"Morning, Zangei," Kakuzu grumbled in a rough voice as he stalked into the bounty station.
"Kakuzu-san. Back with more?" It was a question the masked Akatsuki member answered by heaving a bloody bag up onto the counter.
Zangei peeled back the mouth of the sack, his lips parting in a toothy grin as he pulled forth a head with staring, glazed eyes. "No damage to the face. My client will be pleased." Reaching into the sack two more times, he lined up two more heads, inspecting each one as they emerged.
While Zangei was busy with this, Kakuzu's partner slouched into the bounty station with a huge yawn. Dragging his hand through his hair, Hidan pointed at the third head as Zangei inspected it. "Hey, that's the one I got."
"Mmmm." Zangei looked up from his inspection of the third head to study Hidan. "That explains the condition."
"What the hell's that mean you old geezer?"
The bounty station master snorted and turned the head of the dead man towards Hidan. "It means neither of us makes as much money."
Hidan sneered, "That's stupid."
"This contract wanted heads. They're paying to see the faces of the ones they wanted dead. It's important they look…. nice." Kakuzu chuckled at his own words and then turned back to Zangei to accept a wad of cash. The man flicked through it as he quickly totaled up his take. As the last bill passed through his fingers, he frowned and leaned towards Zangei, giving the wooden counter a sharp double rap with his knuckles. "The contract said there was a bonus for these three if they came in as a set."
"Heh." Zangei suddenly smirked again "You want the bonus, huh? You sure about that?"
Kakuzu's eyes narrowed at the bounty master. "Why?"
"It's not money."
Kakuzu clicked his tongue, drumming his fingers against the wooden counter. "Meh. Is it valuable?"
"Oh yeah. It's pretty rare. You could definitely sell it to the right person."
"Fine. I'll take it as long as I can sell it or something."
"Excellent. Give me a moment. I've got it in storage in the back."
A few minutes later Zangei returned. Trailing behind him was a thin girl. She wore baggy grey pants, chunky black boots, and a black hoodie with the hood pulled low over her face. A mask covered the lower half of her face, and, even though it was a hot day, her hands were also covered with a pair of black, leather gloves. The only skin that showed was a pale slice of her face under a shock of nearly white, purple hair.
She dawdled behind Zangei, taking her time as she looked between Hidan and Kakuzu with her eerie, pale blue eyes.
"Heeeey. A girl." Hidan slouched towards her with a smirk tilting up one corner of his mouth. "You working here, huh?"
Rolling his eyes, Kakuzu sighed and turned back to Zangei. "So, the bonus…?"
Zangei lifted his chin towards where the girl stood in silence as Hidan continued his fruitless attempts at flirting.
"I bet you would be cute if you wore some tighter clothes or something. Say, if you're not Zangei's girl, you should spend some time with me. I bet I'm the best looking man who ever comes into this dump."
Kakuzu glared at his partner and then slid his gaze over to the girl. Drumming his fingers against the counter as he studied her, his green eyes finally flicked back to Zangei. "Explain."
The bounty master grinned widely. "If I remember correctly, your partner can't die, right?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Yori." The girl shifted her weight onto her left foot, turning her gaze towards the bounty master. Zangei smirked. "Go ahead. Touch him."
"Hai, Zangei-san." The girl reached up and calmly pulled the glove off her right hand.
"Whoah, whoah, whoah…." Hidan protested. "Public displays of affection are hot and all that. I mean it's kind of flattering, but normally you'd get a room or somethin-"
Hidan's words caught mid-sentence, and he gasped for air. Yori's right palm was pressed against Hidan's bare chest, a blue blaze of chakra surrounding her hand.
"Yori here has a little special skill. Chakra absorption. I'm sure you know of the technique. Most people who can do this little trick have a limit to what they can absorb. Yori doesn't seem to have one. Either that or her limit's stupidly high. Her ability has some kind of paralysis technique mixed in as well, so if she touches someone skin to skin, well, they're pretty much screwed."
Zangei shrugged and gave Kakuzu a wide grin as Hidan slumped to the floor before lifelessly faceplanting like a puppet with its strings cut.
