Trigger warning: torture, PTSD, and sexual content

Chapter Four: the Culprit and the Copy Ninja

"Are you sure letting him go so soon is the right thing to do?" Yugao remained staring at the gap in the trees where Naruto and Iruka had exited the clearing, "Won't Lord Hokage or Chief Zō want to see him first?" She paled as soon as she mentioned the chief's name, "Forgive me, captain, your orders were clear that we should see only Lord Hokage regarding this matter."

"Naruto had nothing to do with this," Hanami was pleased that her suspicions had been justified, but now that it was confirmed who was involved, it only resulted in more questions, "He was meant as a scapegoat and nothing more." She motioned for Tamashi to keep guard on Mizuki, and stepped away so that she could talk to her second and third in private, "Tenzō, what is your report?"

"It didn't take long once we had the list of names," Tenzō pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. There were only seven names on the list, "Sumūzu and I teamed up with Yugao so that we could spread out and investigate each person. The ones who were supposed to be on duty-" He pointed to two names near the bottom that she didn't recognise, "They claimed they had no idea they were supposed to be on duty. Said that their shifts had been changed last minute and that they had no idea the archives had been left unguarded. We took them into the Intelligence Division for questioning, so if you want to speak to them, they're still there."

"Do we know who changed the guard duty?"

Yugao shook her head, "They said they got their shift pattern and that the date had been changed. So then we went to the people who they claimed were supposed to be on duty, and they had a similar story. Unless they're all in some big collusion together, it seems like somebody played them all against each other so that nobody would be on guard at all yesterday evening."

A troubling thought indeed. This Mizuki guy wouldn't have had the authority to change the guard patterns, especially when the archives were situated in the home of the hokage. Only those amongst the higher echelons of command would have the power to do that.

"So what part does our friend over there play in this?" Hanami re-scanned the list, "His name is here, but he's not a guard. He's another academy instructor." She found it hard to believe that somebody would be stupid enough to allow their name to be recorded. Mizuki might has well have worn a shirt with a giant arrow pointing to his face, "Messing with the shifts is understandable, but Mizuki couldn't have done that. It doesn't make sense."

"Another scapegoat you think?" Yugao glanced over her shoulder at the captured chūnin, "But in who's place?"

Hanami grinned behind her mask,

"I think it's time we spoke to our friend over there."

Mizuki quailed as the three masked anbu operatives turned towards him, but stuck his chin out defiantly, nonetheless. Hanami felt adrenaline building within her, the tips of her fingers itching for blood. This was her second favourite part of the job. She crouched on one knee beside the incapacitated chūnin, and he spat at her, bloody droplets of saliva hitting the front of her mask. Tenzō leapt forward immediately, but she held up a hand to stop him.

"I admire your gall, Mizuki, I really do," She yanked his headband, worn like a bandana, off his head, making sure to take some scalp with it, and cleaned the spit with the material, "But I was under the impression you're supposed to spit at people whose faces aren't covered? But then again…" She cocked her head to one side, loving every moment of the part she was playing, "You haven't exactly displayed any intelligence throughout this ordeal, have you?"

"Fuck you." He looked sullen now, like an adolescent caught sneaking out at night, but he watched her hand like a hawk as she slowly pulled off one of her gloves. There was still sticky blood smeared over her palm, "What are you doing?"

"Let one of his hands free," She instructed, and the wood release retracted slightly, allowing one of his arms to fall free. She reached out for it, but Mizuki began to swing his arm from side to side, flailing almost comically in his attempts to stay clear of her touch. She entertained him for a short while, then brought the kunai hidden in her robe sleeve down into the centre of his palm, pinning it to the ground. He screamed, eyes wide, wild with pain and hatred. She took hold of his air and twisted his head to face her,

"We both know somebody with your average skills couldn't even begin to make any use of the Scroll of Sealing. What were you really trying to do?"

He said nothing, only averted his eyes from her. She reached down, almost lazily, and snapped one of his fingers. The sound that came out of his mouth was almost animalistic, a howl that echoed between the trees. It sent a shiver down her spine, not of horror, but of pleasure. For good measure, she snapped another, and his groan of agony sent another delicious wave coursing through her body.

"Was the scroll really meant for you? Or was it for somebody else? Who changed the guard rotation, Mizuki?"

He was convulsing in his efforts to escape from his prison, his now twisted hand twitching hideously, but still he didn't say anything. She took hold of his wrist, yanking the kunai out violently. Blood began to sprout from the wound,

"This is your last chance."

