Chapter 401: Let Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot...Please!
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hazō waited until the party was in full swing, then forced himself to wait longer. Finally, when the noise and crowding got to itching too much under his skin, he slipped away. It had been a long and exhausting day, and he needed solitude. There was paperwork sitting on his desk, and the idea of the calm flow of numbers and facts, the smooth flow of his brush, and the faint scent of a cup of steaming tea at his elbow suddenly sounded wonderful. Maybe he would go back later, but he needed a break for a bit.
He pushed open the door of his office with a sigh, tugging off the formal overrobe he'd been wearing and tossing it absently towards the couch before turning for his—
"Hey, kid," said one of the greatest mass murderers in the world, who was currently sitting in Hazō's chair with his feet up on the young Clan Lord's desk. His triple-bladed scythe leaned up against the wall behind him.
Hazō stopped in his tracks.
"Ya never visit, ya never write..."
"Hidan."
"Ya remembered me! My heart is all aflutter."
Hazō blinked. He glanced at the door, then back at the ninja of mythic power who was eyeing him with an 'I dare you' head tilt. Slowly, Hazō closed the door, moved to one of the visitor chairs, and sat down.
"What can I do for you?"
Hidan stared frankly at him for a second that lazed in the air with threatening claws, and then he stood up. He folded his hands behind his back like a schoolmaster and paced around the desk in a half-circle that took him behind Hazō. Fear scraped chills across his nape.
"Here's the thing, kid. We met, you were all snarky, I told ya that I liked ya and that ya had Lord Jashin's favor and I was gonna enjoy killin' everyone who got in your way. Now, I was expectin' that ya'd reach out, give me some targets. Ya know, stay in touch. Imagine how disappointed I was to find not so much as a hint of a letter. Or a messenger. Or even a smoke signal. It's downright rude, leaving yer friends hangin' like that."
"I honestly didn't think you were serious," Hazō said carefully. He didn't turn to see what Hidan was doing. The older ninja could kill him whenever he wanted, so the best choice was to let him play his power games.
"See, that's the problem with kids these days," Hidan said sadly. "No faith. They never take ya serious until ya actually rip their lungs out, and by then it's too late for much discussion."
"Also, I didn't know how to contact you. You didn't exactly leave me a street address, and I couldn't afford to send another message through the Seventh Path. The Clans there are in much closer touch now, and word would have gotten back to Asuma."
"Tsk, tsk. No effort."
"Sorry, sir. I'm here now and listening. What can I do for you, sir?"
"This whole dream of making things better for the civilians so that there's more gifts for Lord Jashin...I'm likin' it. Ya been workin' on it, right?"
"Yes. I just got back from putting walls around several villages. I've been taking in as many people as I can here on my estate. I'm convincing the Aburame to share their lensmaking arts with civilians, which should lead to more wealth and better survival rates. I've been trying to raise awareness with the other clans."
"Ya been doin' all this stuff. Why ain't ya done yet? Why ain't this Uplift thing finished?"
Well, that question didn't have any danger balanced atop it.
"Sir...this is a long project," he said carefully. "It's going to take years to see meaningful changes, and generations to see the full effect. I made those villages safer, but they will need to buy tools, learn skills, generate more food, and have more children. There will be setbacks. It's not a simple or straightforward process."
"I'm not big on patience."
"...I don't know what to do with that, sir. I'm working as fast as I can."
"Yeah, well, either ya've lost Lord Jashin's favor or ya don't have a big enough stick." There was a long, terrifying silence, and then Hidan clapped his hands in decision. "C'mon, let's go find out which it is."
Hazō obediently stood and turned to face his senior. "Where are we going?" he asked, as non-threateningly and non-argumentatively as he could.
"It's a surprise. C'mon." He held out his hand and the scythe jumped to it from where it leaned on the wall. He turned for the door and then paused with his hand on the latch, glancing back over his shoulder. "By the way, I like yer security system. Those sapper chambers were cool."
