Inhumane
by Ky

Summary: Orochimaru has no sympathy for his experiments.
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Disturbing content.
Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns Naruto, and the people who make the filler episodes own Amachi.

Notes: Unfortunately, I can no longer say that I've never watched a filler episode. I watched the whole Anko filler arc (episode 169-173), and then I wrote a fanfic because of it. Darn me. Having to write a filler character like Amachi made me so mad. I wanted to write Kabuto, but he would have been about six years old at this point. Someone needs to make a timeline of the lives of all the people associated with Orochimaru. It would be so useful…

It was becoming harder and harder to ignore the fact that Anko was growing up. Her legs ached, though it was hard to tell if that was from her training or from what she'd heard called "growing pains." Her breasts, which were small, slightly pointed lumps protruding from her chest, felt tender every now and then. Her shoes kept getting too small, her shirts too short, her pants too tight. She felt clumsy and awkward in her own skin. Her legs were too long, she wasn't as flexible as she thought she should be, and her body tired faster and used up chakra quicker than what she had considered normal.

Orochimaru called it puberty, and Anko could tell it annoyed him. He still forced her to train just as hard, if not harder, than she had before her body had started to disagree with her.

After a particularly hard day of training, Anko collapsed on her bed, asleep before her head hit the pillow. The next morning, she awoke feeling uncomfortable, almost as if she had wet the bed. But that couldn't be. She'd long since outgrown that. Or at least, she hoped she had.

She dashed to the bathroom and found, much to her dismay, a dark, rusty-red stain in her underwear and soaking through to the crotch of her shorts. It smelled like iron, and when she tried to clean herself off, she found that there was more of it. No part of her body hurt other than her stiff muscles, but those were normal. Still, she could only conclude that she was bleeding, and there was so much more blood than there ever was with the scrapes she sometimes got while training with Orochimaru. She knew how to treat a wound, but not one like this. How did you bandage and apply pressure to an injury when the blood seemed to be coming from inside of you?

I'm--I must be dying! Anko thought frantically. I'm bleeding from somewhere I can't see! What do I do? I'm dying!

There was only one option. She had to find Orochimaru. Pulling her bloodied clothing back on (there was no time to waste getting clean shorts. Not when her life was at stake), she hurried out of the bathroom in search of her teacher's usual haunts.

Just as she was really beginning to panic, she finally found him. Her teacher was pouring over some dull old scroll by the light of a candle.

"What are you doing up so early, Anko?" he asked without looking up.

"I'm bleeding, Orochimaru-sama!" she gasped.

He looked up at the skinny, dark-haired girl standing in front of him. "Anko, I've taught you numerous times how to take care of a wound. Surely you understand by now. Clean it with soap and water, bandage, apply pressure, and, if necessary, elevate above the heart--"

"Yeah, yeah, I know all that but—but this isn't a normal injury! I'm bleeding from—from… a lot and—and I think I'm dying! I think yesterday's training killed me!"

"You're not dying," Orochimaru told her firmly. "Show me the wound."

Anko shook her head. "I can't."

"Show it to me!" Losing his temper, Orochimaru grabbed her arm, searching it for some scrape or cut that this little girl was too stupid to bandage correctly.

She pulled her arm away. "No! Stop it! H-here. This is where I'm bleeding." She pointed to the space between her legs. She felt a bit silly and very embarrassed, talking about this with her teacher, whom she respected more then anyone, but she was sure there was something seriously wrong with her. She'd know whether she was dying better than he would, right?

"You're—" Orochimaru began, then stopped and just stared, his golden eyes oddly wide, as though he was actually surprised and at a loss for words. Then he grabbed her by the arm and half dragged, half led her down the corridors of his seaside lair to an area she rarely visited: the wing devoted to medical needs and also to a type of research—something Orochimaru sometimes mentioned in passing but never elaborated on. The only times she had been here were her yearly check-ups with Amachi, a scientist and medical ninja who was employed by her teacher. Otherwise the wing was off limits, and she liked it that way. This place gave her the creeps, with its weird machinery, odd-smelling air, and uncomfortably sterile atmosphere.

