"Hope to see you again soon, sir"

That was first thing he had heard after waking up in a strange, eerie place. Why was he standing in the middle of some suspicious room that reeked of death? Only thing he remembered was a terrible headache and exhaustion washing over his body. That is, if he didn't count extremely jarring and bizarre experience he went through moments prior.

His mind was hazy, and while he gradually begun to wake up from the bizarre stupor, he came to unsettling realization – His name was blank. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't recall it, as if part of his being had somehow gone missing. But he didn't have time to contemplate the severity of what that entailed, as he still hadn't recovered from onslaught of memories that had flooded his mind.

He faintly remembered floating through unending darkness for who know how goddamn long, slowly wandering with seemingly no destination, until he had somehow suddenly accelerated and collided with something. It honestly felt like a fever dream, something that he would wake up and have no recollection of. But that wasn't reason of his inner turmoil, but, rather, it was memories that were foreign to him, the memories that shouldn't belong to him, yet they were slowly ingrained in his brain.

Suddenly, he could remember the tedious training he experienced throughout his life, starting from his childhood, continuous practice and skills of a ninja that had been suddenly ingrained in his mind. They were experiences that only person who trained for decades in the art and honed his instinct to limit would have. Yet, the knowledge was now part of him, leaving him dazed from the jumble of tremendous information.

Along with that were memories of the interactions with people he had never knew before. As well as experience of killing, torturing and fighting. In some weird twist of fate, he realized, he had somehow possessed the body of Kakuzu, a shinobi and the member of criminal organization Akatsuki who was playing a role of a villain in a certain anime.

And he had, just now, collected bounty on Chiriku, ninja monk from the Fire Temple and one of the Twelve Guardian ninjas and was ready to head out, while his mentally handicapped partner impatiently waited for him outside.

Of course, that was assuming he hadn't gone insane. But he doubted his mind could come up with such an intricate and vivid dream. After all, he had memories of doing those things as if he was Kakuzu himself.

As he was in deep thought, the man, Kakuzu – the name he decided to keep for now - recalled that he wasn't alone in the room and turned around.

A bald man, with a mustache, scar on his forehead and unnaturally thick eyebrows was staring at him with a confused expression.

"Is something wrong sir?" Asked the man who he recognized as Zangei, head of bounty station operation in southeast part of the Land of Fire.

Kakuzu's mind slowly begun to make sense of the peculiar situation he was thrown into. He seemed to be at the beginning of the second part of Naruto. This sort of situation, by itself, begged a lot of questions, but there was more immediate issue right now that needed to be taken care of.

While Kakuzu was deep in the thoughts, the man with a scar, noticing his client's hesitation, sensed that something was amiss. Had he made a mistake, perhaps?

"Was the amount perhaps incorrect sir?" he politely asked.

"... No, nothing of that sort, Zangei." Kakuzu answered with a shake of his head. "Keep in mind though, I won't be back for a while. I will be returning to Konoha to search for jinchuriki"

While Kakuzu answered Zangei instinctively, his mind wasn't entirely there. He still hadn't completely gotten rid of shock that still nagged at his mind. It seemed, it would take some time for his mind to catch up.

"Some advice then if I may…" Zangei said with a kind smile. "Distance yourself from your companion... He has a face that is inauspicious for a money matters."

"…I will keep that in mind." Kakuzu shortly replied.

He was about to turn around and leave. He wanted to clear his head and some peace of mind. But he recalled what would soon transpire here.

Team Asuma's encounter with Akatsuki wouldn't leave this place behind untouched. And since Zangei seemed as a resourceful fellow, he didn't mind sparing few words for a simple favor.

"Advice huh… then I'll give one to you as well, Zangei. Move to another branch, sooner the better… it won't take long time until this place will be surrounded by Konoha shinobi."

Alarmed by those words, Zangei simply nodded at Kakuzu and quickly regained his composure, not even questioning validity of the information. There was simply no reason for a deception from his regular customer.

"I will prepare immediately then… and good luck with your mission sir."

After listening Zangei's response, Kakuzu simply nodded back and turned around and headed towards the exit.

He stepped into the bathroom and, shortly after, the door closed behind him. He was inside the bounty station that acted as exchange point for black market. Where he came out of was a room where corpses with bounty were stored. Room was hidden, of course, and you needed to go through bathroom to reach the hidden door.

