The Art of Blood Weaving
Chapter One
o
Hello! This is my first HidanTem fic. I do not own Naruto or the characters, but I do own the random OC's in this story. :P
NOTE: I adjusted Hidan's personal info to accurately fit the description of how I see him in the story. I am aware of his true statistics.
This story is dedicated to the invisible saints of this world. Especially those who deal with heavy misunderstandings and pain while they work unselfishly for the goods of others.
Summary : No one ever suspected Temari to nurture and set her own enemies free. She also never expected the captives to release her from her own prison.
I hope you enjoy it, and reviews are always nice :)
Between the dull gray buildings of concrete was a dirt path littered with rusty bullet cases, the soil hardened and bumpy with boot prints. Several miles on the northern branch of the path would lead into the tundras, a frosty and quite formidable area that few prisoners could survive. Heading southward on the path would lead to a massive field of long grass which fell steeply after two miles. Beyond the giant slope of grass the horizon blended into a deep black stretch of sky, with a few crumbles of mountains at the very edge. A gentle wind rippled the moonlit grass, producing an eerie cascade of rustles that reminded Temari of distant desert storms, with sands spilling like water from heat-soaked boulders.
Spread out on the grass, Temari stared up at the freckled night sky with crossed legs and hands behind her head, her AK-47 assault rifle lying by her hip. Even with thick weather-resistant combat clothes, the damp of the grass created a mattress of cold against her back. Glancing at the red glow of her watch—it read 1:30 AM—she deduced that the new batch of prisoners would be arriving in approximately six hours. The criminals always came in the morning while they were still groggy, believed to discourage their chances of escape. As an elite prison sentinel, it was her duty to see to the safe arrival of the criminals and assign them their designated cells.
She shifted on the cool grass, thinking the sudden clatter of metal was her keys hitting her rifle. When she realized the sounds came from a distance, she sat up and looked behind her shoulder, hand slowly reaching for her rifle. She was almost half a mile away from the base. But with the stadium-bright lights illuminating everything in the camp, her sharp eyesight enabled her to spot five chained silhouettes entering camp from the east wing, lead by twenty armed soldiers. For a second she thought it was the new batch of prisoners before she recognized their familiar slouched postures. Nope, it was just the old prisoners returning from midnight interrogations. She relaxed her hold on the gun and lay back down on the ground again, glancing at the tightly sealed syringes of hydrochloric acid nested in a hollow of grass by her foot. Tonight was the night.
o
6:30 AM. A knock sounded on the thick wooden door.
"Enter," Temari said. She glanced up as she arranged papers on her desk. It was Shikamaru and Kenta, her male counterparts of senior prison generals. She greeted Shikamaru with a quick nod and eye contact and appraised Kenta with a curt glance. She was not fond of Kenta; he was new to the elite system of sentinels and was not highly ranked like herself and Shikamaru. Her dislike of him was fueled by his lack of self-control and a tendency to abuse his power. How that fool ever got to the senior level remained a true mystery to her.
"Report from Akuma Base 031 states that they are sending over just one prisoner tomorrow as opposed to five, to arrive at around eleven AM. Their messenger prepared this package for you to read," Shikamaru announced as he handed a thick manila envelope to Temari's already outstretched hand.
Taking a knife from her boot, Temari slid the blade beneath the cover flap and tore through it cleanly. As she poured the contents into her hand a small photograph slid out and fluttered onto her lap. Picking it up, she stared at the mug shot of the man scheduled to arrive tomorrow. She placed the picture on her desk, her eyes still on the man. His eyes contained a look she immediately recognized. Kenta cleared his throat uncomfortably and shifted on his feet. Temari looked up at him.
"What?"
"How to say this...well, there was corrosion found on the metal in the cells, and...prisoners gone...three escaped..."
A cold inquisitive stare from Temari answered Kenta's unfinished sentence. Sighing, Shikamaru continued for him.
"The cell bars of Prison 07 have been melted away with a strange substance; evidence dictates that it is gastric acid from the prisoners' stomachs as there are hints of vomit," he explained. "There was enough acid to create holes in all the occupied cells."
"What about the patrol guard for that night?"
