My name is Kakuzu, and I have come to the conclusion that I am screwed.
My first mission outside in months and in front of me is a dead body that used to be my partner, Sasaki Kyoji, and the only thing I can think is that leader will be angry.
It was supposed to be a simple mission too. Get in, kill some people quietly, take the target's head, and get out.
But no, the stupid idiot had to decide that being a ninja meant screaming out as loudly as possible and leaving enough destruction a fucking blind man could feel his way through.
So I punched him as hard as I could and pulverized his heart with a chakra pulse that had him clawing at his chest before falling down like a sack of potatoes.
As much as I would like to say that it was an accident, I can't. Madara is smart enough that he can somehow figure out the slightest movement of my artificial body and somehow cross reference it with human anatomy, and his Sharingan lets him analyze any minute signal to betray guilt. It will be far better to just confess and get it over with.
"Shit," I let myself say out loud. "This is going to be troublesome."
Oh well. He was pretty famous and had a big bounty. This could be really profitable for me. I decided to seal the body in a storage scroll, and left the damn place.
A few days later, I found myself in one of Akatsuki's main hideouts. Facing me was Madara himself, with his lackey Pein standing beside him as always.
"You killed your target, but lost your partner. Why?" Madara asked camly.
"He was loud and obnoxious. So I killed him." No room for misinterpretation there right?
"Kakuzu, you are aware that this organization takes great pride in only keeping S Class Shinobi as possible recruits are you not? And that of the current 217 ninja meeting that elusive rank, 159 are spread out over various villages while the 20 are in hiding so deep, even our resources can't find them yes? And that of the remaining 38, there is a great chance that many of them would balk at joining forces with us?"
Of course I do. I'm a business man. I do simple math like this in my sleep, I wanted to say. Instead I just said "Yes, I know. My apologies."
He just glared at me through that spiral mask of his. Well, I assumed he was doing that. The mask did a good job of hiding any form of irritation I could find. Shame really, half the victory in these little psychological battles rely on being able to read your opponents and predicting their moods.
Madara just drummed his fingers on his desk for a bit, before saying with deceptive calm "Go to Orochimaru. Give the body to him, let him dissect the corpse for any techniques we can salvage. If he can't serve us in life, he can do it in death."
"Request permission to save the head for the bounty," I blurted out quickly.
More of that drumming on his desk.
"…Granted, but only if Orochimaru allows you to do so. Get out."
Damn. That left me with almost no chance to profit from this. It is almost impossible to drag that man away from the idea of cutting open a dead body to do who knows what with it. He might be doing anything from revolting things like trying to have sex with it, or going on to make the body start moving while missing its brain or something like that.
As much as I appreciate mad science after it showed me how to make myself damn near unkillable, it still leaves me uncomfortable.
The man himself was only a few chambers down, and as I walked inside, I saw both him and his partner talking together in a low conversation. Too low for me to overhear as a matter in fact.
I inwardly groaned to myself as I caught the sight of the infamous Sasori of the Red Sands. Bad enough that I was forced to hand over my partner's body to Orochimaru for analysis, but even worse now that I would have to deal with Sasori trying to claim the body as his own for puppet conversion. They make a good team, and it pisses me the hell off.
"Ahh, Kakuzu, what can I do for you?" Orochimaru asked in that odd lilting voice of his. His eyes flashed yellow and I could immediately tell that he already knew exactly what I came here for. I have to give the man credit, he may be a messed up figure, but if nothing else, he is always on top of things.
"Just dropping something off. A body for you. Madara asked if you could grab anything of value from him," I answered taking care to look him straight in the eye.
He didn't even so much as blink as he saw the corpse of my former partner.
"Oh most likely. All S Class ninja have modified existing jutsu for increased effectiveness or even invented a few by themselves. We're lucky here in that this one wasn't even from a big clan. No hidden seals to mess around with. I can have a quick copy in twenty minutes. An in depth look will take me the better part of 2 days," he said as he began to pull on some surgical gloves he no doubt kept on his person at all times.
And here I let the other shoe drop.
"I want the head," I said as I sneaked a quick glance at Sasori to see how he would respond.
Not even a twitch.
"Why whatever for Kakuzu? I can't imagine any reason you would want such a tasteless trophy," Orochimaru smirked. Behind him I was certain I heard a snort from the otherwise unmoving form of Sasori.
