Mephiles: Second Chapter! Thank you for everyone who read, and ecspecially those that gave me reviews, all your words are taken into account and greatly appreciated. I hope you also enjoy this one, and reviews shall once more be appreciated.

Reliance

Chapter Two:

Change Of Plans

"Drip!" A single drop of water made its way down to the floor, an immaculate tear-shaped pearl of sapphire, lingering for but a second before it shattered into a million watery shards, forgotten forever, leaving behind it no sign of its passing. For how long the water had been dripping down, the individual droplets slowly coalescing into a mirror of sorts, growing larger with every drop, Kakuzu could not say. Kakuzu moved an arm, moved his arm, slowly, watching with keen eyes as his mirror image copied his movement, constrained by the edges of the small pool.

"Drip!" Another drop fell, temporarily distorting the pristine image of the Akatsuki member, sending out spiraling ripples in every direction. His form elongated and changed, morphing and moving until the ripples finally subsided, and Kakuzu was soon staring at himself within the pool once again. He didn't know where he was; the only thing he could clearly make out was the pool before him. It was a funny sort of feeling, something he was unacquainted with. It was as if he was some sort of spectator to his own body. There it was in front of him, and it mimicked him, but it was somehow…different. As if he was looking through a mirror at his own body.

It was a cave, a dark cave, filled with nothing. Void and emptiness roamed the insides of the cave, a vast and hollow expanse of nothing and no one. No one but himself, all alone, within the cave. There was a cliff in the cave, a mighty divet carved into it long ago.

"Drip!" Another drop of water fell gently down from the massive divet above him, shattering his mirror self into thousands of multifaceted monstrosities. Kakuzu noticed the drop, watched it drop down from above like a small jewel from on high. Strangely he felt as if it wasn't quiet right, somehow he knew it couldn't be right. Kakuzu's eyes narrowed as he examined the great divet critically, an occasional drop of water falling down every now and then, his teal eyes searching for something unseen. He looked harder and harder, straining his eyes in an attempt to find the reason why such a large crevice held so little water. But the harder he looked, the less he could find. It was as if the image grew darker as he concentrated harder, growing bleary and distorted as he tried to focus on it.

He closed his eyes in concentration, the dark around him growing ever deeper. 'Where am I? Where is Hidan? These are the things I need to know,' he thought to himself slowly, desperately running over the scenario in his mind, looking for any explanation as to where he currently was. But he couldn't think; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't think. There was always something gnawing at the back of his skull, chewing away at his mind, each thought was blocked by a noise…a noise!

Kakuzu opened his eyes and turned back to the divet. Noise, he could hear noise coming from the divet. He needed to find out was at the top of that crevice, he needed to know what was making that infernal racket. Know, and find it, so that he could then proceed to tear it into infinitesimally small pieces, a thousand times over.

"Kakuzu?" Kakuzu paused, and then darkness seemed to be everywhere.

"Well?" Pein inquired impassively, his voice betraying no feelings or inflection, his concentric eyes gazing on coldly at his subordinates. The Akatsuki members tensed, awaiting the answer. Zetsu, who was one of two of the gathered members who were not holograms, gave a small grunt, turning his eyes to his companion in the flesh, Hidan, who was, at the moment, far more interested in his prayer beads, his eyes closed as he rubbed them together, mouthing silent words.

'No doubt praying for his Deity to punish Kakuzu, un,' Deidara thought to himself, shaking his head slightly at the excessive lengths that Kakuzu and Hidan would go to, to annoy each other. Honestly, they were like little children, arguing about every little thing, they were possibly the most annoying members of the entire organization, he snorted in contempt.

"Does Deidara-senpai have a cold?" Tobi asked his voice enthused with genuine concern. Deidara paused to examine his companion. 'So maybe they were the second most annoying members, still, they really should learn to work together, un,' he thought to himself, scowling at Tobi.

"Hidan!" Pein snapped, eliciting a grunt from the Jashin-worshipper, who slowly opened his eyes to look at his leader, confusion apparent in his small violet eyes, his one hand still fidgeting rapidly with the ridiculous array of beads that hung around his head as he answered,

"Wha?" Deidara suppressed a snicker, as Itachi issued an audible groan and Kisame gave an unsuppressed snicker. Hidan raised an eyebrow, still oblivious that the question had been directed to him as he gazed about the flickering kaleidoscopic holograms of his partners in crime. Pein rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers, mentally counting to five before continuing,

"Hidan, what happened to Kakuzu?" He asked, his voice low and distorted, as if coming out of a badly damaged radio, Hidan had to strain his ears to catch each individual word.

