A lantern made of stone was placed in the middle of the dimly lit cave. Surrounded by mirages of the six individuals. Their appearance were unclear as the nature of the jutsu kept them transparent. But all of them seemed donned in the same attire.
Suddenly, two other silhouettes materialized around the lantern.
"You're late."
"We'd just captured a jinchuriki. We had to tie him up and make sure he couldn't get away."
"...All right. We're all here now." After hearing Kisame's answer Pain turned to Kakuzu. "But I don't see Hidan, Kakuzu."
"That's because he's dead."
Kakuzu's answer was nonchalant, as if teammate's death was an unfortunate, but otherwise normal occurrence.
"I see… heh heh. So even that zombie was mortal. Didn't he claim that he couldn't be killed?" Kisame asked.
"… He was less durable then he claimed."
"Don't talk about your comrades that way." Pain sighed, but otherwise he didn't seem to be bothered much by it. "Akatsuki works in two-man teams for a reason, Kakuzu. Finding you partner who fits you better is going to be troublesome."
"How did he die anyway?" Kisame asked again.
"... He was being rather irritating. All I did was tore his heart out."
"Now aren't you being too cruel Kakuzu? Killing a guy just because he talked too much…" said Kisame with an amused grin.
"Well, I'm glad I'm not teamed up with you." Tobi added. "Deidara is already acting explosive enough"
"Tobi!" Deidara raised his voice. "Just keep running your mouth… you'll push me to my limit!"
"See what I mean?" Tobi raised his palms dramatically. "So temperamental. C'mon Deidara, don't blow up on me now."
"Why you uncultured little! just you keep yapping-"
"Calm yourself down, Deidara. You're just proving Tobi right."
In response to Pain's scolding, Deidara angrily glared at Tobi who, in turn, started laughing.
"And you, Tobi…You always say too much. Respect your seniors."
"Yes sir! Sorry sir!" Tobi replied enthusiastically.
"Anyway, as for you Kakuzu… you'll act by yourself for now. That is, until we find you more suitable partner. We'll put this issue on hold until we do."
"Are we really going to be able to gather all the jinchuriki like this!?" asked Kisame.
"Well…"
"In any case, more importantly, I'd like to get four tails sealed right away…"
"Hold up...I'm not done yet." Pain interjected Kisame.
"What is it?"
"There was one other who was killed."
"One other?"
"Orochimaru."
"It's been ten years since he left the Akatsuki… well, at least we have been spared task of killing him ourselves."
Kisame seemed amused by the news. Interested in the identity of the killer, he asked:
"But pretty impressive work, to have taken down someone so powerful. Who did it?"
"Uchiha Sasuke."
"Heh… Itachi's little brother eh. Apple sure doesn't fall far from the tree."
Meeting continued, members talking about young Uchiha's exploits.
Meanwhile Kakuzu sighed in relief.
Since he had history of killing his teammates, there was no need to make up excuses. He just had to act in character. Therefore, he chose to attend the meeting. While he didn't know until when his facade with Akatsuki would continue, there was no reason for it to end now. Meetings could be important source of the information and, quite possibly, only way to keep track of the changes in the timeline before they had chance to get out of the hand.
There was also the question to what happened to Hidan. As the way in which he died was rather mysterious.
"How could he die just by having his heart torn out?" Those thoughts seemed ridiculous to Kakuzu. But it was Hidan he was talking about. After all, he had survived much worse than that.
As meeting continued, Kakuzu thought back about his fight with Hidan and the strange way in which he had died.
• • •
-Few days earlier-
After the fight ended Kakuzu approached Hidan's headless body and placed his hand in front of his chest. Right in front of where the heart was located.
With the simple chakra input the threads inside his hand responded. His arm opened up and threads came out of it. Hovering in the air for a moment before shooting forward and impaling Hidan.
They went through the flesh, muscle tissue, piercing the heart and letting chakra flow through the organ.
Slowly, he started to conect his chakra network to the heart.
"Let's see... I have quite the expectations from this. Do not disappoint me now."
He could sense as connection begin to form in a mysterious way through the chakra. It felt like his chakra acted as a virus, infecting the heart and spreading itself until taking control of the organ.
As he continued, he rummaged through the memories he gained after coming to this world. Letting them guide his actions.
"... Earth Grudge Fear huh. It allows the user to steal the vitality and chakra affinity by taking other's heart. Quite the fascinating jutsu. It's unfortunate that it can't absorb kekkei genkais, but nonetheless, it doesn't make it any less impressive. It basically makes the user immortal."
Kakuzu slowly continued with the process of exctracting the heart.
Earth Grudge Fear itself was originally created as a medical ninjutsu. It used threads infused with chakra to stich or heal injuries or to even transplant organs from one shinobi to another. But what he was doing right now was much harder then just transplating organs.The precise control of chakra was vital to not cause damage to the heart.
If he went just a bit wrong with the chakra flow, the jutsu, would most likely fail. And the heart would become useless. After all, there was only one attempt per heart.
While he was in the midway through finishing the process, however, momentarily something halted the chakra flow, halting the jutsu.
Kakuzu considered that he made mistake somewhere but otherwise paid the failure no mind. After all, Hidan was immortal. He could test out the jutsu on him however many times he wanted to. Would he get Hidan's immortality in return? He wasn't sure. But this was only target he could safely experiment on.
While Hidan was weakest member of the organization, he was far stronger than any ordinary ninja could ever be. Although Jiango couldn't absorb special abilities, just the chakra boost gained from the heart belonging to a strong shinobi, by itself, would be increase in power.
