The Burning Three
Characters: Anko, Tsunade, Jiraiya, Shizune, Kurenai, Orochimaru
Pairings: None
Disclaimer: No highly-successful ninja story for me.
A/N: I've been sitting on this idea for months now.
She waits for Iwashi and Mozuku to return while cleaning the blood from her kunai, wiping the knife across long, smooth blades of grass. Her eyes drift to the tree where the dead snake lays. She can hardly call herself superstitious, but there's a niggling part of her brain that muses about what happens to those who kill symbols of good luck and renewal.
Anko pockets the kunai and decides to put more distance between herself and the tree.
The next morning, her team is in Konoha, mission successful, and no man left behind. Godaime seems distracted as Anko files the report but doesn't interrupt her.
It's afterwards, as the kunoichi is taking her leave, that the older woman tells her that she's meeting an old friend for dinner and that she wants her to join them. Her tone, though calm, indicates that she's expecting her to come.
Anko bows her head and takes her leave, the sense of foreboding weighing all the heavier.
Her suspicions spike when two-thirds of the Legendary Sannin treat her to a full-course meal and all the sake she can drink. She feels tempted to flirt with Jiraiya a little longer, if only to see if she can talk him into an impromptu dango-run, but then Tsunade makes a remark about cradle-robbers, and the legendary bickering begins.
She's split between her sense of responsibility and her deep-seated sadism for all things dramatic and amusing, but eventually, Anko tries to bring both of her elders back to reality.
"Not that I don't enjoy a free meal , Godaime-sama, but is there something you want to tell me?"
Jiraiya and Tsunade pause in their arguing, the air between them growing thick as they sit back. Anko hears the words in the back of her head moments before Tsunade nods and Jiraiya speaks.
"Orochimaru is dead."
When Anko doesn't respond, he takes it as a sign to continue. "Our sources say that he tried to take the body of Uchiha Sasuke and was killed by the boy in the process.
Anko doesn't look at them, but she knows they aren't looking at her either, affording her what little privacy they can in this public setting.
She doesn't tell them what she really thinks, that she doesn't believe for a single second that he's really dead, because it would undermine everything that he's worked for in the last decade. Men who dedicate their lives to living forever don't go down that easily.
Instead, she tells them what she thinks they want to hear from her, and -really- what she needs to hear from herself.
"Well," she clears her throat of backed-up bile, "that's the way it is, huh?"
With careful hands, she takes the sake bottle, pours a cup, and downs it all in one drink.
"Good stuff," she breathes through smiling teeth.
The thing of it is, you can't mourn a man who refuses to die.
Later in the evening of the new moon, as she perches on the windowsill of her top-floor apartment and smokes, Anko studies the lightless sky and notes how flat and shallow it looks without the moon and stars revealing its dimensions.
Orochimaru told her once that the heavens were endless, ever-expanding, and that -one day- he too would be as immeasurable and infinite as space.
The curse mark flares at the thought of him; Anko lets its flames burn his widowed dreams to ashes and hopes they cremated him as soon as possible.
After all, one can never be too cautious when it comes to the undying. . .
As night deepens, so does the pain.
It drives her to tops of buildings, gliding from rooftop-to-rooftop. Eventually, the ferocity of the Forest of Death welcomes her, and Anko slaughters and burns and poisons everything that she comes across until she has almost bled herself dry of chakra. Then the curse mark pulls and coaxes her to take more and more of what she needs, what she wants. It's all here for her. She just has to dip her hands into it and drink. . .
Foreign chakra swells against the borders of the seal, dammed only by her refusal to ever borrow anything else from him again. Hand cupping her burning neck, she wills away the temptation until it subsides and then collapses on the forest floor.
Staring at the overlapping branches above, Anko runs a tongue over chapped lips and can only think of how thirsty she is.
"How long has the pain lasted?" Shizune examines the seal without touching it, eyes keenly noting the peeling red skin and the swelling around it. Anko is perched on the examination table, legs crossed, hands folded over one knee. She looks relaxed, but it's hard to miss the tension in her shoulders and the way her eyes watch every single move that Shizune makes while the med-nin hovers this close to her.
"Like this?" She closes her eyes, resting them. "A week." Anko can't see her, but she imagines Shizune standing tall now, hands on her hips as she prepares to scold her patient.
