This prey was smart, even more intelligent than value of its bounty had suggested. It was elusive, a frequent relocator who did not stay more than a couple of days in a single spot. It made tracking all the more punishing, but Kakuzu didn't mind. His resolve and love of the chase were unshakeable.
The first week was spent checking off every cave on his list. A dreary task for the impatient but Kakuzu carried on undeterred. Many of the caves were a dud, holding no secrets or clues. But he was patient, it was only a matter of time before a viable trail made itself known. True enough, he struck gold a week later. A mid-sized cave finally showed signs of human activity. The unscattered ashes from a recent bonfire revealed that he was only a day or two ahead of Kakuzu.
The monster within him growled in anticipation. The prey was so close, very nearly in the palm of his hand.
Yet, Kakuzu remained cautious. However hungry the monster was for bloodshed; it would not interfere with his strategy. Instead of a quick dash to the finish, he continued to lurk in the shadows and slowly eat away at his target's lead. Days passed before he furtively reached his goldmine.
His strategy dictated that he would wait for his target to emerge until a sandstorm shot his carefully laid plans to hell. He knew that the chaotic storm would exponentially increase the chances of losing his target.
'Screw it'. He was going in.
The entrance of the cave was only a few metres wide, giving the illusion that this was a diminutive cave. He lit a flare before wandering further into the pitch-dark nothingness. After a hundred steps in, he witnessed the cave's inner chamber transform into a vast arena with impressively lofty ceilings.
Kakuzu was on high alert, the target was wise for choosing this cave. The wide space provided ample cover while the rocky terrain, limited escape routes, and expansive darkness gave his already powerful opponent an upper hand. It was nearly guaranteed that Kakuzu was walking into a trap.
But he remained unfazed. A fight of some sort was inevitable. In fact, it would be more disappointing if he did not get his money's worth from this fight. His advance continued until a rumble stopped him dead in his tracks.
'What was that?'
Did his senses deceive him or did the ground tremble? The earth then groaned loudly as if it was answering his unspoken question. Long, narrow fissures riddled the ground as the cavern walls started to shake. With a few well-timed backflips, he managed to dodge the large chunks falling from the ceiling, all while keeping the flare wrapped in his iron grip.
His eyes darted around. Where was his target amidst this chaos? The glow of the flare could hardly illuminate the cave, he needed more light...
Acting on this unspoken thought, the fire mask sprung from his back, "Katon: Shōenjin!"
The mask spewed a ring of fireballs, encircling Kakuzu for a moment before being fired off in every direction. He kept his eyes peeled for the target while the vivid flames illuminated the cave.
'There!'
He caught a fleeting shadow near the entrance. The target capitalised on Kakuzu's distraction from the chaos and sneaked right past him in the dark. The target came to a standstill at the cave's mouth, his palms locked in the snake seal.
"Doton: Iwayado Kuzushi!"
The walls shook with newfound ferocity, causing the ceiling to crumble and the ground to completely bifurcate. He was standing in the middle of a full-blown earthquake.
'The bastard is trying to bury me. Ha!' His opponent was trying to end the fight before it even began.
Luring him into the cave and then collapsing it were inspired moves. But Kakuzu was not going to idly wait for a live burial. He raced to the entrance while skilfully side-stepping and dodging the dangerous rockfall. He was within metres of the target before a massive slab detached from the ceiling and hurled itself towards Kakuzu.
He jumped backwards and narrowly avoided being crushed. This was bad. The boulder completely blocked the entrance while the cave-in continued around him. He was effectively trapped, like a rat.
'Shit'.
"This isn't right," the customer grunted while rolling the ball of medicine in his mouth.
"Oh? What's wrong with it?" I asked in confusion.
"I don't know Nao-san, it's just...off", the customer replied before roughly spitting it out into a tissue. The forceful expulsion caused drops of saliva to land on my freshly polished counter.
'Ugh'. I suppressed the urge to cringe, mindful that it would only aggravate the already-irritable customer. He was fed up that I didn't know what was wrong. Again.
'But, what the actual fuck...'
'It's just off'. Was it the smell, the texture, or the look? This was the third time that I remade his prescription. Much to my disappointment, it was yet another failure. Despite using every ingredient listed in Fuyuta's recipe and adhering to every single step, the customer still found fault with my handiwork.
