Kakuzu

**Kakuzu** was an S-rank missing-nin from the Hidden Waterfall Villaage and a member of the Akatsuki who was partnered with Hidan. Kisame Hoshigaki jokingly referred to them as the **Zombie Combo**, due to the fact that, in a sense, they could not die. Within the organization itself, Kakuzu acted as its treasurer.

## Statistics

* **Name**: Kakuzu
* **Origin**: Naruto
* **Gender**: Male
* **Age**: 91
* **Birthday**: August 15
* **Classification**: Human, Immortal, S-Rank Missing-nin, Akatsuki Member and Treasurer
* **Blood Type**: A
* **Height**: 185 cm (6'0.8")
* **Weight**: 63.2 kg (139.3 lbs)
* **Skin Color**: Tan
* **Eye Color**: Green with Red Sclera
* **Hair Color**: Brown
* **Alignment**: Bad
* **Status**: Deceased
* **Class**: **SS-Class**
* **Notable Attacks/Techniques**: Earth Style: Iron Skin, Fire Style: Searing Migraine, Lightning Style: False Darkness, Wind Style: Pressure Damage
* **Voice Actor**: Takaya Hashi

## Appearance

Kakuzu was a tan-skinned and tall man, easily standing as the second tallest member of Akatsuki. Noticeably, despite his advanced age, he still appears as a man well within his prime, retaining a very muscular build. He wore a white hood and a black mask, with his eyes being the only visible part of his face. Underneath, his mouth was stitched together at the edges (giving him a glasgow smile) and he had long dark brown hair. His eyes have an unusual coloring: green irises, no pupils and red sclera. His clothing included the traditional Akatsuki cloak and the forehead protector of his home village with a scratch in the middle which symbolized that he was no longer loyal to it. He also wore brown nail polish and his dark green Akatsuki ring with the kanji for "north" was placed on his left middle finger. His entire body was covered with various stitches and predominantly appeared to be sewn together. This was a result of the unique technique that he possessed - the Earth Grudge.

## Personality

Kakuzu was a greedy and miserly individual, arranging goals in terms of the highest profit he could gain from them, and was often unwilling to involve himself in something if there was nothing to gain from it, as well as claiming that he tended to forget opponents who were not worth any money after he was done with them. He even remarked that money is the only dependable thing in the world. Due to this end, he referred to himself as the "**Treasurer of Akatsuki**". Given his friendly relationship with Zangei, his bounty officer, it would seem he collected bounties rather frequently to earn cash, and did so (or at least tried) during his missions on several occasions. The frequent side-tasks and devotion to money were both major points of contention between Hidan and Kakuzu. He also seemed to respect an opponent who thinks well, as shown with his reaction to Kakashi's counters to Kakuzu's masks, and Shikamaru's quick analysis of Hidan's curse, even mentioning Shikamaru would have been a good bounty in the future.

Out of all the Akatsuki members, Hidan and Kakuzu displayed the most animosity towards each other, since neither of them were very fond of each other's interests. The two often traded barbs with one another, Kakuzu's usually having better timing than Hidan's. Hidan had shown great annoyance with Kakuzu's greed and occasional habit of doing or saying blasphemous things, such as attacking a temple and killing the head monk for the bounty on the monk's head. Kakuzu, in turn, disliked Hidan's religion, believing the rituals associated with it to be a waste of time. Kakuzu was also rather impatient with Hidan's drawn-out speeches and battle style. Despite their mutual dislike of each other, their teamwork was almost flawless, because they complemented each other's abilities extremely well. Also, Kakuzu seems to care to an extent about Hidan, as he picked up and gave back his partner's forehead protector after he lost it during his fight with Asuma, a feat that made Hidan admit that Kakuzu is not as hostile as he appeared to be.

The only reason that Kakuzu put up with Hidan was because he couldn't get rid of him. Due to his violent temper, Kakuzu often killed anyone close by when enraged. Hidan, therefore, was the perfect partner for Kakuzu, because of Hidan's inability to die. Kakuzu's somewhat indiscriminate attack style also made Hidan an ideal partner, since Kakuzu didn't need to worry about catching his partner in the crossfire.

Despite his obsessive personality and violent rages, Kakuzu was much more cautious than his partner, and was not as arrogant, never mindlessly rushing into battle like Hidan. Kakuzu frequently warned Hidan not to let his guard down, and then teased Hidan when he inevitably did. Kakuzu also seemed quite willing to follow orders. When ordered to retreat by the Akatsuki leader, Kakuzu complied immediately (while Hidan attempted to argue), despite the rather large bounty he could have received by taking Asuma. He seemed to forget the greater goals of the organization when enraged, as he attempted to kill Naruto, in spite of Akatsuki's need to capture all the jinchuriki alive.

