I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto.
God Killer
"Water Release: Water Dragon Whip!" I yell. Water coats my arm. Forms a large whip that grows longer and longer until it feels as if there's an entire river attached to my arm. It settles into the shape of a fierce dragon with glowing eyes.
I swing my arm. The dragon smashes through rocks and trees, going straight for Hidan. Who jumps up, flips to evade, and swings his scythe. It bites straight through my dragon. I curse as my S-ranked technique collapses into nothing. That damn scythe isn't normal.
The fight isn't going too well.
Hidan's manical laughter rings in my ears as I perform another flip to evade Hidan's scythe. I throw a barrage of needles at him, but he twirls the cable of his weapon around and all the projectiles are deflected. The scythe then speeds toward Shikamaru and right through him - it was just a clone. Using the enemy's moment of distraction, I flicker closer to him. "Suiton: Suijouki no Jutsu!" I take a deep breath and blow a mass of billowing steam at Hidan, only to flicker back.
"BITCH!" he screams. Impossibly fast, his scythe comes whistling towards me. I throw myself to the ground, holding my sword over myself for extra protection. It works for a moment, but Hidan's weapon just comes back to slice me, and this time, I have no way to evade. But then the scythe jerks away and clatters to the ground.
"Kagemane no Jutsu: Success," Shikamaru drawls. I breathe a sigh of relief as he makes the cursing Hidan drop his weapon. "Ri! Now!"
"I know!" I yell back as I run at Hidan - if I can just decapitate him, this time he'd be out for the count with no one to reattach his head to his body. I have to do this fast, I can already see the strain on my brother's face from holding someone as strong as Hidan with his Shadow Bind technique.
My sword draws an arc through the air, the metal gleaming in the light coming from the lit castle windows.
And then the ground under me explodes. Searing pain travels along my leg as I'm flung into the air and thrown back. I hear Shika yell, hear Hidan laugh, "Your technique wore off!" Dust obscures my view. My ears are ringing, and I'm dizzy. I only just manage to turn to my side before I throw up. Shit, the bastard got me good. When did he even put explosives in the ground? I try to get up again, but my balance is so off I have to press a hand lit up with healing chakra to my ear.
Too late, I see the scythe coming for me. I try to shift away. It's not enough.
Ice cold metal bites into my arm. Blood gushes out and I scream. My body freezes as something changes. It feels as if something has a hold of me, like I'm being trapped in a spiderweb made of ice. Shit, I knew that weapon wasn't normal!
Hidan jerks the scythe back to himself. I grit my teeth and continue healing my ear. Shikamaru drops down next to me, and relieved, I take in his mostly unhurt form. "Ri!" His eyes sic on my arm, and he rips off his shirt sleeves and wraps them tightly around my arm. "Can you fight?"
"Yeah," I mumble. My eyes settle on the enemy, who's watching us with sick glee. His feet draw a symbol with blood on the dirt, a triangle within a circle, the same symbol I saw earlier when I found all those slaughtered guards on the castle wall. I get to my feet, absently pressing my healing hand to my leg, done with my ear. The arm will just have to hold for now.
"GEHAHAHA!" Hidan laughs. "Prepare to be judged by Jashin-sama, you fucking heathen bitch!" He lifts the scythe to his mouth. I blast a jet of water at him. Shikamaru sends out his Shadow Stitching Technique.
Pain blooms in my limbs and chest. My legs give out. A horrible weighty feeling drops over me.
"Fucking hurts, doesn't it?!" Hidan laughs. His appearance has changed, now his skin has turned back, with white bond-like markings on his skin, making him look like a terrifying grim reaper, like demon. Water drips from his chest, where my attack hit him. Shadow threads are stabbed through his limbs. The exact spots where I feel pain. "LET'S SAVOR THIS PAIN TOGETHER! EVERY INJURY ON ME WILL BE YOURS! REJOICE IN JASHIN-SAMA'S JUDGEMENT!"
