Archive of Our Own ^beta

Nothing in life had ever come easily to Anko. 

As an adult, she was known for having near perfect aim. No one ever considered how much time she’d spent in abandoned training grounds or lonely corners of the forest, throwing blade after blade until her fingers bled. All they saw was the end result, and marveled while Anko tended her sore muscles and blistered palms. 

She was also known for her encyclopedic knowledge of poisons. Hardly anyone knew that she’d stayed awake all night for days and years on end, quizzing herself on ingredients and botany. It was a practice that would ultimately prompt crippling headaches that would last for days, but she was the best. The only one that did know how much hard work went into her mastery was her classmate, Umino Iruka. That was because he was usually the one studying with her, although he was working on seals, not poisons. No one noticed or considered the cost to her body and mind.

The first person to notice Anko was Orochimaru. 

She impressed him, and had no way of knowing that his admiration was so insidious. She wished to every star in the sky that she could have the chance to go back in time and stop herself and make her skills just a little less dazzling. Maybe then he wouldn't have seen through her loud, crass exterior to the talented kunoichi underneath. Maybe then he would have left her alone and whole. Secretly, she envied Iruka for never having been noticed. She envied his simple life as a school teacher, even though she knew it rankled him to be underestimated. 

Sometimes, being invisible was better than recognition. It kept people from expecting too much of you. It kept twisted minds from fucking with your life, from putting cursed seals on your neck and manipulating your body and your destiny without your consent.

Yeah, she was bitter. She had a right to be. 

Despite his obvious talent with seals, Jiraiya had never noticed Iruka. Iruka had confessed that he’d tried to write Jiraiya, pleading to be taken on as the sanin’s pupil. The letter went unopened and Iruka became a chunin, admin worker and teacher. While he was happy with his life now, she knew that in the back corners of his mind he wondered if he could have been something more, something great. Anko had comforted him as honestly as she could, but she wasn’t surprised. Jiraiya never noticed anyone outside of an onsen, not even his own godchild until he was forced to by circumstance and an irate Hatake Freakin’ Kakashi. (Naruto had a right to be bitter, too, although he was a better person than Anko and probably wasn’t.) 

So when Anko learned that the third member of the legendary Sannin team, Senju Tsunade, had noticed Haruno Sakura, she made an appointment with the new Hokage. On the morning of their meeting, she put on her most intimidating trench coat (the one with the least amount of stains, anyway) and set out ready for battle.

Shizune met her in the hallway, holding a pig that for some unfathomable reason was wearing pearls. (There was no accounting for taste. Perhaps leadership of a village that was going severely off the rails being foisted on you led to making bad decisions in your personal life.) Shizune told Tsunade that Anko was there while giving sideways looks at her skirt in judgement. Whatever, Anko had worked hard for her legs, she’d show them off however she damn well pleased.

“Get in here, Mitarashi!” the hokage bellowed, sounding like she’d either never gone to bed the night before or hadn’t had her coffee yet. Hopefully, for Anko’s sake, it wasn’t both. Fuck . This could go very, very badly, and she swallowed hard. “I don’t have all day, you know.”

Jolted out of her stunned-deer impression, Anko stepped into the imposing office and firmly shut the door in Shizune’s surprised face. A perturbed oink drifted into the room as she turned to face the new hokage, one of Tsunade’s eyebrows already raised impatiently. 

Thinking that she should at least start out somewhat on the right foot, Anko bowed deeply. “Hokage-sama, I’m here about Haruno Sakura,” she said, making sure that her hands were still at her sides even though it felt like her stomach was a mass of writhing worms. “I need to know something. Do you intend to be a good teacher to her, or just use her as free, eager labor?”

Tsunade blinked up from her seat behind the massive, imposing desk. “What business is that of yours?”

“None, technically. It’s just that I don’t have the best opinion of the so-called Legendary Sanin,” Anko responded, squaring off her feet. She raised a finger to start counting off her points. “First of all, Jiraiya is a lecherous pervert that shouldn’t have the responsibility of a goldfish, let alone a ray of sunshine like Uzumaki Naruto. But nobody (other than Iruka) seemed to mind sending the kid off with him to god knows where to do god knows what for god knows how long.”

Tsunade looked as if she wanted to argue but couldn’t, so Anko raised another finger. “Then, then, we have a traitor that conducts biomedical experimentation on children for shits and giggles. I can’t even begin to tell you everything Orochimaru did to me, and I’m the lucky one. The other two shinobi from my genin team are dead. Both of their deaths were preventable if their sensei had given even a single fuck about them. But Orochimaru’s own master, the hokage of this village that we all trusted with our lives, was too weak to kill him, even when he had the opportunity and evidence he ever could have asked for.” 

Clouds swarmed across Tsunade’s eyes. “I have my own opinions on that failure, I assure you.”

“I figured you did and I’m glad to hear it, but that’s not really my point here.” Anko raised a third finger, pointed it at Tsunade, then dropped her hand back at her side. “So when I heard that Haruno Sakura would be apprenticing under you, I had to make sure that you wouldn’t ruin her for life. You’re a healer, which is a point in your favor, and I think you’re doing your best for Konoha under extremely trying circumstances. However, I also know that you drink, you gamble, and that you have a nasty temper.”

“Your point being?” the hokage responded, tapping her nails. To Anko’s private surprise, Tsunade hadn’t tried to interrupt her or boot her out the window headfirst. 

Yet. 

“Sakura’s a good kid,” Anko persisted, praying that Tsunade wouldn’t see the sweat starting to gather at her temples. “I watched her during the chunin exams. She’s a civilian, did you know? Her parents don’t understand this life and they automatically think that being noticed by someone like you is a good thing. 

“And who does she have around to advise her, to tell her the dirty truths about being a kunoichi?” she asked. “Iruka would if he could, but he’s a guy, and he only has two eyes and so much time to devote outside of his class. Certainly not her current teacher. Kakashi has his head so far up his ass about Sasuke, he’s smelling shit with every breath. I doubt he even remembers that he’s still technically in charge of Sakura. You can’t roll the dice with her; she’s worth more than that. She needs someone to speak up for her, to protect her until she knows enough about the real world to do it for herself. ”

Tsunade stood up slowly from her desk. “Did no one speak up for you, Anko?” she asked, far more gently than Anko could have ever expected. 

“No,” Anko answered, very softly. She ran a hand through her spiky ponytail, resisting the urge to pull on the ends and feel the bright, grounding sparks of pain along her scalp. “Even though there were already plenty of rumors about Orochimaru when I was a pre-genin, nobody wanted to rock the boat. They were too afraid of him, too in awe of his powers and what he could do for the village. 

