CHAPTER 3:

DANGO AND PARSELTONGUE

There were many pariahs in Konoha, though two in particular stood out. Both had undergone godawful experiences entirely out of their control, with great evil being sealed into their very bodies. Both of them were viewed with suspicion and fear, if not outright hatred by the rest of the village.

One was one Naruto Uzumaki, who was (unbeknownst to him and almost everyone in the village) the son of Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage, and his wife, Kushina Uzumaki, aka the Red-Hot Habanero. A fact more widely known around the village was that he was the jinchuriki (or human container) of the Kyuubi, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, although it was, technically, forbidden to talk about it publicly. It didn't stop parents from warning their children to stay away and not make friends with the boy, or, on rare but tragic occasion, form drunken mobs to attempt to kill him. Naruto himself was ignorant of his status, though he didn't fail to notice people sometimes calling him a demon.

The other was Anko Mitarashi, recently promoted to special jounin, and second in command of Konoha's Torture and Interrogation division. She was only relatively young, about twenty-one years old(1), but had gone through more than even a ninja her age should. Once a promising genin assigned to be taught by Orochimaru, she was betrayed by him, and abandoned, left with a damning reminder of his betrayal, his Cursed Seal. Now she was viewed with general suspicion, as being potentially Orochimaru's sleeper agent. She was given the unflattering titles of Snake Whore, Snake Slattern, and (her personal favourite, to tell the truth) Snake Bitch.

Anko put on a cheerful façade, albeit one with a very short temper and an unabashedly sadistic air (though the latter was practically a requirement for working in T&I). But the truth was, she was, deep inside, a lonely and bitter young woman who often preferred isolation.

Many a ninja of jounin rank had their little quirks and habits. Kakashi Hatake was, save for true emergencies, invariably late, and often publicly read the Icha Icha books. Might Guy was obsessed with the power of youth and ridiculously strenuous training regimens.

Anko liked to hang out in the Forest of Death. For fun. Although called Training Ground 44, it was rarely used for actual training, except for full survival training. Usually, it was used mostly for the Chunin Exams. But Anko felt at home amongst the dangers here. Which was why she was strolling through the Forest of Death in the evening with a deceptively casual air, chewing merrily on a dango stick.

She had a heart-shaped face, framed by dark, messy purple hair done into a spiky ponytail. She showed off her desirable body by wearing little more than a mesh bodysuit and a tan miniskirt, complemented by a long coat of the same colour, though said coat seemed often barely covering her decency. She was a woman who flaunted her body and her sexuality, deliberately.

Her senses were always on the alert, here especially. There were snakes and leeches and tigers, oh my! All sorts of dangers lurking within the next shadow. So she was instantly whirling to face the source of an almighty crack! she heard near her. It came from behind a tree, she realised. And then, she heard the whimpering and crying. She moved around the tree, to find a boy, maybe five or six, and scrawny, with lank black hair, crying his eyes out.

"Hey…kid, what're you doing here?" she asked.

He started, and then looked up at her. And she felt a chill go down her spine when she saw his ophidian eyes. With that pale skin, that hair, that face, and those eyes…it was like looking at Orochimaru, turned into a kid!

She leapt back with a snarl, and summoned her Hidden Shadow Snake Hands, snakes coming out of the sleeves of her coat. "Okay, brat, you've got ten seconds to start talking!"

The boy began to babble in another language, his eyes wide in fear. He wasn't speaking Japanese, that was for damn sure.

Then, one of the snakes hissed at him. And to Anko's astonishment, he hissed back…in Parseltongue!

"Don't hurt me, please!"

Anko's eyes widened. Although Parseltongue was usually hereditary, it was also a huge advantage for a snake summoner. Most snake summons would speak Japanese as a courtesy, true, but to truly get their respect, it was good to know Parseltongue. Anko was a natural Parselmouth (which may have been a reason she was recruited by Orochimaru and taught how to summon snakes), so she understood him.

"Brat…did you just speak to me in Parseltongue?" she hissed at him.

"Parseltongue? What is that? Are you with that Orochimaru guy? Or that Jiraiya guy?!"

Jiraiya? So he had encountered the infamous pervert of a Toad Sage? And did he just ask whether she was with Orochimaru? "Brat," she scowled, "I am not with that bastard. What the hell are you doing here?"

"I don't know! I want to go home! But Orochimaru, he said he was my father, and then he took me away, and then he fought that Jiraiya guy at the inn, and…"

Anko frowned as the boy dissolved into yet another round of bawling. Eventually, she said, "Kid…look at me."

He did so. She studied his face. While he did resemble Orochimaru greatly, there were still enough differences. His eyes were green-gold rather than the yellow of the Sannin, his face was softer, and he didn't have epicanthic folds around the eyes, something Anko hadn't really seen before. And she noticed, half hidden by the hair, a jagged scar, almost like a lightning bolt.

She withdrew her snakes, and walked over to the boy. "Kid…sorry for scaring you like that. It's just that…I have a long history with Orochimaru. He used to be my teacher."

He looked up at her, frightened. And Anko's heart softened, despite herself. She drew the kid into a hug. "I'm sorry, kid," she repeated. "I'm sorry."

