Mistakes shaped history; a fact all seasoned shinobi understood. Survival stemmed from gaining the upper hand and exploiting a moment of weakness. A person, army or village was only as powerful as their weakest link. Mistakes made the world, but it was human vanity that wrote the history books. When he woke, yanked from the cold grasp of death to the sound of screams, Kakuzu knew instantly what brought him back. It wasn't luck, benevolence or a godly power. No, someone had made a mistake.

White light blazed blindingly from above. He blinked, gradually coming to consciousness. The world around him spun in a dizzying kaleidoscope of white, black and red. Despite the bright light, the room was frigid and smelled strongly of antiseptic.

The screaming grew louder, penetrating and impossible to ignore. In his peripheral vision, white-clad figures faded in and out. They blended together in their panic, becoming one blurred mass as they fought off a sinewy, black shadow.

He tried to breathe. On his own strength, the flattened lungs barely drew more than a swallow of air. Pain shot through his chest like a lance. Stirred by the growing awareness, tendrils skittered over the smooth cold surface beneath him. Anguish was inescapable. Every flinch brought new agony. Kakuzu drew a shallow breath and tried to stretch his body on impulse. A finger twitched. His big toe wiggled. The sting of a thousand phantom needles prickled over cold flesh. Another breath, but pitifully shallow. He tried again to force himself to move. Neck vertebrae popping, Kakuzu titled his head toward the sound of the commotion.

Vision clearing, he watched as two medics attempted to subdue one of their colleagues on the next metal gurney. The way the captive woman thrashed, bucking until her head banged in hollow rhythm against the steel bed, made the job nearly impossible. The men scrambled to hold her jerking limbs down while a third tried to sever the writhing mass around her hand with a chakra scalpel.

No matter how many tendrils the medic cut, more swarmed as they lazily poured out of Kakuzu's gaping chest. Growing desperate, the medic tried to yank the invading strings out. The woman wailed as the man managed to come away with a black, squirming bundle in his hand; a hunk of skin skewered by the threads he held. With a larger wound ripped opened, more threads easily twisted into the exposed back of the woman's hand. Needle-sharp heads slipped into ruptured veins faster than before.

Kakuzu was certain he'd hadn't survived the destruction of his final heart. The Jiongu, starved into dormancy within his dead carcass, would have been willing and ready to find a new host. All it needed was an entryway: a paper cut, a tiny pinprick, even an old wound would have called to the threads if near enough. The woman must have made the mistake of nicking herself near his corpse. Fate changed by the careless slip of a hand. The Jiongu was dangerous for many reasons, its parasitic nature the cause.

Body still fresh and intimately connected with the Jiongu, their greed sucked life back into him. The abnormal composition of his body combined with the chill of the room had warded off decomposition, allowing the strange resurrection. Warmth started to pool in the center of his chest as threads began to leech life from the woman's body.

'I live. Obey.'

The thought made the Jiongu still for a moment. Suddenly, threads began to aid damaged lungs, expanding them like bellows. He drew a deep, rasping breath as the threads resumed their savage-search for power, digging with new and vicious vigor through the woman's flesh. Instinct guided now by his insatiable hunger for more, Kakuzu watched as the thread spread under her fair skin, turning veins from blue to black. Following in the path of vessels, they wriggled up her arm and disappeared under her sleeve like worms in soil.

Screams pierced his ears, but they were silenced as red froth began to foam past her lips. The woman's belly rippled beneath her scrubs. Her chest distended before bursting open like an overripe melon below her rib cage, drenching her companions in red. A throbbing bundle of black cords emerged from her punctured abdomen, dripping with gore and twitching in time with the stolen heart wrapped within.

The woman went rag-doll limp. Her companions stared open-mouthed as the organ was lifted across the room and enveloped into his open chest. Dead, her body shuddered in a broken heap on the gurney as threads slithered out the way they came. Inky cords swarmed like greedy, squelching maggot in his chest around the heart as it was integrated. Fresh chakra and blood began to pump through his system as the heart beat strongly, but it wasn't enough.

Thick, ropy tendrils hoisted Kakuzu upward, moving in place of muscle, making his very skin crawl and bulge with life as he was forced to sit up. The saucer-round eyes of the medics watched in horror as his hands, disconnected from his body below the elbow and suspended by threads, snaked into the air. Hands flying, he snared one by the throat and gripped another by the arm. The third turned to flee for the door, but black coils skittered across tiles in pursuit. Pointed ends pierced through a meaty calf, sending the man falling to the ground to be entangled.

In moments, two of the medics were bound with their hands wrapped together and mouths gagged. Without hesitation, sharp threads tore past white scrubs, into skin and delved between ribs; strong enough now to shred past layers of membrane and muscle, instead of having to travel through a map of veins and arteries. One by one, the hearts were swiftly added to Kakuzu's new and growing collection.

The survivor had been choked silent. Thread-bound hands tried to smack Kakuzu's grip loose, but the attempt was tiring. Purple-faced, the man stopped struggling altogether. He reeled the medic toward him until they were eye level, glancing at the Leaf symbol on his headband.

Pupiless eyes scanned the room. He knew the surrounds were unsavory, as the persistent scent of death could not be hidden by disinfectant. The rows of small, metal doors lining the wall confirmed it; he had woken in a morgue somewhere in the Land of Fire, probably Konoha village.

