Desolation of the Caged Bird Chapter 36 - Dawn of Emotion

One of the greatest lies Zetsu had seen humans tell themselves was that the world operated on logic. 

Ten figures gathered deep within a hidden cave, with Zetsu numbered amongst them. Amongst these ten, all wore black cloaks with red clouds, and all had come prepared for combat. There were those present who had not been of the organization during its founding. Of these faces, these new individuals, all adorned headbands with a neat line crossed through them.

Of the newer members, one was blond with mouths on his hands. The other was a smaller, effeminate woman with a beautiful face, wielding a massive sword.

One had grey hair and wielded an odd, triple-bladed red scythe. The other had white hair and appeared emaciated, skinny, and bony.

One had red hair and carried a flute. She stood beside a large, fish-like man with a writhing sword wrapped in bandages.

In the center was Nagato, the Deva Path, Pain.

The Akatsuki had assembled in person in full, and in witnessing it, Zetsu was assured that these humans, too, had deceived themselves into believing the world operated on logic. Every member here had fooled themselves with that lie. They labored under the belief that their reasons, their motives, were logical, and thus, such actions had brought them here, for a ‘common’ goal they all shared.

Lies.

As the embodiment of ‘Will,’ he understood more than anyone just how blatant such a lie was.

“This world has been ravaged by war for far too long. We have lost too many and lost too much. Today, we gather with the intent of ending this war and bringing about an unprecedented era.”

Nagato, Pain, spoke 

“An era of peace.”

Lies.

This world, the Shinobi World, did not run on logic. It had never, not once, operated on logic. Zetsu was aware this was true because, in the early days, when he was yet to fully understand humans, when he was attempting to grasp how best to manipulate humans, how best to whisper into the ears of Indra, he attempted, at first, in folly, to rely on ‘logic.’

What would a person want logically? What would they do, logically? What would they not do, logically?

Zetsu was Kaguya’s Will, and as the Will of Kaguya, he could not know, do things, nor understand things Kaguya herself did not understand. Kaguya had not been a master manipulator, and Kaguya had not understood humans. Believing them to be logical, rational agents, was her undoing, for it was that mistake, that same belief, that led to both her surprise and confusion, when her sons turned against her.

Zetsu, too, had, at first, believed humans were rational.

Yet, Zetsu found an odd contradiction. Upon possessing an ordinary human, living through his life, using logic, Zetsu found that a man completely logical to the point of eliminating all emotions and sentiments from his actions and deeds would not be seen as the ideal man, nor would they be considered a decent man.

“Monster. You’re a monster!”

They would, instead, be seen as a monster.

As a creature so far-removed from others that even the appellation of ‘humanity’ upon them would be considered misbegotten. They would be, for all intents and purposes, a Stranger to the human condition.

Emotion, not logic. Emotion, not rationality. Emotion, not reason. Emotion ran the world, and emotion was the chief motivator of all human actions and deeds. Emotion was the core of the human condition. Emotion was why it was accepted for a person to commit vile deeds and yet still be hailed, so long as they claimed it was done for family, for country, for love.

Zetsu saw this himself. As a man, he would butcher hundreds of men for the sake of love, or for the sake of vengeance, or in grief, in pain, and he would be held to a vastly different standard than when he claimed to have done so fully in his senses, to have done so for motives he could explain while level-headed and sober.

As a woman, possessing a mother, he killed a hundred men in a single night, wiped out an entire clan, slitting their throats, because those men were responsible for debasing that woman’s daughter, and not a single person claimed she was in the wrong. She was elevated to a status beyond any other. Yet, when he possessed another woman, and had her cull vast numbers of her clan because there was not enough food to go around, many decried her a monster, and knives came for her throat at midnight.

Emotion was understood. Emotion was excused. Emotion was justified.

The world ran on emotion.

It was this understanding that allowed him to manipulate people. 

To manipulate and create the Akatsuki.

For indeed, it was he who convinced Madara to implant those eyes into Nagato, and he who watched Nagato’s growth from within the shadows. He was there when the Orphans Three met, and had been there when the Sannin encountered them. Watching, observing, eliminating threats in secret, and ensuring Nagato’s rise in secret. The Rinnegan in his skull was too valuable, after all, to leave unwatched, unattended.

