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Fic - Enmugakure - 5/?
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...
He drew a circle that shut me out--
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
Outwitted
Edwin Markham
Part V
Scorpion
Even as a native of Wind Country, Temari couldn’t help but be in awe of the desert she had grown up in. Or perhaps it was because she had grown up in it and knew the extent of its destructive power, that she respected it as much as she did.
The desert outside of the walls of Arenotoshi was vast. It stretched on as far as the eye could see; rolling dunes of red sand and a cloudless blue sky, lit by the swelteringly hot sun. On the horizon, the air shimmered, creating the haze that had given its name to the village they were seeking.
“This is so troublesome,” she heard Shikamaru mutter under his breath. No doubt he was dreading the trek across the sands, lazy bum that he was.
“How long did you say the journey would take?” Sakura asked. Temari tore her eyes away from the desert and looked at her over her shoulder.
“Two weeks, give or take a few days,” she said. “Allowing for rest, religious rituals, and a small detour via an oasis for comfort’s sake.”
She didn’t miss the scowl Shikamaru shot in Hidan’s direction at the mention of his rituals. She had to bite her tongue to stop herself from asking what that was about. Shikamaru obviously had some kind of history with this Hidan guy that she didn’t know about, and as much as she wanted to pry, Shikamaru’s life wasn’t really her business.
Hidan either didn’t notice the glare, or he was so used to them that it made no difference to him whatsoever. Temari would bet on the latter. Instead, he looked straight ahead, in the direction that Temari had been staring just moments before, with a strange look on his face. Temari supposed that this was going to be like some kind of bizarre, long-due homecoming for him. Even if he wasn’t originally from Enmu, then he definitely had some kind of tie to the village if he so proudly wore its hitae-ate.
She took a moment to study the planes and angles of his features, the colour of his hair and eyes. When she had called him a cutie at their first meeting, she hadn’t been lying or doing so just to make Shikamaru jealous – not that he should be; he had Ino now, after all – she had been honest. He was gorgeous, in a pale and sinister sort of way. She hadn’t missed the way he kept staring at her, either – and she knew that Shikamaru had noticed that and was more bothered by it than anything else – as if he knew her.
She knew that that thought was ridiculous, though; she would have remembered meeting someone like Hidan.
She realised that he was looking back at her, and she turned away. “Let’s go,” she said. “The quicker we get moving, the quicker that we’ll get there.”
*~*~*
She sat on her cloak on the rapidly cooling sand as Shikamaru and Naruto built the fire, and Sakura looked through their packs for food. Shikamaru was smoking, and Temari wondered when he’d picked up his sensei’s disgusting habit. She was almost glad that he’d chosen Ino; at least she wouldn’t have to kiss someone who tasted like an ash tray.
It hadn’t escaped her that the others were carefully ignoring what Hidan was doing, though Sakura did grumble about it under her breath every so often. Temari, on the other hand, was more than happy to ignore the building of the fire and the search through their ration packs in order to watch him.
He was dancing. Well, almost. It looked like a dance – a deadly one – with him moving elegantly over the sand in set patterns, a pike gripped loosely in one hand. Every so often, as he moved, he would dip the point of the pike downwards to score a line in the desert sands. He was drawing some sort of pattern, Temari realised, though she couldn’t see what it was from where she was sitting.
His violet eyes were closed, and she realised that he didn’t need to look at what he was doing. He had memorised the movements so long ago that the actual number of years would probably make Temari’s head spin.
He’d taken his shirt and cloak off, and they now lay on the sand next to Temari’s own gear. When Sakura reached for Temari’s pack, no doubt to search through it for something to go with the other food that she had gathered together, she avoided touching the garments completely. Temari, on the other hand, kept her eyes fixed on the play of strong, wiry muscles under milk-pale skin, highlighted by the setting desert sun.
His rosary shone red against his bare chest in the dying sunlight. The blade of his pike flashed ominously as it dipped down again in another sweeping stroke. Hidan turned, raised the pike again, and plunged it through his own chest. Temari gasped, staring at the silhouette of his body against the sunset.
