General
"What's all this junk in here for?" Kakuzu asked.
Hidan stared. And then he stared some more. And then, he pulled out his phone and showed Kakuzu the group chat.
"A fight?" Kakuzu's eyebrows raised at that.
"Fuck yeah, it's gonna be the shit, and hey wait a sec." Hidan took his phone back and looked through all of the messages in the chat. "Fuck! 'Scuse me." He started hitting buttons at a furious pace.
"Dei didn't say anything about it," he mumbled while he was typing. "So now...I'm asking permission...and if I get it, I'm inviting everyone to watch."
Kakuzu stayed silent. Hidan looked up at him. "Hey asshole. I know you have ears. I'm not spelling shit out."
"Yes, I'll come. Did you need that spelled out?" Kakuzu teased. Hidan knew it was a tease from long years of experience, and from the humorous feeling he had.
He smirked. "Just checking." Deidara replied to say Yes, people could watch. He didn't say anything more; but he probably was busy. "Shit, shit, shit," Hidan mumbled as he went back to the group chat and invited everyone to the fight, which he also gave more details about. "Sorry, Kakuzu. There's time pressure today. I'm busy."
Kakuzu sighed and crossed his arms. "Time pressure. How nice." He leaned back against the truck and relaxed his shoulders. "Well, it was nice while it lasted."
"Ah, there you are," came Konan's voice. She came up to the two of them, looking blank and business-oriented. Kakuzu stared at her. She stared back, tilting her head and looking at him quizzically. "Is something wrong?"
Kakuzu continued to stare. How long has it been? He could remember his 80th birthday better than he could remember this same look on Konan's face a week ago. It looked foreign to his eyes, which were expecting a more angry look, or perhaps distracted, or perhaps broken. The current blankness on her face indicated neither how much she was thinking nor what she was thinking about. I have no idea how I feel about that. Kakuzu remembered being impressed with her getting down to business on her second day, but that had been before he knew what her blankness covered. He was no longer sure at all whether covering that was a good thing. How long would it be before another eruption, another reveal of uncomfortable truths? If episodic explosions of bad news were an option, Kakuzu would kiss shoes in order to make the alternative happen, whatever that alternative was. Even if the alternative was a steady wallow in muck for the next several months as her issues leaked out slowly, Kakuzu would support that above drowning.
"It's been a while," he replied. In case she didn't understand, he gestured at his own face.
Konan blinked, and smiled. "It should hold for the next couple of months, barring further disaster." She gestured towards the front of the building. "At any rate, there is a crack in the wall of the lobby that needs fixing. I know little about construction in this world, so we should determine if it is possible to direct Stonemaker Jutsu in such a precise way."
Hidan rummaged through the passenger seat, coming up with his arms full of rope, brush, harness, and duck. "Sounds good. I got deliveries to make. Where's Dei?"
Konan produced four butterflies and sent them all in different directions. "Deidara is flying up the street," she told him. "Kisame is in the back yard, as is Samehada, Itachi, Yahiko, and a small child." Her eyebrows showed a small amount of confusion at the last.
"Yep," Hidan nodded. "Snake kid's nice. If you got time, you should see him. He's cool." He stepped aside. "Cat treats and feather, in there. Go nuts."
She and Kakuzu watched him head in the direction of the street, delivering Deidara's brush. Kakuzu looked at her sideways. "I thought the feather and treats were for him."
"They were." Konan looked toward the passenger seat. "Does he genuinely think I would enjoy them myself?" Her tone was thoughtful, not disbelieving. She's actually considering it.
Kakuzu shrugged. "You can find out what he thinks later. A crack in the wall sounds more important."
"Yes." She closed the car door. "Let's practice in the forest first."
.
Hidan carried his substantial burden several offices up the street, where he found Deidara circling around a tree, ducking through its branches at speed. "Oy!" he yelled.
The blonde immediately made his owl stop in place and looked around. "Oh, thank goodness, yeah!" he grinned as he spotted Hidan. He took the owl down from the branches. "You like this spot?"
Hidan looked around. He was standing on the front lawn of some doctor's private practice - a small, houselike building with only one story and a flat roof. The large oak Deidara had just been flying through took up half of the front lawn with its wide roots. Across the street was another houselike building, this one of two stories and with a triangular roof. It also had a tree on its lawn, a large evergreen whose lower branches could do a decent job of hiding a human-sized figure as they blew in the wind. Seeing them blowing reminded Hidan that even under his cloak, he was getting chilled. He could feel the goosebumps on his arms. Wonder what the weather's like back there? Maybe Other Me lived somewhere warmer, Hidan reasoned.
"Oh yeah," he agreed. "Look at this shit - different kinds of things to hide behind, different houses and trees to use for cover or launch yourself off of, the trees even face each other like they were meant for us. It would be even better if we used the houses. You wanna use the houses?" He gestured to the other building's second story windows.
Deidara looked at his hand. "I'll be making them small, and they're supposed to move on their own, and I don't want to use them so much for hurting people, yeah… Sending them into a building or something would be really good, yeah! I didn't even think of using them to find people, but yes! Totally!"
