Disclaimer: I do not have any claim to the Narutoverse

OOOO

The first skeleton was further away from the village than she expected, sprawled out in a narrow section of the valley. Six years in the hot steam rising through cracks in the ground had stripped it clean, bones in surprisingly good condition but clothes disintegrated and faded from the sun. There were no discernible features left for identification and Akane hoped it wasn't someone who had raised her.

Hidan strode ahead, guiding through gaps in rock and over thin streams of water which became more saturated in red the deeper into the valley they walked. Eventually the valley widened, each cliff side towering up into the sky and signs of civilisation came into view. Many of the building had sunken into themselves, having never been the most structurally sound in the first place. Akane had no idea how Hidan had just happened to come across this place, had it been pure chance or had he been looking?

The blood stains became larger, brown with age and the skeletons more frequent the further they walked through the silent village and Akane could barely breathe through the memories of her first eight years of life in this world. Hidan had slowed to walk at her side, no longer guiding now that they had reached their destination. Akane grabbed onto one of his hands, pulling him down a familiar street, his presence grounding her to the present. There were so many bodies littering the streets, some in groups, some alone, smaller ones with arm bones tangled into larger skeletons.

Akane looked around from her places on her fathers hip, one hand grasping the back of his yukata for balance. Her young, chubby face gave no indication of the mature mind beneath, a mind that was looking around with such calculating interest, trying to understand what this place was, so different to the world where she once had a family of her own.

"Oh look at her! So big already! Hello little Akane-chan, where are you and daddy off to today?"

Akane pulled away from the grasping hands of their elderly neighbour, Akai-san, who never seemed to understand that maybe even toddlers wanted some personal space.

"We're just heading to Yuhi-sans to see if his latest hunting trip was any success. Do you need anything?"

"Oh no, no Hiromasa-san, I've got everything I need."

Akane gave a polite wave as her father continued down the street, Akai-san was a strange old lady but she waved back with a smile, wrinkled old hands grasping at her dark wooden door for balance.

A large section of the neighbouring roof had slipped from the crumbling walls, Akane spotted a skeletal hand peeping out from underneath the debris and realised this collapse was not the work of time but of a deliberate impact. She didn't look too closely at the finger-bones. At least Akai-san had managed to live a full life.

She climbed over the lowest edge of the rubble, the door to the home where she was raised was blocked but an opening that served as a window was just large enough for Akane to pull herself through. Hidan scowled at the small opening before heaving himself through with considerably less grace than she had managed, leaving his scythe just outside as it wouldn't fit. Akane's breath caught in her chest. The house was largely untouched save for a layer of dust and a vague smell of damp.

"Akane-chan! I'm going to catch you!", Akako called through their small home, "I can hear you giggling!"

A five year old Akane pressed a hand to her mouth, over her smile, tucking her legs further under the small table that her parents had in their room. She ignored that part of her brain telling her she was far too old for this and let the child's brain in her head run the show. Her mothers feet appeared from the doorway that Akane could only just see from her hiding spot.

"I think I'm getting waarmeer~" her mother sang, Akane held her breath in anticipation as her mother began to lean down to check under the furniture.

Suddenly a large pair of arms wrapped around the woman's waist.

"Quick Akane-chan! Go, go! Whilst the beast is trapped!"

Akane-chan fled from the room, laughing brightly, past her wrestling parents.

A flicker.

"Go Akane! Run! Get out of here!"

An eight year old Akane pressed a hand to her mouth, over her gasp of horror as a blade pierced through her fathers stomach and a wave of blood crashed across the street. She fled, and she didn't look back.

Akane trailed her hand over the furniture, her face showing little of the memories that raced through her mind. They searched the house together for anything of use but her parents had owned few books save for stories. The only thing Akane picked up were three bracelets from her room that she and her parents had made together from twine and small iron beads. They were laughably simple and obviously home-made but they made Akane remember the smiles on the faces of the two who raised her. Not her first set of parents, but who had placed themselves in her heart regardless. She slipped each bracelet onto her wrists, tying the close so they wouldn't catch on anything.

"There's a meeting-hall on the other side of the village. If there's anything of use left it will be there."

Hidan nodded and followed Akane back out of her home. For once he wasn't full of pointless remarks or harsh words, he just walked at her back in silence.

