Disclaimer: Trust me, you'll learn to love me a whole lot more knowing that I don't own, or have anything to do with the Naruto series.
Prologue: The Battle of the Sexes
The skies over Konoha were a bright blue, and speckled with the ever occasional white, puffy cloud. The kind that signified nice warm weather to continue, much to the villagers' overall pleasure.
It was spring, which meant that the flowers were in full bloom, as well as the Yamanaka Flower business. It also meant that children were free to run around in the streets, jumping in fresh puddles as they wished, and mothers were free to scold them afterwards.
That day was peaceful, lively, and beautiful. Many years later, villagers would look back and argue that it was the perfect day Konoha had ever experienced. However, the shinobi of the village knew otherwise. It would have been the most peaceful day Konoha had seen, except for -
"WHAT!"
...well, that.
In the mission handout room, or at least that's its general purpose, an angry - no, raging kunoichi was glaring down the shinobi behind the long desk, making all but one cower in fear. The only one who dared to hold the gaze with the woman, was another - the Godaime Hokage.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO SEDUCE A HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD KING?! THIS IS NOT MY STYLE OF KILLING PEOPLE! IF I WANT TO -"
"Mitarashi Anko," Tsunade started in a controlled voice, which just added to the fear Anko felt when she heard her full name. "If you are going to whine about your mission, at least get the facts straight.
"First off, you have to seduce a sixty-year-old daimyo from the Cloud Country - not a hundred-year-old king. Secondly, you have to do this because you just happen to resemble his late wife. And third," Tsunade spoke, teeth clenched, "you aren't supposed to kill him. It's a," she almost choked on the words, "secret birthday present."
"..." Anko stared blankly at Tsunade, as though she had just bitch-slapped her, and married her off to Orochimaru again - but that's another story, completely. Tsunade would have looked away, but - were those tears?
"WHAT?!" This time her voice was more whiny, as she pouted, crossing her arms across her chest and sitting down on the floor. "NO! IF THE BASTARD DOESN'T DIE, THEN DEFINITELY NO!"
Tsunade's eye started twitching, "Well, if this doesn't just remind me, of a certain brat..."
Tsunade sighed. This hurt her just as much as it hurt Anko.
Well... maybe a little less, since Anko was currently being restrained by six Chunin from seemingly drawing out a kunai and hurtling it at herself. She was muttering the phrase, "No killing... no reason to live... no killing... no reason to live..."
"Anko."
"..reason to live.. no-"
"ANKO!"
"..."
Tsunade coughed, damn her throat hurt. It was either from screaming, or the unusual lack of it. "Look, would you like to meet the man who hired you for this job, or not?"
Anko stared at the Hokage questioningly, as she threw off the idiots who tried to stop her from pulling out her stuffed bear from her kunai holster.
"Since it's a secret birthday present, the daimyo definitely wouldn't know about it..."
Realization struck Anko in the eyes - "Ow, my eyes! Damn the wind, and it's unholy crap!" - but she soon recovered, and was grinning a cruel grin that only she could manage. It was one that many of her late enemies would recall as the last thing they saw before they... were considered "late enemies."
Tsunade had a Chunin, one brave enough to let the woman follow him, lead her to a screen door and open it, revealing a man around the age of forty. As soon as the man caught sight of Anko - who was smiling beautifully, and quite un-Anko-like - he leered at her with nothing more than lust filled in his eyes.
"Yes, yes.." he mumbled, more to himself than the room at large. He turned his body position toward the Hokage, but his eyes were still set on the kunoichi in front of him. "She is perfect, Lady Hokage. Thank you. Worth every ryou."
A large part of the Godaime wanted to tear every limb off of the man, and watch him writhe and squeal in agony. But she restrained herself to a point. (She had grabbed a hold of the desk a bit too tightly, so that a part of it had broken into splinters under her hand.)
"Yes, yes," she practically batted off his words with a wave of her hand. "Now get out. We do have other clients to consider."
