(no subject)
Greetings! Henceforth, this journal shall be my dumping ground for various fanfiction and fanart, and perhaps some original pieces as well.
Almost inevitably, while reading a series that is ongoing, one's own version of that series' reality will form. The detail and complexity involved vary, depending on; the time between chapter releases, the interest level in the series, and the attachment level to the characters involved.
In the case of Naruto, which I have been following for over four years, that reality has become quite complex indeed. It has served, primarily, as a coping mechanism to deal with events in the actual manga that I felt dissatisfied with, for whatever reason, and to explain events that as of yet have not been clear.
And until recently, I never considered writing any of it--mostly because I tend to visualize it in my head in manga format, rather than in words. What made me decide to give this reality a more permanent form was Akatsuki.
I doubt that any other set of antagonists has ever commanded my loyalty more than the protagonists. I don’t think I’ve ever rooted for the antagonists of any other series before this.
Likely I, and many others, have read too much into Akatsuki’s motives and goals. We see them as a reforming force, a group of outcasts with the questionably noble goal of changing the world. They may just be what the majority sees: a group of villains in a shonen manga series destined to unpleasant defeat and death. But to some, including me, this option is rather tragic, and wastes the potential that can be seen in the characters and their motives. I see a double standard and hypocrisy within the ranks of the protagonists, and a corrupt society full of child assassins dancing to the whims of madmen and money. I see Akatsuki’s goal as, forgive the odd metaphor, the force that will bring about the controlled demolition of a city in danger of collapse, before an earthquake comes and brings it all down on everyone’s heads.
Thus, my reality. And thus, with the recent death of Kakuzu, it came into writing.
Title: Reject Reality
Set: Immediately after chapter 342
Warnings: None, unless you are violently opposed to original characters. There will be a few. And also, Hidan’s language. But we’re used to that.
Notes: The story will come in segments, and POV will change without much warning. I’ll try posting new segments as quickly as I finish writing and proofreading them.
I. An eternity passes in vivid crimson, stinging and smoldering like the hole through his chest before he allows the tattered remains of his last heart to beat once more. Who, exactly, was a stupid old man? The brat hadn’t even realized his ‘finishing blow’ hadn’t actually been fatal.
Pain.
It is not the sensation of a few, isolated wounds. It is the agony of a thousand sliver-thin cuts unraveling him to the core, pinned in place by that gaping, smoldering hole-and the icy realization that he was truly dying. His ruse had been futile. Sharingan Kakashi’s blow would kill him-only slower than intended.
They’d left. If they’d left…they wouldn’t have left without all members of their party. And if all members of their party were present…
Hidan.
The implications drive the first of a sequence of desperate movements: a twist of his body, the digging of his living threads into the dirt, the grinding of one foot into the ground, painfully, slowly, gaining inch by torturous inch across the scarred soil.
How far had he been taken? How long would it take him to get there, crawling and shuffling and gasping, leaving a smeared red trail behind?
They would send hunter-nins. They would have them gather up their corpses for study, peel away their secrets layer by layer, poke and prod and dissect until there was nothing left but unrecognizable heaps of flesh…
Hidan.
Another inch forward. His right eye was dim, the left little better. Would they see him? They had to be watching, the men wearing leaves on their foreheads that followed the one with long black hair…he would know the supposedly fatal blow had missed, and would drive a stake through his heart that would grow into a sapling and burst into bloody red flowers…
No.
No. Shodai Hokage was dead, buried, and grave desecrated. He was no longer eight years old. This was a different time, a different wound, a different leaf…
Move. Get to Hidan.
Muffled, a strangled cry fought out of his throat as a jagged rock protruding from the crater bottom snagged on the hole in his chest, holding him in place.
Shit.
Twist and turn as he might, he couldn’t tear free.
A century old living-nightmare, defeated by a bunch of children and a rock.
Dammit, move! Get to Hidan!
Footsteps.
Soft footsteps and an unnatural breeze.
With one eye raised from the dirt, he saw the hem of a black cloak. A black cloak with red clouds.
“Huh…huh…help-“
Jaw hanging loose, the sounds barely formed. His vision swam.
“Help…Hi-” a cough, barely a weak wheeze wracked his broken form. Black began creeping from the corner of his eye.
“Hidan. Help Hidan!”
A tattooed hand reached toward him, and then was lost as the black haze overcame him.
~*~
The first thing Hidan realized was that he was in pain. Usually, this was not such an unusual discovery, nor an unpleasant one. But in this case, it was decidedly not pleasant.
It was not the kind of pain he enjoyed. It was a full-body ache that hummed steadily, sunk deep into every muscle and bone. The fact that the surface he was resting on was soft and comfortable-a futon?-only seemed to accentuate the unpleasantness of it all.
“Ow, fuck.”
