The Key To So Many Doors (Hidan Story)

Chapter 16

The guy only got once glance at Hidan before he was cut down.

Instantly he turned to the next, but found that they had all pulled out their weapons, ready to respond. Not that Hidan cared; he was more than willing to kill them all if it meant getting this over and done with. If it meant getting Shima out of this situation. So he immediately reacted as one guy lunged towards him, blocking the attack and beginning the battle, noting Kakuzu doing the same out of the corner of his eye. They might be outnumbered—and quite badly at that—but it didn't matter. These guys were clearly outmatched. They didn't have a hope in hell. Both he and Kakuzu were immortal, for fuck's sake! What were they planning to do to get rid of them?

Not that it mattered.

Hidan wouldn't let these guys have any chance to take Shima away.

The guy still holding Shima quickly turned and tossed her to the side of the clearing, Shima gritting her teeth as she slammed into a tree, a sudden desire to jump back up and destroy the guy piece by piece washing over her as it happened. Then watching as the fight began between Kakuzu, Hidan and the rest of the guys, she grew even angrier than she already was, hating the fact she was tied up couldn't get herself out of it. Shima clenched her eyes shut and growled to herself, pissed off. All of this had just built up in completely the wrong way. The only good thing that could be considered was that Hidan and Kakuzu had come back for her to get her back.

Though it wasn't truly enough to make her feel better about the whole situation. After all, she'd been captured at a really bad time, not being in a good mood to begin with considering everything that had happened to her, then proceeded to be tied up and slung around by some dickheads. Shima had thought she'd gotten rid of them back at the start—but clearly she'd been wrong. And now look what had happened. They'd then decided to start barely carrying her, allowing her to bang into things as they travelled, and starting to actually hit her just for the hell of it. Now she'd been chucked to the side like a piece of trash, hitting a tree pretty hard in the mean time, and having to watch a battle rage on while not being able to do a thing. She wanted to help; she wanted to act as back up for Hidan and Kakuzu, but she couldn't.

In a way, her state of mind was holding her back as much as her physical bonds.

After all that had gone on with Hidan and Kakuzu, Shima wasn't sure of anything anymore. In some ways, Hidan had helped her out so much, improving the way she saw things and helping her with her opinion when it came down to her abilities and how she viewed herself. For so long she had remained stating to everyone around her that she didn't care what people thought about her visions, and had repeatedly told it to herself, as well. But deep down—deep, deep down—Shima knew that wasn't entirely true. She did care about how it was viewed by other people. Because of how other people had viewed it, she had been left alone to fend for herself, having to learn all she needed on her own. True, for the most part, she was glad of it; it had made her stronger than most, along with granting her independence and determination.

But a hint of that loneliness had hovered behind.

It wouldn't fade away, of course; Shima had figured out long ago that if she truly revealed it to those around her then history would repeat itself and she would have to head off and find another life for herself all over again. But because she didn't fully show them, it create a gap; a bridge between her and the rest of the population, and therefore she couldn't truly create a connection. Not that Shima had wanted that connection to be with the likes of the villagers in the place she lived. They were low life idiots who knew nothing about her kind of life or the kind of things she did. They had nothing in common; but she hadn't been able to stop herself from hoping she would be able to find some sort of connection in the world.

Out of all the people living in the world today...

Surely there was someone she had similarities with?

And that's where Hidan had come in.    

For once someone had been genuinely impressed with what she could do—to the point where Shima was suspicious of it, ironically enough. It just hadn't seemed right, that after all this time, without any effort on her part, that a guy would accept what she could do and want to know more. A part of her felt that he was hiding something; that it had to be a façade. If anything, Shima hadn't even understood justwhat his stance on her abilities was. The possibility of acceptance for them was so unusual and almost impossible in Shima's mind, that she had refused to consider the idea. Though even when she had brought about the possibility, there remained a doubt in the back of her mind. When it came down to it, that doubt had stayed up until now.

But watching on as Hidan fought and struggled to save her and get her back...Shima was finally beginning to think otherwise. Maybe trusting Hidan wasn't such a bad thing—in a way, maybe she had trusted him from the start, even if she hadn't noticed it. Even if she told herself to stay on guard and keep a distance from him, in her heart she had begun to trust him right away; with a part of her seeing his actions for what they truly were, she was willing to accept him in return. After all, it was only through looking back on it now that Shima realised that he was utterly different from most to begin with; in reality, it couldn't be too much of a surprise that Hidan admired her visions.

Shima would admit it; she still wasn't fully to the point of accepting what she could do. If she was forced into a situation to reveal it right now, her confidence wouldn't be evident the whole way through. But she wanted it to return. She wanted to turn her forced façade into a reality. For so much in Shima's life she had been fierce and not about to back down. It was that way when it came down to fights and arguments; so why should that fact change when it concerned her abilities and other people's opinions on them? True, getting herself to see her ability as something good and something to be valued wouldn't be easy; but Hidan had made her realise just how much she wanted it. If she didn't, she'd just be letting the villagers and everyone else be getting the better of her—

And there was no way Shima would let that happen.

Finally opening her eyes again, Shima shifted herself as best she could until she was turned over and could now get a better view of the battlefield and all that was going on. Naturally—just as Shima had been expecting—these guys were no match for Hidan and Kakuzu whatsoever. Not that that was surprising, but still. But the battle hadn't ended yet, however; there was still quite a lot of them, no doubt considering they had been worried that Hidan and Kakuzu would show up again, and that ultimately meant it was hard to fully and entirely beat them. Shima didn't doubt it would happen, true; it was just a matter of time, even if she wasn't happy about that fact.

The longer the battle went on, the longer she was lying there uselessly, and the more her anger started to rise. Beginning to wriggle around, Shima tried as hard as she could to unleash herself from her bonds to help Hidan and Kakuzu out, but nothing seemed to be working. Growling to herself, she didn't give up, continuing to struggle against them as much as she could, trying to think through different possibilities as to what she could do to free herself—only to find the ropes around her wrists fell apart a second later. Blinking in surprise at what had happened, Shima could do nothing to react to that fact for a moment; especially as the same thing happened with the rope around her ankles a moment afterwards. Frowning in confusion as to how it had occurred, Shima hesitated as she suddenly heard a whisper from behind her,

"Hey; Shima!"