Disclaimer: I am lord over worlds unseen and lands undiscovered… but unfortunately not over Naruto.
Chapter 9: An opportunity taken
One Anko Mitarashi had one of the shittier days of her life. Not as bad as the day when her traitorous teacher left her behind, or when she had to face the whispers, mistrust and outright hostility after her return to the village, but still easily one in her personal top twenty of bad days. There were several reasons for that, in no particular order:
First off, her application for jonin rank had been denied … again. No reasons were given, but she knew it was because of her teacher and the legacy he left her. The cursed seal on her neck would remind her forever of his treachery, even if she lost the memories of what had truly happened during the time she was with him on the run. It didn't seem to do anything, but it served to sow further doubts concerning her reliability. In any case, the leadership of the village didn't trust her. No matter what she did, some mistrust remained. She had the necessary level of skill and was respected in general by her peers, but promotion to jonin would give her political influence and entitle her to take students. Unknown to about almost anyone, Anko liked children in general and would love to teach her skills. She suspected the fear that she would build a secret cadre for Orochimaru or some such rubbish played the main role in the decision of the promotion board.
Secondly, while she was away on her last mission, her apartment building had been condemned and demolished. Apparently some mentally challenged chunin wannabe jutsu-creator had decided the living room of his house in one of the more densely populated residential areas of Konoha was the perfect place to conduct his experiments with fire and lightning jutsu. Predictably he had set himself as well as his house on fire when one of his experiments went wrong. Unfortunately it didn't end there. The idiot had kept an entire stack of exploding tags on his person and several more in various locations in his home. Unsecured. In charged up condition. According to the clerk who told her the story the resulting explosion had been quite spectacular and not only completely obliterated the idiot's house but damaged the surrounding buildings to a greater or lesser degree. It was a miracle nobody got seriously hurt, not counting the idiot himself of course. At first ANBU had suspected a terrorist act, but fortunately they found a witness. A neighbor had observed the entire thing. Unfortunately, him being an invalid octogenarian who couldn't walk unassisted or speak above a whisper had prevented him from alerting the authorities in time to stop the idiot before it was too late. It would have been almost funny if the building in which Anko had owned an apartment hadn't been one of those too badly damaged to repair. Now she had to not only find new living accommodations but retrieve her stuff from the storage facility in which it had been placed by the clean-up crew. Hopefully nothing important had been damaged or lost.
Thirdly, all three of her favorite dango stands were closed, due to either an extended vacation, illness of the owner or because of damage caused by the big explosion. The absence of her favorite food did nothing to improve her depressed mood. Sure, she could get some at other places, but it just wasn't the same blend of aromas she liked so much.
Fourthly, she had just returned from what could only be described as one of the most unpleasant assignments in her career. It had begun inconspicuous enough when she received orders to travel to the provincial capital of one of the northeastern provinces and make herself available to the local governor to fulfill missions at his discretion. A few years before, such orders would have been unthinkable, but now they were fairly standard. Ever since the old daimyo had died things had begun to change. The line of succession had been unclear and together with the economic crisis caused by the lack of new supply appearances the ensuing struggles had been almost enough for the Land of Fire to disintegrate. That lasted until one of the pretenders to the throne managed to assert his authority. The new daimyo was a hard man, and proceeded to clear up the mess his relatively weak predecessors and the succession struggles had caused. The very first thing he had done was enforcing the old treaties with Konoha.
Since the founding relations and customs had drifted far from what was originally envisioned and put into writing. The situation had been more or less that Konoha treated the Land of Fire as normal client and the daimyo had a lot of influence in exchange for funding. That had changed drastically. The new daimyo found himself with a drastic lack of taxes and need for a lot of ninja, and did the only reasonable thing. He gave up all influence on the Hokage selection process and proceedings of the village in exchange for enforcement of the old treaties. That meant Konoha now owed the Land of Fire a certain number of missions per year that they had to do free of charge and had to refuse missions against targets the daimyo declared as protected. For this service the daimyo paid a yearly flat rate, independent of the actual fulfillment of the mission contingent. If the mission number exceeded the quota they were paid normally for the additional missions. The quota was determined by a complex process Anko wasn't privy to.
The leadership wasn't especially happy about the new deal because it meant less money for the village, but they hadn't been given a lot of choice. Some funds were better than none. Apart from the quota and the protection list, Konoha was now effectively an autonomous entity again and stood above the normal laws of the Land of Fire.
Another change had been the resurrection of the imperial army. Its name hailed from the time the Land of Fire was still called the Empire of Fire long before the period of clan wars. There had been a core of troops maintained over the decades that was now massively expanding. In contrast to the shinobi or even the samurai of old the army didn't rely primarily on individual skill. No, their strengths were numbers, discipline and just enough training to prevent them from being pushovers. Shinobi and samurai largely drew from the same limited pool of recruits, namely the miniscule part of the population that was capable of molding chakra in useful quantities and had the necessary physical resilience to survive the intensive training regime. Even then only a fraction of the students developed anything more than basic skills.
The army didn't have those two problems and was recruiting en masse. After a few months of training the soldiers were generally good enough to pose a challenge to most academy students immediately before their graduation. Shinobi were better for most tasks, but the daimyo needed boots on the ground to suppress the uprisings that were popping up left and right. There were simply far too few shinobi of the necessary skill level to be everywhere they were needed, and they sucked at holding territory and controlling the populace in a permanent fashion anyway. Garrisons and legions were created as soon as enough recruits were ready, but it was still barely enough to hold the nation together. The only reason the Land of Fire hadn't been invaded was that everyone else had largely the same problems.
After entering the nearest drinking establishment, Anko waved the bartender over and ordered as much sake as she could drink. Perhaps the world would look better if seen through some alcohol.
"Keep the sake coming, I plan to get very, very drunk today."
The bartender only nodded. He obviously wasn't about to refuse her anything while she was in a foul mood and could pay. Perhaps she could even forget most of the events of her last assignment with enough drinks.