At this point my temper skyrocketed. I've been told before that I have an extremely short temper for a ninja. I can't really dispute that, but I am proud to say that I have come up with a defense for myself.
Ninja are highly militarized people with a clear cut chain of command. There is no room for misinterpretation, and even missing-nin know who tends to be the leader, and where their place in the food chain is.
However, I am unique in that I have also been working as a businessman in front of many civilians. After years of experience, I feel safe in saying this. There is nothing that will make you quite as angry as an annoying civilian who fails to understand simple language, and will insist on blundering through every situation. As a result of decades of this, my temper has shortened greatly. Part of the reason I have such a high body count even compared to some of my colleagues is due to the fact that the service industry will try you to depths you cannot comprehend and in fact, I have killed over 700 civilians during my rampages after dealing with their bouts of sheer stupidity.
Compounded with that is the fact that I am one of the oldest people alive in the world, and it is fact that with age comes short patience. It is also a fact that nothing is as annoying as a teenager or any other youth who think they know it all. Seeing a bunch of them try to flaunt their knowledge is trying to even the saints. Old age for some brings feebleness. For me it brought wrath and bloodshed. I suppose I got the better end of the deal there.
I did manage to find a way to cope with this. I keep a numerical tally of annoyances and compare it to my breaking point, which I set at 100. Different actions have different values, and should the totals go above that number, it is a good idea to stay away from me. Of course, there are ways to calm me down. Many people, especially ninja, possess things to relieve stress. Orochimaru, for example, has his experiments to calm him, Sasori his puppets, and I have murder and money. For obvious reasons, most people tend to send me large sums of money though a few send helpless lackeys to calm me down.
Random smirking counts as 20 points to me, and added to the fact that I had to deal with this sorry duo in front of me, the fact that I lost a great deal of commission after I killed my partner, the total had been reached. By all rights, I should have been killing him by now. But this was one of my colleagues, and I had the feeling that killing him would anger Madara even more seeing as I had just come out fresh from a mission with the blood of my partner.
So I decided to take a gentler approach.
What did I do you ask?
I punched him in the face.
Hard.
A caved in face is gentle compared to a missing heart right?
The sight of him flying across the cavern is a sight that will stay with me all my life. Too bad he caught himself and cushioned himself with chakra to turn his harsh landing to a controlled drop.
For his part, Orochimaru didn't look angry despite the fact that I had most likely broken what nose he had left, nor did Sasori. Of course, seeing Sasori angry was impossible what with his puppet being the only thing I can ever see of him.
"My my, such a temper. I do believe this is why you have been kept here so often until now." There was that damn smirk again.
Without even bothering to acknowledge the fact that I'd just punched him with enough force to kill a normal man twice over he simply said "But you're in luck. I don't need his head. I seen enough of his techniques from when he was still alive and the only things he used were simple chakra reinforcement and a few impressive Raiton techniques. I doubt that there's anything I need from the head. You're free to go,"
I nodded and quickly moved to slice the head off with a blade I kept just for this purpose.
"No."
Of course.
"I've been meaning to add to my collection. This will suffice. I want it whole."
I will say this about Sasori, he always speaks his mind. An odd trait for a spymaster, but a welcome one nonetheless. That said, I think I am going to murder him if he doesn't shut up right now. Better try a bit of diplomacy first to see if I can avoid it.
"That head is worth enough money to keep your fetishes supplied for the next few years. It can get you enough poisons, senbon, kunai, high grade lumber, and any other thing you might ever want. Now tell me, would you rather have an undamaged puppet now or a damaged one with the promise of better equipment to come?"
He and I exchanged glares. It may seem petty and juvenile to you, but starting contests are often a way to establish dominance even here among the Akatsuki. A good mastery of eye contact can let you pump enough killing intent to cripple low class enemies, and you can intimidate people well with it. As such things went; this one looked like one for the history books. I had my artificial head and Sasori had his masked puppet. Neither of us needed to blink, so such a contest was essentially pointless, but it had been started, and I would be damned if I would give up now. The stares went on for a good few minutes with Orochimaru rubbing his nose in amusement on the side. Finally Sasori slowly nodded in acquiescence. "I want to take a cast of the head though."
"Fine. But make it quick. It will decompose fast here."
