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He knew that he shouldn’t, but every so often, Kakuzu returned to Konoha.
His visits were always brief, and he never got anything out of them. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was he expected to gain, but he always left with a bitterness in his mouth like bile, only to return a few months later. Every time he visited, he sat on the bank of the river just outside the village, outside the wall of sensors that would give away his presence, and stared into the water at the reflection that had become so unrecognizable to him. Sometimes the wind would blow and distort his face completely with ripples and leaves. Sometimes the air was so still and the water so clear that the person looking back at him seemed almost real. He hated those times.
Konoha seemed different to him now than when he first came here almost two years ago. Back then, he had marveled at its size, encompassed by seemingly endless forests and boundless rivers. It was terrifying in its magnitude, but in a way that tempted Kakuzu to come closer, to lose himself in it, rather than to run away. Now he saw it for what it truly was, stripped of all its gilded trim: disappointing, ugly, repulsive. He liked this version better.
It was the end of summer, and the river was full. Konoha had just been through its monsoon season, and the grass was lush beneath Kakuzu’s feet. He walked over to the edge of the river and sat on the pebbled shore, close enough that he could feel the cool water lap against his ankles. The sun overhead was oppressive and unyielding, and he removed his mask to cope with the heat. Taki never used to get this hot.
Kakuzu sensed their chakra before he heard or saw whoever was lurking in the shadows behind him. He had never encountered anyone on his visits before, and part of him almost wanted to call out to this person, if only to break the monotony. He kept silent, though, and waited for whoever it was to reveal themselves, undoubtedly aware that their presence was known.
“I’ve known that someone has been coming here for a while now, and I’m intrigued, yet unsurprised, to find out that it is you.”
The deep voice sounded familiar, but it was only after the person stepped out from behind the trees and Kakuzu saw their wild black hair that he recognized who it was. Madara Uchiha.
“The river is nice, hm, Kakuzu? That is your name, isn’t it? Kakuzu?”
Kakuzu tensed, ready to spring up if Madara decided to come any closer than he was, which was about fifty feet away, just where the trees began to thin and the soil got rocky.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything,” Madara replied. “I'm merely here to satisfy my curiosity.”
The Uchiha stepped slowly and fully into the clearing by the shore, and Kakuzu rose to his feet. He appeared unarmed, but Kakuzu knew that looks could be deceiving. He knew of the fabled sharingan that at the moment lay dormant in the other man’s eyes. He had seen them.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to attack you,” he said, sensing Kakuzu’s anxiety. “Though I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to. You are the only person besides me to have versed Hashirama and lived.”
Kakuzu got a better look at Madara now that he was fully visible. He was wearing a dark blue yukata, much different from the battle armor he had seen him in on that fateful day in Konoha.
Madara had been the first to arrive when the news had spread that the Hokage was being attacked, followed closely behind by Hashirama’s brother, Tobirama. The two had been present for the entire battle but never once tried to intervene. Only after Kakuzu had been subdued, forced to the ground and bound tightly by Hashirama’s mokuton, did they step forward. Tobirama had stopped in front of his brother and offered him his shoulder to lean on. Madara had stopped in front of him, towering over him, sharingan swirling viciously.
“We should kill him,” he had said, “and show that Konoha is not to be trifled with.”
He still remembered the look on Madara’s face, of hurt, of betrayal, when Hashirama had said no, and then Madara had stormed off without another word. Kakuzu had been released from his binds shortly after and ordered to leave the village and never return or this time, he wouldn’t be shown such mercy.
“Did you know that your village had sent you to die?” Madara asked, breaking him from his reverie. “Or did you actually think you could succeed?”
“I’m alive,” was all Kakuzu said in reply.
Kakuzu could feel Madara’s piercing gaze boring into him, burning his skin. He knew that the unfamiliar stitches that marred his body were noticed by everyone, but when he followed Madara’s gaze, he realized he was looking at his tattoos instead.
“It appears as if your village did not want you that way.”
Kakuzu suddenly felt very naked under Madara’s eyes, and he wished he hadn’t taken off his mask. No amount of clothing, though, could mitigate this feeling. Madara came closer, now only a few feet away. Madara was shorter than him, he realized, as he looked down ever so slightly to catch his eyes.
“I think you knew deep down that they never thought you could succeed, that you were never meant to,” Madara said. Kakuzu gave him no indication of whether or not he was right, but he was, of course. “But you still clung to the hope that you could anyway, that you could make them proud of you.”
Madara paused. Kakuzu watched, rapt, as he took a breath.
“You are a lot like him in that respect,” he continued, and Kakuzu could only guess the him was Hashirama. “Too optimistic.”
Kakuzu let out a sardonic chuckle. “I was. Not anymore.”
“Then perhaps you’re better.”
Better than him? Kakuzu wanted to ask, but his throat closed up when he saw Madara come even closer and reach out a hand. It hovered inches away from his chest.
“May I?”
Kakuzu nodded. He had no delusions that he could win against Madara if he turned on him, even with his new power, but for some inexplicable reason, he trusted him not to hurt him. And if that trust turned out to be misplaced, well, he wasn’t too opposed to dying anyway.
Madara reached for his hair that fell just past his shoulders and ran his fingers through it.
“It’s longer than before,” he mused, and Kakuzu wasn’t sure if he was talking to him or himself. “You almost look like him too.”
“Does using your sharingan too much make you go blind?” he asked once he had found his voice. He looked nothing like Hashirama, not even to a man as desperate as the one in front of him now.
Madara laughed loudly, but even his laugh was wild, terrifying. Kakuzu worried that it might suffocate him if he let it inside of himself, overpowering his throat and lungs like a plume of thick, black smoke. He still hadn’t let go of his hair. He twirled a strand of it around his finger.
“Maybe this time I wouldn’t rush to stop you if you tried to kill him again,” he said, voice teeming with eagerness, like he was telling him a secret he wasn’t supposed to share. Kakuzu felt his breath, warm against his exposed neck.
Kakuzu said nothing, even as Madara reached his hand up and cupped his jaw, and short, blunt-nailed fingers traveled up to caress his stitched cheek. Deep, black eyes bored into his own strangely colored ones as Madara closed the distance between them. Even as their lips met, neither closed their eyes, watching each other through half-lidded gazes.
Kakuzu wasn’t sure who Madara was seeing as he kissed him — perhaps it was Hashirama, or perhaps it was someone entirely different, someone stronger and smarter and better, who had succeeded where he had failed all those months ago. Whoever it was, though, it certainly wasn’t him. His lips were too soft, his movements too tender, for it to be him.
Madara ran his tongue along Kakuzu’s lips, but Kakuzu kept his mouth closed. Despite the surprising gentleness of it all, he imagined that Madara would rip him apart, eat him alive, if he were invited to. There was trust in that, too.
Madara tasted rich and smoky, like volcanic ash. That same suffocating feeling came upon him again, and Kakuzu broke their kiss almost as soon as it had begun, though it felt like an eternity longer than that.
“I’m leaving,” he said, “and I won’t be back.” He grabbed his discarded mask that was still on one of the rocks nearby, back turned to the other who was still standing behind him. He knew Madara would not stop him.
Madara said nothing as Kakuzu disappeared back into the forest from where he had come, far away from Konoha and all of its sublime beauty. Kakuzu didn’t know where he was headed, he never did after these visits, but despite his words, which he said every time, he would be back. And next time, Madara would be waiting.