CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
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KAKASHI SPENT HOURS STARING into her eyes the night before. He memorized every muscle in her face and just how they would move throughout their time. He learned things about her that he always wanted to ask when he spent so many lonely hours wishing she were there next to him. He learned things about her body that he had spent so many countless nights wishing to know. He got to touch her in ways that once only existed in his dreams.
"Are you not going to say something?" Anomie's voice was greeted with silence. Silence was all he could give her as they neared the next village.
It was brimming with noise, the sort that was usually found only in the capital. The sun was low, creating a fire in the horizon, burning into the bright blue. People were gathered in crowds, each bursting with energy that Kakashi couldn't share. The vibrant shades of yellow and red decorated each design of flag, each banner, each kimono that swayed with the breeze.
He didn't have to look towards her to know she was at his side. Her long hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, but he was no longer in the mood to watch how it would sweep from side to side against her naked back. Her clothes, like always, were revealing in a way he usually liked. He usually liked everything about her, even the things he shouldn't. They all turned to ash in his mouth. She was probably familiar with ashes.
"Looks like a festival," Anomie said with a husky whisper as she dodged a small child with a Noh mask who ran past her, his hands roughly sweeping aside her singed robes. The boy paused, turning back towards the woman with a bow.
"Sorry miss!" The boy's politeness didn't cause any expression to morph Anomie's stone-like features as she continued to walk towards the festival. Like always, Kakashi doubted Anomie truly saw people. Often, it was like she saw through them. Did she see through him as well? Of that, he didn't know.
"The only way past it is through it." Anomie didn't sound enthusiastic as she dodged more people, and each attempted to make her laugh as they danced and swayed with the drums. Kakashi watched her all too serious face, stricken with exhaustion, dodge every hand that asked for her to dance.
Kakashi didn't have it in him to laugh, now all too aware of the feather burn upon her neck. Before, not even too long ago, he had traced it with the gentlest of touches, he had trailed his lips across it to reach the beat of her pulse, and he had even thought it beautiful. He wanted to scoff at such a foolish notion. He wanted to scream at her. He wanted to sleep this terrible day away. He wished he had never met her, now more than ever.
"Should your girlfriend stay out of trouble, which I doubt, she might live to the old age of 30." Izana Asa had told him, and her silver eyes had been so truthful. Even if Kakashi hadn't already been so aware of the Izana code of honesty, he knew it was the truth by the stricken look upon Anomie's normally stoic face.
I had naively thought the scar beautiful, he once again repeated the thought with crushing dismay.
Kakashi contemplated once again, that perhaps she truly was a monster. Perhaps she truly was cruel in every way and she never planned on telling him anything. Would she had simply died? Would she have even gifted him with something as human as a goodbye?
Kakashi watched her head grow further and further away, but not quite lost in the crowd. He hated her a bit at that moment. He hated himself, for loving such a cruel and capricious woman.
As if she felt his harsh stare on the back of her head, she turned. She met his gaze, her own expression unreadable. Then again, Kakashi could never read her. She waited for him to catch up, likely already aware that he didn't want to walk at her side.
He wanted to go home. A part of him wanted to leave her to the mess she made of her life before she could attempt to damage his own life any further than she already had.
Unfortunately, a man who could not swim would be foolish to jump from a sinking ship. His eyes ran to her neck, which was now hidden with a silk scarf with embroidered daisies. When he reached her, his body was tense and she looked weary.
"We should find lodging before nightfall, lest all the rooms be no longer vacant," she said as she glanced around the street lined with venders and people laughing. Seeing that created a cloud of gloom at the contrast that there was nothing to smile about now.
He nodded stiffly and that inscrutable expression returned to Anomie's face. It was as if she burrowed deep into her own mind, and there was no way to join her there. He wanted to know what she was thinking. He wanted to know if she meant what she told him the other night. "I love you." She had told him this thrice, whispered against his lips.
At the time he had believed her. He had truly believed that were a possible thing. Now, he wasn't so sure. It wasn't that he thought she was intentionally lying. It was more like he wasn't certain she even knew how to love anything. She hadn't seemed to grow at all in the years they spent yearning for each other. Perhaps he was part of the reason she was holding back.
The walk and the time it took to get a room passed with blur of sensation not unlike falling. When they were alone together, the noise now fleeting and insignificant, he felt he missed the noise as opposed to something as grown-up as actually talking to one another.
Anomie seemed to be of the same mind, for just as quick as they were alone, she disappeared into the bathroom. In her absence, Kakashi took the 'seed' from his breast pocket, rubbing his fingertips over the powerful object that was apparently created by the Kumiko line. It was not a family Kakashi had ever heard of, and neither had he heard much of the 'gods' Yin and Yang.