"Badly injured. Lacerations and bruises. The prisoners probably beat him unconscious while another vomited pure stomach acid on his open wounds; his skin is burnt to the point of needing intensive care. It explains his lack of response to his serious injuries and the other morning patrol guards."
"I bet the prisoner who threw up all over Sasuke was that Orochimaru fellow. He was in Prison 07, wasn't he? That dirty bastard always spat at me," Kenta chimed in. "He could spit and hit at anything over a ten foot range. We should send search groups to find him so I could punish his sorry little ass!"
Temari and Shikamaru both held similar expressions of spite as they watched Kenta. He withdrew inside himself.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
Temari turned to Shikamaru. "Organize search crews immediately if you haven't done so already. Today's supply truck should be arriving at seven o' clock tonight, are they bringing any doctors?"
"Yes, I've already alerted a medic crew to follow the supply truck, to release Sasuke to the hospital."
"Good work. I'm assuming the High General would arrange a meeting about this."
Shikamaru nodded. "He set an appointment time for three p.m. today."
"Alright. I will examine P-07 to see what happened. Our prisons will be overpopulated if the cells have sustained enough damage. Dispatch extra security around the camp and inside the prisons."
"Yes ma'am."
Shikamaru looked down and ran a hand over his hair.
"The General is going to drop hell on us. This is the third escape that occurred at this base this past year. But how can we help that our prisoners are this creative in the way they escape? Not to mention this camp is a prehistoric piece of shit compared to the others. It's built like a tourist trap."
Temari sighed as she stared at a picture of two young men on her desk; one was red-haired, the other was brunette.
"The Akuma may think the Resistance are comprised of stubborn fools. But there's a reason why the resistors are drawing up so much trouble. They are bright people who know what they are doing. It's inevitable that these events would occur."
She narrowed her eyes. "That's why we have to assume they're already exercising ways to use the loopholes of this camp to their advantage."
Shikamaru nodded. Then his frown deepened.
"Except they already went beyond that. You would think sending them to this godforsaken place that's a hundred miles in nowhere would discourage them from escaping."
Temari shook her head.
"That's what we've got wrong. We're dealing with the most feared or the most clever resistance members here. Even if they are put in isolation here in the tundras, they'll use this shitty prison to discover a way to survive before escaping."
"Let's propose a reconstruction of this camp to make it more stable. We could tell the general at the meeting," Shikamaru suggested. When Temari simply nodded, he turned to leave. Kenta's mouth was open as he followed the other general out the door, glancing at him and Temari in awe.
Temari rubbed her chin and watched as they left. She picked up the papers scattered on her desk, scanning through them. Missing information and blank spots were everywhere.
Age: 2
Birthdate: April
Blood Type: B
Weight: 170 lb
Height: 514
Captured: Vill
Guilty of multiple h
Reported as being
She scowled at the pages. Some idiotic professional forgot to refill their printer with ink. Stupid moron. Certificates of transfer approval, signatures, and security requirements followed the information paper. These were also spot-ridden and almost devoid of ink. She would have to inform Base 031 for a more precise copy of the documents. Putting down the papers, Temari picked up the mugshot of the man and studied his profile.
White shoulder-length hair, swept back over his head and ears. A chain of silver beads with a circular pendant encasing a triangle around his neck. A smirk on his face as if the photographer had told him an amusingly sadistic joke.
Yes, he definitely possessed those eyes. However, there seemed something different about them. Something more primitive. A name was scribbled in marker on the bottom of the mugshot.
Hidan.
o
The base was so isolated from civilization that energy was rationed between the buildings and a supply truck frequented monthly visits to restock the camp. So the prisons ran –barely sustained—on a twenty hour camera surveillance system supplemented by a guard during the witching hours; otherwise the energy usage for the extra four hours would keep the phone lines and heater from working. This explained the hot air and shattered cameras in Prison 07, the building that was reserved for the most dangerous criminals. The dank stench of warmed vomit penetrated the air.
Out of the seven cells, six of them had melted bars in the holes at the bottom of their doors, just big enough for the previous captives to escape. A light fixture had been pulled from the ceiling, the plastic encasing in pieces on the floor. Perhaps it was the weapon used to break the cameras. Luckily, the supply truck would be arriving with spare cameras and extra bars for the doors.
