Kakuzu was not a man that allowed himself too many luxuries.

He did not believe in spending money; so he did not buy himself many things that some might consider 'items of leisure'. He only bought the bare necessities- and sometimes not even that.

He also did not take too much time pondering about the things that brought him great joy. The only thing he had ever allowed himself to take any sort of pleasure in was whenever he counted money after a well earned bounty had been cashed in. And this was simply because he loved money so much he could never truly detach himself from the pleasure he rejoiced in whenever he had some in his hands.

The only luxury he would never be able to admit to indulging in, though, was one that he had never even thought he'd ever find.

"So, Kuzu, where are you from? What's your village's symbol mean?"

It didn't even really count as a luxury, really. If anything what he refused to consider a luxury was actually a complication that he had no idea as to why he allowed in his life.

"It's none of your business, stop annoying me."

"But we want to know! And why do you wear that mask? Is it because your face is all messed up?"

"Kiba! You don't ask that kind of thing!"

The hyperactive brat that happened to be the biggest headache of the three Kakuzu had unwittingly allowed into his life had absolutely no tact. He was loud, obnoxious, seemed to be unable to read the most basic of social cues, and refused to behave like a proper child. In a way, the kid reminded Kakuzu a lot of Hidan. But, at the same time, he was a thousand times more stomachable than the Jashinist.

The pink haired brat, though, was more tolerable than the hyperactive brat. She had seemed to have taken his words to heart and he'd only seen her with tear filled eyes only once after he'd told her his piece of advice. She was usually the one that tried to calm the hyperactive brat down... Although it barely ever worked.

"But if I don't ask, I'll never find out. So why wouldn't I ask?"

"It's kind of rude, Kiba."

The fat brat was the least annoying of them all. But Kakuzu merely guessed that it was because he was the one that asked the least amount of questions about his life. And he was also the least likely to piss him off, seeing how he was the one that asked the least. Besides, the annoying, spineless attitude he seemed to have had the first time wasn't as clear to him anymore. The kid was a follower, there was no doubt about that. But he wasn't a spineless weasel either.

The brat with the too-big-for-his-face facial tattoos looked over at both his friends with confusion Kakuzu was sure wasn't feigned. And he was annoyed unbelievably by this.

What kind of kid couldn't understand just what things were and weren't considered rude?

He couldn't be bothered by this.

"Don't you three have anything better to do with your lives than just annoy me?"

They had been following him around for the better half of a day.

Admittedly, this may have been some of his fault. He could have never even allowed himself to be seen within the Village, so he never would have found himself having to deal with them. But they usually always offered to pay for his food whenever they saw him... So he had decided the risk was worth the reward. And he had managed to eat some rather delicious breakfast... The only problem was that now he was being followed by three annoying brats that asked too many questions.

"Not really. It's summer, we've got no school for a while. So we've got nothing to do." The pink haired brat shrugged slightly as she jumped onto a brick that had been laying in the middle of the road for some reason, "We spend our days running around."

"Sometimes we invite Shikamaru and Ino to play with us, but they're busy right now." The fat brat elaborated, all the while a bag of chips seemed to materialize out of thin air and appear in his hands.

He had heard about these two brats a handful of times before. But he wasn't all that eager to really learn anything about them- he didn't want to know about the brats that bothered him, why in the world would he want to know about brats he had never even seen?

"So, Kuzu, what're you doing here? Why haven't you popped up any sooner?"

Hidan and he were scouting out a couple possible recruits for the Akatsuki. His target was an Uchiha that was clearly too attached to his clan to ever possibly do anything against his Clan, much less his Village.

But it wasn't as if he could tell the brats about the real reasons as to why he was here.

Over the handful of unfortunate interactions he had been forced into by the mongrels, he had managed to concoct a cover story that they found completely believable and somewhat interesting.

In their eyes, he ran a sort of trading business. They did not know just what kinds of things he traded- they did not need to be aware of the unsavory side of his day-to-day life- and that was exactly the way Kakuzu needed it to stay. He couldn't really have a couple of snot nosed brats aware of his criminal endeavors, now could he?

Whenever he was in Konoha, they believed it was because he was finding people to sell wares to. Even though they had never seen any wares… Children in the Village Hidden in the Leaves were about as stupid as their shinobi… It was a true wonder just how this Village was the strongest of all of the Hidden Villages.

"Business. I've been busy." The man grunted as he crossed his arms over his chest, then looked forward at the path the hyperactive mongrel had been leading them down. "Just where are you taking me?"

"Our secret place of course." The brat answered as easily as if he were commenting on how blue the sky was on this particular day. "Pinkie and Pork Chop have snacks and I've got kunai. You're going to teach us how to throw them."

