Team Anko.

Chapter 1

Konohagakure no sato, the hidden leaf village, a superpower of the shinobi world who had fought through several major and minor wars without tasting the bitterness of defeat. Even after the sudden appearance of A monstrous nine tailed fox seven years ago, causing the deaths of several hundred of the village's shinobi and civilians, even claiming the life of the Yondaime Hokage who had defeated the beast, had failed to lay the village low.

Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage , now sat at the ornate desk in his office full of several of his highest-ranking shinobi and the clan heads themselves. In front of him was his famous crystal ball perched upon a silken pillow as it displayed an image in the centre of a small blonde boy in the middle of a dark forest.

Sarutobi looked up from his crystal ball to look at the gathered people in the room, his face was set in a stony frown as he measured their reaction to the images on the crystal ball, Making the reason for their attendance in the office abundantly clear to them.

"It would appear that Young Naruto was chased from the village again last night" he started, letting the statement hang in the air as he clasped his hands together in front of his mouth, eyes closed as he tried to make sense of the situation at hand and exactly what should be done about it.

"This is the sixth time this has happened … He's seven years old for Kami's sake!" Sarutobi sighed in exasperation as he rubbed his weary eyes with a single hand.

"Where is the boy now Hokage-sama?" Asked one of the Jounin Present.

Sarutobi's eyes snapped open, a scowl on his face as he stood, leaning over his desk, his reply thunderous and filled with barley suppressed rage.

"In training ground forty-four!"

A few murmurs and gasps sounded in the room as realization of exactly where the child had spirited himself away to now started to sink in. Sarutobi watched the minimal chatter, gauging the various reactions to the news. Some of his shinobi were impassive and others were horrified.

"The forest of death! Why would he go in there!?" came a voice from the back of the room.

Sarutobi's eyes narrowed at the question, and he sneered "Don't pretend you don't know exactly what this is all about and frankly, I am sick of it! He's a child!" Sarutobi paused before he turned to look directly at the Nara clan head, his Jounin commander, Nara Shikaku and spoke.

"Shikaku! I want whoever was on duty at the village gate last night brought in for questioning! I want to know why they let a seven-year-old child be chased out of the village!" Sarutobi snapped before turning to the other people gathered in his office.

"Thankfully, I have been keeping an eye on the boy for the last several hours after his ANBU guard reported him missing, it seems he is safe, and I have sent a full squad to keep a watchful eye on him until I decide how to proceed with this situation" Sarutobi explained with a hint of annoyance seeping into his voice as he sat back down with a sigh and stared at the gathered Jounin stood before him.

"The fact that this has happened six times now! Six times a child has been left in mortal danger because of sheer incompetence or worse, discrimination! You're all the top Jounin of this Village and as such I expect you not to turn a blind eye to the mistreatment of any child in this village! I will not have it happen again, am I understood!?" His voice loud and clear as he gave all of his gathered shinobi a hard glare.

"Hai, Hokage-sama!" came the reply from all in the room, none present wishing to further evoke their leader's wrath.

"Now! With exception of Shikaku, Anko and Ibiki, Get out of my office!" Sarutobi commanded harshly.

He sat and waited until everyone was out of the room aside from those asked to stay, the door to his office finally closed and Hiruzen allowed himself to relax, leaning back in his chair as he reached into the top drawer of his desk to retrieve his pipe and tobacco. The room remained deathly silent aside from the small sounds Hiruzen made as he packed his pipe with fresh tobacco.

Without looking up from his task he spoke calmly with an air of thinly veiled sadness leaking through his words.

"When the Yondaime sealed the nine tailed fox into Naruto … I arrived just in time to hear his final words before the effects of the sealing claimed his life, he asked that Naruto be looked upon as a hero of this village for holding back the destructive power of the fox" Hiruzen paused as he brought his pipe to his lips and rubbed his index and thumb together for a moment before a small flame flickered off his finger tip and lit the tobacco in his pipe, taking several short drags of his pipe until he was satisfied and exhaled a small amount of smoke.

The other occupants in the room were silent as they themselves remembered the Yondaime and his Sacrifice for the village until Hiruzen's voice pulled them back to the present once more as he spoke quietly to the room.

