Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Poisoned Fate	By : Potnia_Theron Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female Views: 1762 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the characters from it. Unfortunately I do not make any money from the writing of this horrible story.

Chapter List
- 1-Poisoned Fate
- 1
A/N: Okay so...this is the first story I've ever written. But I swear up and down that if you guys see anything I should change, I will. I'm all about constructive criticism, homies. I'm also all about some sweet, sweet Kakuzu ass. I had a Kakuzu/Sakura fic planned, but this one popped up first.

But anyway, this fic is like, super long. Way longer than I had originally planned. So I'm splitting it up into four parts; Part I (with minimal spoilers) will have everything until they get to Akatsuki base, Part II will detail the training, etc, etc...you'll see what I mean when it's posted. For now, enjoy Part I. (if you see Mary Sue, check my note at the end)

It had taken her several weeks of searching and tracking after leaving her village, but Shizuka had finally located her target in some remote village in the Fire Country. What he was doing there and why, she had no idea—nor did she care. All she cared about was bringing him down and righting his wrong.
He and his partner had been in the village only for a few days, and Shizuka had already identified some of their habits, a crucial skill required if she were to plan her attack as meticulously as possible. She knew, for instance, that whenever he showered, he took an extraordinarily long time in the shower, and remained in the bathroom even longer after finishing his shower. This wide window seemed Shizuka's best opportunity, so now all she had to do was trail him and wait until that crucial moment without being noticed by him or his annoying partner.
With a secret smile, Shizuka settled down on the balcony above their room and waited, suppressing her chakra signature as so to be unnoticeable.

* * *

“How long are we gonna be in this dump, anyway? There are like, no cute girls at all and I need a good fuck.”
Kakuzu grimaced at the barrage of unwanted information from Hidan, finally looking up from his never-ending paperwork at his partner who was standing near the doorway, obviously bored of hanging around the hotel room. Not anyone would blame him, given their rather dingy surroundings, but Kakuzu was unsympathetic. “We only need to collect the information from one of the spies in this country. He will be meeting us tomorrow afternoon, and after that we will be on our way. I have told you this a thousand times, can your skull really be that thick?”
“Hey, fuck you old man. It's not my fault I can't remember the boring shit that pierced fucker tells us to do. Maybe he should just tell us to do more stuff I care about, like killing people. Then maybe I'll listen to what he and you have to say.” Hidan snorted, most likely continuing his rant in his head and thankfully not to Kakuzu. His hand tightened its grip on the scythe lazily slung over his shoulder, as if itching to relieve a scratch renewed at the thought of shedding blood.
“Just keep that bloodlust in check until we meet our contact and then you can kill all the random people you want,” Kakuzu ordered Hidan for what seemed the hundredth time that week. “Until then, why don't you entertain yourself finding some broad to fuck.”
Hidan sneered at his partner, dumping his scythe unceremoniously in the corner of the room. “Anything would be better then hanging out in this shithole. I wouldn't even bring any girl I meet back here to fuck, not even the uggos hanging around the bar hoping to get some drunk guy with no standards.”
He stared blankly at Hidan, refusing to voice his response to Hidan's usual barb at his selection of the cheapest room in the village, but internally Kakuzu found himself praying to whatever god existed that Hidan elected not to bring whatever girl he seduced back to the hotel. One could only listen to bedsprings creaking and Hidan's strange mid-coital cursing so many times before wishing to start murdering everything and just never stop. “Do whatever you want, Hidan. So long as you're back by tomorrow afternoon and no bodies are discovered by that time.”
“Heh.” Hidan grinned. “So I can kill anyone as long as I hide the body, then?”
“Given your unimpressive track record of following orders and showing any sort of self-control, I thought that would be better advice than telling you to restrain yourself.”
The murderous priest rubbed his chin. “Some of those uggos did look like they needed to be released from their miserable existence. I mean, did you see some of those girls? Something that ugly shouldn't even have the will to live, don't you think?” It was an obvious jab at Kakuzu's less than handsome appearance, a sore point for the older man.
Kakuzu returned to the paperwork he had been neglecting before him, choosing to once again tune his partner out. “Whatever floats your boat.” After all, who was Kakuzu to have any standards? He couldn't even remember the last time any girl had willingly climbed into his bed. It had been years, for sure. All Kakuzu wanted was for Hidan to go out that door and to take a shower while the ever-blithering imbecile was off fucking some unsuspecting girl.
“You're no fun sometimes, you know that Kakuzu?” When that didn't get a response, Hidan knew Kakuzu had gone back to ignoring him as usual. “Hmph.” Knowing that his only possible source of entertainment in the room was now closed, Hidan turned to the door to go seek diversion elsewhere. “I'll be back.”
“Unfortunately,” Kakuzu muttered. Hidan shot him a murderous glare as the door closed. Finally, Kakuzu could take his shower and not think about bounties or information or his annoying partner for a few minutes.