He turned his head to look at her, and she could see blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He smirked at her, though she couldn’t see any of his apparent smugness reflected in his eyes.
After a moment, he yanked the pike out of his chest, and arterial spray splattered over the sand.
Then he turned towards their camp fully, and began to walk over. Blood oozed down his chest, and dripped from the tip of his pike. He wiped his bloody mouth on the back of his hand, and made a show of licking it off. He did the same with the blood flowing down his abdomen, though Temari could see as he approached that he wasn’t bleeding nearly as much or as quickly as he should have been. The flow of blood was actually slowing down.
He sat on his cloak next to her, and cleaned the blade of his pike on the sand, leaving smears of dark heart-blood in the dust.
He looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. “See something you like, blondie?” he asked.
“It’s Temari,” she corrected him automatically. “And…yes, actually. The ritual was impressive.”
Surprise flickered over his face. “Well shit,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
Temari grinned at him. “I’m just full of surprises,” she told him.
“You shouldn’t encourage him,” Sakura interrupted, shooting Temari a glare as she abandoned their now cooking food in order to heal Hidan’s chest. Temari watched as the green healing chakra moulded itself around her hands and flowed into the wounds, and briefly wished that she could do something like that.
Hidan snorted. “Your little medic spiel isn’t going to stop me from doing something I’ve been doing since before your fucking grandfather was born, pinkie,” he said.
Sakura glared at him, but said nothing. Temari got the impression that they’d had this conversation before.
“Does your heart stop beating?” she found herself asking him. “When you stab it, I mean.”
“No,” he replied, and she couldn’t help but notice how bitter he sounded about it.
As if that was some sort of cue, Naruto started talking about nothing in particular, rambling to try and cover up the awkward atmosphere that her question had created. She could practically see the tension radiating from Shikamaru as he lit up yet another of those god-forsaken cigarettes.
Sakura lowered her hands from Hidan’s chest and the green glow of her chakra faded. She rubbed her arms and inched back towards the fire. “It’s cold,” she complained.
“The desert’s always cold at night,” Temari told her. “You’ll get used to it.”
She watched from the corner of her eye as Hidan used a handful of sand to scrub away what was left of the blood on his stomach before dusting himself off and pulling his black shirt back on. He left it mostly open, leaving an enticing view of the pale skin of his chest and his rosary in plain sight.
She’d never seen anyone as pale as him before. She told herself that that was part of the attraction she felt for him; the fact that she had never seen, let alone met, anyone quite like him before. He wasn’t like Shikamaru, either, and that was another reason.
He leaned back, to rest his weight on his hands and frowned. When he pulled one of his hands forward again, she saw a small, shiny black scorpion gripped between his fingers. Its stinger was buried in his hand, and she recognised it immediately as one of the more lethal breeds. She had seen men die from one sting, and she couldn’t stop herself from reaching towards her pack and the anti-venom that it held.
Hidan killed the scorpion swiftly, crushing its fragile body in his fist with a crunch. Then he pulled its stinger out of his hand and flung the tiny corpse into the flames.
“Fuck that stings,” he muttered. The wound was already beginning to swell.
He lifted his hand to his mouth and began to suck out the poison. He waved away Temari and her vial of anti-venom with his uninjured hand, and rolled his eyes at her. After he spat a mouthful of blood and poison onto the sand, he looked up at her. “Don’t fucking waste it,” he told her. “I’ll live.”
Temari put the vial away slowly, watching as he resumed sucking at his hand. She felt stupid. She’d just watched him stab himself through the heart, and she was worried about him getting stung by a scorpion?
Shikamaru was watching her, and she couldn’t read the expression on his face. She slid the small vial back into its pouch in her pack, and started when she felt a hand touch her arm. She looked round to see that the hand belonged to Hidan; his long fingers looked impossibly white compared to her deep desert tan.
“Thanks anyway,” he said.
She smiled and nodded. On the other side of the campfire, Shikamaru finished his cigarette and immediately lit up another one, his gaze fixed on Hidan’s hand on her arm.