"I told you, we were just walking around, when he just fell down, on the ground like a dipshit," Hidan explained casually, resting on the haft of his three-headed scythe as he regarded his leader with a bored expression. Pein grit his teeth, an action that was completely concealed by the darkness around him, but his frustration was evident in the tautness of his voice.

"That is all?" He asked, issuing the words out through his teeth. Hidan paused for a moment and then nodded, Pein gave a small sigh as he turned to regard Zetsu with an unreadable expression. The plant man seemed to understand this and nodded.

He was floating within an ocean of darkness. A pitch sea of his own mind, tossing and turning as he was buoyed about by the waves of his own thoughts, cast adrift within the tumultuous maelstrom of his subconscious. His body was heavy and limp; cold and hard, as if he'd hardened it once too much and now it was refusing to go back to normal. His limbs hung like thick-corded knots of string, which, admittedly, was all they really were. Kakuzu was a small-multicolored dot, lost within the vast, comforting darkness. Tranquil and peaceful darkness, no rushing, no fighting, no getting attacked by king-sized fiery cats of doom and, best of all, no scythe wielding, Jashin worshipping psycho maniac. Kakuzu felt, for the first time in his life, at peace. So he instantly assumed that something was critically wrong and, after making sure he wasn't trapped in a Genjutsu, could only come to one logical conclusion. 'I'm dead'

It wasn't what he thought it would be like, mind you he hadn't exactly spent a lot of time thinking about it, but when you got to be as old as he did, certain things were unavoidable. One of those things in particular was death, after all, once you become an S-class missing-nin there are certain things people come to expect from you. One of these things was being able to kill people, lots of people preferably, and, if you were aiming as high up as Akatsuki, you had to be able to, as Hidan would so eloquently say it, kill a fucking load of people. So why was he surprised by death? Well was there any reason he shouldn't be surprised, in his opinion it would be mighty unfair if he wasn't surprised, after all, he was dead, he deserved to be surprised.

He'd lived a long and, uniquely successful life, he deserved a bit of a break. In fact, the more he thought about it the more he started to like this whole death thing. No worries, no stress, he could actually take time out to do something other than work here, it might be refreshing to not have to be a worker drone for a while or, if Hidan's scriptures were remotely true, all of eternity. There were even certain monetary advantages to being dead, after all he no longer needed to worry about food or drink, clothes didn't really matter, and property was also of little consequence. Best of all he didn't need to pay taxes on anything, not even Kunai tax. Yes perhaps being killed was the best thing that had ever happened to him. But before he opened his eyes there was something he needed to know.

"So…heaven or hell?" Kakuzu ventured cautiously into the emptiness, his eyes shut tight in consternation, hopefulness daring to worm its way into his voice as he steeled himself for the worst and, in his opinion, inevitable answer. There was no answer, or at least not an audible one, but Kakuzu had little experience with the afterlife so he decided to stick around a bit longer in case a spiritual message got beamed into his head or some such other thing. So he waited, and, once again, nothing happened. So, with his significantly finite patience expired, he decided to confront the situation in the same manner that he had confronted almost every situation in his life, successfully.

"Katon Zukokku!" He shouted, leaping to his feet and glaring about himself pointedly, as a storm of fire issued forth from his lion mask, quickly spreading all around him, and scouring the nearby, and not so nearby turf, until all that was left was a blackened crater, Kakuzu standing calmly at it's epicenter.

Kakuzu paused, looking about himself and taking in his surroundings as the last of his Jutsu's flames burned down, and the lion mask receded back into his body, thousands of black cords squirming their way in and around him, resembling a host of maggots burrowing into his skin. Kakuzu had been expecting a fiery hell of brimstone and lava, and would have been mildly surprised if he found himself in cloud-strewn paradise, but he was completely unprepared for what really saw.

"Takigakure?"

Pein's hologram flickered briefly, sputtering like a candle for a moment before it vanished, leaving Zetsu alone in the darkness of the cave with Hidan. The two Akatsuki members waited a few more seconds until, confident that the entire cave had been vacated of their fellow's presences, Hidan turned to Zetsu with an arched eyebrow.

"So what exactly is going on?" He asked regarding Zetsu carefully, his violet eyes filled with a strange sort of curiosity. Zetsu paused a moment, hesitating before he answered carefully, and in complete honesty,

"I do not know," and with that he turned around, heading towards another chamber of the dank and dark cave, his long cloak billowing around him, the red cloud design shining brightly in the oppressive darkness, his tall leaves swishing gently backwards and forwards as he went. Hidan narrowed his eyes, not satisfied in the least by the shallow answer, and quickly followed the Akatsuki spy, his scythe firmly in hand.

