Eight

Be Brave

It was on a Sunday the world learned Nii Yugito was dead.

:: ::

"Are you stupid?"

"Say that to my fucking face, asshole!"

Not that he'd already been facing the idiot since the start of this conversation, but the leash around Kakuzu's anger felt looser today. Hidan still bitched and it was still building up to the point where he might tear his head from his body, his stitchwork from their last fight be damned, but his patience might last another few days. Maybe even a week if they run into Uzumaki anytime soon.

"Our target is the Jinchuuriki. Taking the direct path to Konoha will have us run into an ambush," he said. "We're taking a different route. It's been three days. Sarutobi Asuma's body would have been delivered to them by now."

Sarutobi's body would've cashed in a fair price had he been the one to turn it in—the burns along the right side of his face skimmed his cheek, first degree except for scattered centers of second, the cause of death a simple stake to the heart, and he still remained a completely recognizable corpse of the Shugonin Juunishi like that self-righteous monk.

Blasphemous, Hidan complained all the way to the Collection Office, as if there was anything holy about them to begin with.

Hidan huffed and slung his scythe across his back. "Fine, fine, I fucking guess."

They started down the opposite direction of the main path before Kakuzu felt a shift in his left cloak sleeve. His mask hid his sigh as he reached in and pulled out a ratty bloodied hitai-ate with its minute scratches on the metal and a solid chunk of a right-plate corner missing.

"Your scar is embarrassing." He tossed it over before he kept walking. "Cover it up."

"Wait, you actually picked up my headband? Kakuzu! How come you've been holdin' out on how nice you are?"

"Be quiet," he snapped from further into the thicket.

"Tell me the truth! You like me, huh? Huh? Oi, Kuzu-chan, don't be shy!"

Another quiet sigh slipped past his lips as he made no motion to slow his step. Things have been busy as of late where he hadn't been able to stay in Ame for more than half a week and the days he was there, it was nothing but paperwork and numbers and Sakura sitting at the other desk in his office working on documents he never asked her to work on, but never stopped her from turning in.

The stitches on his cheeks dragged against his mask with every step he took, scratch, scratch, scratch.

They were particularly religious back in Taki. Wooden rosaries wound around wrists like cheap bracelets and celebrations brought people to the streets every month to fill them with food and song and personal statuettes his neighbors brought out from the small shrines in their homes. He'd watch from the kitchen window strewn in wisps of tayabak blooms as his father hummed nearby, stewing kalderetang kambing in a huge pot before all the uncles, aunts, and cousins started coming over.

He remembered—

Kakuzu squashed those lines of thought at their roots.

He was the only attentive one here. There was no time to waste in some worthless past.

But it was only when they started walking over the cracked earth of the claypan desert he noticed... something.

Dark shadows stretched from the charred skeletons of trees breathing in air too dry for them to fully decompose. Raptors circled overhead, and one of them eased off course to land on a branch high behind them. It wasn't unusual when the only food pickings here were old bones and cloth scraps of shinobi who've long lost, yet its gaze sunk too heavy for a bird whose neck he could snap with just a pointer and a thumb.