Chapter 26

"Let go of me you old bat!" Naruto's hiss made Anomie roll her eyes in a swift and mocking response.

"Don't be such a pest. I'm not going to hurt you...is what a good person would say, but since I am not, then I will merely tell you to shove your words up your ass. I'll be honest with you, someone as ambitious as you would probably rather be dead."

"Stay away, dattebayo!" Naruto exclaimed and Anomie shook her head with a chuckle.

"Don't be such a baby. Even if you scream, no one will care and no one will even hear you. This isn't happening in the pages of some children's book. This is real life and in real life, it doesn't matter if you scream or cry...no one will help you." Anomie took a threatening step forward, Chakra exploding from her fingertips and for a moment she felt a spike of a maleficent chakra erupt out from Naruto's chest.

That demon blood in his veins could prove to be an issue if she wasn't fast, but it's better to see if the marking could suppress a demon's Chakra.

And if Anomie had to test it with her life, she would.

"Hey lady...something's wrong." Naruto's eyes rested on his hands that now emitted red Chakra that had began to surround his body in Chakra. Someone was bound to feel it if she didn't hurry, but more than that, she doubted that Naruto's immature body could handle the strain.

If this went on any longer than she was certain his body would fail him...and yet again it would be her fault.

But Orochimaru's order was embedded in her heart, as if it were stitched in her blood vessels. She was afraid that if she disobeyed, the stitching would rip apart and she'd have nothing left to hold herself together.

"You want to be Hokage..." Anomie took a step forward. His beady blue eyes stared into her and she felt them as if they were wedged in her throat.

"I will become Hokage...and my first act will be kicking your ass!" He exclaimed and she felt her heart grow lighter as her Chakra erupted from her fingertips.

"Hokages have the tendency to die. And no one will ever acknowledge a demon like you as their leader," she was in front of him in an instant, and her fingertips hovered over his stomach.

"Demon...?" His reply was so vulnerable that she wondered if he was strong enough for the truth, especially considering everyone has been lying to him.

"You have a demon sealed inside you. That's why people hate you."

"Is that why you hate me?"

She lifted his shirt and slammed her fingers into his stomach. The seal was complex and she waved her Chakra into his gut.

"No Naruto...I don't hate you...I couldn't hate you if I tried." She whispered it just as he let out a banshee scream. His eyes rolled back and she briefly wondered if she was killing him.

She decided that it didn't matter, but her heart remembered the way his blue eyes lit with joy as he giggled or ate ramen. She remembered the hope in his eyes when he thought he was no longer alone.

She briefly wondered if perhaps what she did to him was worse than kill him. She was taking away his hopeless dream.

She felt the nine tailed fox's chakra slowly creep back into his body.

She didn't even have it in her to muster an apology to an innocent boy who had never hurt anyone.

"I'm starting to think the true demon is me."

She stared down at her hands, finding that her Chakra was low. She had barely enough left to dematerialize.

She stood up, leaving Naruto's body on the ground as she jumped into the trees and turned into smoke.

»»⎯⎯⎯¤⎯⎯⎯««

Kakashi found the boy, smiling in his sleep and muttering about ramen. Itachi and Tenzo were stationed at his side and Kakashi let out a small sigh.

Itachi's eyes were spiraled with the Sharingan and his lips were pulled into a frown.

"He looks unharmed..." Itachi stated.

Tenzo frowned, "perhaps she was unable to hurt him... He is only a child."

"Sakura Haruno was barely breathing when we found her." Kakashi said with a blank expression. He was exhausted and he wanted nothing more than to shut off the world. "If she intended Naruto to die, no one could stop it and he would be dead."

Itachi let out a sigh, "in any case, the boy is safe and it would be best to get him checked out. Koneko is long gone and teams are searching the village for her. I'll take care of this, captain."

Kakashi didn't have it in him to argue as he did a quick hand sign and disappeared in a quick teleportation Jutsu.

In minutes he stood in front of a cemetery. He walked closer to the entrance and saw in the distance a girl with white hair kneeling down next to a grave.

He barely realized it was her until she slightly turned her head. Her eyes had never looked more yellow than in that moment of the sunlight, flickering against her face as the sun began to rise over the mountains.

He was in front of her before he realized that his feet had begun to move.

For once, the facade he had seen her appear in disguise prior was in crumbles to the ground. Behind her rested Rin's grave and Anomie eyes were blank and her lips rested in a frown.

