Chapter 13

Orochimaru was crazy, but she wasn't too surprised when she found herself assigned under his tutelage. No one questioned when a Sannin of his stature chose to watch over a suspected murderer, and she could sense people were relieved when she was assigned a mission out of Konoha's borders.

Orochimaru was crazy, but he was also silent and had no taste for idle chitchat. She was grateful for the silence, as not many could handle a quiet journey through vast terrain.

Although, with no warnings, he would turn around and attack her.

That thought rushed through her head almost as violently as his Chakra surged in her body and his fist slammed into her stomach. She barely managed to turn her abdomen into smoke, but seconds later his Chakra disrupted her balance and sent her flying into a tree. She felt the bark shatter beneath her as leaves and branches fell on top of her head. She felt leaves rush into her mouth the moment she opened it to groan in pain.

"Well, that was disappointing," Orochimaru stated as he glanced towards her in such a bored manner that if not for the bruising on her lower back, she was certain to have thought he hadn't attacked.

She coughed up her lungs the moment she stood, using her hands to prop up her weakened form. The moment she gained composure, she glanced up at him. "I guess I have a long way to go."

"Don't fret just because you weren't at the advantage of being trained as young as most ninja were," Orochimaru took a step forward and he was in front of her as smoothly as if he glided there. "You have risen far from being nothing...from here on out, you can only rise."

"..." She had no words for her response. She had no words for the emotion that sprung through her body with such force that she was almost rocked backwards.

His lips quirked into a smirk, "You avoided major injury on instinct only... That attack was set to kill and you escaped with little more than a bruise."

"Is it wise to train in the middle a mission?"

Orochimaru shrugged, brushing back a long black strand on his hair until it was behind his ear. "When is a better time?" His voice rasped out in such a way that Anomie had been given the imagery of a snake. "Be prepared for any surprise attack..."

Although his reasoning was feasible, Anomie had the sinking suspicion that her new partner just enjoyed kicking her body into the dirt.

"Considering the mission, I believe it wouldn't be wise to make so much noise," Anomie's words could be taken as a complaint, but there was no tone in her voice.

"Espionage is not really my favorite, Fuyu-chan. If discovered, we can just kill everyone and get the information the easy way," his at ease mention of genocide made her feel slightly light-headed, as if an invisible weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

Only monsters choose to kill when other options are available.

All your teammates are dead again?

Did you kill them?

You're bad luck, Koneko.

A black cat just crossed our path.

I see she still landed on her feet, even though the blood of her comrades is on the ground.

Odd memories sprouted through her head, but disappeared the moment she looked into Orochimaru's eyes. He didn't seem to realize the change of her heart, but that was fine.

It didn't matter...

She realized this with such clarity that her shoulders slightly sagged.

The oddest sense of relief almost made her want to sink to the ground.

In his eyes, she wasn't a monster...she wasn't bad luck...Koneko...she wasn't even Anomie...

She was Fuyu.

Weak...pitiful Fuyu. The same girl who swindled and slept her way into the woman she was now.

That was alright.

That was the name her mother would call her. That was the taste and color of her home. That was cold like snow. A name like ice, almost cold enough to freeze her heart.

Looking into Orochimaru's eyes, she could almost tell herself that he knew what that name had meant to her. Maybe he knew what spell his words had on her. She could kill in front of him, and it didn't matter how she did it. It didn't matter whether or not she enjoyed it.

Nights later blood dripped from her fingertips in a cascade of red. The ruby red of it dipped in between her breasts and glimmered in the shine of the moon. Her heart didn't drum in her chest, her shoulders weren't tense with worry that someone might see...that someone might realize she enjoyed it.

Ah...

But someone did see, and when she looked into Orochimaru's golden eyes and saw nothing.

It was rather poetic. It was rather pathetic, but his smirk made her feel lifted.

"You're quite the monster, Fuyu-chan," but the way he said it, a coo, didn't make her heart quiver or her eyes water.

It sounded like praise.

As if 'monster' wasn't an insult.

