Redblade: So, finally we throw this chapter at you. *nervous laughing*

Abel: After a customary waiting period.

WolfSoul7: Grab yourselves some tea and enjoy!

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13. Unholy Confessions

It took another day until the rain decided to let up, clouds reluctantly dispersing to allow the evening sunlight to shine over the washed-out scenery. Water was dripping from the leaves of trees and flowing in little rivulets on the sides of the road, the entire world lush, green and soaked through.

"And I don't care how fucking much it'll cost, I refuse to sleep somewhere that doesn't at least have central heating, king size beds and a food storage that could feed a small country!" Hidan ranted, Abel nodding absently in agreement.

"Do we have that kind of money though?" The taller priest asked, a hopeful tone in his voice.

"We better have." Hidan grumbled, digging around in his pockets. There were more to go through than usually since the two had, at Abel's insistence, discarded the easily recognised Akatsuki coats for more casual wear. Hidan had managed to find something relatively wearable at the third clothesline they'd checked, but the damn thing had way too small pockets for any kind of organisation to be possible.

Triumph flashing on his face the jashinist pulled a wad of banknotes from a pocket, rifling through most of them before giving up and stuffing the cash back to where it came from.

"Yeah, it's fine. Let's go."

"Uh… are you sure?" The taller priest looked apprehensive. "You didn't count them very thoroughly."

"Come on, have I ever been wrong so far?"

The sun had just disappeared below the horizon when a village came into view. It was only a few houses; a couple of shops and a large building with lights shining that looked like an inn. Distant sounds of conversations and general merrymaking carried along the road in the quiet evening.

"Jackpot!" Hidan punched the air. Abel smiled widely, eyes sparkling behind his glasses.

"It's been so long since I last got to sleep in an actual bed."

"I know, right?" The jashinist grinned. "And tonight we eat like fucking royalty!"

They entered the inn, Hidan leading with confidence. The locals paid the little to no heed, but being a small village along a well-cared-for road they must have seen and housed their fair share of both travellers and ninjas. Reserving two rooms went smoothly, and even cost less than the jashinist expected, much to his surprise. That being the case, the surplus money would go to a good use, now that Kakuzu wasn't around.

With a huge roast for each, they found a free table by a wall and settled down to enjoy the feast. The meat was juicy and a bit salty, and Hidan had soon eaten his fill, downright blissful at the all-too-rare feeling of a full stomach.

"Are you hoinh ho eah hah?" Abel pointed at the remains of Hidan's roast, his own plate somehow already empty save for a few bones. The jashinist looked from the other's empty plate from the expectant look plastered all over the blabbermouth's face, and then to the remnants of his own dish.

"…No. How the fuck-"

"Thank you!" Smiling brightly Abel took Hidan's plate and dug in, finishing the food in less than a minute. "This is so good! I could still have another one, and maybe something nice for dessert. As long as it's not any trouble, of course."

How much could that bottomless pit of a clown eat? Hidan had been pretty much starving and he hadn't even managed to completely finish one roast by himself. Still, the thought of dessert was tempting. They hadn't eaten properly for ages, and who knew when the next chance would come. It might even keep the moron quiet for a while longer.

"Sure, why the hell not." The jashinist slid some money across the table. "Get a bottle of sake while you're at it."

Abel rose from the table, leaving towards the kitchens, and took a while to return. When he did, however, he was balancing several trays of dango, some empty sake cups, a cup of tea and a sugar bowl, and there was a bottle under one of his arms. There was no sign of the money though.

"The cook said these 'dango' are a popular dessert so I bought some." The tall priest grinned, settling one by one everything on the table.

"Some?" Hidan looked at the airhead in disbelief. "You probably emptied the whole damn kitchen!"

Abel just shrugged jovially, spooning sugar into his tea. "Also, you didn't say how big of a bottle you wanted so I got the biggest one they had."

"Well… who said it was a bad thing?" The jashinist reached for the impressive bottle and grabbed a cup. "I mean, come on. Let's just enjoy this while we can. Right?"