Orochimaru lifted her roughly and set her on the cold metal table in the center of the room. "Stay put." Then he exited the room through another door.

Anko was becoming more and more distressed by the minute and Orochimaru was doing an uncharacteristically terrible job of hiding his emotions, further convincing her that she must be at death's door. She began to swing her legs back and forth anxiously.

Orochimaru returned, followed by Amachi. The two were conversing under their breath, so Anko could only hear brief snatches of the conversation.

"How old are you now, Anko?" Amachi asked, seemingly out of the blue.

"Eleven and a half," Anko responded automatically. But did it really matter all that much now, when she was in the middle of a crisis?

"…At this stage," Amachi was saying.

"Eliminate the problem," Orochimaru muttered. "I don't want…anymore of a nuisance."

That settles it, Anko thought anxiously. I've got some sort of rare disease and I'm definitely gonna die. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes. I miss my mom…

Amachi stepped away from Orochimaru and came to stand beside her. "So, Orochimaru-sama says you've been complaining about an odd kind of bleeding. But no pain, right?"

Anko nodded, biting her lip. I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die…

Amachi smiled in a way that, perhaps, was supposed to be comforting, but just ended up making her more afraid. "It seems you've begun your menstrual cycle."

"My what!" Anko exclaimed, fearing the worst.

"Don't worry about it." There was that smile again. "It shouldn't bother you anymore once I'm done." The medical ninja lifted the hem of her shirt and put his hand to her abdomen, below her belly button. He had to slide a couple of his fingers under the waistband of her shorts to get the spot he wanted. Anko blushed. She didn't like being touched like this, especially not so carelessly, right in front of Orochimaru. She had to screw her eyes shut, not look at Amachi, and constantly remind herself that he was a doctor. He would cure whatever was wrong with her.

She felt pressure as he jabbed his fingertips against her skin, then heat as his chakra coursed into her abdomen. The heat turned to sharp, tearing pains, making her cry out and grip the edges of the cold table tightly, fruitlessly trying to dig into its smooth surface with her fingernails.

Amachi's hand moved away and Anko took a deep breath, timidly opening her eyes. She seemed all right from the outside…

"There, all done." Amachi looked towards Orochimaru for approval and received no response. The medical ninja strode out of the room.

"Well, go get cleaned up," Orochimaru told his student. "You will train just as hard today as any other day. In fact, since you rose so early this morning, you can train even longer."

&&&

Anko collapsed to her knees on the beach, panting. Beads of sweat rolled down her face and her breath came in ragged gasps. She had to keep running, but why, and where from? She knew that after all this time—months, years, how long had it been? Time passed differently here; it evaded her memory—she could no longer train with Orochimaru. Or maybe it was the other way around. Her teacher had rejected her. That's why he wasn't here now. She must have done something terrible to be fleeing from him like this.

Behind her, she heard the rush of many footsteps, and as she whirled, wide-eyed with fear but too drained of energy to bolt, a team of ANBU landed around her.

"Are you okay?" one of the ANBU asked her.

She stared, dazed and nauseated, at his mask. It was white as bleached bone with the features of a monkey painted on it in blood-red. The mask and the black-white contrast of the ANBU's uniform swirled out of focus before Anko's eyes as she passed out, facedown in the sand.

An indiscernible amount of time later, Anko awoke in a hospital in Konoha, the Hidden Village where she had grown up. There, she underwent a basic examination, along with various x-rays, scans, and tests to determine her physical and mental health. None of the doctors, nurses, or medical ninja at Konoha's hospital had ever seen a mark like the seal that stained the back of Anko's neck, and many were curious about it. When her connection to Orochimaru was revealed, along with her lack of memories related to that connection, she was ushered down a hallway to another room where she was soon joined by Tsunade (whom Anko had heard of because she was one of Orochimaru's teammates, renowned in Konoha for her skills as a shinobi), a medical ninja who wore the off-white uniform of the hospital, and, to Anko's amazement, the Third Hokage himself. They sat her down in a chair and began to ask her a lot of questions, many of which she did not have answers to.

