Either my jokes are dry or they are funny. There is no in between.
There are a couple of swearwords in this one.
Money Man
Five elements Kakuzu had been circling the Konoha ANBU for three days. Because it was obvious: the leader was going off records, the rest of them were getting antsy, and whatever mission they were doing must had been important if Konoha ninja were suddenly going under the radar. If they were going after the Yellow Flash too, then this was a group he could tail. Then the main one with the ugliest painted mask threw a silent hissy fit, beckoned the others to leave him undefended in the woods, and ran in the opposite direction.
Lo and behold, the ANBU leader turned out to be none other than Copy-nin-Kakashi.
Who turned out to be, despite the camp-fire horror stories, about 17 or less-looking years old.
Kakuzu squinted, scratching his head. Should he go for Copy-nin and his hefty bounty money? Or Yellow Flash and his heftier bounty money? He had to think this through — Copy-nin was still a kid and he could take him when he desired without breaking a sweat. With the Yellow Flash, he had to deal with them competitors — competitors from all over the ninja world for a piece of that Konoha ass. He didn't have time to fight Iwa ninja all day and guard someone like the Flash.
Besides, who even know where the Yellow Flash was? Being so out of options of finding a newly disappeared ghost, and having another fortune land in front of him like an offering — he might have thanked god.
Except he didn't, not just because he hated religion but because god never believed in money and luxury in every incarnation. Any man-god who didn't trust money was a being he couldn't take. That was what Copy-nin kiddo was to him: Money.
Kakuzu switched tactics, going for the economical route.
One day into his tailing to find specifics on the ninja, he hid behind the bushes and the Copy-nin hid behind the bushes as the red-haired Kunoichi got bashed into the bushes. The kunoichi — get this — the kunoichi was the wife of his initial mission. Yellow Flash's woman. His personal aesthetics demanded he go back to square one.
"So I wait even longer," Kakuzu said through his raspy voice, getting raspier as his tendrils rolled around through his muscle and tissue, causing bulges to rise and fall in his limbs. "I tail the both of you to high hell to get information on Yellow Flash! And guess what?" he asked, arms splayed.
Kakuzu shrugged, cracking his neck both ways before his shadow loomed over Copy-nin's huffing figure in the chasm he'd blasted apart. "Your master-in-law figured it out before you did. For a smart little runt, you were awfully slow on the uptake." He balked, forcing the tendrils to bloom from his neck and arms and fingertips, spreading around the still-shaking Copy-nin to corner him. "Too slow.
"The Yellow Flash would've been scandalised." Kakuzu smirked.
The tendrils struck in Copy-nin's direction, lightning fast. Copy-nin tensed, throwing his arms up and grasping a bundle of tendrils by the tips.
"Ugh," he grimaced, face full of disgust and mask scrunching in the moonlight. "Feels disgusting."
Kakuzu blinked, stifled at the action. This was, "—Impossible."
Copy-nin began reeling him in by the tendrils, a venom in his smirk and aura in his hair that was too hot, too red to be lightning-natured and he opened his mouth to rebut before — all of a sudden — he was swung violently sideways.
"AHH-"
Kakuzu bashed into a tree.
"Nn-"
Kakuzu was pummelled into some rocks.
"Fu-"
Kakuzu blanked, eyes going darker than the night before falling once more to the ground.
"HAH-"
This is impossible — how did the runt pull out this much power, there's no way — with his bare hands —
"YHH-"
Thud.
Opening his eyes, he lingered a moment to himself, trying to discern what position he was in. Instantly, he retracted his long tendrils, even the ones in his neck and back — and with the loss of the weight balance, he tipped over the side of the tree he'd landed in and fell ungraciously to the floor.
Cue: "Thud" number two.
"Ojichan's Ojichan," came a short, smug voice. Kakuzu blinked up at the figure. Copy-nin loomed before him. "You're done."
Bank left.
His pupil dilated, and Copy-nin banked left the same time as Kakuzu sent another stream of tendrils at him.
"Dead or Alive, I don't really care anymore," Kakuzu announced. He flitted up both arms, extending both of them to impale the Copy-nin, rock blocking his path of escape. Kakuzu grinned. Copy-nin braced for impact.
A second Copy-nin jumped into the crossfire, chirp of a thousand birds crackling all around them as electricity ran up his limbs. His attacked crumbled apart as he hadn't shifted into lightning style, couldn't absorb it as it shocked him to the core. Kakuzu yelled, prompting the chidori to diverge and convulse, changing form into two sharp, blue-tinted dogs.