"Ever since the information of Naruto-kun's condition was leaked to the village populace, he has suffered greatly at their hands, cast out from the orphanage and forced to live in the gutters and back alleys for months until I was notified of his living condition, Most of the stores in the village wont serve him and the ones that have, either overcharged him or outright stole his money and kicked him out of the store … this village has pissed on Minato's final request of them and so far I have been able to do very little to change that"

At that moment Sarutobi Hiruzen looked every bit his age as he sighed melancholy and slouched in his chair.

Shikaku was the first to speak "Then let us fix what we can for the boy … I have an idea"

Sarutobi stared at Shikaku for a moment before he straightened himself up in his chair and leaned forward "What do you have in mind?" asked the aged Hokage.

Shikaku took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the Hokages desk and relaxed as he started to speak.

"As it stands, Naruto is the village pariah and there's little you or anyone can do to make the villagers see him any other way, they don't see a child, they see a dangerous monster in the form of a child... my idea is to have someone start to train the boy full time outside of the village walls where he can live and grow without the constant shower of shit he is forced to deal with" Shikaku finished as he leaned on his own arm lazily.

"There's a major flaw in that plan, Shikaku. There are few Jounin I would trust to care for the boy away from prying eyes without running the risk of further harm coming to the boy add the fact we don't have a Jounin I do trust with the availability to care for and teach the boy and the clans would be in an uproar if I were to place the boy in the care of one of them, given the power he holds" Sarutobi explained with slight frustration.

Shikaku's normally bored expression turned sour as he had to admit that the Hokage had made several valid points and started to try and think of another alternative when a voice cut through the tense silence.

"I'll do it..."

All other eyes turned to the person who spoke, all eyes landing on Mitirashi Anko and the room remained silent for a long moment before Ibiki spoke up, trying to hide the amusement in his voice.

"You? You'd volunteer to take care of a seven-year-old boy? And how would you propose to do that, Anko? Never mind that you've only been a Special Jounin for the last six months and have zero experience with kids or parenting or even teaching … I know you're eager to prove yourself but-" Ibiki started harshly before he was cut off by Anko.

"I don't see anyone else jumping in to help the kid! This has nothing to do with proving myself! The boy is seven years old and going through the exact shame shit I go through daily! If anyone can understand his feelings in this village, it would be me!" Anko snapped back in anger.

Sarutobi watched the heated exchange with narrowed eyes before looking at Shikaku who turned his body slightly to give Anko an appraising glance and spoke, interrupting any further argument before it could begin.

"Actually … It's not the worst idea" He mumbled, his eyes narrowing before turning back to look at his Hokage as silence overtook the room for a moment.

Hiruzen leaned back in his chair, giving the young woman an appraising glance and for a moment he considered the pros and cons of such an arrangement and after a moment his decision was made, and he leaned forward in his chair.

"Anko, so you believe you can help the boy?"

Anko straightened her back as she locked eyes with the Hokage and took a deep breath before she spoke words that could have the potential to change her own life very drastically for the foreseeable future.

"Look, I know I'm not exactly a stellar role model or even the best choice for this role, I'll admit that … But I know what it feels like to be treated the way he has. I can help him cope with that and I can train him and teach him in the Shinobi arts and provide a somewhat stable environment for him to learn and begin to thrive in. I'm on fewer outbound missions than most people, given my position in the T&I department, so I have more time on my hands to actually help him and make a difference … I only wish I had someone who truly understood what I was going through after I was brought back to the village, So please … allow me to watch over the kid and I promise you I'll turn him into a fine Shinobi of the leaf" Anko spoke passionately, surprising those present, so used to her usual blunt way with words.

Shikaku met the gaze of Sarutobi with a slight hesitant nod of his head, a signal of his approval of Anko's request. Ibiki for his part merely sighed and stared at the ground in contemplation for a moment until the Hokages words rang through his ears like a jolt.

"Very well, Anko … From this point on you will train and care for the boy until such a time as he is self-sufficient, or a better option arises for his care, I assume you'll be having the boy live with you at the central tower in training ground forty-four?" Sarutobi asked as he took another drag of his pipe, a slightly amused smile tugging at his lips.