The day passed with little event towards lunchtime. The banging of a hammer on metal snapped Temari out of her reverie as she sat at her desk, attempting to fill in the blank spaces on the new captive's information sheet. So far she had confirmed his name was Hidan and he was captured in Konoha, also he was in his twenties, around her own age. Footsteps came down the hallway, and she looked up to see Shikamaru stick his head through the door.
"Hey. Lunchtime. Wanna go?"
She and Shikamaru sat at their own separate table in the cafeteria, while the other soldiers –of which there were about fifty in the whole camp— ate at circular tables which filled up the entirety of the room.
Temari idly swirled her weak miso soup, the side to her lunch of a can of tuna and a bowl of hardened rice. Shikamaru looked up at her from behind his bowl of soup.
"You okay?"
Temari glanced up at him. "Yeah. Not very hungry."
Shikamaru gestured to her soup. "Can I have that?"
She pushed it towards him and he took it, forking the contents carefully into his mouth but spilling some on the table. Besides Shikamaru, Temari hated eating with the other soldiers. They were immature, rowdy, loud and dirty. She liked how Shikamaru was placid and still practicing manners, even if they were in need of refinement.
Her eyes averted when a particularly noisy round of laughter erupted in the middle of the cafeteria; Kenta was standing on one of the chairs, holding two empty soup bowls to his chest.
Taking her spoon, she began molding the rice. As she dropped the small white spheres onto her napkin, she said, "They sent me empty copies of the newcomer's information."
"Ah, they did that to you too?"
"It's so unprofessional of them."
"Definitely."
"Just because we guard in the middle of oblivion they think we don't even deserve to be treated like real sentinel generals."
"Yeah. Very troublesome."
"I sometimes wish I was transferred to a lower-maintenance base. It would justify some of this disrespect."
"Oh? To be honest, I don't really care." Temari watched as Shikamaru mixed his rice with his soup. "Since you do most of our stuff, there's barely any work I need to do. The load fits me just right."
Temari scoffed with some annoyance. "You're lucky I'm okay with it. But you're not gonna go far in life if you keep using that brain of yours like that."
"Whatever." Shikamaru hesitated eating for a moment and looked up at her.
"Also, lower-maintenance bases tend to carry more soldiers who're training to be sentinels later on. If you think these fifty soldiers are stupid, you should see the cocky little bastards when they're with five hundred more of their kind."
Temari shuddered at the thought. "You're absolutely right."
He smirked and returned to his food. She made sure that Shikamaru was busy swallowing the last contents of her soup bowl before shoving her filled napkin into her pocket.
o
"Would you like to explain to me why this base needs extended security measures?"
"The nature by which the prisoners escape dictates that this should happen."
"Tell me about the escapees, then. All three of them."
"The first case involved a prisoner by the name of Kimimaro, who had an abnormal bone structure. It has been concluded that he used his teeth to escape."
"His teeth?"
"One of his identification points was a ceramic wisdom he kept in his mouth. Evidence of his escape includes residue of ceramic and saliva around the keyhole. We don't know how, but the only solution we came up with for this case is that the tooth was removable, and he carved at it to create a tapering point that would be able to open the lock. He would then stick the tooth back into his gum, and no one would know."
"Gawd."
Temari nodded.
"The second case. Their names were Might Guy and Rock Lee. They have an incredible amount of kinesthetic ability. Their hand and footprints were found on the walls and ceiling of the fifteen-foot high cell; we believe they hid up there during graveyard patrol. The soldier was probably baffled and entered the cell to check for them. They attacked him by landing on his head. The soldier in question received a concussion and is currently dealing with amnesia."
The High General only stared at Temari, a bewildered look saturating his expression.
"The third case is by far the most baffling," Temari continued, leading the General into Prison 07. The General crinkled his nose at the smell of vomit still saturating the air.
"The prisoners used the gastric acid contained in their vomit to corrode the metal of the door to escape," Shikamaru said.
"That's impossible," the General exclaimed, examining the metal on the door. He straightened up and looked at them both.
"Well, I can see why this place needs extended protection. I can send over biometric-programmed iron doors. Bars are quite outdated, don't you think? And I'll request that more energy be sent to this base for proper twenty-four hour surveillance. These criminals are quite resourceful to perform such extremes for their freedom. However, it can take up to a minimum of two months for a response."