Kakuzu gave a low whistle while he watched Yori pull the glove back onto her right hand. "Learned?"
"Nah. Bred. She was designed this way by her village as a weapon. Problem is, she's was too much for them to handle. Just imagine her as an infant or young child. Think about it. With an ability like that, she could brush her skin against someone with low chakra reserves and pretty much instantly kill them. You try keeping something like that in a town with a crapload of civilians and see how well people like it."
"Heh. Bunch of idiots. Still, she seems like she could be useful for collecting bounties."
"If you want to keep her, sure. She's also worth a ton of ryo in certain circles. Yori, come here."
The girl stepped around Hidan's prone body and silently came forward. She glanced up at Kakuzu then, blue eyes studying the man who towered over her before they slid back to Zangei with a questioning tilt of her head.
"This is Kakuzu-san. You belong to him now."
"Holy fuck, what was that?" Hidan grumbled as he pushed himself up from the floor, cracking his neck and rubbing his left shoulder. "What the hell did that girl do?"
Yori spun around, her eyes wide as she watched Hidan rise to his feet.
Zangei cleared his throat. "That's Hidan-san, Kakuzu's partner. You'll find both of these gentlemen extremely difficult to kill."
With a snort, Kakuzu beckoned for the girl to follow him. "Let's go. Get your ass in gear, Hidan. We don't have all day to wait for you."
"Hey! Wait up! Why's the girl going with us?" Hidan yelled after Kakuzu as Yori trotted obediently behind the older ninja, the pair disappearing through the doors of the bounty station before Hidan had even gotten moving.
"Jashin, I feel like shit." Hidan planted the butt of his scythe in the ground and hobbled after them.
"Again, why the hell is the girl going with us?"
Kakuzu rolled his eyes at his partner's question. "If you had been paying attention instead of flirting with her, you would know."
"Whatever. Just tell me. Also, why the hell are you carrying her? You got some little girl fetish or something? She could be your fucking great-granddaughter."
"I could make him shut up, Kakuzu-san." Yori offered in a soft voice. She had been riding on his back since it had become apparent that she either couldn't or didn't know how to travel through the trees like a ninja. Kakuzu suspected that she'd never received any training. The sheer amount of wasted potential left a bad taste in his mouth. On the other hand, there weren't any bad habits to fix so any time spent training her wouldn't be wasted.
"Ignore the idiot for now," He replied with a smirk as he began to calculate again the money he could collect with this girl's raw, untrained abilities alone.
That night the trio set up camp in the mouth of a cave. Yori followed Kakuzu around like a tiny shadow. Both of the men were taller than her, but Kakuzu stood nearly a foot over her. She had a million questions, but she didn't want to seem annoying so she kept her mouth shut and helped any way she could.
"Good girl." Kakuzu rewarded her with a pat on the top of her head as she dropped an armful of wood near the cooking fire.
She was kind of liking the big man with the weird green eyes. Like many before now, he was careful to not touch her bare skin, but he wasn't outright scared of her either. He seemed to be keenly aware of what she was capable of and the inherent limitations of her abilities.
Then there was the other man, Hidan. Yori had drained his chakra twice more since her introduction at the bounty station this morning, and he just seemed a little tired. Most remarkably, he wasn't dead. He, too, wasn't scared of her.
"So now you're going to drag a fucking girl around with us everywhere we go?"
Kakuzu ladled out a bowl full of stew, offering it to Yori as he pointedly ignored Hidan's complaints. "Here. Sit. Eat."
Yori accepted the bowl carefully, Her gloves sometimes made it difficult to hold onto things since they didn't fit her hands quite right, so she made doubly sure she had a firm grip on it before taking the bowl from Kakuzu. She sat down between the two settling the stew on her lap before reaching up to pull her face mask away from her mouth.
"Fucking hell, Kuzu, she's not even a trained ninja. What the hell are we supposed to do with… Ow! The fuck?!"
A loud, hollow clang rang through the cave alongside Hidan's outcry. Yori looked up from her stew to find Hidan holding his head while Kakuzu towered above his partner. With dexterous ease, he spun the soup ladle back around in his hand to point it menacingly at Hidan.
