Hikari no Evandar

24Hour Themes - Harry Potter/Fullmetal Alchemist

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:53:21 GMT

Title: Equivalent Exchange
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Harry Potter/Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Future Envy/Sirius
Genre: Gen, Crossover
24Hour Themes Prompt: 2100: Comprehension of universal truth.
Warnings: AU
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Sirius discovers that returning to England would be a bit harder than he'd anticipated.

Sirius felt triumph rush through him as he read; the odd, swirling letters of the language of Amestris translating easily in his mind. It had taken him months, almost a year to learn it. Envy, while an intermittent teacher – he kept leaving on business that he refused to talk about; Sirius assumed it had to do with that Dante person whose house he had appeared in – was a good one. Strict, but patient, and he had happily taken lessons in English as payment.

The book on Alchemy was, apparently, one of the simplest available. A book aimed at children, had been Envy’s explanation – accompanied by a soft snicker as he’d handed it over – but it was easy enough for Sirius to read. He suspected that Envy was going easy on him, as hard as that was to believe.

Envy had flung himself into a chair on the other side of the room. He lay with his legs over one arm, his back arching over the other and his long green hair brushing the floor, watching Sirius as he read. It was kind of unnerving, but Sirius managed to ignore him. Mostly. His legs swung back and forth, keeping time with the ticking of the clock.

‘Just past nine,’ Sirius noted.

His triumph faded as the words he was reading sunk in. Alchemy is controlled by the law of Equivalent Exchange. When something is taken, something of equal value must be given in exchange.

Oh. Right. Bugger.

“Did you know about this?” he asked. “Equivalent Exchange?”

“Yes,” Envy said quietly. “That’s why you were so much of a surprise. Appearing in the middle of the array like that; nothing was given.”

“If…if I try to go back?” Sirius asked. He wanted, no, needed to know. Would his last memory of his godson be his scream? Would his last view of England be a battle in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic? Was he lost forever?

“It won’t work,” Envy said. “Not unless we give something up here. Or maybe the Gate will take something from your side – this England – in exchange for you.”

Sirius looked down at the book; all comprehension of its swirling letters lost. Drag someone away from home – away from Harry – against their will, just so he could go back into a life of hiding? No. No, that wasn’t…that wasn’t what he wanted. That wasn’t something he could live with.

Not even if the Gate – as Envy called the veil – took Snape.

He shivered. Not even Snape. He wouldn’t want to inflict Snape on the people of Amestris. They didn’t deserve it.

“Oh,” he said.

“Do you still wish to continue?” Envy asked.

Sirius didn’t look at him. After a moment, he heard movement. Then, moments later, green hair brushed against his cheek.

“Do you still want to try?”

“No,” Sirius said. “I…can’t do that.”

He glanced up and caught Envy’s eye. Not for the first time, he saw confusion in Envy’s gaze. Sometimes it worried him that Envy didn’t seem to have any concept of responsibility, morality, or self sacrifice, and not for the first time Sirius found himself wondering what kind of people had brought Envy into the world.

“Besides, I kind of like it here,” he said. “I don’t have to hide anymore.”

Envy nodded, his confusion clearing and his hair brushing against Sirius’ cheek again with the movement.

“And…” he swallowed. “There’s nothing in the world, in any world, that’s worth a human life.” Envy inhaled sharply, but Sirius continued. “Not even the life of another.”

He heard Envy swallow, felt his hand grip his shoulder – his thin, pointed fingers were incredibly strong and felt like daggers in Sirius’s flesh – before Envy relaxed and released a small sigh.

“I think the world would have been saved a lot of pain, if everyone could see things like you do,” he said quietly. There was something behind his words – something that made a shiver run down Sirius’s spine.

Sirius didn’t reply. He just laughed shortly – bitterly – and closed the book with a snap.

24Hour Themes - Harry Potter/Fullmetal Alchemist

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:41:19 GMT

Title: Amestris
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Harry Potter/Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Future Envy/Sirius
Genre: Gen, Crossover
24Hour Themes Prompt: 2300: Coping with drastic change in a positive manner.
Warnings: AU
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Sirius' fall through the veil takes him to a very different world
AN: This was written for the 24hour_themes table that I claimed a while ago. Incidentally, my official claim was not for anything Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist related; this just happened anyway.

I've never written anything for Fullmetal Alchemist before. New Fandom. Ooooh.

The room he found himself in was dark. He couldn’t move – Bellatrix had Petrified him, obviously – but he could see. He could look around, not that there was much to look at: just the hint of a vaulted ceiling. He had his wand too, still gripped in the fingers of his right hand. That was reassuring. He would be able to use it once he’d found a way to free himself from this bloody spell.

The room he was in was silent. It sounded even quieter with the sounds of the battle at the Ministry still ringing in his ears. Somewhere, a clock chimed. Eleven chimes and the world fell silent again. Eleven? Sirius knew for a fact that it hadn’t been that late when he’d left Grimmauld Place – Remus arguing with him every step of the way; nagging and pleading and telling him to “think of Harry”; not for the first time, Sirius wondered if Remus had a bit of Seer in him – and the battle couldn’t have been that long. So where was he? A different time zone? A different – he swallowed nervously – world? Dimension? God only knew what the Ministry were doing with something like that veil.

He pushed his magic against the bonds the spell had placed on him. He winced at the backlash. He would be able to break through, eventually, but it would take a while. He just hoped that no one would walk in and find him before he got free. It would be awkward enough to explain his presence in…wherever he was without being unable to move.

‘Finite Incantatem,’ he thought desperately. ‘Finite Incantatem. Finite Incantatem. Finite Incantatem.’

His wand sparked and Sirius felt the bonds vanish. He sighed in relief and sat up. He kept his wand out, though, and after a moment’s hesitation, he lit it with a murmured “Lumos”. Golden light spilled over the room. It was bare, mostly, with a small table near a heavy looking wooden door. The room was made of stone, similar to the stone Hogwarts was made out of, and its windows – set in small recesses – were made up of tiny, diamond shaped panes of glass.

“Fancy,” Sirius muttered. He’d only ever seen windows like that at Malfoy Manor – when he’d gone to attend Narcissa’s wedding, joyous occasion that that had been – and found himself praying that he wasn’t there. Or, at least, that this mysterious place on the other side of the veil didn’t have Malfoys.

As he turned in a full circle, he noticed the drawings on the stone floor. There was a large rug, rolled up, leaning against the wall in one of the far corners, and Sirius supposed that it was meant to cover the flagstones he’d come round on. He’d never seen drawings like this before. Done in what looked like chalk, it was a series of geometric shapes in a series of concentric circles surrounded by sigils that meant absolutely bugger all to Sirius. It wasn’t comforting. The drawings looked sinister as all hell, but he found himself being reassured by the fact that – wherever he was – there was still magic.

His wand-light landed on a person, and Sirius yelped; sounding, for a moment, very much like his Animagus form. It was a boy – he thought; he couldn’t quite be sure: there was something very girlish about the slight curve of the hips and the face – and he was leaning against the wall, watching Sirius curiously. His eyes glinted purple in the wand-light, and his long hair shone green.

Sirius swallowed nervously.

The boy spoke up, and Sirius stared at him. He definitely sounded like a girl – though Sirius still wanted to refer to him mentally as a boy; instinct – but that wasn’t really what caught Sirius’s attention. It was the fact that Sirius couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying.

“Um,” he said. “I have no idea what you just said.”

The boy blinked, a look of confusion passed briefly over his face, before he moved. He pushed off the wall and sashayed over to where Sirius was standing. He wasn’t wearing all that much: a cropped, skin tight top and a very short skirt – both dark purple – that revealed most of his long legs and his thin, toned stomach. He stopped about three feet away from Sirius before leaning in, tilting his head to peer up into Sirius’s face. This close, Sirius could see that the boy’s pupils were slitted like a cat’s. He wasn’t human, then.

‘Oh goody,’ Sirius thought. He cleared his throat and jabbed a finger at himself. “Sirius,” he said.

The boy nodded and repeated the gesture. “Envy,” he said, in that girlish voice, a grin spreading slowly across his androgynous face.

Envy? Sirius winced internally. And he’d thought the Black family tradition of naming their kids after stars and constellations was bad. Who on earth named their kid Envy?

“Where am I?” he asked, drawing out the words, indicating the room with a sweeping wave of his hand.

Envy’s brow furrowed. He mimicked the movement but didn’t say anything. Sirius sighed. The language barrier was going to be something of an obstacle, he could tell.

“Where?” he asked again, repeating the gesture.

Something sparked in Envy’s eyes, and he spoke again. “Amestris,” he said.

For a moment, Sirius felt his brain stop working. He was where? Amestris? Was that even a country? That ruled out his being in a different time or time zone, at least. An alternate dimension or universe it was! Great. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, looking down at the weird symbols on the floor.

“Alchemy,” Envy said, pointing at the drawings.

“Alchemy?” Sirius asked, stunned that there was a word that he’d actually recognised. Maybe he would be able to get the hang of the weird language Envy had spoken in after all. When Envy nodded, he felt hope well up inside him. This world, this Amestris, had Alchemy. And even though Sirius knew nothing about Alchemy at all, he knew that Professor Dumbledore had dabbled in the subject – and everyone knew that Dumbledore’s idea of ‘dabbling’ was everyone else’s idea of PhD level research. So maybe, just maybe, there was a way to send him back.

There was a noise somewhere in the house. Envy’s head shot up, and a chilling sneer passed over his pretty features before he turned back to Sirius. He reached out and grabbed Sirius’s free hand. He tugged, and Sirius went with him willingly. They left the room, passed along corridor after corridor, until they came to what was clearly a kitchen. Envy began to ransack the cupboards, pulling out a hunk of cheese – or something that looked like cheese; Sirius hoped that the food wouldn’t be too different in this world – some bread and a flask, which he filled with water from the tap.

Sirius conjured a bag – a black rucksack; not his most ornate, but practical enough – and Envy studied him curiously for a moment before shoving the food and water at him. Then he pointed back into the house. “Dante,” he said, before pointing at Sirius and then drawing his finger across his throat in the multi-universal gesture for ‘you’re dead’. Sirius gulped nervously and nodded, stuffing the provisions into his bag along with his wand. He’d just got here, and someone already wanted him dead? Or was it less personal and this Dante person just happened to be some kind of psycho like Voldemort?

He pointed at Envy, who just shrugged. He pointed to himself, raised his hand to his forehead and then pointed at Sirius. He’d come looking for him. That…was kind of reassuring. Sirius knew nothing about him. He didn’t even know what Envy was. He wasn’t even totally sure if Envy was a guy, but it was nice to know that he’d come looking for him.

“Thank you,” he said. Envy apparently understood because he grinned before guiding Sirius to a door. He murmured something in his own language and opened it, turning to look at Sirius expectantly.

Sirius transformed into Padfoot, earning himself a soft gasp from his companion, grabbed his bag in his jaws, and shot out of the door and into the night. It was cool, and there was a light breeze rustling the leaves on the nearby trees. Sirius headed for the woods; he would find shelter there, at least.

He’d find shelter, and then when Envy came looking for him, he’d find a way to get back to England; get back to Harry. He’d explore this Amestris place as much as he could, but he wouldn’t – couldn’t – let himself get distracted. He had to get home. He had to. But…

He paused at the tree line and looked back towards the manor house he had fled from. He wasn’t a criminal here. He was free. He still had his magic, and there was a version of Alchemy here that had to be connected to the veil somehow. And he was alive; that was more important. He was still alive.

He turned away from the manor house and loped into the forest. He’d find somewhere to spend the night, then he’d wait for Envy. He’d have to learn the language of this place, learn more about Alchemy before he could do anything about going home, so…well, he wouldn’t be Sirius Black if he didn’t make the most of his situation.

Fic - What If They - 1/1

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:18:00 GMT

Title: What If They...
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: None
Genre: Gen
Warnings: AU liek WOAH, Hidan's mouth
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: The Akatsuki never went missing-nin.
AN: Written for the What if? Meme on naruto_meme for the prompt: what would have happened if the Akatsuki never went missing-nin.

They had almost exhausted their chakra. They stood facing each other by the side of the canyon they’d just created, remnants of demonic chakra still lingering in the air. Senjuu Hashirama gasped for air, clutching at a wound in his side. Madara, who was in slightly better shape, grinned maniacally. His face, his beautiful Uchiha features, were ruined, his armour was tattered, and there was blood everywhere, but he was in better shape than Hashirama.

Hashirama collapsed to his knees, still gripping his side. Madara’s grin widened and he opened his mouth to gloat, only for a choked gurgle to escape him instead. Behind him, a mud clone collapsed back into the earth, leaving the katana it had wielded buried to the hilt in Madara’s chest, its blade running right through his heart.

Madara choked. Blood spattered the ground. His knees trembled and gave out and he toppled face first into the mud. Hashirama grimaced in regret, before curling up on his non-wounded side. Madara was dead. He could rest for just a moment.

*

They kept him in the cell for weeks. Months passed, and they seemed to forget him, and Kakuzu found his own food by snaking his threads through the bars of his cell’s single window – it was tiny and close to the ceiling and it opened onto the grass, showing he was underground with no way of escaping - and catching whatever unfortunate rodent happened to scurry past.

Months passed. The rodents started to become scarce, and one morning, when he sent his threads questing through the bars, they found cold. Snow. He had fought Senjuu Hashirama in the spring, and now winter had set in. Was he supposed to have died, he wondered. Had his mother and his sisters mourned him?

He thought about escaping. He thought about taking back his dignity and using his threads – the most powerful jutsu that Takigakure had to offer – to rip out the hearts of the village elders and avenge himself for this unfair punishment, but…the world had forgotten him. He was dead to them. Avenging himself now would do nothing.

*

“Can I help you with something, Kazekage-sama?”

Akasuna no Sasori didn’t defer to anyone except his grandmother. His tone as he addressed the Kazekage was mocking, and the honorific was only there to prevent him from being accused of being openly disrespectful, although it was an open secret in Sunagakure that Sasori thought that the Yondaime Kazekage was a complete moron.

He was the only one who could get away with the disrespect, other than his grandmother. Sasori was unnerving. He was creepy. He was powerful and talented and probably should have been elected as Kazekage instead of the Yondaime, but the council had decided that having someone with Sasori’s habits in a position of power wouldn’t be good for future alliances – as if he’d go around poisoning the other kages and the Wind Daimyo and turning their bodies into puppets.

He’d been given control of the Puppet Corp and the Torture and Interrogation departments as a consolation prize instead.

“I am requesting that you take my son, Kankurou, on as an apprentice,” the Kazekage ordered. “He will need his skills improved before the invasion of Konoha.”

Sasori – and his grandmother – was the only person in Suna that the Kazekage requested things from.

He tilted his head to one side. “Kankurou has some talent,” he said, “even if he is a hot-headed idiot.” The words ‘like you’ hung unsaid between them. “Though I’m curious, Kazekage-sama, as to why you think that Orochimaru will hold up his side of the bargain.”

He was the only person in Suna who could get away with questioning the Kazekage to his face.

*

“I need you to break the seal for me Kisame.”

The Mizukage was little more than a child. He looked weak in the watery light filtering through the window, but the strange stitch-shaped seal running down his left cheek was a reminder that his childlike appearance was nothing more than that. An appearance. A front. A lie.

“I can’t do this anymore, Kisame,” he continued. His voice was quiet, almost drowned out by the feeble chirping of the birds outside. “Our country is on the brink of civil war. Our bloodlines have died out or vanished. Our people are frightened, and it’s all because of me.”

He seemed strangely lucid that morning. Kisame wondered if he had taken something, or – more likely – hadn’t taken something. There had been a masked man in black seen around the village several times during the past few years. They’d never caught him, but the young Mizukage – normally such a calm, kind young boy – had become violent and irrational, and with him, Kiri had become tainted.

“You’ll die, Mizukage-sama,” Kisame told him.

“I know, Kisame,” the Mizukage replied. “I have made my preparations. You are to succeed me.”

Kisame blinked. “Me, Mizukage-sama?”

“You’re strong, and a good leader. This village needs that. It needs you.”

The Mizukage looked up at him, and Kisame saw how tired the Mizukage looked. He didn’t really want the position. He liked working with the Swordsmen, and the paperwork would be hell, but…he loved Kiri more than he hated paperwork.

“You, Kisame, are the Godaime Mizukage.”

“Yes sir.”

*

The people of Ame loved them. After Pein had defeated Hanzou, they had flocked to his banner, trusting him to stop their country from ripping itself apart; trusting him to give them something to be proud of. Only Konan and Yahiko had shown that much faith in him before. Not even Jiraiya-sensei had believed in him that much.

It was humbling.

Pein started with the governing body. With Konan by his side – his beautiful angel – she destroyed any and all of Hanzou’s supporters. Then he meticulously rewrote the academy programme in the hopes of producing stronger genin, and placed Konan in charge of it to make sure that his will was done.

Any skirmishes were dealt with ruthlessly.

Change filtered through the Land of Rain. From his tower, Pein saw the changes in his people. Stronger, more united shinobi. Happier civilians. Better business.

The sky stopped crying for the dead; instead it wept with joy.

*

The missing nin wasn’t nearly as talented as the trouble he had caused would have suggested. He was frightened too, and Zetsu could smell the fear wafting off of him as he perched on a tree branch, a kunai gripped in two shaking hands. Maybe he had realised what his actions were going to bring upon him.

“He’ll be no challenge at all,” Black Zetsu said.

White Zetsu tilted their head to one side, and studied their prey. Before he had left the village, he had cut a slash through the grass symbol of his hitai-ate; a symbol that Zetsu wore proudly. He looked like he might be regretting that decision.

White Zetsu sighed. “This is almost insulting,” he said.

Black Zetsu nodded. “But he’ll be tasty. Look at the meat on his arms.”

White Zetsu licked their lips. “Yes,” he said. “Shall we go?”

Black Zetsu didn’t reply before they melted into the trunk of the tree that they’d been perched on. Zetsu was the perfect hunter-nin, and Kusagakure’s secret weapon. He hunted eagerly, and left no trace of his presence.

There was a short scream, and the missing nin died.

*

A small, white spider inched closer to the largest stack of paperwork. The chakra that had been moulded into the clay guided towards the pile. Its creator fiddled with his pen not two feet away; his head bent over his desk to hide his devious smirk behind curtains of long blond hair.

The spider moved closer. It was almost there…

A large hand slammed down on top of it, and Deidara froze. He looked up into the face of the Sandaime Tsuchikage and his smirk faded into a weak smile.

“Ounoki-sama, it wasn’t what it looked like, un!” he said quickly.

“Really?” the old man asked. “So you weren’t going to blow up that stack of paperwork, then?”

Deidara glanced at the pile. It almost swamped the whole desk. He looked back up at the Tsuchikage, trying to look as innocent as possible.

It didn’t work. “Deidara-kun, if you’re going to be my successor, you need to stop playing around with these little toy bombs of yours,” the Tsuchikage said.

Deidara’s eyes narrowed at the insult. “They’re art, un!” he said.

“Yes, yes,” the Tsuchikage said. “All the same Deidara-kun, no blowing up the paperwork. You agreed to this so that you could display maturity, not showcase your, ah, ‘art’. You need to show me that you’re ready for this before I step down.”

Deidara sighed and made the remains of the squished spider wiggle out from under the Tsuchikage’s hand and limp back across the desk to him. It was painful to watch. His art, ruined, and him unable to even detonate it.

“Good boy,” the Tsuchikage said once he’d squashed it down completely and slipped the clay back into the pouch on his thigh.

Deidara grit his teeth. All of them. The hat had better be worth it.

*

“What…the fuck? A tourist destination? Are they fucking serious? This is a ninja village! We’re meant to be killing people and sending their souls to Jashin-sama for judgement, not bathing people. Fucking hell. Fucking council. It’s full of morons, seriously. They’ve just compromised their way into the afterlife. Jashin-sama’s going to smite them, and I’ll fucking be there laughing my ass off when he does it.”

There was a chuckle. Hidan paused in his pacing and looked up. Sitting at the table in his tiny apartment, was his Father. Not his biological one. That motherfucker had died years ago. Hidan’s Father was the priest who had raised him. A deceptively gentle-looking old man, who had passed on his devout faith – though not the cussing; Hidan had developed that all on his own – to the child he had raised.

“What the fuck’s so funny?” Hidan demanded.

“It is true that Jashin-sama will smite them when their time has ended, bloody may that time be,” he said. “But that doesn’t answer the question of what you’re going to do now that Yuugakure is removing its ninja corps.”

Hidan paused. “Fuck if I know,” he replied. “Kill the fuckers and go missing nin? That would be original. I’d be the only one this shithole’s ever produced.”

“It’s a possibility,” the priest admitted, “but it would be a waste. Why not join the priesthood, Hidan? You are already a remarkable follower of Jashin-sama, but you would make an excellent priest.”

Hidan raised an eyebrow.

“I always wondered why you wanted to be a shinobi when you were already so ideal for the priesthood.”

“There’s knives and killing and shit,” Hidan said absently. “There’s room for me there?”

“Hidan, my child, there will always be room for you.”

Hidan grinned. “Alright then,” he said. “Retiring to the priesthood it is. At least I won’t be running a fucking onsen like some of those retards. Seriously, remember Sanji, that dickhead I got stuck on a genin team with? Yeah, that’s what he’s going to do. His wife fucking pussywhipped him into it…”

The priest sipped his tea and smiled.

*

“I’ll never forgive you!”

“Sasuke…”

“How could you? How could you do this, Itachi? Why? Mother…Father…everyone…why did you kill them?”

“They were going to betray the village, Sasuke,” Itachi explained. “I had to kill them to save the village.”

“I hate you.” Sasuke wasn’t listening. Itachi leaned his forehead on the closed door to his brother’s room and listened to the soft sobs from inside. He’d known Sasuke would take this badly. “I hate you! You’re not my brother anymore!”

Itachi sighed. “Sasuke…I’m all you have left.”

There was a pause from the other side of the door. Itachi leaned back just in time before it opened, revealing his little brother’s scowling face. His eyes were puffy and red, his nose was running, and he was clutching a blunt practise kunai in his fist. “You’re all I have left? It’s your fault, Itachi! It’s your fault they’re dead! I’m going to…I’m going…to…”

Itachi knelt on the tatami and wrested the kunai out of his brother’s grip. He pulled the younger boy forward into a hug, and felt Sasuke’s hands raise to grip his shirt.

“I’m sorry Sasuke,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Fic - Tanoshimi - 1/1

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:27:21 GMT

Title: Tanoshimi
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: R
Pairing: Kisame/fem!Naruto
Genre: Romance
Warnings: AU liek WOAH
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Kisame had never tried to force her to love him.
AN: On Sunday, I was woken up by a text message at four in the morning only to realise that there were crazy-hawt sex noises echoing across the courtyard that had, somehow, managed to work their way into my mind without waking me up. (Why my phone did when the sex noises did not...I have no idea.) Because of this, when my phone went off I awoke with the urge to write Kisame/fem!Naruto smut. This is the result of that urge. It's not outright smut. Be thankful.