It did make some sense, considering Chakra in nature were Yin and Yang. In his hands, he twisted the seed again as if he could reveal some sort of secret in the smooth, almost iridescent, surface. The more he stared into the red glow of the seed, the more the world began to slip away. He had yet to truly stare at it, and examine the way it held a certain heat.
It was warm, as if there were a small ember burning underneath layers of red. He turned it again, his single eye gazing at it with a sort of reverence. He didn't get very long with the thought when a pale hand restricted his vision. His eyes trailed up and down those long fingers to the smooth nail beds that were filed in neat circles. Then, his gaze finally settled on the Akatsuki ring on her middle finger that cause a simmering burst of disgust to settle in his chest.
In moments, she took the seed from his hands. He noticed the struggle and without his conscious effort, his hands held on harder as if he didn't want to let it go. He had to protect it. He shook off that disturbing and oddly paternal thought when he met her gaze. He saw her brows were furrowed and her hair was damp.
Water dropped down her collar bone and traced the smooth line of her cleavage. He stopped looking at her, stopped looking at the seed, hoping that if he looked at the wall, he could regain some glimmer of self control.
"Your wrath is justifiable." He felt his blood curdle at her voice and his hands tightened into fists.
"Is it?" Kakashi forced out the words through clenched teeth. The anger was coursing through him like poison and if she had any sense, she would back away from him. Anomie never had any sense, so she continued talking.
"There are many things about me that you do not know," she said, and she ran a hand through damp, freshly washed hair. This hid the Akatsuki ring from sight, but just because it was hidden, just because they didn't talk about it, didn't mean it wasn't there or that she changed.
"Stop talking," he ordered because he didn't want to hear any more half-truths or outright lies. He just wanted to sleep on it. He wanted a moment more of blissful silence.
He finally turned his gaze back to her face. Just as always, it was like stone, and he couldn't tell what she was thinking. He was exhausted from the effort of always trying to know her. He was exhausted from the steps he took to get them on the same page, only for something new to arise that told him that she was a liar and reckless and manipulative.
"No." Anomie's voice was firm, unwavering, and absolutely frustrating. He placed his palm to his forehead. "You need to listen. The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter." He looked at her then, his jaw clenched because he knew what she was going to say. It was why he didn't want to hear her speak. He couldn't hear her next words. "It doesn't matter if I die today or tomorrow or when I am 30." If she saw his expression, she didn't care because she kept talking. "Whether this," she holds up the red seed into view and his eyes were once again drawn to it. "Whether it can control a demon or birth a god doesn't change what must be done."
She knelt down, grabbing his hand and her touch sizzled his skin and set fire to his nerves. She placed the seed into his palm, carefully, as if she still didn't trust herself to hold it. As if, if it were in her hands, that same self-preservation that led her to murder and betrayal, would come back. For a moment, he couldn't trust himself to hold it.
"We are to destroy it." Her conviction filled his chest with a fit of helpless anger.
"And in a couple of years, when you." He couldn't even think the words, let alone say anything to her. "Were you ever planning on telling me that?"
Her face was cold, unfeeling, and it reminded him that she might as well be a stranger.
"No."
He laughed at that, moving his hand away from her. "Why? After you swore after all this, you said you'd tell me everything. Was that a lie? Why?"
Anomie was an enigma to him. Still, he wanted to know, even if he couldn't trust her answer.
"I don't know," she said, and that much he could believe.
"Do you want to die, Anomie?" Kakashi's fingers squeezed the seed.
"I don't know," she repeated. He watched her take a deep breath, closing her eyes. When she reopened them, they were hard and narrow. "But I do know one thing. I know that Izana Asa was telling the truth because Izana don't lie. That doesn't mean we can trust her. Izana can still deceive. We have to destroy it and after that, we move on. We live. For as long as that may be."
"Wise words, but in a couple of years you will die. You keep lying to me." He stood up, leaving the seed on the bay window. "Even when you swore you wouldn't."
Her eyes were still narrow, and he still couldn't read her. Was she scared of death? Was she just going to accept such a fate? Was she feeling anything at all?
"I want to be honest with you," she said finally, and maybe that in itself was true.
"But it's against your nature," he said, and noticed she took a step back when he took one step closer.
"What do you want to do, Kakashi?" Anomie didn't refute him, and that told him plenty. "Make a deal with the Izana?" She took steps closer, grabbing hold of his hand and bringing him close to her. "I've made so many deals these last couple years. Do you want to know the lesson I have learned from them?"
"What lesson could you have possibly learned?" Kakashi asked in a whisper to the woman who never seemed to learn a thing.
"That they always backfire on me," she told him, her fingers squeezing. "I don't need the Izana or you to save me."
Kakashi let out a laugh, running his other hand through his hair as if he were exhausted. Slowly, he removed his hand from her grasp. "I just want you to be safe."
