Hello sweet ones! Once again I, your beloved Goddess, has returned! And how are you?
Now, I know that there were some questions with chapter 92 about who Anzu got with (obviously, since I just skipped over the entire subject), and so I have decided to bring you the answers here.
It got a bit out of hand, but after a hundred(!) chapters, I'm used to it now.
It still makes me cry sometimes though.
"Chinatsu! Yumi! Look at my new dress!" Anzu happily cheered as she came up to her two closest friends, twirling so that the pleated skirt of said garment could flare out impressively as she spun. There were the necessary and appreciative 'ooh's and 'ahh's from the two girls, and Anzu grinned at them happily. "My daddy got it for me when he was on an escort mission in Kiri." She told them proudly.
"It's really nice." The little brunette girl with neon green glasses—Chinatsu—told her, the strawberry blonde beside her nodding happily.
"Thanks you two." Anzu said happily, giving in to the temptation to do another little twirl. "I really really like it." She confided in them, "In fact, I think this might be my new favorite dr-"
As she had been talking she had been to caught up in her little story to notice the presence coming closer and closer to her until it was too late, the person running into her and slamming into her back, knocking her off of her feet and down into a nearby mud puddle.
Anzu gasped in shock as she felt the muddy water soak into the fabric of her skirt, ruining the pretty white fabric. Jerking her head up she glared tearfully up at the boy who had just knocked her over as he jumped up to race back to the brothers he had apparently been wrestling with.
"My bad!" Takashi called back to her as he ran off, and Anzu's tears quickly evaporated in the heat of her glare.
"Excuse me?" She screeched shrilly, the boy jerking to a stop to glance back at her, aggravated.
"I said it was my bad. You know, knocking you over?" He said, speaking to her as if she were a particularly slow child.
"And do you somehow think that that is an excuse?" She shrieked, forcing the Inuzaka boy to wince at just how high-pitched her voice was.
"What? Do you want me to say I'm sorry or something? I'm sorry. There." He said, making as if to turn back around to continue on to his brothers. Anzu growled as she shoved herself up, stomping over to the boy and grabbing his arm to whip him back around, digging her nails in harshly until he narrowed his eyes at her, hissing at the stinging pain.
"Do you really think that a simple 'I'm sorry' that you don't even really mean is going to be enough? You ruined my dress!"
"Well, it wasn't like it was all that pretty." He said dismissively, and all of the girls that were sitting in the schoolyard waiting for classes to begin gasped while the boys just shook their heads at the boy's stupidity. Anzu nearly stumbled back at the force of his blow before she narrowed her eyes at him, stepping forward to dig a finger into his chest as she hissed into his face.
"How dare you? How dare you pretend like you have something even resembling a fashion-sense you mentally stunted mutt? Not only do you slam me into the ground and ruin my dress, but then you insult me and my dress? Just who do you think you are?"
He narrowed his eyes at her as he bared his teeth, shoving her back a step so he could get into her face in turn. "And who do you think you are, you little twit?"
Anzu's glare burned brighter as she narrowed her eyes at the boy, hissing at him through her teeth. "Mongrel."
He narrowed his eyes in turn and growled. "Dumb blonde."
"Filthy beast."
"Shallow little girl."
"Stupid little boy."
"Self-centered bitch." He hissed, and Anzu couldn't help her shocked gasp or the step she took in retreat. Just as a victorious smirk started to grow on his face Anzu's hurt fell away to instead be replaced by rage and she stepped forward, her fist snapping out to hit him solidly in the jaw, forcing him off balance to fall to the slightly muddy ground.
Not minding the dirt anymore, at least not in the face of the fury that threatened to consume her, Anzu hitched her skirt up to straddle the boy, fists cracking out as he cursed. She heard the ninken barking and his brothers saying something, but she couldn't quite catch what it was since it was at that moment that one of Takashi's fists came out and hit her soundly on the chin, making her head snap back as she saw stars. They tumbled around on the ground for a few moments before Anzu felt somebody pulling her up and off, easily restraining her swinging arms and legs.
And then she heard those four damning words:
"I'm calling your parents."
They both sat in uncomfortable wooden chairs with a parent on each side, both of them fidgeting uncomfortably as they glanced from mother to father and then back again, both trying to figure out just how in trouble they were. Anzu flinched as the teacher explained what had happened—fighting and rolling around in the mud were so very unladylike—and she could only hang her head in shame at the thought of what she had done to her pretty white dress her father had just gotten just for her.
