Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

A/N: this one is a lot longer than the last – the first chapter was more of an introduction and we'll get to all the interesting bits soon. I'm going to follow the anime because it's important to cover Anko's history first. Thanks to Drachen, Fallen Dragon and Makoto-Koto for the encouragement - this one's for you, a bit earlier than I planned!

Thanks for reading :)

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Chapter 2

Face to Face

She raced through the dark dense forest, slipping through the trees and avoiding the traps and beasts easily. I better hurry. She felt like it was taking too long, she couldn't move fast enough. I'm getting ... a bad feeling.

The sun was sinking further in the sky, creating another beautiful crimson Konoha sunset. Anko paused for a second to confirm her bearings. Almost nightfall. I must find him quickly – once it gets totally dark, I'll be at more of a disadvantage. But ... why is he ... at a time like this ... What is his purpose? She forcefully shook off her musings. Well, it makes no difference. If you've come to this village, she told him, silently, fiercely, then we will settle things today.

Dark had fallen, when Anko's pace increased. I can sense him. Whether it was the remains of her old seal, or the bond they used to have, or merely his power – she could sense him. He would not escape her now!

She leapt off a tree branch, falling down through a space between the trees high above the ground. He's nearby! The feeling was getting stronger, like a pull in her chest, a burn in her dormant seal. She darted through the forest, pace increasing even more.

And then she leapt down on a flat branch, in front of him. He was upside down, with only the front portion of his body protruding from the trunk of the massive tree. His eyes opened at her approach, but he still didn't look like the man she knew.

Half of his 'face' was peeling off, giving glimpses of much paler features beneath, of a slit-pupil slanted eye. He smiled at her, and purred in his same, familiar voice:

"Long time no see, Anko." He lingered on her name, as if he knew hearing him say it pained her.

"You're now a most wanted level S dangerous criminal." she replied, almost conversationally. "I must stop you even if it costs me my life ..." She armed herself with senbon between each finger of her one hand.

"I learnt everything from you," her voice changed, filling with anger, "I was one of your soldiers and thus, that is my duty, right?" she shouted, "Orochimaru?" Hatred dripped from every syllable of his name, and she felt like just speaking it poisoned her lips.

His expression, the slight smile, didn't change. "That's impossible." He said it like it was a simple fact.

Anko growled, preparing to throw the senbon when his tongue extended to lash at her. She leapt backwards, but his tongue wrapped around her wrist forcing her to drop the weapons before pulling her towards him.

"Shadow Snake Hand!" she growled, pointing her arm towards him. Snakes spilled out, headed towards him. They crashed in to the bark where he was embedded, throwing a cloud of dust. "You won't get away!" she cried, using the snakes to pull him back towards her and slam him into the trunk of the opposite tree.

She retracted the serpents, and put her one hand to his against the bark, pinning both in the wood with a kunai through her flesh. She ignored the pain, and their flowing blood. "Caught you," she smiled in his face. "Orochimaru," she said then, her tone almost polite but determined, "I'm going to borrow your left hand."

She made the first seal, and his real exposed eye widened in recognition. "This hand seal is ..."

"Yes ..." she replied, "You and I will die here." She would use the deadly technique he taught her to kill him. It was almost fitting. She gathered her concentration, and started to say the jutsu in her mind: Ninpo! Double Snake Assassination no ...

A laugh reverberated in the air around her, interrupting her thought-spoken jutsu. It was his laugh, but he was ...

"Are you planning on committing suicide?" his amused voice came from around her. Her eyes widened in shock as she sensed him behind her. She turned her head to see him standing casually on the massive branch as he peeled off the remains of the mask, to reveal his real features. "It's Kawarimi." he said, indicating the copy she had pinned to the tree along with her own hand.

Her gut seemed to sink at the sound of his voice. The copy melted into mud but she couldn't take her eyes away from his face for a long moment. She hadn't seen him ... for so long ... And she had almost died – she might have, if he hadn't revealed that the other was a copy.

He laughed at her sudden realisation of how close she came to death. That fear ... he smiled to himself, I have never forgotten the smell of her fear. Her shoulders slumped in defeat, and he savoured that too. Ever the less-than-perfect student ...

"You are a 'special' jonin of this village." he smirked at her, moving closer, "You shouldn't be using all those forbidden jutsu I taught you." Anko refused to rise to that comment – that unspoken insult that she was not a 'full' jonin, that she did not have the talent to be a proper jonin – but she heard it nonetheless and it did affect her.