She gripped his shoulders and arched her back. Her full breasts pressed against the rough skin of his bare chest. He lowered his head to nip at her neck with sharp teeth and she hissed in pleasure.

Her cloak hung awkwardly off her shoulders. Her shirt and mesh had been pushed up, leaving only the thin material of her incredibly impractical bra between them. One of his large hands rested just beneath her left breast, and when he rubbed it gently with his thumb, shivers ran down her spine.

“Kisame,” she whispered. He grinned against her neck.

“Uzumaki Naruto, you will come with us.”

She’d looked up at Uchiha Itachi – a prettier, older, girlier copy of her team mate – and the man that stood behind him. She’d thought Uchiha more terrifying than his larger partner, even when said partner suggested cutting off her legs to make carrying her easier.

She’d thought about the village that hated her, the team mates that ignored her, and the creature inside of her that made her almost as much of a monster as the men before her.

“I’ll go,” she’d said, and walked willingly into the Akatsuki’s grasp.

He pressed her up harder against the wall, and she raised a leg in response. She hooked it round his hip and tried to bring him closer. His hand slid down her bare side – sword calluses scraping over her smooth skin – and he grasped her thigh. She could feel him pressing into her lower stomach. His tongue flickered over the pulse in her neck.

“Kisame.”

They had studied the seal for days, prodding and poking and doing more research into the workings of the Shiki Fuuin than anyone in Konoha had ever dared. Three days of being analysed had driven her up the wall, but when she eventually lost her temper and screamed at Pein to “get the hell on with it”, he had announced that they would not be removing the Kyuubi.

“To break the seal would be to send the Kyuubi to the stomach of the Shinigami in its entirety,” he’d said. “Kisame, Itachi, she is in your care.”

He lifted his head from her neck and kissed her mouth. She kissed back, pushing her tongue between his sharp teeth and running the tip over the roof of his mouth. He moaned softly and his fingers flexed against her thigh. He pulled away enough to nip at her lower lip.

She pushed him back and lowered her arms, letting her cloak slip completely off and onto the floor. It pooled at their feet, black and red, almost blending in with the blood soaking into the tatami.

She could have chosen anyone else. If she had been anything like the other girls from Konoha, she might have done. But she hadn’t. She’d chosen Kisame. Big, monstrous, vicious, polite Kisame. He’d taught her how to wield a sword and how to use her chakra reserves to their full potential. He’d spoken to her when all Itachi had sought was cold, deathly silence. He’d treated her like a person, when to the rest of the Akatsuki, she was inhuman. Prey. Something to be tolerated.

Kisame hadn’t tried to force her to love him, but it had happened anyway.

Her shirt and the mesh dropped too, and she wound her arms back around his neck, pressing against him again. She pulled him back down into another kiss. He braced himself against the wall with one hand – the other still held her leg in place around his waist – and he thrust against her.

She gasped into his mouth. Fire pooled in her stomach. She slid one hand down his chest and the hard muscles of his stomach to grip him through the cloth of his shinobi pants. The heat of him seared her palm.

Naruto had collapsed, panting, on the edge of the lake Kisame had created with one jutsu. Her clothes had been shredded, and red chakra had bubbled under her skin as the Kyuubi healed her wounds. She’d looked back over her shoulder at him as he walked over the surface of the water, Samehada slung casually over his shoulder – its scaled blade still dripping with her blood.

“You’re getting better, Naruto-chan,” he’d said.

It was true. She hadn’t started to drown this time.

Then he’d reached her side and extended a hand to help her back to her feet. She’d grasped it tightly, and he’d pulled, and she’d staggered off-balance to collapse against him.

The feel of his muscled stomach against her hand had had her blushing for days.

“Kisame,” she whispered. “Kisame. Kisame. Kisame.”

He pushed her pants down over her hips and thighs as she leaned against the wall. Her breasts heaved with every ragged breath. She wanted him to hurry up. She needed it. His touches were so slow – firm, but slow – and they burned her.

“I – please.”

She’d kissed him after a mission. Pein had sent her with Kisame and Itachi to assassinate a noble from Lightning. It had been a test of her training and her loyalty. She hadn’t known – hadn’t wanted to know – what would have happened if she’d failed. She’d only known that the Akatsuki wasn’t like Konoha, and one chance was all she would be given.

The noble had died the messy, bloody, painful death that their employer had asked for. She’d broken back out of the palace he’d lived in and returned to the rendezvous point without being followed. She could have sworn that Itachi – for a split second – had looked relieved, but she’d only had eyes for Kisame.

The adrenalin, the high created by her own chakra, and the relief had driven her to his arms. She’d pulled him down towards her and pressed a kiss to his lips and left blood all over his clothing.

He’d ran his fingers through her messy hair, and grinned against her mouth. “You’re beautiful, Naruto-chan,” he’d whispered.

He’d been the first person to ever say so.

“You’re beautiful, Naruto-chan,” he murmured. His fingers ghosted over the elastic waist of her underwear and she pushed her hips towards him. All she could think about was how wonderful those calluses would feel against her. How he would feel inside of her.

She reached for him and fumbled with the fastenings of his own shinobi pants. Her fingers slipped and stumbled, and he lowered a hand to help her even as he pressed her harder to the wall. His lips dropped to her neck again. His teeth grazed her pulse point.

“Kisame. Naruto. This is not the time.”

She turned her head. Itachi stood in the doorway. His Sharingan was active, burning the sight of them into his mind forever. There was a slight tilt to his head, and an odd look to his balance. He looked uncomfortable.

She hadn’t heard him open the door.

“Get dressed,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

She slumped back against the wall. Kisame’s shoulder’s shook, and when he pulled away she looked up into his pale yellow eyes. He was laughing.

She grinned back. They scrambled for their clothes together, and she was just slipping her cloak back on when he took her hands in his own, stilling them. He fastened the clasps of her cloak himself, lingering over her breasts for just a moment. She shivered.

“Best not keep Itachi-san waiting,” he said. His voice was lower than usual, rougher.

“If we’re good, do you think he’ll let us stop for ramen on the way back?” she asked.

He chuckled softly and she leaned up to kiss him. It was chaste this time, though if it hadn’t been for the soft clearing of a throat at the door, she would have eagerly dragged him back over to the wall.

They left the room, and the bodies it contained behind. Another mission was complete.

Fic - The Apartment - 3/3 + Epilogue

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:15:19 GMT

Fic - Enmugakure - 7/?

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 03:04:51 GMT

Title: Enmugakure
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: M
Pairing: Hidan/Temari, mentioned Ino/Shikamaru/Temari love triangle and past Hidan/OC.
Genre: AU Adventure/Mystery
Warnings: Swearing, some sexual situations, violence
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: The secret to defeating the Akatsuki lies in the demolished village of Enmugakure, but only one person knows where it is. Pity he's in pieces...

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If only there were water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand or lie or sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain

The Wasteland
T. S. Eliot

Part VII
The Descent

Even Temari, who had grown up among the shifting red sands of the Wind Country desert had to admit that once they left the oasis, their path grew difficult. The ground seemed to sink beneath them as they walked, although they could see the mountains that formed the border with Earth Country rising up before them like gigantic, jagged teeth. The mountains were black granite, thrusting up from under the sandstone that most of Wind Country lay on to pierce the clear blue sky. They looked ominous, but nowhere near as ominous as where they were going.

Apparently, the most hospitable path into Enmugakure that didn’t involve a highly dangerous detour into enemy territory was through a valley. While it didn’t sound particularly dangerous to the Konoha shinobi, Temari knew better. Desert valleys were little better than sun traps, and this one in particular was especially dangerous. It had been formed by a long-dry river wearing its way through the sandstone down to the black granite that lay beneath. The sides of the valley, according to the map, were high and steep, and the grains of sand that would cling to the walls would make it difficult to climb out even with the use of chakra.

Temari was worried, going down there, but she trusted Hidan to know what he was doing. They had plenty of water, and while Sakura and Naruto especially were wearing unsuitable clothing, she knew that they would be fine as long as they obeyed instructions and kept themselves hydrated. If they combated the chance of heat stroke properly, then all they had to worry about was an ambush from intruding Iwa-nin, which wasn’t all that likely. Iwa was still licking its wounds after the last Great War when the Yondaime Hokage had pretty much obliterated them single-handedly. The threat of Akatsuki was small too, as Temari was pretty sure that only Uchiha Itachi had any idea of where they were, and she didn’t think he would betray them after going through all this trouble. After all, there had to be easier ways and more accessible places than the remotest corner of the Wind Country deserts to ambush and obtain the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki.

Even so, it was best to be on guard.

She let her eyes trail over their small party as they trudged wearily through the sand. Shikamaru was still being a moody bastard – which she really didn’t understand; he had chosen Ino over her, but he still got pissed off over her flirting with someone else? Hypocrite – Sakura looked tired, Naruto looked like he’d much rather be sitting in a ramen bar, slurping down noodles in the shade. Hidan, on the other hand…

Temari’s gaze lingered on him. He had a look of such intense concentration on his face that it was almost scary. She’d never seen him fight before, but she got the impression that he was the sort of person who would sneer and laugh as he fought, throwing his opponents off guard with sarcastic comments, Jashinist speeches and his inability to die.

She was still curious about his immortality. Was it a side effect from being related to a Bijou?

But the intense look he wore as he walked, straight-backed and fearless in the direction of Earth Country – and, undoubtedly, Enmugakure – was unlike anything she had ever seen on him. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw was set, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he was moving, she could easily have mistaken him for one of the statues of the Kazekages in her brother’s office, glaring down at the world in righteous distain. Only…it wasn’t quiet distain on his face, either. He was just focussed. Focussed on their destination, on ignoring Shikamaru’s hostility, on defeating the Akatsuki…

But it made her nervous. She’d know, instinctually, that Hidan was dangerous, but she’d never truly seen it on his face before. She’d never thought of him as being more dangerous even than Gaara before.

The look on his face had her placing him at a level with a Kage. She wondered what seeing him in battle would do to her estimation of him.

She tore her gaze away from him once more, fixing it on the jagged black horizon. She found herself hoping that she never would have to see Hidan in that sort of situation.

The silence of their group was broken by a loud gurgling noise. She half turned, incredulously, to look at Naruto who was blushing to the roots f his golden hair and rubbing his stomach. He grinned nervously, blue eyes creasing up into little slits as he did.

“Hey, is it time to stop for lunch yet? Only I think that if I don’t eat I’ll digest my spine, or something, and I kind of need that,” he said.

Temari rolled her eyes. There were times when he reminded her of Kankuro – or, at least, Kankuro when Gaara wasn’t around – not in speech, but in mannerisms. She’d seen that hungry, hopeful look on her brother’s face far too many times.

“I think Naruto’s right,” Sakura said. “We do need a break.”

“Okay,” Temari agreed. “That okay with you, Hidan?”

He looked at her. The intense look had vanished from his face, replaced by something she couldn’t quite describe. “Sure,” he said.

Temari felt something twist in her chest. She realised, suddenly, that this was painful for him. That he didn’t want to return to Enmugakure; that he’d hoped that the people and the village that he’d buried there in the wake of Shukaku, Iwa and Suna’s would stay buried. She smiled at him tentatively before lowering her pack to the ground. She caught Shikamaru’s eye as she did so, and found him glaring again.

She sighed. “What?” she asked. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw both Sakura and Naruto freeze halfway through rummaging their packs for rations. “What’s the problem Shikamaru?” she asked again.

He looked away. “Nothing,” he said. “Just…stay away from him.”

There was no doubt in Temari’s mind who the ‘him’ in question was. She glared. “Why?” she asked. “Jealous? You chose Ino, remember? I’m a big girl Shikamaru, I can take care of myself.”

“Not against him,” Shikamaru muttered.

“What happened with you guys?” she asked. “Or do I not get a reason for this bullshit?”

“He’s pissed off ‘cause I killed his sensei,” Hidan said from behind her. He moved, then, into her peripheral vision. He was smirking slightly, as if the memory of the death amused him. “Your buddy here is the only person in years to come close to getting rid of me permanently – apart from myself, of course. He fucking blew me up with a net full of explosive tags, right? Took the Hokage five days to figure out what fucking went where after Itachi insisted they dig me up to come out here.”

She swallowed. Her throat felt dry, as if she’d just swallowed a mouthful of sand. She’d met Sarutobi Asuma a couple of times. He’d been a good person, and he’d been very close to Shikamaru. But that wasn’t what bothered her; shinobi died in battle all the time. It wasn’t unusual; more of a fact of life rather than anything else.

“Why?” she asked. “Why are you on first name terms with a member of the Akatsuki?”

It was the second time he’d called Uchiha Itachi by his given name, something that most shinobi wouldn’t do. They either called him the Uchiha Traitor or by his full name. Never by his given name. It was some sort of taboo.

“Because he was one of them,” Naruto said quietly. Sakura closed her eyes, as if awaiting an explosion. Shikamaru looked away from her.

She felt anger boil up in the pit of her belly. Hidan was one of them? He was one of those bastards who was after Naruto? One of the utter, complete bastards who had killed her baby brother? A kunai was in her hand, pressed against the pale column of his throat before she even realised what she was doing. She snarled up at him, baring her teeth in fury and glaring for all she was worth. Killing intent and chakra radiated from her body. His grin faded, revealing the solemn expression he had been wearing before they had started to set up camp.

A thin line of blood welled up under the edge of her blade and trickled down his neck.

“Bastard,” she growled.

Something sparked in his gaze, and despite her anger she felt a thrill of something run down her spine. “What’re you waiting for Temari?” he asked. He dragged out her name, savouring every syllable on his lips and tongue as if it was rich chocolate rather than just a name. “If you want to try and kill me then do it.”

She stared up at him, the snarl falling from her lips. He looked so old, all of a sudden. His skin wasn’t wrinkled or liver-spotted; he didn’t suddenly appear frail – on the contrary, he looked stronger than ever – but there was something…a wistful twist to his lips; the look in his eye. He looked bleached out, apart from his eyes, which seemed to almost glow.

He wanted to die, she realised. He had nothing to live for except his religion.

Her grip on the kunai relaxed. She whipped it away from his neck, leaving only a shallow cut behind, and threw it down into the sand. She held her body perfectly still against his, the fingers of her other hand twisted in the warm black material of his shirt. She could feel his heart beating. She could feel his chakra – for the first time, she realised, he suppressed it so well she’d never felt it before – thrumming away beneath his pale skin. She raised the hand that had held the kunai once more, and used it to grip the back of his neck. His eyes widened, and for the first time since she had attacked him, he looked uncertain.

She pulled him down as she leaned up, and she pressed her lips to his ear. “I won’t kill you,” she hissed, “I won’t even try. Not unless you go back to those motherfuckers.”

“Why?” he asked, and the feel of his breath across her face made her shiver.

“Because you’re wrong,” she replied. “You do have something to live for, if you want it.”

“Temari…” she heard Shikamaru growl her name from somewhere behind her, but she didn’t care. She pulled away from Hidan slightly and met his gaze again. His confusion was palpable – cute, really, she thought. She lowered her gaze to the thin trickle of blood running down his neck. The wound hadn’t quite healed yet, though the bleeding had slowed. It pooled slightly in the dip of his collar bone, and the thick red liquid shone hypnotically in the bright sunlight. She looked up at his face again, met his gaze deliberately before she leaned in and licked the blood away from his collar bone, following its path back up his neck to the cut she’d given him. His breath caught.

Shikamaru hissed her name again, and she heard scuffling footsteps behind her as if someone was trying to escape another person’s grasp. She ignored them, and revelled instead in the metallic taste of blood on her tongue and the dusty scent of Hidan’s skin.

She pressed a kiss to the wound on his throat and stepped back. His blood clung to her lips like the sticky juice of an exotic fruit, but she met his incredulous stare proudly, silently challenging him. Akatsuki bastard he might have once been, but he was…Hidan. He was Hidan. And whether he wanted it or not, she was going to drag him back into the world of the living.

His lips twitched, and then stretched into a grin. “Well shit,” he said. “That was pretty fucking hot, blondie.”

She scowled. “Temari,” she corrected.

He laughed.

*~*~*

The walls of the valley rose up on either side of them, worn sheer by water and sand and wind. Hidan led them carefully across the dusty ground, carefully stepping around loose stones and skeletons. Small desert creatures, mostly, whose bones looked so frail that they might crumble at the slightest touch. Temari walked behind him, then Sakura, then Naruto, then Shikamaru; after her little display earlier they had decided that it would be safer for all of them to keep Shikamaru as far away from Hidan as physically possible. Not that, she thought, he really had anything to be jealous over. Yes, she had been his girlfriend once, but that was over; Hidan hadn’t stolen her. Yes, Hidan had killed his sensei, but Shikamaru had blown him up and buried him alive; he’d had his revenge.

Although, she thought, it was possible that his hatred for Hidan partially stemmed from a similar emotion as the one that made Hidan reluctant to return to Enmugakure.

A desire for the dead to stay buried and forgotten.

She watched the ends of Hidan’s fine, silvery hair brush over his shoulders. Ever since he had bathed at the oasis, he had worn it loose. He’d forgotten to pack hair gel, apparently; he looked better for it. She felt her cheeks redden – nothing to do with the heat of the valley; it was like walking through an oven – and looked away. Her gaze landed on the towering walls of the valley, and she frowned.

“Temari?” Sakura asked tentatively. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Temari croaked. She cleared her throat and reached for her water flask to take a tiny sip. The water was warm, but it did its job. “I just thought I…can you see patterns on the walls? Up there, by the top?”

Sakura looked up and frowned. “I…yes,” she said after a moment. “They’re faint, but I can see them. Look! There’s holes too.”

Temari squinted upwards, shading her eyes with her hand. Around her, the others did the same; all except Hidan, who stood back and let them get on with it. “Oh yeah,” she murmured. “What are they?”

She glanced over at Hidan when she asked. He glanced up at them briefly, before giving her a rueful smile. “Tombs,” he said. “This place is a Jashinist graveyard, reserved for the priests of the order that used to live around here. The carvings are their names, details of their lives, stories and symbols of Jashin-sama. That sort of thing. They were old before I was born.”

“Can you read the writing?” Sakura asked.

Hidan nodded. “It’s the same language the Book of Jashin’s written in,” he said. “Not that I can read it from all the way down here, anyway.”

“You make it sound like this Jashin guy was pretty popular at one point,” Naruto said.

Hidan sneered. “Jashinism was widespread up until about a hundred years ago,” he said. “When rumours about that bastard Shukaku and what he had been got out, the priests were hunted down and slaughtered.” He looked back up at the tombs again. “It was a fitting end for them. People tried to forget about Jashin-sama after that, and the rumours passed into obscure myth. No one believes in anything anymore. No one gives a fuck about their immortal fucking soul. It’s all money and possessions and immortality.”

He paused.

“Everything changed, and everything that had come before that was forgotten. That’s why we’ve got fuckers like the Akatsuki and Orochimaru, thinking that fucking around with eternal life and demons if a brilliant fucking idea. Load of crap. Everything dies. Everyone dies. They should. There’s no fucking point in living forever.”

He turned away from them then, and began to walk away. He glanced back at them over his shoulder, and Temari saw that look in his eyes again: the weight of his life pressing down on him.

“Are you coming or what?”

Fic - Turning - 1/1

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:46:06 GMT

Title: Turning
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: None
Genre: Horror (sort of)
Warnings: Vampirism ~~and sparkling~~
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Shikamaru's revenge didn't go quite as planned.
AN: This was written for the Naruto Halloween Meme. I'll probably expand on the idea later to fit my preferences rather than the requester's.

“What the hell are you?”

It wasn’t the first time Hidan had heard that question. He’d even heard it from Kakuzu. He was just surprised that the boy cared enough to ask. He’d thought he would have gone straight for the revenge instead of asking.

“A priest of holy Jashin-sama,” he replied. It was true, sort of. That’s what he’d been in life, after all.

The boy growled in anger, and the shadows tightened their grip on Hidan’s arms and legs. Hidan grinned, and he saw the boy’s eyes widen slightly.

“You have fangs,” the kid stated.

“No shit,” Hidan said.

The kid’s gaze dropped – predictably – to the pike that was still sticking out of Hidan’s chest. It’s point was still buried in his cold, dead heart.

“You should be dead,” he said.

“Does it look like stakes to the heart fucking work?” Hidan asked. “It’s a myth, dumbass.”

“Duh,” the kid said.

He was a smartass, then. Hidan liked that. Really. It meant that he was justified in kicking the kid’s ass.

He shifted slightly in his bonds. The shadow manipulating was another reason to give the kid hell. It looked cool, yeah, but damn fucking inconvenient. He shuddered, and let his body come apart. The bloody pike fell to the forest floor with a thud. His consciousness resettled into billions of floating particles. He hated turning himself into mist, especially when he’d been living off rodents for months but it could be damn useful.

The kid’s shadows lunged for him, but passed through him instead. The kid looked around wildly, trying to spot him. Did the kid really think that he’d used Shunshin? Now? After he’d found out what Hidan was? Maybe he wasn’t so fucking smart after all.

He flowed around the kid and pulled himself back together. He raised a hand to tangle it in thick, wiry black hair and yanked the kid’s head back. His other hand snaked around the kid’s chest to capture his hands before they could make any seals.

The kid wasn’t that stupid, though; he didn’t ask what Hidan was going to do to him in a shaky little voice like so many others had. He just stared up with big dark eyes like a deer caught in the path of a Katon jutsu. Hidan’s grin widened, and he lowered his head.

“You know, if you’d just agreed to die like a good little boy then you’d have seen that fucktard sensei of yours again,” he said. Let the kid ponder that for eternity.

The kid tasted wonderful. Not the best, that was for sure, but Hidan had been living off squirrels and rabbits for longer than he wanted to think about. He groaned into the kid’s jugular and got a shiver of fear in response. The kid was struggling, but another yank of that stupid ponytail put an end to it.

He felt the kid’s heart slow, and the struggles die off. The kid’s breathing became ragged pants that echoed in Hidan’s ears. He pulled away and licked his lips. He’d never made another one of his kind before. He wasn’t entirely sure how to do it. Somehow the one who’d turned him had managed to miss it out of How to Kill by Drinking Blood 101.

He raised his hand and bit his own wrist, tearing at the flesh to open the wound up properly. Then, turning his wrist, he let his blood drip over the boy’s lips. Even half dead, the boy wasn’t stupid enough to welcome it.

Hidan wondered briefly if he was making a mistake by making sure that this kid would be around forever. It sounded damn annoying, but...the psychological torture would be fucking worth it.

He gripped the boy’s face with his spare hand and squeezed so that the kid opened his mouth and Hidan’s blood spattered over his teeth and tongue. The brat whimpered, but swallowed convulsively.

