"All of this sickening hurting,
Come have a taste you deserve it,
Every emotion I wanted to share by your side,
Now it's all I want to cut from my life,"
-Otome Kaibou, JubyPhonic
When, at breakfast, crazy Oda told them a ritual would be performed late that night for a high priest returning from Kumogakure, Hidan raised his hand.
"Nah, fuck that guy," he said. "I volunteer."
Everyone stared at him. Crazy Oda stopped, eyes sliding to where he sat alone.
Hidan was fucking sick to death of vegetable soup.
"You... volunteer?" crazy Oda asked.
"I'm ready for this shit," he declared, grinning. "That's what you do when you want to test your faith, right? You become a sacrifice?"
It was a challenge. The fanatics looked from him to crazy Oda.
Crazy Oda said nothing for a moment. "You're not ready for the sacred ritual," he finally told him.
Hidan might've lowered his hand, might've listened to the voice in his head that asked him what he would do if it didn't work, what if his faith wasn't strong enough, if his stomach didn't coincidentally start hurting in the same moment.
"That's for Lord Jashin to decide, isn't it?" he asked.
Murmurs broke out around him.
Kumi frowned into her soup. Botan stared at him. Issey raised an eyebrow his way.
Crazy Oda looked around the room, at the unsure looks, the sheep starting to wander, to question, and stared hard at him, hand moving just slightly within the folds of his sleeves.
Hidan did not retract his question.
Oda shook his head, feigning exasperation. "Do you think yourself so above our honored guest, His chosen priest, that the ritual was priorly prepared for?"
"Fucking yes," Hidan answered.
Crazy Oda stared at him again. After a moment, he inclined his head. "Then I wish you luck. If Lord Jashin deems your faith strong enough, and unwavering, may He bestow you with a piece of His brilliance."
Hidan sat back and his grin widened.
.
.
.
Hidan left dinner early.
The fanatics quickly looked away as he pushed himself up, pretending they hadn't been staring. Hushed conversations suddenly stopped as he walked by. They thought he was going to die.
Issey had been staring at him all day like he'd lost his mind. His friend, Sho or whatever, nudged his arm and drew Issey back to their marble game.
Botan stared at his rice and greens and Kumi looked like she wanted to say something but didn't. And that was that.
Hidan walked back to the room they shared, went to his bedroll, and crouched. He patted his pillow because it had served him damn well up until now and slid a hand underneath, pulling a kunai free.
Maybe he'd been slacking off on his training, not doing as much as he should've, but he was still a shinobi. Sleeping with a kunai under his pillow was practically universal.
He looked at the blade, at its dullness, and at all the rust because he hadn't bothered cleaning it. He stood and tossed it up once, experimentally. It felt a little heavy, a little awkward, but his lack of practice wouldn't make much of a difference.
"Hidan, please. Stop this," Kumi said.
Hidan half-turned.
She stood in the doorway, hands fisted in her shirt. Hidan slipped one hand in his pocket, the other tossing the kunai up again, testing the weight. His clothes were too tight, but he'd sooner stroll around naked before he put on one of crazy Oda's shitty shirts.
"Stop what?" he asked.
She looked down and away from his gaze. "You're going to die," she whispered.
Hidan listened to her ask him to take back what he said at breakfast, her tone telling him to go back to how he was before, how they were, before he found the true path to Lord Jashin.
Back when they all ate vegetable soup together like a big, happy, fucked up family.
A dark feeling bloomed in his heart. He was really starting to hate her.
"You know Lord Jashin won't accept you," she said, finally looking at him. "Not when you let yourself be led so far away from Him and Master Oda. I just—I know we're not on the best terms, but I don't want you to die."
Every word out of her mouth about Lord Jashin made his skin crawl. Hidan caught his kunai, fully facing her. "You want to know something?"
"I—" Her head snapped back, eyes shooting wide, the point of his kunai suddenly lodged deep in her forehead.
"The real ritual starts now," Hidan said.
She dropped.
He lowered his hand, looking at her. Her hands spasmed, nails digging into the floor for a second before her body relaxed. Hidan strolled up to her, bent down, and pulled out the kunai.
Blood dribbled down her pretty face.