Fuyu was dead...and maybe Anomie never existed...perhaps Koneko was a shadow. If this was all true, then she didn't have a single idea who she was.

Perhaps it didn't matter. Perhaps nothing ever did.

"I want to stay here for a moment longer," she murmured, sitting in the spreading pile of blood, letting the warmth of it soak into her skin.

And she sat there, Orochimaru next to her, until the blood turned cold and Fuyu disappeared.

»»⎯⎯⎯¤⎯⎯⎯««

Spring was gleaming through the clouds on the week of the fourth murder. The night was normal, if not a little dull. Kakashi, as usual, was ignoring his new, frightfully nostalgic, team. Genma was, as usual, making passes at Anomie. Gai was making useless challenges towards Kakashi. Kurenai was eating dangos. Asuma was taking up smoking as his usual pastime.

Anomie was training more and more and still eating Kakashi's food.

Everything was as usual.

The calm before the storm.

"Have you ever thought of adding more water?" Anomie's voice was a quiet lull that caught Kakashi's attention from the sofa where he lifted his gaze out from the slightly crinkled pages of his book. Anomie's long legs were sprawled backwards on the back of the couch, her body and head facing the ground with a rice ball in her delicate palm.

If she were anyone else, he might of just scoffed and went back to reading.

"You're going to choke if you eat backwards," was his quiet reply. "I don't need you to steal my food and then die on my carpet."

He tried not to, earnestly tried, but his one eye focused on the upturn of her lips while her gaze rested on his ceiling. Like usual, he could tell she was counting the tiles of the top. He didn't know why she bothered, as undoubtedly she still remembered the number the last time she did so.

"Ne," her lips moved so quickly that he forced his gaze back to the book in his palms. "Do you think there's life after death?"

Kakashi always found Anomie abnormally morbid, but usually her conversations were light, abrupt, and to the point. Rarely did she try to actually start conversation or speak of anything of use.

That being said, Kakashi found himself unable to follow her train of thought.

Moments later, her gaze sharply met his and in the glimmer of sun, her pink eyes almost shined amber.

"I don't know," Kakashi stated simply, and her expression went blank.

"I like to think it's better when you're dead. It's happier...no war or violence. People would like that better."

"The living shouldn't be hung up on the dead," Kakashi felt her smirk, and the mutual hypocrisy of his statement.

"Maybe even the people who you kill are happier in death," her words were as sharp as daggers, and the moment she realized they brought cutting memories of lightning and blood upon the pale haired boy, she shut her lips so tight that he heard the clap of her teeth against each other.

By the time he glanced back towards her, she had already went back to counting tiles as if they were sheep. She almost looked ready to lull herself to sleep.

"It's a nice thought to soothe the hearts of murderers," she whispered just before she closed her eyes. He didn't realize his grip on his book turned tight until he noticed the pages slightly wrinkle and tear.

Her cold hands brushed against his, causing his grip on the book to slacken. He hadn't even noticed she had sat up until her face was inches from his.

"Look at that," she murmured, her legs now sprawled against the couch cushions instead of over the back of it. Her hand rest on his thigh, propping herself up while her other trailed circles on the back of his hand that was slowly relaxing their grip of his book. "You do listen to me."

Oddly enough, he mused the thought of just leaning in and claiming her lips. It would be as easy as strangling her. He did neither. Her lips glistened with ruby red lipstick that would undoubtedly stain if he touched them. They'd likely leave a mark that'd be difficult to wash away.

He used that as an excuse to stop himself, and his gaze was blank when he turned his eye back to his book.

He let out a scoff, "Kind of hard when you never shut up."

A lie. Anomie had sealed off most her voice the night Rin died.

Instead of getting offended, she further sparked his heart into restart when she laid her shoulder against his, resting her head against his shoulder.

He tried to focus on the words of his book, but found it even more difficult to read when his heart was beating out of his chest.

Her hand still rested on his leg long after her other had stopped grazing his hand.

The silence dragged on, and if she spoke he couldn't hear past the sound of his thumping heart.

