Three Minutes to Midnight
Author's Notes: Mmmm...I think I'm brushing the M barrier with this chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. And what with all those female cosplayers out there, I'm not going to buy one. The possibility of a reverse-trap, while intriguing, is to be avoided.
The Time Is Now 11:57
Chapter One: In Which The Line is Drawn
Naruto rose to his feet unsteadily, the wood of the Academy classroom's floor creaking beneath his feet. He could taste blood in his mouth from biting through the inside of his cheek, and he swallowed the coppery-tasting substance with a jerky convulsion of his throat.
Then he charged after the purple-headed woman with fire in his eyes and his hands balled into fists.
When the tail of the crazy lady's trenchcoat flared up, he blinked, and felt a steel grip latch onto his outstretched hand. Then he was in the air. When he opened his eyes he was looking at her, upside down, through Naruto-shaped holes in two – no, three – walls. Then the pain hit.
"Gkkkhhkkaa," he groaned.
Anko snorted as she stepped through the holes, following after him. "Oh stop being a baby; the walls are mostly rice paper." Chakra-reinforced rice paper with solid wood beams running throughout. But mostly rice paper.
Naruto managed to roll to his feet with a groan of pain. There was a sense of déjà vu here, as if he'd done this before…oh yes! Twice. In the past five minutes. Because the sensei he'd been stuck with was a psychotic bitch who was trying to KILL HIM!
"What the hell is wrong with you!" he yelled.
She stopped a goodly distance away, and Naruto couldn't help but feel relieved at that. His entire body hurt. "We don't have long enough for that list, boyo," she answered, grinning slightly. "What's more important is what's wrong with you. You, who would be Hokage." Her nose scrunched up as she giggled at that. "As if."
He was moving before actual thought could have any interference in the way his leg lashed out, right at her unprotected stomach. She grabbed his foot with her off hand, not even bothering to plant her feet, and pushed him backwards. He stumbled, teetering and off balance, before just rolling with it and landing on his hands, springing back a few feet to land upright and in something that vaguely resembled a fighting posture.
She yawned. "I'm a tokubetsu jounin. On a scale of one to ten in actual fighting strength, I'm about a six. Elite jounin would be eight. The Hokage's somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty-seven, but you'll have to forgive that. He is getting old. You…are nothing."
As if he hadn't heard that before. He glared at her, at this next obstacle between him and the pointy Hokage hat. There was only one way to answer that insult.
"I will surpass every Hokage before me."
It was his dream. The shining, guiding light that everyone he had ever met laughed at, either to his face or behind his back. And this woman would be no different.
"Tch. Prove it." She took a lazy, relaxed stance, her arms loose, and made a come-hither gesture.
He came it her more carefully this time, keeping the words of his instructors firmly in mind as he did so – knees bent slightly, feet spread to give himself a firm stance, thumb aligned with his knuckles instead of inside his fingers. He punched as he'd been taught, putting weight behind it and aiming for a point a few inches behind his intended target. It guaranteed follow-through.
Anko slapped the punch to the left as she stepped to the left, then grabbed him by the hair and kicked him in the back of his right knee. He'd been pivoting on that leg, and when it buckled it took him with it. He hit the ground for the fourth time.
"You should try and remember that, in a fight, the other person is going to fight back. It's not like hitting a wooden post," Anko commented idly.
He struck at her with a weak, off-balance kick, and had the pleasure of seeing her step back to avoid it. Using the tiny bit of momentum he'd gained from the movement, he rose to his feet.
"Desperate attacks to get room rarely work, you know."
"Shut up!" he yelled, following his words with a brief flurry of punches.
She had a look of amused contempt as she redirected his blows away, effortlessly weaving around his attacks. She was toying with him, and he knew it.
He saw something thin and gleaming appear in her hand, and before he could react, there was a sudden flash of pressure across his throat. He could feel a disturbing wetness going from one corner of his jaw to another. Anko used her other hand to push him back, flourishing her weapon menacingly.
It was a magic marker.
Naruto rubbed his throat nervously. For a second there, he'd thought she'd used a kunai.
"The score is currently: Anko – Five, Brat – Zero," she called, humor in her eyes.
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" he yelled at her. And he'd be damned if he'd let a score like that stand.
His next assault was over before it began, as he tripped over a hanging bit of wire halfway between him and Anko. He skidded to a halt, face first, at her feet. Then felt the marker being drawn over the back of his neck.
"Six to nothing."
"I ht oo," he mumbled into the floor.
Anko poked him with her toe. Hard. "Might wanna try doing something about that. Who knows? Ya might get lucky."
Naruto pushed himself to his feet and glared at her, hands balled into fists. "What do you want from me!" he yelled.
Her only response was to lash out with the marker again, leaving a line along his cheek. "Seven to nothing."
"..."
She did it again. "Eeeeeight," she sing-songed.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me."
Anko reached out with the marker and put another line on his face. "Nine. Maybe you should work towards evening this score, mmm? If you get one point, just one little point, I might go away."
She might…go away? Leave? So that he could do ninja missions and other cool stuff? (Because really, that whole fence painting shtick was clearly a vicious lie, meant to demoralize Future Hokage Uzumaki Naruto. No way was he going to have to do pointless menial labor as a ninja.) His face lit up. So far, she hadn't done anything that much worse than a particularly angered Iruka-sensei. Scary as she was, he could press the attack without fear of serious retaliation.
The marker lashed out once more. "Ten! We're in double digits now. You should be thanking me. If your grades were anything to go by, you didn't get this far in math. I'm sure this is very educational for you."