To his credit, he said nothing. She broke his wrist with a sickening snap. His feet kicked, stamping against the ground, trying, and failing to keep his cry between his gritted teeth. She stood, staring down at him with disgust,

"Yugao, Tenzō. Take him to Ibiki. His techniques are a little more… refined than mine."

At mention of Ibiki's name, Mizuki immediately began to speak,

"No! Not that madman! Please, I'll tell you what you want to know."

It was tempting, but she had to follow through, "Too late. I'm bored with you now. Ibiki, on the other hand, will have all the time in the world with you." And she kicked him hard in the face, knocking him unconscious, "He'll be easier for you to carry now."

She and Tamashi watched as the second and third carried the broken man away. She closed her eyes, waiting for the frisson to subside, but it remained, building within her until sweat began to bead on her forehead.

"Uh… Captain?" Tamashi had edged to her side. She blinked, trying to snap out of her fervour, "I wanted to tell you something about that Naruto boy."

"Go ahead."

"It was the strangest thing, Captain," He said, under his breath although there was nobody around, "I checked him over before you arrived. An academy student fighting a chūnin like Mizuki… Mizuki isn't much to write home about; you'd think Naruto'd get pretty beat up, but there was nothing on him whatsoever, not even a scratch."

It was an important observation, and Tamashi had done well to notice. Was it something to do with the fox demon inside him or was this boy more than people expected him to be? She thought on it, eyes narrowing behind her mask.

"Leave it out of your report."

"Captain?" Tamashi stared at her in shocked, "I-I mean of course! But may I ask why?"

"We will report it directly to Lord Hokage. If he has healing abilities due to the fox's chakra, it's important we keep it out of any official documentation," Why did she feel strangely protective of the kid, all of a sudden? "Everything to do with him stays classified. He'll be a beacon for enemy ninja otherwise. It endangers the Leaf village, and its safety is our highest priority."

"The Anbu is very different from the Medical Corps."

"Hm?" He was usually too nervous around her to carry on a conversation more than necessary. He was staring straight ahead (presumably, she couldn't really tell through his mask), and he sounded distant,

"In the Medical Corps, they teach us that the Leaf Village is good, that we uphold values and protecting our teammates comes before any mission. It's not true, is it? It's supposed to be, but it's not." He continued before she could speak, "We killed the leader of a country so the Land of Fire can take second-hand control of it. We do the darkest things the village keeps hidden, just so nobody else sees."

She couldn't help but allow the slightest of chuckles to escape from her lips,

"So you realised? It usually takes a bit longer for people to see. Everything they teach at the Academy is a lie. All the values they teach on the outside are lies. The medical corps, the operations unit, they live off these false ideals, because they don't know, or choose not to see, what really goes on underneath." She felt the anger bubbling in her gut, "Do you know why I came to the village?"

He didn't say anything. It weas the same reaction everyone had when the subject came up, because the truth was that they all knew, or at least suspected, and nobody wanted to admit it.

"I came to the village after I killed my family. Not just my family, but most of my clan," Itachi's face flashed painfully in her memory, "And instead of locking me away, Lord Hokage turned me into a child-soldier so that I could kill people for the village instead. This village is full of people who have been made to do the most despicable things in the name of the Leaf Village. Most of them are brainwashed because they send them to the Academy before they're old enough to think, and then they get taught what to think." The bitterness tasted like bile in her mouth, "Its good you've seen it Tamashi, but now it will eat you inside. Can you handle that?"

He was staring at her like he'd never seen her before, and she didn't need to see his face to know that it was contorted with horror, "I… I don't know anymore."

"Decide quickly," She touched him briefly on the shoulder as she passed him, "The Anbu doesn't wait for your morals to catch up with you. Its best you leave them behind."

She decided to walk back to the village with the early morning, a rare opportunity to enjoy the sunlight. Most of her work was done at night, or if not at night, in darkness, so to see the pale blue of the morning sky was something of a phenomenon. She would never have admitted it, but she was exhausted. The mission in the Land of Waves had been one of her first S-ranks since returning to duty a few months ago, and it had been a long one at that. Her body ached from a week of intense activity and little sleep, and she doubted after her performance earlier that Team Ro would be granted the leave they had so desperately wanted. The people of the village had a saying that the people who came and went from the village without eating were the Anbu, and there was more than a hint of truth to that; they just didn't have the time. Most operatives lived a life solely for the job, they had no families, few acquaintances outside the role- it made things easier for everybody. Hanami's unique circumstances made things a little different; but was all par for the course. Her life revolved around the Anbu, around being a ninja. There was little else she knew now; little else she was good at.

