With my wide eyes
I've seen worlds that don't belong
My mouth is dry with words I cannot verbalize
Tell me why we live like this

Broken – VIII

"All right, I think this piece goes…here?" Kai held up the blue piece for Anko to see. She shook her head.

"No, that piece is blue. That means it goes to the sky. There, see?" She took the piece and carefully put it in where it belonged.

"Oh…" Kai nodded knowingly. "Yeah, I see! So that means the other blue pieces go there too, right?"

"Yeah." Anko smiled. "You see, once you know where one piece goes the rest all fall into place, don't they?"

Kai laughed. "That's so cheesy Anko-nee-chan."

But it was true. Or at least, for Anko it was. Telling Kakashi everything that had happened to her had been one piece. Now the rest were fitting neatly into their little holes.

It had been two weeks since Anko had come to stay at Konoha. And she could honestly say she couldn't remember the last time she had been this happy ― or if that time had ever existed at all.

"Okay, so that piece goes…here!"

Kai, Anko had quickly learned, was a simple boy. He'd come to Konoha basically an orphan. His mother had died of cancer, and his father had left before he was born. He didn't know a thing about either of them. As far as he was concerned, the people in Konoha were his family. He referred to all the kids as 'nee-chan,' and spent most of his time doing puzzles or finding people to read to him. And for some reason, Anko felt oddly attached to him.

"All done!" Kai said triumphantly, putting the last piece into the puzzle. "Thanks for helping me Anko-nee-chan."

"I didn't really do anything."

"Did enough!"

This felt vaguely familiar…

"Thank you."

"I didn't do anything."

"You did enough."

Anko smiled softly, her eyes glazing over slightly as her mind ― once more ― drifted back to a certain silver-haired teen.

"Anko-nee-chan? Hey, Anko-nee-chan!"

"Forget it Kai." A new voice said. "She's lost to her own world now, you might never get her out."

Kai giggled. "Hi Kurenai-nee-chan."

Anko looked over her shoulder at the older girl. Kurenai was a good, yet slightly annoying person who had taken to Anko in the last two weeks.

"Hi Kurenai."

"Don't sound so excited. How are you?"

"I'm…all right."

Kurenai raised an eyebrow at the younger girl, obviously not believing her. "What's wrong?"

"What makes you so sure something's wrong?" Anko countered, Kai and the puzzle completely forgotten.

"I can sense these things. If I think something's wrong, then something's wrong. Now what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong!"

"That's a funny a word." Kai said, cocking his head. "Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong…."

Anko and Kurenai exchanged weary glances, and the latter said, "Kai, why don't you go play with Rin for a little while?"

Kai shrugged. "Okay Kurenai-nee-chan."

And he took off. Anko watched him, wondering where he got all his energy from. "Well?" She looked back at Kurenai, who was now waiting expectantly for an answer. Damn her. Anko sighed.

"Don't worry. It's nothing."

Kurenai sighed. Anko could be so stubborn sometimes. And she almost never talked about herself. A lot of kids who came to Konoha were desperate for someone to share their problems with, and would have opened up to anyone. But Anko was so secretive. It was almost unreal.

Kakashi scowled as the volume of Obito's music reached a new volume.

"Turn it down, Obito!"

Of course, yelling did him no good. Obito was wearing headphones.

"I give up." Kakashi muttered, standing up and leaving in hopes of find a quiet place to study. In Konoha, though, only one place like that existed. He head headed towards the study hall.

"You can't just let her go back to him!" Kakashi froze, his hand on the door knob that led into the study hall. That sounded like Minato…

"I'm with Minato on this one, Sarutobi-sama." Noriko, another one of the workers in Konoha, spoke up. "I mean, it's fairly obvious what's going on, to send her back would be to condemn her to death."

Kakashi blinked. What were they talking about?

"I know. But the police said Social Services has already been in the house, and they didn't find anything suspicious―"

"Well of course they didn't." Yukio, one of the volunteers, said in a reasonable tone. "They wouldn't, if he didn't want them to. But Sarutobi-sama―"

"If the court decides to send her back, then we have no choice but to accept it. I know none of you want that, to knowingly send a child back to where she's being hurt…but it's out of our hands."

Kakashi had heard enough. He turned and bolted, all thoughts of studying forgotten. He ran past rooms filled with kids, laughing, playing, without a care in the world. He dodged in and out of people, some of whom yelled after him to stop running.

