For Nobara

Chapter 6: She Could Be Mine

A few years after he left Takigakure, fleeing his imprisonment for failing to assassinate Hashirama Senju of the Hidden Leaf, Kakuzu believed he had lost the capability to feel anything else but violent hatred. He made a living through bounty hunting, stealing hearts of powerful shinobi to extend his mortal existence.

But in the span of his long life full of blood, he once believed that he could one day have an ordinary life of his own.

It was what the little humanity left in him had once longed for, a thought that dwells far too often when he wasn't in the midst of a murder or a mission. But in the end, it's something that will also be deprived from him.

Perhaps, an ordinary life isn't really something that he deserves. And a small part of him thinks the same way too.

"Take him to the bounty station."

Inside the large space of the hideout, the demonic statue has long gone along with the other members of Akatsuki and the empty host is left lifeless on the stone floor after the Five Tails has been forcibly extracted out of him. It's one of the first few steps to achieving the organization's goals, but it leaves Kakuzu feeling... hollow.

Initially, it had all been about money. It had always been about money, but lately... lately, his thoughts are filled with things that he has instilled himself not to think about.

Kakuzu crouches down in front of the corpse, but his thoughts are elsewhere.

Kigura... Kigura and her childish demeanor. Kigura who always insolently find ways to agitate him, who just never gets everything right.

Kigura.

How brazen of her—to invade his thoughts just like this.

"Kakuzu..." Pain says, seeming to notice the turmoil in the green-eyed man's knitted expression, noting the way he's been acting strange for the past few days. "It seems you're dwindling away from your objective."

Objective...?

This makes him think of Takigakure, the village that turned its back on him when he had failed that one mission decades ago.

And at the hint of that, Kakuzu feels awfully cold in an instant, something strangely different from what he feels whenever Kigura would hold his hand to seek warmth from him. He doesn't like this feeling. It grips him in a way that he isn't used to and it makes him clench his fist.

"She is not yours," Pain says callously as Kakuzu's jaw clenches. "You know you can't keep her, don't you?"

And it makes him angry at how Pain can easily word it out, but Kakuzu only closes his eyes.

"I know," he says almost too harshly. The words feel rough in his mouth as he looks away, yet he thinks of Kigura and this odd feeling plaguing him that he wonders when his heart... his original heart has ever felt so greedy.

She's not yours to keep.

He closes his eyes as he clenches his fist, because he knows it far too well. "I know..."

·

"What are you doing, un?" the blond-haired boy asks. It's been a while since the extraction finished and a nap should have been the first thing he thinks about, but he can't help but get curious of Kakuzu's partner when he spots her crouched in front of a shrublet of berries for the longest of time that it is almost odd.