The first thing he felt after he came to his senses was a heavy disorientation. Something was clearly out of place. Yet, his mind was too cloudy to have a coherent thought. It only lasted for a moment, but it felt like an eternity. He looked around as he tried to gain some clarity. 

He raised an eyebrow after observing the area around him. It was a strange room that reeked of death. What was he doing here? Last thing he recalled was that… oh, that made even less sense. There was a sudden crash that drove air out of his lungs. Then blood, numbness and then nothing but endless darkness engulfing his entire being. 

But there was something more…  

Then he heard a voice. 

"Hope to see you again soon, sir."  

He was about to turn around to face the man when an onslaught of memories flooded his mind.   

Right, the reason his mind felt this strange sense of dissociation was the memories that were foreign to him, the memories that shouldn’t belong to him, yet they had been slowly ingrained in his brain.  

It started with the birth of another life. But the innocence of childhood didn't last long. There was relentless and tedious training he experienced throughout his life, starting from his early childhood. The continuous practice and skills of a ninja had been suddenly ingrained in his mind. They were experiences that only a person who trained for decades in the art and honed his instinct to limit would have. Yet, that knowledge was now part of him, leaving him dazed from the jumble of tremendous information. Along with that were memories of the interactions with people he had never known before. As well as experience of killing, torturing and fighting. In some weird twist of fate, he came to an absurd realization that he had somehow experienced the life of Kakuzu, a notorious shinobi and the member of criminal organization Akatsuki.  

He was currently holding a large bag stack full of money. A bounty that he had just collected on Chiriku, ninja monk from the Fire Temple and one of the Twelve Guardian ninjas. Kakuzu was about to head out to continue his pursuit of jinchuriki, while Hidan impatiently waited for him outside. There was a lot of mess he had to clean up it seemed. 

Of course, that was assuming that he hadn’t gone insane.  

As he was in deep thought, the man, or Kakuzu recalled that he wasn't alone in the room and turned around.  

A bald man with a mustache, adorned with a scar on his forehead and unnaturally thick eyebrows was staring at him with a confused expression.  

"Is something wrong sir?" Asked the man who he recognized as Zangei, head of bounty station operation in southeast part of the Land of Fire.  

Kakuzu’s mind slowly began to make sense of the peculiar situation he was thrown into. He seemed to be at the beginning of the second part of Naruto. This sort of situation, by itself, begged a lot of questions. That said, there was a more immediate issue right now that needed to be taken care of.  

While Kakuzu was deep in the thoughts, the man with a scar, noticing his client’s hesitation, sensed that something was amiss. Had he made a mistake, perhaps?  

"Was the amount perhaps incorrect sir?" he politely asked.  

"... No, nothing of that sort, Zangei.” Kakuzu absentmindedly answered with a shake of his head. “Keep in mind though, I won't be back for a while. I will be returning to Konoha to search for jinchuriki"  

While Kakuzu answered Zangei, his mind wasn’t entirely there. He still hadn’t completely gotten rid of the shock that still nagged at his mind. It seemed, it would take some time for his mind to catch up.  

"Some advice then if I may…” Zangei said with a kind smile. “Distance yourself from your companion... He has a face that is inauspicious for a money matters."  

Kakuzu was about to turn around and leave. He wanted to clear his head and have some peace of mind. But he recalled what would soon transpire here.  

Team Asuma's encounter with Akatsuki wouldn't leave this place behind untouched. And since Zangei seemed like a resourceful fellow, there was no reason to keep him locked away in prison. 

"Advice huh… I got one for you as well Zangei. Move to another branch immediately. it won’t take long time until this place will be surrounded by Konoha shinobi."  

Zangei’s expression changed at those words from relaxed to serious. Then, he simply nodded at Kakuzu and quickly regained his composure, not even questioning the validity of the information. There was simply no reason for a deception from his regular customer.  

"I will prepare immediately then… and good luck with your mission sir.”  

“Just don't get caught.” Kakuzu replied and headed towards the exit.  

He was inside the bounty station that acted as an exchange point for the black market.  The room that he just exited was where corpses with bounty were stored. The room was hidden, of course, and you needed to go through the bathroom to reach the hidden door.  

The stench inside the bathroom wasn't much better than it was inside the room full of corpses. Although the corpses were properly kept, residual smell hadn’t escaped his senses. Not to mention, he had just brought one himself. This was not where he wanted to stay.  The next room Kakuzu entered looked like an abandoned office room. It was empty, except for a few desks, chairs and randomly placed filling cabinets. After taking a few steps, Kakuzu halted and looked down at his hand, sensing something peculiar.  

He closed it into a fist. Noting some kind of energy building up within the body. It was a fascinating sensation. He felt that his body was overflowing with vitality. He could also sense the flow of a certain energy, something he identified as chakra.  

He raised his hand and concentrated on it. He could feel the flow of chakra that was building up on his left hand. Then, without his conscious command, his arm shot forward, half of it detaching from his body while black threads pushed it further than it was physically capable for a normal human.  

Although, to be fair, this was not a feat that normal ninja could perform either.  

Kakuzu concentrated his chakra and willed his arm to return. Black, tentacle-like threads pulled back the hand and it connected his arm like it was always there. There was no blood, no pain or injury. It was something that made him wonder how he was even alive without blood or bones. How could a body even stand straight in this condition?  

After observing further, he noticed that his vitality was concentrated in his chest. Something that shouldn’t really be a mystery. The heart was a vital organ, after all.   

But it wasn’t that simple. Because it wasn’t just one heart.  

It seemed threads were connected to the blood vessels of the heart, or in his case – hearts, and were drawing out chakra from it. They acted as a skeleton, muscles and vessels at the same time for chakra to travel. Underneath his skin was a tissue, but there was no blood flow. Threads were connected to skin and were infusing it with energy.  

Kakuzu sighed. Once again reminded that he had ended up spawning in the world of fantasy. However, getting too absorbed with this wasn't something he could afford. He felt that his mind hadn’t entirely caught up yet, but it didn’t matter right now.  

He would explore more about the power he gained later. He had already gotten hang of the basics, but as his memories were hazy, he currently had no time to delve into them.  

Although he had taken over the body of Kakuzu, he was uncertain of what exactly caused this situation. And there was no way to know for sure. He decided not to overthink it. All he could do was follow whatever his instincts were telling him unless proven otherwise.  

Questions, one after another, filled his mind. Reluctantly, Kakuzu pushed them aside. Now wasn't the time for it. What he now needed to do was to figure out the current situation. 

As he was in deep thought, he heard sounds of fighting going outside.  

“Haa… I don’t even have time to properly think, the fight has already begun.” Kakuzu sighed, thinking over how he should interfere. His actions would have an impact on the future that he already knew of, after all.  

“If this even is the original timeline, that is. After skimming through the new memories, I haven’t yet found any deviations from it. But still, I’m not entirely certain…”  

Since he couldn’t properly organize his memories because of time constraints, there might be some details he didn’t take into account. He had no idea if there were more anomalies like him either. And the chances of that weren’t low.  

“I guess there’s no helping it. Even with knowledge of future, there are still many unknowns…”  

Kakuzu looked at the window, shifting his thoughts about the ongoing battle outside. Hidan, Asuma and Shikamaru… there were some interesting characters he was about to encounter. Part of him felt a sense of thrill at the idea of confronting them. Despite his concerns, however, he wasn't really worried about the outcome of this battle. It was a hopeless fight for the Konoha shinobi. 

“Though, I wonder if I should tweak some things a little…”