"All fucking right!" Hidan shifted the rope, harness and duck to his right arm and high-fived the blond. "Can you even imagine what kind of places our originals trained or fought in? I can! I'm imagining a whole miniature town, maybe half-forest, with like towers and shit…"
"And other things, yeah," Deidara continued. "Probably sand, and rocks, and a deep pool of water somewhere. Gotta have everything."
Hidan sighed. "And we have to make do with what we can scrounge up, which is flat ground with two trees on it." He shrugged. "At least they're good trees and different kinds of buildings."
"Yeah…" Deidara stared off into space wistfully. "I wonder what flying in mountains would be like? You think he had mountains?"
"Depends where they lived," Hidan murmured. "I should ask where this group was based and shit. But, wait, she did say our originals started a war somewhere, so that means they traveled! He probably flew through all kinds of mountains while traveling."
"Heh, yeah." Dei tried to focus on this silver lining, instead of the "started a war" part. "They probably didn't have airplanes, hm. Why would my birds be so awesome if they did?"
"You should ask about villages, too," Hidan recalled. "She told me stuff about herself and my original, and mentioned that everybody lived in villages. Other Sasori used puppets, when we all know there's way better shit in this world. And no planes. Sounds like an old-style sorta world."
"Remember when we went to the bar, and she rode with Kisame and Itachi?" Deidara asked. "She looked so...interested in that. Don't know how else to explain it."
Hidan nodded. "Yeah, I got the feeling it was new to her. I was all giddy. Speaking of which…" He nodded downwards. "I got ropes to figure out how to attach. That'll take me a while."
Deidara held up the brush. "And I've got a bird to wash, hm. See ya."
Hidan walked into the backyard. He saw Samehada being an excellent distraction for Yahiko all the way to the left, Itachi balancing a rock on his head in front of him, and Kisame leaning against a tree watching the shark and occasionally glancing at Itachi. Hidan walked over to Kisame, depositing his burdens at the base of a nearby tree.
Itachi took the rock off his head and came over. Hidan snorted. "What'd you have that on your head for?"
"Play," was Itachi's answer. "It helps with thinking, and thinking is what I need to do in order to find out what Nagato meant and decide on a training partner."
Hidan glanced down at the rock. "It's got a good shape, I guess, but why not try stacking three? Balancing one is just a meditation exercise. Stack three and play a grass whistle, pretend you're a one-man circus."
Itachi pretended to write in midair. "Note to self: consult Hidan before attempting to play, as he is very wise in the ways of entertainment."
"And we're not," Kisame explained. "Same pulled us out here, then saw what was going on and went over to hang out with them. So now we have to make things up for ourselves, which we're not skilled at."
"Seriously?" Hidan looked between the two of them with pity. "You guys couldn't even think of sword fighting with sticks?"
"I'm not interested in imaginative play," Itachi defended. "I like to play with the imagination, not with real things using my imagination."
"If you can find anything to swordfight with, let me know," Kisame said. "She said I did that. It might be familiar."
Hidan went quiet. Itachi activated the Sharingan to take a closer look. I can't see anything. Why can't I see anything? Hidan's face was a black hole, as blank to Itachi's Sharingan as Konan's face was to casual observation. Itachi kept his Sharingan activated. This was a very interesting phenomenon.
Eventually Hidan stopped tapping a finger against his chin and looked up at Kisame. "Deidara had this idea of training with other people," he started. "So, for you, probably Kakuzu. I mean, d'obviously. Maybe Yahiko, for the water stuff. I dunno about swords. Do any of those animal guys know about swords?"
He looked at Itachi. "You have kinda the same figure as Nagato, and she said he needed to look out for himself better. It's perfect!"
"She did say that," Itachi remembered. "In addition, Nagato was discussing possible applications of my chakra-based techniques when you told us about how you used water. I was already thinking of assisting someone by combining illusions and water jutsu."
"Shit." Hidan pictured that. It was glorious. "Get that idea to Sunshine ASAP. He already learned about spreading his chakra through water to make it work better."
"He's busy." Itachi stepped aside, offering Hidan a clear view of Yahiko watching the toddler pet Samehada fearlessly, while Samehada licked the boy's cheek as softly as possible. He could only look from one to the other and giggle at the adorableness, being far too distracted for anything else.
Hidan was also quite distracted at this sight. "Aww." He elbowed Kisame. "Isn't that the cutest thing ever? A kid and a shark. It doesn't get cuter than that. 'Specially not when the shark's Sammy. Hey Sammy!" he called.
Samehada heard him and raced back in time to leap into Hidan's waiting arms. Hidan allowed himself to be bowled over by the shark's weight, laughing the whole time. "Shit, I'm sorry," he apologized while halfheartedly fending off Samehada's tongue. "I've been too busy to hang out for a while. Forgive me?"
Samehada nodded and licked Hidan's face, or tried to. Hidan blocked it with his arm. Too late, he remembered that this was his injured arm, from when he'd sliced it open at the party. Konan was right; he did heal much faster than normal, but that didn't mean it was ready to withstand an enthusiastic licking from a shark's rough tongue. I should not have sliced that deeply. Hidan took a deep, shaky breath of air. The pain flooded up his spine and down, awakening every part of him. Every part. Whoally shit. I like it. He was already purring.
Samehada realized his mistake and squealed, getting off Hidan in a hurry. Kisame and Itachi looked down to see if he was alright. "Are you okay?" Kisame asked. He looked down at Hidan's arm. It was very red, but not bleeding. That was a relief.
