AN: Oh shit, including this one, two chapters until this arc finished and we finally get to the Akatsuki itself. I'm positive you've all been waiting for them and I'm so excited to write everyone. But until then, you've got this chapter and the next and they'll be dedicated to character development.
Also, it'll be explained in the final chapters of this arc why this fanfic is tilted Wasteland. Well, that and Wasteland by Ten Years. The lyrics have inspired a lot in this, mainly involving the Mayfly. So, if you're curious, take a listen since it's an awesome song and no, it won't be spoiling anything since the lyrics are open. Perhaps at the end, I'll explain everything the lyrics represented in the story.
Alright, onto the chapter and it's going to be a hefty one to make up for the smaller ones as of late. Enjoy.
JustMovedIn: First, thank you, thank you so much for the genuine compliments. As for the criticism, my best explanation is that Kakuzu originally wasn't going to kill the scientist until he threw Kiyoshi under the bus, which Kakuzu perceived as him betraying one of his own which he had no tolerance for given his betrayal by Taki, something that's been brought up multiple times. While with the civilians, he isn't a horrible person and isn't going to leave two innocent, old people to die. I'm not excusing myself though. There are a lot of things I could improve on. Like dialogue, and character, and writing fight scenes…haha. Thank you for the constructive criticism!
Cat Beats: Phew, glad to hear but a lot more abilities of the Mayfly are going to be introduced so Zetsu is going to be developing through the entire story. As for the assassination, does anything go easily in this fanfic? Haha.
Kuro641: Oh yes, I love writing the fluff and it took forty chapters to get Zetsu to this point so I'm glad her character development was on point and she's going to continue developing through the entire fanfic, for better and worse.
you-may-call-me-V: Hey, welcome back to the review section, haha. I think Zetsu's finally found said stride, but she'll be developing through the story.
Matrium: I'll admit, the beginning chapters are definitely the weakest since I was still figuring out a direction for this story but I'm glad they didn't dissuade you. I'll never abandoned this story because this fanfic is just starting and we're one chapter from the Akatsuki! Thank you for being a new fan and the review!
rarae aves: Yays, another compliment on my questionable fighting writing skills. Well, I'm going to get a lot of practice writing them in this, haha. Kakuzu is the proudest father (of one of his children that is, haha) and yes, Pein is a buzzkill but it's because he cares, haha.
Gosh, thank you for so many reviews!
Warning(s): Language (Low), Blood/Violence/Death (High), Genderbend, OC (Original Character), Drugs/Drug Use
…
Wasteland
Red Dawn Arc
Chapter 38
Zetsu wasn't given any time to prepare herself—emotionally or mentally that is, as Kakuzu walked her back to the mansion to pack a bag for her mission. He guided her, implying what things to bring with, excluding anything that may interfere with her Mayfly, and she put them in her pink backpack, saying nothing during it. She was upset, that much obvious and Kakuzu didn't blame her considering the bullshit circumstances and Pein's horrible statements didn't help. Though, in better circumstances, he was positive she wouldn't be any happier. He wanted to say something that perhaps may make her feel better, but what could he possibly say? Nothing as everything would amount to what Pein said, "It isn't like you haven't killed before".
"Sir?"
Kakuzu blinked, his brain having gone out to lunch as he tried to think of what to tell her and stared at her. "Yes?"
"I…I don't want to do this." She confirmed, voice cracking as she said this and her large, golden eyes glistened as tears start welling in them.
"I understand, girl, but you have to if you want to join the Akatsuki. You heard what Pein said."
She cringed, remembering Sir Leader's harsh words to her. "I don't want to be the Monster." She hiccupped, fighting not cry as she blinked her eyes to banish the wetness in them which was unsuccessful as they split down her cheeks.
Crouching down to eyelevel with the teenager, Kakuzu used his cloak sleeve to sponge up the moisture. "Girl, you aren't going to be the Monster."
"How?"
"Just because you do bad things doesn't make you a bad person," Zetsu quirked her head to the side, eyebrows crinkled as she stared at him, bewildered, and waiting for him to explain. "Do you think I'm a bad person, girl?"
"N-No, sir."
"Despite the fact I do bad things? Like hurt people?" Zetsu hesitated, then after a minute, she timidly shook her head. "Do you think you're a bad person?"
"No."
"Even though you've hurt people?"
Her lips straightened into a line, chin quivering and eyes shimmering, but finally, after a moment of silence, she shook her head, the motion causing stray tears to fling from her eyes. "N-No." She sniffed, this time using her own jacket sleeve to banish the drizzle. "B-But…but you said being human is to be a m-monster. S-So how can you not be a monster?"
Kakuzu sighed. Damnit, his own bullshitted philosophy came back to bite him in the ass, didn't it? "Yes, we are. But sometimes, you need to be a monster to fight other, larger monsters." Zetsu's sniveling temporarily hushed down as she genuinely considered this new narrative.
"Or be a bad people to hurt badder people?"
"Worse people," He gently corrected her. "Yes. Would you consider anyone I've killed to be a good person?" She didn't like thinking back such things, but Sir was correct; no one he had killed, she had been witness to at least, had a good Firefly, especially not Gaku.
"No, sir." Thinking on it, maybe the bad people deserved to die so the good people could live? If you put it like that, then she would happily be a bad person so good people could exist because otherwise there would be no good people left, just monsters. "I understand now."
"Do you?"
She nodded confidently. "We're the good people pretending to be bad people, so the real bad people don't exist."
While Kakuzu wouldn't consider himself a "good" person, he liked how she phrased it a lot better than how he did. "Yes, that is a way to put it."
She nodded again, feeling a little better after this conversation and new perceptive. "So, I'm killing a bad person, right?"
"Dokuro Izo is a drug dealer. I'd consider him the worse of the worse; a mass murderer as the drugs he sells can kill innocent people, dozens if not hundreds of them." He confirmed, straightening up into a standing position. Zetsu was a little confused on this since she heard drugs were bad and to never do them, but she had taken drugs when she was sick or hurt. Were there different types of drugs? She'd have to ask Sir on that later. "Are you ready?"
Standing up also, she shrugged on her backpack and taking a deep breath, she nodded upwards at him. He extended a hand down, petting her head and cheek to which she smiled.
"I believe in you; if you can't believe in yourself, then believe in the me that believes in you. Understand, Zetsu?"
"Yes, sir!"
…
Dokuro Izo was making his residence in Iwagakure.
Once leaving Amegakure, Kakuzu pulled Zetsu aside to give her a refresher lesson on how to read a map so she could travel to Iwagakure herself as Kakuzu had to stay in the background and let her do everything herself. Once she had it figured and started the travel in the direction of the Highlands, he fell back, creating a distance between them while remaining in her eyesight and in the proximity so if anything were to happen, he could act immediately. In the beginning, Zetsu kept glancing behind herself to doublecheck Kakuzu was still there, despite picking up his firefly and once seeing him, in the far distance, she felt better.
