Each Chapter will have either the title of the story prompt as the name, or both the title and it's subcategory. I have come up with 2 subcategories so far, but will probably create more.
Jiraiya's vision is both the first subcategory and first story idea. The original idea was that Jiraiya could actually live on to reach his dream of peace, but I think there are enough stories out there having him or Naruto going for that so I changed it up. Instead this subcategory will be dedicated to the main antagonists of the story such as but not limited to; Orochimaru, Sasori, Hidan, Danzo, Madara, and this chapter's focal point Kakuzu.
The story's main theme being that there's enough change for an antagonist such as these characters to be changed for the better. Each character will have a reason for their change differing from one another, but each of them will change from being the inhumane beings they are in cannon.
Summary: I asked him a question. This beast given human form. I had asked him, "How can one gain so much strength?" The beast responded to it with a line out of those cheesy books made for small children. He told me, "I have something to protect." What a joke. Such raw power comes not from greed or a want of vengeance, but from love? There is more at work, there has to be. Yet my own power is driven by greed and malice. Every other shinobi's power driven by some form of sin. Maybe that's what makes him different? I didn't expect to find an answer to my unspoken question so soon after being crushed by Hashirama Senju.
In cannon Kakuzu was given the order to try and assassinate Hashirama by his village Takigakure. There's two things I made different. Kakuzu was slightly stronger than his cannon counterpart, and is given the opportunity to grow. This leads to him still being conscious after being curb stomped by Hashirama, and asks him how he got so strong. Hashirama being the loveable ball of sunshine he is answered him with the regular anime protagonist line, "I have something to protect." Kakuzu having no loved ones doesn't believe Hashirama to be true, but still ever so reluctantly contemplates this answer. He's still thrown in Jail by Takigakure and steals Jiongu (Earth Grudge Fear), but when he sets off on his own something happens.
A chance to grow appears. an opportunity, in the form of a battered little girl on the side of the street. Kakuzu sees her, and hesitantly thinks back to Hashirama's words. (For amusement and character development purposes Hashirama put the fear of god into Kakuzu in this story, and Kakuzu merely refers to him as "The beast" as you can see in the summary.) Kakuzu decides that not everything needs to be about money, and offers the little girl his aid. She accepts and he asked for her name. I was planning on this being an OC in order to have a bit more freedom with how the story can progress.
I never have a set guide for how a story will go, nothing is set in concrete. If something feels awkward when writing the story then I'll go back to when it was comfortable and change the direction I go to avoid the story from getting bland or mega weird. I do have some major...bullet points I want to happen in the story I guess? I mostly go with the flow, but some things I want this story to have happen is Kakuzu adopting an abundance of kids via wire clones (The masked Jiongu made monsters shall grow to absurd numbers here in due time, so instead of naming each one they'll just be wire clones or whatever his kids name a specific one.), Taking on a tailed beast at some point, I was thinking about the Nanabi (7 tailed armored beetle), as a kind of symbol that he still fights against a tailed beast, but instead of fighting it for money he does it to protect a village.
I had the thought that the reason he would create so many more wire clones here than in cannon is because instead of ripping out organs and keeping those in the wire monsters he'd instead essentially transfer Jiongu into a corpse, basically gaining a living clone. He doesn't do this until gaining his 3rd kid while thinking that an extra set of hands would be useful.
If you have any thoughts on this then please say so! Even if it's to say that I suck and stuff, although if you could tell me why I suck then that'd be great! Feel free to try your hand at writing this if you want to as well, just don't like completely plagiarize it, give it your own spin and have fun with it! If you'd want me to elaborate more on this as well then feel free to ask!