AN: Ok, here we are. This is going to be the last chapter that is lore heavy and then, Akatsuki-palooza! It's just going to be Akatsuki day in and day out with our next character being introduced. So excited, especially since I've got arcs planned and everything. It's going to be awesome! Anyway, this is going to be an itty-bitty chapter in comparison to the beast that was the last and have a lot of dialogue but enjoy, nonetheless!

Cat Beats: And Akatsuki shenanigans you shall have because after this chapter, it'll be nothing but Akatsuki! We are getting back to canon, baby. Or, my interpretation of canon, at least. Thank you for reviewing! Seriously, readers like you are my blood.

magmo22: -Patrick Star voice- I love you. Seriously though, you my friend, are like one step ahead of me at all times or maybe I'm making twists and turns too obvious? Hmm. That being said, you want to know of our friend, the Priest? Just read this chapter! And I am so, so glad I'm not making Kakuzu too out-of-character with his behaviour towards Zetsu because trust me, he isn't going to let up, especially with our next Akatsuki member -cough cough-. As for Orochimaru and Sasori, yeah, they getting it on. I agree with you that something had to have happened between them to make Sasori so salty when Orochimaru bamf'ed out of the Akatsuki. Also, no spoilers but I am not following the recruitment…canon(?) of the Akatsuki just due to the fact even in canon, it's confusing as shit between the anime and games and ugh, I hate it. You'll know who it is at the end of this chapter. YES! Jūzō Biwa is going to be in this story! Only because, I have plans for him and he's going to have a huge part in this story, believe it or not. You'll just have to wait and see. And yes, there are going to be slash relationships. I'm not sure about female pairings, not yet at least, but I'll say now, there is going to be male character implications. Seriously, the Akatsuki was not straight and even I know that. If you've been partners with a person for long enough, feelings develop, it's only natural. And finally, for your genderbent question: no. Inside the Akatsuki: no, outside the Akatsuki? I can think of one character if I ever find a way to cameo him. I only genderbent Zetsu since I wanted to make her unique to this fanfiction and Orochimaru because…I mean look at him. He may be a dude but that's obviously not what he identifies with in the anime or manga. And with that, I conclude your monster review with my monster reply. Seriously, I love you and thank you for your support!

Enjoy.

p.s. no beta, too lazy to edit. Please excuse any jank.

Warning(s): Genderbend (Low), Language (Med), Out of Character

…

Wasteland

The Akatsuki Arc

Chapter 54

This mystery person Kakuzu hinted at was none other than Ryu Hitoshi a.k.a. Dr. Ryu. Turns out, Ryu had been compiling research on the Mayfly after meeting Zetsu, a fact she hadn't known but was intrigued, nonetheless. He was making leeway too, said Kakuzu, and if anyone could draw in the blanks on the Mayfly, it would be Ryu. So, after they finally got back to Ame for a day or two of walking, they washed themselves off and headed directly for the doctor's house.

Luckily, it was the weekend, so he should be home. And home he was as after only a few raps of Kakuzu's knuckles on the door, Ryu answered seconds later, looking surprised at his unexpected but welcomed guests.

"Kakuzu! Oh, and Zetsu!" Ryu greeted them, smiling under his bushy mustache and pushing his glasses up as the delighted grin caused the oversized frames to fall. "How're you? Is everything ok?"

"Hey, Ryu," Kakuzu greeted the other man with an equal friendliness that gave Zetsu the impression that Ryu may be one of the only two people Kakuzu genuinely liked, the other being Yui. Maybe Zetsu too? She didn't want to give herself that much credit. "We're fine. Listen, Zetsu is looking into the Mayfly and told her you were doing your own investigation into the Kekkei Genkai, so I'd thought I'd bring her over to read your notes."

Immediately, Ryu's default joyous expression turned downfallen with a swiftness to break the sound barrier. "D-Did you? And what did you tell her?" As he asked this, he glanced nervously at Zetsu who just stared back curiously.

"All I told her was you were writing a book, Ryu," Kakuzu said thoroughly, obviously leaving something out in Zetsu's presence but whatever it was, its omission caused the pediatrician to visibly relax and his smile to spawn back onto his face.