Giving her a last look, Hidan stepped over her and walked down the hall and turned right, into the open dining area. It was still mealtime. He looked over the fanatics and the nonbelievers lazily, kunai slowly dripping blood next to his feet.
It was the blond, Sho, who noticed first, who did a double-take, then patted Issey's shoulder urgently, pointing at him.
Hidan felt a hysterical kind of joy at the growing wide eyes, the confused faces looking between him and his kunai. A slow grin spread across his face. He darted towards them.
The screaming didn't start until he plunged his kunai deep in the chest of the closest person, a black-haired boy who tried too late to draw back. Horrified, terrified faces stared at him. Sho scrambled up, abandoning his game, running to escape.
Hidan, catching up to him with ease, kicked him hard in the back.
Sho choked as he was propelled forward, smacking into the wall hard enough that plaster rained down from the rafters. He fell, limp, blood on his forehead and dripping from his broken nose.
And then Hidan reveled in it all.
A blond threw her hands up to block his strike, screaming, and his kunai sliced deep in her right arm instead of down across her chest. Even rusted, the metal cut through skin, muscle, and hit bone.
Hidan tried to tug it out, blood splattering his pants, but it was stuck. "You're one unlucky bitch," he told her, then yanked.
She fell back, shrieking, staring at what was left of her arm.
He turned around and laughed at those scrambling to escape, slipping on the blood or tripping over bodies. "This is the true Way of Jashin," he shouted.
Hidan slashed at a boy, some friend of Issey's, and watched him back up, hands flying up to his neck, fingers desperately trying to stem the gush of blood from a cut artery.
"Not the lies you heathens practice," Hidan continued, shaking blood off his kunai.
Another girl was cut off mid-yell by Hidan stabbing her in the back. She shook as she fell, shuddering all over, then went still.
There was blood in his hair and dripping from the ends of his shirt. He stepped back, the room suddenly quiet, and turned in a circle, searching for movement among the gore and dead-eyed stares.
Hidan heard quick, loud, familiar footsteps behind him. Issey.
He glanced back, throwing up a hand to block the serving tray Issey tried to bash against his head. They were the same height, so Hidan had an up-close view of the fear in his eyes, his trembling arms.
Issey was scared out of his mind, but he still pressed harder. "Why?" he asked. "What the hell did we do to you to deserve this—"
"You didn't do shit," Hidan agreed, then stabbed him in the chest.
Issey dropped the tray, hands raising towards the wound as his legs buckled. Hidan turned away as he wheezed and made strangled noises and died, surveying the room again.
No one moved.
Whistling, Hidan strolled from the room.
He found crazy Oda just outside, his ceremonial robes in disarray and his hat missing. He was at the bottom of the steps.
"Oh, no you fucking don't," Hidan said, at the top.
Crazy Oda froze. The old man slowly turned around, eyes wide, looking up at him like he was a monster.
A look like that from the man who made a child army. Fucking ironic.
"I still need you for the ritual," Hidan told him.
Crazy Oda composed himself and carefully folded his arms in his sleeves. Pretending like he hadn't turned tail and ran. "What you've done, this isn't His will. You've disgraced His sacred temple and all that He stands for."
Hidan's smile faded. Anger simmered just under his skin. What the fuck did he know about Jashinism? He tamped with Lord Jashin's books, taught fanatics lies.
Crazy Oda stared at him, the words sinking into his head, his own mind doing acrobatics to justify that the bastard was right, that all of this—everything he was doing, was based on what he thought Lord Jashin wanted.
Isn't that the same reason Kumi stuck to her beliefs? She thought she was right, too.
His stomach flipped and Hidan squeezed his shirt, forcibly breaking eye contact. He pushed the excuses and justifications back, out of his head.
How much chakra did crazy Oda just use to mess with his head?
Well, it wasn't like he had to spread his chakra thin making his followers believe any of this shit anymore. The thought made him smile.
"What's your rank you bastard? C? D?" Hidan asked, and crazy Oda's eyes widened.
He pointed his kunai at him. It gave him a weird sense of déjà vu, and he thought back to Oka, who he once thought a little unhinged, a little off.
Gods, how long ago was that shit?
Crazy Oda didn't answer him.