The taller priest nodded enthusiastically, his tea already turning slightly viscous from all the sugar he'd put in, and bit into a dango. Hidan stole a skewer from one of Abel's plates and filled his cup with sake. For the first time in weeks, hell, months, he was actually enjoying himself. Drinking the first cup made him feel even better. Really, since they were already burning through the money like there was no tomorrow he could just as well go all out and have fun. The look on Kakuzu's annoying face would be worth seeing, too, and in the worst case scenario he could always just push the blame on that featherbrain. It's not like he could be killed that easily either anyway.

Funny thing, really. Now that Hidan thought about it he'd been trying for weeks to figure out the secret behind Abel's not-so-easily-killed –technique. He'd even seen it in action, but the bloody annoyance still wouldn't tell him anything! The curiosity was pretty much the only thing bothering him at the moment, and the more it kept bothering him the more annoyed he grew. And the more annoyed he got the less fun he had.

He had to get this resolved, once and for all. Straight-out asking had proven useless though, so he'd have to come up with a different approach. Pouring yet another cup of sake for himself – the fourth one – Hidan got an interesting idea.

Taking a second cup, the jashinist filled it with sake and set it in front of Abel, pushing the miscellaneous collection of plates to the side. The plan was perfect, so perfect that Hidan couldn't completely hold back his smirk.

"Here, have some too."

"I don't know." The taller priest looked at the tiny cup with a conflicted look on his face. "I don't really…"

"Come on, I'm trying to be nice here. Do you have any idea how hard that is?" The jashinist spread his hands in a mock-wounded gesture. "Think of it as a celebratory drink. A 'yay, we're able to eat'-party or something."

"Well… I guess one cup won't do any harm." Abel lifted the cup gingerly with his fingertips and took a sip before setting it back down.

"The taste is… different. Not bad, but different."

"What the hell did you expect, poison?" Hidan took the chance to refill Abel's sake while the other one was busy assuring him it was nothing of the sort. "It's easy to get used to if you give it a chance."

.§.

Hidan's head was buzzing pleasantly if a bit distractingly, so he was just a bit drunk. Probably. The plan had worked well though, even if the sheer amount of sake needed to get that blockhead in his current state was ridiculously huge. After the fourth bottle there'd really been no point in keeping count. Hidan wanted those answers and he would get them too, so he just kept the sake coming.

"And then the Professor, too, with his weird inventions." Abel sighed, taking a drink and filling his cup himself. "They all just love making fun of me."

"That's because you let them! You should just fucking punch them in the face!" The jashinist declared. "That'll teach them!"

"I can't!" the priest looked horrified. "They're my friends! What if I hurt someone permanently?"

"Meh, they sound weird enough. They'll be fine."

Abel shook his head, emptying and refilling his cup. "'If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.' Besides, I've made a promise."

Hidan tried to make some sense out of what the other was saying, but it only made his head hurt. "…house… div- What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

The tall priest focused on his sake, eyes slightly clouded. His head was swimming, darker thoughts surfacing through the haze. Voice barely audible, he looked for the right words.

"We… The AX… are the only thing standing in the way of a war that could destroy what little is left of the world. If we fall apart…" He downed his sake in one gulp, forcibly discarding any thoughts of a grim future.

"Well, you got depressing all of a sudden." Hidan's great mood fell closer to a normal level and something started nagging at the back of his thoughts. Didn't all this drinking originally have a reason? "To be honest I don't really give a fuck about people's pasts, even when I don't know half the time what you're talking about."

"You're such a nice person, Hidan-san." Abel beamed, though not as brightly as usual.

"Well that's fucking insulting. Say that again and I'll… I dunno, kick you through the wall or something." Hidan grumbled without any real conviction. "To be honest, I'm just curious about that immortality thing of yours. You know, since not dying is kinda my thing."

The tall priest took a deep breath and a large gulp of sake, brows furrowing in concentration as he gathered his wayward thoughts. When he finally spoke his voice drawled a bit.

"For one, it's… not a technique. It's just something I have, and have had for… as long as I can remember." Abel glowered at the sake bottles, though more sad than angry. "It's something that shouldn't exist."