The two entered a separate part of the cave complex, a small table had been set out at one end, with a few candles burning upon it, different vials and bottles stood motionless atop it, their contents a mixture of vile oozes and other colourful liquids. Hidan peered curiously through the vials, reading, but not understanding, the different labels and instructions which had been painstakingly etched into the intricate glass containers. Their contents glowed in the faint candle light, painting the scene in an eerie multicoloured glow.

"Hidan come over here!" The darker half of Zetsu demanded in its harsh tone, like crackling leaves in a fire. Hidan turned his attention away from the fascinating potions and medicines, walking over to where Zetsu stood, gazing down at the large, flattish, upturned stone that served as a medical bed, leaves strewn upon it in a faintly reminiscent manner of a mattress. Upon the bed Kakuzu laid unconscious, his Akatsuki cloak stripped from him, revealing his patchwork body, small seams of black cords across his entire form, joining him together. Hidan watched on solemnly as his partner lay motionless before him, his chest moving only occasionally, a telltale sign that there was still some life inside of him. In Hidan's opinion he resembled nothing so much as a large patchwork doll, the kind that had been passed down from one generation to another until it no longer even slightly resembled the toy it had once been.

"Something is wrong with him, critically wrong," Zetsu explained to Hidan, the two stood immobile, watching their fellow Akatsuki member cautiously.

"Do you know what the fuck it is?" Hidan inquired quietly, surprised at his own solemn demeanour, no trace of his usual smirk or smile evident on his face, his small violet eyes watching on impassively. Zetsu shook his head, his large golden eyes glinting ominously in the darkness, his face creased with concern.

'I'm no medical-nin, nor do I have any experience in the matter, but even I can tell that whatever is affecting him is dangerous, we'd require an expert in the arts of medical jutsu to diagnose something like this," Zetsu stated as he watched the gradual rise and decline of Kakuzu's chest, his small face cloth fluttering occasionally as he exhaled. Silence filled the chamber, hanging thick between the Akatsuki members, permeating the very depths of the cave as it reigned unchallenged.

"Fucker finally got his," Hidan mumbled to himself quietly, staring on in confusion at Kakuzu. A small grin made its way onto his face as he watched his former teammate in satisfaction. 'About time,' He thought snidely to himself, smirking superiorly at the inert form of Kakuzu.

"Leader-sama is expecting us to make sure he survives, he is an invaluable resource to our organisation and one of its oldest members. It is imperative that he survive,"

Zetsu spoke up turning his head towards the smirking Hidan, a smirk of his own appearing. Hidan's smirk vanished as soon as the words left Zetsu's mouth, replaced instead by a scowl of fury. Rage swelled up in him, indignant rage and fury. 'They fucking think that shithead's better then me, to them I'm just some fucking expendable tagalong,' he thought to himself furiously, an inferno burning in his heart as he felt righteous indignation fill every inch of his being. Zetsu smirked again.

Hidan winced as he saw it out of the corner of his eye. No matter what he did, they would always consider him second to his partner, he felt…humiliated, demeaned. What was he to this organisation anyway? A little thing to ensure that the teams were balanced, an inconsequential piece merely for the purpose of having more pieces? He was still in Kakuzu's shadow; he was always in Kakuzu's shadow! Who the shit wasn't in Kakuzu's shadow? Besides Leader-sama, and he didn't count. It made him want to…

"Alright then," Hidan replied calmly, a wry smile spreading across his face as his violet eyes filled with mirth. Zetsu's smirk vanished; he eyed the psychotic priest warily, taken off guard by his uncharacteristic calm. Hidan gave a small laugh before turning away, his scythe hung casually over his one shoulder, as he made his way towards the cave exit.

"What exactly do you plan on doing?" Zetsu inquired condescendingly. Hidan paused briefly, not bothering to turn towards Zetsu as he answered.

"Hey, someone's got to save that greedy bastard's life, I'm just the guy unlucky enough to get the job," and with that he was off. 'Then well see who the best was, then they'll know that I'm just as good as fucking invaluable Kakuzu,' he thought to himself, his mind taunt with barely constrained anger. But he would do it, he'd save his life, and then he'd prove once and for all that he was the superior to Kakuzu.

"But how" Kakuzu thought to himself as he turned his head left and right around himself. He was back, back in Takigakure.