Kakuzu had never promised any of these brats anything. So he had no idea where they had gotten the idea of him helping them from.

"I'm no-"

"We'll pay for your lunch and dinner!"

Kakuzu leveled him with a completely disinterested glare, "Didn't you already waste enough money on my breakfast?"

"Maybe." The mongrel answered much too chirpily. "But Pinkie got her allowance yesterday and Pork Chop's got left over birthday money."

He was not a man that enjoyed the company of others; much less the company of children. He should tell these brats that he wanted nothing to do with them and that they should piss off before they really annoyed him.

Those annoyed words never even reached his mouth. His eyes caught sight of the necklaces he had not gotten for them and, for some reason, he felt his heart twitch just slightly.

Well… If he was here with the children… Far away from Hidan… It was something like a victory, really.

With a grunt, he motioned with his hand for the hyperactive brat to get a move on.

"No! Get up and fight back!"

From learning how to throw kunai a couple of weeks back, the mongrels had graduated to learning taijutsu. They were still very much beginners and very much insufferable in their lack of grace, but at least Kakuzu could say that they were much better than Hidan when it came to efficiency in the battlefield.

The pink haired brat was face down on the floor and had scraps and dirt marring her body.

If Kakuzu had been a kinder man, he would have told the hyperactive brat to back off and leave her alone as she took a breather. If he had been a nicer sort of person, he would have even gone up to the girl to try and soothe her worries so she could get back up, but at her own pace.

Kakuzu was not nice. Nor was he kind.

"Are you going to let him step all over you? Show him how he can't."

Kakuzu would never admit to this, but he felt a little bit of something when he saw the pink haired brat raise her head up to show off the fire that burned within her green eyes.

She was beaten. There was no way to avoid that. The Inuzuka was leagues beyond her when it came to his taijutsu skills. And the Akimichi was well above her as well, but nowhere near the Inuzuka. It was clear that she was a civilian child rather than a clan one.

Even though her defeat was clear, the brat struggled to force herself to at least stand up.

From the corner of his eyes, Kakuzu could see the Inuzuka brat grinning with pride clear on his face.

"Way to go, Sakura! Just like that! You can do it!"

The Akimichi cheering for her had his fair share of bruises and stains, seeing how he had already gone up against the Inuzuka before the pink brat had.

It was almost sickening to see how much these kids relied on each other to gain strength. But this wasn't Kakuzu's problem to solve. They would eventually learn that there was no such thing as trust in a world like theirs.

Panting with her face reddened, the pink haired brat raised her fists in a weak imitation of a fighting stance.

She struggled to keep her footing, but propelled herself forward so she could throw a sloppy and completely miscalculated punch at her friend. The hyperactive brat sidestepped it and allowed her to fall on her face once more, a harsh 'Oof!' falling from her lips.

Kakuzu decided that she had fought enough for one day.

"Alright. I'm hungry."

He couldn't tell the brats that he had decided the pink haired brat had done enough for the day. If he did, they might have gotten the incorrect idea that he actually cared for them. And he couldn't have them believing that.

As he stood up from the stump that had become his usual chair for observing their training, Kakuzu noted how the Inuzuka brat swooped down to help pick the pink haired brat up from the floor.

If there was something he had learned from the brat in the course of the past few weeks, it was that the Inuzuka were weird. They were rough and believed that a bit of harsh medicine was the best to helping their kids. But they also fussed over their 'pack', much like a mother hen at times. The hyperactive brat had shown these traits off, at least.

The Akimichi brat meandered towards his friends with bottles of water at the ready and offered one to each.

Once they had gulped down everything they were going to drink, the three turned to look up at him.

"Where are we going?"

Brats…

"Weren't you three so worried of keeping me a secret? I thought you didn't want me to be seen with you as we ate."

The simultaneous and perfectly synchronized way their faces dropped at the reminder was almost amusing.

"Right… Well… I guess Chouji and I can go and buy some food while you and Sakura stay here. She needs some rest, anyway."

He wasn't all that enthusiastic about having to stay with the pink haired brat. But he wasn't about to say no to free food. So Kakuzu merely grunted and sat himself back down on his preferred stump.

The pink haired brat smiled over at him, tentative and tired, and then allowed herself to slump on the trunk of the large tree behind Kakuzu.

The time spent waiting for the two male brats passed in silence. It was only really filled in by the brat's snores, seeing how she had managed to fall asleep.

… If he were a lesser man, he might say that the brat looked somewhat cute as she slept, arms dangled over a particularly large root.

