AN: Sorry for getting this out later then I expected. In my defense, I started college and am still learning how to handle the workload of a chemical engineering major (think lots of math and chemistry). I won't stop writing as it is a nice break from all the technical work, but my updates might become erratic.

Reviews:
A big thank you to all of you who corrected my errors. I found a couple of good Naruto info sites so hopefully there will be a lot less errors in the future. Thanks!

Nightrain and Brownstone:
Kyuubi in not bipolar like Zetsu. Instead of having two separate personalities, he has one personality that went crazy when he fell into his worst nightmare, being trapped in Madara's Tsukuyomi. This spawned another personality that is linked to the sharingan. The second personality is always the dominant one unless someone with sharingan goes into Sasuke's mindscape and activates their sharingan. When that happens, Kyuubi's true personality comes out. The second personality will die if Kyuubi is trapped in Madara's Tsukuyomi again and breaks out of it under his own power instead of being let out of it by Madara. Hope that clears it up for you.

I know Karin is Sasuke's age. In the manga she doesn't have a background story so I am filling that blank slate and will do that for a lot of other people. I know she probably has one in the anime, but I've just started watching it and have just gotten to the Valley of the End, so she won't even be introduced for a while. That being said, I came up with the outline of this story before I started watching the anime by going off the information given in the manga and inspiration from some of my favorite fanfics. I might add stuff in from the anime if it works with my plot though. Besides, this is fanfiction where we can mess around with cannon as much as we want. (You do a great job of that in A Fox Among The Hounds by the way.)

On a final note about reviews, I finally remembered to turn on Anonymous Reviews so now everyone can review! From now on, I'll respond to signed reviews through the PM system and anonymous reviews in my posts unless a question or clarification seems important or a lot of people ask about it. This has been my favorite chapter to write so far and I hope you guys like it.


Chapter 4
The Snake Mistress

Three years later

Mitarashi Anko blinked as the remaining smoke from the summons cleared to reveal a sight she thought she would never see again. The view from the Sandaime's head of Konoha. Home. I can't believe I'm actually here. She brushed a tear out of the corner of her eye.

"Did I send you to the right place?" A thin purple snake with black stripes and bluish-green eyes slithered up from under her light purple tunic and arranged himself around Anko's neck and across her shoulders.

"Yep! Thanks Manda." Anko's face broke out in a crazy grin. "Can't believe an idea that simple would let us get away from him though. 'Specially when we got the idea from him too."

"Yes. He always did have a rather bad habit of underestimating people." Manda was on the verge of chuckling.

"Yeah, amazing what overestimating people does for your survival rate. I hope that Sarutobi's still the same as Sensei said he was. He better not mind people sneaking into his office unannounced."

"Wait, what are we doing?" Manda's forked tongue flicked Anko's earlobe.

"We are shunshining right under the window in the Hokage's office were we will stick to the wall with chakra and wait until a good opportunity presents itself where you can crawl onto Sarutobi's desk and tell him that I want to talk to him about rejoining Konoha in private. Once he says okay, I'll come up and we'll take it from there."

"That'll work unless he thinks that Orochimaru sent me to kill him."

"Well, you could just tell him you're there or you could go back to the swamp."

"Why can't you just shunshin in front of him and tell him you want to come back?" Manda visibly rolled his eyes.

"Because if we did that and Sarutobi wasn't there, I'd be jumped by five ANBU and I don't think showing up with five ANBU who are nearly dead from various kinjutsu is a very good first impression to make on the Kage of the village you are asking to join."

"Good point. Never mind." Manda slid under her tunic again. Anko grinned and shunshined into a cloud of ash without making a sound.


Sarutobi was not having a good day. Yet another report had come in about what his son had last done and Sarutobi wondered again where he had gone wrong with him. During the council meeting the Uchihas had brought up the ownership of Kakashi's sharingan yet again. To top it off, he had just seen the large amount of paperwork Ibiki had given him. How did Minato do this job? he wondered as he sat down at his desk only to quickly sit up again and stare at what he had sat on.

