Wrote enough of this for 2 more chapters.
enjoy, you lovely people, xox
-Vivi
The ensuing weeks are a whirlwind; Anko can't remember the last time she was so busy.
She's not sent on any missions abroad, of course. The elders, with only vague knowledge of her ties to Lord Third's murderer, keep her in the Leaf. She passes the days picking through rubble and staffing temporary relief tents dotted around the village for those civilians displaced by the attack. It's with an inward grumble that she admits it's best this way: the repetitive tasks were a decent distraction from the feeling like her heart was swollen against her ribcage, and the long days wore her down so efficiently that sleep found her quickly most nights, blank and mercifully dreamless.
There was also the fact that Sasuke had landed himself in the hospital. It'd been much easier to keep tabs on him that way, although his critical condition did nothing to calm the storm brewing at the center of her. And as if in insult to her metaphorical injury, Kakashi had been admitted, too. She stays far away, fearing that seeing him would stir up more gossip and draw unwanted attention to herself—and, of course, that it will stir up more of what she'd felt on the night of Sarutobi's funeral.
And so she keeps her head down until the Fifth Hokage is brought back. It won't be Jiraiya, she hears through the rumor mill, but rather his former peer, Lord First's granddaughter. She presses her mouth into a thin line and keeps her chin up in defiance all that day; this news only serves to solidify her resolve to leave the moment Sasuke is able, as now her hopes of seducing the Hokage are dashed—Lady Tsunade, it's said, holds no interest in anyone, man or woman, not after the death of her first lover so many years ago. It's not worth it to find out just how much she'd despise anyone with a connection to Orochimaru, no matter how long it's been or whose chakra now combats his influence in Anko's body.
She manages to intimidate an intern at the hospital into giving her the schedule for Kakashi's and Sasuke's procedures, along with their anticipated discharge dates. She packs a small bag and waits, but day by day there's a feeling like something itching at the inside of her brain, growing in intensity until finally she feels full to bursting. Luckily, by then, it's time.
She slips into the hospital at twilight, the sky a dull orange overhead. The bag she's packed sits hidden away in a row of bushes, and she wears her usual getup: she knew if she'd shown up in things she was almost never seen wearing, it would turn that many more heads. With her hands stuffed in her pockets she ascends the staircase, pausing here or there to press her back against a wall to let the hustling residents pass by. It's still busy even almost a month after Orochimaru's attack on Konoha, and she allows herself a small moment of perverse gratefulness. At least with this much activity, people don't even have time to stop and look at her—though she's sure she sticks out like a sore thumb beneath the glaring fluorescent lights.
Kakashi, a seasoned jounin and a war hero by his thirteenth birthday, had gotten a room all to himself. She doesn't bother knocking, her nerves wound too tightly to do any more waiting. With a small spin she shuts the door behind her, and despite everything, she hesitates. Her shoulders heave with the force of the breath she sucks in, and then she turns.
The room is dark, only a small sliver of light pouring in through the slatted window carved into the door. The curtains on the opposite wall are closed, shutting out the few city lights that've come to life as night settled over the village. Kakashi stands by the foot of the bed with the waistband of his standard-issue pants in his hands, having just pulled them up over his hips the very moment she came barging in. They stare at each other, and for once in her life she doesn't feel an overwhelming urge to stare down at his bare mouth, chest, stomach.
No, the look in his eye is damn near magnetic.
"I suppose you're making your move," he says flatly. He sounds so tired, and her heart squeezes in sympathy. But she only nods once, and he does too, but slowly, thinking. "How do you plan to manage it?"
She purses her lips and narrows her eyes, praying she merely imagined the doubt in his tone. She's rehearsed plenty of things to say to the kid to convince him to come with her. "Luckily I know a thing or two about being a tortured orphan with an open invitation to greatness."