Itachi still had his Sharingan on as he observed Hidan's suddenly deep breathing and glazed eyes. He looked away. "He seems fine." Itachi deactivated his Sharingan, to no avail. The mental image was not leaving his head. I should be careful what I look at.
Hidan tried to get himself back under control. "Yeah, I'm good." He was also struggling to get a mental image out of his head. This image was one of Konan looking very vicious. Hidan shook his head and pressed his legs together, bending over them as he sat up. "It's fine. My arm's fine. Hey, Sammy?"
The shark asked, "Rar?"
Hidan giggled. "Turn around. That's what I called ya for."
Samehada did so and made a low, smooth, soft chirr as he saw the ducky perched on top of the pile of rope. He rushed up and, with lots of gentle maneuvering and much use of chakra, got the ducky to sit on the tip of his snout where he could hold it up and make soft soothing noises at it.
As predicted, this sight distracted Kisame and Itachi from anything Hidan might have been doing. Itachi looked at his friend. "Is this what you meant?"
Kisame nodded. "Yeah." He pulled Itachi aside so they wouldn't be interrupting Samehada with their conversation. "That's what he was doing in the bathtub, and he was also singing to it. I've never seen him do that before." Kisame looked shaken. Itachi reactivated his Sharingan and saw that his friend was hiding several different kinds of unhappiness.
"Kisame, what's wrong?" he asked.
The shark man closed his eyes and sighed. "I've never seen him do that before," he repeated. "It looks just like…" he trailed off, and growled in frustration. "I just have to ask, what else does he like or want that I can't provide? Do I know what to do for him?"
Hidan's breathing was returning to normal, many thanks to Samehada's decidedly not-vicious feelings. He heard Kisame's question. "Hey, Fishface," he called as he came over to join them. "Happiness doesn't fucking work like that."
Kisame stared back, puzzled. Hidan explained, "I mean, it doesn't for him. Yes, you totally should find out more about what he wants, 'cause some of it might not be just fun and games." I feel parental instincts at work here. Those sure as shit aren't going away. "But you don't have to feel all guilty and shit. He's not paying attention to how happy he is and comparing it to how happy he could be, like other people do. He doesn't fret so much about what he's not doing. You can relax."
Kisame did relax, but scowled. He glanced back at Samehada. "It doesn't matter. Even if he doesn't feel deprived, I don't want to deprive him. He's unique. I don't want to let down my only shark-friend. I want to treat him well."
Hidan punched him lightly in the shoulder. "You do, dumbass."
Kisame took another look at Samehada holding the ducky up as if to show it things before he turned back. "Even so."
Something occurred to Itachi. He desperately tried to ignore it. No. I am not thinking about my best friend in that way. None of my business. At least it was just an idea, which was easier to dismiss. Itachi turned to Hidan's materials instead, taking solace in their lack of secrets. "What will you do with these?"
Hidan brightened and walked through Itachi and Kisame to start rummaging in the pile. He held up the harness and the coil of rope. "Konan said a while ago that I could throw my scythe. For that, I need a rope. To hold that, I need this thing."
He put down the rope and stretched out the harness to take a closer look at it. "Hmm, let's see…" He held the useful part of the harness against his right hip and tried fiddling with the straps one-handed.
Kisame huffed and held the useful part for him, freeing Hidan to work with both hands. After several failed attempts to put the rest of it together, which Itachi observed with his Sharingan, Itachi stepped in to show Hidan how he thought the straps were meant to go. Hidan secured the last buckle triumphantly. "All fuckin' right!" He turned to the rope.
"Speaking of your scythe, it was strange to see you without it," Itachi said.
Hidan winced. It was strange, but just barely ignorable to be without it. Being reminded of the missing weight on his back, the lack of a tail, the absence of blades brushing against his shoulder, made Hidan feel itchy and deprived. "That's why I'd rather ride in the bed than drive," he complained. "The truck's too small. I can't take it with me at all because the truck's narrow enough that it would take up too much space, and its handle doesn't bend. Who the fuck made it unable to bend?!" He threw down the rope he was holding. "Whoever designed that shit can go fuck themselves." He stormed off into the building to get his scythe, looking nearly on the verge of tears.
Itachi and Kisame stared after him. "It must be very meaningful to him," Itachi concluded.
"She did list his scythe in the same way as she listed Samehada for me," Kisame remembered. "It might not be alive, but it is unique, just like Same. I get it."
"Hey, guys," Yahiko called from across the lawn. "You want to come and see?"
They did. Itachi and Kisame joined Yahiko and the toddler around the circle of grass, forming a circle of four. Kisame looked down at the toddler. "I didn't want to scare you earlier. Um...hello."
The boy stared up at him, not looking intimidated in the slightest. That was a relief. His snakelike eyes glittered in the sunlight. Kisame swallowed his questions. Why are you half snake? Is it the same way as I'm half shark, or another way? How do you get along with other snakes? The boy's eyes looked remote and lonely. Kisame wondered about his own eyes, about his own blue skin and gill marks. What did he look like? He tore his eyes away from the snake's smooth white skin. He can't talk to me, but then neither can Same. But, I don't want to scare him. Kisame cleared his throat and asked Yahiko what he'd been doing here and what happened to the grass.