Anko looked back with a smile of pure happiness - one that not many had seen and lived to tell about. Tsunade noticed that some of the male Chunins, who had forgotten who they were dealing with, seemed to be love-struck.
It was truly an uncomfortable sight to see.
Anko pushed the man back into the secluded room, as the screen door shut of its own accord. The man staggered, but regained his balance with a sly smirk on his not-as-hot-as-Sasuke-Neji-Kakashi-or-even-Gai features. (But, there's no Gai-bashing here, since he totally kicks ass in that one piece spandex outfit. Whatever works for ya', I guess.)
"Ah," he nodded, "a feisty one, eh?"
Anko laughed with a silver underlining of exaggerated mirth as she answered, "Heheh, you could say that."
Her fingers started to twitch as they subtly moved toward her kunai holster.
"Unfortunately," the man began again, "you are not meant for me." Anko almost snorted. "You must save this kind of energy for the daimyo of the Cloud." He looked at her, with the lust evident on every inch of his face. It was disgusting.
Anko, however, played the part of the innocent woman as she listened, "But, of course, your... services with the daimyo are only necessary for one day. After that, we..." he trailed off, leaving the rest to his mind.
Inside she was laughing her ass off. "This is great! The fool is totally doing my work of distracting himself!"
Anko's hand was right next to the kunai holster on her right thigh. She quickly opened it as the man continued talking.
RRRIIIPPP!
Anko swore inwardly, "Damn the new velcro latch that Ebisu tricked me into getting! Easier to open, my ass! I'll kill that son of a-"
"Um, what exactly are you doing?" The man asked with narrowed eyes.
"Crap!" she thought. But being the bright kunoichi that she is, she quickly recovered.
"Oh," she started in a high-pitched, girly voice that was enough to make even a certain Perverted-sennin have an unexpected nosebleed. "I just thought that you might like to meet a little friend of mine."
The man eyed her warily, finally taking in the fact that she was a fully grown, and trained kunoichi. "A... friend, you say?"
"Yu-huh!" Anko grimaced, "Meet Kokushi-chan!" She pulled out her beloved teddy bear, that the Chunins had earlier prevented her from getting out.
"How does a stuffed animal fit in that little pouch?" he thought. Out loud, he asked, "Kokushi? Is that a typical name?"
Anko smiled brightly, "Well it's short for Kokushibyou!"
The man's face dropped. "B-black death?"
Anko reached into her kunai holster, this time pulling out a kunai. "Yup. And I think you know where this ends, right Mr. Pervert?" She licked the weapon, immersed in the joy she felt at seeing fear in the man's eyes, and the metallic taste on her tongue, which she decided was either the kunai or her own blood. She also decided she didn't care much, either way.
The woman practically fed off of the man's fear. He was sweating profusely.
She smiled.
He gulped.
And the last thing the man saw that day was the face of the purple-haired kunoichi, and then darkness.
An hour later, in the same room without a specific name, another circumstance just happened to occur.
"NO WAY!"
"Well, if this isn't just the déjà vu from Hell, I don't know what is," Tsunade thought to herself.
"What was that, Hokage-sama?" A random Chunin sitting nearby inquired.
Tsunade stared strangely at the man sitting next to her. She didn't say anything out loud, did she?
"Oh, nothing, nothing..." Tsunade turned her attention back to the huffing woman in front of the ninjas who were too lazy to actually take a mission themselves, so they ended up handing them out to people instead.
"Tsunade-sama, with all due respect," the woman started with a scowl, "I will not accept this mission! This is a complete disregard of my skills!"
"Listen, Kurenai," Tsunade scowled right back. "I understand that you're feeling unappreciated right now, or whatever, but you're three months pregnant! What do you expect?"
Kurenai pulled out a handkerchief and started twisting it around, as she tried not to cry. "B-but I just w-wanna do something meaningful before I g-get f-f-," the poor woman was on the verge of tears, "..f-FAT!"