"Very good, Now, is there anything you will be needing to help carry out your new duties?" asked Sarutobi as he retrieved a blank sheet of paper and a pen to begin listing anything Anko would need.

"I will need some funding to purchase supplies to teach the kid, clothes, books, tools and weapons... other than that the tower and forest will have everything else I … we will need" Anko said as she smiled slightly at the Hokage as she moved towards the door to leave the office.

"Wait we're not quite finished yet, Anko" Sarutobi said with a confused frown.

"You're the professor, Hokage-sama, you and the lazy genius should be capable of figuring the rest out, besides, the kids still in the forest and it will be sundown in three hours and I don't want him to end up being tiger shit so it's probably best I go find him before something else finds him first" Anko stated cheerily as she opened the door ready to leave the office.

Sarutobi blinked at her statement, and he realized he had indeed forgotten about just how much danger Naruto was currently in, even with a four-man cell of Anbu keeping watch over him in the forest. After all, he had gone missing under the watch of the Anbu who was supposed to be keeping watch over the boy, that issue had already been dealt with.

"Yes, yes, find the boy and make haste" The Hokage quickly ordered as he watched Anko speed out of his office at top speed.

"This is a terrible idea" Ibiki muttered as he moved to watch Anko speed across the rooftops of the village directly towards the forest of death.

Sarutobi understood where Ibiki was coming from, He had worked closely with Anko for several years and she was almost like a daughter to him, not that he would ever admit it out loud to anyone.

"I think this will be good for her, for both of them actually" Sarutobi commented with a tone of hopefulness as he moved to stand next to Ibiki "Have a little faith in her, she may just surprise you yet"

Silence reigned in the room for a single moment before Sarutobi turned from the window and his voice growled out the words "Ibiki … I want that gate guard in a cell. Get it done!"

Enter Uzumaki Naruto!

A small blonde boy dressed in dirty ragged and torn white shirt and green shorts panted as he stared down in panic from a fairly tall tree, he was currently taking shelter in. A massive shaggy furred wild boar rammed headfirst into the tree for what must have been the twelfth time since the small boy had climbed it to escape the beasts murderous rampage. With every slam of the boar's head into the tree it shook, bits of bark and wood sent flying from each heavy impact making the tree shake. The boy clung to the trunk of the tree desperately, panic and fear driving him to hold on tight as he tried to keep ahold of his makeshift weapon, an old rusted and chipped Kunai lashed to the end of a branch with some old string. The boar backed up ready to hammer the tree again as its hellish squeal rang in the boy's ears again. The boy looked around for any path of escape and found none.

The boy clutched his little spear tightly and turned himself unsteadily on the tree's branch to face the boar as it began its charge again. The boy took a deep breath and steadied his shaking body as best he could despite his fear and jumped down at the boar just as its head impacted the tree again with a massive resounding crack of wood.

The tip of the boys' spear punctured the boar's thick hide a few inches as he was thrown away by the boar's violent thrashing. He impacted the ground and rolled a few meters before stopping and quickly looked up to see the boar still thrashing about with the spear hanging out of its back until the boar finally shook it free from its back and it's head turned towards the boy in a rageful squeal and scraped its hoof at the ground in front of it and began its charge to eviscerate the boy with its razor-sharp tusks. The boy rolled out of the way at the last possible second in desperation and darted into a small hollow at the base of a tree that he barely fit through and pressed his back up against the trees roots as best he could as the boar smashed headfirst into the hollow, thrashing its tusks left and right in an attempt to force itself through the thick roots into the small opening sending bark and wood chips in all directions. The boar managed to inch closer and closer to the boy who shut his eyes as the boar let out a piercing squeal and frothy drool flying all over the hollow and over the boy until suddenly the boar stopped with a grunt and squealed in panic as it was ripped out of the hollow and launched several meters away.

The boy still had his eyes scrunched shut as tears of panic ran down his cheeks until he realized the boar's, now panic-stricken squealing, was coming from further away. He scrambled towards the entrance of the hollow and peeked out, his eyes widened in abject horror at what he was now witnessing. The boar was now suspended several feet off the ground within the coils of a gigantic forest green serpent. The serpent coiled its length around the boar tighter and tighter, the sound of its bones audibly snapping as its squealing turned into grunts and gurgles, the foamy drool around its snout now stained red with the beast's own blood. The serpent tensed its coils as the Boar gave a last attempt at escape and with a quick jerk a loud crunch sent the clearing deathly quiet.