They listened to the whole story with growing amazement. Kisame was unable to restrain himself from looking at the child again as Yahiko described his powers, but found to his pleasure that the boy was looking back. The boy held out his stuffed snake. Kisame wondered how much the kid could tell of his feelings as he petted it. The boy looked like he understood, but Kisame hadn't said anything. Does he have similar powers to Hidan's as well?
Samehada rustled his way directly through the grass to Kisame's lap halfway through, joining the party. He made himself comfortable and listened attentively to the last part where Yahiko described what he'd managed to accomplish. The pressure in Kisame's gut from seeing the snake boy and wondering about him eased. Samehada was here, and he was a land shark just like Kisame. Having him here made everything better. Kisame thrust away his inner critic and tried to honestly consider how lonely he was. I definitely sound like I need company. No, I'm not going to consider that weakness, because I just don't have time. So what can I do as a solution? Stay and talk to the snake kid? Go back to the Hatakes and get Ruta like Nagato asked? Hug Samehada? All of those sounded like good options.
Yahiko finished with, "And after Nagato left, I looked closely. It seems like the grass where I direct my chakra grows back a little more than the rest. I'd love to try this with water." He was breathing harder than he should, though. "So how are you guys doing?"
Itachi said, "We've been helping Hidan prepare for his fight."
Yahiko blinked. "What fight? Prepare how? What's that belt thing for, and why did he run off?"
Itachi explained everything they'd heard, including Nagato's ideas both that day and the day where he had spoken with Itachi in the basement. Hidan came out with the scythe on his back where it belonged just after Itachi began, but showed no interest in their gathering. He went straight to the pile of rope and started figuring out how to tie it around the scythe's handle. So Itachi went on, watching Yahiko's eyes widen and the orange-haired man nod vigorously as he heard the answer Itachi had given Nagato.
"That explains it!" he said when Itachi paused to let him interrupt. "I saw Sammy licking at the sunlight when you came out, and then he came over to chew on my arm. How was it? Do I taste like actual sunlight?"
Samehada shook his head no and whined sadly. Yahiko smiled at him. "Does Nagato taste like moonlight?" Samehada nodded yes, flopping up and down excitedly. "Huh. What causes that?"
Kisame let Itachi come up with an answer to that question. He was far too busy watching the snake kid instead. The toddler seemed distracted by Hidan's efforts across the grass. Kisame cautiously touched the boy very briefly on the shoulder with one finger. "I'll remember whatever they come up with, if you want to hear it," he offered.
A small smile appeared on the boy's face, causing Kisame to grin as well. The toddler ran off to help Hidan with the rope. Kisame wondered why he wanted to help Hidan instead of stay around everyone else, then dismissed that question for now. He had a promise to keep.
Itachi was wondering if it had anything to do with Nagato's eyes. "If we're right and his unique powers really do come from his eyes, then his eyes could be the key. They are both incredibly powerful, just like one might expect from a celestial deity, and connected to his chakra. That could be the link."
Yahiko scratched his chin. "Celestial deities? So, we're going fully animistic here?" He looked back at the child briefly. "I mean, I did want to get books on nature spirits, but nature gods as well?"
Kisame cleared his throat. "A-hem." When he had their attention, he pointed down at the grass, behind himself into the woods, and at where the snake boy was helping Hidan. "Presenting Exhibits A, B, and C."
"We don't know what that is," Yahiko protested.
"Precisely." Itachi reminded him, "The only beings we have met in this world with strange powers not based in chakra were demons. It's not unrealistic to expect religious overtones to some of the beings around here."
"Who knows what kind of vampires we have, too," Kisame added under his breath.
Yahiko shrugged and crossed his arms defiantly. "Well, what I see so far is a little kid who needs company. I'm not going to treat him any differently than that unless I have a reason to."
"Of course. Children are children. But Kisame does have a valid point; we can't dismiss anything as unlikely."
Yahiko held up one finger. "Rule One of being a ninja, apparently: You're not allowed to disbelieve anything."
Itachi held up two fingers. "Rule Two: Morality is flexible. You need to make up your own mind as to what you believe."
Kisame tried to think of a third. "Rule Three: Definitions are flexible, too. You have to decide for yourself what you are, all the way down to the species level."
They nodded in agreement. A vote was held, during which they agreed unanimously to accept these three rules as core tenets of what it was to be a ninja. "We can always add others," Itachi suggested. "And there may be other things which deserve mention but are not so fundamental."
Samehada rumbled and looked around. What about him?
Yahiko laughed and leaned forward to pat Samehada on the nose. "It's okay, Sammy. You're here, you're one of us, you use chakra. You count as a ninja under Rule Three. A shark ninja." He giggled. "Konan told us there were talking toads back in her world that people learned really awesome techniques from, so there definitely are animal ninjas."
"Shit." They both turned to look at Kisame. He was surprised by the sudden attention. "Sorry, didn't mean to say that out loud." He sighed and turned to Yahiko. "I met this one guy in the clan of people who are half-animal who is really, really open-minded and likes to categorize things. I invited him over at any time he wants to help us figure things out. Talking animals and plant growing powers? Sounds like I need to drag him over here yesterday."
"Did you get the number of anyone over there?' Itachi asked.
