AN: Here it is,the cataclysm for Zetsu. I'm not going to say anything else about this chapter except the warnings are listed below.

mothedman: I can't say anything about Mayfly except what had been said or hinted at already in the fanfic. All I can say it's going to be explained as the story continues. Once I get to it, I'm going to have a lotta fun writing Kisame since I'm going to give everyone their own unique personalities from each other. Thank you for reviewing!

rarae aves: Oof, if you didn't like him last chapter, then you're going to hate him this chapter. That's all I'm going to say.

Kuro641: I can't say what is going to happen to Gaku, but he'll be getting his just desserts.

Cat Beats: Glad to hear it! I'll admit, I didn't want to spend too much time on him since he isn't going to be a main character so tried to make him as dislikable as possible in the few chapters he was in. Mission accomplished.

Warning(s): Language (High), Blood/Gore/Violence (High), Character Death, Genderbend, OC (Original Character), Child Abuse, Attempted Murder

…

Wasteland

Red Dawn Arc

Chapter 35

It was midnight, and Zetsu couldn't sleep.

She had been twisting and turning in her bed since her bedtime at eight. She wasn't sleepy but had to sleep because tomorrow they had a mission and Sir told her so. She didn't want to go though.

The Stinkfly was going too (that's what she called Gaku because his firefly was stinky). Sir wasn't happy because he had tattled on the Stinkfly to Sir Leader (Pein, Sir Pein? Sir Leader) for what he did last mission and he wasn't grounded. If she did something bad, she wasn't allowed to watch TV for a week, but the Stinkfly wasn't punished for whatever bad thing he did? It wasn't fair and she wished he had been grounded so he didn't have to go on the mission with him and it'd just be her and Sir. No Stinkfly and no Firefly, like old times.

After reading a few chapters of her new book and having a tea party with her plushies hadn't tuckered her out, she decided that perhaps taking a walk would do the trick. Whenever she had to walk with Sir on missions, she got tired quickly so it should work here too. She could say hello to the fishies too. Her decision made, she jumped out of bed for the umpteenth time that night and pattered to her door, quietly pushing it open.

Outside, it was quiet as everyone else had gone to sleep. Everyone except Sir as the light was on inside his room, muted, yellow light illuminating through his paper bedroom door. She tried to tiptoe past, so he didn't realize she was up past her bedtime, but despite her best efforts, it wasn't successful.

"Girl, what are you doing up?" Kakuzu asked through the shut door and Zetsu paused mid-step.

"I can't sleep, I'm going to take a walk and say hello to the fishies." She replied truthfully since she was a bad liar.

"Make it quick, you have to sleep for tomorrow's mission."

"Yes, sir." With that, she continued her walk.

After drinking a glass of water, she walked to the training field behind the residence. She circled the half-football field sized area, going a few casual laps while watching the rain patter on the glass paneling overhead and daydreaming. When her calves started burning from the exercise, she decided that should be enough for her to sleep now. But, before she went back to bed, she wanted to spend quality time with the local fish population. She sat down on the edge of lazy river, hiking up her sleeping pants and letting her legs down with her feet in the water, giggling when the koi nibbled on her toes. However, she soon as her visiting started, her nostrils was plagued but the stench of week old fruit and the bitter taste of licorice on her tastebuds. The Stinkfly.

"Hello, Zetsu, what're you doing up so late?"

Immediately, Zetsu spun round to find Gaku standing behind her, gifting her a corncob smile as his white eyes stared at her. She hadn't heard or felt him approaching and must've been too distracted with the fish. She tried to answer, but discovered her mouth dust dry, as though her tongue had shriveled up and died like an insect.

After a minute of sputtering and swallowing, she squeaked out "I couldn't sleep."

"Oh? What a coincidence, I couldn't sleep either," Gaku said with a smile that made her blood turn ice cold in her veins. "Why don't we help each other sleep?"

"No, that's ok I'm going to bed now." She spat out, hastily standing up and kicking the moisture of her feet.