Anomie's brows furrowed together, her lips pursed, before she finally spoke again. "You can't. I won't let you." Anomie's face smoothed. "I won't let you make any deal that would mean you betray all of your morals."
"I don't care," Kakashi said, taking another step forward. "I would do whatever it took to make sure you are safe. We can deal with the consequences."
Anomie's face twisted and crumbled, and she gripped onto the collar of his vest, pulling him forward until they were face to face. "I know you, Kakashi. You wouldn't. You are the best of us. The village has always come before your needs and desires."
"We both know that isn't true," he told her as he watched her brows furrow and twist together.
"I do. I know I messed up. I know that I've hurt you, but some things are meant to happen the way that they happen." Anomie watched his jaw set, watched his hands slowly raise until they rested on the backs of her hands. His fingers grazed the whites of her knuckles before gripping her hands so she was forced to let go of his vest.
"You are always making me choose between my morals and you," he whispered as he forced her hands away from him. Her face emptied of emotion, and he was reminded that it wasn't long ago she was kissing his lips and whispering that she loved him into his neck. That memory already felt tainted. "We destroy the seed."
Anomie nodded, and he let go of her hands. They dropped to her sides, and the weight of them dragged her shoulders down. To see her look so defeated didn't bring him any joy, but he truly didn't know what to do. Loving her was as difficult as hating her.
"We destroy the seed," she repeated, and she said it so easily as if she didn't mind dying. Kakashi began to wonder if, all along, she wanted to die.
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Anomie's entire body was on fire. Her throat was burning and no matter how much water she chugged, it still felt dry and raw and sore. Since using so much of her power to fight Mangetsu, she felt as if a piece of her had been stripped away. She still had yet to recover those pieces and she was shaking with the effort it took just to stand.
Most of her effort was expanded to making certain that Kakashi was none the wiser that she was on fire. Every part of her body ached. The moment she stepped inside the bathroom, the moment Kakashi disappeared where ever he liked, she turned the shower on. She stood under the icy cold water and let it run across her skin.
She winced, her body at war with the temperature as she watched her skin, red and dry, ease with the stream of moisture. She leaned her hands against the marble, her naked back taking the full force of the water.
She made a deal with a god. The thought was entirely ridiculous, and she was struck with the quaking realization that it haunted her. It wasn't that long ago that the only thought in her dysfunctional mind had been power. The Ho'ou were merely a means to that end, and she had been willing to sacrifice everything for it.
"Your life is a stream," they had told her. "We want only to drink from it. We will give you our servitude, in return for whatever years we want to shed."
She had taken the deal, but gods knew she never actually thought about it. She felt a mere fraction of their power. A small percentage. She killed Mangetsu with it. She couldn't imagine the full force of it. She couldn't imagine it escaping and destroying everything.
But a part of her, the same part that screamed self destruction, it was craving all of it. It was the part that reminded her she was an addict, a killer, a sadistic monster who couldn't comprehend something as basic as empathy.
She stepped out from the shower, the room filled with steam from the cold water touching her hot skin. This reminded her that her affliction was not only burning her from the inside, but the outside wasn't working in her favor either. As she rubbed the mirror free of condensation, she saw her boney figure in the reflection, all stick-like with her ribs protruding on her sides. She ran her fingers over her face as if she could find any imperfections within that reflection. As if she could fix anything.
When her chest began to burn, she let out a disgusting-sounding cough, watching ash splatter onto the porcelain sink. She turned on the faucet and watched it drain. As she watched the black mix with the clear water, she felt a surge of her instincts, all screaming at her to live. To watch the world burn so she could live.
She turned off the faucet and left the bathroom.
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Izana Asa had made her first kill when she was eight years old. There was something so insidious about the memory. There were times when she was certain that it was fabricated, that she hadn't done it. That it was a nightmare conjured from dust. Her father had held her by the wrist, told that it was natural, that this was what she was meant to do.
"I don't want to," she had said to him. This was before she knew exactly who her father was, before his atrocities, before he snapped her mother's neck and bludgeoned her to death. It was terrifying to remember, but lately, the fear had managed to dissipate. Lately, Asa didn't feel much of anything at all.
"And yet." Her father was an unforgiving man, as her mother could later attest to, and Asa at this time had yet to learn to be afraid of him. "You will. Or, you can take his place."
He might have guided her hand, but in the end, it was Asa who had made the kill. Her hand had been drenched. Her father had told her to go for the gut, slice into the intestines. He told her to keep the knife embedded in the wound, he told her to watch, to wait as the blood-drenched her hand. She asked, at the end, perhaps in a state of shock.
"What did he do?" The man, her first kill, was not much younger than her favorite cousin. He had pleading eyes, kind eyes, begging. As if he were sorry she was doing it. Her father barely looked at her, as if somehow, she had disappointed him. As if he were looking for something, perhaps the malice and joy, that he took in each kill. The same joy that he found, later in his other daughter, Izana Kira.
