"Sign here on the line, collect your shit and go fuck yourself" the Takigakure prison guard said to Kakuzu, pushing his belongings towards him in an act of disgust. Kakuzu picked up the pen, signed his name to his release form and brought the pen down, stabbing it into the guard's hand. The guard screamed and held his wrist, biting his lips to stop himself from crying. Kakuzu grabbed his things and walked away.

After quickly stripping off his prison oranges and changing into his street clothes, he walked towards a phone booth. The booth was covered in graffiti, most saying derogatory things about Takigakure and offering someone named "Suki" for a good time. He picked up the headset, unscrewed the mouthpiece and placed a small recorder into it before putting the headset back together. Kakuzu then slid a thin ryo coin into the slot and dialled a number.

"Hello?" "What is dead shall rise again" "Please hold." He listened to some muzak while he waited, glancing over some of the graffiti and watching people as they lived their lives around him. The phone clicked, "hello?" "I'm alive" Kakuzu said. "Wonderful!" A deep, booming male voice replied, "how was your stay?" "It was tolerable. Now, where is she?" "She? Hmmmmm? Oh! Her! Right, right, I have it somewhere here..." the voice muttered and Kakuzu could hear the shuffling of papers being moved around. His patience was wearing thin and he wanted out of this cramped phone booth. "Got it! She's living at a protected site. Azure Apartments, room 304. Kakuzu? Kakuzu?!" The voice echoed from the hanging headset swaying on its cable cord, the mouthpiece disassembled and the recorder gone, safe in Kakuzu's breast pocket.

"We will be right outside if you need us" the guard was patiently explaining to a tanned figure with purple hair. "I don't need you" the figure snapped, looking out from the balcony and sipping a mug of tea. "We're here for your protection" the guard protested. "He'll come for me. Nothing will stop him. After all, I did betray him." The guard knew it was useless to argue so he bowed and left the apartment, taking up his post outside the door with his partner. "Asset is secured" he said into the mouthpiece on his wrist. "Good. Ensure it stays that way" a voice crackled back. "Fucking static. Government issue my ass" the guard swore. His partner merely nodded.

Kakuzu stood across the street from the building, his hands in his pockets, looking over the entrances and exits to and from the building. His eyes took in the balconies and he watched for her. A low growl left his throat as he thought about what she had done to him and the price he had paid. Looking up and down the road and seeing no one, he crossed the street and entered the building.

A security guard approached him and helpfully directed him to the elevators, not wanting to be engaged in conversation with Kakuzu for too long. The steely determination in Kakuzu's eyes unnerved him. He took the elevator to the floor he suspected her to be on and exited the elevator. He looked left: empty. He looked right: two guards stationed outside a door. Way to make it obvious, he mused and approached them.

Stepping forward, the guard held up his hand and motioned for Kakuzu to stop. The other guard quickly spoke into his mouthpiece, "Liability is here. Orders?" "Kill on sight" crackled back and the guards unholstered their weapons. "Stay back Kakuzu. Don't make us hurt you!"

Kakuzu did not slow his approach and the guards began firing. The bullets slammed into his body and he ignored them, their force hardly slowing him down. One hand reached out to grab a guard by his neck and his fingers squeezed. He could feel the vertebrae crunching under his fingers as he ground them down to a powder. The guard hit the ground hard, his body twitching in its final death throes. He turned to the final guard who was frantically trying to reload his gun but his shaking hands made getting the clip inside a struggle.

Kakuzu calmly approached him and, without warning, jabbed his fingers into the man's eye sockets and wrenched out his eyes, crushing the orbs in his hands and feeling the viscous fluid run down his fingers. The guard fell to his knees, his hands and fingers scrabbling over his empty sockets and becoming slick with blood.

He screamed, loudly, and Kakuzu reached into the guard's mouth and tore his tongue from its base. The guard began choking on his own blood, the clots making him cough and becoming stuck to the sides of his trachea as he struggled to breathe. Kakuzu stepped over the dying man and kicked open the door, leaving a smeared and bloody boot print on the door.

Upon hearing the screaming, the figure inside had fetched its gun, loaded and cocked it. It was pointing at the doorway as Kakuzu broke through. Seeing the weapon aimed at him and who wielded it, Kakuzu paused in his tracks.

"So, you've come for me" the figure said, sunlight streaking across his tanned skin and glinting off his purple hair. "Shinju?" Kakuzu growled. The man smirked, "close. It's Shinjo now." Kakuzu stepped into the apartment and kicked the door closed, jamming it against the doorframe. It would take exceptional strength to open that door.

"Shinju, Shinjo, it doesn't matter what you're called now or which body you inhabit. The revenge stays the same" Kakuzu snarled. Shinjo emptied his clip into the man, smiling with self satisfaction as the bullets pierced his skin and his blood hit the floor. "Heh" Kakuzu smirked while he unzipped his jacket and removed his bloodstained shirt. Shinjo's eyes widened as he watched the holes heal themselves closed. "...the fuck?" He muttered.

"A successful experiment by Sasori," Kakuzu explained, "we had a lot of time to kill while in prison, no thanks to you. So he transfused some of Hidan's blood into me and my body adapted his healing cells. So, for your primitive understanding, my body heals itself. Weapons are useless against me." He said the last part while quickly grasping Shinjo's throat and slamming him against a wall so hard that the drywall buckled under the force.

Shinjo gasped and moved, trying to gain a decent breath but Kakuzu's firm grip made that difficult. Kakuzu leaned close to him, inhaling his scent, a familiar and heady mix of spice and heat. He felt a piece of Shinjo's hair, it's texture and softness familiar to him. "You've changed your body but your emotions and feelings are still the same," he murmured close to his ear. Kakuzu leaned down and bit Shinjo's neck, leaving a ring of purplish red teeth marks on his tanned skin, "and your taste is still the same..." he whispered.

Shinjo closed his eyes and begged his body to not betray him, at this moment, in this time, but it had been years since he was this close to Kakuzu. And Kakuzu was right; the body was different but the feelings were the same.