…I just realized that I put in the first A/N that this would be done in matter of days. Boy was I off or what?

I was really debating with myself over whether I should post this chapter. I'm a little scared that I'm going to lose some of ya'll. It's on the 'intense' side, but I promise ya'll… if you just hold out until the final chapter (the next chapter) I will 'REDEEM' myself.

Chapter 6: Storm Front

"Dude, is it wrong for me to be totally turned on right now?" The man looked up to his fellow mortician as they finished cleaning off the dead body before them, prepping it for an autopsy.

The other man kept his head down, pulling Mina's long blonde hair off to the side, draping it over the edge of the table. "No. But it's really fucked up for you to be telling me."

"Nah, but seriously man--"

"Nah, but seriously man… shut the fuck up." The more dignified individual interrupted his co-workers explication and pulled a sheet over the naked corpse. "C'mon." He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. "I haven't even had my coffee this morning." He started to walk out to the room.

The other mortician followed. "I can tell." He looked back at the figure under the sheet. "Shouldn't we put her in one of the fridge units?"

"Why bother? We'll be back in five minutes to cut her open. Just leave her." He sighed. "It's not like she's going anywhere." The two closed the door to the morgue behind them with a decent slam due to its heavy weight.

The slight breeze created by the slamming door caused a bottle of disinfectant to tip over and slowly roll off the counter. Instead of striking the floor and shattering, it fell and struck the locking mechanism on a metal cart, with enough force to free the wheel and allow the cart to gradually roll across the room. With a high pitched 'clang' the cart struck the corner of the stand that held Mina's body. The energy of the strike reverberated and caused a dead, lifeless arm to slip off the counter from under the sheet.

The arm hung there, motionless for several seconds. Then… the ring finger twitched.

With a sudden, and silent, burst of energy the arm swung up and pulled the sheet from Mina's pale face. She took in her surroundings. What the fuck? … Where am I?

Then it hit her. Oh hell yea! HaHa! Mina settled herself and quietly sat up, for the first time realizing her current state. She was cold, sitting bare on the metal countertop. As she sat there motionless, she realized that while she was cold, her body wasn't shivering. In fact, she wasn't even breathing. Wait… Am I even capable of breathing? Wait… Better question: Do I even need to breathe? Her hands and eyes slowly started to explore what had become of her body. The glaringly obvious hole over her heart was her first interest. Very gingerly, Mina slipped her finger into the hole until she touched her, literally, torn heart. There was an abrupt explosion of pain and the organ began to function again; her lungs surged back to live as well. She tried to say 'wow', but all that came out was a loud rasping cough. The old air was desperate to be freed from her chest and the feeling made her thirsty. Water. Where the hell is some water?

Sliding off of the countertop, she stumbled and fell back against it. What is it now? Mina exasperated in her mind. She looked down to see a line of holes down her legs, preventing her from standing without support. It was then that she heard the strangest sound. It was almost a kind of crackling, only more 'wet' sounding. Mina's gaze shifted to the origin of the strange noise, her wrists. There were holes there too. Damn you Hidan. I said, 'creative' not 'crucifixion'. She could see straight through them. However, thus would not be the case for very long. Along the edges of the wound, it appeared that her cells were regenerating. The various tendons, veins and bone that had been either torn or crushed, were rebuilding themselves. It took about two full minutes for every injury she had incurred to heal. Though, Mina was still very thirsty.

Now able to walk and move about properly, she caught sight of a lab coat by the door to the morgue. Heh, it wouldn't be very modest of me to walk around like this. The blonde joked with herself as she walked over and threw it on.

The door swung open and Mina sidestepped to avoid being crushed behind it. Two men, one with a cup of coffee, the other eating a cookie walked in. Neither one noticed her standing behind them.

"Aw, hell." The one eating a cookie exclaimed upon instantly noticing that the body they had left on the counter was gone. "Where'd she go?!"

The coffee-drinker raised his hand to shut up his partner. "Calm down, would ya'?" He walked forward and lifted the sheet up, looking over the area. "Someone must have stolen the corpse. C'mon, let's go get Sakura-sama." He turned around and stopped in his tracks, staring intently past the other man.

"What?" The cookie-eater brushed a crumb away from his mouth.