His understanding of emotions had created the Akatsuki.

Just as his understanding of emotions aided him in manipulating Obito.

Their encounter on the Moon had almost ruined centuries of plans, but Zetsu understood that at the core, emotion was what mattered, not reason. Giving reasons, justifications, excuses, all of that would have failed, and their working relationship would have broken down completely, and they would have fought to the death there and then.

Which was why Zetsu did none of that.

He simply appealed to emotion.

“Rin can be brought back to life.”

There had been arguments, back and forths, self-deception and lies, but Zetsu saw through them all. Even the most well-intentioned and the most powerful of humans were still subject to the whim of their emotions. One could not fool the likes of Uchiha Madara by being logical, by being rational, or by being truthful.

Facts were secondary to feelings.

Uchiha Obito was still a heartbroken child agonizing over the fact that his true love had perished at the hand of his rival and best friend, and that his teacher had failed to arrive to save him when he needed him most.

Logic was secondary to emotions.

Such blatant motivations were still clear, and they displayed themselves even so in the plan Obito formed to trap Jiraiya, which was merely a reenactment of that trauma.

A kunoichi, failed by her teacher, whilst her teammates were dead? One, disfigured and abused, firing off accusations and blame, wondering where their teacher had been when she needed him most?

It was predictably emotional.

Yet, such predictable emotions worked brilliantly in ensnaring Jiraiya, because he, too, was governed purely by emotion.

Nagato was no different, his appellation of ‘Pain’ and his desire to see a world know that epithet were again governed by emotion. Konan would stick by his side, no matter what, because that, too, was mandated by emotion.

All the other members, new and old, were governed by emotions.

It was this same emotion that would stir the man known as Namikaze Minato to action. This emotion, that would burst forth once Ma arrived in his office, weeping about the loss of Pa, and the abduction of his teacher. This emotion would have him vanish from his office and move towards his safehouse, where he armed himself with his kunai.

In this manner, the Modified Eye of the Moon Plan would commence. Things would progress because this was the way humans were.

Humans were not rational creatures.

Humans were not logical creatures.

Humans were emotional creatures.

Thus, not a single one of them would ever hold a candle to the Celestial Beings. They would never hold a candle to his Mother. Hagoromo’s foolish emotions birthed from his human side had made him believe in peace, and Hamura’s sentiments had made him seclude himself upon the moon for his final days. Had Hamura stayed on the Earth, instructing his descendants to carry out the dream of peace, Zetsu would never have had the chance to manipulate the shinobi world to his bidding. 

Yet, in observing humans for so long, Zetsu, in learning to manipulate them, learned also to be emotional. Grandiosely, severely, humanly emotional. 

However, with Hamura’s return, Zetsu decided it would not do.

He could not defeat the emotional humans if he was governed by human emotions.

Thus, Zetsu did not shed all his emotions, but he carefully controlled them. Fear, doubt, hesitation, anxiety, every sentiment that could otherwise impede his judgment. Zetsu reached closer and closer to a level that no one else, no living being in the entirety of the World of Shinobi could come close.

A thousand plus years of wisdom, of experience and emotion, accepted, digested, and comprehended. Indeed, the terrifying result of a being who had experienced such a thing was enough to bring nations to heel.

“Akatsuki…”

Zetsu was a butterfly that had emerged from its cocoon. All obstacles that stood in the path of his Mother’s return… 

“Move out.”

Would fall with a flap of his wings.

XXXXX

Maa… today’s not going to be a good day, is it…

Slowly opening one eye, he stared into the darkness of the tent, his ears lightly picking up the sound of sand battering the cloth on the outskirts. Harsh winds blew from the outside, and Kakashi closed his single eye again, mumbling softly about his sheer distaste for sand.

Today wouldn’t be a good day, because he’d seen her in his dreams.

On days he dreamt of her, days where her final expression came to his memory, days where he vividly recalled the pulsating beat of her heart as his hand pierced it, Kakashi found that those days were the worst of days. They were the most terrible of days, and they were the days when everything went wrong and nothing went right. Some part of him used to think she haunted him, the same part of him that believed Obito still haunted him, but Jiraiya said ghosts didn’t exist, and Sensei said when people died, their souls would return to the Pure Land.