A purple snake he instantly recognized was irritably blinking his blueish-green eyes and looking at Sarotobi with annoyance. "And here I thought that the Hokage of all people would be smart enough to actually look before he sat down." The snake slithered onto the desk and nestled in among the stacks of paperwork. "I must be spending too much time with that underestimating fool of a summoner." The snake eyed Sarutobi and raised the ridge of scales above his eye. "Hey you! Aren't you going to say anything?"

"All right Manda, where is Orochimaru and why are you so small? You can only be summoned when you are near him and I thought he only summons you at your full size." Any shock Sarutobi had at first was gone.

"Where Orochimaru is, no clue. Probably in one of his many bases. Why I'm small instead of big, you'll need to find out how I got here first."

Sarutobi sighed and looked at Manda with narrowed eyes. "According to you, Orochimaru is not here and coming in quietly to my village is not his style. But the only way you could be here is if you had a summoner near." He paused. "Ah, I know. There is a summoner here, but it's not Orochimaru; you've made a contract with someone else." Sarutobi smiled at the snake in triumph.

The snake chuckled. "Yep. Sharp as ever. Yeah, I did make a contract with someone else and they would like a meeting in private with you."

Sarutobi looked thoughtful. "All right. I'll see them. But tell them that if they do anything I take as an attack on Konoha, I will take necessary action against them."

"Don't worry, that's the last thing I'd do," said a female voice from behind Sarutobi.

Sarutobi turned and looked at the girl in shock. If he didn't know Orochimaru wasn't the type of person who would have children, he would have thought the older preteen was his daughter. She had pale skin, waist-length purple hair, slanted pupilless purple-gray eyes, and the sadistic grin he knew so well across her face. What only reinforced the association was her clothing. Over her long-sleeved black shirt and black pants, she wore a light purple tunic and a purple rope that served as a belt.

What is someone like her doing here? "Who are you and what are you doing here?" Sarutobi asked.


"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Sarutobi asked.

Yep! Straight to the point as usual. Anko laughed. "I'll answer those questions and any others you will have on one condition."

"You aren't in the position to bargain with me." Sarutobi reminded her.

Does he honestly take me for a child? "I know, but here me out. You probably won't mind this condition if what I've heard about you is true."

Sarutobi raised an eyebrow. "Go on."

"Is the council, those who aren't shinobi anyway, and you're advisers small-minded, power hungry bastards that love kekkei genkai so much that they'd be willing to use illegal and immoral methods to insure there survival?" She arched an eyebrow and looked expectantly at the Hokage.

"Unfortunately, I would have to say yes." Sarutobi looked sadly up at her.

Damn, I was hoping Sensei would be wrong about that. "The condition I have is that I'll tell you anything you want to know as long you don't tell the council that I'm here in any size, shape or form until me and you come to some sort of agreement."

The Hokage looked shrewdly at her. "What sort of agreement?"

Anko bit her lip. "That'll become apparent when I tell you what you want to know."

"Will you at least tell me your name before I agree?"

"Yeah. It'll probably explain a lot. Mitarashi Anko."

"No." Sarutobi looked dumbfounded. "Not the one he..."

"Yes." Anko looked both sad and angry at the same time. "I'm the only child he ever thought was worthy of his time, effort and maybe even love."

Sarutobi looked thoughtful. "In that case I'll agree to you're conditions with one change: I'll have an interrogator in here simply listening in on us so that I get a neutral party's opinion. I'll order him not to tell anyone anything."

Nothing less than I expected. "That sounds reasonable. As long as it is not a Yamanaka; if they do it, you might as well tell the council I'm here and let them have their way with me."

Sarutobi smiled. "Don't worry. Morino Ibiki never talks about the subject of his interrogations unless I tell him to."

"Good," Anko smiled for some reason. "I'm fine with him. You mind if I sit down; I really don't want to fall out the window."

"Go ahead." The Hokage left the office.

Anko sat down on the opposite side of the Hokage's desk and held out an arm for Manda to crawl up and wind around her neck and shoulders. "Well, that went well."

"He's taking a risk trusting you." Manda rested his head on top of Anko's head.

"Yeah, but it's not like neither of us could lose anything by not agreeing."

"True."

Sarutobi came back in followed by a man with several long scars on his face. "This is Morino Ibiki." Ibiki and Anko nodded to each other. "He'll sit in on our conversation and do nothing more that observe." He turned to Ibiki. "Got it?"