It was a travesty. Not even the split lip, the bruised jaw and the blackened eyes she had given to Takashi could ever make up for it.
"What did you call her?" A cool voice cut through the air, forcing Anzu's head up as she looked around her father to find that Takashi's mother was staring down at him like he was the most detestable being her ice cold eyes had ever seen, and Anzu's breath couldn't help but catch at just how beautiful and professional and amazing the woman looked.
It was so strange that such demon spawn had come from someone that looked so utterly perfect.
Takashi mumbled the answer under his breath, but sharp glares from both of his parents forced him to repeat it louder. "A bitch. But she hit me!"
"Only because you called me such a mean name!" She protested, her mother just barely able to hold her back.
"Yeah, well you deserved it!"
"Young man." The snap of his mother's voice forced him back from the edge of his seat as he looked up at the frigid face that was nothing more than a pale porcelain mask of the livid beast his mother truly was at that moment. "That does not sound like an apology, which is what should be coming from that mouth of yours right now."
Takashi glared down at the grain of the wood of the floor for a moment before finally muttering out a sorry, and his head was forced up violently when his mother's sharp nails bit into his ear as she jerked.
"I do believe that there is a bit more to it, and you need to say it to her face, young man."
Looking up and wincing slightly from the bite of pain radiating from the hold his mother had on his ear, Takashi glared at the mud covered blonde. "I am very sorry, Anzu. I deeply apologize for my actions." He growled out, and even covered in mud with a bruise coloring her face Anzu managed to look down on the boy.
"I do not accept." She told him shortly, crossing her arms over her chest imperiously. Of course, her mother hissing her name and grabbing onto her arm to insist she do the proper and ladylike thing forced her to reconsider the wording.
"Thank you for the apology." She bit out. "I gladly accept."
And as their parents congratulated themselves on fixing the entire situation and avoiding another fight, Anzu and Takashi's eyes met and they shared a single look that shared their every feeling with one another.
I utterly despise you, their glares told each other. And as they were dragged in the opposite directions of their homes they both knew that pure hatred was the only thing that they would ever feel for each other.
Nine years later...
"You have got to be kidding me." Anzu muttered to herself when she saw just who had been sent to back her team up for the mission they were on. She had been hoping for someone competent. Someone who would be able to help her team to properly deal with the group of rouge-nin that had taken over the mansion that had once belonged to what had once been an affluent businessman, though his body was now nothing more that a lawn ornament that the nin had set up to stake their claim.
But no. Instead she had been sent Inuzaka Takashi and his brothers, and now their was no way this mission was going to succeed without a migraine and a lot of damage control on her part.
"Oh no, Akimichi, there isn't a joke in sight." Takashi assured her condescendingly as Anzu glared at him, cursing his damned chakra enhanced hearing.
"That's strange." She murmured, crossing her arms over her chest as she cocked her hip, "Because it seems that I'm looking at the biggest joke there is."
They on opposite ends of the little clearing glaring at each other as they built up their arsenal of taunts in their minds to get ready for coming verbal war they were about to have, though they were interrupted by Arata stepping between them, hands raised pacifyingly.
"Children," He sighed, "I do believe that we are on a mission, and that your taunts should wait until after we have apprehended all of the bad guys. Right?" He prompted, looking back and forth between the two. They both nodded sullenly, and Arata shot Anzu the same charming smile that had managed to easily smooth talk a great deal of the available female population into thinking he was irresistible, from what she had heard.
Of course, having known him since before they were in the academy and during the time he was more interested in mud pies that girl—and more importantly knowing his brother—Anzu was completely immune.
After that first initial little episode, everything went smoothly as she explained the plan to the boys. Everyone agreed on splitting up the two teams in pairs to better take advantage of the skills that would be necessary, but for the life of her Anzu could not recall how it came about that she and Takashi had ended up paired together.
Though, they did seem to work well together when they stopped arguing.
"Six down this hall." He silently mouthed to her and she nodded, all of them moving at the same instant. Some how they managed to work around each other perfectly, almost as if they had been fighting together for years, Takashi and Ginmaru moving back just when her attacks required for them to do so while she did the same for theirs, all of this done without words or anything more than glancing looks.
In the aftermath while the six enemies lay beaten and subdued on the ground, Anzu's and Takashi's eyes met for a moment in appreciation. Takashi was opening his mouth to give her the first non-snarky remark between them in years when Anzu spotted a strange shift in the shadows behind him.