He gives a wry smile at that—it's still too strange, too intimate, to see his face, like that slightly off-center smile is something else he's trusting her with—then tugs at the drawstrings around his pants and ties them tightly. Reaching down to the bed's surface, he grabs hold of something from a small pile of strewn laundry, then extends his arm to her. It's a shirt, she sees, dangling there from his hand, and even in the dim room she can see the purple-brown bruise at the soft inside of his elbow, where he'd been hooked to the I.V. for far too long.
She takes it from him, trying to ignore her pounding heart. It's one of his own, she realizes as she unfolds it in her hands, with the mask sewn into the high neck. She can smell the hospital-grade detergent lingering on the fibers, not strong enough to drown out his own scent. "What's this for?"
"Supposed to be an early winter this year," he explains, watching her. "You ought to stay warm."
Glancing away, she chants a small prayer in thanks to the dark room; he's less likely to see her blush this way. Her cursed mark throbs once with the force of Kakashi's proximity. She says in a quiet rush, "I need to get going. Thanks for this."
He's on her before she can even blink, her wrist caught tight in one of his strong hands. She bristles at that, feeling all of her hairs stand on end: he's as intense as if he were on a battlefield, staring her down, his hold near to crushing—but not with malice. Kakashi, she thinks, isn't capable of anything close to malice.
"Take care of yourself," he says severely.
She wants to scoff. "Don't you mean, Take care of Sasuke?"
"His safety with you has never been among my doubts." Kakashi's stare could cut steel, she decides. Then, abruptly, he releases her and simply says, "I'll be sure to have the finest bottle of sake waiting for your return, Mitarashi. So, take care of yourself."
There are a hundred things she could say in return. You'd better or Shut up are both fighting for dominance at the tip of her tongue, but all she can manage is grumbling something between the two as she turns and swings the door back open. Bright light floods the room, makes her squint for a few seconds before she sighs and says, not so quiet that he cannot hear it,
"Try to stay out of trouble, Hatake. I...don't know how long we'll be gone."
Her heart is like a drumbeat in her ears as she marches down the hall, not bothering—and not admitting, of course, that it would've been hard to—look back at him. She wraps his shirt around her waist, tying the long sleeves to secure it there under her jacket. Then she spins on her heel around the next corner, and barges into Sasuke's hospital room in much the same fashion as she had Kakashi's.
The kid's room is dark too, and she almost laughs. The gloom is passed down, it seems. Sasuke, at least, is not in the middle of getting dressed; she only considers that'd been a possibility after she's already in and closed the door and found him standing there staring out the windows at the setting sun.
Or, well, he had been, because now that she's there, he's turned his head to somehow glare at her and raise his brow in suspicion at her, both at once. She narrows her eyes before she's able to stop it, too accustomed to judgmental stares and what they usually mean. At least this one isn't coming from someone who finds her inexcusably promiscuous—she hopes, anyway, that Konoha's youth haven't heard much of her exploits.
"What do you want?" Sasuke asks bitterly, his annoyance plain. She's sure that she's interrupted some manner of scheming or brooding, probably a bit of both. He won't meet her eyes, not fully, and not for longer than a split second at a time.
It lights something inside of her, only smoldering for now, and as she stomps over to him she only then realizes that she's not particularly good with children, even if this one is as similar to her than anyone else in the village. She stares down at him, doing her best to school her expression. The last thing he needs is to think some other adult is here to be upset with him or otherwise chew him out for his stupid idea to run off into the arms of an old creep. Being direct, she figures, will be best to dispel any of his preconceived notions.
All that comes out is, "You wanna get outta here?"
He starts, just a small flinch and the widening of his eyes, but it's something. He reins it in quickly, too quickly for someone so young. And though he still won't meet her gaze, he does respond. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Taking in a slow, steadying breath, she says, "I know who's calling out to you."
He does bristle at that, his hands curling into tight fists at his sides. After a harsh suck of his teeth he says, "And I suppose Kakashi or someone sent you to talk me out of it."
"No," she returns, the truth of it like a calm stream inside her. "I know leaving is probably the only thing that makes sense. More sense than whatever the Leaf's left you with, at least. It's—like you've found a fire in the dark." She fights to keep herself from adding meekly, Isn't it?