With a roar, he attacked.
It was a vicious slaughter. Numerous non-essential walls gained even more numerous holes and tears, desks were broken, and various and sundry important classroom articles were used as weapons and destroyed in the battle.
Final Score: Anko – Thirty-seven. Naruto – Zero.
"Done!" she called out.
"What…are you talking….about…?" panted Naruto. Sweat dripped down his face, and the knees of his pants had frayed enough to show the friction burns on his knees.
She pulled a mirror out of her trenchcoat and flourished it at him, a shit-eating grin plastered on her face. Naruto looked at it for a full minute, his mind refusing to comprehend it. But it dawned on him slowly, despite his best efforts. His face went slack with horror. It was…it was…
"A nice, big cock," Anko explained, grinning.
It was aimed at his mouth. And it was spurting streams of black come at his mouth, which had a large amount of "overflow" dribbling down his chin.
In permanent marker.
He screamed in inarticulate horror.
Anko's grin got wider. "It's a veiny son of a bitch, too."
And the fight was on again. This time, it was more vicious, with an edge of true hatred on Naruto's part. He started to pull out every trick in his arsenal, one by one.
He formed a handseal and called out, "Bunshin no Jutsu!" A dozen copies flickered into existence, a brief puff of smoke concealing the location of the real one.
"Kage Sharpie no Jutsu," Anko replied, yawning as she threw the sharpie at him. It quickly became a hundred, soaring through his feeble clones and adding another dot to the chin of the real one. The original sharpie rebounded and landed in Anko's hand. "Forty-two."
A minute later, he attempted another basic Academy technique. Kawarimi no Jutsu, only with a chair directly behind Anko. She recognized the chair. His assault from behind was stopped short by her upraised foot. As was the next Kawarimi, and the next, and the next. But then he sprung the trap! Instead of using the technique on the teacher's podium behind her, Naruto merely used Henge to turn into it. The next step of the plan had been to attack from behind when she turned to deal with the "real" him.
Unfortunately, she dealt with this tactic by grabbing his henged form and swinging it at the podium he'd turned into. The podium had been solid hardwood.
It was now solid hardwood kindling, and he was in a solid amount of pain.
"Aaaand sixty-six to nothing. Nice try on that last one." She held up the mirror again.
He now had a matching penis on his right cheek, also sending black streams towards his lips. Naruto whimpered.
"But that's enough fun for now, Bukkake Boy. We've got ninja missions to pick up."
Naruto's bottom lip quivered. "From the Hokage Tower?"
Anko grinned. "Yep."
"But…but…"
"But you have penises drawn on your face?" Anko asked, voice laden with sickeningly sweet false sympathy.
He nodded.
"And you have only yourself to blame. If you could fight your way out of a wet paper bag, you might only have one on your face. Now c'mon. They'll bust you back to a student if you skip out on your first day of missions."
His lip trembled harder, and he felt wetness gathering in his eyes. This woman was pure, pure evil. And he'd been put in her care.
Long experience told him tears would get him nowhere. So he stood up and followed after her, dragging his feet and hanging his head. This was the worst day of his life.
Multiple requests that they slow down so he could use the bathroom were ignored. He didn't really need to go; he just wanted a sink. Or a bag. That would work too. Air holes wouldn't even be necessary; he could just asphyxiate and black out for a bit.
"And stand up straight, kid, nobody's going to respect you if you're walking around staring at your shoes all the time."
He stood up straighter, lifted his head, and started stepping in time. But his eyes were focused on a distant point, and as much as possible, he pretended his surroundings weren't real. And so he walked to the Hokage tower, like a death camp victim being marched to his mass grave before the minor formality of being shot to death.
Naruto managed to successfully block out most of the journey. Unfortunately, he couldn't rattle off his own identification number without thinking about it, so he had to come back to earth when the chuunin in charge of handing out missions asked for it. That was when the snickers and looks finally got to him. At least the man asking for his serial was making (and failing) a heroic effort to keep his face straight, but the others weren't even bothering to try.
His face flushed, and he licked his lips as he tried to hide his embaraassment. "Oh-twelve-six-oh-seven."
The chuunin's hand was remarkably steady as he filled out the paperwork, despite his rolling shoulders, twitching mouth, and the tears rolling down his eyes. "H-here you go, the, *snrk* the uh, details are inside."
"Thank you." He walked out of the building, his entire and neck covered in black Sharpie. When they got out to the street, he looked up at Anko. "This means war," he stated.
She twiddled her fingers at him. "Pishaw. What I did is nothing. Wait till the rumor mill gets ahold of this and you'll have real reason to be upset. Now run along and enjoy your important missions. I took the liberty of specifically requesting them for you."
Naruto picked a random direction and walked. Anything to get away from her. As he did, he cracked the seal on the scroll he'd been given and began to read. His expression, one of cold, cold, barely restrained wrath didn't change.
He was to fix the damages that the Academy had recently incurred from "end of the year training exercises." The note at the bottom listed all the other ninja who'd been assigned to this mission.
Every female in the graduating class.
He carefully rolled the scroll back up and tucked it into his back pocket. Then he pulled a kunai out of the pouch at his belt and took a good, long look at it.
His reflection was barely distorted in the weapon's mirror shine.
Then he screamed in rage, flailing about wildly with his arms and kicking the air. Seven minutes later he glared at everyone around him, panting and heaving. "The hell are you looking at?" he growled.
They looked nervous for a minute, but their eyes eventually drifted back to his face and their hands went back to their mouths, covering smiles. Naruto stomped off towards the Academy.
Worst. Day. Ever.