"Doesn't change anything. The kill is all that matters," her father had told her.
Now, Izana Asa stared down at the man, the reason she had come all this way, the reason the secret of the god seed was even released. He was a thief, a liar, and she was immensely disappointed that the bloodlust she was searching for was nowhere to be seen. Asa knelt down, her two Izana cousins holding him by each arm. "We found him trying to escape towards the Water country."
"We took you in, and you decided to spread our secrets," Asa said, the gentle tone of her voice meshed very terribly with the conflict in her heart. She was not her father, despite how hard she tried to be him, despite being the oldest, tasked with leading their clan from the chaos he had made it. To change her clan and for it to become something organized, something more than just low-life thieves and killers. She wanted to create something more, something that would outlast her, that would over-shine the legacy her father had left behind.
"I did what I had to do," the boy, no more than seventeen, said. Asa had found him on the road, sometime after she had her youngest sister abandoned in the land of Keys. He had been beaten, his caravan ransacked, his parents dead, all by highwaymen. She had treated and trained him.
Her father always said there was a weakness in her, but she made certain that Yanosuke could not see it. He was her spider, he knew all her secrets. She should kill him.
"For money?" Asa asked, the house of the Red Queen's noise in the background. It was a brothel, owned by the Izana clan for decades, but Asa didn't run brothels. She didn't enslave women. She had transformed this place away from her father's shortsighted methods of quick cash. Now, it was a place of talent, and a home to showcase it. It had been a brothel for so many years, that at times, people still thought that was what it was.
Asa was good at finding talent among weeds, the unwanted, the ignored. She found women who could charm the clientele. Be their companions. Converse and charm. Dance and sing. She had them taught how to read, write, learn poetry, all the mannerisms of a Daimyō's daughter. Asa put a price tag on it all and took her eighteen percent. She stationed cousins and nieces she trusted, had them protect her girls.
It was a great place to gather information. In exchange for keeping all their wages, all the riches the men give, the women had to recall every last detail, every last word spoken. If Izana Asa ever needed to blackmail a highborn general, a highborn council member, it was very likely they found their way to the most beautiful women in the country. Thus, teaching them to read and write became all the more profitable.
She made so many changes to the way their clan operated. She created trade ties with the merchant clans of the Water country, reopened treaties with the Rain, organized the best assassins with no moral compass. She recreated the drug trade across the wave, made it more organized, strengthened ties to limit the amount of famine in the Wave country. Thus, allowing her business to go unnoticed so long as the people of the Wave were fed and happy.
Now, some little upstart is trying to destroy the empire she had made from the cinders of her father's madness.
"You taught me to search for money in every borough. To lie. To steal. To cheat."
"I never taught you to lie to me. To steal from me. To cheat me." Asa had kept the betrayal from Kira, who would have taken any methods of brutalizing Yanosuke. Instead, she had sent her sister after Anomie, who was already an annoyance and a bother. "I am not a borough."
Instead, the little bitch managed to make allies of both Kakashi Hatake and the Sannin Jiraiya. Upon meeting her, Asa had decided to not fight. Against each of them separately, Asa was confident in her win, but uncertain if she'd be the victor against them together. Izana Asa never fought a battle she wasn't certain she'd win.
"You are also not my sister," Yanosuke told her. "My sister died. My parents too."
"Should we cut his fingertips off?" Her cousin, Izana Ochiyo, was always the first to speak of the old ways. She had her father's sharp jaw, the same sallow cheeks, and a suspicious narrow shape of her father's face. Asa had sent her to this village as a way to get away from the rumors that they were half siblings. It was probable, and cheating on her mother was hardly the worst of his crimes.
Her other cousin, Izana Nachiko, was still covered in the afterglow of smoke. She was extra irritable, letting Asa know that she was once again attempting to quit smoking. Asa did respect the both of them, enough to let them in on Yanosuke's betrayal.
Asa didn't want any more reason for her family to despise outsiders, but more because they'd judge her weakness for allowing the outsider.
"What good is a thief without his fingers," Nachiko agreed. Likely, she wanted to get this over with and get back to her lover in the other room. Asa was tempted to send Nachiko back to her, but she needed both of them here. She wasn't certain she'd be able to resist letting Yanosuke go if it were just the two of them.
"He's our best dealer," Asa said, her head tilted. "He'd have to relearn his craft. He'd be clumsy, too calculated. Makes for a terrible card dealer."
"What punishment?" Nachiko asked in response.
"What punishment would you have of me?" Asa asked, and his eyes drifted to the dagger that was held loosely in her hand. She was still contemplating whether or not she should use it.
"Loosen the hold and let me go," he answered, watching her lips slowly lift, but the ghost of a smile didn't arrive. Her gatekeeper and spy was her favorite, and the only one she would allow watching over her sister Tsukasa.