"Somehow...I knew you would be here." She whispered and she felt her words wedge in her throat. A part of her wanted him to end her life for her crimes. She wanted him to make do on his threats and put her wicked thoughts to rest with the twitch of his tanto.

But instead all she got was the emptiness of his eye and she found that emptiness hurt even more than rage. She would rather he cursed her name rather than not feel anything.

"Kill me." She whispered and he didn't so much as twitch. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"You don't know what I want."

She let out a small smile. "I won't stop hurting you. I won't stop killing. I won't stop...kill me."

Her stare was cold, but his matched her eyes and she once more saw the way his fingers twitched at his side.

"I can't."

"It's your duty. What kind of Shinobi are you?"

"You will walk out of this village. You will go back to Orochimaru's side. You will kill attack and betray this village over and over again. Regardless, I still couldn't kill you. I tell myself over and over again that you are venom...regardless, I can't get rid of you."

"What kind of answer is that?" Anomie felt exasperated and the very essence of his words were embedded in her bloodstream. "You shouldn't have any of those feelings left. If I am poison then killing me should be the answer. Just hate me."

"I can't." He answered simply.

"I will walk out of these gates. I will kill those in my way and if I do then those deaths is on your head and it's on your hands."

"Then leave. As long as none of the blood is yours then so be it."

Anomie's brows furrowed and in a moment the ice over her irises melted. She thought back to brighter days in a village creeping with pure feelings of nothing. She remembered the way his eye would twinkle in the early morning as she crept into his apartment without word. "I remember now…why I...missed you." They weren't the words he wanted to hear but they destroyed his insides all the same with the thunderous tremor in his chest.

In mere moments, he grabbed her by the back of the neck and brought her body into his chest. She felt so small in his arms and everything was warm. It almost felt like she had trudged through the snow and rain and his arms were the warm cracklings fire that wrapped her body in a shield.

He still smelled like vanilla and lavender and paper and ink. He still wrapped his arms tightly around her back. His arms still felt tight and secure, and for a minute she felt the world slip away.

She wasn't a murderer. She wasn't a whore. She wasn't a thief. She wasn't a horrid woman, jaded and cold. She wasn't Fuyu or Kyoko or Kiyomi or Anomie.

She wasn't anyone.

She was just a girl. And it was warm and it took her away from the guilt and the fear and the uncertainty.

But nothing stood still forever and just when she thought she could stay there forever, she remembered why she left.

She remembered that he was dangerous and she was too close to falling in love with him. She remembered that her time was limited and she remembered that she was the only one who could stop Danzo and Orochimaru from tearing this village apart from the seams.

More than that, she remembered that she didn't have anything to offer him.

She remembered that her heart was too sharp and broken, with prices chipped and shattered in her chest. She remembered that if he tried to get too close to her heart, all that she could give him was pain.

She remembered that she was dying. She remembered that secret document, more than anything, written in Orochimaru's hand. She remembered that her Chakra was replenishing slower every day. She remembered that soon enough, much like her clan, she too would lose control and her body would scatter like dust in the wind. She would be ripped apart in a current of air.

Yes. She had nothing else to give him but heartache and pain.

The only choice was to make him hate her.

It was better if he hated her.

And she ripped away from him in an instant, her body turning to smoke. He had no time to process the moment she appeared behind him.

"You are a fool." She whispered, and in moments, she ripped her hand, turning it into smoke and reassembling it so her palm shredded through his side.

She could feel every part of her body crying out for her to stop using the same Jutsu that was slowly killing her, but that was good.

She wanted everything to hurt.

Kakashi collapsed in front of her. And she walked around until they were face to face.

"I could never love you, Kakashi. Not until the oceans dry up and the mountains crumble to dust. I have nothing to give you and seeing you in pain doesn't make me feel anything." Her voice didn't shake and as if a switch was flicked off, she felt nothing.

"I'm starting to think you are the fool, Anomie..." He whispered as he held his side to stop the blood from gushing from the wound. But Anomie could see the hurt pool in his eyes. "I never wanted you to give me anything. I said as much many times before. I, more than anyone, already know that the person you are and the person you are trying to be are different. This still isn't you."

She didn't feel anything or maybe she just felt too much at once. "Haven't we been here before?" She knelt down and rested his cheeks in between her palms. "You don't know a thing about me and if you did, you wouldn't be looking at me like that."