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...
He drew a circle that shut me out--
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
Outwitted
Edwin Markham
Scorpion
Even as a native of Wind Country, Temari couldn’t help but be in awe of the desert she had grown up in. Or perhaps it was because she had grown up in it and knew the extent of its destructive power, that she respected it as much as she did.
The desert outside of the walls of Arenotoshi was vast. It stretched on as far as the eye could see; rolling dunes of red sand and a cloudless blue sky, lit by the swelteringly hot sun. On the horizon, the air shimmered, creating the haze that had given its name to the village they were seeking.
“This is so troublesome,” she heard Shikamaru mutter under his breath. No doubt he was dreading the trek across the sands, lazy bum that he was.
“How long did you say the journey would take?” Sakura asked. Temari tore her eyes away from the desert and looked at her over her shoulder.
“Two weeks, give or take a few days,” she said. “Allowing for rest, religious rituals, and a small detour via an oasis for comfort’s sake.”
She didn’t miss the scowl Shikamaru shot in Hidan’s direction at the mention of his rituals. She had to bite her tongue to stop herself from asking what that was about. Shikamaru obviously had some kind of history with this Hidan guy that she didn’t know about, and as much as she wanted to pry, Shikamaru’s life wasn’t really her business.
Hidan either didn’t notice the glare, or he was so used to them that it made no difference to him whatsoever. Temari would bet on the latter. Instead, he looked straight ahead, in the direction that Temari had been staring just moments before, with a strange look on his face. Temari supposed that this was going to be like some kind of bizarre, long-due homecoming for him. Even if he wasn’t originally from Enmu, then he definitely had some kind of tie to the village if he so proudly wore its hitae-ate.
She took a moment to study the planes and angles of his features, the colour of his hair and eyes. When she had called him a cutie at their first meeting, she hadn’t been lying or doing so just to make Shikamaru jealous – not that he should be; he had Ino now, after all – she had been honest. He was gorgeous, in a pale and sinister sort of way. She hadn’t missed the way he kept staring at her, either – and she knew that Shikamaru had noticed that and was more bothered by it than anything else – as if he knew her.
She knew that that thought was ridiculous, though; she would have remembered meeting someone like Hidan.
She realised that he was looking back at her, and she turned away. “Let’s go,” she said. “The quicker we get moving, the quicker that we’ll get there.”
She sat on her cloak on the rapidly cooling sand as Shikamaru and Naruto built the fire, and Sakura looked through their packs for food. Shikamaru was smoking, and Temari wondered when he’d picked up his sensei’s disgusting habit. She was almost glad that he’d chosen Ino; at least she wouldn’t have to kiss someone who tasted like an ash tray.
It hadn’t escaped her that the others were carefully ignoring what Hidan was doing, though Sakura did grumble about it under her breath every so often. Temari, on the other hand, was more than happy to ignore the building of the fire and the search through their ration packs in order to watch him.
He was dancing. Well, almost. It looked like a dance – a deadly one – with him moving elegantly over the sand in set patterns, a pike gripped loosely in one hand. Every so often, as he moved, he would dip the point of the pike downwards to score a line in the desert sands. He was drawing some sort of pattern, Temari realised, though she couldn’t see what it was from where she was sitting.
His violet eyes were closed, and she realised that he didn’t need to look at what he was doing. He had memorised the movements so long ago that the actual number of years would probably make Temari’s head spin.
He’d taken his shirt and cloak off, and they now lay on the sand next to Temari’s own gear. When Sakura reached for Temari’s pack, no doubt to search through it for something to go with the other food that she had gathered together, she avoided touching the garments completely. Temari, on the other hand, kept her eyes fixed on the play of strong, wiry muscles under milk-pale skin, highlighted by the setting desert sun.
His rosary shone red against his bare chest in the dying sunlight. The blade of his pike flashed ominously as it dipped down again in another sweeping stroke. Hidan turned, raised the pike again, and plunged it through his own chest. Temari gasped, staring at the silhouette of his body against the sunset.
