"What's wrong?" Anko asked, as he tugged at her foot.

"Wait."

Wrapping the electrical cords round his arm, he used chakra to anchor him to the spot before he made the hand signs. With a poof of smoke a clone appeared beneath him. Kakashi moved to one side creating room for his clone to get past. The riser was small - not intended to accomodate people.

Climbing over him quickly and carelessly, he seemed to make a point of elbowing Kakashi as he passed.

**What's with the attitude buddy?!**

Now level with Anko, she had moved to give him room too but suddenly he was unconcerned with the lack of space. Pace slowed considerably as he reached her, the clone pulled his torso up, pressing himself against her calves, thighs, then her hip, as his hand brushed hers.

**Oh, very intimate.**

The clone brought his other hand up, one long, slow and unbroken stroke up her body, before it rested on wires next to her chest

**...**

**Noooooo.**

The clone was past her now, his groin loitered at her eye level before he was up and out. With her free hand Anko slowly fanned herself, looking down at the real Kakashi, more than a little entertained by his expression.

**Yeah, yeah, laugh it up**

They were only seconds behind him, but in that time he had created an earth wall and shed the maintenance uniform and held a number of shuriken in one hand.

"Archives," she mouthed, before the mask came up. "2 o'clock."

The archive was essentially a bookcase on an enormous scale - a perfect marriage of form and function - in place of corporate artwork or a trite water feature. It filled the recess behind the reception desk, taking up one side of the entire building. There must have been thousands of books and scrolls behind the glass.

Leaping from the gallery, he sped past the guards who were woefully ill-equipped to deal with shinobi. They had fired metal bolts from crossbows after him, but the fastest guard was only able to make contact with his shadow.

**Chsnkkk!**

Metal canisters scuttled towards them, emitting thick, angry plumes of smoke. His lungs burned, and eyes streamed as he was temporarily blinded by the smoke, only reassured of Anko's nearby presence by the sound of her coughing beside him. No protection had been afforded by the fabric masks. Suddenly, pain spiked, he touched the spot on his thigh and found it, a syringe dart loaded with that all-too-familiar iridescent sheen and his heart sank as he memories that weren't his swamped him.

Yanking out another syringe from his stomach, plunger fully distintended. Frustration caused him to fling it on the floor and crush it underfoot. Fingers formed signs, but in place of a fireball jutsu a flame like that from a candle flickered and died on his lips. Anko emerged from the smoke, he watched her pull a syringe from her shoulder and another from her neck.

"Clone?"

"Shit."

Both looked towards the archive which loomed large. Without jutsu the only hope of destroying the lab lay in their bombs and traversing the lower ground now saturated with guards.

"Well?"

Anko nodded in agreement, her mouth set in a grim line. Leaping first, Anko landed like a cat, centre of gravity close to the ground and leg extended. Kakashi followed, and the ring of guards tightened with more than two dozen surrounding them. The guards nearest them flicked their batons out, and they ran towards them.

"Kakashi?"

"Yes?"

"Don't let them hit you," she said with a grin.

**Thanks - such great advice Anko.**

The guards were trained and skilled in hand-to-hand combat, not at the level of shinobi but enough to pose a problem. Kakashi parried and blocked the advances with ease, his movements were economical, without flourish like Anko. Watching her out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hands on the guard's back bringing his groin in to meet the full force of her knee. Kakashi winced, as he felt a pang of sympathy radiating from the same region.

Exploiting Kakashi's lapse of attention, a guard struck him hard across his lower back.

**Really?**

Grabbing his wrist, Kakashi held him in place as he launched a foot into his armpit hearing a sickening crunch as the man collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony. Half of the guards were on the floor now. Though only one or two guards engaged them at a time, the others rained blows on them from the baton.

Faced with a woman - fast, tenacious and revelling in the violence. Her baton had connected with him more than any other, but he had seen an opening, he brought his foot up in an arc intending to unbalance her. Anticipating it, she had leapt up but he had the baton preventing her from driving it down. An elbow to her face would have ended it but he hesitated for a fraction of a second. With a smirk, she twisted the base and another part of the baton shot into his stomach with the force of a punch.

**That's what you get for being a sexist Hatake. **

But he didn't hesitate again, and she was down. The guards lay around them now groaning and barely moving. Panting with exhaustion, sick with an influx of adrenaline, as all parts of his body protested loudly.

**Pain can wait.**

"The desk." Anko shouted, shoving him towards the marble reception area.

He vaulted over the desk. There was a glass door sealing the entrance to an antechamber which moderated the temperature and atmospheric conditions of the books and scrolls organised around a rectangular pillar. An ornamental staircase spiralling up the outside.

**How the hell are we going to get in?**

"Both keys need to be turned for the doors to open," she shouted over her shoulder, already at the panel closest to them.

"Down there!"

The panel was sign posted. Throwing the door open and he turned the key closest to him. One of two lights above the entrance to the archive flashed green. Racing her there, he waited for the other light but it only flashed and died. Anko tried it again, the light glowed then spluttered and died.

**Shit.**

"Kakashi, it won't stay in place -."

"Ko!"