"Raiton Charge," Copy-nin 2 said, voice low and humourless.
The dogs charged, ringing in his ears and biting onto one leg each before disintegrating into his body. Kakuzu grimaced, taking in the charge of the dogs as he shifted elements and was able to absorb the attack. The smell of smouldering ground and smoke wafted about like a miasma, filling his lungs.
The first Copy-nin, the humorous one, walked out of the debris only mildly scathed.
The second Copy-nin, the dead-inside one, shook the sparks off his gloved hands, scattering the overcharged power and huffing slightly.
The fist Copy-nin turned to the second one.
"Kakashi," he greeted.
The second Copy-nin bowed to the first. "Kakashi."
Did…did he have to bow to her in this state?
Even when she was pretending to be Kakashi next to Kakashi, she was somehow the superior Kakashi of them both. Kushina sighed internally.
"Not a shadow clone, not a genjutsu. You got played like a fiddle by henge jutsu," Kushina-Kakashi politely informed him.
"Henge jutsu," Kakashi-Kakashi repeated in the same manner of voice. "The same henge jutsu I used to impress academy examiners when I graduated."
"I was five," Kushina added for him, smiling proudly. Kakashi lifted his brows in jest.
There was only one Copy-nin. Out of the two before Kakuzu, one had lightning and sharingan; the other, intense strength and terrible comebacks. But for a time in his life starting from tonight to tonight, Kakuzu didn't care about the money anymore. Kakuzu pulled off his navy top, revealing the scars and stitches that held his body together and stopped his entrails from leaking out.
Kakashi and Kakashi reacted differently for a moment — one squinting in disgust as the other's eyes widened in confusion. (Kushina was disgusted, ew; and Kakashi, baffled, not in a good way.)
Kakuzu turned around. Four masks — each of which hailed from different nation's black ops, including one of Konoha's — were stitched into his back. "I've always deemed myself a professional when it comes to being a mercenary," he said, back turned and humourless. "To collect a bounty, you need at least minimal proof to fit the identification criteria. Or any old chunin fool could cut off his own ear and present it as the Sand's missing kage!"
Kakashi stood his ground. There was something about the masks now, something beneath the man's skin that was churning and moving not unlike the tendrils in his arms. Like parasites burrowing beneath, ready to squirm its way out. His back began to pulse and push and tug, each stitch loosening from the seams. Threads began to pop and snap in procession.
The other Kakashi flinched, feeling something akin to multiple people's chakras, but that wasn't possible. There were only three people and yet…
More than one heartbeat.
"More than one heartbeat," she echoed aloud.
"Heartbeat?" Kakashi said. He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. We can take him down if we confuse him with our abilities. First, we observe what he's got lodged in his back. Tire him out. Then attack accordingly."
Kakuzu flit a hand into the air, still trying to make his point. "Because guess what?" he said gruffly. "Bodies and faces that look like either they've been stir-fried or spit-roasted aren't all that lucrative on the black market. 'Alive' gets you more dough than dead. Easy to identify."
It occurred to them both that keeping an intact body and face was more important than ending the fight quickly for Kakauzu. Who was being played in reality? If he'd wanted them dead from the start, he'd have done it without complications. But now that restriction was off. Kakashi swallowed, jaw clenching.
"Ive got to meet standards and regulation for bounty money," Kakuzu slurred, "On the free market, it's simple demand and supply."
"Aw. Poor sweet sugar gumdrops," Kushina cooed in her talk-back reflex, and kakashi wished she wouldn't make that keening sound with his voice and face.
Two ghoul-like creatures slithered from the stitches, manifesting into two large, black creatures headed by the white masks. The body parts rearranged and closed the holes in his back as Kakuzu chuckled, back turned on them both.
The heartbeats diverged before Kushina's senses.
The kid's going to die.
"No he kami-fucking isn't."
Kakashi flinched in her direction, blinking once.
"Hn, Kakashi," she started, rolling up her sleeves, "thing is, that plan of yours needs a little tweaking. He has about five hearts, no amount of running around is going to tire that amount of aerobic respiration. He has…things stored in his back and they—"
Kakashi jolted sideways, tackling the mirror image of himself into the ground and rolling once so that he lay on top. A blast of a wind jutsu funnelled over their heads, creating a vacuum where it was hard to breathe, hard to hear anything as the pressure quashed around them, making their ears ring. Kushina put her hands to her ears, wincing as she opened her mouth. And she forgot there was a stretch of mask across her mouth, the effect of mushing her lips apart felt like she was suffocating.
