"Nah," Tsunade said as she tossed the scroll into one of the empty bottles of alcohol. Anomie's brow raised and she contemplated swiping the scroll while Tsunade got intoxicated, but that was probably what Kakashi was counting on.

Something about this screamed a trap, but maybe she was overthinking it. Maybe he just genuinely didn't care about what she did anymore. She stood, paying for the drinks before she patted Tsunade's shoulder.

"Stay safe, Tsunade," she said and just as she was about to leave, Tsunade's drunken hand curled around Anomie's wrist.

"Before you leave, I think you should take this," Tsunade lifted the scroll and placed it in Anomie's hand, much to the girl's confusion.

"What are you-?" asked Anomie and Tsunade's lips curled into a smirk.

"I saw you eyeing it, Koneko," Tsunade replied.

"You know who I am? If that is the case then why are you giving this to me?" she asked with a frown, glancing towards Shizune who had fallen asleep against the bar table with the small teacup pig asleep at her feet.

"There is so much misinformation about you. Everyone thinks you did what you did for Orochimaru, but not a week later he uses such dastardly methods to do away with you," she explained. "Call of curiosity. Call it doctor/patient confidentiality, call it whatever you want, Koneko. I treat the sick. I don't judge them. So take the scroll and do whatever it is that you do. I couldn't care less."

Anomie stared down at it for a moment of silence before she handed it back with a shake of her head. "Her fate is none of my business."

"You make no sense."

"I have been told that," Anomie replied with a smile, turning around to walk away. Her back froze and she shook her head. "You say you aren't going to judge me, but you should. I am not a good person."

"Bad people don't say that, Koneko," Tsunade said, pouring another glass of wine. "Then again, good people don't say that either."

"You and Jiraiya continue to astound me," Anomie said with a smile, turning her head towards Tsunade who had frozen.

"I'd prefer you didn't mention that perverted old man to me," Tsunade hissed, her eyes narrowed in such a way that made Anomie's lips form into a gentle smile.

"You're the same age," Shizune mumbled against the table.

"I'm 26," Tsunade hissed back while Anomie tilted her head with a smile as the sun began to drop past the horizon.

"I am sure you were 26, 26 years ago," Anomie retorted.

"I should have let you die," Tsunade said taking a gulp of her wine.

"So should a lot of people, but here I am, still younger than you," Anomie retorted.

"I would say stay safe, but considering who you are, I doubt that would be appropriate. After all, I am still a Konoha ninja. I have 'responsibilities'," Tsunade scoffed, pouring another drink. "Freakin' kiss ass."

Anomie didn't say anything. She was hoping if she left the subject alone, maybe she'd get through the day without fighting someone she actually cared about. Perhaps she would be able to maintain the last memory of her and Kakashi together as a happy one. Perhaps her last memory of him would become the feel of his cheek under her lips and his fingers digging into her waist.

"Kakashi," she greeted as his arm coiled around hers and they casually joined the crowd of citizens who were either going home for the night, or off to find a place to drink with friends. No one would see nor care if two ninja were about to get into a fight.

After all, this was the Land of Keys, known for ninja battles and criminals in their midsts.

"I would much prefer silence," he told her, maneuvering them into the shadows of the buildings. She let him and she stayed quiet. She owed him obedience; at least for the time being.

She tightened her grip around his arm unconsciously, and when she noticed she began to wonder if perhaps she was nervous. He would not be blamed if he ended her life right there, and everyone would say she deserved it. She had lost every friend and ally she ever had. She was just flesh in a cloak to the Akatsuki. The only thing they would be quick to regain was the ring around her finger, and after that there would be someone stronger to fill its place.

"I'm turning you in this time," he told her and her face didn't change. The haunting and hollowness of his voice left her weak, but this was good. She didn't need the sweet memory of their last meeting. "I'm done feeling guilt for your actions."

Anomie felt him drop her arm, and her side felt cold without his touch. Maybe she should have been surprised by his words, but instead she was filled with a serendipitous memory of his touch. Perhaps he was expecting a fight when he spoke next.