As she scurried past Gaku, or tried to, he had lifted up his arm, cutting out her exit and nearly clothes-lining her in the process. She stopped and stared up at him as he stared back with an empty, soulless look in his eye.

"It wasn't question." He said in a low voice, emotionlessly, and before Zetsu could think to say anything or process what was happening, he threw a punch at her face.

Thankfully, her reflexes were faster than she was, and unconsciously she ducked the punch. As she turned to flee in the opposite direction, he threw a kunai at her feet, tripping her up. There was a decorative rock at the riverside that she landed face first onto it, busting her nose and splitting her lip. She tried screaming out in pain but the blood gushing down her throat gagged her and let out a strangled, gurgling wail instead. Cradling her bleeding face, she pushed herself from the boulder and onto her back, tears waterfalling down her face turning red from the blood.

"Oh, I've been looking forward to this since the minute I met you," Gaku purred as he walked over to the knife, pulling it out of the fake grass, his eyes twinkling with the moonlight shining on the polished blade he pressed to his lips. "The things I'm going to do to you; you're going to my magnum opus." Zetsu backed up into the rock, whimpering as Gaku started walking towards her, twirling the kunai between his fingers.

Suddenly, she was struck by a horrible pain in her head as though a nail was being hammered into it. Her eyelids blinked rapidly as her eyes started spinning in their sockets, displaying the whites and her vision flickered red. It was like something inside her was trying to get out, but it couldn't as it punched its fists against the inside of her skull and screaked, resulting in her letting out a groaning, belching noise through her slacked jaw. It was the Monster; it was the Monster trying to get out, but it couldn't because of the piercing Sir Leader put into her neck.

In her half-delirious state, it was like her brain had blue-screened so instead of defending herself, she tried running again, but Gaku caught the back of her oversized shirt. He yanked her towards him while lifting the kunai, pointing it at her spine to incapacitate her and prevent anymore running. She squeezed shut her eyes in what could be presumed so not to witness what came next but instead, she pushed down her chakra and activated her Mayfly, causing a flytrap tooth to project from her waist. It stabbed through the man's hand, sending the knife flying out of it and twirling through the air until falling into the waterway and scaring the koi as they splashed away from it. Gaku bellowed, wrenching his hand off the offensive foliage as it turned white and melted back into her flesh. As he flinched back, he ripped the back of her sleeping shirt down the middle and slacked hold caused her to fall to the ground.

"You…little…bitch!" He bristled, staring at his crippled, bleeding hand then down to her. He noticed her trying to crawl away and flipped her over, trapping her underneath his heavier weight as he sat on top of her, making it difficult to breathe. "I was going to nice…I was going make your death quick and painless. But now…now you've pissed me off. I'm going to fucking kill you and I'm going to make sure you feel every fucking thing, you bitch." With that, he pressed one hand over her red-smeared mouth so she couldn't scream or breathe while the other pressed down onto her throat with all his strength, crushing it.

It was then Zetsu realized she was going to die.

If he didn't break her neck, then she was going to asphyxiate and blood continued pouring from her nose and down her throat and if she didn't die from either of those, then she was going to drown from the blood filling her lungs. She was going to die.

'I'm going to die…I'm going to die!' She thought to herself as she thrashed underneath Gaku and franticly tried to push his hands off her, but it was no use, he was too big—so, so big—and she was small—so, so small. 'Please…someone help me! Please! Konan! Sir Leader! Sir! Sir, please help me!' She wanted to fall through the ground like she did with the Firefly, but she couldn't because she didn't know how she did it the first time. She wanted to fight back, but she didn't know how. She was going to die.

Tears watered in her large, honeycomb orbs and as her sight darkened from the lack of oxygen circulating to her brain, she stared up through the glass ceiling at the moon overhead. It stared back like a yellow eye. Then it blinked and turned a crimson red; a red that bled into the night sky. Gaku was talking but her ears were ringing so loud she couldn't hear what he was saying; not ringing but screaming, thousands of deafening screams and moans. As everything went black, the last thing she saw was Gaku's smug, smirking face.