Yet, without fail, every time he dreamt of her, Kakashi never had a good day.

A large, gracious set of breasts exposed themselves to him as a black-haired woman sat up beside him, as bare as the day she was born. “Mmm… what… time is it?” 

A scar ran horizontally across her nose, a sword slash, one which had missed her eyes by mere millimeters. Kakashi idly moved his hand towards it, rubbing it, before yawning.

“Almost sunrise.”

She scrambled out of the bed and grabbed her ANBU uniform on the side. “Shit."

“Maa, maa, what’s the hurry?”

“I can’t exactly be caught leaving the tent of the ANBU Commander,” she hastily put on a set of underwear. “I got enough mumbles about favoritism during my training. If they found out about us—”

“Us?”

“Whatever this is, between us.”

“We’re just friends,” Kakashi said.

“That sleep with each other?”  

“We’re really good friends,” Kakashi added, dryly. “Who occasionally do things normal friends don’t.”

She sat on the bed, sighing as she handed him a stretchy white material. “Help me put on these bindings…”

Kakashi grabbed the bindings as she raised her hands high, and slowly, gently, began wrapping around the mounds of fatty flesh. They were bigger than anyone would suspect or think. Enough that Kakashi still remembered instinctively attempting to dispel a genjutsu the first time she took off her top in front of him, and the responding slap that reassured him of reality.

“You know—”

“Don’t.”

“Maa, maa, don’t be testy. It’s still just a surprise you took after your sensei in this way.”

“Tsunade-sama was flat as a board when she was younger. There’s a special technique she invented to alter her fat percentage and distribution over time.”

“There is?”

“You didn’t think her chest naturally got that big, did you?”

“So this…” Kakashi lightly cupped the breasts in his hands. “Was intentional?”

“Maybe,” she mumbled. “When I used to travel the Land of Fire with her, she always got looks because of her chest. I hated it for a long time. I’d complain to her about how men’s eyes were glued to her breasts, that they ignored everything else she said. That was when she told me the secret and taught me her technique.”

“Maa… you’re cute when jealous.”

She swung at him. Kakashi dodged the swing with a lazy tilt of his head.

“Ass.”

“You know, attacking your commanding officer is an act of treason, Shizune-chan.”

“Even when said commanding officer is being an ass?”

“Especially when said commanding officer is being an ass.”

She turned around to him, wearing an intentionally playful smile that Kakashi didn’t know where she’d learned it from. No, that was a lie; he knew exactly where she’d learnt it. Anko had taught her, and Yugao, probably, and perhaps Kurenai too. That friend group of women was very lethal.

“Will you punish me for my insubordination, Commander?”

“Maa, maa… to think you used to be so cute and innocent…” Kakashi sniffed. “Your friends are a bad influence.”

“Oh, no, don’t blame my friends. Blame the person who convinced a girl with nowhere to go to join the ANBU.”

“Maa… that person sounds like an ass.”

“He definitely is.”

“If I ever meet him, I’ll be sure to give him a good beating for you.”

Shizune rolled her eyes. She dressed swiftly and rapidly, and once she was garbed in her ANBU attire, breasts hidden, body fully covered from head to toe in armor, her hair tied neatly into a bow, Kakashi’s one open eye lazily observed her from top to bottom. 

“Anything out of place?”

“A few things.”

“There are? Where?”

“You’re wearing clothes.”

Shizune grabbed a senbon. Kakashi hastily lifted his hands, “Ah, you see, I had only one eye open, but now that I look again, everything is fine.”

“It better be.” 

Shizune slowly grabbed a mask. Not an ANBU Mask, but a cloth mask, one near-identical to the one he often wore. She pulled it, all the way up, covering the scar on her nostrils, before she grabbed a different mask, a white, featureless, ANBU mask, lacking even holes for eyes, and wore it atop.

She saluted with a level of professionalism devoid of a single wrong gesture. The air changed. She dropped to one knee, her head low.

“Orders, Commander.”

