They were sparring in a free for all battle, when a ninja in a Chunin vest Shunshined into the vicinity. Immediately, they were all facing him, kunai drawn defensively.

The Chunin bared his teeth in a grin, 'Twitchy, aren't you?'

The boys bristled.

'Who the hell are you?' demanded Naruto, as he lowered his kunai, but didn't sheathe it.

The Chunin dug into his vest and smirked as they twitched again at the movement. He produced a scroll from his pocket and tossed it at Naruto. 'You've been assigned a mission.' With that he immediately disappeared in a flurry of leaves.

Naruto hastily unrolled the scroll. Sasuke and Sakura were on either side in a flash. It was assigned a D-rank like all the missions they'd been taking recently.

'At least it isn't painting fences or catching cats.' Sasuke grumbled.

They were in the forest surrounding the village. In his desire to do something other than paint fences or catch cats, Sasuke had led them through the trees at a fast pace. They were all panting by the time they stopped at a clearing and looked slightly incredulously at the destruction: trees had been snapped cleanly into two, and deep furrows lead deeper into the forest.

'What in the world could create furrows like that?' Sakura asked nervously.

Sasuke had a familiar gleam in his eye, 'Let's find out,' as he bent his legs in order to spring back into the trees and follow the strange tracks.

Naruto grabbed his arm. 'Hold on, it looks pretty big, whatever it is. We should make a plan before we rush in.'

Sakura, who had tensed to follow Sasuke, nodded in relieved agreement.

They ended up sending a Naruto clone to investigate and report back. While they were waiting for the clone to return, Sasuke paced in excited impatience, and Naruto sat besides Sakura underneath a tree and started regaling her with the story of the finest prank he had pulled off and how Iruka had caught up to him before anyone else-

They were interrupted by kunai rushing towards them. Sasuke, who was on his feet, reacted instantly and withdrew one of his own to parry, Sharingan activating instinctively. He tried to cover Naruto and Sakura as far as he could. Naruto and Sakura in turn tried desperately to roll out of range. Sakura ended up behind the tree they'd been sitting under and Naruto sprung into the branches. Neither had escaped unscathed: Sakura had a kunai digging into her back and one in her thigh, Naruto had kunai sticking out of a bicep. He impatiently drew the kunai out and willed the Fox to heal him, as he crossed his fingers into the Kage Bunshin seal which was now an instinctive reaction every time he was in a fight. He sent some to watch Sakura because he could smell her blood. Others he sent to cover Sasuke and finally, he switched his own position with a clone so that he was out of direct range of the kunai as well.

Sakura was trembling from fear and pain. She was completely incapacitated, blood leaking from her wounds, a kunai dangerously close to her femoral artery and another to her spine. It was barely a few seconds into the fight, and they were facing an unknown enemy who was good enough to have masked their presence from all three of them.

Sasuke was glad for the clones that had jumped between him and the assailant. It galled to admit it, but the stream of kunai was too thick to completely dodge on his own. As soon as he was sure Naruto and Sakura were not in the direct trajectory of the kunai, he too sprang about to change his position to not be such a sitting target. He had just leapt to a side, out of the path of the stream of kunai when he saw one of the assailants finally emerge from out of the cover of the trees. He didn't have any moment to react, she threw a kunai directly at his face, and though he tried to avoid it, it still slashed his cheek and he felt blood drip down his face. His eyes widened as he realized she'd used the kunai as distraction to Shunshin behind him. He immediately began to turn, hurling out a fist to catch her, but she grabbed his arm and when he'd finished the turn, she put a rock hard fist into his stomach. Only her grip in his arm kept him from collapsing. She leant down and her tongue licked at his slashed cheek, gathering the blood drop that'd been trailing down. Despite his breathlessness, he shuddered. Then she brought her mouth closer to his ear and hissed,

'I expected better, but I guess the rumors paint too good a picture of you. You'll never measure up to Itachi.'

Sasuke's eyes flashed a brighter shade of red, Sharingan whirling furiously as he looked up at her. He attempted to break free of her hold, but she merely flung her other arm in his face and he was suddenly staring at several hundred writhing snakes. He reared back in instinctive fear and a loathing for their reptilian yellow eyes, the blood-curdling hissing and the unnatural slithering. It was no use, within seconds his body was the surface they were slithering over. She let go of his arm and he stumbled back from her, tripped because of the snakes binding his legs together, fell onto his bottom and then his back as the snakes overwhelmed his senses. He wanted to burn these bloody crawlers to a crisp, but they'd trapped his hands and he couldn't bring his hands together to form any seals. They'd even covered his face and he felt a burst of panic as they attempted to slither into his mouth, eyes and nostrils. Soon he too was writhing on the ground, burying his face into the dirt in an attempt at dislodging them.