With a dull thud the broken and mangled body of the boar fell to the ground as the serpent slithered around it, its head turned, tongue flickering to taste the surrounding air for scents of any nearby prey or predators.

The boy moved slightly still peeking at the snake in abject horror through the hollow entrance and didn't know what he should do and froze when the snake's eyes locked onto his slight movement in the hollow. The boy was about to make a run for it when the snake exploded into a massive puff of white smoke. The boy's eyes widened; he didn't understand what was happening at all. Where did the snake go? He stayed as still as he could for a few moments despite his heart thundering against his ribs, not wanting to move in case the snake suddenly reappeared and decided it wanted to snap him like a twig as well.

Naruto heard the soft taps of something on the tree he was hiding beneath and crawled further back into the hollow as quietly as he could in an attempt to stay hidden. He held a hand over his own mouth to try and quiet his panting, adrenaline still coursing through his veins as the tapping got closer and closer until the entrance to the hollow was obstructed by a pair of legs with grey shin guards, feet facing towards him. He slammed his eyes shut. He had been found and this was it...

"Hey brat! You can come out now, it's safe" Came a feminine voice.

Naruto opened his eyes slowly to see the face of a woman looking at him through the small entry way into the hollow. He stared at her with a look of surprised fear and backed up further until his back was completely flush with the tree's roots.

Anko stared at the kid as he moved back in fear, and she blinked in slight confusion before she really took a good look at the child and took notice of the bruises and cuts littering the boy's body and the small amount of tried blood speckled here and there over the boy's dirty white shirt.

She moved away from the entrance slightly and gave him her best smile "Hey I promise, I'm not here hurt you, okay?"

The boy didn't look convinced and didn't move an inch "Who are you?" the boy asked, refusing to take his eyes away from her as she moved back a bit more to give him some space.

"My name is Mitirashi Anko, what's yours?" Anko said softly with a small smile, trying her hardest to show the boy she was no threat, a bit difficult given her usual attitude and demeanor towards most people but this kid was scared and confused and had little reason to trust her.

"Naruto …" The boy replied quietly as he stared at her cautiously.

"Nice to meet ya kid … but what are you doing out here? This is aint a petting zoo" she replied with a friendly grin to try and show she was no threat to him. She sat herself down cross legged a few feet away from the entrance to the boy's hiding place and reached around to her utility pouch and pulled out a ration bar and held it out towards him.

Naruto craned his head to look at what she held out towards him before he looked back at her face, still unwilling to move towards her.

"Hungry? ...I know it's not a lot, but you look like you could use it" she said as gently as she could.

Naruto stared at her with slight suspicion before his stomach let out a loud gurgle and the boy blushed in slight embarrassment. The woman let out a small laugh at the sound and nodded towards the bar she still held out towards him.

"You can have this, all I would like from you in return is for you to come out and we can have a little talk while you eat, deal?" She spoke once again as she tossed the bar gently just outside of the tree and pulled another bar from her pouch and began unwrapping it for herself and began eating.

Naruto stared at the bar on the floor and back to the woman before he slowly crawled out of the hole and reached for the bar slowly, never taking his eyes off the woman in front of him. He picked the bar up and shifted slightly so he was back near the entrance to the hollow and opened the packaging on the bar and took a bite. It was dry and kind of chewy and it didn't really taste of anything, but it was better than nothing at all and it had been a while since his last meal. A tense silence filled the area as Naruto watched the strange woman like a deer in headlights.

"So … Naruto, the Hokage sent me to find you" Anko said as she finished the last of her bar.

"Why?" Naruto asked after a moment of quiet.

"He knows you were chased out of the village again and he sent me to find you" Anko replied as she watched the boy tense slightly.

"You're here to take me back?" the boy asked, his voice a mix of fear and despair as he scowled at her.

"No … I'm here to take care of you and train you-" Anko started to explain until she was cut off by the blonde.

"Why … why would you help me?" he asked abruptly, his face settling into a small scowl.

