A certain young man was moving through the forest, keeping an eye on the surroundings. He was searching for something. And in order to assist him in that purpose, he had assembled a team. However, they had just split up to quicker find the information that he was searching for. He had ordered so, because they could cover more grounds this way by following different leads at once.
He was about to head out as well when something caught his attention.
Weirdly shaped black animal traversed the terrain stealthily. And it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. However, it couldn't escape his eyes. Person in question - Sasuke Uchiha, activated his sharingun and furrowed his brows at what he was looking at. What was that? it didn't look like any beast he knew. And it wasn't alone either.
"Could it be a chakra construct? Or maybe some sort of chimera?"
Those were few possibilities that first came to mind. Orochimaru conducted countless experiments with various beasts, so he had seen fair share of amalgamations spawn from them. But this was something different. That was when he noticed a man appear and disappear into the woods. Even though it was just a glimpse, Sasuke recognized identity of that man. Coincidentally, it looked similar to one of the targets he was searching for.
Sasuke followed suit. It looked like he had already found his lead.
• • •
"Wow, you weren't lying Lad. I'm impressed. I'll give you that."
"You can save your pleasantries Hiro, I had to force you into agreeing with this, after all. Anyway, how do you feel about your new body?"
Hiroshi stretched his body, moved his hands, legs, fingers, closely inspecting everything.
"Weird. It feels like I'm wearing clothes that don't fit. I hope it's temporary, I don't think I can work efficiently like this."
"It's only natural. After all, you just changed your body twice. Just give it a time. So, who was that lucky person you dragged into this room?"
"Oh, you're talking about Souma? Well, he was just a colleague."
Kakuzu raised an eyebrow. A colleague?
"Hey now, don't misunderstand Kakuzu, we didn't really get along… Hey, don't look at me that way, we had to kill him anyway, right?"
Hiroshi wasn't only scientist working in this hideout. Although, there were only a few more. There were also guards that he didn't come across. To get rid of them, Kakuzu sent his spirits after those groups.
"Forget it. Anyway, before you went running, I had something to ask. I want to know your opinion on what just happened."
"Oh, great. I wanted to discuss that too. So, in short- no, wait. First, I have to say that it was first time that something like this happened. I don't know much myself without conducting experimentation few more times. There have been incidents when potion caused chakra system to fry, sure, but never an explosion. When potion took effect, my chakra became so dense that it started materializing in liquid form. It was damn painful too. Nothing I've ever experienced before and I've been through quite number of incidents. My body was paralyzed and I couldn't even make a sound. In short, it was a torture. Then again, to dig deeper, this requires trial and error. I need human subjects. The more the merrier. I'm glad I've written down the formula. I don't think I could make it again from the scratch without wasting resources. Still, as I said, this requires more research, way more in fact. We need to-"
"Okay, that's enough. Just wanted to confirm the cause. We aren't going to do more experiments for now."
"Hmm? Yeah, right. There was mistake that slipped through somewhere that resulted messing up the chakra network. But come again, what was that thing about no more experimentations?"
Kakuzu ignored the complaining scientist in the background and gave the events deeper thought. Even if potion was a failure, it still had it's effects. It had somehow resulted creation of a sentient spirit. This was already impressive enough. He would try if he could create more spirits like Hiroshi. But Kakuzu felt there was something else to it. Something like a bottomless well was in the heart of the spirit. Kakuzu felt annoyance for not being able to figure out the cause.
Kakuzu looked at Hiroshi. Right now, he was occupying the body of young blonde man. But before that, the old man had taken the form of the lightning spirit. He had been tall, easily two times the size of Kakuzu. He had broad, overstretched shoulders and relatively thin appendages. Shape of its body was similar to elongated reversed triangle and at the end was a long tail. Keeping that form would cause unwanted attention if seen. That's why he suggested trying out changing the body.
"How about your chakra? Can you detect any changes?"
"It has increased significantly compared to what I had. But it shouldn't be a surprise, my old body didn't have much chakra anyway. I'm not sure if it was because of changing my body into this or because of the potion. Maybe even combination of both. But it's still nothing impressive. I'll need to study the cause of this more." Hiroshi said thoughtfully.
"Well, then. I'm going to leave some of those monsters of mine to keep you company. You can use them however you see fit. I'm sure you noticed that you can pave similar network that we have towards them to communicate. You'll be able to command them through it."
"Alright. Sounds good enough for me. Anything else, boss?"
Is he mocking me?Kakuzu found that thought loughable. But he knew it wasn't out of spite. Scientist was trully looking forward to what he could acomplish. As long as he put that determination to good use and didn't restrict him too much, Hiroshi would follow his orders.
"Yeah. Before I leave, we have one last thing to discuss."
• • •
Kakuzu had several things on his mind as he exited the hideout and started to move in a certain direction. He wanted to make preparations until he faced Kabuto. He had no idea which edo tensei was in his possession so extra caution was warranted. Best way to get stronger quickly, for current him, seemed to be gathering more army by turning strong shinobi into the spirits. As testaments of the claim, he recalled guards he came across and to what had they turned into. Furthermore, they weren't only shinobi in the hideout. After the guards that he first came across, he also turned remaining guards into his soldiers.
He recalled the scattered spirits back. After few minutes of waiting, more than a dozen monsters of various sizes and forms lined up in front of him.
