...Late again huh? Well at least I know what my new years resolution will be. Sorry about the length of this one, but I swear by the Ramen Gods themselves that the next one will be much, much longer.

Again thanks to my trusty beta's CherryBerry12! and cordo12

"Sometimes it's necessary to do unnecessary things."

- Kanade Jinguuji (Best Student Council)

Chapter 12: Tales of Adventure and Misery II

She smiled, observing her handy work with a tinge of satisfaction and glee. Don't get her wrong, she didn't get off messing with people or skinning cats in her spare time. No, no. Her preferences were far more unique and only someone with her... particular... tastes could appreciate them to the fullest. Or at the very least that's what she told herself. Even if her methods tended to get a bit... extreme.

"Mmmmph!"

Very extreme.

"Yeah, Yeah, I heard you the first time. Sheesh, keep your voice down will ya."

Anko watched dully as the Inuzuka continued to struggle, mouth gagged and eyes red with streaks of ugly tears swimming down her cheeks. Next to her sat her pups, sedated and asleep, no thanks in part to one or two miracle herbs that she had picked up that could put down a fully grown man.

Casually she sauntered over towards her, brandishing a kunai, causing the already terrified Inuzuka to reel away in fear.

Anko sighed, crouching down and in one decisive stroke, slit the gag and bindings holding the girl as she gave a patented eye-smile. "See? All better. So quit your sniffling."

Hana glared ferociously, her breathing ragged. "What is wrong with you?!"

"Care to elaborate?" Anko titled her head. "Because honey, there are plenty of things wrong with what you just said."

"Why did you kidnap me, tie me up, and drug my dogs?!" She screeched.

"Ahh," Anko said, scratching her head sheepishly. "Well when you put it like that it makes it sound like I'm the villain in a bad cartoon." Hana wasn't amused. In fact she was angry, really angry. Not only was her teacher crazy and a potential menace to society, but she had allowed herself to be captured by this, this -

"You must think I'm a total bitch huh?" Anko grinned, watching Hana's eyes harden. "I don't mind, this tends to happen when I try to get intimate with people."

"Why are you doing this?!" Hana growled, feeling her irritation build. "You're a teacher! You're supposed to be helping us! not serving us to your pets." The memory of being chewed up and spit out by a giant snake was still an uncomfortable and repulsive experience.

Anko clicked her tongue. "Well you're half right, but the truth of the matter is that I never wanted any of this."

"What?!" Now Hana was even more confused, "T-Then why are you…"

"Because our glorious Hokage thought it would be a phenomenal idea to put you precious cinnamon rolls in my basket. No offense to the old man, but giving me kids was perhaps the stupidest move he's ever made."

"So what are you going to do? Fail us?" Hana sneered and again was surprised as Anko merely barked out a laugh.

"Nah, too easy. You see if I went back to the Sandaime and reported that you rug rats happened to catch a sudden case of crippling injuries I'd be scrounging up D ranks for at least a good month." She shook her head. "But if you were to say, fail the genin test I'd so skillfully designed then you guys have no one else but yourselves to blame."

"…Then I'm merely bait for the others." Hana said slowly, the words sounding distant even to herself as she realized her helplessness.

Anko shrugged without the slightest shred of sympathy. "I prefer unwilling participant, but yeah that's about the gist of it."

Hana's eyes prickled, the weight of the kunoichi's words bearing down on her shoulders. "I can't believe this." To be so off-guard, to be utterly taken without a hint of resistance and made the damsel in distress. It was pathetic.

"Aw, don't feel too bad." Anko said nonchalantly, standing to her feet before flashing a devious smirk. "You won't be alone for too long."

One minute I was on the ground and the next I was flying through the air with an arm laced around my waist.

In the seconds it had taken me to find my voice, Kabuto had already moved, grabbing me like a ragdoll and pushing chakra to the soles of his feet, launching us both into the air as an explosion turned our previous position into a pile of ash. I'd be more impressed with the feat, if there weren't a dozen more from where that one came from, trying to blow us into edible bite sized pieces.