The implications hit home only a moment later. Shikamaru's eyes widen in horror as he makes the connection. I see his Shadow Threads tremble as he realises that his attack hurt me. "Keep it together! We can do this!" I order sharply. His face hardens and he nods.
Hidan strains as Shikamaru's shadow starts pulling him out of the circle. I grit my teeth at the pain. "Sorry," my brother says. "But if we get him out of that circle, his technique will cancel and we can kill him."
"I know," I answer, my hand still pressed to the injury caused by the explosion earlier. "It's not that bad."
"As if I'd let you stop my ritual, you fucking heathen!" Hidan screams, attempting to resist.
"Ugh," Shika groans. I sense for his chakra levels. They're dwindling rapidly.
Shit, shit, shit.
I finish patching up my leg and get to my feet, trying to think of a way to stop Hidan without killing myself in the process.
Chakra surges. Not mine or Shika's. Hidan's. "RAHHHHHH!" he screams as strange, raw chakra bursts from him.
And Shika's shadow threads are torn apart. He drops to his knees, breathing hard.
Hidan pulls out a long metal spike thing, a sort of spear I think, grinning manically. "Gehahaha! Where should I stab first, Jashin-sama! Leg? Gut? Heart? Brain?"
I growl and start doing handseals.
If we can't get him out of that circle...
"I know," Hidan hisses and points the spear at his abdomen. I feel the blood leave my face. "Girls always scream when I stab here! Go on and on about having brats! HAHAHA!"
...then we'll just get the circle away from him!
"Suiton! Suishouha!" I scream.
Water Release, Rising Blast. Half of my chakra drains away as water materialises from thin air. And more water. And more water. It surges up, covers the ground and rises, creating a tidal wave that I blast straight at Hidan, washing him and his ritual circle away. When it's over, the whole area is covered with eight feet of water, Shika and I standing on it. My own personal lake.
"Whoa, Ri," Shika comments.
"Sorry, this is gonna make it hard to use your shadow," I mutter back.
"I have hardly any chakra left, anyway," he replies. "Got any explosives?"
Wordlessly, I hand him my kunai pouch.
"YOU BITCH! YOU INTERRUPTED MY RITUAL!"
We look up. Hidan stands glued to the battered wall of the castle that looks like it's only held up by a miracle. I send a quick prayer that any residents, servants, and samurai evacuated, because it's only a matter of time before the whole thing comes down.
"How long can you hold out against him?" Shika asks in English while Hidan continues to rant.
"You got a plan?" I ask back in the same language.
"Maybe."
"How long do you need?"
"...Twelve minutes."
I nod. "Okay."
"Don't die." He vanishes, and then it's just me versus Hidan.
"Y'know," I say pleasantly, interrupting Hidan's swearword-riddled tirade. "I usually offer people the option to surrender before a fight, but I don't think I'll do that for you. Your organisation threatens my best friend, you know? And you hurt ninja of my village. Not to mention you're trying to kill me."
Hidan screams in rage and whips his scythe toward me. I flip out of the way, hitting the blade away from me with my sword. Hidan jumps at me, his spear aiming for my gut. I shunshin in mid-air, landing behind Hidan while he stabs an afterimage, and launch a kick at his spine. It's like kicking a wall, the impact reverbarates through my whole body. Mentally cursing, I jump back while he spins around with a kick of his own, followed by a stab with the spear. I shunshin again, white flower petals bursting everywhere. And again. Over and over, until a dozen of afterimages are littering the surroundings and the air is filled with flower petal illusions, creating a flimsy layered net of genjutsu around him. He roars in anger, breaking the illusions. But it's no use for him, I create them faster than he can break them.
"FUCKING HEATHEN SLUT!" Hidan screams, his scythe swinging around in a wide arc and destroying five of my afterimages. The cable catches on my heel and smashes me into the lake I created. Hitting the suface feels like hitting concrete. The cable around my ankle jerks and yanks me out of the water again. Hidan laughs. "JUDGEMENT TIME, BITCH!"