"She's already more useful than you are. She's coming with us. End of story."
"You've gotta be kidding me! So what if she can kill people? I'm good at it, too. So are you."
"She's more efficient than you are. You spend too much time playing with your kills like you're a damn cat or something."
"Oy! That's part of my worship of Ja-" Another clang rang through the cavern as the ladle snapped around and slammed into Hidan's head once more. "Fuck, ow!" Hidan held his head with both hands, cringing from the pain.
"Shut up and eat, or I'll let Yori kill you again."
"Tch…" Hidan clicked his tongue and sulked as he watched Kakuzu speaking with the girl while they all ate. Chewing on a chunk of meat, Hidan suddenly snickered faintly, a twisted but amused smirk spreading across his lips as his gaze grew distant in a rare moment of thought.
Kakuzu stared across the cavern at his partner. He didn't even need to know what was going through Hidan's mind to know it was something perverted and sick. That smirk was enough to clue him in.
Shaking his head, Kakuzu glanced down at Yori. She had stared a bit when she had first seen the stitches around his mouth, but it hadn't lasted long. The girl had probably already seen more than her fair share of weird shit in life.
"Yori. I want you to tell me about your ability. Can you describe to me what happens when you use it? Do you sense anything?"
She looked up at Kakuzu her gaze meeting his without any hint of emotion in her icy, blue eyes, offering a simple nod of acknowledgment before she began to speak. Kakuzu found her voice to be nice. It wasn't pitched high nor was she attempting to be cute while she spoke. Her words were spoken calmly, smoothly, and slowly. She was as non-offensive and pleasant as Hidan was offensive and unpleasant.
"Well, Zangei's description was accurate. That is the essence of what transpires." She paused and sat her spoon down in the half-finished bowl of stew before she continued. "I do sometimes see things, feel things when I do it. There's always something. Usually, it's just a few distinct thoughts and whatever emotion they're currently experiencing."
She tilted her head from one side to the next, seeming to consider the question some more. "The emotions when I'm draining them are usually just fear, shock, or sometimes anger." Lifting her hand she pointed at Hidan, "He was shocked the first time. Since then he just seems annoyed."
"Of course it's annoying! I feel like shit afterward."
A low chuckle left Kakuzu's mouth as he leveled a smirk at Hidan. "Excellent."
"You creepy bastard. You fucking like it when she kills me, don't you?"
Kakuzu could feel his smirk growing wider at Hidan's protests. Of course, he liked it. "And what did you see in Hidan's head when you drained him?"
Kakuzu watched Yori fiddle with the spoon in her bowl. She paused and looked up at Hidan before turning slowly to meet his gaze. "The first time he was thinking about what I would look like without clothes. The second time he was imagining dismembering some guy with a weird orange mask. The third time he was debating how many sacrifices he would need for his next ritual regarding someone named Jashin-sama."
Hidan lurched to his feet, spilling what was left of his stew. "You stay out of my head you littl-"
Kakuzu's hand pulled a kunai out of his sleeve and hurled it at a speed that the human eye would be unable to follow. The point buried itself in Hidan's left temple, instantly killing the man. For the fourth time that day, Hidan made a sudden and unceremonious connection with the ground.
"That'll keep him quiet for a moment. This ability of yours is quite interesting. I wonder how the results would change with different victim chakra strengths."
Yori offered the older man a shrug of her thin shoulders in response, "Most people don't last long enough for any real analysis. It goes without saying that I've never been able to test it multiple times on the same person … well, until today."
Kakuzu chuckled, his stitches stretching uncomfortably for a moment as he allowed the corners of his lips to turn upwards in the faintest of smiles. "Feel free to … test things on Hidan as much as you like."
A cracking and popping noise echoed through the cave as Hidan's hand wriggled the kunai out of his skull. Dragging himself back to his feet, he glared daggers at Kakuzu, viciously tossing the kunai back at his partner.
