When Kakuzu woke up the first thing he saw was the ground. His neck hurt a lot. Slowly he lifted his head, feeling a stab of pain as the numbness in his neck disappeared. He saw bars. Where the hell was he? He took in his surroundings. Stone walls, stone floor, stone ceiling, steel bars and chains that were holding him upright in a sitting position. The cell was cast in shadow, but he could still see a cell opposite him. If someone was in there, they were either asleep or didn't talk.

"Hello?" he said hesitantly, catching the smell of blood then.

"Hi," was the answer he got, followed by the sound of retching. Something splattered on to the floor. "Hi Ka..." the voice was cut off as its owner started coughing madly, occasionally bringing something up. Kakuzu froze. The other occupant knew his name. Who were they?

"Damn it..." the mystery voice muttered. "It hurts." They started coughing again, each cough a death rattle.

"How do you know my name?" Kakuzu asked as the coughing lessened.

"What...the...fuck are...you...talking about?" the voice asked. "It's...me...fucker."

Kakuzu felt himself go pale. "Hidan?" he said, bewildered. "Is that you?"

"No, it's your great aunt Betty," Hidan said sarcastically, after several splatters. "Of course it's me. What are you doing here?"

"I came looking for you," Kakuzu said. "What else?"

"The cage..."

"I found where you might be, which was by a mountain, and when I was climbing up the mountain using chakra, I got caught in an ambush. And woke up here. I am abandoning you next time," Kakuzu muttered darkly.

"You said that last time," Hidan muttered. "I'm tired, goodnight."

Kakuzu waited for what he felt was around three hours before someone appeared. Unlike Hidan, he recognised Orochimaru straight away, having actually seen the man before then. He heard the sound of a snake hissing, but ignored it, used to the sound by that point. Orochimaru smiled sinisterly. Kakuzu felt a sudden urge to kill the man, more so than he had before.

"Hello Kakuzu," the Sannin said.

"Hello," Kakuzu said. "How nice to see you again Orochimaru," he continued, forcing the words out without any annoyance in them. He felt it caused him more mental agony then Hidan caused him daily. "What can I do for you?"

Orochimaru smiled again. Kakuzu was really getting pissed off by now.

"I don't believe you've noticed the snake that's currently right next to you," Orochimaru said. "It's one of my favourites, a rather rare species that bites once to inject it's poison. Once bitten the victim passes out and suffers from extreme pain for the next week before passing on. That's the longest anyone's ever survived however, so nobody knows if you're meant to die after a week, or if the snake relies on you dying from the pain."

"So you're seeing how long I survive?" Kakuzu guessed.

"No no, I'm doing this for more than one reason. One, I want to observe what happens in your body as you die, as your heart stops for a while until you can get it beating again, correct? I believe the results will be most enlightening. If you're wondering how, the chains you're currently held in absorb chakra. I'll merely watch how much chakra they're absorbing and I'll study the results. Two, I'm curious to know if people do drop dead after a week from poison, or just from pain," Orochimaru said. Kakuzu turned his head slightly and found the black eyes of a snake staring at him. Frantically he tried to move his arm, but he barely could, and the snake didn't even notice. It opened its massive jaws and bit down hard.

"Where are they?" Deidara bellowed. "We've been searching for six hours, and we find nothing!"

"Calm down," Kisame said. "We'll find them."

"He does have a point though," Pein said. "We've been searching all this time, but we haven't found anything. The cart tracks end here, so where did they go after that?"

"One minute," Deidara said, his back to everyone. "I have an idea."

"You plan on blowing a hole in the mountain," Itachi said. "Brilliant."

"Oh shut up," Deidara said, as several large spiders scuttled over to the mountain and latched on to it. "KATSU!"

BOOM!

Once the dust had cleared and everyone had stopped choking, Konan yelled, "found it!"

"Eh?" everyone else said. Sure enough, there was a staircase which disappeared into darkness.

"Ha!" Deidara yelled. "Take that Uchiha!"

"You have to be kidding me," Itachi muttered. "He was right."

"Hey!" Deidara protested. Pein grabbed the back of the teen's shirt and sighed. "Stop it Deidara," he said. "We have to go and find Hidan and Kakuzu." And with that he started down the steps, not showing any apparent fear. Deidara frowned.

"Pein, I know we have to find Kakuzu and Hidan, but how is clinging to the back of my shirt and dragging me going to help?" he asked.