"Watch out!"

Kabuto grimaced, shifting his weight to prevent any harm from coming to me while simultaneously running his hands through an array of seals.

"Water Release: Water Bomb Jutsu."

He parted his lips and a sea of water spewed out into the world. Drowning the kunai, the trees, the ground. Hell, the whole forest was a water park when it was all said and done.

Clumsily Kabuto landed on the nearest branch and collapsed, his breathing forced and body over exerted from the strenuous use of chakra.

"A-Are you okay?" He said to me, sweat drenching down his face as he leaned against the tree.

I shot him an incredulous look. "I should be asking you that. You big IDIOT! why'd you use all your chakra on something so stupid!" I berated, because as it was now, I couldn't carry him if he ended up passing out and despite wanting to leave him there was a little voice in my head that reminded me that the only reason he was like this was because I couldn't dodge a kunai."

He laughed halfheartedly. "I suppose it was foolish on my part, even so." He gave me a friendly smile. "What type of teammate would I be if I left a comrade behind?"

I…no this wasn't right. I don't remember Kabuto ever acting, well like this. Unless it was all an act, a very clever one, but why would he go so far if he was only pretending?

Questions and more questions, but they could wait. Right now I needed to find a way out of this.

"Can you move or stand?" I said, suddenly feeling more tired than I had earlier. At his grimace I realized that this was going to be harder than I thought. Around us was a world of pitch black, inside a forest synonymous with well…death. "What now." I found myself saying.

He shrugged. "Haven't the faintest clue?"

"Uh huh." I handed him the driest stare I could muster.

Kabuto laughed, nervously passing a hand through his hair. "What I mean is –"

I held up a hand to stop him. "I get it, we're basically sitting ducks and without the Mutt…" I trailed off, staring out into vast wilderness. Without Hana's sense of smell to guide us, we were toast.

"Sorry."

I shook my head. "Don't be…you've done enough."

Kabuto's eyes lit up as he laughed again. "Well I'm glad I got the chance to see this side of you Hime."

I blinked. "What are you talking about? What side?"

He shook his head, "Mm, it's nothing I suppose, at least for now."

My brows wrinkled at his words. Am I missing something?

"Well hello darlings, coincidence seeing you here." said a jovial voice above us. "Then again, did you think you two could ever truly escape me?"

I swore and turned around, and Kabuto tensed.

Mitarashi Anko looked down at us like the snake who had cornered her prey and was savoring the euphoria.

"Ah, I can assume this is part of our trial." Kabuto said cordially forcing himself up, "It only makes sense for you to test our resolve if we wish to become genin." I had to give the boy credit, in the face of adversity he knew when to keep his composure and not freak out and run away.

"If that's what you want to believe who am I to stop you." She said sweetly. "But before we begin, tell me something, four-eyes." Anko asked, conversationally. "How do you plan to beat me when you're on your last leg mmm? Were you perhaps hoping to rely on the princess over there to do the heavy lifting? Ha, from the way I see it she'd sooner sell you out then watch your ass."

I flinched at the accusation. It wasn't entirely wrong.

Kabuto shrugged before smiling knowingly as he placed a hand on my head.

"Maa, sensei's first day on the job and you're already forgetting the one important self-rule every teacher should know."

Anko raised a brow, amused. "Oh? And what would that be?"

"Never underestimate the capacity of a student."

Never underestimate the capacity of a student?

She snorted.

Please, don't make her laugh. If believing in a student was all it took for them to surpass her expectations then it would have been her old mentor who'd have become the Yondaime rather than an S-class missing-nin wanted dead or alive. The fact of the matter was that you could only put your hopes in someone for so long until they inevitably disappointed you or worse, betrayed you. The Sandaime realized this, as did his students: the Slug and Toad sage. Life was filled with disillusions and it only took one bad day for you to have an awful reality check.

