#jashida

The gutters of history are clogged with the bones of believers whose gods did not hear them in their darkest hour.

In the realm of the ravenous all hours are equally dark, and the one they call the Wicked Heart is always, always listening.

Naruto fic - finally finished one of my pile of Jashin/Hidan WIPs! Dark fantasy/horror, with worldbuilding inspired by Japanese religion and folklore. Hidan was blown apart and buried alive still trusting that his god would save him... and he was absolutely right. Start running, Shikamaru.

Small giftfic for @lordkuronekosama! Jashin/Hidan, metal band AU in which Jashin (currently in a mortal incarnation) is the singer of the band, and Hidan is his most devoted fan. Rated T for a bit of blood and consensual kissing (it would've been more, but they got cockblocked by the stage schedule... maybe I'll write a sequel later.)

The gutters of history are clogged with the bones of believers whose gods did not hear them in their darkest hour.

In the realm of the ravenous all hours are equally dark, and the one they call the Wicked Heart is always, always listening.

~~~

Naruto fic - finally finished one of my pile of Jashin/Hidan WIPs! Dark fantasy/horror, with worldbuilding inspired by Japanese religion and folklore. Hidan was blown apart and buried alive still trusting that his god would save him... and he was absolutely right. Start running, Shikamaru.

~~~

First it hurt until the whole world was nothing but pain, and then it stopped hurting, and then there was nothing at all.

Hidan blinks, and between one moment and the next he passes from nothingness to something. He stands confused beneath a moonless dark sky, on the gentle slope of a hillside planted with black-barked trees that bear leaves as bone-white as the grass beneath them and are laden on every twig and branch with crimson buds that hang like clustered drops of blood. Red spider lilies grow thickly among the knee-high grass, and the air smells of honey and blossom and blood and death.

And a mere fifty yards away a dark figure kneels among the grass and flowers, gaunt and half-shapeless in tattered, rotting draperies. Blood-blackened, silver-tipped shinigami horns curve upwards, sticking through the front of a wide black kasa hat.

Hidan runs.

He's as fast on his feet here as he ever was in the mortal world, but the figure still turns and opens their arms before he can reach them. They're as tall kneeling as he is standing, even his full weight at full speed only barely enough to move them as he flings himself against a gaunt dark chest striped white with exposed ribs, into long, strong, bony arms that fold around him and hook claws like a vulture's over his bare shoulders. He looks up into a black-and-bone mask of a face, familiar-and-not as his own reflection glimpsed in shifting water; into empty eyes as deep as the grave, above a mouth like a serrated wall of dark-glinting iron fangs...

"Jashin-sama!"

New fic, spliced together from a couple of my Jashin/Hidan snippets! I'm really happy with this one.

Summary:

Hidan can't die, but that doesn't stop him wishing he could.

And then he does, and getting what you wished for is a happy ending, right?

Rules: Post 6 sentences of an unfinished project.

This is from a currently untitled Naruto fic, on the evergreen theme of "ways to get Hidan out of the hole Shikamaru and Kishimoto left him in". Method of extraction in this instance, literal divine intervention:

"Keep him safe."

"Hai," the crimson-eyed shinigami whispers, head bent beneath his master's hand as he gathers the sleeping immortal close like a priceless treasure. "But where are you going, Jashin-sama?"

Jashin's tongue flickers between the black blades of his fangs in a grin without mirth or mercy. "To make it known to certain ears that I am not pleased."

His departure from the throne room leaves a storm of delighted, spiteful whispers of anticipation echoing in his wake.

~~~

Of all the things Kakuzu regularly says to Hidan that offend his sensibilities, insult his beliefs, affront his morals or just plain hurt his feelings, the one that always sticks so much deeper than it should is Kakuzu warning him that something's going to kill him.

Hidan tried arguing about it when they were first teamed up, armed with an ever-growing weight of empirical evidence to suggest that actually, today's danger of the day wasn't any more likely to successfully end him than the previous ones. But Kakuzu's so deep in denial of Jashin's existence and blessings that it was like arguing with an exceptionally surly brick wall, so Hidan's mostly given up, these days. He tries to just pretend he doesn't hear.

Sometimes, though, he can't keep his mouth shut no matter how he tries. "Oh come on, Kakuzu! If they could kill me, you know I'd want them to."

Whereupon Kakuzu looks at him like he's an idiot, of course, because Kakuzu, with his half-assed patchwork semi-immortality that he fights so hard to hang on to, couldn't possibly understand. Kakuzu's afraid of death just like he's afraid of so much else. He'll never grasp why Hidan doesn't share his fear.

Not that Hidan has ever tried very hard to explain. He's not good at the kind of eloquence it would take to pry all his complicated tangled feelings out of the depths of his soul and string them together into something coherent, and besides, he shouldn't have to; doesn't want to. He knows better than to hand Kakuzu any additional tools the other man could hurt him with, and nothing makes a shinobi vulnerable like confessing their feelings.

Because it would be a confession, in its way. He couldn't serve Jashin the way he does if he didn't love his god with every fibre of his soul, because if his motives had ever been less than pure then Jashin would never have found him worthy of the terrible power he's been given. And Hidan loves, oh how he loves, with all his cursed immortal heart - loves his god, loves the dark power that runs through his veins, loves the fights he gets into and the blood he spills and the ecstasy that repays him for the souls he drags to the threshold and casts into the dark of Jashin's realm...

The threshold beyond which sits Jashin-sama, enthroned in the realm of death, surrounded by his court of ghosts and shinigami and monsters and chosen-ones-past. The threshold at which Hidan has to turn back, every time, and return to the mortal world; to Akatsuki's bullshit and Kakuzu's contempt, to long boring walks and lousy missions, and the aching loneliness of being the only living messenger of a god nobody else is willing to even hear about.

It's not that he hates being alive or anything stupid like that. Flesh and blood and breath have enough to recommend them, most of the time; he can lose himself easily in the joy of battle or the pleasures of a good meal and a soft bed, just like any other shinobi. He takes comfort too in knowing that only the living can sacrifice the living, and so he's where Jashin needs him to be and doing what his faith requires. To kill for Jashin-sama is his duty and privilege and pleasure all in one, and it is enough for him, for as long as it's asked of him.

But every time he touches that black threshold he still envies the souls he throws across it, because even the most wretched atheist among them is going to land at his god's feet and look upon his god's face so much sooner than Hidan ever will. His only consolation is that he knows his gift-and-curse isn't forever. One day, one day Jashin-sama will reach out his hand and say Enough, will take back his power and unlock that barred gateway and Hidan can run to his god's open arms and go home. Go somewhere he'll finally be welcomed, finally be thanked for all the work he's done and the suffering he's endured.

Where, at long last, he won't be the only one of his kind any more.

Hidan can have faith - he can, he does. He can trust and wait. But he could do without being constantly fucking reminded that that day isn't coming yet.

"One of these days I'll kill you, Hidan."