* * *

Shizuka stirred, feeling the chakra of Kakuzu move in the room. From the direction it was moving, it seemed Kakuzu was about take his shower. Game time.
She didn't quite understand why she was going after the formidable ninja. Her grandmother had told her as she died to seek out the one who had stolen the family legacy—the Jewel of Life. Unfortunately, she had conveniently died before telling Shizuka anything else. Shizuka assumed that she was to simply take the jewel back and return it to its rightful place in the household—now inhabited solely by her now that her only living relative was dead. Perhaps her grandmother had been about to tell her to kill the thief, but when Shizuka had looked through the family archives and learned the identity of the thief, she knew that challenging the almost century-old missing nin would be suicide. So Shizuka determined that all she was to do was steal the jewel back and haul ass out of there before Kakuzu even knew she was there.
Listening closely, she heard the bathroom door close. Daring to move in, she further heard the sounds of the shower starting up. She gave herself ten minutes to search the room, then five minutes to get away. She breathed out slowly, calming herself, then flipped down onto the windowsill. It took her only a few seconds to jimmy the window open, but to the already-panicking Shizuka, it seemed to take forever to unlatch the rusty lock. Cautiously, quietly, she slipped into the room and looked around.
The room was identical to every other in the shabby hotel; walls that once had been white were now stained and covered in pockmarks from thrown items and countless careless moving of furniture, while grimy curtains were drawn over an equally grimy window. A rather dim lamp barely illuminated the room, and as Shizuka squinted around the poorly lit room the gravity of the situation hit her.
She had not even taken the chuunin exam yet—had never even left the Waterfall Village, and here she was breaking into the room of an S-ranked missing nin who was most likely over a hundred years old. Why had she ever thought she could do this? She was going to die!
Calm down. Look around. Find the jewel. Shizuka quelled her chakra before it could spike again, hoping the spike of her anxious chakra had not reached Kakuzu's senses. All she had to do was find the jewel and get out. She had rehearsed this a thousand times, she could do this. Her first target was his coat, lying on the bed. Shizuka took her first step, heading towards the bed, and--
“What, exactly, are you doing in here?” A deep, serious voice asked her, and Shizuka slowly—oh so slowly—turned to see Kakuzu standing in the door of the bathroom, staring at her with intense eyes under eyebrows furrowed in consternation. Shit. Shit. SHIT. He was wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist, the droplets still trickling down his chest a testament to his interrupted shower. Wait, what?
Before Shizuka could further contemplate the present nakedness of her adversary, or reach for her poisoned needles, a huge mass of black threads surrounded her, wrapping tightly around her limbs and neck and slamming her against the nearest wall, next to the bed. “Ah—” The breath was knocked out of her, and Shizuka found that she was now immobilized, unable to do anything but stare helplessly at her target as he advanced on her.
“Curious. You don't seem to be even out of your teens, and yet here you are invading my room. Are you, perhaps, victim to a case of mistaken identity?” Kakuzu stared at her intensely, noting her young terrified eyes and her Waterfall headband. Her simple, loose tunic and skintight black leggings, obscured by the black threads ensnaring her body, told Kakuzu that she was probably not outside the house often and had been raised sheltered—which was why Kakuzu suspected she was ignorant as to who she was challenging. He was more irritated at being interrupted in his one relief of the day rather than the actual intrusion of his presence, and wanted to know what exactly led to this injustice. When she didn't respond, no doubt scared witless, the bonds around her neck tightened, causing her to cough. “Did the village send you, or did you come on your own suicidal mission?”
Shizuka gasped for breath, struggling not to pass out from sheer terror. She was going to die, all for the sake of her damn grandmother who couldn't bear the thought of an old injustice going unpunished. And above it all, she could not stop staring at Kakuzu's well-defined chest and arms, no matter how hard her brain tried to tell her how fucking terrified she should be and how much she should start crying right now and never stop. She had never actually seen a man before, her grandmother refusing to let her go into the village and her father having died shortly after she was born. When one of those aesthetically pleasing arms shifted, reaching up toward her, she panicked. “The—the jewel!”
He paused. “The jewel?”
“The—the Jewel of Life. M-my grandmother told me to retake it from you. I swear!”
Kakuzu's stare became more intense. “Your grandmother? Are you from the Gekidoku clan?”
He wasn't killing her. Shizuka seized that thought. “Yes. My grandmother was Gekidoku Sayuri.”
“Hmph.” His Glasgow mouth twitched up. “And here I thought you all had forgotten about me. It's been decades since I left the village, why come after me now?”
Shizuka swallowed, the threads around her neck releasing their death grip. “Because my grandmother died two months ago, and my parents were killed on a mission years ago. I—I don't even know anything about the jewel, except that it is supposed to grant life to any who wear it.”
“Will you still seek it now, knowing that it is impossible to take it from me?” The threads tightened threateningly. Shizuka dropped her gaze, holding back tears.
“No. I promise.”
Kakuzu watched her for a few more seconds, then stepped back. The threads around her released her, and she fell ungracefully to the floor, immediately moving to massage her wrists. After a few seconds, she still had not moved or raised her head. Kakuzu cocked his head, then noticed her shoulders were shaking. What now? “What's the matter, girl?”
Well, her attempts to hide her sobs had failed. Shizuka looked up, all too aware of the tears dripping unattractively down her cheeks. “I don't know what to do. I've never talked to anyone other than my grandmother before, a-and I don't want to go back to the village and I couldn't even take the jewel, a-a-a-and now I don't even have any reason to live and—”
For the first time in his life that he could remember, Kakuzu was utterly bewildered. First she had snuck into his room, something only someone with a severe case of elephantitis of the testicles would even dream of attempting, then she easily gave up all the information Kakuzu wanted to know, and now she was sobbing in front of the very man her grandmother had told her to steal an ancient family heirloom from, spilling all of her troubles out to him.
He really should just kill her and be done with it. There might be a chance that somehow she would get stronger as she grew older and decide she wanted to cause more trouble. Also it seemed, judging from the sobs that were annoyingly growing in volume, she would not be adverse to being put out of her misery. But at the same time, a rather twisted plan was hatching in his brain, one that would benefit both him and her, as well as prove useful for years to come. It was a plan motivated mostly by his years of forced celibacy, but also by Kakuzu's knowledge of the Gekidoku clan, and the formidable asset a fully-grown, trained Gekidoku ninja could be to Kakuzu and Akatsuki. A fully-grown, trained Gekidoku ninja completely loyal to Kakuzu. Not to mention Akatsuki really did need another poison expert in case something happened to Sasori. And if it didn't work, he could always simply eliminate her and forget the whole ordeal.
“Girl. Stop crying for a second.” The girl looked up in surprise, then hurriedly wiped her eyes, sniffling pathetically the whole time. “What's your name?”
Wait. So was he going to kill her or....? “S-Shizuka. Gekidoku Shizuka.”
“Shizuka. How about you do something with yourself and stop shaming everyone around you.”
What was he angling at? Shizuka stared up at him, dumbfounded. His unsettling eyes, glowing green settled in black, stared back impassively, his motive lurking hidden behind those orbs. She sniffled again, her tears almost forgotten already. “How...”
“Akatsuki could use a decent poison expert, and if I remember correctly the Gekidoku clan is famous for their mastery of poison and antidotes. Having one of your kind would help us greatly with assassinations and healing, and since you don't seem to have anything else in mind...Akatsuki would pay well for your services.” Kakuzu watched her carefully, gauging her reaction. She didn't seem to reject the idea, but then again she seemed too shellshocked to really feel anything. The girl just stared at him blankly, dried tears still on her cheeks.
He was staring down at her, and Shizuka realized he was waiting for an answer. “Um. Y-You want me to work...for you?”
“No, not me. Akatsuki, the organization. I assume you've heard of us.”
Not much recent news came to Shizuka, isolated as she had been. Any news she heard was whatever her grandmother told her. From researching Kakuzu as her target, Shizuka had learned only that Akatsuki was some sort of super criminal organization, recruiting only the strongest of ninja. She was certainly nowhere near that category of ninja, but she knew a lifeline when she saw one. “I—um. I-I'll do my best.”
There were several more tense seconds in which Kakuzu did nothing but stare down at her, gauging her honesty. Finally he broke his gaze and turned away, the tension dissipating. “For your sake I hope so. I'm going to finish my shower, so just sit there and don't touch anything.” Shizuka watched his dark body disappear into the bathroom, then sighed with relief, her shoulders sagging. She froze when his head popped back around the doorframe unexpectedly. “And I assure you, the jewel is nowhere in here where you can find it. If I come back out and you're snooping around, the deal is off and I will kill you.”
They stared at each other for a few more seconds until Shizuka swallowed. “Y-yeah. Sure.”
“Just making that clear.” His head disappeared again and a few seconds later Shizuka heard the shower start again.
With a shaky sigh, Shizuka kicked off her sandals, choosing to leave on her tunic and leggings, and flopped down onto the other bed in the room that Kakuzu's belongings were not scattered on. Feeling the needles in the inside pockets of her tunic bump against her chest, she briefly considered jabbing him in the neck when his guard was down, but the burning in her recently strangled throat advised her against it. She curled up into a ball, willing herself to relax after a rather stressful thirty minutes. Shizuka had not been able to restfully sleep since her grandmother had died, and now, lying on this bed listening to the steady drumming of the water in the shower, knowing that in that shower was a century-old ninja capable of killing anything that walked through that door, Shizuka felt almost peaceful. Soon she found herself drifting off, drowsily noticing the imposing three-bladed scythe resting in the corner before letting herself fade into black.

