AN: Here we are, with the historic fight of Zetsu vs. Sasori. Who's going to win? You're going to have to read and find out!

rarae aves: You'll just have to read and find out! (At this moment, I'm not positive myself how I want the fight to do, haha.) Thank you for the review and thank you for continuing to read this long!

Cat Beats: Thank you for noticing that! Writing her dialogue is my favourite because it's so childish so I can have fun with it. I tried to describe her training without detailing every little thing so I'm not boring my readers. I'm glad to hear I was successful! You'll start seeing her capabilities towards the end of the arc and beginning of the next arc. But that's only ten chapters so it won't be too long of a wait! (depending how long it takes me to get those chapters out).

Kuro641: I'm so glad it's a favourite! It makes me glad to be writing it!

Warning(s): Language (High), Blood/Violence (Mid), Genderbend

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Wasteland

Red Dawn Arc

Chapter 31

"Tch, I ain't a fucken firefly, dumbarse." Sasori chided, striding up to the two others with a narcissistic swagger in his step and that trademark shit-eating grin on his punchable little face. Kakuzu also noticed something else with him; something new.

"Your opponent is going to be Sasori." Kakuzu told Zetsu if it wasn't obvious to her yet.

Once the initial dumbfounderment left, disappointment remained. Zetsu was expecting to fight Sir; she had wanted to fight Sir because she was going to show him how she mastered everything he taught her. While she was bummed, she wasn't upset. If she had beaten the Firefly in a fight with half the techniques she knew now, then she was going to squash him! This might be the easiest test she ever had.

"Ok!" She chirped.

Kakuzu spied the infernos flickering in her caramel orbs as she stared at Sasori who didn't notice, too occupied with loosening himself with stretches. "Girl, can I speak with you?"

He shepherded her away so the puppeteer couldn't overhear their conversation. Once a safe distance, the elder crouched down so he was eyelevel with the girl. "Listen to me, do not get cocky. You winning a fight with him once was a fluke."

'Fluke?' She hadn't heard that word before. "Umm…"

"You won because he was at a disadvantage. I want you to take a hard look at him and tell me: what is different about him?" He pointed at Sasori and Zetsu squinted her eyes at him, trying to figure out what was so new with him. He hadn't cut his hair or lost weight. Maybe new clothes? It took her an honest minute to notice it.

"Firefly has a two legs and arms!" She gasped, pointing at the redhead who was wearing an outfit of shorts and a polo shirt, advertising his shiny new prosthetic limbs. They were expertly crafted so from afar, so it was hard to tell them apart from being natural and manmade. Unlike the macabre scarecrow limbs he had last.

"That's right. When you fought him last, he didn't have them, did he? Now, you two are even so don't go thinking this is going to be anything like last time because it isn't." Kakuzu warned her with a finger poking her nose and resulting in her almond-shaped eyes crossing comedically.

Zetsu glanced past Sir at Sasori again, frowning sideways. She didn't understand what the stink was about. So what if the Firefly has an arm and leg now? She won once and she would win again! "Ok." She peeped. Kakuzu heaved a defeated sigh. He had an easier chance of talking a suicidal person off a ledge then speaking logic into her. He might asphyxiate if he tried doing so any further.

"Oi! Are we doen this or ain't we?!" Sasori bellowed, shattering the tranquil atmosphere of the meadow with his dislikeable dialect like nails on a chalkboard. He had his hands anchored on his hips with a foot tapping, trampling the grass and innocent insects underneath it.

Kakuzu straightened up, his old bones cracking. With a tremendous sigh, he turned and trudged back to the boy with an enthusiastic Zetsu skipping behind him. He strategically positioned himself between the two teenagers so no one could try and instigate this fight before the ground rules were set—or rather, so Sasori couldn't as Kakuzu didn't fail to catch that sinister glimmer in his bronze hues while he stared at Zetsu.

"Ok, listen up," Kakuzu broadcasted, glancing out of the corner of his eye at each teenager and folding his arms. "This is going to be a fight of fisticuffs, not a free-for-all so no jutsu except taijutsu. That includes Kekkei Genkai, girl."

It took a minute for it to register with Zetsu that he was speaking to her as she was too occupied with the staring contest she was having with Sasori. Blinking her dried eyes, she stared up at Kakuzu. "What?"