"You want to test that little theory of yours?" She mused, before grinning. "Ah, I know. If you can land a scratch on me in the next five minutes I'll concede defeat." She parted her legs and got into a fighting stance. That is, if you can survive for that long."

The boy nodded, not truly comprehending what he was in for. But that's what teachers were for right? She'd make them learn, nice and slow.

Of course being the fair sport that she was, she gave them ample opportunity to convey a useless plan to use against her. The boy whispering secrets into the ears of the girls whose eyes widened in worry or maybe fear. Whatever the case, she was confident in her abilities to bury mere academy students in the dirt.

"Shall we begin?"

At their defiance she couldn't help the smirk that came to her face. Heh, kids today, bah.

"Ok, get ready brats. On your mark, get set – "

She blurred.

A fist smashed into the boy's side before he had time to react, puncturing a rib or two, while she simultaneously wedged her chakra infused foot into the girl's sternum as she was sent soaring.

"Here I come." She said candidly.

Making her way over to the downtrodden Kabuto, she wasn't all too surprised when he suddenly burst into a puff of smoke, revealing a wooden log in his place. Cranking her neck a little towards the left, Anko effortlessly side stepped an attack from behind her as a fist came into her peripheral vision.

"Here, let me give you a hand." Anko said all too cheerfully, grabbing Kabuto by the scruff of his sleeves, and tossing him over her shoulder, before pressing a foot roughly on his chest. "Any more tricks?"

Kabuto smiled. "You'll find that I'm full of all sorts of surprises."

Again a puff of smoke, another log, and Kabuto was standing across from her.

"Rude much. Didn't your mother ever tell you not to lead a lady on?" Anko pouted.

Kabuto shrugged both shoulders. "I'm an orphan, forgive me if my manners are a tad lacking."

"Don't sweat it." Anko said with a bit of mirth on her features. "If you bleed for me, we'll call it even."

"As interesting as that offer is, I have a better idea. Mind entertaining me?" Kabuto asked dubiously.

"Sorry kiddo, maybe when you're older."

"I didn't mean like that!" Kabuto gawked, his cheeks flushing red as he coughed into his hand, gathering his bearings. "I happened to have done my own investigation into you, Mitarashi-san."

"Oh, have you now?"

"Know thy enemy, and I've learned a good deal of you." Kabuto said, unusually calm. "I could go into detail of your riveting past with a certain traitorous snake."

Anko grit her teeth.

"But I won't, I can see now where your apathy for teaching comes from. I'd admit that even I was surprised to discover that my sensei was under the tutelage of one of the Three Great Sanin of the Leaf.

"What's your point?" Anko said with growing impatience.

"My point is that you shouldn't overestimate a book by it's a cover." Kabuto sighed, reaching into his pouch and pulling out a shuriken. "This test is a bore and I don't want any part of it. This should more than suffice to finish you."

A shuriken.

A shuriken.

He thought a shuriken could beat her. She cackled like a mad woman.

"You've got to be kidding me." She mocked. "You're crazy if you think something like this will be enough to beat me."

"I never joke." Kabuto said, adjusting his glasses. "The minute I throw this, our victory will be all but secured."

There was absolute confidence in his words.

Anko lips thinned, "Then throw it." And watch as I pummel you into the ground.

He didn't respond, With a flick of a hand Kabuto aimed true. The shuriken shot forward at the Special Jounin, only for the girl to scoff and nudge her head to dodge.

"What did I tell-!"

The shuriken changed in a puff of smoke, in its place was the girl, Kiyohime, lunging at her, kunai in hand and a cold stare.

She leaned backwards, narrowly escaping having her eye seared off and leaping away to put as much distance between her and them.

Damn.

She cursed, watching the two regroup.

Damn.

She took a deep breath, until she felt a wetness on her cheek. Placing a hand on the spot she was greeted to the sight of blood, her blood.

Damn it all.

Turning to the boy and girl, an enraged scowl made it to her face.

Kabuto smiled loftily. "Does that mean we win, sensei?"

I bow before your reviews, criticisms, and suggestions?~