"I'll bring you in, alive or dead," he told her, and in response, she raised her arms up together.

"Place a Chakra suppresser before I change my mind," she said, and he raised his brow and didn't make a motion to do as she said.

It couldn't have been moment later that she felt a kunai coming towards her back. It would have been simple to dodge it by merely turning a part of her body into smoke, but doing so would mean Kakashi might get hurt. There was a very small chance that he wouldn't catch it, but it wasn't one she was willing to make. Instead, maneuvered her body so she could catch the kunai, but she should have expected the exploding tag connected to it.

"Son of a bitch," she muttered, shoving Kakashi back and turning into smoke. The explosion echoed around her incorporeal body. She aligned her Chakra into the flames and compressed it until it disappeared and she was flesh once more. In moments she was knocked back as Kakashi's tanto parred against a solid steel nunchakus that came to strike her down.

Kakashi's strength and speed had always been a major cause for celebration among friends and allies. It was no different now as Anomie was shoved back so he could pair the blow of the assassin who wore the traditional garb of the Sound village, likely sent by Orochimaru once more.

"I'm going to kill him," she grumbled as she dusted herself off, noticing that her kimono had gotten snagged from her earlier fall to the ground.

Her eyes narrowed on the assassin before her body turned into smoke and entered through that person's mouth. She had suffocated many people before, and it had always been as easy as breathing. Once more, she should have noticed this was a trap as the moment she was inside, seals she had not been able to see had activated over the body in which she resided.

Moments later her knees buckled from underneath her and when she saw Kakashi raise his blade to strike her down, she raised her hand. "Wait!"

She tried leaving the body, but she found that she was physically chained to it, unable to form her Chakra. She saw Kakashi kneel down next to her, placing his hand against her cheek so she could meet his gaze. His eyes scanned the body she was in, grabbing her arms and pushing down the sleeves of her shirt and seeing seals covering every inch of her forearms and her neck.

"I'm stuck," she said, attempting once more to leave to no avail.

"That complicates things," he agreed, before he grabbed her wrists, pulling her forward so her forehead could slam against his shoulder. "But it doesn't change the important parts. Goodnight, Anomie." His fingers pressed against the back of her neck, pressing a trigger point that she knew would knock her out. She let him.

She didn't know what she was doing and maybe he just caught her at a weak moment where all she wanted to do was sleep in his arms. Maybe this was the closest she would ever get.

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"I don't think this is really that necessary," Anomie told him as she tilted her head to the side, black hair falling over her shoulders as she grew annoyed with her binding that cut into her circulation. She maneuvered around the ropes that tied her wrists together, and attempted to scoot closer to the tree so she could rest her back against a comfortable surface. The ropes around her legs made that hard and she knew she wouldn't have had any issues if she was in her own body.

This one had minimal strength and hardly any formable Chakra. Orochimaru had done this on purpose, sending his weakest shinobi to become her prison. Anomie couldn't help but be slightly amused with his clever assassination attempts and maybe they weren't all completely not funny.

"I mean, it's not like I was fighting you when you put the Chakra suppressor seals all over me. You really didn't have to knock me out either," she said with a brief smile.

The silence stretched until it was thin and she began to wonder if he actually, truly hated her.

"Do you not believe me?" Anomie asked, and the sudden breeze flew off her cloak's hood, and revealed the full face of the girl whose body she had stolen. He found himself fueled with a loathing unfathomable.

"I would not believe you even if you said that the sun rose in the morning and set at night," he said, and her heart was struck with a pang and her stomach began to ache. It was as if his own distaste for her had clawed out her guts from her insides.

"That's not at all hurtful," Anomie mocked, but a part of her was probably serious. He went back to sharpening his blades and she watched, having nothing else to do.

Maybe she was tired of running. Maybe massacring a clan in order to put an end to coup that could start a war is all she was meant to do. Spending an eternity paying off her crimes didn't sound so daunting anymore and she was tired.

