Chapter 11
The wind felt ominous as it harshly bit into his skin, making Kakashi glance up towards the clouds that spread thinly across the horizon that was darkly concealing the setting sun by an array of trees. If not for Gai's insistence on his company, Kakashi was certain that there were other things he'd rather be doing.
He for one was still slightly bitter that he wasn't chosen to guard Kushina during the birth tonight, but Minato had been swift to ask his input on who should be there and who shouldn't. He could still remember the sick feeling that settled in his stomach when Minato suggested Anomie to be one of the Anbu guards, forcing Kakashi to remember her hands wrapping around the thin necks of two children and snuffing out their lives in a brief moment.
"I don't think she's right for the responsibility," Kakashi could vaguely remember saying this before he had watched Minato's gaze become pointed and unreadable. Kakashi knew that his sensei did everything for a reason, but he didn't fully understand what that reason could be in Anomie's case.
He supposed her abilities were strong and the way she could possess someone's mind in an instant was useful, but Kakashi was unable to forget how thin and brittle those two boy's necks were when she snapped them. A person like that, to him, couldn't be held responsible for the life of Kushina or her child. He didn't believe that Anomie was inherently evil or sadistic. He didn't know what she was, but her presence felt like fire, spreading and burning everything down.
He sighed, trying to rid Anomie from his thoughts, but her face lingered behind with such force that he couldn't pry her away even as he gazed out into the sky as a dangerous Chakra began to soar through his bones. He could feel its intensity and it made his heart pound in his chest as Gai's chatter came to a halt while the green suited man stared uncharacteristically serious out into the far distance.
In those few nights, Kakashi wondered if he should have fought harder to get Anomie off the squad of Anbu...
Because none of them made it out alive.
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"I brought you flowers," came Genma's voice as he entered the stoic girl's hospital room. It had been two and a half weeks after the Kyuubi attack and that amount of time was what it took for Genma to strike up the time to visit the injured girl's bedside. When he opened sliding the door open with flowers draped across his arm, his eyes met with the Anbu who stood guard outside the door. The man's mask was that of a falcon, but other than that he had no recognition of who that person was, as was the case with most Anbu besides Kakashi.
Genma doubted he would even know that much if it wasn't for Gai's excessive speeches during one of the many undesired sparring matches.
Anomie didn't look his way, as she was far too busy zipping up the front of a sleeveless jacket. She looked to have just finished getting dressed, and because of Genma's increasingly bad luck, he walked in just as she was finished. He supposed the tiny glimpse of cleavage and lace had been probably the most action he'd gotten in weeks so it wasn't too bad.
She didn't look remotely affected by his presence and her entire disregard for his form taking a step closer didn't make her react.
"You're better?" His question sounded pretty blank, and she was slightly surprised he had held off on flirting with her.
Although, this could be due to the fact that she lost nearly 35% of her blood due to her mission and she looked deathly pale. Pure willpower and nearly 5 blood transfusions were the only things that kept her standing. Genma only had to look once to notice her slight imbalance. He had a feeling he wouldn't have noticed much difference in her posture and stance at all if it wasn't for his prior memories of her.
"They're letting me go," she finally replied after a long pause of Anomie's rather uncharacteristic, and scrutinizing stare. He was used to her dry humor and witty retorts, so finding her so empty was rather strange. She almost immediately adjusted her expression and her eyes lit up with amusement at the flowers.
The action was so fast that he found himself wondering if it was genuine. He didn't focus on the thoughts of doubt as he nodded his head in response.
"Do you need help getting home?" Genma didn't really know why he asked, as being polite and kind without ulterior motives was fairly new to him. Despite this, he found himself remembering her state of weakness the last time he saw her, bleeding all over him as she forced her broken body to stand.
The look she gave him flickered to an emotion he couldn't place, but it steadied with calm amusement. He still couldn't fully tell if she was genuine, but he let it go when she took a step forward and walked around the bed until she gripped the flowers in her hand and lightly pulled them her way.