He turned his head to look at her, and she could see blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He smirked at her, though she couldn’t see any of his apparent smugness reflected in his eyes.
After a moment, he yanked the pike out of his chest, and arterial spray splattered over the sand.
Then he turned towards their camp fully, and began to walk over. Blood oozed down his chest, and dripped from the tip of his pike. He wiped his bloody mouth on the back of his hand, and made a show of licking it off. He did the same with the blood flowing down his abdomen, though Temari could see as he approached that he wasn’t bleeding nearly as much or as quickly as he should have been. The flow of blood was actually slowing down.
He sat on his cloak next to her, and cleaned the blade of his pike on the sand, leaving smears of dark heart-blood in the dust.
He looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. “See something you like, blondie?” he asked.
“It’s Temari,” she corrected him automatically. “And…yes, actually. The ritual was impressive.”
Surprise flickered over his face. “Well shit,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
Temari grinned at him. “I’m just full of surprises,” she told him.
“You shouldn’t encourage him,” Sakura interrupted, shooting Temari a glare as she abandoned their now cooking food in order to heal Hidan’s chest. Temari watched as the green healing chakra moulded itself around her hands and flowed into the wounds, and briefly wished that she could do something like that.
Hidan snorted. “Your little medic spiel isn’t going to stop me from doing something I’ve been doing since before your fucking grandfather was born, pinkie,” he said.
Sakura glared at him, but said nothing. Temari got the impression that they’d had this conversation before.
“Does your heart stop beating?” she found herself asking him. “When you stab it, I mean.”
“No,” he replied, and she couldn’t help but notice how bitter he sounded about it.
As if that was some sort of cue, Naruto started talking about nothing in particular, rambling to try and cover up the awkward atmosphere that her question had created. She could practically see the tension radiating from Shikamaru as he lit up yet another of those god-forsaken cigarettes.
Sakura lowered her hands from Hidan’s chest and the green glow of her chakra faded. She rubbed her arms and inched back towards the fire. “It’s cold,” she complained.
“The desert’s always cold at night,” Temari told her. “You’ll get used to it.”
She watched from the corner of her eye as Hidan used a handful of sand to scrub away what was left of the blood on his stomach before dusting himself off and pulling his black shirt back on. He left it mostly open, leaving an enticing view of the pale skin of his chest and his rosary in plain sight.
She’d never seen anyone as pale as him before. She told herself that that was part of the attraction she felt for him; the fact that she had never seen, let alone met, anyone quite like him before. He wasn’t like Shikamaru, either, and that was another reason.
He leaned back, to rest his weight on his hands and frowned. When he pulled one of his hands forward again, she saw a small, shiny black scorpion gripped between his fingers. Its stinger was buried in his hand, and she recognised it immediately as one of the more lethal breeds. She had seen men die from one sting, and she couldn’t stop herself from reaching towards her pack and the anti-venom that it held.
Hidan killed the scorpion swiftly, crushing its fragile body in his fist with a crunch. Then he pulled its stinger out of his hand and flung the tiny corpse into the flames.
“Fuck that stings,” he muttered. The wound was already beginning to swell.
He lifted his hand to his mouth and began to suck out the poison. He waved away Temari and her vial of anti-venom with his uninjured hand, and rolled his eyes at her. After he spat a mouthful of blood and poison onto the sand, he looked up at her. “Don’t fucking waste it,” he told her. “I’ll live.”
Temari put the vial away slowly, watching as he resumed sucking at his hand. She felt stupid. She’d just watched him stab himself through the heart, and she was worried about him getting stung by a scorpion?
Shikamaru was watching her, and she couldn’t read the expression on his face. She slid the small vial back into its pouch in her pack, and started when she felt a hand touch her arm. She looked round to see that the hand belonged to Hidan; his long fingers looked impossibly white compared to her deep desert tan.
“Thanks anyway,” he said.
She smiled and nodded. On the other side of the campfire, Shikamaru finished his cigarette and immediately lit up another one, his gaze fixed on Hidan’s hand on her arm.