A/N: Finally here is the next chapter! Sorry for the wait all. I'm going to leave the long explanation for my profile page, so to see what's happening with updates/lack of inspiration etc. see there. It seems to be getting a bit darker but oh well ... I'm sorry if I've lost anyone with the direction the story's taken, but I hope some of you enjoy reading anyway :)

Note: stuff in bold are thoughts/speech not under Anko's direct control but that of the snake spirit. Think dual personality.

.c.c.c..c.c.c.

Chapter 9

Cutting Ties

.c.c.c..c.c.c.

Anko moved back towards Konoha at a slower pace than when she'd left. Her heart was racing and her mind refused to calm down. She was so conflicted, and again her past with Orochimaru was tainting her. I'll go see if Kakashi ... I'll go to the hospital, and then decide. Then I'll see.

She avoided all the patrols around Konoha, not wanting to have to answer awkward questions about why she had left against orders. Anko used a transportation jutsu to travel parts of the way, so that it didn't take her the half day it should have to get back. With her extended chakra capacity, it didn't take as much out of her as it would have a few days before.

When Anko arrived at the reception desk at the hospital, the receptionist practically fell backwards out of fright.

"Hatake Kakashi." she said expressionlessly, giving the civilian woman her best unspoken-threat-of-death look but taking no joy in her reaction. Orochimaru had sucked the joy out of her life again.

"I-i-in room s-six-oh-three," the receptionist stuttered, and breathed a sigh of relief when the kunoichi turned without a word down one of the corridors.

Does this mean ... is he ...? Anko's thoughts were incoherent, and she quashed them ruthlessly. She strode through the corridors forcing her mind to be blank, and her emotions non-existent.

The room was not the one Kakashi had been in before, but it was still nearby in the area of the hospital where all the critical patients were kept. The thought Anko wouldn't allow herself to consider was that if he was dead, he wouldn't have a room; but she couldn't let herself hope. It was just another weakness.

There was no one outside when she arrived at the door. She stood, staring at the door handle for a number of moments. It was like deja vu. The last time she'd been hesitant to enter a room it had been when she was on Jiroujima standing before the room where Orochimaru had given her the curse seal. Just like back then, she was afraid of what the door would reveal.

She was reaching for the handle when a voice stopped her. "Anko."

She turned around, to see the Hokage. As usual the woman was serious and stern, but Anko feared the sadness she could see there as well. "Hokage-sama. Is he ..." she stopped, and then motioned towards the door. She couldn't say the words – any of them. She couldn't show her weakness even now.

Tsunade sighed, and Anko noticed for the first time how tired the woman looked. "We worked on him for hours, Anko. He sustained severe injuries and Itachi used his Mangekyou Sharingan on him again. We managed to heal his body so that he is no longer in a critical condition, but ... as far as I can tell there is a large amount of mental trauma. We'll continue to do all we can." Anko's face was expressionless, but her clenched fists at her sides gave away her anxiety.

"He's in a coma, Anko, and I don't know if he's going to wake up."

The words ran through Anko's head: Why?! You're the fucking Godaime, the greatest healer Konoha and the rest of the shinobi nations have ever known! You have to be able to heal him, dammit! How can you stop trying?! But she said nothing, and merely bowed her head so she wouldn't have to see the sorrow and pity on the other woman's face.

Tsunade knew that a shinobi's life held loss, and pain, and suffering. She knew it from first-hand experience. She knew it because her brother and her lover both died in battle, she knew it because her teammate had left them to become a traitor, later killing their sensei ... she knew. But knowing didn't make it any easier seeing someone else border on breaking point with the suffering she understood all too well.

"You can go in and see him." she said quietly. "He might be able to hear you."

Anko nodded, and turned away towards the door. She said nothing to the other woman, and opened the door without hesitation and moved smoothly inside. She closed it with finality behind her.

The Sannin watched the door swing closed, and she sighed again. Kakashi ... We really can't afford to lose you. I don't want to lose you, even though I detest your support of Jiraiya's perverted novels. It was a bitter attempt at humour that didn't help. She started to walk back through the corridors, caught up in her thoughts on her patient and Sakura's determination to heal him, even though she had just started to learn how. She'd had to knock the girl out before she could stop her from using up all her chakra and killing herself. She has faith that she can heal him. I suppose I have faith in her too.

"Hokage-sama!"

Tsunade turned around to answer the urgent call. It was one of the ANBU, and if Tsunade remembered correctly it was the one who had helped carry Kakashi back. He had stayed outside the operating room until they had the Copy Nin stable. "Hai?"