"Whatever it is, you're not higher than me," Hidan went on. "So cut the genjutsu shit, before I decide I don't need you after all."
Crazy Oda frowned deeply. He didn't look much like a priest, but a man, one so afraid of death that he was willing to do anything to avoid it.
He thought Oda might be from the Land of Water, because Kirigakure's hunter-nin were the only ones he could think of that deserved this kind of batshit fear.
Having weighed his options, crazy Oda sighed and came back up.
.
.
.
Hidan found Botan in the hallway hugging Kumi, crying, trying to squeeze her back to life.
Botan gasped and jerked back when he saw him, shoving himself away. Hidan only smiled. He didn't run but simply walked casually after him.
"Fucking idiot," Hidan said, shaking his head. "If you feared death so much, why didn't you run?"
Botan's eyes flicked to Kumi's body and Hidan scoffed. Botan scrambled up and ran into the room, but the only exit was the window, and it didn't open.
Not like Botan had much of a choice when Hidan stood between him and the front entrance.
"Don't do it!" Botan shouted, collapsing against the back wall. "We were friends—"
Hidan squatted in front of him. "I don't know what's sadder," he said, grinning. "The look on your face or that you ever thought we were friends."
Botan shook his head, eyes pleading, gaze flashing behind him to crazy Oda, who stood just inside and watched.
Hidan happily relieved him of his fear by killing him. Then he stood and walked back out of the room, Oda stepping silently out of his way.
"You really are a self-centered piece of shit," Hidan observed.
"If you say you know the truth, what do you need me for?" Crazy Oda asked.
Hidan walked to the ceremony room and gestured Oda inside. "What the fuck do you think?"
Crazy Oda looked at him, momentarily speechless. "That book—" he stopped. "It's a fairytale, a story of a man with no record of existing, a made-up god."
Hidan didn't bother acknowledging him. He looked distastefully at the circle and scuffed the paint with his sandal until it was warped and unrecognizable.
"You truly believe in it, don't you?" Crazy Oda asked in disbelief.
Hidan pointed him to the corner while he worked and wiped the kunai off on the cleanest part of his pants. He held out his arm and cut himself deeply, grimacing, watching his blood splattered down onto the floor.
"You won't become immortal. There's no such thing," crazy Oda said, watching in morbid fascination as he used his foot to smear his blood into the shape of a circle, then drew a triangle at the center.
"Do you ever stop fucking talking?" Hidan asked loudly. Ignoring his bleeding arm, he turned and strode towards crazy Oda, who backed into the wall.
Hidan only stopped in front of him and held out a hand.
"What?" crazy Oda's asked, eyes flicking down to his open palm. "What do you want?"
"Your hand, bastard," Hidan said. "I'm almost done with the preparations."
"Preparations?" crazy Oda repeated, looking at him wildly, but held out his hand.
Hidan did his best to clean off the kunai again, then dragged the point across crazy Oda's palm, just enough for blood to stain the metal edge. Satisfied, he went back to the circle and knelt at the center, the triangle pointing opposite of him.
"Stand there," Hidan ordered, gesturing in front of him, outside the circle.
Crazy Oda cradled his hand, staring at him like he was mad, but did as he was told.
Hidan waited until he was in place, then licked the blood off the kunai, swallowed it, and sat back. He grinned at the look on crazy Oda's face. "You know why your shitty ritual didn't work, bastard?"
"Because it isn't real," crazy Oda tried. "It was only part of the act. Words can only go so far with children. They needed to see—"
"It's not even because of the fucking paint," Hidan spoke over him. He ran his thumb along the flat side of the kunai. "It's because—" He raised the kunai high, gripping the handle with both hands, and crazy Oda's eyes widened. "—You have to do it yourself."
He plunged the kunai into his chest, sliding the tip between his ribs, pushing deeper until it pierced his heart. The pain of it made him bend over and groan. He pressed a hand against the ground as he swayed, fighting the urge to topple over.
But he didn't feel fear. Not as blood poured down his chest, slick and warm on his skin.
It hurt like a bitch, but his faith never wavered.
He could feel it as his heart stuttered, his vision turning blurry, each breath burning on the way out and snapping pain through his chest when he inhaled. His body yelled at him that he was dying and he watched, sluggishly, as his blood covered the triangle and dribbled out of the circle.