Anko pulled the kunai out of her hand and threw it at him, coated in her blood but he caught it easily between his fingers. "I told you it is useless." he repeated, smirking again before making another hand seal. Anko gasped at the sudden intense pain that shot through her body, centred around a certain place on her neck.

He dropped the bloody kunai, embedding it in the wood at his feet, and walked towards her with his familiar smirk again in place. "Why are you here now?" she managed to force out.

"We haven't seen each other in a while, and yet you're so cold ..." he mocked her.

"Have you come to assassinate Hokage-sama?" she growled, refusing to be baited.

"No, no," he replied, as if she were an ignorant child again, "I don't have enough men for that yet. I thought I'd recruit some outstanding ones from this village."

The pain ... It was too much, and she couldn't stay standing any more and as much as she detested showing him weakness, she couldn't help but fall to her knees in front of him. She grasped her neck, where he had placed that thing ...

"I just gave a child one of those same curse seals." Anko couldn't even answer. He knelt in front of her, "There's a child that I want." he revealed, like he was confiding in her some secret.

She managed to look up at him then, overcome with fresh hatred. "How selfish, as always." she said around gritted teeth. "That child's going to die."

"True," he replied, "the chance in surviving is one in ten, but, like you, he might not die."

She smirked at him, "You must really like this kid ..."

He interrupted her, reaching out with his hand to caress her cheek almost affectionately. Anko's eyes widened at this touch. His smell, the feel of his skin – it was so achingly familiar. She was captivated by his golden eyes and his presence, just like she was so long ago.

"Jealous, are we?" he said, amused. "Are you still upset that I used you and threw you away?"

She snapped out of her daze when he said that and pulled his hand away, the hatred returning full force. He smirked at her anger, rubbing in his thoughts on her weakness. "Unlike you, this one is talented. He's a child that carries the Uchiha ability, after all." His smile widened covetously. "He's also very beautiful ... a perfect vessel to be my successor. If that boy survives, things could get very interesting." Orochimaru stood up, opening his arms as if in a sign of peacefulness.

"Please don't stop this exam prematurely." he started to walk away. "Three from my village are also taking part. I'm going to enjoy this." He disappeared in a purple-black flame, leaving Anko alone. His disembodied voice remained for a moment: "If you try to spoil my fun, believe that Leaf Village is finished."

He was gone, and she couldn't even sense his distant presence any more. It made her wonder if he had allowed her to find him. Orochimaru ... She wondered why she had ever thought she stood a chance against him. Yes, she had improved, but so had he. She wasn't any match for him at all and never had been.

"I will kill you!" she shouted to the dark sky, unable to contain her anguished rage. She staggered to her feet and moved as quickly as she could through the forest, trying to find the damn ANBU and warn the Hokage. But ... she couldn't stop the exam. She wouldn't allow it. She had to find him again, and kill him. She had to, or be haunted by him forever.

I have to warn Hokage-sama, she thought to herself, after stopping briefly to bandage her hand. Seeing Orochimaru had enraged her, but it made her feel empty as well. Empty of chakra, empty of hope, empty of any positive feelings.

Her eyes widened suddenly, as she looked towards the bushes that surrounded the plain where she was at the moment. Out of the brush emerged three enormous tigers, snarling at her fiercely. "Damn, at a time like this," she growled. She didn't have enough chakra after her fight with Orochimaru to even get away, let alone fend them off.

The beasts surrounded her quickly, trapping her with her back to a large stone outcropping. She stared up at one of the beasts, before another shock of sharp agonising pain spread from the re-emerged curse seal, causing her to fall to her knees again. But just as she thought they were going to leap at her, the tigers pitched over one by one.

"This is Body-Binding no jutsu," she said to herself in surprise.

"So this is where you are," a calm detached voice came from behind her. It was one of the ANBU. The two of them leapt to her side effortlessly. About bloody time!

"For ANBU, you guys sure are slow," she said irritably.

"Hey, don't say that." the one protested, but he was cut off when Anko gasped and grabbed at her neck again, falling to the floor as another flood of pain hit her.

"Are you alright? Hey ..." he paused in shock as he saw her neck. "This is ... That curse seal has reappeared! This can't be ... Orochimaru?"

"What? Where?" the other ANBU questioned. Orochimaru was one name even the ANBU feared. "Damn. We'd better take you to Hokage-sama."