Anko stared at him and sighed as she stood up slowly and looked down at the kid and pointed in the direction of the mangled body of the boar a little further away from them "You think that thing was bad? This forest has shit you wouldn't believe living in it, and that boar, which is only a juvenile, is usually prey to the other animals that inhabit this forest. This forest is known for its dangerously huge beasts and bugs … there are Ninja that have come into this forest and never made it out alive so, how long do you think you'll last before you end up as animal shit?"

Naruto stared at her wide eyed as he shifted uncomfortably at the thought of spending another night alone in the forest.

"Listen kid … It's not safe in this forest for you to be wandering around alone, there's a tower in the center of this forest, that's where I live. So, the way I see it, you either come with me and I turn you into an awesome kickass ninja or I take you back to the village, kicking and screaming if I have to! But let's get one thing clear right now, you're not staying out here alone" Anko declared as she crossed her arms over her chest and gave Naruto a serious look.

Naruto sat as he mulled over her words for a moment before he stood up and took a step towards her "You want to train me to be a ninja?" he asked with a slight hint of hope edging its way into his voice.

"If you want, yeah" Anko replied as she again looked to the darkening sky, daylight was almost gone, and the surrounding forest was growing darker by the minute, and she knew it wouldn't be long before the forest truly came to life in all of its horrifying glory.

"Okay Anko-san, I'll come with you" Naruto finally decided with a look of determination.

"Okay, good, hurry up and follow me" she said as she started moving towards the direction of the tower.

"Wait!" Naruto said as he ran to retrieve his makeshift spear from the forest floor.

"Leave it kid, that blade is no good anymore!" she called after him with a slight tone of annoyance, stopping the boy in his tracks as he looked back at her.

"But I need a weapon!" He protested as he looked back towards the spear, sure the kunai was rusted and chipped, but it was the only thing he had to defend himself within this forest. He looked back at her with pleading eyes and jumped slightly when he heard a thud and looked down between his feet to see a kunai embedded in the ground between his feet.

"There, you get one Kunai for now, pick it up and let's go, we need to reach the tower quickly before it gets completely dark!" Anko said as she motioned for him to follow her.

"Okay Anko-San!" Naruto eagerly picked the Kunai up and ran after her as quickly as his legs would allow.

"It's Anko-sensei to you brat!" she quipped before grabbing the blonde boy and lifting him under her arm and started darting through the forest with him at full speed.

Once Anko arrived at the tower entrance she set Naruto down and quickly ushered him inside the tower, securely locking the door behind them. She looked down at Naruto and gave him a small reassuring smile.

"I really can't stress how dangerous the forest is, especially at night … so while you're here there's a few rules you will follow so listen closely and remember the rule I'm about to tell you" Anko said as she gave the blond a hard stare.

"You do not leave this building without my express permission, do you understand, Naruto?"

Naruto looked up at the woman and nodded slowly at her in response as he held the Kunai she had given him close to his chest. His eyes then glanced around the massive room they were in, taking in his new surroundings for what would at least be the foreseeable future if what she had told him were true.

"Good!" She smirked at him and put her hand on his shoulder but immediately retracted her hand when he winced. She looked at his shoulder and gently moved to peel back his shirt away from his neck to find a nasty looking purple and blue bruise. Her face betrayed no emotion as she let the ragged shirt fall back into place and sighed inaudibly.

"Okay, follow me and I'll show you to your room so you can get cleaned up" she spoke cheerily as she led him up to the upper levels of the tower. After a minute of walking in silence they came to a stop outside a door, and she turned to him.

"This will be your room" she opened the door and turned the light on for him.

Naruto walked into the room and looked around, still clutching his kunai tightly. The room was fairly spartan, containing a bed in the far-right corner of the room, a desk and chair were on the other side of the room, a small lamp was perched on the desk and to the right of the desk was a closed door which Anko pointed to and told him was a bathroom with a shower, sink and a toilet.

"You should get cleaned up; I have an errand to run but I'll be downstairs in the lounge area just in case you need anything, everything you need should be in the bathroom, okay?" she asked quietly as she now had a list of things she needed to do tonight.