Hidan could barely hold himself upright. He wondered how there was this much fucking blood in his body, but he didn't question whether it was working or not, or have last-minute, panicked thoughts that it wasn't.
He only stared down at the blood, sticky under his palms, and wondered, deliriously, why it was so fucking red. It was like someone was drowning him in a wagon of cherry juice for fuck's sake.
He didn't even like cherries.
Hidan watched in distant, delayed surprise as the tips of his fingers began to turn black, as the odd color spread up his knuckles and snaked up his arm like a living shadow. A white line appeared on his middle finger and traced a path up his arm.
What the fuck?
The more the black covered his body, the more his awareness came back to him, and his heart started beating harder, faster, like the kunai wasn't even there.
It made him flinch, and each beat added more blood to the floor.
Hidan sat back, looking at his hands, and blinked once. Twice.
He was immortal.
Hidan threw his head back and laughed so hard he had to wipe away tears.
He was immortal.
He was still laughing his ass off when he heard a loud, distinct thump from the hallway. He paused and realized that crazy Oda had moved.
Oda wasn't in front of him, or anywhere else in the room.
The bastard made a run for it. Again.
Hidan pulled the kunai from his chest and tossed it away as he stood. He took a step out of the circle, stopped, and looked back at the three-pronged scythe on the back wall. Crazy Oda had been full of shit when he said it was a sacred of weapon of Lord Jashin.
The old owner of this place was either a retired ninja or received it as a gift from one, put up to display like the weapons shop owners did sometimes. It would be a damn shame to leave it here.
Hidan walked to the back and pulled on the handle, but it didn't come free right away. He had to cut off the bolts pinning it to the wall, cursing the stupid thing the entire time, and by the time it came off the black and white had faded, soaking beneath his skin and wrapping tight around his bones like a second layer of muscle.
He tested the weight of the scythe, the feel of its swing.
Hell yes.
It was dull, covered in dust, and the cable was jammed, but those were easy enough fixes. Hidan strolled out of the room and found crazy Oda at the end of the hall, face down on the floor.
Hidan kicked him over and saw the blood on his mouth and chin. Crazy Oda's eyes were frozen open, a hand gripping the fabric over his heart.
He stared at Oda for another second, then pressed a hand against his face and laughed again.
It was what the heathen deserved.
狂信
If Yugakure wanted Zabuza Momochi, demon of the mist, he'd give them a demon.
Hidan strolled up the mountain path, the Book of Jashin tucked under his arm.
He still could feel Lord Jashin's divine blessing under his skin, and it was fucking odd. Cold, but not. Foreign, but weirdly comforting.
Once he reached the top, Hidan stopped to look in the direction of his former village. "May the great god Jashin watch me punish these sinners," he said.
He heard a bush rustle, a branch crack, and saw a kunoichi appear just out of his range. She frowned as she eyed his bloody clothes, his scythe.
Hidan tilted his head back, looking at the second shinobi, older looking, standing behind her and above him on a branch.
The man's eyes widened at him, then narrowed to slits. "It's Hidan," he said gruffly.
Her hand went behind her back and pulled a short sword free. "The nuke-nin, right?"
In answer, the man threw shuriken at him.
Hidan twisted the scythe off his shoulder and blocked them in one motion. He felt a twinge of pain and glanced briefly down at the shuriken embedded in his leg.
He probably should've practiced more before he decided to attack Yugakure. Or at all. Oh well.
"Wait, wait," Hidan said, shaking his head. "Am I actually in the bingo book?"
The kunoichi surged towards him and the shinobi leapt down from the tree.
Hidan blocked the downward swing of her short sword with the handle and swung his scythe in a wide half-circle in front of him, forcing the shinobi back.
"No, really, hold the fuck on," he said. "Who the hell reported me missing?"
The kunoichi looked steely, the shinobi pursing his lips. Neither looked willing to answer him. They nodded at each other, then came at him again.
The shinobi flipped through hand-signs while he fended off the kunoichi, ending in the dog sign. Scalding water was spewed at him.
Hidan leapt up and twisted his body so he was upside-down, lodging his scythe in the dirt. Steaming water hit the blades and splashed off the side of the cliff.