Getting through the Marshlands itself was her first challenge. The mud was thick and deep, and she was little, so she kept sinking into it, sometimes up to her waist and she'd have to fish herself out. A few times, she could've sworn she heard Kakuzu chuckling at her expense as she fumbled in the quicksand. By the time she had left the swampland, it'd been a few hours, she was exhausted from continuously digging herself out of the muck and was filthy as her clothes were crusted in dried mud. She paused to take a breather, during which, Kakuzu eliminated the distance to speak to her, despite being told to have no involvement. While he was confident in her capabilities, he knew she required a little guidance here and there.
"Girl," He said, and she glanced up at him from her sitting position, surprised to see him since he had stayed behind her this entire time. "Why don't you use the Mayfly? It'd be much quicker, and it shouldn't exhaust you so much." She perked up at this.
Oh right, people used the Mayfly to travel great distances in little time. Her movie on the Second World War, she recalled them mentioning that what it took the average army hours or days to travel to battlefield across the countries took the Mayfly half the time, permitting them time to set detailed ambushes. At this rate, despite being in the Highlands, she estimated it taking her a day to get to Iwagakure (she wasn't the best at numbers), and it'd be so much faster with the Mayfly like Sir mentioned. This would be the first time she used the Mayfly for this, so she was excited.
"Ok!" She said, jumping back to her feet and dusting herself off, as little as that did.
Her face twisted into a grimace and hearing the telltale noise of the Mayfly, Kakuzu stepped back just as the vegetation germinated from her waist and crinkled up like fingers. She let out a heavy breath which made him curious if activating the bloodline hurt her, or she was just being dramatic. Likely the latter.
"Go on, now. I'll be right behind you." Kakuzu said, ushering her off.
Zetsu frowned as she looked at him. "Can you keep up?"
"You'd be surprised how fast Teo is." He replied.
The next moment, Teo's smiling face peeked out from behind Kakuzu as it crawled out from his cloak, shaking itself off and puffing itself up to its complete size. Kakuzu grabbed handfuls of its threading and used to hoist himself onto its back then patted the chimera's head causing it to knead the dirt. Zetsu hesitated momentarily then nodded and turned away.
Shutting her eyes, she focused on the ground, imagining herself falling into the dirt as though it was made of water. Kakuzu observed, fascinated as the Mayfly twitched and bleached white, like it was dying, and Zetsu started sinking into the ground. Once her head vanished underground, he noticed the dirt shift and something obviously tunneling through it in the direction of Iwagakure, kicking up plumes of dust behind. Taking it as being Zetsu, Kakuzu nudged Teo and it took off, hounding the hurrying soil like it was hunting a burrowing mole. After a bit, Zetsu started outpacing Teo and Kakuzu estimated as she was going twice the speed of the galloping mask's max speed which he estimated to be forty-miles-per-hour.
Within two hours, Zetsu had made it to Iwagakure, clued in by the overabundance of chakra signatures like a million fireflies. She stopped, a mile or so outside the capital and dug herself out of the topsoil, the herbage of her Kekkei Genkai liquifying back into her skin. She glanced around at the rocky terrain with nothing to exhibit for miles though in the distance, she spied buildings made of stone and wood which could easily camouflage into the mountains surrounding them. She had accidentally left Kakuzu behind, but felt the faint presence of his chakra, a few miles off and decided to wait for him so she wasn't going into the village by herself, hiding herself behind a rock so no one saw her.
An hour later, she saw Teo in the horizon, ambling towards her as fast as it's pudgy legs could go. She stepped out from behind the pillar, waving and a few minutes later, Kakuzu brought Teo to a skidding halt in front of her, nearly bowling over in the process. He leapt off and Teo fell over in mock exhaustion with the longest whine as though it was deflating. Kakuzu rolled his eyes at the dramatic show and stepped up to Zetsu.
"So, how did it feel using the Mayfly?" He inquired curiously.
Zetsu smiled. "It was so much fun. I went so fast!"
"I noticed. You outsped Teo." He said, jamming his thumb over his shoulder at the creature which had turned itself over with its paw-like feet in the air.
"I'm sorry."
"It's ok," Kakuzu glimpsed in the distance at the brickwork buildings of Iwagakure. "Unfortunately, I cannot join you into the village. Given my bounty, it would be too dangerous for me—and you—if I were to enter and to be recognized."
Her smile crumpled. "Oh…"
"I'll be outside the walls so if anything happens, I won't be far off. But, I don't think you'll need me for this mission."
"A-Are you sure?"
"Girl, what did I tell you earlier?"
"Oh, right." Zetsu heaved a breath, grasping the handles of her backpacks then stared back up at him, confidence brimming in her eyes. "Ok! I'll do this and make you proud, sir!"
"I'm already proud of you, Zetsu." Kakuzu ruffled her hair and she giggled, gifting him a beartrap smile. "Before you leave, I want to go through a few disciplines you should practice on assassination missions. One: do not kill your target where witnesses are present. It could cause mass hysteria or alert authorities and turn everything into a clusterfuck. Two: do not kill anyone you are not contracted to. Think of it like this, why kill someone you are not being paid to? Only kill others if your life is in danger. Three: take a prize. Nine times out of ten, the payer will want proof of the target's death, so it is necessary to take a "prize". It could be a piece of jewelry, an ear or sometimes, the entire body itself. Those should be the basics. Understand?"
"Understood, sir."
"Now go. It's getting late and I don't want you searching for this target in the dark."
"Ok!" With that, Zetsu turned and started trudging towards Iwa. However, she paused, glancing over her shoulder and noticing this, Kakuzu gave her a thumbs up. Inspired, she continued her walk.
Unlike Sunagakure, she wasn't intercepted by a patrol. Instead, the massive gates were left open to anyone and the two shinobi seated at the post positioned beside the entrance said nothing to her, just casting her curious glances as she walked by before returning to their conversation with each other. It was surprisingly quiet and desolate on the paved streets as few people walked them, mostly civilians instead of shinobi.
She stepped aside into the shade of a shop and dropped her backpack, unzipping it and rifling inside until finding the mission file. She unclipped the picture of Dokuro Izo and stashed in the open of her jacket. Sir would walk around and ask strangers if they knew his target and that's what she was going to do too. Konan said to never talk to strangers, but Zetsu thought this would be considered a good excuse. With picture in hand, she started approaching anyone who passed by, showing them the picture of the hideous drug dealer and questioning if they knew him. Most answered no, cringing at the photo while she noticed others hesitated then said no and quickly hurried off like they were late for a meeting they just remembered.
An hour and she guessed she had asked at least a hundred people with no luck. Either no one knew who Dokuro Izo was or didn't want to say. She was going to leave the village to find Sir and inquire from him what to do next since if she couldn't find her target, how could she kill him when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning, she flinched as two, Iwa jōnin stood behind her, identical in size and appearance. They stared down at her with icy grey eyes and she felt her shrinking in their shadows.
"Hey, kid, heard you been asking around for Izo?" The Right One asked. She nodded.
"Whatcha want with Izo?" The Left One asked next to which she didn't reply. What was she going to say? She was looking for him to kill him?
While she tried to think of an explanation, the twins eyeballed the petite girl, noticing her dirt painted outfit and oversized, hunting jacket then at each other, nodding a second later as if they came to an unspoken agreement.
"We'll bring you to Izo." The Left One said much to Zetsu's surprise. Wait, like that?