"O-Of course! I'd love to share my research with her. Please, come in, come in." Pushing his door open, Ryu stepped back to let them in. However, as Zetsu took a step inside, Kakuzu suddenly grasped her arm and held her back, causing her to look up at her guardian in bewilderment.

Kakuzu looked hard at Ryu through the darkness of his sunglasses so his glare while not being seen, could be felt. "Where is it?"

It took Ryu a moment to understand what his friend meant by "it" but once he did, he straightened up, rubbing his hands on his shirt. "Skiif is outside in the garden. It just had lunch so it may be napping." He explained, tucking on his sleeves over his elbow as he did. Kakuzu caught the implication of "lunch" and Ryu realized his slip-up as he stepped back, pointing a hand to the kitchen to make his escape. "I-I'll go make us tea!"

"May I have hot chocolate, Dr. Ryu?" Zetsu asked politely.

"Oh, sure! And you do not have to call me Dr. Ryu here, Zetsu-chan, just Ryu." With that said, Ryu basically fled to the kitchen while Kakuzu and Zetsu entered his home.

They seated themselves on the sofa and while Zetsu sat quietly and patiently, Kakuzu was searching around to confirm Ryu hadn't been lying his little pet was in fact, outside. A few minutes later, Ryu walked back into the main area, in tray inn hand with their cups.

"So, what is it you'd like to learn about the Mayfly, Zetsu-chan?" Ryu asked her as he set her mug down on the table and Zetsu did her damndest not to look disgusted at the white sticky sugar lumps floating in her chocolate that were her worst enemy: marshmallows.

"I don't know where to begin," Zetsu said.

"Well then, I could start from the beginning?" Ryu offered, tasting his tea but as soon as he said that Kakuzu let out an overdramatic groan from the other end of the couch.

"God no, Ryu. If I have to listen to your blubbering for however long it'll take you to narrate the history of the Mayfly, I'm going to off myself." He broadcasted, setting down his cup after gulping down the steaming hot liquid. "Can't she just read your notes?"

Ryu, meanwhile, hadn't noticed how much Kakuzu hated listening to him explaining his research and while he felt a little offended over the fact, he could understate his sentiment. Afterall, he did have a tendency to lose himself. "She can but all my research is out in the garden."

Kakuzu piqued an eyebrow over his sunglasses. "In the garden? With that thing?"

"Skiif is harmless."

"I'm ok with reading," Zetsu shrugged.

"That isn't the point, Girl. I don't want you outside with that thing." Kakuzu told her.

"Would you instead want me to bring Skiif instead while she's outside?" Ryu offered.

"With us? Fuck no!"

"Well, I cannot just lock it up. It can escape my room by going under the door." Ryu explained, gifting Kakuzu a beautiful image in his head from a scene out of a horror movie Zetsu once walked in on him watching about an extraterrestrial shapeshifting organism murdering people out in Yukigakure. Yeah, she couldn't sleep by herself for a week after that. At least it wasn't as bad as that "killer rabbit". Shame of him for thinking a comedy would be funny and not have such a traumatizing scene for the likes of a child. Yes, he was a bad parent.

"Why can't you bring your notes inside here then?"

"Oh, I cannot do that! There's too many and then I'd have to take them back outside because that's where my typewriter is."

Kakuzu threw his hands up, done with this quibbling. "Fine! But if that thing so much as looks at Zetsu, I'm going to burn it alive!"

"Skiif isn't going to hurt her, Kakuzu," Ryu insisted, grimacing at the thought of his precious experiment going up in flames, especially after so much blood, sweat, and tears spent on it—literally. "Zetsu-chan, I'll show you where my notes are." Nodding, Zetsu got up and followed Ryu out to the garden with Kakuzu behind her, as just to check she wasn't going to be immediately eaten alive by Ryu's little pet of horrors.