"Hai, Hokage-sama," said Ibiki in a gravelly voice. He and the Hokage sat down in their respective chairs and looked expectantly at Anko.

Anko sighed and began nervously running her fingers up and down Manda's tail. She closed her eyes and forced herself to go back and remember all those years of hell. I don't want to remember this. Anko looked up at Sarutobi and started talking in a slow halting voice. "It all began began back when my parents died in the Third Great Shinobi War..."


"... trained there for half a year to throw him off our trail. That ended today and we reversed summoned to the Hokage monument." Anko stopped talking and sat back in her chair. Her face was streaked with tears.

Sarutobi had tears in his eyes as he placed his hand on her arm and squeezed it. "Anko, I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine what you went through. Are you going to be alright?"

Anko looked at the Hokage in shock. "Of course I'm alright. I only get like that when I have to force myself to remember all of that. Most of the time I'm a crazy, psychotic, slightly sadistic girl who enjoys assassinating, torturing, and interrogating people." Both Ibiki and Sarutobi sweat-dropped. "But only for good reasons, which Orochimaru's definitely were not." They both let out a silent sigh of relief.

"You said you enjoy torturing?" Ibiki interrupted.

"I thought I told you not to say anything." The Hokage lifted an eyebrow.

"If you let me talk I might be able to save you several feet of paperwork to go through," Ibiki countered.

"Never mind, go ahead." There was a slight grin on Sarutobi's face.

"We're in need of more people in the T&I department that are good at physical torture as apposed to psychological torture. All the paperwork I gave you is recommendations, Hokage-sama.

"Anko, seeing that you like torture and who trained you in it, I wouldn't have a problem with you joining the T&I department as long as you are at ANBU level. If that's alright with you Hokage-sama."

"It's fine with me." Sarutobi looked at Anko. "Would you like that?"

Bingo. Anko asked one question. "Are you still the only one who can give ANBU orders?"

"Yes, I'm the only person ANBU answers to. Why?"

Perfect. "Well, Orochimaru had a lot of information on how the council worked and what decisions it made. Let's just say I wouldn't want to have to accept any missions from them."

Sarutobi smiled at that. "I take it that you don't want to do a lot of suicide missions to prove that you're previous loyalties are dissolved."

"Yeah," Anko grimaced. "That would be like working for Orochimaru again." Sarutobi and Ibiki winced at that. "So, when do I get into ANBU?"

"As soon as you sign these contracts and have your skills evaluated with the rest of the ANBU hopefuls, which is happening this weekend." Sarutobi pulled several pieces of paper out of his desk. He gave the first one to her. "This is for becoming a Konoha ninja and citizen, and this one," he placed another paper in front of her, "is for entering into ANBU."

Anko read through the first one, signed it and gave it to the Hokage for him to sign. She started reading through the second one and frowned part way through it. "This asks for my rank and a record of the missions I've done and I obviously don't have those."

"Oh, just put down pending for both of them and it'll go right through the process."

Anko turned in surprise to Ibiki. "How do you know?"

He turned to her. "I'm the head of the Torture and Interrogation department and would be the person evaluating your application. By the way, let me see your application; I need to check off that I've done your psych evaluation." She gave it to him. "There we go. Now all you have to do is prove us and the rest of ANBU that you are really at our level."

"How will I do that?" For the first time Anko looked worried.

"You have to fight one of the current ANBU and show us that you're at their level." Ibiki passed the ANBU form to the Hokage.

"That doesn't sound too hard."

"For you it probably won't be. Regardless of what the result of that is, you'll be put in ANBU," said Sarutobi as he signed the form. "I won't let the council punish you for something that wasn't you're fault."

Anko gave the Hokage a rare genuine smile. "Thank you." There was a satisfied pause. "Now that that's taken care of, where am I going to stay?"

"Oh, until your acceptance into ANBU is official, I was thinking that you could stay in the rooms behind my office."

"Why?" I wasn't expecting that. Anko frowned.

"The only people who go past my office door are myself and people I have told my ANBU to let in. The council won't know you're here until I let them know. After you're officially in ANBU we'll deal with that."