She was disappointed, but the affection was shamefully still there.
"What did you get for the information you sold to Orochimaru's spies?" Asa raised both brows, the ghost of the smile now gone. "It set his little smoke whore our way."
"The only thing I regret is not asking for more," he told her, now he did see the smile, no longer just a ghost.
"You're going to let him go?" Ochiyo said with a deep frown.
"Not exactly." Asa grabbed Yanosuke by the back of his head, bringing him close and raising the dagger. There was an apology in her eyes, but he imagined she couldn't be too sorry because she still began to carve into his face. He tried not to show that the pain in his eyes, but he flinched at every motion as she carved the kanji deep into his skin, spelling out the single symbol, outsider.
外人
By the time she was done, her knife was drenched in blood and so were her pants. It all didn't compare to the blood that drenched Yanosuke's face from how deep she carved to make sure it could never heal over without being read. He had been in and put of consciousness, but finally, in the end, he passed out. Asa began to clean her blade, wiping it against his clothes.
"Clean the wound. Dress it." Asa ordered, and both her cousins glanced towards Yanosuke, both having been for punishment, but likely not one that would hold an actual label. "Now." Especially not one as damning as 'gaijin'.
They dragged him away, and only when he was gone did Asa's face crumble and she tossed the knife away. She walked to the water basin, where the geisha would come to clean their makeup off, and began to wipe away the blood. It was everywhere, under her nails, and in between the ridging of lines in her fingertips. Then, she began to scrub. She was not her father. She was not Kira. She was just the eldest on a technicality. She leads the Izana on a technicality.
She was exhausted of technicalities and of the Izana. This clan that took away her childhood, her sisters, her mother, her everything. Before her father, Asa and Kira had been like twins. They knew one another in and out. They had years together before Tsukasa was even born.
Then, war took her father to the front lines. When he came back, he wasn't anyone they could recognize. The bloodshed brought out the sadistic side of him that had been oppressed. Kira, who always wanted to be like him, killed any semblance of humanity she had. With that, she killed off the sisterhood they had shared for a father that never loved either of them.
Perhaps, that was why Asa had taken to the outsider. She had sought comfort in his foreignness, in his ignorance, and she had, as much as someone like her could, even loved him. Now, his blood clotted underneath her nail beds. She felt the desperation, the stress, the rage, and even the sadness, claw from underneath her throat until she could no longer breathe.
However, Asa did not cry. For all the flaws of her clan, she was still an Izana, still her father's child, however reluctantly. She slam her fist against the basin, watching the porcelain crack from underneath her fist. She hunched over, her body shaking.
"I take it this is a bad time?" The voice was clear, without emotion or judgement, but it made all Asa's nerves stand on edge. She turned towards the woman, clad in black wrappings of fabric, with fur around her shoulders to block out the harsh cold. The black she wore was a thick spandex, fabric of silk around it in extravagant design.
Anyone could say what they liked about the lack of morality and honor of Koneko, but her beauty was always talked of first. Next was her ruthlessness and strength. However, that same glow was fading, taken away by the lack of food that had made her so skinny and sallow. Asa's back straightened, her expression disappearing as she shoved back those emotion that almost made her want to curl up and cry.
"If I said it was, would you come back a different day?" Asa asked, swiping her fingers along her jaw, pushing away her hair. Her cheeks were dry, cold to the touch, and she was grateful there were no tears to hide.
"No. I wouldn't," Anomie agreed, her eyes narrow.
"How did you get in here undetected?" Asa asked with a curious tilt of her head.
Anomie raised her hand, and Asa watched it turn to smoke before reforming back into flesh and bone. "You should know."
"Ah, can't teach an old dog new tricks, I see," Asa said with a smile. She walked up to the small crystal table, picking up a decanter of the finest geometric glass, pouring a honey colored liquid into two just as fine glasses. Asa held one up, and Anomie's eyes ran to it, before they went right back up to Asa's eyes. Slowly, Anomie grabbed the glass with a thin, yet steady hand. Asa took the first sip, Anomie following suit.
The liquid burned down her throat, but Anomie had quite the taste for it as of yet. "I have learned a few new tricks," Anomie told her, lips raised in a bitter smile.
"I would have thought your little doggy would have been the first to come to me," Asa admitted, irritation settling in her stomach.
Anomie's smile disappeared. "Don't call him that," she warned. "Not if you want the seed."
Asa let out a small laugh, sitting down against the vanity as her gold clock rested between the wood and her pants. "I am not the one in need of this bargain to save her own life. I'd watch your tone."
Anomie smiled into the next sip. "My life is not worth my tone, Izana."
"What is your life worth, then, Anomie?"
"I don't know," Anomie admitted, her lips pressed together as she swirled the honey colored liquid into the glass. She saw her distorted reflection, staring right back at her. "But I think I am figuring it out."