“At ease, Kamen.”

She rose. “My task?”

“Return to observe Lady Tsunade.”

“Hai, Commander.”

The next moment, the tent was empty. Not even the flaps had blown open, and Kakashi sat up on his bed, running his hand through his hair. To wear masks underneath masks, and adopt masks within masks, Kakashi could say that the Shizune of ten years ago would not recognize herself, but, at the same time, neither would anyone of ten years ago recognize their current selves.

Even he had, at first, no intention of letting things proceed in this way. Kakashi was aware of his wounds. He was aware of those wounds more than anyone, and he believed he could not allow any more wounds to form, that he had no space left unscarred, so to get too close to anyone, to become too dear to anyone, to allow someone to become too dear to him… he couldn’t do it.

Yet, somehow, Shizune had gotten closer than intended. It started simpler, with training, and then, with missions, and then that one mission, that mission where she got that scar, that mission, when the squadron had encountered the Jinchūriki of the Eight Tails on their way to the Land of Snow to seek an alliance. That mission, after the man who called himself Killer Bee laid waste to their squadron, and Shizune had carried him on her back, across the freezing, frigid cold, for hours on end.

That mission, when they’d been alone, together, in a cave, waiting for rescue from his sensei. Under the fear of death and desire for warmth, mistakes had been made. Lines had been crossed. Lines impossible to uncross.

Kakashi had made many mistakes in his life. Too many to count. Mistakes that kept him up at night, and mistakes that haunted his dreams. Yet, for the first time, what he and Shizune did together, in the Land of Snow…

It was a mistake he would not hesitate to make again.

“I’m surprised.”

Kakashi went stiff. He snapped his head to the side, and his eyes, the regular one and the Sharingan eye, went wide.

“S-sensei?”

When did he—?

How long had his sensei been there?

“She’ll be good for you. Or… you for her.”

Minato said, chuckling.

“I’m glad.”

“Sensei, we’re not—”

“I know. You don’t need to rush things.”

Something was off about his sensei. Kakashi could feel it. Something was… strange.

“Mito came to me,” Minato said. “She had me announce her engagement to Hyūga Neji. I was surprised… but, also, I was glad. Uchiha Itachi and Hyūga Neji were withdrawn from the front lines so I could assign Biwako and Naruto to two of them. So I could be assured they would be safe with them. To foil kidnapping attempts or assassination attempts, I made them my children’s teachers. All the while, I was worried about what I would do for Mito, worried about who would protect her, yet she came to announce her betrothal to him on her own.”

Minato chuckled. 

“It was… a relief.”

“Sensei… what’s wrong?”

Minato turned to him.

“Jiraiya has been abducted. Pa is dead. Ma gave me the news.”

Kakashi recoiled. It took a moment for the words to parse; even then, he scarcely believed it. Jiraiya? With his Senjutsu? His Perfect Sage Mode? His wealth of fūinjutsu experience? There was a shinobi out there who could not only subdue him, but do so while holding back to ensure they could capture him alive? 

“How?”

“It was done by Nagato and Konan. Jiraiya’s former pupils. Nagato… has the Rinnegan,” Minato said. “The Eyes of the Sage of Six Paths. Jiraiya believed he would be the Child of Prophecy before he met me. Abducting Jiraiya like this…”

Minato fell silent.

“Sensei?”

“Jiraiya-sensei told me he believed Nagato had died. For a long time, I thought that prophecy he spoke of, the prophecy the toads spoke of, was about me. Now, knowing he’s alive… knowing another of his pupils is still alive…” Minato chuckled. “To think that old warmonger could have been right… that there really was another…”

“Sensei, you can’t mean to—”

“I have to.”

“It’s a trap.”

“I'm counting on it.”

Kakashi stared. You're... counting on it?

“Watch over Naruto-kun for me, will you?”

“Wait, sensei—!”

“And be sure to treat Shizune well,” Minato got up and smiled. “At least, one of my students deserves that much happiness.”

“Sen—”

He was gone.

Kakashi jumped to his feet, breathing harshly.

He knew it.

From the moment he woke up, the moment he had that dream, he just knew it.

Today was not going to be a good day.