It was right. Kakashi, still trying to shield her from above, was going to die here.
Too many things happened in the same moment, and yet it still felt like frames were missing as the chain of events shot forward, out of her comprehension.
Henge jutsu faltered, broken apart by her thoughts changing like lightning striking. The glint of a kunai caught her eye as Kakashi crookedly threw it in the stream of the tornado. It was a peculiar move that she couldn't compute in the moment. Now the air heated up as firelight blossomed from ahead.
The second monstrous thing that had clawed from Kakuzu's back had ignited the wind jutsu with fire. Then, her power pulled apart, a gush of something strong and familiar from within wreathing her, rushing to her protection in the instant. The entire atmosphere changed just a easily as blinking an eye. Wind jutsu, combined with fire jutsu, was directed right before them. Then it was not.
Kushina was lying on the floor. And then she was not.
What?
Moved.
Kushina blinked. The Nine-tail's power receded again, immediately dimming as she was out of danger. "Kakashi has space-time ninjutsu?" she whispered incredulously as she stumbled from the too-sudden surge of power. She felt dizzy from it.
"You have space-time ninjutsu?" she said to Kakashi, trying not to talk to herself. She had landed a way away from Kakuzu and his furry shadow animal goonies (she could hear the destruction still happening somewhere in the distance). Eyes adjusting to the dark again, she looked around. Her heart pierced in her chest, and it felt like getting impaled. Maybe getting impaled wouldn't even have hurt as much as this — she'd been impaled before.
"Kakashi?"
She jumped to her feet, wobbling as she fumbled around her surroundings, kicking into a downed log to check, just in case. There was nothing around her. It didn't seem like there was anything around her for miles. Except for Kakuzu and his living, jutsu-welding hearts. Romping around unbridled.
"Kakashi?!"
Kushina froze. The kunai Kakashi had thrown into the wind-jutsu's stream was wedged into the ground right where she'd gotten up from. It wasn't the standard issue, mass-produced Konoha model that everybody knew. It was in pristine condition, shiny and chrome even in this dark. It was a tri-blade kunai.
Panic swayed in her chest, swaying her from side to side as bile rose in her throat, pushing up until the taste spilled into her mouth. Kushina doubled over. Hands grazing the ground, she began to retch and splutter convulsively, ribcage heaving up-down. She emptied her stomach onto the earth.
"HAAH — you — bleeding —" She hacked a bit more, holding onto her centre. Kushina spluttered, bitter saliva stuck to the back of her throat.
…Idiot, she finished in her head.
Then Kushina ripped off her flak jacket, turning it around. There it was, on the side of it under the shoulder pads, the jutsu-insignia that had flung her away into some far off no-man's-land. She buckled again, throwing the jacket aside. It was really a taste of her own medicine. She'd done the exact same thing to Gin and Kiharu way back when (how long ago was that now?).
A memory:
Minato paced the length of their tent, thumbing his chin like a tired old man.
"Stop that," Kushina yawned, "it makes you look like a tired old man."
"Nnnnn." Minato sat down, donking his forehead on her shoulder. "What's wrong with looking like a tired old man? The Third is always a tired old man."
"Why don't you come back and do that when you're Hokage, then?"
"I don't know what to get Kakashi for his promotion present."
Kushina's lips parted. Then she frowned, and sighed. "Making jonin during a campaign. How like the state of things, it is."
Minato got up again, becoming serious. "Well I'm not going to let this go unnoticed. His birthday went pass without a mention when I wasn't there!"
Kushina sighed harder, much like an old woman, and thought earnestly. "How about something useful?" She pulled one of his specialised kunai from his pouch. "Something to keep him safe?"
Minato stopped in his track, impressed, eyes scrunching in concentration."That's the best goddamned idea you ever came up with, Kushina."
"You," she started, hands balling into trembling fists.
"YOU!" she yelled into the sky.
Blaming me?
"More than one heart wasn't going to do anything to help!"
It's not like I knew he was going to transport you.