"I have some disturbing news, Hokage-sama, and it's very urgent. Can we talk privately for a moment?"

She led him into a nearby empty room, and he closed the door behind them. "What's this about?" she asked. The Sannin was tired, and upset, and really didn't feel like dealing with any more problems but what he said next caught her attention.

"It's about Mitarashi Anko."

.c.c.c..c.c.c.

The room was so quiet that Anko imagined she could hear her own heart beating. It was a staccato rhythm that beat so loudly she wondered whether Kakashi could hear it. The Copy Nin looked so much smaller and more fragile on the narrow hospital bed, with the white sheets covering him and his arms at his sides. It looked so wrong because Anko knew he never slept in anything but a sprawl that threatened to shove her off her own large double bed.

She moved to stand beside him. His mask was covering the lower half of his face, which made her feel more at ease with the familiarity, but the scar running across his left eye stood out glaringly against his too-pale skin. If it wasn't for the faint rise and fall if his chest she would have thought he was dead.

"Kakashi ..." Anko said softly, reluctant to break the silence. She hesitantly reached out and took his hand in one of hers and brushed back a stray lock of his hair. He didn't respond, of course. Anko rubbed a hand across her face, wanting to cry again. He looked so fragile and ill and weak ...

"God, Kakashi ... What am I going to do?" She stared at his face – so still and calm – and rubbed his hand between her own. "I'm out of options, Kakashi. I need help, and the only other person I could have turned to was you. Why did you decide to take on the Uchiha again?" She couldn't help the angry frustration that welled up inside her even though she knew it was selfish. "It's because of Naruto and Sasuke, isn't it? You thought if you could kill him then Sasuke would come back and Naruto would be safe. I understand, but you should have known that you wouldn't be able to beat him. You should have known!" Anko clenched her fist and held her anger in tightly to keep her emotions and the spirit from taking control.

"You should have known – I could have told you – that Sasuke won't come back. If he does, he won't be the boy you remember. He had none of the naïvety that I had to protect him, but even if he had, no one escapes from Orochimaru." She ran the fingers of one hand lightly over his face and hair, with the other hand holding his. "When you wake up, I'm not going to be here, and I'm sorry. There's something I have to do, Kakashi. I have to leave and go to him again. That bastard ... I have to go to him because otherwise I'll kill people I care about. I'm ... I'm out of control, and at least if I go crazy when I'm there I'll take out some enemies of Konoha, hey?" she laughed humourlessly, bitterly. Kakashi was quiet, unresponsive, and she turned her face to stare out of the window at the blue blue sky.

"I have to go to Orochimaru because he can help me, but after he's given me power I will kill him. He knows it as well. I will kill him, then I will go after Akatsuki. Maybe if I help Konoha they will take me back ..." even after all I would have done. It was a vain hope, but it was a hope she clung to nevertheless even though it was a weakness. "Then we will get back together – maybe officially this time, what do you think? If you can forgive me."

Anko leaned over and pulled his mask down, kissing him gently on the lips before replacing it. "Goodbye, Kakashi."

The kunoichi turned towards the door, but it was thrown open to reveal two ANBU members. They walked in seemingly casually but Anko was too good a kunoichi not to recognise their ready stances.

She looked at them impassively, putting on an arrogant attitude. "Yes?"

"Mitarashi Anko," the one began – Anko suddenly recognised him as the one who had been standing outside the hospital room with Shizune many hours earlier – "We would like you to come with us."

"Why?" Anko's head was lowered so that her bangs hid her eyes.

"You are to be questioned about your recent contact with the S-class criminal Orochimaru and a forbidden scroll previously belonging to him that was being kept in a secure room in the Hokage tower."

The other ANBU member shifted warningly. "It would be better if you came with no trouble."

"Better for who?" Anko sneered, "You?" Her tone of voice caused them to tense in alarm – it was too rasping, too alien, to belong to her. She lifted her head and they froze for a moment at the sight of her strange eyes. That moment was all that she needed. She could have killed them both then, it was in her eyes and her stance and she would have, if she hadn't been stopped by an audibly indrawn breath and a voice.

"Anko?"

She turned slowly back towards the hospital bed, her control coming back to her along with a wave of numbness. "Kakashi?"

He stirred weakly on his bed, and stretched a hand towards her. "Anko, don't ..." he spoke with difficulty and seemed to struggle to try and say more.