Outside, Ryu showed Zetsu the white bistro table which all his paperwork was haphazardly stacked down with piles being on the ground around it too and also the other chair. "Here is everything I've documented on the Mayfly so far. I'm got books too that I've bookmarked. If you have any questions, feel free to ask." Zetsu nodded in understanding and seated herself in the only free chair. As she did, she spied a journal laid on the typewriter labeled, "Mayfly/Skiif Observation Notes" and curious, went for that first only for the book to be snatched out from under her. "E-Except that! It's…private." Ryu chuckled nervously, stashing the journal behind his back.

"Thank you, Dr—err, Ryu." Zetsu said and instead, picked up a random stack of papers and began thumbing through it while Kakuzu seated himself in the park bench behind her, keeping a close eye or her but a closer eye on Ryu's experiment that was loose somewhere. Ryu joined him and two struck up a conversation on the eternally enthralling subject of politics.

Meanwhile, Zetsu waded through the endless sea of papers on the Mayfly, finding most of Ryu's discoveries to either be things she knew herself already, or documentation on the Second World War which was nothing new she hadn't heard outside her war documentaries. What was new, however, was when she selected one of the books he had laid out about ancient rulers and opened it up to the first bookmark to find it detailing Father Michaelis, the first known Mayfly user.

Father Alighieri Michaelis, priest of the Children of the Rabbit Goddess, was the progenitor of the Mayfly and founder of Kusagakure, which became the largest supernation in history after his presumed death until the Second Shinobi World War.

After founding Kusagakure, he launched the crusades, a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and directed by the Children's Church that conquered most of the Land of Grass, reaching as far west as the Land of Wind and Land of Fire in the east. These invasions were often accompanied by large-scale massacres of the civilian and shinobi populations, especially in the Firelands and Highlands territories. Michaelis had often taken women as his wives to bear him children with his Kekkei Genkai, the Mayfly, which led the Mayfly outnumbering other clans, ancient and modern, fifteen to one. Because of this, a majority Mayfly can have their genetics traced back to Michaelis.

As a result of this brutality, which left millions dead, he became known as the "God of Death" and was widely believed to have been a Shinigami with images depicting him with skeletal tattoos and a scythe while written records from his era alleging his "immortality" in battle. He is also credited as being the inspiration for supernatural beings such Jashin, the "God of Death and Destruction", of Jashinism in old Yugakure folktales. By the end of his reign, Kusagakure occupied a substantial portion of the continent. Due to his exceptional military successes, Father Michaelis is often considered to be the greatest conqueror of all time.

'Wait, he founded Kusa? I didn't know that.' Zetsu thought, gulping down her hot chocolate then shaking off the marshmallows stuck to her upper lip. 'It said he was the progenitor of the Mayfly, but the Sage said the Mayfly came from the Nidhogg and if that's the case, did this Nidhogg give him the Mayfly? But that can't be right because that snake, Garaga, said Loki was the first? Then did Loki give him the Mayfly? Who is Loki?' That was the million-dollar question, so she kept reading.

Sadly, she didn't find her answer, even after digging through all the books Ryu had out for reference. What she did learn, however, from a book titled, The Curious Case of Clans, was the fact that as the Sage said, all the Mayfly saw the Wasteland as Zetsu did, making her feel a little better it wasn't just her but worst since it may or may not have legitimized her schizophrenia diagnosis which she had always been skeptical about. While she found no mention of a "Loki", she did find a new character: Third Son of the Mother God. Not just that but also his supposed "curse" on the Mayfly after gifting it to Michaelis. Was this Third Son and Loki one in the same? Unfortunately, only in that book was he mentioned and nothing else but did confirm her theory that Michaelis was in fact, not the first with the Mayfly. Thus, this led her into finally going to Ryu's notes in hope of finding new clues.

Who was the Third Son of the Mother God? She found one page helpfully titled and read it.

The Mother God speaks of Princess Kaguya Ōtsutsuki who was the Mother of Chakra. Kaguya did in fact have sons, two and twins, Hagoromo and Hamura Ōtsutsuki. So, who was the Third Son of the Mother God? It falls onto two theories: one, this "Third Son" was lying and was not a son of Kaguya or two, he was the secret bastard of Kaguya. Unfortunately, there is no documentation to neither confirm nor deny these theories and the Third Son has no place outside Mayfly mythos. But I purpose a new hypothesis. What if this Third Son was neither a son nor a bastard but leftover part of Kaguya which identified itself as such?