* * *

Kakuzu emerged from Shower Number 2 with much better success than his previous attempt. He felt relaxed, clean—something he didn't get to cherish often due to his boisterously annoying partner. As he wiped down his hair, he walked out to see that the girl had taken his warning to heart and avoided his bed and possessions entirely and taken up residence on Hidan's bed. Well, Hidan would show her the error of her ways as soon as he came back. But until then Kakuzu intended to enjoy the quiet of the room and the view of the girl's backside as she slept.
He was going to have to train her, Kakuzu could tell, and it would take quite a while. However she had been raised, she had not been raised to be a very good ninja. If he had to, based on his previous observations about her clothing and how she had mentioned never talking to anyone other than her grandmother, he would guess that she had never been sent on a real mission or gotten into any real fights. They were basically starting her from square one, and on top of that he would have to somehow train her in her bloodline limit. It was almost not worth the effort. The girl murmured and shifted in her sleep at that moment, and Kakuzu's eyes were drawn again to her backside, every curve shown by the skintight leggings that she wore under her tunic. It was admittedly a rather lovely ass, even if her body as a whole was not as curvy as Kakuzu usually preferred. But given how young she seemed, the girl probably still had some growing to do. Unfortunate, given that part of his plan had included using her as a possible sexual outlet—something that would have to wait given her obvious youth.
He would train her—as long as she was willing to learn and wasn't whiney about it. If there was one thing Kakuzu could not stand, it was whining. It was one of the reasons he hated Hidan as much as he did—the religious idiot whined about anything and everything that displeased him in the slightest, and was quite vocal about it.
Speaking of whiners...heavy footsteps in the hallway brought Kakuzu out of his contemplation, and he realized he had been sitting on his bed thinking for almost an hour. The doorknob turned, and Kakuzu winced in anticipation of the barrage of noise that was about to spew forth.
“Who the FUCK is that on my bed, old man? Just because I leave to go have some fucking fun for once doesn't mean you can invite over every fucking stogey you happen to know in this shithole and heyyyy she's not baaad.” Hidan rounded the corner of the bed, eyeing the very curves Kakuzu himself had been admiring. He grabbed her shoulder unceremoniously and roughly rolled her over, and Kakuzu saw that she was awake and staring up at Hidan in terror. Her eyes flickered over to Kakuzu, wordlessly begging for help.
She tensed even more when his hand cupped her face, fingers tracing over her skin with an eerie gentleness. “Hey she's got some fucking nice skin. If you're, heh, done with her, she could make a pretty nice sacrifice.”
Kakuzu growled, watching Hidan touch her. Her eyes were flitting between him, Hidan, and the scythe resting ominously in the corner. She was obviously scared out of her mind, even moreso than when Kakuzu had been threatening her against the wall—no doubt due in no small part to the crazed smile on his face and heated hands on her face. “Get off her, Hidan.”
“It's cool, it's cool, I can wait till you're done.” Hidan said, but didn't take his hand off her face. His other hand began moving down her body and Kakuzu surged up and off the bed, snarling. “Off.”
Hidan took one glance at the look in Kakuzu's eyes and knew that for once it was truly unwise to push Kakuzu on this. “Shit, alright.” He eased himself off the bed reluctantly, eyeing Kakuzu curiously. “It's just, y'know, so fucking tempting when she's on my bed and all. Can't help myself.”
As soon as those murderously lustful eyes left her, Shizuka bolted from the bed of the damned and scrambled to Kakuzu's side. The eyes were immediately back on her, but Kakuzu was an imposing presence next to her and she was confident in his ability to protect her. If he wanted to. She glanced up at the older man nervously. His eyes met hers for a split second, and he nodded almost imperceptibly. The meaning of that nod was unclear to her, but for some reason it made her feel safe enough to settle down on Kakuzu's bed.
“She is the newest member of Akatsuki—or she will be, once we head back to base and talk to Pein.” Kakuzu said shortly to Hidan's incredulous huff. “She will be our secondary poison expert. So, if you would, keep your hands off her. Or did you not sacrifice enough 'uggos' when you were out dicking around?”
“Ugh.” Hidan snorted, waving his hand dismissively. “They were all disease-ridden whorebags. It astounds me how ugly bitches can get that many STDs when it's hard enough to look at their face, let alone their saggy bodies.”
Kakuzu let out a long sigh at Hidan's ignorance of proper decorum in the presence of a woman continued as the man detailed his adventures tonight. How the man charmed as many poor girls as he did was an utter mystery. He glanced at the girl to see a look of petrified confusion on her face; she obviously couldn't comprehend half of the vulgarities that were spewing from Hidan's lips, but the little she did understand was bringing a flush to her white face. “You'll learn to tune him out,” He muttered to her, and she nodded at him wordlessly.
Hidan ignored this brief exchange and continued his deluge of obscenities, going into detail about a 'particularly nasty whore' he had sacrificed tonight. Kakuzu sighed again, settling himself in for yet another long night of listening to Hidan's unwanted tirades.