It felt like hours until he was able to concentrate and glance towards her face on his right. Her eyes were shut, and her Chakra was steady.

"I try not to sleep in front of people."

"Why is that?"

"It's safer that way."

Her eyes were shut. And she looked at peace. He had seen a glimpse of her sleeping form twice. Once on the night Rin died, and again when he had woke her up for a mission.

One by one, he slowly noticed, he was able to see her vulnerabilities.

They were crashing down without fail or hesitation, and he began to wonder just how long they'd exist at all.

However, that thought didn't sober his racing heart.

The sun had already set by the time he attempted to move away, so as to let her rest on the couch, but her eyes snapped open the moment he shifted. Her narrowed gaze trapped him in place.

"I had a dream," she murmured as if it were the most important thing in the world. Her palm rested on his hand before he had time to realize he had dropped it near her, along with his book, which was now lying on the ground.

"Hm?" He didn't particularly care, as she didn't sound completely awake.

Her fingers wove into his and he nearly felt his self-control break from his slipping grasp.

"Rin and Obito and Saru and mom...everyone was alive," she whispered, her eyes closing again, her cheek resting back on his shoulder. "You to...you were there...you're always there."

He didn't realize he was squeezing her hand back until she had let out a content sigh and went silent back into whatever dream he wished he could join.

Her fantasy was as far from him as ever. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw fire. And lightning. And blood.

It wasn't so bad. When he opened his eyes at least he saw her.

That was enough.

With that thought he shifted her form so he could slide down the material that covered his lower face. The moment his face was free of any masks, he pressed his lips against her forehead.

He realized, in that moment, that he didn't need to be sleeping for his dream.

He just needed Anomie by his side.

He didn't know when it happened, but he was already in too deep when he noticed she was much more than just necessary.

»»⎯⎯⎯¤⎯⎯⎯««

She realized it much too slowly that she placed herself in a series of compromising situations those next few days. Training may of gotten to her on a deeper level since the moment she began her mornings with Orochimaru.

It was in those next few days that she found out what her semblance was, aside from fire.

"You never bothered to learn," Orochimaru's callous remark brought a heap of shame to stack onto her shoulders. It was almost enough to bring her to the ground.

"It never interested me...I thought I was fire only."

"If your Chakra nature was fire only, then smoke wouldn't be apart of your nature," he sounded as if he were scolding a dumb child. It struck a cord in her subconscious.

"But how can I be wind as well? Wind will kill me..."

Orochimaru's lips twisted into a smirk. "How do you expect to grow if you run from what you fear?"

"What would you have me do?"

"Conquer it." Orochimaru stated simply.

"Doesn't sound easy..." She murmured, and in a mere instant she was reeling at his trailing fingers on her jaw.

"It isn't supposed to be easy. It is in your blood. Fuyu-chan. You are a killer. Don't let this village turn you into something you are not."

"And what is that?" She didn't mean to sound condescending, but his words sparked her curiosity in that moment.

His lips raised into a smirk. "A soldier." His words were clearly unsaid, don't let them beat obedience. "Do what you want to do. So, Fuyu, what do you want?"

The word came to her in a spark of a moment. "Power." Her brows furrowed. "I've always wanted power."

Without it, she was a weak little girl. Humiliated. Degraded. Molested. Raped. Beaten. Hated.

His lips curled into a smirk, "Good."

»»⎯⎯⎯¤⎯⎯⎯««

The fourth murder was unlike the rest. And Anomie had begun to believe death was following her.

The shape of a body was sprawled out in such a way, that she wondered how no one had found it before her. Its blood was leaking through a thick blanket. If there hadn't been so much, she would have had a hallow hope it was an animal instead of another child.

She barely had the chance to kneel next to it and reach under the blanket to feel for a pulse before its hand gripped her wrist and its body sprung up from the blanket, still barely covering its face enough to make it impossible to make out the child's gender.

"Why did you do it?" His voice broke through the cold morning air so quickly that she fell on her back.