The weather had been nice during her journey, and she arrived without trouble. Her good mood lasted until she met the governor personally. Had she been free to do as she wanted, she would have left him with a kunai stuck in his brains and never looked back. Unfortunately, in his role as provincial governor the man was one of the highest ranking officials in the Land of Fire and possessed the special favor of the daimyo to boot. In her opinion the man was the lowest kind of scum without a single redeeming feature. He was greedy, a drunkard, corrupt, cruel, completely without morals and he had a thing for young boys which reminded her uncomfortably of her sensei. By all accounts he should have been executed, not elevated to rule over a province … but somehow he made it all work. Before his promotion to governor, the province was in a state of civil war and threatened to completely collapse into feuding city states and warlords.
A primary cause was the lack of any real industry. At the time of the first shinobi war the province had been only thinly populated. That changed when multiple emergence points of alien technology were discovered there. In the decades that followed the population had skyrocketed and several large trade cities had been founded around the emergence points, making the province one of the richest in the Land of Fire. When the replenishment of the wares suddenly stopped a little more than three years after the Kyuubi attack it had hit the province extremely hard. It was made worse by the fact that several of the emergence points had dealt with foodstuff. For a time the large amount of stockpiled wares kept the province afloat, but the wealth flowed away like water especially for the costly import of food. In a typical human display of shortsightedness most people had stayed until they didn't have enough money left to move away. The entire province had fallen into the deepest poverty and shaken by food riots. Men desperate for anything to eat turned bandit, the cities tried to steal from each other and civilization was generally tearing itself apart.
Four different governors had already tried and failed to stabilize the situation. The province wasn't important enough anymore to justify dispatching a sufficiently large number of scarce troops, and shinobi couldn't really do anything about the situation. If one warlord was assassinated the next one came out of the woodwork.
That was the situation the new governor found when he assumed his position. He had been a high official of the daimyo's court before, but his appointment was apparently the result of some intrigue on his part that had backfired. To everyone's surprise the man managed to turn the situation around. He hired a large brigade of mercenaries from the eastern continent beyond the Land of Water out of his not inconsiderable personal wealth to great effect. With an absolutely ruthless mix of bribery, assassination and brute military strength the province was pacified within three months and had remained stable since then.
He forcefully dismantled the cities in unsupportable locations and promised the residents food in exchange for their freedom. In effect he reinstated serfdom, a custom that had been slowly falling out of practice before. Whoever resisted was enslaved. The soil of the province was too poor for the most part to yield much crops, but through back-breaking labor new irrigation systems were build to help with that somewhat. In the hilly parts of the province some prospectors had found copper which prompted the establishment of some large mining complexes and gave the province something of an economy back.
All that had been bought with the tears, sweat, blood and lives of thousands of slaves and serfs. Naturally, some folks resisted rather forcefully only to be suppressed in unbelievable bloodbaths by the mercenaries who by now had a contract of indefinite duration. Apart from the hills the terrain was mostly flat and lacking any dense vegetation, creating ideal conditions for the mercenaries. In contrast to the usual infantry and light cavalry they used a fighting method previously unknown in the elemental nations, namely heavily armored cavalry.
The missions she had done with the mercenaries hadn't been too bad; mainly reconnaissance to find camps of bandits and rebels. They were professionals, and she could respect that. Totally merciless and somewhat bloodthirsty, but they upheld their contracts to the letter and generally didn't cause trouble with the populace unless they were explicitly ordered to. Some of their elite warriors might even give her trouble in an open fight, even if they didn't use chakra. Their heavy armor made it unexpectedly hard to damage them directly, but individually they stood no chance against a capable ninja who would use ambushes and traps against them. Still, they were impressive for a band of mercenaries. In contrast, the normal mercenary in the elemental nations was hardly better than a random bandit.
Unfortunately, only a part of her missions were done with the mercenaries. The other part of her duty was being the protection detail for the governor, and he needed it. The man was at this point perhaps the most hated official in the entire country, and there had been over two dozen assassination attempts on her watch alone. Most of the assailants were destitute people who had lost everything and posed hardly a challenge, but some had been more competent.
Still, the worst part had been watching the fat pig amuse himself with his stable of young boys. Most of them had a completely empty and lifeless look in their eyes that had pierced her heart. Anko would have loved nothing more than slaughter the swine on the spot, but she couldn't. It was her duty to protect him, and she did her duty no matter what. Even when the governor send her to kill a complete family whose father had proved a troublemaker to make an example she had obeyed. Father, mother, grandmother and three children, aged seven, five and three. She had made it as painless as possible, but the images still haunted her nightmares.
When it was finally over, Anko had felt incredibly dirty after her time in the man's vicinity. She had bathed at least a dozen times on the way back and scrubbed her skin raw but nothing seemed to help.
To top it all off, all of her few friends were currently away on missions and couldn't help her deal with her problems. She really would have appreciated some moral support. Especially since she feared that she would soon be sent on similar missions again. For all the Hokage's talk of the Will of Fire and that she wasn't responsible for the deeds of her master she sure was sent on the shittiest and most difficult missions a lot more than everyone else. Well, nothing that enough alcohol couldn't solve for a short amount of time.
Several hours later Anko staggered out of the fifth bar. If she had been sober she would have never even considered drinking in that rat hole, but she was far from sober. The weather had changed to a steady drizzle and it was slowly getting dark. She tried to find the way to a hotel where she could crash for the night, but somehow the streets were twisting and looping before her eyes. Suddenly her stomach turned, and she had to resist the urge to retch. Unfortunately that little task required the complete attention Anko's alcohol-addled brain could muster, meaning she didn't pay attention to where she was going. With a dull thud she walked headfirst into a wall, knocking herself out.
Naruto was in a bad mood. Not only had the academy been especially boring, but he had been drafted for cleaning duty after the lessons were finished for the day. When he finally got around to checking his snares in the forest some idiots had dismantled them. Additionally, Yakumo-chan wouldn't leave her uncle's death bed anymore. She wanted to stay with him in his last moments and give the old man all the comfort she could. He could certainly understand that, the man was her last living relative. After he died, she would be the last living Kurama in Konoha. Not that she received much sympathy for that, in contrast to the last Uchiha.
