1 year later, Otogakure

/./././././.

Not long after Kabuto and Guren began dating, Kabuto had began to receive hearty checks from his former boss that helped him start off a normal, seemingly clean life. He had married Guren and was able to buy an amazing house large enough for a family of twenty that had a pool and a view of an abandoned house that sent a cold streak through the waters. Kabuto was convinced he had it made, with his fortunate and new family.

But even with his lovely wife, and step-son who was slowly beginning to grow use to him, the painful emptiness that had developed a year ago remained.

"Here you go!" Kabuto shrilled merrily as he walked back onto the patio where the small family had been relaxing at for the afternoon. He handed his new wife Guren a large glass of Bora-Bora. She smiled at him as he gave her a loving peck on the cheek. He turned to the little boy in the pool, Yūkimaru. "And a glass of lemonade for you," he said, sitting the glass on the table for him to retrieve. "On the rocks."

Yūkimaru dropped the rubber ball he was playing with and looked at his new stepfather with a look of boredom. He didn't exactly hate him, but he didn't like the fact that his mother was replacing the father that had disappeared from his life barely eight years before. He had that childish want for him to return.

"Yūkimaru," Guren scolded lightly. "Be polite and thank your father."

Yūkimaru swam away. "Thanks Mr. Yakushi."

Guren sat up and frowned at her sons moving figure. "Stop it Yūkimaru-"

"Leave it be Guren." Kabuto reassured. "Our relationship is like my new antique business: rough waters at first but then smooth sailing ahead."

Guren smiled and relaxed, thankful for her husband's patience. "That reminds me, is that pale creature going to be working with you at your new job?"

Kabuto gave her a questionable look. "Orochimaru?" he chuckled lightly. "Most likely; I just can't seem to rid myself of that guy."

Guren chuckled gently. "Well, if it makes you feel better, I've gotten away from a lot of things thanks to you." She sat up to better reminisce her past. "I mean, just a year ago I was a part time nurse barely able to get Yūkimaru and I by." she smiled at Kabuto as she said the next part. "But after dating and finally marrying you, I get to live in a great house, have a wonderful and caring husband," she leaned over and gave said caring husband a peck on the cheek. "Who knows how to make me great cocktails."

Kabuto smiled and relaxed. This was his life now, and he loved it. Who would have thought that someone like him, with suck a dark past, would actually enjoy pleasures such as these? He looked at the house across from him and could have sworn he saw someone at the window.

He shot up to check again, but saw nothing.

"Hey Guren," he spoke. "Did you see something just now, in that house?"

Guren looked at her estranged husband. "That's impossible, no one's lived in that house in years."

He stared at her. "You sure?"

She sat up. "I was talking to Mrs. Yamanaka down the street about it and she told me that a family was killed in there a few years ago."

Kabuto slowly turned back to the window and stared. His pulse started racing as red flashed over his eyes.

"Honey?" Guren questioned, pulling Kabuto from his trance. "Are you all right?"

Kabuto looked at her but didn't answer. He was pale and his throat was too dry to let words form.

"Wait a minute." Guren teased. "You're not afraid of ghosts now are you?"

Kabuto released a strangled laugh. "No of course not." He picked up his drink with a shaky hand and drunk it in one short gulp.

.,.,.,.,.

"Checkmate."

Orochimaru groaned and let his ex-partner take his king. "I should have seen that one coming." He looked up with a smirk, but saw that Kabuto was passive and daunt.

"What's got you so solemn?" he asked in a joking matter.

Kabuto sighed and sat back. "I was just thinking about the past."

Orochimaru stared at him attentively. "When you retired from the mob, you were supposed to leave those annoying memories behind."

Kabuto shook his head irritatedly. "I know I know, but I can't get that family out of my mind."

Images of the man with a bullet in his skull and the woman using her body as a human shield for the sake of her boys falling to the floor in a bloody heap flashed across his eyes.

"I killed them Orochimaru. I killed two kids and their parents."

"Calm down, you weren't alone you know."