He does look at her then, sidelong and through narrowed lids, sizing her up—but otherwise does not speak.
"He's no liar," she continues. She swallows, avoiding speaking his name aloud as if he's a phantom to be summoned by its utterance. "He can give you power. More than you can ever imagine, but it doesn't come free."
"And the price of staying in Konoha to rot is any better?" Oh, she thinks, he was so much closer to escape than we knew.
"We're not staying in Konoha," she breathes, something fierce near to ignition in her heart. It's enough to make him turn his head, the slightest of movements, to face her more fully. "Orochimaru taught me everything I know, and not all of it willingly. But I know where he learned how to make these seals, whose power outclasses even his. That's where we're going."
It's earned her his full attention, and she feels small beneath his gaze, like she's being stared at by her own self at twelve years old, all of his vulnerability laid bare before her and mirroring her own. All she'd needed then was someone to lead her, and her old sensei had capitalized on her weakness to sink his teeth into her instead.
She can't fail Sasuke, can't.
"There's nothing left for you in the Leaf." She'd taken a step towards him, hesitant. "But only suffering awaits you in Orochimaru's tutelage. He marked me, same as you. And it—it's..." She huffs, angrier with herself than she's been in a long time. "It ruined me. But so did Konoha. So whether you're with me or not, I'm getting out of here. I'm gonna figure this shit out."
She shoves past him and pushes open one of the windows. The bag she'd brought is hidden along this wall, and she hopes to the gods that she's said enough. She swore to herself that she wouldn't beg—and she certainly wouldn't force his hand. She hops down and lands silently on her feet, stalking over a few yards to snatch up her bag. Almost absentmindedly, she tightens Kakashi's shirt around her waist as she takes in a long inhale through her nostrils.
As soon as she lets is out through her mouth, she sets off towards the village gates. Sasuke does not follow. With no real need to be secretive anymore—although she should put in for leave in an official capacity, but she can't be bothered—she walks along the main roads in no real hurry. She hadn't necessarily given thought to the idea that she would leave with or without him, but now that she's entertained it, it only makes sense. She can't stay in Konoha for even a minute longer. And as for the matter of just letting Orochimaru take Sasuke, well, she's not above a bit of vigilante work. If she could manage to get a message to Kakashi, then perhaps she'd even get backup in the meantime. She and some other jounin could fight some of her old master's latest science experiments, she's sure.
She'd made it through the gates without the chuunin standing guard even sparing her a second glance. She crosses into the treeline and stands to give her time the few moments her eyes need to adjust to the dark, and just as she's about to leap up into a branch to take off at full speed, Sasuke falls out of one, barely landing on his feet before her.
Speechless, all she can do is stand there and watch him catch his breath. When he rights himself and lifts his gaze to hers, she gives him a hard look. His face is splotched from the effort, still healing in spite of the fact that he'd been scheduled to be discharged in the morning.
"Were you followed?" she asks. No sense in making a spectacle of the choice he's made.
"No."
"Then carry this," she says, tossing him her little bag. His reflexes are still sharp, at least, and he catches it and watches as she does up the buttons on her long jacket. "Take off your hitai-ate and get on my back. We'll put some distance between us and the village, then I'll let you walk."
It's a long night, and she's grateful that he doesn't protest. She pushes herself hard, his added weight a burden (though not one for which she was unprepared), stopping only when she hears footfalls or the snapping of twigs that are too large to be some rabbit, foxes, or even a boar. And despite her small chakra sensory range, she's more in her element than ever out in the wilds, listening and smelling and seeing evidence of some creature or another, making sense of its temperament and weight just by those things alone.
More than anything, though, she keeps an eye out for snakes. Trails, nests, skin, kills—any and all of it. She follows them carefully, relying on old instinct that'd never left even after years of disuse.