Well, Gaku wasn't smirking for long when a cold, hard fist slammed into it.

…

Something was wrong.

Kakuzu had gotten the inexplainable feeling, so suddenly that it caused him to put down his pen and look up from his financials he had been staring at for the last three hours but not doing because he as too occupied with the mania that Sir Leader hadn't fired Gaku after Kakuzu told him what he had done on their mission and instead, elected to send them on another mission together.

As he did, he glanced at the clock and disclosed it'd been twenty-five minutes since he'd spoken to Zetsu and she hadn't returned to bed yet. He presumed she had lost track of time or ended up falling asleep somewhere. He wouldn't have thought much of it, since he had warned her, and might've left it, if he hadn't had this horrible sickness in this stomach. His gut? Whatever it was, it prompted him to get up and check for her before he returned to his paperwork.

He stepped out from his bedroom and noticed down the hallway, that Gaku's door was opened and he wasn't inside. This worsened his gut feeling now that he realized that Gaku was out and about with Zetsu somewhere, by herself.

He checked the kitchen and living area first, thinking she might've had a glass of water or milk and fallen asleep on the recliner while watching television but when she didn't turn up there, she remembered her mentioning taking a walk and visiting the fish and the only place you could do so was the back area. As he walked in that direction, the sour sensitive in his stomach increased and he found his walking speeding up while he prayed he'd just find her at the water, playing with the koi.

What he found instead made him feel like he had walked into a nightmare.

At first, Kakuzu wasn't sure what he walked in on as he saw Gaku, crouched on the ground over something, but then he saw the kicking, little feet from under him and once it clicked with him what it was, something inside him snapped. In a blink, he had punched Gaku in the head with his Doton-infused fist, flipping him over and as the murderer sat up, Kakuzu was on him with such brutality it rivaled that witness of the Mayfly during World War Two.

Gaku had tried fighting back and defending himself, but it was futile as Kakuzu mauled him with barbarous punches milliseconds apart, breaking bones and splashing himself with hot blood. He didn't have the chance to scream. In a manner of seconds, Kakuzu had beaten Gaku into a puddle of flesh and blood and when he wasn't given the satisfaction of crunching bones underneath his fists anymore, he changed to ripping the bastard apart, grabbing a hold of black and blue skin and tearing it as if he was skinning an animal.

It felt like it lasted a millennium, when in reality, it only lasted a minute, two at most, and once Kakuzu was finished, he was shaking and leaning over the gruesome chunklets of what was once a "man", now nothing more than bone and chum. It didn't resemble a human being anymore.

He heard gagging and glimpsed over to find Zetsu puking blood into the grass. Instantly, he was at her side, hitting her back as she emptied her belly. Once she was done, she grossly blubbered between coughing and gasping from breathe due to being strangled and Kakuzu did the only thing he could think in the moment: he cradled her, hushing her and bouncing her in his knee while massaging her back like an infant, staining her outfit with the blood on his hands. She clung to him, sniveling into his neck and dribbling blood and mucus on him but in that moment, he didn't give a shit; he couldn't think of anything except for what Gaku tried to do, what Gaku might've done as he noticed her shirt ripped down her back and exhibiting her pale skin underneath.

Konan had heard a ruckus outside and put on her slippers and gown to investigate and had walked into the backyard, in the middle of asking what had happened when she saw Kakuzu, hugging a bloody and crying Zetsu while he himself was painted head to toe in blood with a pile of human-shaped gore beside him. Once she saw this, she let out a mortified gasped.

"What happened!?" She yelled, hurrying over and falling to her knees beside him, ignoring the blood soaking into her nightgown. "Kakuzu, what happened!?"

"Gaku, he tried to…" Kakuzu couldn't bring himself to say what happened as his lips unexpectantly trembled and voice died his gulping throat.

