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"Kakuzu..."
"..."
"Kakuzu."
"..."
"Kakuzu !!"
"What ?"
"Pay attention to me !"
"No."
Hidan, being the little brat that he was, started ranting and threatening his team-mate (who wasn't giving a single fuck about it). The young man's rant devolved into a poem about Jashinism and all the things he was gonna to do Kakuzu, and the nukenin just tuned him out, tired.
But suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks, Hidan crashing against his back like a particularly undignified potato sack. The young man shrieked in anger but Kakuzu slapped a hand on his mouth and pointed at a path between the trees. Hidan actually stopped being a brat for two minutes and looked at what his companion had spotted.
Approximatively a furlong away from them, there was a squad of fourteen Kumo shinobi, carrying a large wooden bucket, sealed to hell and back. The shinobi seemed twitchy and battle-worn. They were eyeing their load with something akin to fear.
"What the fuck are they doing ?" Hidan whispered-shouted.
"No idea," Kakuzu replied drily,"but you see that bucket ? It screams valuable. I bet it's worth a shit-ton of money."
"It's always about money with you," Hidan pouted.
"Stop complaining, you'll get to kill people."
Hidan snickered and the two partners in crime rushed to intercept their victims. It didn't take them a long time to kill every single one of them. Kakuzu waited patiently for Hidan to finish his ritual before they turned their attention to the bucket. Kakuzu recognized some of the seals as sleeping seals, and he briefly wondered what was inside.
It took them some time to deactivate them all (Hidan got shocked a few times, to his team-mate growing amusement), but finally they were able to open the bucket. Kakuzu had no idea what he was expecting to find in it, but he could swear it certainly wasn't that.
There was a man inside the bucket. A tall, naked, sleeping man, curled into a foetal position. Large shoulders, narrow waist, long muscled powerful legs (that ass), powerful arms, power etched in every single line of his body (a shinobi no doubt). Pale skin, paler than Kakuzu had even seen, short fluffy silver white hair, a face with cheekbones sharp enough to cut steel, set in a frown. And three red lines tattooed on said face, one on the chin and one on each cheek.
Only then Kakuzu recognized him. And froze.
Because he had Tobirama Senju, the Second Hokage, who was supposed to be dead for more than fifty years now (but whose body had never been found (until now)) just under his eyes.
He needed to sit down.
"Wow !" Hidan whistled,"since when do Kumo dabble into human trafficking ? I mean, I can almost understand them, have you seen that ass ?!"
Screw that, he needed to lie down. And to kill Hidan too. But with an inhuman effort, he managed to reign in his temper and just turned to his team-mate, deadpanning.
"Hidan," he said,"this is the Second Hokage. The White Demon."
Hidan blinked, did a double take, and then his face scrunched into a comical expression of disbelief.
"Whaaaat ?!! But isn't he supposed to be... you know..." the young man prattled, miming a decapitation,"dead ?"
Kakuzu shrugged helplessly, because really, he had no satisfying explanation to the situation. As Hidan was about to speak again, almost thirty Kumo shinobi landed on the path, surrounding them, their weapons drawed.
"Surrender !!" the squad leader bellowed.
Hidan grinned and raised his scythe, while Kakuzu readied a Doton jutsu. But suddenly, there was a rustled behind them and the air was saturated by a killing intent so strong and thick and chilling that everyone froze. From the corner of his eyes, Kakuzu saw the Second Hokage rise from the bucket, looking every bit like the demon he was nicknamed after. The man got out of it, slowly, and advanced to the Kumo shinobi, still stark naked, passing between the two paralyzed Akatsuki members.
And then, there was a wave of chakra so cold Kakuzu actually shivered, and the Kumo shinobi just... exploded. Their blood was spread everywhere, painting the trees, the path (the Hokage) red, and their bones and clothes and weapons clattered on the ground. Only then the tension decreased and Kakuzu was able to breathe again.
The Hokage, still naked, covered in blood from head to toes, turned to them, gave them a critical onceover and crossed his arms on his chest.
"Gentlemen," he said in a stern tone,"can you please tell where the fuck we are and what fucking year it is ?"
Kakuzu gaped under his mask. So did Hidan. Tobirama Senju apparently didn't appreciate the delay.
"Well ?" he said impatiently.
And there went Hidan's short fuse. The young man raised his scythe to put the blade at the Hokage's throat. To the man's credit, he didn't even react, barely raising an eyebrow in annoyance.
"Don't be too cocky or you'll be a sacrifice for Jashin !!" Hidan threatened.
This didn't have the effect he was counting on, because the chilling, crushing killing intent was back in a fraction of second and Tobirama Senju tilted his head slightly, narrowing his wine red eyes, looking like a predator assessing a prey.