"Why were you so compliant?" he asked after that moment of silence as she stared into the flames next to her feet. He could say he hated her as much as he wanted, but judging by the makeshift bed of blankets underneath her and the fire that kept her warm, maybe he didn't completely despise her.

"Because you asked," she answered, and he slightly scoffed.

"This isn't going to turn out well for you, Anomie. I am not looking out for your best interests. I do not want to help you. I don't feel anything for you," Kakashi said, causing her to slightly pause as she glanced towards his face. "No good deeds can ever make up for everything you have done."

"That's good," she said with a slight pause. How foolish, right when he fell out of love with her, she had never felt stronger for him. That was the fate of an Oiran. That was her fate. "That's all I ever wanted for you Kakashi."

She wanted to tell him everything she had been hiding until she was red in the face and her throat was raw from screaming. But she couldn't do such a thing. She couldn't place that kind of burden on his shoulders and make him choose between his own happiness and being with her.

She knew his future was going to be bright. One day he might even teach students everything he knew and they would go on to change the world and he would aid them. He could be anyone. He could be the Hokage because no one was as strong, as kind, and as good.

There was so much light in his future and she was only going to bring darkness. So she stayed silent, watching the flames flicker and slowly die.

"Why did you do it?" Kakashi asked and she closed her eyes, sinking into the hood of her cloak. She wanted to lay her head into her knees, feeling exasperated just thinking about the Uchiha massacre.

"There's power in the Sharingan," Anomie told him. "Orochimaru wanted it so I gave them to him."

That wasn't what Kakashi wanted to hear and she could see the last ray of hope leave his eyes. She knew that she should let it die, and that it was better this way, but she lost control of her voice and spoke without thinking.

"Someone could have done it and killed all of them or I could have done it and some could live," she glanced at his face, scanning it over and over until it was embedded in her memory. What she said wasn't necessarily a lie, even if she didn't tell him the entire truth, she at least knew she didn't want to deceive him anymore than she has already.

"You're sick, Anomie."

"I'm sick of this conversation, Kakashi," she said. Her voice was rather soft, and Kakashi was glad it was a different face he was seeing instead of her actual one.

No. Perhaps he wasn't. Seeing her now and still wanting her was torture. It seemed that he was doomed to love her forever.

And he had so much he wanted to stay, but he could not bother with the words. He had to stay strong and he had to let her go. He tried to remember all the things she had done, and the mangled corpse of that Uchiha still remained fresh in his mind. "This. No this was Koneko's doing." He still remembered Tenzo's words that day, haunting him over and over again before his eyes like an illusion or a blur.

"Why did you leave one alive?" he asked and it was a question she too had pondered that night, over and over again because she did not know why she left Itachi's mother alive and well. Maybe it was because she loved her own mother dearly, and briefly seeing a motherly love for her former ally had made her sentimental. It was foolish, but Anomie had her moments of recklessness. After all, that was how she ended up trapped in a body that wasn't her own.

"A whim," she answered, knowing full well that it would make him disappointed. She had worked so hard to make him hate her, and she couldn't stop now just because she wanted him.

The truth of it was, he had already forgiven her. He had forgiven her for everything she had done and could still do long before he met her.

But he couldn't accept such feelings.

She had said this many times, there was no going back and they had no future. She had known that since the beginning and he was only just starting to catch up.

She had long since disappeared before his eyes, but he began to believe that disappearing was all she could ever do. He wanted to find someone else. He wanted to let her go and move on. He wanted that so badly he could scarcely breathe, but he knew that it would always be her.

No matter what happened, what she did, how much time passed...he would forgive her. He would want her and no one else. That was what it meant to fall in love.

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Anomie awoke in the middle of the night with a gasp as her throat struggled for air. She glanced down at her arms, seeing black veins begin to work their way from under her skin like ivy growing into her flesh.