Tsunade and the Hokage wanted to know what Orochimaru was up to, where he was now, and what that meant for Konoha. As an added bonus, the medical ninja was trying to coax her other memories out of hiding.

"What can you remember about your time with Orochimaru?" the uniformed medical ninja kneeling in front of her prompted once more. "Do any particular words or images come to mind?"

Anko buried her fingers in her hair and pulled—the very picture of frustration. "It's no use! I can't! It's all… all out of order, fuzzy. It was dark and cold and I was...I was in so much pain. And this-this thing, this mark must be from him. But I can't remember anything! Not anything useful! I know he taught me things… jutsu… and it was hard training. But I can't remember where I ran from, or how I got to that beach where the ANBU found me. It's just… I-I…" She was sobbing now, overwhelmed by her confusion, frustration, and the sensation of being utterly alone. "He didn't want me anymore. He didn't care… I was… I was useless. And—and after that, I don't know!" Her head slumped into her hands and she cried.

Gently, the Hokage placed a gnarled hand on her shoulder. "It's all right. Clearly, you have some very painful memories. We won't discuss this anymore today."

There came a knock at the door, and Tsunade went to answer it. When the door was opened, a young nurse walked in carrying a clipboard. She showed the clipboard to Tsunade and the two began talking in hushed tones. After a minute or so, Tsunade put her hands on her hips and said, louder, "I don't see any point in hiding things from her. Anko, would you please come here?"

Hesitantly, Anko stood up and crossed the room to where Tsunade and the nurse stood. "Junko here has the results from your tests earlier today," Tsunade began. Her tone was grim and the nurse, Junko, wasn't smiling.

"Your results here show what appears to be isolated but severe damage to your uterus and fallopian tubes," Junko began. "We are unable to exactly determine the cause, but we have reason to believe that it may have been from," she glanced at Tsunade, then, clearly uncomfortable with the subject, turned her eyes to the floor, "a forbidden kinjutsu."

"Do you remember anything like that?" Tsunade asked kindly. "Any strange jutsu used on or around you?"

It came rushing back in flashes: Amachi's hand, the cold, metal table, the tearing pain, "It won't bother you again."

Anko nodded but hoped she wouldn't have to elaborate.

When Tsunade didn't press the issue, Junko continued, "At this point, the damage is irreversible."

There was silence, which Tsunade eventually interrupted. "You know what this means, don't you, Anko?"

She was afraid to guess.

"Because of the damage, you will never have a menstrual period, and you won't ever be able to become pregnant. We don't have a lot of experience dealing with kinjutsu, so we can't say for sure what other effects it could have."

Though this information would not truly make its impact on Anko until she was much older, Tsunade's words still struck her in a profound way. Though she had absolutely no desire to bear children at the time and had never been the type of girl to dream bout becoming a wife or a mother, some internal instinct told her that never being able to have children of her own was a great tragedy, a terrible defect.

She swore hatred towards Amachi immediately. The tears that rolled down her cheeks were hot with rage as she thought of how naïve she'd been to put her trust in him. It was harder for her to concoct such violent feelings for Orochimaru. Though his name reminded her of fear and pain, Orochimaru had been her constant guardian since the age of ten, training her in the ways of a shinobi. He also called to mind someone who loved her, body and soul, though she couldn't explain why she felt this way. Her tattered memory failed her along this line of reasoning. It clearly wasn't true anymore, considering that he wasn't here now, but still Anko damned Orochimaru only half-heartedly. For the first time in her accessible memory, Orochimaru did not have her complete respect and reverence. And as her curse seal burned, and buried, distorted memories began to haunt her nightmares, she vowed that one day she would find her former teacher, recover all of her memories, and learn what it was she lacked to make him leave her all alone.