Without further explanation, they turned, walking off into a nearby and after a minute of stupefaction, Zetsu hurried after them. They led her through backways and alleys, and she started getting nervous she may be walking in a trap. Finally, they arrived at stairwell which led a metal door, disguised by wooden boards to give the impression it was abandoned which the men easily plucked off, revealing the nails to be magnets. They entered and held open the door, ushering Zetsu in after. She stepped inside and investigated, finding herself in a basement, made of pavement and empty except for a frazzled area rug on the ground to make it the slight bit homey and had two rooms attached to it. She flinched as the door slammed behind her.
"Hey Izo, we got a new kid!" The Right (Left?) One said.
"She was asking for you." The Left (Right? She couldn't tell anymore.) One said.
In the other room, there was the scraping of a metal chair over the stone and Dokuro Izo entered the picture and speaking of picture, he was a lot uglier than his mug shot. He walked towards them and the Right and Left One stepped aside, exposing Zetsu who was standing behind them on the steps. As Izo stared at her, she didn't know which eye to stare into as one was staring up at the ceiling and she switched between staring into both eyes.
Izo scratched his blemished chin, causing one of the pimples of it to pop and ooze pus. "You were asking for me?" Zetsu nodded, lips pressed into a line. "Hmm…I see. You're interested in making a little bit of cash then?"
"Yes." She answered automatically without thinking it over. Izo nodded then smiled, displaying a mouthful of orange, rotten teeth from years of drug use and despite standing a few feet from him, she smelt the death on his breath.
"Well ok then. I've been waiting for new blood for awhile now, so I've got lots to do." He guided her to the backroom.
Inside was a table and four folding chairs. On the table was little plastic baggies, brown packages and packing paper and a container of mysterious white powder. The Right and Left One walked past them, sitting down at the table and started picking up the baggies, spooning the dust into them and putting them aside in a pile of other baggies. Izo sat down and selected one of the brown packages which he held out to Zetsu. "For your first errand, I just need you to deliver this package. Think you can do that?"
Nodding, she accepted it and glanced it over. It was heavy in her hands and tied with string. When she tried peaking inside, Izo quickly stopped her, holding up his hands, a golden bracelet chiming on his wrist. "No, no, no. Don't do that. I don't want my customers thinking I've been tempting with the product now." She obliged, anxiously nodding again, sweat breaking out on her face. "Ok, this is what I need you to do: I need you to deliver this to a Taketa Haru and Otani Takuya. They're frequent customers of mine. You may've seen this once or twice. They're the perimeter patrol at the entrance. Anyway, I just want to give them the package and say, "that'll be 50,000 ryō" and once they give you the money, say "thank you" and leave back here. I'll give you a slice of the profit for your contribution. How's that?"
"O-Ok…"
Izo frowned and laid a hand on Zetsu's arm, making her flinch as an image of Gaku flickered in her head. He didn't have a bad firefly like Gaku, though. If anything, she would describe his firefly as…hurting; blue with the taste and smell of salt. "I understand you're nervous but don't worry, no one is going to touch you. I've got Iwa's army in my back pocket and if any one of them step out of line, I've got plenty of evidence of our little dealings to ruin them."
"O-Ok…"
"Taki, can you let her out?"
One of the black-haired duplicates gave a thumbs up, finishing his packaging before pushing himself up from the table. He squired the teenager to the door and held it open for her. "Once you're done and back here, knock the door three times so we know it's you." Zetsu nodded. He pulled the door shut behind her as she stepped out and she heard the locks clicking.
Once outside, Zetsu stood there for a minute, package in hand, before she realized that not only had she failed to assassinate her target while he was literally in front of her, but he also turned her into his courier. Though, Sir had told her not to kill anyone else if not required and if she tried killing Izo, she wasn't confident in herself she could kill the other men too. She may have to wait for him to be alone, but that may not happen as she didn't know if Right and Left One were the only ones with him. It was a bit curious he had welcomed in a stranger child into his hideout though. Perhaps if she did this errand, he'd trust her enough to be alone with her? It was a long shot and she didn't want to make Sir wait but whatelse could she do?
Sighing, she started walking in the direction of the entrance to meet with this Taketa Haru and Otani Takuya as instructed, hiding the suspicious package in her jacket. It took awhile, as Iwagakure was built like a maze and she couldn't remember which ways Right and Left One took her but eventually, she started recognizing buildings and signs until ending up back on the main boulevard she'd been walking earlier while searching for Izo. From there, she backtracked to the magnificent gates.
The two men, whom she presumed to be Taketa Haru and Otani Takuya, she saw walking in were still at their post, shooting the shit with other. She approached the stand and waited for them to notice her, but they continued talking, oblivious to her presence, she politely cleared her throat. They looked at her with irritated gazes that she could hear asking, "what do you want?" and she clumsily extended the package out to them. Instantly, the two men bristled, jumping up from their chairs.
"For fuck's sake, don't wave it around like that!" She couldn't tell who was who, but it was the one with a head bandana.
"This is what you get when Izo hires stupid children to be his drug mules!" The bearded one snapped.
Zetsu yelped as the two patrol guards grabbed her arms, dragging her off and she questioned if they were going to hurt and if she should hurt them first, but couldn't because it could cause a mass hysteria like Sir said, being within the village. So instead, she permitted them to heave her off, clenching the delivery for dear life. They transported her a ways off from the entrance where no one could eavesdrop on their conversation and dumped her to the ground where she fell onto her backside.
"Let's get this over with," The Bandana Man said, glimpsing around to doublecheck no one could be witness to the exchange before holding out an expecting hand. "Give it."
She listened, handing it over which he snatched up, tearing into the brown paper and revealing the large, plastic bag inside with the white dust inside. Using a kunai, it was knicked open and both men poked in their pinky fingers, sniffing it then putting it in their mouths it like it was sugar.
"Yep, that's the good shit." The Bearded Man said, taking the package and tying it back up.
"Izo knows better than to give us the bad batch." The Bandana Man chuckled, reaching into his back pocket for the appropriate payment.
"T-That'll be 50,000 ryō, p-please." Immediately, the two men's eyes snapped to her so quickly if left her experiencing whiplash.
"What!?"
"That's bullshit! We paid 40,000 ryō last time!" The Bandana Man exclaimed, brandishing 40,000 ryō bills in his hand.
"Th-That's what I was told to t-tell you by Izo…"
"Well go back to tell Izo this is bullshit because our prior agreement was 40,000 ryō per shipment!"
"And we ain't paying a penny more."
Typically, being the timid thing she is, Zetsu's would've obeyed, scampering off to avoid conflict but this time, she didn't. If she returned without the money, she might lose her access to Izo and if that happened, what next? It was due to this, she deliberated what Kakuzu would do in this situation. Well, she didn't have to think long.
Puffing herself to give the impression of being twice the size she was, her caramel orbs squinted into a dirty glare at the two guards. "That'll be 50,000 ryō, please." She reinitiated in a growl, manipulating her vocal cords so it wasn't the tiny voice of a prepubescence girl but deeper, almost masculine.