"No, and I damn well should have." Kisame facepalmed at his own stupidity.
"Oh, well." Itachi looked over at Hidan and the toddler. They were making rapid progress at getting the entire coil of rope wrapped around the harness. "Maybe later. He's almost ready."
The three (and Samehada, who was very proud to be a ninja) agreed to formalize and publish their list of Rules on the group chat, before dispersing and heading up the street for the fight. Hidan realized a loose rope would be seriously annoying to work around, so he had to take his cloak off, wind the rope through his sleeve, and retie it around the scythe handle. His opinion of his original rose in the process. Even if he was a murderous bastard with seriously limited abilities, he had to be one dedicated murderous bastard with seriously limited abilities. That's probably how he got away with seriously limited abilities for so long. Hidan practiced throwing his scythe a few times, and jumped up and down afterwards cheering enough for the both of them. The snake boy smiled. Hidan offered him a lift to the site of the battle, which the boy accepted.
Konan met with Itachi. "Itachi. I was finally told about the demon's demand, and I believe I know what he was referring to. Your Mangekyo Sharingan can not only release Tsukiyomi, but also Amaterasu, which is extremely hot black fire." She gave him a giant branch to use. Kisame held it over his head in the middle of an otherwise empty yard, and Itachi set the very top of it on fire. From Kisame's wincing, he could tell it was very hot indeed.
Kisame didn't have to put up with the heat for long, as the branch was pulled out of his hands and hovered in midair a few seconds after lighting. "Thanks!" the boy called, before reaching out and pulling the fire off the branch. Itachi, Kisame, Konan, Yahiko, Hidan and the snake boy all stared as the demon pooled the black fire together as if it was liquid, before consuming some of it. His eyes lit up and he did the Tobi dance. "Hyaaaaa good stuff!" He proceeded to do more cheering and dancing. None of the adults present could be sure if he had eaten or drank the fire, or if his reaction to it resembled really good food or something illegal.
The snake toddler ran up to him and took his hand, guiding the demon back to the seat Hidan had shown him. The demon took his ball of fire with him, wrapping it in darkness first. Itachi guessed the darkness must have heat shield properties to it, as the building they sat on did not spontaneously burst into flames.
Kisame's face was still raw and painful to move, which prompted Yahiko to suggest they accumulate water before the fight. He locked eyes with the snake boy and grinned. If anyone was hurt, this would be his first chance to try healing them. If not, Kisame's face was in need of relief.
The demon, snake, and Yahiko took seats on the roof of a building a couple houses down from the yard Deidara was in. Itachi and Kisame fetched a large cooking bowl and filled it with water, and stayed nearby for healing. Kisame rubbed his face and marveled at how much better it felt from the other side of the street, a couple houses down from the yard with the evergreen tree that Hidan was starting from. Konan perched on a disused telephone pole a house and a half up from the yard Hidan was in, wanting to keep her paper as far from the demon's fire as possible. Across from her, two houses up from Deidara's yard, sat Sasori. Kakuzu leaned against the base of the pole.
Hidan and Deidara compared their supplies. "Nice!" Deidara was very admiring of the harness and rope. "Carbon fiber? Shit, that can't be blown up easily."
"I have no idea whether it can or can't, but at least it won't cut easily and it has to be stronger against some things," Hidan partially agreed. "Did Konan hook you up with that bag?"
"Yeah, when we trained that one time, hm!" Deidara patted a small pouch at his side. "She said it wouldn't hold very much, but it has to be good enough for one fight, yeah."
They took time to admire the cleanliness of Deidara's clay bird, too. "And scrubbing at it did nothing?"
"Nope! As far as I can tell it's like concrete, yeah. I was right - it holds up even under water and scrubbing, hm."
Nagato and Yahiko's car pulled into the parking lot of the hotel. Nagato hopped out without bothering to drive it all the way to the parking place and raced up the street. He joined Yahiko next to the demon and the snake. "Sorry! I did get a lot of books, but I might have to go back."
"I can't read instantly," Yahiko reassured him. "Look at what Hidan got!"
Nagato's enjoyment of the setup was tainted by the color of the rope, but he kept those concerns to himself. It's a really deep blue. A lot like the color in his eyes that time… He waited to shiver until Yahiko's head was turned. Nagato followed his example and waved at the boys. The demon pointed to the black fireball, which was now hovering right next to Nagato's other side. He flinched at a controlled outburst of flame. The demon boy giggled mischievously.
"All right!" Deidara yelled, as he stepped from a branch of the oak tree onto his waiting steed.
"Fuck yeah!" Hidan ducked behind the evergreen.
For several seconds, silence reigned. Then Deidara dipped a hand into his pouch of clay and threw a spider in a wide overhead arc, blasting it as it fell behind the opposite side of the evergreen tree.
Before the blast, Hidan zipped out from behind the tree, raced across the street, and threw his scythe at Deidara from the side. Deidara dodged, but by a smaller margin than he meant to. Crap that thing nearly got me! His owl had nearly gotten the scythe embedded in its wing. Dei went pale and took his bird higher.
Hidan smirked and raced for the oak. Leaping from branch to branch, he reached the top in no time and threw it again. Deidara treated the scythe as if it had a 3-foot danger radius around it, but still came too close for his comfort. He upgraded the imaginary radius to 6 feet and decided to try and keep himself on the other side of the field from Hidan's scythe at all times.
