an evil circle of screaming, yelling, insulting and threatening. But fortunately for them both, they were coming closer to their goal. The picking up of a faint chakra signal silenced their argument and focused their minds on the task present.
"Hey Kakuzu, where are we to find the fucker?" Hidan asked, argument completely forgotten.
"I don't know." was the answer. "We should ask someone for information."
And, as if oncue, a shinobi from Iwagakure stepped out before of them. They stopped in front of him.
"Do you know where we can find a man named Aikia Hiashi?" Kakuzu asked, politely. No need to be rude until after the information was given to them, after all. Though he itched to kill someone or something after being trapped with Hidan for all too long, he wanted their entrance into the Hidden Village of Rock to be as discreet as possible, and hopefully the man was stupid enough not to recognize their cloaks and just tell them. Unfortunately, no such luck. The man took a look at their cloaks and frowned, eyes narrowing.
"Not if you're Akatsuki." he spat, charging at them with a kunai ready. The two sighed; the man was a ridiculous excuse for a shinobi. In an instant they had him disarmed and against a tree.
"Now," Kakuzu stated, voice cold, as he looked the man over, "where did you say we could find Aikia?"
The man wriggled under the stitched shinobi's hold, stubbornly (and stupidly) bent on keeping quiet. Hidan grinned, and before the other two managed to react he had produced a think, black pike from seemingly nowhere, piercing right through the man's shoulder and nailing him to the tree. Tearing it out - painfully - he looked the man over. Said (excuse of a) shinobi was trembling, clearly not used to pain, and if it had not been for Kakuzu's hold on him he would probably had fallen to the ground. It was pathetic, really. Ninjas nowadays were such babies.
"Where did you say the fucker was, again?" Hidan was grinning as he asked, pressing one of his fingers into the wound when the man hesitated to answer. Tears were streaming down the (excuse of a) ninja's face, screams muffled against one of Kakuzu's hands until he actually tried to form words.
"O-out... side Iwa... Mansion... W-west..." he croaked. Kakuzu cast a glance at his new partner, somewhat surprised. It seemed the religious zealot was not as worthless as he appeared if he could get information from a stubborn (excuse of a) shinobi that fast. Then again, the man was admittedly not much of a shinobi.
"Outside of Iwa, you say." the priest repeated, confirming the answer. The man would have nodded if Kakuzu had not pressed against his throat.
"Yes! On... on the w-west side of I-Iwa. N-now let me go! Please!"
Hidan snorted at the man's plea. What did he think they were, nice people? You did not become a missing nin, and a S-classed criminal at that, without reason: Kakuzu easily snapped the man's neck. Setting out again, spirits lifted by the new knowledge. West of Iwa it was.
--
They found the mansion without trouble; the man had not even been loyal enough to lie before he died. Breaking in was easy too; clearly not expecting any trouble there were but a few guards on their posts, and none of them seemed alert enough to pay attention to their surroundings, lazily leaning against the wall or chatting between each other. Killing the guards at the outside could have been a D-class mission. Even a genin could have done it, and that was really saying something. Inside was just as easy; there were few guards (though quite a large number of servants) and not one of them was a good enough ninja to register as a threat. This, though, made the two Akatsuki members tense; this was almost too easy. And if there was one thing you learned as a shinobi, it was that easy was never good.
Finding their way to Aikia's chambers was hard, though; the architecture was simply brilliant. It was easy to get lost in the labyrinth-like corridors, and more then once they found themselves back where they had started. Someone had clearly requested to the architect that the inner rooms were to be hard to find, and said architect had succeeded admirable. Had they had the time, they would have stopped to send a thought of respect to said architect. Oh, and had they not been two impatient, increasingly irritated ninjas trying to find their own way into the bloody house.
After what felt like an eternity they entered a library: A good sign that they were now on the right way, but once they were there their troubles seemed to begin. The man's chambers were to be found deep inside the mansion, and more guards were patrolling the hallways, obviously more experienced than the sad lot they had previously encountered. There were also more servants, which increased the threat of being seen and reported. Sure, the wanted people to know it was Akatsuki who did it, but not before they actually got to the man.
Taking cover in a small and thankfully empty side room, they stopped to think. The safest way to go about this was clearly to kill everyone they encountered, but it was bound to take a bit too long for their tastes. Still, what could they really do? It was not really as if they had much of an option.