"When can I expect to collect my medication?" He asked heatedly while impatiently tapping his fingers on my countertop.
'At this rate, never...', the retort was on the tip of my tongue, but I held it in and bowed deeply. This was my third time apologising for the delay.
"It can't be that difficult", the man acidly remarked while folding his thick arms across his expansive chest.
'Then you do it...', I tacitly snapped in my mind.
"My apologies, I will work on this again", I bowed even deeper and longer, any lower and I would be kow-towing. Appeased by my docility, the customer relaxed his antagonistic posture.
He sighed. "My medication runs out in five days, get it right before then", the older man warned in a deep voice before taking his leave.
'Get it right before then...or I will tell everyone to order their medication elsewhere'. That was the unspoken threat. It did not matter if I nailed a few prescriptions, one acrimonious customer was enough to irreparably tank the business. Like an airborne virus, badmouthing could spread just as quickly in small towns.
Once he was out of earshot, I sighed deeply. 'Help can't come quickly enough...'
By 'help', I yearned for an experienced and, more importantly, qualified pharmacist to work in the shop. Taking a page out the festival organiser's handbook, I mass-mailed a succinct job advertisement to towns across Shimo no Kuni.
"Our quaint community at Miyuki Valley seeks a knowledgeable physician, well-versed in general ailments."
"We offer a comfortable pace of work as well as a furnished apartment."
"It is a short-term contract, with the possibility of an extension."
That was the gist of it. When I sent out the first wave of envelopes weeks ago, I was positively brimming with optimism. Three weeks had elapsed since then. A full moon came and went by...and no one wrote back.
No replies. No applicants. No choice but to continue by myself.
In the first week at the pharmacy, business was unsurprisingly snail-like. Most customers insisted on waiting for Fuyuta to return from his "vacation". Needless to say, they would be waiting for an eternity, but I kept that tidbit to myself. With barely any customers, I passed the time re-organising the papers and books in the hellhole of a back room, familiarising myself with the store's inventory, and studying all of Fuyuta's existing prescriptions. My mind ached from the wealth pharmaceutical knowledge gleaned from my studies.
The week after, the odd patient with a headache, cold, or fever finally relented and visited the shop. Their cases were straightforward enough, there was nary a complaint against my concoctions. My elation lasted for a few days until Backpain-san walked into the shop. By this point, I could scarcely recall his actual name and only knew him by my spiteful nickname.
Five days. This final deadline was not a long time to find a mistake that I didn't know was there. All I could do was to hit the books again and rehash the materials.
I stifled a groan. My studies often continued past closing time and forced me to spend nights in Fuyuta's studio apartment above the shop. Although the source of the kidnappings had been eradicated, I remained wary of travelling alone during the night. My home was not that close to the shop.
While the smell of herbs wafting in from below was a welcomed change, I longed for my personal interior, books, and colourful decor. Fuyuta's living space, once stripped of its mess, was monotone and characterless.
'What if I have to spend the next several months living here...'
I visibly flinched.
Even worse, what if Kakuzu returned and witnessed this fiasco? Speaking of him, it had been weeks since I last saw him. The first week of being alone was a relief, especially after our extraordinarily awkward encounter. But it became increasingly disconcerting when his absence stretched for weeks...
'Forget it, he's not here'. I banished thoughts of him away, there were more urgent matters at hand.
I pulled out my notebook from a drawer and scanned through the ingredients. Yes, this man's medication warranted its own, damn notebook. Testily tapping my pencil, I perused my transcription of his case's details. He first visited Fuyuta two months ago for chronic lower back pain, a common health ailment among construction labourers. Fuyuta diagnosed the root causes as weak kidneys and poor blood circulation.
Despite following Fuyuta's process to the letter, my efforts floundered like a dead fish in a barrel. My second and third attempts saw changes to the dosages of the listed tonifying and circulating herbs, as Fuyuta proposed in his notes. Alas, they too were unsuccessful.
I continued playing around with the figures for an hour until the shop door's bell nosily chimed. Calling out to the stranger with a perfunctory greeting, I quietly stashed away the notebook. The troublesome prescription would have to wait till later.