Kabuto jumped out of his chair, accusingly yelling at Orochimaru. "Well you don't seem too screwed up! Look at you, you're always acting like nothing happened, like you didn't pull the trigger on anyone!"

Orochimaru watched him calmly, not speaking, not twitching, not showing any kind of emotion to show what his ex-partner was screaming was affecting him.

Kabuto slumped back into his chair, another more powerful thought fresh on his brain.

"That girl…"

Crystal beads ran down her cheeks.

"Who was she? Where is she now?" his hands almost broke the arms of the chair. "Damn it who is she? I've got to know!"

He went silent after that, and Orochimaru did his best to conceal his smirk. He really loved to watch this kid lose his mind.

"Humph, maybe you're in love with her." he shrugged. "But why would you be, when you have all you need just downstairs."

Kabuto looked up, feeling slightly guilty for his outburst. He was right, he was lucky to have Guren and Yūkimaru. He should let his memories of that girl slip away.

"Listen, Orochimaru, I really appreciate you keeping up with me lately. I probably would lose it if I didn't have you to take all this crap out on."

Some of Orochimaru's smirk came out and he shrugged. "If you really mean that, then take back that last move."

Kabuto looked down at the chest board and laughed with relief. "Not a chance."

Orochimaru laughed in good humor. "Ouch, now that's just cruel."

.,.,.,.,

Across from the house the two men were laughing at, a pair of very angry eyes was watching them. These eyes belonged to a woman who was barely fifteen but had the heart of a full-grown adult.

"Get out of the way Orochimaru!"

She watched with fury as the two men stood, shook hands, and walked back inside, still laughing, Orochimaru deliberately blocking Kabuto from the girl's gunpoint.

"Damn it!" the girl screamed to high heaven, throwing the gun down. "Damn it all!"

.,.,.,.

Orochimaru went home after Kabuto and Guren treated him to dinner. He was actually glad that he was out of there and back in the ghetto where people were mean as Hell. That family was just too cheerful for him, a perfect family. Well, with exception for Yūkimaru who seemed to hate everyone other than his mom.

He sighed and unlocked the door of his apartment, entering slowly just in case someone was robbing the place; Orochimaru did like to use the element of surprise.

But all was quiet, and he removed his jacket as well as other pieces of clothes so that he could just jump into the bed when he turned in.

He was about to throw his shirt over the couch when he heard the faint creak of a floor board behind him. Before he could blink, he whipped around and had a gun pointed levelly with his opponent head who and their gun at range with his heart.

It took him a moment to recognize the stranger but when he saw the feminine body, he smirked and put the gun away despite how one was still pointed at him.

"Anko, you shouldn't be out so late. You might get hurt."

Anko Mitarashi slowly lowered her gun, but her glare and the nasty words on her tongue were ready to fire.

"Why didn't you do it?" She asked him sharply.

He pressed himself to her unmoving form, dragging his hand down her side and stopping at the end of her shirt.

Anko grabbed the front of his shirt and threw him back. "Stop that and answer me; why didn't you let me kill Kabuto Yakushi?"

Orochimaru picked himself up, debating if he should punish her for that action. "So you were the one staring out that window. You know my dear, if you're going to spy you need to actually stay out of sight."

Anko froze. She had been spying on Kabuto for almost three months and had become very good at masquerading herself from him, but when her anger and hunger for vengeance hit her, she couldn't care less about if he saw her butt-naked.

That man…that monster had killed her family in cold blood and she wanted nothing more than to watch him suffer for it.

"Still," Orochimaru cut back in. "I hardly doubt he would have seen you anyway," he was touching her again, but this time he was more cautious of her reflexes. "He had…other…things on his mind…" he planted a light kiss on her exposed neck and circled his arms around her waist.

Anko pushed him back gently. "Not tonight Orochimaru."

Orochimaru cocked a disapproving eye at her but didn't scold her. He knew how to reel her into one of his traps.

"I see. I understand, you've had a long day and perhaps seeing him today…with that family of his…was just exhausting to you. Probably gave you second thoughts even…"

Anko shot around. "You bastard!"