"Not in my hands," he replied as he took out a glass vial from one of his many hidden compartments.
---
A few months later, I was happy as I'd ever been. I had a new partner, a rather quiet and most importantly Professional former Mist ninja, and I was being sent on an elimination mission. A noisy one too. The mission provider had specifically asked that the target be killed outside the home to make identification possible while asking for the home to be destroyed as well. He wished to send a message to any other prospective rivals around him. Ahh, how cutthroat the business world is.
The upcoming mass slaughter was enough for me to smile beneath my mask.
"Shindo, set the explosives as best you can around the mansion. Add more as you move in. Target the support pillars. There should also be an armory in the east wing with kegs of gunpowder. You should have ample supplies. I'll go scout for openings around the target while I try to find a good spot. Remember, the purpose is total elimination. Go take out the household while I kill the target when he's out of the house. Rendezvous with me before you set off the explosives though. There may be some items we can acquire for the organization. Rich men like him always have a few," I explained.
"Understood. I'll go now. Give me the signal and I'll be at the Rendezvous point by 15 minutes."
What a pro. I kind of liked him.
Finding the target was simple enough. Finding a suitable point with enough witnesses to spread the story was a bit tougher, but I managed.
'Fuuton: Kamaitachi no Jutsu' I said to myself as I brought out the wind heart. I channeled just enough chakra to make a single blade of wind and concentrated to my hardest trying to focus such a small thing to make the slightest of cuts.
The target collapsed. His body fell in one direction, his head in another. Mass panic ensued.
First objective complete. Now to see to the second.
I was happy to see my partner at the hilltop where we agreed to meet, and even happier to see the bulky storage scroll at his side. The kid had no doubt decided to take the initiative and loot the mansion himself. I felt pretty proud of him to be honest.
"Anything good in there?" I asked as I nudged the scroll with my foot.
"Better than I thought," Shindou said with a touch of pride.
"Good, we can look at the spoils later. Let's destroy the place and get out. Their police will be along in a few minutes."
A quick Tiger seal and the carefully places explosives detonated in tandem, setting off an impressive display of fire. Not that I noticed. I was too busy readying a series of Shunshin to a hideout 3 miles away.
As soon as I arrived and made sure we were safe from prying eyes, I took the scroll and carefully unfurled it on the small table in the hideout.
It was nothing I'd hoped for.
"Good isn't it? I thought I'd never be lucky enough to find a single copy, let alone the entire collection," said my soon to be dead partner.
In front of me were 5 or 6 autographed books that began with the titles Icha Icha.
It figured. It fucking figured. Every high class shinobi eventually develops a hobby to calm him down. Sometimes, they go beyond hobbies and become obsessions. It had to be my fucking luck that my professional partner I actually liked was a goddamned porn addict. And not only was this guy addicted, Kiri's brainwashing was still so heavily engrained that the idiot probably couldn't even tell the difference between a five year olds' scribblings to a work of art that would sell for millions on the resale market.
Causing me to lose out on money was worth 50 points, added to the fact that I'd lost so much and only gained porn out of it meant that my limit of 100 was already reached.
"-ean I never thought I would ever find these. Some of these are first edition you know? The-Urk!"
"You fucking idiot," I whispered as I strangled him. "You fucking idiot!" I repeated as my voice grew louder.
"There were supposed to be dozens of items there that could have been sold for millions! There were at least 4 confirmed works of masterpiece Calligraphy, thousands of Ryo hidden in safes and hidey holes in case of rebellions and quick getaways. And you pick up what? Porn? You decide that porn is more valuable to you than the millions it could have gotten us!?"
CRACK
I let his broken body fall as I stared in disgust at his broken neck.
"At least this time, Madara won't be as angry. He'll understand."
As it turned out, I was wrong.
Madara didn't even try to act calm this time as he screamed "You lost your temper again!? Do you know what the hell you just did? You just cut our membership even more. Orochimaru managed to find a way leave the organization 2 days ago and he managed to take with him all of his own informants and the dummy corporations he set up. Our funds have been cut by a third, all of our contacts in Tea and most of Konoha is gone not to mention the fact we've lost our greatest source of new jutsu. And now you're telling me that you killed ANOTHER PARTNER!?"