"My body is weak," she admitted slowly, her eyes flickering away from the flowers and back up to meet his eyes. "But my Chakra is restored. It will suffice."
"Many people thought you died," he informed her, and his eyes met her gaze head on as he watched her expression carefully.
She didn't respond and merely walked past him, her amusement flickered away from her eyes as she forced her legs not to quiver.
Genma sighed once she left, slightly regretting visiting at all and giving into his concerns that brought him here. "If you need someone to talk to, my bed is always open." His amused voice rumbled in a nearly suppressed chuckle just before she opened the door. His usual perverted comment broke the mood that developed between them and he heard her light, almost genuine laugh.
"I'd rather deep throat glass," she replied smoothly, opening the hospital door and not turning back.
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Anomie had officially been interrogated out of her ass, making her momentarily wonder if dying would have been simpler. Speaking of a masked man who appeared like that of a vortex with such speed and power to take out seven Anbu elite had been a difficult concept to grasp.
And this was after a Yamanaka prodigy confirmed her story and molested her mind. The council had obviously been piling evidence to blame the Uchiha for the Kyuubi while she had been unconscious for a long while. Her inability to neither deny nor confirm the Uchiha involvement was unclear, but a Jutsu as complex as teleportation was unheard of, even if it did manage to catch her by surprise, causing a blade to slide through her artery like scissors cutting into paper.
By the time she was actually allowed to go home, another week had passed and her interaction with Genma felt like a lifetime ago.
Dying would have been smoother and less stressful, but the desire to live was what made her abandon her comrades and her Hokage. She had tried to make up for her cowardice by informing the Third, but she had a feeling that she wouldn't be able to get rid of the stain on her name.
Her body collapsed against her bed with a bounce as her wide eyes stared into the ceiling. Her thoughts were jumbled and her heart was still pounding in her chest from the palpitation of the blood her body was unable to produce after her stab wound.
With weak and trembling fingers, she settled her palm against her heart. She was still able to feel the sting of the stab wound that had almost tore through her heart. She knew with absolutely certainty that her bloodline ability had saved her life back then and the prospect of turning individual portions of her body into smoke left her with a growing bit of anticipation.
She'd finally become what she'd always wanted...untouchable.
The sound of a quiet and raspy laughter shook her chest until she covered her face with her palms. It was an eerie sound, bouncing off the walls and almost sounding like soft sobs. For all she knew, she could be crying. Sometimes, she doubted there was much difference.
•
Kakashi had found himself visiting her, briefly after the death of his sensei. It was strange seeing her lying, broken with bandages covering her shoulder and chest with the blanket balled up to her legs. He had seen her sleeping before, and she had always looked so stiff, as if she never moved a muscle. Now, it looked like she fought to remove the blankets from her body.
He didn't know what he felt when he heard she had survived the attack. His thoughts had been preoccupied with the chaos of the village's losses. His mind had been preoccupied by the last time he had seen Minato, and now that the man was gone, it was like Kakashi's last link to his team had been severed.
Anomie had been his remaining link to Rin, and he didn't know how to handle everything being cut so abruptly in a mere day.
So when he had neared her bedside, he wasn't too surprised that his legs gave out and he landed to his knees. Kakashi wasn't emotional, and yet the feeling of relief made his hands tremble as he gripped her deathly pale fingers.
The memory of thinking she was dead haunted him in a way he didn't expect as it piled onto the many deaths that wrecked through the village. Although, he didn't fully care about other people whose graves littered the streets underneath broken pieces of rubble. His hatred for the red demon that took two lives from him stung far more than he expected.
But as he looked to Anomie, his eyes scanning over her injuries, he realized that he only hated himself. He hadn't been allowed to fight or protect anything. Maybe that was what made his knees give out and his weakness to take him over. It wasn't like he knew too much about the girl on a personal level. He didn't know her likes or her dislikes. He didn't know her dreams.
