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Kakuzu had heard of the effects that the sacred clans' poison laced weapons could have, even to the unkillable. Kakuzu had told his partner as such, but to no-ones surprise, Hidan rarely listened. And as he saw one of their arrows pierce his partner's stomach, he felt as if time had frozen.
Finishing off the last of the clan, Kakuzu rushed over to his partner's side, lifting his silver head off the dirty ground.
“Hidan! Dumbass, I warned you!”
Grasping the arrow with his trembling hands, Hidan groaned.
“Get off my ass Kakuzu! I was being careful.”
Kakuzu mumbled swears under his breath as he went through his options. He knew removing the arrow would be fatal. Could this even kill Hidan? Even the tought of it made him shiver. He didn’t want to find out. He started blocking the blood flow, and securing the arrow to stay in place.
“Wha… You’re over reacting! It’s not like I’ll die of… this…”
Hidan barked, trying to get off the ground, only to falter back down. His fiery additude was slowing down.
“Don’t move!”
Kakuzu growled, forcefully pressing his palm down on the mans bleeding stomach.
“What’s… What’s happening to me…”
Why did he sound so broken? Kakuzu had never seen him like this. It felt… wrong.
“Hidan…”
“K… Kuzu… ths feelng… I…”
Soon his body went rigid, seizing. Throwup gurgling in his mouth and leaking down his cheeks. His eyes rolled up to his head.
“Hidan! Hey!”
Kakuzu panicked. Quickly turning his partner to lay on his side so he didn’t choke. This couldn’t be happening.
As quickly as it started, it was over. Hidan's body went limp, head lolling on Kakuzu's forearm. His eyes were cracked open, but it was clear he wasn’t fully conscious. His heartbeats felt weaker and weaker by the minute. The older man choked back tears, as his fingers dug into his partner's straight hair, curling up into a trembling fist. This wasn’t a feeling he was used to.
“H… Hidan? Can you hear me?”
Was that a quiver in his voice? Why did he care? Why wasn’t Hidan responding?
“Answer me goddammit!”
Kakuzu roared out, to no response.
Kakuzu had never felt such fear since he was a child. He didn’t know he was even able to feel such terror, but as he ran through the bushland, with his partner hanging unconscious on his arms, he knew what true fear felt like.
Hidan had started going pale, his skin becoming clammy and cold. Despite Kakuzu's rushed efforts, the tourniquet was practically useless at this point, as the blood was starting to bleed through. Hidan's face was the most terrifying part. His eyes were glazed over, not really focusing on anything. His mouth was left partly agape, saliva dripping down his slack jaw. He looked lifeless. He felt lifeless.
Kakuzu's stoic facade had long since faded, as he rushed towards the closest village.
“Open your gates!”
Kakuzu yelled out, exhausted, as the gates of a tiny village appeared amidst the woods.
“Open your gates, now!”
After what felt like an eternity, the wooden gates cracked open, a couple of guards held their spears pointed at the two, reasonably weary. Kakuzu had to do his best to keep his rage under control, feeling his threads shifting underneath his skin. Tightening his hold on his partner, Kakuzu pleaded.
“He needs help, let us in.”
One of the guards pointed his spear up.
“Where are you from? Those robes look unfamiliar!”
Shit, their Akatsuki robes. In his panic Kakuzu had totally forgotten about them. Lucky for him, it seemed that the guards of this distant village seemed to not have heard of Akatsuki's infamy.
“We’re just poor travellers. These are just clothes we’ve found, not belonging to anyone.”
He could feel Hidan's heartbeat getting weaker and weaker. Why couldn’t the guards just believe him? Could he get help faster if he just killed the guards, and slipped past the gates? The guards still seemed suspicious, not lowering their weapons. He was running out of time, Kakuzu had to get rid of these damn guards.
Just as Kakuzu reached his wits end, a woman peaked through the gates. She looked like a doctor.
“What in gods name are you idiots doing!?”
She got the guards' attention quickly, they seemed embarrassed.
They bickered for a few seconds, until eventually they lowered their weapons, and the woman led the zombie duo in. There was urgency in her voice as she spoke.
“What happened to him? When did he faint?”
She had a firm hold on Hidan's wrist, as she both tried to feel for a pulse, and was leading them towards what Kakuzu assumed to be a med bay.
“He lost consciousness I’d say half an hour ago. I’m positive it’s poisoned.”
They entered a small dim house, as the woman opened the curtains, lighting the room up a bit, Kakuzu could see wall long cabinets with the bottles and jars of different medicine and herbs covering every wall of the tights space. In the far right of the room was a white bed, in which the woman instructed Kakuzu to lay down his partner.
“If the arrow is poisoned, we need to remove it immediately, but he's lost a lot of blood, so we’ll have to be careful.”
The woman looked hesitant, not really sure of how to go about the situation. Kakuzu looked to Hidan. He looked lifeless, the only sign of life left in him was his barely rising chest. The movements so slow and limited that it was barely registering. They didn’t have a lot of time.
Kakuzu kneeled down next to the bed as the doctor was gathering different bottles and gauze. A thin black thread slithered from Kakuzu's sleeve hovering over the arrow. The woman gasped, almost dropping her tools.
“Hurry and pull it out, I’ll soe it shut as you pull!”
Kakuzu yelled. There was no time for fucking around.