* * *

Hidan had finally run his mouth out, and to Kakuzu's great relief was sprawled out on his bed snoring away after a long night of sacrificing. He himself was lying in repose on his own bed, staring at the ceiling through half-lidded eyes as he drifted to sleep. He could hear the muffled sound of the shower running; the girl had nervously disappeared into the bathroom after Hidan had finally fell silent but had begun to stare at her unsettlingly.
The shower ceased and he heard her then shuffling around the bathroom. “Do you need clean clothes?” Kakuzu called to her. The shuffling stopped abruptly. “Um. N-no.”
“How long have you been wearing those?”
“Um. A couple of weeks.”
Kakuzu grimaced at the thought. “Disgusting. Open the door.”
“Um.” There were a couple seconds of silence, then the door slowly opened and she peeked out. A pair of blue pants and a sleeveless black shirt dangled before her, suspended by black threads. “I have a spare set. Put them on.”
There was more shuffling, then another pause. “Um.”
“What is it?”
“Um. T-they're a little...big.”
Kakuzu huffed. “Come out here.”
The door opened again, and she sidled out. Kakuzu had to restrain a snort at the sight of her holding up her pants and looking strangely uncomfortable. He leaned forward, drawing a thread from his wrist. “Come here.”
Cautiously, Shizuka inched over until she was standing between Kakuzu's legs, obviously made more uncomfortable by the proximity of his face to her chest. His hands came up to rest on her hips and she jumped. “Calm down.”
She looked down to see him bringing the thread from his wrist around her hips. “Tight enough?” She nodded, and he tied off the leg openings so they weren't billowing. “Good.” His hands came back up to her hips, settling there almost naturally. He looked up at her, noting the red coloring her cheeks. “You want me to fix the shirt, too?”
The girl nodded again, probably too nervous to say anything without stuttering uncontrollably. Kakuzu tied another, thicker thread around her midsection, bringing the shirt in and making it look less like a black tent draped on her tiny body, especially since the backless shirt had been sagging dangerously forward. He let his hands linger on her sides, looking up at her. She had the oddest look on her face that didn't seem related to his bodily contact. “What?”
“Um.” She shifted uncomfortably, avoiding his gaze. “I—um. I'm not um, there weren't any clean undert-things.”
“Clean underthings?” Kakuzu stared at her in confusion until it dawned on him. “'So...” His hands moved up, closer to her chest.
Shizuka jerked away, and the particular jiggle that occurred in the vicinity of her chest enlightened Kakuzu to her situation. True, there wasn't much jiggle, but it was enough to peak his interest. Kakuzu allowed himself a chuckle at her blazing cheeks as she stammered something about bras and proper support. “I take it no one's ever touched you there, huh.”
“No!” Shizuka gasped.
Those emerald eyes were burning into her, whatever thoughts churning behind them unknown to Shizuka. “Come here.”
“N-no!” Her denial came out as a strangled stammer. Kakuzu stared at her icily. He didn't have much patience for disobedience from his subordinates. Several threads emerged threateningly from his arms. “Part of our 'deal' is that you obey me and listen to whatever I tell you. Otherwise...”
One of the threads twitched and Shizuka jumped. Another glance at those deadly eyes and Shizuka stepped back between his legs. He stared up at her, eyes still unfathomable. “N-now what?”
He took one of her hands in between his. “Remember, that above Akatsuki, you belong to me.” Shizuka gasped as a sharp burning sensation seared through her wrist. She looked down to see a thread twining through her skin. “And if you disobey me again, this thread will take your hand off.”
Shaking, Shizuka cradled her hand. What had she gotten herself into?
“The burning will subside in a few minutes.” Kakuzu leaned back, lying himself back down on the bed. “Lie down.”
“Um. H-he—with you?” Kakuzu stared at her silently, and her wrist twitched. “O-okay.”
Gingerly, Shizuka lowered herself onto the bed as close to the edge as possible. Her feet touched his and she jerked. “Um. Are you--”
“I'm not moving over.” He said with his eyes already closed. Shizuka sighed and inched closer, her hand brushing his chest. Finally she settled next to him, her head resting slightly on his chest.
Through the now silent room, Hidan's snores reverberated unchecked.

* * *

Kakuzu didn't usually have wet dreams—he had learned to control them because the last thing he wanted to do was wake up anywhere near Hidan with an erection. So finding himself staring down at Shizuka as he pounded into her was more than a little unsettling.
She was choking out moans through the hand she had clamped over her mouth, her other hand clutching his bicep in a death grip as his thrusts shook her entire body. Her eyes were closed, and Kakuzu lucidly wondered if it was because in real life he did not remember what color her eyes were.
It was a strange feeling, having sex but being aware that it was all a dream. Kakuzu couldn't help thinking about how her breasts kept seeming to change size every time he blinked because he never really did get a chance to get a good look at them in real life, but at the same time the sensation of her tight walls gripping him as he slammed her into the bed heated his blood beyond boiling.
Why hadn't he imagined some other girl? Some random broad he might have idly appreciated in passing, or some of those cute waitresses who worked the places near the Akatsuki base that Kakuzu frequented? Instead it was this waif of a girl, who quite honestly was rather average looking with no remarkable features. She was probably pretty young, too, at least fifteen, which made the dream flicker in Kakuzu's consciousness as he contemplated the fact that he was probably imagining himself fucking a young girl.
Yep, that killed it. Kakuzu opened his eyes to stare angrily at the ceiling. She had ruined a good night's sleep with her mediocre body, he ruminated grumpily. He noted the daylight that was beginning to filter through the shabby curtains, slowly illuminating the room enough for him to see that she had shifted in her sleep; now her head and chest fully rested on his chest, her arm strewn across and around. She had thankfully not drooled on him in her sleep, and this left Kakuzu grateful enough to nudge her awake rather than shoving her onto the floor.
“Mm...wha...” She rubbed her face irritatedly into his chest, resisting the nudges. She froze, and Kakuzu watched in amusement, pinpointing the exact moment she realized where she was. “Um.”
Abruptly she lifted her head, looking up in terror. His face gave no clues to whether he was irritated with her commandeering of his body for use as a pillow, but all the same Shizuka decided it was a good idea to vacate the bed. Hurriedly she adjusted herself, pulling her shirt back down and making sure her pants had not rebelled and fell down. Running her hands through her hair, Shizuka nervously glanced back at Kakuzu, who was now swinging his legs over the side of the bed and stretching out the kinks in his back.
Getting old was hell, Kakuzu thought with a small huff. Though he used various techniques to keep his body immortal and in a somewhat suspended state of existence, he still got the most vicious backaches in the mornings, especially on cold days. He saw the girl wince out the corner of his eye as he popped several vertebrae simultaneously, and thought about asking her if she knew how to massage but decided against it. She didn't seem to know much about anything; Kakuzu was starting to think she had lived a rather sheltered life.
“Be ready to leave in an hour,” Kakuzu said shortly, struggling not to show how much his back hurt as he shuffled to the bathroom. It would subside in an hour or so, but his back was the reason Kakuzu was not a person to talk to at any time in the morning. But then, Kakuzu was not really the best person to talk to even on his best days.

