Project Jinchuuriki

It’s that time of year again, Kakashi thinks uncharitably, when the solo missions start flooding in and genin team assignments begin anew. Because for all that Kakashi is ANBU, you don’t have to be to notice that the Hokage has begun a yearly habit in which he tries to give Kakashi more missions and Hound fewer missions before inevitably giving him three tiny little easily breakable children to… ‘teach’.

The months-long flood of solo missions as Kakashi is most likely to try and ease him out of his Hound persona, but it’s predictable and it means that he’s going to be assigned another genin team. And - he does a quick bit of math - he’ll be expected to pass this one. Uchiha Sasuke is graduating this year.

Anyway. His missions as Kakashi tend to be track and eliminate, and this one is no different. Except today, he has no team beyond his ninken, and he isn’t after some Konoha missing-nin who thought they could just slip away. Most of them tended to think so, when Konoha’s only known traitors are the infamous Uchiha Madara, the perhaps even more infamous Uchiha Itachi, and, ever the creature of children’s nightmares, Orochimaru the Sannin himself. (It never seemed to occur to them that Konoha had no other known traitors because they were all dealt with long before the monthly renewal of the bingo books.)

Today, Kakashi is hunting The Mastermind. A presumptuous name, in his opinion, but the man is a fuinjutsu practitioner who had managed to stay under the radar of every Hidden Village for over half a decade until now, and he needs to be dealt with. And really, the man’s strength lies completely in his sealing. That’s all well and good, but with his metaphorical smokescreen gone, he has virtually no combat ability left to work with beyond what he can put onto paper. Not to discredit fuinjutsu, but it took a real master to apply it in combat and this man was far from a master. It’s not like he could do much beyond his genjutsu seals.

The cavern Kakashi finds after two stressful hours in the cave system is only further proof of this. It’s big, but bare of anything except nine metal would-be cages in various states of destruction and five shinobi including The Mastermind. Kakashi can tell at a glance that the four unknowns can’t be more than chūnin and they’ve been spooked besides. The problem is by what, exactly. This is their base, and it isn’t The Mastermind, just because of how little attention they’re paying him. But that means that someone or something else is here.

He usually wouldn’t be bothered; he came for The Mastermind, The Mastermind is there, take him and go - but he doesn’t like the uncertainty. Variables always make things more complicated, they widen plausible outcomes, and without a single hint as to the nature of said variable… that’s a whole lot of unwelcome possibilities.

Plus, the unknowns are on guard, and it always makes everything more difficult when the grunts are halfway competent.

Ah, well. It won’t take too much longer even if he has to expend a bit more effort than usual.

XxXOoO

For the record, Kakashi hasn’t touched any fuinjutsu more complicated than an explosive tag in years, so it is not his fault that The Mastermind managed to trick him. Paralysis and electricity look very similar in fuinjutsu. He had assumed that the two seals coming at him were electricity and acid and chose the lesser of two evils, had thought that he could handle a bit of a shock.

Allow him to reiterate - paralysis and electricity look very similar in fuinjutsu. So Kakashi can’t be blamed for this. Besides, The Mastermind is still an amateur, and Kakashi was the student of the Yellow Flash, not to mention the amount of time his team spent with his sensei’s wife- 

(Kakashi stops thinking about it as soon as he starts)

-and he can literally disarm the seal in five more minutes. As long as The Mastermind keeps his monologue going, everything will be fine and he’ll be free to eliminate his target, and no one will ever hear about this particular incident ever.

He’s more than slightly concerned about what’s in the monologue, though, because The Mastermind has been ranting about nature chakra for a good five minutes already. Not to mention he’s spouting off little facts about his big ‘project’ that are only making that concern grow.

“But you know what? The world has turned against me, do you understand? The participants of my project went feral. The seals… the seals were too much, my project- no, no, my ambition too powerful! The world itself is telling me no, but don’t you see? That is what tells me how badly I need to persist! Bijuu chakra, you see - you do see? As long as there is natural chakra somewhere in the world, there is bijuu chakra, there are bijuu! So I- I- are you listening? Can you understand the depth of what I’ve discovered?”

Kakashi wants to say that it seems like this guy just really needs a science buddy to chat about ideas. He’s trying way too hard.

“-because something- something went wrong, something wasn’t right-“

Again, Kakashi would suggest a science buddy; the guy was losing it. Yes, he thinks, wrong is in fact the opposite of right.

