Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kakuzu blinks into awareness with mild annoyance already sizzling in his mind. It’s not helped by coming into a body surging with unknown chakra, dead-stiff and lined with decidedly unwanted company. He lets others chatter as he looks around, hissing as he recognized one of Orochimaru’s brats in front of him.

Well, whatever is left of him, at least, pale body twisted with something foreign and burning trough itself rapidly. He listens in with vague interest as groups of revived corpses are sent out with orders, but soon finds himself rolling his eyes at this – this child, babbling nonsense about war as if he had any idea about it.

“Now you-” he turns to them last, thankfully, and Kakuzu decides enough is enough.

He raises his arm and grunts in pain as his skin rips to let it fly out, blood spraying around. It flies trough the freak in the Sharingan-baring mask.

“You said you control them!” he shrieks.

“I do!” tainted one snarls and Kakuzu feels the unknown chakra surging around. It latches over his skin and he smirks at he familiar feeling of far more welcomed, familiar chakra sliding over him, cutting the intruder out completely. “How-?”

Kakuzu grabs him by the neck and pulls him up, far too irritated to seek answers.

The one in the mask moves to attack them, but with a swift whistle, kunai fly at him. They pass through him only for a shuriken to curse around him and ricochet one of knives back at him. It stabs into his neck with wet sound and he collapses on the ground.

“How- do you-?!” the one in Kakuzu’s hold gasps. He lets his fingers tighten, drawing blood as he grins at the delightful terror blooming on the pale face.

“Don’t further insult me.” Sasori steps forward and flicks his fingers. There is shouting outside the cave and sounds of bodies dropping, one after another. “Orochimaru had power to justify his delusions, but you?” he snort a laugh before shaking it off.

His fingers snap.

Kakuzu lets the brat go and pulls back his hand, but not without using it to grab Sasori by the arm and pull him close.

“The laugh is new.” He murmurs, wrapping arm around him and brushing his hair out of his fare, letting himself touch the smooth skin while he still can.

Sasori tilts his head, watching him without blinking, as unsettling as he always was even back in human body.

“So is seeing this face without having to work for it.” He strokes a nail down Kakuzu’s face and he flinches, expecting it to catch on the stitching that’s gone.

He glances at his arm, but he doesn’t even lift it fully before a slim hand covers the fresh wound and soothing chakra surrounds it, healing the torn flesh.

“Since when can you do that?” Deidara leans in only to squirm under Sasori’s glare. “S-sir.”

Sasori sighs, leaning on Kakuzu who lets himself wrap both arms around him, warmth of his body a novelty he can’t stop himself from indulging in.

“Ew.” Deidara makes a face before focusing again. “Since when can you heal, too? Would’ve been useful!”

“Healing requires a living body. Heart alone is not enough to allow it to work, though clearly lack of a brain is far less of a problem in you case…”

Kakuzu lets them bicker as usual, feeling tension bleed out of Sasori’s frame with each word. He doesn’t blame him, with hair down and drowning in a robe, Deidara looks more like a child he is than ever.

Children don’t belong in the wars. It’s something he and Sasori always agreed on, a reason why they both tolerated their respective partners without much more than meeting for a drink to complain about them.

Uchiha standing behind him looks even worse, deadly pale and still as a statue,

Kakuzu glances over Nagato’s collapsed body with a sigh. What idiot cannot even properly research techniques he’s about to use on such scale?

He smirks and leans down to kiss the corner of Sasori’s mouth, ignoring Deidara making a face again.

“Seems I won our wager.” He says smugly. “I knew Orochimaru’s brat wouldn’t amount to anything beside a headache.”

“Oh, that’s him?” Sasori looks at the corpse and snorts a brief laugh again. He clicks his tongue in annoyance at a habit he clearly hasn’t wished to go back to, now that he has actual vocal cords again. Kakuzu can’t help but soak in all of it, since who knows how long will Sasori stay in a human body? “What a pathetic waste of skills.”

Kakuzu hums in agreement.

“Apologies.” Uchiha finally speaks up, sounding even more lost than he looks. “I don’t quite – understand?”

“Orochimaru’s little pet experiment seems to have gone wild.” Sasori says reluctantly and Kakuzu wonder why for a moment, looking between him and Itachi. “Seems he planned to use us and many other corpses to wage a war.” He adds and the look of pure fury on Uchiha’s face is surprising, but explains quite a lot.

He always forgets how close the two were, mostly because they tend to find quiet corners while he has to keep Hidan under control-

Kakuzu breathes slowly out and hardens his foot before letting it smash masked brat’s head into a pulp, blood and brain matter splattering on the ground and the pathetic replica of Madara’s gunbai.

“Who even was he?”