"I will take the rooms on the right side of the corridor, you will take those on the left. We will not, and I repeat Hidan, not have time for any delays when it comes to killing any observers. Time is money and is not to be wasted. Do not play with the ones you encounter." Kakuzu muttered as they stepped out of the room once again. Hidan grinned deviously.
"Whatever you say, Kuzu-chan. Whatever you fucking say."
He was gone before Kakuzu had a chance to snap his neck.
--
Finding their way after that was not hard, thankfully. Leaving a number of corpses behind - both servants and guards - they soon found themselves in the part of the mansion that was obviously used as Aikia's living quarters. The man, though, had expected them. Waiting inside what appeared to be his office, along with several bodyguards, he faced them as they entered.
"Akatsuki," he sneered, confident in the belief that the pair would be overpowered. "I bet you feel very highly of yourselves to have found your way into the heart of my mansion."
Hidan and Kakuzu shared a quiet sigh. The man was a smug, ignorant bastard whose success in fighting off assassination attempts and similar attacks had made him arrogant. Fucking bastard.
"Oi!" Hidan, who was getting irritated, interrupted. "All that Jashin-damned narcissism is making me fucking nauseous. I'll shut you up myself, you piece of heathen shit."
And with that they all - Akatsuki and bodyguards alike - charged.
Fighting off the guards was not particularly hard; Kakuzu used nothing more than a couple of kunais and his fists, hardened from his favourite technique, while Hidan slashed through the guards with his scythe, not even bothering with any jutsus as all. When the last guard had fallen to the ground, eyes empty of all life, the pair could but show a couple of injuries. Kakuzu had a cut in the arm of his cloak, the skin underneath already sewn together, while Hidan, who was grinning all the same, suffered from a small stab wound in his right shoulder. Aikia, who now had comprehended the seriousness of the situation, had taken up a defensive fighting stance. Being a smug, overly irritating bastard aside, the man was a formidable shinobi, according to the various reports they had managed to find about him.
Kakuzu, though never taking his gaze or focus of the man, addressed his partner beside him.
"Careful Hidan. Don't underestimate him, or you'll die." Hidan just scoffed.
"Tsh, as if such a fucking heathen could pull it off," was the answer before both men moved forward to their goal, weapons drawn. Despite their differences, their annoyance and hate towards each other when together, the two men were partners, and they fought like it. Perfectly timed blows and slashes created an invincible harmony, a dance, in which Aikia soon found himself outclassed. When he tried to avoid what would without doubt have been a fatal attack from the masked man, he found himself almost face to face with the scythe sharpened beyond nightmares, and when he tried to block the scythe, a hardened fist was there from seemingly nowhere. He had long since realized that this fight would be his last, and true enough, he soon went down, unconscious.
Kakuzu grinned, unseen beneath the mask, and prepared to leave the mansion, body slung over one of his shoulders, when Hidan stopped him.
"Hey, we can't leave now, I have praying to do, seriously."
Kakuzu's eyes narrowed.
"What?" he asked in a gruff voice, staring at his partner. He must have heard his partner wrong. There was no way, no way that this new partner of his this pale little brat, had just demanded that they were staying for who knows how long for such a meaningless and trivial reason. He must have heard him wrong.
Hidan all but hissed at him.
"I said 'I need to fucking pray before we leave', dipshit. Lord Jashin demands total bloodshed; no heathen should be left alive. And since we couldn't fucking kill that smug bastard, I have to atone." With that he promptly drew Jashin's symbol on the ground using the blood of the fallen bodyguards, and lay down.
Kakuzu kicked him in the side, but the pale man only grunted.
"I don't enjoy it either, but it's something I fucking have to do. We can spare half an hour, Kakuzu. Thirty fucking minutes." Hidan swiftly brought the pike down, nailing himself to the ground, eyes closed and lips working in a silent prayer. Kakuzu, eyes twitching slightly, studied him for a couple of seconds before sitting down on the floor. Might as well get as much rest as he could, if he was forced to wait. But if this delay proved to be expensive, Hidan would pay himself, if not in coins then in blood. But for now he would have to wait.
Because after all, abandoning Hidan now, and walking back to Leader-sama without him, would be almost as bad for his economy as killing the man off. Fucking figures.'
Finally: There you go, end of chapter four. I hope you enjoyed it, and once again, I'm sorry. As I said, I have no idea when the next chapter will be up, so... until then, I guess.