It was one of those perfect days, the type of days The Land of Fire is known for. When the sun lashes out across space, with all of its fury, baking the landscape below dry, evaporating even the clouds. The strength of the sun's rays made the landscape come alive that day, the grass seemed greener, the sky bluer, and the entire world more vibrant, despite the oppression of the heat.
However, it was not this way for all. For some, in fact, the overflowing life energy of the world that day only made the land and its inhabitants all turn a shadowy gray. Hyuuga Hanabi was one of these, her companions however, were not. This was readily apparent to even an untrained observer. Her two teammates, boys one year older than herself, jokingly skipped, tumbled, and darted across the dirt path in front of her, kicking up clouds of dust as they did so. Hanabi, in contrast walked in a perfectly erect and measured manner, portraying a sense of grace, determination, and purpose. She stared at her teammates absently, with her hollow, pale eyes, wishing half-heartedly that she could remember their names, however Anko-sensei had spent far more time with her own needlessly loud and flashy introduction as Hanabi's new teacher than with introducing Hanabi to her new teammates. Besides father had always warned her against forming emotional attachments with those around her, for such attachments were nothing more than an opportunity to be exploited by one's enemies. Still it would be nice to be able to remember their names. She allowed a soft sigh to escape from her barely parted lips, blowing a few stray strands of her long, dark hair off of her lips. To her annoyance, the strands of hair remained plastered to her sweaty forehead. The heat certainly was stifling, her light gray shirt was already damp with sweat and clung tightly to her figure, a fact which, to her further annoyance, her two male teammates had appeared to notice. At least she assumed that was the subject of their hushed conversation, which was broken by occasional excited gestures in her direction. She smiled at them, in what she hoped was a polite manner, but that she suspected they would misconstrue as a sign of temptation. Aw well, at least the blond haired one was kind of cute, with nice, tastefully muscled, arms. She would certainly like to run her hands across his smooth, taunt muscular form.
Damn. She had let herself get distracted, breaking another one of her father's rules. To be distracted is to invite death and even worse than that, to invite dishonor to the clan. Swiftly, she refocused her mind and scanned the nearby tree line, causing her veins near her eyes to bulge out even further under her the increased strain of her nearly continual use of her byakugan. The strain was felt throughout her body, her eyes felt like there were on fire, her sinuses felt as if they were about to burst, and a dull ache had spread throughout all of her muscles. Simply put, the body wasn't designed to endure prolonged usage of the byakugan, a technique which she had been using nearly constantly ever since her team left Konoha on their first C-ranked mission several hours ago. She was tired, but she mustn't let her guard down as father had been sure to remind her that the entire honor of the Hyuuga clan rested upon her shoulders this day. A gross overstatement yes, but one that made sense in the mind of a ten year old who still trusted her parents blindly. However, the body can not maintain itself on determination alone, and so at that moment Hanabi felt a sharp splitting sensation in her head, gasped suddenly as her vision faded to black, and collapsed to the ground unconscious, smearing her soft, pale skin with dirt.
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Mitarashi Anko let out a yelp of joy as she broke the surface of the water. Throwing back her head, she untied her dark hair and let it fall down across her back. With another sharp jerk of her head she sent droplets of water flying from her hair, which sparkled bright orange in the evening sun as they fell down to the small, clear pool below. She dunked her head one last time before exiting the waist deep water with a smile.
Damn that was refreshing she thought as she retied her beige trench coat around her still wet body. However, her fleeting sense of euphoria began to drip away along with the various droplets of water still trying to cling to her smooth flesh as she made her way barefoot through the soft, cool vegetation, that tickled her feat ever so slightly and lined the forest floor, back to her team's camp. Fuck it. How'd could she have missed the obvious signs of the Hyuuga girls overexertion? More importantly, how would she go about explaining her incompetence to Tsunade upon their return? "Bitch," Anko spat out the word at the thought of having to deal with another lecture, no interrogation, from Tsunade, their last meeting having been significantly less than cordial as Tsunade had only grudgingly awarded Anko full Jounin status. Well she'd have to figure out how to deal with Tsunade later as right now her new team needed her and she couldn't let them see her anger or her guilt, she had to be strong, she had to be a leader, not for herself, but for them. So with a broad smile on her face, an exaggerated swing of her hips, and a boisterous shout of "How are my three favorite little charges doing?" she stepped back into the clearing where her team was camped along with the three merchants they were escorting to a nearby town. The two boys instantly sprang up to what she thought they must have believed to be attention, their entire bodies becoming almost comically rigid. "At ease my young ruffians," she announced in a louder voice than was strictly necessary while coming to a stop and planting one hand upon her hip in an authoritative manner. The two young boys quickly resumed their normal, loose posture with a sign of relief present on both of their faces.
