Forms of Hilarity
A/N: Written for naruto100 drabble challenge. Prompt: Laughter.
First fic. Minor changes from original.
Summary: Anko has a strange sense of humor.
It wasn't her fault, Anko reasoned, that she had the worst sense of humor offered to mankind. Really, it wasn't her fault at all. The blame lay with Orochimaru, of course – after all, he had screwed up so much of her life already, it stood to reason that he would be the cause of her black-gallows-appreciating, sick-twisted, gore-oriented mind.
The scene before her should have been terribly repulsive. Kotetsu and Izumo certainly found it so. The three of them had come upon this clearing mere moments ago, just in time to see a last, glistening strand of gut slide freshly out of a gaping abdominal hole. The little space must have held well nigh a hundred dead bodies – all of them ripped open, innards bared; all of them piled high in a junk heap of tangled limbs and flesh and bone; all of them too small. All of them children.
Kotetsu was retching quietly, head to one side. Izumo's face was gray even in the purple shadows caused by dim moonlight, and Anko could see him swallow convulsively, holding the bile down. She turned away from both of them – partly for their sake (they were ninja, after all) – but more because she didn't want them to see her expression – see her biting her lip, trying not to giggle, to laugh.
It was funny, see. The children had been vanishing for some time now, one by one, and it was only recently that they had finally found out who had been taking them away. They had been assigned the mission of bringing them back – whole, safe, maybe a little traumatized but in good health – but now – and Anko tried, really tried, to hold herself still – their mission was done. Ended. Finished before it even began. The children were all dead. And who wants to bring back dead children? The whole thing was simply hilarious.
She must have let something slip, though – maybe her shoulders shook too hard, or her snorts weren't muffled enough – because when she turned back, Kotetsu and Izumo were both looking at her, expressions still, earlier pallor gone. They didn't say anything, just motioned for her to lead them back, because they knew as well as she did that the mission was over. But Anko knew that when they returned to the village, rumors would fly.
Crazy, the villagers would call her, and Bitch, and Orochimaru's spawn. They had never really gotten over how she had been his student, and this would be just one more incident where she proved herself unworthy of Konoha, unworthy of wearing the Leaf headband. Anko would mind, but then again, she found it too funny to care.