The stench inside bathroom wasn't much better than it was inside the room full of corpses. Although the corpses were properly kept, residual smell hadn't escaped his senses. Not to mention, he had just brought one himself. This was not where he wanted to stay.

The next room he entered looked like abandoned office room. It was empty, expect few desks, chairs and randomly placed filling cabinets. After taking few steps, Kakuzu halted and looked down at his hand, sensing something peculiar.

He closed it into a fist. Noting some kind of energy building up within the body. It was fascinating sensation. He felt that his body was overflowing with vitality. He could also sense the flow of certain energy, something he identified as the chakra.

He raised his hand and concentrated on it. He could feel the energy – chakra, building up on the tip of his fingers. Then, without his conscious command, his arm shot forward, half of it detaching from his body while threads pushing it further than it was physically capable for a normal human.

Although, to be fair, this was not a feat that normal ninja could perform either.

Kakuzu concentrated his chakra and willed arm to return. Black threads pulled back the arm and it connected his body like it was always there. There was no blood, no pain or injury. It was something that made him wonder how he was even alive without blood or bones. How could a body even stand straight in this condition?

After observing further, he noticed that his vitality was concentrated in his chest. Something that shouldn't really be a mystery. Heart was a vital organ, after all.

But it wasn't that simple.

Because it wasn't just one heart.

It seemed threads were connected to the blood vessels of the heart, or in his case – hearts, and were drawing out chakra from it. They acted as skeleton, as muscle and as vessels at the same time for chakra to travel. Underneath his skin was a tissue, but there was no blood flow. Threads were connected to skin and were infusing it with energy.

Kakuzu sighed. Once again reminded that he had ended up spawning in the world of fantasy. However, getting too absorbed with this wasn't something he could afford. He felt that his mind hasn't entirely caught up yet, but it didn't matter right now.

He would explore more about the power he gained later. He had already gotten hang of the basics, but as his memories were hazy, delving any further would take considerable time, something that he was currently running short of, unfortunately. After all, there wasn't much longer before 4th shinobi war started.

"Hmm… I wonder though, will I be able to do anything noteworthy with body like this?"

Kakuzu wasn't nearly as strong as someone like Pain or Obito, not to mention someone from later parts of the story, nor he had similar potential. And because of that, this was a question he needed to have answer for before he decided on any kind of proper plan of action.

Although he had taken over body of Kakuzu, he was uncertain of what happened to himself or the fate of person he replaced. And maybe he wasn't even person who he thought he was. There was no way to know for sure. All he could do was trust whatever his instincts were telling him unless proven otherwise.

Questions, one after another, filled his mind. Reluctantly, Kakuzu pushed them aside. Now wasn't the time for an existential crisis. What he now needed was a plan.

As he was in deep thought, he heard sounds of fighting going outside.

"Haa… I don't even have time to properly think, the fight has already started" Kakuzu sighed, thinking over if and how should he interfere.

His actions would cause ripples in the original timeline. And there might be some undesirable changes.

"I do wonder though, if this even is the original timeline. After skimming through the new memories, I haven't yet found any deviations from it. But still, I'm not entirely certain…"

Since couldn't delve deep enough because of time constraints, there might be some details he didn't take into account. He had no idea if there were more anomalies like him either. And chances of that weren't low.

knowledge and power he currently possessed was a tool only as useful as he would make them out to be. Although, to be frank, more alluring approach to him would be to take a step back, gather power and influence until it was right moment for the action, he had no time nor means for that. He had to take a more active role in events to come.

"I guess there's no helping it. Even with knowledge of future, there are still many unknowns…"

"How will world react to the changes I'll cause? Can I predict the different decisions the characters might make because of my actions? And are there more outsiders like me?"

Kakuzu looked at the window, shifting his thoughts about the ongoing battle outside. First, he would deal with situation at hand.

"Hidan, Asuma and Shikamaru… there are some interesting characters I'm about to encounter. This still doesn't feel real. I won't lie, there is part of me is looking forward to seeing them. I'm not really worried about the outcome of this battle."

"Though I wonder if I should tweak some things a little…"

He was about to join in the fight. But, before he did that, there was something he was not entirely certain of. Specifically - how should he handle the Konoha squad.

After all, Asuma Sarutobi was going to die today.