Although, he couldn't say he knew nothing. He knew that when she was sheepish, she pouted as she pulled a piece of hair behind her ear. He knew that she was honest and never mused around the point. He knew that when she smiled, her eyes would halfway close and twinkle as if she knew something everyone else did not. He knew that she hated rice balls, but stole his food anyway. He knew that she dedicated every waking moment to getting stronger. He knew that she was witty. He knew that she was clever and inventive...
He knew that she could detach herself from any situation and easily become the bad guy.
Looking at her now, he could almost tell himself that he knew her, even if it was only a little. He knew he felt grief when he learned of her passing and even after the mission that destroyed their 'relationship', he would find himself thinking about her. Not all day. Not even every week. But when she did cross his mind, she burned him like fire, spreading flames over his skin.
When he had heard she died, he only felt cold.
But as he looked at her face, that minuscule ember leapt into his throat and burned.
He wanted to hear her voice. He didn't want to forget about Rin. About Obito. About Minato. He didn't want to be some lifeless shell with nothing left and he swiftly found that yes...she was necessary...even if she might be able to kill with far less emotion than he could...even if she was able to bury each mission and still laugh as if nothing was wrong...even if she hid behind some kind of mask.
He hid behind a mask too.
•
Anomie opened her eyes to darkness, and she began to wonder when she had allowed sleep to overcome her. She had done nothing but sleep these past couple weeks, so she was vaguely surprised her eyes even managed to close.
The sun had begun to set off in the distance, so she figured she couldn't have been out for more than thirty minutes, but it felt good to close her eyes. It didn't last long and she quickly got out of bed, feeling oddly out of character.
She was anxious. She realized it the moment the emotion surfaced and the more she looked around her empty room, the more she mused the idea of burning it to the ground. This feeling slightly scared her, as she had never been overly emotional before.
Her hands reached for the opening of the balcony, and all but threw herself outside. The moment fresh air burned in her lungs, she felt her racing heart begin to calm. She closed her eyes and focused her attention on the small hue of Chakra inside the building. They were mostly small, almost non-existent from lack of training and if calmed her down.
Only now did she feel Kakashi's Chakra from above her. It was weak, almost as if he were concealing it, but she had been around him so much that she knew its texture. She knew its flavor. She knew its feel.
It succeeded in calming her down completely and by the time she opened her eyes, all feeling drifted from her body until she was at peace. She had no desire to know the source of her anxiety; no desire to know its meaning. She wasn't emotional and she couldn't afford to start now.
She heard the sound of the balcony door sliding open from above her. Kakashi's footsteps were soundless, but she mirrored his movement as she walked to the railing.
It was a strange silence. It wasn't awkward or uncomfortable. It was mostly weird and just as she began to muse the idea of going back inside, her hand shot out instinctively and caught a white blur just as it dropped from above. She almost looked confused at her own reaction, but as she looked down in her palm, she found an onigiri that would have likely been crushed in her grip if the rice hadn't been undercooked.
Kakashi's food had never been delicious or anything special, but as she looked at the clumsily molded rice she didn't hesitate to take a bite. It was plain and had nothing special about it, but it was warm...
And she felt something, it was brief and flickered away, but she felt slightly warm as well.
It was strange, but that was okay. She needed a little strange in her life.
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"Ah. Koneko the coward."
"For someone with nine lives, she was afraid to spare even one."
"I see she still landed on her feet, even though the blood of her comrades is on the ground."
Anomie supposed she did see the taunting coming, but nothing could prepare her completely for the whispering. The wound was fresh and every word brought a further sting to her skin. She could tell her new team had no love for her, and they were the very same who called her Reikokumujyou the Coward. In their eyes, she was the heartless craven with no concern of anyone but herself.
And they weren't completely wrong. Perhaps that was what kept her lips sealed as she dealt with the wave of tension when her group interacted with her. She almost wanted to laugh when they hesitated in trusting her to lead the infiltration, as if they were afraid she was going to fail the mission and leave them as bait so she could get away.