His eyes snapped open when his outburst was replied by an amused snort. The ceiling came into almost immediate focus. It told him nothing. He looked slightly down: a wall. He knew that wall-it was one of the walls of his room. He looked further down, and let out a string of colorful profanity.
Stitches. White stitches across his chest, arms, and-realizing he was also completely naked under the blanket-all over the rest of him.
“What the hell-”
Oh.
That fucking kid. With the deer.
A slight trembling developed in his limbs.
The rocks had fallen, the dirt had settled…dark. It had been so dark, dirt pressed against his eyelids, in his mouth…
He turned his head to the right and saw a knee. Looking a bit higher he saw the tattooed hand resting on the knee, as well as the rest of the body attached to the knee, sitting cross-legged with her cloak hanging open.
“Tomo.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Good morning to you too. You’ve been sleeping for nearly two days.”
Two days. Kakuzu must have dug him up and sewed him back toge-
White thread. White dead thread. The thread shouldn’t be white; it should be black and hum with a life of its own. Why would-
“Kakuzu. Where’s Kakuzu?!”
Panic shot down his partially healed spine. If Kakuzu hadn’t sewn him back together, if Kakuzu couldn’t have sewn him back together, then-
Tomo responded to his growing hysteria by grabbing his head a turning it to his left-
-to come to face Kakuzu, under the same blanket, less than a foot away. Breathing, and emanating the slightest amount of body heat.
He surged forward, and heard a few stitches pop as he landed on Kakuzu’s chest, hands scrabbling for the feel the steady heartbeat. It was there.
A black and green eye cracked open.
“You’re heavy.” Kakuzu rasped. Hidan responded with a tirade of endearments and profanity-though considering the source, the two were easily interchangeable. The other eye opened.
“Shut up.”
Hidan felt a hand on the back of his head, pushing it down to rest on his chest, and felt it run through his hair in a rough sort of caress. The grip was reassuringly strong.
Tomo reached over and draped the displaced blanket back over Hidan’s bare shoulders.
“You will have to thank the kids later. While I was keeping Kakuzu alive they dug you up and put you back together.” She stood and stretched, back popping loudly. “They did a good enough job that I only had to re-grow the pieces that were closest to the explosion. Your body did the rest.”
“…ah.”
She chuckled, and pulled open the sliding paper door. No light entered the room-it had to have been the early hours of the morning.
“Get some rest.” She ordered over her shoulder, and then closed the door with a soft ‘clack’.
~*~
Thank you to those who had the patience to read through it all. *bow* I will have more soon.
Also, an extra thanks to
frostious, who gave me the inspiration to actually sit down and write this.
Almost inevitably, while reading a series that is ongoing, one's own version of that series' reality will form. The detail and complexity involved vary, depending on; the time between chapter releases, the interest level in the series, and the attachment level to the characters involved.
In the case of Naruto, which I have been following for over four years, that reality has become quite complex indeed. It has served, primarily, as a coping mechanism to deal with events in the actual manga that I felt dissatisfied with, for whatever reason, and to explain events that as of yet have not been clear.
And until recently, I never considered writing any of it--mostly because I tend to visualize it in my head in manga format, rather than in words. What made me decide to give this reality a more permanent form was Akatsuki.
I doubt that any other set of antagonists has ever commanded my loyalty more than the protagonists. I don’t think I’ve ever rooted for the antagonists of any other series before this.
Likely I, and many others, have read too much into Akatsuki’s motives and goals. We see them as a reforming force, a group of outcasts with the questionably noble goal of changing the world. They may just be what the majority sees: a group of villains in a shonen manga series destined to unpleasant defeat and death. But to some, including me, this option is rather tragic, and wastes the potential that can be seen in the characters and their motives. I see a double standard and hypocrisy within the ranks of the protagonists, and a corrupt society full of child assassins dancing to the whims of madmen and money. I see Akatsuki’s goal as, forgive the odd metaphor, the force that will bring about the controlled demolition of a city in danger of collapse, before an earthquake comes and brings it all down on everyone’s heads.
Thus, my reality. And thus, with the recent death of Kakuzu, it came into writing.
Title: Reject Reality
Set: Immediately after chapter 342
Warnings: None, unless you are violently opposed to original characters. There will be a few. And also, Hidan’s language. But we’re used to that.
Notes: The story will come in segments, and POV will change without much warning. I’ll try posting new segments as quickly as I finish writing and proofreading them.
I. An eternity passes in vivid crimson, stinging and smoldering like the hole through his chest before he allows the tattered remains of his last heart to beat once more. Who, exactly, was a stupid old man? The brat hadn’t even realized his ‘finishing blow’ hadn’t actually been fatal.
Pain.
It is not the sensation of a few, isolated wounds. It is the agony of a thousand sliver-thin cuts unraveling him to the core, pinned in place by that gaping, smoldering hole-and the icy realization that he was truly dying. His ruse had been futile. Sharingan Kakashi’s blow would kill him-only slower than intended.