And she was good.

Her ninja training had begun a long time before she came to the village. The Hoshikusa knew a little of chakra control, although they were not ninja themselves, but Hanami had had a teacher, somebody secret who only came when nobody else was looking, somebody who had whispered things in her ear. He'd been there for as long as she could remember, although she had long forgotten what he looked like. He had taught her Taijutsu, the hand seals, how to use a weapon, but he must have been imaginary, for nobody else believed her when she tried to tell them. Perhaps she had taught herself? When Lord Danzō had entered her into the Academy, it had taken her less than a year to graduate, miles ahead of her classmates, except for one.

Itachi Uchiha.

They were cousins. Hanami's mother had been the sister of Lord Fugaku, Itachi's father, but when she wanted to leave to marry Hanami's father she had been banished, expelled from the clan for such a shameful match. For a highborn member of the most elite clan to marry a… a gypsy… it was unheard of. Hanami and Itachi had been pitted against each other, and he had always been one step ahead. They hadn't been placed on the same squad when they became Genin at first, but then some sort of accident or attack had happened, leaving Itachi by himself. She had been moved to his squad, with a silent boy named Yōji Aburame-

"Why did you do it, Itachi? Why did you do it?"

The smell of burning meat filled her nostrils, but something was wrong. She had smelled something similar before, in the midst of battle. She turned her tear-streaked face towards the black fire that raged a few feet from where she knelt. She could see something in the flames.

She screamed.

Why was she reminiscing about things from the past that couldn't be changed. She struck the side of her head hard with the heel of her hand in an attempt to beat the memories away. It made her left ear ring, and it wasn't until a trickle of blood ran down the side of her face that she realised she'd been standing still for quite some time, hitting herself.

No wonder they think I'm insane, she thought wryly, Is insane the same as broken? It was always harder for her to maintain control over the damage her life had done to her when she was tired, or during the day when she couldn't hide herself in the shadows. She knew that if she returned home now and tried to rest, it would be bad. The paranoia would begin to creep up from the floorboards, the dreams would begin the moment she closed her eyes. She never felt safe when she was at home, and the self-destructive behaviours, the self-harm, the delusions, the hallucination, all got worse the moment she stepped through the gates of the Hoshikusa compound. It was why she avoided it at all costs, despite the kind faces there.

When the first anxiety-ridden palpitations began in her chest, she knew she had pushed herself as far as she could go today. She needed to think about work, needed to be given something to do. She began to run, using the natural power of her body, rather than what ninjutsu gave it, to push herself forward. It wasn't just a gentle jog, it was a full-speed sprint, the same she had used to do with Itachi and Shisui when the three of them trained together, the type of run that would make her sick when she finished. She could do it for hours, but fitness wasn't the goal right now, the goal was distraction. The journey back to the village proper took less than fifteen minutes, and she'd barely broken a sweat by the time she stood in the main street two minutes later.

Chief Zō had ordered her to see him as soon as Naruto had been located, but as far as she was concerned, he could shove his sword up his arse. He could wait until she was ready, that way she would have control over the situation. For all his threats and bluster, there was little he could do with Lord Hokage's say so, and he would never allow Zō to expel her from the Anbu. She was too valuable, in part to her political standing as well as her abilities. She was a princess, after all, and for whatever reason they considered her an asset. Besides, she was one of the few ninja who specialised in dealing with "crowds."

She should have gone to Lord Hokage to give her report, but she had already sent Sumūzu, and considering almost the entire shinobi force had been called to attend this fiasco, it was likely there was a queue outside the door to his office of people waiting to give him their reports. Arguably, she should have pushed to the front since Team Ro had been the ones to successfully bring in the real culprit, but Sumūzu was more than capable of making a brief report. She would visit Lord Third later, when she needed an excuse to not see the Chief.

There was something she could do. Something that would soothe the boil that had been seething beneath her skin since she'd broken Mizuki's fingers… and when she'd been flying over the village with Aoshun, she had noticed a light on in a certain window, a light she hadn't expected to be on for a least a week or so…

She turned her head in the direction of his apartment and vanished.

It had been going on for about a year now. It would have been inappropriate whilst they were on the same squad, especially as he had been the captain, and she seven years younger than him, as well as the effect such dalliances would have on missions, but there was little holding them back now. As she climbed the stairs up to his apartment, she felt the familiar anticipation rising, making the tips of her fingers twitch like pins and needles. It had been a little too long since the last time for her liking.

