Hidan's immortality isn't particularly outstanding among all anime characters; after all, it's just immortality, and his regeneration and recovery are virtually nonexistent. He can't even compare with members of the Senju and Uzumaki clans. However, in Naruto he is the only character who can survive even after being decapitated. It's just unclear whether, like a cockroach, he could live for seven days until he starved to death.
In the Dragon Ball world, Cell and Majin Buu leave him far behind in terms of immortality—by miles.
But Meruem wasn't interested in that so-called immortality.
In sheer tenacity of life, the Chimera Ants are not much worse than Hidan's immortality. Their recovery ability even surpasses his. In the original story, there were Chimera Ants who survived after being decapitated.
Namely, the merfolk siblings who fought Killua.
Even the Ant King recovered after being burned to a crisp. So Meruem didn't pay much attention to Hidan's so-called immortality.
What caught Meruem's eye was Hidan's other ability, that damage-transfer technique.
This kind of ability is very potent for ambush play. Although it's unclear whether it works on everyone, if Meruem could master it, he'd have another trump card.
As long as he acquires the opponent's blood, he can shift damage onto the target. Even among the bizarre, adaptable Nen abilities, this counts as extremely powerful, with significant constraints, of course. Although it used to require cumbersome rites, Meruem could try to refine it.
Even if he couldn't ultimately master it, Meruem wouldn't pass up any chance to become stronger.
"There's a scent of blood up ahead." A Chimera Ant's sense of smell is extraordinarily keen; after all, their species incorporates traits from all animals and beasts.
They could smell blood from dozens of miles away, never mind that Yugakure was right before their eyes.
"Kill, kill, kill! Die, die, die! Ahahahaha, I'll offer you all to Lord Jashin!" In Yugakure, a young man with silvery-gray hair brandished a long, massive scythe as he madly slaughtered the village's other shinobi.
Yugakure had once been a second-tier hidden village, but over time its rich natural resources made most residents favor peace, and wars had already sapped much of its fighting strength, so there were few high-ranking shinobi left.
Its strongest fighter was only jōnin level. While Hidan was not considered powerful within Akatsuki, in the current Yugakure he was utterly unmatched.
"Hidan, do you know what you're doing? Why are you doing this?" A middle-aged man who looked like a leader faced him down—the strongest in Yugakure at the moment.
"Heh-heh, hahahahaha, of course I know what I'm doing—offering you all to Lord Jashin! Thank me! Thank me! Why am I doing it? Because your love of peace makes me sick. Die, die, die! I need more blood!" Hidan wove through the Yugakure shinobi, swinging his huge scythe.
It was a one-sided massacre; none of the shinobi around could withstand even a single move from Hidan.
"What's gotten into Hidan? Since when did he become this strong?" They had no idea Hidan wasn't the same as before—or rather, this was his true nature. He was the only survivor of the Jashinists' experiments.
Against these fallen Yugakure shinobi, Hidan couldn't even be bothered to use the curse. With his enhanced body alone he crushed them.
When the last Yugakure shinobi fell beneath Hidan's massive scythe, he finally wore a strange, satisfied expression.
"You've wasted enough time and had your fun. Come with me to Amegakure now. As agreed, you must join this organization." A pitcher-plant-like creature burrowed up from the ground before Hidan.
One of Akatsuki's members—White Zetsu.
"Heh-heh-heh, you and that spiral-masked guy said the organization has lots of powerful elites, right? And I can kill as I please, right? Lord Jashin will love it. I'm really looking forward to this. But something this weak is also a member? If I find out you're lying, I'll wipe you out like I did those useless 'followers' of Lord Jashin." Though the Jashinists created Hidan, he soon turned on them. They weren't strong to begin with and tried to control him, so he slaughtered them all as an offering. Hidan himself was monstrously bloodthirsty.
Hidan could be called the cult's sole survivor now.