Naruto turned to her with a small nod and walked towards the bathroom to get cleaned up. Anko watched him go and then turned and walked out of the room quickly and quietly closing the door behind her and walking down the hallway at a fast pace. Bringing both her hands together to form a single hand sign she whispered her intent "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu" a puff of smoke and now an exact replica of herself appeared beside her "Stay here, I have some shit to do" she growled as she headed for the entrance to the tower.

It was about 30 minutes later when Anko landed outside Konoha's T&I department, an inconspicuous warehouse building located in the heart of the industrial sector of the village, nestled away within a series of warehouses it didn't stand out as anything special at all. She entered through the front entrance and walked right passed the sentry disguised as an elderly warehouse manager and headed straight down into the sub levels of the hidden complex at a brisk pace.

As she entered the main control room of the facility, she spotted exactly who she was looking for.

"Ibiki! Where is he! Where's the gate guard that Hokage-sama wanted for questioning?" she questioned the scarred Jounin who looked surprised to see her and stood from his desk.

"In interview room four, I was about to go question him in the next ten minutes, why?" he asked curiously.

"I need five minutes with him" she spoke as she moved towards the interview rooms at a brisk pace.

Ibiki watched her go with confusion for a moment, but his eyes widened after a moment of realization, and he quickly moved to follow her. However, he calmed down when he rounded the corner to see Anko watching the guard through the two-way mirror.

"Do you want to explain why you're here unscheduled and what you want with this guy so soon after deciding to play happy families with the kid?" Ibiki questioned curtly.

Anko at first didn't answer, she just glared through the glass at the Chunin sat at the table smoking a cigarette as he waited for his 'interview'. She looked at Ibiki and snarled at his comment before she spoke, her voice low and arms crossed over her chest.

"Found the kid in the forest, no sign of the Anbu squad that was supposed to be watching him and because of that he nearly ended up being Boar shit!" she spat as she finally let her frustration out.

Ibiki was silent for a moment, his eyes narrowing as he glanced at the Chunin through the mirror for a moment before turning back to Anko "So why are you here then? And what's that got to do with this guy?"

Anko's face remained in a snarl as she spoke through clenched teeth "When I got to the kid, I had to coax him out of a hole in the ground with food and got a good look at him, clothes in tatters and dirty and covered in spots of dried blood. I didn't think too much about it at first since I guessed he'd killed an animal to eat or something but when I got him back to the tower, I found recent bruising on his shoulder … some one or several people have been beating this kid and I'll bet that fucker sat in there either participated or saw what was happening and did nothing"

"So, you thought you'd just come down here and conduct your own unauthorized interrogation and beat answers out of him?" Ibiki asked with a sigh.

"Yeah!" she moved to enter the room before Ibiki reached out and blocked her path with a hard stare.

"No! Go home, I will question him personally and if there is anything like you've described found, I will deal with it personally" Ibiki ordered firmly as he stared Anko down to meet the annoyed glare she was directing him.

"Go!" He ordered with a bit more force behind his tone. He was surprised when Anko looked back through the mirror and relented, walking away at a brisk pace.

Ibiki watched her until she left and turned his gaze back to the mirror, his eyes narrowing as he observed the Chunin guard who was still none the wiser to the very real danger that had just stalked outside the interview room. He watched as the man raised his cigarette to his lips and then he noticed it, the faint bruising on the man's knuckle's they were faint but fairly fresh by the looks of them.

Ibiki entered the room and closed the door behind him and turned to look at the man with a neutral expression as he moved to sit in the chair opposite him and began his game of cat and mouse.

"Sorry to keep you waiting so long Chunin Sukemu, I have a few questions regarding your night shift on gate duty last night" Ibiki started neutrally as he folded his hands in front of himself.

"Yeah, no problem, what do you want to know?" The Chunin replied as he stubbed his cigarette out in the small ashtray on the table, which Ibiki then Idly picked up to move to the side of the table. The Chunin eyed the legendary interrogator warily who had leaned back comfortably in the chair.

"Did you allow a child to exit the village last night?" Ibiki asked, getting straight to the point and throwing the Chunin for a loop with his direct question.

"Not that I'm aware of, no." the Chunin replied coolly after a second of silence.