He'd planned to stand on top of the handle, just elevated enough to avoid the spray, and take a second to think about how to separate them, but then the kunoichi planted a foot firmly in his side before he could land and sent him careening straight down.
Hidan hit the ground, turned his wild roll into a controlled one, and pushed off the ground. He landed on his feet and slid back across the dirt, closer to the edge of the cliff than he'd like to be.
He started to press a hand against his side over where she definitely ruptured a kidney, but then remembered he was immortal.
His scythe was where he left it, dripping and very separate from him.
Yeah, he should've fucking trained.
Hidan took a quick step to the side, narrowly avoiding a short sword to the chest, and shuriken found homes in his leg. It hurt and annoyed the shit out of him that he had to fight both of these assholes and his old instincts.
They told him to retreat before his leg was too injured to stand on, told him to listen to his body, and he wished they would shut the hell up and let him fight.
The kunoichi stabbed him in the chest while he was distracted, cutting straight through a lung, and Hidan flinched, expression pinching.
Fuck, it was easier stabbing himself.
He hadn't thought about how he would have to unlearn his fighting habits, how his nerves still worked too well, how he'd need to beat out the instinct to dodge fatal blows.
I can't die, shitty brain!
She pushed the blade in deeper, trying to push him off the cliff or kill him outright, but Hidan didn't move. He grabbed her wrist, watching her eyes light up in confusion and alarm a second before his other hand found her neck.
He didn't move as the shinobi shot scalding water at his side.
A little pressure, a little chakra, and she died instantly.
Hidan dropped her as the water splashed and hissed against his skin, too pissed at himself to care beyond the acknowledgement that, yeah, the pain was awful, and his brain wouldn't shut up about it.
He kicked her body hard off the side of the cliff and pulled the short sword out as the jutsu finally stopped. The shinobi stared at him in disbelief, panting hard.
Hidan didn't need to look down to know how badly he'd been burned. He could smell it.
"Your turn," Hidan said. He couldn't help hissing through his teeth as he dragged himself toward the shinobi, his body shuddering against his will.
The shinobi tried to stand, to leap back, but only dropped to one knee. He started to make fumbling hand signs, but not fast enough.
Hidan cut off his head, using every last drop of strength he could force out of his battered body. He watched the shinobi fall, but he didn't smile.
The Book of Jashin was on the ground, dropped sometime when he'd been kicked, soggy and wet and ruined.
"Shithead," he breathed. He dropped the short sword, shaking fingers wandering towards the burns covering half his body, bad enough to have eaten away at muscle and exposed bone.
If he looked at his left arm, at his side, and even a little of his face, he'd see blood and gore.
He didn't touch it, and he didn't look.
His legs gave out and he fainted.
献身
The best way to practice with his new scythe, Hidan found, was during battle.
The blades scraped off a chest plate, hit the floor hard enough to crack the boards, and he used the momentum to swing around and kick the shinobi through a wall.
Training on his own wouldn't have told him how ninja evaded his swing, how they either attacked him with quick, close-range attacks because they were faster, or they didn't come near him at all.
And being stabbed, cut, and maimed helped his brain to learn to go fuck itself.
Hidan dragged his scythe behind him as he darted down the wide hallway, wiping blood off his chin with the back of his right hand. His fingers were blackened and numb, his arm up to his shoulder burned. It hurt like hell every time he lifted his arm.
He should've saved that fire using bastard for a ritual.
"Keep him away from the Chief," a shinobi shouted from the double-doors at the end of the hall, the last line of defense. He looked old as shit.
A brunette stopped his scythe from slicing through her shoulder with a kunai between the blades, strained-looking as she fought to aim the points away from herself.
Hidan simply let go of the handle and watched surprise flash across her face as her arm was suddenly holding up the full weight of his weapon.
He laughed as the scythe dropped straight down, taking her hand with it, and flashed through hand signs. Boar. Dog. Ram.
A sword slid up through his lower back and came out of the front of his chest. Hidan paused for half a second but ignored it. He tilted his head back and water filled his mouth. He spat five small, spiraling water cylinders at the kunoichi, one after another.