"No," Anko managed to force out, "To the tower ..."

"What are you talking about?!" the ANBU demanded. "Martial law must be implemented the moment Orochimaru appears! The exam is meaningless now!"

"I know that," Anko replied, almost pleading, "I'll explain everything later. Get Hokage-sama too."

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"Things are getting bad," Anko told the ANBU when they got back to the tower, "but we can't stop the exam."

"What do you mean?"

The door opened before Anko could answer. "Excuse me," a chunin interrupted.

"What is it?" Anko asked, angry at being disturbed. "We're in the middle of an important matter!"

The chunin tensed at her hostile tone. "I'm sorry, but please take a quick look at this!" He put a tape in the video machine, and played it for Anko and the two ANBU.

"This is a recording of the three Sand shinobi, arriving at the tower and finishing the test in an hour and a half!" he explained to them.

Anko was shocked. "How is this ...?"

"In only 97 minutes." the chunin confirmed. "This has never happened before. These guys are not at a genin level, to demolish the old record by four hours."

"That's not all." Anko added, pointing out the shorter and younger red-headed boy, "That Sand shinobi travelled through 10 kilometres of the Forest of Death, and he doesn't have a scratch on him."

"It must have something to do with his abilities," the ANBU suggested. "Looks like a promising guy has appeared. I don't like the look of his eyes though." Anko silently agreed. His blue eyes were like a dangerous void, and reminded her uncomfortably about the state of her own soul.

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"Got anything?" the voice came as soon as Kabuto and his team from Konoha entered their entrance at the tower.

"Yes, more than I expected." the nin replied, a smirk on his face. "I've written down all the data pertaining to him from the second exam." He held up a card between his two fingers, "You need this, right?" If anyone were to see the man's transformation from the cheerful person mere minutes before to this cold, calculating self they would not have believed it.

The other man took the card, "So, how was he?"

Kabuto gave a cold laugh. "It looks like you are fond of him, Orochimaru-sama."

The snake Sannin smiled as he leant against the wall of the tower room, examining the card. "I want to hear your opinion ... as a spy from the Hidden Village of Sound."

"You don't need that," Kabuto replied, adjusting his glasses. "Since you are the one who will determine everything."

Orochimaru chuckled. "Your cunning is what I like." He disappeared in a whirl of smoke, but his voice lingered. "Well done."

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Anko clutched her curse seal as she sat on a couch in one of the tower rooms. The pain had become excruciating mere moments before. The Hokage looked at her gravely, with two chunins now with them.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, "Does the curse seal still hurt?"

"No, its gotten better thanks to you," the jonin replied gratefully.

"Isn't Orochimaru one of the Sannins from the Konoha legends?" the one chunin asked. "He's an S-Class exiled ninja from the bingo book that not even the ANBU can deal with, right? I heard that he died, but ..."

"Why would he come to this village now?" the other asked.

Anko opened her mouth to speak, when a memory of Orochimaru touching her face, and telling her about the boy suddenly hit her. "It's most likely because ..."

"Sasuke, right?" the Hokage finished.

Anko stared up at him, disbelieving that he already knew. "Anko-sama!" a voice came through one of the radios, "It has been confirmed that 21 people have passed the exam. According to regulations we will have to have preliminary matches for the first time in five years. Second exam, completed!"

Anko still stared at the Hokage. "Anyway," he continued, "We will continue the exam. But we will see what he is up to at the same time."

"Yes, sir." Anko replied quietly.

Moments later, Anko was standing in front of the surviving genin with the rest of the jonins, chunins, and the Hokage. She congratulated them on passing, and smirked to herself. She had expected only about ten to pass out of the 72, but surprisingly 21 had made it. Anko passed on the explaining of the third exam, and studied the genin.

Kakashi's team ... that was the Uchiha boy. She stared at him, and felt troubled over her feelings. A part of her pitied him, and another part envied him. She pitied him because any person who attracted the attention of her old sensei would not survive the experience whole. Another part envied him, and hated him, because her sensei's words still stung. "Unlike you, this one is talented." Damn him.

She noticed the boy clutching his shoulder in pain, and wondered briefly if he would drop out, but felt pretty sure that he wouldn't. Any person Orochimaru was interested in wouldn't quit so easily.

"Just as I thought," the Hokage said quietly to Anko and Ibiki.

"What should we do?" the torture expert asked.