"Surely some-one must have survived. There's got to be a last man standing, right?"

Hidan glanced around the skeletons at Akane's question.

"Maybe it was that guy," he pointed to a skeleton sat slumped against a wall, one bony hand pressed to its ribs, "or one of those," two skeletons who had apparently simultaneously skewered one another and died together, "or that guy out in the valley. Or maybe someone did make it out and left Hot Spring country all together. No way to know really."

"Yeah, you're right."

The Meeting-hall had been built with more care and better resources than much of the rest of the town and so it stood a little higher and in a better state of repair. The wooden door, however had not withstood the prevalent steam that filled the air and came off in pieces as Akane attempted to swing it open. The main room of the building had a lot of skeletons, many leaning across the large central table, swords and kunai still wedged in their vertebrae and rib-cages.

"This wasn't exactly a fucking small village but I've never heard anything about it in Yuga," said Hidan.

"The clan was forced here years ago from Kumo, they weren't exactly liked so they stayed hidden."

"Weird."

"Yeah, I guess it is."

A side room was what they had been hoping for – lined with shelves holding books, scrolls and other documents and trinkets. Akane busied herself scanning the shelves, looking for journals similar to the one Hidan had given her, or any other literature that looked useful. After an hour or so a loud rumble jolted Akane out of her search. She spun around to find the Hidan was no longer in the room with her, she hadn't even noticed him leave the room, so engrossed in the books as she was. The next sound had her sprinting out of the building.

"Akane! Fuck! AKANE!"

"Hidan!?" Akane shouted back, following the feel of Hidan's chakra. One of the buildings they had passed earlier had collapsed, Hidan was on his knees at the edge. Akane held back a retch at the long piece of flaking wood that was impaled deeply into her teammates neck, pushing his head to an odd angle.

"Don't fucking gawp! Fucking help!"

"Oh shit, Oh Kami, Hidan," she rambled as she clasped her hands around the timber.

Hidan's hands settled just below hers.

"Ready? Pull."

The noise the piece of wood made was absolutely sickening as it scraped and squelched out of Hidan's shoulder. It was a lot longer than she expected, she was sure it pierced all the way down into Hidan's chest. It took several pulls and Hidan was laughing, loud and high-pitched the whole time sending goosebumps down Akane's spine. The second the wood was free and Hidan leaned forwards, out of harms way, Akane turned her back to him to dry-heave. She had seen wounds before but usually clean-cut strikes from a blade, not a mess like this.

"Stop being such a fucking drama-queen there's still fucking splinters in me!"

"Hidan, what the fuck man, what were you doing? You should be dead! When did you..."

"About when I got my scythe. Jashin-sama was happy with my sacrifices that week. But it doesn't matter, can you see in?"

"In," she repeated blankly, "Yeah, I can."

Akane steeled herself and looked into the gaping hole at the curve of Hidans neck. It seemed to be healing already but sure enough there were chunks of wood littered through the soft flesh.

"Do you have like tweezers or something?"

"Do I look like I carry fucking tweezers?"

"I guess not."

She breathed deeply and pushed her fingers in, pulling out any splinters she could reach. In her head she tried to think of anything she could to take her mind of the scenario imaging she'd been asked to remove something that had fallen into jelly. Red, soft, wet jelly...

"That's everything I can get."

"Hopefully anything else will just push itself out or some shit. Stupid fucking building. Thanks though."

"I would say anytime but please, please do not make me stick my hand in you ever again."

Hidan raised an eyebrow at her and started to laugh, arm hanging loosely from his ruined shoulder, but the sound he made was much more sane than earlier.

"Don't fucking laugh Hidan! That was the worst."

"Yeah whatever bitch you find some shit in that library?"

"Yeah I think so. Can you walk? I think we should move away from these buildings."

Akane lead Hidan further through to the back of the village to the edge of a small waterfall and pool, all glinting red in the sun.

"Nice, this place is pretty fucking cool with water like that," Hidan said appreciatively, he'd removed his shirt and used it to tie into a make-shift sling to keep his shoulder still while it healed.

"Of course you'd like a blood aesthetic." Akane rolled her eyes.

