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Fic - Enmugakure - 3/?
Title: Enmugakure
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: M
Pairing: Hidan/Temari, mentioned Ino/Shikamaru/Temari love triangle and past Hidan/OC.
Genre: AU Adventure/Mystery
Warnings: Swearing, some sexual situations, violence
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: The secret to defeating the Akatsuki lies in the demolished village of Enmugakure, but only one person knows where it is. Pity he's in pieces...
Better to die, and sleep
The never-waking sleep, than linger on
And dare to live when the soul's life is gone.
Ajax
Sophocles
Part III
A Priest of Jashin
Shikamaru was beginning to develop a grudging respect for Kakuzu. Even though he hated the man, and was glad that he was dead, he couldn’t deny that to have spent so long travelling with Hidan, he must have had a lot more patience than Shikamaru.
It had occurred to him that while he did have a great deal of patience himself, he had none for Hidan, and that was what made the difference. His hatred of the man burned away at his usual laidback attitude and created a tense atmosphere that even Naruto was aware of.
Not that Naruto liked Hidan either; Shikamaru doubted that any of them did. His foul mouth, arrogance and bad attitude was grating on all of them. Especially Sakura, who, for some reason that Shikamaru couldn’t quite fathom, had taken it upon herself to heal him after every ritual he performed. And Hidan performed a lot of rituals; Shikamaru suspected that he was trying to make up for lost time.
If it had been anyone other than Hidan, Shikamaru would have wondered at the kind of dedication ritually stabbing himself through the heart at least twice a day must have taken. As it was Hidan, he just hoped that the ritual suicide would be successful one day and that he would get to watch.
They all reacted to the tense atmosphere around their group in different ways. Shikamaru, as the one responsible for creating it, barely noticed it, and Hidan mostly ignored it – only lowering himself to giving Shikamaru a shit-eating grin once in a while. Sakura looked between them nervously, though she was prone to ranting at Hidan around the times of his rituals, at which point he would scoff and tell her that she knew “jack shit about Jashin-sama” and tell her to “shut the fuck up”.
Naruto, of course, responded by babbling inanely about everything and anything that came to mind, which was almost as annoying as Hidan’s existence.
The slow pace – only made so slow by Hidan’s incessant rituals an Sakura’s bizarre need to patch him up afterwards – was grating on Shikamaru’s nerves. It was taking them twice as long as it should have to get to Wind Country, and he could only suspect that the rest of the journey would continue in a similar vein.
On their third night on the road – by which point, Shikamaru reminded himself, they should be meeting with the Suna escort – after Hidan’s ritual, they sat moodily round a campfire, listening to Naruto ramble on about nothing while Sakura made stew.
“So, uh, Hidan-san,” she said, not quite looking at him as she stirred the food. “Do you know what we’re looking for?”
“Your Hokage told me,” he replied.
Shikamaru looked up from the stick he was using to poke the fire – stab, actually, but the others didn’t comment on it – and frowned at him. “We know she did,” he said. “What Sakura was asking was if you knew this secret of the Bijuu that we’re supposed to be looking for.”
Hidan’s eyes shone strangely in the firelight, and he leaned back against a tree. The pendant of his rosary glowed red, reflecting the light from the fire, and Shikamaru found himself staring at it.
“That depends on how batshit Uchiha went before he decided to pass on the message,” he said. “He could be talking about something I have no fucking clue about.”
“But you know something,” Sakura prompted.
“Pinkie, when you get to my age, knowing ‘something’ is pretty fucking unavoidable.”
It was another thing that made Hidan irritating as all hell. He could be amazingly vague when he wanted to be, and it was driving Shikamaru mad. He was usually good at reading people, but in Hidan’s case he found it nearly impossible.
He heard Sakura growl in irritation, and barely stopped her from smacking the man. “We need him alive, Sakura,” he reminded her.
Hidan snorted. “Pretty fucking hard to get me any other way,” he said.
Shikamaru caught the bitter note in his voice, and his frown deepened. Perhaps there was something behind the vigorous enthusiasm with which Hidan performed his rituals.
“How old are you, anyway?” Naruto asked, speaking for the first time since their conversation began. He’d shut up as soon as he’d heard a voice that wasn’t his own.
Hidan seemed to think about it. “A hundred and forty,” he said. “Close to that, at least.”
