Interlude: It Must Flow
Today was the happiest day of Sōdan's life. Firewhisky flowed like water through the troughs and channels of the festive hall, every ninja dipping their tankards in to refill whenever they got as low as half full. Over in the bards' corner, the veterans were having themselves a singing competition, their music growing bawdier as the party went on. On the bench of honour, Sōdan was surrounded by close friends and teammates, drinking and joking and yelling out blessings to the happy couple as and when the kami took them.
And of course, up on the stage in the middle of the hall… she danced. The most beautiful woman in all creation. Every step in place. Every movement flowing into the next. His star pupil. The finest weaponmistress of her generation. Nozomi. He'd proposed to her the day she graduated from the dojo. A year later… he was the happiest man alive.
"You should be up there, Sōdan. 's your day."
At his left side, in the place of honour, Sōdan's little brother waved towards Nozomi, his speech already slurred from
too much a healthy dose of firewhisky.
"I will," Sōdan told him. "Soon." As soon as he had enough liquid courage in his veins.
However good he was in a fight (which was pretty damn good, being the finest weaponmaster full stop), Sōdan danced like a penguin. He didn't know what a penguin was, and he was pretty sure his brother didn't either, for all the teasing, but he knew the truth when he heard it. Now, his brother, he was great at very nearly everything. Oh, sure, they mocked him because he had the killer instinct of an earthworm, but Sōdan would (and did) punch out any man who called his brother a coward. Did they have any clue how much courage it took to walk into the heart of an enemy village with just a handful of bodyguards and know that if your tongue failed you, you'd be dead before you could fight or run? Sōdan could win a dozen battles back to back, without breaking a sweat, but his brother was the one who got sent to prevent
wars. He could dance, he could calligraphise, he could do sums, he had charisma coming out of his ears, and he might be a piss-poor killer, but he'd learned everything Sōdan had to teach, same as Nozomi. If he could fix that one fault, then in ten, no, five years' time he'd be Lord of the Burning Waters for sure.
Sōdan still couldn't believe Nozomi had chosen him, the lesser brother, anyway
.
"Maybe ya sssshould lay off the firewhisky fer a minute," Sōdan slurred. "I'm still countin' on ya, lil' bro. Aaain't nobody can give a speech like ya can."
His brother glared. "And what am I supposed to say, Sōdan? Oh, well done, you two, what a good match you are, I'm so freaking happy for you? I was a moron. I shouldn't have come."
But Sōdan couldn't not invite his only family to his wedding. That wasn't possible. Nozomi wouldn't have it either. They'd been best friends once, before… Sōdan and Nozomi still hoped they would be again.
"I shouldn't have come," his brother repeated bitterly. "No speeches. Just let me drink myself under the table in peace before I start saying what's on my mind."
It hurt. Seeing the pain in his brother's face where the drink made it so he could no longer hide it. Knowing it was all Sōdan's fault. Sōdan had thought maybe, seeing the two of them happy would help, prove it had been the right choice. But he'd been dumb and insensitive, as always.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn' mean fer it to work out this way."
"I don't blame
you," his brother snapped. "It's no more than I'd expect from you, following your heart with no thought for anyone else. Not seeing what's right in front of your face, running roughshod over other people's feelings without a word to them first. But
her? She promised us, she
promised us the three of us would always be together. Then she started weighing us against each other like hunks of meat at the market. Picking whichever of us would be worth more, like a half-koban whore."
His brother reeled back in shock, his nose broken. Sōdan looked down at his bleeding fist.
Shit. He'd punched his brother in the face. Without thinking.
But
how dare he? Nozomi wasn't a whore. Nozomi was a goddess. How fucking dare he?
But still, Sōdan shouldn't have–
His brother swung back, hitting him in the ribs.
Only it felt wrong.
It felt sharp.
They both looked down.
His brother was still holding his meat knife.
"No. No. Sōdan, I didn't mean to! I swear I didn't mean to! I'll call a medic-nin!"
Sōdan's eyesight was blurring. A medic-nin wouldn't help. His brother had a weaponmaster's strength, whatever anyone said.
The others were staring in horror. Nozomi, his Nozomi, was running to him, but she couldn't outrun death.
His teammates were drawing their weapons, and Sōdan's voice wouldn't reach them.
He looked his brother in the eye for the last time.
"Run," he whispered. "Run, 'idan, run."
-o-
Hidan lay collapsed in the middle of some kami-forsaken wheat field, a pool of his own blood spreading beneath him. He'd fought well, he thought, for a weaponmaster who hadn't had time to grab his favoured weapon. A full squad of hunter-nin dead around him, another retreated to save their injured once they saw his wounds were mortal.
He could see his hand, the hand with which he'd murdered his brother, lying a few metres away. He supposed, with the clarity of imminent death, that was only fair. Sōdan had always been the better brother. Brave. Passionate. Loyal. A hard worker who'd made the most of his talent when he could have coasted and still been one of the best. A man who never doubted himself and always knew what was right. He'd
deserved Nozomi.