Taketa Haru and Otani Takuya stared at her, startled by the backtalk but their surprise turned to antagonism as they glared at her, lips quirked into snarls and she felt herself shrink a little, but she didn't back down though her stance now was a little shakier.
"This is how it's going to go," The Bearded Man said, tucking the package into his armour and withdrawing a kunai, he and the Bandana Man stepping towards her which Zetsu instinctively stepped back, her bluff crumbling. "We're going to keep the cocaine, we aren't going to pay you and in fact, arrest you for drug trafficking then we're going to go have a chat with Izo."
"Considered yourself under arrest, brat."
As the Bandana Man reached out to grab her arm, Zetsu considered this a threat to her well-being and justification for self-defense. She activated her Mayfly and as it vegetated from her waist, one of the teeth punched through the invasion hand in a spray of blood and tissue. The Bandana Man screamed, grasping his arm and trying to pry his hand off the dentition which caused to pull back and after a bit of tug-of-war, his hand was literally ripped in half. He screamed, clinching his arm and staring at blood-spurting muscle and bone of was once the extremity.
"What the fuck is that!?"
"I don't know but kill it! Kill it!"
The Bearded Man charged Zetsu with kunai in hand and as the Mayfly cocooned her, he stabbed the knife into the plant-like flesh, lacerating and causing a thick, see-through liquid to ooze out like blood. Zetsu grimaced as the hacking translated into pain for her, so much so that he might've as well stabbed her directly. She lashed out and kicked him in the abdomen, sending him stumbling back and leaving his kunai ingrained in the flytrap. The Bandana Man attacked next, having drawn a kunai also and tried stabbing her through the opening but it shut on his remaining hand, the point of the blades coming within inches of Zetsu's face, spiking it and "biting" it off also as it fell to the ground, fingers curled identical to that of the legs of a dead insect. Handless, the Bandana Man tried fleeing in order to retrieve back-up but only made it a few steps until blacking out from the blood loss and shock.
"Haru!" The Bearded Man a.k.a. Takuya yelled at his unconscious partner then turned to Zetsu, teeth gritted. "You little bitch!"
Realizing hand-to-hand attacks were impossible unless he wanted to end up like Haru, he leapt backwards, creating space between himself and the girl. He created a few, quick handsigns and slammed his hands onto the ground, causing it to bubble then a pillar of rock to erupt, speeding at Zetsu like a fist. She didn't have time to evade and prepared herself, taking the hit head-on, her exoskeleton taking the impact. It swept her off her feet and it slammed her into the ground, grinding into it before braking and crumbling into dust. Takuya grinned, expecting to find the child nothing but a blood smear in the dirt but instead he found nothing. She was gone.
He took a defensive stance, kunai held up and glancing around, searching the rocky terrain for wherever she may've gone. Suddenly, he heard something behind him; a bizarre, humming noise unlike anything he heard before. When he turned, he discovered she had gotten behind him and before he could retaliate, a hand thrusted out from the flytrap, punching him in a pressure point in his neck and causing him to go unconscious immediately, his body hitting ground and kunai clattering from his hand. She had learned that from a spy movie.
Zetsu demilitarize her Kekkei Genkai, staring down at the out-cold man then the other one, who was a distance away, facedown and bleeding out from his amputated sites. Neither were dead she felt their fireflies fluttering. She felt bad for hurting them but reminded herself that it was self-defense and they attacked her first and that made her feel a little better. She turned to leave before anyone arrived, investigating the ruckus, but paused when she remembered something important she couldn't leave without: payment.
Crouching down, she searched the Bearded Man's pockets, producing a handful of crumpled bills and coins then walked to the Bandana Man, retrieving the 40,000 ryō plus change and lunch money. She prayed it would be enough and fled back to the village, leaving the two men to be found later by their teammates when they failed to be at their post.
Getting back to Izo was a lot easier as Zetsu recognized his firefly and tailed it. When she arrived at the metal door, she gave the instructed three knocks and a second later, either the Right or Left One answered. He ushered her in, checking she hadn't been followed then shut and padlocked the door.
"Izo, the girl is back." He called and Zetsu followed him into the extra room. As he sat down at the table, she blinked, bewildered as there was now a third doppelganger with the other two (the Middle One?).
Izo saw her and smiled, his cleft splitting open. "Hey, you're back! How did it go?" Zetsu said nothing, instead reaching into her jacket and producing a handful of bills which she then held out to the drug dealer. Seeing the money, his ugly smile fell, and he looked her off, noticing she was shaking and a little bloodier than when she left. He took the cash without breaking eye contact with her, placing it on the table. "Did something happen?"
"They…they didn't want to pay, said it was too much and attacked me…"
"Are you hurt?" Izo asked instantly, surprising Zetsu with how genuinely concerned he sounded.
"I-I'm ok but I hurt them…"
"Shit," He mumbled, threading his fingers through his thinning hair. "The price was higher because they ordered a large amount. I should've told you, but I didn't think they'd react by attacking you. They've never hurt any other of my couriers. Did you kill them?"
"N-No! Just hurt them."
"Ok, that's ok. They're aren't going to be happy though. Good thing we were planning on relocating anyway. It's gotten too hot here," When he mentioned this, the Right, Left, and Middle Ones nodded in perfect sync without looking up from the baggies they were packing. Izo then eyeballed her, leaning forward and making her lean back from him due to his icky, skunk smell. "I never caught your name. What is your name?"
"My is name Z—" Zetsu started but then caught herself. Sir never used his real name when introducing himself so she shouldn't either. "A-Akatsuki."
Izo quirked a scarred eyebrow. "Akatsuki? That's a complicated name. Can I give you a nickname? Hmm…how about Aka?"
"O-Ok…"
"So, Aka, do you have any parents?" While she considered Sir and Konan her parents, technically speaking, she didn't have parents, so she shook her head. "Ahh, killed in the war?" If they had the Mayfly like her, then yes, killed in the Second World War so she nodded. "Damn, I'm sorry. This war is horrible, isn't it? I've seen a lotta kids like you; lost, alone, poor. I used to fight in the war. Not this one but the last, for Takigakure. Saw a lotta horrible things, a lotta deaths including my own wife's and I killed my share of parents like yours. I started taking drugs to deal with it and discovered good money in it when I shared it with other traumatized shinobi, so I left the battlefield and started selling it. Don't do drugs though, not unless you want a beautiful face like mine, haha. Oh, speaking of which—the money, I mean,"
He shifted in his chair and straightened out the bills she had given him, counting them out. Once he tallied 50,000 ryō, he gathered the remainder and offered it to her. "Here, it's 7,850 ryō. I usually give a ten percent cut to my couriers but given the shit you went through because of me, you deserve this."
"T-Thank you." Zetsu said, accepting the cash and tucking it away.
"I've got a few more jobs, if you're interested. Since you stepped on a few toes though, I'll send Toki with you this time." Izo pointed at the Left One who nodded in acknowledgement without lifting his eyes up from his task.
Zetsu wanted to say no after what happened, but if she did that, she would lose this golden opportunity. So, she agreed with a hesitant nod and Izo clapped her on the shoulder, making her flinch though it didn't hurt.
"Great. I'll give you a twenty percent cut on these deliveries too. How's that?"