Around dawn she spies human footprints surrounding the well-concealed remains of a campfire, and halts. Sasuke, she's sure, had been dozing in and out of sleep for some time now, and rouses with the sudden movement. Studying them from the relative safety of tree limbs, she lets herself relax marginally. Leaf nin's tracks were often light as a feather, while Mist natives by comparison were more heavy-footed, accustomed to planting their feet firmly in their ever-damp motherland. Sand shinobi rarely camped beneath trees, and Rock and Lightning ninja were rare in these parts at all.
She explains as much to Sasuke, who'd since hopped down from her back to stand on the branch beside her. He nods, taking it in.
"Civilians, then?"
"Likely." She spares him a glance from the corner of her eye. "You all right to walk?"
He tests his weight, flexes his fingers. "Think so."
They'd made their way deep into Fire Country forests by now, and she'd done her best to zigzag back and forth to confuse the trail for anyone who might be following: either Leaf reconnaissance, or Orochimaru's subordinates. "We keep going. Come sundown, we'll find someplace to stop and rest."
They descend onto the forest floor, pressing on in silence for some time. She finds she has more time to think at a pace so much slower, as she watches her footing over tangling tree roots and wide rocks set in the dirt. From the corner of her eye she sees the lightly lashing tail of a snake darting beneath the brush; she pivots towards it, altering their course a bit to the east, and that is when a revelation strikes her that nearly brings her to tears.
Sasuke hasn't yet asked where, exactly, they're going.
She wants to scream. How perfectly brainwashed he is—just like the rest of his peers, and just like she and her own. She'd been specially requested by Orochimaru to join his team, and been perfectly happy to follow those orders without question and follow her sensei's just the same way. They'd all been taught in the academy, after all, never to question the demands of their superiors. Lives were lost that way, missions failed, alliances crumbled. It was always better to simply do as commanded.
She looks over at him, at the slight traces of awkwardness still left in his limbs from puberty that even a lifetime of shinobi training hadn't yet gotten rid of; at the ghosting remnants of childlike roundness in his face despite the annoyed scowl he wears in perpetuity. Something in her heart breaks, just a bit, to know he is still so young, and far too trusting even after all he'd been through. She knows that clawing feeling all too well, desperate for guidance, for care.
"We're going to see a sage," she says unprompted.
He'd been ducking beneath a particularly low-hanging branch, and stumbles for only the briefest moment before recovering. "A sage," he repeats, flatly. When she gives only an affirmative grunt, he eyes her. "Why are we going to one when you could just summon one of their kind and talk to it?"
She stuffs her hands in her pockets to keep from smacking him. "I don't have a contract with them anymore, you dolt."
He stiffens at that, offended, before smirking in a way that makes her grow rather nervous. She'd forgotten there's few things in the world crueler than kids. "I guess that means you're not as strong of a shinobi as I thought."
She almost does smack him then, but settles for an aggressive ruffling of his already-unruly hair, giving his head a small shove to drive home the point. "I'll have you know it's no small task to find where these things live."
It's enough to give him some manner of pause. "So how do you know where to go?"
"These seals Orochimaru put on us," she starts, carefully working her way across a wide patch of mud between a cluster of wide trees. "He got the idea from the power the Great Sages wield. It's not chakra, but something deeper, beyond the understanding of most people. I...helped him with the research, when I was your age. I'm the one who found the scrolls detailing where his patron sage lives. It can't just be stumbled upon; you have to know what you're looking for, set your heart upon it. Real cryptic-type shit, but it's the real deal."
He walks alongside her quietly, processing. "Then you're pretty smart, at least."
"Not so much anymore," she says with a dry laugh through her nose.
"People don't get dumber as they age." But he looks at her like they do, and like he's holding back from calling her a moron. "Less confident, maybe."
"Anyway." She bites at the inside of her cheek, unwilling to confirm to someone his age just how accurately he's hit the mark. "The Great White Snake could know of some way to undo what he did to us. The passage mentioned the waters of her territory have cleansing properties."
"Well, I guess we'll find out when we get there if you're still smart or not."
This time she does bat him lightly across the back of his head, which he returns by giving her a lazy, one-handed shove at the waist. She laughs—really laughs, even for only a second, and the weight in her heart eases when he does, too.