Pumping her chakra into her fist she forced it and her entire arm to grow, launching it past the unknowing Takashi to pin the seventh nin to the wall, stopping him just in time to stop him from taking out the boy.
Returning her arm back to normal to allow the now unconscious nin to fall to the ground, Anzu whirled around to glare at the Inuzaka fool.
"I thought you said that there were only six! What good are your stupid enhanced Inuzaka senses if they don't even work?!" She hissed, making all of the thankfulness the boy had been feeling fly away, almost as if it had never been.
"What? It isn't like it's my fault that he hid behind this guy's stank right here! He hasn't had a bath in weeks, and it was a little hard to get past that!" He shouted right back at her, both of them marching past the unconscious bodies that lay on the floor to stand toe to toe.
"Oh? Well that stupid mistake of yours almost cost you your life!"
"Ha! Like that guy could have taken me down. As if!" Takashi declared, and Ginmaru sighed at the two's actions as he went to curl up in the corner to wait for them to be done.
"Oh yes," Anzu scoffed, "Because you are so strong and powerful that you would have been able to dodge a hit to the heart from a kunai you hadn't even seen coming."
"You..." Takashi growled, raising his hand threateningly, though Anzu only tilted her chin in a dare as their burning eyes remained connected.
And all of the sudden she felt herself being pushed back into the wall, a hard and demanding mouth covering hers and swallowing up her protests, though the hold he had on her shoulders did nothing to stop her arms from coming between them and shoving him back as hard as she could.
"What the hell do you think you are doing?" She hissed as she shoved him once more for good measure before grabbing his shirt in her fists to turn the both of them around, shoving him into the uncomfortable wall and smashing her mouth back onto his, feeling the bite of his hands on her hips as their tongues tangled. They pulled away from each other just once, and that was only so that Takashi could pull a kunai from her pouch to take care of the nin that had stirred and had started to reach for his own weapons, believing the two leaf shinobi to be otherwise occupied.
As their breathing raced and as their hands tangled in hair, mouths bruising one another, they had to wonder at how they had gone from the beginnings of one of their usual bouts of verbal warfare to making out against the wall of an enemy infested mansion while an unconscious group of said enemy lay at their feet.
And then they had to wonder why they hadn't ever thought to end their arguments like this before.
"I believe that this means Arata owes me his mission pay." Katsu murmured to his partner as they watched his brother and the blonde Akimichi try to devour each other. Kinmaru chuckled—because as all Inuzaka knew, a ninken could very well chuckle if it wanted to—and they both shot a quick look to Ginmaru, and the amused look he sent them assured them that he'd keep an eye on the two of them in case it escalated too far.
When the two of them returned to the grouping of the two teams minus their accomplished and currently entangled leaders, Anzu's two teammates sent the Inuzaka and his partner questioning looks when they noticed that said leaders were nowhere to be seen. Arata only had to see the mocking light in his brother's eyes and the laughing one that filled Kinmaru's to make the correct assumptions.
"Damn it." He groaned, seeing all of his pretty mission pay flying away. "Couldn't they just hold onto their hormones for another month or two?"
"Oh, afraid not." Katsu said easily, gloating happily. "Now lets leave them alone for a bit. No need to ruin them before they even really begin."
"A month's worth of mission pay says differently." Arata muttered, but he still went after his brother when he turned to leave the building, the two clueless boys from Anzu's team following them upon a sea of confusion.
Okay, as soon as my darling Kathy paired the two of these up I knew that they would hate each other as children, but the whole making out in the hall way? It escalated quite quickly, along with Anzu's character. She became more headstrong and violent (only when provoked!) than I had thought of her as, but I suppose that she would have had to be growing up with Ino as her mother and Ringo as... Ringo.
Thank you all for the congratulations for my graduating, and now to say a "howdie-doo" to my newest sweeties-
Arch-Magos Winter- Shino... Well, I just can't see myself writing him. I don't feel comfortable with his character (if you can understand what I'm saying, maybe?), but in honor of one of my favorite Naruto fanfics Into the Future, I paired him with Hana. He'll probably make an appearance in some chapters, but I really cant see myself writing him.
stronger13- Thank you!
And now to others-
JacksonKid3- Of course you can! I'd actually love for you to comment on each of my chapters, because everything you kind souls have to say to me just makes my day soooo much better! And all of these questions and more will be answered, in later episodes of "Naruto Ever After" (haha, I said that in a funny TV man voice in my head.)