"Sapper chambers?" Hazō asked. Hidan opened the door and checked outside before stepping into the hall. Hazō followed obediently.
"Yah. You know, those air pockets ya dug out, with the seal in the center? We stumbled inta one, the seal went off and sucked up all the air. The whole place collapsed. It was cool."
"Ah. Thank you." Apparently Kagome had been active and not talking about it. "If I may ask, sir, how did you survive?"
"Tricks o' the trade, kid. Tricks o' the trade."
"May I get my gear?" In particular, could he get the Dog scroll so that he could reverse-summon himself to safety.
"Nah."
"I thought Lord Jashin didn't mind people using gear." He followed along obediently, taking care not to walk so close as to seem threatening or so far as to seem like he was trying to escape.
"Yah, but that's stuff yer carryin'. Why would he want to let you go get more? Ya should be ready."
Hazō debated mentioning that he had an appointment with the Boss of the Dog Clan for the following afternoon and evening. He immediately decided that was not a useful plan.
"Can I get even a hint of where we're going? There are places I guarantee I can't survive without specific gear I'm not carrying this evening, so if that's the goal then I would just be wasting your time."
"Gonna check if ya still got Lord Jashin's favor. And then yer gonna point me towards somebody ta kill. Gotta get this whole...what did ya call it?"
"Uplift."
"Yeh, that. Gotta get that whole Uplift thing movin'. I'm all outta patience with this one-ryō stuff."
"Are we're doing that killing part tonight?"
"Nah, tonight we're just checkin' if yah still got Lord Jashin's favor."
"That means fighting more of your cultists?"
"Heh. Lord Jashin ain't big on samey-same. It's boring."
They reached the stairs and Hidan gestured him to lead the way. Hazō did, praying that they wouldn't meet anyone. The only way that this ended without anyone dying was if they got out unobserved.
Which, of course, meant that Mari was coming up the stairs.
"Hazō where did you go?" she asked, smiling. "The party is still at full blast."
Hazō was very aware of the S-rank murderer standing a few steps above him, just barely out of sight around the corner.
"I just needed a minute of quiet," he said, telling the Iron Nerve to call up relaxed body language and a broad smile.
Mari's face froze, just for an instant, and then her smile got wider.
"What do you say we head back down?" she asked, looking over his shoulder and visibly searching for any shadows or other hint of what the threat might be.
He glanced up the stairs. "Actually, I forgot something. You go on ahead. I'm sure that you and everyone else are having a great time in the main hall. Keep doing that. I'll be there in a few minutes."
She raised an eyebrow, then nodded. "I'm sure we are. Need me to get anything for you?"
"Nah, I'm good. Go on back to the main hall and enjoy yourself." A faint scuff of a foot from above made his spine try to crawl out through the skin of his back.
"Go on," he repeated, a hint of intensity in his voice. "Have fun with everyone else, in the main hall."
She eyed him for the longest moment that wasn't obvious, then nodded. "I'll do that. See you in a few minutes." She turned and disappeared around the corner.
"Gettin' smart there, kid?" Hidan asked, standing at the top of the stairs, in full view of anyone coming up or passing by, with his very distinctive scythe in hand. "Sounded like some code words being passed there."
"No sir. Just trying to...no sir."
"Well, let's get moving. Lead on, kid."
Crap. He needed to buy two minutes for Mari to clear the downstairs.
"Sir...can you please give me some hint of what's happening? Why are you here now instead of a week ago, or a week from now? What would be sufficient progress on Uplift to satisfy you? Give me something, please."
"Tryin' ta buy time for the rescue squad?"
Hazō sighed. "Trying to buy time for everyone to clear out of our way. As long as they don't see you, or see me leaving, then no one has to die."
"So you're tryin' ta deny Lord Jashin his due, huh?"