“Because of that unwillingness, I got a jounin-sensei who ignored my teammates to the point where they died on missions from their own ignorance while he experimented on me, the lucky one. Because Sandaime was too weak to kill Orochimaru, I have to live every day with the knowledge that he’s out there, that he might not be finished with me. He already has Sasuke, and fuck only knows what he’s putting that kid through in the name of advancement. I won’t let Sakura live like that, Godaime, always being afraid of you and never feeling safe or like she’s enough. She’s too bright and new and eager. She’s… She’s so goddamn pink .”

Tsunade nodded, and Anko thought that she understood. The hokage came around the desk and put her hands on Anko’s shoulders, kindly ignoring the younger woman’s automatic flinch. “Okay. I get it now, and I hear you. I promise you this, Mitarashi: for as long as I am her teacher, Haruno Sakura will be safe from me, and as safe from other dangers as I can make her. She will never have to live in fear if I can help it. She is not a gamble, not to me. Sakura is a promise that I am making to this village, that after I’m gone there will be another healer, another brawler , to take care of them. And I never, ever break my promises.”

Anko’s shoulders relaxed under the hold. “Okay. That’s what I needed to know. Thank you for your time, Hokage-sama, and for listening.” 

She turned and made her way to the door before stopping and looking back over her shoulder. The hokage had already taken her seat back at the desk, and was holding a seal with a frankly frightening level of seals on it. She looked annoyed that Anko hadn’t left yet, and no wonder. This was...probably not a smart thing to do, considering how patient Tsunade had been, but Anko had to make one more thing clear, whatever it cost her. “While I appreciate your words, Godaime, you should know something. For all the hell of those years, for all the pain and suffering I went through, I still learned a lot from Orochimaru. It’s true that you’re stronger than me, but I’m sneaky and mean and I don’t have anything to lose. 

“If you ever go back on your word, if you’re ever anything but the mentor that Sakura needs you to be, I’m pretty sure I can find some way to make you regret it before you kill me. Don’t disappoint me.” Without a bow, Anko quickly stepped outside and, in her eagerness to escape, slammed the door closed with a mighty crash.

Ignoring Tsunade’s roar of irritation as her hangover headache was no doubt made worse by the loud noise, Anko swiftly ran across the hall and tumbled down the stairs. Her tunnel vision was compelling her to find someplace quiet where she could hyperventilate in peace. 

Predictably, Ibiki found her within a few minutes. She was hiding in a supply closet and blowing puffs of air into a brown paper bag that she kept in her weapons pouch at all times. “Shit, Anko, what did you do this time?” he inquired. “I could hear the Hokage yelling from three floors away. Of course, she was yelling your name, so I shouldn’t be surprised.” 

Anko didn’t bother trying to respond; she just flipped him off and blew harder into the bag.

Ignoring her wild eyes, Ibiki sat down and wrapped a thick arm around her. It was just like he had done during those first hours after Anko had stumbled back into the village, Orochimaru long gone and a cursed seal on her neck. The mark hadn’t felt like it was suffocating her as long as Ibiki was sitting next to her, counting her breaths and reminding her that she was alive and real. Orochimaru was so smoothly attractive, like an oil painting that no one could approach or touch. She found Ibiki’s craggy, scarred face reassuring. He wasn’t hiding behind anything. He was unabashedly himself. 

“Seriously, Anko, take a breath and tell me what you did,” he urged her now.

Suddenly, with Ibiki sitting beside her and his arm heavy across her shoulders, Anko found that she could breathe again. “Oh, nothing much,” she replied breathily, crumbling up the bag and throwing it into a corner. “Just, you know, threatening the life of the hokage and then giving her a headache on top of her hangover.”

He rolled his eyes and chuckled. “You’re lucky to be alive. Well, I suppose that’s on brand for you. After all, you’ve already threatened Orochimaru’s life more times than I can count. I’ll be sure and let you know when Jiraiya rolls back into town in case you want the matched set.”

“It’d be appreciated,” Anko intoned solemnly. “We can’t have him feeling left out.” 

Ibiki snorted and pretended that he couldn’t see Anko’s hands trembling. He was surprisingly kind like that. Most people were too intimidated by Ibiki’s job to meet his eyes, let alone get to know him. They sat in silence for a while as Anko’s heartbeat slowly went back to normal. 

As if he could hear it (and maybe he could, the sly bastard), Ibiki stood up and offered Anko a hand. “Tea?”

“Fuck, yes,” she said fervently as she was hauled to her feet. She would have preferred dango, but she didn’t let herself indulge. Not while Orochimaru was still out there.

………………...

Anko didn’t sleep much anymore. It was an inconvenient but necessary evil. Whenever she went too far into her mind, she would see straight black hair and feel an oily tongue wrapping around her throat. (Why did Orochimaru have to be so goddamn disgusting? It probably didn’t even phase him when Sandaime sealed his hands; he used his stupid freaking tongue for everything anyway.) Instead, when she couldn’t bear even the sight of her bed, she distracted herself by learning about tea ceremonies. There were so many rules and forms that it required her total attention to master even the slightest step. 

Besides, it was nice to feel like etiquette existed somewhere in the world, if not in her own life. 

It used to be that when things got really bad, she could break into Iruka’s apartment and drift off to sleep on the floor by his bed, soothed by the sound of his light snores. The shadows in Iruka’s bedroom were just shadows. They stayed where they were supposed to, and the darkness didn’t reach out to grasp her ankles and hair. Iruka was nice about it and made sure that his wards weren’t too hard for her to break through when she needed to, although she knew that anybody else would have been in for a rude surprise. He could have left her a quivering pile of goo on his carpets if he’d so chosen. That boy had a nasty streak to go with his barriers, and she had always known that the mild-mannered teacher persona he put on was a very effective cover for some serious skills. She took the fact that he chose not to annihilate her as the permission it was and availed herself of Iruka’s snores as often as possible. 

That was before Hatake Kakashi had noticed Iruka, though. (He then proceeded to piss around Iruka like a randy dog, but that was completely understandable in Anko’s opinion. Jounin didn’t have much, but they tended to be very possessive of what they did have.) Once it was clear that the two were in an actual relationship and not a lust-fueled fling, she knew that she couldn’t treat Iruka’s apartment as her own personal refuge anymore. 