"I really, really fucking hate you, you lousy, good for nothing…"
Hidan's curses continued as Kakuzu's hand flicked up to catch the poorly aimed kunai and tuck it back into his black and red robes. Meeting Yori's icy blue gaze again, Kakuzu continued as if nothing had happened, "As much and as often as you like. I won't mind in the slightest."
"The fuck, man, why did you buy a house with this week's bounty money?" Hidan was again complaining loudly. For the past week, Kakuzu had been making good use of his new prize, training Yori in the basics of both subterfuge and bounties. The girl had turned out to be a quick study, highly efficient, and more trustworthy than Kakuzu's own partner.
"It's an investment." Kakuzu rumbled as he gave Yori's head a possessive pat. Yes, the girl had enabled him to collect a record number of bounties in just a few days, but more importantly she seemed to be capable of working without supervision. She could collect all the low-level bounties he didn't have time to bother with and effectively double the Akatsuki's income stream with little to no effort on his part. Of curse, he couldn't expect her to work without compensation.
Glancing around the small home situated on the edge of Fire Country, he gave a satisfied snort before turning to the young girl, "I'm going to leave you with a list of targets. You know the drill at this point. Kill them as instructed, use the transport scrolls I've given you to take the body to Zangei, and collect the bounty. I'll be by once a month to collect the coin and give you a new target list."
"Hai, Kakuzu-san." Yori gave him a small nod as a smile crept across her features. She covered herself less after a week with the men who had both proven impervious to her abilities in their own unique ways. Her pale, purple hair hung in loose, long layers around her face, and she almost looked like a normal civilian. By Kakuzu's estimation, she would soon become the perfect machine for stealthy kills.
"Wait - how the hell can you trust someone outside the organiz-" Hidan's complaint was cut short as he wheezed for air and clawed at his neck. A hand was suddenly tightening around his throat, choking off valuable air. Kakuzu hadn't moved, but that hadn't stopped him from sending out his arm to choke Hidan into silence.
"Unlike you," Kakuzu commented in a low, quiet voice, "She has proven herself loyal and capable of following orders, and she is my asset to do with as I please. Yori," His haunting green eyes settled on hers. "Beyond killing and collecting the targets I've assigned to you, I have only two further instructions. Firstly, stay clear of other ninja. Secondly, try not to accidentally kill anyone beyond your targets."
Yori's head bobbed up and down again in another nod, "Hai, Kakuzu-san."
"And, here, your cut from the past few days. A more than sufficient sum to meet any needs you might have." Palming a bag of coin out from within his robes, he tossed it at the young girl who took a startled step back before catching it, "Go buy some groceries and new clothes in the nearby town. I'll also give you a cut of every bounty you bring in from now on."
Yori's eyes widened as she stared at the purse in her gloved hand, her surprise fading into a wide smile as she giggled. "I've never had my own money"
"Yes. Money. It's a good feeling, isn't it?" His green eyes sparked with an eerie light, "Serve me well, and I'll pay you well. Beyond that, you're free to do whatever else you please. Frankly, I don't have the time to be your master."
Kakuzu's arm hit the ground with a rage-filled shout out of Hidan, and the man rubbed at his neck as he hissed, "I'd like to not die this morning, okay? It's fucking exhausting, and for the record, you're both creepy as hell."
"And you're somehow not?" Kakuzu sneered at his partner.
For nearly a year, Yori's deal with Kakuzu continued. He came by once a month for his cut, and while he was there he would train Yori in a single aspect of bounty hunting. It wasn't so much ninja training as anti-ninja training.
It was a good arrangement for the former slave, but the adjustment wasn't easy. The first month was spent overcoming the need to seek permission for every little action she took. She had never had to provide her own food or consider how often she should clean her surroundings.
In time, she learned independence, and finally how to think quickly and accurately for herself. Zangei grew to expect her every fourth day of the week sometime during the second hour after the bounty station opened. With clockwork efficiency, she would stop in with her collection for the week.
Today, she sat at the counter while Zangei worked his way through the books in front of him. Eventually, the bounty station master looked up and eyed the young girl with a cocked brow.
"You should really try making friends with other people."