The kunoichi froze. He had seen what she was about to do. He had heard what she had said. An irrational part of her mind took over and screamed at her, drowning out her sane mind: Run! They will lock you up and he will tell them about Orochimaru and the seal! He will tell them that you were going to leave Konoha! He will never forgive you. There is nothing left for you here.

Anko leapt for the window and crashed through the glass with her arms shielding her face. She heard the shouts of the ANBU behind her, and vaguely registered passing a stunned Kurenai at some point, but she was running on automatic. Her reason had retreated and all she could think was run. She didn't know how to stop. They had all underestimated her fragility and the ease with which she could be manipulated – even she had underestimated it. And now it was too late to back down and ask for help and understanding. It had all gone too far and she had no other option and nowhere else to run.

She didn't hear Kakashi call in her wake, finishing what he had tried to say before: "Anko, don't go!" And under that, the whisper he could never voice: don't leave me.

.c.c.c..c.c.c.

Anko made it far into the forest before she began to realise exactly what she had done. She had almost killed two ANBU and then ran when they were going to take her for questioning. She had left Konoha when she was under strict orders from the Hokage forbidding it. If they hadn't thought she was a traitor before they certainly thought it now.

"Oh Gods," she despaired, her tough façade cracking, "what have I done?" She held her head in her hands and it was pounding with conflicting thoughts and feelings. Rage boiled beneath the surface and the urge for bloodand release was frightening. She couldn't tell what was her any more.

"Mitarashi Anko."

She looked up reluctantly. It was one of the ANBU again. I shouldn't be surprised that he caught up. I can't ... I can't deal with this any more. I just need to get away. Why won't they leave me alone?!

"Please come with me quietly." Like all ANBU the mask gave him an intimidating anonymity that they learned to use effectively. His voice was bland and expressionless, but there was a lot of authority there as well. Anko could read the deadly warning it held.

Anko shook as she tried to hold herself together. "I can't. Please go. I can't control this."

"Hokage-sama can help you."

Anko closed her eyes, conflicted, and that was when the other ANBU gave away his position by throwing a senbon at her. Her hand flashed out and she caught the needle between her fingertips, bringing it to her eye level. She cocked her head to the side, and watched the sedative poison drip from its tip and her lips widened in a predatory grin.

"You're going to regret that."

...o..o.o..o...

Anko's conciousness faded into dream-like memory. She was young again, standing on the edge of the pier with her sensei looking out at the sea. The breeze brushed her hair back as she looked up to smile at him with innocent adoration. The wind blew strands of his black hair about his face and his gold eyes were bright as he smiled indulgently back.

Innocent? She had not really been innocent then, had she? She'd already killed a man – more than one – and she had stood before her sensei with blood on her hands. The man's wide, dead eyes came back to her. She could see his body lain out on the ground with blood leaking from below his ribs. It smeared the ground and stained his clothes and turned her hands into crimson gloves. And later, when she helped him with his experiments. All the deformed bodies she observed laid out on steel tables – some dead, some not – while she handed him instruments and held scrolls. The way she looked at them as things rather than living or once-living beings until she'd seen the floating girl.

That girl touched her heart, because it might easily have been her. And then her misgivings were supported by the cursed seal: she was just another experiment to the man she followed and admired.

But the body kept coming back to her. Their mission had been to find a spy that supposedly had knowledge of Konoha's defences. They had found the spy in a village in Rain Country, but Anko had made a mistake and given them away. They had caught up to him as he ran away into the forest, and Orochimaru had stopped him.

The man, a nondescript character who might have been difficult for any shinobi less than Orochimaru to find and catch, had been terrified when he saw her sensei.

"Oh God, oh God!" he cried, "Not you! I swear, I don't know anything! Don't take me!"

The Sannin lost all expression. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing! Nothing! I don't know anything!" he lost all composure and started to cry.

Anko had a moment to wonder why he was so afraid of her sensei, before Orochimaru had told her to leave them so that he could speak to the man to find out if he was truly the one they were after.

Moments later, Anko heard a scream and she ran back. The spy was writhing under her sensei's grip around his throat and trying to scream again. Orochimaru was impassive and his eyes dark as he watched the man struggle for air.

"Orochimaru-sama, what ...?" she asked, confused. Their orders had been to bring the man back alive for questioning.

"Anko, I have decided that this man knows too much to live. He is too dangerous to Konoha, even to bring back for questioning."

"I'm sorry for earlier, Orochimaru-sama," she said quietly, ashamed that her mistake could have caused this criminal to harm Konoha.