She didn’t blame Hatake for her loss, not even on the nights when she was sleepless and angry about it. Actually, she thought better of him for seeing how wonderful Iruka was, and further approved of the fact that he seemed to be taking defending his boyfriend seriously. After all, Hatake wasn’t nearly as charming as he thought he was and he had made a lot...just like, a shit -ton...of enemies. With that in mind, it had been made brutally clear to the village as a whole that anyone who even so much as looked at Iruka cross-eyed would suffer the consequences. Rather than being offended, Iruka seemed to find the protectiveness cute. He had some weird kinks, but who was she to judge? 

Anko knew that she would still be welcomed by Iruka if she truly needed him, but she had no desire whatsoever to see Hatake’s bare ass on her way to roll up on the floor with a blanket like a tuna roll. Unfortunately, that was something one risked by dropping in on amorous partners at night unannounced. She had enough nightmares as it was, thank you very much. 

So now when even tea ceremonies couldn’t distract her, she’d find a reason to loiter around the T&I Building. People looked at her askance when they saw that she was voluntarily spending her free time in a place like that, but whatever, she was used to people thinking she was strange. She worked with the people at T&I a lot when she was on missions, so her presence at odd hours wasn’t strictly suspicious. Ibiki always seemed to be there no matter the hour, and even if he wasn’t, she felt safe in the building anyway. Nobody could work for Ibiki that hadn’t been vetted six ways to Sunday and then had their brains scrambled by a Yamanaka. Nothing malevolent got past that level of paranoia and it was damn reassuring. 

When the stars aligned and there weren’t any traitors or missing-nin to be worked over, Ibiki would come and drag Anko out of whatever random corner she’d claimed as her new bedroom and bring her into his office. Then he would give her a long look to make sure she wasn’t hiding any injuries (what, it was one time, okay, why was everyone freaking out over a little stab wound?) and give her a stack of paperwork to file. The repetitive, mindless work was better than any sleeping pill, and Anko would generally wake up the next morning on Ibiki’s couch, an ugly patchwork quilt draped over her legs and a cup of tea waiting for her on the desk. 

On the really, really bad nights when even filing the most banal paperwork in the world couldn’t help quiet her mind, Ibiki would scrape her up from the floor and walk her home. The hesitant sun rose behind their shoulders, as it always did, and Ibiki latched a firm hand to her elbow to keep her anchored to the ground. He would shoo her into her apartment as the birds chirped sleepily in their trees, then listen for her wards to activate. Only then would he amble on to his own home, his back a straight line and his expression comfortingly grim. 

She tried not to dwell on the fact that there was a small part of her that didn’t mind the really bad nights simply because she liked feeling Ibiki holding her feet to the ground. Sometimes after a nightmare, she could even trick herself into going back to sleep by imagining the pressure of his fingers on her elbow. 

She didn’t have a problem. She didn’t, shut up. 

Then there was a long chain of back to back missions, all nasty and all leaving her feeling dirty and so, so tired. But she came back alive every time, so she didn’t really have any room to complain. Anko looked around when she finally got a week off and realized that it had been two years since the mess of Orochimaru’s attack on the chunin exam. A lot had changed - not necessarily her, of course, but everything else. 

The walls around the village were whole again, for one. Tsunade was such an ungodly terror that she kept enemies at bay by sheer reputation alone. (Anko could now readily excuse the hokage for the indignity of her porcine companion.) Iruka was walking around with stars in his eyes instead of looking longingly at a quiet ramen stand where no shouty blondes were sitting. Kakashi was very rarely ever seen reading porn in public, and Rock Lee, who she had secretly rooted for during the first disastrous chunin exam, passed his second one. 

Best of all, Kurenai and Asuma were finally banging each other after years of pining, thank fuck . The longing looks and unresolved sexual tension had been enough to choke a rhinoceros. They obviously thought that they were being terribly sneaky about their relationship, so of course everyone in Konoha knew about it minutes after the first time Asuma made the walk of shame. Gossip, after all, was a hot commodity in a ninja community. 

Even little pink Sakura seemed to be happy in her work and valued by her teacher. Along with Rock Lee and shy Hinata and the rest of their cohort, she was now a chunin. Sakura could hold lives together with her hands and she had a hell of a right hook to boot. Thankfully, Anko hadn’t been forced to commit assassination in the kid’s defense. Which was a good thing, if only because she figured Tsunade would be immune to most poisons, and poisons were kind of Anko’s best (and only) shot at bringing a kage-level opponent down.

Things were...good? She wasn’t sure; good things so often went sideways, especially for her. 

Anko could feel herself breathing a little easier as the calm stretched out from a week into a month, and then another month after that. Maybe the peace between villages would last just a little longer. Maybe Orochimaru would be caught and strung up from a parapet by his dick. Maybe Naruto would soon be home and Iruka’s eyes would be totally happy. 

Maybe Anko could actually learn how to sleep again, to eat what she wanted and when. Maybe she could figure out how not to wear her weapons pouch at all times, even when she was alone in her apartment. Maybe she could finally piece together enough courage to ask Ibiki to get a drink with her sometime. 

It was that wild desperation for normalcy that made her say yes when Kurenai asked Anko to go out to dinner with her and the other jounin. Despite her trepidation, she swiped some bold red lipstick on her mouth and left her hair down before she walked to the restaurant. She didn’t even get outrageously drunk, like she usually did at these things out of severe social awkwardness. Instead, she sank into the familiarity of her friends and the light atmosphere as easily as she had ever wrapped herself in Ibiki’s godawful quilt. 

Gai was gesticulating passionately while exploring the fascinating topic of arm weights, forcing Ebisu to dodge his comrade’s flailing limbs, lest he end up with a concussion. Kakashi, the absolute troll, was smirking behind his mask at Ebisu’s rising annoyance and secretly egging Gai on. Asuma’s perpetual cloud of cigarette smoke felt comforting rather than irritating. Iruka (who was considered an honorary jounin by them all - the only reason he wasn’t one officially was because he wanted to keep teaching full time) was telling Anko about his latest class of terrors. 

She was so invested in Iruka’s stories of child ninja mischief that it took her at least ten seconds longer than normal to notice when Ibiki walked into the bar. Normally she was always aware of Ibiki, even when he was trying his best to go unnoticed. He was obviously looking to join them, and moved in their direction once he’d spotted the other jounin. It wasn’t like Ibiki to be tardy, of course, but he’d probably gotten held up at work by something she didn’t have the clearance to know about. 

Anko felt her heart pounding, and it took an embarrassingly long minute for her to realize that it wasn’t from fear. Not this time. 