They weren't wrong. She could easily leave them behind if things went wrong. She could and she wouldn't feel bad about it. She wouldn't feel anything.
Not at first.
The target was 8 years old.
They always left the children for her to deal with and then judged her for carrying out the mission.
The kid had been a spy in Konoha. That was all she knew. She didn't want to know more. She didn't want to ask.
So when she unsealed a katana from her skin and plunged it into his skull, she didn't feel anything.
By the time she reached the Iwa guards, she slit their throats and watched as the blood soaked through the men's scarfs. They gurgled and it was an eerie sound that made her stare longer. He tried to reach for an explosive tag, she saw his hand twitch towards his weapons bag as his blood erupted out of his throat in a slow and agonizing death.
She mused the thought of just letting him. Maybe the seal would wipe out her team as well. She'd be left standing of course. Fire wouldn't ever be her undoing.
Her blade pierced his hand, her eyes narrowed as she used her foot to crush the bones of his other hand. She could hear the bones crush and crumble as if they were as brittle as uncooked ramen. Her lips trembled as she knelt over the man, her head tilting to the side as she dragged the tip of her blade over his skin, making it part over his cheek. She watched as the blood oozed out from the broken piece and hug down to his ear.
It took her a bit longer to realize that he was trembling and shaking in fear.
She became curious if she looked scary, but brushed off the thought as she used the tip of her blade and mercilessly cut into his cheek. It sunk into his head from his mouth and to his brain. It was slow, and she could barely hear the screams before she realized that she had chosen a very painful way to kill him.
It took her another moment to realize that she wasn't alone and her mask followed her head as she glanced up to the mask of a dog. For a split second, she grew fearful that it was Kakashi, but came to the next realization that it wasn't.
She didn't give her masked partners anymore of her time as she wiped the blood off her blade, using the dead Iwa nin as a cleaning cloth.
Once the blood was gone, she accepted that she'd never be able to run from the rumors on her name. She'd be a monster and a coward in their eyes.
They thought she wasn't good enough to be on Anbu. They thought she received special treatment. They weren't wrong.
And when she laid her head into her hands, her form falling into her bed and smearing red on to the sheet, she decided that she might as well become what they called her.
If they all saw a monster when she wasn't trying, she could only imagine what they'd see if she put some effort into it.
The thought didn't make her feel as lifted as she thought it would and she wasn't certain how long she sat up, covered in blood.
It wasn't until she felt a damp cloth wiping her forehead did her blurry vision free itself.
She didn't know how blood got under her mask, but when she saw the damp white cloth dyed red, she stopped caring. Kakashi remained indifferent as he gently wiped the blood off her cheeks. His face was impassive, but there wasn't much she could do to read him when he covered most his face in a mask.
"Why?" She didn't really know what she was asking, but with him kneeling in front of her, she couldn't help but ask. His eye met hers and she searched for an answer, coming out with nothing. He covered his emotions easily and she began to wonder if she succeeded in doing that as well, although she remained doubtful in her current state.
"I felt your Chakra..." He slowly answered as he grabbed her hand. She barely remembered tearing her palm through an enemy's chest. She wore fingerless gloves, so some of her wasn't covered in blood.
She was uninjured at least. Her bloodline ability had proved to make her untouchable to brute contact. She had nearly perfected it so she could never end up in her prior state.
"I was...worried." He finally said, his voice coming out with an odd kindness.
She stared into his eye before her shoulders slowly relaxed. The moment Kakashi saw her once tense form ease, he felt his own nerves evaporate to some distant corner as he tucked a bit of her loose white hair behind her ear before gently dabbing the cloth on her neck.
Her skin was milky white underneath the blood and having an excuse to touch her so much was making his fingers oddly tingle as they lightly traced her cheek as he moved her hair from restricting him. He was never one to be too interested in women as he grew up, but he couldn't stop the strange feelings from surging underneath his skin when he accidentally allowed his fingers to trace her neck.