Kakashi Hatake. The Copy Ninja. She'd been paired with him from the start, when the Uchiha refused to train her Sharingan. He was like her, an outsider who had somehow come into possession of one of those crimson eyes, although it would be a long time before he told her the story. He'd trained her for her chūnin exam, and it had been natural that she and Itachi had been placed in Team Ro under his leadership. Three Sharingan users on one squad, they were feared across the world. She'd been more than a little disappointed when Lord Hokage ordered him to leave the Anbu two years ago, to become a sensei of all the hideous jobs, but as one of the village's strongest jōnin, and a member of the operations unit, it was his obligation. Hanami would sooner shit in her hand and clap than do that job.

The first time it happened had been unexpected. They had been on separate missions that ended up turning into the same one; he to enter a warzone between two non-shinobi villages to find the cause and stop it, she to infiltrate both camps and assassinate the leaders of both sides. Something had gone wrong; information hadn't been passed over correctly, and the leader she hadn't killed yet had activated an insane suicidal move, blowing up himself and his entire village in the process. They had just managed to escape by throwing themselves over the edge of the waterfall, the water in the lake below protecting them from any major injuries. They had resurfaced, and all it took was a look, the way his narrowed eyes saw all of her, how his hair had fallen into his face, and they were tugging feverishly at each other clothes. He'd covered her mouth as he fucked her on the lakeshore, an act almost animalistic in their desire to work off the bloodlust and adrenaline clouding their vision.

They were not in a relationship. A romantic relationship between two people such as them would have been foolhardy to say the least, and close relationships were somewhat… hard, for people such as them. Physical wounds weren't the only damage inflicted on the shinobi as a result of the life they lived; the mental scars ran even deeper, with even darker consequences. Hanami and Kakashi both had plenty scars of both kinds. Hanami knew, deep down, that her introduction to death and killing at such a young age had permanently twisted her inner self into a nasty creature, a monster who pushed away the feelings of terror and pain by inflicting it on others and forcing herself to feel nothing at all. Even Kakashi, who to many was the image of a perfect ninja, had dark eyes from the nightmares that woke him every night, his hands raw and chapped from his desperation to wash away the blood that only he could see. To put two people like that together would have been damaging for both; even if they had wanted it, the possibility of them both being pulled into a deeper pit of pain was likely the only outcome. It was better to simply enjoy each other's bodies without attachment, mindless, vigorous , sexual encounters that left both drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, the reality of their traumatic existences pushed aside for a little while longer.

They certainly both did their best to enjoy said attachment as often as needed. What had begun as single occurrence, a desperate act after a bloody battle to relieve the unbearable tension left over, had grown into a regular dalliance. After missions was the most popular, almost rewarding themselves with each other, but sometimes, if an itch needed to be scratched, before a mission was acceptable too. Then it had progressed beyond missions; a fire would be ignited if they merely crossed paths in the street, and once, the most thrilling act, he had approached her from behind, pressed a kunai into her back, and whispered words in her ear that had forced them both into the nearest alley, where he had taken her against the wall, his hand clamped firmly over her mouth.

As she neared his door, she pushed her sensory capabilities outwards. He was definitely home, and even better, he was alone. She could have knocked, but she wasn't the type of person to ask when she needed something. He hadn't even left it locked anyway, almost as if he was used to her appearing at his door or window. She stepped inside, and when she closed the door behind her, she made sure it was locked.

He was leaning against the sink in the small kitchenette opposite the door, watching her expressionlessly, his arms folded across his body. His green flak jacket was slung over a coat hook by the entrance, and his blue uniform hung closely to his body, which she knew from plenty of experience was sculpted in the delicious way that men in peak physical condition often were. His headband lay on the counter beside him, and his silver hair, thick and unruly, hung across his forehead. His right eye was closed, a scar running from brow in line with the bottom of his nose, although the mask he wore obscured most of his face. She knew what hid behind the eyelid. He didn't have the ability to activate and deactivate his Sharingan like she did, so kept it hidden behind a closed eye, but when he opened it he proved that you didn't need Uchiha blood to wield their greatest weapon.

"Your mission was a success?" She asked, kicking off her shoes and unzipping the front of her armour. She didn't really care at this point, but she couldn't deny she enjoyed it when he returned.

"Of course," He observed her closely as she approached him, and she wasn't shy in removing each item of her clothes, one at a time, as he watched. If he had an opinion on her scars, he'd never voiced them, and she'd have knocked him out if he'd tried, "Aren't you going to tell me about your day first?" He was always so droll with his sarcasm.

She pushed past him, taking him by the arm and pulling him after her into his bedroom,

"I was hoping you'd help me forget, actually."