A man with a large facial scar who wore a dark blue, tattered cloak stood atop a daunting pile of rocks. He was panting, trying to catch his breath after orchestrating a mega, manufactured disaster. The technique typically required a team of ninjas, but he was alone for obvious reasons. He planned to make haste to avoid the fast-approaching sandstorm, but a crackling sound interrupted his plans.
He stared at the source of the unusual noise; it was coming from beneath the pile of rocks. The crackling grew louder until an explosion of lightning erupted from below. The man immediately grimaced, his opponent was a fire and lightning user. That was dangerous. Lightning would cut straight through the soft belly of his Earth-based techniques.
When the dust settled, he spotted a strange beast towering over his opponent. A large and otherworldly creature. He mistook the exterior as armour until he saw it moving. The beast had an insidious aura, it was like staring into a dangerous, inescapable void. Was such a monstrous presence alive? No, he quickly decided that it wasn't. He would destroy this inhuman entity without hesitation alongside with its creator.
Kakuzu dusted the earth off his tattered sleeves. That was a close call. Punching through the collapsing cave and releasing his Lightning mask with expediency came at the cost of his cloak being torn to shreds. Not only were his sleeves and back torn, they were heavily caked in dirt. So much for the innkeeper's, or should he say his subordinate's, cleaning efforts.
"Who are you?" The target demanded.
"That won't matter". Kakuzu brushed off his question and lunged first.
His target was quick on the uptake, soundly parrying the incoming blows with his bare hands. He back flipped out of the way and unsheathed a weapon from his cloak. Kakuzu recognised the long, curved blade as a Tachi. Such weapons were usually used when one was astride on a horse. Without any large animals nearby, it was a peculiar choice for hand-to-hand combat.
"What do you want!" The target growled as he readied his blade. Kakuzu didn't bother to reply to him this time and launched forth, his lightning mask similarly advanced and prepared to attack from the target's rear. That was a mistake.
Kakuzu did not see it until it was too late to dodge. The blow struck his semi-hardened skin and smashed him sideways into more rocks. That same attack parried his lightning mask's bolt of electricity and successfully flung the beast some distance away.
'Not bad', he thought to himself.
"You possess wind nature as well", Kakuzu voiced his observation to his opponent in a matter-of-fact way.
His opponent frowned. "You caught on quickly".
'Of course, boy'. A split second before the attack hit, Kakuzu felt a hum from his wind mask. After decades of battle, his best explanation was that his masks reacted to opponents' chakra natures with the same affinity. He surmised that this was their method of keeping their host alive. This was not faultless of course. Extremely quick, unseen, or highly skilled shinobi could evade his masks' crude sensory ability.
But Kakuzu's wind mask caught it this time and more.
His opponent's Tachi was a special blade. With a single, chakra-laden swing, his opponent had gathered the wind and directed powerful gusts at both Kakuzu and his lightning mask. Kakuzu imagined that he used that very weapon to decimate his country's leaders. It was not a terrible honour.
"What do you want?" The target demanded once again from the stoic ex-Takigakure soldier.
"Your bounty", Kakuzu calmly replied while dusting off the bits of rock from his sleeves. His side was sore from the impact of his landing. Soldiers of lesser vitality would have easily come away with cracked or broken ribs.
A look of revulsion crossed his opponent's face. "A low-life bounty hunter", he spat in disgust. He now noticed the slash across Kakuzu's headband, and it fuelled his detestation.
Kakuzu cracked a nasty grin beneath his hood. "Traitor", he retorted.
His opponent's nostrils flared in indignation, "Never! I saved my country from our government!"
"Saved? You did not do anything", Kakuzu stated dispassionately.
His target was livid. He yelled in frustration and prepared to slice at Kakuzu once more. They became locked in a second fearsome battle of blows.
Kakuzu was impressed. The target was more than a decent swordsman, demonstrating a seamless transition between defensive and offensive power. He managed to artfully fend off Kakuzu and his lightning mask while serving up powerful vortexes as attacks. It was too difficult for his mask to get a clean shot, the outcome of this battle depended on Kakuzu's ability to turn the tables.
