Chapter 30

"I thought we were on the same side, little weasel," Anomie felt the blade rest against her neck. If Itachi truly wished it, she'd likely be dead. She was quite tired of being in between death, but it felt like it was happening much more often lately. Likely, this was her fault for being so weak.

A hot rage filled her chest, creating an upheaval of chaos in her heart. Itachi's next movements paused that chaos as he slightly winced and fell to his knees, clutching the shoulder that Anomie had effectively wounded.

"Ah, there's the poison. I was beginning to think you weren't human," she commented and he glanced at with a gaze that could only resemble loathing. "Don't give me that look. I dip all my blades in poison these days, but I happen to have the antidote as well. Just say the word and it's yours." Itachi was silent, causing Anomie's brows to furrow. "Is it pride or do you just not trust me?"

They were both curled to the ground, she was fighting exhaustion and the broken ribs that had been pulled apart when she incorrectly assembled her body. There were jagged cuts all over her body, some deeper than others, but all of them together with dripping blood was likely to make her faint in the close future. It also didn't help that there was just so much sand, and she could feel each and every grain in her wounds.

She reached in her bag that was strapped around her waist, pulling out a small corked bottle filled with a red liquid. "Just say please." Itachi didn't speak, causing her lips to twitch up for a split second. She handed him the bottle. "You can't die when we have so much to talk about."

"The only one close to dying right now is you," he answered, glancing over the cuts all over her body. "Where did you take us?"

"Us? Where is Kakashi?" she asked and Itachi shook his head.

"I was alone. Where did you take us," he repeated.

"A summoning gone wrong. This must be their domain," Anomie used her thighs to lift herself up, thankful that her hair covered the wince of just how much that action hurt.

"Did you not know that summoning scrolls often go poorly when untrained for it?" he asked, and Anomie knew by his tone that he wasn't mocking her so she wasn't annoyed.

"I was being attacked by two very skilled Shinobi of the leaf," she raised her hand over her chest, feigning hurt. "Excuse me if I panicked. Shouldn't you take care of that wound before you bleed out." He looked so reluctant that it was almost cute. "Don't worry, I'm not saying this to see skin. Maybe I'm worried."

Itachi leaned his back against the boulder with a sigh, stripping his shirt and revealing a deep wound, dripping with new blood that was just barely running like droplets over the old one. It was rather odd to feel guilty for her act of self-defense, but she still remembered a time when they had been comrades.

"You're after Orochimaru, correct?" she asked, reaching into her bag for her own medical kit.

"Killing you is not priority," Itachi replied, and her eyes ran down his smooth skin that contracted the wound that was swelling with deep veins protruding from around the wound. She frowned, remembering the Jutsu aimed to kill her not much earlier. "But that doesn't mean we won't."

"Orochimaru is in hiding, far from Konoha," Anomie answered. "I am not about to be baited. I agreed to help Konoha with its coup problem, but that doesn't make us allies."

"Half-hearted support doesn't make any sense," Itachi replied, his dark eyes shadowing under his bangs.

She winced as she pealed up her shirt, finding her stomach was blue and black from the bruising of her broken rib. She was certain that Itachi could end her life if he wanted to, so she didn't want to seem like a threat.

"It's not half-hearted. I will full heartedly slaughter your Uchiha counsel. I will full heartedly take blame and live with that tarnished name. I will full heartedly do this for one reason," Anomie tilted her head to the side.

"Why?" he asked.

"Cause why the hell not?" she answered, causing him to frown.

"I don't know what Tsukasa is thinking," he stated, looking away. Obviously he had contempt for Anomie's way of speaking, but she had never been bothered by contempt. "We should probably leave this world...the sun is lowering and the heat is dropping too fast." Itachi's eyes were activated, staring far off as if he could see something she could not. "Do you have the summoning scroll?"

She pulled it out, opening it wide as her eyes darted over her name written in her blood. Itachi's face was blank when he leaned over to take a look at it, but the moment he touched it, his body disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Anomie blinked, glancing around for him but all she saw was sand and rocks. "You have got to be kidding me..." She looked back at the scroll, scanning each seal carefully, still feeling sick from the loss of blood. "Alright you guys are hilarious. The funniest Ho'ou I have ever seen." The flapping of wings echoed all around me, and the sound was only matched with the cawing of their beaks.

"Only you are welcome here," one of the phoenixes echoed in her beaks. "We are the shinanai tori. The birds who never die. We will only accept a summoner who can be revived from their own ashes."

"Human's don't spring from their own ashes," Anomie replied, pressing her hand against her collarbone and feeling the sticky blood slip in between her fingers.

The flapping wings grew faint, and their cawing began to sound like laughter. "Then give up and die here, human."

"I just might," she mumbled, her vision fading away and she slumped against the sand, her blurry vision narrowing in on the lowering sun. The heat that had been blistering before was less. Her body went numb.