"If this tiny wound is your way of making me hate you, then you're going to have to do better than that. My dogs have made me bleed more."

She found her heart giving out in a traitorous tremor. "I see...the only way for you to realize the truth...how about I kill all the people you love. Would that make you hate me?"

"Then you would have to kill yourself because all those people are already dead."

The guilt festered like a disease in her bloodstream.

"Then I'll wait. Eventually, all of us have to open our hearts to someone."

"That applies to you as well."

She leaned in until her lips rested against his ear. "I will save that spot for Orochimaru."

She felt every part of her body burn when she turned into smoke and disappeared from his sight as if she had never existed.

Kakashi glanced down, noticing that her fingers had barely broke the surface of his skin, and yet his body was beginning to numb.

"Poison..." He mumbled as he kneeled forward as the poison numbed his insides.

She was poison, but she was poisonous like a siren...

Even if you knew that her voice would lead you through the shore and into the rocks to your death, you fall for it anyway.

But Kakashi wasn't an idiot.

He hated her with just as much passion as he loved her.

»»⎯⎯⎯¤⎯⎯⎯««

Anomie stared at the village in the distance and felt her heart swell up with uncertainty. Her skin was burning against her bones and for once, she felt like a part of her was lost in her latest eruption of smoke.

She stared down at her hands, finding that her Chakra was indeed depleted, but more than that, she found that for a couple moments, she was unable to feel the Chakra in her arms.

Perhaps it was a fitting punishment for all the pain she has caused. It was too late for regrets, but it was never too late for pain.

She turned her back to the village, her shoulders tense with the emotions crashing against her heart.

"I just need a little more time." She whispered, forcing her Chakra to replenish faster.

She was still unable to kill Orochimaru, but nothing would stop her from slitting Shimura Danzo's throat, ear to ear.

After all, Anomie needed someone to hate, and he was as good as anyone.

»»⎯⎯⎯¤⎯⎯⎯««

"What are you doing?" The Third Hokage's voice was stricken in surprise, but Kakashi merely tossed his Anbu mask on the man's desk.

"It's rather simple. I quit," he said simply and the Hokage's eyes slightly widened before the narrowed in understanding.

"May I ask why?"

Kakashi blinked, his visible eye avoiding the mask as he stared into the Hokage's wrinkled face and hooded eyes. "I'm done cleaning the messes of this village...Anbu is not what it once was to me."

"Are you tired of cleaning the village's messes or have you grown exhausted under the weight of your own?" The Hokage's voice struck a cord of irritation in Kakashi chest, but the man merely let out a nonchalant shrug.

"Anbu will do fine without me...I'd go as far as to say under Uchiha Itachi, it might even do better," Kakashi shook his head, resisting the urge to run his fingers through his hair in exasperation.

"Perhaps...the young Uchiha is quite the able leader," the Hokage stated simply and Kakashi felt the urge to look away from the intensity of the Third Hokage's stare. "But could the reason be more than what you've revealed?"

"I let her escape. I am supposed to be captain of the Anbu forces and I let a known criminal and know murderer of 24 Anbu Nin...escape." He answered simply. "How could I lead an organization if I myself am unable to keep it's laws."

"I agree...but to say you quit being a ninja is not something I can allow."

Kakashi wanted to bring up that it wasn't his choice, but bit his tongue and silenced the response. "Then what else is there?"

"You could give the standard forces a try," the Third Hokage, somewhere in his heart, knew that those with kind hearts couldn't be expected to fulfill the duties of Anbu. Kind hearts weren't made for inflicting so much death in the name of protecting a village.

"To become a Jounin?" Kakashi shook his head, and he wanted to protest, but judging by the final tone in the Hokage's voice, he knew it was futile.

"You have served Anbu faithfully for more than five years...and I believe that your talents are many. For now, let's have you assigned to a different kind of captain."

Kakashi's eye widened. "You couldn't mean."

"You better get used to people calling you 'Kakashi-sensei' then," the Third Hokage covered his smile by folding his hands over his lips.

"Lord Hokage-" Once more, Kakashi looked ready to protest, but the Hokage merely raised his palm up to silence him.

"Enjoy your new title..." and surely it might heal the burdens in your heart.