Instead, he stood up with Zetsu in his arms, turning and walking back to the house without a word with a distraught Konan behind him. He went to the kitchen and once inside, he sat the teenager on one of the stools at the counter while he searched for a cloth. Konan clued into what he was doing and grabbed one before he did, wetting it and using it to wash the blood off Zetsu's face. While she did, she tried asking Zetsu what happened, since Kakuzu couldn't say and the girl had gone from crying to dead silence, the telltale sign of shock.

Meanwhile, Kakuzu was pacing behind her, fisting his hair and gritting his teeth as he burned alive with an anger he had never experienced before. If he could, he would've brought Gaku back to life just to kill him over and over again a million times over.

Konan finished cleaning Zetsu's face, horrified to find the darkening bruising around her nose and worse, the hideous handprint on her neck. "Gaku is dead, right?" She asked Kakuzu, just to doublecheck that bloodstain in the grass was him. "Pein should know what happened. I'll go tell him."

"No!" Kakuzu suddenly barked as Konan made the motion to turn and leave to do just that. "I'll go tell him. Stay with Zetsu." She didn't get to have a say in either, as like that, Kakuzu was gone, leaving her to pick up the pieces with Zetsu.

He left the mansion, stampeding all the way to Pein's Tower like a bull after the colour red. Once there, he literally punching in the code in the keypad, breaking it in the process but the elevator chugged upwards to the top floor.

Pein was in his office despite the last hour as he had wakened from a nightmare and decided to do a bit paperwork until he was readied to sleep again. He felt Kakuzu's chakra on the elevator heading towards his office and by the white-hot presence to it, he prepared himself for one of the man's temper tantrums. So, as the elevator made to its destination with a ding and the doors opened, Pein was given enough warning to use his Rinnegan to catch the control panel which had been ripped out and thrown at him. He threw it aside with a flick of his wrist just as Kakuzu came charging out, obviously with the intention to fight the ginger.

"You motherfucker!" Kakuzu screamed, running at Pein, fists pulled back and hardened with a plume of steam. "You knew all along!"

"Kakuzu, I do not know what you speak of," Pein calmly explained, picking up the previously discarded electronic keypad with his Kekkei Genkai and expelling it at Kakuzu to interrupt his approach. "Would you kindly explain yourself?"

It did little as the brunette punched his brass fist through it, causing it to explode. "You know Gaku was a child murdering fuck and you hired him anyway!" Kakuzu picked up one of the chairs and threw it which Pein swatted away. "He tried to kill Zetsu!"

"Yes, I did and perhaps if Zetsu had finished her training and mastered the Mayfly, this wouldn't have happened to her." And that what was triggered Kakuzu's ire into bloodthirst.

He lurched over his desk, geared to throttle Pein like he enabled Gaku to do to Zetsu, but that would've been too easy as his supervisor held up a hand, catching him mid-air with his Dōjutsu, sent him flying until hitting the wall on the opposite side of the office with a crunch as the porcelain masks on his back were splintered into shards. He slid down the wall, flinching in pain from the damage to his hearts and felt blood leaking into the back of his shirt. At this point, this shirt wasn't salvageable from much blood was soaking into it now.

Pein lowered his hand and sighed. "I apologize Kakuzu, but that is the truth. Now, would you kindly leave my office? I do not wish to kill you."

After a minute, Kakuzu shakingly pushed himself up, glaring at Pein, hatred burning in his bloodshot eyes, and pointed a finger at him. "I'll never accept a new partner without Zetsu approving of them first. Do you hear me? Never!" He hated admitting to it, but after that was said, he departed back into the elevator, much like a dog with its tail between its legs. Since he had pulled the panel out, after much kicking and stamping the sparking wiring left behind, the elevator went down though the doors didn't shut.

When Kakuzu returned back to the Akatsuki Manor, Konan and Zetsu were still in the kitchen with Zetsu burritoed in a blanket after Konan changed her out of her ruined pajamas and giver her a glass of chocolate milk. Konan noticed the slight limp Kakuzu had to his step as he entered, obvious evidence he had picked a fight with Pein and lost, though he ignored her as she asked if he was ok.