Hazō's face froze. He turned to face the enemy ninja squarely and pulled himself to his full height. "Yes. That is exactly what I'm doing. You want to kill my family? No one here can stop you. But you'll have to kill me too, and then who is going to do Uplift for you? So stand the fuck down for two minutes and then we'll leave and I'll go play whatever psychotic game you have in mind with a smile on my face and not a word of protest."
Hidan burst out laughing. "Do those balls drag on the ground when you walk?"
"No sir. Perfectly normal size balls."
"All right, fine. You can have yer two minutes." He leaned against the wall, allowing the scythe to fall into the crook of his elbow. "So. What shall we talk about for two minutes?"
For just a moment Hazō's mind went completely blank, and then he chuckled. "The weather's always good. How's it been where you've been staying?"
"Eh. Haven't been stayin' any one place for long."
"Really? Where have you been?"
Hidan snorted in amusement at the transparent attempt at information gathering, but then tossed his head in a 'sure, why not?' gesture. "We left O'uzu a little after you. Spent some time wanderin' around the eastern continent, then took a swing back through Moon. People there weren't happy to see us, so I got ahead on my quota fer sacrificin'. Ya might think about doin' some upliftin' in that area. Lots of nice farmland, nobody left ta farm it."
"...You depopulated the entire island?"
"Eh. Probably not the entire island. I'm sure there's a few farmers hidin' out somewhere."
A sense of vastness spread through Hazō. It was nothing to do with a jōnin aura, merely an appreciation for the level of power held by a person who could lean casually on the wall while discussing the ability to kill hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people and do it faster than they could run away. The ability to depopulate tens or hundreds of square miles. Sure, Hidan had said 'we', so maybe it had been all of Akatsuki. Still. That was...what? Half a dozen people? Maybe two dozen, depending on how many of those cultists had been elsewhere when the Battle of the Gods went down. Was this what it was like being Jiraiya? Knowing that obstacles were nothing more than inconveniences and the only thing restraining your actions was your own choices?
"I'll keep that in mind," he said, trying hard and failing at keeping the quaver from his voice.
"How's it been around here?"
"Nice." He nodded dumbly, dimly aware that his brain wasn't working too well at the moment. "Very nice."
"Glad to hear it. Been doing anything interestin'?"
"Some seal research. And a lot of managing the estate stuff."
"Cool."
Silence hung in the air for several moments.
"What kind of research?"
"Huh? Oh...nothing terribly exciting. I've been helping my teacher work on chronomantic color dynamics. Pretty interesting stuff." That was true enough that hopefully Hidan wouldn't spot the misdirection. "See, there's an overage on chakra amplification when you're mixing type-3 and type-4 green chakra transfers with type-1 red chakra transfers—they aren't literally red and green, of course, those are just names that we use to make visualizing it a little easier, and it doesn't transfer fully back to normal color theory, because—"
"Kid?"
"...Yes sir?"
"Shaddup."
"Yes sir."
"Okay, time to get moving. There's a tunnel in your pantry, hidden under a sack of potatoes. Lead us there and then we're out."
"Yes sir."
XP AWARD: 5
Brevity XP: 1
"GM had fun" XP: 1
Voting is NOT open. There may be more to this update tomorrow if I have the energy or else @Velorien will deal with it on Thursday. That might be a skip forward to Hazō telling everyone about the wacky survival / self-defense / whatever test that Hidan gave him before letting him go, or it might be the actual test itself. We'll see.
I had wanted to do more with this but I ran out of time and juice. I'm done now, so trying to squeeze out another scene is nothing going to do well for anyone.
Voting is open only for the following question: Who do you tell Hidan to kill? Options include:
[] Kill Order: Refuse to name anyone.
[] Kill Order: Aizen of Isan
[] Kill Order: Asuma
[] Kill Order: Hinata
[] Kill Order: Ami
[] Kill Order: Ren
[] Kill Order: Lord Hagoromo
[] Kill Order: Grandmaster F
[] Kill Order: Tsuchikage
[] Kill Order: Shogun
[] Kill Order: Write in
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