"That sounds like a terrible idea, Zangei." Yori chuckled and rolled her eyes. Zangei had become almost fatherly to her, assuming that how he acted was how a father acted. She didn't really have a good reference for that sort of relationship, "I'm fine. I don't need lots of friends. Besides, I'd probably kill one of them by accident - unless you know more people like Hidan and Kakuzu."
"Mmm, good point. You've changed so much, sometimes I forget that you aren't normal." Zangei shrugged as the hidden entrance from the exterior backroom slid open, "Speak of the devil…"
"Jashin, take it. This place smells even worse than normal. Think I'm gonna hurl." Hidan's voice whined out, the back of his hand half covering his mouth. "Zangei, dude, the scent of piss and dead dudes just doesn't mix."
Turning to look back over her shoulder, Yori could feel a genuine smile tugging at the corners of her lips at the sight of both Hidan and Kakuzu together. "Aren't you two early this month?"
"Hello, Yori." Kakuzu had a dead man held with one hand, hanging limply over his back and a faint hint a smile tilted the corners of his eyes for a moment before he turned to Zangei, lifting his burden up onto the counter, "A little present." His gaze flicked back to Yori as he added, "And, yes, we're early. Thankfully, your habits are predictable. It's good that you're here."
"Damn. This is a huge catch, Kakuzu. Fire temple's Chiriku. Let's get him in the refrigerator. How did you manage it?" Kangei was openly gaping at the dead man, having to shake himself out of his awe in order to pull a gurney up to roll the body onto.
Kakuzu smirked at the question, and Hidan snorted and then burst into laughter, "It's easy, old man. You just fucking kill everyone and haul out the ones worth some ryo." Running his hands through his hair, Hidan turned back to the entrance with a salute. "I'm out of this stinking hellhole, losers. I'll wait for you outside, Kakuzu."
Kakuzu merely snorted at Hidan's departure as he reached into his robes, "This wasn't one of my planned bounties. I was working on another job, and he happened to be there. So, I have a favor to ask of you, Zangei. Depending on how fast word gets back to the hidden village…" He pulled out a light brown envelope and slapped it down on the counter next to the monk. "Yori's ownership papers for safekeeping." Glancing at the girl he added, "I want you to stay with Zangei for now. If things go well, I'll come collect you in a month."
"What? But what about this month's bounties…" Yori's mouth snapped shut, and she pressed her lips together in a frown as she eyed Kakuzu. Then after a moment of silence had passed between them, she shook her head, "Just how important is this dead guy, Kakuzu?"
"Thirty million ryo worth of important, Yori," Zangei answered the girl's question. "Head priest of the Fire Temple. A ninja who was on friendly terms with Konohagakure. Even with such a bounty, no one dared to go after him. The repercussions would be too severe. The village isn't going to take this lying down."
"Indeed." Kakuzu rumbled low in his chest. "It's unfortunate that we didn't manage to accomplish our mission either. Still, I wasn't going to let thirty million ryo rot into the ground. Waste not."
"Want not," Zangei shook his head as he finished the ninja's sentence, "I understand. Lemme get your payment. I don't want you hanging around any longer than need be."
Yori sighed as she studied Kakuzu, a hint of worry creasing her brows together, but she would not disobey him. She would stay with Zangei until he returned. Who after all could kill him? Watching him and Hidan fight from one of the upper windows at the bounty station a mere few minutes later offered her at least some reassurance.
Yori stepped out of one of the backrooms of the bounty station as she heard a loud crash and the sounds of several men shouting. She drew to a stop, silent as she glanced over the scene before her. A man with several deep scars on his face was holding Zangei's head against the countertop, and he wasn't the only ninja in the room.
"Zangei, you're under arrest for your relationship with missing-nin and Akatsuki member Kakuzu. You will be coming with us."
Her eyes met with Zangei's for a moment. She lifted her hand, fingering the edge of her left glove, but the manager of the bounty station shifted, giving her a nearly indecipherable shake of his head. "Yori," he croaked out in a hoarse voice. "Until I come back this bounty station is yours. Be a good girl and watch over things for me."
