Bound

Chapter six

The forest Hidan and his monster companion had to cross to reach the shattered village was coniferous and deep. Hidan's travels had acquainted him with the huge trees of the Land of Fire before, but they still proved to be difficult for him to pass through, with the threaded creature's inability to jump. Walking at ground level was something for common people, and not shinobi like himself, but he was left no choice.

As they were walking on the ground path under the thick branches Hidan would normally seer over, he grew steadily more anxious. From his view on the hill he had seen that the Konoha of the past had been destroyed, though a new one seemed to have been built in its place. Still ruins had littered the place, and the ground surrounding the village had suggested a large war. A pity his own village had turned their back on such activities.

But the destruction had him worry.

"They must have taken his body to Konoha, to some morgue," he told the creature. "But I doubt they buried him. His body must have been examined, because it's seriously fucked up." He had no humour in his words. The nervous, quick way of speaking jarred greatly with his normal teasing tone. "But if the village was destroyed, what happened to the morgue? Is it still standing? Were they able to save the corpses?"

The creature opened the mouth of the mask, and let out a wail. It shocked Hidan so greatly that he flinched, and he looked wide-eyed down at the creature.

"Did you just answer me? We've been travelling together for at least two weeks, and only now do you think to say something?" But the mask had already reverted back to its stoic, unmoving state. Its eyes simply stared at him once more, as if nothing had happened.

Hidan kicked the ground. "I don't know what to do with you. Kakuzu was easy to read, but you're... well, I guess you don't really have a mind of your own, do you?" Nodding to confirm it to himself, Hidan added; "That explains it. You're just mindlessly following me. Well, not for much longer. 'Cause when we're out of these woods, we're gonna search every fucking part of that morgue, and we're gonna find Kakuzu's body, and he's gonna be all 'thank you Hidan-sama, you have saved me'. All right?"

The monster's only reply was in following him as he continued walking.

For the evening sleep evaded him, and they kept up their pace. Eating he did as he walked, but hunger also was not a priority. He tried to sing to calm his nerves, but his voice fell flat, and he could think of no song to fit the mood. Eventually he settled on humming an unknown melody, but even so his body was tense.

Admitting his worry aloud was a hard thing to do. But when they reached the gates of Konoha, and hid from the guards behind the large trees surrounding it, he was biting his lips till they bled. The blood reminded him suddenly of his deity, so he turned his gaze to the sky.

"Jashin-sama," he prayed as he pressed a clenched fist to his lips. "I haven't prayed for a while. Sorry 'bout that." The cultists who had introduced him to God had given him very few guidelines beyond the rules for killing, and rituals of contemplation. He knew not how to properly address a god. But he did as best he could, as he confessed to Jashin. "I should be back on schedule when Kakuzu's back with me. He helps with the reaping of heathens. It'll all be as it should with him here again." He closed his eyes for a long time, focusing only on calming his breathing. Meditation was something he should get good at, if he planned on continuing his immortal existence, Kakuzu had told him once. Hidan thought he did all right.

"Wish me luck," he said to God, before he and the creature left the scene to circle the village, and find the morgue.

Bringing the monster into the village would be an impossibility. But would it stay if he left to bring Kakuzu's body out? Or would it stray off again?

They had stayed still at the same spot near the end of the mountain shielding the village, for a long time already, as Hidan pondered on what his next move would be. Normally, he would have preferred a more direct approach, but caution was the key this time around. The shadow boy was from Konoha, and though Hidan felt confident that he would not fall into the same trap twice, he was too close to his goal now to take any unnecessary risks.

After tying the monster to two separate trees, praying it would work this time, Hidan snuck into the village in the guise of darkness. The bottom of his kimono he had cut off and tied around his head like a scarf, and it hid his identity well enough.

He had heard of the poor guarding of the Village Hidden in Leaves, but with the high walls surrounding it gone as well, the security was poorer still. Hidan managed to blend in easily with the sparse population, keeping his head tilted down to avoid anyone seeing, and thus remembering, his face.

The village itself was very different from his own hometown. The buildings were mostly of wood, built close to each other, with wires and poles down every street. Most windows were dark, but the few lit ones showed bright colours and families, and porches with flowers. There was a picturesque feel to half of the village, while the other half showed a devastating ruination.

By the base of the cliff was the Hokage's office, from the looks of it. Hidan made his way there, subtly avoiding any street with more than one person crossing as he walked, on the lookout for anything resembling a prison. Adjourned to the office building, once he reached it, he saw a long but short building, and immediately recognized the shape of it as a jail with underground cells. The body of Kakuzu must have been taken to a morgue there, to be studied by the surgeons of Konoha.

Hidan was not the stealthiest of shinobi, but he was not ranked an S-class criminal in the bingo book solely for his immortality. Disguising his presence, he subtly moved towards the prison. After circling it, he found only one entrance, at the back of the building. He waited next to it until a guard exited, and without wasting any time he quickly made a stab through the man's skull. The body fell to the ground, and Hidan dragged it off into the bushes, before he entered the facility.

The door shut behind him, Hidan advanced towards the sounds of stepping feet. He would leave no survivors, a task he excelled at. Oft he would take joy in his battles, but now he made every slice clean and precise, so that there would be no chance he left anyone alive.

As with the security outside, the guards of the prison were few, and Hidan disposed all he met with trained ease, in his quest for the morgue. Every wall of the place was of grey concrete, and the doors he passed were of metal with shut lids, marked with numbers. He passed a shut door with the sign above it reading "Torture Room", and just the fact that there were others parts than a prison in the building made him positive.

Another flight of stairs downward, and he found himself in front of the morgue. His hand almost trembled, like he was a fresh shinobi on his first mission, when he turned the lock open with keys taken from a guard's corpse. He looked for signs for seals on the door, or a barrier of sort, but the security was very much lacking, it seemed. After turning the key, he simply pushed the door open. And he entered the morgue.

"Shimura, how can it take you so long to get some coffee?"

Those were the last words said by the shinobi seated on a chair in the morgue, when he turned towards the opening door. Shock read on his face when he saw that it was an intruder with a bloodied blade, but his face lost all expression when it was cleft in two by Hidan's quick draw of his wakizashi. All killing done on his quest down to the morgue had been without prayer or ritual, but it had been necessary.

The morgue had a wall much like every exchange office for bounties Hidan had been inside, ever since he started to journey with Kakuzu. He walked up to the hatches, all with a name on them, and looked for the one which read Kakuzu. Over three hundred bodies were preserved in the morgue in three levels, and Hidan decided to simply start from the right, and work his way left. Every name on every hatch he read, and though he was in a hurry, he made sure that he did not miss a single name.

Every sign started to blend together, the longer he spent trying to find Kakuzu's name, but he did not give up. He was getting closer and closer to the left wall, unknowing of how much time had passed, before his heart fluttered as he read "KAKUZU" on a hatch, finally. Wasting no time, he grabbed the hatch and opened it, pulling out the brig and revealing the body. The corpse of his only friend.