Hidan grinned and pulled back. He stood and licked the blood from his wrist, and then turned away. It was time to help Kakuzu. The kid had managed to trick him into destroying one of Kakuzu’s hearts already, and most of the other Konoha idiots had stayed behind to fight him. Normally Hidan would have said it was unfairly in Kakuzu’s favour, but with one heart down...the old man would be starting to feel his age.

He picked his pike up off the forest floor and turned to look back at the kid. He was lying still and pale on the ground, the wound in his neck still bleeding. Hidan licked his lips again. The best damn meal he’d had in a long time. The kid’s team mates would regret allowing him the chance to feed – doubly when they realised what he’d done to their little ringleader.

If they survived, that was.

Fic - Serpens Arcanem - 1-?/?

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:31:50 GMT

Title: Serpens Arcanem
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13/R
Pairing: Harry/OC, Neville/Blaise
Genre: General
Warnings: AU, magical creature!Harry, bad Tolkien jokes, and many, many cliches (a lot of which are relentlessly mocked)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: The Dark Lord has risen, and Harry soon finds out that his absence from Hogwarts doesn't excuse him from the coming war, while back at school Neville realises that not all evil takes the form of Death Eaters.
AN: Rather obviously, this is the sequel to Serpens Armarum. It's also not finished, however I will not be updating it on LJ. This will stay on FFNet like it belongs; I'm just archiving the link here.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5237053/1/Serpens_Arcanem

Fic - Monster - 1/1

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:02:14 GMT

Title: Monster
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Madara/Naruto
Genre: Angst
Warnings: Weirdness, shota, yaoi
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Naruto is haunted by a vengeful ghost.
AN: I wrote this ages ago, and then promptly forgot about it. That was possibly deliberate as MadaNaru is seven different kinds of wrong. Anyway, an onryou is a kind of Japanese ghost that seeks revenge for its violent death. Think Sadako from Ring.

1. Naruto was awake, though he kept his eyes closed. There was someone in his apartment. He could hear them breathing. He kept still, trying not to draw their attention. The last time that the villagers had tried this, he’d been hurt.

Cold fingers brushed against the sliver of tanned skin that showed where his pyjama top had ridden up. Naruto twitched, but forced himself to stay still and fake his sleep, even as those fingers slid beneath the material to caress his stomach.

2. Naruto looked up as he passed the gates to the old Uchiha complex. He could remember, vaguely, it being a busy, bustling area of town. Now, not even Sasuke lived there. It had been left to the ghosts. He shuddered, thinking of the ghosts in his nightmares: cruelly beautiful men with red eyes and wild black hair. The ghosts of the Uchiha clan would be onryou, he thought.

3. For a moment, when he saw Sasuke with his Sharingan activated and his chakra making his hair fly around his face, Naruto thought he saw someone else.

4. The Valley of the End. All through his fight with Sasuke, Naruto knew that there was something wrong. He didn’t know what, exactly, but it tugged on his consciousness. Then, as Sasuke’s hand slammed through his chest and electricity shocked through his system, Naruto looked up, past his best friend, and met the cold gaze of a statue.

For a second, the cold he felt was centred on his stomach, on the Kyuubi seal.

5. Naruto knew that he shouldn’t have woken up. His whole body ached and his mind felt fuzzy from the painkillers Tsunade had put him on. But wake up he did, and as soon as his eyes opened, he wished that he had kept them shut.

He was there: the man from the statue; from his nightmares. He was leaning against the wall by the window, staring at Naruto with eyes the colour of blood. His skin shone the colour of moonlight, and it wasn’t until his lungs started to burn that Naruto realised he’d stopped breathing.

6. When the man kissed him, Naruto tasted blood on his cold lips. He thought of onryou, of vampires, and of shinigami. A cold hand pressed against the Kyuubi’s seal, and the feel of it lingered hours after the man had vanished.

7. Jiraiya didn’t say anything about Naruto’s nightmares. He didn’t say anything about the way Naruto avoided everything to do with ghosts, even going so far as to completely avoid kabuki theatres. But that didn’t mean he didn’t listen. He just didn’t know what to do when Naruto clawed at his stomach screaming for something to get off.

8. After the third little run-in with Itachi and Kisame, Naruto discovered something about Sasuke’s brother that he could actually like. For all that they shared similar features; Itachi looked nothing like the ghost who’d kissed him.

9. The Kyuubi was the one who gave him a name. Uchiha Madara. And when he’d spoken it, comparing Sasuke to that name’s owner, Naruto had felt like screaming. How could Naruto want to save someone so like the man who haunted him?

10. It was months after his return to Konoha before Naruto felt brave enough to venture past the gates to the Uchiha complex. The buildings were worn and tumbledown, and there were scores in the wooden porches and beams that Naruto knew had come from kunai and shuriken. Even in the heat of a Fire Country summer, the Uchiha complex felt cold.

He didn’t know where he was heading until he found it. A memorial stone, right at the centre of the Uchiha estate, dedicated to the family. There were empty offering bowls at the foot of it, but Naruto could almost smell the incense wafting up from them. He reached out and traced the names carved on the stone, not really seeing them, until his fingers brushed against one too familiar for him to pass by.

It was older than the rest; more weathered, but still the kanji of Uchiha Madara’s name bit into Naruto’s fingers until they bled.

11. Naruto dreamed of Madara so often that he couldn’t really call them nightmares anymore. He was only scared of his dreams when he started to want the things Madara would do to him.

12. The Akatsuki fell one by one, but he remained out of reach. Naruto grew stronger using Sage chakra instead of the Kyuubi’s, but in the end that strength was a curse. When he used his Sage chakra to search for Madara, he always came up empty.

13. “We’ll get Sasuke back, right Naruto?”

Naruto nodded, but kept his mouth shut and his eyes trained on the road ahead. Sometime over the years he’d stopped running after Sasuke so much. He was running after Madara.

14. Sasuke was with Madara when they found him. He’d started to look more like Itachi, only with shorter hair and without the premature lines on his face. He glared when he saw Naruto, but Naruto looked past him – just like at the Valley of the End – and into the eyes of a real monster.

15. Madara still tasted of blood. Naruto could hear screaming behind him, the chirp of the chidori; he could smell fire and fear. He couldn’t see. He’d closed his eyes as soon as Madara’s chilly hands had gripped his face.

The Kyuubi’s chakra was raging inside of him. He felt hot and cold at the same time. Frightened. The world was falling down around him, and all he could do was cling on to Madara for dear life. Someone he’d thought for years was some sort of evil spirit now seemed so alive in his arms.

He slid his hands up and twisted them in Madara’s thick hair. He jerked. There was a crack, and Madara slumped like a puppet with its strings cut. Naruto drew away and stepped back. He let Madara fall. He pretended not to notice that his eyes had been closed too.

Fic - Breathe - 1/1

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:55:18 GMT

Title: Breathe
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: R
Pairing: Kakuzu/Madara, Shodai/Madara
Genre: Angst
Warnings: Mild smut, timeline twisting
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Senju Hashirama lies dying after the fight at The Valley of the End, Madara doesn't know how to say goodbye, and Kakuzu is just there.
AN: This was written for the Anonymous Naruto Kink Meme. It was much delayed in being written, but oh well. It was weird writing Kakuzu with someone who wasn't Hidan. >.>;

He was dying; he could feel it. He laid, eyes closed, on top of the cliff they’d just created, and tried to focus on his breathing. In. Out. In. Out. He tried to work past the pain. Was it even pain anymore? He couldn’t feel his fingers or his toes. He was going numb. He could hear Madara laughing softly, almost silently; chuckles bubbling out bloodstained lips. He’d broken some of Madara’s ribs; not enough to kill him. Would anything be enough?

He sensed chakra approaching, and turned his head to look in that direction. It was familiar chakra, but he couldn’t place it. He opened his eyes, and his gaze fell on Madara; beautiful and bloody, one hand pressing against a wound he’d delivered to his side. Madara had sensed it too, he knew, but didn’t look towards the intruder. He looked relaxed, euphoric. It would be so easy to move behind him and slit his throat, stretching his neck taught by gripping wild, silky black hair.

On the other side of Madara, the bushes parted. He felt his eyes narrow at the sight of that young Taki-nin he’d fought just months before. The brat wore a slash through his hitae-ate now, and a mask over his lower face. He paused at the sight of them; Madara still laughing, and his broken body lying on the ground, blood pooling around him. Green eyes glowed and fixed on Madara. He knew when he’d been dismissed, but couldn’t tear his eyes away. Would the boy try to finish Madara now?

The boy approached slowly. What was his name? Ka-something. Kazuma? Kankurou? Did it matter now? Really? Ah! Kakuzu. He saw the first black tendrils unfurl smoke-like around Kakuzu’s hands and wrists. He knew how dangerous those could be, but couldn’t find the energy to cry out at the sight of them. And why should he? Would Madara save him now, after all of this? And should he try to warn Madara? He was so far gone into madness it would be a blessing to…

In. Out. In. Out.

Black tentacles snaked over the scorched, bloody earth, burrowing into it only to resurface. Madara looked up at Kakuzu then, his laughter finally silent. For a moment, he seemed to study the boy, before he lay back on the ground and the fine threads that wove through it. Madara smiled slowly, wickedly.

It was a smile that had been meant only for him, once. Back when they were still building Konoha, when his wife and child were asleep in their beds or busy with housekeeping and playing. It was a smile of warm summer nights and the acrid smell of festival fireworks and now, now it wasn’t aimed at him, but rather a boy who’d been sent to kill him.

Madara held out a hand, his long fingers stained with blood. It dripped from his fingertips and nails onto the earth. Spat. Spat. Spat. Spat. It stopped. Kakuzu had taken that hand, though there was a certain wariness to his gaze that said he was surprised by his own actions. He looked even more surprised when he was yanked off his feet. Kakuzu’s knees hit the ground, and even as he steadied himself, a kunai appeared in his free hand. He pressed it to Madara’s throat.

Madara tilted his head back just enough to make the blade rasp over his skin, drawing blood. Even though Madara wasn’t looking at him, he could almost see the mad glint in Sharingan eyes. Apparently Kakuzu could too, but apparently Kakuzu didn’t care.

In. Out. In. Out.

Madara’s free hand rose up, and his fingers curled over the thick cloth of Kakuzu’s mask. He tugged it down, revealing a pretty mouth made ugly by gashes on either side, held closed by more black threads. Madara’s thumb swiped across the full lower lip before he guided the boy down into a kiss that made his heart hurt. Only Madara would dare to kiss someone holding a kunai to his throat.

He saw Madara watching him from the corner of his eye; Sharingan burning the moment into Madara’s mind forever. He closed his eyes and turned his head away. The numb feeling was spreading up his arms and legs now, and what had been searing agony in his chest and abdomen had dulled to a low throb. He was truly dying.

In. Out. In. Out.

Madara moaned loudly. Fighting always got him this way. Many of their spars had ended with Madara on his back; demanding rather than defeated. He heard the rustle of clothing and the hiss of whispered words. He couldn’t bring himself to look. Madara would want him to watch.

He tried not to listen to the heavy breathing; the cries of pleasure. Madara had to be in pain. His wounds were too severe for him not to be, not that it would matter to him. The pain made it better, Madara had always told him, demanding cuts and tugs at his hair.

The squelching from the bloody mud and the movement of flesh on flesh was obscene. Funny how he’d never minded before.

In. Out. In. Out.

The numb feeling had reached his thighs and shoulders. He wondered if his heart would stop when it reached his chest.

In. Out. In. Out.

He could sense more chakra signatures approaching. Ten, no, twelve of them. One of them was his brother. He grimaced. He didn’t want Tobirama to see him broken like this. Dying in the mud; exhausted.

He coughed and, as blood spattered over his lips, he felt his broken ribs grate against each other. He heard Madara cry out, and their movements stopped. He listened as they separated; both of them no doubt sensing the approaching Konoha-nin.

“Go,” he heard Madara growl. He wondered if Madara knew how much he sounded like the Kyuubi – that infernal demon he’d brought to the battle field. When had Madara learned to control such a monster? No doubt it had been roughly around the same time that he’d lost his mind.

He heard footsteps. Some healthy, heading away; some staggering. He opened his eyes and watched as Madara approached him. Madara’s face was still flushed, and his lips were swollen and red. Blood oozed sluggishly down his neck, covering the chain of his necklace.

In. Out. In. Out.

“You will fail, Hashirama. You’ll help to destroy the village we worked so hard on.”

Mad. He was dying. He opened his mouth to say so, but couldn’t find the words. Madara sounded tired. He sounded…

In. Out. In. Out.

Madara reached up and twisted long fingers around the chain of his necklace; he yanked at it, and the chain snapped. He caught a glimmer of blue as Madara crouched down next to him and folded the necklace into his hand with bloody fingers.

Madara reeked of sex and mud and blood and pure, raw chakra. He tried to turn his head away, but Madara caught his jaw and crushed their lips together. For a moment he couldn’t breathe. Then Madara pulled away and licked his lips, tasting his blood on his mouth.

In. Out. In. Out.

The other chakra signatures were close. Too close. They were so close to being found. Madara looked up, towards the trees, and frowned. He watched as Madara’s hands flashed through seals for a jutsu he didn’t recognise. Would Madara destroy them all, just like he’d destroyed him?

He opened his mouth to protest, only for Madara’s body to vanish before his very eyes. His chakra vanished too.

In. Out. In. Out.

Senju Hashirama let his eyes close and his body relax. He could hear someone screaming for him. Tobirama?

In. Out. In. Out. In.

Fic - Serpens Armarum - 1-25/25

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:20:24 GMT

Title: Serpens Armarum
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13/R
Pairing: Harry/OC pre-slash
Genre: General
Warnings: AU, pre-slash (aka subtext for a future male/male relationship), magical creature!Harry and many, many cliches
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Harry has an unusual reaction to Basilisk venom...one that will shake the Wizarding World to its very core.
AN: This was wrtten for the fannowrimo challenge. I'm only posting it here now that it's finished, because I didn't want to drown out the rest of my stuff on here with endless updates. The link goes - obviously - to FFNet.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4385420/1/Serpens_Armarum

Fic - Ghost Town - 1/1

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:16:54 GMT

Title: Ghost Town
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13/R
Pairing: None
Characters: Kakuzu and Hidan.
Genre: ~~Weird~~ General
Warnings: Fairly mild descriptions of gore and a lot of guesswork regarding Kakuzu and Hidan's pasts.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: On a mission to Earth Country, Kakuzu stumbles across the remains of Yuugakure.
AN: It's odd. Ah well, I wrote through writers' block.

The inn was small and shabby. It was, however, the only real accommodation on the road to the pathetic little backwater – located, rather unfortunately, at the junction between the countries of Earth, Rain and Grass – known as Yuugakure. It had two claims to fame, outside of the fact that it was possibly the least-known of all shinobi villages: the hotsprings it was named for, and the fact that it was the only ‘nation’ left in the Shinobi continent that still had Jashinism as the official religion, which showed just how much of a pathetic little backwater the village actually was.

The reason why Kakuzu was heading in that direction was simple: he’d been hired to go into Earth Country to cause some general chaos, and he wanted a route that no one else would use. Earth Country did have some fairly busy trade routes, but this road was not one of them. Hence the shabbiness of the inn and the amazingly low prices – he suspected that they would have been higher had he not terrified the innkeeper into giving him the cheapest deal possible.

Despite this, Kakuzu was stunned to note that he was not the only traveller stopping at the inn that night. The other traveller wasn’t a shinobi, of that Kakuzu was sure, though he was something of a curiosity.

He was a teenage boy. He was pretty to the point of it being obnoxious, albino – odd – and while Kakuzu was sure that he wasn’t a ninja – he really, really didn’t look the part – he wore a scratched out Yuugakure hitae-ate around his neck and carried a triple-bladed scythe on his back.

The reasons why Kakuzu was sure that the boy was not a ninja were simple: he could sense absolutely no chakra from the boy whatsoever, the idea of anyone from a pathetic little backwater like Yuugakure having the stones to go missing-nin was frankly ridiculous, and the boy’s clothing was possibly the least practical outfit for a shinobi – missing-nin or not – to wear. Ever. It was an odd sort of robe that seemed to consist entirely of filmy sashes and scarves draped and knotted over the boy’s upper body – covering him, but not leaving all that much to the imagination – and falling in unnecessary swathes of fabric to the boy’s bare feet. It looked complicated, impractical, and more likely to get caught and tangled on everything from tree branches to the boy’s long, coltish limbs than anything else.

Plus, the boy kept shooting him nervous glances, advertising to pretty much anyone who cared – and those who didn’t; Kakuzu being a case in point – that he was shit scared Kakuzu might try and do anything to him.

A weakling. A pathetic little weakling from a village no one cared about dressing up as a missing-nin to make himself look cool, no doubt. Kakuzu would probably have been offended if he had bothered himself to care more.

Although…his senses were screaming that something was wrong about the boy. He smelled of smoke and sulphur – fairly understandable for someone who lived in a village surrounded by hot springs – but Kakuzu could smell blood as well. A lot of it, though he couldn’t actually see any on the boy.

Maybe the weapon – cumbersome and flashy though it was – was for more than just decoration.

Probably not.

Besides, the idiots that ran the inn – the cowardly innkeeper Kakuzu had terrorised earlier and his squat wife; a woman who’d probably been produced by a long line of incestuous practises, and who’d clearly had a few too many brats of her own – treated the boy with respect. More respect than Kakuzu had frightened them into giving him. The little twerp had got his room and board for free. Had they not noticed the scratched through hitae-ate? Or did they think that such a symbol was meaningless? A mere fashion among shinobi?

Or were they more interested in the other symbol that hung around the boy’s scrawny neck? Kakuzu had seen the rosary – not that it was hidden; the shining pendant was smack bang in the middle of the boy’s chest like some sort of ‘stab here’ sign – when the boy had entered. He was pretty sure that not even the innkeeper was thick enough to have missed it.

Maybe the rosary and the robes had some sort of Jashinist meaning that Kakuzu didn’t know about. It was probable. He didn’t care enough about religion to bother learning anything beyond what the predominant one in each area was. What little he knew about Jashinism barely stretched beyond Yuugakure, backwater, and what the symbol looked like. At least, what he thought the symbol looked like…

He didn’t speak to the boy, though he did notice that the boy went in the opposite direction the next morning. His long, red and black robe-sash-things billowed out behind him, swirling in the light breeze and not catching – apparently miracles did happen – on the blades of the boy’s pretentious scythe.

Kakuzu snorted, turned away and continued on his route. He was being paid quite a lot for this mission – Earth and Iwa had a lot of very powerful, very rich enemies – and he didn’t want to delay getting his hands on the money.

The road was quiet; it led slightly uphill, but it was nowhere even in the region of ‘steep’. The scenery was picturesque. Small copses of trees and bushes dotted the grassy horizon. Small outcroppings of red granite jutted up through the meadows, creating shelter for some of the more delicate wildflowers. In the distance, Kakuzu could see storm clouds roiling over Rain Country – as usual – but the sky overhead was a clear, uninterrupted blue.

It was so saccharine that it made his teeth ache.

He caught scent of sulphur and knew that he was approaching the village. Further down the road, he could see the steam rising from the hot springs. It created a mirage of sorts; the heat distorting the horizon, making the trees waver and blur, and making the red granite seem darker than usual. Dark as blood.

Wait…

Coming to the crest in the road, Kakuzu stared down at the ruins of Yuugakure. Buildings were little more than burnt-out shells, and a quick glance into a nearby spring revealed bloody foam still floating on the water. Whatever had happened had happened recently.

He followed the road down. Now that he was at the village, he could smell smoke and blood under the overpowering stench of sulphur from the springs, and he was reminded of the boy from the inn. Surely he hadn’t done this; that scrap of a boy, barely strong enough to lift his own scythe…

(The falls of Takigakure had run red for days. Kakuzu had been alone: an underfed twelve-year-old racing through woods to get as far away from home as possible.)

The village was a ghost town. He could see spatters of blood, weapons – kunai, shuriken, the odd ninjato – sticking out of the ground and the remains of the buildings. They were charred and bloodstained under the soot. There were no bodies.

The boy hadn’t had a scratch on him.

(He’d been cut. He’d been cut so many times he couldn’t remember the number. But out of the gashes had come the black threads, not blood, and he’d used them to strangle his family, his team mates, his neighbours and to stitch himself back together again.)

There were patterns drawn into the blood, he noticed. It was hard to tell at first. The blood was everywhere, and it had sunk into the ground, leaving blackened marks on the earth. Triangles in circles; perfectly drawn, as if the person doing it had had years of practise.

The same symbol that had been on the boy’s rosary. The same symbol that decorated the church that loomed up above him.

He’d found the bodies.

In front of the church – a red granite monstrosity that had somehow made it out of the massacre unscathed – were the one-time villagers of Yuugakure. Their bodies, little more than blackened skeletons, were arranged on pikes.

(Bodies littered the streets. They filled the river, staining the water red. At the bottom of the falls, the plunge pool threw up pinkish sprays of bloody foam. Kakuzu knelt, shaking, on the blood-soaked earth, among the bodies of his classmates, and watched as the black threads pulled the gashes in his arms closed. He was the only one who hadn’t bled.)

They were an offering. A sacrifice to a god barely anyone had heard of. Kakuzu stared up at the bodies – men, women, children; an entire village impaled – and the macabre image that they made. Black remains on a background of carved red granite.

Black on red.

The boy.

(They’d thought he was a freak.) The boy had done this after all. (They’d thought he was weak.) That scrap of a boy in the stupid clothes and a slashed-through hitae-ate. (He’d cut through the symbol of the waterfall and been amazed his heart hadn’t broken.) That boy who’d taken the path away from this village without looking back. (He’d never looked back.)

There had been red foam on the water.

(The falls of Takigakure had run red for days.)

The boy hadn’t had a scratch on him.

(He was the only one who hadn’t bled.)

It was a ghost town.

Under his mask, Kakuzu smiled. He should have asked the boy his name; maybe they would run into each other again someday.

If the boy survived that long.

Fic - Cheap Imitation - 1/1

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:28:42 GMT

Title: Cheap Imitation
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Kakuzu/Hidan
Genre: Romance/Horror
Warnings: Swearing, cannibalism, death, yaoi
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: She was just a cheap imitation, but Hidan got jealous anyway.
AN: Don't ask. I thought of this while in the shower. Personally, I'm blaming reading too much Poppy Z. Brite.

She was androgynous. Small pert breasts and narrow hips, long legs and a flat stomach. She wasn’t toned, but there wasn’t enough fat on her body to make that too obvious. She was pale; everything about her was from her short, feathery white hair to her milky skin. Albino. She was almost perfect. Almost. Her bone structure was different; her pink eyes two shades too light; her muscles to undeveloped.

But she didn’t mind him fucking her as long as he paid enough. She didn’t complain when he called her Hidan.

