A/N: You may have noticed in my other stories, cliché as it is, I love the whole damsel in distress theme. But yeah, it can get old, so I promise to keep it to a minimum after this chapter! Unless you're enjoying it too?

Answer to the question: I shit you not, that statement is true… No words.

And the riddle: The chain isn't attached to anything! :)

Disclaimer.

Fight or Flight

'What the hell do you want?' Mika snarled, hands fisting into tight balls at her sides as she glowered at the man before her. Hōki, that bastard.

The corners of his mouth twitched upwards, but his casual façade remained as he regarded her calmly, hands stuffed in his pockets as he leaned against a lamppost. 'I couldn't help but notice you appear to hold some slight hostility against me. It's only natural for a guy to wonder why, right?'

She debated for a moment, he obviously knew that she was well and truly aware of his circumstances, but did she want to humour him just yet? 'Why do you think?'

'Ahh, I see how it's going to be.' He allowed a small smirk to cross his face as he moved away from where he was leaning. His black eyes were alight with amusement at her tense posture while he advanced, his feet carrying him in a small circle around her body before coming to a reluctant halt in front of her. 'I'm curious, why don't you run?'

'Why should I?'

'Let's not play games now, Mika. We both know what I'm capable of. What I've done.'

Her breath caught in her throat as his much larger frame loomed over her, a sickly smile tugging at his lips. She wanted nothing more than to slap him senseless until he could no longer summon the strength for a single muscular twitch, but she held her ground firmly. Mika wasn't stupid, and she genuinely was hoping to avoid getting into a fight she knew she'd lose.

'What's your point?' She questioned, hoping to talk him round.

Unable to hold back the flinch when he suddenly threw his head back and laughed, Mika's jaw fell open slightly at the sight. Was he really that insane?

'My, my. You certainly are entertaining. It almost makes me want to let you go…' Her eyes widened slightly at the confession, but still, she made no move to run as he continued. 'But you see, I'm in a bit of a pickle. There are certain… 'acquaintances' of mine that are being particularly pushy over a small debt I seem to have acquired, and I can't help but notice the similarities in your face to this…' He tucked his hand in his pocket momentarily, before pulling it out to reveal a folded piece of poster paper. He offered it to Mika smugly, eyes glinting with further amusement as she accepted the object and unfolded the creases.

'W-when did…' She gasped, her heart rate increasing rapidly as her eyes scanned the page. Shaking her head, she crumpled the poster angrily in her palm, stuffing it into her pocket as though hiding it would erase the problem.

'I'm sure you can understand my predicament. This kind of bounty would benefit me very much.'

A glint of metal and the dangerous look that flashed through his eyes was all she needed to spring into action, leaping backwards three steps to give herself some distance before he lashed out. She growled as she made her hand sign, initiating the very jutsu that Hidan had been warning her against that morning.

The familiar flicker of chakra enhanced flames engulfed her, swirling and surrounding her in mere seconds. Temporarily safe inside her wall of fire, she closed her eyes and felt for his foreign chakra, locating it with ease and concentrating on his movements. He was stalking her, an occasional short burst of power seeping from his arms in what she could only interpret as flicking weapons at the flames, experimenting with its durability. But it was futile. The weakness this kind of jutsu held had nothing to do with the flames themselves, for not even a powerful water jutsu could extinguish these.

The flames dyed out and she locked eyes with her foe, eyebrows knitting together as she caught his wild expression. It almost terrified her into freezing, but she couldn't afford to let such a weakness be her downfall right now. She couldn't let him win. She wouldn't.

'Some pretty impressive jutsu you got there. But I'd be willing to bet even that has its little flaws.' He grinned sadistically, his circling never ceasing like a hunger-crazed lion around a trapped, startled gazelle. 'For example, just how many times can you use that, I wonder.'

She grit her teeth as he hit the first nail on the head. Damn it, he was right. She was good for about two to three prolonged bursts at a time before the flames completely ate away at her chakra and left her defenceless.

'And,' he continued, his voice adopting a smug tone as he read her expression. 'I'm guessing it's the only jutsu you've really concentrated on for months, from the looks of it.'

Shit. Was she that obvious?

'But most importantly...' He flipped a kunai in his hand into a ready to attack position, crouching as chakra flared around his feet. 'Its greatest weakness must be…' He charged, and despite every instinct screaming at her to run, she panicked, mimicking the same action and restarting the firewall.

It rushed around her as her heart pounded. She tried to listen for his movements over the blood roaring in her ears, but before she had a chance to, the gravel beneath her feet suddenly shifted and crumbled away.

'Ah–' She yelped as he burst from the ground beneath her boots, kunai poised and lethal.

'…FROM UNDERNEATH!' He finished, embedding the kunai deep into her leg as she cried out in shock and agony. How had he figured it out so easily?! Why, oh why couldn't she just have run when she had the chance?

She lashed out angrily, failing to meet her target as he danced away from her flailing arms. He roared with gleeful laughter, his black eyes wide and ecstatic with the rush of the fight.

Stumbling, she landed heavily on her knees, one hand clasping around the knife still lodged in her calf. It stung like a bitch and she knew better than to pray for a miracle, but right now, unless just that happened, her chances seemed to be dangerously low.

'I really wish you had been more polite to me earlier. I might not have gotten such a bad impression from you, had you put on an act. Maybe I wouldn't have recognised you from that description…'

She panted furiously, trying to breathe through the pain, but the wound was leaking fast and the sudden loss of blood was starting to make her light-headed.