But things didn't quite proceed the way Kakuzu foresaw them.
"N-no wait! Lord-"
Panicked gasp made Kakuzu look towards Hidan's head. Again, he felt some kind of interference through the chakra. And then Hidan's body started to turn into an ash. The jutsu failed and the remains of him were blown away by the passing wind.
"… What did just happen?"
Kakuzu muttered, puzzled, as he looked at the disappointing result.
He was left with more questions than he begun with.
Why and how could Hidan die just like that was strange. He might have expected jutsu failing, Hidan to nonchalantly continue cursing him even with his heart taken. But not this.
Kakuzu shook his head and sighed. Standing here wasn't going to help him in figuring out anything. It was time to leave until he was discovered.
He had destination in mind. A place that just might be key element in stopping the upcoming disaster - The certain hideout of Orochimaru.
• • •
Around the time when Konoha shinobi fought Akatsuki's zombie duo in the original timeline, was when Sasuke Uchiha also had a fight of his own against Orochimaru. Ending with him absorbing the snake Sanin.
Disappearance of Orochimaru, in turn, resulted its own chain of troublesome events.
Kabuto Yakushi, young spy with tragic past, was left alone without any purpose or goal in life. And lost in confusion about his true identity he would set a goal - to achieve perfection.
By absorbing the cells of Orochimaru and learning the senjutsu from the Ryuchi cave, he would later become the perfect sage and possess an army of dead - reanimated by the forbidden jutsu - edo tensei. And then, after teaming up with Obito, he would play major role in the upcoming war.
Kakuzu went through everything he knew about the war.
The answer that first came up when he about best possible actions he could take was, actually, rather simple – to kill Kabuto Yakushi.
Kakuzu was certain - getting rid of Kabuto would lead in avoiding most of the upcoming problems. Most importantly, there would be no Madara to worry about, nor there would be the zombie army. Absence of Kinkaku and Ginkaku would further make it harder to awaken the ten tails. Without Juubi or Madara, all that was left was Obito and Black Zetsu.
On the other hand, Kabuto, at least currently, who was not yet adapted to implanted cells, nor had he used the edo tensei to revive Madara or Kages, was much weaker than him.
Kakuzu was confident that he would much sooner get used to the new body than Kabuto could adapt to new cells. And with some preparations, he was confident in defeating Kabuto.
But for that to happen, he had to find Kabuto, before he became the perfect sage. Unfortunately, things were not as easy as he wished for them to be. While plan was simple, it definitely wasn't an easy one. He had close to no clue about Kabuto's whereabouts.
His only lead was Orochimaru's hideout. The one built into the side of a small island. Where Kabuto transfused Orochimaru's blood into himself. Apart from that he didn't know much. Therefore, he had precisely set out to solve the issue at hand.
Kakuzu looked back to present.
Currently, he was inside an office, looking at the two thugs who were standing in front of him and nervously glancing at him from time to time.
The reason for Kakuzu to come here was that he simply didn't wish to go through all the bothersome process of tracking down skilled shinobi by himself. Especially when he had people who could do it quicker and who were much better at it than him.
Therefore, those two were given assignment to gather information about Kabuto Yakushi and to notify him if any suspicious movements arose.
I have to stop him before he starts rising undead army of shinobis. While Kabuto's death won't stop the 4th great shinobi world war, it will greatly simplify thing. Although, what would black Zetsu do is hard to predict.
Kakuzu sighed. He still had hard time accepting the reality. Should he really worry about future, when the world was destined to be saved? What if he just messed up things?
Those were the questions pestering his mind for last few days. It was annoying to have such doubts.
In the end, he didn't think not get involved was good alternative. There were just too many possibilities.
What if his appearance meant that predetermined future had changed? What if butterfly effect had already taken place? And what if his appearance wasn't accident? What if whoever send him here had more plans for this world? What if he wasn't only one abnormal?
With the existence of such possibilities, Kakuzu didn't have privilege to sit back and watch the story unfold as he had once had.
Well, anyway. He probably spent quite a while contemplating future. He was getting ahead of himself. There was no point in worrying about things like that if he tripped over on the next step because he lost sight of his surroundings.
Meanwhile, two men in front of him were shaking from nervousness. They didn't know the reason for their boss's prolonged silence.
After being tasked with finding information about Kabuto, they worked tirelessly to find anything useful.
It wasn't long since Sasuke Uchiha left the hideout, yet rumors about him killing Orochimaru were already spreading. Existence of Kabuto was overshadowed by young Uchiha's achievement. Still, they managed to find something, or in this case, someone – a defected guard-nin from one of the Orochimaru's hideout.
The guard, as expected, had no knowlege of Kabuto's whereabouts. Fortunately, though, after some friendly conversation, he revealed some information worth paying attention.
That being the certain scientist, Hiroshi Kurogawa, who had some connections with Kabuto. It seemed that scientist was in the middle of some research that Kabuto chose to support.
Since he had no recollection of such name ever being mentioned in the story, Kakuzu assumed this character either had no or close to no significance to the plot. Unfortunately, guard-nin either didn't know more or had higher pain tolerance than expected.
"Is there anything else boss?" Asked one of the thugs nervously.
"No, that will do…"
Kakuzu placed stacks of money on the desk and stood up.
"Well done. Keep the investigation going and be in contact."
With that, he left the building, heading towards the new trail.