"Two months?"
The General put his hand to his cap and began heading out the door. "The energy maintenance has hundreds of the same requests from other bases of Akuma."
o
The supply truck arrived on time, seven o' clock. Upon unloading the truck, Temari inquired as to why the cameras and bars didn't arrive with the load.
"All the cameras and the majority of the bars in our high-maintenance prison have been damaged. There is still room in that prison so we need these materials," Temari said, frustration appearing in her eyes.
"Sorry," the driver replied, warily avoiding Temari's glare. "I understand that you called beforehand requesting cameras and bars. I sent your query to the main Akuma base and didn't get a response. You will just have to hold it out till the next load."
"Great," she said, turning towards Shikamaru. "That captive is coming tomorrow and there is not enough room in P-01 or P-04. We are gonna have to manually guard him in P-07 for a month."
"Probably a good thing," Shikamaru replied. "I received fresh copies of his profile. Twenty two years old, birthday's on April 2nd, over six feet tall, reported as atheltic."
"What's he guilty for?"
"He has lists of citations for public disturbance and violence. And get this: he massacred Akuma guards in the Village of Hot Springs. Massacred."
A murderer. These resistance members were considered dangerous criminals even though in reality they were peaceful protestors; there was yet to be a report of a resistor murdering an Akuma, let alone multiple.
"Also, there was a psychological inquiry about him. Anti-social behavior. More sociopath than sane."
Temari watched the soldiers unload the truck without saying anything.
8:00 PM. Temari sat in her customary seat in the cafeteria plucking the skin off the drumsticks they were given to eat. She shredded the meat into strips and put them in her napkin and no one noticed as she got up to throw away her plate of skin and clean bones.
The alarm clock rang. It was 1:30 AM. The air was saturated with the mountain chill, prompting Temari to button up her heavy uniform and stomp her leather boots as she headed to the surveillance building. Stopping shortly to remove one of her gloves, she unhooked a ring of keys from within her jacket and selected a key. She shoved the key into the lock and opened the door, revealing a dark hallway which ended in blue glow. She followed the hallway into a room filled with mini televisions, the insides of the prisons pictured on their screens. She nodded to the soldier on maintenance. After he left his post, Temari sat on his chair, the cushion flattened and warm.
Placing her fingers on a keyboard she began pounding in codes and passwords to shut off the surveillance system. Everything shut down with a sudden snap, the whir of fans growing silent.
Temari had insisted that the cameras be left off at night, as opposed to Shikamaru's suggestion that they be left off during the day.
"If we progressed with the manual shift during the daytime, no soldier would have to give up his sleep to watch over the prisoners from two to six in the morning," Shikamaru had pressed.
"But then someone would still have to monitor the television screens in the surveillance building during that time. Chances are the soldier would fall asleep at the post, therefore missing any important events that might be on the camera," Temari had shot back. "So by placing a live and awake guard in each of the buildings it discourages the captive from trying anything."
"And besides," she wanted to add, with a sadistic smile on her lips, "it makes those stupid twats miserable."
Leaving the building, she was struck by the freezing air, which had managed to drop an additional ten degrees in ten minutes. The fluctuating temperatures in the tundras were ridiculous. She jogged to her cabin to fetch her Akuma-embroidered fur jacket, fur-lined boots, and her gun.
After tugging her rifle over her shoulder and securing the strap, she headed towards P-04. The gun metal had absorbed the cold from the night air, freezing her fingers through the gloves and making them clumsier than usual as she dug in her pocket for the bits of rice and chicken she had stowed. She walked on the outskirts of the building, fumbling in the napkin for the rice balls. When she reached a part of building with an extremely narrow gap carved right at the ground -supposedly serving as a window- she paused and looked around, pressing her back to the stone. Lightly, she tapped her iron-toed boot against the rocky ground.
Shuffles came from within the hole. Bending over, Temari looked in the hole—through approximately four feet of stone, a tired blue eye appeared. Looking around once more, Temari took three chunks of rice from her napkin and tossed it into the hole. She walked another ten feet to another hole, tapped, and tossed in three more chunks of rice. She repeated this until all the holes she passed received food. Crushing the napkin in her hand and stuffing it into her glove, she pulled out the chicken she stowed in her pocket and placed the strips in her mouth.