She tore off her sleeves, finding the ivy shaped veins hadn't spread much farther than her seals. She squeezed her eyes shut and plopped back against the pillows. "Fuck," she mumbled in the dark, glancing around to find Kakashi's silhouette somewhere hidden in the distance, and when she saw his shadow clone near the barrier of trees, she calmed down.

She quickly covered her arms with a small amount of difficulty in her covering of the cloak, quite done with Orochimaru and his schemes. Of course, she recognized this poison.

It was called the Thorn Death. Orochimaru had tested its affects many times in the past, on many now dead subjects in the land of fire. It was one of the first experiments she had tried to put a stop to, and she had sent many documents of lab locations to Konoha whilst still under Orochimaru's thumb.

Maybe he always knew that she was a traitor, and this was the punishment for a spy's actions. But this was not how she deserved to die.

The veins were only just beginning to bulge out from her wrists. That was always stage one of the disease and she could already feel her eyes start to weaken, and yet the pain wouldn't let her sleep. So she stayed awake throughout the night.

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Anomie walked ahead of Kakashi's watchful eye as they walked the distance of the misty terrain of the stone country.

"We should rest," Kakashi announced and Anomie's brow raised as she turned towards him.

"We are in Iwa territory. I am not resting here. I cannot rest here," she said, trying to look casual as she leaned her back against the rocky mountain. Iwa was one of the many raiders who destroyed Kemuri's customs and made brothels so popular, just being in the country was fueling her with disgust.

"I don't think you know what being a prisoner means," he told her, and as the seconds passed by, she began to feel more in need of rest. However, she was afraid he would figure out she was poisoned if they set camp.

"I know quite well," she told him, feeling his hand up against her shoulder and pushing her down so she was forced to sit down. It was a welcomed action, as it allowed her to maintain a level of pride, and rest at the same time. He grabbed an orange book from his pocket, leaning against the mountain side.

Anomie tilted her head as her eyes swept over the cover, depicting a girl with white hair and vibrant golden eyes. Her lips slightly quirked, as she kept her cloaked wrapped securely around her shoulders. Jiraiya, you little pervert.

Anomie glanced once more towards the book, before her eyes shamelessly swept over Kakashi's face. It was strange, she was being kept prisoner, dying, and yet all she wanted was to speak to him like some love sick child. She crushed that desire, finding that she was getting much more talented at getting away from her own wants.

"That cover photo is quite provocative," damn it. Stop talking, you're making this worse. "Quite familiar, isn't she?"

"Nope, never seen her in my life," came Kakashi's monotonous reply, and Anomie's eyes softened.

"Really? I've been known to muse the pages of a pervert or two," she said in return, and he clicked his tongue as he turned a page. However, she doubted he was even reading at this point. "The art is a little sketchy, but she does look just like me."

"Nah. She has white hair. Your hair is black," he said in a deadpan, making her lips quirk up once more. Of course, the body she inhabited had hair as black as the feathers on a raven and eyes as dull as dirt. Even the body wasn't as muscular and the chest was larger than what would be appropriate for a ninja in battle.

She didn't know what Tsunade was thinking when she chose the Shinobi life.

"Hmm, quite right, what was I thinking?" she said with a sigh, before her eyes slightly widened as she felt the veins blacken more up her arms. She did her best to control her breathing, but it came out slightly labored for the smallest moment.

Kakashi was at her side in an instant, his fingers pressing against her throat as he felt her pulse. She tried to control her heart rate for that moment, attempting to fuse her original Chakra around this girl's heart, but it wasn't quick enough. "Your pulse is too quick. What aren't you telling me?"

"I tell you everything Kakashi," she replied without a single hesitation that made his eyes narrow. She slapped away his hand with a little bit of dignity that was difficult to maintain with her hands bound together in a rope.

The moment she moved her arms she lost strength and toppled forward, forcing his hands to steady her shoulders. "You are so irritating, Anomie," he whispered, and her eyes widened once more, feeling the pain of her veins swelling gather up her shoulders and to her chest. She carefully covered her neck with her cloak.