She was too quiet. Too compliant. Hidan would fight back, he thought. Wouldn’t take it lying down; would scream and scratch and bite and beg. Not her. The only noise she made was a soft scream when he entered her that could have been from pleasure or pain. He didn’t care as long as he got to come, his eyes half closed, her features replaced with his partner’s in his mind’s eye.

The one bit of practical advice his father had managed to impart on him before his death at Kakuzu’s hands, was that the good thing about whores was that they could be whoever you wanted them to be if you paid enough. He would have known. He’d pissed away the money that should have been spent on his home and family on drink and whores and gambling just so that he didn’t have to go home and see his freakish little son and the bitch who’d borne him.

The whore’s real name, as far as he knew, was Masako. That’s what he had to ask for her by, at any rate, and she charged by the night. A bargain. She didn’t mind the cheap hotel rooms he booked, and she was the only albino hooker he’d ever seen.

It bothered him that he was willing to pay through the nose so that he could get gratification from someone who, in the light of day, only held passing resemblance to his partner.

The useless, idiotic, zealot who’d somehow managed to capture Kakuzu’s attention along with at least one of his hearts. Hidan.

It was hopeless, Kakuzu knew that. His precious – false – religion probably had a million different laws as to why they wouldn’t end up in bed together any time soon. He didn’t know. Despite tuning Hidan out every time he started blathering on about Jashin, Kakuzu knew that he hadn’t mentioned anything about sex other than that sleeping in a room with someone who wasn’t his lover broke some commandment from one of the – apparently – many chapters in the Book of Jashin.

Besides, Hidan was a priest. Priests were celibate in every other religion that Kakuzu had heard of, why not Jashinism?

He woke up wet. His arm was slung over Masako’s thin hips, and he could feel her bare skin growing cold and stiff. The liquid he was lying in was congealing slowly, and he knew before he even opened his eyes that it was blood. The smell of salt and iron and shit – she’d been gutted; his fingers just brushed the edges of the open wound in her stomach – filled his nose.

He tore himself away from her. Her eyes were closed. She looked peaceful; she hadn’t even woken up before she’d died. Dark blood was spattered over the sheets and the headboard, and her entrails hung over the side of the bed, leaking their fetid contents onto the floor.

There was a small noise from the corner of the room, and he looked up. There, standing by the door, his pike dripping blood onto the floor by his feet, stood Hidan. He was dressed in the loose, floating black and red robes of a Jashinist priest – he always wore them when not on Akatsuki business – only that morning they were heavy and stained with blood. His rosary glinted against his chest, and in the weak morning light that filtered through a gap in the curtains, he looked like a personification of death.

“Hidan,” Kakuzu growled.

“Kakuzu,” Hidan mocked. He grinned, and Kakuzu saw that his teeth were stained red. He glanced down at Masako again. Her rib cage had been torn open, ribs jutted upward, their broken, splintered ends as sharp as knives. Her heart was missing.

“You ate her heart?” he asked.

“She wasn’t using it,” Hidan replied. He sounded nonchalant, but Kakuzu knew better. He could hear the strain in Hidan’s voice. He was trying to remain calm. “Want to tell me why you spent the night fucking some bitch that looks like me Kakuzu?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kakuzu said.

Hidan laughed; a low, sinister chuckle that exploded into a raucous, maniacal sound. He bent double at the waist, dropping his pike to the floor with a clatter. Kakuzu watched as tears of mirth began to run down Hidan’s cheeks. He didn’t move. He couldn’t move. He’d never seen Hidan as all that much of a threat before, but his perceptions had been shattered. Hidan had murdered someone right next to him, eaten her heart, and he hadn’t even noticed.

He’d been holding back.

Hidan’s laughter stopped abruptly, and Kakuzu jerked back in surprise as Hidan climbed onto the bed. Sodden sheets and robes squelched under his weight as he crawled forward, placing himself nose to nose with Kakuzu. His breath fanned over Kakuzu’s face, hot and damp and reeking of blood.

“Not much of a likeness, I’ll admit, but albino whores must be pretty thin on the fucking ground,” he murmured. His voice was low, husky, and Kakuzu shivered at the sound of it. “Was she any good?”

The question, so obscene under the circumstances, made Kakuzu react. He shoved Hidan away from him. “You’re insane,” he snarled.

“Fuck yeah,” Hidan admitted, rounding on him again, shoving himself right into Kakuzu’s personal space. “But I’m not the one screwing around with the female version of his team mate. And, by the way, she’s nowhere near as hot as me.”

Kakuzu, however reluctant, had to admit that it was true.

“And,” Hidan continued, his voice dropping to a purr. “I’ll bet she was nowhere near as good as me.”

Kakuzu’s eyes narrowed, but before he could react, Hidan had moved again. Full lips pressed against Kakuzu’s mouth and he gasped in surprise. Hidan deepened the kiss, parting his lips and pushing his tongue into Kakuzu’s mouth. He tasted of blood, as expected, but the taste sent a shiver running down Kakuzu’s spine.

He found himself tugging at the bloody robes, yanking and tearing at them frantically, trying to figure out a way to get rid of the damn things and get to the pale, perfect skin that he knew lay beneath. Hidan laughed into the kiss and pulled away long enough to untie them, sash after sash – more knots and ties than Kakuzu cared to count – until they fell away to pool on the sheets. Without them, Hidan only wore a pair of loose pants and his rosary. Kakuzu traced the warm silver of the pendant with a finger, smearing it with half congealed blood.

“Is this allowed?” he asked; his voice, he noted, sounded even more gruff than usual. “I don’t want to have to put up with you bitching and moaning more than usual afterwards.”

Hidan rolled his eyes. “Do you think I’d be doing this if it wasn’t? Shit, and you call me an idiot.”

He shoved Kakuzu back down onto the bed and moved over him, throwing aside sheets and robes to reveal Kakuzu’s naked form. Hidan smirked – an infuriating expression that usually drove Kakuzu insane – and leaned down to trace a row of black stitches with his tongue. Kakuzu shivered.

“Did she touch you like this?” Hidan asked in between licks. “Did she even look at you while you fucked her? Or did she look through you? Turn away?”

His teeth sank briefly into Kakuzu’s left nipple, hard enough and sharp enough to draw blood, and Kakuzu hissed. Threads from his wrist snaked out to wind themselves around Hidan’s neck and he yanked the brat up for another kiss.

“You’re jealous,” Kakuzu stated.

Hidan glared. “Yes I’m fucking jealous,” he growled. “If you want to fuck someone who looks like me, then you should make it me. Not some cheap imitation who doesn’t even fucking know you.” He kissed Kakuzu again, then, lashing out violently as he did so. The broken, torn body of the whore fell to the floor with a sickening thud and a series of cracks as her protruding ribs snapped again under her dead weight.

Hidan was exactly as he’d imagined. He was vicious, violent, and tight as a vice around Kakuzu’s cock. He bit and scratched when Kakuzu rolled him over onto the blood stained sheets, and he screamed obscenities and curses and pleas for more and harder and faster. He clung to Kakuzu as he came – fingernails catching on stitches; legs locking around Kakuzu’s waist to hold him in place.

Kakuzu pressed a kiss to Hidan’s sweaty collarbone when it was over, and sank down next to him. Hidan’s hand lifted, and long fingers tangled lazily into his hair.

“So,” Hidan murmured. “D’you prefer the original, or are you going to go looking for a replacement for the whore?”

Kakuzu remained silent. He could remember his mother screaming at his father whenever he rolled into the house smelling of smoke and sex and alcohol. She’d claimed that whores could pretend all they liked, but that nothing was better than the real thing. For the first time, Kakuzu found himself agreeing with her.

“You,” he said eventually.

Hidan made a soft, pleased noise low in his throat. Then he groaned. “Fuck, it’s going to take ages to get all this fucking blood out of my hair.”

Kakuzu rolled his eyes. Typical Hidan to worry more about his hair than the corpse of a hooker or the fact that there was yet another town that – thanks to him – they’d have to avoid for another two years or so.

“And my fucking robes. Aw shit!”

Kakuzu snorted. It was worth it.

Fic - Poisoning - 1/1

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:47:02 GMT

Title: Poisoning
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Kakuzu/Hidan preslash
Genre: AU Gen
Warnings: Swearing
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Kakuzu's choice in restaurant ends in food poisoning. Hidan should have known it would happen one day.
AN: This is based off an RP that waitingforvira and I had going a while back.

Kakuzu’s expression remained perfectly neutral right up until the point where he lurched forward and threw up all over Hidan’s shoes. Hidan looked down at the back of his team mate’s head and the yellowish orange splatter – complete with half digested bits of noodle and a couple of things he didn’t want to try and identify – and sighed. He should have known this would happen one day.

“Fuck,” he muttered. He bent down, heaved Kakuzu back on to his feet, and guided him non-too gently into the hotel bathroom, trying to pretend that his shoes were not squelching.

“This is your own fucking fault, bastard,” he said. Kakuzu’s only response was a feeble noise that could have been intended as an angry growl. Hidan ignored it. It was Kakuzu’s fault, technically.

He had learned very early on in their partnership – if it could be called that – that if he wanted to eat on their missions then he either had to get used to hunting down and cooking whatever specimens of local wildlife that he could come across or shut up and put up with Kakuzu’s choice in restaurants, which were all invariably cheap and dingy with décor that suggested that their better days had come at a time long before even Kakuzu had been born. And while Hidan wasn’t too bad at cooking, there was something terribly depressing about hunting squirrel in the rain, and after three days of doing so he’d decided to risk the option of a Kakuzu-approved restaurant.

He’d managed to eat the interesting concoction of noodles, some type of meat that he’d been unable to identify – which, considering the variety of wildlife he’d eaten since the start of his partnership with Kakuzu, was not a good thing – and some lumps of…something that had, possibly, once been vegetables. He’d been safe, he supposed, seeing as how he couldn’t get food poisoning, and he’d assumed that since Kakuzu ate this sort of stuff willingly that he’d be fine too.

Evidently, Kakuzu’s iron stomach had failed him, and the result was…not pretty by anyone’s standards. Honestly, Hidan hadn’t thought it was possible to make that food less appetising but apparently regurgitation did the trick.

He wondered if this meant he’d be able to get a new pair of sandals out of this. He glanced at Kakuzu, who was doubled over the toilet, and grimaced. Probably not.

He kicked the sandals off and dumped them in the sink with some cold water, trying desperately to ignore the smell and the, ah, fascinating texture. He wrinkled his nose at the state of his pants and stripped those off too, a wet cloth taking care of the state of his feet. He’s shower properly later; he had a sick man to take care of.

He removed Kakuzu’s weird-ass hood thing first, earning himself a low growl between retches. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Taking care of you, moron,” Hidan snapped back, pulling Kakuzu’s surprisingly thick black hair away from his face with his hands. Kakuzu’s skin was cold and clammy, almost like a fish. Not good. Hidan hated fish.

Kakuzu gave one more cursory grumble before succumbing to the need to continue to purge his stomach of the culinary disaster he’d insisted on eating. Hidan simply sighed and let him get on with it. When the retching stopped, Hidan hoisted Kakuzu back to his feet and half carried him back into the bedroom. It wasn’t an easy feat by any means. Kakuzu was considerably taller and more well built than him, and while Hidan wasn’t exactly scrawny – at least not when compared to Itachi or Deidara – he was still slight enough to make hauling Kakuzu’s dead weight a few feet a difficult task.

“You could help, you know,” he growled. “It’s called walking. Being sick doesn’t stop you from putting one fucking foot in front of the other.”

Judging by the baleful glare he got in response, Kakuzu would be just fine. Hidan couldn’t be quite sure about himself, though. He was pretty sure that as soon as Kakuzu was back up to speed he would start trying to kill him again, and while some of the ways he went about it were inventive enough to be admirable, Hidan was getting a bit tired of shoving various body parts back into their original positions.

He managed, somehow, to manoeuvre Kakuzu onto the bed – old and rickety and probably not entirely sanitary; there were some pretty suspicious stains on the sheets – and he removed his partner’s sandals and Akatsuki cloak. Kakuzu gave a growl that sounded suspiciously like “go to hell”, but Hidan ignored him. He would be making Kakuzu comfortable through his – thankfully temporary – sickness even if it killed him.

Or maybe not. More like, even if it resulted in yet more attempts on his life, as Hidan was pretty sure that he wasn’t going to die any time soon.

“You want some water or something?” he asked.

Kakuzu grimaced but nodded. The expression looked kind of weird with the stitches on either side of his mouth, and Hidan got the impression that that was one of the reasons why Kakuzu kept his face covered all the time. It wasn’t like the vast majority of people would appreciate the view.

Then again, the thought that Kakuzu was body shy was laughable. In all his time in Akatsuki – though admittedly, he’d only been a member for about six months – he’d never known Kakuzu to be bothered by anything except Hidan himself. He was about as communicative as a block of wood, most of the time, and the only time Hidan could really get a rise out of him was either when he talked about religion – not too much of a hardship even if Kakuzu was a militant atheist – or when he did something so irritating that Kakuzu tried to kill him again. Sometimes Hidan thought that he would have preferred a partner that he could actually communicate with, like Deidara or Kisame, but he’d quickly resigned himself to the fact that it would never happen. For starters, Kisame and Itachi worked together far too well for Pein to even consider splitting them up to accommodate Hidan; Sasori and Deidara, while not quite as perfect a team, were far too close personally to be split up. Deidara called Sasori his “danna”, for fuck’s sake, and while most of the Akatsuki thought that he meant “master”, Hidan thought that the actual meaning was probably somewhere closer to “husband”.

Besides, it had taken him all of five minutes into their first mission for him to realise that – brigade of wannabe immortals most of the Akatsuki might be – he was the only person capable of living with Kakuzu. Literally.

And anyway, when Kakuzu did get past his absolute loathing of everything Hidan said, did and stood for, they did work together pretty well. All the same, Hidan thought that Pein might just hate the both of them.

Kakuzu was watching him, he realised, through slitted eyes. It was a truly evil look that promised years of pain, and Hidan grinned at the sight of it. Probably not the best reaction he could have had, but seeing Kakuzu as weak – feeble, really, what with the whole not being able to walk thing – was kind of freaky. Kakuzu might be ancient, and a godless heathen, but he was still one of the most powerful people that Hidan had ever met.

It was then that Hidan realised that without his cloak – which he’d flung to one side as soon as they’d got back to the hotel room – and with his pants soaking in the sink along with his sandals, he was mostly naked. Wonderful. He dove for his pack and the spare pair of pants that it contained, only turning back to Kakuzu when he’d pulled them up over his hips.

“You puked on my other pair,” he said by way of explanation, “along with my sandals, which was pretty fucking disgusting, by the way. I mean, seriously, those things have open toes for fucks sake.”

Then he remembered that Kakuzu wanted water, so he headed back into the bathroom. He flushed the toilet as he passed it, getting rid of the vomit. The glass he found on the counter was chipped, but clean – incredibly – and he filled it with cool water from the tap before returning to the main room.

“I told you those restaurants are a heap of shit,” he said. “But no…why listen to Hidan? He only has common fucking sense.”

Kakuzu glared. Hidan simply sat on the edge of the rickety bed – which creaked ominously at the extra weight – and supported Kakuzu’s head as he took a sip of water.

“Why are you not ill?” Kakuzu rasped out. Apparently throwing up had fucked up his vocal chords, but damn he sounded pathetic. His question was stupid too.

“I’m immortal, you daft fucker,” Hidan reminded him.

“So am I,” Kakuzu argued, reassuring Hidan that he’d be absolutely fine by continuing to be a belligerent old bastard.

Hidan snorted. “I figured out three ways to kill you by the end of our first mission,” he said. “You’re not entirely immortal. You’re close by you can still die. I can’t. I can’t even get sick, no matter how many plates of cat shit and noodles that I eat.”

“How?”

Hidan realised that this was the most interest Kakuzu had ever shown in him.

“And if you say anything about that false god of yours then I’ll slit your throat.”

“For all the good it would do,” Hidan sniped back. He sighed. “I was born this way,” he explained after a moment. “I wasn’t born into Jashinism, not really. I mean, my parents were Jashinist, but it was a sort of village wide thing, like that Will of Fire thing Konoha has going on. Anyway, my mother’s husband – bastard – decided that I wasn’t his son – apparently I didn’t look much look like him, not that that was too much of a fucking hardship – and he decided to kill me. It didn’t work and it freaked the hell out of both my parents, so they, uh, gave me up. Handed me over to Father – he was the priest at the local church, by the way – and left me there.”

Kakuzu was looking at him sceptically. Hidan didn’t blame him; most people did.

“I…see,” Kakuzu rasped. Then, “what village are you from?”

“Why?” Hidan asked. Why on earth would Kakuzu care about that? Did he think Immortality was in the water over there or something?

“I want to know so I can avoid it,” Kakuzu replied after a moment.

Hidan laughed sharply. “Yuugakure,” he said. “And there’s no point in avoiding it. I destroyed it.” He saw Kakuzu’s eyes narrow and stood. “Get some rest,” he said quietly. “I’m going to put the bin next to the bed if you want to upchuck again.”

He didn’t know what it was about Kakuzu, but it seemed that the only times he ever showed any interest in Hidan at all were the times when he either tried to kill him or when he wanted to ask all the wrong questions. After providing Kakuzu with the bin, he went back into the bathroom to try and salvage his pants and his sandals.

Fic - Enmugakure - 6/?

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:38:48 GMT

Title: Enmugakure
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: M
Pairing: Hidan/Temari, mentioned Ino/Shikamaru/Temari love triangle and past Hidan/OC.
Genre: AU Adventure/Mystery
Warnings: Swearing, some sexual situations, violence
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: The secret to defeating the Akatsuki lies in the demolished village of Enmugakure, but only one person knows where it is. Pity he's in pieces...

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man;
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

The Tables Turned
William Wordsworth

Part VI
Origins

Naruto hated the desert. He hadn’t before this mission; he’d found it wild and impressive, but that had only been the impression he had gained while racing towards Suna to rescue Gaara. He hadn’t had to spend much time in the desert then. He hadn’t had to suffer the cold nights and the harsh winds that had given the country its name; he hadn’t even thought of how unbearable the heat was back then, how the sun glared down at them from the blue, blue sky and made them sweaty and achy within minutes. He hadn’t worried about snakes or scorpions or sandstorms. He hadn’t even been bothered by the fact that sand, whether it was being whipped up by violent winds or not, managed to get everywhere. He had sand in places that he hadn’t even known existed before this damn mission.

He didn’t know how the people of Suna managed.

Before he’d set off on this mission, he’d thought that Kankuro’s outfit – the black cat suit with the freaky cat ear things on the hood – was a pretty stupid outfit form someone who lived in a desert. He’d since admitted that he’d been wrong: that cat suit – dodgy ear-things or not – sounded like paradise compared to the synthetic and far too warm material of his jumpsuit.

He found himself glancing at Temari a lot as they walked. She didn’t seem bothered by the sand or the heat, something which probably came from a childhood spent in the desert, though she did look tired. Everyone looked tired, even Hidan, and he’d proved himself to have an almost insane amount of stamina; enough to rival Naruto himself.

Then again, he supposed, at least half of their exhaustion could be attributed to the tension between them all. Most of the tension came from Shikamaru, who’d been pissed off about the mission before they’d even left Konoha. Travelling with someone that he seemed to hate more than anything else in the world – including exercise, and everyone knew that Shikamaru was a lazy bastard – through a damned desert for a week had strained his temper to snapping point. He was, if Naruto was completely honest with himself, acting like a complete dick.

Then again, Hidan had killed Asuma: Shikamaru’s sensei. He had every right to be pissed off, even if he had already had his revenge.

But the tension wasn’t just coming from Shikamaru. Sakura was annoyed with the heat and the slow pace and the fact that her clothes – not in the slightest bit suited to desert life – were chafing in places Naruto was trying not to think about. She was sick of healing Hidan after his rituals – though why she bothered when the guy wouldn’t die, he had no idea – and she was sick of walking.

Naruto didn’t blame her. He was sick of walking too, sick of the desert and the heat and the sand. He was on edge travelling with an ex-member of Akatsuki, even though Hidan hadn’t tried anything since Tsunade had stuck him back together again. He was sick of the tension that surrounded them – more volatile than the sand storms that Temari had warned them about – which had made the general atmosphere more awkward than Sai in a social setting.

Temari, poor girl, had no idea what was going on. None of them had taken it upon themselves to enlighten her as to how, exactly, they had met Hidan. None of them had wanted to face her wrath after telling her that their guide had been part of the organisation that had killed her baby brother – even if said baby brother had managed to be resurrected. But then again, she was part of the reason for a good measure of the irritation that was pouring off Shikamaru like heat from the sun.

Naruto hadn’t been the only person who kept glancing at her, and he had been doing it for way more innocent reasons.

And that brought him onto Hidan. Hidan: the foul-mouthed bastard that they were trusting – on the recommendation of Uchiha Itachi of all people – to guide them through the desert on a mission that was, frankly, completely insane.

He was immortal, good looking – according to Temari, at least – dangerous, violent, religious to the point of being a zealot and he looked far, far too calm about their situation. Naruto glowered at his back as he walked, wondering how on earth he was managing to keep going in his tight shinobi pants, his open shirt that revealed a lot more of him than Naruto was interested in seeing, and with such a huge scythe slung over his back. Not to mention that his clothes were black. He had to be swelteringly hot, but Naruto hadn’t even seen him break a sweat.

He also seemed impervious to the glares that most of their company – Naruto included – kept sending his way. Naruto envied him that. If he had that ability then he knew that their journey would be far less…awkward. He wouldn’t end up babbling to try and cover up the silences that fell over their group; wouldn’t have to deal with Sakura’s irritated looks every time he opened his mouth just because he couldn’t cope with the tension.

They had, he decided, been completely mad to trust Uchiha Itachi. Tsunade hadn’t been thinking; he hadn’t been thinking. Itachi had obviously cracked a long time ago and then continued to fall apart over the years. Hell, even Hidan had admitted that Itachi was most likely insane, and that said a lot.

At noon, on the seventh day of their journey through Wind Country’s endless desert, Naruto found himself walking straight into Hidan’s back. His nose smacked into the handle of the three-bladed scythe and he staggered backwards, clutching his face as tears automatically filled his eyes from the blow. Hidan had stopped dead in his tracks while Naruto had been lost in thought – mental bitching about the desert, again – and hadn’t even twitched when Naruto had run into him.

Naruto glared at Hidan’s back from between his fingers. He had a naturally slender build, and it was easy to forget that under the clothing he had really, really impressive muscle tone. It had felt like walking into a brick wall.

“Why have we stopped?” Sakura asked. Her voice was dry and raspy, and she coughed slightly after her question to try and clear her throat. She grimaced. Naruto wondered if she’d managed to get sand in her throat somehow; it sounded like she had.

“Use your fucking eyes, pinkie,” Hidan said. Sakura bristled automatically, and Naruto lowered his hands from his face in order to grab onto her forearm to stop her from hitting the bastard. He shook his head wearily when she looked at him. He didn’t have the energy to put up with fighting as well as this tension.

