Chapter Eleven
...
Zetsu staggered around unsteadily.
"You're very low on chakra." said Kisame worriedly. "You shouldn't have fed so much to Samehada."
"That towel-snatching sword deserved every last bit!" Zetsu declared.
Kisame blushed. "Let's not talk about that incident again."
"Are you lot going to help me search for this tombstone or what?" Kabuto asked irritably.
"Tobi has looked at them all but there isn't one with Leader-sama's name on it." Tobi said.
"You do know that his real name was Nagato right?"
"Oh. Tobi will look at them all again."
They searched to no avail. It was freezing cold and the rain poured down incessantly; Kabuto shivered and pulled his maroon-coloured cloak tightly around himself.
It was extremely late at night and Tobi was so tired he couldn't keep his eye open. Zetsu collapsed, completely drained and unable to even stand. Kisame picked them up and slung one over each shoulder.
"Let's go. This excursion of yours was a waste of time." he told Kabuto. "Konan-san would have buried him somewhere special I think."
"Be q-quiet fool." Kabuto said, his teeth chattering from the cold.
"That's no way to speak to your leader." Kisame smirked.
"Gi Gi Gi."
"I can't carry you as well Samehada. You'll have to slither your way back."
"Gi Gi Gi Gi!"
"Don't be so lazy. You could do with some exercise anyway, you're looking rather chubby."
They made their way back to the hotel room and into their comfortable beds, falling asleep immediately.
Kisame woke up next to a warm body; he pulled it closer to him and nuzzled a hard face. Then his beady eyes shot open and saw an orange spiral mask right in front of him.
"Tobi-chan, what do you think you're doing?" he yelled after roughly shaking the interloper awake.
"Tobi is sorry! Tobi had a bad dream and didn't want to sleep alone."
"I'm sorry for shouting at you." he apologised and cuddled the frightened Uchiha. "But you're a big boy now and should sleep in your own bed."
Later, Tobi woke up his best friend.
"Leave me alone or I'll eat you." the cannibal said grumpily.
"But Tobi has brought breakfast for you."
Tobi had fun throwing scraps of meat at Zetsu who caught them out of the air with his mouth. Then he teleported bits of meat to different locations around the room and watched Zetsu scramble around after them hungrily.
The masked man then approached Kabuto and placed a large pile of food near him.
"Tobi didn't know what things you like to eat so I got lots of different stuff. There's cake and fruit and sausages and…"
Zetsu fell on the pile of food and devoured it all.
"Hey, that was supposed to be for Kabuto-san!"
"He's lucky I didn't eat him too."
"You should learn to control your appetite instead of acting like a wild beast." Kabuto said.
Zetsu snarled angrily and dived on top of him, biting deeply. Kisame pulled the cannibal off and held him firmly away from his prey.
"Zetsu-san, you're not allowed to eat other Akatsuki members." the man-shark hybrid admonished.
"Not even a nibble?" Zetsu begged.
"No." Kisame released him. "Now behave."
The medic healed his wound. "Zetsu-san, I understand that you're the Akatsuki spy?"
"Yes." he answered sullenly.
"I am far superior at espionage than you are. I don't think you're needed anymore."
Kisame listened to the rival spies quarrelling for a while before he decided to intervene.
"That's enough." he said. "Why don't you have a little contest to prove who is the better spy?"
"What do you have in mind?" Kabuto asked.
"The first one to find out where the Hidden Rain vault is located wins."
Zetsu dived out of the window without delay while Kabuto used a transformation jutsu to look like a civilian before exiting through the door.
"Kisame-san, what are we going to do while they're gone?" Tobi asked.
"I'm going to begin my shark-sage training. Samehada, bite me if I start to look like a shark."
"You always look like a shark." Tobi observed.
Kisame became crestfallen. "That's why I always get rejected by the ladies."
"Zetsu-san says you look sexy and he wants to lick your gills."
"Unfortunately for him, I'm not interested in men."
