Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kakuzu takes the long way around the city square. The Daimyo is insufferably proud of his little hellscape, and while Kakuzu can appreciate Fire’s capital for the amount of money it brings in, that's not why he’s trying to sneak in in the middle of the night.

Fire country has the largest library known to the elemental nations, and it alone brings in scholars from all over just to take a look inside.

The Daimyo makes big bucks off it, but kakuzu is unfortunately not here to take some.

No, instead, he’s here to break into it.

Kakuzu swears softly, taking an account of the building. It’s armed heavily of course from civilians and shinobi alike. Apparently Uzushio, the only other place that has a library to rival this one, gave seals to protect the place as a gift of goodwill decades ago.

Kakuzu silenty thanks his stupid ancestors that someone came up with collecting hearts so he can account for dying in his daily missions.

It costs three hearts, his lightning, earth, and water masks before he makes it through. He’s highly miffed about this, but considering he can feel the presence of a strong water user within the library he’ll take the loss of getting around Uzushio seals quietly.

He’ll also be taking the life of whatever poor sod happens to be here also. He still has his fire mask, after all and the amount of good water users this far north of the mizu border is highly unlikely.

After he gets what he comes for of course.

The library is dark but nothing compared to a little enhanced vision. Kakuzu doesn’t bother to hide the green glow of his eyes as he scans the tops of the shelves where they’re all painstaking labeled by section. He’s never been here, so it takes a minute but eventually he finds his way to the sciences. And then eventually out of the theoretical and into the tangible stuff.

Kakuzu has never been happier to see a long narrow aisle labeled “chemistry” , a word he didn’t even know until recently, written in large bold print above his head.

He grabs probably more than he needs but he’s sure that one of these dusty tomes will have it and then on the way out spots an offshoot with smaller books all labeled with specific elements. Kakuzu has no idea how someone could write that much about one element out of all the ones he’s seen but he grabs those too just in case.

Distracted as he is, he forgets to keep an eye on the large water signature he’d been idly tracking around while he looked for his things.

By the time Kakuzu rounds the corner, silently willing the books to fit nicely in his arms he nearly runs over the other man.

And that’s what he is, a man dressed in that horrible fire style armor with a white trim around his shoulders like there’s anything cold about fire country. The white haired man is a couple inches shorter but his red eyes pierce Kakuzu’s as much as Kakuzu knows his solid green eyes do other people.

The man doesn’t say anything but his gaze drops to the books in Kakuzu's arms, scanning over the chlorine, hydrogen, and carbon mini books (that will hopefully explain to Kakuzu how he’s suppose to get his hands on it) before the large tome that's for basic chemical combinations and really about How To Not Die when consequently mixing certain elements together.

The man's red eyes draw back up and he tilts his head to the side curiously.

“Why exactly do you need chloroform at 2am?”

Kakuzu blinks long and slow, “how did you...”

The white haired man smirks, amused, “I like to think I’m decent at chemistry and we are shinobi.”

Kakuzu should be mad. He lost three hearts today to fucking Uzushio, had to travel to Fire country because waterfall had nothing and he wasn’t going to Uzushio to find out how to make chloroform.

“Right,” Kakuzu agrees, watching his new water heart roll his eyes, exasperated.

“Let me help,” the water heart says.

Kakuzu lets the man take the books out of his arms as he stares in shock. Nobody offers to help Kakuzu. Nobody offers to help random shinobi while they're both in a place they shouldn’t be.

He idly wonders how the Konoha nin ( from the face plate he missed staring at the other man's eyes) got into here in the first place.

The nin walks down the aisle and grabs another book at seemingly random before setting the larger of Kakuzu's tomes back. When he walks back out he raises an eyebrow at Kakuzu's staring and he has to remind himself that he’s going to kill this random Konoha ninja before the other man can leave.

He has hearts to gain after all.

“Chapter 7 is the most helpful and you’ll find that you probably won’t need these smaller books but they wouldn’t hurt if you're looking to expand your knowledge behind making organic compounds.”

“Do you work here or something, Konoha?” Kakuzu sneers, or well, tries too but he to his own ears sounds more like a whiny brat.