»»⎯⎯⎯¤⎯⎯⎯««

"The seal worked well enough," Anomie glanced towards Orochimaru, tracing her fingers over the table as her hand made markings against the dust. "It suppressed the demon kid's Chakra, and likely they will not figure out how to remove it for a long while."

"Even if they do figure it out," Orochimaru commented simply. "It wouldn't really matter. I just wanted a test subject and Naruto-kun was a wonderful specimen."

"Wonderfully irritating," Anomie commented in return, adjusting her eyes to the darkness in the room as Orochimaru glanced through the same scroll that she had brought to him weeks prior. "But it's done...probably the only one who can remove it is Jiraiya and we all know that he's preoccupied trying to find you."

Orochimaru glanced up from the documents, his eyes slightly narrowing in amusement. "Yes, he has been quite the nuisance lately, hasn't he?"

"He's your friend, not mine," she stated simply, standing up and grabbing the loose locks of hair around her shoulders and tying it into a tight braid. "But regardless, Jiraiya is all talk. He's probably beating it to innocent girls in a bath houses."

"Vulgarity is beneath you," Orochimaru retorted and Anomie chuckled and shook her head.

"Perhaps you're right, but you have found the refuge then?"

"I figured that out days ago, the Uzumaki clan is fascinating, but immorality comes first and I do believe I have found the answer."

"You're very ambitious. Just one life is hard enough for me," Anomie glanced over at him through hooded bangs. "And you want hundreds."

He chuckled, "When you have as many enemies as I, you would understand."

She slightly smiled, "I'm getting there."

"That you are," Orochimaru tossed a small book her way and Anomie instinctually caught it mid air.

"Is this the Bingo book?" Anomie slightly smiled. "Have I made a new headline? I do hope my picture is in it this time." She opened the book and found her Anbu profile photo set as her bounty image. "I do look rather dashing, do you not think so?"

"You should see mine," Orochimaru chuckled as she read over her description written underneath her photo.

"It is rather short," Anomie stated as she sat on the table with a wry grin. "I would have thought my achievements were at least two paragraphs. Not very detailed. Who wrote this garbage?" She glanced at the sigil. "Of course. Kirigakure isn't much known for its vital information."

Orochimaru let out chuckle. "I didn't hand this to you to hear you brag about achievements."

"What other use is it then?"

"Turn to page 394." He instructed and she shrugged, flipping the pages until it rested on the linings of a rather buff man with black hair. "He is known as Yamamoto the Lightning Spear."

"That's a rather tacky name. Do you think he came up with it himself?"

Orochimaru didn't so much as chuckle, "I want you to find him. According to the now diseased clan that you wiped out, he was the protector of the Uzumaki refuge. Kill him and bring me back an Uzumaki. I want one dead or alive. They don't even have to be all there."

"I could just bring you back a head then?"

"Whatever is easier for you, but I would like some breath still in one."

"There is something you aren't telling me?"

"Konoha might have a couple spies in my organization. I would hope there is no complications, but as you are now, a couple of Jounin for Konoha shouldn't be an issue. Just in case, take Kimimaru with you."

"Me and him against the world, Orochimaru." Anomie slightly smile, jumping from the table and landing to her feet. She noticed him open his lips to speak but instead he only grabbed her by the hand and forced her to face him.

"Your Chakra has weakened from the last time I saw you, surely you've noticed," he commented and she slightly felt her heart stop.

"It has become a little unstable," she said a small pause of hesitation.

"That it has, but when you return, I hope to bring you back a gift in the makings of a mark." His fingers brushed against her neck and she felt a trickle of his skin against hers in a pleasant brush. "Surely it would bring out the last of your power…if you are desperate enough to take it."

"You are capable of such a curse?"

"I found a new subject while you were away. His powers prove to be unstable, but I hope to test its full effect on you."

"I am yours," she said with a smile. "To do with what you will. I am yours."

Author's Note

クロユリKuroyuri. Fritillaria camschatcensis. Chocolate lily. Means love, curse.

So, this chapter was one of my more emotional ones, mostly because Anomie is officially beginning to realize that if she allows it, she would probably find herself in love with someone that isn't herself. We can't have that.

For the most part, a few reveals have been shown in this chapter: including the information that the Hokage revealed to Anomie a couple chapters back. She is in fact dying. It's a slow process, and I plan to drag it on for shits and giggles.

Thank you for reading. :D