Part Two: All I've Ever Wanted Was Something With Meaning

"To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower; hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour." -William Blake

The first time he realized the only thing that mattered, were the things that lasted forever; was in the coldest winter of his life. He tugged at his threadbare scarf, attempting to pull the thin material tighter around himself. He grunted when his foot fell into a too-deep snow drift along the side of the road. He tugged the limb free after a moment, but it left his pant leg wet and uncomfortable. He was exhausted, the journey was long and his tanned skin wasn't used to such extreme cold.

He grit his teeth in frustration, blinking back tears of bitterness and trotted to catch up with his father who had continued to walk without stopping for him. Such was father's way, if he was strong he would make it and if he was weak he would die. He hated this man.

Mother had been weak, father told him when he'd asked. But Kakuzu knew the truth, of the three of them mother had been the strongest, she shone the brightest- her bravery something he'd always looked up to. He had once told himself that he wanted to be just like her. Now she was dead, and that didn't sound particularly appealing so he was forced to reevaluate the thought. His mind felt just as cold as the air around him. He was empty, everything he knew up until this point had been tipped and poured from his life like a kettle down the drain.

Even in death she had been beautiful. Her body drooped limply from the balcony railing, her long black hair so much like his carried along in the breeze. Her wide green eyes were cloudy and they lacked the emotions that she normally displayed for him so freely. Her eyes stared into his, unblinking and hollow. His mind replayed the last minute of her life over and over until he was sure his heart must be bleeding inside his chest and he would soon follow her into death just to escape the agony of his broken heart.

Her hand reached for him with her last breath, fingers dripping with crimson liquid. As the luster left her eyes, he found he couldn't move, although he desperately wanted to- he wanted her to hold him; feel her embrace him one last time. Just this one last time. He wanted her to tell him this was a dream, just like all the others- that he would wake up soon and everything would be okay.

"Kakuzu, my beloved little anemon, mother will love you always... live for me, Kakuzu... live and be... happy..."

He loved his mother very much, she had always been there for him. Every step, every word, every dream. It had been such a fleeting happiness in his life, his beautiful mother.

Kakuzu stumbled and fell, his body hit the ground hard enough to have his breath leave his lungs. He lay still for a moment, watching fathers form disappear into the swirling snow that fell in heavy curtains. Maybe it would be better if he did die here. He could see mother again... after all, death was the only thing that really lasted forever.

He hated life. He hated how he had loved her, he hated all this fleeting garbage that never lasted. A foot connected solidly with his ribs and he was sure he heard a crack. He coughed hard, the agony of pain bringing him back to reality.

"Get up." Father's harsh voice grated in his ears over the howl of the snow storm. Most of all Kakuzu firmly decided, he hated father. This ugly man who had killed his only happiness in life.

And for what? Money.

Money is the only thing that matters in this world, his father had said. And Kakuzu had regretfully agreed. Because money certainly seemed to outlive everything he had once thought mattered.

It was Kakuzu's fourth winter.

There were two things he decided that he would uphold above all else. Because they would be forever- and things that lasted forever couldn't leave you.

Kakuzu gave his loyalty freely to the village of Hidden Waterfall. Takigakure itself he knew would never last. Clay would crumble, plaster would mold and the lives within would perish. There was something more to Taki though, something intangible that once planted would only grow and flourish, something that couldn't be killed with a simple kunai or powerful jutsu.

Ideals.

Taki had ideals; some were good, and some not so much- but it didn't matter to Kakuzu. Morality never really played a part in what he gave his loyalty too as long as it would last he would be content to bask in the shadow of what he once thought of as happiness. Somewhere in an ignored and abandoned part of his mind, he knew this was not happiness, but his life was already worthless so he chose not to care.

He rolled to the ground beneath a grand fireball his Uchiha opponent was attempting to cook him alive with.

"Tch." This kid would have a long way to go before he could go toe-to-toe with a jounin like himself. Kakuzu was the fastest shinobi in his village, and he used this skill with pride in the name of Hidden Waterfall. He sprung to his feet, using chakra to coat the soles of his shoes- he pushed off leaving cracked earth in his wake. His kunai cut through the Uchiha's neck like butter. Tendons, bone and flesh meant nothing- worthless, temporary.

Kakuzu hated these fleeting things with a sensation that burned in his chest, made his throat feel tight and his body ache. This life was no different from the plethora of others he had taken for the glory of his home. In his wake he left a trail of broken bodies, and in his palm was the coin that was always the same. For every life he took, every ugly thing he brought death upon; there would be money in his pocket. This was the second of his own ideals.

Nothing else mattered, there was only him in his great, gnawing, empty heartedness, his beliefs that gave him a sense of loyalty to his village, and money.

It was his ninth winter as a shinobi of Takigakure, and his fourteenth in this world.

Kakuzu contemplated the new bands that circled his wrists and forearms, branding him forever as a criminal. He let the limbs fall limply back into his lap, peering into the dark of his cell. The air smelled of mold and rotting corpses. His own corpse would add the ambient nature of this place soon enough.

How had this happened? How had it come to this? He was willing to give his village everything; his time, his chakra, his life- his money. Everything.

And yet, here he was scorned for his failure to kill Senju Hashirama despite the risk he'd taken, the ideals he'd upheld in Taki's name. Kakuzu never felt so betrayed in his life. Thirteen winters as a Taki shinobi, and eighteen in this world, all his toils and efforts thrown to the dogs.

Perhaps his father had been right all along. A small piece of something within him that he had long forgotten died with this thought. He was left feeling more empty than he ever had before.

But that wasn't entirely true was it? No, there was the rage. The cold hatred that filled him, and the burning anger that made him stand from the filthy floor; his thirst and hunger forgotten.

The village elders died that night. Their empty unseeing eyes and hollowed out chests did nothing to assuage the betrayal they'd carved into him. But he would take their hearts with him when he left, it was the least they could do to rectify that damage they'd wrought with their actions.

Kakuzu walked out of Takigakure feeling like half a human, and half something else. He supposed he hadn't really felt whole in a long time, perhaps this was just his outsides matching his insides now.

In the year that followed his defection, he became a master only to himself. He did as he pleased, when he wanted, where he wanted. This sense of freedom did little to burn away the void within him, but the money seemed to help.

It was on one such bounty hunt, a particularly grueling one that had him chasing down some trash of a human; that he inadvertently saved a woman's life.

She was strange, her dialect was completely off- some lit he'd never heard before, and the air about her just seemed to... shimmer somehow with a power he could not name.

His interest was piqued. It was the first time, in a long time that he thought about something other than money.