The destruction of the Uchiha clan had been a shock to everyone, but hardly anyone seemed to even remember that the Kurama existed. It had probably something to do with the little fact that the Kurama were practically penniless after the fire had destroyed their clan holdings, while Sasuke stood to inherit the unbelievable wealth of the Uchiha. They had been a very large clan, and had hoarded riches and stolen jutsu alike. Not to mention all the privileges they still formally held, like the now destroyed police force.
Its lack had made itself quite clearly felt in the time since the massacre. The council bickered if and how a new police organization should be founded, and for now ANBU was forced to cover their more important duties. Naruto believed the situation would continue indefinitely. Practically every family with daughters of the right age hoped to bag Sasuke as new son-in-law, meaning that they would resist every attempt to infringe on one of the Uchiha privileges. The other clans would do the same out of the fear that their privileges might face similar circumstances sometime in the future.
Choji and Shino had entered a phase were they needed to be with their clans for specialized training and other things they wouldn't tell him about most of the time. Hinata had similar problems with her family, leaving him practically alone after the academy closed for the day. The manner of Hinata's addition to his circle of friends had been a surprise, and he had been skeptical of his parents' plan. It had been quite strange for him to share the secret of his parents' existence and their time with anyone. Fortunately all went down as planned, and one month ago she had decided to join them permanently. She could now even hold a normal conversation with him, and she had been accepted by his other three friends without any problems. Naruto liked her already, even if he found Yakumo's more confident attitude more appealing. She wasn't quite ready to join him in his more clandestine activities yet, but the time would come.
Their absence made his after-academy training much less fun than usual, and he hadn't that many alternatives. Naruto had explored some of Konoha's underground and abandoned sections in the past, but he had exhausted all easily accessible parts. There was a lot of activity in the tunnels by various groups, and he didn't dare to enter areas where he was likely to be discovered. If he was cornered down there escape would be nearly impossible. Naruto had found a lot of vaguely interesting books and scrolls in his forays, but nothing that was really useful. All things which referred to jutsu or other shinobi knowledge were carefully guarded by their owners and unlikely to be found simply lying around. Further exploration in that direction would have to wait until his stealth skills had further improved. Or until Hinata was ready to accompany him, her bloodline would make it much easier.
He couldn't even venture far into the woods anymore because there were enemy spies from Taki running around. One had been killed, but three were still at large. His father had foreseen it and warned him in time, even if it was maddeningly vague. Still, the warning was justified when he heard the rumors about a corpse in the hills spring up.
'Just another sign for the piss-poor security situation of this village.' Naruto thought. 'And that idiot a few days ago who blew himself up doesn't say good things about the chunin selection process either.'
Really, they were the ostensibly strongest of the five great shinobi villages and they couldn't keep their own immediate vicinity free of enemy ninja? Something was deeply wrong with this image, but he hadn't been able to gather enough real information to know what it was.
Naruto didn't dare to visit the sanctuary too often because his absence from the village might be noticed by somebody, and his quarterly prank wasn't due for another two months. Now, he still had enough stuff to do to fill his time, but nothing he especially liked. Tanning leather for example wasn't a thing that was really enjoyable. He thanked his lucky stars that he could control his sense of smell. Still, it was necessary work. Soon his new hunting outfit would be finished. He was rapidly outgrowing his old one, and he liked his sturdy leather outfits. Not to mention the shoes he made for himself. I was quite difficult to get the measures and composition of the different parts exactly right, but it always paid off in the end. The leather sole had to be thick enough to offer adequate protection, but at the same time thin and soft enough for him to properly feel the ground. It made sneaking and stalking certainly much easier, not mentioning the toe protection. Most of the time he wore the normal ubiquitous sandals to avoid suspicion, but at least he had other clothing available.
Combined with the bad weather that left him drenched and cold all these little things had him in a rather foul mood while he made his way home from his workshop and mulled over his father's latest hint.
'Helping a snake by the wayside will create opportunities later. Up the stakes to win the game. A little trust can go a long way. What the hell does that mean? Sometimes dad is worse than a fortune cookie.'
The cold, steady drizzle that was quite unusual for the season made being in the open rather unpleasant, and he hurried through the back alleys to his home. In his estimation the rain would soon get stronger and continue for several days. It was already dark, the village only illuminated by the occasional oil lamp and torch. With his night-vision what it was it could have been broad daylight for him. Still, the loss of cheap and easily available electricity and lighting had forced a change of behavior in many citizens, and the streets aside from the main avenues were mostly deserted after sunset. Konoha was rich, richer than most villages and cities due to the lucrative shinobi business, but even they couldn't afford all the oil and candles to light every street or house all night long.
He was about to enter the backdoor to his apartment building when a wave of air brought the smell of vomit to his nose. Swiveling his head, Naruto tried to find the origin. Somewhere a few dozen meters down the street was his best guess. Naruto chose to investigate. If some passed-out drunk was lying on the street he could easily freeze to death or drown in a puddle, and Naruto didn't want to deal with an investigation directly behind his backdoor. His hearing now picked up labored breathing, enabling him to pinpoint the location. When he passed a stack of some old wooden crates he got his first look of the presumed drunkard.
Lying on her side in a pool of water mixed with vomit was an unconscious or sleeping purple-haired kunoichi. Naruto gave a closer sniff and scrunched his nose in disgust. Whatever the woman had been drinking and eating, it surely produced an almost unbearable smell. From the looks of it the woman had been rolling in her own vomit, and the rain had only served to distribute it evenly across her clothes and hair.
Carefully he approached her. One could never be too careful when dealing with experienced ninja of either gender, some of them had reflexes that were working even when not fully conscious and Naruto didn't fancy getting a sharp object forcibly implanted in his belly. After nothing happened he poked her. "Hey, wake up." Nothing. He poked stronger. "You can't lie here for the night; you'll either freeze or drown." No effect. With a sigh he forcibly upended her by grabbing her under her shoulders. His efforts seemed to finally have an effect, as the kunoichi seemed to becoming conscious and opened her mouth.
"BLEEERGH"
A new rush of vomit erupted from the woman, luckily without any splatters hitting Naruto. The main part covered the woman's front, further staining her clothing. She seemed now awake but completely incoherent, talking about some pig and young boys in a heavily slurred voice.
'Great, just great. What should I do?'