They’d left. If they’d left…they wouldn’t have left without all members of their party. And if all members of their party were present…
Hidan.
The implications drive the first of a sequence of desperate movements: a twist of his body, the digging of his living threads into the dirt, the grinding of one foot into the ground, painfully, slowly, gaining inch by torturous inch across the scarred soil.
How far had he been taken? How long would it take him to get there, crawling and shuffling and gasping, leaving a smeared red trail behind?
They would send hunter-nins. They would have them gather up their corpses for study, peel away their secrets layer by layer, poke and prod and dissect until there was nothing left but unrecognizable heaps of flesh…
Hidan.
Another inch forward. His right eye was dim, the left little better. Would they see him? They had to be watching, the men wearing leaves on their foreheads that followed the one with long black hair…he would know the supposedly fatal blow had missed, and would drive a stake through his heart that would grow into a sapling and burst into bloody red flowers…
No.
No. Shodai Hokage was dead, buried, and grave desecrated. He was no longer eight years old. This was a different time, a different wound, a different leaf…
Move. Get to Hidan.
Muffled, a strangled cry fought out of his throat as a jagged rock protruding from the crater bottom snagged on the hole in his chest, holding him in place.
Shit.
Twist and turn as he might, he couldn’t tear free.
A century old living-nightmare, defeated by a bunch of children and a rock.
Dammit, move! Get to Hidan!
Footsteps.
Soft footsteps and an unnatural breeze.
With one eye raised from the dirt, he saw the hem of a black cloak. A black cloak with red clouds.
“Huh…huh…help-“
Jaw hanging loose, the sounds barely formed. His vision swam.
“Help…Hi-” a cough, barely a weak wheeze wracked his broken form. Black began creeping from the corner of his eye.
“Hidan. Help Hidan!”
A tattooed hand reached toward him, and then was lost as the black haze overcame him.
~*~
The first thing Hidan realized was that he was in pain. Usually, this was not such an unusual discovery, nor an unpleasant one. But in this case, it was decidedly not pleasant.
It was not the kind of pain he enjoyed. It was a full-body ache that hummed steadily, sunk deep into every muscle and bone. The fact that the surface he was resting on was soft and comfortable-a futon?-only seemed to accentuate the unpleasantness of it all.
“Ow, fuck.”
His eyes snapped open when his outburst was replied by an amused snort. The ceiling came into almost immediate focus. It told him nothing. He looked slightly down: a wall. He knew that wall-it was one of the walls of his room. He looked further down, and let out a string of colorful profanity.
Stitches. White stitches across his chest, arms, and-realizing he was also completely naked under the blanket-all over the rest of him.
“What the hell-”
Oh.
That fucking kid. With the deer.
A slight trembling developed in his limbs.
The rocks had fallen, the dirt had settled…dark. It had been so dark, dirt pressed against his eyelids, in his mouth…
He turned his head to the right and saw a knee. Looking a bit higher he saw the tattooed hand resting on the knee, as well as the rest of the body attached to the knee, sitting cross-legged with her cloak hanging open.
“Tomo.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Good morning to you too. You’ve been sleeping for nearly two days.”
Two days. Kakuzu must have dug him up and sewed him back toge-
White thread. White dead thread. The thread shouldn’t be white; it should be black and hum with a life of its own. Why would-
“Kakuzu. Where’s Kakuzu?!”
Panic shot down his partially healed spine. If Kakuzu hadn’t sewn him back together, if Kakuzu couldn’t have sewn him back together, then-
Tomo responded to his growing hysteria by grabbing his head a turning it to his left-
-to come to face Kakuzu, under the same blanket, less than a foot away. Breathing, and emanating the slightest amount of body heat.
He surged forward, and heard a few stitches pop as he landed on Kakuzu’s chest, hands scrabbling for the feel the steady heartbeat. It was there.
A black and green eye cracked open.
“You’re heavy.” Kakuzu rasped. Hidan responded with a tirade of endearments and profanity-though considering the source, the two were easily interchangeable. The other eye opened.
“Shut up.”
Hidan felt a hand on the back of his head, pushing it down to rest on his chest, and felt it run through his hair in a rough sort of caress. The grip was reassuringly strong.
Tomo reached over and draped the displaced blanket back over Hidan’s bare shoulders.
“You will have to thank the kids later. While I was keeping Kakuzu alive they dug you up and put you back together.” She stood and stretched, back popping loudly. “They did a good enough job that I only had to re-grow the pieces that were closest to the explosion. Your body did the rest.”
“…ah.”
She chuckled, and pulled open the sliding paper door. No light entered the room-it had to have been the early hours of the morning.
“Get some rest.” She ordered over her shoulder, and then closed the door with a soft ‘clack’.
~*~
Thank you to those who had the patience to read through it all. *bow* I will have more soon.
Also, an extra thanks to
frostious, who gave me the inspiration to actually sit down and write this.