An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: The god of pain and the god of money fight over their sovereignty in a hospital room.
Rating: Teens and Up
Pairing: Kakuzu/Hidan
You can read the fic on AO3 or under the cut!
For eons, pain has been the driving force of life. Every living being knew pain and every living being did all it possible could to avoid it. But sooner or later, Hidan caught them all. He loved the game, loved the chase, the spike of adrenaline and the quickening heartbeat when he finally materialized in their presence.
So maybe it came as no surprise that the gods of comfort, well-being and happiness all hated him – most gods did. He hurt their beloved creatures, stifled growth, interrupted the systems they were all so keen on protecting. Hidan’s arrival meant something was wrong, terribly wrong, and gods, especially old gods, did not like being disturbed.
Even death disliked him. All people wished for was for him to come alone, without Hidan. But more often than not, the two of them were inseparable, the mention of one made humans immediately think of the other and sometimes, when Hidan had been there long enough, they begged for his companion to arrive as well.
Life – life was difficult. She liked him way more than she led on, was grateful for his presence when he allowed her to continue her work, allowed her to ward off her relentless twin by reminding humans of her value. Hidan might be as annoying and as loud as a smoke detector and just as hard to ignore, but he saved endlessly more lives.
As much as the other gods disliked him, he was one of the old ones. Maybe not an ancient one, like stone and heat, but not far behind. Definitely much, much older than Kakuzu. Kakuzu was a man-made god, a second-tier being fully dependent on the concept of civilization to survive. Pathetic. Utterly useless.
Which was why he found it hard to accept that the god of money was currently looming over him, taller and broader and stronger than the god of pain. Dark and unyielding, legs rooted firmly to the ground, he appeared reliable and stable, stable enough to count on, especially in contrast to Hidan’s wavering form in front of him, flicking in and out of existence in time with the rhythmical beeping of the heart monitor in the room.
But Hidan knew better. Knew of Kakuzu’s fickle nature, his erratic temper, subjugated to fluxes and waves. Instable and insatiable, he was only worth as much as humans believed he was worth. He had to listen to their every whim – although Hidan had to admit that Kakuzu had done an admirable job at obscuring this fact in the last centuries, inverting the power imbalance in his relationship with those sickening creatures.
“You’re such a pain in the ass,” he grumbled. Every so often, his body turned translucent, even vanishing from the room for a few fleeting moments, only to return with the same angry glare as before.
The tall figure before him emitted a low chuckle.
“What?” Hidan snapped, irritated.
“Don’t you see the irony in that sentence? You don’t even know what pain feels like.”
The god of pain scoffed. “I know pain. I understand it intimately. In all its shapes and colors and disguises.”
Kakuzu shook his head slowly. “You know it. You don’t feel it. Not like we do.”
Hidan flinched, his mind racing back to love punching him in the face, tears streaming down their face as they screamed at him that he didn’t know what damage he was causing, couldn’t possibly know, would never know, not as they did. It was an uncomfortable memory.
“You think you’re tough shit just because the filthy humans are already treating you like a god without even knowing that you actually are one,” the god of pain spit.
“But you know what? They will die. They will get too greedy and they will fight and they will die. And you will die with them. Nobody will be around to remember you. Or use you. Or understand you.”
Kakuzu shrugged, unfaced. “Even hell runs on money.”
“It runs on pain and you know it,” Hidan countered.
Ever since the privatization of hospitals, their spheres of influence had started to overlap immensely and Hidan had to look at that ugly mug more and more often. That horrifying, disfigured mug that grew more monstrous every day. He still remembered a young Kakuzu from a few millennials ago, a sweet, curious deity with shining eyes, still amazed by the things he could do, and his heart did something it was not supposed to do.
“Her family paid for her treatment. Your reign here is over,” Kakuzu proclaimed.
Hidan bared his teeth, seething, knowing full well that he would not be able to overpower the god of money right now, but unwilling to admit it.
“If I’m strong enough, they will give as much of you away as they can just to make me stop,” he hissed.
“They will also go through excruciating amounts of you just to get to me,” Kakuzu countered.
The impertinence! Clenching his hands, the god of pain wanted nothing more than to bury his fist in that strong, ugly jaw and wipe the smirk of that handsome, hideous face. Kakuzu would feel the impact – he wouldn’t.
“Greedy bastard.”
Gritting his teeth, Hidan slowly extracted his essence from the hospital room. Another loss.
At some point in the future, money would die a painful death and Hidan would be there, watching Kakuzu fade from this realm, ignoring the piercing sensation in his chest that had never been there before and that he should not be able to feel.