Anko nodded. "Sounds good."

The Hokage turned to her. "Is there anything else you want to talk about?"

"Uh, yeah." Anko looked down at herself. "If I'm going to be a Konoha-nin, um, I kinda think I need a new wardrobe. Oh, and access to a quiet quality weapons supplier would be good."

Sarutobi handed her a thick stack of ryo. "I think I can help you with that." They both laughed. "As for weapons, look for Shin's place. A lot of people don't go to him because he was originally from Kiri, but the few people who get past his temper don't go anywhere else."

"Thanks. I guess I'll go now."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" For the first time, Sarutobi sounded as if he had a sense of humor.

Anko looked at him in puzzlement. "I am?"

"Yes, your Konoha hitai-ate." He pulled one out of a drawer and gave it to her. "Welcome back." He smiled.

Anko gave him a genuine smile as she accepted the hitai-ate. Before she tied it on her forehead, she unwound Manda from her head. She smiled at the snake. "I know you don't like going back to the swamp because Sensei can summon you, but I kinda need you to go back now. Thanks for the training by the way."

"No problem. Besides," Manda smiled a very creepy smile, "he didn't give me any sacrifices last time he summoned me. So he still can't summon me for two more months."

"Nice. See you round." Manda disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"I never thought I'd see the day that Manda would favor someone besides Orochimaru," Sarutobi remarked.

"Yeah," Anko snorted, "but I never thought I would hate him either. Can I barrow a kunai?"

"What for?" Ibiki raised an eyebrow.

"I need to cut my hair. The only reason it's this long is because Orochimaru forbade me to cut it. He didn't want to waste time growing it out after he took over my body." Anko shuddered. The Hokage nodded and Ibiki threw one at Anko. She caught it and cut off a foot and a half of her waist-length hair so that it was at her shoulders. A few more cuts later and Anko had bangs. "Much better." She threw the kunai back to Ibiki and tied the hitai-ate around her head.

"Hokage-sama." She turned to Sarutobi, suddenly serious. "Thank you for trusting me enough to hear me out. I won't fail your expectations of me."

The Hokage nodded. "I'm glad to give you another chance to start over." Anko smiled at him and walked towards the door. "Don't you need a change of clothes before you leave?"

Me, not being able to henge? The purple-haired girl turned around and raised an eyebrow at him. "With all the things Sensei taught me, you think he forgot to teach me an ANBU-grade henge?" Ibiki and Sarutobi both face-palmed and Anko left laughing, something she hadn't done in years.


After Anko left, Sarutobi turned to Ibiki. "You think she's lying?"

"No," the interrogation expert said. "There's no way she could imagine that type of stuff without seeing it for real."

"I agree. Do you think she's sane?"

"Not completely. The fact that she is even alive means that she thoroughly learned what Orochimaru taught her and even enjoyed it, but the fact that she views what his goals are as evil and that she went into all the trouble to leave him and come back here means that she hasn't totally lost it. As long as she knows there are people here who won't judge her she'll be fine."

"So that's why you offered her a job." The Hokage smiled.

"Yes, and the fact that we really do need someone good at physical torture and nobody knows how to do it anywhere near as well as she does or would be as willing."

"Ibiki, do you have anything planned for the rest of the day?"

"No, Hokage-sama." Confusion was evident on Ibiki's face.

"Good. I have an idea of where she can stay after she makes ANBU this week. I want to have you here so they can have your opinion as well if they need it. You can come in now Gama."

A female ANBU walked in. "You called, Hokage-sama."

"I'm assuming you heard everything that went on in here with Anko."

"Hai."

"Good. Remove the mask; I need to talk to you outside of ANBU."

The ANBU removed both her mask and a henge. Long red hair dropped almost to her knees and a cheerful grin appeared. "Let me guess Sarutobi, you're going to ask if she can move into the Namikaze compound."

"Naturally." Sarutobi smiled at her guess. "I assume you heard the entire thing."

"Of course."

"So you're going to do it."

Kushina nodded. "Yeah, I'll have a talk with Mikoto and Yamato tonight to see who takes her in. I'll let you know ASAP."

"Sounds good. You may go." Kushina grinned and left the room.

