a garden of death
A/N: I wrote this instead of working today, so I kinda wish I was still a student. This version/vision of Haru is loosely inspired by Tamayo from Kimetsu no Yaiba/Demon Slayer (though I only got halfway through the series and saw her "shift" towards the end of the manga).
"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.
Haru Koubaku is not her real name.
Hidan has never been sure of many things other than his belief and his god, but now he is sure that the smiling woman isn't who she says she is.
"What are you thinking, Zanshu?"
She's making a balm again, the one with a sharp scent and a burning sensation when applied on the skin. It's the one she uses to stop the rot and decay, the one that really sticks to the skin and fills what little space he has to himself inside the jar. Come to think of it, why is he kept in the jar? Is it for his safety, or for theirs?
"You know I've got a name." He scowls.
She beats the mixture in the bowl one final time. She's finished it. She's going to take his head out and push him face-down onto the table to apply it around his neck. He's never liked this, how easily vulnerable he is as just a head. When this happened before, when he was suddenly decapitated, Kakuzu would leave him in that state as punishment for some petty thing.
"You talk too much."
"Shut the fuck up."
"Maybe you are better as just a head."
But not for long, because, in Kakuzu's words, he'd rather not lug around a body and a head. And he'd really prefer Kakuzu letting his head roll around the ground as his body went like... well, like a body without a head–than this woman's balms and salves and name-calling and smiling face.
"I do," She nods, "but are we fully who we are without our body?"
He adds another thing to that list; her questions. It's anything that comes out of her mouth that unnerves him the most because it's often paired with a sickly-sweet smile. Like she's one of the yokai he's heard about when he was younger, those with glowing eyes and sharp teeth. Like she could tell him she'd kill him and he'd believe it. It's her questions that unnerve him the most because she asks like he would know the answers. Jashinism, for all its proclaimed glory and assured paradise, has little to say when it comes to the human body.
"The human body is a vessel by which the god incarnates. Pure is the body that is emptied of all worldly desires. Pure is the soul that is empty and whole, made for none but the god himself."
She approaches him, smiling with her teeth, and leans close to the glass.
"Isn't that what your god had said?"
The initial shock washes over his face faster than it appeared, quick to be replaced by a near-permanent veneer of anger and rage. It's more infuriating than it is shocking, that she knows it, that she says it so casually, like she was from the god himself.
"Who are you?" He hisses. "Who the fuck are you?"
The smile doesn't fade from her face, and he's sure he'd feel a shiver if he had a body. But now, what he feels is the heat of his anger spreading through his face and prickling the back of his neck. She stares at him unmoving, like a statue, like a ghost. And having no choice but to look at her, he notices the uncanniness of her face to those of the so-called saints in the temples. Symmetrical and unblemished, she could be made of stone or ceramic and it wouldn't make a difference.
She straightens up and unscrews the lid of the jar.
"I am your savior, Zanshu." She places the lid aside, but doesn't reach inside. " I plucked you from the earth and gave you new life."
He refuses to believe that. He had always been alive, even when he did not breathe or talk, ripped limb from limb, even buried in that would-be tomb. He feels her nail press into his scalp. She picks him up this way now–ever since that day he bit her hand–by the hair. But not without reminding him who has the advantage, the power, between them.
"Not your god."
She plucks him from the jar with the same kind of ease–he supposes–as when she plucked him from the ground. The rush of air around him is cold and dry. She grips his head tighter.
"I did."
She takes him to the table, and he expects the feel of wood on his face as she presses him into it to apply the balm. Instead, she plants him in the bowl itself. The pungent smell hits his nose. The mixture is cold around his neck, but the burning sensation persists. Hot and cold. It's almost comforting. He's almost used to the feeling. He could almost take the smallest bit of pleasure in it, in the hot-cold burn and the sharp, astringent scent.
And before he knows it, he's sighing and letting himself sink.
"Doesn't that feel nice, Zanshu?"
He swears that was a reflex action. She presses him further into the bowl, until she feels the bone in his neck against the bottom. He winces.
"Fucking–"
The pain is sharp but quick, and he sinks deeper into the bowl. Her hand doesn't move from his head, and it's starting to feel heavy.
"You should be grateful, Zanshu."
She looks at him endearingly, but it doesn't faze him. Instead, it makes him angrier, makes him want to tear off the skin of her hand with his teeth and watch her bleed, make that façade of hers break, make that smile of hers twist, make her scream.
"What're you staring at?"
She pats his head, each one heavier than the last, and he thinks she might shove him off the table, press his face into the ground with the heel of her feet. And all the while smiling.
"Look at you. Just a head now, without a body."
She presses her lips as she smiles, mouth painted red. The rest of her face is painted too; skin powder-white, eyebrows and eyelids charcoal-black, lips blood red, and cheeks stained rouge. He's seen this kind of makeup before, worn by obnoxious and touchy-feely women in those districts Kakuzu hated visiting. She looks high-class and expensive, like one of those fancy escorts frequented by one of their Bingo Book targets, so is that her reason for all this? To enact a revenge so twisted and cruel? Use his own god to mock him as she does it?
"Be good. Do as she says."
The samurai's words come to mind, so he thinks asking it now would be a better time than any. She might comply and stop with her mind games if he asks politely. The submissive tone doesn't suit him, it never has, but it's worked with Kakuzu before. Though begrudgingly, the older man still has some form of respect for him–if not him, then manners and niceties. Come to think of it, he doesn't know how old Kakuzu really is...
"Why am I here?"
She blinks, clearly surprised at his quiet tone. But before she could speak, the samurai rushes in, heaving and sweating like she had just come from a fight.