"How long has my body been here?" Kakuzu rasped, loosening his grip slightly as he threatened. "If you scream I'll rip out your throat."

"A-a day." The man wheezed.

"What were you doing, an autopsy?" He asked.

"Not my job," The man panted. "T-the Hokage did it already, we were c-collecting samples."

His eyes glanced at the floor. Several broken glass jars and sealing scrolls lay scattered on the bloodstained ground, used to collect pieces of the Jiongu no doubt.

"And then?" Kakuzu pressed.

"And then you woke up." The man said, blue eyes wide and leaking tears. The color was not unlike the Kyuubi child's eyes. Rage burned in his gut. "P-please, don't kill me. I-I have a wif-"

Kakuzu's grip constricted.

"Not my concern."

Gurgles leaked past blue-lips.

Kakuzu raised his free hand, fingers together and thumb tucked against his palm, as the tan skin morphed into steel-grey. A single, smooth strike sent iron fingers plunging into hot, slippery entrails. Forcing his hand up, Kakuzu shredded soft guts. Elbow deep, fingers grasped a pulsating heart. Tendrils invaded the wound, slithering into the depths of the man's chest to cut the organ loose from arteries. He pulled free with a wet, sucking pop. Releasing the bruising neck, the corpse fell like an empty sack and landed in a growing pool of carnage. Four new hearts beat steadily as one.

Rage subsiding, Kakuzu began to mend himself. Limbs knitted back together in sections like a puzzle. The threads in his mouth retracted down his gullet as a hand supported the hanging jaw. With practiced strokes, a tendril on each side wove along dark cheeks, stitching his face together in a Glasgow smile. If he wanted to keep living, he had to escape the morgue and beyond. It was surprising no backup had arrived for the medics unless he had already slain them, but that was little comfort. More had to be on the way. Someone must have heard the woman's shrill screams.

Looking down, he saw tan flaps hanging open like wings over his gleaming white sternum, putting his entire abdominal cavity on display. A Y-shaped incision stretched from both shoulders, cutting down his torso and ending just above his pelvis. Glancing at the mess of intestines and tendrils sliding onto his lap, he briefly envisioned what the medics had witnessed: a dissected, dismembered corpse attacking from beyond the grave. He snorted at the thought, even as it chilled him and sparked a distant memory.

The Y-incision was clean and easy to close; the Hokage had used some of his old sutures as a guideline. However, the tattered remains of his back were an entirely different matter. Prodding fingers met the bony knobs of his spine in a mass of thread instead of skin. He remembered the boy's Rasengan had ripped through the meat of his back, pulverizing his masks into dust, before sending him streaking to the ground like a meteor.

He doubled over, hand slipping wrist-deep into the hole. Despite the bone-deep throbbing touch caused, threads guided fingers to quickly feel the cross-hatching that marred his skeleton. Teeth gritted. Tendrils grazed where he couldn't reach, helping to explore the damage. The combined effort created an image in his mind. The whipping winds had carved into bone: sheering vertebra smooth in places, slicing groves into his scapula, and wearing parts of his ribs into mere slivers, one floating rib had been completely shorn away.

Removing his hand, Kakuzu wracked his brain for a suitable solution. Masks destroyed, there was nothing to cover his dark, squirming insides. It was doubtful that his skin would grow back and not enough remained to stretch over the hole. His eyes landed on a fallen corpse. Briefly, he considered skinning one of the medics, but that was too time-consuming. Skin that wasn't his was so difficult to keep alive anyway. Exposed to the elements, any skin he had tried to graft on himself previously had rotted off. After a moment, he envisioned a loom and threads set to work. Weaving together, the tendrils formed a web over the hollow, connecting the remaining skin by a taunt patchwork of thin threads, like an internal corset holding his innards in place.

Kakuzu hoisted himself to his feet, knees buckling at his first attempt to stand. He grasped the gurney to stay upright and the trays of equipment, laying on the self beneath the metal bed, clattered onto the floor. The tinkle of something small and hard sung as it rolled along the tile.

Tendrils lifted the overturned pans, just as his Akatsuki ring wobbled to a stop in a pool of blood next to his overturned headband. Threads lifted the items to him. Ring on his finger, Kakuzu raised his arms to knot the headband to his forehead, stopping as knuckles brushed the prickly skin of his scalp.

Eyes widened as he palmed a bald head. His long, dark locks had been shorn down to peach fuzz. Kakuzu realized with mounting disgust, quickly smoothing his hands down his body, that he had been shaved clean. Not even his eyebrows had been spared.

It was then that he began to comprehend the intimate depths of what had occurred during his unconsciousness. Someone had removed his hair. The act was so oddly personal and unexpected it bothered him more than any wound. The lapse of awareness disturbed him-I was dead. He pushed the thought away, now wasn't time to dwell on it.

Able to stand now, threads having knitted new knee joints, Kakuzu headed for the door. On his way out, tendrils pulled a pair of large sandals off one of the corpse's feet and snagged a white lab coat hanging from a hook. Admittedly, sterile white wasn't the most advantageous color to attempt escape in. Still, he didn't like the notion of fleeing naked through the streets of Konoha either.