"Are you here because you are figuring it out?" Asa's eyes were blank, her words without judgement.
Anomie smiled, taking a long sip, her eyes connecting to the Izana's steel like gaze. She didn't feel the burn of the liquid, didn't feel much of anything. "I've come to discuss the terms of the bargain."
"Without your little friend?" Asa sent her a knowing smile.
"It's for the best," Anomie whispered. "That he isn't." She took a deeper drink, and Asa watched her fingers squeeze against the glass.
"My terms were quite clear. I give you the means for your survival, and you hand over the seed."
"Yes," Anomie walked closer, pouring more alcohol into her glass, giving Asa a good look at the pale and dehydrated skin of Anomie's face. "But that isn't enough."
"What would be enough, Koneko?"
"For starters?" Anomie asked, her lips thinning and her patience just as thin. "Don't call me that ever again."
Asa scoffed. "It is you legacy. It's your only legacy. After you have returned to the dirt, or burned to ash, more likely," Asa gave a knowing smile. "It's all you will leave behind. Those you've killed and nothing else to your name. Why hide from it?"
"You've got pretty words," Anomie told her. "That's all you have."
"And what do you have, Anomie?" Asa grabbed her hand, lifting it up with rough fingers as her eyes dragged against the Akatsuki ring on her finger. "A cause you don't even believe in? A frivolous affection you cannot stay true to?" Asa dropped Anomie's hand, watching it dangle, lifeless, at her side. "You don't have anything."
"I have a seed you seem to want. I could give it Orochimaru. Watch the world burn. Then, we'll see who really has nothing."
Asa smiled. "Your terms, what are they? Amuse me."
"Call off your assassins. As a sign of good will," Anomie said, and Asa's smile widened.
"I hardly think they are a threat to you. Keep you on your toes, keep your mind sharp."
"I already have enough people trying to kill me. I'd prefer not to have yours," Anomie replied, and Asa sat at the round table, across from the decanter of whiskey. She waved her hand towards the other chair, watching as Anomie sat across from her.
"Yes. So many do not like you," Asa agreed. "My sister included. She would be most unhappy to be unable to cradle your skull."
Anomie scoffed, moving a strand of hair away from her face. "I'm sure she would. Regardless, those are the first of my terms."
"I never much cared for giving Kira what she wants. You have my word, no Izana shall touch you."
Anomie crossed her legs, leaning back in her seat. "Second, entrance into Konoha, whenever I wish it."
"Steep," Asa replied, her eyes narrow. "You are asking too much. The entrance is not yours or mine. If overused, Konoha will start to look for one," Asa explained. "Understand why I must reject."
"Ten times then," Anomie agreed. "Ten times through your doors. No more, no less."
"I'll give you four," Asa replied. "Only four because I like you."
"Aren't you a haggler," Anomie agreed. "Did your daddy teach you that?"
"You wouldn't like me if I showed you what my daddy taught me," Asa answered. "What did your father teach you?"
"Never knew him, but the man I thought of like a father, raped me. You wouldn't like what that taught me either," Anomie said callously.
"The life of women born in a time of war," Asa said, pouring them both another drink. "What are your other terms?"
"I want to know everything about Orochimaru. His whereabouts, his dealings, his closest allies. All of it." Anomie leaned closer, her elbows dragging across the wood as she grabbed the glass.
"Hm." Asa let out a huff of air, and even with the fire crackling behind them, it was a fog from her lips. "Interesting. What would you do with that information? Kill a Sannin? You?" Asa scoffed, leaning back in her seat.
"You think I can't?" Anomie swirled the liquid in the glass.
"I think you started your ninja training when you were what? 13? Orochimaru was training since the day he was able to walk. He is decades older than you or me. I think you have worked hard and made terrible deals trying to catch up to everyone else and you have severely paid for it to the point where we are having this conversation in the first place." Asa's eyes were dark, eyes covered with dark shadows and deep bags from lack of sleep. "But Orochimaru, he is not someone you are ready to face. He is a Sannin for a reason."
Anomie let out a dark chuckle. "So many people like to tell me what I am capable of, what power or lack there of that I have. I don't care. I will use the power as I always have. To destroy. I don't need Orochimaru dead," Anomie whispered with a harsh sound. "I have only one thing to my name. Only one thing I am capable of leaving behind when I am gone."
"And what is that, Anomie?"
"Damage." Anomie took a deep sip of her drink, her eyes narrow. "Those are my terms."
"Not one word about a way to actually save your life?" Asa asked, her lips curled up.
"Weren't you listening?" Anomie replied. "Those were my terms. That is what I want."
"I see," Asa leaned back, a hint of a frown on her face as she slowly watched the girl she had heard many rumors of in the passing. "Well, we are in agreement then, if all you want is damage to everyone else around you, I can't refute that. Do you care what I do with the seed?"