She scooted over in the booth to make room for him to sit and tried to hide her twitching fingers in her coat. Ibiki sank down beside her with a grunt that had no right to be as sexy as it was. “Sorry I’m late. Anything good to eat here?” he asked Anko, his voice so deep that it rumbled in her chest. It was all she could do not to purr from pleasure like a cat. God, she was so freaking easy when it came to him.

“The steamed dumplings are pretty good,” she responded, carefully light. She caught Kakashi sending her a funny look despite her efforts, and she willed him to look away before she had to kill him for knowing too much. He always knew too much, damn him. Obligingly, he turned his head to refocus his attention on Gai, but not before he had sent her a cheeky wink, the utter bastard. 

When the waitress came around, Ibiki ordered the suggested dumplings with a nod at Anko. She flushed and downed the rest of her sake in a way that would have made Tsunade proud. The conversation ebbed and flowed pleasantly until it settled on the subject of the newly minted chunin. Everybody had to hunker down under the table for a minute to keep from being drowned by Gai’s Manly Tears of Joy. “My beloved students have all overcome so much to become passionate shinobi!” he declared, striking a heroic pose on top of the table. “Ten-Ten has found her true gifts, Lee’s hard work has been acknowledged as he has always deserved, and Neji already a fellow jounin! I was truly blessed to have been their sensei! They will bring much honor to our village!”

“Yeah, right, we know,” Kakashi said tiredly, rolling his one visible eye. “Now get down from there before we’re kicked out of yet another restaurant. You ruin more tables, Gai, I swear…”

Before Gai and Kakashi could get into a spat, Kurenai butted in with her usual soothing tones. “Asuma and I are proud of our teams as well,” she commented. “They’re a good bunch of kids, all of them.” 

Despite Kurenai’s intentions, the air became more charged rather than less. Everyone was carefully avoiding looking in Kakashi’s direction. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, as he seemed to have turned to stone in his seat. Uchiha Sasuke’s image was hovering in the air over them, and Iruka’s eyes were starting to mist. They hadn’t all been good kids, had they? They couldn’t be proud of them all, not now.

Kurenai, realizing her mistake with a visible jolt, quickly moved the conversation along with an awkward shove. “But enough of that! Who wants to get some dango? My treat!”

“Me!” Anko crowed, startling even herself. Glad as she was to help Kurenai, that wasn’t the reason she was surprised to find that she’d spoken up. She rarely indulged in sweets, and hadn’t since she had been a child, despite how very much she loved them. The calories were too hard to get rid of later to make it worth the temporary pleasure.

The group had polished off another bottle of sake and two plates of dango when suddenly Kotetsu flickered into the bar. He spotted the table of jounin and ran over, panic clear on his face. “Guys, Tsunade wants all of you in her office on the double!” he panted.

Suddenly sober, the entire group moved as one towards the door. “Invaders?” Ibiki’s question was growled at Kotetsu. His hand was on the small of Anko’s back. It was the only thing keeping her from drawing a blade. 

“No,” Kotetsu replied. “Refugees, at least a hundred of them. From Sound, of all places. They said that Orochimaru was experimenting on them and that they managed to escape while he was away. Tsunade wants all available jounin there as back up, just in case it’s a trap.”

Anko felt everyone’s eyes sliding over to her as the blood drained from her face, and she found that she couldn’t take another step forward. Ibiki didn’t try to make her; he just stood stolidly at her back. Iruka, however, was suddenly at her side, his hand hovering above her arm. He knew better than to touch her when she was triggered, but he couldn’t totally suppress his instinct to help. “Anko?” he asked, cautiously, looking as though he wanted to shelter her like one of his students.

After a second of monumental effort, Anko shrugged both him and her paralysis off and ruthlessly pulled her hair back into her battle-ready ponytail. “I’m fine. Let’s go,” she snapped, taking off in a run across the rooftops towards Hokage Tower. She swiped her forearm across her mouth, leaving a stain of bright red on the sleeve of her coat. 

She heard the patter of her friends’ footsteps behind and beside her as she cursed herself a fool. She should have known better than to have worn her hair down, to try out new lipstick and hope for more and better. She should have known that she couldn’t have dinner with her friends or imagine that she might end the night with Ibiki’s hands in more interesting places than her elbow. 

She should have fucking known better. Good things never stayed.

Hokage Tower was a madhouse when they arrived. The refugees were dressed in little more than rags, and their eyes stared blankly at the walls. Tsunade seemed to be everywhere at once, healing wounds with green glowing hands and bellowing orders while Shikaku stayed close at her side. Shizune appeared to have been eaten by paperwork as she pulled records and blueprints out of drawers and figured out where the refugees could be housed in the village. Even the stupid pig showed enough sense to stay safely in the hollow space under Tsunade’s desk. 

Ibiki leapt into action at once and was soon occupied with checking that none of the refugees was actually Orochimaru in disguise. Inochi joined him as soon as he arrived from his house in the Yamanaka compound. Anko, with her expertise in infiltration, was told to help them both however she could. 

A few times between (mostly gentle) interrogations, she looked over to the side of the room at Kurenai and Iruka. They were busy comforting the children, handing out teddy bears and hugs and reading stories and wiping tears. Her heart ached in an unproductive yearning. She stroked the kunai hidden up her sleeve, intentionally nicking her forearm where she hoped no one could see it, and got back to work. The pain grounded her and helped her focus, and she did not let her eyes stray to the little ones again.

Finally, finally , the last of the refugees were led to a dormitory building where they could stay while going through the asylum process. “Thank you for all your hard work,” a weary Tsunade told the assembled jounin and administrative workers and healers. “This was a lot to handle, but you handled it well and I’m very grateful to you. The people you helped tonight are going to have a chance for a new life, and that’s something to be proud of. Now, everyone please go home and get some sleep. You all stink and I can’t stand the sight of you anymore.” 

The pig crawled out from its cave and oinked, seemingly in agreement. Rude little bitch. 

Anko numbly left the Tower, but only after watching Kakashi lead Iruka away by the hand. Iruka appeared to be asleep on his feet, and Kakashi wasn’t a whole lot better. There was a dark circle under the copy-nin’s visible eye while his fingers rubbed at the Sharingan beneath his hitai-ate. Asuma hadn’t bothered with trying to walk home. He’d simply swept a listless Kurenai up in his arms and flickered them away. Even the indefatigable Gai was speaking at a normal volume and looked to be headed in the direction of his apartment, not running a thousand laps around the city walls like he usually did in the mornings.