It had been a long while since she felt her heart spread up in fear. His bloody body snapped over her until his dead, empty eye sockets became visible after the blanket fell. The bloody blanket fell on her, and much of the blood coming from visible wounds leaked over her clothes and mask.

"I'm cold," the boy whispered, and his voice was so pained that she barely had time to catch her breath when the child collapsed on her shirt.

Her voice came out in a raspy quiver by the time a group of Chūnin saw her form, mask still covering her face, and covered in blood.

"You were dead," she whispered, her breath coming out in frost as she shoved the kid's body off of her and stood up so she could back away.

By the time the Chūnin had really caught sight of her, she was standing and covered in blood, next to a child who had to of been at least two hours dead.

A Uchiha child with no eyes and a black cat with nowhere to run.

»»⎯⎯⎯¤⎯⎯⎯««

After a long continuous week of questioning that ended in distrust, she was finally able to leave the confines of the T&I.

The Uchiha wanted vengeance. The elders wanted someone to blame. Danzo wanted action. The citizens wanted justice. The Hokage wanted answers.

And honestly, Anomie just wanted dinner.

The sun had already begun to set by the time she walked near the many lightly lit food stalls. Her stomach grumbled in demands that she almost ignored if it weren't for a sudden arm, wrapping around her shoulders.

"It seems like I heard the grumble of the beginning of our first date, An-chan," Genma's voice was light and musical as he steered her towards one of the food stands. It was a simple barbecue and grill house, which looked far more pleasant than Genma's arm wrapped around her shoulders. Whether or not he could feel the chill of the citizens and heated scowls upon Anomie's shoulders, he did not care to say.

"If I agree, will you shut up and eat," she commented, not particularly coldly, but her voice didn't display a hint of warmth either. She was blank, like that of fresh snow.

"Don't be cold," Genma said, smiling as he ordered for her. "You've gotten too skinny. You've been neglecting on eating." He made a tisking sound.

"Why is that your problem?" Her question wasn't cruel, but it also wasn't particularly kind.

"I am your love interest after all."

"Self-proclaimed."

"Cruel."

Anomie scoffed, glancing down only when the food was placed in front of her. She wouldn't be surprised if it was poisoned or spit in at least, but living in Kemuri, she had suffered through worse. It was odd to see Genma keeping his distance, as he would usually take any chance to touch her.

"How are you?" He asked the question so suddenly that she was forced into raising an eyebrow as she turned her head towards him and rested her chin against the heel of her palm. "Rumors and gossip have been spreading throughout the village. You've been associated with many separate murders...and one was a child of the Uchiha clan."

"Idle talk..." Her murmur was a soft whisper that gave him the impression that she didn't fully care if he heard her.

"You seem to have horrible luck," Genma mused and she shrugged.

"It would appear to be true. Wrong place at the wrong time does wonders," she sighed.

"Well, you're at the right place now."

"Arrogance isn't very flattering," she commented lightly, but there was no real conviction in her voice.

"Anomie," Genma spoke in an uncharacteristically serious tone that forced her head to turn back in his direction. "It's not your fault..."

Her lips quirked into a bitter smile, "What isn't?"

"Everyone who died that night...it wasn't your fault," his whisper turned harsh, and she found herself unable to turn away as his eyes pierced hers. "There aren't many people who would still have faith in you...but I still remember how you stumbled into my arms, bleeding and wounded. I remember you ignoring your medical needs and putting the village first when you rushed to the third Hokage. You aren't the heartless person you are trying to be. And you sure as hell aren't a murderer."

For the first time he saw the usual bitterness leave her eyes, but before he could think too much of that her lips brushed across his. They dodged the senbon needle with ease as her palm rested against his cheek.

He had thought about kissing her many times before, but he had always assumed it had been a fantasy. His heart throbbed in his chest, but by the time he opened his eyes to meet her penetrating stare, he saw her gaze was empty.

For a brief moment, he almost wondered if he imagined her lips or if they had been real.

But the brief moment extended into the night.