He couldn't simply leave her outside. Carrying her somewhere else was out of the question, who knew what would happen of some idiots saw him with an unconscious woman. That left only one option, he had to take her into his apartment. When he tried to get a good hold on her he could see her face clearly for the first time. Naruto had made a conscious effort to learn as much as he could about the different shinobi divisions and their members as well as individual ninja, and his memory immediately supplied the needed information.
'Anko Mitarashi, special jonin and former apprentice of the traitor Orochimaru, recovered under unclear circumstances. Snake summoner. Respected for her skills as kunoichi, but whispers of mistrust remain. Commonly known as the Snake Mistress of Konoha, or as the Serpent Whore by her detractors.' Naruto paused a moment to open the door before dragging her into the building. 'Huh. I guess dad was right again with his seeing the future stuff.'
Anko was floating in that warm fuzzy place that wasn't sleep but not full awareness either. Slowly, the sensations that her body felt were assembled into a complete picture by her sluggish mind. She was lying in a bed. She smelled some soap of an unfamiliar type. Then she realized something: She was completely nude under the bed sheets. Fumbling around, she didn't find any knives or kunai. She never slept without at least two of them in easy reach. She was naked and without weapons in an unfamiliar bed. Immediately following that realization she shot upright.
Unfortunately, incited by the abrupt movement her pending hangover headache chose that moment to make itself known. Now, Anko had some experience concerning drinking binges and their aftereffects. A normal headache would have inconvenienced her somewhat, but she would have managed. Regrettably her current headache featured the same relative resemblance to a normal headache that the Kyuubi displayed to a mundane fox kit. In other words, the ex-apprentice of the snake sannin suffered from the demon queen of headaches.
With a heartfelt groan, Anko fell back onto the bed clutching her head. She closed her eyes in an unsuccessful attempt to somewhat alleviate the blinding pain.
A childish voice cut through the haze of pain. "So, you're finally awake. Wait a moment, I'll be right back."
Anko wasn't sure how much time went by until the voice returned, this time much closer. "Here, drink this; it should help with the headache. Careful, it's hot and somewhat bitter."
Normally, Anko would never accept something from someone she didn't know, but at that moment she was in too much pain to care. She was helpless either way, why would someone go to the lengths of poisoning her? Accompanied by these half-formed thoughts she carefully sat up while leaning against the headboard for support and grabbed hold of the mug pressed into her hands. She cautiously took a sip. The brew was indeed hot and bitter, but not overwhelmingly so. Anko tasted some honey that had been added to the mix to counteract the bitterness to a degree.
"I'll wait in the next room, you can join me as soon as you're up for it." said the unknown voice.
This time she heard the footsteps leaving. She took a few sips more and waited. After a few minutes the headache subsided enough for her to open her eyes and survey her surroundings. She was in a bedroom with a small bed, a nightstand and a wardrobe. The room was almost completely dark because the windows were blocked by close-drawn curtains, a fact she was thoroughly thankful for. The dim light that was seeping into the room along the edges of the curtains was enough to irritate her eyes. She could clearly hear the splattering of heavy rain outside. An ajar door led out of the room.
Anko continued sipping her drink and tried to recall what had happened. She clearly remembered being very depressed and entering a bar. After a while she had switched bars, several times as a matter of fact. After the third bar things became fuzzy. She dimly remembered trying to find the way back to a hotel before everything went black. Apparently she had passed out somewhere on the streets and someone had found her and brought her here. An unpleasant thought occurred to her and she quickly checked under the sheets only to relax immediately. Yes, she was completely naked under the sheets, but it seemed nothing of a sexual nature had happened.
Sooner than she expected her cup was empty, and she felt surprisingly good considering her drinking binge of epic proportions. Slowly she rose from the bed and stood unsteadily on her feet. Anko still felt somewhat wobbly, but she had left her host waiting long enough. Two of her knives lay on the nightstand on a spare bed sheet, so apparently whoever her savior was had no problems with leaving her armed. A quick inspection of the wardrobe only yielded various articles of child-sized clothing, but at least she now knew who her host was. To her knowledge only one person in Konoha was wearing these eye-searing orange jumpsuits. What surprised her was the number of completely normal outfits. If one listened to the talk of the village the Kyuubi container was only wearing the jumpsuits, but that was apparently untrue.
Still, that left her with nothing to wear until she spied a fluffy white bathrobe that might serve. For a child of about nine or ten years the thing was probably a generous size, but for her it was a tight fit. Very tight. In fact, it barely covered the areas that needed covering and was in steady danger to burst open due to the strain her ample bosom caused. After securing it as well as she could and hiding her knife in her hand she opened the door and entered the next room.
It was pretty much the standard combined cooking/living area that was common in many of Konoha's apartment buildings. A table with four chairs stood in the middle of the room, with a blond boy wearing a black short-sleeved shirt and blue shorts occupying one of the chairs reading in a book with a cup of steaming tea nearby. When he heard her entering the room he looked up.
When her host saw her, his blue eyes widened and his jaw dropped somewhat before he caught himself. "You know, I was expecting for you to use the spare bed sheet I laid out for you, not raid my wardrobe."
Anko blinked. She hadn't even considered that. She began a turn to return to the bedroom, but she never finished. The lateral movement caused some parts of her anatomy to increase the strain on her garment, exceeding the maximum safety parameters. In other words, the bathrobe chose that particular moment to burst open, fluttering to the ground and leaving her completely naked. Anko's reflexes were still shot to hell, and she failed to grab it in time. She had to give the kid props, his eyes never left hers even if a blush spread across his face. Still, one of her personal rules was never to act embarrassed, no matter the situation.
'Well, let's see how he deals with the situation.'
She smirked. "Like what you see?" Naruto blinked once, and then slowly checked her out from head to toe, apparently taking her words as permission. 'Cheeky brat, but he has guts. Might as well give him the full view while I'm at it.' A slow, sensual full rotation later Naruto's face was beet-red, and his eyes had a somewhat glazed look, but he kept himself from drooling and still seemed capable of acting. 'Interesting, it's very rare for a boy that age to have that much self-control.'