"O-Ok…"
…
For the remainder of the day, Zetsu played drug mule for Izo, going back and forth between him and his customers, distributing narcotics. Toki trailed her, acting like bodyguard and intimidating anyone that tried to pull anything like the sentries did. She admitted, she felt safe with the Left One who though he said nothing to her. However, during it, she felt horrible. Sir had said how bad drugs were and that they killed people. Was she killing people by selling them for Izo? That's how she felt, especially when a few of the clients were teenagers like her. By nightfall, she had made ten additional deliveries and made a grand total of 10,765 ryō.
"You've done great today, Lil' Aka," Izo told her, handing over her last payment. "It's been awhile since I've had someone so faithful. Usually, once the kids I employ get ahold of the drugs or money, they run off with it. I can't blame them though; I'd do the same in their situation."
"Thank you." Zetsu mumbled, putting the additional cash in her bulging pocket.
"You have anywhere to sleep tonight?" She could've said no but was nervous of leaving and having them disappear, now that she had the knowledge Izo planned on relocating "soon". She answered with a quiet "no". "Perfect. We're got an extra mattress. I always keep an extra mattress for my couriers, so they don't have to sleep in the cold. Pick whichever one you want."
He showed her the "bedroom" which was the second room and had five mattresses on the floor with stained pillows and thin sheets blanketed on them. Once she selected the one in the far corner, away from the others, Izo wished her a goodnight and returned to the other room so she could sleep. As she laid on the sinking mattress, staring at the grey ceiling overhead and listening to the whispers and occasional laughter of the Izo, the Right, Left, and Middle Ones (he had introduced them as Taki, Toki, and Teiko but she couldn't tell who was who), her mind started drifting off. She thought of Sir.
Was he curious as to her whereabouts? Was he worried? Was he mad because her mission was taking too long? It made it difficult to sleep but she promised herself that tomorrow, she would kill Izo and whomever she had to; she had to if she wanted to join the Akatsuki and she would do anything to be a member like Sir and Konan.
…
In the morning, Zetsu was woken by the sunlight pouring in through the tiny window overhead, bathing her in its warmth and brightness. She discovered she was by herself, but the other beds displayed signs of having been slept in by the indented pillows and bundled sheets. She got up, stretching and banishing the sleepies from her eyes then pulling her oversized jacket over her head and backpack. She heard chattering on the other room and left to inspect the going-on's. Izo was up with the Right and Left One, the Middle One was gone, at the table and was adding up this week's profits as stacks of money tied by rubber bands lined the table. Zetsu imagined Sir drooling if he saw all of it.
"Good morning, Lil' Aka!" Izo greeted, giving the bundle of bills he was counting to the Left One as he got up from his chair. "I'm glad you're awake. You and I are going to be running a few errands today."
"Ok." Zetsu monotoned.
Izo provided her a three-way smile. "Not much of a talker, are you?" The Right and Left One cackled at the light-hearted jest, powdering her cheeks with an embarrassed blush. "It's ok. Come on, let's get going. We can get breakfast while we're out too since I'm sure you're hungry." He herded the girl out, calling back at Taki and Toki to keep an eye out for any unhappy Iwa guardians pounding down their door.
Finally, this was her chance! She had Izo all to herself now. This may be a once in a lifetime opportunity and she couldn't waste it. He was walking in front of her, back turned and she expedited her step behind him, making the split-second decision of assassinating him while there were no witnesses. However, before she could trigger her bloodline, Izo suddenly stopped. He turned to her, causing her to almost walk into him and she backpedaled, the tips of the Mayfly which had begun growing from her waist melting back into her skin.
"Woah there, sorry about that," Izo said, holding up his hands and the charms on his bracelet clanged into each other. "I've got to make a few deliveries myself. It won't take long at all." He turned around again and kept walked, leaving the alleyway into the morning commute and with it, hijacking Zetsu's convenience to kill him secretly. Begrudgingly, she continued tailing him since she couldn't do much else at the moment unless she wanted to cause a "mass-hysteria", as Sir phrased it.
Their first stop was located in an impoverished district of Iwa, as confirmation by the numerous homeless people squatting on the streets, most of them wearing old, dirty Iwagakure armour. They haggled them for money as they passed by and Izo stopped for each one, handing them a generous amount of coins and making the specific request for them not to spend it on drugs. This confused Zetsu, considering he was a drug dealer so wouldn't he want the business?
After the fourth beggar, Izo noticed the questioning stare she was delivering him. "Something wrong?"
"Why don't you want them to buy drugs?" She asked honestly, head puppy tilted, and eyebrows piqued. "Don't you want the money?"
"Well, if I wanted that, why would I give them money if I knew I'd just get it back in the first place?"
"So why give them money at all?"
"So, they can feed themselves or whatever else they need the money for."
"If they want money, shouldn't they get jobs?" That's what Sir always said when they were out, and a person badgered him for money.
Izo frowned, eyebrows knitted. "It isn't as easy as that, Lil' Aka. There's a lot of circumstances into getting a job, including personal choices. They could not have jobs for any one of reasons." Zetsu wasn't satisfied with this. It wasn't that hard. She had gotten accidentally employed from just asking around. Why didn't they do the same? Sir said it was because they were lazy when she asked a while back and it seemed correct to her. "Let me ask you this, didn't you want someone to give you a little handout to get you through the day? Isn't that why you asked for me?" She didn't reply because then he would figure out, she wasn't the homeless orphan he ostensibly presumed her to be.
After two additional hand-outs, they arrived at a huge, longish building. It was old and dilapidated as evidence by the sun-bleached red paint and scratched windows. Izo climbed the stairwell while Zetsu stayed on the first step and rapped his knuckles on the splintered door. A minute later, it opened, and a woman dressed in a strange, black outfit and head garb answered.
"Oh, Izo!" She greeted, stepping out and shutting the door behind her.
"Hello, Sister," Izo replied. Zetsu raised a grassy eyebrow, misunderstanding the interaction. She was his sister? He reached into his slack's pocket and withdraw one of the stacks of cash Zetsu saw him thumbing through this morning, gifting it to the woman. "I've brought my weekly donation. It's 100,000 ryō."
"Oh my!" She gasped, accepting the charity and tucking it on her robe, glancing around like she was afraid of it being taken from her. "Thank you so much, Izo. Thank you! Because of you, we can finally paint the orphanage and get new mattresses!"
"Don't thank me, Sister, I'm just doing what the government isn't."
"And God blesses you for it." She said, making an odd gesture over her chest then laying her hand on his shoulder.
Izo chuckled. "I don't think God would approve of how I made that money. Anyway, I've got to go. Have a beautiful morning, Sister."
"And may you have a beautiful life, Izo." She waved at him as he descended the steps before disappearing back into the ancient architecture.
As he stepped past her, Zetsu stared at him, lips downturned. "Why did you give her so much?" Sir would've had a heart attack if he saw what just happened.
"Because they need all of that, I don't."
"Why not?" She continued interrogating him, pursuing him as he walked off to his next destination.
"I make approximately ten times that in a week which is more than enough to live on, so I give away what I don't want."
"Why wouldn't you want money?"
"Well, money isn't everything." He shrugged.