"But…" he whimpered, "where am I?"

"You mean you don't know? Where do you come from, anyway?"

"England," the boy said. "But Orochimaru said that the inn we were in was in…Tea Country, I think he called it?"

Anko frowned again. She had never heard of a country called 'England', but Tea Country wasn't far. Even so… "How did you get here, anyway?"

"I…I wanted to get away from Orochimaru and Jiraiya, so I…I just appeared here."

A Shunshin over such a distance? She had never heard of such a feat. And of course, right into the middle of the Forest of Death. Of course, a Shunshin would never be heralded with such a noise like a loud crack. It was used to move fast and stealthily, hence it being a ninja technique. Making a loud noise defeated the purpose of such a technique.

"Look, kid…what's your name, anyway?"

He blinked at her, before saying, "Harry Potter…though Orochimaru wanted to call me Mitsuki."

The name 'Harry Potter' sounded rather strange. She tried it out normally, outside of Parseltongue, and found it cumbersome. If what this kid was claiming was true, he was most definitely not from around here.

"Look, kid, I know you'll probably hate me for it, but I'll call you 'Mitsuki' for the time being. I don't like Orochimaru, but your real name is a bit of a mouthful. Anyway, you'd better come with me."

"Why?"

"Kid…you really don't know where you are, do you? It's called the Forest of Death, and with good reason." She chortled a bit at the horrified look on his face. "Besides, you just appeared out of nowhere, in a secure training facility in the middle of our village."

"Your village?"

"Yeah. The Village Hidden in the Leaves, better known as Konoha. Seriously, Mitsuki, haven't you ever heard of Konoha?"

"I…I think I heard that word being used by Jiraiya. What do you mean by training facility?"

"What, haven't you heard of ninja?"

The boy's eyes widened. Clearly he had.

"There you go. And you've appeared in the middle of a place where you're not supposed to. So I've got to take you to my boss. Orochimaru is a wanted criminal in this village. And look, I know you're not a bad kid," (which was a small lie: she didn't sense any deceit, but they had to be sure) "but we have to make sure, okay? Don't worry. My boss is a scary guy, but he won't hate you. We just want to make sure that you're a good guy, okay?" She smiled in what she hoped was a winning fashion, and then proffered a stick of dango. "You want some?"

"What is it?"

"Dango. It's a sweet. Come on, it's not going to bite."

He took the sweet and bit into it tentatively. A small smile came over his face. And Anko was glad. He just hoped that she hadn't let one of Orochimaru's little traps into Konoha…

The scarred face of Ibiki Morino, her superior in the T&I department, raised an eyebrow (insomuch as a man with no eyebrows could do so, anyway). "So…to sum up, this kid claims to be from another country, the son of Orochimaru, and somehow did a loud Shunshin from Tea Country all the way to the Forest of Death?"

"And he's a Parselmouth. Look, I know it sound weird, which was why I brought him straight here. I don't want to scare him any more than we have to. If what he's said is true, he's been taken from his home, told that the snake bastard is his father, got betrayed by him, and then he somehow transported into the Forest of Death. He got scared of me…and frankly, I got a bit carried away. It was a bit of a shock to see a kid looking so much like Orochimaru."

Morino seemed to consider it. "Okay. I think I have a fairly easy way to check this out. First, I'll have a go at the kid. You act as translator, if he really is a Parselmouth. Then, I'll bring in Inoichi Yamanaka. If we can confirm that the kid isn't a willing tool of Orochimaru, or else is unlikely to be a mole, then he should be okay to live here. But I will have to tell the Hokage."

Anko nodded. And soon, after Ibiki sent word to Inoichi Yamanaka, she was in one of the interrogation rooms with Mitsuki, translating for him. "Now, Mitsuki, this guy's my boss, Ibiki Morino."

"He looks scary," Mitsuki quavered.

Anko laughed, translating it for Ibiki, who smiled grimly. "Yeah, he does. But he's in charge of questioning bad guys we catch, and I'm his assistant. Now, I know you're not a bad guy, but Orochimaru most definitely is. And we need to be absolutely sure. I'm sorry if you don't like it."

Thus began the interrogation, of sorts. Ibiki asked the questions, and Anko translated them. She relayed the boy's answers. He seemed hesitant to speak about his original guardians, but eventually divulged his treatment at the hands of these…Dursleys, were they called? The surname was unfamiliar to the tongue, as were their names.

Anko scowled, and she noticed Ibiki's eyes hardening as he told his story. Then, of Orochimaru's 'rescue', his brief talk in the inn, the boy being treated with the first kindness in a long time, only to have the cruel illusion stripped away when Orochimaru declared his intention to make him his vessel, tricked by Jiraiya.

Ibiki asked Anko to repeat some other questions, before nodding, satisfied. Then, Inoichi Yamanaka arrived. As Ibiki briefed the Yamanaka, Anko turned to Mitsuki, and said, "Now, this guy is called Inoichi Yamanaka. He used to work here, and on occasion, we get him to help with some cases. He has a technique that allows him to enter the mind of another person, look at their memories. I know it's a personal thing to ask, but if he finds nothing in there that's a problem, then you'll be okay to stay in Konoha." She frowned when she heard something from Yamanaka, before turning to back to Mitsuki. "Oh, and he thinks he might be able to put in some understanding of our language while he's in there. That sound good to you?"