"How is she?" He asked her quietly instead, glancing in Zetsu's direction.

Konan looked at Zetsu, who was emptily staring at her untouched glass and saying nothing, then back at Kakuzu. "I…I don't know. I tried asking her what happened, but she isn't talk. While I changed her, I searched for…evidence if Gaku did anything to her, but I don't think he did. I'm going to call a therapist tomorrow and set her up for an immediate appointment. Dr. Ryu gave me a recommendation for one when I spoke to him last."

Kakuzu nodded. While he was glad to hear that rapist bastard hadn't hurt her like that, he knew just because nothing could be found didn't mean nothing happened and they wouldn't know otherwise since Zetsu wasn't talking and he wasn't going to make her talk either. It would just worsen the trauma. "I'll clean up the mess in the morning. I'm going to have Zetsu sleep in my room tonight."

Konan opened her mouth to purpose having Zetsu sleep with her instead since it wasn't that she didn't trust him, it would make her feel more comfortable, but said nothing when she realized he was doing this, because she saw how guilty he felt for what happened by how he stared at the girl; a stare the woman could describe as…heartbroken? Instead, she nodded, telling him to give her an update in the morning if anything happened then after kissing an unresponsive Zetsu good night, went to her bedroom to try and sleep. Emphasis on "try". After tonight, she'd be surprised to get any sleep for the next few days.

Once Konan was gone, Kakuzu put the full glass of chocolate milk in the fridge for later and when Zetsu didn't move as he told her it was bedtime, he picked her up, carrying her to his bedroom. He laid her down by his kotatsu but didn't tuck her in since she was wrapped in a blanket and didn't want to make her too warm.

"Try to sleep." He whispered to her, patting her grassy hair to which she said nothing and didn't close her eyes. He wasn't going to make her sleep. Hell, after what happened, it'd be a miracle if she slept.

He left her and stepped to his closet, pulling off his shirt which took a bit of effort as it had glued itself to his tanned skin due to the blood. After getting it off, he cringed upon hearing pieces of his masks clattering onto the hardwood floor. It looked like he'd be mailing a letter and payment to a certain someone for new masks. He wasn't looking forward to the written castigation he'd receive for breaking her "babies" again. After picking up the piece and putting them safely in his drawer, he put on a new shirt and sat down to try to get his financials done, which was easier said than done for a hundred and one reasons. One being, that a few minutes in, he heard sniffling. Zetsu was crying again.

Immediately, he got up but paused as he wasn't positive on what to do. It was easier before when he was functioning off emotion. He was starting to understand what Yui meant when once upon a time, she told him he wasn't much of an empathetic person. After a minute questioning himself, he walked to where Zetsu laid, quietly whimpering and shivering in her blanket.

"Girl, you alright?" He asked, laying a hesitant hand on her shoulder so he didn't startle her. He mentally facepalmed himself for the stupid question. Obviously, she wasn't alright.

"I'm sorry." She hiccupped.

"You have nothing to apologize for." Kakuzu thoroughly dismissed, brushing her hair.

"But I do!" Zetsu sat up, sniffling and staring at him with watering eyes. "You said If I didn't train then I would fail, and I did! If I trained, then the Stinkfly wouldn't have done what he did! It's my fault! I'm sorry!"

"Girl, it's ok. Do not blame yourself for this." He reinstated but she wasn't listening.

"I'm sorry, I'll train now, I'm sorry." She buried her face into her hands, weeping.

Kakuzu felt all five of his hearts grieving for her over the fact that she blamed herself for what Gaku did to her when it could've happened to anyone. It made him hate the bastard more, if that was possible, for what he had done to her. He tried his best to calm her, but given his inexperience with such situations, he could nothing but pet and hush her.