Several hours later the plant-ninja returned. He saw Kisame trying his best to meditate as a bored Tobi flicked candy at him.
"Hasn't Kabuto come back yet?" he inquired.
"SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER!" Kabuto burst out of the wardrobe with the smuggest grin possible on his scaly face. "I got back before you so now you have to admit that I'm the best at reconnaissance."
"No you're not." Zetsu said stubbornly. "You just got lucky that's all."
"Let's go. We've got a vault to ransack." Kisame said with an excited grin.
"Alright." Kabuto said. "The place I found was very tightly guarded and had some sensory ninja on watch too so I didn't actually get a look inside."
"Are you sure it's the vault then?" Kisame asked.
"I think so, what else would require so many guards?"
"I stumbled across something interesting while I was searching." mentioned Zetsu. "Yes, the final resting place of Nagato and Yahiko."
"That's wonderful, we'll go there immediately!" Kabuto said eagerly.
"Kisame should decide where we're going. He's our leader, not you." Zetsu told him.
"For now..." Kabuto stated.
"Tobi, put Kabuto into your dimension for a moment."
"Ok." Tobi did as he was told.
"Listen Kisame, you cannot let him become our leader." "If you do then I'm leaving the Akatsuki and I'm taking Tobi with me."
Kisame sighed. "Fine, I'll deal with him."
At his leaders command, Tobi brought forth Kabuto. The medic-nin found himself slammed against the wall with Samehada pressed painfully across his chest as Kisame leaned his considerable weight into it. The sharp scales of the sword cut through his own scaled flesh and it greedily drained his chakra.
Kisame grinned pleasantly as he crushed the smaller man. "I'm sorry for doing this but your perseverance in taking over the Akatsuki leadership is not going down so well. Give up and treat your leader with respect and obedience or else I'll hack you into pieces and feed you to Zetsu-san."
"Hell yeah!" Zetsu said ecstatically.
The shark-man released Kabuto. "And just so you know, I'm your leader at the moment but I think we'll go and resurrect Pain-sama so he can take charge once more."
"Very well." said Kabuto, disgruntled. He neglected to mention that he could keep his reanimated summons under his control.
They followed Zetsu's lead to the shrine of Nagato and Yahiko. It was beautiful, made of white marble with murals of angels upon the wall. The two bodies rested in a bed of origami flowers.
"Leader-sama, you were a strict leader but a good one." Tobi cried over the body of Yahiko.
"It's this one I'm after." Kabuto scraped a bit of skin from Nagato with a scalpel and deposited it into a test tube. "Although bringing back the ginger won't hurt either."
"Is that it?" Kisame asked unimpressed. "I thought you were going to bring them back to life, not poke them with your tiny knife."
"It's called a scalpel. Anyway…" Kabuto pushed his glasses up. "I just needed to take DNA samples. Now I'll need living sacrifices to use as vessels for their souls."
Zetsu looked down at the dead men and drooled. "It would be a shame to waste these delicious corpses." "Can I eat them?"
"How can you even consider eating something as valuable as the rinnegan?" asked Kabuto.
"Do you think Pain-sama would mind if we took his eyes?" Kisame wondered. "It wouldn't make him blind right?"
"That's right." Kabuto confirmed. "He'll come back just as he was before death."
"Alright, take them."
"Hmmm… I think you'd look captivating with purple eyes." said Zetsu.
"I'd rather not have my eyes gouged out thanks." Kisame said and then glanced at his one-eyed comrade. "But Tobi-chan could use…"
"Are you insane?" Zetsu asked incredulously. "You'd really trust Tobi with the rinnegan?"
"Can Tobi really have a cool new eye?" Tobi pleaded.
"Sure you can." Kisame petted his cute friend's short spiky hair affectionately.
"I'll take his eyes." Kabuto said. "But remember that we're going to reanimate him soon, I'm going to blame you if he gets angry about us messing with his body."
"He remotely controlled the corpse of his best friend for years, I don't think he cares too much about respecting the dead."