Like Michaelis was gifted the Mayfly, Kaguya was gifted chakra from the God Tree this too was not without consequence. The God Tree angered by having its fruit taken by her, transformed Kaguya into the hideous and cataclysmic Juubi. It was Kaguya's own sons, Hagoromo and Hamura, which ended its destruction and sealed the Juubi into the moon while Hagoromo divided its chakra into the nine Bijuu. But what if something survived? And that something, identifying itself as the Third Son, went onto to infect Father Michaelis with the Mayfly like a demonic possession? Was the Juubi a demon?

Zetsu had to stop herself there but there was a lot to take into what she just read. For one, this was The Tale of Yggdrasil that Yui had written, except characters and the plot was different. Yui mentioned it being the "true" telling of The Tale of Princess Kaguya so is that what Ryu was basing his theory off of? Next, the God Tree and the Juubi? 'So, was that Yggdrasil and the Nidhogg? And if so, did that mean the Hanging Tree and the Monster, Yggdrasil and the Nidhogg and the God Tree and the Juubi all the same thing? Why so many names and mythos? And lastly, did Ryu seriously suggest the Juubi was a demon and the Mayfly was a byproduct of that? And who was Loki!? Was Loki this Third Son? And if he was, was he the Juubi? Then why did Garaga say to find him?' It all was making her head hurt and instead of learning the truth and better understanding the Mayfly and its connection with the Wasteland, she was back at the beginning with a million new questions.

"Are you ok, girl?" Kakuzu interrupted his conversation with Ryu to ask after seeing Zetsu leaning back in the chair and dramatically rubbing her eyes and face with her hands and stayed like that for a number of seconds.

"Yeah, I just…I just have so many new questions." She like a broken record at this point.

Ryu excitedly swiveled in his chair to face her. "If you have questions, I'd love to answer them!" He said, ignoring Kakuzu's muttering of, "oh fuck, here we go" behind him.

Zetsu turned around in her own chair towards him. "I don't know where to begin. Umm…maybe what was the God Tree exactly?"

"Oh yes, so the God Tree was the source of all life for the world and before you ask, yes, it was real! There is overwhelming proof of its existence, written and scientific including a mountain range where it once was known as the Peaks of Demise,"

"So, if it was the source of all life, that means it came before life then? Where did it come from though?"

"Well, it's purposed that it came from space, likely in a meteor as Peaks of Demises were created as part of an impact site."

He was losing her a little with the space talk, but it was still making sense and confirmed that this God Tree and Yggdrasil were in fact, one in the same. "So, was the God Tree and the Juubi the same or not? Because I've read a few things now where they either were or were not."

"Ah, you're speaking of The Tale of Princess Kaguya, aren't you? That's just believed to be a fairytale so we can't take it as truth. Was there a Princess Kaguya Ōtsutsuki? Yes. Did she eat the Chakra Fruit? Yes, she did. Was she turned into the Juubi? Hmm, I'd like to think so but there's speculation that it wasn't that God Tree that turned Kaguya into the Juubi but the God Tree itself became the Juubi."

Welp, here came the confliction again. It was all just so open ended and Zetsu hated that, being a person that preferred facts, not theories or questions. That's why she had a love/hate relationship with mysteries as a genre. "Ok…so what was the Juubi?"

"The Ten-Tails Juubi was said to be an ugly, grotesque creature of teeth and eyes as large as a country that caused earthquakes as it walked and breathed pestilence. After Hagoromo and Hamura Ōtsutsuki defeated it in battle, Hagoromo turned its husk into the moon and used its chakra to make the nine Bijuu."

"So, it was real too?"

"Uhh…it's debatable. There's no proof it was like the God Tree but it's hard to believe the Earth existed without a moon for so long. I like to think it did and the Bijuu had to have come from somewhere," Ryu shrugged. "Any other questions?"

Zetsu scratched at the back of her head in thought, carefully not to pick any of the scabs on her scalp. "My last question is…about the Third Son?"