»»⎯⎯⎯¤⎯⎯⎯««

Anomie awoke to the stinging feeling of disinfectant against the sensitive cuts along her face. Her eyes cracked open, feeling the chill of the night slice into her flesh. It was so odd how hot it had been when the sun was up, but now that it was down she was shivering from the cold frost that turned her breath into a misty fog.

But the cold wasn't the first thing she noticed, but rather the hand that was palming into her hair to hold up the back of her neck. Kakashi's single eye stared her down, his headband still covering his other one as if he was ashamed of it. Although, she had always found it to be rather beautiful.

Her heart clashed in her chest at that dangerous thought and she swept away the debris of her emotions. It was more challenging than she would have liked, as his fingers were so incredibly gentle as he disinfected her wound.

"What are you doing?" her voice came out hoarse and without the conviction that she would have preferred.

"What does it look like?" he asked in return and she tried to keep the trembling at bay, blaming most on the cold but the rest she accounted for on the fact that his touch was just too warm and gentle.

How could someone like her even desire a man like this? What kind of fate is that? She doubted she could ever want another person in the same way she wanted him, but she crushed that desire in her palm with the weight of her own sins.

"You are yet again making a mistake," she whispered, feeling as he applied bandages to her cheek. When she had reassembled her body before, she knew, even as she became corporeal, that she had done it wrong. It didn't matter at the time, but blood loss had changed her opinion drastically.

"It's my mistake to make," he replied.

"The village will have repercussions for aiding me...again, or did you not let them know of that failure the last time?" as she spoke, his hands froze over her bloodied neck before he picked up the remains of his resolve and used a damp cloth to wipe away the dry blood.

"Stop talking, Koneko," he ordered and she slightly frowned, finding that she didn't much like when he called her that.

"I'll stop talking when you start listening, Kakashi the Friend Slayer," she slapped away his hand and sat up. He didn't look hurt by her nickname and instead his gaze remained empty. "Stop helping me. I'm not a baby bird with a broken wing. Stop caring about me. I'm not your friend. Just stop. It's getting embarrassing."

Her words hurt her more than him, and she knew it when he looked at her with his ever-present deadpan.

"I have stopped," he replied, and she felt her traitorous heart slightly pause. Even after all this fucking time, I still want him.

"Then what are you doing," she asked, and he reached toward her to continued wiping away the blood, but she slapped his hand away again.

He let out a sigh as if she were being a child. "Do you think I am the type of person who could see someone so wounded and not help?"

His answer made her angry in the most ridiculous way possible. "If Orochimaru was in front of you, could you help him? He'd be wounded, defenseless and you wouldn't lift a finger to help him."

Kakashi's gaze was blank, "you are not Orochimaru."

Anomie paused with her eyes narrowed on him in slight contempt, "no. We are the same. You should have turned me in that day in Konoha. You should leave me here now."

Kakashi's brow rose, "do you want to die...Anomie?"

Her face turned impassive, all signs of contempt vanishing from her eyes. That wasn't it. She knew it the moment he spoke. That wasn't why she was rejecting his help. She just didn't want to come between his loyalty to the village and the warmth of his heart.

Of course, she also couldn't tell him that. Not after she worked so hard to convince him that there was no future for them. "Sometimes," she said instead, watching his eyes harden like stone.

He dropped medicine bag near her body, "then die, just don't make me watch."

But she barely heard him as her eyes were set on the medical kit with the stitched talisman of protection. It was simple and white and the characters were perfectly designed. Rin's hands had made such a thing. Anomie's fingers dusted over the bag, finding that the memory of Rin's kindness didn't make her sad. It was happy and she shadowed her eyes with her bangs grabbing the rag that Kakashi had dropped near her.

The cave they rested in was dim with barely any light if not for the gentle flickering fire that didn't do anything to take away the cold. She wiped away the blood from her arms, finding the long diagonal cuts embedded in her skin. They were sore and festering with more blood. She watched it pour over her lap without any signs of stopping it.

A hand snaked around her wrist, simultaneously bandaging her arm. She glanced up, meeting his stare and finding it wasn't empty but she couldn't read him anymore.

"Don't make me watch you die," he whispered and she stared for a long moment of hesitation before she placed her palm against his cheek. Her eyes ran over the stone like skin and the smooth cheeks and his grey eyes that Rin would talk for hours on end about and never get bored.

Anomie motioned to pull down his mask but his hand curled around her wrist, stopping her. She had no words for him. Words were poison and she never knew what kind of venom would spew off her tongue. She didn't want to poison him.

He must have known and maybe that was why he was so silent. Maybe it was also because she was covered in blood and she was close to the black void that awaited her when she was rendered unconscious.