"Do you need me anymore?" Ibiki asked. Sarutobi shook his head. "See you round then." Ibiki did a small katon jutsu on a large amount of paperwork on Sarutobi's desk and walked out of the office smiling.


"There is no way I'm living in the same house with that snake whore!" Yamato paced back and forth in front of Kushina and Mikoto. It was late night/early morning and they were meeting in Kushina's basement to discuss who Mitarashi Anko would be staying with if she stayed with the Namikaze at all. "As far as I'm concerned, the fact that she even survived being his apprentice this long means she's just as bad as he is."

"Now wait a minute Tenzo—"

"Don't call me that Kushina, especially around her!"

Mikoto looked shrewdly at Tenzo. "Yamato, you're jealous she won't have to prove what you had to, aren't you? You're also mad she's allowed to use all of the jutsus she learned from him as long as she doesn't abuse them. Am I right?"

Yamato clenched his jaw. "Yes."

Mikoto looked thoughtful. "I wouldn't be jealous of her; she'll have to prove something you never had to. As for the jutsus, she had to pay a worse price for them than you did."

"Like I could care," Yamato snorted.

Mikoto frowned. "Kushina, I'll take her in. I have more room than you do and Sasuke will like having a sister around. She'll probably prefer the company to living alone as well."

"She'll end up corrupting Sasuke, " Yamato scoffed.

"I'd prefer she corrupt him rather some other shinobi I could name." Mikoto had a certain bandaged 'adviser' of the Hokage in mind. "At least he'll remain loyal to Konoha."

"Well, if the two of you are done," Kushina intervened, "I'll inform the Hokage tomar... well today actually." They all laughed. "Let's go to sleep."


Sasuke waited until he couldn't hear his mother's footsteps anymore before he dared move. Tonight was going to be fun. It was the night before the ANBU recruiting trials were held and whenever those happened, the ANBU who came over to his mother's house would discus who the people trying to get in were and what their chances were of actually passing. It was very interesting and entertaining to listen to, especially when they were given information on who to place their bets on.

When Sasuke was sure that everyone was there, he sneaked down the stairs to the door of the living room. He had learned that for all shinobi were usually on guard at all times, they could get complacent if they thought they were in a place where they had habitual absolute safety. His mother's living room was one such place and he took advantage of it. He put his ear up to the crack between the door and the wall where the hinges were and listened to the ANBU talk.

"...actually passing this time around?" the voice Sasuke knew as both Kakashi and Ookami said.

"Two," said the gravely voice of the man Sasuke had come to recognize as Morino Ibiki, the head of the T&I department.

"Who are they?" This time it was Hayate, code named Kamereon.

"The first one is Umino Iruka and you'll be the one facing him, Hayate."

"Why is he passing?"

"We need an ANBU at the academy this year and he's perfect for the job. He has a excellent grip on the theory of jutsu in general and he's good with kids." Interesting, Sasuke thought, they've never done this before. Does it have anything to do with Naruto starting at the academy this year?

"Translation: you don't want me to go all out," said Hayate.

"Yes." Sasuke had the impression that Ibiki was smiling and heard laughter from everybody else.

"And the other person passing is?" asked Kakashi.

"Mitarashi Anko," Ibiki said slowly.

"Who is that?" Sasuke caught himself before he gasped at the emotionless voice. It was none other than Uchiha Itachi who had joined ANBU less than a year ago. What is he doing here? He's never been here before.

"It's not my place to tell you who she is; you'll find out soon enough. I will warn you though. She'll be an extremely hard opponent for you to beat, not just because of who taught her, but because of her mindset."

"Are you implying she will be my opponent?"

"Yes."

"Why did you pick me to be her opponent?"

"Because you are the closest to her in both age and skill."

"How old is she?" asked Kakashi. Sasuke thought he could hear concern in his voice.

"A couple months older than you." Sasuke didn't know who he was referring to.

"She's twelve? Do you think she will be able to handle the stress?" Itachi asked the question much to Sasuke's surprise.

"Itachi," Ibiki now sounded serious, "if the council found out about her before I let her into ANBU, they'd try to make her life hell. For her, being in ANBU will be a welcome relief."

"From what?"