As a child, a millennium ago, whenever he was upset or couldn't sleep, his mother would sing to him. Well, there was no way in hell he was going to sing to Zetsu but that was the brightest idea he had. He didn't have a substitute either, like…a boopbox? Boombox? Whatever that contraption was called. He didn't, but he knew who did. Often, when he walked past Sasori's room, he heard music playing from inside so he must have one. Mercifully, he was gone somewhere, doing whatever the little shit did so that was an encounter he didn't have to deal with.

He got up and briefly left the sniveling girl as he walked to Sasori's room. It didn't surprise him to learn the redhead had boobytrapped during his leave and when the elder pushed open the door, he was fired upon by a makeshift barrel on the other side of the room that launched poisoned senbon. Thankfully, he had heard the click of it being triggered and activated his Earth Spear to reinforce his skin and avoid having this night go any worse. Once the last the needles clanged to the floor, he entered the dark bedroom. It took him a minute of searching in the inkiness, but he found a radio on the boy's desk and grabbed it, pulling it out of the wall.

When he arrived back at his room with prize in hand, Zetsu was still crying but had quieted down as the waterworks started running dry. He plugged the speaker into the electric source for the table and sat it on top. He had never used one of these before, so he did a lot of buttoning pushing just to turn it on. At one point, the CD tray on top popped open, displaying a disc inside titled "Classic Songs of Sunagakure" and he was in luck a CD was inside it since he hadn't thought of it not having one. After fiddling with it a bit more, he figured out how to turn it on and the CD turned in its cradle, playing the middle of the last song it was on.

"If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs, "The bark on the trees was as soft as the skies,". As the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely, he cries to the moo-oo-oon, "If only, if only."

While country music was not to Kakuzu's tastes, it appeared to influence Zetsu as her tears dried and she swayed to the rhythm. He was just glad to see his stupid idea was successful. He left the music playing as he put Zetsu back down then laid himself in his bed. After three songs had finished, he glanced over to find the girl had finally fallen asleep, having left the safety of her security blanket in favour of the heated kotatsu. Quietly, he tiptoed around her, turning off the player than went back to his bed though didn't expect to sleep.

After a half-an-hour, he drifted off.

…

Kakuzu woke up at the crack of dawn, exhausted after only resting a few hours but his internal clock prohibited him going back to sleep so instead, he got up.

Zetsu was fast asleep in the position as she had fallen asleep the night previous, having not so much as twitched all night, much to his relief. After tucking her back in as the blanket had slipped a little, he left the bedroom in the direction of the kitchen for a hot, black cup of coffee. He'd need it after yesterday.

Turns out, Konan had beaten him to the punch as the blue-haired woman was in the kitchen, still wearing the blood splattered gown from last night and staring lethargically at her steaming cup of coffee milk after failing to sleep a wink.

Once he entered the kitchen, she straightened up from where she was leaning over the counter. "How is she?" She immediately interrogated him.

"She's…ok. She's sleeping." He said, finding his mug in the cabinet and pouring himself a cup of coffee also before walking over to join her.

Konan sighed, just relieved to hear that someone in this house managed to sleep. "Has she said anything of what happened?"

"She blames herself for what happened."

"What!? Isn't wasn't her fault! You told her that, right?"

"Of course, I told her that."

"Good, because it isn't."

After that, the conversation went dead quiet between the two adults except the occasional sipping of their beverages. A few minutes in, and Kakuzu sighed. "It's my fault."

"What?" Konan asked, taken back by the unanticipated admission and stared at the male; amber orbs bewildered.

"If I hadn't slacked on her training, Gaku wouldn't have prayed on her so easily." It took a lot for him to admit to this, something she acknowledged but didn't agree too which she surprised herself with, considering she secretly wanted a person to blame for Gaku.

"Kakuzu, it isn't your fault either." She insisted.

"No, it is because if I had just taken a minute to read his fucking file, I would've learned all the shit he did and would've never let him into the Akatsuki." In an explosion of impromptu rage, he slammed his mug down, fracturing it apart and splashing himself with the burning hot liquid inside.