2:05 AM. Prisoners of P-01 roused from their sleep as the metal door scraped loudly against the floor, sending reverberations down the concrete hallway. Solid thunks sounded on the cold cement as Temari walked slowly through the hall, examining the tired captives. Rifle in her arms, she glared coldly at the fourteen or so prisoners lying in their cells. They were frightfully skinny and pale, shivering against the hard stone floor. The clacking of teeth echoed through the hall. It was noticeably cold inside but the heaters should be turning on soon since she had turned off the cameras.
Then, glancing side to side, Temari leaned over and spat a strip of chicken onto the floor. The pink-haired inhabitant of the cell slowly crawled over and devoured the chicken, her green eyes tiredly looking up at Temari in thanks. Five other captives received a piece of chicken, distributed to them in the guise of Temari spitting disgustedly into their dark and miserable cell. The eight other prisoners clung to the bars, their eyes begging for food. Senses electrified and highly alert, Temari stared straight forward as she reached into her shirt and pulled out the spheres of rice, warmed from her skin.
Dirty hands grabbed the pieces from her own hands and shoved it into the mouths of their owners. There was no sound of chewing evident; the captives had learned to store their food in their mouth to prolong the "meal". Suddenly Temari noticed that one of the prison doors were ajar and a captive was missing. Hoisting the gun up into her arms, she followed the hallway till she spotted Kenta in a storage room at the back, holding a young man in a choke hold, slowly lifting him off the floor.
"Isn't my strength amazing? It took a year to get these babies," he was saying, smiling maliciously as the man struggled weakly in his arms.
"You horrific little fucker." Kenta released the man and turned around just as Temari grabbed his leather collar hard enough to rip a seam.
"What the hell are you doing?" She spoke quietly, in a frightfully cold voice. Kenta paled and attempted to lean away only to be yanked back so viciously that his teeth clapped audibly.
"I...I—I...I..."
"Shut the hell up. Who the fuck do you think you are? You're under serious orders to make sure no one escapes. If I catch you doing this again and somebody's gone because of your carelessness, I'm more than glad to fuck you up myself. You hear me?"
Kenta jumped to attention and ran down the hall. Temari turned to the man wheezing on the floor, trying to use the support of a cardboard box to get to his feet.
She positioned herself behind him and hooked her arms under his. "On the count of three, I'm lifting you up. One, two, three..."
She hoisted him up. The young man fell against the wall, wincing. Then he flung himself away from Temari's arms and glared at her, his dark eyes smoldering with hate.
"Don't...touch me...you dirty...Akuma," he hissed, his voice cracking. Temari stood there stiffly, the gun suddenly feeling very heavy in her hands. She used it to roughly prod the man back into the cell and then slammed the metal bars so hard her ears rang for minutes afterward.
o
After breakfast and two meetings, Temari headed towards the southern end of camp to see to the arrival of the new criminal. Huddling in her fur-lined boots and coat, hands jammed into the pockets, she watched as the guarded truck ambled its way roughly up the dirt road, soldiers jumping off as it slid to a stop.
It was a cloudy and windy day, a sure sign of rain in the coming weeks. A cold blast of air came in from the tundra, flapping the large sheet of canvas covering the back of the truck. For the split second that it revealed the truck's barred contents, Temari caught sight of a young white-haired man sitting in the corner, wrists chained together. His purple eyes were looking directly at her.
Assuming that the chill she felt was from the cold mountain wind, she watched as Shikamaru appeared from somewhere behind her and ordered the soldiers to take out the prisoner. The driver of the truck jumped out of the cab and went to stand beside Shikamaru. The wind ceased and the canvas settled back into position over the trunk, hiding the sight of two soldiers lifting the man to his feet. There was a clinking of metal and chains being dragged across the metal floor of the truck.
"Watch this," the driver said. He smirked.
"Shit! Be careful!" Someone yelled from inside the truck. Chains clattered roughly along with the sound of pushed footsteps. "I said watch it! You're a fucking moron, you know that?"
There was silence. Suddenly, Hidan the murderer was catapulted out the canvas to the dirty ground. He landed on his face. Temari watched him fixedly, her hard teal eyes unreadable behind the strands of blond hair whipping about her face.