* * *

Shizuka ducked out to where she had been holed up the past few days, gathering up her stuff while Kakuzu was occupied in the bathroom. Her herbs—her life, practically—and her books, as well as her various 'ninja supplies' as she called it—what few kunai and other weaponry her grandmother had left her, but mostly Shizuka carried needles coated with poison extracted from her precious herbs. Above all, she found her spare clothes, thank the gods. Kakuzu's clothes were comfortable enough, but going commando was not the most ideal situation. Dear gods, the chafing. Shizuka shoved all of this in her bag and hurried back to the hotel, shimmying through the window just as Kakuzu opened the bathroom door. He raised an eyebrow at the bag but said nothing.
Taking a set of clothes out of her bag, Shizuka hurried into the bathroom to change. She sighed in relief as she slid on a pair of plain cotton panties—utter comfort. She had been wearing the other set for weeks, not daring to get the other set dirty since she had not had an opportunity to do any laundry. Now she was thanking the gods again for her foresight, as now she did not have to rely on the rather revealing sleeveless shirt Kakuzu had provided; if she had bent over once he would have been able to see everything (not that there was much to see), not something Shizuka wanted to risk. She pulled the simple tunic over her head; she had run out of bindings for her chest, leaving only her shortsleeved fishnet shirt to minimize chafing. The tunic would at least cover everything, and honestly she did not have that much to bind, a fact Shizuka often reflected remorsefully upon whenever she looked at her woefully flat chest. Her grandmother told her that all the women of her clan were well endowed, and she was simply a late bloomer, but still Shizuka was skeptical.
Finally she stepped into her leggings and sandals. It was a simple ensemble, not made for turning eyes or making an impression. It was simple and functional, just how Shizuka liked it.
Knowing Kakuzu was probably waiting for her, she quickly swished some water in her mouth. She would give anything for a toothbrush right now, but for now this would have to do. Akatsuki would provide toothbrushes, wouldn't they?
Shizuka spat out the water into the sink, and as she raised her head she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror—the first time she had actually seen herself since she had left the village. The same face looked back at her as it had then, slightly skinnier and more worn from her stressful past weeks. Her nose was too big for her liking, and her eyes looked too wide open, as if she were constantly surprised. Her lips were thin, not full-lipped like the lips of those heroines she read of in novels, the kind with flowing hair and perfect noses and lips and cheekbones. She poked her cheek, not sure what perfect cheekbones were supposed to look like, but assuming that her own probably looked the complete opposite.
Oh well. She shrugged to herself in the mirror, watching her counterpart shrug in response. It wasn't as if she were looking for anyone's approval. Sometimes she wondered why she obsessed about her appearances so much, but her grandmother had always assured her that she was beautiful enough for her.
A sudden rap on the door confirmed her theory on Kakuzu's impatience on the other side of the door, and Shizuka shook herself back into reality.
The girl opened the door as soon as he knocked irritatedly, and Kakuzu gestured to the other door. “Ready?” She nodded, and Kakuzu found himself noting that her eyes were green—a darker shade than his own, more of a forest green. Well great, now in the next dream he could imagine her eyes open as he fucked her.
Wait, what? No. No. He shook his head, turning to the main door as he walked away from her.
Shizuka noticed Hidan's sleeping figure on the other bed. “Um, what about him?”
Kakuzu glanced over at his lazy partner and grunted in contempt. “Leave him. He'll catch up.”
Taken aback by his callous consideration of his partner, Shizuka glanced at Hidan again before hurrying to follow Kakuzu out the door.

* * *

“That's all I have to report, Kakuzu-sama,” A man with a cloth over his face similar to Kakuzu's was saying to Kakuzu. Shizuka watched half-interestedly, not quite following the conversation as most of the information meant nothing to her. Neither of the men paid any attention to her; it seemed the masked man was reporting something to Kakuzu, obviously, but it didn't seem that interesting.
“All right. Keep observing the situation and report to us immediately if anything changes.” Kakuzu said finally.
“Yes, Kakuzu-sama.” And with that, the man disappeared with a teleportation jutsu. Shizuka watched his departure enviously; she still did not know how to use that technique, and couldn't wait to be able to flicker here and there like an elite ninja.
Kakuzu probably knew how to use it, she mused, staring absently at his back as he started walking again. She followed automatically, lost in thought. Kakuzu probably knew a lot of techniques and fighting styles, and if he actually mentored her she might learn more from him than she had from her grandmother, who had only taught her plants and poisons. She wondered if Kakuzu knew anything about plants and poisons, then stifled a snicker at the imagining of Kakuzu being astounded by how much she knew in that area of expertise. “Dang you sure know a lot about poison.” “Why yes, I could probably poison you, Kakuzu.” “Dang I bet you could.”
With a start, Shizuka realized that the subject of her thoughts had been staring bemusedly at her, since she herself had been staring relentlessly at him as she had been thinking to herself. “Um. I-I wasn't—I was just thinking—I wasn't staring at you.”
“Well your eyes were certainly boring a hole in something in my vicinity. What were you thinking about so intensely?” Kakuzu asked, a note of amusement in his voice.
“Um. P...um...plants.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Plants?”
“Um, yeah. They're pretty, um, cool.”
“...huh.” With another bemused glance at her, Kakuzu turned back around, shaking his head. He paused, then, cocking his head. “Do you hear that?”
Shizuka subconsciously mirrored him, cocking her head as well. “Hear what?”
“Footsteps. Loud ones, in a hurry. They're coming towards us.”
“Is it an enemy?” Shizuka asked nervously, looking around. She could faintly hear the footsteps now, and what also sounded like loud cursing.
Kakuzu sighed. “No, but...get behind me.”
Hurriedly, Shizuka shuffled behind Kakuzu, standing close to his back. He didn't change his stance, but merely stood there unmoving as the footsteps grew louder.
“You cocksucking son of a whore!” A scythe swung towards the two out of nowhere, and Shizuka gasped at the suddenness. Kakuzu did not visibly react, but his threads exploded out of his body and deflected the scythe effortlessly.
Still cringing, Shizuka looked up to see an enraged Hidan swinging the scythe again, this time at Kakuzu's head, screaming various obscenities about Kakuzu's mother. The threads wrapped around the head of the scythe, halting its progress, and Kakuzu took advantage of Hidan's pause to give him a solid kick to the abdomen.
Hidan was sent flying backwards, his hand wrenched from the scythe still arrested in air by Kakuzu's threads. Kakuzu carelessly tossed the scythe aside, ignoring Hidan's scream of rage. “What is it this time, Hidan?”
“You left me in that shitty hotel and made ME pay the fucking bill!” Hidan snarled, launching himself again at Kakuzu.
“Well, I hope you had enough money left over from your adventurous night last night,” Kakuzu replied nonchalantly, parrying Hidan's savage kicks and punches with little effort.
“Fuck that! I killed everyone in that goddamn hotel! It took so fucking long I almost didn't catch up with you fuckers!”
Kakuzu blocked a particularly forceful kick, using Hidan's momentum against him and throwing him to the ground. “I'm sure the both of us would have been quite upset if we never saw you again.”
This prompted Hidan to glance over at Shizuka, who met his gaze with trepidation. “Oh yeah. I'd make sure to see her again.” The glint in his eyes made her shudder, and Kakuzu slammed his foot into Hidan's abdomen more forcefully than before.
“Fuck off Hidan, she's not yours.” Kakuzu followed up the kick with another to Hidan's head, and Hidan fell back, disorientated.
Another savage kick to the head and Hidan was on the ground mumbling something about proper timing of washing cycles and correct amounts of detergent. “There,” Kakuzu said in satisfaction. “He'll come to in a few minutes, but he's gotten over his murderous part for now.”
Shizuka stared down at the babbling Hidan—he had moved on to the debate between sheets and liquid fabric softener, and was getting rather obscene about the unrecognized importance of dryer sheets in today's society.
“Get him up on his feet, we have a lot of ground to cover to get back to the base.”