It felt like fire was rushing through him at a temperature that burned him. He almost wanted to speed the entire process and finish wiping the blood away so he could leave. Although, the dominant part of his body glued to this woman and he didn't want to go anywhere. Odd thoughts sprang into his head as he avoided her eyes.
For the first time in many months, he remembered the feeling of her lips brushing over his from over his mask. Of course, this had been an obvious, and sadly successful, ploy to win a battle. He had attempted to forget it happened, since something like that obviously didn't mean anything to Anomie. He could tell the moment her confident gaze had met his that a kiss was nothing to her.
It didn't do him well for his ego to be the only one hung up on a trick of skin, but now that he was so close to her face again, he couldn't stop his mind from wondering. He slightly blamed this on his newfound interest in Icha Icha Paradise, but his hands were extra gentle when he removed the remaining blood from her lips. He could feel them sink from underneath the material as he traced his cloth-covered thumb over her bottom lip.
Her eyes met his and he suddenly felt like she was looking right through him. She was scrutinizing him, and he quickly buried any emotions he had at that moment of weakness. He didn't want her to know that her close proximity was making his skin burn with a desire he wasn't used to having, especially in her state.
When she leaned in closer, her lips almost brushing against his ear, he thought she was going to whisper something cold and intentionally hurtful. Instead she rested her forehead against his shoulder. He still held the damp and bloody cloth in his hands, unsure of what to do with his hands now that her body had gotten closer to his without warning.
A part of him mused the idea of standing up and leaving the situation. Although, somewhere in his gut he knew that if he left now she'd never show a weakness to him again. Anomie had never looked so vulnerable except the night she cried in his arms in Rin's old apartment. Kakashi didn't notice her vulnerability back then because he had been battling his own. Although now, as she rested her head in the crook of his neck, he realized that he was letting the defenses he worked so hard to build fall at his feet.
The walls around him came crashing down as he rested his palm slow and flat against the middle of her back. Her body was like a magnet, ready to pull him in. He never noticed before just how hypnotic she was as she silenced his thoughts. All his grief over losing his sensei drifted away as she slowly dragged her hand onto his chest.
His body twisted towards her, the strange craving for her touch filled his mind so loudly that he began to wonder if she could hear it. He was slightly ashamed to be having these thoughts with her in the state she was in. Although this didn't last long as all coherent thoughts drifted away when her hand rested against his neck and her other gently gripped his free palm.
Kakashi could hear his heart race, and no amount of control would slow it down when her ear rested against his neck. He was certain she could hear it, but Anomie had always been fairly tactful, so she didn't say anything. He realized, in that instant, in that fleeting moment, that his mind was filled with the serendipity of her embrace. He wanted to hold her, to crush her in his arms until everything broke. It was a feeling so violent that he had to forcibly push it away until his fingertips dug into his palms so forcefully that caused his palms to bruise.
His nostrils were filled with the honeydew scent of her hair. It was sweet, almost too sweet, but it drew him in as if he was a moth to a twisted flame. It was pure, fleeting willpower that kept him from embracing her, and his control nearly broke when her fingers dug into his back.
Almost as quickly as the contact started, she stood up so he was face first with her stomach. She placed a hand on his shoulder and walked past him, shedding off her clothes as she walked to the bathroom. Kakashi caught a brief glimpse of her naked back and seals running up her arm before she disappeared behind a closed door.
Anomie glanced down at her hand with wide eyes as soon as the door restricted Kakashi's vision of her. She wasn't sure what happened or why her body made up its own mind on how she'd move. She felt his touch under her skin and when she looked into his troubled gaze she knew what she saw. Anomie was trained to recognize desire when she saw it, but she never expected Kakashi to look at her that way. She never really saw Kakashi as a 'man' before.
He had always just been the boy Rin wouldn't shut up about. He'd always just been that boy she'd make fun of in the food stall. He'd always just been Koinu, the man behind the dog mask who'd help her train.
And seeing him as any different had been unthinkable, so when she saw that raw emotion her body worked on its own as it fell in with the motions of an Oiran. It was like she became an actress playing a part. If she hadn't heard his heart racing so hard, she doubted she would have snapped out of her stupor.