The scythe speeds towards me. "Riko-Rasengan!" I shout and smash a glowing orb of spinning water into the flat side of the blade, blasting it away before it can hit me. It pulls the cable taut and me attached to it out of the way of Hidan lunging for me with his spear brandished. I crash feet-first into the castle's wall and tuck into a roll to absorb the impact, managing to shed the cable around my ankle in the same motion.
The wall groans ominously. Cracks spread under my feet as it starts to crumble. With a horrible breaking sound, the structure ceases to hold, the walls crumbling down, windows shattering, floors falling apart, roofs caving in. I curse as I shunshin away.
When it's over, all that's left are pillars and metal beams, the skeleton of what was once a proud if ugly castle. The back half of the castle and parts of the side wings are still partly intact, I can look directly into rooms and heavily decorated corridors. It doesn't look as if anyone's still there, they must have fled.
It's only been four minutes.
I bite my lip and duck behind a large piece of wall. Hidan is nowhere to be be seen, but I still sense his awful chakra. It's so large however, that I can't pinpoint the location.
If this fight were only about me, I'd hide away and attack only if I got a good opportunity. But Shikamaru is still here, and I promised him twelve minutes of distraction. I can't risk Hidan finding him. Which means I have to draw all attention to me. But I need to be careful. I've already spent a ton of chakra.
"Water Release, Water Armour," I whisper, water creeping over me and settling in a second skin. Carefully, silently, I step out from my hideout.
It's eerie, standing in the ruins on my own, the water splashing occasionally as rubble slips into it. The moon has come out and dimly illuminates the scene. I swallow dryly, almost wishing that Hidan would come out now because I can't stand the tension. But only almost. Every second he isn't here is a second I'm giving Shikamaru.
A spike in chakra is my only warning. I don't hesitate to run up a stone pillar without even looking to see where the attack comes from. Below me, Hidan's fist crashes into the pillar which crumbles, forcing me to jump on another one. He runs after me and he's fast. And strong. The first hit I block reverberates in my bones, making my arms useless. I jump back and do my best to just evade. Shingi to Giri falls from my hands, but with a backflip I catch it with my right foot, sticking it to my sole with chakra. A spinning kick from me nearly takes off Hidan's head. He growls, his scythe returning to his hand, and I throw a quick genjutsu over him as I vanish in a shunshin. I appear in the air above him while he yells, "COME OUT AND FIGHT ME YOU LITTLE BITCH!", and attempt to cleave his head in two with the sword still stuck to my leg. He notices me at the last moment and jerks his scythe in my path and I'm forced to abort the manoeuvre. A kick to my stomach drives all the air from my lungs and sends me crashing into a pile of rubble, and I'm just glad for my water armour as wood and stone breaks under me.
I'm an assassin. I'm more about subtlety than raw strength and incredible techniques, which I couldn't use right now anyway because my arms are numb. Until they're back to normal, well...
"You could always let me out," Dementia taunts at the back of my mind.
"Let me get back to you about that later," I think back. "As in, never again."
A whistle of air alerts me that that damn scythe is coming for me again. I grab a conveniently hanging metal beam and bat the blade aside with it while I draw myself from the rubble.
"You need me," Dementia almost purrs.
"Not exactly. I've got seven minutes left to distract him. I'll manage," I shoot her down. "Since I can hold that for seven minutes. We'll talk again if that goes wrong."
No answer. I kick at what looks like a piece of roof away. And come face to face with Hidan. Who still stands on the stone pillar. With his skin dyed black and white bonelike markings all over his body, a demonic grin on his face.
He stands in his ritual circle. He has the cable of his scythe in one hand and the spear in the other.
"Face judgement, heathen!" he growls and plunges it straight into his chest.