Lightning quick, she stood immediately before him with her knife at his throat. "Any last words or wishes?" Anko purred.
"I wish I were a few years older. And you should look down."
Without lowering her knife, she carefully looked down. The boy held a very sharp looking knife of his own in his hand, almost but not quite piercing the skin of her belly. 'It must be the alcohol still affecting me, no way I would have overlooked that normally. Let's test how far he is ready to go.'
She shifted her knife to the boy's cheek and began to make a precise, shallow cut. Almost at the same time as she broke his skin she felt his knife doing the same to her. Immediately she stopped cutting, and the boy did the same. The entire time his eyes had never left hers, and she couldn't get a read on him. Removing her knife, she sensually licked the wound. "I love spraying that red blood. Your blood tastes especially good."
The boy bent down to her belly and licked the drops of blood he had spilled from her abdomen. The sensation made her shudder. Sitting up again he grinned at her. "I must return the compliment. Your blood tastes delicious."
After staring at him for a few moments speechlessly, Anko threw back her head and laughed uproariously. "I like you, kid, I really like you. Name's Anko Mitarashi, you can call me Anko."
A few minutes later she was sitting at the table with the spare bed sheet draped like a toga around her body and a new cup of tea in her hands.
"So Naruto, you found me lying unconscious in the back alley and took me into the house. Thanks for that." She narrowed her eyes. "Did you cop a feel while I was helpless?"
Naruto seemed a bit uncomfortable. "Well, as much as I had to, sorry. You had rolled in your own vomit, your entire clothing and body was covered with the stuff, really nasty smelling. I even washed your hair and clothes." He gestured to the clothesline high on the ceiling. "Unfortunately it takes a long time for clothes to dry in this weather. I found you Friday evening, and it's now past midday on Saturday, but the clothes are still wet."
Anko suppressed her reaction to yell at the boy, that wouldn't have been fair. As much as she liked to flaunt her body she really didn't like people who groped her without permission. Although chastising Naruto would be ungrateful on her part, it wasn't as if he had done that deliberately. He could always just have her left outside and, well, you couldn't really avoid feeling somebody up if you had to undress and wash them. Instead she decided to drop the point.
"Was I unconscious the entire time?"
"You sort of woke up when I brought you into the house and kept going on and on about different things and simply wouldn't shut up until I put you to bed." He blushed. "Well, and you did try to grope me several times."
Anko blanched. "What did I talk about?" It would be very bad if she had divulged some village secrets. Or told Naruto what he held, for that matter. Her groping him was awkward but forgivable under the circumstances, and Naruto obviously didn't hold it against her.
"Pretty much your entire life story. From your childhood and sensei to the last mission and dissatisfaction with your current situation." Seeing Anko's expression Naruto quickly continued. "I promise I will keep it to myself. No village secrets as far as I can tell. Well, there was one, but I already knew about my tenant."
"You knew." Anko stated. "How?"
"Yeah, and I have known for quite a while without anyone telling me. It's kind of obvious when you get dreams of a sleeping giant demon fox inside of a cage that a tag with the kanji 'seal' holds closed. Not to mention the complex seal that appears on my belly when I channel chakra. I found it when I tried to use a Henge to fake a tattoo and experimented before a mirror without a shirt. Please, keep it secret. I want to know what the Hokage thinks should be the right time for telling me. If things had gone as the Old Man wanted I would still be wondering why almost everyone dislikes me. Oh, and I can feel its chakra in my system, but I don't think it a good idea to experiment with that, I don't want to wake the fox."
Anko was thinking hard. Normally she should report that, but then she would be required to explain how she got that information. She didn't really want her drinking escapade to become public knowledge, and Naruto had obviously been perfectly fine for however long he knew. After a few seconds of thought she mentally shrugged. It simply wasn't her business, and she owed Naruto for helping her. "Okay kid, I keep that a secret as long as you don't tell anyone about how you found me."
"It's a deal." He appeared pensive for a moment. "Do you want to talk about your problems?"
Anko gave him a disbelieving stare. A boy half her age wanted to discuss her personal life with her?
"Hey, your situation might be different from my own, but I know a lot. People tend to ignore me when I stay a bit out of sight. You'd be surprised what I'm able to overhear. It might make you feel better if you talk about it. Get a new point of view, you know."
Anko hesitated a moment before coming to a decision. 'What the hell, he already knows everything. Talking might actually help, and it will be at least a week until either Kurenai-chan or Ibiki are back.' In the following discussion she noticed that Naruto was surprisingly understanding and insightful. She would have never expected to have such a discussion with a nine year old kid. Anko was amazed by his knowledge of rumors and how things in the village worked. From the talk in the village she would have expected a slightly dumb kid, but Naruto was very sharp. She called him on that.
Her host scratched his head sheepishly. "Yeah, it's deliberate. Many people wonder if I'm a danger to the village, and I prefer to present a harmless image. I'm probably one of the best students in my year, but I see no reason to show it. When I make genin my grades won't really matter anymore, I only have to appear good enough to make it that far. My closest friends know that I hold back, but no teacher has ever noticed. Not even with all the extremely complex pranks I pull."
"Well, that doesn't say good things about the quality of your instructors if you can trick them so easily. If you get on a team your sensei will get the shock of his life if he trusts these reports." Anko said with a chuckle.
A wide grin split Naruto's face. "Oh, I'm already looking forward to that."
After that interruption the discussion veered back to her frustration with being held back in rank and other stumbling blocks placed in the path of her career.
"There isn't a Mitarashi clan, right?" After seeing Anko shake her head he continued. "So you count as an unaligned kunoichi. Isn't there someone who should be your political representation? Someone who could help you if you feel you're treated unfairly. I remember reading something about that in a schoolbook."
Now it was Anko's turn to dig into her memories. Half-forgotten lectures and briefings were forcibly dragged to the forefront of her mind. "You're right, there should be someone." Suddenly she snapped her fingers. "That's it. Homura Mitokado, the old teammate of the Hokage, is the one who represents the unaligned shinobi. But I don't really want to play the political game. Sarutobi-sama has been nothing but supportive to me."
"Well yeah, sticking to the Old Man obviously doesn't really work for you, does it? Why don't you try it? If he wants something you aren't willing to do you can back out before closing the deal."