They happen upon a sleepy village along the northeastern borders of Fire Country, near the Land of Hot Water. She pays the innkeeper for a small room, doing her best to ration the ryo she's brought along, and waits patiently while Sasuke showers in the adjacent bathroom. When it's her turn, she grimaces at the cramped space and the barely clean tiles, worse off than her own piece-of-shit washroom back home.
By the time she's finished up and changed into one of the only sets of spare clothes she's brought, she realizes that he hadn't that time to prepare before leaving his hospital room. They set off into the late afternoon streets where she buys some regrettably dated clothes from a local seamstress who must have been close to one hundred years old. But Sasuke, to his credit, wears them without much fuss other than a purse of his lips. It's better, he says, than staying in travel-worn clothes like he's used to on missions.
Back in their little room, she rolls out both futons and shuts off the too-bright overhead light, then gives him the bed roll closest to the door. She can feel his stare long after she lays down facing the wall, and without turning she huffs out, "What is it, kid?"
He lays down after another long bout of silence. "Just thought you'd block the door. Try to keep me from running out on you. Or something."
"Nope," she assures him, blinking at the dark wall. She thinks of Sarutobi's disappointed looks, and the glimpses of ANBU she'd catch trailing after her in the days after she'd speak to him about her latest mental breakdown. Compassion, to an extent—but always cautious to the point of suspicion. As if that would ever make her feel any better. "This doesn't work if I don't trust you. Now get some sleep, if you don't want to be miserable in the morning."
Perhaps she's being careless. She wonders, as she drifts into that half-sleep Orochimaru had instructed her how to achieve shortly after their first mission, if Kakashi would chide her, would tell her to be more aggressive, to keep Sasuke well within reach. Lord Third certainly would have.
But she's had her fill of rage, of true rage. She doesn't have it in her to expend more of that anger on a child who doesn't deserve it; if Sasuke wanted to go join up with her old master, he wouldn't have left with her. Treating him like a dumb brat who didn't know any better wouldn't make him want to stay; it's what pushed him so far in the first place.
She wakes every half hour, tracking the dull moonlight trailing across the room through the dusty window—but then she's woken early by what feels like a miniature hand shaking her by the shoulder. Snapping to attention without rising, she fixes her narrowed gaze on a small, wrinkled dog dressed in a dark vest, watching her with eyes far too intelligent for its species.
And, of course, the seal on her neck is pleasantly warm. She almost curses, realizing belatedly exactly why Kakashi had given her his own shirt the night before.
"What news?" she asks in a whisper, knowing now is no time for introductions.
Kakashi's ninken is as to-the-point as she is. "Yer bein' followed," he grinds out, voice rugged with an accent all to match his perpetual frown. "Not quite on yer trail yet. Gimme somethin' that smells like you. We're gonna help throw 'em off."
She blinks, then hurries to her feet to fetch the skirt she'd left the village in, rolling it up so it's compact enough for the little pug to carry in his mouth. But before she hands it off to him, she scowls. She must know: "Is Hatake keeping his end of our deal?"
The dog cocks his head and blinks slowly. "What deal?"
"Look," she says, frustrated, "I don't mind his help. But he said he wouldn't tell anyone—"
"Ah," says the dog, nodding like a wise old man. "He did say you'd be up in arms about that. Don't worry. He's recovering at home, not botherin' nobody—or bein' bothered, fer that matter."
She gives him a halfhearted scowl, then finally passes her skirt to him. The moment it's secure between his teeth, he vanishes in a small cloud of smoke. It's enough to rouse Sasuke, and not a moment too soon. As they hurry to dress in the rosy light of dawn, she explains what's happened, keeping nothing from him. Secrets would do nothing to help this fragile little bond they had.
When they get outside, they're greeted by a startling drop in temperature. For it being barely autumn, it's damn near freezing; though, she supposes as she swears under her breath and pulls her jacket close around her—she'd slipped on Kakashi's long-sleeved shirt, telling herself that it's only because she wants to ensure his ninken can find her again easily—they are much further north than the Leaf, almost out of Fire Country itself. The weather shouldn't be entirely unexpected.