"Watch your tongue girl. But in all honesty, it did, didn't it?"

She shook, unable to control the mixed emotions swimming inside her.

She hated him so much, but doubted that she could actually take a gun and put a bullet in his head.

That's why she found Orochimaru.

For eleven months now, he had been training her to swallow that fear, to let the hate she really felt take over. He taught her how to use twelve types of guns and kill a man in over seven other ways, three of those ways using her bare hands.

He was more like an estranged father to her most of the time, but he could never be like the father that existed in the fragments of her traumatized mind. She considered him a teacher, a really great teacher.

But their little student-teacher relationship was a lot more than it was supposed to have been.

She really didn't mind when he touched her, it was somewhat of a payment for what he was doing for her.

But simple touches turned into rough caresses.

Rough caresses turned into possessive groping.

Possessive groping turned into full-on sex.

She didn't regret it though, most of the time anyway. He always gave her something in return. Recently it was the permanent location the Kabuto Yakushi. Still, whenever he had finished with her and let her lay there to feel his heartbeat on her back, she would think about her older brother.

They were barely a year apart, and were closer than what brothers a sisters were supposed to be. They like each other just a little too much, but they convinced each other since that they weren't really related, that when they were old enough that they could be together.

That was probably why seeing him die affected her more and left her without clear memories. That was why she was in Orochimaru's house, to get stronger and avenge him.

"No." Anko said. "It made me want to kill him more." Her hands scrunched up into fists when the image of that monster waddling by the pool with his family crossed her mind. How dare he enjoy what was taken from her!

She glared at her teacher. "And next time you say you're going to, "save me some trouble", do it, all right!"

Orochimaru smirked and tugged at the sleeve of her jacket, pulling it off her bare arms with ease. "Let me 'save you the trouble' of removing your clothes."

She watched him stroll up the stairs, lingering behind slightly so that she could follow. She hated his games, but she needed his knowledge and would have to play them for as long as it took. Gulping, she took her time going up the stairs; Orochimaru took things slow when it came to her.

.,.,.,

"It doesn't matter how many times I do this with him," Anko told herself later on. "I'll never love him the way I loved another."

She looked over her shoulder to see Orochimaru's bare back slowly rise and fall as he fell asleep. She turned on her side and gently shook him. "Orochimaru?"

He grunted as a response.

"…You are going to help me, aren't you?"

He grunted in the same tone and slumped, finalizing the ending of their conversation.

Anko pressed herself closer to him. "I mean, you aren't going to try anything else like you did today? I hate it when you pull things like that-"

"Anko," Orochimaru growled with tired irritation. "I told you the first day I put a gun in your hand that Kabuto Yakushi would die, and I never go back on my word if I can help it." His voice lowered into a slightly kinder tone. "Now if you please…"

Anko slowly retreated back to the side of her bed. Orochimaru rarely got totally fed up with her, but she knew that his patience had a short limit and she did not want to reach it.

She crossed her arms behind her head allowed the picture of the man Orochimaru had shown her to enter her mind.

.,.,.,.,.,

"This is him."

Anko took the photograph and felt a jump of energy spill into her. She didn't recognize this man at all, but there was something about his eyes behind the glasses that egged her.

"You know my dear," Orochimaru said as he leaned back in his chair. "He has a girlfriend now, and a step-child. Are you willing to take them from him?"

The photo turned into a wrinkled piece of paper in her hand before she threw it on the ground. She stared furiously at the crumpled paper, trying her best not to lose her mind. She ran a hand roughly through her hair before meeting her teachers amused gaze once more.

"I don't plan on killing his precious family…despite how he deserves it."

Orochimaru chuckled at the darkness in her voice; he was starting to like her more and more.

"Very well," he said, picking the picture up. "But remember this, my dear girl: Those who anger you control you." He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Try not to let it get that far." He kissed her head and left.

.,..,.,.

Anko shuddered. She wasn't too sure she could take that advice, especially when her heart was in pain and thirst for closure grew stronger and stronger.