(Amaya)

I pulled away from a surprised looking Deidara, still smiling lightly. "Thanks, for helping me." I said, pushing my hair away from my eyes. He smirked softly, shrugging in response as if it wasn't a big deal; which it was a huge deal.

We looked up when the door opened, Hidan walked through. He looked frustrated, but honestly when wasn't Hidan angry at one thing or another? "What the fuck are you doing here?" Hidan directed the question at Deidara as the blonde stood up off the floor.

"I had to distract Kisame from Amaya, yeah. He cornered her in the kitchen." Deidara replied flatly, his eyes narrowed in a rather unfriendly look. Deidara didn't seem to get along with anyone here besides his partner and Konan. I believed Konan probably had to get along with everyone, though, being our healer and everything.

Hidan cast me a look, it seemed to linger for a second longer than it should have. As if he cared whether or not Kisame had injured me, che. "Whatever. Get the hell out." Hidan waved Deidara away impatiently, earning a scoff.

"I might not want to, un." Deidara said, placing a hand on his hip. I inched away from my spot on the floor, not wanting to be caught in the crossfire should their testosterone levels skyrocket and they tried to murder each other.

Hidan narrowed his eyes, shoving Deidara towards the door. Deidara raised his arm as if he wanted to shove Hidan back, but his eyes suddenly glanced in my direction. They returned back to Hidan, a slow smirk spread across his lips, it was like he'd suddenly realized something.

"Fine, since you want me to leave so bad, hm. See you later, Amaya." He said with a wave before he swiftly turned and left the room. Hidan glared after him, I wondered why Deidara had left with such a cheerful goodbye. He was usually pretty apathetic.

Hidan slammed the door shut, turning back around to face me. I heard him muttering something under his breath about blonde idiots as he walked around me to his dresser. "You can't fucking stay out of trouble, can you?" His question made me clench my hands. I swallowed thickly.

"I had to eat something, I can't hide here forever like some kind of wretched coward." I responded, keeping my clenched hands beside my legs. I wasn't in the mood for him to belittle me, like all of this was my fault. He paused in whatever he was doing, immediately resuming the task as if he'd never hesitated.

"So you'd rather get yourself killed or something than just stay here like I fucking said?" He demanded, his voice taking on an irate tone. I scoffed at that. Death was fine with me, I wasn't afraid to die; the thought of leaving all of this, to never deal with suffering again, sounded fucking great.

"Yes. I'm not going to let him take away everything from me! He's taken enough! He doesn't need everything from me!" I said, recognizing the high pitch of my voice when I was getting upset. I was either going to snap or cry. Please god just let me snap, I've cried enough in front of him.

Hidan turned around, giving me a hard look. "Then don't fucking let him take your life, you dumbass! He'll fucking kill you if you try to fight him!" He said exasperatedly, running a hand through his hair. I felt like a kid that was just giving him a hard time. I think we'd all already proved I wasn't going to get to be a child anymore. All of us here seemed to have had our childhoods ripped away from us.

That thought struck me like a bolt of lightning, flashes of the conversation Deidara and I had months ago crossed my mind. We all were outcasts, looking for somewhere to go. We were different, forced to grow up and to make hard decisions. They all were here to find a place to fit in and to be who they wanted to be, to fulfill their own ideas of what life should be, in a way…

"I'm not going to live in fear of someone under our own home. He's already taken all he's going to get. Don't let him take the few things I have left away from me." My voice was quieter, still riddled with thought. What little bit of freedom, pride, control… The things I had managed to keep with me were not going to be torn away from me by someone like Kisame.

I lifted my head to look up towards Hidan, finding his intense eyes almost startling. Anytime his eyes were that harsh, he was either angry or just returning home from a ritual, a catharsis from everything else in his life that he may hate.

I'd begun paying attention to his religion. I don't know when, or if it had just simply been impossible to ignore his rants. After he'd forced me into a ritual with him, I kind of felt trapped to the religion, with the Jashinist symbol permanently engraved into my wrist.

I disagreed with the religion in some ways, but that was how every religion worked. You didn't always follow every aspect or agree with everything said about it. But to think that you might have a god that cared about you no matter what, that was unreal. Did gods even exist?

I believed in good and evil without any doubt in my mind. I'd experienced the demons and I'd experienced the angels. But a god? Maybe not in the sense that everyone believed… Perhaps there was a higher power, a resting place for the human souls to go when their bodies died on earth.

But I didn't believe an entity had created the planet or the creatures on it. I felt that logic could explain those happenings. But there were still things that I don't think anyone could explain. Perhaps a god did exist. Maybe for every religion that had a god, they all really believed in the same person, expressed in different personas.

I hadn't noticed Hidan was talking to me until he knelt in front of me, nearly giving me a heart attack. "Are you fucking deaf?" He asked with a huff of impatience. I blinked, looking down at his Jashin pendant. Who the hell was I to say his god did or didn't exist. I believed you should respect everyone's beliefs, no matter what they had faith in. Hidan didn't, but as I said, religion is a paradox.

"If you keep yelling, I might go deaf." I replied dryly, feeling a heavy sense of calm after the thoughts I'd just had. Thinking could be detrimental or it could be meditative, it depended on which tracks your train of thought rode down. He snorted, rolling his eyes at my statement. He stood up then, taking my arm and pulling me up off the floor with him.

"Come on." He muttered, walking out of the room. I felt my shoulders sag slightly as I hesitated in following him. I eventually did though, like hell I was going to wait for him to come back and get me himself.

"Where are we going?" I asked as I trailed behind him, not paying attention to how close I was walking to him. I glanced around the corridors to make sure no one else was around. I heard him sigh, clearly getting tired of my questions.

"You'll fucking find out." He replied shortly. I sighed lowly to myself, looking down at the ground as it passed beneath me.

I didn't like surprises…

AUTHORESS NOTE:

Overjoyed that this story now has over one hundred reviews. Huge milestone here guys, and you're all a part of it! Thank you so very much!

Also I'm trying to put warnings on the long-term stories I'm writing; after August nineteenth, updates will be slower and perhaps far between, as I begin public school again after two years.

I actually wish Hidan would kidnap me so I wouldn't have to go.

Ne, Sasuke Neko, Deidara could kidnap you and we could both avoid school?