"We should take him out of the exams and isolate him with ANBU escorts," Anko suggested. "We need to advise him to withdraw immediately and ..."

"He's not the type to listen to you that easily," Kakashi interrupted her with his typical lazy smile. "He's part of the famous Uchiha clan, after all."

"Stop fooling around!" Anko growled at him. "I'll make him quit even if I have to use force!" You don't understand the power of the seal, Kakashi. You couldn't. "The cursed seal reacts whenever he tries to mould chakra, and it will try to extract power from him!" She clutched her own re-emerged seal, trying to make him understand. "It's a forbidden technique that undermines the affected person!" She turned to look at the boy. "It amazes me that he is able to withstand it." she continued softly. "A normal person would be dead." She turned to the Hokage and questioned earnestly: "Hokage-sama!"

"I'll quit!" came a voice, disrupting them. It was one of the Leaf nin that Anko didn't know.

"I believe I've seen him before. I think he quit last time as well." the Hokage observed.

"Anko." Ibiki prompted.

"Hai," she said, paging through her file. "Yakushi Kabuto ... according to our data, he has failed six times in a row."

"What about his personal history?"

"He didn't stand out in his academy years, and his grades were normal. He passed the graduation exam on his third try. He doesn't have any outstanding accomplishments." she paused, "But ..."

"But?" the Hokage prompted.

"He was brought back by a medical jonin after a battle at Kikyo Pass. He was a child of one of the enemy."

"So he's that boy?" Sarutobi said thoughtfully, remembering the incident.

Anko got a bad feeling about the boy, but it was more than that. She had been feeling uncomfortable the entire time, and her curse seal ached even though the Hokage had seen to it personally. She felt like he was nearby, but tried to brush it off as paranoia.

"What Orochimaru said worries me a little," the Hokage admitted. "Let's let Sasuke continue, and watch him for now."

"Hokage-sama!" Anko protested.

"However, if his cursed seal opens up and his power becomes uncontrollable, stop him."

Anko wanted to argue, but stopped. "I understand." She could not go against the Hokage's orders, as much as she wanted to. As much as she wanted to take the boy and hide him from Orochimaru's clutches, it just wasn't possible. He's marked him now. It's only a matter of time.

She could feel Kakashi tense a bit when the Uchiha was called as one of the first fighters. She tensed a bit herself, unsure of what was going to happen.

The fight was intense, and Anko was shocked and impressed when the boy successfully fought back the seal when it tried to take him over, and went on to win against his chakra-stealing opponent. Powerful indeed, Orochimaru. She felt better when she saw Kakashi take him away – to seal his curse seal, she presumed.

Orochimaru, disguised as the Sound jonin, watched as the Uchiha boy was lead away by the Copy Ninja. He was trembling in possessive desire after seeing the boy's power, even with the force of the seal paining and draining him. He licked his lips, Wonderful ... He couldn't wait to have that body, to possess that power ... Because power was everything. His eyes flicked towards his old pupil who also had her eyes on the boy. He could still read her so easily, and to him her envy and pity were clearly visible as well as the reasons for both. He shrugged her off as unimportant, as he moved to follow his soon-to-be new student and vessel and the boy's current sensei.

The rest of the fights passed in a daze for Anko. She watched the two Hyuuga's and their extension of the inner family turmoil, the two Leaf kunoichi fight to a standstill, and the Kyuubi kid beat another Leaf nin. She was impressed by Uzumaki's determination, but he was too exuberant for her taste. People like that got too caught up in impossible dreams. This world has no mercy for a child's dream. She thought to herself, remembering her own distant dream. I lived to prove myself to my sensei, to show him that I was worth his praise and attention. I wanted to be everything to him, like he was everything to me ... She laughed silently and cruelly at herself, He turned out to be a sadistic killer and traitor, and I turned out to be a messed-up, bloodthirsty failure. What a joke life played on my dreams, she mocked herself.

She grimaced as pain shot through her. Despite the Hokage's help, it was increasing again. After the preliminary exams she would have to have it seen to.

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When the attack from the Sound and Sand villages came, Anko was in one of the hospital rooms. The curse seal had increased its attacks on her body soon after the beginning of the final exam, and it was all she could do to stop it from causing her to pass out. She had thought that the seal was under control when it ceased paining her a few days after the end of the preliminaries, but it had come upon her suddenly again.