Hidan spat the soil from his mouth between curses as the two soldiers approached him angrily from behind.
"I do appreciate you letting me sample the sickening manure you're made of," he muttered sarcastically.
"Silence!" One of the soldiers yelled, jamming his rifle into Hidan's back. He grabbed Hidan's white hair and yanked him up to his feet. His skin and gray jumpsuit were streaked with moist earth.
"You Akumas and your fucking ways. Just lie down somewhere, die, and claim your pits in hell, yeah? Do humanity a fucking favor," he spat at the soldier.
The driver nudged Temari. "This is my seventh delivery of that son of a bitch. Can you believe that?" He chuckled and spat phlegm. "Poor guy, no one seems to want him in their prisons."
"Don't touch me with your heathen fingers, bitch!"
"Why you little piece of—"
"Enough!" Temari bellowed. Everyone silenced immediately.
"Take him to P-07 and lock him into the available cell. We will be manually guarding him around the clock. You there, you two will be the first guards. Shift will end in four hours. And you guys over there, you're after them! Go!"
Hidan shot a glare at Temari before he was yanked by the soldiers towards Prison 07. She followed them. But not before she looked over her shoulder to watch the canvas-covered truck pull out of the dirt lot and amble down through the grassland, its engine roaring in the air.
o
Five Days Later
"I just got notice from The High General. The supply truck will be coming in two weeks to replace the bars and cameras. He assigned Base 023 to exchange some of their prisoners with a large amount of ours during that time."
"Would there be enough room at that base?"
"Their prisons are much larger and we would eventually have to group up our own captives in order to carry out the security fortification we proposed to the General last week. The max amount of people we should be getting is fourteen, as opposed to the thirty two we are giving away."
"Alright."
"Also..." Shikamaru cleared his throat and watched Temari uneasily. "I've been getting a ton of complaints from the soldiers regarding the captive in P-07...and I I have some issues myself."
Temari's green eyes flashed.
"What happened?"
"The captive—Hidan, was it? He is...an incredible bastard. He never shuts up. The whole camp has performed at least two shifts with him and there is no one who doesn't want to kill him. The soldiers don't have enough self control to just perform their duty. Perhaps if the guard was a female, he would maybe—"
"Tell the soldiers to man up and deal with it. They are not kids. I assume they are all tough enough to take trash from a guy who's probably all talk—"
"I don't want to be troublesome, Temari. But there is really no one here that has half of the self control you do—"
"And why would I affect him any differently?"
Masahiro sighed. "Well, it's just...sometimes you're better at handling these things. Sometimes men back down when in the presence of a woman with leadership. And that's what you have."
"I'll think about it. When is the next shift available?"
"You can take mine."
"Very funny."
"Fine. Two to six AM. But if that's too late for you, we can switch."
"No, it's fine with me."
Later she would wish she hadn't taken Shikamaru's plea so lightly.
o
Approaching P-07, Temari could already hear argumentative voices spewing through the stones of the building. Suddenly the metal door slammed open and two soldiers stormed out, spitting out insults.
"Ey! Turn on the fucking light, you piece of shit!" A voice yelled from inside the building.
"Thank God Temari-san's taking our place. I couldn't stand one more second of that psychotic and his religious shit talk," the soldier yelled, making sure the captive inside could hear.
"You're already sprinting your road to hell, motherfucker!" The voice roared in reply.
A glare from Temari stopped the soldiers from retaliating. "Don't do anything to make it any more difficult for me," she snarled.
The building was pitch black inside. Temari couldn't find the light switch. She ran her hands along the wall. Lights from outside dimly illuminated the floor and a fragment of space through the hole in the bottom of the occupied cell's door. She could make out a figure sitting deep within the dungeon, bars of light and shadow cast across his face. A purple iris was aglow, angry and narrow as it tried to appraise the newcomer who entered the building.
"Who the hell are you?"
Just then, Temari found the light switch. Flipping it on, the fluorescent lights above lit up with a sharp zap. She slowly turned around and saw the figure making his way to the door. He looked up from between the bars, squinting from the light.
"Fucking ridiculous. At first sight I'd have thought you were a woman but I just shit my pants at your manliness."
Hello again! I hope the story was good; Happy Holidays!