Ryu was officially pumped now. "Yes! Have you read my notes on him?"

"I have," Zetsu confirmed, lifting up the paper in question. "But can you just clarify for me? This Third Son, he gave Michaelis the Mayfly? But where did he get it? You mentioned he may've been the Juubi?"

"Yes, it is my theory that this 'Third Son' was just the Juubi in disguise after a part of it survived its confrontation with Hagoromo and Hamura Ōtsutsuki. Maybe it mimicked a human or took a human to inhabit and then, he met with Michaelis, whether by accident or purpose as there was a relationship prior is unknown, but either way, the Juubi, calling itself the Third Son, then gifted Michaelis the Mayfly, which is turn, possessed him also! It would explain why a man of God went on to be a war criminal and his rumoured obsession with preserving the Mayfly."

"Was he ever known as Loki?"

Ryu casted her a curious look. "Loki?" He parroted to which she nodded. "No. I've never come across that name in any of my studies. Where did you hear it?"

"Elsewhere." Zetsu replied ambiguously and went back to her studying, seeing how all her questions had been answered, more or less.

"Speaking of Bijuu," Ryu said, turning back to Kakuzu only to find him asleep, or pretending to be as the elder was leant back heavily in his chair, head back and eyes shut behind his sunglasses. "Err…Kakuzu?"

"You finally finished?" Kakuzu barked but didn't open his eyes as he yawned.

Ryu blushed, discerning he had lost himself once again in his meandering. "Yes, I'm sorry. Anyway, did you hear what happened in Konoha awhile back?"

"No, haven't had the chance to look at the news," Or instead, he didn't read news in Amegakure since it was national, not international and he had only left the village once in the last month plus and didn't think to pick up a newspaper while he was out.

"The Kyuubi attacked."

That successfully had Kakuzu awake as he straightened in his chair. "What!?

While the two heatedly discussed the catastrophic event titled "Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's Attack" by media, Zetsu finished up her investigation into the Mayfly. Unfortunately, she found nothing much else of interest on the Kekkei Genkai as a majority of Ryu's notes were either based on facts she knew, or of Michaelis. There was a drawn depiction of him pre-Shinigami, though, in one of the books and she only hazily recognized the man, dressed in white robe with dark hair gelled to one side and timid eyes. It wasn't so much the man himself she identified, as much as the circular pendent hung from his neck with insignia of the Children of the Rabbit Goddess which was two intersected kunai shapes surrounded by a spiderwebbed pattern.

'Wait, is that—?´ Zetsu didn't finish that thought as she suddenly felt something heavy and cold fall onto her leg.

Looking down, she discovered Ryu's pet giant salamander draped over her leg. Despite having no eyes, she felt it stare back at her and as its namesake, it smiled at her. Outside the friendly gesture, Zetsu felt her insides fall as she remembered her last encounter with the black creature, and it wasn't a pleasant one. So, she gently tried shaking it off, but it hugged onto the limb tighter during which, Zetsu learned it had claws, very, very sharp claws as they dug into her skin like hooks. She looked to Ryu and opened her mouth to plead him to get Skiif off her, but a deep, grumbling voice interrupted her.

"Did you have that dream again?"

Zetsu knew who was talking in that dead language, but she was too frightened to look. Skiif hugged her leg tighter, cleaving flesh with its claws and causing her to look at it in reaction and once she did, it smiled larger, white points of teeth peeking out from its pink gums. "Tell it to yourself, say it's just a nightmare. Over and over, it calls to your soul, say it isn't so," It sung in a manner so familiar to it made her ill with anxiety. "Only Child, close your eyes, your family knows you're here. So welcome home, embrace your hell." Its gaping maw melted back in a thick, black sludge, exposing a smiling rabbit's skull underneath lined with canines and yellow ringed orbs in the sunken eye sockets, staring at her. Then, wrenching back its head, it bit her, hard, and Zetsu screamed.