“We’re at the fucking oasis,” Hidan continued. Naruto moved to peer around Hidan’s body, dragging Sakura with him. She stumbled, looked at him ruefully, but followed. True to Hidan’s word, just ten feet away from them was the glorious glitter of the bluest water Naruto had ever seen shining through gaps between trees and flowering shrubbery. The water was the colour of the sky overhead, the greenery was lush and it all looked absolutely wonderful.

A rough bark of laughter burst from his throat – it had been far, far too long since he had last laughed – and he started to run, dragging Sakura behind him. He didn’t know where the energy had come from; he didn’t care. There was water. There was actual plant life. There was something to look at that wasn’t the shifting red sands of the desert.

They made it to the water in record time, and Naruto finally let go of Sakura’s forearm. She sank down onto a boulder – no doubt part of the bedrock that had been dislodged by the jutsu blast that had created this place – and gave a soft sigh.

“It’s beautiful,” she said quietly.

Naruto ignored her, going straight to the water to the water to test its temperature. It felt wonderfully cold against his overheated skin and he groaned in pleasure. He would definitely have to take a swim at some point.

“It is beautiful,” Temari said.

He glanced back to see that the others had caught up with them. Shikamaru looked slightly less sullen than he had before, Temari was smiling widely – teal eyes shining and her white teeth contrasting against her tanned skin – and Hidan was propping his scythe up against his tree and watching her out of the corner of his eye.

“Most oases are like this,” she continued, stepping forward to join Naruto at the water’s edge. “Sometimes villages are built up around them, especially along trade routes, but this one managed to escape that. We don’t really trade with Earth Country.”

She left out the fact that they had traded with them before the last Great War, when they’d ended up on different sides.

Sakura nodded. “It’s like a little bit of home in the middle of the desert,” she said. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, letting a smile flitter over her lips. It had been the first smile Naruto had seen her wear since before they had left Konoha and he found himself remembering why he had developed a crush on Sakura in the first place.

Temari said nothing to that.

“How long will we be staying here?” Shikamaru asked.

“We planned for two nights,” Temari said, glancing at Hidan, who nodded in silent agreement. “To give you guys a break.”

Naruto almost felt offended that they were being pandered to by someone like Hidan, but he knew that it made sense. They weren’t used to desert travel, unlike Temari, and they weren’t immortal like Hidan either. And, whether he wanted to admit it or not, he did need a break. They all did.

Shikamaru grunted in acknowledgement of the statement and dropped his pack onto the loamy ground. Further down to the water, where Naruto crouched and Temari stood, the loam gave way to sand again. Red, desert sand, but Naruto wasn’t bothered by it as much as he was by the sand that lay outside of the tree line.

As if they were all of one mind, they began to strip. Naruto was too tired to care that he was getting undressed in the presence of two very beautiful kunoichi – while he didn’t fancy Temari, he wasn’t blind – or that they were doing the same so close to him. He knew that he would probably be embarrassed later, but he didn’t care. He was more interested in getting into the water and getting the dust and grime that had accumulated on his skin off.

He felt kind of glad that Jiraiya wasn’t there. His sensei would have made things even more awkward.

Temari was the first in the water. She waded out, completely naked, showing off a surprisingly uniform tan, and sank into the water. She turned back to them; her nudity obscured by the glittering blue water, and waved them in.

The water was blissful. After bathing, which was a priority for all of them, they swam and messed about. The tension that had been irritating Naruto for the entire journey evaporated and they stayed relaxed even after they clambered out and dried off.

A campfire was lit and as they sat around it, Shikamaru smoking and the girls brushing out their damp hair – Naruto had never seen Temari with her hair down before, and she suited it; Hidan seemed to think so too, if the way that he was watching her meant anything – Naruto couldn’t help but think that maybe, somehow, they’d all managed to bond. The quiet, for once, was not awkward.

“So,” Temari said eventually. She looked at Hidan, caught his eye and pinned him with her gaze. To his credit, Hidan did look slightly intimidated. Apparently immortality didn’t make Temari any less intimidating. “This big secret that we’re meant to be searching for. Do you know it?”

He frowned. “Like I told the others,” he said, “I have no idea what Itachi was talking about when he mentioned it to the Hokage. He could have been talking about anything; could have made it up off the top of his head.”

“He seemed serious,” Naruto interjected.

Hidan shrugged. “He’s always fucking serious,” he said.

“I’m not even going to ask how you ended up on first-name terms with Akatsuki members. But you know something about it, this secret,” Temari said calmly. “I know you do.”

“Your faith in me is fucking astounding,” Hidan said drily.

Shikamaru growled. “Look,” he said. “Just tell us what you do know, okay? This is getting irritating as hell.”

For a moment, Naruto thought that Hidan wouldn’t answer and that their peace would be ruined. That was the last thing he wanted; it was so much better now that they weren’t fighting all the time. He found himself hoping that Hidan wouldn’t be confrontational. Catching Sakura’s eye, he knew that she was thinking the exact same thing.

Hidan heaved a sigh. “How much do you people know about the Bijou?” he asked.

“They’re scarily powerful, obsessed with killing and kinda creepy,” Naruto said, briefly touching his stomach, just over the seal that kept the Kyuubi at bay. He was the only one that answered.

Hidan snorted. “So nothing then,” he said. He tipped his head back to look at the sky briefly before he looked around at them all. The water had cleaned the gel out of his hair and it looked soft and silky as it fell messily around his face. “You’ve got a Jinchuuriki and the sister of an ex-Jinchuuriki and none of you know anything?”

“Just get on with it,” Sakura said.

Hidan shrugged. “A Bijou was born in Enmugakure,” he said. He glanced at Temari. “The Shukaku, actually. It happened during the fight with Suna and Iwa.” He snorted. “It was Shukaku that did the most damage.”

Temari’s fingers twisted in the fabric of her battle kimono. “Shukaku…” she whispered. She cleared her throat. “And how is a Bijou born?” she asked.

“He was human, once,” Hidan said simply. “I don’t know how or why he turned into a Bijou, but that’s what happened.” He gave a short, bitter sounding laugh. “Makes sense, really. The worst demons are always human.”

Naruto’s hand, still pressed against his seal, tensed. The Kyuubi had been human? He had something that had once been human sealed inside of him? He suddenly felt slightly ill.

“Did you know him?” Sakura asked. “Shukaku, I mean, before he turned into a Bijou.”

An odd look flickered across Hidan’s face. “Yes,” he said shortly. He paused, let out a slow breath, and looked back up at the sky. Naruto followed his gaze. The sky was darkening now, fading from blue through grey and purple to black. Sunsets were always so quick in the desert, he’d noticed.

“He was my father,” Hidan said quietly. When Naruto looked at him in shock, Hidan was still staring at the sky, watching the stars appear. He watched as Temari bit her lip and closed her eyes before reaching out and touching Hidan’s arm. He wondered if she had felt the same horror he had at the thought of the Bijou being human once.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Shikamaru’s eyes narrow and his gaze fix on Temari’s hand. He sighed inwardly. He should have known that the tension would be back.

Fic - Second Chance - 2/4

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:14:23 GMT

Title: Second Chance
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: YuGiOh!
Rating: R
Pairing: Bakura/Ryou, Yami/Yugi
Genre: Romance/Drama
Warnings: Yaoi, spoilers for the whole series, copious amounts of Egyptian mythology.
Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh! and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: When Yami passes into the afterlife, Bakura's soul is dragged with him. But instead of passing on completely, the gods offer them the chance at a second life.
AN: Setekh = Seth, Heru = Horus, Yinepu = Anubis, Djehuty = Thoth, Auser = Osiris, Auset = Isis and Neb-het = Nephthys. Also, animal skins were considered to be the clothing of the very low classes in Ancient Egypt. Most people wore linen; only the lowest of the low wore stuff like wool and leather, which is why I have Bakura wearing them.

He followed the Pharaoh, who was following Heru, through the halls of Duat and into a huge chamber. Painted walls and pillars soared upwards, vanishing beyond the light of the torches and into darkness. But it wasn’t the size of the room that was intimidating. Lining those painted walls, their eyes glittering in the flickering torch light, were the gods. The true gods. Those he had betrayed and blasphemed against by doing the work of Zorc.

His eyes sought out the monstrous form of Ammit and Bakura shuddered violently. He was doomed.

The monster’s eyes shone red and it strained at the chains binding it to the floor. Its nostrils flared, and Bakura knew – he just knew – that it could smell his sins. Crocodile jaws snapped in his direction, and long claws were unsheathed from lion paws. Its powerful muscles rippled under its skin, and Bakura wondered how far he’d be able to get if he ran.

In front of him, the Pharaoh gave a little hiss of fear. Bakura couldn’t even find it in himself to feel smug about that. He was terrified too.

He tore his gaze away from Ammit and looked to the gods standing next to it. He marvelled for a moment that they were able to stand so close to the monster without any fear, but then again, he supposed, they were gods. And they’d had millennia to get used to Ammit’s presence.

Yinepu stood straight backed, his long, straight black hair hidden under a veil of faience beads that glittered like stars. He gave a jackal’s smile, and long, white teeth gleamed. By his side, a wax tablet in his hands, stood Djehuty. He looked at them curiously, even though he was already poised to record their fates.

They, like the gods he had seen on the boat, were dressed in the finest of linens, papyrus sandals on their feet, and gold jewellery decorated with beads crafted from precious stones and faience. Though, Bakura noted, Djehuty wore less jewellery than the other gods he had seen – excluding Setekh. He wondered if it was personal preference.

“Welcome to the Hall of Judgement Pharaoh Atemu; Bakura of Kul Elna,” Yinepu said. His voice was soft and harsh, as though he hadn’t spoken for years and had become unused to it. His words were in Egyptian, and it took a while for Bakura’s brain to register the use of his native language – he hadn’t heard it spoken in so long. The Pharaoh seemed to have a similar problem, as it took a couple of seconds for him to round on Bakura, his features twisted in shock.

“You!” he gasped. “Don’t you ever die?”

“Apparently, Your Highness, I do,” Bakura growled. “Else I wouldn’t be here with my heart about to be eaten, would I?”

The Pharaoh’s mouth moved soundlessly for a moment, before he looked away. The gods, who’d witnessed their little display, looked amused.

‘This is probably the most they’d had to do in centuries,’ Bakura thought.

“We have seen your actions,” Yinepu rasped, “from both before and after your deaths.”

The Pharaoh tensed, and Bakura began to wonder what the heck was going on. Weren’t people supposed to be judged separately? Why was Yinepu talking as if they were going to be judged together?

“The Sennen Items were never supposed to be created,” Yinepu continued. “When they were, you were robbed of your true lives.”

Say what?

“You were never given a chance to live, and so we cannot judge you.”

Bakura felt faint. He almost sank to his knees then and there to praise them. Instead, he released a low, shuddering sigh of relief and managed, somehow, to remain on his feet. His knees felt like they had turned to jelly.

Yinepu had stopped talking, and Bakura almost felt like he should ask something, but he couldn’t think of what. His thoughts were running a mile a minute, flashing through his brain far too quickly for him to grasp onto them and force them into coherency. He chose to remain silent, not wanting to burble like an idiot in front of people who could – and probably would – squash him like a bug.

The Pharaoh took a deep breath. “Then what is to become of us?” he asked, and though his voice was confident, his words were heavy with respect.

And, thankfully, his question had been a good one. Bakura wrapped his arms around his body, drawing his robes around him, and listened. The world suddenly seemed to be in much sharper focus.

“You will be sent back to earth,” Heru said from where he stood next to them. Unlike Yinepu, his voice was smooth and rich like molten gold. Bakura got the impression that he was smiling. “You will be sent to modern day Japan, where you were living before the Items were destroyed.”

The Pharaoh brightened. He stood straighter and his shoulders lifted slightly, and Bakura could just tell that he was dying to see his cheerleaders again, along with his other. The Pharaoh, no doubt, would be welcomed back among them with open arms.

He doubted it would be as easy for him.

“There will be, of course, rules,” Djehuty said. His gaze was flickering from them to the wax tablet he was holding, and Bakura got the impression that he wasn’t all that much of a public speaker. It was oddly endearing, and he could have sworn that Yinepu was looking at the ibis-headed god fondly.

He shook his head. He had to be imagining things.

“You are forbidden from using your Shadow powers,” Djehuty continued. “You will both have to find gainful employment or enter into formal education. You will not steal, murder –“ Bakura got the impression that most of this was being aimed at him “- crush the minds of your adversaries –“ or maybe not “- or bring direct or intentional harm to anyone.”

“Do you agree to these terms?” Those words were spoken by Setekh, in a deep voice that rumbled like thunder in his muscled chest. Bakura raised his head to look at the god: his square-tipped ears, his blood red fur and his gleaming needle teeth. Red eyes, burning with power, stared back down at him.

“I agree,” he said. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop to think, but he knew that he meant them – heart and soul. After all, anything would be better than being devoured by Ammit, which was still straining at its chains and snarling furiously.

“I agree,” the Pharaoh said a moment later.

“Then it is decided,” a soft, whispery voice said. Bakura turned his gaze away from Setekh and watched as a man wrapped in bandages, supported by two beautiful women – sisters, by the looks of them, that radiated power and golden light – came forward. What little of the man’s skin was on view looked green in the candlelight, and shrivelled.

He was Auser, Bakura realised; the women supporting him Auset and Neb-het.

He was looking at the King of the Underworld and his two sister-wives. He swallowed nervously. The power coming off the man was incredible, and even Ammit seemed to realise it as he quieted as Auser passed.

“You will return to the living world,” Auser continued, his whispery voice rattling out of his desiccated throat. “You will live out your lives so that you may be judged upon your return to these halls.”

The thought of having to come back to this place – this huge hall of painted stone filled with gods and goddesses and magic so powerful that it made his teeth ache – filled Bakura with dread. He couldn’t help but think that no matter what he did, nothing would be able to erase the sins of his first life and his time in the Ring from their eyes and his own heart. He would be devoured. He knew it.

But…it was a chance that he couldn’t turn down. He was being given a chance to live a Zorc free life, to learn, to try – try as hard as he could – to make it up to Ryou.

He suspected that that would be the hardest part of going back.

Ryou.

His other. His reincarnation, of sorts. The bearer of the Sennen Ring and the person who had been tortured by his Zorc possessed spirit.

Somehow, Bakura couldn’t see him being pleased about Bakura’s return.

He felt something jolt in his chest. His head shot up and he focussed on Auser. The dead god was looking at him; his withered lips were pulled back to reveal white teeth, cracking with the effort of smiling. There was another tug at his chest, as if someone had managed to place a hook around his heart and was trying to wrench the organ out through his ribs. He gasped, his head swam, and from the corner of his eye, he saw the Pharaoh fall to his knees, clutching at the material of his linen vest.

Bakura grit his teeth against the pain, and closed his eyes. He fought to stay on his feet – a matter of pride more than anything else – even as his limbs loosened, his joints turned to jelly, and pain seared through him.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was all over.

Bakura took a slow, deep breath, and realised that he could smell rain and concrete and exhaust fumes. Cool droplets fell on his hair and skin and, keeping his eyes closed, he tilted his head back to let the rain bathe his face. Then, he opened his eyes to look up between the tall buildings at the grey sky. He was standing in an alleyway that he vaguely recognised as being half way between Ryou’s apartment and the Kame Game Shop. The Pharaoh was kneeling on the ground three feet away, hunched over, his hands still gripping at his chest. He was dressed differently; not in the rich clothes of a Pharaoh, but in loose, black trousers and a white tank top that was quickly becoming transparent in the rain.

He was still wearing his elaborate, incredibly valuable jewellery, though, along with the kohl around his eyes. Bakura had to admit that he looked good like that, if pained.

He looked down at himself and scowled. His shenti had been replaced with black leather trousers and his sandals had become boots. Apparently the gods were more than happy to let him wander round in the skins of animals; clothing deemed too unclean for their precious Pharaoh. He was shirtless, still, and they had left his red woollen robe the same as it had been in Ancient Egypt, although considerably cleaner. He drew it round his chest for warmth, and turned back to the Pharaoh, who was looking at him curiously.

“You look different,” the Pharaoh said.

Bakura, unsure if he should take it as a compliment or not, didn’t reply.

“What are you going to do?” the Pharaoh asked.

Bakura shrugged. “No idea,” he said. “Not like I have a home to go to.”

The Pharaoh winced slightly, as if he was just realising that Bakura’s return would be far less welcomed than his own. Silence hung over them for a moment.

“I thought you were destroyed with Zorc.”

Bakura rolled his eyes. “I was possessed, moron,” he snapped. “From the moment your dearest daddy ordered my entire village to be slaughtered.” The Pharaoh winced again, but met Bakura’s gaze fearlessly. Bakura felt his anger slowly drain away. He was tired, and he knew that he would need to find somewhere to sleep before darkness set in. “When Zorc was destroyed, I was freed from his power; weak and helpless, but free. When you made the decision to pass on, I was dragged along for the ride.”

The Pharaoh nodded. “Good luck, Bakura,” he said.

Bakura snorted. “Same to you, Your Highness,” he said.

He turned and left, not wanting to watch as the Pharaoh skipped off to his happy little reunion with his other self. Besides, Bakura had other things to worry about than the Pharaoh getting home safely; things like food, shelter, and some way of getting a job that wouldn’t piss off the gods or involve whoring himself out – though he had to admit that becoming a prostitute probably didn’t fall under the category of “gainful employment”, anyway.

He’d think his options over in the morning. First, he needed somewhere to sleep.

Claim Post

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:30:32 GMT

This is my claims table for 24hour_themes, for the pairing Otogi Ryuuji/Honda Hiroto from the series YuGiOh!. Officially. I've also started a series of Harry Potter/Fullmetal Alchemist shots that tie - kind of loosely - together, which go with this table. The pairing for those is Envy/Sirius.

[ MORNING ♦ AM ]

[ 01:00 ♦ 1AM ] → link here

Focus is on wholeness of self and the banishing of any shadows.

[ 02:00 ♦ 2AM ] → link here

Ridding partnerships or relationships of negativity.

[ 03:00 ♦ 3AM ] → link here

Determination, especially in matters that seem to hold you back.

[ 04:00 ♦ 4AM ] → link here

Improved luck or victory over a specific set of deterring circumstances.

[ 05:00 ♦ 5AM ] → link here

Encouraging growth of the psychic self.

[ 06:00 ♦ 6AM ] → link here

Tenacity and perseverance, especially with something you have been putting off.

[ 07:00 ♦ 7AM ] → link here

Hope, improved insight and perspective.

[ 08:00 ♦ 8AM ] → link here

Personal change aimed toward the conscious mind.

[ 09:00 ♦ 9AM ] → link here

Assistance for others, focusing on concrete matters.

[ 10:00 ♦ 10AM ] → link here

Improving personal convictions and resolutions.

[ 11:00 ♦ 11AM ] → link here

Energy directed toward transformations which may have seemed impossible.

[ 12:00 ♦ 12PM ♦ NOON ] → link here

Writer's Choice

[ EVENING ♦ PM ]

[ 13:00 ♦ 1PM ] → link here

Self-image and personal security.

[ 14:00 ♦ 2PM ] → link here

Building relationships, encouraging understanding and love between people, sexual symmetry.

[ 15:00 ♦ 3PM ] → link here

Balancing matters of the body, mind and spirit.

[ 16:00 ♦ 4PM ] → link here

Harmony of elements, sticking to schedules.

[ 17:00 ♦ 5PM ] → link here

Insight to the self. Communicating with spiritual guides.

[ 18:00 ♦ 6PM ] → link here

Matters of safety, protection and completion.

[ 19:00 ♦ 7PM ] → link here

Diversity, blending or healing differences, gentle care toward others.

[ 20:00 ♦ 8PM ] → link here

Leadership, command and guidance.

[ 21:00 ♦ 9PM ] → Harry Potter/Fullmetal Alchemist

Comprehension of universal truth.

[ 22:00 ♦ 10PM ] → link here

Improving the rational mind, sensibility and clear mindedness.

[ 23:00 ♦ 11PM ] → Harry Potter/Fullmetal Alchemist

Coping with drastic change in a positive manner.

[ 24:00 ♦ 12AM ♦ MIDNIGHT ] → link here

Writer's Choice

Fic - The Apartment - 2/3

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:48:05 GMT

Title: The Apartment
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Death Note
Rating: R
Pairing: Mentions of Mello/Near
Genre: Supernatural/Mystery
Warnings: Spoilers for the whole series, weirdness
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: When student Yagami Light moves into a new apartment, the last thing he expects is to find it haunted.
AN: "Moj drug" is a transliteration of the Russian for "my friend".

After he had agreed to help the ghost of L move on – possibly at the cost of his own life – L almost vanished from his life. Light supposed that the ghost was thanking him for his compliance by allowing him to get some sleep and finish the university coursework that was hanging over his head. Not that, in comparison to the thought of solving the Kira case, a two thousand word essay on bipolar disorder was all that intimidating. Still, Light appreciated the reprieve.

And when L did decide to return, he certainly made his presence known.

Light had been standing in front of the sink washing his face and wearing nothing except a towel, his hair still dripping wet from the shower, when he had looked up and spotted a pair of large black-rimmed eyes staring over his shoulder at his reflection out from under a messy black fringe. Light had shrieked – his voice echoing off the tiles – and spun round to face the ghost of L. All too late he felt the icy cold radiating out from the spirit’s transparent form and shivered as that cold hit the water droplets on his bare skin.

He folded his arms over his chest in an attempt to both warm himself and hide his rapidly hardening nipples from the ghost who was looking entirely too interested in Light’s body.

“A little warning next time!” Light scolded him.

L raised one hand to nibble at his thumb and slouched further. His other hand was buried in the pocket of his jeans – what he had been wearing when he’d died, Light presumed – and Light eyed it warily. “Go through to the living room,” he said. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

L nodded, turned, and walked out through the wall. Light shivered. L was definitely a creepy bastard.

He dried and dressed himself in record time and headed to the living room to find that L had closed his curtains again before settling himself on the sofa with Light’s laptop on the coffee table in front of him. He was sitting in that odd position with his knees tucked up to his chest again, and Light wondered if that was some sort of nervous habit as well. It looked incredibly uncomfortable. Even so, he didn’t say anything about it.

“So,” he said, breaking the uncomfortable silence and trying to get L to focus on something that wasn’t the little ‘v’ of bare skin where he’d left his shirt unbuttoned at the neck. “Where do we start?”

“Your father led me to believe that you had helped with police investigations before, Light-kun,” L commented.

Light nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted, “but we aren’t the police. You’re dead and I’m a university student; hardly NPA material.”

He left out the fact that, until Kira had won over the Government and the NPA, he had wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a police officer. Now that they had truly succumbed to Kira’s corruption, though, he wanted nothing to do with them. He wanted nothing to do with Kira – other than to catch him and probably kill him, with any luck – and his twisted sense of justice and morality.