'Don't worry, I won't drag out the pain. Places to go, people to see, you know the drill. I'm a busy man, a wanted man!' He chuckled at his own joke, before his expression darkened and his gaze grew serious. 'Here, let me help you sleep…'

Taking out an blunt-looking object from his pack, he stood over her once again, one arm raised above his head as he gripped a fistful of hair with the other, holding her head back to give him a clear shot to successfully knock her out without killing her.

She didn't mean to, but couldn't stop the noise, and she whimpered. She then preceded to hate and curse herself for such a pathetic notion. He apparently thought so too, because the sound of his crazed laughing began to ricochet around the darkened, empty street.

And then, just like that, silence. The grip on her hair loosened and she winced as she heard him grunt, bracing herself for the pain, for the blood to splatter across the gravelled floor as he slumped her over his shoulder, but it didn't come.

'Jashin, damn it! You're really starting to make a habit of this damsel thing, aren't you?'

Honestly? She could have kissed him right now.

Her golden, tear-filled eyes snapped open to meet his clouded violet ones as she let out a startled sob, staggering to her feet only to fall almost instantly back to her knees. The blood was still flowing freely from the gaping wound in her lower leg, and she bit her lip as she took in the sight. There was blood on the floor, in a place where hers hadn't fallen, but there was no body.

'H-Hidan, what happe–' He cut her off as he suddenly scooped her off the floor, careful not to scrape her leg as he started to move with her in his arms.

'Bastard got away, but I'll find him. Jashin knows that I'll find him.' His voice was low and menacing, something that she, oddly enough, rarely heard from her death-loving friend.

That's the last thing she remembered before the edges of her vision began to blacken, carrying her off to the land of unconsciousness before she could even thank him.

********** Later **********

Moving silently and sticking to the shadows as expertly as possible, Hidan shut his eyes briefly as he seethed. It wasn't like him to get so worked up over something like this, but then, it wasn't exactly in his nature to go round saving people either. Twice, for that matter.

The blackened irises of the sick bastard he was hunting flickered across his mind and had him clenching his fists in rage. He had sworn to Jashin that he would find that fucker, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't looking forward to it. A million different ways of slow and painful torture passed through his thoughts as he followed several small blotches of a blood trail that was leading him to the back alleys of the town.

When the line of red ended, Hidan found himself staring up at an old warehouse type building, the textbook cliché hideout for a guy on the run. Really, it was laughable how perfectly predictable it was.

A smirk crossed the Jashinist's lips as he stalked up to the front door eagerly. He couldn't give a flying shit what, who or how many were on the other side, why should he?

The worst they can do to me is kill me… Oh no, wait… He let out a sadistic chuckle at his own thoughts before all but kicking the metal framed door in, charging forward boldly, scythe at the ready.

Several scrawny-looking henchmen greeted him who he sliced through with ease, eyes alight with crazed glee as he met the next batch with a powerful swing of his weapon. It cut down two of the slower men who failed to dodge in time, before lodging itself into the side of one of the others who had jumped a second too late, almost completely dividing him in two as it met him mid-air.

'What, that all you got?' Hidan asked, slightly disappointed. He was well aware of the pair of males sneaking their way into his blind spots either side of him, and he was more than happy to play along as the three in front darted forward to 'distract' him.

He had just finished inflicting a particularly nasty wound on the first of the decoys when he spotted his original target slinking around behind them, eyes flicking wildly in search of an exit with one arm wrapped around his stomach where Hidan had slashed earlier.

'Found ya…' He grinned, his attention now only vaguely on the men blocking his path. He took several steps forward before firing two long pikes at the already injured man, easily pinning him to a pile of crates he'd been lurking by.

The two on either side of him chose this moment to attack, and sprang into action. Each gripping twin scimitars, slicing through his mid-section flawlessly. Except, it was flawed, because they hadn't expected him to start shrieking about the pain and pulling out their weapons as they backed away in confusion.

'Fuck, that hurts, you guys have no manners, seriously.' He yanked the final offending object out from his right lung and dropped it unceremoniously to the floor.

'Wh-what the hell are you?!'

His fuchsia eyes locked with the trembling man who had spoken, giving him a malicious grin before lifting the wire connected to his main weapon. 'I'm…'

He growled under his breath as his target broke free, making a risky dash for the door behind Hidan. He swung the wire and the scythe flew into action, nicking the advancing male's neck as it flew past his shoulder.

'Your worst nightmare!' Not wasting another second, his brought the triple blades to his lips and flicked his tongue out, lapping up a single drop of blood from the edge. That was all he needed to send the bastards running for the hills in fear, the sound of his victorious laugh ricocheting around the quickly abandoned room.

He didn't care for the henchmen, they were too pathetic to even be considered as offerings for his beloved lord, so he supposed he'd be 'nice' and let them escape. But it was too late for his target. The bastard from earlier who he hadn't even bothered learning the name of.

His grin widened as he slashed at his own wrist, holding it out and allowed a dark pool of red to spatter against the dusty concrete floor. It had been a while since he'd had this much fun with a ritual, and he'd be dammed if he was going to let this one die quickly.

Hell no, this was going to be long, slow and agonisingly painful.

A/N: Sorry this chapter's a little short, but the next one will be longer I promise and there's more blasts from the past upcoming.

Hope you're liking their characterisation so far, I'm trying to keep him as in character as possible for the sake of the plot.

Question: What is the longest time between twins being born?

And of course a riddle: What goes up, but never comes down?

See you next week!