"Don't turn around." His co-worker slowly reached forward for him. "Walk toward me… slowly."

The foolish man rolled his eyes and quickly turned around. His eyes went wide as he realized that he was staring at the reanimated corpse he had, until just recently, considered becoming necrophilic for. "AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!" He screamed, dropping his cookie and scrambling backwards toward the other, or only, man in the room. "ZOMBIEEEE!!!"

Mina's lips curled up in a smile. What a nice welcome back to the land of the living. Oooo, is that coffee? She took a few steps forward, crushing the fallen sweet underfoot, and gestured for the cup in the frozen man's hand.

"Y-you want my coffee?" He stuttered, unsure of all existence at the moment. The blonde nodded and continued to ask for the drink with her body language. "Uh… okay… sure." He stretched out his arm to hand it to her.

"No! Don't do it!" The cookie man latched onto his comrade's sleeve. "It's evil! Unnatural! Hell-spawn!"

Mina was close enough now and gratefully took the coffee, downing it in just a few gulps. "Hehe…" She coughed her throat now clear and clean as a whistle. It must have been dried up blood that caused the temporary muteness. "Hell-spawn… I like that." She set down the empty cup and watched the two for a moment.

"Wha-what are you?" One finally managed to stutter out.

The young woman smiled widely. "Something you're not."

They both trembled from the tone in her voice. "What the hell does that mean?!" The cookie-eater pleaded.

The woman chuckled lowly. "I'm alive." Mina's hand glided over a scalpel as she slowly approached the two men. "And ya'll aren't."

--

Shikamaru knelt at the edge of the gaping hole in the ground. He had led a strike team of five men, himself and Kaoru included, out to where he kept his most guarded secret buried; or at least until recently. "I doubt they'll find anything, but I sent the other three out to search the surrounding area for any sign of him."

"So then… was there something you wanted to show me?" Kaoru shifted around where he stood. It had only been a mere hour since he had departed from the crowded street corner in town and the stress of the day seemed to only compound on itself. He needed to do something and standing around was not it.

"I dug this hole out myself over twenty years ago." Shikamaru's hand brushed the inside of the pit. "It was so long ago… I got careless…" He crushed a small dirt clod with his fist.

"Sir?" Please don't have a breakdown right now, Nara-sama. I don't know if I could help you. I'm almost on the verge myself.

The older man quickly stood up, jolting himself out of his thoughts. "How do you suppose an immortal man, blown apart into separate pieces and buried under nearly two tons of dirt and gravel, manages to get out?"

This was something Kaoru could deal with; a problem with a clear, straight-forward answer. "By 'immortal' you mean…?"

"Someone that just won't fucking die." Shikamaru growled and began to examine the immediate vicinity for any clues.

"Right. Okay." He watched as Mina's father's keen eyes searched about. "Well… something like that… I-I don't think it's possible." He shook his head definitively. The old man pulled a stray hair from the bark of a tree. It was long and blonde. He held it up for this younger companion to see. "Unless you had someone to help you. Someone to dig you out." The wind picked up suddenly. A storm front was coming in and whatever sunlight there had been would soon be gone.

"Exactly." Shikamaru let the strand fly away in the strong breeze. "A few days ago I noticed that some digging equipment of mine had gone missing. Then it came back and I never bothered to ask. I got careless."

"There was no way you could have known; you couldn't have suspected--"

"But I should have!" He snapped at the boy. "She was my own god damn daughter and I should have known better than to have not suspected her." With a deep breath, he came back down. "Somehow, that bastard convinced her to help him out and then he turned on her and killed her."

"Actually…" Hidan stood just to the side, on the other side of the pit. "It was all her idea." The two instantly went on the defensive. Before them stood a shirtless man, his arms wrapped around a bloody scythe behind his neck. "Being her father, I really would have expected you to understand her." He swung the weapon around and held it at his side. "Though, it just makes the irony so much richer that you don't."

"Tch. You're some kind of idiot, aren't you?" Kaoru tightened his grip on his weapon. "You're in an unfamiliar forest, surrounded by enemies. Do you really think you can take the five of us?"

Hidan's lavender eyes settled on the silver haired young man. "First off, I've been in this fucking forest for twenty-some odd years. I'm pretty familiar with it. Secondly, have you not noticed the blood on my scythe?" He belted out a zealous laugh. "There's just the three of us out here." A bright smile crept onto his lips as their frowns deepened. "And last, but certainly not least… Who the fuck are you?"