Anko nodded at first hesitantly, than ever more forcefully. "You're right; I will go to him at the next opportunity. Hey, how about I visit you occasionally?"
Naruto sighed. "As much as I would like having you as a friend, I don't think it would be good for your career. With what I'm holding it would be taken amiss for you to develop an interest in me and fan the rumors." He favored her with a broad smile. "But thanks for the offer."
She was a bit disappointed, but she could certainly follow the kid's reasoning. The serious part of the conversation finished, they talked about some inconsequential things. They even got around to talking about their skills and had a little impromptu knife-handling contest. The boy was good with his knives. Not as good as she of course, but far better than he had any right to be.
After drinking three more cups of the wonderful anti-headache tea she felt it was time for her to leave. Donning her still wet clothing (hey, she would get drenched by the rain outside anyway), she gave Naruto a last wave and exited his apartment. Her first priority was finding new living accommodations and setting her other affairs in order. Then she would see if that old fogey Homura could do anything for her. It wouldn't do to miss an opportunity.
After Naruto was sure Anko had left, he relaxed back in his chair. 'That was more nerve-wracking than expected. Nerve-wracking, but extremely hot.' Naruto shuddered slightly while remembering the sensation of Anko's skin under his fingers. 'The damn hormones are really beginning to kick in.' He hadn't the slightest idea if he had done the right thing, and what the long-term consequences of his actions would be. He had given the best advice he could, but he didn't really know much about Homura, or what the man's opinions of him in particular were. In the worst case he might have given a future political opponent a valuable ally. Still, he got something very precious out of his efforts, namely the spell-etched memory of a prime view of Anko, both wearing a much too small bathrobe and completely nude. Naruto was sure what his dreams in the next days would be about.
Homura Mitokado was a conflicted man. The reason for that was his concern about the direction the village was headed, and the offer he had received a short time ago. The gist of all his worries was that in his opinion Konoha experienced a steady decline and everybody closed their eyes to it. There wasn't a single event or policy that he could point a finger at as the cause, but for everyone who had access to the necessary knowledge and looked with open eyes the signs should have been undeniable. It wasn't that the village was in any immediate danger of collapsing, but what would be the situation in five years? What in ten?
He had no doubts that his old teammate Hiruzen Sarutobi and his fellow elders Koharu Utatane and Danzo Shimura each had the best interests of Konoha in mind. No, the problem was that their methods and individual goals were harmful or even dangerous to the village's future.
Danzo was an extremist, no doubt. He placed the village above all else, resorted to drastic measures even if a softer approach might be equally successful and embraced methods bereft of any sort of morality. That didn't sound so bad for a society of paid assassins, until one considered that even the wholesale slaughter of children and complete families was still widely accepted as being compatible with shinobi morality under most circumstances. What acts were so despicable to be considered outside of that? His conviction that emotions should be suppressed and ninja were nothing more than tools served to further unsettle Homura.
Koharu was more moderate, but she placed the group as a whole above the interests of its members. She wasn't as unscrupulous as Danzo, but due to the power loss the minor clans which were her political powerbase had suffered she had aligned herself closely with him some time ago.
He considered himself a moderate. A generally more martial policy combined with respect for the individual shinobi and some parts out of Danzo's and Koharu's playbook when it was absolutely necessary was his favored approach.
Hiruzen was as much an extremist as Danzo, if in a different way. During his entire reign, he had supported the civilian side of things to an unreasonable degree. It had been a slow process, but by now they controlled too much of the village, and the performance of their shinobi suffered for it. Homura hadn't anything against civilians per se, his parents, wife, children and grandchildren were or had been all civilians, but that didn't mean that they should get such influence on the daily running of a shinobi village, or the curriculum of the academy for that matter. It wasn't a single event or decision that was outright harmful nor someone with malicious intent, no, the problem was the cumulative effect of several decades of compromises, unintended side-effects and long-term consequences of superficially sound policies. Add to that Hiruzen's excessive desire for peace and penchant for compromise, diplomacy and negotiation, and you had the recipe for a slow, almost unnoticeable decline.
For the longest time Homura hadn't noticed himself. That changed with the third shinobi war. They were far weaker than everyone had assumed beforehand. If it hadn't been for Minato Namikaze's genius and over-powering skills the village would have fallen. Seeing the absolutely appalling performance of their forces had been a wakeup-call for Homura, but sadly nobody else seemed to have gotten the message. They had been forced to throw barely trained five-year olds into the war and the fools still refused to see. Even if they had formally won the damage to the shinobi forces had been immense, both in terms of immediate manpower lost as well as the young generation being killed off early or heavily traumatized. Not to speak of the loss of knowledge and potential teachers. It didn't help that many experienced clan heads had perished or retired, their young successors were simply no match for Hiruzen's political skills.
Because almost nobody saw things his way he had been forced to try and remedy the situation in a non-obvious way. With a lot of effort he had been able to convince enough people that it was time for Hiruzen to retire, for he had hoped his successor would do a better job. After his performance in the war there was no doubt that the Yellow Flash would be chosen. Unfortunately the Kyuubi incident happened before Minato could formulate much of his own agenda, and Hiruzen was back in power and showed no inclination to find a new successor.
That meant he was back on square one, and he simply wasn't able to convince anyone of the severity of the situation. Everyone seemed to believe their own propaganda that Konoha was the strongest village of them all and saw no need for change. Complacency and willful blindness to the true facts were running rampant in the leadership, civilian population and shinobi forces alike. Homura couldn't publically go against the Hokage, the villagers would simply think he had gone senile. Hiruzen had been Hokage for such a long time and commanded such an amount of respect that nobody could gainsay him on most matters.
That didn't even touch upon his mishandling of the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack. They desperately needed the power a fully trained jinchuuriki could provide to compensate for the damage the Kyuubi had wrought in addition to the aforementioned problems. It had turned Homura's stomach, but he was ready to give the boy to Danzo to form him into a capable weapon in the shortest amount of time possible. Only it hadn't worked. Between all the different reasonable proposals somehow the one which was useful to no one was approved. Meaning letting the boy grow up ignorant in an orphanage to 'protect his identity and childhood'. He largely had let the matter drop after that, it was plain to see that the boy was Hiruzen's pet project and nothing would come out of arguing the matter any further.
