• Mitsuko entered the scrollery and began searching for scrolls on necromancy. She was glad that she was able to ditch Hidan before he saw her crying. All she wanted to do was get this over with and get him on his way out of her life.

    There weren't many scrolls on necromancy as it was forbidden to practice but stupidly, you could study it freely. Mitsuko smirked and thanked whoever made that law as she unrolled the scroll in a private corner and studied it carefully and thoroughly. She would use this jutsu in case her cell theory didn't work. But suddenly she thought about the cells. How would she do the transfer?

    "Hey, have you seen a cute little girl about this high and she wears a green vest?" Hidan asked random people as they passed by but they all shook their head. He was beginning to get worried because she seemed upset at the time and anything can happen when you're angry. He had to find her. "Mitsuko!" he called for her.

    She heard her name being called but didn't respond. She was busy helping him. This would be the last time she would help him. Mitsuko rolled the scroll up and returned it to its original spot before going to track the idiot down.

    Hidan stopped at a large building that posed significance. Maybe Mitsuko ran here? He opened the large wooden doors and began his search.

    "That idiot..." Mitsuko muttered as she blinked, trying to stop the tears. Hidan was gone where she had heard him stop. He was probably out looking for her, his friend.

    "Your silver-haired friend is looking for you," a woman stopped her on the street.

    "Oh, thank you!" Mitsuko replied, her eyes watering. He was asking people if they had seen her! She was thankful for that, at least.

    Hidan found himself in an empty room, the walls lined with beds. He saw body-like lumps under the sheets. These were dead people! He had an idea what this meant and he started at the first bed, pulling back the cover so he could see the faces.

    As Mitsuko was looking for Hidan, she was wondering how she was going to find Kakuzu's body. If Tsunade-sama had performed an autopsy on him when her father was young, and Kakuzu was as fascinating as her father described him, then surely they would have kept his body for future research. But would they keep him in the main building where Tsunade-sama had performed the autopsy? Or did they take him to an exchange point? She couldn't think of any other places this Kakuzu could be so she headed in the direction of the main building.

    Hidan approached the last bed. He felt that Kakuzu wasn't here and that he was lost to him forever. Every cover he had pulled back, he felt closer to finding his old partner but this, the last one, he felt that it wasn't him. He stopped at the side of the bed and stared down at it, praying to Jashin that it was Kakuzu. With a deep breath he moved to pull back the covers. He thought about how he would piss himself if Kakuzu reached up and grabbed him as he pulled the covers back. Slowly, he peeled them back to reveal raggedy brown hair laying against the pillow. He had never seen Kakuzu's hair before so he couldn't say right away that it was him. He swallowed hard as the covers came off the forehead and then revealed bright green eyes staring back at him.

    "Kakuzu!" Hidan screamed, jumping back and wetting himself.

    Mitsuko heard the sudden scream and followed some of the servants to a morgue like room. As the servants swung the metal doors open, they found no one there. Nothing had been disturbed in the room either.

    She shrugged and started to head out with the rest when suddenly, she heard someone whisper her name. She looked up at the ceiling to stare into the handsome face of Hidan as he smiled and waved at her, laying on the back of a flourescent light.

    "Hidan... You idiot," Mitsuko wiped a tear from her eye as the door slammed shut and he jumped from the ceiling and landed behind her.

    "I found him!" he said excitedly as he took her hand and led her to the last bed. He pulled back the covers and had to hold Mitsuko's mouth so she wouldn't scream.

    The first thing she noticed was the neon green eyes that hadn't been closed. Around the eyes was greasy brown hair like animal's hair. Hidan had pulled the covers down to the collarbone but that was enough to see the freak that Kakuzu was. Stitches across his throat, around his shoulders and at the corners of his mouth. He had no lips, he was like a sock puppet. Those eyes... Mitsuko looked away as they struck fear in the very pit of her soul and caused her to shiver throughout her body.

    "Hey, it's okay. Just Kakuzu's body. Not like he's alive or anything. That would be a different story. He's much scarier when he's alive," Hidan turned her back around so she could stare into his partner's face more.

    "Then I don't want to revive him," Mitsuko muttered, scared to open her eyes.

    "But don't you want to get rid of me?" Hidan asked her, staring down at her with sadness. He still couldn't believe she wanted him gone. He thought she was his friend.

    "Yeah but... Kakuzu is so scary," Mitsuko opened her eyes and looked up at Hidan, "Will he kill me?"

    "I won't let him," Hidan laid his hand on her shoulder. She felt like breaking down and crying.

    "Really?" she mumbled, trembling at his touch. Hidan nodded with a small smile.

    Mitsuko turned to face Kakuzu's body. She would start from the basics, doing various techniques to heal and revive someone. She carefully pulled back the covers and closed her eyes as she put her hands on the stitched up chest. It felt like leather and her skin crawled. She formed a mental picture of her energy flowing through her into Kakuzu's heart. After a minute, it failed. She began to search for impurities in his body but it was so dead and so old. But she had to do this so Hidan could leave her alone.

    She thought really hard, picturing the microscopic cells in her body flowing through her little hands into Kakuzu's body. After a long flow, she felt a spark of life but only for a second. She became really excited and tried again for a longer session.

    "He reeks of old people," Hidan said as he held his nose.

    Mitsuko sighed and concentrated harder. Her head began to hurt for thinking so small. She got to the point that she was dizzy and had to stop. It was time to perform the necromancy jutsu.

    "Do you need help?" Hidan asked her when she noticed her supporting herself on the bedside. She shook her head. She didn't want his help.

    Mitsuko went through the signs in her head and quickly went through them with her hands before reciting the spell. Hidan stepped back, it didn't sound at all good.

    At the end of the spell, Mitsuko placed her two hands on Kakuzu's chest and pressed down, as if performing CPR. A dark energy rose in the room and the lights flickered above them. They heard the machinery in other rooms buzz off for a second and come back to life with a hum. Mitsuko fell to the cold, aquamarine tiled floor on her rear and buried her head in her hands.

    It didn't work. Noting had happened. Hidan sensed her disappointment and knelt down beside her.

    "It's okay, I can leave without him. He probably wouldn't want to come with me anyways," Hidan tried to cheer her up. "I just wish we could have been friends."

    Mitsuko didn't reply. She had tried to help him but didn't succeed. Now she had no reason to have any kind of contact with him. She wanted him to leave her alone with the dead bodies until she felt like leaving herself. The more he was around, the more she liked him. But he didn't like her, that was the problem.