"I'm just a clone. All right, someone will come pick you up shortly—a guy who hides half his face under a hood. He'll be your partner. As for how strong he is? Try him yourself. If he's too weak, kill him. But here's a tip: try not to get yourself killed." White Zetsu let out an unsettling laugh and sank into the earth again.
"Don't die? Interesting. If he's that strong, I'll offer him to Lord Jashin. Lord Jashin will praise me, right? He will." Hidan wasn't yet the Hidan from the tailed-beast hunt; he had only recently been modified, and his emotions were extremely unstable. He often lost control. Before this, he'd just been an ordinary Yugakure shinobi—not much better than a Konoha ninja who only knew the Three Basic Techniques—and a sudden surge of power tends to cause instability.
But after teaming up with Kakuzu and a period of…discipline, he'd settle down. Against Kakuzu, Hidan's strength wasn't much; more precisely, his techniques were completely hard-countered by Kakuzu.
He would need to perform Jashin's ritual at least five times to kill Kakuzu, and in that span Kakuzu would have taken his head off countless times.
"Mm! $$^o^)/~ Found him~ Is this the guy we're after? Doesn't look like much." Not long after White Zetsu vanished, the Chimera squad arrived in Yugakure.
The moment they entered, they saw Hidan's striking, silvery-gray hair.
"So noisy. You the one picking me up? Why are there so many of you? Wasn't there supposed to be just one? Eh, whatever. That white guy said if you're weaker than me it's fine to kill you on the spot." Hidan looked impatient, digging in his left ear while resting the scythe on his right shoulder, sizing up Jidu and the others.
"(⊙o⊙) Oooh~ Naru, this kid's even more arrogant than you—look, look. Is he your relative or something?" The clownish leopard Jidu seemed eager for chaos, pointing at Hidan as he spoke to Naru.
Naru and Hidan looked nothing alike; if anything, Hidan's temperament was closer to Jidu's.
"Idiot. Hurry up and take care of him. If you won't, I will. The King's waiting." Naru shot Jidu a look of disgust and snapped.
Teaming with Jidu was killing him; the late-stage motor-mouth leopard had world-class annoyance skills.
"Nooo o(>﹏<)o It's rare I get to go out—I want to play more. Leave this guy to me!" Jidu hurried to say, clearly not taking Hidan seriously at all.
"Hey, you bearded freak over there—since you're so eager to die, Lord Hidan will send you on your way. Lord Jashin will surely like you." By the way, is it really okay to keep calling one's own deity an "evil god"? No matter how vile the deity, believers wouldn't call him that, would they? Shouldn't it be "true god"? Maybe it was just a verbal tic.
"Die!" Hidan swung his scythe swiftly at Jidu—but that was only swift by Hidan's standards. To Jidu, it was snail-slow.
"Whoa, dangerous, dangerous. Don't you know sudden attacks like that are dangerous?" Jidu easily leapt onto a branch to evade, squatting there and griping.
That tone sounded like mockery to Hidan, and he howled with rage.
But as Akatsuki's slowest, how could Hidan ever hit the speedster Jidu? That was the problem.
Jidu bounded across rooftops and branches as if teasing a monkey, taunting Hidan nonstop, while Hidan chased after him, scythe thrashing.
"Damn you, why can you run like that? Get down here! Fight me head-on!" Though Hidan's physique had improved after the modifications, he still couldn't compare with Jidu. Chimera Ant stamina was ridiculous, and Hidan lagged behind—especially with the heavy scythe weighing him down.
"Nyah-nyah! (￣┰￣*) If you've got the guts, come up here~ Can't hit me, can't hit me—heh, can! not! hit!" Jidu pulled faces from the rooftop as he taunted.
"Aaaaargh, I'm furious! I'll kill you!" Hidan howled again, driven mad by Jidu.
"I can't stand these two idiots," Naru muttered—unlike the two clowns, his patience had clearly reached its limit.
(End of Chapter)
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