Saying that Kakuzu loved money was like calling Deidara gay. It was just obvious.
Money hadn't always been the most important thing to Kakuzu. Once, his family had been, long ago. He was born in the waterfall village, his mother a head medic nin, his dad a retired ANBU, working as a jounin. They were moderately wealthy, living in a rather nice apartment near the center of town.
Kakuzu could have cared less about his family's money then. He knew they had enough, and that was enough to satisfy them. He spent his time working on his studies, playing with his friends, and training, not bothering with the taxes and bills they received every month.
Kakuzu's friends were all moderately talented pre-nins, and they always trained together, laughing and joking as they practiced various ninjitsu and taijitsu.
His mother always had some interesting hospital story to tell at the end of each day, usually about how one patient got injured. Kakuzu had found these stories fascinating, and his mother had high hopes he would follow her into the medic area.
His father had his own bloodline limit, allowing him to use thread and cloth as a way of attack. Unraveling clothing during battles and using the threads to strangle their wearer was one of his favorite jitsus, and Kakuzu desperately wanted to learn it.
He graduated the ninja academy at the top of his class, and was assigned to one of the village's top jounin, Mikasa Suda, along with the second in class, Karin Fuuya, a girl with a bloodline limit that allowed her to create illusions so realistic and long lasting that some nin never came out of it. His other teammate was Ichiya Sanuka; while he didn't have a limit, he was a taijistu specialist.
The first mission with his team is where everything went wrong.
Kakuzu had little training with his bloodline when he went on his first mission, a supposedly C-ranked one. Turned out, it was an A-rank. They were suppose to fight against over fifty jounin level nins.
Mikasa tried to protect his students, but Ichiya was the first to fall, a hole drilled through his stomach. Mikasa followed soon after, pushing Karin out of the way of a chakra blast.
Soon, it was only Karin and Kakuzu, still hopelessly out-numbered, nearly forty-five to two.
Karin died shortly after, impaled by a spear, leaving only Kakuzu. A team of geniuses, dead in less than ten minutes.
Kakuzu didn't die of course, but he came close. His body was slashed, and he was left for dead. Found nearly six hours later, he was taken to the hospital immediately. His mother and her friends worked overtime to repair the damage, but his soul had been broken far beyond repair.
He wasn't insane, per say. In fact, he was more intelligent than ever, his body toughened by the experience. But he was still snapped in two.
His mother didn't understand why he was suddenly so cold, so distant. He hardly said a word to her, and his father couldn't connect to his son anymore. Kakuzu's desire to learn his bloodline limit diminished, leaving only a want.
For immortality.
The idea of never appealed to him. A way to never die, never lose. A way to see everything passed by, with you always there, laughing as the world came to it's end, and he wanted to be the last one on Earth's final day, laughing in the fiery fields as the mortals died in agony around him.
Yes, that is what Kakuzu wanted.
Money also became important to him. His surgery had cost his parents, and his father and mother were working overtime to pay it back. He didn't want to burden them anymore, with his new-found greed and wish.
So he left. Leaving was simpler than coming. Bounty hunting was all now, even with his training half complete. He wore a mask now; partially to hide his face from people after the bounty on his head, partially because he hated the way he looked now.
His bloodline became twisted. The threads, used from his surgery, covered his body, and Kakuzu found he could control them easily. They became his main form of attack; digging the coarse black threads into unsuspecting nins.
He found that his threads could rip out the hearts of his victims, still beating. He still wanted immortality, and the hearts began to interest him.
During one fight, a kunai was stabbed into his lower intestine, and he hissed venomously as his stomach acids began to leak out slowly, eating at his stomach lining slowly. His threads dug into his attacker's chest, and the man died screaming as the threads yanked back, carrying his heart with them.
Kakuzu stared at the heart dangling in front of him, head full of a hazy fog as it moved closer. He didn't question what his threads were doing; they knew what they were doing.
Prying back the flap of ripped skin on his stomach, the threads shoved the heart in, reaching in to connect arteries and nerves to the new addition.
Life suddenly flooded his veins, and Kakuzu grinned as the threads began to stitch his stomach shut.
He was twenty nine at the time, and after that, his body seemed to stop aging. Stuck like that forever. Not that he cared; it was a step towards his goal.
He continued to steal hearts, storing them inside his chest. As ANBU came after him more and more, he found that if he stole their masks and hearts, combining it with his threads, he had powerful monsters that could live quietly on his back the rest of the time. He transferred all his hearts he had, except for his own, to his back. Three hearts, three masks.
When Akatsuki came for him, he was bored. Sure, he had plenty of money, and he was basically immortal. But life becomes boring after the days of the same pass by often enough. His money ceased to interest him as much as it once had.
Having nothing better to do, he joined. Pein gave him the job of balancing the budget almost immediately, as well as a partner.
The first guy died within his first day. Pein was not pleased, but grudgingly gave him another partner, a man who supposedly murdered his entire village. Gone within three weeks.
One after another. Kakuzu ended up losing count after awhile. There were just too many.
Of course, then they had to find him.
Hidan was the smallest man in Akatsuki so far, eyes large and almost comic-like. Pale skin, silver hair, a lean body. He looked more like a model then a nin, and certainly a immortal one at that.
Oh, Kakuzu tried to kill him. Honestly. The kid was just immortal psycho with a huge ego, had no respect for money or authority, and never shut up.
But there was something rather appealing about that. Hidan didn't hold things in like Kakuzu did. He always said what he was thinking, did the first thing that came to mind; whether it was plunging a pike through his stomach or pushing Kakuzu out of the way of a kunai.
He didn't know when it started to hurt watching Hidan hurt himself. People didn't matter to him anymore, but Hidan did.
Was Hidan even a person? He was so unearthly beautiful Kakuzu never considered him human at all; more like some jeweled statue come to life. A precious treasure, sealed in time like he was.
And not just anyone's treasure, oh no.
Hidan was his, whether he knew it or not.
Author's Comments: ...Kinda been outta it all day, sorry....
It's not a blood limit. It's a forbidden Jutsu. I'm sorry; it's just the way I interpreted it. I didn't mean to offend anyone.