"It doesn't matter anymore," Anomie whispered. "As long as he doesn't have it. As long as the Akatsuki do not get it. I don't care."
"What if my grand plan was to sell it to the Akatsuki?" Asa asked with a tilt of her head.
"As if they have that sort of money."
"You have a deal," Asa finally said after a long silence. "What about the copycat ninja? Are you going behind his back to do this?"
"It's in my nature. He knows that better than anyone," Anomie told her, rising from her seat and holding out her hand, and in her fingers was the the seed. "Before I was a ninja, before all the murder, I was a thief, a liar, and a prostitute."
Asa took the seed. "A lot of us would kill to be loved in the way that he obviously loves you."
Anomie lowered her hand. "Love ruins people. You're better off without it."
"Maybe," Asa agreed. "As a token of goodwill, because I like you, oddly enough." The seed in her fingers disappeared with a sleight of hand. "I will advise you to live a bit longer, spreading that beautiful damage. To do that, there is only one person who knows how to reverse the years a god has taken from you."
"And who is that?"
"A member of the Kumiko line who created the seal itself. One resides in the Water country, under the name the Harlot. Kumiko Senna." Asa shrugs, standing up. "A little advice though. Immortals are frivolous things, bored with life and cannot die. Difficult to reason with or talk to."
"Much like you," Anomie replied.
"I think you will eventually go to her," Asa continued with an amused smile. "Part of your damage, is that pesky will to live. It always trumps all else, doesn't it?"
Anomie smiled thinly, turning to walk away. "I expect first word on Orochimaru before the week is up."
"A deal is a deal," Asa agreed, raising her cup to her.
"By the way," Anomie said with a hallow tone of voice. "The cause." She held up her ring, glancing back towards Asa. "Who said I didn't believe in it?"
●▬▬▬Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ▬▬▬●
Kakashi laid against the grass, watching the stars in the sky, when he felt her lay down next to him. The cold wind, the frost on the tips of the grass, digging into his back. His mask was in place, his eye covered, and his entire body stiff as she rested next to him. "You made the deal?"
"How long did it take you to notice?"
Kakashi scoffed. "For you to steal the seed?" Kakashi felt his chest tighten. "I knew the moment you did it."
"And you let me," she replied.
"I wanted you to tell me. For us to be in something together," he answered, and finally he turned his head to her, watching her face in the dim moonlight, the sallow cheekbones and hollow face. She turned her head to meet his gaze. "I wanted us to be in anything together."
"I want that too," she replied, on leg raised into a triangle and the other flat against the grass. "But I've realized something just as important."
"What is that?" Kakashi asked.
"I have never fit in anywhere. Being a courtesan was demanding, draining, and sickening, but I knew who I was back then. I had a place amongst them. I was good at it. Then I came to Konoha where I was expected to make a place for myself, but I didn't know how to do anything else," Anomie said, laying down next to him. She flicked her fingers, relighting the fire that Kakashi had let go out. The fire was a warm glow near her face. She could feel the cool breeze and Kakashi's aura so near. She could touch him, and maybe he wouldn't disappear from beneath her fingertips.
He listened to every word, waiting for her to continue, waiting for her to express everything she ever held in. He wanted to know more, but simply saying that she always had a place in his heart wasn't enough. Love never was enough. Not then, and certainly not now.
"When I joined Anbu, I thought I finally found something," Anomie eventually continued, her fingers clenched over her ribs as if the words were being dug out from underneath flesh and bone.
He could tell her that there were so many things she could do. He could say she had a talent for music, a talent for Fuīnjutsu that rivaled even Jiraya, a talent to learn, a passion to grow, a skill for crafting. Kakashi could say all that, but it wasn't his place to tell her this.
"I thought I finally found a place for me." Anomie knew that she did terrible things for Konoha. She knew the blood was still hidden in places she couldn't wash clean, but she had felt as if what she did had meaning. That meaning meant she was doing good.
What a lie.
She turned her head and ran her eyes over Kakashi's jaw, tracing over each imperfection that he managed to make look so perfect. She wished she could see his face, no mask, but she didn't ask him to remove it. She looked away again, bringing up the words that wanted to drown her. "When I was fighting, when I was on mission, when I was killing, everything else disappeared. I didn't have to think, just follow the council's orders." She raised her hand, where blood had speckled over her skin like small freckles. "I was good at it because I didn't think about it. I didn't ask questions. For the first time since the brothels, I was just reacting."
She lowered her hand, staring up at the moon. Kakashi finally spoke, "Those missions they sent you on were vile. Minato had no part in that." Kakashi felt the need to defend his former sensei. It had been Anomie sent to lead the assassination of the former Daimyō line, ultimately leading to the appointment of the former Daimyō's brother in power. She hadn't been tasked to lead because she had been stronger than anyone else in Anbu. She was, however, more thorough and obedient. Where Kakashi would have spared whoever he could, would have asked questions, Anomie was a soldier, reacting.