They returned to their hotel room. They planned to do the surgery on Tobi and then while he was recovering one of them would hunt for a human sacrifice in order to bring back their old leader.
"Why are you so eager to give up the leadership anyway?" questioned Kabuto.
"Pain-sama makes a better boss than I do." Kisame answered. "Although I hope he's given up on his crazy plan to create world peace."
"Yeah, what kind of ninja wants world peace?" Zetsu scoffed. "We'd all be out of jobs."
"If Tobi couldn't be a ninja then I think I'd be a clown." Tobi said.
"I'd be a gardener." said Zetsu. "No I'd be a funeral director."
"I wouldn't mind working as a fisherman." said Kisame. "What about you Kabuto-san?"
"I'd be a medical researcher of course." he replied.
"Do you think we could bring Deidara-sempai and all the other dead Akatsuki members back to life?" Tobi asked.
"I think we'd be able to get DNA samples of everyone besides Hidan, I don't know where his body is."
"I'm surprised you didn't devour them all." said Kabuto.
"I wasn't allowed to." Zetsu pouted.
"I asked that chuunin who managed to defeat Hidan-san where he was buried but he refused to tell me." said Kisame. "Although he did have a lady friend from the Hidden Sand, maybe if we capture her then he'll reveal Hidan-san's location in order to get her back."
"Temari is a jounin and the Kazekage's sister. She won't be easy to kidnap." said Zetsu.
"Tobi likes Hidan-sama; we used to play lots of fun games together. I hope we can find out where he is." Tobi said.
"Yeah you two used to play loads of pranks on Pain and hide Kakuzu's cash from him." "Even I wouldn't dare to mess with those two, you're both fucking insane."
"We'll find Hidan-san." Kisame promised.
"Will Konan-chan want to join us after we bring back Leader-sama?" Tobi asked. "It will be great to have all the Akatsuki together again!"
"Yeah, I guess we'll have to forgive her for attempting to kill us all and giving away Akatsuki secrets." Kisame scowled.
"I still think we should get revenge, let's sneak into her bedroom and pee on her carpet." Zetsu suggested.
"Good idea. You should do that after we've finished with Tobi-chan's surgery."
"Shall we get started with that?" the medic-nin asked.
"YES!" Tobi shouted.
"Alright, take off your mask."
"WHAT? No way!" Tobi backed away fearfully.
"Come back here." Kabuto said crossly. "How do you expect me to transplant your new eye if you won't remove your mask?"
Tobi hid beneath his bed for a while but then ventured out when Kabuto left to fetch lunch for them all. He snuggled up next to Kisame.
"It's for the best that he doesn't want the rinnegan implanted. He causes enough trouble as it is, giving him something that powerful would be foolish."
"He's not trouble." Kisame argued. "He rescued us when we got defeated by those Leaf ninja and he managed to get us into this village unseen."
"Tobi is useful!" the swirly-faced ninja said proudly.
When Kabuto returned he dropped a dead cat onto Zetsu's lap.
"You don't deserve it after stealing my breakfast but I brought you something to eat."
"Thanks." said Zetsu. He brought the cat up to his open mouth but it was snatched away just as he tried to bite into it. "Give that back!"
"No." said Tobi, cuddling the dead cat. "I want Kabuto-san to return life to it so Tobi can have a pet."
"I'm not going to resurrect that rotten fleabag." Kabuto said.
"Please." Tobi grabbed hold of Kabuto's cloak as he begged.
He felt a sharp pain as a needle pricked him and soon lost consciousness.
After completing his preparations for the surgery, Kabuto approached the masked man who was lying prone on a bed. The other two Akatsuki members gathered around, eager to finally see Tobi's face.
Kabuto removed the orange mask and gazed down at Tobi. He took in his boyish good looks, his only flaw was an empty eye socket and that would soon be fixed. His hand involuntary caressed Tobi's face.
Zetsu grabbed his arm. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Just an examination." he lied smoothly. Dammit, he nearly lost control to Orochimaru again!
