Sometimes she gets flares of pain and it leads her mind into shadows.
She didn't know from when it started.
Kakashi watched her.
He truly was Sharingan Kakashi with his shining red eye, though he covered it up well, didn't he? She felt his confusion like she felt the breaks in her mind. He asked her how she knew. She told him she didn't know. It was only a thought.
"It can't be just that," he said to her but she shrugged.
"Yes, it can," she told him with a firm nod of her head, though all the thoughts scramble and she's not as certain as she once sounded. Finally, she wondered, "Can't it?"
No, her mind was saying to her. It wasn't just a thought. There's more. There's more to all of it.
God, fucking damn it. It was—it was the seal!
That was what she was telling herself anyway, because she didn't remember where any of her thoughts come from, only that they did come and that on her neck there was a seal that had connections to him, him, h i m.
"Simple," she said to Kakashi. "It's simple. Okay?" she asked but it was to herself, rather than him, because she knew she was broken but wondered just the same. Was she okay? The seal was eating her alive. Her mind, was it a living thing?
"Is your seal acting up?" he finally asked her after a long moment staring at her.
She cocked her head at him and yes, she felt the pain of that seal throbbing but was the usual pain, the usual agony that she lived and breathed every day. Anko nodded with a smile. She blinked. Should she have smiled?
BOOM. Her head spins and she feels her body give out.
She imagined a bomb going off just then. She wondered just how much damage there was? Did she do it? Was anyone hurt? Was she?
Yes. Yes, she was hurt. She's bleeding—
Anko woke up to meeting the Yondaime's eyes and he cringed upon meeting her gaze. He looked sorry, concerned but mostly embarrassed. She leaned back from him because uh, what.
The Yondaime should never looked that way.
Why did he?
"I should have checked your seal sooner," he said to her, voice apologetic, which made sense because the next things out of his mouth were, "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry," she echoed and her voice was hoarse, as if she had been screaming. Wasn't she always? What is so new about that? Nothing. There was nothing new.
The Yondaime's expression tightened. "Are you... okay? The seal has been... active for a very long time, hasn't it?"
Yes. "Yes."
"Do you hurt still?"
"No." Not physically, at the moment.
Someone was brushing her hair now, sweeping back her long locks from her face and she realized then that she was panting and it was difficult to breathe. Tears were streaming down her face and she wanted to reach out to something.
"I'm dead," she whispered. "I'm dead. I'm not supposed to be alive. Why am I here?"
That was not Anko speaking. That was That Girl and That Girl had been screaming for a while now but now she was being listened to and everything was hurting and no, but no. Anko was, is That Girl.
"I want to die," she begged, and someone was touching her face, a hand that was touching her as if she were delicate. She cried because she hadn't felt that in so long, not since her father was still alive, a time she could scarce remember. She had been fine then, hadn't she? But this was all so different and—
"My mind is wrong," she told them, meeting a dark onyx eye. Kakashi, he was the one touching her and she was confused. Why was he touching her when—
"Sometimes it knows things," she told them and she was sobbing and he was wiping those tears away and someone was holding her. She saw red hair and met violet eyes. Blue ones were not far away and they were listening to her, meeting each other's gazes before looking at her in quiet concern.
"Sometimes. It knew when Rin would die. It saw that. It saw Orochimaru hurting Anko too. It saw the Yondaime and his wife die. Naruto was a hero. Will he still be? Will he still change the world? There was a man. Terrible man. No, not a terrible man. A tragic man. He was hurt. He was lied to. He was broken. Broken. Broken like me. Obito? Tobi? What was his name? He is the masked man who attacked. He saw Kakashi with Rin, saw her die. He thinks Kakashi broke his promise. He heard Kakashi speaking at the stone. But I stopped that attack. No one got hurt but why...I should have done something for Rin, but how could I? Where was I? I don't remember. It doesn't know. My mind can't remember."
She stopped and she was being held in warm arms. Kushina had never done that before. No one had really done that before but Anko didn't care. She clung to the redhead with everything she had in her and shook.
"Can I be fixed?" she wondered out loud, hoping for the wrong to disappear. "Can something broken be fixed?"
"Yes," the Yondaime said to her, his blue eyes on her and they looked weary, sad. "Anything broken can be fixed. As long as the pieces are still there... they can be used."
It was scary to have hope.
"I want to eat dango," she whispered.