Hidan's scythe hit the roof of the opposite building. He grabbed the rope and pulled it free, grimacing at the amount of damage that caused to the roof. This is a recipe for collateral damage. Everybody had better stay back. They intended to. All but the demon had taken their spots out of consideration for Deidara's blasts, but the same distance proved just as good at keeping them the hell away from Hidan's scythe.
Deidara looped around the evergreen, giving Hidan another good shot at him. This time Deidara made like a falcon and dived, watching the scythe sail harmlessly overhead. Damn, I can't do this every time he throws it, yeah. I can't dodge in such a small space. I need a shield. He skimmed along the ground, pulling up in time to avoid the oak's trunk. His earlier practice at weaving through its branches came in real handy. He churned out a bunch of really small spiders and threw them through the crowd of upper level branches between him and Hidan before stopping his ascent and escaping the tree.
Hidan leaped sideways to escape the spiders, and only then thought about where and how he would land. There was nowhere to land but the ground. He impulsively threw his scythe out again, this time keeping a firm grip on its rope and using it to adjust his balance as he fell. The swing this caused nearly took Deidara's head off. Fuck this, yeah! Let's see what his 'precious' can take! Deidara made a full-sized spider and circled around, waiting for the scythe to return to a predictable course.
Hidan landed and pulled his scythe to him. Deidara threw a spider with all of his strength, blowing it up to full size as it reached the red blades. It grabbed the blades and detonated.
Fuck! Hidan leaped up onto the roof of the 2 story house, pulling the scythe up and out of the ground. Now he knows to deflect it. I'm gonna have to surprise him. Hidan ran down the side of the house and ducked into an upper window, closing it behind him.
Deidara grinned, even as his mind raced. He felt better than he could remember ever feeling. When was the last time he'd been so alive? His mind was clicking away at a very pleasant speed indeed. If I use one spider to deflect, with the amount of clay I have, I can deflect maybe 7-10 times, and that's if I don't use any for my own attacks. I need to end this quickly, hm. He threw 6 mini spiders at a lower window that was broken. They blew up to a size where they could just barely perch in someone's hand and climbed in. Deidara grimaced at the speed they crawled at. I need some other shapes, yeah. Clay flies or something would be way better.
The front door of the 2 story house flew open as Hidan ran out, followed by the blue rope he held in his trailing arm. He stopped and spun, pulling his scythe out the door behind him. Impaled on the end of it was one of Dei's spiders. Hidan's spin took the scythe up in a wide arc, flinging it and its explosive cargo directly at Deidara. The blonde turned deathly pale. Hidan remembered to flick his wrist, making the scythe jerk wildly. Even so, Deidara barely had time to overcome his freeze reflex before the scythe flew past him on a wide miss. He blasted the spider, throwing the scythe away from him and giving himself time to recover and stop shaking.
Hidan suppressed a cry of frustration. Fuck! I can't aim for shit yet! He pulled on the rope wildly, trying to get it back on a controllable course, but its flight was out of his hands. He managed to bring the scythe back towards him, causing it to slice off several upper branches of the evergreen tree and embed itself almost to the hilt in the yard. A last-minute dodge was the only reason Hidan's leg wasn't added to the pile of chopped off limbs. Forget aiming, I can barely even handle it!
Creeper! screamed his memory of watching Let's Play Minecraft videos with Itachi. That hissing sound triggered reflexes he didn't know he had. Hidan leaped as high as he could and yanked on the rope. The scythe resisted, but eventually pulled free and lazily crossed the grass to smack against the spiders that had crept up behind Hidan while he was busy dodging his own weapon. Thanks to the grass caught in the blades, his scythe acted as a fan, sweeping the spiders away and not impaling any of them. Hidan gritted his teeth, rolled away from the explosion as one of them detonated, and thanked his lucky stars that none of them had been caught in the blades.
How many did he send? He'd been moving too fast to tell. He'd caught one on his blades, another had just exploded, and there were two standing where he'd swept them away. There could be a lot more infesting the house, getting ready to catch him even now. But first, he had to run for it as a rain of small ones descended on him from above, leaving his scythe behind. Hidan shed his cloak, which might hold small ones, and dove through a locked window into the doctor's office.
Hidan winced as the glass forced a cry of pain from him and the smell of blood filled the air, but there was no time for dealing with that. He had to get his scythe back. Weapon, shield, counterweight. Hidan realized it served all those functions and without it, he was hosed. He tried to pull on the rope, but the glass in his arm made this too painful. He threw his right arm out to balance himself as he ran for the side of the building. That one was still useable, but Hidan doubted its utility. He used it to wrench glass pieces out of his left shoulder as he ran, and to open the window he climbed out of.
At this point, he officially could not retrieve his scythe by its rope. Hidan had been happy to purchase a coil of rope long enough to wrap around a house and then some, and he would have dropped to his knees in a prayer of gratitude for it now. The rope could still be used for balance, but Hidan would have to retrieve his weapon the old fashioned way. He estimated that if he didn't have to wind through a house again, the remaining length of rope would be more than enough to serve him for battle. He let it unwind behind him as he crept behind some bushes next to the private practice and listened.