Kushina gasped, still panting from her heaving body. "You let this happen! He's just a — he going to…"
She fumbled, and with one more foot forward, stepped into somewhere darker than the dark, heard water splash as her feet hit hard ground, though didn't feel it, not really. The walls stretched on forever and ever. Kushina closed her eyes. The world still existed outside when she closed them, but she was far away. She grit her teeth, stopping them from chattering.
You bought this on yourself. I'm not guilty.
Kushina opened her eyes. The nothingness was replaced with a large, golden gate, reaching so far up she could never see the top. She could never guess how high it went, never see where it ended. Maybe it never did end. Kushina walked closer, feeling the resistance of the water but not the wetness against her skin.
"All the chances you have to humour me, and you choose now?"
Kushina peered up the great prison. From behind the gates, a large creature moved, creaking the walls around her and changing how the air she breathed felt. It was too colossal, too ferocious. From the darkness, a creature loomed into view. He peeled from what couldn't be seen, to what could be seen.
"Why?"
"Why? Why else?" she shot back, folding her arms. "You were going to shove power at me regardless, why not?"
The Nine Tails squinted. Then, he opened his mouth, revealing a jagged, toothy grin. "You think I shove power at you every time you're about to come to your demise? That's not how it goes between us."
"I know, because I've hardly come to a number of near-demises."
"You draw on my power when your emotions are strong enough. Or I gift them to you. As a little token of appreciation."
"You just want a chance to get to fight! You don't really care about who lives or dies!"
"That may be. But you still don't come here often enough," he grinned, blinking a colossal eye. "I'm bored. And your choices are infuriating."
"So why do you have to be so god-damned cryptic?! Then? Just say that we're being followed by a psychopath and then go 'Hey Kushina, maybe you should pull out each of his hearts before they leave his body,' you know?!" She huffed, wincing at her own comment that made no sense.
"I only help you where it damn well pleases me," the Nine Tails said dismissively. "And it's not as if I can see everything from in here. I see and feel glimpses. I see things that go unnoticed to you. If you'll let me out more often—"
"Shut up right there."
So that was his game. Don't help where it matters, pretend to help where it didn't. Help where it was fun, don't help when he didn't care for it. Force her into latching onto his powers so that she'll eventually let out his real form for a test run. Kushina fumed, fingers cracking as put them into fists again.
"You realised I didn't even call you when I was getting ganged-up upon by Iwa ninja."
"Irrelevant. Your call, not mine."
"Because you're too dangerous, Nine Tails," she said exasperatedly.
Nine Tails's eyes narrowed again, end of his lip curling downwards. "I don't know where this conversation is going," he said, a growl beneath his tone, "Didn't you come here to beg for my powers?"
Kushina took in a breath. "I don't have to beg you."
"You can't command me, either."
Kushina rolled her eyes. "I was just going to ask politely. We didn't need all the discourse."
The Nine Tails ignored the fact that she landed here to shout at him. "You don't even use me during the war. To cut down those Iwa-nin. Sniff out the fast one."
Freezing on the spot, Kushina shook her head, eyes squinting in accusation. "You…can do that? Sniff out Minato?"
"Am I a dog? No. I was fucking with you."
Kushina scoffed.
"…you're really going to do this for one little blimp?"
But Kushina nodded once, sure and resolute.
"What's his name again?"
"Kakashi. God."
"This kid better fucking turn out to be a saviour of the fucking world. The way you want to help him."
"Don't be an idiot. If I had my way, he'd retire and run around with academy kids as a career."
"Hmph."
"It's not like it matters to you," Kushina waved. "As long as it's a fight, and one you'll enjoy, it's enough isn't it? And there's no one around and one sure target."
Kushina reached down, lifting up her shirt to reveal the seal on her stomach. "You try anything, and we both get sealed inside this body and I throw away the key."
"You'll seal yourself just to push me down? Join me on the other side of this gilded cage?" the Nine Tails remarked, space between his eyes creasing and folding. His laugh rumbled the walls and rippled the water. "Ahahaha haha — Kushina, you know nothing but to go all out."
Kushina huffed. "Glad to please you," she said.
Notes
Prescripto13 - I know any Akatsuki-to-be would wreck Kakashi! But luckily this is Kakuzu who likes his money. So he was mostly safe since Kakuzu didn't want to damage the goods, you know?
tabjoy13 - Sorry about the slow update but hey, at least I got it out before the end of the year! Thanks for commenting!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!