* * *

Hidan had recovered fairly quickly—a few hours later—but was still relatively complacent, plodding along in a dreamlike haze as they walked. Shizuka suspected he had a concussion, but Kakuzu was mysteriously uncaring when she voiced her suspicions.
Well, at least he wasn't scaring the crap out of her. Instead, for the past few hours he had been holding a quite pleasant, if scatterbrained, conversation about proper laundry procedures as they walked along a path in a forest that seemed to be used only seldomly. In the first thirty minutes alone Shizuka had learned to separate her loads to prevent colors from fading and bleeding—for instance one should wash reds separate or with denim to prevent the red from bleeding into other colors. Good to know if Akatsuki made her do laundry.
Kakuzu was the one creeping her out, surprisingly. He kept turning his head ever so slightly and pinning her with these strange looks as she talked to Hidan. She couldn't comprehend the meaning behind his frequent glares; he was probably just making sure Hidan didn't recover and start throttling her, Shizuka reasoned.
Currently Hidan was staring off in space, frowning in consternation at some unknown thought. Probably trying to recollect himself, if the occasional glare he sent her way was any indication. Shizuka started inching closer to Kakuzu as they walked, who gave her another glance but seemed less...angry as she moved farther away from Hidan.
“How much farther to this base?” She asked Kakuzu, smiling at him in an attempt to get on his good side. It was met with a suspicious look.
“Another couple days of walking. I'm in no hurry.”
She glanced up at him. He didn't seem quite as imposing as he had in the hotel room, and wasn't replying as shortly as he had earlier. Perhaps she could start endearing herself to him, or learn more about him at the very least.
“So, um, what exactly do you do?”
Kakuzu turned his head to fully view her, his eyebrows furrowed. “Do what?”
“Um, like in Akatsuki. What all do they have you do?”
He sighed, cracking his neck. “The usual. Assassinations, bounty hunting, gathering information, delivering information and items, protecting clients.”
Would she have to do all that? “Sounds like they keep you pretty busy.”
“Yeah.”
Even a disorientated Hidan was a better conversationalist than Kakuzu. Shizuka was having a hard enough time; the only person she had ever had a real conversation with was her grandmother, who was considerably less cold and threatening than Kakuzu. Half the time Kakuzu had asked her something Shizuka hadn't been able to stop herself from stuttering in response. But dammit she wasn't going to back down. She mustered up her courage. “So...how long have you been in Akatsuki?”
Kakuzu spared her another suspicious look. “Long enough.”
“Um, why did you join?”
“The money.”
“S-so the money's good, then?”

“Yes.”
It was almost as if he were consciously trying to shut down her conversation attempts. Well, considering the looks he was piercing her with, that was a more than likely possibility. “So, um, what do you do with your money?”
A long sigh. “I save it.”
“You don't spend any of it?”
“No.”
“What are you saving it for?”
Another long sigh. “A rainy day.”
Shizuka put what she hoped was a charming smile on her face. “That must be one rain—”
“Shut UP holy SHIT!” Hidan had finally gathered himself together. “The old fucker doesn't want to fucking talk to you, take a goddamn hint you stupid floozy.”
Kakuzu gave yet another long sigh, but she could have sworn she saw a hint of his lips curving up under his mask. “And he's back.”
With a disappointed huff, Shizuka hunched her shoulders and diverted her gaze to the ground, not looking forward to the next few days of walking.

* * *

Shizuka wasn't sure which she disliked more; the walking or the camping. It was as if as soon as the sun went down and they settled in some random part of whatever forest or plain to camp Kakuzu turned into a different person. A more handsy person. He never outright groped her—never came close to that moment in the hotel room—but he definitely touched her more once Hidan plopped down and started snoring.
Right now he was sitting with his back to a tree, his legs sprawled out before him on the leaf-covered ground. Shizuka had cautiously lowered herself into his lap at his beckoning and was sitting awkwardly sideways in contrast to how his hand was resting casually on her hip.
It was odd how he refused to talk to her during the day, but here in his lap he became quite the conversationalist. He would ask her questions about herself, and would answer a few questions of her own—though his answers stayed as short as they were during the day.
“How old are you, again?” He was asking her for what seemed the tenth time.
Shizuka glanced up at him. “I-I've told you like five times.”
“I forgot five times, obviously.” He got pretty snarky at these times, too.
“Seventeen. M-my grandmother said that when I was eighteen she would initiate me as an official clan member.” Shizuka looked down at her hands. “But, um, I guess there's no one left to do that.”
The hand on her hip slid up and down occasionally, and it always unnerved Shizuka with its warmth. It was pleasant, but for some reason Shizuka thought she shouldn't be enjoying it.
Kakuzu raised an eyebrow at the random blush but otherwise ignored it. “So your grandmother was the only person you've ever seen in your life?”
“Y-yes. She never let anyone in the house—said she had to protect me because I was the last of our clan. I, um...I had a lot of books to read. I guess I never really needed anyone else.” Shizuka fiddled with the edge of her tunic, running the fabric between her fingers. Anything not to look up into those green eyes staring at her relentlessly. “I also had m-my plant garden. My grandmother encouraged me to grow and use my plants for poisons and flavoring our food and making medicines.”
“You ever mix the plants up? Put poison into your chicken?”
She smiled despite herself. “Um—no. Grandmother knew the plants like the back of her hand. She could instantly tell if I ever put the wrong extract in food.”
Up, down, up down. The hand was moving again. Kakuzu had a strange look in his eyes when she glanced nervously up at him. “So...you've never seen a man before? In your entire life?”
“Um. No.”
“Your grandmother ever tell you about men?” His face seemed to be closer to hers, but she didn't dare look up to confirm that.
“Um. She told me to find a good man w-who's strong and can provide and—” She cut off abruptly, ducking her head again and trying to hide behind her hair.
It was probably more amusing than it should have been, prying her for information about her personal life—not that there was much of a personal life to speak of. But the way she had cut her sentence short and was blushing something fierce through her bangs caught Kakuzu's interest. “And what?”
She mumbled something incomprehensible, hands threatening to rip the fabric of her tunic with the stress she was putting on it. Kakuzu pressed her. “What?”
“A man who can give me a lot of good kids,” Shizuka blurted out, the mortified look that immediately spread on her face widening Kakuzu's grin.
Oh, this was pure gold. She was really making it too easy. He let his clothed lips brush against her ear as he spoke. “Do you even know how a man gives you good kids?” Kakuzu saw a shudder go through her body.
“Y-yes,” she replied indignantly. “A man has, um, s-sex with me and p-puts his kids inside me. I read it in a book.”
His lips were against her neck, now, and she could have sworn she could feel their heat through the cloth. “And do you know what sex is?”
He felt the muscles in her throat move as she swallowed. “The um, penis of the um, man goes into the v-vagina,” she said faintly. One could fry an egg on her cheeks at the moment.
It was so hot. When had it become so hot? The heat from his hand was radiating out to her entire body. She didn't know why, but somehow Shizuka felt a sort of electric current in her body, some sort of anticipation of some event she had no idea. Even his eyes were burning into her, watching her every twitch.
“And,” the lips were moving against her neck again, making her shiver. “When does that happen?”
Her hands became more violent with the edge of her tunic in her lap, and faintly she heard the sounds of tearing. Kakuzu heard it, too, and his other hand clamped down on her hands. She jerked in surprise with a sharp intake of air, but valiantly carried on. “M-my grandmother said that when I turn eighteen and I'm, um initiated into the clan she would find me a man and he would g-get me pregnant and further the lineage.”
Something seemed off about that to Kakuzu. “She didn't seem too concerned with priming you to be a decent ninja.” He didn't voice the thought that with her sheltering and 'protection' it seemed her grandmother's only concern was not for her granddaughter but for the continuation of the lineage. Training Shizuka to be a ninja would only put her in the path of danger and possibly get her killed before she could have kids. So the only solution was to lock her away and never let anyone get to her before she got a man.
Shizuka looked at him then, curiously. “W...what are you trying to say? My grandmother l-loved me.”
“I'm sure she did.” Kakuzu decided to let the matter rest, not wanting to possibly turn her against him. He needed to make her comfortable with him, so he could more easily train her and eventually seduce her—when she got a little older. She was seventeen now, but anything past heavy petting would not feel quite right to Kakuzu at her age. All he had to do, basically, was dig his fingers in before any of the idiots at Akatsuki could get at her. When she turned eighteen though...one year wouldn't make much difference, but to Kakuzu it was just the principle of the matter.
Gradually he noticed her hands were twitching in his grasp. He let go and her hands moved to rest against her chest protectively. It was obvious she was at about her limit, and Kakuzu decided that was enough for tonight. He could only make so much progress in one night, a frustrating fact given the limited number of nights they had before Shizuka was in a sense thrown to the wolves.
His hand on her hip lifted, finally, and Shizuka knew that was her cue to go to bed. Kakuzu laid his cloak down as usual and laid down on it, then beckoned for her to lie down beside him. She laid stiffly next to him like she did every night, knowing that she would wake up draped over him no matter how hard she tried to focus somehow on staying still.
“Good night, girl.” Kakuzu said, his eyes already closed.
There was a pause, and Shizuka replied for the first time. “Good night, Kakuzu,” she said softly. His eyes opened briefly to look at her, then closed again.
As always, Hidan's snores served as the background to their night.