“You said that your hitae-ate wasn’t originally yours,” Shikamaru said. “Whose was it?”
“It belonged to an Enmu shinobi,” Hidan said, deliberately vague once more. Shikamaru felt like strangling him. Instead he lit up a cigarette and took a deep drag. He saw Sakura wrinkle her nose, but he didn’t care.
“So…you weren’t always a shinobi?” Naruto asked. “I mean, you must have picked that up after the village was destroyed, so what did you do before that?”
“I was a priest of the great Jashin-sama, you fucking heathen,” Hidan replied. “Still am. ‘S just that the whole ninja thing makes getting a hold of sacrifices easier.”
Shikamaru couldn’t hold back his furious glare. His sensei had been one of those ‘sacrifices’. Hidan saw the expression on his face and rolled his eyes.
“Shit, kid, get the fuck over it,” he said. “So I killed your sensei. Big fucking deal. You’ll get to see him again whenever you decide to put yourself out of your fucking misery.”
Shikamaru wondered if that was Hidan’s way of comforting people. If it was then it was terrible. All the same, it was interesting that he spoke with the same bitter tone as he had done when he’d mentioned his apparent immortality.
Did Hidan want to die?
The other two – even Naruto – seemed to have noticed it too. Whatever appetite for conversation that they’d managed to muster up had died a miserable death, and they spent the rest of the night in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts.
The next day, Shikamaru kept a closer eye on Hidan. He had tried to avoid doing so before, but on some sick level, he wanted to know what made Hidan tick.
He came to his conclusion pretty easily. While Hidan spent most of his time with a cocky smirk on his lips, it was just a mask. The only time he saw the barest flicker of anything close to happiness in Hidan’s eyes was when he was performing his rituals; the moment before he plunged his pike through his own heart.
The sight of it made Shikamaru sick. It wasn’t because of the blood or the fact that it was someone effectively committing suicide; it wasn’t even because of the way it reminded him of his sensei’s death. It was because he could see that while Hidan’s body was immortal and eternally young – the dream of most of the Akatsuki and Orochimaru – his soul was dead.
And Shikamaru was pretty sure that that was even worse than dying young.
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: M
Pairing: Hidan/Temari, mentioned Ino/Shikamaru/Temari love triangle and past Hidan/OC.
Genre: AU Adventure/Mystery
Warnings: Swearing, some sexual situations, violence
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: The secret to defeating the Akatsuki lies in the demolished village of Enmugakure, but only one person knows where it is. Pity he's in pieces...
Better to die, and sleep
The never-waking sleep, than linger on
And dare to live when the soul's life is gone.
Ajax
Sophocles
A Priest of Jashin
Shikamaru was beginning to develop a grudging respect for Kakuzu. Even though he hated the man, and was glad that he was dead, he couldn’t deny that to have spent so long travelling with Hidan, he must have had a lot more patience than Shikamaru.
It had occurred to him that while he did have a great deal of patience himself, he had none for Hidan, and that was what made the difference. His hatred of the man burned away at his usual laidback attitude and created a tense atmosphere that even Naruto was aware of.
Not that Naruto liked Hidan either; Shikamaru doubted that any of them did. His foul mouth, arrogance and bad attitude was grating on all of them. Especially Sakura, who, for some reason that Shikamaru couldn’t quite fathom, had taken it upon herself to heal him after every ritual he performed. And Hidan performed a lot of rituals; Shikamaru suspected that he was trying to make up for lost time.
If it had been anyone other than Hidan, Shikamaru would have wondered at the kind of dedication ritually stabbing himself through the heart at least twice a day must have taken. As it was Hidan, he just hoped that the ritual suicide would be successful one day and that he would get to watch.
They all reacted to the tense atmosphere around their group in different ways. Shikamaru, as the one responsible for creating it, barely noticed it, and Hidan mostly ignored it – only lowering himself to giving Shikamaru a shit-eating grin once in a while. Sakura looked between them nervously, though she was prone to ranting at Hidan around the times of his rituals, at which point he would scoff and tell her that she knew “jack shit about Jashin-sama” and tell her to “shut the fuck up”.
Naruto, of course, responded by babbling inanely about everything and anything that came to mind, which was almost as annoying as Hidan’s existence.