"I told you, that's not my place to say."

"I see." There was a pause. "If that is all, I should leave now..." At that Sasuke quietly edged down the hall and around the corner. He had been doing this for years and it would not do to be caught now. He shuddered at the thought of some of the interrogation methods he had heard about from Ibiki. The front door and the living room door both closed and Sasuke slowly counted to sixty. Once he was sure the coast was clear, he went back over to the door.

"...trustworthy?" Kakashi asked.

"Do you think I'd be letting her live in my house if she wasn't?" Sasuke's eyes widened at his mother's voice. This girl's coming to stay at our house? When was this decided?

"No, not really. Why is she staying here instead of with Kushina?"

"Because Tenzo hates her, not that I blame him, but he did say he would never live in the same house as her." That fact startled Sasuke; Tenzo got along with almost everybody.

"Why doesn't he like her?"

"You'll find out tomorrow, Kakashi. I promise."

"How do you think Sasuke will take having an older sister?" Of course it's Ibiki. He's always concerned with my psych. Sasuke almost laughed.

"He'll like it. He never says it, but I know he wants the relationship Tenzo and Naruto have." How in the world did she find that out? Sasuke wondered and berated himself at the thought. Duh, not only is she my Kaa-san, but she's also ANBU. She gets paid to notice stuff like that.

"That'll probably be good for her as well. She'll have someone that won't care what other people think about her."

"All right. How do you know all this stuff about this Mitarashi woman and we don't?" Hayate sounded annoyed. Seeing as he's the head of the Espionage department, that's understandable.

"Simple. I was the one who did her psych test."

"She's going to join T&I?"

"Yes, we need more people and she wanted the job."

"What type of girl would want to work in T&I when they're only twelve?" Hayate wondered. Sasuke wanted to know the same thing, especially if she was going to be living in the same house as he was.

"As I said, you'll find out tomorrow."

"We aren't going to get anything out of you about this Mitarashi Anko are we, Ibiki?" Kakashi lazily asked.

"No, you're not."

Mikoto laughed. "Trying to get information out of the T&I head, Kakashi? Good luck! Ibiki, is anyone else trying to get in?"

"Yes, but they're not going to make it."

"So we have two out of ten this time around," Kakashi concluded. There was a pause. "So Hayate, how was your vacation." Sasuke smirked at the mention of a vacation, the ANBU jargon for an unofficial mission, and heard about yet another S-class mission that resulted in the theft of Kumo's shinobi rosters and bios.


Late at night when he was back in bed, Sasuke began going over what he'd heard. Apparently his mother had decided to let someone named Mitarashi Anko live in their house. The person was a girl and she was five years older than he was. That by itself wasn't unusual. What was unusual was that was the age of a genin fresh out of the academy and she was being recruited into ANBU. He had never heard of that happening to anyone, with the exception of Itachi, and even then he had gone up through the ranks like everyone else did. This girl had seemingly popped out of nowhere and was already assigned to a division.

What made it even more interesting was that Ibiki, of all people, had said that working in T&I would be a relief for her. What type of past would you have to have to make working in T&I a relief? You would practically have to be raised by a sadist.

Then he considered the fact that Ibiki knew a lot more about her then he let on. Sasuke knew what the psych test was. It was used to determine how mentally fit a person was to join ANBU. From what Ibiki said, he knew a lot more about Anko then he would if he'd just done the psych test and it sounded like he might be covering for her. Or protecting her. He said the council would make her life hell if she wasn't in ANBU. If the council would hate her that much, she can't be that bad.

One of ANBU's favorite things to do in Sasuke's house was complain about the council. While most of Konoha's shinobi population accepted missions from anyone who had the money to pay for it, ANBU did not. The only person they could accept missions from was the Hokage. If people wanted ANBU to do missions for them, they had to get the Hokage's approval before ANBU even saw the mission. Needless to say, the council wasn't as happy with the arrangement as the Hokage and ANBU were.

The bottom line, Sasuke decided, was that his mother was fine with this girl staying at their house. It sounded as if she knew a lot about Anko also. Trusting that his mother would never let someone who could hurt him willingly into the house, Sasuke went to sleep.


