BAH BAH BAHHHH!

-Chapter 4

-Hidan-

Hidan's entire body was thrumming with the suppression of his instinct to maim and slaughter the blonde currently slung over his shoulder. He had, of course, cursed and whined about having to carry her, but Kakuzu had insisted that he needed his hands free if he was going to guide them out of the string of tunnels behind the waterfalls. Even so, Kakuzu kept glancing back, as if expecting to eventually catch Hidan performing some kind of torture ritual behind his back. Hidan could have scoffed at the idea - like he'd torture anyone who wasn't awake to feel it! "As soon as we get out of here you are taking her! She's your prize so you carry the cunt!"

Kakuzu only sighed, otherwise not entertaining him with a response. They continued on in silence, until Hidan found himself feeling very bored. "You never change you know that!? Making me carry the load and can't even bother yourself to hold a decent conversation to keep me from getting so damn bored!"

"Like I can talk when I'm trying to keep our asses out of trouble!" Kakuzu snarled, "Shut up! Sounds echo in here, I don't want to deal with anymore shit today!"

Hidan bit back his retort, regarding the other man from behind. His shoulders slumped slightly, his steps weren't quite as soundless as they used to be. His body was held with a certain rigidness he hadn't seen before. If he hadn't known any better he'd simply think old age, but he did know better, and was left wondering if Kakuzu was being so cautious because he couldn't handle anymore shit today. He fell back a little, taking his partner in from heels to head, and grimaced. Normally bad feelings in his gut only excited him. If things go wrong it usually ended in the perfect opportunity for slaughter. But it had become terribly apparent to Hidan that they almost needed each other, even if they were both unwilling to admit it aloud, and Hidan needed the tightwad at 100% if they were going to succeed with their plans. He was suddenly cursing when one sharp turn had daylight he had become unaccustomed to assaulting his eyes. Even with the wall of water the sunlight burned its way through, and while the sunlight was burning his retinas he also felt the intense relief of finally being able to be free of this place.

"Do you sense anything?" Kakuzu spoke without turning around to look at the younger shinobi.

"You know I'm not a sensor type," Hidan snapped, "You're better than me at scouting shit remember?"

"Just fucking tell me what you feel!" Kakuzu rounded on him with an impatient furious gaze.

Hidan was almost startled by the older man's vehemence; his pale eyebrows arched high on his forehead in surprise. He almost pulled his weapon on the man, but then he saw it. Behind the smoldering rage, hiding behind the angry intensity, was shame. Kakuzu's senses were failing him.

Hidan rolled his eyes with a half shrug stomping forward and offering the other man the blonde load on his shoulder without meeting his gaze. Once free he stepped closer to the curtain of water and exhaled, focusing on what he could manage to sense on the outside. "I don't sense anything, but like I said: You are better at this shit than me." He furrowed his brow and looked back at the old man, "Let's go!" and he charged into the sunlight with Kakuzu close behind.

-Ino-

Consciousness found her slowly and painfully. The space between her shoulder blades burned and her wrists felt like they had matching rings of fire around them. Her temples throbbed with a headache that felt more like a kunai jabbing at the inside of her skull trying to break free. She groaned as her eyes flickered open. Her vision focused and unfocused like adjusting a lens until she was able to make out the peculiar sight before her. A sparrow stood not more than a foot before her, pecking its beak at the ground and eyeballing her curiously. She grunted when she tried moving and the sparrow flew away into the dense trees above. All too quickly her memories hit her in a rush and she was instantly berating herself, Had she really become such easy prey? Had she wasted so much of her time studying she had forgotten her taijutsu? Her ninjutsu? Any jutsu at all!? Surely Shikamaru would have figured it out! Had she just been in too much shock at the sight of the two men in her nightmares that she had been reduced to a shivering sniveling girl?

Where were they anyway?

She craned her neck to look back over her shoulder. The trees were thick all around. There was barely enough room between some to even walk between. The leafy treetops were so thick the sun could barely shine through, leaving the earth beneath mostly devoid of underbrush. Thankfully it was still bright enough to see, but left her with an eerie feeling of timelessness. She pursed her lips and craned her neck to look over her other shoulder. She felt her body still even as her heartbeat threatened to burst out of her chest. The green on red eyes bore into hers and there was no mistaking the strange distinct eyes of her captor. They could only belong to him, and yet she still couldn't believe it. He was kneeling only a few feet behind her, just staring at her.

"How?" her voice came out in a choked rasp.

He rolled his eyes at her, "Hidan," he now looked at her as if she was the biggest moron on the planet.

She shook her head and struggled to keep her composure even though everything inside was going into total freak-out mode. Of course it was Hidan! That was obvious! But she knew he wasn't going to open up and explain how he did it, so she tried asking something else. "What am I doing here?"

"Being a captive. Shut up." he stood and walked deeper into the trees.

"Where are you going!?" she began to panic when she could no longer see him and began pulling frantically at the rope that bound her wrists behind her back.

His face emerged behind a thick tree only a few feet farther than he had been kneeling before. "Taking a piss. Those ropes are chakra blockers by the way, and my knots don't come undone. I'd stop fighting them if I were you; you're only going to hurt yourself." His face disappeared once more.