Tsunade looked out at the opening behind her. She could see most of Konoha from where she sat. She also noticed that the room was well-elevated. "It must be a long ways down. I wonder what would happen if I were to jump right now-"
Tsunade sighed for the umpteenth time that day. No. Being a Hokage didn't mean looking for the easy way out of situations like this. Being a medic nin first was supposed to teach her that.
However, she did agree with the kunoichi of the village. She had to admit that the day had been pretty hectic - Anko's case being the worst of them all. The truth was, that besides the sadistic woman's "failed" mission, the number of clients looking for kunoichi who had to use their bodies, or perform stereotypical jobs such as floral arrangements, were increasing.
So she walked over to the crazy - er, pregnant lady, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Kurenai, I think it's best if you stick to the easier missions, okay? And as for 'getting fat' - well, you're a kunoichi! You're bound to jump back into your normal self after the child's born!"
The other Chunins in the room winced. Tsunade, of the Legendary Sannin was many things: a beautiful woman of her time; a scary woman of her time; a great leader; a healer; an alcoholic; and a killer; but a motivational speaker, she was not.
Yet amazingly, Kurenai was smiling - tears gone, and dry. "Yes, thank you, Hokage-sama!" She answered a bit over dramatically, but nobody said anything for fear of the craz- pregnant lady.
The Hokage smiled as she had Hinata, who happened to be standing in a corner watching the whole scene take place all the while, guide her sensei back to her own apartment.
Tsunade walked back behind the desk and slumped down. "Kami this day is a nightmare!" Her yell was muffled into the desk, where she had laid her head.
Suddenly, an idea struck the Lady Hokage. So she got up and headed to find at least one of her two apprentices, ignoring the stares she received from the people she passed.
She headed straight toward the Leaf's Hospital, where she immediately bumped into Shizune.
"Shizune!" Tsunade grabbed a hold of the confused woman by the arms, "Listen carefully, I want you to announce, that two weeks from tomorrow there will be a tournament!"
"Tournament?"
"Shizune," Tsunade flicked her apprentice/friend's forehead, "don't interrupt me when I'm talking. Especially if it's only to echo me."
Shizune simply rubbed her forehead, while glaring at the Hokage. (That seemed to be going on a lot more recently among the female shinobi.)
"As I was saying, there's going to be a tournament held two weeks from... what's today?"
"Tuesday."
Tsunade flicked her in the forehead again.
"Ow!"
"What did I say about interrupting me, Shizune?"
Shizune gave another glare - this was unusual, as the woman is naturally kind-hearted.
"Two weeks from Tuesday, there will be tournament." She looked at Shizune with the most confident smirk she could manage. "It will be a tournament, pitting females against males to see who's the dominant shinobi."
Shizune nodded understandingly. "So it's a Battle of the Sexes?" she summarized.
"..." Tsunade felt her smirk fall off of her face as she turned around, and started to march off to the Hokage Tower.
"Don't be a smart-ass, Shizune."
To be continued...
A/N: Is it so wrong that I just happened to enjoy writing out the Anko scene? I don't know why but it was fun...Heheh... Oh, and yes, she did kill the perverted dude. It had to be done.
Anyways, I can't believe I wrote this whole thing out in one day. ONE.
By the way, I have two things to say about Kurenai:
1) Her mission wasn't to seduce anyone - it was something about arranging flowers for some kid's birthday party... I dunno.
2) For you people who aren't up-to-date with the manga: I'm slightly - yeah, only slightly - sorry that I TOTALLY ruined that for you, because Kurenai is pregnant. Seriously. With Asuma's baby.
And that, my friends, is what we call a double-spoiler. XD
Anyways, I have OCD (this is seriously bugging me) : Somewhere in the beginning, I had the nameless guy say that Anko was worth every "ryou." I somewhat recall this being the name of the currency they use in Naruto, but I'm not sure. If you happen know what it is, please tell me.Thank you!
Well leave a review! Or Mr. R. B. will think nobody loves him and commit suicide. :( Only you can save him from himself! Click to Save His Life! Do it TODAY! ;)