The blistering heat of summer has dwindled down to a cool, crisp wind by the time Hidan and Fujiko start the Academy.
Unsurprisingly enough, the state of the Academy reflects the state of their village.
It's no secret that their village is failing horrendously. Fujiko suspects that within the next decade or so, the village will be nothing but tatters of what once was. And by that time, she'll hopefully be somewhere else.
Yugakure is known to produce mediocre ninja. That's why they never get the high paying missions or the prestige necessary to keep the village running. At this point, the village lives on nothing but dirty money and depravity.
There are at most twenty or so kids in the Academy at the moment—the rest of the children in the village are off doing more productive things, like working for their family business. Hidan and Kazumi stick out like a sore thumb with their silver hair and pale skin. And in the small group of ten kids in their age range, they are the youngest.
They are targets.
Except that Hidan has never been easy prey, because he's always been a predator. The older kids don't know this until he's on them, like a shark on blood, excitedly smashing his vicious fists into every part of their bodies that he can reach.
Hidan makes sure to beat the kid who tried to take their money to a broken, sobbing pulp before letting him go.
"Anyone else wanna fight?" There's exhilaration singing in Hidan's gleeful question.
The oldest kid of the group, some boy looking to be around eleven or ten, steps forward, scowling heavily. "You fucking—"
Before he can even finish his sentence, Hidan is there, fists already swinging like a steel wrecking ball. The kid cries out and returns with a punch of his own; his larger body having the advantage over Hidan's small one, and throws Hidan onto the ground with a sickening crunch.
The kid smirks triumphantly, expecting Hidan to be beaten down, but Fujiko knows better. She doesn't move or speak but instead waits patiently for Hidan to get up.
And he does. While cackling with such excitement and joy that the kid actually takes a step back, horrified by Hidan's complete opposite reaction to his expectations.
"That was great!" Hidan's nose is crooked and bleeding but he's grinning like tomorrow. "That was so good, in fact, that it's only right if I give you some too!" Pleasantly, he slams his heel into the kid's face, humming lightly under his breath. Fujiko recognizes it as a childish song that she sometimes sings to herself while gardening. Strangely enough, it's one of the only things she can remember clearly about her previous life. She can't hold back the snort that escapes her lips, because the song is absolutely ridiculous coming from Hidan.
In the same moment of her snort, the kid flies back into a nearby tree, his cheekbone crushed under the impact of Hidan's kick. Fujiko winces in slight sympathy. Hidan has always been overwhelmingly talented in physical fights.
The kid doesn't get back up.
"Ehehehe!" Hidan lets out a refreshed, shrill laugh, and turns his face towards the sky. His face looks like a bunch of red and blue fruits just shat all over it, but he's overwhelmingly happy.
He lowers his gaze and turns to look straight at Fujiko; eyes sharp with the type of light so bright that it reminds her of the shrill shrieks of metal nails on chalkboard. His gaze, pinning and unyielding, is a question. Or at least, that's what Fujiko interprets it as.
Me or the rest of these losers? It seems to ask, and even before the moment is over she is already moving towards him. There's half a heartbeat of hesitation—but it's easily swallowed by the ultimatum: someone who's been beside you since birth, or a group of strangers? The answer is simple.
The air is a collection of held breaths in the mouths of small, frightened children. Fujiko walks over and stands besides Hidan.
The rest of the kids turn and run away.
Only one boy goes back to help the kid that Hidan kicked into the tree. Fujiko recognizes him as their neighbor's son, only two years older than Hidan and herself, Takeshi Yasushi.
Fujiko ignores them and turns to face Hidan.
"Idiot." She sighs, and takes Hidan's face in her hands. He blinks, eyes wide and surprised by her tender gesture, and makes to move away, but allows her to touch him. Fujiko can't help but feel pleased that he trusts her, surprising as it is. Hidan opens his mouth to say something and then promptly lets out a curse when Fujiko snaps his nose back into place in one smooth movement.
"Bitch." He grumbles, but the word lacks bite and is more of a twisted way of expressing gratitude. Fujiko rolls her eyes because considering that it's Hidan, he wouldn't know how to properly express gratitude to save his life.
"You need to clean up your face." She answers bluntly.
Hidan ignores her and gives her a grin, all his teeth bared in a slightly disconcerting way. "Ah, I haven't had so much fun in a long time!" He's in a significantly better mood than before and Fujiko takes it in stride.
She looks at her brother, face smeared with blood and fingers caked with dirt and covered in scabs, and feels her mouth quirk fondly. Somehow, the image of him standing there, face exploding with pride and joy, covered in blood and bruises under the soft glow of the setting sun, is warming to her heart. She ruffles his hair in an affectionate manner and says, "Let's go."
Hidan doesn't protest the hair ruffle, for once, and bounds into step beside her.
Their first day at the Academy doesn't teach them jackshit but it teaches the other kids to stay the hell away from them.
[[Seeing her brother beat up a bunch of little kids eats at her conscience, but she shoves it down. They are different from her and Hidan. They were not born from a madwoman.
Hidan may not always do the right things but he survives, and Fujiko will too. And now no one will mess with them again.