Jumping up, Zetsu tried franticly kicking off the salamander while yelling and Kakuzu was up in an instant, trying to calm her while Ryu grabbed Skiif and plucked it off her leg with little to no resistance, no claws and no teeth. Once freed, Zetsu ran out of the garden in a panic with Kakuzu hot on her heels. She only got as far at the living room in the house before he caught her, demanding to know what happened while the teenager babbled incoherently of singing rabbits while pawing at her leg in search of the bite or scratches, but nothing was to be found.

"Ryu, what the fuck did that thing do to her!?" Kakuzu immediately roared at Ryu once the doctor caught up with them after putting Skiif in its pet house.

"I-I don't know! Did it hurt her?" Ryu asked, helping Zetsu check her leg for any injuries but saw nothing despite her insistence of "it bit me! It bit me!"

"Goddamnit, Ryu! I'm so fucking tired of that fucking thing! And until you get rid of it, I'm not coming back here nor am I letting Zetsu!"

"B-But Kakuzu! I can't—" Ryu attempted but his pleas fell on deaf ears as Kakuzu grabbed the hysterical Zetsu and carried her out without another word to his old friend, kicking shut the front door behind him with such strength it caused the glass to blow out and shower the ground inside and out with shards. "I can't…get rid of it…not when I'm so close to the truth…"

…

Later that night, Kakuzu came to check on Zetsu as he knocked on her door. Upon her grant of entrance, he parted it open to see the girl seated at her desk with a number of books opened to random pages on the surface while she dabbled in a notebook.

"Girl, how're you feeling?"

Zetsu paused in her frantic writing as she put down her pencil and turned in her chair to face her mentor, looking sheepish. "I'm…better."

Kakuzu leant against the doorframe, eyeballing her leg. "How's your leg?"

"It's…ok," As she said this, she massaged her bare leg which publicized no bite, no scratches nor so much as a bruise from her encounter with Skiif. It was as if it never happened. Kakuzu said nothing once hearing this and due to this, Zetsu muttered quietly, "Sir, you do believe me, don't you?"

The elder sighed. "It isn't I don't trust you, girl, but…" Once the "but" came in, she didn't hear whatelse he had to say because to her, he didn't trust her, likely chalking it up to her illness again like her last run-in with the salamander. "Hey." She looked up back at him and he sighed again, heavily so. "Listen, you're stressed, I get it. Between the incident a month ago and your obsession with the Mayfly and Wasteland…"

"It isn't an obsession," She interrupted him, sharply. "I just…I just want to learn the truth of it—of all of it." She turned back towards her desk and looked at the drawings and writings she had done up in the meantime; illustrations of the Wasteland, old and new and notes tacked over her desk and onto the wall of what she had learned this past week or so.

"I understand but mystery is the soul of existence. If we knew everything, life would be quite boring, don't you think?" She didn't say anything because he was correct and she hated that, just like she hated mysteries as much as she loved them—when they didn't involve her. "Why don't you take your mind off it for awhile? Pein has nothing for us so you have time to run a favour for me, back to Iwa."

Hearing this, Zetsu picked up her head to look at him again. "To Yui?"

Kakuzu nodded, smirking and from his pocket, produced an envelope, suspiciously fat and jingling. "I've got a letter for her. Oh, and take Daora with you. She could use the exercise." As soon as he said this, the devil herself made an appearance as Daora squeezed past her master into Zetsu's room, galloping over to the teenager and pushing her mask into her belly while the creature's backend fishtailed in excitement.

Zetsu, catching the man's little slip-up, smirked herself and petting Daora. "She?"

Kakuzu flushed behind his bandana at the blatant call out and scrambled to explain himself. "I only say that because Yui wrote me not just one paragraph but two paragraphs bitching me out for 'misgendering her babies'!"

Zetsu didn't push it further, just giggling as she hugged Daora. "I'd love to see Yui again. I've got a lot I want to talk to her about too."

…

AN: There! We're done! No more being fistfed uncanon lore. From now on, it's Akatsuki time, bay-bee! Sorry for the slog these last chapters may've been but it's over and there's only going to be mentions here and there, nothing heavy-handed like this. Also, the next chapter is officially going to start of a mini-arc therefore, we're having another timeskip.

Next Chapter: Kisame Hoshigaki.

Until Next Time.