The rope rustled the bushes, though Hidan wasn't moving it. Shit! He's got the scythe! Hidan tried not to yell curses as he struggled to keep his mind in order. He needed a new strategy, but the red mist settling over his eyes was not going to allow him one. How dare he touch my tail. How dare he. It's mine. MINE!
Hidan grabbed the rope and flooded it with his chakra. Ordinary rope, woven of dead and broken fibers, would not have carried his chakra. This rope and its unbroken fibers did. He forgot his senses and screamed rage into the sky, even as his hearing faded. His vision faded too. The missing part of each was replaced with a new vision and a new hearing, as he sensed flight vibrations running through himself and saw talons gripping him. Hidan wasted no time thinking of how this was possible. His imaginary tail was no longer imaginary. It was real, staggeringly heavy, and channeled chakra from Hidan's spine. He spun his tail, and saw himself flip up and dig red blades into the bird's white belly.
It penetrated hilt deep and then some, slicing effortlessly through concrete clay. Hidan distantly heard Deidara yell, and felt the talons let go. He tried to get to his feet, and realized he couldn't. His legs were leaden. Hidan concentrated on pulling himself back to his body. Come back. Come back! All I want is my tail back. I don't need to tear the bird to shreds. Its falling is enough. He regained enough of his senses to experience sudden disorientation. He didn't bother taking a few seconds to get over the disorientation, instead immediately racing out towards his scythe, the missing part of himself.
He veered left, then right, tripped over something, and got back up and started running again. The something exploded, throwing him into the air. His feet hurt a lot. Hidan pushed himself back up and raced forward, his whole world having narrowed to only one thing. The clay bird was crashed only a few feet in front of him, the handle of the scythe sticking out of its belly and a few inches of blade poking through its back. Hidan felt his legs and balance become more steady as he neared his weapon and returned to himself. When he grabbed its handle, his chakra came back to him in a burst of warmth and love.
He pulled it out the same way it had gone in, leaving Deidara's bird with a slice through its middle. He cared not at all. All that mattered was being whole again. With his scythe in his hand, Hidan felt he could defeat anyone. My weapon, my shield, my tail. He turned to see where the blonde had gone.
After all this, after having glass in his arm and losing much of his rope and being knocked off his feet by a point-blank explosive, it was a hiccup that stopped Hidan. It was a pitiful sounding hiccup, filled with shock and fear. Hidan heard this shock and fear, and realized he felt it too. A numb horror spread through him. His arms dropped to his sides. His scythe was left scraping the asphalt. Hidan's vision was briefly replaced by something else. What else, he could not say, but it was definitely something other than what his eyes were actually seeing.
What his eyes were actually seeing, he learned a few seconds later, was Deidara sitting beneath the evergreen tree and shaking. The blonde was pale and wide-eyed, staring at the exact spot where Hidan had been thrown into the air by one of his explosives. My - my friend...he liked to tell me about his girlfriend over campfires… Hidan had to shake his head to once again get past the something else that had replaced his vision. Deidara whimpered. Oh god. I - Hidan - oh god. He looked down at the spider he was petting for comfort and cringed.
Hidan shook his head. Why can't I fucking see? What is it about him and Konan that means I can't see? He picked up his scythe and laid it on his lap as he sat on the bird's wing, holding his head and trying to see.
"Dei? Dei! Hey, moron, are you okay?" Deidara blinked. Sasori? He forced his eyes open, looked at the grass right in front of him.
The grass was fine. He was uninjured. "Y-yeah, I, I - I didn't mean to, it was on accident."
"I know." Sasori bent down into his field of vision. "It's fine. Hidan's fine. Nobody is injured. Not badly, I mean."
"What?!" That can't be true. The scythe, it buried itself like hilt-deep! "No way! The scythe -" He looked around for his bird. "It was almost about to rip him in half, hm!"
"Your bird is not ripped in half," Sasori reassured. "He has a hole in him, but he's clay. He'll live."
Deidara swallowed. Why am I shaking so much? I need to get to him. "G-give me a moment, yeah. My body's freaking out. I don't know why." His arms were shaking badly enough that he resorted to clamping them around his lap spider in a tight hug. It helped.
Hidan's vision problems had cleared up, but he still sat on the bird's wing feeling awful and jittery. Oh shit. What the fuck did I do? He remembered his vision splitting like taffy, screaming in rage, not being able to think. He'd sent his chakra through his scythe, and it had cut through Deidara's concrete clay like it was butter clay. Did I hurt Deidara? All I wanted was my scythe back. He hugged its blades against his chest and looked around. He saw Sasori with Deidara, who appeared to be unharmed. Shit. Shit. His heart was still beating too fast and he still felt jittery. Hidan petted the blades of his scythe for comfort.
There was a huge Whump as Kisame hit the ground. "Here." He shoved Yahiko forward. "I smell blood here."
Yahiko swayed, regained his balance, and started to check Hidan over. "Hidan? Are you okay? Where are you injured?"
"Got glass in my shoulders from the window, my feet and legs from the blast, might've hit my head in the blast too," Hidan recited. "I don't feel like woozy or have trouble with lights or anything."
Itachi brought the bowl of water, using his chakra to hold it steady so he could run. "Here." He placed it on the ground in front of Hidan.