Mitsuki pursed his lips, before saying, "I'll do it. I don't want to be like Orochimaru."

Inoichi Yamanaka was prepared for anything he could conceive of when he dove into the boy's mind. But to find an unusual-looking house was not quite what he expected.

He found the boy crying in a cupboard underneath some stairs, a cupboard with a mattress put into it, and a few knick-knacks. He realised, with horror, that this was where the boy slept.

He got the boy's attention, and then handed him a sphere of scintillating blue light, and gestured for him to eat it. The boy did so, and blinked. "Can you understand me?" Inoichi asked.

"Yes…I can…"

Inoichi looked at the cupboard, the boy's bedroom, in horror and disgust. "Who could do this to you?"

"They could." And then, Inoichi saw a series of memories of the boy's relatives, of an equine woman with a shrill voice that made the Harunos look tame, a bloated walrus who attacked the boy on the slightest provocation, and a pig of a child who was a bully and a glutton.

They were not constructs, or if they were, they were really good ones. He noted, however, that many of the violent incidents seemed to revolve around whenever the boy in front of him (he couldn't decide whether to call him Harry, or Mitsuki, as Harry was the name he answered to in these memories) said something about magic. It was as if his relatives had the psychological equivalent of an allergic reaction to the word. He could understand the boy's own language while in his mind, anyway.

He viewed the memories of Orochimaru arriving, of the discussion in the inn, of the fight between Orochimaru and Jiraiya, and of the Toad Sage tricking Orochimaru to admit his plans for the boy in the language the boy was used to. He also learned where the boy came from. He had heard tales about the world outside.

Then, he came to one of the earliest memories of the boy. Of a man killing the boy's mother (with that red hair, she looked a little like Kushina Uzumaki), a man with a serpentine face. A face that made Orochimaru look desirable by comparison. He aimed his wand at the boy, said some words, began to laugh, and then screamed two words in a weird language. "AVADA KEDAVRA!" A strobe of green light.

Inoichi finished off his mental excursion, panting slightly, due to what he had witnessed. "Well, as far as I can tell, he's on the level. He's telling the truth, unless Orochimaru's screwed around with his head so much, even I can't tell whether he's a mole. He comes from the outside world, from a country called the United Kingdom, or England, or Britain. And it seems his mother and would-be killer were mages rather than shinobi. On another note, he's understandably frightened and confused. He's been uprooted from his life, albeit one where he's been looked upon as a freak. It's what his relatives called him." He looked at the snake-eyed child with pity.

A silence fell over them. Eventually, Anko said, "I'll take him home. At least until we can get something else sorted. I'll take him to see the Hokage in the morning." She looked at Mitsuki. "Well, Mitsuki? Ready to crash at my place?"

The boy nodded, rather timidly. All three adults present had known Orochimaru, and to see someone who looked so much like him act so…timidly, it was astonishing.

Of course, there were many in this village who wouldn't see it this way. They didn't treat Anko well just for being Orochimaru's apprentice, and of course, there was what happened to Naruto. What would happen to Mitsuki if the villagers learned that the son of Orochimaru walked amongst them?

CHAPTER 3 ANNOTATIONS:

And another chapter down! We have Naruto and Anko meeting for the first time, and yes, she is going to be his mother figure. A partial inspiration for that is one of sakurademonalchemist's stories, Okami Mitarashi, where Harry is adopted by Anko. I also like a number of fics where Anko adopts Naruto, including The Story of Mitarashi Naruto, and The Fox and the Flower.

I have to be honest: out of what little I have actually read of the Naruto manga, my two favourite characters are two of the jounin: Kakashi, and Anko.

Wow, only two chapters and less than 24 hours, and already I have over a thousand views! Yikes.

Review-answering time! Firstly, Kit writes as a guest, and mentions my fight scene being vague. I'm afraid I'm pretty shit at writing fight scenes, so I sort of glossed over it. And yet, I'm writing a Naruto fanfic. Can you say 'literary suicide'?

Secondly, Mangahero18, a long term reader of my works, has written in with enthusiasm. And yes, I am aware of what Mitsuki says (and I do agree: it would be more entertaining, even if it does give somewhat nightmarish thoughts). However, this probably won't be a work where Orochimaru redeems himself. As for Harry staying with Orochimaru for longer, well, unfortunately, I wanted to bring Harry to Konoha ASAP, and decided that accidental magic in the form of Apparition would be a decent enough plot device to bring him from Tea Country to Konoha. Yeah, it's a bit of an asspull, but what're you going to do about it, eh?

By the way, my name is spelled 'Quatermass', not 'Quartermass'. If you're wondering what the hell that means, look up 'Professor Bernard Quatermass' on Wikipedia.

1. I wasn't certain about how old Anko was, but to give her time to have been a genin under Orochimaru, and then be discarded by him, I made her twenty-one here (and twenty-six by the time of Naruto canon, assuming the genin to be twelve).