I wanted to make myself my own original cover art so I decided to try it out and made Nobara. I know it isn't much, but I'm happy to finally have a cover of my own. So confetti for everyone! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Anyways, back to the original timeline!
· ☽ ·
From the window, Kakuzu watches the skyline silhouettes, the heavy downpour fogging the Hidden Rain in a veil of gray. The strong shower of pitter-patter against the glass hasn't at all changed much. But as he stands stiffly in the cold of Pain's Tower, somehow, everything looks all too terribly strange for him to feel at ease.
"Do you know you have a strange look on your face?"
As his eyes swivel to the corridor, his brows wrinkle back into a permanent frown at the bulk-bodied puppet master by the narrow space, but Sasori himself remains unfazed even as those green eyes narrow vindictively.
"If you're looking for small talk," Kakuzu says lowly, "then you'll only be wasting your time."
"I'm not here for small talk," Sasori answers.
"Then what do you want?" The green-eyed man hasn't been the most patient either. He's been on edge and just a little bit more he might just kill another Akatsuki member again.
"I didn't take you as someone so foolish, Kakuzu."
And at that remark, Kakuzu's jaw immediately tenses as he suppresses the urge to dismember Sasori right then and there with his tendrils. But when he glares at the puppet master, he didn't expect to be looked at in a way that makes him suddenly feel foolish too.
"It wasn't like you to do that," Sasori continues, as if the other man doesn't already know it. "You should know better than any one of us what that child is to us."
Kakuzu clenches his fist. "I know that."
"Do you?" Sasori asks cynically and Kakuzu's gaze darkens. "I'm not here to fight you but... how sure are you about that, Kakuzu?"
Because Sasori wasn't mistaken that day, when he saw that look in Kakuzu's eyes, when he willingly went out into the rain for her when that masked man stepped away from her. Kakuzu held her like he was afraid, he took her out of Ame in his own volition and Sasori was their spectator.
There hasn't been anything that made the green-eyed man afraid before, and now Kakuzu thinks he should have listened when he had the chance. Because it felt difficult to leave her... to leave her in the borders of sand to be found by someone else that isn't him.
But if it means that he can spare her, then he can bear it.
He has to.
"I'm speaking on behalf of Leader... What you're doing is pointless," Sasori says warningly. "No matter where he is, Akatsuki will have that child."
He?
Kakuzu almost laughs bitterly. They don't even know anything about Kigura aside from her prospects of being useful. They don't even properly look at her.
"You're only putting yourself in a compromising position."
"I don't see how this is any of your business," the green-eyed man says harshly, slipping only for a moment. His expression, it's far too real for Sasori that the puppet master wavers. The flash of expression on Kakuzu's eyes beneath all that inhumanity and blood tainted on him remind Sasori of an age-long loneliness.
"Then do as you damn well please," the puppet master sneers instead, loathing how he is reminded of that abhorrent feeling he doesn't want to acknowledge that he immediately retreats. "Just know... know you'll only hurt Kigura this way."
No matter where he is, Akatsuki will have that child.
When Sasori leaves, Kakuzu smashes the window in as he sees red. The rain roars louder and the cold breeze seeps through the broken glass, but nothing can drown out what's raging inside of him. His unnecessary concern for Kigura and then that man—who was that masked man?
It seems as the time passes, the unknown figure's actions are slowly extending over Akatsuki like a dark shadow. But not only to Kakuzu but also to the organization's so-called Leader who didn't see what happened coming, regardless if Pain knows or not.
Since the beginning, the dark visitor has acted as their pillar of support behind the other member's knowledge. And even though they made an allegiance through their shared agenda for a new world, he is still an unsolved puzzle who has always moved in the shadows that it was hard to make out what his true motives are.
"Why would he do something like that...?" is the first thing Konan, Pain's partner, says when she hears of the news with rightful surprise. Because since Pain took control of Akatsuki's operations, the masked man has never once intervened before.
Whether it be the recruitment of other members after his own first initial selection, how they made their money or what other plans they wished to fulfill, the man who claimed to be Madara Uchiha under the guise of a masked man named 'Tobi' cared little of their morality or any of their other plans.
With the use of the tailed beasts, their shared goal isn't a far away dream. The horned children would have made it all the more possible to achieve, if not more than that, so Pain doesn't understand the masked man's actions at all.
"I need to take care of things behind the scenes," Pain remembers him saying vaguely when asked why he didn't count himself amongst them yet. It was during the time when the internal warfare in the Hidden Rain had just ended through the defeat of Hanzō of the Salamander.
And now, Pain wonders if this is what that man meant.
"What will you do?" Konan asks warily, as if they have any other choice in the matter. Since the beginning, they weren't given the right to intervene with the masked man's personal goals or movements. He is simply a shadow who extended his support out of mutual ambition. So what right did they have to question him now?