“That is very true,” L admitted thoughtfully. “However the basics are still the same. We start by gathering as much information as we can.”

Light nodded. “You had to have notes on him when you were running the investigation,” he said.

“Of course,” L said. “But they were deleted when Kira killed Watari.” An expression of sadness flickered briefly over his face, and Light thought that grief made him seem so much more human. “A copy might have survived elsewhere, provided that Kira had no access to our servers and can’t trace an IP address, but accessing it could be problematic. I have been dead for two years, the passwords might have changed.”

“We’ll start there anyway,” he said. He sat down as close to L as he could bear – mindful of the temperature more than anything else – and pulled his laptop onto his knees. It was already switched on.

L leaned over his shoulder as he typed. He gave directions on how to hack into the server – Light did have some hacking experience, which seemed to amuse L for some reason, but without L he wouldn’t have had a clue what he was meant to be hacking into. The files, thankfully, still existed, and Light felt a surge of relief when he hit the download button and began to copy them onto his computer. At least he wouldn’t have to repeat the years of work that L had no doubt put into the case originally. He could just pick up where L had left off.

While the folders downloaded, Light went to the kitchen to get coffee. Sick of instant coffee failing to keep him properly awake during the worst of L’s haunting, he had forked out for a proper coffee maker. Waiting for the machine to percolate, he allowed himself a moment to think things through properly. He wasn’t usually an irrational person, and going after Kira was definitely an irrational thing for him to do. But at the same time, Kira had killed his father and he had killed L who now spent his time haunting Light’s apartment. It was personal. Kira had killed two people close to Light – although admittedly, L had only become close to Light after he had died – and that was more than enough to make Light want revenge.

Kira hadn’t just screwed up the world; he had screwed up Light’s life and, selfish though it was, that was reason enough.

And, he supposed, at least he had help from the greatest detective in the world. Fair enough, L might have failed the first time, but now Kira had consigned himself to a ghost wanting to bring him down for the rest of his days. And surely Kira couldn’t kill someone who was already dead, could he?

The machine finished, and Light poured himself a large cup of coffee. On a whim he added a couple of spoonfuls of sugar – far more than he normally would have put in – and he headed back to the living room. Being around L was making him crave sweet things. Odd. When he’d first moved in, hadn’t his landlord said that the coroner had told him L had died of a diabetic coma? Possibly an inaccuracy, considering Kira’s involvement, but it was still quite…spooky.

Light shook his head clear of those thoughts and sat back down next to the dead man. A glance at his laptop told him that the files were still downloading – he silently thanked god for external hard-drives – and a glance at L told him that something was bothering the ghost. L was chewing on his thumb again and looking at the laptop as though it was about to explode, which was slightly disconcerting since he had a better idea of what was on those files than Light did.

“They’ll find you,” L said eventually. “If they’re still alive.”

“Who?” Light asked.

L didn’t reply. Light sighed and changed the subject. “So once we’ve got the files and read through them to catch up, what then? We keep gathering information?”

L nodded. “There will be two years worth of unevaluated data regarding the Kira case,” he said. “We are very behind, Light-kun.”

Light tactfully ignored the sudden familiarity. The ghost had seen him half naked before, not to mention that he’d watched him sleep. He supposed that by this point anyone would have thrown formality out of the window. Although he also suspected that anyone else would have gone to see a psychiatrist or an exorcist by this point.

“Right,” he said. “But what about this ‘they’ you mentioned. Surely, if They had access to your files as well, They would have been able to continue your work.”

It was, he thought privately, absolutely ridiculous. He could almost hear the capital letter tacked on in front of the word ‘They’ – the unknown entity that L seemed so sure would be able to find him. Then again, he also knew that L’s very existence was bordering on the ridiculous all on its own.

“Yes,” L murmured. “However, if my work was continued then it seems unlikely that they have succeeded, leading me to believe that they could be dead as well.” He waved the hand he wasn’t chewing on at his own transparent body.

Light swallowed. “More ghosts?” he asked. Then, “can ghosts track people through IP addresses and computer servers?”

“No,” L said. “My experiments have shown that my presence is limited to this apartment – the place of my death – and wherever you are, though I cannot stray from you by more than ten feet without being transported back here.”

“Transported how?” Light asked.

L gave an awkward shrugging motion that looked like he was trying to dislocate his own shoulder. “I do not know,” he said. “Until recently, I did not believe in the existence of ghosts, spectres or anything else of a supernatural nature.”

Light wondered if this had caused L to have some sort of identity crisis.

“However, shortly before my death, I realised that there was a twenty percent chance that I was wrong,” L continued. “Either that or Kira was sixty seven percent more insane than I had previously given him credit for.”

Light raised an eyebrow disbelievingly. It was a given, as far as he was concerned, that Kira was crazy. His god-complex was probably the least of his issues. Even so, Kira was definitely intelligent: he had to have been to have bested L.

“He experimented on prisoners,” L said. “In order to test how far he was able to control them prior to their deaths. In one of those experiments, he had one of them leave a message. Hidden in that message was another message, which said that ‘Gods of Death love apples’. At first, I was inclined to believe that the message was a game – a ploy to either worry me – or a sign of further psychological instability. Now, I’m not so sure.”

He looked down at his transparent body, and the pattern of the material covering the sofa’s cushions, which was visible through his bent knees. “After all,” he continued, “if I can exist, surely a Shinigami is not so far-fetched.”

There was a troubled frown on his face, and his thumb - if it had been real – was becoming in severe danger of being mauled. Light felt a surge of sympathy for L. It had probably been a right kick in the teeth to go through life so disbelieving of the supernatural, only to end up as a ghost.

His computer chose that moment to give a little beep, signalling that the file downloads had been completed. Light took a swig of his now cold coffee and pulled his laptop off the coffee table and onto his knees. He groaned at the sight of how many megabites of memory the files had taken up: he was in for a very long read.

“You’re very thorough, aren’t you,” he commented as he opened the first file.

There was no reply. Looking round at where L had been sitting, he found his place empty. Light scowled. “Dammit L, give me some warning before you do that!”

He could have sworn that he heard a faint, ghostly chuckle.

But L’s presence turned out to be completely unnecessary when it came to catching up on the work that he had done when he had been alive, which was something that Light felt more than grateful for, since L hadn’t shown his face since their conversation while the files had been downloading. Even so, Light found himself missing the ghost. Even though the ghastly cold – a side effect of L’s presence – was uncomfortable, L was a pleasant enough companion, and really, for such a popular boy, Light didn’t have all that many friends.

The realisation that the one person in the world that he could ever see himself truly becoming friends with was the ghost haunting his apartment made Light want to bang his head of something hard. Instead, he concentrated on L’s case files. It had the same headache inducing effect, after all.

He’d spent two week’s worth of his winter holiday locked in his apartment and living off coffee, tea – when he ran out of coffee – and whatever meals he could scrape together using the contents of his fridge and cupboards. By the time the second Saturday of his self-imposed imprisonment came around, he was onto his third day straight of eating cup ramen. But, he had managed to finish reading the files.

Just.

With his brain aching from the sheer amount of information he had had to absorb, and his body shot to hell by whatever E-Numbers had been in the countless amounts of cup ramen he had consumed – he didn’t think that he would ever be able to eat one for the rest of his life – he decided to go out. Grocery shopping, to be more exact, since the only things he had left were a packet of American cookies – called Oreos, or something daft like that – that had somehow managed to appear in his cupboard and a cup of ‘Oriental’ flavoured instant ramen – which he would rather die than even look at.

But after reading the files, even slipping on his shoes and jacket, and grabbing his keys and his wallet and heading down to the supermarket felt strange. It felt abnormal, somehow, as if the world had changed around him without him noticing; as if the sky had suddenly turned green and grass purple. Everything seemed to be in Technicolor, and everyone he passed seemed to stare at him suspiciously. He drifted aimlessly down the aisles when he arrived at the supermarket, and ended up staring at courgettes in complete incomprehension before a hand on his arm and the wrinkled face of an old lady peering concernedly up at him reminded him that no, courgettes did not hold the secrets to the universe.

“Are you alright, dear?” she asked.

He nodded. His tongue flicked out to wet his lips and he grimaced slightly at how odd they tasted – stale and suspiciously sweet. The result of far too much cup ramen, no doubt. “Yes,” he said. His voice was raspy, barely more than a croak, and he realised that it was the first time he’d spoken in two weeks. “I’m fine, thank you. I’m just…out of it.”

She nodded and gave his arm a sympathetic pat. “A hot meal and some sleep is what you need,” she said. “You looked like death warmed over.”

He said nothing about her over-familiarity. He just smiled, thanked her for her advice, and began to pile his basket full with fresh fruit and vegetables. He couldn’t even look in the direction of the aisle where the cup ramen and other dried foods were kept. The meat and fish counters were also raided, and he found himself looking forward to eating something that had some sort of nutritional value.

He should have been expecting it.

The door to his apartment was closed and locked, just as he’d left it, when he arrived back. But there was something off. As soon as he entered, the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and for once it had absolutely nothing to do with L. His screaming instincts were proved correct when something cold, hard and metallic pressed non-too gently into the base of his skull. The door shut behind him with a click.

“Don’t move,” said a voice.

The accent was foreign, and probably European in origin, but Light couldn’t place it exactly. The voice was deep enough to be male, but young, and Light subconsciously categorised the speaker as a teenager. The metallic thing, he knew, was the barrel of a gun. He swallowed nervously. A hand, strong-fingered and clad in a leather glove, snatched Light’s door keys out of his grasp.

“Put the bags down,” the voice said. “Slowly.”

Light complied. Really, with a gun pressed against his nape, ready to blow his brains out, he wasn’t about to argue. Inwardly he cursed L for haunting him, cursed Kira for killing L in the first place, and cursed himself for getting involved with this insanity as he knew that there was no way that anything like this would have happened if he had remained out of the Kira case.

It looked like the mysterious ‘They’ had found him after all. Goody. Light had always planned on dying while assuaging his own curiosity…

“Good,” the voice said. “Now, walk forwards into your living room.”

From the corner of his eye, Light saw a pair of leather boots decorated with more straps and buckles than he had ever seen on an item of clothing ever sitting innocently in next to the umbrella stand. Next to them was a pair of white trainers far too small to be Light’s own. There were two of them. Wonderful.

But really, what sort of kidnappers/assailants conformed to the social niceties of the person they were threatening?

The teenaged kind, apparently, as when Light entered his sitting room, he was greeted by the sight of a small adolescent boy sitting on one of his chairs, twisting his fingers in his startlingly white hair. His skin was pale enough almost to blend into the white pyjamas he was wearing – the part of Light’s brain that hadn’t caught up with the fact that he was being held at gunpoint wondered what the hell the boy was doing wearing something like that in the middle of the day – and his eyes were an unnatural shade of green only seen on cats and coloured contact lenses. He was an albino, Light realised, Caucasian – fitting with his partner’s European origins – and he was studying Light with the same sort of intensity that Light had seen on L.

He was, all things considered, possibly the most intimidating teenager Light had ever laid eyes on.

“Yagami Light,” he said.

Not European, Light decided. There was a definite American twang to his Japanese, though it bordered closer to the kind of drawl usually found in the Southern States.

“I’m afraid you hold me at a disadvantage,” Light said, “as I have no idea who you are.”

The person behind him snorted. “Really? You managed to hack into our servers easily enough.”

For a second, the intense, creepy stare of those unnaturally green eyes flickered to a place just over Light’s right shoulder. Then it returned to Light, slamming into him with the force of the bullet train.

“You may call me N,” the boy said after a moment.

Cute, Light thought. He almost said it out loud. L. N. The only one missing was M, and Light was willing to bet on that being the guy with the gun. Instead he took a deep breath.

“You’re here about the Kira files,” he said.

N continued to stare at him for a moment, before he nodded slightly. “Only one person had access to that server with those passwords” – shit, why hadn’t L warned him that the passwords were personal? – “and he is dead.”

“Right,” Light said. “About that…”

“You are not Kira,” N said. “You don’t fit the profile, and as psychotic as Kira is, I do not believe that he would have been capable of killing his own father.”

Light wondered briefly how much of the case files N had actually read himself. It had come as something of a shock to Light to discover that, in the early stages of the case, he had been a suspect and had been placed under surveillance. Obviously L hadn’t found anything too incriminating as he hadn’t been dragged in for questioning, but the knowledge that there had been a five percent change that he was Kira had stunned him.

It was a good thing that L had been making himself scarce, as Light was fairly sure that he would have tried to hit him at that point.

But, apparently, either N hadn’t read that part or he was ignoring it for now. That was good. Light was under no illusions about how quickly he’d be dead if he said the wrong thing.

“So how did you, a student whose connection to L was tenuous at best, gain access to his passwords?”

And there was the fifty billion Yen question.

“I moved into his old apartment,” Light said.

Apparently N hadn’t been expecting that. He blinked, and his gaze flickered once more to the person standing behind Light. In response, the barrel of the gun pressed harder against the base of Light’s skull. He winced.

“This isn’t the time for jokes, moj drug,” the one with the gun said. Light had no idea what that last part had meant, or even what language it had been in – definitely not French or German – but it sounded intimidating. That, he supposed, had been the idea.

“This is going to sound crazy,” he said, “and it’s a long story. Can I at least sit down?” It felt ridiculous to ask that; he was in his own living room, with his own sofa and chairs, after all. “And can you tell this guy to stop stabbing me with a gun please? You already know that I’m not Kira.”

N hesitated, then nodded. The pressure on the back of Light’s neck lessened, and then vanished completely, and he felt himself relax. He took a shakey breath, then determinedly crossed the room to the sofa and sat down. Sitting didn’t stop his legs from shaking, nor did it lessen his desire to run screaming, but it felt…better to be sitting in the same spot that he’d spent the past two weeks. His laptop still lay on the coffee table directly in front of him, next to his tea cup.

He looked up at N again, and saw that the guy with the gun had joined him. They were as different as night and day. The one with the gun – and he was still holding it, tapping the barrel gently against his thigh – sat on the arm of the chair N was sitting in. He was dressed entirely in black leather, with a Catholic rosary – silver with beads made from some kind of red wood – hanging around his neck. There was a second rosary, one in the form of a silver bracelet fastened around his right wrist, the tiny crucifix standing out against the black leather of his glove. He had shoulder length, golden blond hair and the strangest colour eyes Light had ever seen. They were amber, but unlike N’s eyes, they appeared to be natural.

“Speak,” he commanded, and Light glared at him.

“Right,” he said. “L. Well, like I said…”

And so, he began to tell them how he had met L, and of how L had helped him hack into their server to access the case files, all the while painfully aware of the growing looks of incredulity on their faces.

At least if I die, he thought, I won’t be alone in here. The thought gave him a sudden and macabre urge to laugh. He resisted; he really didn’t think that it would be appreciated.

“You think this is funny?” the blond asked. He looked – and sounded – pissed off, and the look N was giving him wasn’t exactly inspiring the warm and fuzzies either.

“Not really,” Light said.

The electricity chose that exact moment to cut out.

Fic - Three Years - 1/1

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 15:46:46 GMT

Title: Three Years
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Very, very mild NaruSasu and NaruSai
Genre: Angst
Warnings: Blink-and-you'll-miss-it shonen-ai, swearing and an obsessive Naruto
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Naruto's had three years to think about Sasuke.
AN: This was written for starfreckled on the naruto_wishlist community.

He'd had three years to think about it. Three whole years of training and keeping Jiraiya from being beaten up for peeping too many times – hell, the old pervert couldn’t train him if he was too badly injured – and thinking. About Sakura. About his promise. About Sasuke.

…Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke…

Uzumaki Naruto thought a lot more than people gave him credit for.

His need to get Sasuke back was irrational, he knew that. Sasuke hadn’t been all that great of a team mate. After all, it’s hard to see the good side of someone after they’ve driven their fist through your chest.

But he had to do it. Sasuke – for all his faults – had been his team mate. His friend, even. Sasuke had admitted to that himself. And Sakura…Sakura wanted Sasuke back too. Needed it. Needed him. She’d made him promise, and for all her faults, Sakura was a better team mate than Sasuke had ever been. She hadn’t tried to kill him – not seriously, anyway – and she had never betrayed him. She hadn’t betrayed the team. The village. Hadn’t up and left because of Orochimaru.

He’d had three years to think about Sasuke and Sakura and Orochimaru.

…Damn snake obsessed bastard…

He’d come to wonder, had Sasuke ever cared about them? They’d known that his dream was to kill someone – his brother, Itachi; the murderer of his clan – but they’d thought…Naruto had thought that he’d come to like them in a way. Maybe.

To throw that all away was unforgivable. But Naruto had promised to bring Sasuke back to Konoha. He’d promised. Sworn it.

What good would he be as a Hokage if he couldn’t do that?

What good was he as a friend if he couldn’t keep that promise?

If he failed, wouldn’t that mean that he was just as bad a team mate as Sasuke had been for leaving?

If he gave up, then wouldn’t that mean he was abandoning Sasuke just like Sasuke had abandoned them?

…Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke…

He’d had three years to wish that things were as simple as he’d thought they’d been when he’d been younger.

…Sasuke, you bastard…

Returning to Konoha had been hard. It was…empty without Sasuke. Somehow. His absence was obvious, especially among the Rookie Nine – not that they were rookies anymore. They weren’t quite right without him.

…How could you do this?...

“He’s definitely very vulgar… But don’t you think he resembles Sasuke somewhat? His face, his voice…”

Sakura had said that after their first team meeting as the new Team Seven. He’d denied it immediately. There was no way that Sai was like Sasuke. No way at all. Sasuke was better. Sasuke wasn’t such a dick. Sasuke didn’t have that irritating fake smile that made Naruto want to scream.

But the longer he thought about it, the longer it stayed with him. And the longer it stayed with him, the more he came to realise that Sakura had been right. She hadn’t been known as the smartest kunoichi of their year for no reason. He was like Sasuke. He was all fragile and twisted, like shards of glass in a paper bag, barely holding himself together. They even looked alike: pretty pale features, slim figures, and deep black eyes framed with long, girly lashes.

But there were differences. Sai was as emotionless as Sasuke had tried to be. He wasn’t caught up in hatred and ambition. And he tried. It took Naruto a while to notice – Sai’s attempts to develop a personality after what that asshole Danzou did to him made him a bit of an ass – but he really, truly tried. He studied books to tell him how to be an actual person, and when that didn’t work he studied people. It was, in Naruto’s opinion, pretty endearing, despite how irritating he could be.

Sasuke had never tried. He hadn’t cared. He’d wanted to be stronger.

Sai wanted to be a team.

…Bastard…

Slowly, slowly, Naruto began to trust him. He began to believe in him. He began to give Sai pointers, treat him to ramen every so often. He became his friend.

He started to like him.

But still, hanging over their growing friendship – or whatever else it was that was growing between them – was the absence of Sasuke. Sometimes when Naruto looked at Sai, he saw Sasuke in his place, solemn and weary and broken. Sometimes they looked too much alike, and he would see Sasuke reflected in Sai’s black eyes, the curve of his lips or the pallor of his skin.

…Too much too much too much…Why did you do this? Why why why why why why why?...

Sakura never mentioned the similarities again. She didn’t have to. Sometimes Naruto caught her flinching slightly when Sai spoke up, and it wasn’t always because he was about to say something tactless. He really did sound like Sasuke. Less emotional, perhaps, but he did sound like him.

Naruto wondered if the similarities were deliberate. If Sai had been chosen for their team to remind them of what they had lost.

If he had been placed with them to redeem them.

…Why did you do this to us, Sasuke you bastard?...

He’d had three years to think of nothing but Sasuke and training and Sasuke and Sakura and Sasuke and promises and Sasuke and Orochimaru and Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke…

Three long, tiring years to think about what it meant to dedicate his life to save someone.

At first he wanted Sasuke back because, damn it, Sasuke was his friend. His team mate. Sakura’s team mate. Then it had been about his promise to Sakura. Sasuke…he’d stopped mattering as much. Then, three years after he’d first set out with Jiraiya; three years after their world had gone to hell, he had been given Sai. They had been given Sai.

…Sai Sai Sai Sai Sai Sai…

He was so, so like Sasuke, but at the same time he was completely different. The personality he began – so, so slowly – to develop was completely different from Sasuke’s. He wasn’t moody, treacherous and smothered by hatred. He was loyal, calm, irritating.

…Sai Sai Sai Sai Sai Sai…

Uzumaki Naruto had had three years to think about the real reason why he wanted to bring Sasuke back to Konoha. He still wanted it. He wanted to break Sasuke’s pretty, pale face and drag him back to Konoha because – damn it – he was tired of living in Sasuke’s oppressive absence. He wanted to move on, be a proper team mate to Sai and Sakura, and if he had to bring Sasuke back to do it then he would.

Fic - Enmugakure - 5/?

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:20:06 GMT

Fic - Enmugakure - 4/?

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:15:07 GMT

Fic - Made In His Image - 3/?

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:22:49 GMT

Title: Made In His Image
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: R
Pairing: Eventual Sai/Orochimaru, mild hints of Naruto/Sakura
Genre: Friendship/Action/Romance
Warnings: Bizarre pseudo-science, yaoi
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: A mission to one of Orochimaru's abandoned laboratories reveals something that might give the Sannin a way to redeem themselves.

He wasn’t a vegetable.

As she cared for him, and as he began to spend more and more time awake, she would speak to him. Most of it was to explain things going on in the world around them, like colours or objects or what she was going to be doing to him that particular day. Sometimes she would speak to him about her friends: Naruto, Sai, Ino, Shikamaru, Kiba, Chouji, Hinata, Shino…sometimes even Sasuke when the mood struck her.

And even though he never replied, he would watch her. He would listen and, when she looked into his eyes, she would be able to see flickers of understanding and intelligence in their golden depths.

The intelligence worried her. Orochimaru – the original – had been a genius. His clone had clearly inherited at least some of his brain power despite being kept in a coma for years and was capable of understanding human speech. It made her wonder how much of those tapes Orochimaru had made for him had been taken as gospel truth. It made her wonder how dangerous he was going to be. It made her wonder if she’d really done the right thing…

Not that, in his present state, he was in the slightest bit dangerous. He was essentially a baby in an adolescent body. He had no muscle control; he was barely even able to move by himself let alone use chakra or a weapon. So Sakura, as she bathed and fed him and led him through basic exercises – the kind of physiotherapy that was usually reserved for people who had sustained severe muscle damage or spinal injuries – talked to him and tried her hardest to reverse at least some of Orochimaru’s conditioning.

It comforted her to know that he was listening to her – not that he had much of a choice, really – even though his ability to understand her worried her.

She wasn’t his only visitor, either. Sai and Naruto visited regularly, though Sakura suspected that at least part of Naruto’s reasoning behind it was out of protective feelings for her. He seemed to trust Orochimaru’s clone just about as much as he trusted the original, which wasn’t saying much.

