Summary: Hunting for bounties, Hidan and Kakuzu find themselves in the Valley of Lies. But what is the secret behind this valley…?
“So ya see, killing is the basis of the Jashin faith. “Thou shalt slaughter thy neighbor”, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, rip their hearts out from the left of their bodies”. And there other exemplary sayings like…”
After the, as Kakuzu put it, “excessively long” ritual had ended, and the unique markings on Hidan’s body had disappeared, Hidan, with passion blazing in his eyes, began preaching the teachings of the Jashin faith to Hohozuki, who had watched over Hidan the entire ritual.
“Um, killing people actually saves them, right? But, do I need to be strong to kill people?”
“Damn right. Otherwise you’d get killed instead and you wouldn’t be able to spread the grand teachings of the Jashin faith to the rest of the world. I was granted immortality, upon the multitudes of sacrifices we followers had made, so we could keep the teachings of the Jashin faith going forever.”
It’d been a long time since Hidan had spoken about the doctrines of the Jashin faith. As he continued speaking, he got increasingly fired up. But, there was someone who was getting increasingly cold.
“…I’m sick of listening to you two talk. Give it a rest already.”
Kakuzu had tossed the corpse of the bounty to the foot of the tree stump and had sat down on it himself. He’d shut up and ignored the conversation taking place, but was finally complaining.
“Fuck you! How many days did you make me tag along with you on this little side job? This ain’t shit compared to that! Besides, you’ve already gotten what you wanted!” Hidan yelled, pointing at the corpse.
At that, Kakuzu shook his head. “This guy’s family’s got bounties, too.”
“’the fuck you mean…?”
“You’re slow on the uptake… I’m saying we have to look for this guy’s family, too.”
“…’the fuck?!”
Hidan had thought the only thing left for them do was get out of the forest, but apparently the game was going into extra innings.
“You can’t be fucking serious! We took a fuck-lot number of days just to find this fucker! I ain’t walking around no more!” Hidan wanted out, out of this damned forest in which he could barely conduct a decent ritual.
“You’re an idiot,” Kakuzu said.
“Who the fuck you calling an idiot!?”
“The fact that the bounty was here, means his nest is close.”
“Nest?”
“He probably lives someplace near here. There’s a high chance his family will be there.”
And then, Kakuzu looked at Hohozuki.
“Hey, kid. Where’d you come from?”
“Huh? Me?”
“There’s no way a kid like you would be living alone here, in a forest so deep within the mountains. Is there a hidden village in these parts?”
Hohozuki hesitated, his eyes shifting from side to side. But when Hidan asked, “Well?”, he nodded, honest.
“Yes, there is… It’s the village I’m from… It’s right over there,” Hohozuki said, pointing his finger in the direction of the village. It was the same direction Hidan and Kakuzu had come from.
“What? We came from there, and there wasn’t no village.”
“But, but, but there is!”
It didn’t appear as though he was lying. When Hidan turned his confused eyes to Kakuzu, Kakuzu grabbed the corpse lying at his feet and lifted it up, revealing the corpse’s face, stained with dirt and blood.
“Was he from that village too?”
Hohozuki did not shy away from the corpse, but instead neared it to confirm the bounty’s identity.
His narrowed his eyebrows, squinted his big eyes, and thought long and hard. But, in the end, he simply cocked his head in puzzlement.
“Um, I think he might be from the village… I don’t remember seeing him around, though.”
“Is the village that big?”
“No, not at all. Generally speaking, I know the faces of all the villagers. If this man was in the village, I’d know him too, but…”
He knew the faces of the villagers, and he believed this man was from the village as well, but could not remember him. Hohozuki was contradicting himself. The existence of the village, in the first place, was highly suspicious. Hohozuki could probably understand that much.
“Um, if you want to go to the village, I’ll guide you there!”
It seemed he was trying to dispel that suspicion.
“Aight.”
Hidan was all for giving it a quick look, but Kakuzu was cautious.
“This bounty of ours… You’ve witnessed us killing him—him, a man from your own village. And you know we plan to kill his family as well. Why, would you still help us?”
“Well, because! I wanna join the Jashin faith! To be honest, I’ve never really liked that village anyway…”
Hohozuki was holding some mud balls and he was fiddling with them restlessly.
“So you hate your village, eh?”
“Yeah… Actually, my village has these shared beliefs that are a lot like religion.”
“Shared beliefs?”
“Wipe out the past, live in happiness; that’s the basis of it. To forget everything that’s not happy. To love peace, to change this place into paradise on earth.”
“Huh, I see. Matches up pretty well with my own religion, huh.”
“Yeah, exactly!” Hohozuki piped up at Hidan’s words. “It was a friend who told me to live there, so I put up with it for his sake. But when I saw you, Hidan-san, living the way you did even with the pain of death carved on your body, it hit me! That I want to live the same way you do! So, please, believe me!”
Hohozuki stared Hidan straight in the eye.
“…first, we’ll have you bring us to the village. We’ll believe you after that,” Kakuzu said from the side, and Hohozuki nodded.
With the tree stump as the start point, the young boy started walking south.
“What’re we gonna do, Kakuzu?” Hidan asked Kakuzu, sounding less than excited, as they followed behind Hohozuki.
“We’ve come this far. We’re going to collect all the money we can get.”
“Ugh, it’s always money, money, money, with you!”
Was there really a village up ahead, as Hohozuki had said. And would the family Kakuzu was targeting be there.
Hidan was completely uninterested in money, but if there was a village there, he’d be able to conduct a massacre.
These past few days, he’d only repented and confessed his sins, without offering any sacrifices to Lord Jashin. If he could make up for that now, that would be good enough for Hidan.
End of Chapter 2