"It doesn't matter what happens to me. It doesn't matter even if I die. You aren't supposed to look after my best interest. The bounty is paid, whether dead or alive," she told him, glancing up and meeting his gaze.

"Dead or alive," he agreed, and he left her there, on the ground, making her wonder of death was better than this.

Please don't hate me, but her thoughts always contradicted her actions. She knew that whatever spark they had was disappearing and even when she desperately attempting to find it, she now saw empty eyes looking at her.

He finally did as she asked and stopped caring about her. She refused to wallow in self pity or get him to change his mind, because this was all she ever wanted from him. It didn't matter how she felt.

The pain of the poison coursing through her veins was a good distraction from how desperately she wanted to speak to him. She didn't look at him again and merely settled for watching the wind blow small grains of dust next to her feet. She felt his hands grip onto her gloved wrists and carefully undo the bindings around them, allowing her to be free to move as she wanted. "Aren't you afraid I might do something?"

There was so much she could do, run away or even slit his throat. She wouldn't do either.

"No," he whispered, and he tried to look away, but the way she looked at him in that moment was too vulnerable. Her fingers brushed up against his cheek, leaning in so her lips neared his as she pulled down his mask. His hand pressed against the curve of her jaw, before his fingers pushed back her chin so she couldn't move forward. "I won't kiss you."

"Am I absolutely repulsive?" she asked and his moved away.

"No," he whispered back, moving forward so her forehead was against his. "But you should be and that's enough."

She didn't answer and just surrendered to the serendipity of his embrace as he pressed up against her. She wanted to imagine that the last five years didn't happen and that they were at the moment where he first said "I love you." Instead of her annoying and positively stupid response, she would hold him and tell him that she was born the day they met.

And she would tell him that she didn't feel alive until the day she fell in love with him.

But that was not something she could ever say and it was not something she could ever change. Her real desire, hidden somewhere hidden in the husk of her heart, still remained unknown. So, she could never develop the selfishness to tell him how she felt until she was certain that the emptiness and spirals of self-destruction had a reason and she figured out why she did the things she did.

Kakashi didn't deserve half heartened feelings.

But now, as the poison threatened to claim her heart and he made it clear that any future between them was doomed, she realized how hopeless everything was.

She could never be selfish and ask for his forgiveness or tell him that ever since Rin died, she believed she'd never find happiness. However, his touch lightened that horrible sadness and she needed that.

"Orochimaru is hunting you, isn't he?" he asked, causing her to freeze under his touch before she moved back.

"Orochimaru is a fool," Anomie answered, moving back as pain shot out through her back. "He will chase me to the ends of the world. In a way, the prisons of Konoha are the safest I will ever be."

"That's why you agreed?" He scoffed, his body moving back completely. "Self preservation to the very end, right?"

"It's what you love about me, isn't it?" Her mocking tone made him angry, and he was tired of the tension.

"Not anymore."

Please don't love a dead girl in the skin of a corpse. All I can give you is peace of mind at the hands of shackles as I'm dragged into the dank caves of redemption.

Or perhaps Anomie wouldn't even last that long. But that was okay. She can accept the end if it meant that Kakashi would be alright.

Author's Note

くちなし (kuchinashi) or rather, gardenia symbolizes purity and sweetness. They indicate secret love. They convey joy. They tell the receiver you are lovely.

Okay then, the relationship of Kakashi and Anomie is super rocky. This is gonna be tough, but I'm looking forward to writing this journey.

I was so reluctant to release this chapter because something felt off the entire time I was writing it, so I actually finished it last week before deciding to submit it. Did anyone like it? I don't know. I'm super self-conscious about it and I don't know why, then again I am always most self conscious about any attempt I make about writing romance or anything of the sort. I suppose that because I've never been in love so I'm pulling all this crap out of my ass and novels and all the studying I've done on the human brain. I guess I'm book smart, but not really that street smart. Forgive me.

Thank you for always supporting me guys. You have no idea how much each review means to me. I legit go over them when I'm feeling down and it really makes me feel better. Thank you for always being by my side.

Thank you.