* * *

Kakuzu kicked Hidan awake as Shizuka stumbled off to relieve herself in privacy before they started moving again. “Wake up, dipshit.”
Hidan snarled at him, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “You're a real fucking charmer, you know that?” He looked around. “Where's the bitch?”
“She's going to the bathroom. Don't go bothering her like you did yesterday.” Yesterday morning Hidan had startled the half-awake Shizuka in the middle of her toilette, and her screams had brought down the attention of a couple Konoha ninja who had been nearby. Killing the ninja was no problem in itself, but Kakuzu wanted to keep as low a profile as possible to avoid trouble.
Hidan was giving him a weird look, smirking at Kakuzu. “I know what you're doing, you know.” Kakuzu raised an eyebrow at Hidan. “You're trying to butter her up, get in her pants before we get to base.” Both eyebrows were now furrowed at him. “Yeah, it's pretty obvious. But hey, hey, I understand. Gotta get her while her standards are down and she doesn't know better.”
Kakuzu rolled his eyes. “What are you getting at, Hidan?”
“Isn't it obvious? Once we get to base, she's a goner.” Hidan looked around exaggeratedly, as if Shizuka were hiding behind a bush listening. His voice lowered. “Deidara told me once that he can get a girl to orgasm in under two minutes.”
The older man looked at Hidan in bewilderment. “Wh—no he can't. He told you that?”
“I don't know, but you gotta wonder what he can do with three mouths,” Hidan said, a wicked grin spreading on his face. “So I mean, you just have to keep that in mind before we get to base.”
The rustling of leaves signaled the return of Shizuka, who had a peaceful smile on her face. She smiled brightly at the two men standing together looking at her. “Are we going?”