Naruto had just switched with a clone, so he was covered by some thick bushes. He took a second to look at his wound and tried moving his arm. It didn't feel too bad. The Fox was doing his job. He was just about to jump into the fray with Sasuke when he noticed an attacker Shunshin behind Sasuke and throw snakes into his face. His shadow clones attempted to reach Sasuke and help him out, but the woman threw senbon at them and those that got too close to Sasuke were struck by the snakes that were slithering all over him. It was a horrible sight, he could hardly see Sasuke for all the snakes. He tried to jump in but froze as he realized his feet wouldn't move. He glanced down and noticed more snakes, their bodies winding around his feet and the surrounding branches, trapping him there. One of them reared up and bared his fangs at Naruto and in a burst of primitive loathing for anything crawling, Naruto raised a kunai and attempted to slash at it. He was distracted at a snake falling onto his face from the tree above. It moved incredibly fast, twisting it's sinuous body around his neck. He dropped his kunai and brought his hands up to his neck to prevent it from choking him. More snakes crawled onto him and began winding around his arms and torso. Soon he too was on the ground, attempting to break free from the dark reptiles, panic blinding him as they tried to crawl into his eyes and mouth and nostrils.

While Naruto and Sasuke struggled, the woman slowly approached the tree behind which Sakura was hidden from immediate sight, surrounded by a circle of Naruto clones that all had kunai drawn. Sakura didn't move. She pressed her shoulder and uninjured side against the tree for support to remain standing as the footsteps drew ever closer and clutched the kunai in her hands more tightly. She saw some of the clones, not hidden from the attacker's immediate sight dispel and noticed senbon fall to the ground where they disappeared in clouds of upward-moving white smoke. She began trembling. She hated herself for it. But she couldn't stop. She could hear Naruto and Sasuke struggling somewhere behind her though they were muted, as if their mouths were shut tightly. As the last of the clones disappeared and the attacker's steps were almost at the tree, she tensed, closed her eyes and lunged with her kunai poised to sink into anything it could find. The attacker dodged easily and she fell at their feet. Her wounds jolted as she fell to her knees and her back curved. She felt the kunai shift in her skin and spurts of blood gush out. She almost blacked out from the pain, but cried out as she was grabbed by her hair and pulled back up, jolting the wounds with the kunai again. The next she knew, she was being held up, her feet not touching the ground, staring into a face. The lips twisted to show all teeth and the eyes were as hard, cold and alien as a reptile's.

'And you're the one that got Kakashi killed. Can't say I'm surprised.'

Sakura was barely conscious by this point, but it still stung and she felt more tears leak from her eyes. She hadn't realized she'd already been crying.

The snakes dragged Naruto out of the bushes, and Sasuke closer. Both were tied securely, mouths filled with snake so they couldn't speak, but their eyes were wide open now, and a familiar panic in their gut and bones. Naruto bit down viciously upon the snakes in his mouth and to his immense satisfaction, they disappeared in a puff of smoke.

'Let her go, can't you see she's hurt?!' he burst out, blue eyes wide open, looking intently at the woman, trying to make her stop with the force of his gaze.

She looked back at him, pearly teeth flashing on a face framed with dark hair. 'That's the point.'

She thrust her arm into Sakura's face and again hissing snakes emerged and began to slither onto the girl. Sakura shuddered and attempted to beat them off with her arms. The woman turned back to her, grabbed two skinny wrists in one of her hands and held them up over the girl's head. The snakes spread onto her arms, twisting and turning, reaching for the low hanging branches of the tree. When the woman let go of her hands and hair, Sakura's hands were tied together and she hung limply from the tree, blood from her wounds dripping down her legs and onto the ground below.

The woman turned to face Naruto and smiled, hand fondling a the grip of a kunai. 'You dispelled some of my snakes without permission. This is punishment for that.' She turned back to Sakura and slashed the kunai slowly down her arm, from her wrist to her armpit. Immediately, bright blood welled up, pooled along the cut and then all of a sudden began to flow and soak into Sakura's red dress.

Naruto's face turned white and he stopped struggling against the snakes. Sasuke renewed his struggle, wide-eyes and desperate, Sharingan spinning, spinning, spinning. Anko turned to him.

'Uhh, uhh, uhhh!' he gasped through a mouthful of snake, shaking his head.

'This one for your incompetence.' she told him.

She crossed over and slashed Sakura's other arm. Again, she took her time, sliding the kunai down slowly.

Naruto blinked, two drops of clear water falling from his eyes and when he opened them again, his pupils were red and his chakra was roiling.

The woman snapped her head back to him and then held the kunai to Sakura's throat.

'If either of you move, I'll cut her throat.'

Naruto trembled, but didn't move. Sasuke remained frozen, staring at the blood dripping to the ground, and remembering a dark night filled with other blood dripping off a katana and other people sliced so their blood pooled onto the dirt like that.

They stayed there like that, the woman watching the boys with flinty black eyes, the boys watching Sakura with desperate red eyes and Sakura with half-lidded green eyes, sinking closer to a welcoming blackness, away from pain.

They remained deadlocked for a few more seconds. Then the woman raised her hand, and all the snakes trapping Naruto and Sasuke reared up at once and sank their fangs into any parts of their bodies they could reach. Twin howls of pain echoed through the clearing, alarming the birds in nearby trees to flight.

The woman waved a hand and all the snakes disappeared in a giant puff of smoke that occluded both boys for a few seconds. When it was gone, the woman bent down to their prone bodies.

'You've just been injected with a very large quantity of paralyzing poison. Now you can slowly watch you teammate bleed to death as you remain paralyzed and unable to help. Goodbye! It was nice playing you, though you were all a bit dull, to tell you the truth.'

She was gone in a Shunshin leaving behind a few leaves that drifted slowly down to the ground.