"But, don't you want it to buy things?"
"There's a lot of thing you can't buy with money, like happiness or love. If you could do that, I would've bought my wife's life back a long time ago." He stared down at the golden bracelet on his wrist, fingering the charms and smiling sadly. After this, Zetsu fell quiet because she felt strangled by the sadness his firefly emitted from that statement.
Izo took them to a food kitchen next to put money in the donation box to purchase food to feed the overwhelming population of new homeless due to the war and a shelter which suffered from an identical blight. It was during this, Zetsu couldn't understand why he was doing all it. He was a drug dealer, so he was inherently bad and yet, he went out of his way to do good things. He had helped her too, thinking she was in need. It remained her of the discussion she had to Sir before leaving on this mission.
"Just because you do bad things doesn't make you a bad person." Was that the case with Izo? If it was, then why would anyone want him dead? His file claimed it because he was "trespassing" on the territory of this mysterious other drug dealer and/or drug dealers. That was why he had to die? He may do bad things, but he wasn't a bad person and didn't deserve to die for what little bad he did because he did a lot of good things too from what she witnessed firsthand. Due to these thoughts, she found herself hesitant. She didn't want to kill Izo, but she had to, but she didn't want to, but she had to—her brain felt like it was on a treadmill.
Being so occupied with her thoughts, she'd been shambling after Izo like that of a zombie, glass-eyed and slack jawed. Izo noticed her being a space cadet and thinking she may be hungry, he stepped aside to a fruit stand. Zetsu blinked out of her woolgathering as an apple was pushed into her hand and she stared up to find the blonde man smiling at her.
"I'm sorry, Lil' Aka, we'll get breakfast soon. That should hold you until then." He said then took a bite out of his own apple.
She glimpsed down at the red fruit, examining its shiny sheen. She had apple sauce before liked it, so she decided this must be the same, just not sauced. Well, she instantly regretted her decision as she bit into it and her canines became stuck in the hard insides. Not to mention the juice leaking out onto her tongue that made her tastebuds shrivel in disgust at the acidic flavour. It was nothing like apple sauce. Izo noticed her plight as she tried to dislodge her teeth from it but instead of helping her, he started laughing. After a minute, she managed to free herself by biting through it, bisecting the offensive fruit in half and spitting it out, wagging her tongue.
"Izo!" Izo's laughter dissipated and both turned their heads to see one of the triples running towards them. "Izo!"
"Toki, what's wrong?" Izo asked his breathless friend.
"It's…it's them Taketa Haru and Otani Takuya bastards," Toki started, hunched over and grasping his knees as he caught his breath after sprinting across the village to find his boss. "They caught Teiko leaving Iwa and them and their buddies beat him black and blue, demanding where you were. They're mad over what happened with the girl yesterday and you hiking the prices on them. They're demanding to speak with you."
"Is Teiko ok?"
Toki shook his head, a little teary-eyed while speaking of his brother's condition. "No, they hurt him bad. Taki is scared of taking him the hospital though because they might get jumped again so he told me to get you instead."
"You said Taketa Haru and Otani Takuya want to talk? Where?"
"Outside Iwa. They said they'd be waiting by the Wall Eyes."
Izo nodded. "Ok. I'll go talk to them. In the meantime, get Teiko to the hospital."
"No, wait, Izo," Toki interjected, catching the other man's arm as he started walking away. "It's going to be a trap! By what Teiko said, at least ten of them attacked him, including Haru and Takuya. Let me go with you."
"Toki, with all due respect, I fought in the Second World War, I'll be fine against Haru and Takuya and their friends," Izo gently removed his friend's hand off his arm. "Now go back to Taki and Teiko and take Aka with you. I don't want her getting caught up anymore in this."
"I'm going!" Izo and Toki stared at the girl at her proclamation to find her staring at them with determination.
"Oh no, no, no you're not," Izo said, hunching over to be eyelevel with the petite teenager. "Listen Lil' Aka, if what you said yesterday is true then these men may want to hurt you and I'm not going to let that happen. Now, go with Toki and I'll meet you all at the hospital, ok?"
"No! I'm going!" Zetsu said again, literally putting down her foot on the manner.
"Lil' Aka…"
"No!" Desperate times called for desperate measure so she implemented her secret weapon: her "Zetsu Eyes", deciding that since Sir couldn't say no to them, then neither could Izo. He stared back, his cockeye twitching in its socket but despite the creepy imagery, she didn't give in.
After a minute of the silent stare down, Izo gave the largest and dramatized sigh, shaking his head yet smiling. "I've never met someone so—headstrong. Ok, ok! But you are to remain behind me so if anything happens, you won't be hurt."
"Understood." She chirped, smirking smugly with her little victory.
"Wait, wait," Toki piped in. "If you're taking her then I'm going too!"
Izo emitted the largest and most dramatized sigh, feeling like a parent trapped between two negging children. "Ok then but the same goes to you! I don't want you starting anything either because of Teiko. This is going be a civilized conversation." Toki made no promises and decided that was the best he was going to get, Izo quickly ushered the two along as they headed out of Iwagakure towards these Wall Eyes.
The Wall Eyes was a rock shelf named by schoolchildren for the curious likeness of eyes weathered into the rock face. It was tourist attraction outside the capital, out of sight of any passerbyers entering the village through the main highway and the perfect location for drug deals to go down or debts to be settled.
When Izo plus two arrived, Taketa Haru and Otani Takuya were there, having been waiting in the shade of the cliffside, including eight of their brothers-in-arms. Izo positioned Zetsu behind him and he and Toki strided up to the gathering of displeased men glaring them down and prepared for bloodshed in need be.
"Izo!" Takuya snarled, stepping up to meet him halfway with Haru slinking behind him.
"Hello, Takuya," Izo greeted with the fakest politeness he could muster. "I heard you wanted to talk? You could've just asked instead of jumping one of my boys like you did."
"Don't bullshit me, Izo. It wouldn't have had to happen if you didn't raise the prices on us and have that little brat attack us! Look what she did to Haru!" He wrenched his partner forward who proceeded to exhibit to the drug dealer his bandaged wrists with no hands.
Izo was taken back since he didn't think the girl capable of doing something like that, but anyone could do anything when threatened. "First, I'm sorry about your hands, Haru. But, I did not raise the price. This week, you ordered three kilograms of cocaine when last week's order was two, so I raised the price accordingly."
"Fuck you." Haru seethed, cradling his nubs to his chest.
"By 10,000 ryō!? If you're charging 10,000 ryō per kilogram then we should only be paying 30,000 ryō for three kilograms!" Takuya claimed.
"You're buying us out faster than we can make it so the price due to supply and demand."
Takuya opened his mouth to dispute this claim when Haru noticed the slightest bit of green fabric sticking out from behind Izo and easily recognized the camouflage pattern of it. "That's her!" He exclaimed, pointing his stub at the visible bit of jacket. "That's the bitch that bit off my hands!"
Immediately, the other Iwa shinobi drew their weapons. "Hand her over, Izo." Takuya commanded him, withdrawing a kunai also.
Izo extended out his arm, obscuring Zetsu with Toki doing so too. "This is between you and I, Takuya. She had nothing to do with this."