"How did Orochimaru leave us? The ring should have-"
"He cut off his own hand," Madara interrupted with grudging admiration. I had to admit I was pretty impressed too. The loss of a hand was damned near suicidal to a long range Ninjutsu user like Orochimaru and his Taijutsu would be forced to compensate as well.
"The point is that Orochimaru was a key member of Akatsuki. He wasn't the sort of fodder that your previous partners were. He brought unique skills to us that we'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else, but now he's gone and we need all the manpower we can get. But now you tell me you killed another partner because he decided to steal porn."
I tried to ignore the acidic tone of his voice. I wasn't all that successful. Do you remember how I said that a staring contest even here could help determine who's the boss? I have to say that I failed miserably.
"Get out," ordered Madara with the implied undertone of 'If you don't I will personally rip out all five of your hearts.'
I walked out of the office and down a few passages before going into a sprint. I might be one of the strongest and knowledgeable ninja in the world, but suicidal is something I will never become.
On the way, I ran into Sasori. I slowed down enough to look as though I was sedately walking instead of running for my life and to go for a quick exchange.
"I heard your partner ran away from you."
"I heard you killed your partner again."
Damn. 0 for 2 today. Lady Luck just isn't with me.
As I cleared the last passage and entered the sun, I couldn't help but wonder… is there some Rumor Relay for S Class Ninja I'm just unaware of?
---
Plans were moving up in our organization. We weren't the boogiemen of the Elemental Countries anymore. We had started to become more than rumor to the Five Great Nations. Unfortunately for us, that meant a lot of actual combat against strong and effective ninja.
Today was no different. Around me were the bodies of 3 Jounin class Grass ninja and 8 more Chunin. A harsh blow to a country as small as Grass. But still, I had to give them credit where credit was due. They were strong. Strong enough to actually kill one of my hearts and hurt my new partner.
"H-ha ha," breathed my partner Mukuro heavily. "They got me pretty good for a bunch of no names. Think they cracked a rib or two, and my vision's pretty blurry right now. You know what kind of poison they used Kakuzu?"
I didn't bother to respond. The loss of a heart was far more catastrophic than the whining of my new partner. I lost my Lightning Heart from a lucky jutsu and that would need a replacement fast. I took a look at my partner. He was in pretty bad shape but he would survive easily. Already he was pumping some chakra to try and burn out the poison in his body. Incredibly wasteful… but still a good alternative when an antidote wasn't available.
"Mukuro. You have a lightning affinity right?"
"What? The hell does that have to do with anything?" he asked as he struggled to sit up straight.
"Just answer the question so we can get the hell out of this dump."
"Yeah, I use Raiton a lot. It's my main element," he told me as my mind went into overdrive.
I looked at him for a few minutes trying to add up all the pros and cons. There was no way he could move unless I carried him because burning out the poison was taking everything he had from him. He had a heart I could possible use. Leader might get angry and cut my funds yet again. 30 seconds later, I reached a decision.
"Shame. I thought you were okay."
I reached out and snapped his neck before he could respond. I picked him up while wrinkling my nose in disgust as he voided himself before running off to avoid the inevitable Hunter-nin. I didn't bother to take a lot of care in disguising my tracks. Grass Hunter-nin weren't all that great and I was skilled enough that losing them would be a cinch. Besides, I needed to think on how best to take out his heart with the least blood and incorporate it into my artificial body.
Madara didn't even bother to try and gather up the will to get angry this time. I had the feeling he was thinking that berating me for killing a partner would be like trying to punish a cat for going on the floor instead of a litter box. The results were too pointless to even bother. He just let me off with a warning before turning away to discuss things with Pein.
On my way out, I saw Sasori and his new partner, some blonde named Deidara.
"Oy, Sasori-danna, who's that guy? I thought I saw everyone in Akatsuki already yeah."
"That's Kakuzu. Homicidal maniac obsessed with money. Stay away if you want to live."
Well I couldn't say any of that was a lie so I let it be.
"Homicidal? Even more than Kisame yeah?" asked the new guy, sounding confused.
"Yes," was Sasori's curt reply.
"…Oh." Deidara almost whispered to himself. He sounded impressed. Reasonable enough since anyone who'd seen Kisame in action came out with the impression that the only reason you were even breathing was because he was too busy making pretty pictures with the blood he'd just spilled to even bother with killing you.