It took Anko two blocks to realize that Ibiki was walking beside her as she trudged back to her apartment, and she was too exhausted to hide that the realization startled her badly. She had leapt into the air like a frightened cat, and there was no deflecting that. “Aren’t you tired?” she snapped at Ibiki. 

“Yes,” he responded, totally unbothered by her spiteful tone. “Very. So are you.”

“Exactly my point. Don’t you have your own home to go to, with your own bed?” Even as she said it, she was thinking to herself, Why are you pretending like you wouldn’t share your bed with him in a flat second, you stupid bitch? 

“Yes,” Ibiki said again. His voice was the definition of mild, which was always a dangerous sign. “But you see, I’m not so tired that I’ve forgotten where my weapons are and cut myself on them. I’m making sure that you get home safely without further injury.” His eyes flicked to Anko’s sleeve where a spot of blood had stained through the fabric of her coat; it was darker than the lipstick she’d smudged off earlier, but all the more visible for it. Of course he had noticed. Living in a ninja village was so inconvenient . 

She was busted and they both knew it, but she refused to rise to the obvious bait. “You don’t need to worry about me,” she said defensively, her eyes as sharp as her words. “I’ve been an adult for a long time now, and alone for even longer. I can take care of myself.”

“Can you?” he inquired, and finally there was some emotion in his voice. Using her peripheral vision, she was able to snatch a quick glimpse of his face. Ibiki looked like he was ready to conquer armies and slay dragons and she couldn’t believe that he possibly felt that way in defense of her. Not Mitaraishi Anko, with her poisonous words and shitty coat and cursed skin. 

She didn’t dare to look at him again for the rest of the walk, mostly out of anger, but also some shame. Ibiki knew her better than anyone, but that didn’t mean that she wanted him to have to deal with her weakness. She didn’t speak, nor did she touch the brand on her neck, despite the fact that it was burning like acid. 

When they made it to her building, she didn’t soften at the sight of home. Though she longed to, she didn’t linger to enjoy the warmth of another person beside her, or make up a reason for Ibiki to come inside with her. Instead she kept her back as straight as a spear, stomped into her apartment and shut the door firmly behind her. 

Ibiki stood outside the door for a minute, looking as if he’d quite like to kick her door down and shake her. Part of her hoped that he would. But the anger faded from his avenging angel face and he sighed, very softly, and became again a tired man. Then she heard his slow steps as he walked away.

Flopping onto the couch, Anko finally let go of the thin grasp she had held over her panic for so long, ever since Kotetsu’s feet had slammed into the restaurant’s floor. All she could do was lay there against the cushions and shake, and hope that the fear would pass quickly this time. She couldn’t close her eyes, and it didn’t pass quickly. She was left to restlessly track the shadows that drifted across the ceiling as the sun rose higher. 

It wasn’t just the argument that was bothering her. Working with Ibiki, she’d gotten to hear all the refugees’ stories firsthand. Stories of floating in tanks, of being systemically subjected to poisons and torture, of the children being exposed to various diseases, of living crammed in dank, dark cells as Orochimaru perfected his jutsu and snakes slithered by… 

She had been enjoying time with her friends while these people suffered. She had been eating dango while they ran for their lives.

Anko barely made it to the toilet before she vomited up everything she’d eaten in the last few hours. The dango wasn’t sweet anymore. 

When the gags and cramping finally stopped, she gargled mouthwash and spit into the sink. She looked briefly at her bed, but her stomach rolled again at just the thought of falling asleep. With a weary sigh, she changed her clothes, and then was back out the door as she headed for the training grounds. It was either that or spending some quality time in her bathtub with a kunai, and wounds were difficult to hide in a shinobi village. Anyone who was paying attention, which meant everyone, would know that she hadn’t been on a mission recently. She would have no reason for bearing fresh cuts.

Hours later she was dizzy with exhaustion, but she couldn’t make her body stop moving. She wanted to weep when she began yet another kata, her limbs moving against her will. She had thrown kunai and shuriken until she had run out of weapons, she had used every exploding tag she had in her pouch, and her chakra was almost gone after practicing all of her jutsu multiple times. The only thing she had left now was sheer physical exercise, and unfortunately her well-trained body was taking far too long to exhaust. Fainting sounded incredible right now, or maybe a nice concussion. 

At one point (she wasn’t sure when exactly, but the sun was high overhead), an Anbu soldier wearing a cat mask had shown up on the border of the training ground. He silently watched her as she ran laps and punched her hands against wooden dummies. He had no doubt been drawn by the killing intent she was forced to emit just to keep going. She pointedly ignored him until he left her alone again, and she tried to be glad for the isolation. It was pretty clear that she wasn’t a threat to anyone but herself. 

She struggled into one final pose before her body utterly gave out, and she crumpled to the ground in an ungainly heap of mesh armor and khaki. Even then, after all the exercise and pain and exertion, she was still awake, and she couldn’t stop thinking. 

A warm hand wrapped around her wrist and she mewled pitifully at the gentle touch, knowing who it was that crouched beside her. She was both glad he was there and deeply ashamed that he should see her like this.

“Are you done yet, Anko?” The words were murmured close to her ear.

“No,” she sobbed. She didn’t know when she’d started crying but she couldn’t stop if she tried. There was no energy left in her to try. “It’s never done, Ibiki. I’ll never be enough, it’ll never be over. I’ll never be free of him…”

Ibiki didn’t bother answering, even though she probably deserved to be smacked like a hysterical child. Instead, he sat down against a tree, pulled an unprotesting Anko into his lap, and rocked her while she sobbed. He gently pulled the tie out of her ponytail and ran his fingers through her sweaty hair soothingly. She knew it had to be disgusting and that she was getting snot on his jacket. She hated absolutely everything about herself. 

Most of all, more than the snot and the sweat and the knobbly knees, she hated the brand on her neck that meant that she would never be just Anko. She would always be Orochimaru’s pawn, his puppet, waiting to be activated by the twitch of his web. Everywhere she went, a piece of him went with her, soiling her, and she couldn’t trust that her actions and feelings were her own. 

Finally, the storm of her sobs slowed. The tears were running dry from sheer dehydration, then trickled to a stop altogether. It felt as if she and Ibiki were inside their very own barrier, sealed off from the world and safe, if only for a minute. “How did you find me?” she asked, her voice very small.