Ino furrowed her brow in annoyance as she continued to struggle anyway, biting back whimpers when the rope began to burn even worse. She dropped her forehead to the dirt below and sighed, closing her eyes to concentrate on calming down. Without her chakra she was all but useless, she didn't truly believe even with her chakra that she would stand a chance against them if it actually came down to a fight. She had other talents however that did not require chakra. Her eyes opened and narrowed as she assessed the plants around her. All were native to Waterfall. She would need to remember every tree, every bush, any and all plant life she could recognize, if she had any hope of finding her way back to Konoha when she escaped. And she would escape if it was the last thing she ever did.

No sooner had she started memorizing the plants in her line of sight did Kakuzu emerge once more from the trees. She said nothing when he knelt down next to her, though her heart was probably pounding enough that he didn't need her to speak to hear what her body was saying. He leaned closer and her eyes widened, his hand reached the scruff of her neck and balled into the fabric there, effortlessly lifting her like a cat would lift a kitten and settling her onto her knees. She held her breath when his shoulder pressed against her chest and his hand traveled down one arm to land on the rope binding her wrists. He pulled and tugged at the rope, testing to make sure it was still secure, all the while she took in what she could make out from his profile. With his head gear and mask in place it was hard to see anything but...those stitches. Had his ear been sewn on like that before death? Had he had those stitches that seemed to keep his face attached last time she had seen him? She cursed herself for trying to forget him all these years. Surely she could use his appearance to explain something!

"Didn't your momma ever teach you it's rude to stare!?" Hidan's loud voice in the near silent forest made her almost jump out of her skin, and then flush in embarrassment when Kakuzu's eyes finally lifted to meet hers.

Kakuzu blinked once, his eyes rolling toward his partner. "Shut up, Hidan."He stood to his full height and Ino fought the urge to crane her neck to look at him. Instead she stared at his knees until he walked away. Then she was staring full on at the silver haired nightmare that was Hidan. His face was speckled with blood. His bare chest was smeared with it, and she tried to ignore the distinct imprint of a hand, too slender to be his own, that led a trail across his abdomen. Whoever he had killed seemed to have at least tried to defend themselves against their attacker. His black pants betrayed nothing. Too dark for the blood to show, but his pale sandals were practically black around the soles, and his toes were the same color. She swallowed a gag at the sight of him, tears pricking the corners of her eyes as her stomach rolled with revulsion.

In closed her eyes, willing the nausea to pass and his image from her mind by breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth.

"You're going to make her throw up, go wash off," Kakuzu's voice was irritated.

"So? I promised not to harm her. Never said anything about her hurting herself!" Hidan chuckled. "Do I disgust you bitch? A little blood make you squeamish?"

Ino couldn't answer, afraid that opening her mouth would also open the floodgates on her stomach. She opened her eyes to glare, but immediately regretted it. He was standing closer now, hovering just out of reach though he had nothing to worry about with her hands being bound. She let out a wretching sound, her throat working to pull up the bile. Hidan cursed and leapt away, but not in time to beat the vomit that rushed from her mouth in a vicious spew. Hidan now forgotten in her current predicament, her only concern was leaning forward far enough to not vomit on herself, but that was proving difficult. She tilted farther, and yelped when a hand burrowed into her hair, yanking her forward so her face was suddenly farther away from her body but not dipping into her own vomit.

"Ew! That bitch puked on me!" Hidan's shrill voice would have made Ino smile in delight if not for her emptying the last bit of lunch onto the ground.

"I told you to go clean that shit off!" The loud growl above her helped her body calm to just a dry heave. "Now go you idiot!"

She groaned as Hidan's cursing faded into the distance. "You can let go," she snarled, spitting into the ground and grimacing at the string of fluid to thick to be saliva that dangled from her lips. Kakuzu's hand left her hair and she righted herself. She watched the tall shinobi come around her right side before kneeling once more beside her.

"Normally I wouldn't do this, so don't think anything of it…" he trailed off as he wiped her mouth with a dirty cloth that smelled strongly of kunai cleaner.

She waited until he was tucking away the cloth to snap at him, "So why are you doing it?" When his gaze met hers she could swear he was grinning at her. Her eyes widened when he was suddenly pressing his canteen to her lips. She took in the water and swished it around her mouth before spitting the now fouled liquid away from the both of them.

"Because you threw up on Hidan," he brought the canteen to her lips once more, watching her with that eerie gaze as her throat worked to swallow it all. "That shit was hilarious."

She watched him put the canteen away and tried to hide her surprise. "You still hate him?" She remembered their vicious comments back and forth when her team had battled them so many years ago. Maybe this was the way she could get free? Divide and conquer!

"That'll never change," Ino gasped when she was lifted by the back of her shirt once more and dropped a few feet away from her vomit puddle. "But don't you worry about that," his gaze had grown cold once more, "we have an understanding."

Ino grit her teeth as those four words dashed away any hope of the divide and conquer plan. What was she going to do? "What are you going to do with me?" She finally grew the courage to ask, dreading his response.

"I'm going to feed you to Hidan if you don't shut up," his curt response effectively silenced her. She would have scoffed at such a ludicrous statement, but those eyes were cold, merciless...she didn't know whether he was bluffing or not.

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I've been dealing with writer's block a lot with this. The beginning of this chapter was especially hard for me, I'm almost regretting that I'm writing in Hidan and Kakuzu's points of view as well as Ino's, but I felt like the story would be more dynamic and believable if you knew what was going on in their brains as well. I think I've got at least a few key chapters laid out in my mind, and have managed to write down a great deal more. I even know exactly how I want the last scene to play out, but as always, I totally can NOT promise how fast the updates will be.