Grumbling, she sets off for that damned old woman again. Sasuke will need a coat, too.
He swears he's well enough to sprint, and so the moment she spies a snake slithering into a small hole in the ground, they take off, her in the lead and he following. The invisible trail she follows takes them further east, and the more distance she puts between themselves and Konoha—not to mention Orochimaru's territory—the more it feels like she can breathe, really breathe.
By the time they're deep into the Land of Hot Water, snow is falling in crisscross patterns, obscuring visibility and stinging against her face. It's nearing sundown, and snakes have stopped appearing; she knows she cannot rely on them, not when they need to take shelter to survive. And when she stops to glance back at Sasuke, her heart gives a painful squeeze.
He's red-faced, eyes watering, both despite the scowl he refused to abandon fully. She halts, and though he's still sharp enough to react in an instant, there's a slouch about him that he can't seem to shake as he stands there at attention. His nose has begun to drip.
"We'll make camp here," she says, has to raise her voice a bit for it to be heard over the dampening snowfall. The trees on this side of the continent are evergreen, and clustered together far closer than the enormous ones back home. The snow hasn't piled up much between them; it'll only take a few minutes to clear the ground and light a fire. There should be enough cover to keep the light from traveling too far and give them away.
Sasuke, though, is less convinced, more on edge. "What about the shinobi in pursuit?"
"That little dog of Kakashi's said he'd help throw off the trail," she says, finding a surprising amount of comfort in it. "And the snow is heavy enough to dilute it further. We'll be all right. Give me a hand, lazy bum."
They pick at their rations as they work to clear a space, and she lights a fire with ease as he sinks down into his coat beside it. He's asleep in minutes, his body still healing from the operation, and the grey light of the snowy evening fades into an eerie black. She hugs her arms against herself for the extra warmth, thinks about how she feels almost led astray. Shouldn't they have been close now, seen some hint of their destination? It feels further than ever, somehow.
She passes the time straining her ears to listen to any and everything around her. There is nothing, she's certain, until there is—a small burst of chakra that has her on her feet in a moment, but relaxing in the next as her shoulder warms pleasantly beneath Kakashi's shirt.
"Oi, sis," comes a voice, different from the one that'd woken her this morning. The dog is a blur through the snow, and he walks into view like a phantom: he's bigger than the first one, wrapped in bandages beneath his little vest, and regards Anko with a serious look about him. "We think you'll be all right, for the time being."
She blinks, purses her lips. "For the time being," she returns flatly.
"Those nin aren't as dumb as they look." He gives a toss of his head that reads like a shrug of the shoulders. "Rest of my pack's got them looking further south. We'll be in touch if anything changes, if they head up this way."
She nods. "Thanks."
Before he vanishes, the tall dog says, "Kakashi says to stay warm."
She stands there in the woods, the little fire crackling next to her, mulling over the day's events. It doesn't feel like when Sarutobi would send someone after her, to keep tabs, keep her from hurting herself or anyone else. It doesn't feel—invasive, wrong, like a mirror image of something Orochimaru might've done without a second thought. Kakashi's dogs feel more a show of dedication, of a gesture of goodwill, an I am with you, because I've failed him once before.
An I am with you, because I believe you are worthy of help.
It makes her chest squeeze. Just before she's about to sit back down, she hears a little whimper, and then a groan. Sasuke, from his spot across the tiny campsite, turns, a harsh shiver racking his thin frame.
There is no thought between seeing it and what comes next. She simply walks over, pulling off her jacket as she goes, and kneels behind him. He's tired enough that he doesn't wake when she scoops him up in the beige coat, wrapping it snugly around his front as she pulls him onto her lap. Remembering whose shirt she's wearing, she tugs the mask—which had been bunched around her neck, doubling as a scarf, of sorts—up and over her nose, the warmth of her breath against it a mercy all of its own.