He was silent for a moment. “Cat came and got me. He said you looked like you needed a friend.” He sighed and she hid his face in his chest rather than see the disappointment in his eyes. But her head flew back up again when he said, “I’m sorry, Anko. I should have stayed with you, should have known that the last thing you needed was to be left alone. I know that hearing anything about Orochimaru disturbs you, and what happened last night was far more than just his name dropped in a random conversation.”

She was startled by his generosity into telling the truth, for once. “Well, Cat was right about me needing a friend, although I certainly don’t think I’m entitled to one at the moment. I’m sorry for being such an appalling bitch to you earlier. You didn’t deserve it.”

He snorted, but not unkindly. “Don’t apologize; you couldn’t help it, and it didn’t bother me anyway. I'm pretty sure I can take a little heat, especially when it’s because you’re upset about your abuser.”

“It more than upsets me,” she corrected and something, maybe the exhaustion, maybe the intimacy of their little seat beneath the tree, made her feel safe enough to say: “Did you know that the seal isn’t everything Orochimaru did to me?” 

Ibiki’s chest moved steadily underneath her ear. “I know that he was cruel, and that he manipulated you into doing things you didn’t want to.”

“No, that’s not what I mean, although certainly they were bad enough.” Anko closed her eyes. She counted ten, then twenty of Ibiki’s quiet breaths before she was able to continue. “While I was under his genjutsu, after he had given me the seal and knew that I would live through it, Orochimaru did...surgery on me. I didn’t know until a few weeks later, when I didn’t get my period and I went to the hospital to find out why. I was afraid I was pregnant,” she said with a bitter laugh. “It turned out that that wasn’t possible. It’ll never be possible. The bastard sterilized me, Ibiki. He took everything, my womb, my ovaries, everything. 

“We still don’t know why he did it. I don’t think he needed a reason, personally, although he usually had reasons for what he did, twisted though they were. I think that he just did the thing that would hurt me the most for the fun of it. Maybe he thought he could control me by dangling the notion of fixing me over my head. We’ll never know for sure, because god knows he won’t ever say unless it suits him.”

Ibiki sucked in a breath, and his arms tightened around her, as if he could reach into her past through sheer force of will and protect her. “Anko… I had no idea.”

“Nobody does, except Iruka. I told him one night when we were drunk and he was crying on my shoulder about Naruto having to leave. I...didn’t react well to his grief. I told him that he was lucky to know that his kid would come home someday, that some of us would never have even that much. He was nice enough to hug me instead of slap me. Iruka is the best person I know; he’d never betray my trust.”

Ibiki shook his head. “None of this is even in your file.”

“The surgery was hushed up by Sandaime,” she explained. “He thought that it might frighten people even more if they knew what Orochimaru had done. As if sterilization is the worst of his crimes, although it certainly was for me. I would have preferred that he kill me, I think.” 

“ Never say that to me again,” Ibiki said harshly, and her heart leapt briefly at the words. “Don’t even think about it in the privacy of your thoughts. You being alive should always, is always, going to be the most important thing. Nothing should matter more than that.”

She wrapped her hand around Ibiki’s wrist so that she could feel his pulse, hoping that it would echo through her own veins and encourage her to endure. “Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does anyway. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a woman or if it’s because I’m me. I’m the last of my clan, you know. I will never hold a child, never feel a baby growing within me and know that they are mine. I will never have that unshakable evidence of love between me and a partner, never see a part of myself continue on into the future. I try to wrap my head around it all the time. Sometimes I can go days without thinking about it. Other days, I can hardly get out of bed in the mornings.”

“Is that why you’ve never had a romantic partner?” Ibiki asked, his voice no louder than a whisper.

Exhaustion made her brave. “Partly,” Anko said, blinking slowly, “but it’s mostly because I know that my sensei is going to come for me someday. He’s going to make me into his weapon, and I won’t survive him. Why would he have given me this seal if he was finished with me? No matter how hard I train, no matter how strong and dangerous I become, he’s always going to be better than me. You can’t escape the truth, and god knows I’ve tried.

“When that day comes, and it will come, as sure as anything in the world, I don’t want to carry the pain of knowing what it is to be loved with me. It’ll be too hard, too cruel, to die then.”

“You don’t deserve this,” Ibiki growled. It was the first time she’d heard that dark, feral anger in his voice, but it didn’t frighten her. “Not any of this.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.” Anko shrugged. “That’s not something either of us can know or explain. I’ll tell you one thing, though, because I’m tired and sad and I know you won’t hold it against me, because you’re kind to your core.” She snuggled closer into his solid warmth as she felt blackness creeping over her sight. “If I were allowed to love anyone, Morino Ibiki, I would choose you.”

She could have sworn that she felt lips brushing against her forehead as she tumbled into sleep. A part of her hoped that she would never wake up.

…………………

Anko didn’t say a word to anyone after she woke up alone in her own bed. The sun was just rising again; she had slept through half a day and a full night. She oozed her way out of the sheets, feeling hungover and shaky. She made herself a mountain of dry toast, swallowed it down with about ten glasses of water and two cups of tea on top of that. With a face of stone, she slung on her trench coat and went straight to the Tower to request a mission. 

She took the long way around in order to avoid passing by the T&I Department. If she was kept busy on missions, they wouldn’t be able to request her presence there. Ibiki wouldn’t have to go through the awkwardness of letting her down easily, and she knew that he would have to, whatever his private feelings for her might be. He was the last of his clan, too, and he needed an heir that she couldn’t provide. 

She knew that Ibiki was a good man, that he would never embarrass or betray her. Still, she had never felt so exposed in her entire life, and she was a woman who did not have any hangups regarding clothing or the lack thereof. Her cheeks burned at the memory of what she’d told him, what she’d confessed… 

She needed time to get her walls back in place, and what better way to do that than by hunting down the bastard that had made her? She couldn’t wait any longer for Orochimaru to call her to him, to twitch that terrible web and take away her choices again. Living like that was too hard, and in a moment of rare honesty, acknowledged that the strain was going to see her either at the bottom of a sake bottle or bleeding out from cuts on her wrists. That was no way for anyone to go, and even she thought that she deserved better. 

So she would do what any kunoichi worth her salt would do when stuck in a shitty situation, and fight. If she was going to die, she might as well do it on her own terms. 

Anko could see that Tsunade wanted to protest as she accepted back to back missions for the next six months, but the hokage was also practical enough to know that arguing would be a stupid thing to do. For better or for worse, Anko understood Orochimaru’s goals and motivations better than anyone else in the world. If anybody could track him down, it was her. Orochimaru needed to die more than Tsunade needed Anko to be healthy. Being a leader required hard choices, after all, and Anko was merely the downside to this one. 