The shinobi behind him grunted, confused, and Hidan only shuddered a little as he twisted the blade, pain searing his insides.
The kunoichi, meanwhile, managed to untangle herself from his scythe and leap back, avoiding a cylinder that crashed down where she'd been. A second clipped her knee and made her leg twist, slowing her just enough for a third to hit her side.
Hidan tuned out her scream as she hit the wall. The shinobi guarding the doors dodged the last two.
He gripped the tip of the sword sticking out his front and turned his head to stare at the shinobi behind him. Wide brown eyes stared back.
"I'm getting really fucking sick of being stabbed," Hidan told him.
The shinobi leapt back, leaving his weapon behind, and a kunoichi at the back of the room jumped up, stuck to the ceiling, and shot a blade of wind at him. Hidan didn't dodge.
He only picked up his scythe and shuddered as the blade cut deep across his back, squeezing the handle hard.
Fucking shit that hurt.
Hidan wound the scythe behind him, and then threw it at her. "Fucking heathen," he shouted.
He watched her throw her hands up, surprise making her breath catch, and heard her pained cry as the blades caught part of her arm shield and part of her side and pinned her to the ceiling.
The shinobi that was left stared up at her, then at him as he pulled the sword out of his body.
"Do you have any idea how much this shit hurts?" Hidan asked.
The old man's eyes narrowed. He kept up a defensive stance, but his hands shook. "We need Chief Sugiyama," he said quickly. "If we did what you wanted, we'd all be dead—"
"What makes you think I give a shit?" Hidan interrupted him, leaning the sword against his shoulder. Blood poured down his front.
The old man took a step away from him, back hitting the door, and Hidan grinned.
.
.
.
Hidan stepped into the room, his scythe leaving bloody gouges in the wood as he dragged it behind him, and took a look around.
A low table was on the left side of the room, documents abandoned on top of it. Four cushions were around it, the impressions on them probably still warm. There was a curved desk at the opposite end, stacked with papers, and there was Sugiyama behind it.
A mural of a maple tree had been drawn on the left wall. It looked like a comfy place.
Hidan faced Sugiyama. The old man looked even older than he remembered, his back curved more, hands folded in his hakama.
"Despite any wrongdoing you may accuse me of, everything I've done was always to ensure the future of the village," Sugiyama said, resigned. "You were never one to see beyond the present, or yourself for that matter."
"You're full of shit," Hidan responded. He spun the scythe to point at Sugiyama.
Sugiyama shook his head. "You caused dissent at every opportunity," he said scornfully. "You never paid respect as was proper but expected others to respect you. You abandoned the village the instant things stopped going your way, and here you return, to enact revenge for an imagined slight."
Hidan stared at him for a second, then tilted his head back and laughed hard. "You really think I left the village because of your damn mandate?" he asked. "You think I came back because I held a grudge for three years?"
He strolled towards Sugiyama. The old man didn't move.
"And why the shit should I have respected you, or anyone here?" he asked. "What the fuck has Yugakure ever done for me?"
Hidan jumped up onto the desk, scattering papers, and crouched.
Sugiyama stared up at him, straightening as much as he could, unflinching in the face of the scythe against his shoulder.
"You've gotta give me a little more credit than that," Hidan said, grinning. "I know you're old and shit, but I'm a monster, remember? A team-killer? I'm just giving the people what they want."
Sugiyama's arm flashed out of his sleeve and Hidan paused. He reached up and pulled senbon out of his neck. He looked at the blood on the ends, then let them clatter down on the desk.
The old man must've hit a vein or something, because he started bleeding a lot.
Hidan rolled his neck, watching shock and a bright flash of fear flit across Sugiyama's face. He could help the old man out with that fear. He stood, his grin sharper, and lifted the scythe above his head with both hands. "Time to die, old man."
Sugiyama stood in his shadow, frozen. "How—"
He brought it down.
.
.
.
His scythe tore through the stomach of an older man, his old neighbor who helped tie his ankles, who accused him of killing his team.
The man fell in a twitching heap in his own living room, shock in his eyes as he stared at his blood-covered hands.
And Hidan stood over him and watched him die.
.
.
.
Hidan felt lightheaded.