It still smells like Kakashi, too.
She wraps her arms around Sasuke, who does not shiver through the rest of the night. Anko, in turn, does not sleep a wink, keeping watch like a guardian statue.
When he wakes, a bit before sunrise, the worst of the snowfall has worn itself out, as has the fire. Another of Kakashi's dogs appears only a few minutes after they set out, another scrawny one, with straw-colored, unkempt fur.
"Stick to the main roads today," he warns coolly. He sounds young, only just grown past puppy. "They're tearin' up through the forests now. It hasn't been a very fun hunt."
And so they do as they're told, but Anko's frustration grows: not only is it still cold as all fuck (even though Sasuke had returned her jacket, the little gentleman), but snakes don't come out unless it's warm enough, nor do they stick to main roads. And her exhaustion doesn't make matters any better, each of her footsteps making her knees and thighs ache more and more. Neither of them say a word in protest; complaining isn't an option for shinobi. What is, though, is the gathering of crucial information, and it is Sasuke who breaks the silence after a long hour of walking in the chill morning.
"Kakashi really didn't put you up to this?"
She almost freezes, flinches hard instead, knows she can't pause for too long before answering or else risk suspicion she can't afford.
"No." She doesn't do more than glance in Sasuke's direction as she clarifies, "And I didn't ask for his help, either. But he must be feeling guilty to be doing it anyway. I heard he wasn't the best sensei."
She almost bites her lip, hoping to the gods he'll believe her. But, she supposes, he wouldn't be here with her if he was offended at the idea that she and Kakashi were in cahoots—which, in a sense, they may as well be: she'd told him, after all, begged him to let her take the boy in the first place. But that's as far as knowing conspiracy goes; not like she'd asked for the menagerie he's been sending after her.
Thankfully, Sasuke seems to accept her answer. "He was fine. Taught me a lot, anyway." It's a few moments before he shrugs. "He doesn't beat around the bush, either. I like that about him, even if he's...difficult, in other ways."
Anko smiles, laughing smally through her nose. "He certainly is that."
They walk on through the crunchy snow for only a bit longer in silence before Sasuke speaks up again. "Are you—" he starts, but hesitates, thinking on what it is he wants to say. She doesn't press him, waits for him to find the words. "Tell me something about Orochimaru. If that's...okay."
She gives a low hum, considering and trying to stave off the spiking anxiety. But it's worth it, she decides, to paint him an honest picture of what he may still be drawn toward. "It's okay."
"He was your teacher, right?"
"That's right." She has to consciously keep her jaw from clenching.
"Was he difficult too?"
She barks a laugh, a real laugh, at that. "Shit," she says, stuffing her hands in her pockets. "Where do I even start? At least Hatake doesn't collect the poor bastards of the world and set them up in torture chambers."
Sasuke regards her with a certain severity. "He was always...?"
She shakes her head, sorry she'd came out the gate so strongly. "Not always." She sucks at her teeth, thinking again. "It's—hard, sometimes, to remember what he was like before all that. Every memory of someone gets tainted, after you learn what they're capable of."
He looks away, down at some spot on the road. "Yeah."
It's hard, to resist the urge to put a hand on his shoulder and pull him in for a hug, even a brief one. Not that she'd forgotten what he'd been through, but his pain of it is still so startlingly fresh in moments like this. He knew plenty already of total and utter betrayal by someone who is supposed to take care of you. The horrid, stinking underbelly of the world had been made plain to him a long time ago.
"Well," she says, breaking some of the tension, "as a sensei, he was good as any other, I guess. Pushed us hard. Celebrated our victories. Told us a bit about himself when it was appropriate. Believe it or not, me and him were the only orphans on our squad. My teammates both had living parents."
If anything, the kid is a fantastic listener. He watches her from the corner of his eye as they walk, urging her silently to go on—or perhaps that's just her imagination, because she realizes he's the first person who isn't Sarutobi that's ever asked her about her old master. And unlike Lord Third, Sasuke isn't asking her like it's doubling as interrogation, but like he really wants to know.