He heaved a piqued sigh. "I said no Kekkei Genkai! So, no using your Mayfly. Also, no biting either."

"Ha! Without her lil' bloodline, it'll be like fighten a babe!" Sasori interjected, cackling like a hyena.

"And you, boy," Kakuzu turned towards Sasori, blanketing the redhead with his shadow with a finger pointed once more. "No puppets nor whatever other little tricks you've gotten up your sleeve with those new limbs."

Sasori made a spitting noise. "Tch, I don't need 'em to kick this lil' bitch's arse."

"Obviously, you do, because she kicked your ass without them."

White bled into crimson as Sasori's face went red and in this colder morning weather, if one squinted, you could see the steam billowing off the hot flesh. "I didn't have my arm an' leg! That's the only reason that bitch won! Whatcha smilen at, bitch!?" The puppeteer barked as he noticed a smirking Zetsu gazing at him and she quickly ducked back into safety behind Kakuzu's leg. Though, snickering could be heard.

"Whatever. Let's get on with this," Kakuzu muttered. "Both of you: turn around and take ten paces opposite of each other." He specified it with a circular motion of his finger.

Zetsu raised her hand like how Konan taught her when she had a question. "Umm…what's a pace?"

"It's a step."

"Oh, ok!" Turning, she took ten dramatized steps, numbering them out loud so she didn't take too many or too few; a bit too big but Kakuzu left it. Once the ten was taken, she made a stance like a soldier standing at ease, back straight and arms at her sides.

"Dumbarse." Sasori mumbled, turning and taking his own ten steps.

Once each teenager had taken their appointed stepage, Kakuzu glanced at them to make certain their backs faced each other and they were a significant distance apart. "Alright, I'll go through the rules once more: no jutsu except Taijutsu, no Kekkei Genkai, no puppets and no fighting dirty. Oh, and no killing. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Whatever."

"Ok then. I'll going to give a count of three and on one, you can start." He paused, stealing a suspicious glimpse Sasori from the corner of his red eye, not putting it pass the little smartass to immediately lurch at her then claim he said "one". Surprisingly, he hadn't taken leverage off the miser's poor choice of words, so he continued. "Ready? Three…two…one!" He leapt back and out of the pathway of the two minors, not a millisecond too soon either because the moment the last syllable of "one" left his tongue, Sasori was turned around and charging.

Unfortunately, due to her overstepping and characteristic slowness, by the time Zetsu had realized Kakuzu said "one" and turned also, her cheek was met by Sasori's wooden fist. The punch sent her stumbling back a few steps and when she caught herself, she was pushed back with another hit. Sasori went in for the third punch but Zetsu managed to gather herself and duck his fist, making it soar harmlessly over her head. She tried to capture his wrist like how she had done to him before and in the progress, she ignored one critical detail: Sasori had two arms now. So, when she grabbed his wrist, he replied by uppercutting her in the chin his other hand. Her canines gnash painfully together with a noise akin to metal grinding metal, nearly biting a portion of her own tongue off, and her head jackknifed backwards. She let go of his wrist and wavered on her feet, the punch having whiplashed her neck and left her disoriented.

"Finished already!?" Sasori teased, grabbing her shoulders and delivering his knee into her gut, resulting in bile being ejected as she spat up. She fell onto her back and writhed in the dirt, cradling her abdomen as she coughed and gasped for lost breath, drool and bile leaking from the corners of her gaping maw like a fish out of water.

In the background, Kakuzu shook his head with a disappointed sigh. This was ending up exactly how he predicted it would. 'I told that girl not to underestimate him.'

Sasori planted his foot on her chest, stepping down and she wheezed as the little oxygen in her lungs was driven out of her starved lungs. "Stay down, poppet." He warned, applying additional pressure when Zetsu ignored him and tried sitting up. "I win this."

'It's over.' Kakuzu thought with a drawn-out sigh and starting walking towards the two to declare Sasori the winner in this spar. It would appear he would be spending the next few months teaching Zetsu everything over again. Joy, oh joy. However, he shouldn't have leapt to conclusions so quickly because if there was one thing about Zetsu: it was that had a habit of surprising him, and what she did was a perfect example of this.