Shikamaru jumped in instead. "Don't bother answering him Kaoru." He turned his attention back to Hidan. "This ends here and now!"

"Again, you've got your facts all wrong." He smiled widely. "It'll end when I've gotten my revenge. Like when I kill your precious sons in front of their mother and then slowly slit her throat as she cries out for you." Shikamaru was nearly at his breaking point. "No. Wait." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "It'll end after I kill them and then fuck your daughter while still drenched in their blood. Yeah, that will be the end of it between you and I."

"You're disgusting." Kaoru growled while Shikamaru remained silent. He attacked with a flurry of shuriken. "Mina's dead you sick fuck." He followed with his family's signature move, Raikiri. It was dead on. Hidan couldn't have dodged if he had wanted to. Shikamaru had him trapped by his shadow the instant he made himself known.

Regardless, Hidan continued to grin as he looked down at Kaoru with his hand through his chest. "Again, you got your facts all wrong." He nodded for the two men to look behind them. They did and what they saw defied all logic.

With the strong storm settled overhead, the wind howled through the trees and caused the dark robed figure to sway. Its arm lifted up and pulled off the hood, revealing Mina's scowling face.

"Mina…" Shikamaru lost concentration and his hold on Hidan.

"I thought you were going to wait for me in the village, dumbass." Mina growled at the devout Jashinist. He only chuckled at the shocked expressions on the two men's faces. "Instead, I have to run my ass out here to find you. And what do I come across? Were you about to kill people… without me?"

Hidan shook his head back and forth. "Of course not!" His hand struck out and held onto Kaoru's neck, lifting the young man into the air and inadvertently pulling his arm out of his open chest. "Here. You can have this one. I think you know that I have unfinished business with your father." He threw Kaoru back into a tree next to Mina.

Before the man could even recover and fully return to his feet, Mina's arm shot out, flinging two surgical needles into his neck. Instantly, Kaoru collapsed to the ground, motionless.

"Wha-What in the hell did you that for?!" Hidan snapped at her. "You're supposed to sacrifice them! Not just kill 'em! The slower and more painful the better! What a waste!"

Mina sighed tiredly. "Just shut up and let's go."

"NO! I'm gonna sacrifice this bastard first." Hidan raised his scythe and made his way toward Shikamaru.

"No, you're not." Mina jumped back, her father mirroring her motion. She had him trapped in his own jutsu. The irony, that if had never forced her to become proficient in its use and then he wouldn't be trapped in this situation, was undeniable.

"Mina." Shikamaru's voice was faint as he looked at her. Her skin was paler and her braided hair had blood stains in it. "Why?"

She slipped off the black cloak that obscured her figure. Beneath she wore black shorts and the same while lab coat that she had found in the morgue, only it also had blood stains along the sleeves and collar. "Because, Daddy." She took a deep, thoughtful breath. "When I died, I learned my fate." Her tone was soft, almost sorrowful and completely unlike herself. "And I have every intention of fulfilling that fate."

"Oh geez, this is getting too touchy-feely for me. What the fuck are you talking about Mina?!" Hidan leaned up against his scythe, beyond irritated with the blonde's cryptic words.

She rolled her eyes and turned on the generations-older man; the aggression and malice returned to her voice. "I'm saying that I want a family reunion. Let's go." Mina marched off, her shadow forcing her father ahead of her. "Coming?" She glanced back at Hidan.

"Yea. Sure. Why the fuck not, right?" The immortal's sarcastic tone cut into her. "But no more wasting sacrifices. Do you hear me?" He scolded her, pointing back to Kaoru's body.

"Not a problem." Mina snickered. Though… you should be more specific with your words Hidan-kun.

…… "You think you get it, but you don't get it, that's why I'm telling you. You think you get it, which isn't the same as actually getting it. Get it?"--Best quote ever!

But in all seriousness folks… I'm waving my right hand around and you're looking at it. Next chapter, straight outta left field, instead of slapping you with my left hand, I'm gonna kick you in the shin. It's just how I roll.

(Ya'll will like it. Just chill and leave me a long review that lets me know what you liked/didn't like. Please?)