“-the seals- but, no, my seals were perfect, they were flawless, so then… then… the participants. That’s it, that must have been my mistake. I thought- because- I thought that they had to be the ones, I thought it was fate! Nine siblings, it was as if it were destiny. But of course, I- do you see? Are you hearing this? I’ve found the answer! Of course a scientist must never rely on what he views to be fate, it’s begging for failure! I- I must pick the subjects carefully, I must handpick the vessels, else I make the same mistake twice, of course…”

One more minute, Kakashi think, just keep on talking…

“The seals weren’t incomplete, just insufficient. Brilliant, just brilliant, I know exactly what to fix. My seals were meant to hold in bijuu chakra, not contain actual bijuu, and the respective backdoors opened into the participants’ minds must have driven them straight to insanity… yes, now I-“

Kakashi would startle if he were able to. “Bijuu?” He demands. “This is about bijuu?”

“Oh,” The Mastermind says, “Oh, dear - you weren’t listening at all? The participants-“

A hand punches through The Mastermind’s throat, fingers first. Kakashi, badly startled, notes with some disconcertment that the fingers are clawed. And… very bloody.

“The participants,” The man sneers mockingly, “are fucking pissed.” With a rather disgusting gurgle, The Mastermind half-collapses with the man’s fingers still lodged uncomfortably far into his trachea, and Kakashi has to wonder how he didn’t see him behind The Mastermind when he was… much taller. And… bulkier. And a hell of a lot stranger.

Every visible inch of the man’s light brown skin is etched with Curse Seal markings. They’re colored a dark blue, but it’s relatively unclear whether they’re tattooed or just painted. The man’s near shoulder-length, sandy brown-ish blond hair almost covers his eyes, eyes that are a vibrant yellow that is less than appealing and definitely edging into ‘creepy’ territory. They widen in surprise, and the four-pointed pupils contract in a decidedly sickening way.

The man grins, which makes it infinitely worse because his teeth are long and sharp and jagged and they slot together perfectly anyway. “Ōtsutsuki Shukaku,” He boasts with a cackle, and narrows his disturbing eyes at Kakashi. “I’m a ninth of this guy’s Project Jinchuuriki.”

Project… Jinchuuriki, Kakashi thinks, and suddenly The Mastermind’s rambling starts to make a terrifying amount of sense.

Well, he decides, shit. Because he’d stopped working on the paralysis seal when he’d been blindsided by The Mastermind, and also ‘Ōtsutsuki Shukaku’ wasn’t wearing a shirt, which meant that Kakashi could see exactly where a seal had been inked over the Curse Seal markings on his upper stomach.

Now would be a great time to revisit the fact that Kakashi hasn’t touched a seal more complicated than an explosive tag in years, but he can still pick out elements, and nothing in that concoction is overtly comforting, especially if he’s misinterpreted some of them.

In fact, he wishes that maybe this ‘Shukaku’ would step back a few hundred feet, because this is closer to an unstable jinchuuriki seal than Kakashi has ever wanted to be.

“Hatake Kakashi,” Shukaku says, but it comes out closer to a growl than Kakashi is hoping he meant it to be. “Kakashi of the Sharingan, ‘Friend-Killer’ Kakashi, Copy-Nin, Kakashi of a Thousand Jutsu…”

Shukaku lets The Mastermind slump the rest of the way to the ground, shaking some of the blood from his hand and stepping closer, a clawed finger clacking gently against Kakashi’s hitai-ate. “The Sharingan of Kakashi of the Sharingan,” Shukaku murmurs, and then giggles. It echoes ominously, and when Shukaku continues to giggle, Kakashi takes it as his cue to finish shorting out the paralysis seal.

Shukaku doesn’t like that at all. “Not so fast,” He mutters, something very dark and very not sane suddenly lurking behind his eyes. He rips the paper seal off Kakashi’s chest and away from Kakashi’s reaching chakra and takes a bit of flack jacket with it. “Let’s go,” He says, eyes still dangerously maniac.

Kakashi scowls. “Where?” He asks, like an idiot, when he should have just grabbed The Mastermind’s head and booked it.

Shukaku’s creepy eyes glitter, making them exponentially creepier. “Why,” He says, dangerously cheerful, another giggle-fit on the tip of his tongue, “to meet the rest of Project Jinchuuriki, of course.”

XxXOoO

Kakashi despises caves. If he hadn’t hated them already - and he did, oh god how he hated them - he certainly does now. The longer he’s here, the more hate he manages to dig up for them. He’s already on the verge of swearing an oath to never enter another cave for as long as he lives. Nothing good has ever come out of spending time in a cave.