I drop like a stone, pain wrecking my body. I cough wetly. Hidan cackles. "Hurts, doesn't it, bitch?"
Yeah. Yeah it does. It hurts a lot.
But hurt is all it does.
I lift a trembly arm and press a finger to my neck. "Kai!" I hiss.
Power floods my coils. Muscles stretch. My nails sharpen. Wings rip through my skin and burst from my back. My vision sharpens. All numbness fades from my arms and I grab my sword from my foot and get up, glaring at Hidan.
"Yeah, it hurts," I say. "So what."
Shock paints his grotesque face. "HOW?!" he shrieks. "YOU ABOMINATION! YOU MONSTER!"
There is something immensely satisfying about being called that by something like him.
"IN THE NAME OF MY GOD, I WILL SMITE YOU, DEMON!" Hidan shouts.
And stabs the metal spike straight into his heart.
I don't fall this time. But I can't stop the gasp from escaping my throat and my hand from clutching my heart at the sensation of it being stabbed. "HOW?!" Hidan screams again. "WHY WON'T YOU DIE!"
I raise my sword at him. My free hand starts forming seals. "Looks like your god has no power over me," I answer evenly. "Let's call it magic. Suiton: KIRISAME!"
Water Release: Drizzling Rain.
Hundreds of thousands of white glowing water droplets form in the sky above us, in the air around us. And then they descend, like arrows, like bullets they shoot down, slicing through everything in their path. Pillars crumble as they are punctured through, rubble is pulverised. Hidan screams and I only see him raise his scythe above himself for protection against the death raining down from above. The droplets falling on me just gently drip off my skin, but I feel the agony as they rip into Hidan, his pain transferring to me.
Now this is what I call an S-ranked jutsu.
"You," Hidan hisses hatefully, his bleeding form somehow still standing. "I will erase you from the face of this earth! Your entire existence is an insult to Jashin-sama! "
I snarl at him. Crouch down and spread my wings. And jump. Barrel straight into him and smash him through the pillar, a clawed hand buried in his chest. Grab a rib, break it, and rip the piece out. He screeches like a pig and tries to stab his spear into my wing, but I deflect it with the bloody rib. Shingi to Giri slices down. Sparks fly as it clashes with the scythe in Hidan't hand. I hiss angrily and abruptly pull one knee up to stomp it right into the bleeding hole in his chest. He smashes straight into the water with a yell while I flip and land on the surface. Shingi to Giri slides into its sheath, my fingers twist into seals. Grimly, I slam my hands onto the water surface. "Shindo Futan!"
Depth Charge.
A shockwave blasts from my fingers into the water and momentarily compresses it beneath my hands.
The things is, water is non-compressible. And that means that the compression will disperse through the water body. And crush everything in its path.
I bite back a surge of Bad Memories as I use what destroyed Sapphire Lake. A gong-like sound sweeps through the air, like a death bell it rings.
Shakily, I take my hands from the water surface. No way he survived that. No way.
"Damn you for making me use this," I whisper. I cough a little as I start walking slowly towards a large rock. Sitting down sounds like a real good idea to me. I rake a slightly trembly hand through my wet hair. I'm going to have nightmares for sure. "Shit," I mutter.
And then I freeze. Turn back around, disbelieving.
Dark, black, chakra, not from this world. It gathers in the spot I crushed Hidan in. More and more.
I turn and start running. My wings spread and I leave the ground behind me and charge straight into the night sky.
Below me, my lake is destroyed. All the water is blasted away as if a bomb had gone off, and leaves only a crater in the earth. The shockwave sends me hurtling through the air, but my flight stabilises soon enough and I look down at what used to be Hidan.
Now he isn't anymore. Can't be. Impossible. Impossible. I press a trembling hand to my mouth.
"SEE WHAT MY GOD HAS MADE ME!" it screams. "MARVEL AT THE GIFT JASHIN-SAMA GIVEN HIS MOST LOYAL SERVANT!"