It was the blood loss, he decided, as he cut down a woman, a gossip, one of the many dead people who named him Zabuza before he knew who that was.
He ignored the boy with horror in his eyes on his knees at the back of the carpeted room and left the house, taking a second to lean against the doorframe.
He was healing fast, but his injuries were starting to add up. The cut across his back had closed but kept reopening when he moved too fast. His burned fingers were still numb.
If he looked across the road, past the bloody footprints, the bodies, he'd see his old house.
What the fuck did they do with her body?
He pushed away from the door, stumbled onto the road, and saw Takkao kneeling next to a dead body, checking for a pulse.
Hey, his arm wasn't in a sling anymore. Good for him.
Takkao stood quickly upon seeing him, only to go wide-eyed and still.
"I feel fucking terrible," Hidan told him, because why the fuck not?
His scald burns had mostly healed when he finally picked himself up and paid Sugiyama a visit, but that fight had been only a few hours after he sacrificed himself and bled all over the place.
"You did this?" Takkao asked.
"Old fucking news," Hidan answered, squinting at him. Blurry vision was bad, right? How much blood had he lost since this whole thing started, anyway?
"This wasn't the answer," Takkao said, still in shock.
And Hidan laughed. "It made me feel better."
Takkao only stared at him.
Well, Hidan thought that was what the blob in front of him was doing. It was hard to tell.
The blurry figure moved, a darker, metal shape around his hands, and Hidan threw up his scythe, a wall between him and Takkao.
It didn't do much to help when he was punched in the face, the metal (knuckle-dusters?) making his teeth rattle.
Hidan went down like a house of cards and giggled. Oh, hey. His vision was starting to clear a little.
Takkao stood over him and sighed. Those were knuckle-dusters.
Hidan turned his head and spat blood as Takkao pulled a kunai from his pouch.
He made a valiant attempt to sit up when Takkao shoved him back down with his foot, then stabbed him in the chest. He looked conflicted.
It made Hidan laugh.
Takkao jerked back as he pulled the kunai free and tossed it away. Blood splattered the road.
Well, more blood. His arms were starting to feel oddly tingly.
"You heathens keep trying that same shit," Hidan said, wiping blood off his mouth as he dragged his body up. "I can't die."
Takkao's eyes widened. "You can't—What happened after you disappeared?"
"Shit I'm not about to get into," Hidan said. "Hey, were you the one who reported me missing?"
"I shouldn't have. I wouldn't have if I'd known you'd come back and do this."
A low buzzing noise filled his head. Hidan smacked a hand against his ear, as if he could physically knock out the sound. He let his eyes slide away in disinterest for a second, then swung his scythe at Takkao's head.
Takkao ducked, eyes hard, and Hidan couldn't dodge the fist that connected with his jaw.
He stumbled back and spat blood again. "You know what? Fuck this. I'll come back when I don't feel like shit."
"You don't get to walk away after this," Takkao said, and closed the distance.
Hidan stuck a pinky in his ear, feigning boredom. "The fuck are you going to do? Beat me to death?"
He didn't bother trying to avoid it as Takko punched him hard in the stomach, coughing as his collar was grabbed and yanked, and then he was close enough to Takkao to laugh in his face.
Hidan hooked a thumb at the still-open doorway behind him, grinning. "You don't get the fuck out of my way and I kill the kid in there."
Takkao tightened his grip. "You're lying."
The drone in his head was louder, but he ignored it, "I'll kill him on principle if you make me go over there to prove it."
Takkao looked past him, but if he really wanted to stop him he would've already. It wasn't some bullshit past friendliness that kept Takkao from tying him up while he still could.
It was the same reason Takkao had reported him gone at all, but Hidan didn't owe shit to the dead.
Takko stared at him, at the still-warm bodies around them, then let go of his shirt.
.
.
.
Hidan ditched his shoes as he went back to the inn, if only to make it harder for the bastards to follow him.
He collapsed in the entrance hall and slept for three days.
A/N: 狂信 - Fanaticism, 献身 - Devotion
In the earliest version of Godless, Hidan's mom kicked him out because all the attention on him made life harder for her and later, he'd come back and kill her. But I just couldn't do it. She couldn't live either, because what better test of faith is there than to kill his own mother?