Tiger was walking towards them, she was at the other side of the lobby, 50 metres away. Fury animated every feature of her face. She held the crossbow at them, closing an eye to focus her aim. It was idiocy, the bolt would never hit them if it continued on the trajectory...

Then full force of another decision he had not been party to manifested in an explosion of pain and confusion. Thrown violently into the antechamber by the blast, glass shattered around him. Kakashi had gotten access to the archives alright but at what cost?

Anko was separated from him on the wrong side of the glass. Because of course she had stayed to hold the key in place to give him access.

How had he missed it? Tiger had been aiming for the oxygen cylinders stored in the emergency grab bags for medics - knowing that the electrified bolt would trigger the blast.

Glass crunched underfoot as he ran to the door. Anko was crumpled in a heap, but her head turned towards him. Both lights had now died, there was no way through for either of them.

**Go!**

**For fuck sake Anko! You are a fucking lunatic.**

**Go!**

Thumping the glass furiously, finding it impossible to leave her. But Anko leaving him. Slinking away, as she flipped him the finger over her shoulder, smirking as though she could hear the litany of abuse he was hurling after her as she prepared to face Tiger alone.

**You're not leaving her to die - she's a big girl. You need to finish it Hatake. **

Grinding his teeth, anger and fury drove him, he worked fast positioning kunai, and setting paper bombs, allowing himself glimpses of the fight. Kakashi needed to trust her skills, she was a shinobi of the leaf too. Now at the top of the archive, he was able to admire the intricate pattern he had created with the metal wire, like a spider web. There was one emergency exit that had another glass antechamber leading to the roof, it had only one switch that he could see. Go, she had said. She had given him the finger even but despite that, how could he do it with her still inside?

**Come on, Hatake. Come on.**

He had only minutes, seconds until it was going to blow. Cradling his last paper bomb he ran, scrabbled and free-fell down the length of the building barely connecting to the fire escape or fabric of the building. Up ahead he spotted her, he lit the paper bomb and threw it against the reinforced glass.

**Boooooom!**

Throwing himself on the ground - hoping she would understand that it was only a dress rehearsal before the big show. Too soon it happened.

**Booooooooooooooooooooooooooommmmm!**

The bombs had been set to detonate close together so it sounded like one continuous blast instead of a series of smaller ones. Pushing himself up, disorientated, senses and reason almost completely evading him. The door to the lab.

**Where is she?**

Up ahead, silhouettes danced in the smoke, his heart leapt and sank in the same moment. Anko climbed her body, foot to knee to shoulder, wrapping her legs around her neck trying to cut off her air supply but Tiger only fell, slamming Anko into the ground. It was a dirty fight, Anko had pressed every advantage but she was badly injured, so speed and training weighed less against Tiger's brute strength and her killing intent.

A hand reached for her kunai pouch but she pulled it back empty. God he had never felt the weighty presence of his own weapons as much as he did 's mouth curved into a grin, cruel and triumphant and awful.

Dodging the attack, Tiger grabbed Anko's bad wrist, twisting it until she was on the ground contorting in pain. A sickness stewed in Kakashi, as he watched powerless. Tiger dragged Anko towards the wall, she took a fire extinguisher to a glass cabinet. With the glass shattering, came an awful realisation.

**The fire axe. Oh God the fire axe.**

With renewed anxiety, he rammed the door, frantic with fear.

**No! Not another fucking comrade.**

A kick with brutal force, into Anko's stomach, followed by another then another before finally she curled into the foetal position.

**No! No!**

Using her boot she pinned Anko's good arm in place, disregarding the other as it lay almost redundant across Anko's stomach.

**No!**

One backwards swing then the axe hung in the air above Anko, before she would bring it down.

**NO! WAIT!**

Metal glinted in a way that was senseless but there was no mistake. Anko held one last kunai in her hand, that wasn't as fucked as she had let them believe. Driving it up, she carved a deep path along Tiger's femoral artery. Without hesitation a deep slice opening the artery on her other thigh, mirroring the damage to the first.

And the axe... the axe was now falling the wrong way. Slipping through Tiger's fingers behind her back clattering on the ground, then landing with the handle between her legs as rivulets of blood ran down her leg soaking her uniform from blue to black. Slumping on to her knees, like a puppet who had its strings cut. Disbelief etched on to her face.

**Oh dear, sweet god, it had been a motherfucking feint all along.**

Kakashi could have cried from relief. A bold and brilliant and wonderful deception from that little actress that had meant she lives.

As Tiger's blood pooled beneath her, it seemed the anger and need for violence leeched out too. Tiger reached for Anko and in those last lonely moments before death, all had been forgiven. And it didn't matter that Anko had been the architect of her demise. Anko had cupped Tiger's face, as their lips met. It felt like an intrusion witnessing this perverse act of intimacy but they were all unified in her death.

**Don't look away Hatake - when you dance with death -**

**this is how it ends.**

Was this another performance? But even at that distance, he saw tears running down Anko's face, clearing tracts down through the soot. Tiger gripped her arm, hand on her neck but her grasp soon slackened. Gently, Anko allowed the weight of Tiger's body to meet the ground.

Suddenly she was back through the doors with him, and they ran together in silence. He reached out to her, urging her to go on, reassuring her by the needless contact.

It was over.