Gift? No.
That is no gift.
What used to be Hidan is now a pile of pitch black bones, assembled into something that vaguely resembles a skeleton, but the proportions, the sizes, the connections, are all wrong. In the place of flesh, the disgusting black chakra wafts around its bones, roiling and curling in a way that makes me think of maggots. Instead of eyes, gleaming yellow light rest in its eye-sockets, making the skull look even more demonic.
In its clutches, it grips the hilt of the scythe that is wrapped in that chakra, too, no, it's not wrapping around the weapon. It's coming from it. The scythe is the source of it.
"AND NOW I WILL END YOU!"
"No you won't," Shikamaru says coldly. "Earth Release: Rock Pillar Prison." The ground shifts. Cracks start to form. Pillars of rock shoot up and surround Hidan, forming a prison cell.
"I thought I still had two minutes," I breathe shakily, because Shikamaru is the last person I want anywhere near this monster.
"I hurried," he replies.
"AS IF THAT WILL STOP ME!" What used to be Hidan screams and throws itself against the prison bars. They start cracking. Shika grits his teeth, I sense his chakra flaring. He must have taken a soldier pill considering how low his reserves were before. But that won't save him against someone like Hidan.
He shoots a look up at me. "Stay where you are," he orders.
I glare down. "Shika-"
"Trust me, you troublesome girl."
I don't get a chance to answer. Hidan's next assault shatters the prison bars and he goes straight to attack my brother, who just barely manages to jump back and deflect the scythe swung at him with a kunai. Mid-jump, he throws a barrage of shuriken at Hidan who doesn't even bother defending, the weapons just bounce of his bare bones. When Hidan charges at my brother again, I dive down. The resulting crash of my curse-enhanced form against his demonic appearance resounds like thunder, rattling my bones. Snarling, I attempt to rip his head off, but his strange dark chakra burns like acid, so I settle for kicking him away.
"Okay, so don't stay where you are," Shika mutters.
I forego answering, mostly because Hidan is charging at us, roaring in anger and way past the point of coherent speech. I block two of his hits and bat away his scythe, but then he manages to grab one of my wings and flings me away into and through another pillar. I feel something rip through the membrane of my right wing, but the pain is negligible in the face of everything. I growl as I shake rubble off of me. My eyes immediately lock on the Hidan-thing lunging for Shikamaru, snarling and screaming incoherently, but looking like it's trying to catch smoke, because Shikamaru evades it at every turn, as if he knows its every move before it happens. An enraged roar tears itself out of Hidan's throat, an attempt to skewer Shika with the scythe goes wide; the genius he had in wielding it lost in the throes of his wrath.
"You don't scare me," Shikamaru says cooly.
My brother is a badass.
But even badasses make mistakes, so I run forward again, only my seven minutes are up and my wings are starting to retract, my cursed form retreats, cold spreads in my limbs. I grit my teeth. Just a little longer, come on, come on...
The transformation back to my normal form halts. But the Hidan-thing is already almost at Shikamaru's throat, and I can only watch as my brother only just manages to evade, a deep cut on his cheek showing how close he came to dying. But he flips back and is fine, and when Hidan leaps after him, his spear lifted to stab into my brother's chest... He freezes. Screeches. "HOW?!"
Shika drops to his knees. I land next to him and do the same, the curse finally retreating and leaving me cold, cold, cold. Shikamaru points at the ground at Hidan's feet. There are two knives there - Asuma's trenchknives. "Those," Shika rasps. "Store chakra. You jumped right into my technique." He gets up, grabs my collar, and drags me to my feet and away. "And now you're done." He cuts at a wire. It snaps. So do at least a dozen other wires. And the Hidan-skeleton-thing is ensnared in wire; wire that is lined with dozens of explosive tags and flash tags and what I identify as... faulty storage seals. That'll make a big boom.
"Nice," I mutter through numb lips.
"Yeah," Shika says and covers my ears with his hands. "Kaboom."