"How was your swim Anko-sensei?" the bolder of the pair asked in a slightly nervous and excited voice.
"Quite invigorating, thank you. You weren't watching me now were you?" she retorted in an exaggeratedly playful voice, even though she knew they wouldn't dare try to peep on her, she simply enjoyed watching them squirm, much as they were doing now.
"N-no Anko-sensei, we would never dream of it," the other boy replied. Well, at least half of his reply was true, however Anko knew the effect her figure had on almost all males.
"Well don't stand around here doing nothing, go get some fire wood, so we can eat hot food tonight," she ordered as she collapsed down onto a log beside where Hanabi was resting in her sleeping back. As the two boys scampered off eagerly into the rapidly darkening forest, Anko glanced down at the sleeping Hyuuga. As Hanabi slowly began to stir back to life, Anko was struck with pangs of guilt. In the waning light Hanabi seemed so frail, so fragile and Anko had failed her as a teacher and a protector, she had foolishly not noticed as Hanabi had pushed herself almost to death itself. Fuck, Anko, you wanted a chance to be needed by others, to help nurture and guide them and when you finally get that chance, you let some shit like this happen. "Hey, how are you feeling Hanabi-chan?" Anko asked in an uncharacteristically gently voice as Hanabi slowly and painfully began to raise herself to a seated position.
"Much better Anko-sensei, thank you for your concern," the child responded in a clear, piercing voice as she drew her knees in close to her body, "I just pushed myself a little to hard today I think."
"Well, I should've noticed and warned you," Anko replied, resting a lightly calloused hand on the child's shoulder. "I failed you, Hanabi-chan and for that I ask your forgiveness."
"You mustn't say such things Anko-sensei, such words are unbecoming of a leader, and besides you did your best," Hanabi replied, her face filling with empathy and understanding, knowing full well the weight of expectations one can be placed under.
"I guess your right, so what do you want for dinner?" Anko asked, resuming her usual light-hearted demeanor as she rummaged through her hastily packed backpack for something edible.
"We're not stopping for the night already, bitch? Cause me and my partners have some import-" a gruff voice announced from behind her, but before the unshaven, grubby merchant could even finish his sentence, Anko had already spun around and pressed the edge of her kunai up against the man's throat, hard enough to cause discomfort, but not hard enough to draw blood.
With a ominous grin on her face, she slowly drew the kunai down across the man's body, "Never fucking call me that again if you want to keep these two guys," Anko cooed in her most seductive voice as her kunai reached the man's crotch. Grabbing his body, she roughly flipped the merchant over her shoulder. "You were saying?" she proudly asked as the merchant attempted to pick himself back up.
"W-well's you see, it's j-just that," the shaken man sputtered.
"It's just that you thought you could disrespect and order Konoha shinobi around simply because you've shelled out a little coin?" Anko interrupted fiercely, "Well let's just get one thing straight pal, this is my mission and my team, so I'm in charge," as she kicked the man back down to the ground in order to further drive the lesson home.
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Overall it had been a good evening, Anko thought to herself as the last embers of their campfire began to die out. She leisurely reclined on the soft earth and patted her stomach contently and let out a rather loud belch, at least the food had been warm, if not cooked particularly well. Heck, even one of the other two merchants, a far more articulate one at that, had come over to apologize for his associates actions and calmly explained how they were just nervous as they had a strict timetable to keep if they hoped to settle a rather lucrative deal. Everyone was still awake and enjoying a nice cool breeze that had only recently sprung up.