"Hai, Zangei-san." The girl responded with a frown, her fingers dropping away from the edge of her glove.
"Should we take her, too, Ibiki?" One of the other ninjas asked as he glanced between Yori and the man who was clearly his superior.
"Gonna interrogate an innocent girl just because she works for me, huh? Just like you're going to interrogate me cause you've got a problem with one of the dozens of bounty hunters that use my services? Ninja assholes." Zangei gasped out, "Leave the kid alone. She's just a slave. I've got the paperwork if you need proof."
The man they called Ibiki sneered and pulled Zangei up from the counter, shoving him towards one of his men as he snorted loudly. "Get him out of here. Your documentation, girl. Now." He rapped the counter with his knuckles twice.
Zangei gave Yori a shallow nod as he was led out, an unspoken instruction to do as she was told by the ninja. Breathing out a sigh, she glanced between the bounty station manager and Ibiki once more. She wasn't scared nor was she worried. Indeed, as was typical, Yori felt almost nothing as she looked over Ibiki's harshly scared face.
"I think it's in the safe." She finally replied in a soft voice to the ninja's request. Walking slowly behind the counter, she already knew the combination from seeing Zangei open it so many times. Spinning in the code, Yori pulled the door open with a creak of old hinges. Inside was both money and stacks of papers. Most of it was simply the bounty station's bookkeeping. She knew that her papers were in the light brown envelope to one side, but she took her time, letting the looming presence behind her grow increasingly impatient as she shifted through papers.
By the time she finally 'found' her papers, Ibiki was impatiently drumming the counter with his fingertips. "Here they are." Yori forced a smile onto her face, as strange as it felt, as she turned and offered the papers to the scarred man.
With a grunt, he snapped the envelope away from her and pulled the papers free. As he thumbed through them, he muttered to himself all the while. "Orphan. No family name. First sale as an infant in the Land of the Rice Paddies." He flicked through papers, giving the first few a cursory glanced before he snorted. "How many times have you been sold?"
"I've never sat down to count, sir."
"You ever go to school?"
"School?" Yori replied to the question with the same question and a tilt of her head. She could play stupid if the need arose, and this was certainly need.
"Tch. Nevermind. How'd you end up with Zangei?"
"I was a bonus payment for a bounty." Yori suppressed a smile as Ibiki's hand paused over the bit of paperwork that proved her words. Indeed, it was no lie. It even said right there in black and white that the recipient could deny or accept her as bonus payment. Kakuzu had never bothered to register as her owner. Now she understood why.
Ibiki sneered under his breath and took the papers in both his hands. With a couple quick movements, he began to shred the entire mass of paperwork detailing Yori's ownership and past. She watched, with something akin to dull fascination as he dumped the pieces back on the counter, "Burn the pieces. You're free to do as you wish. Run this pit as your own - or go elsewhere. I don't give a damn."
Without another word, Ibiki turned on his heel and marched out of the bounty station. That day was the last time Yori ever saw Zangei. A few days later, one of the bounty station's regulars dropped in with more news. Kakuzu and Hidan were both reportedly dead.
Wiping at a new blood stain on the bounty station counter, Yori allowed herself to feel a little anger. It had been Konoha ninja, of course, who had finally gotten both of them. She scrubbed hard and then suddenly stopped, giving a long sigh as she glanced around the bounty station. Frankly, she was more disappointed with the two men than angry with them. Without them around, who was she going to kill for a cheap laugh every month?
"I guess I'll just have to make some new friends." Yori declared morosely to herself, "But first, a trip into the village for some bleach and air fresheners. Hidan was right. This place reeks."
At that moment, the hidden door into the bounty station slid open again, and a young man with spiky black hair and black eyes strode in, one hand idly resting on the hilt of a sword. His unwavering gaze settled on Yori, "Where is Zangei?"
"He is indisposed, but left me in charge of his affairs," Yori responded with a calm smile. "Perhaps, I can assist you."
He glared at her for a long, silent moment, and Yori got the distinct impression that he was waiting to see if she would bend under his gaze. Then, suddenly, he smirked, "Perhaps, you can."