Honestly, Fujiko wants to be different. Sometimes, she tries. But sometimes, it is hard to feel.
There is something in Fujiko, a madness—a sickness—that is embedded deep in her bones, her blood, her flesh; that had already started to form when the name "Fujiko" was just a concept, when her second life had been brought into the world.
Like mother like daughter, like mother like son.
A madness of the heart and soul, a madness that rots and rots and eats at the thing called humanity, until there is nothing but that madness left.
Fujiko feels it resting; waiting. Waiting until the very moment when she cannot hold onto what makes her human anymore, and then, it will strike.
/Family/who am i/what is right/what is wrong/how do i survive/IDON'TWANTTOBETHATWOMAN/ Fujiko finds questions that she can't answer. So she does the one thing she knows how to do. Stay by her family.]]
…
Kazumi comes back home that night.
She hardly spares a glance for Hidan's bruises and swollen nose. "You won." It isn't a question.
Hidan glares, defiant and fierce under the dim lighting of the room. "Of course."
"Hm." Kazumi makes a noncommittal noise under her breath, face smooth like ice. She looks at Fujiko and her eyes, usually impenetrable like metal, now show something else. Eyebrows pulled down, nose slightly wrinkled, upper lip pulled up—the classic expression of disgust. Fujiko recognizes it immediately because it's the same face she directs at Hidan and her whenever they do something. It marrs Kazumi's face, like a carnival mask, pulling blank features into the twists of a monster's.
"Pathetic little bitch." She tells Fujiko, and she means every word of it. "I don't know why I ever bothered to let a useless piece of shit like you out of my womb."
Kazumi's curse words are gift-wrapped poisonous barbs enveloped in a honey tongue.
Spite and anger dig deep into Fujiko's gut, slicing into her. Shame swallows them.
It is hard not to feel pathetic when you are constantly being told you are.
Kazumi grips Fujiko's chin, long nails cutting into her flesh, fingers like ropes around her throat. She forcefully moves Fujiko's head from right to left, up and then down. Sighs with mocking disappointment. "Such a waste. Something as pretty and pathetic as you would be better off doing something else."
Against every single instinct in her body, Fujiko does not shudder.
Her feet are stuck to the ground, every cell frozen, and all she can feel are Kazumi's long, slender fingers clenching her chin.
Kazumi tsks and leans forward, long silver hair brushing against Fujiko's cheek like needles. "Perhaps I should put you elsewhere, where you don't have to learn. Perhaps...tomorrow, you should come to work with me." She's so close that Fujiko can smell the perfume wafting off of her—a rich, flowery scent that is very, very familiar. Another inhale and Fujiko remembers where she's smelled this before. Lily of the valley.
Her tongue is glued to the roof of her mouth. Idon'twanttogotoworkwithyou screams in her lungs, rages in her head, forms in her mouth. But she can't say it. Kazumi's fingers press harder into her chin and cruelty sits in the corners of her delicate, painted mouth.
And then—Hidan sinks his teeth into Kazumi's arm—the arm that holds Fujiko prisoner—and gouges into her flesh as much as he can with his still developing teeth.
With a start, Kazumi rips her hand away and releases her grip on Fujiko. Finally, finally, finally. All of a sudden, she can breathe again.
"You shit, let go." Kazumi snarls, and slams her other elbow into Hidan's damaged nose. With a howl, he falls to the ground, blood dripping from between his fingers.
He looks up and spits and then smiles. Vicious, furious, hateful. "Fuck you." Blood flows thick in his nose and he breathes through his throat. Fujiko feels her frozen nerves come back to life and she scrambles to Hidan's side, trying to examine the state of his nose.
Kazumi examines the red indentation Hidan left on her arm like it is no more than a silly ink mark. And the she looks at the two, crouched on the ground: one glowering with resentment, the other turned with back half turned away from Kazumi, keeping her in sight, shoulders hunched forward.
Even without anything being said, Fujiko knows which one of them is expendable.
Hidan is breathing harshly, eyes bright, teeth bared, blood dripping onto his hands and his clothes. He is the sparks in the fire and Fujiko is just the ashes.
She straightens her back, breathes in just once, and then turns so that she faces Kazumi directly. "I'm going to be a ninja." Not a kunoichi. Just a ninja.
Kazumi doesn't flinch at her defiant words. Doesn't look with surprise. Doesn't see Fujiko differently. "Don't come begging for a second chance when you fail." Kazumi sneers. Casting a contemplative look at the two of them, she leaves.
Once the sound of her footsteps disappear, Fujiko lets her whole body slump, feeling exhaustion sink into her like too-heavy weights.
"Fuck, this actually hurts. Fucking bitch hits hard." Hidan mutters, and gets to his feet.
Fujiko just wants to sit there forever but she can't, so she gets up. "Come on." She pulls Hidan towards the bathroom's rusty sink and grabs a towel. Carefully, she cleans his bloody nose. Too bad they don't have ice. Thankfully, his nose isn't out of place, although its swelling has gone up considerably.
"Should we find a doctor?" She wonders, still peering at Hidan's nose. There aren't many people who have medical skills here, and Fujiko herself is definitely not one of them.