Tapping his foot on Zetsu's chest, Sasori stared at Kakuzu, waiting impatiently for the old man to shuffle over and give him his victory, he had made the mistake of leaving himself open, quite literally with one leg mounted on her and the other grounded. Zetsu noticed this and bending her leg, used all her strength to kick her foot into the redhead's unguarded crouch and considering all the laps Sir made her run as a warm-up in the morning, it wasn't a love tap. Sasori's reaction was instant.

His cinnamon eyes bulged in their sockets, threatening to fall out, and a combination of a high-pitched scream and gasp left his lungs as he hunched over, grasping his agonized groin, trembling. He stumbled backwards off Zetsu then fell to his knees, heaving with salvia and tears dripping off his face. Kakuzu halted mid-step. If he was a weaker man, he wouldn't erupted into laughter at the just desserts the little shit was just dished out, but he was better than that, so his lips quirked into a smirk and his Adam's apple bobbed with swallowed snickering. What she just did could be considered dirty fighting, but he would just pretend he didn't notice it. He backed up to his original position as it became obvious this wasn't over yet—far from it.

Zetsu got up, dusting herself off and used her sleeve to wipe the drool from her own wet face. Sasori glared at her, eyes bloodshot, and breathing hard through clinched teeth so it made a foam like a rabid animal. "You…you fucken lil'…bitch! I'll kill you!" With that little to nonexistent warning, he lunged. This time though, she was prepared.

Sasori threw a punch and Zetsu pushed his puppet arm aside so the hit brushed past her cheek then slugged him in the stomach. Having not fully recovered from the cheap shot earlier, his reaction time was on the lethargic side, so he took the hit, grunting and crumpling over. She struck him again, making him too dyspneic to defend himself.

"There you go, girl!" Kakuzu hollered from the sidelines, clapping his hands like a parent at a child's game, then caught himself, hands mid-clap. Was he seriously cheering Zetsu on? Fuck it—yes, he was and cupped a hand over his mouth as he yelled next, "Give that little shit a taste of his own medicine!" Encouraged by Kakuzu's cheering, Zetsu kept drilling him in the midsection, turning him into a human punching bag.

She didn't know what he meant by giving the Firefly a "taste of his own medicine" but she was going to hurt him for everytime he hurt her. This one was hurting her in Suna! Punch. And this one was for her stuffed animals! Punch. And this was for him being a big meanie head! Punch. Punch. Punch.

After being fed a baker's dozen of knuckle sandwiches, Sasori finally snapped out of his stupefaction and it was with her thirteenth strike that her bad luck triggered. He headed off the punch as he took her hand captive and when she tried using her other hand, he snatched up that one too, incarcerating them both. She tried to pull herself free and he replied by wrenching her towards him, headbutting her. The gruesome crack that resulted from the collision of their skulls was like a gunshot and made the birds nesting in the circumscribing treeline to fly from the foliage with frightened squawking. Zetsu's eyes fluttered behind their eyelids and she fell back onto the ground, the quaking of her brain from the impact causing her to black out. The consciousness was literally punched back into her and when her sight bled back, she saw Sasori, bestriding her and slugging her in the face as his next punch made her vision bleach white and shredded the inside of her cheek as it grinded on her pointed teeth like a cheese grater, making her tastebuds tingle with the flavour of pennies as blood was spilt.

"Hey! That was a dirty move, you little shit!" Kakuzu blared but Sasori ignored him as he kept punching Zetsu, a sadistic grin plastered on his ugly little mug like the one he exhibited the last time he attacked her like this. Kakuzu made the beginning motions to run it and intercept the two teenagers, calling off the fight in Zetsu's favour, when Zetsu turned the tables on the brat.

She countered his hammering with her arms, using them to cast aside his hands so he punched them into the dirt and started kicking her legs. Thinking she was trying for another crotch shot, he bent his leg, so his nether regions were safe from her thrashing. That wasn't what she was going for though and with his new angle, it permitted her to bend her legs underneath him with her feet braced on his abdomen then with a push upward, flipped him off her. He landed on his beck with a thump and a gasped 'oof'. She quickly got up, wabbling on her feet as the few hits to the head left her discombobulated. A puddle of blood had complied itself inside her mouth and she painted a nearby patch of grass red as she spat the crimson liquid onto it. Sasori was up a second later and ran at her with the green-haired girl running back at him, meeting halfway.