The slow pace – only made so slow by Hidan’s incessant rituals an Sakura’s bizarre need to patch him up afterwards – was grating on Shikamaru’s nerves. It was taking them twice as long as it should have to get to Wind Country, and he could only suspect that the rest of the journey would continue in a similar vein.
On their third night on the road – by which point, Shikamaru reminded himself, they should be meeting with the Suna escort – after Hidan’s ritual, they sat moodily round a campfire, listening to Naruto ramble on about nothing while Sakura made stew.
“So, uh, Hidan-san,” she said, not quite looking at him as she stirred the food. “Do you know what we’re looking for?”
“Your Hokage told me,” he replied.
Shikamaru looked up from the stick he was using to poke the fire – stab, actually, but the others didn’t comment on it – and frowned at him. “We know she did,” he said. “What Sakura was asking was if you knew this secret of the Bijuu that we’re supposed to be looking for.”
Hidan’s eyes shone strangely in the firelight, and he leaned back against a tree. The pendant of his rosary glowed red, reflecting the light from the fire, and Shikamaru found himself staring at it.
“That depends on how batshit Uchiha went before he decided to pass on the message,” he said. “He could be talking about something I have no fucking clue about.”
“But you know something,” Sakura prompted.
“Pinkie, when you get to my age, knowing ‘something’ is pretty fucking unavoidable.”
It was another thing that made Hidan irritating as all hell. He could be amazingly vague when he wanted to be, and it was driving Shikamaru mad. He was usually good at reading people, but in Hidan’s case he found it nearly impossible.
He heard Sakura growl in irritation, and barely stopped her from smacking the man. “We need him alive, Sakura,” he reminded her.
Hidan snorted. “Pretty fucking hard to get me any other way,” he said.
Shikamaru caught the bitter note in his voice, and his frown deepened. Perhaps there was something behind the vigorous enthusiasm with which Hidan performed his rituals.
“How old are you, anyway?” Naruto asked, speaking for the first time since their conversation began. He’d shut up as soon as he’d heard a voice that wasn’t his own.
Hidan seemed to think about it. “A hundred and forty,” he said. “Close to that, at least.”
“You said that your hitae-ate wasn’t originally yours,” Shikamaru said. “Whose was it?”
“It belonged to an Enmu shinobi,” Hidan said, deliberately vague once more. Shikamaru felt like strangling him. Instead he lit up a cigarette and took a deep drag. He saw Sakura wrinkle her nose, but he didn’t care.
“So…you weren’t always a shinobi?” Naruto asked. “I mean, you must have picked that up after the village was destroyed, so what did you do before that?”
“I was a priest of the great Jashin-sama, you fucking heathen,” Hidan replied. “Still am. ‘S just that the whole ninja thing makes getting a hold of sacrifices easier.”
Shikamaru couldn’t hold back his furious glare. His sensei had been one of those ‘sacrifices’. Hidan saw the expression on his face and rolled his eyes.
“Shit, kid, get the fuck over it,” he said. “So I killed your sensei. Big fucking deal. You’ll get to see him again whenever you decide to put yourself out of your fucking misery.”
Shikamaru wondered if that was Hidan’s way of comforting people. If it was then it was terrible. All the same, it was interesting that he spoke with the same bitter tone as he had done when he’d mentioned his apparent immortality.
Did Hidan want to die?
The other two – even Naruto – seemed to have noticed it too. Whatever appetite for conversation that they’d managed to muster up had died a miserable death, and they spent the rest of the night in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts.
The next day, Shikamaru kept a closer eye on Hidan. He had tried to avoid doing so before, but on some sick level, he wanted to know what made Hidan tick.
He came to his conclusion pretty easily. While Hidan spent most of his time with a cocky smirk on his lips, it was just a mask. The only time he saw the barest flicker of anything close to happiness in Hidan’s eyes was when he was performing his rituals; the moment before he plunged his pike through his own heart.
The sight of it made Shikamaru sick. It wasn’t because of the blood or the fact that it was someone effectively committing suicide; it wasn’t even because of the way it reminded him of his sensei’s death. It was because he could see that while Hidan’s body was immortal and eternally young – the dream of most of the Akatsuki and Orochimaru – his soul was dead.
And Shikamaru was pretty sure that that was even worse than dying young.