"No." He snaps, and throws the towel to the ground. His fists are still clenched and she can tell that his loss against Kazumi is tearing at him. All it took was one hit for him to be thrown to his knees.
In a rare moment of silence, the two of them sit on the bathroom floor, still lost in what just happened.
Eventually, Fujiko opens her mouth and lets out a croaky, "Thanks."
"Shut up. You're too weak." There's a pause. The words I'm weak sit in the empty space.
"I meant it, you know." She tells him, "I'm going to be a ninja." Because she is going to survive.
"Whatever." He glares at his hands. "I'm not going to the Academy anymore."
"What? Why?" Fujiko asks, startled.
"It's fucking useless." Standing up abruptly, he moves back into the living room where they sleep and flops down on the flimsy, fraying futon. Fujiko follows him and sits down on the edge of the futon.
She's always known that Hidan wouldn't be able to last sitting through days of boring lectures, but she hadn't expected his patience to run out this fast. She just doesn't want to be alone. But she also knows what kind of person Hidan is, and nothing she says could ever change his mind.
Within minutes, Hidan is asleep, lying spread-eagle over the entire futon. Night melts into midnight and Fujiko doesn't sleep.
She stays where she is and watches the lily of the valley sitting in the corner of the room. Where it always is.
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, glowed on the marble…
And still it sits in its corner, small and delicate and white, growing over rotten flesh.
A/N: so what we have here is fujiko battling her two lives. there's a clash between her past personality and her current one. like if you're born from a different person, you inherit different things. i think personality is crafted by environment and how you're raised, but there are also small parts of it you can inherit. and kazumi is a sociopath, lacking empathy, which is something fujiko realizes. because fujiko didn't have any mental illnesses in her previous life, she is very aware of it in her current life. but hidan doesn't have that precedent, so he can't tell the difference. plus, here, there's no one to teach them wrong and right. and then there's a conflict between survival and staying moral, which i won't get into now since this is getting long whoops
side note: kazumi is an emotional abuser, and she uses this to try and keep fujiko and hidan under her control. so if you're thinking why they haven't run away yet, it's because it's very hard to rebel against someone who has abused you for your whole life.
once again, quotes taken from eliot's the wasteland!
anyway, thanks to UniCryin, cowpiss, Goldspark1, deletrear, Cee, Lity, azure, anon, Yllems, Singular Poisonous Ashes, NatNicole, and fortheloveofb for reviewing! and thank you for reading!
Replies to guest reviews:
Cee: not gonna lie, your reviews literally inspire every chapter i write. thank you so, so much for your lovely reviews ;-; i know i haven't updated in a while, but reading your reviews always make me wanna write more lol
as for your questions-survival makes a strong bond, and they're definitely bitter because of their situation and their mother. their shared fear and hate also gives them a stronger bond. so technically, their bond isn't really built off of unconditional love and kindness and things of the like but they've still got a pretty strong bond.
the thing is, (and it's gets kinda spoilery here) that if/when hidan becomes a jashinist, he'll definitely be splitting from fujiko. it's pretty much a given, considering their personalities. hidan won't be tied down by fujiko's ideals and by the time he decides to leave, she won't be so attached and will have gained a sense of her individuality. at the same time, it doesn't mean they'll hate each other once they separate. separation in life happens, but it doesn't break family bonds. at least, that's what i think.
as for hidan's penchant for violence, i think you've pretty much got the idea. their environment isn't ideal and they've also grown up with a ruthless and manipulative mother. point is, hidan doesn't know how to express himself other than violence, and at some point, it twisted into one of the only things that gives him joy and pleasure. so his view on violence is definitely different from a "normal" person like fujiko. and hidan is actually very similar to kazumi—fujiko as well—which later becomes recurring fear for the two of them, because none of them want to be like kazumi.
and kazumi, well, i think that the general gist of it is that once you've reached rock bottom, you never want to end up there again. and in kazumi's case, she'll do anything to stay at the top. with her twisted morals and mentality, it isn't hard for her to kill to get what she wants. there's more to develop on her, so i'll leave that for later.
memory can be sparked by the randomest of things, so fujiko's memory could get stimulated by pretty much anything. and to answer your question about her career as a ninja and her desensitization: fujiko's revolted by the idea and act of killing people, but she's surrounded by so much of it that she's kind of used to it. she's still got morals so she feels apologetic. but her sanity's gone a long way down since being reborn and she's unconsciously picked up some of kazumi's mentality while trying to adjust to a new life. (which is inevitable, with the people who raise you.) she contradicts herself quite often in terms of her personal morals and what she actually does/feels, eg. she wants to survive vs. hurting people. for me, that's pretty much just her ongoing struggle, and because she's so passive, she's easily pulled between the two depending on the situation.
please don't be embarrassed by the length of your review! it honestly made my day, thank you so much! ;-; i hope all's going well for you too. :) and i hope this answered your questions, haha.
Lity: thank you! i had to google translate it lol, but thank you!
azure: ahhh i'm really glad you like it! thanks for reading and reviewing!
anon: i'm not the best at writing horror and gore, so i just put in a ton of flower imagery to make up for it lol. thank you so much for the kind review! ;-;