The silence of the twilight was broken suddenly by a shrill yell emanating from the woods. Instantly, Anko sprang up and ran off into the woods, while the remainder of her team began running in the opposite direction. After thirty seconds of charging blindly through the woods, Anko realized that she was alone and again, cursing her own incompetence, reversed direction and began running back to the camp. Upon reaching the edge of the clearing, she saw the back of a figure wearing a tattered, hooded tan cloak looming over the three cowering merchants. She spun around just in time to block the blow with her kunai, sending sparks leaping into the air. She suddenly found herself face to face with a figure wearing a loose fitting dark red robe drawn close by a sash of white fabric. The person's face was covered with a tight fitting white veil which left only a pair of deep purple eyes visible. "Flee," her unknown assailant said in a hushed, but deep and raspy voice.
"Definitely, male," Anko thought to herself as she attempted to untangle her kunai from two twenty four inch katars, which emerged from two small metallic devices around each of the man's wrists. Giving up on attempting to free her kunai from the various small barbs and hooks that protruded from the lower eight inches of each of his katars, she dropped her one kunai and drew and then lashed out with another one all in one swift motion. Although the man easily parried her blow, the suddenness of her movement had distracted him enough to allow her to land a kick squarely on the man's jaw, sending him flying backwards several yards before he managed to plant his feet firmly upon the ground. "You're not too good with taijutsu, now are you?" Anko bellowed, to which the figure offered no response. "Damn and to think, I was hoping for at least an entertaining fight. Well no sense in keeping a disappointment like you alive," Anko announced with a laugh as she completed a series of rapid hand seals causing a large snake to leap out from each of her sleeves and lunge towards her now charging opponent. "Got ya fucker," she exclaimed as each snake drove its fangs into the man's raised left arm, piercing the bandages that he kept his two arms wrapped in and pumping venom into his body. However, to her horror the man did not die, nor did he even react to fangs embedded in his left arm, he merely decapitated both snakes with a single dismissive swipe from the katar attached to his left arm, staining the dirt with their dark blood and still writhing bodies. "How is that poss-," Anko never got to finish her statement as eight streams of pure chakra, the same deep purple color of the man's eyes, emerged from his right hand and impacted her skull and abdomen.
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"It was horrible, there was no other words to describe it," Hanabi thought as she convulsed on the ground, once again vomiting. The three merchants had all been decapitated, covering the forest floor in one large pool of blood, which was centered around their now exposed jugulars. But Anko-sensei's body was the worst. Her brain had been blown clean out of her head and it's gray, red, and pink remains now lay smeared against a tree. In addition her body had been almost entirely split in two at the gut, and pieces of her charred intestines lay scattered throughout the clearing. Hanabi closed her eyes wishing nothing more than to be somewhere else right now as tears fell freely down her face. Unfortunately for the young girl, although she could close her eyes, she could not block out the rich smell of spilled blood and burnt flesh, nor could she escape from the sickening slickness of the blood that now covered the ground around their former camp. No, there was no escaping the horror for the young girl as she hugged her knees tight to her vomit, blood, and tear stained body before once again beginning to throw up as she rocked herself back and forth, trying in vain to escape somewhere, anywhere else.
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The killer, crouching on a tree branch, coughed twice as he intensely stared at the gruesome scene below him. "Damn….I didn't want it to be so ugly," he said quietly to a female companion dressed in black jeans and a black silken shirt with gold embroidering running diagonally across it.
"Are you saying you have any regrets about what you just did?" his companion replied, her high, mocking voice escaping from behind a black, wolf shaped mask that hid her face.
"Of course not, you know me better than that," the killer stated in flat, nearly perfectly emotionless voice.
"Yeah and you did spare the kids," his companion replied in a hopeful manner.
"Why kill someone, when a little genjutsu will do the trick?," the killer asked before letting a dry, almost soulless chuckle escape from his lips, "now let's get the hell out of here before those ANBU bastards catch your trail again, besides we're late." And without little more than a slight wisp of noise, the pair leapt away across the plentiful and thick tree branches of the ancient forest.