She sat by the pool and trailed one had absently through the water. They sat for a while in silence, Akane flicking through the books and scrolls she had found. One in particular caught her eye – a scroll focusing on the manipulation of the iron-filled waters of Hell Valley. She stood up and began to practice the sequence of hand seals noted on the scroll. When she felt she could do the fluidly she stood facing the pool and activated her Ketsuryugan, her eyes filling with the same colour of the water she gazed at. This time as she completed the hand seal sequence she felt a large wave of chakra leave her, entering the water which surged up in front of her, climbing higher in a huge, writhing wave. The scroll next had instructions how to direct the wave and increase or decrease the force behind in. Akane thought for a moment, arm outstretched to hold the wave in place, and glanced to where Hidan had moved to stand when she had first moved the water. She hesitated, as he was already injured, but he'd scared her earlier and she felt a spark of mischief in her chest. He didn't see her look, too busy staring up at the wall of red. Swinging her arm and 'pushing' with her chakra Akane let the water crash like a tidal wave onto her startled teammate. He was swiped off his feet as the water completely submerged him. Akane drew her arm back to her body and the water reversed, sloshing back into the pool. She released the jutsu.

"What the fucking name of Jashin-sama was that Akane! You fucking bitch!"

"That's for making me stick my hand inside your shoulder," she laughed.

The water had been shockingly easy to control, like it had bent to the whims of a thousand other chakras and so it already knew what she wanted.

"You've got to admit that was awes-hng," Akane was cut off as the much heavier boy tackled her to the ground, pressing her face into the now damp ground with his free hand. Akane twisted under him arm striking up at his face. Their impromptu fighting match was surprisingly therapeutic, by an unspoken agreement they didn't use any weapons or jutsu. It didn't last long though, when it came to taijutsu Hidan always had the upper hand, and soon her face was once again pressed down into the dirt.

"Ok, Ok Hidan, you win! I'm sorry for soaking you!" the sincerity of her apology was reduced by the suppressed laughter in her voice, she had deserved that.

"Damn right you're sorry bitch! Talk about kicking me while I'm down!" he gestured at his shoulder.

Hidan got to his feet, dragging Akane up with him.

"But how did you do that? That was a fuck-ton of water."

"I don't know, it just moved really easily. Way easier than blood."

"You should take some with you, might be useful."

"I have a bottle of it back at home, Yuga I mean," an image of Gaara with his huge sand gourd on his back flashed into Akane's mind, "I don't think I want to carry a whole bunch around the whole time."

"Fair," Hidan glanced up at the sky, "It's going to get dark soon, you want to set up camp here?"

"No, definitely not. I don't think there's much left to find here, lets just go."

OOOO

Three months later Akane had learned much from the journals she'd found in the Valley of Hell. A number of the jutsu were only feasible using the supply of red water in the valley itself but many could be applied to blood. Akane was becoming much more fluent with her use of her bloodline abilities, in one of her proudest moments she had pushed her chakra into Hidans blood and managed to hold his arm still whilst she was caught in his ritual as he tried to plunge a kunai into his stomach. Hidan had take a few more solo missions, always returning with a bag full of bloody clothes and a cocky grin on his face.

"Hidan, I was thinking it might be time to leave soon."

"Fuck yes, I agree. About time you said that."

"You could have just said if you wanted to leave earlier."

"You were the one who said was should get as much as fucking possible out of this shitty town."

"I suppose...Do you even want to live in Konoha?"

"I don't fucking know. Never been."

"Neither have I."

"Then how do you know you want to live there?"

"I just do I guess, seems like a good idea."

Akane and Hidan were once again sat on the cliffs above the village. Only three months were left until they wouldn't have no place left here at all. Ginko and Ryo had long since left, Daichi had announced his retirement only a week ago and Kaito, somehow, was still undecided. She had finally reached the point where she would be able to travel far from the village in relative safety, of that Akane was sure, but part of her wanted to stay. How was it her fault that she just happened to know what the future had in store for this world? Why did that mean she had to do scary shit? Put her comfort to one side to help a bunch of people she didn't even know? But she knew why. That small voice in the back of her head would say 'what if?' it would whisper condescending words of her cowardice, that she had already ran from one massacre and that's all she was going to do again.

And she didn't want those whispers to be right.

OOOO

A/N: So a lot of Akane/Hidan bonding moments here just cause it's fun to write and a bit more back story for Akane.