When a new pulse of pain wracked her body, she couldn't know it coincided with the snake Sannin revealing himself to his old sensei, the Hokage, after discarding his disguise as the Sand Kazekage. When she heard the screams and felt the rumbling in the ground, she couldn't know that it was because a massive three-headed snake had broken through the boundaries of the Hidden Village of Leaf, or that people of her village were being slaughtered as its shinobi struggled to respond to the surprise attack.

She couldn't know that her old sensei had barricaded himself in an impenetrable barrier with the man who had saved her sanity after he broke her – the Hokage. But as Orochimaru drew on his power to summon the spirits of the First and Second Hokage while Sarutobi thwarted his attempt to summon the Fourth, Anko screamed. The seal flared, trying to draw out all her chakra and force her to submit to its power. And when the Third managed to make Orochimaru's arms lifeless after drawing out a portion of his soul, she was affected through her link to him that was so much stronger than Uchiha Sasuke's seal which was so recent.

Anko was in a coma for a week, and woke to the carnage her old sensei had caused to her village. She was quietly informed of the Hokage's death at the hands of his old student, and all she could think was: I should have known ... I know him! I could have done something if ...

She didn't reveal her thoughts to anyone, not even Kakashi. He was too absorbed in trying to stop his student from turning to darkness and following Orochimaru.

As she lay in his arms the one night, she felt him take a deep breath and turn his head to look at her. She met his eyes, and knew what he wanted to ask her but didn't interrupt.

"Anko," the Copy Nin said quietly, "Can't you talk to him?" He sighed heavily, glancing away. "I feel like nothing I say has any affect on him. I can't reach him but ..." he looked back in her eyes, earnest, "maybe you can? Maybe you can tell him-"

"Tell him what, Kakashi?" she stopped him. "Tell him what a monster Orochimaru is? Tell him how he twists those he manages to draw into his trap, how he uses people as tools, and nothing more? How he kills with no regret?" She looked away, unable to meet his mismatched eyes. "Tell him how he poisons those he uses, so that even if they manage to escape they never really will ..." her voice faded into a painful whisper.

Kakashi touched her cheek softly, but it only reminded her of that time, when Orochimaru had caressed her while telling her she was no use to him any more. She turned back to look him in the eyes, moving her face away from his touch. "He knows these things, Kakashi! Orochimaru killed the Hokage, and nothing I could tell him would show him more than that how ruthless he is. Besides, I ..." she rolled away so that she didn't have to look at his expression when she revealed her pain to him for what was probably the first time. She didn't know how he would take the rest of her confession.

"I ... I hate him. I hate him for being the one Orochimaru wants now. Even after everything he did to me, to this village, I was his for long enough to be twisted like this." She shook, but she held back her tears. She hadn't cried since the day that he left her. "I hate that boy, and I hate Orochimaru for making me into this ..."

Anko waited in silence for Kakashi to leave, but he didn't. He was still for a moment, and then he pulled her back to face him, and wrapped her in his arms. She clung to him tightly, as he was the only person who saw her weakness like this and did not think less of her for it. He ran his hands across her bare skin soothingly, before lifting her chin to kiss her deliberately and gently on the lips.

"You are not like him." he told her firmly, pulling her as close as possible and still running his hands over her. She ran her own hands through his hair and across his chest, before pulling his head down so that she could kiss him heatedly again and he responded quickly.

As Anko wrapped her legs around his waist, after allowing him to flip over and loom above her, she thought about how good they were at this – at allowing themselves to drown their memories and anguish in lust. They were so good at drowning themselves in lips, taste, skin, touch, and pleasure. For two shinobi to whom the appearance of strength was so important, it was only with each other that they could let down their uncaring masks. Kakashi, the Copy Nin, genius, prodigy, son of the White Fang. Anko, feared jonin of Konoha, prodigy in her own right, student of the traitor Sannin Orochimaru.

When Sasuke finally left for Orochimaru, leaving behind dangerously injured friends who had tried their best to get him back, Kakashi was in her arms all night. She thought he might blame her a little for not talking to the boy, but he said nothing and drowned himself in her body. He blamed himself for allowing his team to fall apart, for concentrating on the one student and teaching him such a dangerous technique such as Chidori that almost caused him to kill his teammate.

Anko thanked some god that Uzumaki had the Kyuubi and so didn't die. If the one teammate had left, and the other had died ... She didn't think all the comfort or sex in the world would make Kakashi forget even for a moment.

Orochimaru ... how many lives must you destroy before you are satisfied?