The other nin is familiar and Kakuzu can’t put his finger on it, he rationalizes, it’s throwing him off.

“No,” the ninja replies, “but I am very fond of it.”

“Right.” Kakuzu replies dumbly. He’s not sure what’s wrong with him but he can’t take his eyes off the other man. Part of his brain screams threat while the other part...

The other part is currently on lockdown because—

“My name is Senju Tobirama.” Senju Tobirama says casually, walking up to Kakuzu.

“Kakuzu.” He replies, remarkably steady. Senju Tobirama, the little brother of Senju Hashirama, cofounder of Konoha, and arguably partly responsible for throwing the shinobi and civilian world upside down is standing right in front of him.

“Well, Kakuzu, if you keep staring I’m going to assume you’d like to ask me something.”

Kakuzu tunes out the part of his brain that insists he wants to see Tobirama crying on his knees and instead says, “I thought about taking your heart, but I wouldn’t want to risk the library now.”

“My heart?” Tobirama questions.

Kakuzu shrugs, gaining at least a little composure. He has height advantage at least. Though if this man's speed is not just rumors...

Tobirama hums thoughtfully, “A kekkei genkai?”

Kakuzu nods, he can’t argue that with the way his face looks. He didn’t bother to hide the stitches after all.

“Well,” Tobirama says after a moment. He’s stepped fully into Kakuzu's space and he braces for a punch, disgust, anything. Prepares to sacrifice the library for this fight anyways until Tobirama finishes with, “I could help you with that.”

“What.” Kakuzu says flatly. He thinks, no he knows, he’d rather just get into a fight with the Senju. It would be good, and Kakuzu's never turned down a good fight.

“I have these bounties that I’m heading to track down tomorrow. In exchange for helping you find these books, you can help me find these bounties.”

Tobirama considers him, “I don’t need their hearts, only their heads.”

Kakuzu's eyes had sharpened at bounties, and then everything had clicked at the offer of an exchange.

“What do you want for the hearts?” He asks. Any bounty Senju Tobirama is going after himself must be good indeed. It would give Kakuzu a chance to examine Tobirama if nothing else.

“You’re helping me chase them down.”

“That’s exchange for the books.” Kakuzu says, narrowing his eyes. He doesn’t like being tested.

Tobirama smirks, “right. Well, then I’ll just have to call something in, or maybe you can choose what you want to give me to make it even.”

His breath smells like mint, Kakuzu realizes, like the mint plants that stubbornly stay alive despite the dense underbrush of the forests in Waterfall.

Tobirama looks striking to Kakuzu's green eyes. It’s not something he’s used to seeing.

“I don’t like gambling.” Kakuzu warns

“If you play it safe, you’ll never get anywhere.”

Kakuzu doesn’t let himself think in those words too long and experimentally he lifts a hand and slips it underneath the blue armor. Tobirama doesn’t flinch but cocks a hip out making Kakuzu's hand drag over a clothed torso.

It’s firm, as a shinobi ever is.

Kakuzu slides his hand out, making the touch look accidental if there was ever a bystander in the middle of Fire country’s library at 2 in the morning.

It doesn’t fool Tobirama but Kakuzu pushes back toward the table, wondering what he might do to make them even.

“Well, Senju? Going to help me with this?” He asks

Senju Tobirama smirks, “making me work for my favor?”

“If it was up to me you wouldn’t be getting one.”

“Ah,” he replies, “then I’ll just have to make it worth your time.”

Kakuzu watches as Tobirama easily flips open the books, watches red eyes trace patterns and phrases and the way he licks his lips when he’s trying to think of the right way to phrase something.

Fuck, Kakuzu thinks, he’s in so much shit.

(He tests the chloroform on Tobirama later to make sure. It works and when the Senju wakes up he justifies it by saying he needed to make sure he wasn’t being cheated on.

Tobirama dumps the plaza fountain on Kakuzu's head when they’re escaping the guards on post around the library and leaves Kakuzu to deal with the fallout.

Fine, Kakuzu thinks chasing after white hair and blue armor, he can gamble on this, just this once. )