Although his target's defences seemed impenetrable, he knew that the target was tiring himself out. The earlier cave-in had drained him chakra and he was going all-out against Kakuzu now. His reaction times were slowing down, it was only a matter of time before he made a mistake. Kakuzu's wealth of chakra reserves would keep him in the game till that moment arrived.
And it was not long before it did.
Sensing a crack in the other's defence, Kakuzu struck a sensitive node in his opponent's wrist. The target grunted in pain, momentarily loosening the grip on his weapon. With high-powered swing of his back heel, Kakuzu kicked the sword out of his opponent's hand.
Within moments, Kakuzu had turned the tide of the fight. No matter how talented a fighter was, one single mistake could cost them their lives. Not leaving anything to chance, Kakuzu hardened his fist and punched him squarely in the abdomen. His target spewed a trail of blood before his body smashed into a nearby boulder.
"This is the end, traitor", he spoke with a terrifying calmness.
"No...I saved my country", his target grunted as he struggled to get back on his feet. He was gravely injured.
'This again?'
"Your assassination achieved nothing", Kakuzu repeated harshly.
"What would you know, defector?" The man retorted. Kakuzu saw red. Those careless words touched a raw nerve.
He crossed the distance separating them within a blink of an eye and grabbed the target's throat. The target was caught completely unaware, violently gasping for air. This was very bad. He was overpowered, weaponless, and reeling from Kakuzu's earlier fist.
"I know everything about that", Kakuzu hissed venomously. "I did the same and it accomplished squat. All you did was delay them for a few months, maybe even a year."
He lowered his target to his eye-level, "Nothing will change, they always come back".
"You're w-wrong", the target gasped. Out of desperation, he tried to form a hand seal.
But Kakuzu was quicker this time. With his free hand, he broke his target's wrist and slammed him into the destroyed boulder. His brutality earned another yelp of anguish. As the bloodlust clouded his vision, Kakuzu continued squeezing his opponent's neck until a familiar sound of cracking vertebrae was heard. It was as if he was picking the wings off a butterfly. Merciless and easy.
He continued squeezing long after his target expired. Even after he finally let go, the storm within him continued to rage unrelentingly. The exchange of words caused painful memories of old to flood his mind. His failure, the imprisonment, the torture, and his escape. Decades had passed but these memories remained blindingly vivid. In moments like these, it felt like he had indeed lived too long of a life. The same mistakes and misguided actions were still being repeated among younger generations of shinobi.
'What a waste', he thought as he dropped the lifeless body. A few more years and this bounty would have become even stronger, even offer a worthy heart to Kakuzu. Now, the body would be divvied up for parts or stored whole in some eccentric owner's mansion.
"About time you caught him, Kakuzu", an all-too-familiar voice chided him. Without looking, Kakuzu picked up a large piece from a cracked boulder and hurled it in the direction of Zetsu's voice.
Naturally, it did not make contact. Despite their oddly massive shape, Zetsu was quick and merely split himself in two to avoid being hit.
"That was so mean, Kakuzu-san. What did we do to deserve that?" White Zetsu cried in mock sadness.
"What the hell do you want now?" Kakuzu asked irritably. He was in too foul a mood to fake civility with Zetsu.
"To remind you that the base needs to be ready", Black Zetsu chided.
"Yes, our members will be deployed to this region within the next weeks".
'Fantastic', Kakuzu was tempted to reply caustically.
"And why can't you take care of the base?" Kakuzu challenged. He was convinced that Zetsu was infinitely more suitable for such menial work.
"We have been assigned other missions and watching over our members", Black Zetsu replied.
'Watching over or spying?' Kakuzu did not voice his suspicion.
Instead, he slung the dead body over his shoulder and tersely replied, "It will be done". He started walking away from Zetsu before the urge to slaughter overtook him.
"We will return to see the base in a week", Black Zetsu warned.
"Be careful of the sandstorm!" White Zetsu's voice cheerily rang out as the main body disappeared into the ground.
"This is a marvelous specimen, Kakuzu-san", the bespectacled man glowed with admiration. The expression on his face was akin to that of a child receiving a new toy. Not a perfect analogy given the morbidity of this toy, but the resemblance was undeniable. "Most hunters aren't proficient enough to keep the body in one piece", Hideki continued tooting what he imagined was Kakuzu's horn.