"Haru–"
And it's obvious too–when she stops–how she's surprised at the scene before her.
"What's he doing out?"
The woman blinks a few times, shaking herself awake and clearing her throat. She straightens up and fixes a smile back into place.
"He's starting to rot again, that's all. I thought I'd give him fresh air while I'm at it."
The way she answers is practiced and suspicious, but the samurai doesn't notice it. Too tired to think too much about it, she sits on a far bench and wipes the sweat from her face.
The woman turns away from him. "How did it go with Lady Miyabi?"
The samurai glances warily at him before replying, "She won't mind you being away for a few more days, but no longer than a fortnight."
"That would be enough time." The woman answered automatically.
"Haru," the samurai lowers her voice, "what are you trying to do?"
The woman turns to smile at him before returning to the samurai.
"A good deed."
The phrase is enough to tell him–and he thinks, even the samurai–that there's no getting straight answers from her.
But the samurai is the older one between them, isn't she? She hasn't touched him, not once, not even before, but he could assume the callouses on her hands. She's fought him and miraculously survived, and from that fight alone he's concluded that she has more experience in battle. She's older than him, so the woman couldn't be older than her. There's at least a gap of two or three years between them. And Hidan, no matter what anyone–no matter what Kakuzu–says about him being a disrespectful brat, he's still got some respect for those older and stronger than him.
So the case between the two women might be this, the samurai is older, but the woman is stronger.
He's never seen her do anything to hint at her power, but there's a part of him that's hesitant to find out. Not afraid. Never afraid. His belief in Jashin made sure of that. Jashin himself will make sure of that.
"And this deed needs a body, Shikai." The woman says, "Any body would do."
The samurai has a name now, and maybe that name should be familiar to him. Has he heard it in his time in the Akatsuki, or was she always known by the moniker Mumei?
The samurai looks down. "What good would a body do if it isn't his?"
And he agrees with that thought–one of the very rare times he's agreed with anyone–because it makes sense, so much sense that he can't help but voice it out.
"Yeah."
The single utterance makes the two women snap towards him; the samurai looking like she'd been found out, and the woman–surprisingly, and for the first time–looking like he'd said something he shouldn't have.
"The fuck do you plan to do, anyway?" He mocks, "Any fucking body would do? As if collectors would know the difference, huh? Fucking scum like you are the worst."
At the end of the day, it's obvious that money is the only reason the woman would be willing to go so far as to get him a body. He's never heard of body collectors accepting just the head of a target, doesn't think any collector would anyway. He knows about shinobi whose main task is the disposal of missing-nins or criminals, so what are they trying to do if not sell him to the highest bidder?
The woman blinks and the samurai looks away.
"Outside, Shikai."
The woman mutters the order and exits the room, so the samurai follows her–like an obedient dog–leaving him alone in the hut. And he's never been a master when it comes to dealing with silences like this, the kind of silence that happens when he's being left out on purpose, like there's something he should know, but isn't allowed to. This kind of silence is the one he hates the most, and there's only one thing he does to deal with it.
"God-fucking-damnit!"
He's so angry he actually manages to shake the bowl and rattle the table–just enough. But it's the weight of his head that does it, that makes the bowl tilt and fall on its side, that makes the foul-smelling balm spill all over. He tastes it in his mouth, sharp spearmint and bitter herb, and it makes him want to vomit.
When he coughs, it's herbs and dust and his own saliva. It's a different experience, to feel sick to the stomach, when one doesn't actually have one. Not anymore.
This time it's the momentum that does him in, that makes him roll off the table and fall to the dirt floor.
"Shit–"
He meets the impact with his mouth and teeth, and it hurts. It actually hurts, when the dirt cakes in his teeth and enters his mouth. He's like a real object now, helpless and without any control of his own. He's never felt more humiliated, more furious and frustrated, more bloodthirsty, than he does now.
He spits out the dirt and yells out, "The fuck's taking you two so long?"
And that's the cue, his little cry for help, for them to return. The samurai stands behind the woman, looking defeated.
"Oh." The woman laughs at the sight of him. "Look at the mess you've made, Zanshu."
She picks him up by the hair again, tugging and pulling hard enough to hurt.
"Like a child, isn't he, Shikai?"
The samurai sighs inwardly as a reply, and that solidifies for him the position of the woman above her. Now he knows who's in charge now, and maybe he should have known from the start, ever since he'd been dug up from the earth.
"Oh, if you could see yourself now..."
It's the start of another one of her questions, in the same tone and same expression, but it comes off differently. Like there's more to it, something sinister and vile, something that should make him afraid.
She wipes the dirt and the residue off his face and mouth, gripping his head even tighter that he cannot even move, cannot even bite as a warning, cannot even speak against what she's said. She moves to hold him by the sides of his face now, to cradle his head like something precious.
"Don't you think you're attractive, Zanshu?"
It's a whisper, but at the small distance between his face and hers, it's louder than anything else in the room. And the question itself could fuel his ego, with the way she's looking at him with hooded eyes and a knowing smile–he knows, he knows he is–but he's too angry and too infuriated to even consider the thought.
He doesn't know what he looks like now, if his anger is visible enough to make her realize it. He sees the samurai looking at them from behind, eyes distant and almost pleading. It's one of the looks he's liked seeing before striking the final blow–when his targets are asking him, begging him to spare them. But the look isn't directed at him, it's for him. It's pity, what she's sending to him through her eyes, pity and an apology.
What the fuck is she apologizing about?
The samurai opens her mouth to speak, no sound comes out, but he knows what she's trying to say.
"Be careful."
A/N: Ooh.