a garden of death
A/N: So I was really excited for this, but then I got into writing the first few chapters of The Ocean and the Wanderer. For readers of The Beast, the Woman, and Her Flowers, expect a major rehaul of the story in the future. I just wanted to get this done first, go back to my "roots" as a writer and lover of the macabre.
"Look, it speaks."
He is plucked from the earth with ease.
"Can we keep it?"
AU. Hidan lives longer than expected, and he regrets every moment of it.
It sits in a glass jar atop a shelf. There are holes drilled into the lid, but little air flows in and out of the container. There is only enough to provide. But it has no need for oxygen, water, or food. It is a decapitated head, severed from its body with the cleanest of cuts. Sometimes it still bleeds and a sticky residue is left on the bottom of the jar. Sometimes it begins to smell, not of rot or decay, but the sharp and pungent scent of medicine and herbs. And sometimes, the head dares to speak.
"Hey, you." Its voice is muffled behind the glass, but is heard all the same.
The only other occupant in the room is the samurai. At least, that's how the head knows her. She wears around her neck a pendant bearing an unfamiliar crest. And on occasion, when she strips off her haori and kimono, he sees the same crest inked on her arm. There is a dragon inked on her back, whose eyes he swears could see right through him.
Now, she is stripping again. Her back is turned to him so he has no choice but to face the dragon half-hidden by kimono. She's only removed half of it, as she always does. Like she's short of being ashamed. Like she's hiding something.
"Hey," he says again, averting his eyes, "I'm talking here."
He swears she shivered at that moment. She cranes her head to look at him from her periphery.
"So it speaks." She mutters, before returning to tend to a gash cutting across her rib, just underneath her breast. She huffs, "It speaks."
He isn't one to stare, but he's just a head now, and she chose to strip right in front of him. It feels wrong somehow, to be treated like this. It's almost emasculating, the way he is just like any other object now. He has eyes, he has a mouth, and he can still speak. But it looks like she has chosen to ignore these. She cleans her wound quickly, wiping disinfectant into the gash, applying an herbal balm, and wrapping it with gauze.
"Of course I fucking do." He replies too late, but neither of them notice it, "Now where's my body?"
She stares at him and frowns. "I don't know."
He growls at her nonchalance, "The fuck you don't know. I've been in here for goddamn days. Your friend got a fetish for decapitated heads or something?"
Come to think of it, he hasn't seen the other woman for a while. He knows she was the one who took him, who picked him up from whatever hole he was in and placed him in this jar. She's the one who's easier on the eyes and ears, at least, who tries to make decent conversation like he's not just a head in a jar. She's the one who puts on a weird herbal concoction on his neck to stop the rotting and decaying. The one who offers him food and drink like he needs it. The one who offered to take him out of the jar one time for some fresh air, to which he replied by biting her hand hard enough to bleed.
"You bite the hand that feeds you. Are you so starved, Zanshu?"
That's what she called him, the decapitated head. She didn't wince at the pain, didn't even mind that her blood was staining her clothes. She didn't look like any shinobi he's ever seen, didn't act or move like a shinobi either. But she stared at him dead-on, unflinching and unnerving, and lapped at the blood seeping from her wound.
She licked the wound clean and bared her teeth, pearly and pristine.
"Does my blood taste so sweet?"
He is rarely ever scared, but gods be dammed, that woman frightened him then. So he should probably be thankful that it's the samurai who's here with him.
"Or something." She shrugs. "I can never really know what she's thinking."
"Fuck that," he growls, "you got my head–"
"I didn't."
"–you didn't fucking think, 'Oh, maybe his body's here, too'?"
She sighs, "I wasn't the one who dug you up."
He cocks an eyebrow. "So?"
"So I couldn't have known."
"You were there!"
He would stab her now if he could. People like her, those deadpan to a fault, annoy him more than most people. It reminds him of that one guy, the tiny grump who sounded a lot like Kakuzu, but worse. What was his name, again?
"I was in the area." She corrected him, "And you weren't exactly alive when she dug you up."
Right. One moment he's being buried alive, the next moment he's in a jar with some woman staring at him like a piece of candy. It wasn't exactly the death he pictured, but then again, he didn't really imagine dying. His belief in Jashin guaranteed him of that, and yet…
"How the fuck did she find me, then?"
It wasn't like the woman was out collecting body parts, was she?
The samurai moves to prepare a pot of tea. This is part of her routine. She would come in, dress a wound or change her clothes, make a pot of tea, then go to sleep. She doesn't stay long, so he assumes this must be a safehouse or a stopover. Of all places to keep a decapitated head, right?
"I don't know."
She decides to brew peppermint, and the stringent scent begins filling the room. She's ignoring him. She always is. This isn't the first time he's spoken to her since he woke up, but she's acting like it was. Like she doesn't remember. Each and every time.
"Do you fucking know anything, then?"
His question hangs in silence, and it's the kind that he hates. The kind of silence that is forced and one-sided. He's asked a question and he's expecting an answer. He's impatient like that, and this is only frustrating him even more. He knows that she knows something. The way she slows her movements means that she's hesitating. She's been found out. He's found her out.