Over the months, Iruka sent her increasingly devastated faces whenever she stumbled into the Mission Room to turn in her reports and swipe another job from the stack without stopping to speak to him. Despite the lingering ache of hurting her oldest friend, she hardened her heart and kept moving. Iruka had Kakashi, she reasoned. He didn’t need her. Letting her focus narrow so that she only saw the next step, the next scroll to steal or the next throat to slit, made living with herself bearable, but only just.

Of course, everything went pear shaped. They always did. 

She was on a supposedly low-ranked mission with Kurenai investigating an old bunker that they suspected Orochimaru of using as a storage facility. It was supposed to be a walk in the park - break in, snoop around, leave. The only reason two jounin were at all there was because of the possible involvement of Orochimaru. 

Instead of blankets and ration bars, though, they found Kabuto. 

Anko cursed and shot a handful of snakes at him to give Kurenai time to find a defensible position in the large warehouse-like room. “Still licking Orochimaru’s boots, Kabuto?” Anko shouted, trying to goad him into anger. Angry people made mistakes, and the women dearly needed him to make one now.

“He has powers that you could never imagine, Mitarashi!” Kabuto snapped, whirling easily away from the snakes. “Stop pretending like you don’t want that power, too. You just weren’t good enough for Lord Orochimaru to keep around.”

Kurenai ducked the shuriken Kabuto threw at her and tried to get close enough to get him under a genjutsu, but he forced her back with a wicked chakra scalpel. His fingers blurring, he wove hand signs and shot a tremendous water jutsu at both kunoichi. Kurenai, though she was still off balance from dodging the scalpel, tried to stick her feet to the floor with chakra. She slipped despite the attempt and was overwhelmed. She was pinned against the wall by the sheer force of the current; it was all she could do to move out of the way of the shelving and boxes that were unmoored from their places by the water. 

Anko was luckier. She had been standing further away from Kabuto and was able to flip up and stick her feet to the ceiling to avoid most of the devastating waves. She reached into her weapons pouch and attached an exploding tag to a kunai, then whipped it at Kabuto’s head. He deflected her weapon with his own kunai at the last second, then tossed a shuriken back at Anko with his other hand. Anko leaned hard to the left to avoid the blade, but was sliced on the arm as it went shooting past her. The weapon ended up stuck in the wall next to her, and Anko wasn’t surprised to see something oily and green dripping from the point.

“Anko!” Kurenai screamed, seeing the blood dripping down. She struggled against the water and was finally able to stand again.

“I’m fine, just get him!” Anko bit out as she swiped a finger through the blood on her arm in order to summon more snakes. Before she could, Kabuto had thrown yet another shuriken at the only light fixture in the room and they were all plunged into darkness. Anko felt something wrap around her throat and panicked, thinking that it was Orochimaru’s tongue, but it only held her captive for a moment before she was released. Her seal was burning so brightly that she felt like there would be a hole seared in her neck in another minute. 

“You’re already dead, Anko,” Kabuto’s cool voice came from the darkness. “It’s just a question of when. All you’re living for is to serve Lord Orochimaru’s ultimate purpose. You can’t escape your doom, and you shouldn’t even try.” 

Then there was nothing but a tense silence that was broken only by the Leaf-nin’s panting breaths.

A spark of light appeared. Kurenai was holding a ball of flames in her hands and searching for something to throw a kunai at, but Kabuto was already gone.”Where did the bastard go?” she growled, holding the flames high enough to illuminate the shadowed corners of the bunker.

Anko shook her head. “Don’t bother. He’s already gone. Our friend Kabuto is not the sort to stay where he’s outnumbered. He’ll always run to fight another day.”

Kurenai took Anko by the hand and dragged her out of the bunker into the light. Anko was glad for her friend’s guidance; she came close several times to walking straight into a metal shelf. “Are you okay? He got you with that shuriken, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Anko admitted, examining her arm with chagrin. Damn it, another trench coat ruined. No matter how carefully you sewed the slashes, it never laid the same again.

Biting her lip, Kurenai traced the edges of the cut with delicate fingers, her red eyes missing nothing. “Do you think the shuriken was poisoned?”

If she hadn’t known it already from the green liquid coming from the blade, the numbness that was slowly starting to radiate from the wound would have confirmed that she was, indeed, poisoned. “Possibly,” Anko hedged. “We should get back to Konoha to report this to the Hokage. She’ll want to know that Kabuto was hanging out so close to the village.”

Kurenai considered herself to be pretty intelligent. She started hauling ass back to Konoha, Anko following at her heels. She had to stick her hand in her pocket to keep it from flapping everywhere as they ran when she couldn’t control it anymore. The numbness had already spread through her chest to her legs when they darted through the village gates. She was having to work harder to breathe than she was comfortable admitting by the time they burst into the hospital. “We need some help here!” Kurenai shouted as she caught Anko under the arms before she could slump to the floor.

Sakura ran up, wearing her medic’s apron. “What happened?” she barked, all business. Anko approved, even if she thought being lifted up and dumped onto a gurney a little excessive. She had been right to stick up for the kid; Tsunade had done a damn good job with her. Sakura’s green eyes were focused and her hands were steady as she started running chakra over Anko’s body. Gone was the timid girl from the first chunin exams who could barely stand against her best friend. This was a capable woman who could hold her own. 

“We ran into Kabuto,” Kurenai said. “He cut Anko with a poisoned shuriken.”

Anko was just about to protest that the wound wasn’t that bad when suddenly her vision whited out. “Get her to the operating room! Call Tsunade!” Sakura shouted. 

Why was she screaming? Come to think of it, who was screaming? Everything was so fuzzy and cozy. Anko could tell that the voice was urgent, but she couldn’t grasp why that was. 

The air seemed to be very thin. Was she on a mountain? Maybe Ibiki had taken her to Cloud to see snow. That would be nice; she’d never seen snow, and had always secretly longed to build a snowman. 

It was as she was contemplating the delights of fur rugs in front of roaring fireplaces that she passed out. 

…………………

Anko returned to consciousness slowly. Every time she had a thought she tried to hold onto it, but it would slip away again like an eel covered in soap. It was annoying as all hell. So was the tube blowing air up her nose. She couldn’t remember ever having been so thirsty, not even on missions to Sand. Her back was seizing from lying flat on a bed for who knows how long and life felt pretty shitty as a whole. She wheezed.