Instead, what she hears is Shizune softly clearing her throat. "You should have come in sooner if it's been bothering you this badly." The medic notes the bags beneath the younger woman's eyes. "You haven't been sleeping well either."
"I sleep just fine after I exercise." Anko opens her eyes then and sees how the older woman frowns at her. "You're right. I thought I could handle it by myself . .like before, but it's gotten worse ever since I found out about Orochimaru. . ." Shizune's expression softens, mouth tensing as she wrestles with a response.
"You don't have to say it. I'm not sorry that he's dead." She just doesn't believe it yet.
"Anko, I wasn't- I mean, I don't expect you-".
"I'll be the first to say that he deserved what he got. I am the happiest woman in Konoha right now. I'd smooch that Uchiha brat if he were here, and I don't even like him."
Shizune's too stunned to respond. The silence that follows only bothers Anko because there is nothing else to distract her from her burning neck.
When Tsunade arrives, she blocks the seal the only way she knows how and tells Anko to take some time off to get some sleep.
Without the pain, she sleeps well enough, until the dreams begin. They aren't frightening, but they leave her disturbed all the same.
One early hour, she wakes after giving birth to her former sensei and laughs until her throat is raw and her gut is sore. People tend to think she's off-her-rocker, but it's the first time Anko's ever considered the possibility that they're right about her.
She's never confided in anyone outside of Tsunade about Orochimaru, but when she finally opens up to Kurenai about her odd dreams, her friend suggests doing something to help her relax at night.
"Your tea ceremonies have always worked for me," she reassures, not bothering to hide the way she studies the other woman. "Do you want me to come over and help out?"
Kurenai's invitation is warm and kind, but Anko hardly has to mull over the offer before she rejects it, finding solace in the quiet comfort of isolation more and more these days.
"No. It's fine. It's a great idea, though."
At twenty-seven, seiza is second-nature to her, the accompanying pain of coiled limbs a mere after-thought for an experienced ninja.
Sit high. Spine straight. Feet folded. Smooth out the wrinkles in your kimono.
He had always demanded perfection, in spite of hefty sacrifices made to obtain it. It's here, amidst the mingling smells of incense and burning charcoal, that she kneels before that altar and allows him to make a place for himself in the emptying parts of her mind.
Fold the cloth; cleanse the tools. You've already cleansed them before, but one must be considerate of one's guests, Anko.
Her hands scoop the matcha, but it's his voice that instructs her, a lazy tone that is deceitfully patient. She has known it well. She mustn't disappoint. He doesn't take failure lightly.
Whisk until the matcha is fully dissolved; serve.
No shadows pool around him where he lounges across her matted floor, a picture of defiance even in the face of such an ancient and refined ceremony. He has always done as he pleases and has never possessed a love for the sacred. Today, he instructs her as he had in times past. No need for such formality.
In spite of the folds of the kimono he wears, he is soundless as he shuffles to examine the tea bowl. He smiles, the ensuing chuckle echoing unevenly across the back of her mind.
Feeling sentimental, Anko?
His lips drag over the only two syllables that make her name, voice heavy and slow within her. She doesn't shiver, but she can't fight the way her skin crawls up her back.
"I'm not the type to throw things out when the impulse hits me."
His smile touches his eyes. He sits straighter, stare dissecting at the layers and layers of mental fortitude she has spent nearly two decades building until she is left feeling naked and cold before him. The curse mark scorches her neck and shoulder, Tsunade's carefully-placed seal having been devoured mere hours after its placement.
"Besides, it's still in nice shape."
That it is. You obviously cherished it, he drawls with half-lidded eyes then motions towards the bowl. We shouldn't let it cool.
Anko takes it in her palms, relishing the steam and the heat against her cold hands, then rotates it and welcomes the smooth, delicate taste of the tea. She's perfectly aware now that it is with her tongue that he tastes, with her hands that he grasps, and with her eyes and ears that he sees and hears.
"Well, what do you think," she asks as her tongue runs the length of her bottom lip, testing every lingering flavor.
I think I taught you well.
A/N: Very obviously AU; although, I guess it's not too far out of the realm of possibility. Being my favorite character means being subjected to Twilight Zone levels of mind-games. Don't be my favorite.
I always thought that the Cursed Seals were neat. They're fun to play around with.
EDIT: Added a few lines here-and-there, mainly to Kurenai's scene.