The real-life bounty hunter found these compliments unnecessary; he was secure in the knowledge that his work was clean and impeccable. Ignoring the station master's adulation, he continued counting the cash in the briefcase. As expected, all thirty million was there.
"The money is here", Kakuzu stated matter-of-factly and began walking away.
"Before you leave, Kakuzu-san, did he have any noteworthy possessions? A sword for example?" Hideki inquired. The unencumbered cheeriness in his voice was beginning to irk Kakuzu.
"Nothing that I saw up-close", Kakuzu smoothly lied with his back towards Hideki. The Tachi was securely sealed in a scroll. It felt remiss to give away this unique blade in a bounty station. As a broker, they would only sell it for an even higher price. Sell it or keep it, he was undecided for now.
"That's too bad, I suppose you can never trust rumours", Hideki replied with little emotion. The blade was only a cherry on top of this exceptionally large ice cream sundae, its absence didn't dampen his otherwise cheerful disposition. This bounty station was incredibly remote, so much so that such high-value assets rarely graced them. He would not spit the gift horse in the mouth.
Kakuzu wordlessly left the ghoulish man to tend his new plaything. His head was clearer from the hunt, the pesky emotions that resembled care or concern were beaten to the recesses of his consciousness. It was time to return to the sleepy town and his troublesome subordinate. More importantly, he could not delay the inevitable chore of preparing the new base. Any longer and he would have Pein personally arriving to breathe fire down his neck.
On some level, I knew that I was dreaming. For one thing, Fuyuta had been resurrected in this dreamworld. Also, I was fairly sure that I wasn't still a student.
Yet, here we both were, alone in a dilapidated and empty classroom. I was hunched over a school desk, furiously scribbling answers onto an imagined test. Even in this dream, I could feel the tension. Meanwhile, Fuyuta was standing ominously in front of me, his beady eyes observing every word I wrote on the test.
The test was difficult, there were so many questions. Anatomy, herbology, medicine-making...all within a single test. I was overwhelmed, barely competent enough to answer the questions.
My pencil screeched to a grinding halt.
A patient has severe pain in their lower back, how do you diagnose the root cause and treat it?
Oh no, crap, crap...Why didn't I know the answer?!
To make the matters worse, Fuyuta, my hell-sent invigilator, bleakly remarked, "You have five minutes left".
I was now in a full-blown panic. There were still pages of questions left! I skipped the question on back pain and tried to solve the others in a hurry. I did not get far before Fuyuta reached for my test. But I swatted his hand away and kept writing. He yelled at me; I yelled back. I could not make out what exactly. It soon escalated into us grabbing handfuls of papers and fighting for it.
Somehow, in the chaos of our brawl, I heard a bell chime. Was that the school bell? Please no.
"Wait, I need more time", I pleaded groggily, my mind was still trapped in my conjured dreamworld.
"It feels moot to ask if things are going well", a sardonic voice drifted over to me. The owner of this errant voice was not Fuyuta.
I blinked repeatedly, rubbing my eyes to erase the sleep from them. The layout of the store's backroom came into focus. I could make out the shape of another person under the dim glow of my lit oil lamp. A tall man, covered in red clouds.
'Ah!'
My sensory abilities kicked into overdrive. Yes, there was no mistake, it was him. I fully sat up, "Kak-ugh!"
My jaw suddenly lost all sensation, the words on my mind remained unuttered. To my mortification, I could not even tell if my mouth was hanging open or not.
Kakuzu watched Nao fret over her sudden paralysis. He was mildly surprised when he did not find her sleeping figure in the house, a quick look around that she hadn't been home in a while. Alarm bells immediately started ringing in his head when he thought that she had skipped town to evade her responsibilities. However, that thought was short-lived, he did not peg her as someone so flaky or selfish. Her debt to him demonstrated how selflessly kind she was, of course to her utter detriment. He quickly deduced that she must have been working late at the pharmacy.
As he had assumed, she was there. Although he did not expect such a sight to greet him. She was asleep on the floor, mumbling under her breath, and her face stuck in a disgruntled grimace. When he spoke, she finally rejoined the waking world. Unfortunately, her wits had not returned with her. The odd woman tried to speak his name after he told her never to do that. Now, here she was with a slack jaw and a slow dribble of saliva making its way down her chin. A piece of paper was also stubbornly clinging to the back of her untidy braid, somehow defying all sense of gravity.