Homura could only watch the decline of his beloved village in despair. If one discounted the Hokage himself, they didn't have a single S-ranked shinobi who permanently resided in the village. And he couldn't do anything about it. The harsh truth was that he simply lacked a coherent power base. Sure, he was the representative of the unaligned shinobi of the village as well as one of the Hokage's advisors, but that didn't get him much more than a vote in the great council and the right to talk to Hiruzen. He had his people in many positions, but no one that was truly capable of field work. Hiruzen had ANBU and the shinobi who practically worshipped him, Danzo had his unofficial private army, Koharu could still mobilize some members of minor clans and the great clans were powerful because of their large numbers. Most unaligned shinobi seemed to have forgotten that they could actually come to him with their problems and either went to the normal bureaucracy or directly to the Sandaime.
Then suddenly all the foreign technology began to break down, the mysterious supplies failed to appear and finally the Fire daimyo died of a quail bonelet that stuck in his throat of all things. Luckily the new daimyo seemed to bring things slowly back under control, even if Homura didn't much like the new agreement between him and the village, especially because it had cut one of the few avenues of influence that had been left to him.
In this situation he had received Danzo's offer. In exchange for his political support Homura would receive access to Danzo's forces to push his own agenda. It was certainly a tempting offer, but Homura had doubts. Danzo was definitely overestimating Konoha's current capabilities, and with his confrontational course he would trigger before long another war that would destroy the village. Once upon a time he would have made a better Hokage than Hiruzen, but that was hindsight. He had grown ever more radical over the years and around the time of the Uchiha massacre he had completely gone around the bend.
The Uchiha fiasco was a sore point for Homura. After letting the situation escalate uncontrolled for too long, Hiruzen had insisted on negotiating well past the point of reason when he finally deigned to take action. They had acquired Itachi Uchiha's services to spy on the clan, an incredible useful advantage. When he brought them notice of the imminent rebellion it would have been reasonable to deploy ANBU and as many loyal forces they could muster to lay a trap and crush the rebellion before it really got off the ground. Sure, there would have been losses, but not all Uchiha supported the rebellion or even knew of it.
Instead they committed an act of insanity of the highest order and sent Itachi to wipe out his own clan. Madness. Sheer madness. To this day Homura didn't know how Danzo had managed to convince him of this course of action. When he later thought about it he couldn't explain why he did it. At the time the decision had appeared completely reasonable to him, but he had the habit of going over his past decisions after a while when he had nothing better to do. That didn't even count the mystery how Itachi had managed to kill so many skilled shinobi at one go. Itachi was good, but not that good. Someone had helped him, but if that someone was either Danzo or an unknown party Homura didn't know.
The consequences were the loss of a third great clan after the Senju and Kurama, a powerful and possibly insane shinobi who held his knowledge like a sword above their heads and a single surviving mentally damaged Uchiha remaining in the village.
Ever since that day he had avoided Danzo as much as he could. Whenever they were discussing something important, he found himself agreeing with the man in the end, and that frightened him. Hiruzen definitely knew a lot of what Danzo was doing, and was content to let him be. Danzo managed to compensate for many of Hiruzen's failings with his secret ops, but he did just as much harm with his heavy-handed approach. Between the two of them they would cause Konoha's ruin before long. Hiruzen was soft when he should have been hard like when he had let his pupil Orochimaru do as he liked for far too long even after rumors about his experiments sprang up. Even after he finally deigned to take action he let the monster escape. Now the snake sannin was one of the bitterest enemies of the Leaf. Danzo had exactly the opposite problem. Homura didn't really want to know how much new enemies and resentment against Konoha Danzo's ROOT had created in the course of its existence.
'After all, if your left side is frozen and the right side is burning, your mean temperature is perfectly fine, but you're dead nonetheless.'
He could follow Koharu's example and accept Danzo's offer, but he didn't believe for a minute that he would be more than a pawn. If his suspicions about the man's brainwashing abilities were correct he would soon forget what he originally intended and simply go along with him. Still, was the risk worth it to perhaps get a shot at saving his beloved village?
A knock on the door interrupted Homura's musings.
"Enter."
His secretary stuck her head into the room, looking slightly confused. "Mitokado-sama, one Anko Mitarashi asks for a meeting or an appointment at your convenience in your capacity as representative of the unaligned shinobi. What shall I tell her?"
Homura paused for a moment while he tried to make sense of the information. He had a nearly infallible memory, and Anko Mitarashi was one of the more publicly known special jonin of Konoha. She wasn't really politically active, but had ties into the Torture & Interrogation as well as the Infiltration department. Normally Homura would have counted her among Hiruzen's supporters, but her visiting him in his representative capacity suggested otherwise. 'Intriguing. I wonder what she wants?'
"Please show her in and make sure we aren't interrupted."
After the secretary had shown the snake mistress in and she and Homura had exchanged the necessary pleasantries as well as taken some tea they got down to business.
"Thank you for receiving me at such short notice, Mitokado-sama. I'm well aware how precious your time is, but I have need of your counsel."
"You're welcome, Mitarashi-san. In what manner can I assist you?"
"I assume everything we discuss here doesn't leave this room?" Seeing his nod, she continued. "My recent application for promotion to full jonin has been unfairly denied without reasons, as have all the earlier applications. Additionally, I have some doubts about the missions assigned to me."
That wasn't something Homura had been expecting. He was generally aware that there still existed some doubts about Mitarashi's reliability, but he hadn't exercised any influence one way or another.
"I see your problem. Why come to me though?"
The woman looked somewhat embarrassed. "I only realized a short time ago that I could go to you with my problems. After my return I was content to let my immediate superiors look after my interests, but recently I have become… dissatisfied with the progression of things. Sarutobi-sama assures me that it is only a matter of time until I earn the full trust of the promotion board, but I thought it might be prudent to consult a second opinion."