When the two brats arrived, it was with two bags filled with food carried by each. They made their way towards him, allowing him to grab the first bit of food before they moved on to sit with their fellow brat at the base of the tree.

"I'd say today was a good day." The Akimichi brat commented before he had begun to munch on his fried fish. "Target practice went about as well as it could have. And this time Kiba didn't almost rip my arm out."

The Inuzuka brat glared down at the floor of the memory of his loss of control, but the Akimichi patted his back and smiled comfortingly at him.

Truly, their reliance on each other was just wrong.

Kakuzu ate his first piece of the meal quickly, his body turned away from the children so he would not have to worry about them seeing his scarred face. And once he turned to look over at them, it was to find the boys trying to wake the pink haired brat up so she could eat something.

As they did that, Kakuzu looked over the place they had deemed perfect to be their base of operations. It was within a large forest- which didn't really surprise him, this was Konoha, after all.

There was something about the atmosphere in this place, though… Something that didn't feel quite right. And the fact that the Inuzuka brat insisted on them following him unless they wanted to die certainly did not make Kakuzu's suspicions die out.

"What do you think, old man? Are we getting better?"

Compared to the first time he had accompanied them on their training? By light years. They had started off completely inept and truly pitiful. Now, though, they were able to throw kunai with nearly good precision and their fighting styles were much more refined.

"There's still room for improvement."

"Tch, you always say that. But, secretly, you're amazed at how awesome we've gotten! We're just seven, after all."

"Kiba, you're still six."

"I turn seven in a month, Akimichi!"

"Still six… Pipsqueak…"

Kakuzu, stealing a sly glance at the children, was able to see Sakura grinning tiredly at her friend. And Kiba, in turn, was gawking at her with much too dramatic surprise clear on his features.

With a silent roll of his eyes, the large man stood up, made his way towards the brats, and took another piece of fish.

As long as he got food out of them, he didn't mind having to be around them.

The less money he spent, the better his life, after all.

"Just where the hell do you disappear to when we come here? It's like you've got something important to do other than just count your money."

Kakuzu grunted as he ignored Hidan's much too loud words.

After acquiring one final dinner from the brats, Kakuzu had waved them off (among shouts and pleas to return before the following school term started so they could spend some more time with him) and made his way towards the outskirts of Konoha so he could meet up with his insufferable partner.

It wasn't any of Hidan's business what he did or did not do while they were in Konoha. Just like Hidan's own exploits weren't any of Kakuzu's interest. As long as they stayed out of each other's hairs, this little partnership didn't have to necessarily be the most insufferable one Kakuzu had been forced to put up with.

"Come on! Why don't you tell me? Is it embarrassing? Is it violent?" The Jashinist didn't know how to keep his mouth shut.

The hyperactive brat was much like this… But he was much less annoying, seeing how he actually did shut up whenever Kakuzu glared at him in just the right way.

"Do you waste your money on whores?"

That was a question that didn't even need a response.

Kakuzu would never willingly waste money on anything- not even something some men might consider important.

"Fuck, you're boring."

"We've got a mission. Why don't you focus on that?"

"Because messing with your personal life is a thousand times more interesting, of course. What the fuck, Kuzu, why would you think I wouldn't want to know where you go off to?"

Hearing the name coming from Hidan's lips made Kakuzu want to smack him. He didn't need the Jashinist calling him that. Not when he already had three other brats that used that name to call for him.

"Bounty. Land of Wind. Suna's borders."

Hidan huffed over dramatically in a way that made Kakuzu want to beat the stupidity out of him.

Watching the brats running around wasn't really anything he did to gain any sort of pleasure. He didn't feel anything when he saw the three brats laughing and having fun, as if there were no problems in their lives they had to deal with. His heart didn't warm at the sight of the three helping one another to get better and learn. He felt absolutely nothing when they built each other up, rather than tore one another down.

He merely watched after them to make sure that the gifts he had not given them were not misused or mistreated. Those necklaces had most probably not been easy to find, they weren't stones that were easy to find. And those targets weren't all that cheap to find in the market.

... He was lying to himself even in his own mind... He was going insane... He blamed exposure to Hidan.

Still, it was because of following the brats that Kakuzu was able to find out some rather intimate details of their lives he was sure they had not wanted others to know.

The Inuzuka brat came from a broken home. His parents were never around; always left him to his own devices and to fend for himself. Which, in a way, might have been admirable... If not for the fact that this particular brat needed more guidance than he did independence.