They exchanged blows, bobbing and weaving past each other's fists and landing the occasional hit on the other. The air was thick with their panting breaths and smelt heavily of copper and perspiration from the blood and sweat being strayed from each successful strike. Jasper met topaz and a cold shiver ran up Sasori's spine as he recognized that maleficent glimmer in them; it was like it wasn't an innocent little girl staring back at him but something else, something infernal, the thing that ate his arm and leg.

"What…the fuck…are you!?" He screamed out, empathizing the question with a turning kick.

Zetsu took the kick to her side, grimacing and grunting. He delivered a second kick then a third and each time, she made no motion to elude them. Mainly because she didn't know how. This hadn't been included in her training because Rājan had little legs; it couldn't kick. Sasori picked up on this fact and changed his tactics in favour of this. He kicked her over and over again: roundkicks, front kicks, turning kicks, each and every kick in existence and she could do little but take them while wrestling with the pain and digging her heels in the earth so she wouldn't go down.

Kakuzu was metaphorically chewing his nails as he spectated having realized his own mistake also. 'Damnit, how didn't I notice this!?' He castigated himself but despite the disadvantage Zetsu was presented with, his confidence in her was steadfast. "Think, girl, think!" And think she did and a few seconds—and kicks later, she had an idea; an imaginary lightbulb switching on over her head.

As Sasori's leg fell from its latest booting, Zetsu stole the opening to hurl a kick of her own back at him, swinging her leg at his side. It was a failure though as he folded down his arm, using it as a cushion for his ribcage. After being kicked in the stomach, she mimicked his front kick with identical results as he sidestepped her leg, nearly breaking in her knee as he brought his elbow down onto it. Again, and again, she tried and failed to give him a literally ass kicking back and every time, he just brushed her off—he was playing with her. What he didn't realize was that she was the one playing him. Zetsu was exhausted and hurting, panting like a dog with saliva dribbling from her lips and her knees knocking together as they struggled to keep her upright. Sasori smirked. 'This is over.' He decided to down her once and for all with one last front kick as he thrusted his foot at her. However, the outcome wasn't like he predicted it.

Instead of taking it like she had with every other one, she sidestepped it like he had done to her, so he was kicking nothing but air. She grabbed his leg and again, as he had done, elbowed him in the kneecap. He howled in pain and yanked his leg from her, skipping back one-legged a few steps then then switching legs and kicking his other at her, hip-level. Like the last one, she enacted the same technique he had, buffeting her hip using her arm so it did little but lurch her.

Sasori snarled. 'Damnit, she's learnen as she fights!?' She wasn't just learning, but rather, she was using him to learn. He wasn't going to stand for this! He was ending this—now. So, he tried his best to do just that and she did was the same as they unleashed a cannonade of frenetic punches and kicks like two children squabbling on a schoolyard.

Kakuzu watched on, questioning if he should step in as this spar had essentially turned into a "no-hold-barred" kickboxing match, but he didn't have the chance.

Zetsu hooked Sasori in the cheek with a right punch and he answered it by uppercutting her in the chin, each sending the other faltering to their left then immediately turning and nailing the other with a back-handed swing to the face—and it was over. Both teenagers fell to the ground like a bag of rocks and laid there, chests heaving and soaked to the bone in sweat and blood that was their own and the other person's. Kakuzu waited for them to get back up again but after a minute, it became obvious this was done. He walked over with the ruling.

"It's…a draw." He said, muttering it in an incredulous tone like he himself didn't believe what he was saying. That was because he did not. What was he supposed to do with a draw? He couldn't tell Sir Leader with no hesitation that Zetsu was prepared to be a member because she hadn't won but also, from what he saw, she didn't require additional training as she performed everything he taught her extraordinarily, her only drawback being her own cockiness.

"Draw?" Zetsu inquired past an inflating lip. So, she didn't win? She also didn't lose?

"What!? It ain't a draw!" Sasori predictably caterwauled, pushing himself up onto his elbows. "I won the minute that cunt kicked me in the bloody balls! That was a dirty move!"

"So was headbutting her." Kakuzu easily invalidated his point.

"She kicked me in the balls first!"

"Then you both fought dirty and it's still a draw."