"Pull him forward," Yahiko asked. Kisame did so. Yahiko winced at the glass. "Okay, I'll soothe it first, then try to get the glass out." He did so.
Hidan exhaled in deep gusts as each large piece of glass was pulled out. "I'm a masochist, so don't worry about physical pain," he told Yahiko. "Feels kind of like sweetness." It flowed down his nerves like amber honey. The smaller shards of glass only enlivened the immediate area, making Hidan's shoulders twitch. The smell of blood made his mouth water. He tried not to moan.
Nagato shook off that news. He'd think about it later. Right now, he checked out Hidan's feet. "Burned, but healable," he summarized. "Need to get his shoes off. I'd be surprised if something isn't broken from the force of the blast." Konan handed him a kunai. Nagato took it gratefully.
"Hey!" The demon and the snake were perched on the bird, overlooking Hidan. "Someone say broken bones? I can reorganize bodies if they've gotten out of place."
Yahiko finished pulling the glass he could see and began applying healing chakra through the water. "We'll check if anything is out of place. Thank you."
"You help now?" was what Hidan wanted to know.
"Yeah. He likes me to." The demon indicated his snake-eyed friend.
Nagato finished cutting Hidan's shoes off. They were torn and melted from the blast, useful only as garbage. "Could you…?" he asked. The snake boy nodded and hopped down. His small, delicate hands were much better at searching for broken bones than an adult's overly pushy fingers would have been.
Konan went to see to Deidara. She didn't honestly have any clue what she could do for him. They were alike in having seen war, but even that could only go so far. In a single moment of actual experience, one was always alone. She could only share sympathies with him later, when the feelings of the moment had worn off. She supposed she was really just checking to see if that had happened yet or not.
"Good," she praised Deidara for his hugging of his little lap spider. "That helps. How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay; it's my body that's freaking out, hm," he answered.
Not strictly true, but it's the most useful way to be thinking right now. "Take deep breaths to calm it down," she instructed. To Sasori, she ordered, "Apply pressure." She placed one hand on Deidara's arm and another on his shoulder and pressed down firmly but gently. Sasori copied her on Deidara's other side.
The feeling of being held made Deidara's breath speed up. He took deep breaths instead, slowing it down by force, and his body relaxed. "Hey… Yeah, hm. Thanks."
"Any medical needs?" Konan asked. Like everyone else, she hadn't been close enough to determine if Deidara's leap from his bird had been just before or just after Hidan's scythe cut through its back.
Deidara said he didn't feel anything. Sasori used his grip to gently push the blond to one side. "I don't see any blood," he confirmed.
"Excellent." She returned to see how Yahiko was doing in his new role as battlefield medic.
To her only mild surprise, he was doing very well for his first time ever acting in such a capacity. He was fully concentrating on healing Hidan's feet, despite sweating and deep breathing indicating that he was already getting low on chakra. Itachi tried telling him to let the snake boy take over, but Yahiko insisted he couldn't because everyone was wearing clothes. Nobody knew what he meant by that, but Itachi dropped the subject.
He sat back, panting. When the soothing wore off, Hidan's feet and lower legs would be very red, but for now the inflammation was gone as if they had never been burned. Hidan was flexing his left arm. "It works!" he announced triumphantly.
"Nice job," Nagato murmured. The recovery he was seeing on Hidan's lower legs was astounding next to what he'd seen Yahiko do for plants. He wondered if healing plant versus animal wounds was very different. Yahiko chuckled and attributed the effect to his using water this time. Samehada whined, unable to do anything to help anyone. Konan placed a hand on his head and told him everything was fine and everyone was safe and not hurt very badly. Samehada was reassured enough to lick at the bowl of blood soaked water.
Kisame bent down to talk with Konan as the shark was doing so. "Is this normal?" he asked.
"Is what normal?"
He gestured around. "We're all...organized. No panic. Nobody's freaking out. It's like we've done this before a hundred times."
Konan nodded. "You may not have, but your nerves have done this far more than a hundred times. I'm not surprised."
Kisame stared at his hand. "Yeah…" he said slowly. My instincts didn't work before, but they work here. This is the situation they were meant for. "Huh." How do I feel about that?
Yahiko sat back on the grass and relaxed. "Wow," he said.
"Fuck yeah," Hidan agreed. He got to his feet, wincing a little. "Yeah, I'm not going to enjoy walking back home. Hey, Moonlight, your engine still warm?"
Nagato nodded and left to get the car. Hidan clutched his scythe closer, still petting its blades. "You guys had better have enough room for me and my precious," he told Yahiko, "because I'm not letting go. If Dei hadn't kidnapped it, I wouldn't have freaked out and this wouldn't have happened."
Konan stood by him. "That is good to know," she said. "Separating you from your scythe is the most effective battle strategy, so now you know to prepare yourself for that possibility, and we have some warning of what response we should expect."
"He's okay, right?" Hidan looked over at Deidara. "I got that same feeling from him that I do from you sometimes, where I can't see."
Konan looked at him sideways, then entwined her hand with his. "He's fine." Hidan noticed she said nothing about herself.
------------
Support me on Patreon.com and leave a comment on this chapter if you like it or not. It will be more motivation for me.
And let me know if there are errors or mistakes.
You can read the advance chapters here : patreon.com/Vigilante04