Send her back? To him? To that creep, who made her feel like she was insignificant, worthless? Kakashi would never let that happen. He could never let that happen. All he could think about was how pained she'd looked that day at school, when they were on the roof, and she'd told him everything. He never wanted to see her in pain like that ever again.

Somehow, he found herself outside her room. She was in there, alone, staring out the window. Her back was to him. She looked so young, so innocent…

"What are you doing?" Anko looked around, surprised. She hadn't realized he was there. She looked at him, not smiling.

"What's wrong?" She wasn't usually one for sitting still. She'd gone nuts while confided to the medical wing when she'd first come to stay at the home.

She sighed. "Nothing." And she went back to staring out the window.

Kakashi had expected that answer. He stepped fully into the room and sat down on the edge of her bed, watching her. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Kakashi wouldn't push her. That wouldn't make her talk.

"I don't want to go back." Anko finally spoke, snapping Kakashi out of the stupor he had fallen into. He looked at her in surprise.

"What?"

"Orochimaru-sama." I don't want to go back to him." She shivered a little. Kakashi wondered if she knew what was going on.

"Is that what's been bothering you?" She'd become distant over the last few days.

"I don't know…I guess so. The last two weeks have been like something out of someone else's life. No one's hurt me or yelled at me or threatened me…I haven't felt this safe for as long as I can remember. I don't want it to end. But…" She curled her legs under her chin, resting her chin on her knees. "I know it will. I just don't want to go back to the way it was before, though. I don't want him to hurt me again."

It killed Kakashi to hear her speaking this way. He looked down at his knees. His hands were resting flat against them.

"I won't let you." Anko blinked and looked up at him in surprise.

"Let me what?"

"I won't let you go back to him." Kakashi said, clenching his hands into fists. "I won't let him hurt you again." He shifted his gaze from his knees. Black eyes met brown. "I'll protect you. I promise."

"Minato-Sensei." The blonde-haired man looked around in surprise. Kakashi was standing behind him.

"I thought you were sleeping." Minato said, smiling at the boy. He didn't smile back. "What's up?"

Kakashi had sworn to himself that he would never reveal what he had heard in the Study Hall. But if he was to keep his promise, then he had to, so he would know how to go about doing it.

"I want to know…if you really plan on sending Anko back to Orochimaru." Minato blinked. "Because if you do…I'll do whatever it takes to stop you."

The two stared at each other for a minute, and finally the older man sighed, running a hand through his blonde spikes.

"You aren't supposed to know about that." He said, putting his hands into his pockets. "But then, you always know more than you should. We don't want to send her back, Kakashi―"

"But you will if you have to." The teen said. "And I'm telling you, I'll do everything I can to stop it." He turned away and started back upstairs. "I have a promise to keep. And I will keep it."

Minato stared after Kakashi, his mouth open slightly. What in the world was that kid talking about?

Kakashi sighed as he dropped onto his bed. He had never spoken against Minato-Sensei before. He'd always just assumed that the older man would always be right. But now that obviously wasn't the case.

"Would you go to sleep already?" Obito muttered, peaking out from under his covers. "Jeez, first you spend two hours tossing and turning ― and your bed squeaks by the way ― then you get up and go who-the-hell-knows-where, and then you come back up and drop onto your bed ― causing more squeaking. Just close your friggin' eyes already and sleep!"

Kakashi blinked and looked over at Obito in surprise. He hadn't realized the Uchiha boy was still awake.

"Sorry. Didn't realize I was keeping you awake."

"Well surprise." Obito grumbled, pulling the covers back over his head. "Just go to sleep, all right? If you oversleep tomorrow, we'll be later than usual. Good night."

"Yeah. 'Night." Kakashi crawled carefully under his covers and laid down, his mind racing, his thoughts completely consumed by only one thing: his promise to Anko.

I have to protect her. I have to.

Author's Note: Sorry it took me so long to update. I've been so wrapped up in trying to write a decent Twilight story (all my attempts thus far have sucked), that I kind of threw everything else into a corner. Luckily, I have up to chapter 19 of this story written, so now it's just a matter of when do I get around to editing/posting them. Anyways…review, please! Oh, and if any of you happen to be Twilight fans (I know at least one or two of my readers are), could you tell me how this story idea sounds?:

Title: Beauty in the Breakdown

Main Pairing: Alice/Jasper

Rating: T

Summary: All either of them wanted was a friend. But tragedy and pain held the key to making them so much more ―All Human―

I know most people like Edward/Bella fics, but Alice is my favorite character, and I really don't think she gets enough of the spotlight. So…I wrote about her and Jasper :-) ―Sam