Konan was up, grabbing the leftover, bloodied wash cloth from last night and soaking it in cold water before bustling to Kakuzu's side and pressing it to the bright pink burns on his hands. All while he didn't so much as flinch. "Kakuzu, if you're going by that logic then you aren't the one responsible for that because you weren't the one that let him into the Akatsuki, that was Pein and trust me, he'll be getting an earful about it when I see him this morning." She said, using a piece of her paper to patch up his hand until it could be bandaged properly. "As for the training, a lot of things factor into that, such as the Mayfly. Because of it, a lot of simple things for us is impossible for Zetsu to learn. It wasn't her fault, nor it is yours." She finished tending to his hand and he pulled it back, staring at the white parchment on it.

He wanted to continue on with the fact that everything that happened last night could've been prevented by him, but if he knew anything about women, it was they were proficient in arguments and he could bicker with her until he was blue in the face and she wouldn't back down. So, he decided to cut his losses. Besides, he was too tired for it.

"I'm going to go clean up outside." He said instead, deciding not to clarify himself since she should know what he was talking about.

Konan nodded. "I'm going to call the therapist and make an appointment as soon as possible." He left while she went to find that phone number.

Outside, the crows had discovered the mutilated remains of Gaku and eaten a sizable portion of him by the time Kakuzu walked out and shooed them off. He then a spent an ample chunk of his morning picking up Gaku by hand and putting him into a trash bag. Once done, he summoned a disfigured Amatsu to wash the blood out of the grass into the adjacent rivulet, tinting the crystal water a pink which he decided the koi would be just fine swimming in the contaminated water for a manner of hours until it filtered out with the fresh rainwater. Afterward, he threw the literal body bag into the dumpster behind the grounds and went back inside to check on Zetsu. Inside his bedroom, he found it empty and Zetsu missing.

He checked her bedroom and bathroom and everywhere else and when that had no results, he went to the last place he hadn't checked: the training field, and that is where he found her. She was practicing, throwing punches and kicking an invisible opponent. She noticed him, picking up on his chakra and scurried over to him, amazing him when she didn't seem as beside herself as she was last night.

"Sir, can I train with Rājan?" She asked, slightly breathless from her exercises.

"I…what're you doing, girl?"

"Training."

"You don't have to…" Kakuzu began but she interrupted him.

"I want to." She said, staring him dead in the eye, an extraordinarily confident gesture coming from the typically timid girl.

He made the decision not to dispute her and called out Rājan who was on the sluggish side given the breakage to its mask. Despite this, it trudged after Zetsu as she ushered it over. Kakuzu left her to it since he presumed training was her way of recovering.

When he walked into the kitchen to have that cup of coffee had hadn't be able to enjoy, and identified a haggard Konan, slaving over eggs and bacon for the resident shit-eater himself, Sasori. He was seated at the kitchen table, outside Hiruko as the puppet sat inactive beside him like a dozing dog. Upon noticing Kakuzu, the teenager bristled.

"Oi, someone broke into my room and nicked my radio. Was it you?" He incriminated, pointing a rude finger at the miser who ignored it.

"I didn't 'nick' it, I burrowed it for Zetsu." He explained, pouring himself a cold cup of coffee.

"Z—or right, I heard about that lil' incident she had with Gaku last night. Too bad bastard didn't finish her off. Though, can't imagine she would've been a good fuck anyway."

Well, as soon as Sasori said that, he spent the remainder of the morning blacked out on the kitchen floor after Kakuzu launched his fist into his smug little face then he and Konan talked and ate the breakfast she had been blackmailed into preparing for the boy.

And that's how Kakuzu killed his first partner: Kawai Gaku.

…

AN: That's wasn't so bad, was it? A lotta of you thought Zetsu was going to kill Gaku? Oh no. Gaku would've been lucky to have Zetsu kill him. I'm not going to be so harsh to Zetsu was this chapter, but I'm not going to be nice to her either during the remainder of this arc. We've got four chapters left so buckle up buckaroos!

Next Chapter: Zetsu trains herself harder than ever and Kakuzu realizes a change in himself.

Until Next Time.