He stares as she drinks. He's not that impatient, a man like him can be forced to wait.
"One thing," she finishes one cup and pours another. "I know who you are, Hidan."
It's the first time he's heard his name since his "death" but that doesn't really surprise him. His name and face are all over different editions of the Bingo Book, anyway. Everyone's heard of him and what he's done, who he is, and what he's capable of. It's the first time he's heard her say it, though, and he doesn't like how calm she sounds, almost as if she's taunting him.
"You in this for the bounty, then?" He scoffs, "Like you'd get full price for a fucking head."
She removes the rest of her kimono, baring her entire back to him. He sees the dragon in full view now, sees its curled body, claws, and fangs. It's an intricate-looking tattoo, something he's only ever seen in wealthier targets. He sees her other arm, the one she always keeps hidden. He sees the definitive line where flesh ends and ceramic begins.
She has an artificial arm, so what?
"A few years ago, I was tasked to deliver you to a certain organization." She clears her throat, "You might not remember me, but you might remember my name."
He's never cared about names, much less the names of those who wanted to bring him in or kill him. They're just faces and masks. They're just doing it for the money, for the fame, never for something grander.
"I was called Mumei."
He doesn't remember that name.
"Even if you don't, you might remember the organization."
He thinks she's pausing deliberately just to rile him.
"The Akatsuki."
The name itself is like a detonator, and the explosion is filled with the realization that she was that bitch. He remembers it, the first time his scythe couldn't cut through his opponent like they were made of steel. Of course he'd remember that fight, it was one of the few times he considered performing the ritual to end it. He remembers her lying on the ground, bleeding and looking half-dead. He could have easily killed her, but why hadn't he? How did that fight end?
Right. The fucking grump and his fucking poison.
She wasn't alone then, but she fought him herself. And then… there was a man who said he should have just done it himself. Then before he knew it, he was heaving on the ground with purple liquid seeping from his mouth. And then, he's a member of this group and partnered with one of the worst people he's ever met. But Kakuzu was unkillable, like him.
Was this some fucking "full circle" bullshit?
Surely Jashin wouldn't do something so cruel to his most loyal follower, would he?
"I didn't think to get even with you." She puts her kimono back on. "And because of that fight, I now have this."
She flexes and fingers on the artificial arm, and it opens up like a grotesque display. Out come flying wires and needles, too many sharp and pointy things to count. They fill the room, stabbing into the wood of the walls and the dirt of the floor.
It reminds him of that grump Sasori, who–in the very few instances he's witnessed–would reveal his full bodily arsenal of poison, gasoline, fire, and steel when he's pissed. Maybe he's the one who made her arm.
"So, thank you." She flicks her wrist and everything comes flooding back in, and the arm closes shut, seamless where it was ruptured open before.
He doesn't understand why she would tell him this now, why she would suddenly bring this up after all this time. He's seen her come and go in this hut too many times already, and each time she would act as if he didn't exist.
"So the Akatsuki's come looking for me?"
"The Akatsuki's gone." She pours another cup, her final one. "And I left soon after you were brought in."
There's too much to take in from that sentence, so his first reaction comes naturally.
"The fuck? How long has it been–"
She could have told him that earlier. She should have told him this earlier. Is she only remembering this now?
"You've been declared dead for two, three weeks."
That's too fucking long.
She shows him a Bingo Book with his and Kakuzu's faces and names crossed out. She doesn't show him the face of anyone else.
"It's been five years since I left." She places the Bingo Book on a shelf, "I didn't think I'd encounter you like this, Hidan."
The way she says his name now is condescending and mocking.
He glares at her, "For all I know, you're still going to put my head up for sale."
She scoffs. "Like you said, it's not like we'd get full price. We'd need a body."
That…
"So you are looking for my body!"
She blinks once, mildly amused at his excitement.
"A body." She emphasizes. "Haru says any body would do. Maybe."
Haru. So that's the other woman's name.
He's not the least bit terrified by that idea, but he is bothered by the lack of conditions. He thinks he should at least have a say in the matter. It's his body they're talking about, after all. And how could they even be sure that any body would do? But then again, he's just a head in a jar.
"If you're obedient, she might let you choose."
He scoffs.
"So be good, I guess." She shrugs disinterestedly, "Do as she says."
He wonders about what that could mean, about what that implies. For him to shut up? Act like the decapitated head that he is? Call her "Mommy" or something like that? He swears he'll kill them, the two of them, once he does get a body, whether it's to his liking or not. He'll kill them, skewer them and sacrifice them to Jashin and get his real body back.
"So you don't really have any choice." She lifts the cup and offers it to him. "Tea?"
"Fuck you."
He scowls as she drinks with a smile.
"Who knows? Maybe you'll get there."
May Jashin strike them with the fury of a raging bull.
A/N: Revised August 23. Applicable warnings are–from AO3–sexual violence, consent issues, body horror, and inappropriate use of body parts.