Title: Amnesia
Written: 4/23/07
Summary: "Her memory loss was still confusing, years after the incident passed." Anko and the leftovers of other men's lives.
A/N: This is all I've done all day. That and some random submissions. Dear self, whatever happened to homework? Some quick drabbles I threw together because Anko and Orochimaru confuse me/captivate me. That and I need to work on nailing down a style, before... well, other projects. So, here we go. A nice slice of angst to go. I make nothing from this. Believe me.
Oh, and Basho isn't copyrighted. (Hilarious, isn't it? Trademark conscious fanfiction writers...) Well, there you go.
Amnesia
Memory loss is still confusing, even years after the incident passed. She found it disjointing to wake up in bed rather than adrift on the beach. Drowning on land is much more pathetic, she thought. In the ocean, one can flounder and drown.
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She wasn't sure she was sure, and that was the problem. If she had been, then he would have killed it, and left ashes in his wake as he did with all things.
"I don't know." She told him.
He arched an eyebrow, and Anko couldn't help but giggle, or sob – which is it?- as her feet dug into the seals. Her vision was too blurry to make out faces.
"I can't remember."
He wanted to push her further, but there was Tsunade-sama, who put up a palm. Anko could have kissed her then.
"Leave her alone. This is what he does. She shouldn't be punished for his actions."
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It was the sight of him in the forest that made her sick. The same eyes boring back at her, the same chronic smell of sickness overlaid with something dry. At one point in her life, she had smelled like that.
In the hospital afterwards, she stared out the window for several hours, until the nurse came in and brought her food, which she ate in silence. Never explain unless prompted, he had told her.
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One night, they had stopped in the woods. He raised his hand and motioned to his left, and then he disappeared. Anko stayed still, counting to herself, wondering when she would learn how to appear without sound or smoke, as her master did. Slowly, she trudged forward.
Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen.
Times like these made her wish for other teammates. But, that was such a silly thought. They had died, and she had lived. Why bother wishing for more.
Footsteps padded behind her, and she tightened the grip on her backpack. This was a test. If she couldn't handle a simple hunternin, and one who had been tracking since dawn, then he would kill her, or worse, leave her.
"Hey little girl, where's your master?" A voice descended from the darkness, and she stilled and waited. More often than not, the birds will come to the viper.
A breathless whisper. Then the man cleaved in two.
Anko watched the body falls down.
"Come, Anko." He said.
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"No, they were hoping that you would tie me to this place." He ran his fingers through Konoha soil.
"Do you understand bondage, Anko?"
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ANBU examinations were easy. Anko was easily one of the best. Particularly due to her tracking abilities and her intimidating, creepy, demeanor.
When the Hokage had interviewed her, she answered all questions with ease.
"I don't' remember."
The man took off his glasses, and rubbed his nose. Anko shifted so that the seal was in sight.
"Mitarashi-san, how is it that Konoha can trust you?"
"You trusted my master. Trust is not an issue."
She was denied for anther year.
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She was never sick until she was forced to march for days through the desert, or brave snowstorms with only mesh and chakra. Hospitals were foreign, and he had to stay by her side the first occasion. A foreign town, and besides, her parents were long gone by now.
Afterwards, she was left unattended. She made up games to occupy her time, and practiced meditation until she collapsed. Eventually, the nurses gave her morphine strong enough to kill men. She slept through it all, and woke up without hesitation.
"It's Orochimaru. He makes me immune." She said.
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The villagers brought food, and the front of her door was at first filled with flowers and then casseroles, never eaten. They laid out there, rotting, until one night, she threw all of it down the stairs, in a frenzied burst.
Women would point to her and shake their head, as children opened their eyes. Anko knew all the rumors, since she had started half of them.
She took to training in the middle of the day, and blowing up as much public property as she could.
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Her life seemed to be a spiral. She continued with school, and leaned about black holes and how they could suck light and objects and condense them as one. Her life before him was deemed useless. Her life after was defined by his outlines and snakes. She wasn't sure if she hated this.
She swore that she would kill him one day, and then news came of Sasuke's deed, and Anko disappeared for a week.
Kakashi found her days later, sitting at the edge of the canyon, overlooking the sea. Her hair was down, and from the edge of her eyes, she could see the hut where she had remained silent. The wind began to blow, obscuring him from her eyes.
"Would you make the same decision?" He asked, his voice muffled by the mask. She wished she could see one eye, or the crook of his mask.
"Would Sasuke still have left?" She snorted.
He shrugged his shoulders, and remained silent, and she did not apologize. He sat down, and waited until the sun dipped beneath the water, and then they trekked home.
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"My name is Anko," she announced. He was foreign to her, and she had been so sure she knew every shinobi in the town.
"I've never seen you around. So… are you a foreigner?"
"In a sense." He replied.
She stands still, sizing him up, willing herself to appear braver, smarter, faster. He looked down at her, and then tapped his forehead protector.
"My name is Orochimaru."
"Orochimaru….the sanin?" She smiled brightly.
"You are to train under me." He said.
"Yes." She said, while inside, fireworks exploded. Yes.
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She dug a shallow grave on the outskirts of Konoha, close enough to see the walls, but without seeing the faces of the mountain. He would not have appreciated Tsunade's glare. Anko dug with her own bare hands, after being frustrated by the shovel.
Looking down into the hole, she paused. In went his old forehead protector, scratched and unpolished. It had lain in a trunk underneath her bed for years. A small empty vial of his favorite liquor. She took off her necklace and threw it in as well. Then, she buried her contract, and hoped that she will be the last to use it.
Afterwards, she covered it up with dirt, and bloody hands. Over the top, she places a stone. On a whim, she bit her thumb and used herself to ink in a snake.
"Stand watch." She told it, just as he had told her to all those years ago.
Fin
Summer grasses
All
that remains
Of soldiers dreams.
- Basho