"Bullshit she does! She attacked us!"
"She attacked you because you attacked her first! It was self-defense."
"How's this? Hand her over, Izo, and we'll pretend like nothing happened." Takuya gave a distrustful smile.
"So, you can put her jail? Or kill her?"
"Tch, it wouldn't the first time we've killed one of your little brats," Takuya boasted with Haru snickering behind him.
Suddenly, the atmosphere heated up to blistering temperatures, the culprit being Izo himself as Zetsu saw his firefly flicker a bright red and felt it burning up, a literal firefly. "You've done what?" Izo asked, jubilant tone having gone mummered and dark.
"Oh please, they're just orphans. There's plenty of them. What's one more dead? Now give her over." Takuya reached out an expectant hand.
Izo stared hard at it then started reaching back towards Zetsu. Instead of grabbing her though, he stealthily extracted a collapsible blade clipped to his belt loop then in one fell swoop whipped it out, causing it to expand and cleanly slice Takuya's waiting hand off his wrist. It took the Iwa jōnin an entire second to register what happened and once he did, he gave a bloodcurdling scream. It was then all hell broke loose.
The Iwagakure sentries ran at Izo and Toki and the two replicated their charge, meeting them in the middle and clashing blades. In the midst of it, Haru and Takuya slipped past and after Zetsu who was standing in the background, stunned as everything happened so quickly. Instinctively, she activated the Mayfly and the insectivorous flytrap gnashed its teeth together as Takuya swiped at her with his kunai. He had learned from their last encounter though and trained on the carapace itself. He stabbed the knife into it, trying to saw through it to get inside while Haru tackled her, pushing her over onto her back, rendering her helpless like that of a turtle on its shell.
She impacted her head on the inside of the vegetation and momentarily blacked out as was stricken by excruciating pain, something more painful than a bump on the head; it was on the inside, something was clawing on the inside of her skull. When she came too, her eyes feverishly blinked, the golden orbs inside dilating and spinning in their sockets. A dark, maniacal roar echoed within the dark, depths of her psyche.
Takuya had succeeded in piercing through the thick plastron when it turned into a ghastly white and mitigated into a dough-like texture. It ingested his hand and he felt the kunai being forcibly wrested from it. A hand thrusted out from the ooze, clenching his nicked kunai. He tried to avoid it, but the white substance had hardened around his wrist, trapping it and impeding his evasion as the blade was shanked directly into his jugular. A high-pressured stream of arterial blood spurted out from his neck and he bellowed out. He tried pulling the knife out and pinching the laceration shut so he didn't bleed out, but as he did, he was cruelly reminded of his one-handed situation his bleeding stump uselessly nudged the handle, only managing to push it in deeper and increase the discharge of blood.
"Takuya!" Haru cried, clambering over to his partner when something grabbed onto his leg, halting him.
He looked down to find a hand grappling his calf; a hand sticking out of the dirt. He tried hitting it with his dressed wrists but instead of letting go, the hand started pulling his leg into the ground.
"Takuya! Takuya!" He pleaded as he swiftly ingested up to his waist, clawing at the dirt to escape. Takuya didn't reply as he sat, slumped over and unconscious from the blood loss. Both the white coagulation and girl gone. In seconds, Haru was gobbled up to his chin and gave one last weak uttering of the other's name before his head was pulled underneath the soil too and dark blood bubbled through it seconds after.
Zetsu crawled out of the dirt and sat down, blood-splattered and trembling. She observed the butchery she caused then down to her shaking, bloodied hands. She had done this, not the Monster but her, she did this.
Meanwhile, the dust settled on the conflict between the druggies and drug dealer and amongst the bloodshed, one person was left standing: Izo, heaving and scratched up but alive.
"Oh Toki…Toki I'm so sorry," He whispered, staring down at his friend as he laid facedown at his feet, a kunai entrenched in his skull after taking the hit for his employer which ended up in his death. Izo took a little solace in the fact his death was quick and painless.
Behind him, he heard a stirring and turned, expecting to find a matching scene with the girl dead at the feet of Haru and Takuya but it was the opposite. Cautiously, he approached the teenager who was obviously rattled.
"Lil' Aka, are you ok?" He inquired, unable to tell if the blood on her was her own or the other's. She didn't reply, turning and staring at him, eyes glassy with tears. Once reaching her, he got to his knees and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her into a hug and patting her back, ignoring the sickly, warm wetness saturated into her jacket. "It's ok, you're ok."
In a surprising turn, Zetsu hugged him back, digging her nails into the back of his chest plate. "I-I'm sorry."
"No, no, no, don't apologize. You did what you had to." Izo hushed her.
"I'm sorry." Zetsu said again then Izo felt himself being punched in the chest, winding him.
It didn't click with him that it hadn't been a punch until the humid presence of blood made itself known, pouring down the inside of his armour and bathing his skin. His one functioning eye glanced down, discovering a green appendage impaled through his chest. He pulled himself off it and from Zetsu, hand opening and closing over the bleeding wound as he stared at it. Zetsu started sobbing.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" She wailed and buried her face in her red hands, the bloody green spike dematerializing.
Izo didn't get angry at her for the betrayal but instead smiled, blood leaking from the upturned corners of his cracked lips. "It's…it's o-ok. You did…you did what you had to. Here," He pulled his late wife's bracelet off and offered it to Zetsu with a quivering hand. "You'll…need proof you killed me…right?" Head jerking up, she stared at him through gushing tears. He had known she was sent to assassinate him this entire time?
She took the piece of jewelry from him as she did, he grasped her hand, bringing his other one to cup hers in his. "H-Hey Lil' Aka? Thank you…I can finally see…her…" With that, he provided her a final smile just as his injured heart pumped its last and shut down.
His body fell back, hitting the ground with a dull thud. Zetsu saw his firefly leave his corpse, floating into the sky then dispersing into a hundred, blue particles.
Daora had been watching everything that transpired, nested overheard on the Wall Eyes' cliff edge. With Dokuro Izo confirmed dead by Zetsu's hand, it pushed itself up and flew out to retrieve its master.
Kakuzu had been camped outside Iwagakure, patiently waiting for Zetsu to finish her mission and taking the time to catch up on his reading when Daora finally returned from its own little mission of monitoring the teenager during these last two days. It gave him its interpretive dance which roughly translated into the mission being a success. He gave the bird-like creature head scratches for a great job then packed up his campsite to retrieve Zetsu.
In a manner of minutes, he arrived at the Wall Eyes and discovered a murder scene as several bodies laid littered on the ground. In the middle was Zetsu, on her knees and bawling, beside her a dead but smiling Dokuro Izo. Kakuzu walked up to her, not announcing himself since he was positive she had picked up on his chakra signature a mile out.
"Girl," He said quietly, placing his hand on her shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze.
Zetsu turned her head to him, sniffling with her pale face waterlogged in tears and snot. She pushed herself up to her feet and lunged herself into his arms, hiding her face in his cloak and weeping anew, clasping the golden bracelet in her hand. He stared at her for a second, slightly startled then wrapped his arms around her in an embrace, sighing and petting his fingers through her hair.
"It'll get easier." He told her.