"Nothing," Pain answers distantly, because it's the only thing he can say with the way things are. After all, what more can they do? "We can only wait."
As their conversation dies, something in the shadow moves then, subtle enough to go unnoticed from two sensor-nins before it disappears completely.
·
While it rains heavily in Ame, the Land of Wind is a dry desert despite only being parted by a thin line border, where two young chūnins are tasked to patrol the area. But only one of them is quite diligent with his job while the other had other things in mind.
"Can't you quit your nonsense muttering and grumbling even for a moment? It's starting to get on my nerves," one of the two asks irritably.
"I can't help it!" the younger one exclaims exasperatedly. "This heat... This heat is practically cooking us alive like some human barbecue!"
The older chūnin rolls his eyes before turning to wipe the sweat dribbling down his forehead.
His companion's description isn't really quite far from how it actually is. While in other nations, it would still have been a rather chilly morning with winter's peak barely ending, but in the outside premises of Sunagakure the sun feels like it's burning closer than a million kilometers and the sand is hot as hell.
Of course, this is a lot kinder than their summers, but it is no less hard on the chūnins stationed at the burning outskirts.
"By the way... have you heard?" The younger chūnin squints his eyes in the far distance, as if trying to see more than just sand and rock. "There's been tons of talk with the jо̄nins lately..."
"Talk?" the older one asks, barely even glancing at his companion. It seems small talk is not for everybody, but considering they're stuck together for now, he doesn't have much of a choice but to entertain his partner at least.
"You haven't heard anything...?"
When he looks back, the older chūnin still looks like he has no idea what his companion is talking about.
"You haven't?" the younger one expresses his worry before slinging an arm around his annoyed partner's shoulder. "The walls have ears, my friend. A shinobi must acquaint himself with them! You've at least heard of the declining economic profit, right?"
The older chūnin is too unimpressed to answer, but his companion seems unbothered by this and still continues anyway.
"It has been a really rough path for us recently. So, to fix that, I heard our village is planning an attack on the Leaf."
Although initially unimpressed, this new piece of information suddenly makes him look alarmed. "W...What?"
"I know!" His companion throws his hands for dramatic effect. "Exactly my reaction when I heard. I don't think our village could afford anything of that degree at the moment, but ever since that snake visited the Kazekage—"
"Having fun?"
At the voice, the two chūnins immediately jerk up to their feet. "B-Baki-san!"
While they chatted with themselves, they seem to have somehow found themselves shading under the shadow of a large rock and sat comfortably until, well, the severe-looking man caught them lazing around.
"Since you have a lot of time to chat, why don't you cover the east side too?"
And immediately their faces drop. They're about to make excuses, but their voices quickly dwindle to a weak apology instead as they shrink under Baki's hard gaze.
The jōnin is only about the area to inspect the new chūnins' performance, but he's disappointed that they're not taking the task as seriously as they should have. While it's true that it isn't much higher than a regular C-rank job, given the circumstances of what has happened over the past few weeks, it's foolish to let anybody's guard down.
After the consecutive assassinations and the burning of a neighboring town, the other villages have increased their surveillance on ground security, and Suna naturally followed suit. But he feels more wary about what's going on within his village since that Oto-nin paid their Kazekage a visit. And a little bit more wary for his red-haired student...
Perturbed, Baki dismisses his eerie thoughts. Given that he has better things to do than menial tasks and speculating, he turns to return back to the village, but somehow the two chūnins proved to be quite difficult.
"Baki-san..."
"What is it now...?"
They're looking out into the distance. Baki follows their gaze to look, expecting to see an enemy in the vicinity, anything remotely reasonable enough to make them carry such strange expressions, but somehow there is something else.
With the two chūnins following closely behind him, Baki leaps to get a closer inspection, until he comes upon a small figure in the sand that makes his own expression falter.
A child...?
Baki kneels before her in haste, lifting her half-up and supporting her back with his arm. He feels for her rapid pulse, then for her forehead, her skin hot and dry against the back of his hand.
If she had been one of them, the sun would not have affected her so strongly, especially when it's not even the hottest of days in the Land of Wind. Not only that, her attire easily gives her away as a foreigner.
With the great distance she is from the border, he can only deduce she wandered on her own until she passed out. Or someone had purposely left her here.
She looks so frail. Who would have been cruel enough to abandon a child in such a state?
"She's having a heat stroke," Baki mutters gravely as he lifts her in his arms. "I'll take her back. You two, check the perimeter for any suspicious activity and report back to me in the hospital."
Any more longer, the child can die in her condition. The chūnins can only look anxiously at each other as Baki disappears in the gusts of sand.