---
"Who the hell are you?" I asked, not even bothering to be polite. The ring on his hand made it obvious he was Mukuro's new replacement.
"Hidan. I'm your new partner. I-"
"I don't care. Get out. We have a mission," I said as I cut him off. Less than five seconds and already I didn't like him. The guy looked like he should be in some civilian magazine posing for women instead of being a ninja. Everything about him looked too well-kept. Disgusting.
The new guy looked a bit annoyed at being interrupted but decided to go with the flow.
"Cool. What's our job?"
"We're going to Tea Country where we found one of Orochimaru's old bases. He's a former member who betrayed us so now we're going to go kill everything that works for him. Our spies managed to find out that he's got a trade route going through the base. We need to make that route stop."
"Fucking fantastic. What are we waiting for?" Hidan asked as he gave a bloodthirsty grin.
I was surprised for a moment there. Normally people would balk at being ordered to move so quickly after a 10 second introduction but he was either psychotic enough or professional enough that he didn't care. Judging by the way his body tensed and how his smile refused to go away, I was willing to bet on the former.
Killing Orochimaru's lackeys was easy enough, but I was surprised at just how bad a ninja Hidan really was. His tracking was simple, his taijutsu decent, his speed slow. He didn't look like he used any ninjutsu at all but judging by the scythe on his back, he didn't seem to be the type to use genjutsu either.
He was way too sloppy. He left himself open and he sported cuts everywhere. None of that meant a damn thing to him though judging by his hungry look as he butchered the body of a long dead Sound Shinobi.
"Stop. We're done here. Let's get going."
Hidan didn't listen.
"I said we're done boy," I whispered with as much venom I could inject into my voice.
He finally stopped to look at me. "The fuck you say old man? I'm still not done with my sacrifice to Jashin. Shut up and let me finish before I decide to make another one."
"Was that a threat?" I asked while trying to remember if I'd heard the name Jashin before. The way he said sacrifice… a god? Oh fan-fucking-tastic. A religious crusader as a new partner. And not just a regular crusader, one who would probably kill every damn thing he found for the hell of it. How did I get stuck with this guy?
"The hell did you think it was?"
Let's see now: Annoying smirk: 20, Crappy skills: 20, No respect: 30. I didn't have to kill him just yet.
Then I saw him tossing the grain shipment they were guarding on fire.
The grain I could have sold on the black market.
On fire.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Jashin is a god of death man. After killing these fuckers, I thought it'd be good to get rid of the grain. Get rid of the lifeblood of humanity yeah?"
"I could have sold that!"
"Shit man, what the fuck is money worth compared to spiritual wealth?"
Wrong answer.
"It's enough to get me anything I wanted!"
Loss of potential wealth: 50 points. Total: 120 points. Result: Murder
I reinforced my fist with my Earth chakra and punched him through the chest. Blood began to spurt as I ripped through the fragile organs and I smiled in satisfaction. Then of course he had to go mess things up by being alive and well, but healthy enough that he could swear at me despite the fact that my arm had punched through his back, piercing one of his lungs.
"The fuck was that for man?"
"Y-you're alive." Yeah I stuttered, it was a surprise for me. It's not like you ran into immortals everyday.
"'Course I'm alive dipshit. I'm immortal. I'm one of Jashin's avatars you dumbfuck! I live to kill. I can't die until everyone else is dead!"
There was no real sense of anger there. It was like he went through this sort of thing every goddamn day.
No wonder he'd been given to me. This was the Leader's insurance. With him, he could keep the position filled up and not have to worry about me killing my partner. No matter how crappy his skills, he could be counted on to always survive in the end.
I took this new information as well as anyone who knew me expected.
I punched him in the kidneys.
Hard.
As his head jerked up to yell in surprise, I gave a chakra reinforced knife hand chop to his throat and watched as he started to make choking noises. With any luck, the kidney punch would leave him weak enough to piss blood for weeks. He looked at me, eyes screaming in betrayal and I felt bad enough to toss him a bone.
"I'm going to go back to base now. I'm not going to hide my tracks. Come follow me if you think you can handle it."
I turned around and did exactly as I said, not caring if Hidan would follow. If he decided he was man enough to actually listen, that was fine with me. If not, the Leader would understand. Probably.
What a wonderful life I lead.