The snake Sannin was quiet for a moment. "You can redeem yourself, Anko." he said, without looking at her. He loosened his grip on the spy slightly, allowing him to breathe.

"How?" she said eagerly.

"Kill this man."

Anko blanched. She had never killed anyone before, let alone an unarmed man. "But-"

"Shinobi must be able to kill to defend their country, Anko. Any hesitation is a sign of weakness that means you are unfit to be a kunoichi." She shivered at the coldness in his voice. "If you cannot do this, then we end here."

Anko couldn't believe what he was telling her to do, but at the same time it made twisted sense to her. She had to be able to kill to be a kunoichi, even in cold blood. But she was young, almost eleven, and she couldn't comprehend taking someone else's life. She stared up at her sensei, the man she idolized, and realised she had to do this thing or she would lose him. She would lose the one person who had become her entire world, and she knew she couldn't allow that to happen.

Anko pulled out a kunai, and took a step forward. She tried to block out the man's whimpers, and shunt aside her conscience. There was no place for one now.

Orochimaru knocked the man to his knees, and held his arms fast behind his back. The spy tried to thrash and cry out, but the Sannin was stronger. He watched Anko approach with dark approval in his eyes. Those slit golden eyes made her shiver but also distracted her from what she was about to do.

She held the kunai to the man's throat, and her hand shook. She looked down at him as he moaned and pleaded, and her heart stopped. I can't do it. The thought hit her with the force of a blow. She couldn't kill him like this. She couldn't be the person her sensei wanted her to be.

Anko looked up into his eyes, and when he saw her thoughts there his eyes narrowed. His grip on the spy loosened and the man surged up in desperation, knocking her hand with the kunai aside and ready to kill her. Anko acted without thinking, and when he stopped, gurgling before her, she looked down to see her other hand with another kunai buried in his midsection and angled up to reach behind the ribs, piercing his heart. She stared at the blood dripping over her hand and to the floor, and watched as blood dribbled from his lips. His breathing rattled as blood filled his pierced lung. She couldn't even remember drawing the weapon.

She pulled the kunai out as he fell at her feet. He coughed a few times and spluttered more blood and then was still. The sight was mesmerising. She was watching a man die – a man that she had killed.

Orochimaru crouched down to check his pulse, getting some blood on his fingers. He looked up at her with an unreadable expression. "He's dead."

Something inside her broke then. Some integral part of her that formed her conscience and sanity. She watched the Sannin nod his approval and stand to look down at the body of the spy who had found out about his experiments, and thus had to be eliminated before he told the Konoha council.

She watched him deliberately lick the blood from his fingers while keeping his eyes locked with hers, and she looked down at her own blood-drenched hands. She stared at her crimson palms, watching them shake as she shook inside for something to fill the holes inside her, to fix the crack in her soul she had broken ...

"Do you want it, Anko?" He was always watching. He knew everything.

"Sensei, I ..." She stared, and he watched her conflict. He had turned away before she raised her hand to her mouth, knowing the outcome already. Blood stained her lips, and she looked down at the man she had just killed with a kunai through the heart. She could taste his blood in her mouth, and it gave her such a feeling of power.

...o..o.o..o...

She knew she'd left with him then, all those years ago, but the memory of standing over the dead body lingered, and the taste of blood came sharply. Anko was caught up in a dream-like state, staring at the blood on her hands and focussing on its taste in her mouth so that it was only when his voice came that she realised she wasn't dreaming.

"Anko," he was stroking her cheek like he had so often before, "Come back, Anko."

A feeling welled up inside her – a feeling of absolute dread and despair. She turned her head, and saw something ... two somethings lying on the ground a short way away from her. She shied away from what she was seeing, from the red she could see on her hands and the copper tang in her mouth. She turned into Orochimaru's body and hid her face against his shoulder, shivering.

He looped his one arm around her waist, pulling her tighter against him while he held her back gently with the other.

Anko's mind was frozen, and she pressed closely against his warm comfort without real thoughts on who was giving her solace. She was a child again, and she needed him, and he was there.

Anko didn't register the arrival of Kurenai or a number of other ANBU. She didn't notice how her friend stared in shock from her red-stained hands to the somethings on the floor because she refused to see them. She refused to see their expressions when Orochimaru swept her up into his arms and how he smirked at them when she turned her head into his shoulder without resistance before he leapt away. She refused to hear Kurenai call her name, because she could not be taken back there were something had happened that her mind shied away from.

She was exhausted, and she felt safe, and everything faded into dreamless sleep.