"That's bullshit!" Sasori cried but Kakuzu wasn't jeopardizing his hearing by listening to any more of his bitching as the felon walked over Zetsu to give her hand as she was having obvious difficulties with how she wheeling in the dirt. "This. Is. Bullshit!"

Kakuzu was helping Zetsu to her feet when he heard the telltale noise of a bladed weapon being unsheathed from a scabbard and twitched his emeralded orbs over his sunglasses in the direction of the disquieting sound. Sasori was now standing, extended from his wooden arm was an arm-length blade, the polished silver surface mirrored by the malicious flicker in his eyes. Once Kakuzu realized what was happening, the red-haired boy was lurching at Zetsu's turned back with an infuriated yell. "I win this!"

"Girl, look out!" Quickly, he grappled her into his arms and faced his back to the puppeteer, using himself to shield her and activating his Earth Style jutsu with a proclaim of "Doton"; smoke spewed from his skin as it hardened into brass. He might've triggered it too late though and braced himself for the result of the sword harmlessly ricocheting or stabbing one of his hearts. Mercifully, he didn't receive an answer either way.

"Shinra Tensei." Was muttered in an eerily, low-key tone, piercing the atmosphere like a knife.

A hurricane-grade wind struck Sasori from behind, picking him up off his feet and hurling him through the air like a plastic bag in a windstorm. He struck a tree with his series of loud cracking, his body wrapping bonelessly around the trunk and slowly after, he crumpled lifelessly into the dirt. Blood and bodily fluids leaked from his blue lips as his mouth gaped open and shut for breath, his eyes large and empty as he was juggled between unconsciousness and consciousness and the guttural, groaning emitting from his throat like that of a dying animal.

Kakuzu squinted his eyes then diverted his curious gaze over his shoulder at the person responsible. "How long have you been standing there?" He interrogated the culprit.

Sir Leader's outstretched hand lowered to his side and blinked his Rinnegan as it met the darkness of Kakuzu's sunglasses. "Long enough to witness what happened." He answered cryptically. "Zetsu has made a lot progress."

'So, he was standing there long enough to watch a part of the fight,' Kakuzu concluded to himself but before could say anything, Sir Leader was speaking again.

"I have a huge announcement for the Akatsuki, so when you can, would you kindly meet with me in my office?" Like that, the ginger turned on his heel and disappeared back inside the cabin; angry, black clouds after a thunderstorm.

There was a strangled whimpering and Kakuzu, realizing he was accidently squishing Zetsu in his iron arms, turned off his jutsu and freed the poor girl. She blinked up at him with her non-blackened eye, startled but unharmed (by this at least), evidently confused as everything happened so fast. Kakuzu was confused too but for other reasons. Had he seriously endangered himself to protect this girl? He had, but why? Why, why, why? Why did he suddenly give a shit about her? Why, why, why? He kept asking himself but no matter how many times he asked the question, no answer had yet to materialize and it was starting to give him a headache. When he returned to reality, he found Zetsu staring at him, like she had a bad habit of doing.

He supported her up and fixed her clothing which was ruffled and stained with dried blood and dirt. Konan was going to have a field day when she saw the girl like this since he had neglected to tell her of the spar today, not that he would've anyway. Zetsu was still staring at him with a stage fright expression and he realized she wasn't so much staring as much as waiting—she was waiting to be told how she did today as he did after every lesson. The answer was shown before it was spoken as he laid a heavy hand on her head and her fat lips split into a grin. She giggled happily as it was the telltale sign that he was pleased with her.

"You did great," He told her, tousling her wet grassy strands and dust plumed up from them. "It may've been a draw today, but you won at exceeding all my expectations for you." Her bruised cheeks were hurting from the strength of her smiling as he said that. That had to be the nicest thing Sir ever said to her.

After a second more of petting, Kakuzu then guided his black-and-blue student to the cabin so they could hear this "huge announcement" Sir Leader had for them in terms of the Akatsuki while dragging Sasori's pathetic, moaning ass behind them with his threads.

…

AN: It is here, and it is finished: the Zetsu vs. Sasori fight! And…it's a draw—for now. Oh, you don't think this is going to be their only fight, do you? Trust me, these two are going to be squabbling a lot during this fiction.

Next Chapter: Sir Leader's announcement for the Akatsuki; its goal and future.

Until next time.