That time was fast approaching and she soon found that his eyes had gone fuzzy. Her head slammed into his chest or maybe she was embraced into his chest; her body was too numb to tell. He smelled like vanilla and lavender and ink. He was warm and cold at the same time.

And she loved every last piece of him.

»»⎯⎯⎯¤⎯⎯⎯««

When she awoke it was raining. The droplets pelted against the outside of cave and the sound was deafening to her ears as she rolled over, nearly burning herself on the fire that crackled next to her.

Every last inch of her arms were covered in bandages that looked to be neatly wrapped. Judging by the tightness around her stomach, her ribs were also bandaged in place. Glancing to her left, she saw Kakashi leaning his back against the cave wall, farthest from her and the fire. In one hand rested an orange book.

She opened her lips to let out something undoubtedly cruel, but she stopped when she noticed a small white rice ball next to where her face had been. Her fingers hovered over it, finding her mind crowded with sweet memories of early mornings where she would sneak into his apartment and steal his food. No matter how inconvenient her presence had been to him, he had never told her to leave.

She felt her eyes slightly sting and she slapped her hand over them as coverage. Her own weakness sent tremors down her spine. She prayed for the tears to go away but she got nothing but humiliation clouding her judgment.

She felt a blanket go over her head before she could take a moment to open her eyes. The blanket covered her face and it smelled musty, but she felt Kakashi's hand on her head with only the blanket to stop the full contact of his skin.

"Your wounds are still healing. Tonight it is critical you stay warm if you want to recover," he whispered and judging by the vibration of his voice against her ear, she knew that he wasn't far from her.

The warm cloth created a barrier between his stare and her tears and she felt all of the suppressed pain at once. She felt the longing and the guilt. She felt the helplessness and the warmth of his touch. Her shoulders stayed steady and she worked hard not to make a noise as droplets flowed down her cheeks.

Kakashi was a good man. He was a kind man. He was rational and intelligent. Galavant and strong.

Anomie was not a good person. She was cold. She was a murderer and a whore. She had fucked a city of men and a handful of women. She had beaten men to death and bathed in blood.

And she still wanted more. She wanted power and she wanted money and she wanted fear. She wanted sex and she wanted love.

So no. She would take the affection she had for him and she would crush it until none of it was visible. She had no right to love him. Not after stabbing her fist through his flesh. Not after betraying him over and over again.

It didn't matter how much it hurt. It didn't matter even when she took the blanket off, the only sign she had cried was the glossy hue in her eyes.

It didn't matter so why couldn't she stop herself?

He stared down at her, not moving even when she placed her palm against his cheek. Not even when she used her other hand to run up his chest, not stopping until she reached his neck and his face. She took off the headband so she could stare at his eyes.

She wondered if he thought she was pulling some kind of mind game on him. Her fingers dug under the top of his mask and she slowly pulled it down. Her lips parted and her eyes darted between his lips and eyes.

He didn't stop her and his hand had snaked around to grip her waist. She leaned forward until her lips were hovering over his, her fingers dig into his shoulders and she forced herself away before she could do something she told herself was wrong.

His hands dropped from her waist and his eyes were blank as they stared at each other. "I can't give you anything. Not even a future," her mumbled answer made his eyes slightly narrow.

"I don't care about the future. Stop telling me how I should feel," he mumbled, moving forward and slamming his lips against hers.

And she wanted time to stop. His kiss wasn't nearly as skilled as some of the men who had kissed her, and it wasn't even as gentle as even Genma had been that night so long ago. Nevertheless, if she didn't have to come back up for air, she doubted she ever wound. Anomie felt his hands snake onto her cheeks and into her hair, holding onto the back of her neck as his other one gripped her waist. She felt her ribs burning as he leaned closer, and only then did he break away, his eyes searching for any sign of discomfort.

Her lips were cold and the longing in her heart felt far worse than the pain of her injuries. Instead of that, she flickered her bones into smoke, attempting with some her remaining strength, to reorganize them in order to make the pain bearable. Her stomach was numb, filled only with the desire of his touch and she gripped his vest, forcing him closer.

It hurt, but the longing and repressed desire hurt more. He was gentle this time, careful not to place his weight against her as his hand positioned himself near her head so he wouldn't crush her. Somehow, she felt smaller underneath him and it was humiliating to be so limited on movement that she couldn't touch him how she wanted.

He rested his forehead in his neck and she was just barely able to hear the soft breathing from above her.

How doomed this kiss was for a couple who had no future.

Author's Note

This chapter was named Saboten サボテン after the cactus flower. It means...ehehe...lust/sex in Japanese.

Look at this. Anomie and Kakashi's relationship has finally hit some inappropriate progress that will likely and realistically become doomed because An-chan is such a sour girl. But that's okay. Kakashi's action of placing the blanket over her head was rather sweet in my book. I'd kiss him for that.