She wasn't certain what she would have done, but she could have guessed. And her body hardly felt like it belonged to her from her long years of selling it. This all must of taken a larger toll on her psyche than she expected. Anomie pressed her face into her palm as she stepped into the shower.
She mostly stood still, letting the blood mingle with the water under her feet. It felt relatively nice and felt better when she turned up the heat until it seared into her flesh with blinding pain that turned her skin into a darken red hue. All of the steam that filled the air made her think of smoke on the battlefield.
By the time she stepped outside the bathroom, her body wrapped in a thin robe, she noticed Kakashi pressing together rice from the rice cooker she didn't realize existed. She didn't say anything as she walked his way, letting him hand her one. She took a tiny bite before a small smile forced its way onto her face.
"It's plain," she murmured, and he glanced her way with a raised brow. "And the rice is still hard."
"I'm sorry that I didn't perfect my culinary arts while out being a Shinobi," his voice lacked conviction, and came out aloof and almost friendly.
Anomie glanced up at him, leaning forward on the marble kitchen divider that separated the two. "I suppose a kid can't be good at everything."
Kakashi wasn't offended, and Anomie found herself slightly impressed that a man so strong could be so modest. "If I trained I'm certain I'd perfect anything."
"Here I was, thinking you were modest," Anomie's voice was musing, with a slight playful touch that sounded slightly forced to Kakashi's ears.
When Kakashi had first met Anomie, she had looked like a girl untouched by animosity and hatred. She looked almost broken, but every time Rin was around, Anomie would get an air of innocence. Her smiles had been brighter.
Now Kakashi could see the hatred in her eyes. The dimming hue of a cold vacuum that made Kakashi wonder if that was what he looked like as well. This thought made him look down, away from her gaze.
He wasn't completely certain what caused her shift in personality. She didn't look to be so effected by killing when she was killing. If anything, Kakashi would almost go as far as to say the girl enjoyed it.
Was it the whispers of 'coward', running around the ranks of Shinobi?
The murmurs had grown double in size as months past and the hurt of the Kyuubi attack was still fresh. There wasn't anyone physical to blame for the devastation. All there was to go on was a masked man who was unnamed and unknown.
All anyone could do was say that if Anomie had acted differently, been faster, hadn't run away, maybe warned the Fourth Hokage of the attack that was upcoming on the Kyuubi and Kushina, then maybe things would have been different.
All anyone saw was a woman who ran away. An unliked woman who was favorited by the Higher ups. The woman who was assigned all the dirty missions. She never complained.
And now, she was a woman who was blamed for the largest inner threat to the village.
But all Kakashi could see was Kougin Anomie. The girl who cried in his shoulder for two hours. The girl who gave Rin a flower for protection. The girl who mocked his mask and bought him porn. The girl who stood by him even after his hands were soaked in Rin's blood.
The girl who had skin as soft as glass and as cold as ice. The girl who hair fell like snow, framing her heart shaped face. The girl whose eyes warmed and sparkled when he stared into them.
He could only see Anomie.
Author's Note
Well, romance is in the air, and I'm going to Summoner's Con. It's exciting, and I'm bored. Working is fun though, and selling perfume makes me smell so nice at the end of the day. But standing all day in heels is a serious pain in the ass. Also, that whole saying that the customer is always right is complete bullshit.
Anyway, this chapter is called "Suisen" which is 水仙, and in english Daffodil. In Japanese it represents respect, and in English it represents chivalry or unrequited love. Goes with Kakashi's newfound respect for Anomie, and understanding that he is slowly beginning to understand her persona.
It works.
Someone pm'ed me asking if there was going to be romance between Genma and Anomie, and it isn't my intention. I have have no personal interest in Genma, and he is mostly here as a plot progression. And because I'm bored. If he does get any further with her, it will be one-sided.
Love triangles aren't really my thing. I try to avoid it.