Kakuzu held a violent hatred for his village, as despite his loyalty and willingness to risk life and limb on a dangerous mission, his failure was repaid with uncharacteristically harsh punishment. He responded in kind by brutally betraying Taki committing jailbreak, taking knowledge of their most valuable kinjutsu and killing all of the elders before departing.

Despite his greed and his temper, Kakuzu was shown to be very dutiful to the Akatsuki. When Nagato, known as Pain at the time, told them to return to a hideout to seal the Two-Tails, Kakuzu immediately returned without asking for more time to retrieve Asuma's body and cash it in for money.

## Abilities and Equipment

**Earth Grudge**: All of Kakuzu's abilities revolved around his unique body structure, which was composed of hundreds of thick, grey tendrils woven throughout his flesh called **Earth Grudge**, holding his body together like the stitches of a rag-doll. This allowed him to separate his body parts at will, perform long-range physical attacks, and sew up almost any injury he suffered. All these abilities made him very difficult to defeat. The threads could also be used to repair the bodies of others, as seen when he reattached Deidara's arms, although Hidan's inability to die after being dismembered caused him to be Kakuzu's most frequent patient. Because of his unique body structure, Kakuzu is a highly enduring man, able to take a direct strike from Kakashi's Lightning Blade without it hindering his performance. His threads could even compact together to form a giant octopus-like form around his body, used for long range battle. Kakuzu's threads granted him a degree of immortality (though he declined to think of it that way). The threads could pierce the flesh and bodies of others, allowing him to remove their organs and integrate them into his own body, thereby extending his life. He commonly removed hearts in this fashion, keeping a total of five at any time, and requiring that he be killed at least five times in a battle before he truly died. If Kakuzu was killed somehow, then one of his extra hearts could sacrifice itself by re-entering his body and bringing him back to life.

* **Earth Grudge Augmentation**: With several hearts gathered in his body, Kakuzu's chakra is focused and becomes stronger. He will transform his body and can combine the elemental techniques of multiple masks for highly damaging attacks. He can transform his body further and grow eight giant tendrils, in which he can use for a powerful offensive strike focused on a single point.

**Earth Style**: One of the basic elemental nature transformation techniques. It allows the user to manipulate the surrounding earth for offensive and defensive purposes or create it; be it dirt, mud, or rock. These techniques can alter the landscape on a large scale, and solid earth barriers are commonly used as defense. Some earth jutsu can even alter hardness and weight properties.

* **Earth Style: Iron Skin**: This technique hardens the user's skin to make them very resistant to attacks. It also increases the effectiveness of melee, providing the user with enough power to smash through concrete. This jutsu can be nullified by lightning/electricity type attacks.

**Fire Style**: One of the basic elemental nature transformations. It is performed by molding superheated chakra inside the stomach before releasing it via the lungs and mouth. Fire Style jutsu are usually mid range and can cover a wide area. The force of the fire chakra is similar to an explosion, as it can carve craters in to rock. There are also variants to this in the form of some mediums such as the use of gun powder, explosive tags and chakra flow into a weapon.

* **Fire Style: Searing Migraine**: This technique is used by the Kakuzu's fire element mask. A blast of blazing fire erupts from the mask's mouth, which can engulf multiple targets in flames and cover a wide area.

**Wind Style**: One of the five basic elemental nature transformations. It is performed by making chakra as sharp and thin as possible. Wind Release is mainly short to mid-ranged offensive techniques that combine brute force and keen precision to deal cutting and slashing damage. Wind techniques are usually performed by generating air circulation and can be enhanced through this method as well. Wind-natured chakra can also be channeled into blades to increase their cutting power and overall range.

* **Wind Style: Pressure Damage**: A powerful wind technique preformed by Kakuzu's wind element mask, in which a blast of high density, tornado-like wind chakra is released. The pressure of the wind is raised to it's limit creating a large blast radius that can damage multiple targets.

**Lightning Style**: One of the basic elemental nature transformation techniques that allows the user to generate lightning by increasing the high frequency vibrations of their chakra, allowing for piercing damage and fast movement. The electricity paralyses the target so that they are unable to move and leave them vulnerable to a finishing strike. While uncommon, lightning can be infused into bladed weapons in a way similar to Wind Style through chakra flow for increased the piercing power through vibrations, with the added effect of inducing numbness

* **Lightning Style: False Darkness**: Kakuzu's lightning element mask fires a stream lightning in the shape of a spear that is used to pierce the target. It's destructive power is great enough to pierce through rock. The user can increase the number of lightning spears to expand it's range and strike multiple targets.

## Weaknesses

His earth skin defense is weak against electric/lightning based attacks.