"Do you really think you'd be the first Jashinist I fight, boy ? Think again."
Hidan's eyes widened in surprise and fear and he lept backward, hit the bucket, stumbled and ended up on his ass. Then Tobirama uncrossed his arms and walked to Kakuzu till they were almost chest to chest, to look him under the nose. The nukenin barely dared to breathe. The Second Hokage had a reputation after all, and Kakuzu might be a century-old almost immortal mercenary, but he wasn't suicidal, thank you very much. The Senju eyed him critically.
"You are the Taki nin who tried to kill my brother, aren't you ?" he asked calmly. Kakuzu nodded a little frantically, while Hidan was getting on his feet, swearing like a sailor. Tobirama pouted (and no, that didn't make him look adorable ! Not at all !).
"You survived for such a long time... Impressive. I wonder how you did it..."
His tone suggested he wanted to dissect Kakuzu to find out. Carefully, the Taki nin took a step back. Tobirama chewed on his tongue and then turned to collect a few clothes from the Kumo corpses.
"Come on gentlemen," he said as he put on pants that were slightly too tight for him,"we're going to find an onsen so I can take a fucking bath and then you're going to tell me everything you know."
************
They indeed ended up telling him everything they knew, after they found an onsen in a small civilian town. Kakuzu still had no idea how it happened (this had nothing to do with the fact that he was distracted by Tobirama Senju's pectorals and ended up spilling everything, absolutely not). This was his version and he was sticking to it.
He also ended up buying the Senju an outfit that was actually to his size (because if he had to stare any longer at the Hokage's ass, perfectly showcased in the too tight pants, he might have five consecutive heart attacks).
Even if death by the booty was not a bad way to go per se, it would destroy his reputation.
************
Tobirama remembered fighting the Gold and Silver Brothers and their squad to allow his students to flee. He remembered being so low on chakra he was barely standing and activating a seal he had made on the fly to try to finish them by blowing everything in the vicinity, including himself. He remembered the white light, the pull, so like the Hiraishin and so unlike it at the same time.
He remembered waking up in the same clearing with no trace of the Gold and Silver brothers, but swarming with Kumo shinobi. He remembered panicking, attacking on sight and killing seven of them before exhaustion and their numbers did him in. He remembered being stripped bare and shoved in a bucket (and he was gonna make every single Kumo shinobi pay for this infamy). And then sleep had taken him, irresistible.
And then he had woken up, chakra stocks fully replenished by the forced rest (how long had he slept, dammit ?!), still in the bucket, still naked, still surrounded by Kumo shinobi, and he might have overreacted, but in his defence he was pissed off.
And now, these two idiots - the angry little Jashinist that went by Hidan, and the Taki mercenary that tried to kill Hashirama (Tobirama quite like this one, he had guts and style (and he wouldn't mind strapping him to a table and disecting him to get how the chakra monsters he could sense huddled in the man's chest worked (maybe later))) who was called Kakuzu - were telling him that one : he had somehow launched himself fifty years into the future and two :Madara Uchiha was not dead, and this idiot wanted to take over the world by collecting the Tailed Beasts.
To say Tobirama was pissed off was an understatement.
He was furious.
"You two," he said calmly, rising from the water like a drowned god,"are going to take me to your hideout. I'm going to have words with your stupid leader."
************
Itachi blinked several times when he saw Kakuzu and Hidan enter the hideout, looking extremely sheepish, and followed by none other than the Second Hokage himself. Next to him, Kisame stopped munching at his fish kebab, and looked at the Senju like he had seen a fucking ghost (from what Itachi had gathered from his team-mate/reluctant friend, the Kiri shinobi were endlessly butthurt that Tobirama Senju had been born in the Land of Fire, and it was kind of a rite of passage to have a crush on the man). At the other end of the room, Pain and Konan stopped whispering and actually looked seconds away from a heart attack. The screwdriver Sasori was holding escaped him as he gaped like he wanted to eat flies. Finally, Deidara summed up the mood with a concise : "Dudes. What the fuck ?"
Kakuzu was about to answer when Tobirama Senju spotted Itachi and suddenly strode to him. The young Uchiha tensed, wondering what the man wanted with him (he had a reputation of hating Uchiha after all), if he was gonna attack hm, if Itachi should be ready to defend himself. But before he could do anything, the former Hokage was in his space and had grabbed his face between his hands, and he was looking slightly worried.
"Child ?" he said,"how old are you ?"
"I... I am fifteen," Itachi answered tentatively. The man didn't seem angry, his chakra was actually quite soothing.
"Fifteen ?" he repeated in disbelief," What are you doing here so young ?"
Itachi paled, looking around for an escape.