Now, that was truly interesting. A skilled kunoichi dissatisfied with Hiruzen's handling of things? That opened several interesting ways in which this discussion could go. He would need to get a better insight into the woman as well as make sure she wasn't a plant, but this might just be the opportunity he had been waiting for.
"Say, Mitarashi-san, what would your opinion be on the following matter…"
Two hours later Homura was deep in thought after Anko had left him.
'Mitarashi-san is a very powerful kunoichi, and without the taint of her association with Orochimaru she would have made full jonin years ago. Granted, she could still be a sleeper agent, but it isn't likely. The woman has been subjected to such an extent of scrutiny that anything amiss would have been spotted. For the same effort of making her an undetectable agent Orochimaru would have been able to plant a dozen spies none of us would even suspect.'
Yes, it would be somewhat risky to become her patron, but the possible benefits were huge. From their talk he gathered that she had an utterly practical outlook on shinobi life and saw many issues the same way he did. She only didn't have enough information to realize the true extent of the problems, but that could be corrected in time. He could use her to establish contacts across the lands and perhaps discretely remove some problems he became aware of.
If he managed to smooth her way to jonin and get her some pupils it would even be possible for her to build a cadre of actually competent shinobi who could think for themselves and were aware of the long-term problems of the village. That might be enough to change course and stop the steady decline. It might not be enough to keep the top position as soon as the other villages wised up, but it would be a start.
At the moment this was only idle speculation, it would take years to get to that point. Still, this was far better than relying on Danzo. Homura nodded to himself, he would support Anko Mitarashi. This was an opportunity he couldn't afford not to take.
'I only hope it will be enough and in time to prevent the village's destruction.'
"Is she finally asleep?" Hinata asked quietly.
Naruto gave a nod, careful not to disturb the sleeping girl in his lap. It had taken hours for Yakumo to calm down after the funeral.
She had taken the death of her uncle Unkai very hard, despite it being long in coming. Yakumo had managed to keep her composure during the funeral, but after arriving back at her home she had broken down. The funeral had been a small, quiet affair. Aside from Yakumo's circle of friends consisting of Choji, himself and Hinata as well as Shino only some Akimichi had shown up who had known Unkai due to his niece's friendship with the Akimichi clan heir. Unkai had been a relatively old man in his mid-fifties, and none of his erstwhile friends and close acquaintances had survived the decades. The second and third shinobi wars along with the Kyuubi attack had put heavy dents into the shinobi forces, and along with the normal attrition rate and the Kurama fire there was simply nobody left.
After the funeral was over Naruto had recognized the signs of a beginning breakdown in Yakumo and with Hinata's help got her home as quickly as possible. The two girls had only met a few times but had hit it off splendidly. Choji had accompanied them but left when it grew dark. Hinata would soon have to leave, too. Naruto carefully extracted himself from the sleeping girl and left the room with Hinata.
"Do y-you think she can join us next year in the academy?" the pale girl asked.
"It should work. Choji's dad is pulling the necessary strings behind the scenes, and I tried to keep Yakumo up to date on the academy work. Despite being with her uncle for a year she has only missed a bit more than one semester of lectures, and I think Choji and I compensated for that. As soon as she is better we'll have to revisit everything, but she should be able to pass the necessary tests."
Their second year of the academy was drawing to an end and the summer break was coming up, meaning he would have a lot of time for various projects. The top priority aside from helping Yakumo was finally getting the Bunshin right; the damn thing was required to pass the academy, after all. He probably would never have gotten the hang of it if not for the chakra exercises his mother had come up with.
With increasing chakra reserves and control ever more elaborate exercises became necessary to increase it further, and the normal shinobi ones he could get his hands on ended with tree climbing and water walking. Which were ridiculously insufficient for his needs. By now they had a whole host of different training exercises developed, and they were far more efficient than the mortal ones and covered aspects of the chakra molding process shinobi had no training techniques for in the first place. They had begun to teach Hinata, and while she didn't have the extra boost of bijuu chakra mixing with her own her reserves and control were skyrocketing. Naruto planned to teach some of them to Yakumo, Choji and Shino next year, but unfortunately they would have to eschew the best ones because they had to be individually adjusted by a very good chakra sensor who had to know the exercises himself. Hinata could maybe fill that role in the future with the help of her byakugan, but it would take years for her to get to that level. Daiki and especially Youko were possibly the best chakra sensors in existence, no wonder considering they could appear as beings of pure chakra, but they couldn't help with anyone besides Hinata.
"D-Do you plan on spending the night here?" said girl asked.
Naruto frowned. "I think I will, Yakumo might need help and I don't want to leave her alone."
Hinata sighed after taking a look outside. "I'll have to l-leave now, I'm already r-running late."
"Okay, see you tomorrow. Take care, Hinata-chan." Naruto gave Hinata's hand a squeeze, causing her to blush and rush out of the house. He enjoyed doing that, it was funny and helped her improve her emotional control when faced with such things unexpectedly. In the last two months (five if you counted the three spent in the world at the edge of dreams) she had come a long way and hardly stuttered anymore when talking with him. She still kept up an act in public but was slowly reducing the amount of stuttering. It was paramount that nobody became suspicious; they had to stay under the radar of everyone for as long as possible.
Hearing Yakumo growing restless, Naruto returned to the couch besides her and was promptly grabbed by the sleeping girl and used as a cuddly toy. 'That must be how dad often feels.' Not that he had anything against that if it was done by a cute girl. As Yakumo was obviously loath to let him go he tried to find a more comfortable position without waking her. Soon he joined her in the land of sleep.
Far to the south in Tea Country a scribe was growing annoyed. He had lists to copy, but every so often he caught himself doodling. With a sigh he dropped the sheet to the ground and grabbed a new one. Sometimes he thought he heard someone whispering, but there was no one besides himself in the office at this hour, he had already checked several times. When he found himself again drawing the same strange symbol he gave up for the night, extinguished the oil lamp and went home. As he opened the door one of the discarded papers was seized by a gust of wind and swept out of the building. A short flight later it landed in the water of a small pond. Before the ink dissolved completely the symbol seemed to glow in the moonlight, revealing it to be a triangle enclosed by a circle.
Two weeks later the ritual murders began.
Author's notes: Not much to say this time besides thanking my reviewers.