But he also doesn’t want to die quite so gruesomely as Shukaku’s last victim. Which means following a decidedly not-of-sound-mind pseudo-jinchuuriki even deeper into a cave system he’s equally decidedly not the least bit familiar with.

What did he do to deserve this? Seriously, who was in charge of ruining his life, because he’d like a word, please and thank you.

Shukaku is making his merry way down a crumbling, supremely unsteady rockfall, whistling without a care in the world and pretending the rocks under him aren’t shifting and wobbling.

Kakashi has no such luxury. But he also needs to be able to report back to the Hokage about a new threat with more than ‘one of nine pseudo-jinchuuriki is veritably insane and the others might also be’.

Of course, there’s also that the odds are stacked heavily against him here. He might be able to take Shukaku one-on-one, but if the others are anything like him - crazy and/or possessing of corrosive chakra - he doesn’t stand a chance. Even now, ostensibly reined in and to a non-sensor like Kakashi, Shukaku’s chakra scrapes against his own, occasionally leaving faint, phantom scratching sensations on his skin. It feels like a no-man’s land, desert dry and capable of slowly baking him in his own skin.

That’s not normal and Kakashi doesn’t like it, not at all. But he still needs more information. Much more.

He’s hyperaware of the cave narrowing the further they go. Too soon it’s corridor-thin and Kakashi is only getting twitchier. Glowing green and yellow dots blinking into existence from a shadow doesn’t help in the least, and Kakashi jerks back with a kunai in hand.

“Shukaku,” A woman’s voice says coolly, unimpressed. The animalistic man’s name from her mouth sounds odd, the slightest undertone of a hiss in it. The dots flicker briefly into and out of being.

“Matatabi,” Shukaku parrots back obnoxiously. ‘Matatabi’ retreats deeper into the shadows, dots disappearing, and a hollow thunk is the only warning for a flash that blinds Kakashi for a half second(half a second too long).

The woman eyes the with the light from a regular-burning torch, even though Kakashi could’ve sworn that the flash from the fire was bright blue an instant ago.

Yet, currently, the only bright blue present is Matatabi’s hair, excepting a starburst of black towards the crown of her head. Her eyes - the glowing dots from before, one green, one yellow, and both pupil-less - aren’t too terribly abnormal, besides the glowing, and even that is dimmed in range of the torch. Her hair is only slightly longer than Shukaku’s, brushing over her collarbones and, interestingly enough, a tattoo. Shukaku was something, but this woman had to be half a foot shorter, and Kakashi thinks he prefers her to Shukaku. She was toned where her fellow pseudo-jinchuuriki was bulky, which tells him she fights smart where he just fights, she’s calmer, probably saner-

“You’re late,” She says with the same slight, inexplicable hiss, something in her mouth glimmering shiny in the torchlight.

-and the possessor of a neat row of thin, needle sharp teeth, he finishes faintly.

Mismatched eyes slide his way, and Matatabi sighs softly, passing Shukaku the torch to tie a bandana over her mouth and nose with a significantly heavier eye roll.

Her tattoo, Kakashi notes, very near deliriously, is actually in better taste than Shukaku’s collection. Her skin is maybe two, three shades darker and the brighter blues and whites are nicer than Shukaku’s darker navy - even though he doesn’t quite know what it’s supposed to be. Matatabi’s mesh is, after all, obscuring the entirety of-

Hang on. Kakashi snaps out of his hysteria to gawk discreetly and disbelievingly.

What the fuck is Matatabi wearing? Her chest is bound but the only other top she has on is a mesh tank top that has to be more than one size too big, and she’s wearing shinobi-standard pants, but they’ve been hacked off at the knee.

“Come, then,” She says, breath still hissing quietly through her fucking needle teeth, and doesn’t wait for an answer, snatching the torch back. Shukaku curses and lengthens his strides to keep up. As Kakashi follows warily, he notices something.

Shukaku’s bare feet are slapping against the stone of the cave floor.

It’s careless and cocky, the sort of cocky that killed shinobi off quickly. Unless they had the skill to back it up.

Matatabi’s steps make no such sound. A glance at her feet tells him that her grey slippers might help, but he has no doubts that it’s a decision for her. She’s at least as powerful as Shukaku, and yet…

A decision, instead of a necessity. A preference, instead of a survival tool. It tells Kakashi a lot about the difference in Shukaku’s and Matatabi’s personalities and cunning. Shukaku is strong enough to disregard subtlety and not have it matter. Matatabi… Matatabi is the one to watch.