"Uh... this is quite complicated," he started. But Tobirama Senju didn't let him speak, suddenly catching him in a firearm carry and almost running to a couch to deposit Itachi on it. He whipped a blanket from gods knew where and put it on Itachi.
"Dammit," the Hokage swore,"you are way too thin for your age. And I sense sickness, you shouldn't be here, you should be at the village with your family geting medical attention..!"
"My family is dead," Itachi mumbled. He didn't think Tobirama Senju had heard him. But given the way the man had suddenly stopped talking, he probably had. The Hokage rose at full height, glowering. He turned to the other Akatsuki members.
"You all are going to tell me how the hell you ended up here," he said calmly,"in excruciating details."
************
Five hours later, all the Akatsuki members were huddled on the couch, covered in fluffy blankets that Tobirama Senju kept producing from somewhere. The man had gently coaxed into telling him their stories (and Kisame couldn't even be angry at Itachi for being a Konoha spy, because damn the young Uchiha's situation sucked and the Kiri nin kinda wanted to hug his friend to comfort him), he had held them has they had cried on his shoulder, had given them tea and small biscuits (and from where the hell did these things come from, Kisame had no fucking idea, but that was kinda impressive).
Now they were all reclining against each others, while the former Hokage was pacing the room, muttering about stupid politicians and assholes students and imbecile Uchiha Clan Heads with tiny brains and a creepy crush on his brother.
Kisame was not ashamed to say that his crush on the Senju was burning higher than ever.
Of course, it was at this moment that Madara chose to walk inside the room, followed by Zetsu. He stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he saw the former Hokage.
"Wha...?" he started, but Tobirama Senju was faster than him.
"Who the fuck are you ?" he demanded haughtily.
"This is Madara Uchiha," Konan sniffled, from her place between Sasori and Nagato, almost buried under blanket.
"No this not," Tobirama said,"I know Madara and this is not him."
Before not-Madara could do anything, Tobirama Senju was in his space and had taken his mask off. Kisame frowned when he saw the face underneath. A young man in his twenties, heavily scarred, with obvious Uchiha features. Tobirama raised a brow, threw the mask in a corner of the room and took the frozen young man's face between his palm.
"Who did this to you ?" he asked, threateningly calm. The Uchiha blushed, stuttered. And suddenly Zetsu lept on the Senju with a warcry. The former Hokage's head whipped to him, his wine red eyes spitting lightning, and with a flick of his wrist, Zetsu was imprisonned in a golden prison of chakra, screeching.
"Be quiet, creature," he spat, before returning his attention to the unnamed Uchiha,"so child, who hurt you ?"
The man started bawling.
************
It took a long time for Tobirama to coax the entire story out of the traumatized Obito, but once it was done, he solemnly promised himself he would punch Madara in the dick. That just added another name to the list of persons he was gonna punch in various painful places, starting with his former students, the little shits.
"I knew I hadn't lost his corpse," Tobirama snarled as he rubbed soothing circles in Obito's back,"fucking asshole, couldn't let go his crush on my brother..."
"What ?" Obito croacked.
"Were they... really ?" Itachi tried, looking a little unsure.
Tobirama rolled his eyes.
"There was so much unresolved sexual tension between them I almost had to use the Raijin no Ken every time I had to go through a room they were both in... I told Hashirama he should have fucked him, but the big fool didn't listen, and look where we are now..."
Konan and Deidara seemed to find his remarks very funny and were snickering. Kakuzu was looking a little green around the edges, Hidan's head was whipping between his team-mate and the Senju so fast Tobirama feared he might actually break his neck. Nagato was sleeping, his head on Konan's lap, Itachi was blushing, chakra a confused mix of amusement and disbelief. Kisame was looking at the former Hokage with adoration and Sasori seemed to wonder if he wasn't dreaming.
Tobirama rubbed Obito's back one last time and stood up.
"Well, it can't be helped, I guess. Now, to deal with the more urgent matters..."
He turned to the imprisonned Zetsu and set it on fire.
************
Hiruzen was having a good day till a disheveled and terrified guard barreled inside his office, crying about zombies and ghosts and really Hokage-sama you should come at the gates. And when Hiruzen did, it was to find his former (dead) teacher standing under them, with a bunch of snickering S-class criminals at his back, looking very pissed off.
"Hiruzen, I am very disappointed in you, young man !!!"
You couldn't blame Hiruzen for having a heart-attack on the spot.
************
When Hiruzen woke up from his heart-attack induced coma two days later, a long-suffering nurse informed him that Tobirama Senju had somehow taken over the goverment, adopted all the orphans and ressurected Madara Uchiha to use him as a stick to beat Danzo over the head with.
Hiruzen promptly had another heart attack.