While their forms looked like the forms of masks that resided in his chest, they were not quite the same. For example, neither of the spirits had exact same appearance. Some of them had front appendages that were much bigger than necessary, making the beast's body easily loose balance, or tail twice its size, or some lacked limb altogether, looking like snake with overgrown head.
Those deformities, that were caused by improper application of sealing technique, wouldn't render the spirits useless in combat, but decrease in efficiency was obvious.
As much of a disappointment it was, neither of them were higher rank than [F]. If those spirits united together, depending on circumstances, they could defeat few run of the mill jonin. However, on average, they weren't stronger than average chunin.
Their biggest advantage lay in their teamwork. After Kakuzu was done talking with Hiroshi, he tracked down the remaining guards down for a recruitment notice. But he decided to let the spirits fight by themselves to determine their strengths and weaknesses. Those two spirits, by themselves, were able to display impressive level of cooperation. Their attacks seamlessly reinforced each other's. In the end, they defeated group of three chunin without either of them collapsing. Granted, they had an element of surprise, and an advantage in the confined space, but without cooperating seamlessly with each other, they would lack the ability to capitalize on it.
They dragged the guards, most of whom were left alive, back to Kakuzu to perform Reverse Earth Grudge Fear on them.
When new members were added to the army, remaining skirmishes took less and less time.
Although their stats were nothing impressive, if enemy didn't know the way of defeating them, they would waste a lot of time and energy. Added to that the nimble yet deadly threads that could extend and retract at will, and also the ability to combine with each other to attack simultaneously – all of that turned the spirits into the perfect killers. In short, more variables the battle had, more advantageous the spirits position would be.
• • •
While moving through the forest, Kakuzu detected chakra signature rapidly approaching him. Next moment, certain young man, donned in black robes, appeared in front of him. He carefully studied Kakuzu's appearance, as if confirming something.
"You're a member of Akatsuki, aren't you?"
Sasuke Uchiha? How did he find me?
This was going to be problematic.
"You already know who I am. So, why ask?"
"You're right, I do. And now, you are going to tell me all about Itachi."
"No can do, kid. You need to try better then that-"
For a moment, Sasuke disappeared from where he stood and next second appeared right in front of Kakuzu. He drew the sword from the scabbard that was concealed by his robe, and swung.
Oh damn. How is this kid so fast?!
Kakuzu managed to dodge the attack. But nevertheless, he had to pay close attention to his opponent, else he wouldn't be able to react.
I guess I need some help
Kakuzu performed rat, dog and tiger hand seal in quick succesion. Sasuke charged again towards Kakuzu, but had to stop and jump sideways. A fireball hit the place that he had just stood upon, and small firestorm erupted when it hit the ground. What Sasuke found strange was that it hadn't come from Kakuzu, but rather - behind himself.
"So, they were you're pets after all."
"Hmm, so they are the reason you detected me. I should have taken a detour."
Ray of lightning shot towards Kakuzu from Sasuke's hand, but before it could reach it's target, A spirit appeared in front of Kakuzu and blocked the hit. Although Kakuzu was left unharmed, same couldn't be said for his spirit. Mask that was hit shattered into pieces and black tendrils turned into goo similar to ink.
Damn, how weak.
Although he though of that, Kakuzu knew that problem didn't lie in the mask. The attack was just that strong. And if spirit wasn't hit in it's weak point, it could just let the lightning pass trough it's body while taking the minimum damage. Unfortunately, then it wouldn't be able to block the attack.
"Looks like one's not enough. Then, how about few more?"
Kakuzu performed another seal, this time – Ram. But although his hand movements were fast, Sasuke saw through it and dodged high pressure air bullets that were shooting from towards his sides. Next moment, lightning infused chakra cursed through Sasukes hand. He swung his hand, and lightning needles were shot towards the masks. Two of the spirit, each that just appeared left and right of Sasuke, were unable to react. They were pierced by the needles and fell. They were destroyed soon after.
"Three down." Sasuke said.
Kakuzu clicked his tongue. Truth be told, he was impressed by the speed and the skill of Sasuke. But what was truly hard to grasp were his reflexes. The way he took details into account and calculated his next move was so flawless that it almost made Kakuzu envious.
Kakuzu cheeked the spirits location. To not attract attention he had ordered them to disperse and move stealthily. And because of that, they couldn't all immediately be recalled at once. However-
Seems they're all finally set
Kakuzu shot his hand towards Sasuke, and the threads pushed it out further, shooting it several meters forward. Sasuke raised his swords, prepared to intercept it and cut off the hand. But he sensed that something was off. And sure enough, his doubt was immediately proven correct. More than dozen fireballs, from all directions were shot towards him at once, further amplified by the wind element. Even for someone like Sasuke, there was no way to dodge such attack.
• • •
Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, two huge birds were flying through the skies. However, there was something strange about them. They were all white, with no clearly defined beaks or claws, and they had no feathers. And on each of those birds, stood a person.
"Found him, Tobi… hmmm?" One of them - Deidara, who had created those birds from his chakra modified clay, remarked.
"Seriously?! That was quick!" Another person, Tobi, exclaimed in amazment.
"So, which one is it? Sasuke or None Tails?" Tobi asked.
"Heh, come along Tobi. Now… Indeed, which one shall it be hmmm?"