This woman had a knack for being disarmingly comical. It annoyed him.
Kakuzu sighed, "I told you not to do that".
'Ah right, the curse seal'. That crucial tidbit had slipped my mind. His fingers formed a sign that I did not recognise and in that moment, a flood of sensation returned to my jaw. I flexed it tentatively before speaking, "Y-you're back".
Kakuzu ignored her statement of the obvious, he was taking stock of the room. It was far more organised than when he had left the former owner's corpse.
'So, she installed some shelves...'. He was strangely sated as there would be no need for handholding.
"You've been busy", he gestured to the neat room and the books on the floor for the late-night study session. I glanced down with slight embarrassment, unsure if I should take it as a compliment. My normally quick and bold tongue seemed to disappear in his presence, it was infuriating.
"I have work for you". It was strange how a statement sounded like an order when it came from him.
"Work?"
Remember when I said that I did not want to walk home alone at night? Well, I wasn't alone this time, but I was unconvinced that walking with Kakuzu was any better. Walking side-by-side with him was unnerving, there was so much that I did not know about him and it was jarring to see him so abruptly again.
"Where are we going?" I initiated some small talk to break the uncomfortable silence. It was quickly becoming the norm with him that he did not elaborate on his out-of-the-blue requests. He simply walked in and then out of the shop, quietly expecting me to follow him. This expedition was taking valuable time from my work in the pharmacy, but I was hardly prepared to argue with him.
"As my subordinate, sometimes you will need to complete tasks. We have a base that needs attention".
"Base?"
His eyes briefly flickered over to me before returning to the path ahead. "Have you forgotten the last time we walked through these woods?"
Oh.
"What exactly am I supposed to do?" I asked warily. The last time I collaborated with him, I was kidnapped and nearly killed.
"The base is unliveable; you need to make it the opposite".
How incredibly vague but it did not sound too life-threatening.
"Okay..."
That was the end of the conversation for now. We walked for another half an hour in stifling silence. Without much stimulating discussion, I looked at the sky. The faint rays of first light were appearing, the night sky was slowly yielding to the morning sun. Dawn was already here. In my decade-long stay here, this was the closest that I had ever been to the valley during the moment of daybreak. It was sublime.
The beauty of the moment temporarily reignited my confidence in the art of conversation, even if my speaking partner was so obstinate.
"Where were you?"
"Hunting".
My eyebrows furrowed in surprise, "A hunting expedition doesn't usually take that long."
"Animals don't, but people do", he answered curtly.
I shot him a bewildered look. 'Did he have another mission?'
He glanced in my direction before elaborating, "I was hunting for a bounty and collected the reward".
'Reward?' My eyes flickered to the large briefcase in his hand. That must have been one hell of a reward.
"What?" He asked irritably, noticing my leering glance.
"Nothing", I answered in a faint voice. It felt foolish to press my luck about the suitcase. An hour passed before we reached our destination, I did not recognise this new entrance. He must have changed it.
His hands moved too quickly for my eyes. The ground before us gave way and unveiled a ramp leading underground. I was grateful for this new amenity; the thought of being hoisted over his shoulder again while he jumped down was stressful in itself. I was already on edge, being here again and walking into this unknown base with this secretive soldier. While every cell of my being told me that this was a bad idea, I ignored it. The fact of the matter was that I agreed to work for him and a debt was to be paid.
"Let's go".
A/N:
Katon: Shōenjin – Fire Release: Burning Circle
Doton: Iwayado Kuzushi – Earth Release: Rock Lodging Destruction
Tachi – A type of sabre-like traditionally made Japanese sword. It was usually used while the wielder was on horseback.
Oof this took a while, apologies for the delay as I am shouldering a big work project. It wraps up in April, so fingers crossed that I can write in the meantime and update this story earlier than May. Please let me know what you think or if you have some helpful feedback, always happy to hear your thoughts ^.^
Also, a big thank you to Little X-Kid for the kind review! It is very much appreciated and hope you enjoy this new chapter too :)