"Which is it? You aren't aware? Or no, you didn't let a child leave the village?" Ibiki followed up quickly, his voice as calm as a summer breeze.

The Chunin narrowed his eyes and spoke with a slight edge to his voice "No, I did not let a child leave the village last night, why do you ask?"

"Oh … I think you know exactly why I am asking" Ibiki stated as he raised a single eyebrow as he leaned forward and clasped his hands together on the desk in front of him.

The Chunin leaned back slightly in his seat and met Ibiki's gaze with an impassive one of his own.

"The way I see it, either you let a child walk out of the village gates during your shift knowingly, or you're incompetent to the point an innocent seven-year-old with no shinobi training managed to sneak passed you completely unaware … so which is it?" Ibiki questioned coolly, his eyes still fixated on the Chunin's face.

The Chunin didn't say anything and just stared at the legendary Interrogator of the leaf, now realizing this wasn't an interview anymore, internally he was starting to panic as Ibiki just stared at him and he felt himself start to sweat under the scrutinizing gaze.

"Look, I don-" the Chunin began to speak

"And you were doing so well too … Did you think nobody would notice? After all this is the sixth time this has happened now, and I checked the guard's Rota, you happened to be the guard on shift during all six of these events" Ibiki cut him off.

"I didn't let that boy walk through the gates!" the Chunin quickly protested protested.

Ibiki leaned forward a little bit more and spoke lowly, his eyes boring straight into his Victims eyes "I never said it was a boy..."

The Chunin sputtered and shut his mouth and stared right back, his heart now racing a mile a minute as he tried to think of a way to get himself out of this, scrambling over himself mentally to look for an excuse, a loophole, anything!

Ibiki then reached over the table and grabbed the Chunin by the wrist and raised it for them both to see and with a hard glare and deathly quiet tone he spoke "Now then … lets discuss your bruised knuckles shall we."

Anko

Anko arrived at Naruto's apartment only to find the door barely secure and heavily damaged. She frowned and forced the door open and stepped inside and flicked the light switch. The light came on with a dim glow and a loud buzzing sound and she got her first look around the small apartment to find it fairly sparse in the way of furniture or … anything really. There was an old tatty looking mattress set upon a broken bedframe and the small window in the apartment was boarded up haphazardly with half bent nails sticking out of the frame and board used to cover the window. She moved to the kitchen and had a look around, inspecting the fridge she found it barren and broken.

She closed the fridge door and moved to the sink and turned the tap only for nothing to happen, she tried the other tap and scowled when there was no reaction. She then moved towards the small drawers near the bed, if you could call it that, and opened them to find a few items of clothes but most of them were either torn or would be too small to fit the boy. She managed to salvage a pair of shorts and a shirt of two, they were still in rough shape, but they would do until she could rectify the problem.

She was about to move towards the door when something caught her eye from just under the broken bed, she placed the meagre items of clothing to one side and moved to inspect the bed and found it to be another shirt and picked it up only to find the shirt was riddled with several large, dried bloodstains with holes at the centre of each individual stain. She dropped the shirt immediately in revulsion at what her discovery implied had been happening to the boy in his own home if you could even call it that in the first place. She picked the shirt up and the other clothes she had found and left the hovel, slamming the door shut behind her to head back to the tower, she had taken too long already, and her Kage Bunshin would be running low on chakra soon and she didn't want to spend another second in that shit hole than she had to, he wouldn't be going back to it again.

Chapter end.

I started this story almost ten years ago on a different account that I cannot remember the log in details for and I stumbled across the old chapters on my old laptop a few weeks ago. Re-reading it ten years later made me cringe so hard from the inconsistencies in the story but for some reason people loved the story, so I've decided to have another crack at it, the ideas were pretty good but this time round I'm going to try to really flesh it out a bit more and try and fix the mistakes I made the first time round so It won't be a word for word copy of the original cringefest and I will scrap some ideas entirely and change some things. Hopefully I can deliver this story to you bigger and better than before. I have 20 chapters (now 19) to rewrite and rework so bear with me as I try and get them sorted for upload.

Okay so I know this first chapter is probably a bit darker than people may have expected and some of the characters may be a bit out of character but bear with me, there is a direction I'm going with this.

Thanks for reading, leave a review if you like.