The world shakes. The resounding explosion rattles my bones. The light is blinding even with my eyes pressed shut. Shikamaru presses his face into my shoulder.
And then it's over. There's just a crater left and bones strewn about. Shikamaru slowly gets up, unsteadily - he should have covered his own ears, now his balance is all off. I watch as he climbs inito the crater and studies the bones. Those things must be sturdy, I think. They're still whole, not shattered.
But we won. I breathe out shakily. We won.
Which is when my gaze falls on Hidan's head, half buried in the still steaming ground. His glowing eyesockets are locked on just beside my brother. Where a skeletal hand is stuck in the ground like a forgotten kunai at a training ground. A hand that still holds the cable of the scythe.
No.
The hand holding the cable jerks
The scythe slices through the air and I move
the world blurs around me
I reach for the hilt and
the scythe stops
Warm red liquid spills over my hands.
I stare in incomprehension at the scythe half-buried in my brother's chest.
"Shikamaru!"
We both fall to the ground. His eyes are already sliding shut. Blood leaks from his mouth.
"No," falls from my mouth has my hands frantically light up in flickering, unstable green and press against his wounds. "No, no, no, no, no... Karin!" I scream. "KARIN!"
But Karin isn't here, she isn't here, oh God, Shika is slipping away, this is, no no no NO NO NO NO
The green light of my hand flickers brighter, but it isn't taking, his body is rejecting it, he's dead dead dead I'm not
I pour more and more, the light flares brighter and brighter and I think I'm crying or screaming and I can't see clearly because my brother is being taken away and I don't want it so I follow him and it's so so cold and dark here and I'm being pulled back but I won't won't won't I have to
"GIVE HIM BACK!" I scream at the large black and white sceleton monster thing in front of me. "GIVE ME BACK MY BROTHER!"
It grins and lifts a red jagged scythe thing. ANoTher SacRIFice, it jeers. YouR SUFfeRinG wILL bE GLoriOUs.
I pull my Shingi to Giri. "Give Shika back," I hiss.
I aM GoD. I AM JASHIN. nOW SUFFER.
The scythe slams down on me and I rip open every door there is in my mind and the darkness is flooded with blazing white and golden and silver flames.
The world burns and Jashin screams.
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I'm on the ground half sprawled over Shikamaru. My body feels like ice, there are even ice crystals on my clothes, but the ground around us is scorched. A puddle of melted red metal is next to us, the remains of Hidan's scythe. I try to move, but my limbs won't respond.
"Ri," he groans.
A sob escapes me. Just one, because if I start to cry now, I won't be able to look at him anymore. "You w're dead," I whisper through numb lips. "You were dead you were dead you were dead you were-"
"Sorry," he mumbles. "S'cold. Troublsm."
"Don't," I whisper desperately. "Don't do that again. Don't die. Don't - don't leave me. I - I really thought you were-"
"Am not," he answers weakly. "Y'came for me. Kami, Ri."
"Selfish god," I mumble. "Evil god. Burned him to cinders. Shika, your wounds."
"Gone."
"Goody."
"You followed me down."
"Mmm."
"Into death."
"Got practice dying."
"Killed a god."
"Wanted you back."
"Troublesome."
"Mmm."
"We've got to move."
"Gimme a minute." Some warmth is returning to my body. I snuggle into his chest, listen to his heart beating strongly and steadily.
"Love you, Ri."
"Love you more," I whisper back.
"So tired..."
"No, don' sleep, don't, you gotta stay 'wake," I babble. "Please, you gotta stay with me!"
"Jus' five minutes..." His breath starts to even out.
"No!" My weak fingers fumble, try to shake him awake. But it's no use.
Five minutes come and go, and Shikamaru doesn't wake again.
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A/N:*Spoiler alert*
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No, Shika isn't dead. He's being a Nara and sleeping. I'm sorry for this most evil of cliffhangers.