Hidan's sake cup stopped on its way to his lips. With a sudden burst of anger he put down his drink, stood up and slammed the idiot's head down against the table, hard.

"It's kinda late to complain about that, isn't it? Just fucking deal with it!"

The tall priest raised his head slowly and groaned, glasses slipping almost off his nose.

"I know, sorry. It's just… so many people died." His voice cracked a little. "Entire nations were wiped out. If they hadn't created us… but they did. And we're all dealing with the consequences."

"Wait, what? Nations? I don't think- no. Look, I fucking told you already, I'm not interested in the past and shit like that."

"Oh, it wasn't here, in this world…" Abel drawled, a distant look on his face. "It was far, far away, a thousand years ago."

"What?" Hidan wasn't just confused anymore; he'd fallen off the whole damn metaphorical map.

The drunk priest let out a disapproving noise as he discovered the latest sake bottle empty, and started to go through them all systematically. The jashinist gave him a deadpan look.

"I think you've had enough." Things had gotten beyond weird, making Hidan wonder whether this had actually been such a great idea at all. And that practically never happened with anything.

"Really?" The look on Abel's face rivalled a kicked, abandoned puppy.

"Yes!" The jashinist pushed the impressive collection of bottles further away. "I mean seriously, I'm just trying to ask a fucking question. It's not that complicated, it's not hard to answer: 'I was an experiment in a lab. The end.' or something. But no, gotta try to shove the whole bloody fantasy backstory down my throat. And even worse, then they start to complain how fucking miserable they are and how all the bad things always happen to them."

"I was a genetic experiment, actually. We all were." The taller priest blinked, trying to process everything that was said.

"Why didn't you fucking say so? It took exactly one sentence! I wouldn't have given a crap about further info. I don't get science stuff anyway."

"I don't know about you but some people don't like to talk about being forced to spend the first twenty years of their life as a lab rat." Abel growled.

"Did I fucking ask you to? Around here most people are some kind of lab rats of just weird-ass in general. But you know what? They don't really mind, since they usually know what they're doing with their lives. I mean that life's pretty much shit but it's still going somewhere. Hell, it's not like you're lost either; you've got that goody-goody cheesy quote –religion going on, right? You're doing great. I'm doing great! Our lives have a point, so stop complaining dammit!"

The general background noise of the inn prevented complete silence, as the two looked at each other, Abel blinking owlishly over his glasses.

"…I'm so fucking drunk." Hidan muttered, slowly facepalming. He stood up, heading slowly towards the stairs along a slightly wobbly path. "I'm going to sleep."

With that, Abel was left to his own devices and to the company of the decidedly empty bottles of sake. Scanning what was left on the table the priest noticed the corner of a banknote and brightened up. Soon he had a cup of tea in front of him, thirteen helpings of sugar and all.

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"Well?"

"What do you think?" Kakuzu held up the old scroll his mission had been centred on and with a heavy, wet thud threw something to the ground at the hologram's feet. Empty eyes stared towards the dark ceiling of the cave from the disembodied head of the target their client had specified.

Piercing eyes flickered momentarily downward and then back. "I see the mission was a success. Good."

"They won't cause any further trouble." Kakuzu nodded, pocketing the precious scroll again.

"Then you're ready to return to pursuing the main objective." The hologram addressed the next piece of information. "There have been some changes while you were away."

"Did someone finally kill Hidan?"

"No. He has been partnered with a new recruit. He will be a part of your team from now on." Pein answered drily.

Kakuzu lifted an eyebrow. Hidan was bad enough to have to live with, but now there was someone else who was, and even could be, assigned to annoy him. Wouldn't be his fault if – when – the new guy got ripped to pieces. Unless the leader had thought of that… Kakuzu's eyes narrowed.

"What kind of a recruit?"

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WS7: Really deep, Hidan. Also rude. What do you have to say for yourself?

Hidan: *drunkenly singing Masochism Tango*

Rb: Um… okay. Anyway, Bad Apple, coming up next. Hidan should sober up before that.

WS7: Drink your water, kids!