As for Sai’s reasons…well, if he had any particular reason to visit so regularly, she wasn’t able to fathom it. Sai’s logic was completely beyond her.

Tsunade visited too, once or twice, though mostly when Orochi-kun was sleeping. Sakura would watch her as she visited; watch Tsunade as the woman sat on a hard, plastic hospital chair and stared at the clone of her one-time team mate. It looked almost like seeing him physically hurt Tsunade, and Sakura always felt incredibly voyeuristic for watching those visits.

Tsunade never touched Orochi-kun. Naruto and Sai would, occasionally: Naruto would nudge him to grab his attention – as if anyone could ignore Naruto’s presence in a room – and Sai seemed to just lack social boundaries. He would be perfectly fine with running his fingers lightly over Orochi-kun’s face, making him twitch slightly, or lifting one of his pale hands off the coverlet to admire the tapered fingers. He seemed almost happy that they had somehow managed to discover a person their own age who lacked social skills even more than he did.

Jiraiya never visited.

“I did tell him,” Naruto had said defensively when she had brought it up. “But I don’t think the old pervert’s interested. Actually, he looked kind of freaked out so I didn’t push it.”

Amazed that Naruto had developed something resembling tact, Sakura had nodded. Then she’d thought of the expression that Tsunade wore every time she visited Orochi-kun and supposed that Jiraiya’s absence wasn’t all that hard to understand after all.

Orochimaru had hurt them all before; there was nothing to say that he wouldn’t do it again, even if ‘he’ was really a copy of the original.

Still, despite the potential danger in the situation, Sakura found herself getting attached to Orochi-kun. It was hard not to, considering how much time she spent tending to him.

Every morning, once she got to the hospital, she would enter his private room – the reasons why he was being kept in isolation were fairly obvious, she thought, considering that more than half the village would want him assassinated as soon as they found out about his existence – and open the curtains. The sunlight, as it spilled in through his window and highlighted the pallor of his face, never failed to rouse him. He would squint at her, his pupils narrowed into tiny slits, and watch her as she approached.

She would always smile at him and she would always wonder if the original Orochimaru had been such a light sleeper as well. She hadn’t asked Tsunade; she hadn’t wanted to. The memories were hard enough for her as it was, and Sakura didn’t want to trouble her by bringing up more.

Besides, she was trying her hardest to think of him as a separate person. It was hard, but she was trying her best.

As she cleaned him, she would tell him gossip from the previous night. She would ask him things, even though she never expected him to answer any of them. She would help him sit up – he could support his own head now – and she would leave, briefly, to get his breakfast.

Every time she left the room, she expected him to be gone by the time she got back. Even though she knew he was incapable of walking, she still expected him to have escaped to start wreaking havoc on the village. It was a prejudice she was trying desperately to squash; an association with the original that she knew she shouldn’t be making.

Even so, every time she walked back into his room with his breakfast tray to see him sitting just how she’d left him, with his golden eyes fixed on the door, she would relax slightly and let her smile widen. Every time he was still there, she found herself trusting him just a little bit more.

It was, she knew, completely ridiculous.

Then, one morning, things began to change. On the way to the hospital, she ran into Sai. He’d greeted her with his usual false smile, and she’d invited him along. Variety was the spice of life, after all, and she was fairly sure that Orochi-kun, if he could speak, would be telling her how bored he was with her prattling.

Orochi-kun, when they got to his room, was already sitting up in bed. Sort of. He was half propped up against the headboard, and he was breathing heavily from the exertion of moving all on his own. He heard the door open and looked up at them when they entered. Sakura, amazed, couldn’t help but stop and stare at him in shock. Sai looked at her curiously before approaching the bed. With one deft movement – which Sakura knew he must have copied from her somehow because Sai had absolutely no skills when it came to bedside manners whatsoever – he moved the pillows to support Orochi-kun better.

With a soft sigh, the clone of the snake Sannin sank back against them. He looked up at Sai as he did so, and Sakura realised with a pang that he was thanking him silently. She’d seen that look so many times, but it was only now, looking at it as an outsider, that she realised what it meant.

Not quite a baby. Orochi-kun had some idea of morals and manners, apparently, even if they had been gleaned from the voice recordings of a psychopath.

She crossed to the window and opened the curtains, letting in the early morning light. She stared out over Konoha for a moment, wondering not for the first time what on earth the people of the village would make of Orochi-kun once his presence was eventually revealed. Even incapable of speech, he was capable of gratitude; something that she doubted would have been expected from the original Orochimaru.

She sighed softly and turned back to the bed. Sai and Orochi-kun were staring at each other, studying each other’s faces, and Sakura – standing by the window – couldn’t help but think that it was one of the weirdest, but cutest, things she’d seen. Cute in a very odd way, though. Sort of like watching small children sizing each other up in the playground while holding pointed objects behind their backs.

And god help them all now that Sai had apparently volunteered to help teach Orochi-kun how to interact with humans.

She approached slowly, making sure that her footsteps were loud enough to be heard. She didn’t want to startle either of them, let alone Orochi-kun. Sai might have been the trained killer, but Orochi-kun worried her most.

“Sai?” she said, breaking their staring contest.

He looked up at her to show that he was listening. Orochi-kun turned to look at her too, and she smiled at him. “Could you go and get Orochi-kun’s food tray?” she asked. “There’s a nurses’ office at the end of the hall. We passed it on the way in. Could you go there and ask for the tray for room 226?”

Sai nodded and stood. As he walked towards the door, she noticed Orochi-kun’s gaze following him. Her smile widened.

“Time to get you cleaned up, Orochi-kun,” she said brightly. She grabbed the small basin from the nightstand and a sponge and crossed over to the sink to get some warm water. “Preferably before he gets back. Sai’s a bit weird like that, you see, and he’ll tease you if he sees me cleaning you. Oh, he won’t mean it of course, but he’ll do it…”

She watched his face as she cleaned him off, noting the curiosity in his eyes. She kept talking softly, soothingly, and imagined him filing all of the information – most of it completely irrelevant – away for later. By the time Sai returned, she was done, and was just tucking clean covers around Orochi-kun’s thin body when he slid the door open.

“This stuff doesn’t look like food,” Sai commented calmly as he entered. “But it smells better than the stuff Naruto eats.”

Sakura couldn’t help it. She giggled at the thought of Sai sniffing at Orochi-kun’s food tray and comparing it to ramen. “It is proper food, Sai, “she told him. “It’s just been mashed up with some extra vitamins to try and get his weight up.”

Sai didn’t react to her words, instead choosing to simply place the tray on the little wheeled table and sit back down in the seat he had claimed before. Orochi-kun turned to watch him as he sat and Sai gave him a tiny smile that almost, almost seemed genuine.

At first Sakura wondered if it was just the lighting or her imagination playing tricks on her. But when the expression didn’t fade, even when she started to feed Orochi-kun, she realised that he was getting just as attached to Orochi-kun as she was. The thought was comforting.

Maybe, just maybe, Sai would be able to learn things from Orochi-kun while Orochi-kun learned from them.

Fic - The Apartment - 1/3

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:22:03 GMT

Title: The Apartment
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Death Note
Rating: R
Pairing: Mentions of Mello/Near
Genre: Supernatural/Mystery
Warnings: Spoilers for the whole series, weirdness
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: When student Yagami Light moves into a new apartment, the last thing he expects is to find it haunted.
AN: This was originally meant to be a oneshot. Then it got long. Now it's yet another WIP.

“I’ll be fine, Mum, really.”

It didn’t look as if his mother believed him, but she nodded anyway. She didn’t leave, however, and continued to stand in the middle of his new living room, looking around the room as if she was trying to find something wrong with it.

“I still don’t understand how you got this place so cheap, Light,” she said.

Light winced. He had been hoping to avoid that question. Still, the apartment had been a bargain, and after his father had died he hadn’t been able to afford to pass it up despite the…history. His mother wouldn’t approve, though.

There was nothing wrong with the apartment itself. It was quite spacious for an inner city apartment and it was close to the university campus. The windows were quite large and the rooms were a good size, and it came with a private bathroom. It was everything Light could have wanted.

“I suppose that the owner just wanted someone to take it,” he said.

His mother frowned. “That’s the problem,” she said. “Normally people would be dying to snap a place like this up. Especially at the price you got it for.”

“It was something to do with the previous occupant,” Light said. “I didn’t ask.”

That was a lie, but he didn’t want to tell him mother that the previous occupant had died in the apartment, and that he’d only been found when people began to notice the smell. She would make him move back home if she found that out.

“Light…” she said warningly.

“It’s nothing to worry about, mother,” he told her firmly. “I need to unpack.”

She nodded. “Alright,” she said. “Just remember to call if you need anything.”

He agreed and let her hug him. He kissed the top of her head fondly, and held the door open for her as she left. She paused in the doorway, and looked up at him. “I’m so proud of you, Light,” she told him. “You’re already doing so well for yourself.”

He smiled. “Thank you, mother.”

He closed the door behind her and leaned against it, turning to survey the chaos that was his new apartment. He’d labelled the boxes holding his possessions, but that didn’t mean that they had been brought inside in any particular order.

His first week passed in a flurry of activity as he unpacked, shopped, and prepared to start university. He was going to be studying Psychology and Law, and the amount of materials he needed for the course was quite something.

He hadn’t noticed anything abnormal about the apartment. Not really. He did get the impression that he was being watched sometimes, but he’d put that down to what the landlord had told him about the previous occupant.

Some kind of diabetic coma, apparently.

But other than the creepy feeling of being watched that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, he couldn’t find anything wrong with the place.

He easily settled into a routine. He would get up, go to university, stop by the store on his way back home after his classes had finished, and spend his evenings studying. It was a lonely life, but despite what Light pretended with his classmates, he wasn’t all that much of a people person. He preferred his own company to anyone else’s; at least that way he could be guaranteed intelligent conversation.

About a month after he had moved in to his apartment, Light sat at his desk with his laptop and a pile of books in front of him. He was exhausted. He had been working on this same essay for hours, and no matter how many times he looked, he couldn’t find the passage his teachers had mentioned in one of his books. That passage was necessary for a passing grade, but according to Light’s text books, it didn’t exist.

He wanted to scream. Instead, he stood up and padded barefoot into the kitchen to make some coffee. He was waiting for the kettle to boil when he noticed the reflection of the room in the dark window. His breath hitched and he spun round to look at the doorway, but saw nothing there. He shook his head and slumped back against the kitchen counter, glancing back at the window. For a moment, he’d thought he’d seen the reflection of someone standing in the doorway.

When his coffee was ready – instant, black with no sugar – he walked back to his room. He wanted to get as much of his essay done as he could, though that wouldn’t be much if he couldn’t find that passage.

He sat back down at his desk and placed his mug of coffee on the coaster next to his laptop, before cracking his knuckles. He looked back down at his books again, and almost burst out laughing. It had been right under his nose all along!

“I must be more tired than I thought,” he murmured to the empty room.

There was no response – not that he had been expecting one – and he got to work, quoting the passage from a book lying open on his desk. He didn’t notice that it wasn’t one of the books he had been using earlier.

The day of the essay deadline came round, and Light felt unusually jaunty as he headed home from campus. He had bought himself some dark chocolate as a treat; he wasn’t one for sweet things, but he did enjoy dark chocolate on occasion, and he supposed that successfully completing his first university essay by the deadline was reason enough.

His good mood faded slightly when he entered his apartment. It was freezing cold – cold enough to make his breath mist in the air – and all of the curtains were closed. He frowned at that; he could have sworn that he’d opened them before he’d left that morning.

Light placed his shopping bag on the kitchen counter and started to go around the apartment, opening all the curtains. He liked natural light; it saved on his electricity bill.

He went back to the kitchen and blinked at the sight that greeted him. The bag of shopping had been unpacked, but nothing had been put away. Had he done that?

“I could have sworn -” he murmured. He didn’t finish his sentence. His chocolate was missing. He knew for a fact that he had bought chocolate, and put it in the carrier bag, but now it was gone.

“What the hell?”

He shook his head and got to work making his dinner. He really was letting those stories about his apartment get to him. But…he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he wasn’t alone.

It was ridiculous, of course. He was alone. He ate his dinner alone, watched some television alone, and headed to bed alone. “There’s no one else in this apartment,” he told himself as he opened his bedroom door.

He wasn’t expecting his laptop to be on. It was humming softly, and the screen showed an open Word document. Light blinked. “I thought I switched you off,” he murmured. He had switched it off, he realised. He’d done so the previous night, but now his laptop was definitely on.

And next to it was his chocolate.

The bar had been opened and broken into little squares, which had been neatly stacked one on top of each other on the foil wrappings. Light looked around his room urgently, but there was no one there. It was just him with a laptop that was supposed to be off, and some chocolate that he hadn’t opened.

He sank into the chair by his desk. He was shaking slightly. “Stop it,” he told himself. “It’s just some chocolate.” He buried his face in his hands and focussed on his breathing.

The chocolate was still there when he looked up again. As was the running laptop. Light raised an eyebrow. There was something written on the Word document, text filling the page. He pulled his laptop closer and began to read. It was all one word, he noticed; a word that sent shivers down his spine.

Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira. Kira.

“Someone has a one-track mind,” Light murmured.

Kira. If anything could inspire true hatred in Light, then it was Kira. That…person had murdered his father, among millions of other people, and had gotten away with it. After the task force the NPA had set up to catch him had been destroyed – right down to the famed super-detective L – the police forces of the world had pretty much given up, allowing Kira free reign.

Light knew his father would have been disgusted with the state of the world as it was now. But when L had died, hope had died too.

Light slumped back in his chair, performing a mass delete on the text. He knew for a fact that he hadn’t written it, and – running on the theory that ghosts might possibly exist – there was no reason for the previous occupant of his apartment to have written it either. He had died of some sort of sugar overdose, according to the landlord, not a heart attack.

He switched his laptop off and shut it. He snatched a piece of the chocolate up off the top of the stack – who on earth did that to their chocolate? – and shoved it in his mouth. It tasted as good as he thought it would, but it was surprisingly cold for something that hadn’t been refrigerated.

“I’m going to bed,” he announced.

There was no reply.

Light shrugged, and stood up. He moved automatically as he changed into his pyjamas and slipped under the sheets. He buried his face in his pillow and tried not to think about his father and Kira and the sight of his mother’s face when she had heard the news.

Sleep didn’t come easily to Light that night. He lay with his eyes closed, trying to relax, but couldn’t. That feeling of being watched was back, and it was stronger than ever.

He cracked his eyes open and glanced around his room. He froze when his eyes landed on the doorway, and his heart leapt up into his throat. There was a dark figure standing in his doorway, looking right at him. He could make out the shape of ridiculously messy hair and two darker shadows where there should have been eyes. Light tried to look away, but couldn’t. He couldn’t move.

The figure moved, raising one of its hands to reach for him, and Light clenched his eyes shut. “You aren’t real,” he hissed.

He only opened his eyes when the feeling of being watched dissipated. The figure had vanished. Light didn’t sleep at all that night.

He found it difficult to concentrate at university the next day. He was exhausted and twitchy thanks to all the coffee he’d drunk in an attempt to stay awake. He barely made it through the day, and broke his routine of going to the store in favour of going straight back home. Light was not an insomniac by any means, and he needed his sleep.

What he found when he got home, however, distracted him from his exhaustion. All of his curtains had been closed again, and his laptop was sitting on his coffee table, the Word programme running. Light could have sworn that he had left his laptop on his desk in his bedroom like he always did.

He sighed and bent over it to read the text in the Word document.

“Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real.”

Light supposed he had a right to feel slightly incredulous. “Of course you’d say that,” he snapped. “You’re a figment of my imagination.”

There was a response this time. The coffee mug that had been sitting on the table next to his laptop shattered against the far wall. Light got the impression that whoever – whatever – it was he was talking to did not like being told it wasn’t there.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

No one replied.

By the end of the week, Light was barely able to stay awake, and yet completely unable to sleep. He didn’t want to sleep: whenever he did, the apparition would come back. It would mess around with his things, his head – though not only when he was asleep – and it would watch him as he lay unconscious.

He was beginning to understand why no one had wanted the apartment. The previous resident was haunting it.

There was nothing for it: Light knew that if he ever wanted to get a good night’s sleep ever again – without having to move back in with his mother and younger sister – he would have to figure out what the ghost wanted.

The first step to that, of course, was asking the landlord who had rented the flat out before him. The question did not do down well. Light watched the man’s usually jovial expression transform into one of distaste in a matter of seconds and knew that he was going to have difficulties. He wondered if the man was remembering the body’s discovery.

“He gave a false name,” the landlord said. “I never found out for sure who he was.”

“What was the name?” Light asked him.

“Ryuuga Hideki.”

It was a pretty obvious alias, under the circumstances. Ryuuga Hideki was a famous pop idol and still very much alive. And who on earth rented an apartment under a false name? A criminal? That would explain the Word document with Kira typed all over it. Had he used a fake name to try and escape Kira?

Or maybe he hadn’t been a criminal at all. There were such things as witness protection, after all. Or maybe he could have been one of Ryuuga Hideki’s fanboys.

Or maybe, and Light felt slightly incredulous at the thought, he could have been L.

“Do you remember what he looked like?” he asked.

The landlord frowned at him. “Why do you want to know? He wasn’t anything like that famous one to be sure.”

Light smiled. “I’m just curious,” he said, hoping that he sounded as innocent as he thought. The landlord was definitely suspicious.

The man sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “He was a scrawny guy,” he said. “Pale too, and slouched. Wore cheap clothing and walked around barefoot. He looked ill all the time too, like he wasn’t sleeping. He had huge bags under his eyes. Black eyes, I think, they might have been dark grey though, and his hair was black. Very messy.”

Light sighed. Dark hair and eyes described the majority of Japan’s population. “What did he do?” he asked. “You said before I moved in that his body had been…” he trailed off and the landlord grimaced at the memory. “Surely someone must have missed him?”

“No one I know of,” the landlord said brusquely. “He was with an old man when he moved in – his grandfather, I think he said it was – but I couldn’t track the man down when I found the body. He ended up having a state funeral. As for what he did…he was a student at Touoh University apparently, but don’t ask me what he was a student of. The university didn’t have any working contact details for him either, by the way.”

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair again. “I don’t know why you want to know all this. He was a creepy guy when he was alive and trust me, he was even creepier with all the maggots crawling over him.”

Light winced. This ‘Ryuuga Hideki’ had been pretty unfortunate, even if he was mysterious and creepy. No one deserved to be found like that. No one. Not even a criminal.

“I was just curious,” he said, smiling sweetly at his landlord once more. “Thank you for answering my questions.”

The man grunted and rolled his eyes. “Sure,” he said. “Just make sure that they’re about your boiler or something next time, okay?”

Light laughed. “Okay.”

As soon as he turned away his smile faded in order to be replaced with a calculating look. So his apartment was haunted by an ex-student at his own university? That would make tracking down his records a great deal easier, though Light knew that they were probably faked as well. If he’d gone through the trouble of using a fake name – albeit a fairly obvious one – then there was no way that he had used accurate information on a university application form unless he had been incredibly stupid.

Light wondered if there had been any reason behind using the alias of ‘Ryuuga Hideki’. He knew that the first thing that sprung to his mind on hearing the name was the singer his sister had so many posters of up on her walls. He certainly wouldn’t have pictured a scruffy student who had looked like a corpse when he was still alive. Could that have been something to do with it? He knew – everyone knew – that Kira could kill with just a name. Surely then, picking a false name that would make Kira think of someone else – an innocent that he wouldn’t want to kill – was an intelligent move.

Light raised a hand and massaged his forehead as he walked back up to his apartment. Apparently the resident friendly ghost – Light hoped that it was feeling friendlier now that he had admitted that it existed – had been pretty smart.

He almost walked past his apartment in the end. Deep in thought and bordering on exhaustion, he had been too preoccupied to notice his door. He wouldn’t have noticed at all if it hadn’t been for his neighbour, an elderly woman, opening her door to tell him to turn his television down when he went back inside.

Light paled at her words. His television had definitely been switched off when he’d left to talk to his landlord. Evidently his undead roommate was up to something. Again.

“Sorry about that, Takeshi-san,” he said, giving her an apologetic bow. “I put it on for background noise. I’ll be sure to be more considerate in future.”

She sniffed and shut her door in his face.

“Bitch,” he muttered, and turned back to look at his door. It looked plain and boring and just like every other door in that hallway – apart from its little brass number – but in that moment it looked incredibly sinister. He swallowed nervously and pulled his keys out of his pocket.

The door unlocked easily, but when he swung it open he gasped. His breath misted in the air and he shivered violently. It had been like opening the door to a walk in freezer. He could hear his TV blaring and, mindful of risking his neighbour’s wrath more than he already had, he darted inside. He hugged himself as he walked deeper into his apartment, rubbing his arms through his too-thin shirt. It was freezing cold and dark. Very dark.

The curtains he had opened wide that morning had been shut tightly, and the only light came from the flickering television.

He grabbed the remote off the coffee table and turned the volume down – it had been at top volume; no wonder he’d heard complaints – and took a moment to study the channel the ghost had chosen to play. It was Sakura TV.

Previously known for running tacky game shows, reality TV programmes and wildly inaccurate news reports, Sakura TV had made a name for itself recently as the first channel to ever show a video made by Kira and prided itself on being chosen as Kira’s official television channel. Now it showed more accurate news reports in the aim of aiding its patron, showed documentaries on Kira – not that they knew much to make programmes like that on – and held religious services to Kira every hour or so, begging him to save them from corruption.

It was, in Light’s opinion, still incredibly tacky. Personally, he thought that Kira could have chosen a much better station to claim as his own. Besides, the fact that Kira had his own cult didn’t settle well with him; Kira had killed his father, after all, along with a lot of his father’s co-workers.

It was one of those services now. He watched as a fat, moustachioed man dressed in a tent-like white robe trimmed in gold raised his arms above his head and screamed for Kira to bring damnation on the law-breakers.

“You have terrible taste in television,” Light commented.

He hadn’t expected an answer. The ghost had never answered him before, after all, but this time there came the sound of a dry chuckle from behind him. The hairs on the back of Light’s neck stood on end and he pivoted slowly on the spot to look behind him.

Sitting on his couch, with his knees tucked up under his chin, was a pale, scruffy looking man with wild black hair and dark eyes rimmed with thick black bags. He was transparent.

Light nearly screamed, but managed to keep his mouth shut just in time. Instead he chose to stare wide-eyed at the figure – the ghost who had been making his life hell – and tried not to panic.

The ghost looked up at him, cocking his head to one side almost playfully, though there was nothing playful about his expression. He looked at Light calculatingly for a moment before returning his attention to the television.

“Yagami Light,” he said, “aged twenty, born on February the twenty-eighth nineteen eighty-six. You are the only son and eldest child of Yagami Soichiro and Yagami Sachiko, and the elder brother to their daughter Sayu. You were the junior high school tennis champion in nineteen ninety-nine and two thousand, though you quit before you entered high school where you proceeded to get top grades in every subject.”