Matatabi is strong enough to disregard subtlety, and clever - ruthless - enough to use it anyway.

Kakashi’s stomach sinks. Matatabi is an exemplary shinobi.

This is starting to look like more and more of a bad idea.

XxXOoO

Okay. Okay. He gets it, already. He fucked up. He fucked up badly enough that this is apparently what he deserves.

He thought Shukaku was bulky? Yeah, no. The absolute beast of a man sitting in front of the boulder that’s apparently the entrance to wherever the hell all these freaks hang out, or whatever they do is easily over six and a half fucking feet tall. His skin is a sickly pale that’s tinged with green, but despite whatever the fuck dubious health his skin implies, he’s built like a goddamn brick wall; his biceps are bigger than Kakashi’s head. He’s not going to get over it anytime soon. The man is a behemoth, for god’s sake. This one is just as bereft of a shirt as Shukaku, and Kakashi can see his seal, too, only - haha, hilariously enough - the man’s pectoral is big enough to fit the entire fucking jinchuuriki seal. 

And he thought Matatabi’s clothes had been butchered? This man’s shinobi-standard pants are gone below the knee too, only, instead of being hacked off, his legs are so damn huge that the ankles are bursting open at the man’s fucking knees.

His hands and feet aren’t even worth mentioning beyond the fact that his nails, at least, aren’t clawed.

His eyes - yellow with inverted white pupils - while unnerving, are easy to ignore in the wake of his introduction to Shukaku’s, but really, the worst thing about all of this is the man’s hair. Not the way it’s cut, that’s fine - cropped close to his skull with a full beard to boot.

No, what gets him about the man’s hair is this: it is bright, Uzumaki-red. Rage red, even, but indubitably, unmistakably, defiantly Uzumaki.

He thinks he might be sick. And he remembers all of a sudden something The Mastermind had let slip before his… regrettable passing.

Nine siblings, it was as if it was destiny.

He almost laughs, except he thinks that if the man in front of him assumes the target of his laughter he might end up even worse off than The Mastermind. These people - these two men and that woman - intended him to believe them to be related?

“And you’re siblings?” Kakashi demands before he can stop himself, gesturing from Shukaku to the newest man to Matatabi. “You- you’re all supposed to be siblings?”

Shukaku roars with laughter, Matatabi turning away with a sigh and another eye roll. The newest man doesn’t do anything beyond eye Kakashi apathetically. When Shukaku finally gets a hold of himself, he grins, jagged teeth on full display. “What a great question! Matatabi, really, think about it - are we sibl-“

“Yes, Shukaku. For the last time, we are all siblings.”

Shukaku pouts. “Fine then, party-pooper.” He returns to grinning at Kakashi, who’d really rather he didn’t. “You’re referring to how we don’t look very alike to each other.”

Try exactly nothing alike. Aside from the yellow eyes, Kakashi couldn’t see a single trait they shared.

“Well,” Shukaku jams a finger in his ear, “that’s because we’re only half siblings. We’ve all got the same pa, see, an’ he-“

“That’s enough, Shukaku.” The giant speaks for the first time, deep and low and menacing, and Kakashi shudders a little.

“Oh yeah? Is it, Son Gokū? Do you get to boss me around? Me, the great, powerful Ōtsutsuki Shu-“

One of Son Gokū’s colossal hands smacks Shukaku into the wall with a truly revolting splat.

Slowly, Shukaku peels himself up, snarl on his face. There’s blood on his chin, more leaking from his mouth and nose, and Kakashi registers with muted horror that he can hear Shukaku’s crushed ribs cracking and snapping back into place at the same time that he’s watching the man’s collapsed torso repair itself.

What the fuck are you people? He wants to ask, but he already knows the answer. Failed jinchuuriki with undeniably demonic strength and abilities is what they are.

Son Gokū starts to snarl back, and at this point Kakashi shouldn’t even be surprised to see four short, blunt - for all intents and purposes - tusks hiding under the man’s lips.

At least it isn’t needle teeth. He shoots a sour look at Matatabi and realizes belatedly that her bandana is bloodstained. And… hang on, is that-?

It is, he discovers, chilled. That’s a hitai-ate bandana - only, he could see where the metal plate had been ripped from the cloth.

Alright. That’s it. He’s done. Screw getting more information, he- he’s just done. This isn’t worth it, not with six more of these monsters to go. He’s sure the Hokage will understand.

He starts inching back down the corridor-tunnel, only to be stopped by Shukaku’s sharp, “Hold it, Hatake. You’re not going anywhere.”

Fuck.