* * *

Usually Kakuzu was excellent at tuning out anything Hidan said to him, but that whole day he could not stop thinking about what Hidan had said to him that morning. Shizuka had learned to not bother trying to make conversation during the day, but kept glancing up at him.
Hidan was right, for once. Kakuzu's success was dependent on the fact that Shizuka had been so sheltered her whole life; she had never seen a man and so, as Hidan noted, her standards were extremely low. She didn't know yet there were men more attractive than Kakuzu—didn't even know what she was supposed to consider attractive. But one glance at Deidara or Itachi and he would be back to being forever alone.
After all, what girl would want an old man with unnaturally dark skin and inhuman stitches permeating his whole body when she could have some pretty boy with perfect skin and a flawless face? Deidara was the biggest danger; one week with him and her virginity would be history. Itachi would probably keep his distance, but if he were restrained to the base for a longer period of time than usual he may turn to the pretty young girl to relieve his boredom. There was a shortage of females in the Akatsuki base; Konan was the only female in the entire building, and she was off-limits to anyone but Pein.
He had to establish a connection with her, a real connection that didn't rely on his intimidation of her or the threat of the thread in her wrist. One with, dare he think of it, feelings. This was not Kakuzu's forte, but the success of this plan hinged on her actually liking him and preferring him to other males despite their physical attractiveness.
This was not going to be easy. But, he might as well start now.
“Hey,” Shizuka's head snapped up in surprise at his voice. “Are you, uh, doing alright?” He could feel Hidan's incredulous stare burning into his back.
“Um. I-I guess so. Why do you ask?”
He didn't have to look back at Hidan to know that he was probably starting to smirk, realizing what Kakuzu was up to. “Well, I just thought that, with your grandmother dead and your life turned upside down you might be a little, uh, out of it or need help.”
Shizuka stared at him for a few seconds, unsure of what to think about his sudden concern. “Um. Well...I guess I've been thinking about it a lot and that's kept me c-calm.” She was sporting that twitchy smile Kakuzu noticed sometimes when she thought of something funny to her. “It was kind of, um, a relief when I really thought about it. Because, well, if I had just gone home I wouldn't have known what to do—I d-don't know anyone in the village and don't know any r-real skills. But now I have somewhere to go and, um, someone to be with.”
Hidan let out a disbelieving huff behind them, but Shizuka obviously did not realize the second meaning behind her last sentence.
“Well, given what you've told me, I'm sure you could have opened some sort of business selling your herbal extracts or even your poisons. Assassins pay good money for a good poison.” It was the truth; so many times Kakuzu had been forced to approve use of Akatsuki funds to buy poisons and drugs—and herbalists and pharmacists charged so much money for their good products. It was highway robbery, plain and simple, in Kakuzu's mind. Sasori was excellent at making his own poisons, but often he refused to share them with the rest of Akatsuki. He maintained some bullshit reasoning that he wanted to keep his poisons unique; if he simply gave his poisons to every “dipshit assassin” that came by his door, everyone would eventually have antidotes to his poisons and he'd have to keep manufacturing new poisons, a time-consuming task. Being referred to as a dipshit assassin had not gone over well with Kakuzu and Pein, but even beating the shit out of Sasori had not forced him to give up his poisons.
She looked thoughtful at his suggestion. “Grandmother said once that our clan had been prosperous and one of the biggest sources on the continent for poisons and medicines. But as we started diminishing in numbers, there were less of us to produce the goods and the clan started losing power.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “She also said we only sold the poisons extracted from the herbs, though.”
“'Only' the poisons from the herbs? So there was another source you didn't use?” This whole 'conversation' thing wasn't as hard as he'd thought it would be. Once Kakuzu had gotten her on a topic she was familiar with—and there weren't many of those—her stuttering mercifully disappeared.
“Yeah. Grandmother said once a full-blooded ninja of our clan reaches a certain age, they begin producing poison within their own body. We actually have glands that used to be part of the lymphatic system that evolved from filtering foreign substances to filtering poisons to even filtering and producing poisons of their own. Now the ninja of our clan have full-fledged poison glands that can break down any poison, reproduce it and secrete it, or even secrete the antidote derived from the broken down poison.”
Even Hidan was listening attentively at this point, fascinated by the idea of poison glands in a human body. “So you're like, immune to all poisons and shit, then?”
“Theoretically, a ninja of our clan in full control of his body would be able to ingest any poison and break it down into a harmless substance. We're even able to do it unconsciously. Most ninja in our clan are impossible to poison—or were impossible, when there were still a lot of us.” She looked a little sad at the thought of her clan's downfall. However, she caught sight of something on the horizon and was distracted from her contemplations. “What city is that?”
“Ah.” Kakuzu looked where she was pointing. “That is our destination; Amegakure. This is where the Akatsuki base is located.”
“What? But I thought we were still in Fire Country?”
Kakuzu looked down at her confused face. “Uh, we crossed the border a couple of days ago. Did you not notice the change in landscape?” The differences between the two countries were fairly obvious; Fire Country tended to be populated with dense forests, while this new country was largely vast plains of grass flattened down by frequent monsoons, the ground becoming increasingly muddy the closer they got to Amegakure, where it rained constantly.
“Of course she didn't notice, she was staring at your ugly mug the whole time. That shit is seriously distracting, it's like watching a constant train wreck between two trains filled with mutilated, bloated corpses.” Both Shizuka and Kakuzu turned to glare at Hidan, then, who looked back at them with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Oh? Did I hit a nerve, fuckfaces?”
“Good to see you still haven't lost any of your charm during your mission, Hidan.” A voice by their feet drew their attention, where Zetsu stared up at them as he came up from the ground. Shizuka yelped in shock, terrified at this new development of a plant man with hollow, blank yellow eyes.
Those soulless yellow eyes turned to her, and half of his face turned up in a grin filled with sharp, sharp teeth. “And who is this, then? A present?” Shizuka blanched as she could have sworn she saw him lick his lips.
“You wish, freak,” Hidan snorted. “You probably never get to eat any pretty young girls, you get all the old, decaying uggos.” Kakuzu grimaced at the mental image, watching Shizuka and Zetsu's staring contest.
“That is true,” Zetsu's darker half mused, eyeing Shizuka's smooth skin. “I haven't had young, supple flesh in quite some time. It's quite...juicier and more flavorful than the usual.” His dark hand stroked his mouth thoughtfully, and even Hidan seemed to start feeling creeped out at how the conversation was turning. Shizuka was breathing hard now, panicking at the heavy gaze Zetsu was subjecting her to, and the motion of her chest only drew more attention from his darker half.
“So if this enticing little morsel isn't intended for us, then what, exactly, is she doing here?” Zetsu's lighter half inquired, seeking to distract himself from the temptation as his dark side continued to stare Shizuka down.
Kakuzu finally interjected, growing annoyed at how Zetsu continued to ogle her breasts. “She's a new recruit. A poison expert in training; she knows how to extract poisons and medicines from herbs already, and soon will provide us with poisons and antidotes in large quantities.”
“Herbal extracts?” Zetsu finally broke his gaze away from a relieved Shizuka. “But I already take care of that for the organization.” He looked a little hurt, astoundingly.
There was a derisive snort from Hidan. “Whenever I touch anything you made, I feel like I'm touching something you've probably stuck your dick into, you plant freak.” Zetsu looked offended but didn't deny it, which made Kakuzu seriously reconsider ever accepting any more medicine from the man.
“She would be able to produce it faster and with more complete accuracy,” Kakuzu said, giving a real reason, though storing Hidan's comment in his memory if he ever forgot why he should never use one of Zetsu's herbal extracts ever again. “So you would be free to conduct more experiments or...whatever it is you do, really to your plants.” Hidan muttered something about fucking the plants under his breath, and yet again Zetsu gave him a pained look but did not deny it.
Zetsu glanced at the girl again. “Well, I suppose I would like more free time in my life.” There was yet another muttered, sexual comment from Hidan but he chose to ignore it. “But I digress; I am out here to inform you that Pein would like to see you in his office when you get to the base. I simply met you further out here because there were some plants I needed to collect. So I suppose I will see you back at the base.” Without further ado, he disappeared back into the ground, no doubt eager to escape any more comments from Hidan.
“What a freak. I knew he was into his plants but goddamn.” Hidan eyed Shizuka, who still looked shaken from the ordeal, and leered at her. “I guess you'd better watch out for him—he might try to eat you when you ask him for some plants to do your poison shit with.” Shizuka grew even paler at the thought, and Kakuzu sighed.
“Shut up, Hidan. I'd rather not have her be a stuttering mess when we see Pein, and I'd rather we get to the base before Zetsu catches up with us again, so let's go.”
Hidan grinned. “Yeah, yeah. Come on, bitch,” he said, directing his attention to her again. “Time to throw you to the dogs.” They started walking again, Shizuka watching the ground nervously the whole time lest Zetsu pop out and try to eat her.

A/N: Oooh, Potnia, Gekidoku is such an original clan name. No one's EVER thought of that. Suck a dick, I'm not good with Japanese and I'm not even going to pretend.

I promise Shizuka's whiny, scaredy-cat Mary Sue personality is intentional and won't last long. As she grows stronger as a ninja and establishes her own personality, you'll see less of the Mary Sueness.
- 1
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Poisoned Fate