Light gaped at him. The ghost merely blinked, glanced up at him again briefly before continuing to stare at the television. “I’m afraid that beyond that my information may be a little out of date.”

Light felt like his knees were about to give out so he sat down before he fell down. He ended up perched on the sofa next to the ghost, trying as hard as he could to ignore the chill radiating off the spirit. “How?” he asked. “How do you know all of that?”

The ghost didn’t look at him this time. “It is my business to check the backgrounds with everyone I work with along with those of their family.”

“Who are you?” Light asked, forcing himself to keep his voice calm.

The ghost turned towards him, and Light noted that – rather disconcertingly – he could see the light from the television flickering over the cloth of the sofa through the ghost’s body.

“I am L,” the ghost said. He lifted a bony hand and bit down on the pad of his thumb, worrying it slightly between his teeth. Light absent-mindedly wondered if that was some sort of nervous habit. Could ghosts even have nervous habits?

The thought of a ghost being nervous around him, of all people, struck him as fairly ironic under the circumstances. After all, it was his apartment that was being haunted.

“Oh,” he said. Then, “you worked with my father, then.”

“Yagami-san is a good man,” L said quietly, his words sounding slightly muffled by his thumb.

“Was,” Light corrected. “Kira killed him too.”

“I see.”

Light jumped when, suddenly, the people on the television burst into song, praising Kira’s name to the heavens; their outstretched arms raised above their heads and their expression rapturous. He glowered at the TV. Kira didn’t deserve such a spectacle. If those people wanted to worship something then they should have gone into religion rather than making one out of a glorified serial killer.

L, judging by the faintly disgusted noise he made in the back of his throat, agreed with him.

“Do you…” Light said awkwardly. “Is there something you need before you move on?”

From the corner of his eye, he saw L’s lips quirk. “I must catch Kira,” he said calmly.

Light had figured that it would be something like that. What else would it have been? What else would the greatest detective in the world have wanted except the completion of the case he had been working on when he died?

Light closed his eyes briefly. “Would you like me to help?” he asked.

There was silence, and it was only the fact that the freezing temperature remained the same that told him that his ghostly companion hadn’t left.

“Yes,” L said eventually.

Light opened his eyes, looked the ghost right in the eyes, and nodded. And he wondered if he had just signed his death warrant.

Fic - Lawliet - 5b/?

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:42:37 GMT

Title: Lawliet
Chapter: 5b/?
Author: Evandar / yamievandar / hikarievandar
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note and I make no money from writing this FanFic.
Warnings: AU, yaoi, shonen-ai, shota.
Spoilers: L's real name and Mello and Near's existence.
Summary: Lawliet is an autistic, genius super-detective, hidden from the world under the moniker of L; Light is an indigo child struggling under the expectations of his family; Mello is a Mafia brat who wants both to get out and keep his life; Near is a mute orphan ripped from everything he knows by the horrific death of his father. When fate throws them together, the consequences will echo around the world.

Prologue, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5a

The Wammy House

June 1999

Near was eight when he arrived. At the time, he was sitting in his usual spot on the floor of the playroom, working on a puzzle. He could hear the excited voices of the other children coming closer, even though a quick glance at the clock told him that break wasn’t yet over, and as it was still sunny outside, they had no real reason for coming indoors en masse.

The door to the playroom burst open, and a large group of over-excited children poured into the room. Near flinched at the noise level: how could they be so loud?

“This is the playroom,” one of the girls – it sounded like Electra, but really, most of the girls just sounded the same to him. “Oh, and that’s Near. He’s been here for, like, ever, but he won’t talk to you so you shouldn’t really bother with him.”

Near looked up. It was Electra, and she was standing talking to a young boy a couple of years older than Near. He had shoulder length blonde hair that was shining red in the sunlight that filtered through the window, and he had strange, copper-coloured eyes. He was pretty, Near thought, and he was staring right back at Near curiously.

Electra was glaring at him for stealing the attention of the new boy away from her. Near simply raised an eyebrow at her and returned to his puzzle: he’d never understand girls, especially boy-crazy girls like Electra.

He didn’t look up as the new boy and his crowd of admirers left the room. He listened to them go and sighed as the room’s noise level returned to normal. In a few weeks the novelty of having a new kid in the orphanage would wear off and everything would go back to the way it had been before. The new boy would find his own group of friends and a subject to specialise in, and he would just blend into the background as all the others had done.

Near had made his assumptions on past experience, and he was very wrong. He was about to learn that the new boy was nothing like the others, and that he would not be pushed aside quite so easily.

Mello Near

“What’s wrong with him?” Mello asked as he was herded down the corridor and away from the playroom by an escort of at least twenty children. His question was directed at the girl who was hanging off his arm, and who would flick her long dark hair at him every so often. He wanted her to let go: she was preventing him from reaching his weapons – a knife in each boot and strapped to each arm – and it was making him twitchy.

“Who?” she asked, looking up at him through long black lashes, giggling slightly.

“Near,” he replied. That had been the boy’s name, hadn’t it?

It made sense for the owners of the Wammy House to strip each child’s real name from them as they were accepted into the orphanage, especially if they came from backgrounds that were in any way similar to Mello’s own. He could see the point – although he was glad he hadn’t been made to change his name again, as he’d got used to being called Mello, and he rather liked it – but he wished that the names weren’t all so strange. Who in their right mind called a kid ‘Near’?

“Oh him,” the girl, her name had been lost in the myriad of introductions he had received upon entering the building. “We don’t know. He can’t talk so he can’t tell us what’s wrong, and even though he has this writing pad with him all the time, he doesn’t really bother with any of us. He’s not important: all he does is sit there and play with toys.”

“Oh.”

Mello’s fingers twitched as he was dragged into another room – the dining hall. He really wanted to have her let go, and to have a calmer tour around the building. Preferably one that didn’t involve flirting.

Mello didn’t like loud noises, and he didn’t really like being touched by people he didn’t trust. This tour was turning into his own personal hell.

“Excuse me!” called a voice. Mello turned sharply, and sighed with relief when he saw Watari standing in the doorway. “May I borrow Mello for a moment, Electra? I need to sort out where he will be staying.”

“Oh,” she looked disappointed. “Okay. Come and find me when you want the rest of your tour, okay?”

Mello didn’t answer as he detached himself from her grip. He jogged over to Watari and let the older man lead him through the halls in a much more subdued manner than his charges had done.

“While in the Wammy House, I would appreciate it if you called me Mr Wammy,” Watari said calmly. “None of the children here know of my double life: they just think that I own the orphanage. I’m sure you understand the need for secrecy.”

“Yes sir,” Mello said. “I won’t tell.”

“Good. Now, this is where you will be staying.” Watari – Mr Wammy – opened a door and showed him in. If Mello’s calculations were correct, they were now on the top floor of the building, in the East wing.

The room itself was nice enough. It was large and airy, although for some reason the curtains were closed. It held two large beds, two bedside tables, two desks, two chests of drawers, a toy chest, a sink with a mirror above it and a lot of book cases. One half of the room, the half with the toy chest, looked occupied in a disinterested sort of way, as though its occupant didn’t really spend very much time there. It was very neat though, which made Mello smile. Whoever his roommate was, he was certainly well organised.

“You’ll be sharing this room with Near,” Mr Wammy said. “Have you –“

“I’ve seen him,” Mello interrupted. “He’s the one who doesn’t talk.”

“Yes,” Mr Wammy said. Mello looked up at him. The old man sounded sad, as if Near was important to him.

“What happened?” he asked.

“That, I’m afraid, is something only Near can tell you,” Mr Wammy replied. “I know some of it, but the exact details are something he has never divulged. He may never do so, though I suspect that his voice will return one day.”

Mello winced. Scenarios raced through his mind: what could make a child stop talking? Something bad, obviously…

Mello Near

The new boy had vanished. Some of the other children – Electra among them – had gone looking for him, claiming that Mr Wammy couldn’t have kept him occupied for over an hour, but they had returned from their search disappointed. The new boy, whoever he was, had disappeared.

Near walked down the hall towards his room. It had started to rain and the others had all been dragged inside by the carers and shoved into the playroom. With his peace disturbed, Near was planning to spend the next hour before dinner in his room, away from the noise.

He opened the door to his sanctuary only to stop dead in the doorway. The spare bed was now occupied.

The new boy was lying curled up on his side, his long hair spread over the pillow behind him, and his left hand under the pillow. He was fast asleep, his even breathing whispering through his parted lips. One of his sock-clad feet twitched, and he shifted to pull it out of the draft coming through the door. He didn’t wake up.

‘He is pretty,’ Near thought.

He closed the door quietly behind him and settled on the floor to play. He would wake the boy up in an hour so that he could get something to eat, and maybe he would find out what he was called.

Mello Near

Near paused by his new room mate’s bed. He didn’t like the way that the other boy’s hand seemed to be gripping something under his pillow. He had thought about shaking the other boy by his shoulders, but realised that that was too close to save him from any reflexive lashing out. He shook his leg instead.

The new boy jerked awake in an instant, hand coming out from under the pillow, revealing a wicked looking knife. Near gulped: he had been right. The new boy blinked at him, looked down at his hand and winced.

“Um…sorry,” he said.

Near raised his hands in the universal action for ‘it’s okay’ and watched at the knife was placed in a sheath on the older boy’s ankle. His heart was racing, and his legs suddenly felt very weak. He sat down on the bed.

“Are you okay?” the new boy asked. He had a strange accent, Near noticed. It was Slavic, but it was faded slightly, and something about the other boy’s vowels sounded American.

Near nodded, and looked around for his pad of paper and his pen. They were on the floor near where he had been playing, but he didn’t feel quite up to getting them yet.

The other boy seemed to realise the problem, and turned to rummage through his bedside drawer. He produced an old notebook filled with doodles and embarrassing outlines for fairy stories he had never written and turned to a clean page. He passed it to Near along with a black biro, and was rewarded with a faint smile.

“My name’s Mello, by the way,” he said. Near nodded, and jotted his own name down in case the other boy had forgotten their brief and not very polite introduction.

“How long have you been here?” Mello asked.

Five years was the neatly written answer. Mello gave a low whistle. That was…quite a long time.

“I’m sorry about the knife,” he continued. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I’m fine. Really. Why did you have the knife anyway?

“I lived on the streets for a bit,” Mello explained. “In a rough area. I’m paranoid, I guess.”

Near’s shoulders trembled slightly, and Mello realised with a start that the other boy was actually laughing.

“Hey, what’s funny?” Melo demanded.

My other friend is paranoid too, but even he doesn’t keep a knife under his pillow. You’re safe here.

Mello smiled. “Where’s your friend? You were alone before, and the other kids said that…”

No one likes me? It’s okay to say it. Ryuzaki’s away most of the time. He works in foreign countries with Mr Wammy.

Mello’s breath caught. This kid, Near, he knew L? He was friends with him?

“What’s he like?”

Strange. Near paused before he wrote the word, as if he was trying to find a single word to sum up his friend and was trying to be polite about it. But everyone here is strange, really.

Mello Near

The next time Mello saw Near – he had been swept away by a crowd as soon as they had entered the dining hall – was in their room later that night. Near was standing on a small plastic stool in front of the sink, with his hands up by his face. Mello watched, curious, as Near removed something bright green from his eye. Mello only caught a glimpse of it before he turned away. There was something strange about watching another person take out contact lenses that made him feel uncomfortable.

He wondered what Near’s natural eye colour was like. He suited green, in Mello’s opinion.

Mello sat on his bed and picked up his notepad from where Near had left it earlier. He flipped through it, snickering at the cartoon Watari he had drawn on the plane, until Near was done with the mirror. Then he darted over to where Near stood, putting on thin wire-rimmed glasses, and leaned down so he was staring right into Near’s eyes.

Near blinked.

He grabbed his notepad, wrote something, and held it up so that Mello could read it.

What are you doing?

“Looking at your eyes,” Mello told him. “Some of the other kids at dinner said they were weird and I wanted to see.”

Near frowned but lowered the notepad, letting Mello get a good look. They were a very pale grey, and Mello knew why the other kids thought they were creepy: they were so pale they were almost white.

“You’re an albino,” he said.

He didn’t need the notepad to read a “well obviously” from Near’s gaze.

“That’s why the curtains were drawn, and why you sit with your back to the light,” Mello said. “And why you wear contacts: albinos are usually really sensitive to light, so coloured contacts can lessen the glare as well as help them see. Are you astigmatic?”

Near nodded, looking confused.

“I read a lot,” Mello said, answering the unasked question. “Loads of really useless stuff, mostly, but I remember it.” Near was looking at him as if he was talking rubbish, which Mello realised, he was. “Science books mostly, and fairy stories, but I like studying Biology.”

Near held up his pad. Law and philosophy. Fairy stories?

“I suffer from an overactive imagination,” Mello explained. “And neither of my parents would let me read them either, so when I got the chance to, I took it.”

Near smiled faintly. Mello was strange, but he was pleasant enough, and he wasn’t too loud either. He was also intelligent, but unlike some of the other kids, he acted as if it were completely natural. Near liked him.

“Hey Near?” Mello asked. Near had just been about to get into bed, but he paused and looked over to where Mello was standing, now dressed in an oversized black T Shirt and loose black shorts. He looked much younger than he had before.

“Can we be friends?” Mello asked. He looked nervous. “I’ve never had a friend before, so I’ll probably suck at it – “

Near’s shoulders were shaking with silent laughter again. He nodded, smiling over at Mello, who grinned back at him.

He was happy.

Mello Near

It was strange, having a friend around my own age, and I was right: I did suck at it. Quite badly, in fact, but Near had had so few friends that I don’t think he even noticed. We are very different people, and that led to fights – have you ever had an argument with a mute boy? You’d be surprised how easy it is to lose, or maybe that’s just Near. I was certainly the only kid in the orphanage with enough pig-headedness to try.

But despite the arguments – we still have them – we got along pretty well. I would defend him from the other kids, and he would let me hang around with him. In class we would compete for the top spot – the little bastard always beat me too – and behind the scenes, hidden from the others, we would compete for the position of L’s successor.

Ah, but you don’t know how that came about yet, now do you? Well, that’s a story for another day.

Fic - Lawliet - 5a/?

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:29:45 GMT

Title: Lawliet
Chapter: 5a/?
Author: Evandar / yamievandar / hikarievandar
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note and I make no money from writing this FanFic.
Warnings: AU, yaoi, shonen-ai, shota.
Spoilers: L's real name and Mello and Near's existence.
Summary: Lawliet is an autistic, genius super-detective, hidden from the world under the moniker of L; Light is an indigo child struggling under the expectations of his family; Mello is a Mafia brat who wants both to get out and keep his life; Near is a mute orphan ripped from everything he knows by the horrific death of his father. When fate throws them together, the consequences will echo around the world.
Notes: Yeah, let's not even go into how long it took me to post this.

Prologue, 1, 2, 3, 4

The Wammy House,

November 1994

Near was bored. He had been through every single puzzle he was given – and of course, he was only given the ones that were suitable for children his age. He had read a good quarter of the children’s fiction books held in the Wammy House library too. Now he was left with only his toys for company – the other children had started to ignore him when they discovered that he couldn’t talk and that he would not go outside – and he was lonely.

He was sitting by the window of the playroom, ignoring as best he could the sunlight glaring off the thick blanket of snow that covered the grounds, and the shrieks of the children playing in it. Instead, he fixed his attention on the model in his hand. He had built the figure a castle to rescue another doll from, only he was thinking of a new and more entertaining way for his hero to die in vain. Again.

When the other children had realised just what his games involved, they had started avoiding him even more. Near supposed that they found him creepy, but he didn’t really mind.

He didn’t bother looking up when the door to the playroom opened. He assumed it was one of the other kids, coming to collect something to take out into the snow. In fact, the newcomer only got a reaction when his long-toed bare feet stopped right in front of Near’s Lego castle.

Near studied the figure in front of him, curious as to who the older boy was. He was quite tall – or at least he looked like it from the perspective of a three-year-old sitting on the floor – and he dressed simply in a long sleeved white T Shirt and blue jeans. He looked decidedly unkempt: his clothes were wrinkled and his hair was an untidy mess of wild black spikes, but his eyes looked alert and intelligent, even though they were ringed with dark circles that stood out like bruises against the stranger’s pale skin. Near realised that the strange boy’s skin was almost as pale as his own, which was highly unusual. He realised that the other boy mustn’t go outside very often either.

The other boy crouched down in front of him, staying on the other side of the castle, folding his long legs up to his chest and resting his chin on his knees. His left hand found its way to his mouth, and he gripped the tip of his thumb lightly between his teeth.

Near reached for his pen and his pad of paper. He had been asked to carry them around in case anyone wanted to talk to him. So far, no one had spoken to him, apart from a token “hey Near” from a couple of the older kids. This would be the first time Near would start a conversation of his own will, but he was very curious as to who the older boy was, and why he was staring at Near’s toys in that way.

Hello. I’m Near. Who are you?

The older boy blinked and glanced up at Near. Then recognition dawned in his eyes and he removed his thumb from his mouth long enough to speak.

“My name is Ryuzaki,” he said. He had a faint – very, very faint – accent that Near recognised, but couldn’t place. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Watari told me he had adopted a boy who couldn’t speak – it’s through psychological trauma, isn’t it?”

Watari?

“That’s Mr Wammy’s other name,” Ryuzaki told him. “I’m the only one who’s supposed to call him that, though.”

Mr Wammy…Near had hardly seen him since they had arrived at the orphanage together in September. He had left shortly afterwards, and had not returned yet. Although, considering that Ryuzaki hadn’t been at the orphanage either, it was logical to presume that they had been together at least some of the time.

When Mr Wammy leaves the Wammy House, is he with you?

“Yes,” the older boy replied simply. “We work together all over the world, but we come back here every so often.”

Near paused before writing his next question. He didn’t want to nose too far into the other boy’s business: it was nice talking to someone for one, and Ryuzaki didn’t seem to be frightened of his eyes like the other children were.

What do you do?

“That’s a secret,” Ryuzaki told him, a gentle smile twisting his features. He looked strange when he smiled, Near thought, though it was comforting to know that he wasn’t angry.

“What are you playing?” Ryuzaki asked.

Near prodded his hero in the back, and watched as the model fell from the top of the battlements and into the moat, only to be shot at by Storm Troopers. Ryuzaki raised an eyebrow.

“Isn’t the hero supposed to succeed in his mission?” Ryuzaki asked.

Yes. But I haven’t found a good enough hero yet.

Ryuzaki looked down at the model. “I see,” he said quietly. “Then maybe you should have your hero use his brain rather than his muscles.”

Near looked down at the model too: it was He-Man from the cartoon series; a hero that Near couldn’t identify with in the slightest. He picked the model up and placed it in the toy box by his side.

Who can I use then?

Ryuzaki grinned. “Why don’t you learn how to make your own?” he suggested.

“Ryuzaki,” said a deep, familiar voice from the doorway.

Both boys looked up to see Mr Wammy standing there, a smile half obscured by his large moustache, watching them closely. Ryuzaki sighed softly and stood. He shuffled out of the room – he didn’t lift his feet very far off the ground, and his jeans made scuffing noises against the wooden floor – but he glanced back at Near before he left. He waved one slender, bony hand in farewell, and when Near returned the gesture, he placed his thumb between his teeth again and left.

Near stared after him. He felt strange, and he suddenly realised that he had just made a friend. He smiled faintly and grabbed a jigsaw: his princess could wait until a better hero had been made.

L Near

“So what do you think of him?” Watari asked, as he walked along side the young detective.

“He is definitely of above average intelligence for someone of his age,” Ryuzaki replied. “Although his inability to speak would present an awkward issue for his Watari.”

“It would be entirely possible, however, to adapt to; it is also possible that his voice might come back,” Watari said.

“True,” Ryuzaki admitted. “And I do like him.”

“Your decision?” Watari prompted.

“I don’t feel comfortable with naming an heir quite yet,” Ryuzaki told him. “For one, I plan to live quite a while longer, and besides, children often show promise in childhood that peters out as they get older, and even if, in Near’s case, it didn’t, he is still far too young to take over from me if things go wrong.

“So I will not name him as my heir quite yet. I will watch him for now, but I will also keep the position open to other children in the Wammy House.”

“That seems fair,” Watari agreed.

Ryuzaki gave him that strange little smile of his and led the way down the corridor to the kitchens, no doubt going in search of his favourite food: cake. As he trailed after the young detective, he wondered if Ryuzaki had realised that he now referred to himself as an adult, and if he did, what Ryuzaki thought of it.

L Near

The Wammy House

August 1995

It was his birthday. Near hadn’t told anyone – no one was interested, so why should he? – so it was with understandable surprise that he received a small parcel. It was handed to him by Roger, eliciting a few curious looks from some of the other orphans before they returned to their breakfasts. Some of the girls started whispering, but Near ignored them. He ignored the package too, preferring to leave it until he was alone to open it.

He opened it during his lunch break, sitting on his bed, in his room. All the other children were playing outside, the familiar sounds of their shrieks and laughs drifting in through the open window, though they were muffled by the still-drawn curtains. Near had always thought it ironic that he had been born in August, when he could barely tolerate the bright summer sun for just a few minutes.

The parcel contained parts for making a doll, which made Near raise an eyebrow in confusion until he remembered the conversation he had had with Ryuzaki shortly after his arrival at the Wammy House. His mood brightened instantly: he hadn’t seen Ryuzaki since then, and it was good to know that he hadn’t been forgotten after all. He looked through the torn wrapping paper for a message of some sort, and found a folded up piece of computer paper.

Near,

I hope you like the present. I understand that receiving it might come as a surprise to you, but I wanted to give you something, so I tracked down your birth certificate to find out when your birthday was. Unfortunately, work prevented me from getting the chance to send you something last year; I hope you can forgive me for that.

I hope you are dong well and studying hard. I know how lonely the Wammy House can be for people who do not fit in (Roger said that you didn’t have any friends and that you were probably missing social interaction). If you would like, you can email me while I am away. Security reasons dictate that I cannot include my email address in this letter, but if you ask Roger and show him this letter then he will give it to you. All of the computers at the Wammy House are secure, so don’t worry about using them.

Ryuzaki

He had doodled a panda after his name, and there was a sketchy drawing of a birthday cake in the top-right corner of the paper. Near counted, and smiled when the number of candles on the cake added up to five.

He wasn’t sure what to think of Ryuzaki’s overly formal manner, or of the blunt way he had described Near’s social life – or lack thereof, but it was nice, Near decided, to have received something from him.

He folded the letter carefully and placed it in the breast pocket of the pyjamas that he always wore. Carefully, he placed the box of doll-parts in the top drawer of his bedside table, alongside the silver crucifix that had once been his mother’s and left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. Taking a deep, nervous breath, he made his way to Roger’s office.

He had a friend.

Go to Part B