"What kind of jutsu did he teach you?"
They pass the remainder of the afternoon going back and forth in this way, although it does take her the better part of two hours to list off the things she did learn from the old bastard. She even gives a cheeky little demonstration of a stealth technique she'd learned under his tutelage, melding into the shadows and becoming almost undetectable. Sasuke is impressed, but she winces when she's done, hoping the large arsenal at his disposal isn't going to ferry the kid right into the outstretched arms of evil.
"Orochimaru..." She pauses, trying like the kid had done before to find the right words. "I wasn't kidding, you know, in your room at the hospital: he can give you power. More than you know." More than she could see in those hungry eyes those few nights ago back in Konoha. "But the cost isn't worth it."
He furrows his brows at that. "I'm already marked by him. We're already marked; we already have the power."
"Kid," she says, trying not to sound like a disappointed mother, "the kind of power you want...it can't just be given to you. Not by a master, or a friend, or a lover." She swears she sees the tail end of a snake, some lightning-quick lash of it as it darts beneath some cover she cannot find. "It's your power, something you have to make on your own. That's why it's so hard."
But he's indignant in a way only a child can be. "Then why should I even be afraid of him? What's the cost, if not this?" He's reached up a hand as they walk, shifting course just a bit towards the snake she'd seen, and holds his palm against his cursed mark for emphasis.
"The cost," she repeats flatly. Then she swallows.
Things come to her in flashes, as they do whenever she thinks about all of it for too long. The first nights alone back in the Leaf after she'd escaped that lair, her eyes wide as she lay on the secondhand mattress provided to her by the council, a hollow, gaping maw of dread weighing her down from the center of her chest. The looks, the snide remarks, the snickering, how she'd shut herself inside for weeks because of it until Sarutobi had been sent to check in with her—at Lord Fourth's request, of course, and she'd spent plenty of days wondering if things may have been different if he'd lived long enough to truly dive into her case. He seemed an empathetic enough Hokage.
She thinks of her first apartment with holes the size of her balled fists peppered along the walls. The face of the man—was he the first of them? She can hardly remember, just knows he was much too old for her—rapt in pleasure from her mouth; the thrill of it had made her heart soar and her stomach drop out from under her simultaneously. Oh, to be worth something to a man, even if only for a few minutes, even if it were for something so humiliating.
And oh, that humiliation amplified when he'd pretended not to know her the next day, the rage that welled up in her belly. That usefulness couldn't have run its course so soon, could it? To be discarded so easily—should she have stayed, then, with Orochimaru? He'd at least wanted her. And his venomous chakra pulsing through her veins was a torment, no doubt, but was it that much worse than a man gripping her skull and fucking her face in an alley at night?
She thinks of her master luring into one of his shoddy little laboratories tucked into the mouth of a cave, how she would've followed him anywhere. Even now she can feel the ghost of his tongue on her skin and the sickening wave of goosebumps rising over her forearms, down her ribs. And even now she can feel the way conscious thought left her, like her mind had become a bird beating its wings as hard as it can. She thinks of the fever that'd taken her, the chills that racked her so hard that her teeth clattered together painfully, the strange visions that'd plagued her for what seemed like days, weeks. She thinks of those golden eyes, gleeful and appraising, watching her as she woke, congratulating her for surviving as she lie there among a dozen of her dead peers.
She thinks of the trust she'd placed in him turning to sand and pouring through her trembling fingers. The men she sought afterwards, at least, she'd never trusted in the first place.
She stops walking and turns, inclining her head towards Sasuke to look at him sidelong. Just a boy, indeed, and she's still shocked by how scrawny he seems when she really looks at him. She's certain he's taken a life, perhaps a few; what genin didn't have a kill under their belt? But she's ready to fall to her knees and pray for him to have a future as far removed from her past as possible, for him to have a future that suits a child working his way into adulthood.
"The cost," she finally answers, and resents the bitterness in her voice, the heartache, wishes he didn't have to hear it, "is everything that comes after."