“Mask looks like Tobi’s, but he was an idiot.” Deidara shrugs, eyes all but glued to the gore on display. Kakuzu rolls his eyes at his antics and moved to the side. “Made for pretty art at least!”

“Uchiha Obito.” Itachi looks vaguely green on the face, but keeps his eyes on Kakuzu. If nothing else, that shows how young is, not keeping eye on Sasori. “He posed as Uchiha Madara and took control of Akatsuki for his own goals.”

“The brats are getting far to shameless.” Sasori hisses, with the look Kakuzu knows as regret over giving far too quick a death to a pest. He can’t help but agree – for Nagato to be dead in the first place and for the technique to not work on him means he not only died, but did so by resurrecting someone.

He hopes it’s not Konan, that poor girl carries enough guilt as it is.

“Agreed.” He wraps arm around Sasori again and leans down to kiss him briefly again, the soft lip held between sharp teeth so tightly it’s bleeding far too alluring.

“Can you not?” Daidara makes a show of turning his back on them, only to glares at Uchiha.

“Stop trying to make me consider keeping it.” Sasori sees right through him and Kakuzu can only grin back.

“All the more reasons to take the chances while I still have them.” He says lightly before letting his chin rest on Sasori’s arm, considering things. “They’re asked for war, haven’t they.”

Sasori’s grin grows sharp teeth.

“You read my mind - we should give it to them.”

Itachi startles at that and Sharingan bleeds into his eyes.

“Down, brat. We don’t mean people, that’s boring.” Sasori waves a hand at him. “Their precious village system, on the other hand?”

“Yeah, that’ll be fun!” Deidara grins. “I’ll go out and see what’s going on.” He volunteers, which Kakuzu suspects has a lot to allowing him to distance himself from Itachi.

Uchiha still looks unconvinced, hand held stiffly in position to attack.

Kakuzu considers it last time. Had any village been able to fund his experiments, he knows Sasori would’ve been satisfied to never actually fight, but he grew to like his life far too much to be satisfied with it. The villages have grown rich and stagnant as well, proud of their false peace paid for in controlled skirmishes.

Actual war might to them some good and purge the worse of them…

“We can leave Leaf alone and let it burn itself out, I doubt it would take a lot.” He offers, even as he knows he will need to pay the village at least one visit.

“I make no promises.” Sasori hisses again and Kakuzu rubs a hand over his side, smirking at the way it makes Sasori look startled as he relaxes.

“Yes, we can go kill the Hatake while I look for Hidan, I promised you.” He says gently.

It’s almost weird to think back to their first days in Akatsuki, the night where Kakuzu realize he let himself fall for the youthful face and let down his guard. Sasori hadn’t let him live it down and demanded something in a return and promise of killing someone was best Kakuzu could offer.

He still remembers Sasori looking downright haunted as he spit out the name, demanding entire bloodline gone. It was probably the moment Kakuzu fell for him.

Itachi keeps looking over them, fists clenching until the shake from the effort until he final relaxes them.

“Why? We’ve no loyalties to each other.” He asks quietly.

Kakuzu sighs, holding Sasori that bit closer. He thinks back to rare times he did return to Rain, the main headquarters. None of them might’ve been easy, but only genuine relationships can make broken people like them survive for years without ripping each other to pieces. None of them might’ve known how to be a family, but they knew how to get along.

He still remembers Itachi joining them and having to he shows now to boil water for tea or how to wash clothes. He barely passed Sasori’s waist, but he knew better how to saw wounds than mend a shirt, could name more black market bases than food dishes, read secret codes better than kanji.

It was sad to watch and proved beyond shadow od a doubt just how false the current era of peace was.

Maybe old age is catching up to Kakuzu and making him soft, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

Maybe it’s Hashirama’s technique forcing them into new bodies, brains still adjusting to recover memories.

Maybe the world has wasted the chance it was given to improve.

Kakuzu isn’t sure of the reasons, but he’s quite sure of what needs to be done.

“Tell that to someone who didn’t watch you get burned while learning to make tea so Sasori would play go with you.” He says finally and leaves it at that. “Help Deidara gather intel, we need to make a small trip.” He pulls Sasori towards the exit of the cave and grinds when he’s allowed to hold his hand.

Itachi watches them silently for a while, before a crows swoops down to sit on Sasori’s shoulder who glares at it. The bird ignores it in favor of puking up a small scroll into his hand.

Small map with location and seal sequence for slipping into Leaf.

Sasori clicks his tongue and pulls his hand away when Kakuzu crushes it and he mutters apology, his blood still boiling. For this to still be viable despite Itachi abandoning Leaf means it was allowed to remain functional all these years. Kakuzu would know, he watched the protective bubble being put down and cursing whoever invented it as it doubled the time it took for him to break into Leaf to face Hashirama!

“That village will burn.” He says and Sasori hums in agreement.