The fat brat had the most stable family life. His parents clearly loved him and nurtured him; some might even say that they did this to an almost sickening degree. Still, they made sure he was always fed and never needed anything, which was admirable in its own right. The dirt Kakuzu had on him wasn't even all that bad; he didn't want to have to decide between two group of friends. He was the bridge between the pink and hyperactive brat and the other clan ones; he clearly had friendships with them both and didn't want to lose them. But it was clear from the way that he would worry over all of them that he believed one day he might be given an ultimatum: one or the other, but not both.

And the pink haired brat had a family that protected her too much and didn't want her anywhere near the shinobi life... Or her Inuzuka friend.

The brat wasn't around when her parents spoke of this, but Kakuzu had caught the conversations many times before.

"She might die; I don't think I could deal with that."

"He's such a bad influence- I mean, he's a good friend, but... I worry..."

"Maybe she'll figure out she's not caught out to be a kunoichi. Then we won't have to worry."

No family was perfect. No kid had a perfect life. Kakuzu was not surprised to find any of this out.

It bothered him, though, how badly the adults in the brats lives judged them. If even he could see their potential, then there was clearly something there to mold.

Konoha truly was filled with idiots.

He was not the kind that would care enough about other people to actively think about them and things that might have brought them joy. He did not believe in buying gifts just for the heck of it; nor did he believe that gifts should be given away recklessly.

For some reason, though, he could not stop himself from thinking about the three brats when he looked at the portable targets that had been left lying around by some clearly inexperienced Suna genin.

They needed to be able to practice their aim… If they didn't practice, they'd never get any better…

As he walked away from Suna, Kakuzu found himself carrying two things of very different importance.

One was the head of the bounty he and Hidan had been sent to cash in. The other was a bag filled with five small targets that had been much too easy to grab.

He refused to think about which one happened to be more important.

"Not everything is a race, Inuzuka! Winning isn't all that matters!"

"Yeah, it's just what's awesomest!"

Kakuzu grunted softly as he watched the Inuzuka make an ass himself as he rushed to set up the practice targets the three brats had found in their homes that morning.

Two had been left in the Inuzuka's house, two in the Akimichi's, and one in the civilian's.

It had not taken more than an hour for the brats to get together and begin gushing over their newest gifts. And in a couple of minutes, they had grabbed the other two mongrels Kakuzu had heard about so they could try out their newest gifts.

"Where did you guys even get these from?" The brat with the pineapple shaped hair asked softly, looking over at the target that he had been tasked with setting up.

Because they had been taken from unsuspecting Suna brats, they had seen their fare share of use. There were nicks and holes already in them, along with a couple of scratches. So it was more than clear that these were not new targets.

Kakuzu found himself frowning at the Nara brat. He was already asking too many questions.

"They were gifts from a distant cousin of mine." The hyperactive brat answered without skipping a beat, lying rather smoothly.

That one. That brat was the most dangerous of them all. He knew how to lie. Kakuzu had seen him stealing a slab of meat in the market place a couple of weeks ago without getting caught. And he had a loud mouth on him. He had no idea just how a Clan kid had wound up so rugged, but he knew that it would be dangerous to allow the kid to continue down the track he was going.

Not that Kakuzu cared about that.

"Hand me downs, huh?" The blonde brat questioned with clear disdain in her tone of voice, "He could have given you something new, you know?"

"Or he could have given me nothing at all. Geez, a gift's a gift, Yamanaka."

The blonde snapped a glare and the Inuzuka bared his teeth at her. But soon the fat brat stepped forward and defused the situation by saying a simple, "Why don't we start on some target practice?"

"Yeah!"

The Inuzuka was easily distracted... That seemed to be the only thing that ever managed to save him from getting into petty squabbles that would amount into absolutely nothing of true importance.

"Let's all try to hit the center target! That way we can really see who's the best!" The pink haired brat chimed in as she walked over to the other brats, all the while the Nara continued to look over the target that had been given to him to set up.

Kakuzu knew that look. He had seen it plenty of times before on the faces of Nara he had come across that had tried to apprehend him. He did not like that look.

"Sounds good. Here you go." The Inuzuka grabbed safety kunai from the bag he had wrapped over his shoulder and handed two to each of the brats around him. "Oi, Nara, you going to play?"

"Yeah, yeah..."

Taking much too long, the Nara brat stood up, set up his target beside the rest, and walked over to the Inuzuka to grab a pair of kunai himself.

That one was one the brats would have to look out for. If they weren't careful, he would be able to figure out their little 'shared secret' in no time.

..~..~..

Hope you all liked this chapter! I like Kakuzu's point of view, he's such a grumpy guy!

Anyway, in the next chapter, there'll be a time of skip of some two years just to get the ball a-rollin'.

Please review!