As Itachi ran home he thought about what Ibiki had said. Mitarashi Anko. That name did not sound familiar to him at all. That could be disturbing because the Konoha Military Police had a record of who all the ninja in the village were and who many of the civilians were. However, it sounded as if the KMP should not know who she was because the only people who knew she was in Konoha was the Hokage, the Namikazes and ANBU. And Sasuke. The thought jolted through him. Why didn't I realize that three years ago?! He might have been a low B-rank security threat then, but he's been listening to ANBU secrets for years now; he's probably a mid A-rank security threat now, maybe even higher. More importantly, he knows the true horrors of the shinobi life. If he still wants to be a shinobi after all these years of hearing the worst they do, then he has my complete respect and support. At least he chose to find out about it and didn't have the knowledge forced on him like I did. I hope Kaa-san isn't mad at him when she finds out. She is in ANBU herself after all.

"Itachi-san, I wasn't expecting to see you this night." A low, cracked voice broke through Itachi's thoughts.

Itachi turned to the dark figure that emerged from the shadows. "Madara-sama..."


"Uh..." Anko groaned as woke up. "Damn nightmares. You'd think you'd be used to them after three months. At least that's gone..." She continued muttering to herself as she got dressed. Yesterday she had changed her look and now she was wearing a black sleeveless shirt, black shorts, and a tan miniskirt. A tan trench coat went over everything. Her short hair wasn't left down, instead she pulled it up in a spiky ponytail and tied her hitai-ate on her forehead.

Once she finished getting dressed, Anko went over her weapons for the ANBU evaluation that afternoon. She unsealed a scroll from the underside of her wrist and undid a seal on the scroll. A hundred kunai with seals marked in blood on them and an arm holster spilled out from the scroll. The girl made a hand seal which caused the kunai silently disappeared. I am so paranoid. Anko laughed to herself. Although I probably wouldn't be alive if I wasn't. After strapping the holster to her right forearm, she flexed her arm and a kunai fell out into her hand. She grinned and made the hand seal again. The kunai disappeared into the holster again. All my normal weapons are on me, should I take... Yes, I'll take him. For all I know, I'll be facing an Uchiha. Anko's face split into an evil grin as she bit her thumb to draw blood. The blood was smeared over a stylized snake tattoo that wound it's way around her left forearm before she snapped her bloody fingers and whispered, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu."

A jet black snake with glittering eyes slid out of the shadows. "You need me?" it said.

Anko chuckled. "Yep. We're going to have fun today, Kage."

Kage slithered over to her. "Good. It'll be nice to be actually used for something besides training for once, not that I mind that. You sure you don't want to swallow me this time?"

Why did the one I like have to be the one that has a sense of humor? Anko wondered yet again. "We've had this discussion a million times before, Kage. The only reason why Sensei swallows Kusa is because he's a drama king. In fact, it's a good thing he swallows Kusa because if he didn't, it wouldn't be anywhere near as easy as it is to avoid the Kusanagi no Tsurugi and besides, having you in my throat clashes with my style."

"Man Anko, I was just kidding. You really need to loosen up."

Anko's eyes narrowed. "If I loosened up just a hair, I would be dead and something tells me you wouldn't enjoy that. Do you not want me to use you today?"

"Uh, never mind." The snake gave a nervous laugh. "I take it you want me to do the usual?"

"Yes please, any time now," Anko growled.

The snake nodded and stretched its two and a half foot long body straight out on the floor. Its mouth opened and the hilt of a katana came out of its throat until it was stopped by Kage's two inch long fangs. A shudder rippled through the snake's body, turning it into a sheath that perfectly resembled the snake.

Anko picked the weapon up and muttered a thank you to it before strapping it to her back. Ah, It'll be fun going up against normal people again. A sadistic grin made it's way across Anko's face as she went to meet up with the Hokage for the ANBU trials.


AN: I hope you guys like what I did with Anko. I know she's a lot different than she is in cannon and most fics, but I'd always wondered what she would be like if something different happened to her. Eventually, you'll learn what she told Sarutobi. (I'm not that mean.) The next chapter will have the Itachi vs. Anko fight and it will hopefully be out sooner than this one because I've been seeing that fight in my head for a long time. Thanks for reading.