After that, he began to wonder if he imagined all of the kisses that came afterwards. All of the caresses and burning brushes of skin. Her eyes were empty during almost every encounter; as if they reminded him that this would be the closest he'd ever get to her.

But her lips allowed a murmur, inaudible, against his ear towards the end of the night. It was a sweet murmur, and although he couldn't remember her undoubtedly cruel words, he wasn't able to forget the lonesome tone in which she whispered it.

Nothing. It means nothing.

Author's Note

I don't in any way, ship anyone with Genma. He's a plot device. Actually I don't even really like him in the series aha... Right now, I actually feel bad for him because he ACTUALLY likes Anomie but she's such a jerk! Omg. I'm so mad at my own character, it's ridiculous. But, you know what you say, usually the characters who you write about reflect how you actually feel, so I guess that means I'm so incredibly gay when I'm writing her cause I feel like her most romantic connection was to Rin.

Anyway, I also don't intend to use Genma's character to make Kakashi jealous, although it will probably be a bi-product. Anomie would have probably done anyone who said the right thing at that time, sadly, Kakashi doesn't have good timing aha...

Anyway.

The Genma x Anomie moments are purely there for her character development and to expand on her character and his. It was also here to show how I picture an Oiran responding to kindness. In my mind, she sold her body so much ever since she was child. In that regards, the only thing she knows how to do to repay someone is to...well.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's obviously not a healthy reaction.

This chapter is マンドレーク (Mandorēku). Mandrake in english.

Oh and here are some little facts about mandrakes they are a little bit relevant as to why I chose to name the chapter after them:

The ancients used Mandrake root to relieve pain and promote sleep, but it was also known to cause madness. The leaves are cooling when used as a poultice. Mandrake, is related to many strange superstitions and is said to promote passion and also sterility. Once used as an aphrodisiac and also as an anesthetic. Many believe it to be a magical root, a "mandrake man" or "mandrake woman" could be pulled out from the roots. But either way they were thought to be powerful allies who could perform true miracles for their masters - anything from attracting love where previously there was none, to getting rich quick and striking unsuspected luck, to warding off misfortunes and evil spells, to becoming invincible in battle.

Once in possession of the precious root, one's troubles were by no means over, as it was no easy task to satisfy a Mandrakes' whims. It had to be bathed in milk or wine on a regular basis, fed specific kinds of food (its exact dietary requirements were an endless source of debate) and wrapped in the finest red or white silks. Even if all its demands were met it was possible that it would just stop to perform its duties, in which case it was best to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

It was feared as a plant as it's root was said to embody a demon, and that if it was pulled from the ground a terrifying shriek would be heard. Anyone hearing the shriek would die. Hence the custom was developed for dogs to dig up the root by tying the hungry animal near to the plant and placing some meat near to the plant. The idea was that the dog would eventually make a grab for the meat uprooting the plant, and no-one had to witness this. The dog would die when the root was dug up which theoretically was due the shriek, but could it have been from poison. This root has a narcotic effect. Witches used the root of the mandrake to concoct potent wine. The plant is rare in Britain.

Mandrake was supposed to promote conception. According to the Bible, when Reuben brought them to his mother, Leah, Rachel said : "Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes." Up to that time Rachel had borne no children. Throughout the east it was used as a narcotic; sometimes as a sleeping-draught. In Shakespeare's play, Cleopatra cries out: "Give me to drink of mandragora that I might sleep out this great gap of time, My Anthony is away."

Mandrake is one of herbs used by the American Indians. The person who owned a mandrake root was considered very fortunate. You had to sell it though before you died and at a price that was lower than the price you gave for it. A person who got it for free could never free himself from the hands of the devil. It was believed that mandrake possessed the magic power to heal many diseases, to induce a feeling of love, affection and happiness. That is why the roots of mandrake used to be as expensive as gold. A Roman physician reported complicated surgical operations having been performed in Alexandria under the anaesthetic effect of mandrake. Arabian physicians also used it for anaesthetic purposes. In 11th and 12th centuries, mandrake was recognized as an effective painkiller by the famous at that time Universities of Bolonia and Salerno.