He then picked her up, sitting on his arm so she could continue crying in his shoulder and walked off, leaving behind the slaughter for the Trash Feeders circling overhead—they'd been waiting for this meal for awhile; they wouldn't go hungry tonight.
…
Kakuzu carried Zetsu and himself to the nearest township outside Iwagakure for breakfast since he hadn't eaten besides the food bars he had packed into his pockets. He walked them into a café and ordered himself the largest breakfast they had, plus four additional eggs and six pieces of bacon while he got Zetsu a chocolate milkshake (children under twelve ate free so he might've told a little white lie about her true age). She wasn't crying anymore and drawing on the back of the paper mat, her crimson stained jacket on the back of her chair.
"Sir," She said, finally speaking after two hours of saying nothing, not looking up from her picture which depicted herself and a blonde man Kakuzu couldn't identify but it rang a distant bell with him, especially the overexaggerated glasses. "Why do good people have to die?"
He put down his coffee cup, sighing, not mentally prepared for a discussion involving such a heavy subject. Especially not before finishing his first cup of coffee. "Everyone dies, not just the good people."
She stared up at him, eyes bloodshot from her earlier breakdown. "Even you?"
He was quiet for a moment then said, "Yes, one day, maybe." There was a snap as Zetsu accidentally broke the crayon in her hand in half. "But, if you're prepared, there won't be any sorrow."
"Where do people go when they die?"
"Well, the good people go to heaven." She remembered Konan telling her about heaven. It was in the clouds where God was.
Their off-the-wall dialogue was disrupted as a waitress delivered Kakuzu's mini breakfast buffet with enough extra butter to give an elephant cardiac arrest. As he ate, Zetsu went back to her drawing, staring as it sadly as she added the last details on the blonde man with her broken yellow crayon.
"Did Kiyoshi go to heaven?"
Kakuzu was in the middle of stuffing his mouth full of egg-drenched, buttered toast so he couldn't immediately reply. Though, not that he could since he didn't know who the hell Kiyoshi was. Again, the dusty bells in the back of his head were chiming with faint recognition.
'Kiyoshi? Kiyoshi, Kiyoshi, Kiyoshi…' He deliberated, tapping an imaginary finger against his temple as the elder searched his memories. It took him a minute, but finally, he put a face to the name and had a lightbulb moment. Kiyoshi—the doctor whose cold, dead hands he literally pried Zetsu from. It was the man in Zetsu's picture, drawn smiling beside a depiction of herself, smiling too. Immediately, Kakuzu felt guilty. How couldn't he? He was the one responsible for this man's death; the man that cared for Zetsu and died for her.
"Yes," He replied genuinely, wiping his greasy fingers off with a napkin. "He was a great man, so he would've gone to heaven." He reminiscenced on the fragile doctor who had fought Kakuzu tooth and nail to protect Zetsu despite it being a losing battle.
This appeared to be the answer Zetsu was searching for as she nodded, lips piqued into a tiny smile as she gazed down at the happy picture fondly and added a halo over Kiyoshi's head. "I think so too—and I think you'll go to heaven too, sir."
He chuckled into his coffee. He didn't think so, but he was flattered she thought so. "Maybe."
"You hurt people, like Kiyoshi, but that doesn't make you a bad person; like how Izo wasn't a bad person for selling drugs." The bookkeeper hadn't been filled in yet on what happened between her and Izo, so he was a little bit bewildered by the statement as he quirked a quizzical eyebrow in her direction. "Where do the bad people go?"
"They go to Hell."
'Hell?' Konan hadn't told her of that place yet. "What's…umm…H-E-L-L?" She gingerly spelt it out since if she knew one thing, it was that was considered a bad word and she wasn't allowed to say bad words.
"Damnation, eternal suffering, fire and flames, the devil." He explained plainly.
She stared at him while she listened, head inclined and once he finished, she straightened up, recognition flickering in her eyes. "Oh, like the Wasteland?"
He cackled at the clever quip, troweling two eggs into his mouth and gulping them down after minimal chewing. "Yes, something like the Wastelands."
Zetsu shook her head. "No, the Wasteland."
Again, Kakuzu was lost on what she was talking about. "The Wasteland?" She nodded. "What is the Wasteland?"
"It's like the Wastelands because it's a desert so that's why I call it the Wasteland but everything is black and white, and the sky is red including the moon but I think it's an eye because it's always watching me, and then there's the Hanging Tree—it's called the Hanging Tree because there's people hanging from it—and underneath the Hanging Tree is where the Monster lives but I've never seen the Monster but I've heard it." She finished her incoherent explanation which had been paired with spastic hand gestures and stared at Kakuzu, as if expecting him to suddenly understand everything she just said but he didn't have any more a clue than he did before. If anything, she had lost him more on the subject.
"So…this is some place you made up?" He questioned.
"No, it's real. I go there a lot."
"When?"
"When I go to sleep." She responded casually, taking a couple long gulps of her milkshake to soothe her achy throat then giving a satisfied but embellished sigh after her drink. "Can I have another piece of paper? I can draw it for you."
"Err…sure…" He waved over a waitress, politely requesting a new mat which she happily brought over.
While Kakuzu finished his breakfast, Zetsu drew the "Wasteland" and had to ask for new crayons too because had diminished the red crayon to a nub just colouring in the background. The final picture was one depicting a large, white tree, the "Hanging Tree", in the middle that reminded him of Takigakure; from it was stick people literally hanging by nooses, dozens of them though she claimed it was more like hundreds if not thousands, but she couldn't fit them all. The ground was black and the sky red with black clouds and the "moon" being red too but scribbled with black, circular lines. Underneath the tree was drawn two yellow eyes and a ghoulish smile of white, sharp teeth peeking between the roots. Once seeing it, he realized he had seen her draw this "Wasteland" before awhile back.
"That's the Monster?" He said, pointing at the face.
"Yes. It likes to sing." She said, colouring the eyes over with an orange colour.
"It…sings? What does it sing?"
Zetsu thought for a second then started humming an upbeat yet ominous tune that made goosebumps run down Kakuzu's spine. He never heard anything like it and maybe that was why it left him so disturbed. After a few seconds, she ended the eerie melody and shrugged. "I can't remember the words. Maybe I should write them down?"
"Maybe you should." He agreed, morbidly curious now on what the hell this "song" this "Monster" was singing to her in this "Wasteland" she was allegedly going to in her sleep.
After that, the Wasteland was never mentioned again between them again though Kakuzu was left wondering if it was real or something Zetsu's hyperactive imagination came up with.
…
AN: Well shit, this became the second largest chapter I've written for this fanfic, the largest being Chapter 20 at 17,000 words and this one is 11,000. Also, motherfucking title drop finally after thirty-eight chapters? Yes, sir. So, what is the Wasteland? Is it real or just fantasy? It'll be explained throughout the entire fanfic with hints here and there, so you'll have to find them.
Thank you, thank you for all the great reviews I received last chapter! You, the readers, motive me to continue writing this project of mine!
This was a huge chapter and I'm lazy, not going to lie, so please forgive any grammar and spelling mistakes. Please and thank you.
Next Chapter: The finale of the Red Dawn arc.
Until Next Time.