Anomie finally looked at him again, her eyes blank as if she had forgotten about Minato. Kakashi imagined she perhaps had. "He was a good man. A good soldier. A strong soldier." Anomie closed her eyes. "Yet, just like Sarutobi before him. Sarutobi after him." Anomie scoffed. "Good soldiers don't always make good leaders." She turned on her side, facing him with her palm holding up her head as her elbow rested flat against the ground. "Why is it there are soldiers in power instead of people who have the strength to lead politically?"
"Minato was a good leader," Kakashi said, his brows furrowed as he tried to defend his mentor.
"And yet," she said, her eyes half closed with exhaustion. "Danzo still rivaled him in strength, in authority, in power. Just like Sarutobi. Clans like the Izana hold complete sway over the entirety of trade and commerce in Konoha. Clans like the Uchiha still were able to arise in strength enough to plan a coup. And yet, small groups like the Akatsuki are able to rise and consolidate power with no check. Little girls are still being trafficked around the Fire country. Where is the leadership? Danzo doesn't care about anything but Konoha's enemies. What about the people he's supposed to protect?"
"What are you saying?"
Anomie laid back down, flat against the grass. "I'm saying," she said slowly. "What if what the Akatsuki wants isn't that bad?"
"What is it that they want?" Kakashi knew the bare minimum of the organization that she had joined.
"Peace," she said with a tired blink. "For everyone."
"What does that mean?" Kakashi couldn't imagine how their ideology of peace was so much different than anyone else's.
"It means," Anomie said, her voice calm and blank. "What started out as infiltration, what started out as a calculated action, has shifted."
He had figured she joined Orochimaru based on orders, joined Akatsuki based on orders, falling back into her old habits of never thinking for herself.
"I think," she continued with a sigh. "I am done following orders of Konoha." The following silence was eerie, resonating with the small nocturnal animals that didn't dare come closer. "I don't believe there is any other way."
"And if that means my village will truly be after you?" Kakashi asked, already knowing that while Danzo wanted her dead, Sarutobi had been lenient.
"There is no difference," she told him, staring at him with her hands curled up against her ribs. "Let's not play pretend house anymore Kakashi."
In the last few weeks, they had fallen into a rhythm of a married couple. It had been disorienting, distracting, but he had never been as happy as he was when he was with her. Sex had nothing to do with it. It was just knowing she was as close to him as he was to her.
"What are you saying?" Kakashi asked, and her eyes were soft, almost as if they told him the answer without him having to hear it.
"I'm saying that this thing in between us," she answered, her lips drawn in a thin line. "Is debilitating and it needs to stop."
"You would have betrayed Konoha today. You would have done that for me and I would have continued to have these thoughts," Anomie continued, watching him swallow and his jaw set. "That is why we cannot be together. That is why we cannot be anything. Not friends. Not allies. Just strangers."
"I know," he whispered, turning back to look at the sky, at nothing at all. "I also know we've done this song before."
Anomie smiled, feeling her eyes swell up with tears. "We have. Many times." She thought she was done with tears, with sadness, but more began to rise as they always did.
"You are debilitating. Frustrating. Deranged." Kakashi took a shaking breath, the smoke of the fire filling his lungs. "But I would have have done anything for you."
"Isn't that the whole problem?" Anomie raised her hand, pressing it against his face and turning it towards her. His eye was red, and only when she saw the moisture in hers did he let the first tear fall.
"I wish we could just leave together," he whispered, and she let out a laugh.
"I wish that we both truly wanted that," she told him. "As pretty as the dream is, I can't lead you to a future that I am not capable of giving you, but I am so grateful for all the time we have had."
"I know," he whispered back, his eye squeezing shut as he leaned into her hand.
"I love you," she told him slowly. "But we are strangers. We have to be because I will ruin you," she said and he finally watched the tears fall down her cheeks. She leaned her head against his, her chest aching with every word.
"I know that too," he said, pulling her to him in a tight embrace where they stayed, throughout the cold night, together.
They awoke as strangers.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Burūberu (ブルーベル) meaning Bluebell. Flower meaning, grateful.
This one took especially long to release. For that I am sorry. I had a hard time with this chapter more than most since it dealt with emotions and responses to situations that was rather difficult to write. I am so self-conscious about this chapter, to the point where I put it on the back burner for a long time.
Anomie and Kakashi had so many beautiful moments on their journey together, but ultimately, that was to lead to this very serious breakup. She had started to really understand the harm she was doing to his life, the toxicity of their relationship, and she put a real end to it. This portion of the story, while hard to write, will be one of the many actions I had been planning to do in order to allow Kakashi to seriously move on from her.
For now at least. Besides, they both have important things to do separately.