Nozomi lay within Hidan's sight too. Fellow trainees, they'd known each other's every trick. In the end, they'd both hesitated at the final blow, and Hidan, bitter and hateful and in love reversed, had hesitated slightly less.
Hidan's hand was over there. His left leg was in pieces. He had more kunai sticking out of him than an Academy training dummy on Assassination Day. The skin on his back had been burned off by a Blood Element ninjutsu, and that blue-black thing over there was probably his liver. He didn't have enough lifespan left to catalogue it all.
He was proud, though, of the blow that had finally brought him down. Nozomi had proved her right to be sole wielder of Sanjin no Ōgama, the legendary three-bladed scythe now sticking out of his sternum. Funny how warm the metal felt inside him. Almost alive. Maybe weapons forged according to the Old Ways really were different.
As his body cooled, Hidan found he felt grateful to Nozomi. He'd ended his life as a kinslayer, a disgrace whose name would be struck from the dojo panels, but he'd
died like a warrior. He'd always assumed he wouldn't.
The last wisps of warmth left his body. Only the scythe was hot inside him, burning by contrast to the cold–the sole remaining focus for his consciousness as the world faded away.
Hidan died…
…and he saw the world from the perspective visible only to the dead.
He saw the true nature of life. A torrent of blood, an unbroken circle. It flowed eternally, and Hidan wept at its beauty, its vitality, its perfection. The Six Paths were its veins, so complex that he could spend a lifetime drawing them and never capture more than the tiniest fraction.
And its heart, the power that allowed it to be what it was… it was a radiance beyond words. It was alive, conscious, and immeasurably wise. It was love. It was hatred. It was hope. It was despair. It gave birth to the cycle and was the cycle.
It felt his attention.
It directed it.
Hidan saw. The perfection contained imperfection. Clots in the river of blood. Blockages that slowed the flow. They had their purpose, a purpose beyond Hidan's comprehension, but they also resisted the guidance of the heart. They were not of the blood god.
Their name was "humans".
With that realisation, Hidan knew why he was being shown the truth of the Six Paths.
It must flow.
There were three points within the cycle of life, a perfect triangle within the perfect circle. Two of the points were birth and death. The third was the heart, the blood god with his own ineffable purpose.
It must flow.
All that was born must die. All that died must be born. All that was born and died must pass through the hands of the blood god.
It must flow.
Hidan could let go and be part of the cycle… or he could stand outside it. He could become one of its guardians, never dying, never reborn. Bringing death so that the blood kept flowing. Bringing life so that the blood kept flowing. Bringing
Jashin, the one who regulated the flow.
It was sacrament. It was purpose. It was redemption. Every life taken, taken for the greater good, retroactively and forever.
Yes, Hidan agreed, the blood must flow.
A battlefield's worth of blood flowed into
him. His own. The hunter-nin's. Even Nozomi's. His body was perfected. Organs regrew according to Lord Jashin's will. Bones reknit themselves. Hidan was filled with the vitality of a human as humans
could be, if they would only stop trying to defy the cycle.
But was Hidan truly worthy of the blessing? He was the diplomat, the weak man who relied on his charisma to avoid fighting, the weaponmaster who flinched away from murder.
Hidan couldn't serve Lord Jashin the way he needed to be served.
But there was, there had been, someone who could.
It was Hidan's first prayer to Lord Jashin. After all, the two siblings shared the same blood, and all blood belonged to the Blood God.
Hidan cast away his weakness. He could be brave. He could lose himself in the joy of the fight. He could terrify his enemies with a wild grin as he slaughtered them for the greater good, except
his greater good would be even better. Hidan had always wanted to be his brother, and with Lord Jashin's help, he finally would be.
"I'll do ya proud, Sōdan!" he shouted to the sky.
With a grunt of effort, Hidan pulled Sanjin out of his chest. Blood sprayed everywhere. It hurt like hell, but strangely, Hidan found he didn't mind. His life was sacrifice now, and what was sacrifice without pain?
As his last wounds miraculously healed, Hidan contemplated the weapon in his hands. A scythe. A reaper's tool.
How much control did Lord Jashin have over fate itself, to make sure this exact weapon of power found its way to Hidan's hands in his moment of awakening?
Hidan stood up. Stalks of bloodstained wheat reached up to his knees.
He closed Nozomi's eyes, forgiving her in Lord Jashin's name. Blood washed away all sins.
Wheat meant a village nearby, more proof that Hidan had been guided to this place by divine providence. Hidan hefted Sanjin over his shoulder and broke into a run, keen to begin his eternity of work.
-o-
A/N: Hidan does have a Kishimoto origin story, but it's told through filler and side materials like the databooks. None of these are MfD-canon except by coincidence, so I am choosing to ignore them.