“Easy, take a deep breath. Everything's okay, An-chan.” A familiar voice floated over her, settling across her skin like a robe fresh out of the dryer. She knew that voice; it was the only one in the world allowed to call her “An-chan.” She was safe. She relaxed against the bed and was finally able to wrench open her crusty eyes. 

“Hi, there. Welcome back; you’re okay now. Do you want some water?” Iruka asked, his brown eyes worried. It made the scar across his nose wrinkle and she wanted to stroke it. “Let’s not, Kakashi might be jealous,” Iruka said with a chuckle, and she realized that she’d spoken aloud. 

“Sorry,” Anko said, flushing. “Yes, to the water, please, and if I can’t sit up soon and get a goddamn pillow for my back, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.” She ripped the air hose out of her nostrils and threw it violently at the wall. 

Iruka didn’t bother protesting. Instead he pressed the button on the hospital bed to sit her up and stuck a straw between her lips, like the angel that he was. Anko moaned from relief as cool water slid down her throat. She sucked the little cup dry and then fell back again, exhausted. 

“Do you remember what happened?” Iruka asked. He handed Anko a tie from around his wrist and she gratefully scraped her hair back into its usual ponytail. 

“Chickenshit Kabuto got me with the shinobi equivalent of a hangnail,” she groused, and closed her eyes as Iruka gently wiped the crust from her lids with a damp rag. Did she mention that he was an angel and she didn’t deserve him? “He took me down with a single scratch. It’s a fucking disgrace; I bet everyone’s laughing behind my back. How long have I been out?”

“Two days, and no one is laughing at you,” Iruka reassured her. “Not even Kakashi. That poison was bad news, An-chan. Tsunade wants you to stay in the hospital at least one more day to make sure that the toxins are completely out of your system. You’re not to even attempt to escape before she releases you, or she’ll kick your ass straight back to bed and tie you down. I wouldn’t test her on that, either; she looked worried enough to be vindictive.” 

Anko sulked, her first plan already thwarted, and Iruka’s mild countenance shifted in a dangerous direction. Uh oh. “Tsunade also said something about you being dangerously exhausted before you even got hurt,” he said, softly. He was wearing his patented Iruka-is-so-very-disappointed-in-you face and dammit, Anko honestly couldn’t handle that shit. It was devastating enough when they were kids, and he only got better at it with age and practice.

“Stop looking at me like I kicked your puppy,” she complained, squirming. “Tsunade was exaggerating. I wasn’t that tired and besides, I had shit to do. Following up on Orochimaru was more important than taking a nap.”

One of Iruka’s eyebrows swept up. He looked deeply unimpressed and Anko had never felt more sympathy for his students. Or Kakashi, honestly, but then he probably enjoyed Iruka’s wrath. “More important than what? Your health? Possibly your sanity? Honestly, Anko, when was the last time you had a week off? Or even just a day? When did you last do something, anything, other than stalking and stealing and killing?” 

Anko opened her mouth to respond, though she had no idea what she was going to say, but he cut her off before she could try. “Don’t even think about lying to me,” he snapped. “I’ve known you since we were six years old and I’m intimately familiar with your bullshit. I know for a fact that you’ve been taking missions non-stop for over six months now. There’s dedication and then there’s insanity, and you’re so far over the line that a Yamanaka would sooner chuck you into a padded room than look at you. What the hell do you think you’re doing, Anko? Are you trying to run yourself into the ground?”

Anko firmly believed that her face should be categorized as a katon jutsu, it was so hot and red. “I’m trying to survive,” she bit out. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“I wouldn’t if that was what you were actually doing,” he shot back. “You’re not trying to survive, Anko. You can fool everyone else, but you can’t fool me. You’re trying to passively kill yourself. You go on missions without adequate backup, you hardly eat, you barely sleep. On the rare days when you’re actually home, you train until you can’t stand up anymore. Not even Gai is that insane.”

“Gai isn’t walking around Konoha with a time bomb tattooed to his neck,” Anko retorted. She would be screaming with rage if she had the energy. “Gai has the pleasure of teaching children, of having eternal rivals, of being safe. You know what I think about every single time I’m with other people, Iruka? Whether that’s going to be the moment when this curse goes crazy and makes me hurt the people around me. Nobody knows what it is or does, not even you, and you’re the seals expert.”

Iruka stood up and started to pace. “You’re not giving your comrades enough credit, Anko, nor yourself. You’ve been living with that seal for years and you’ve never hurt anyone, not even when Orochimaru was here during the chunin exams. And even if it did take over somehow, do you really think that between all the Anbu, jounin and chunin around here, we couldn’t keep you contained? That’s pretty arrogant, even for you.”

“I don’t have anything left but arrogance,” Anko said, staring at the ceiling to keep the tears in her eyes from falling. She desperately wished that she had a kunai handy so that she could draw some of the pain out of her skin.

Sighing, Iruka came back to her bedside and took her hands in his, like he knew exactly what she was thinking. He probably did. “I’m calling bullshit on that one too. You have us, Anko. Did you know that while you’ve been asleep, we’ve all been taking turns to sit with you, so that you would be alone?” That startled Anko into looking at him. “Yup. Me, Gai, Asuma, Kurenai, Kakashi and Ibiki. We’ve all been here. We’ve been here for you for a long, long time. You just have to let us in. You have to let us help you.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Anko warned, a single tear sliding down her cheek. “I’m mean and angry and paranoid and I have to be drunk to handle complex emotions. I don’t know how to be around other people. I usually just put on an act and hope for the best.”

“Yeah, we already knew that about you, and we don’t give a shit. You may be a feral pain in the ass, but you’re our feral pain in the ass, and you’re not running us off that easily. All you have to do is try, for us and for yourself, and that’ll be enough.” 

“Okay,” she sniffled. “You win. I’ll try.” A tiny whine flew out her lips as her back seized in another cramp and Iruka sighed, knowing that the conversation was over. 

He pressed the button to lower the bed again and helped Anko to shift onto her side. She heaved a huge breath in relief as the pain eased. “Your meds should be kicking back in now. Go to sleep, you terror, ” he said fondly, ruffling her hair. “I’ll take you home tomorrow.”

Drowsily, Anko murmured, “Did I hear you say Ibiki was here, too, or was that just me hallucinating?”

“Fuck,” Iruka moaned. “I was hoping Kakashi was wrong about you being sweet on him. Yes, Ibiki was here, and he was adorably concerned. Now shut up and go to sleep.”

……………………..

Nobody said or did anything blatant, but after that day in the hospital, Anko definitely felt the ranks of the jounin closing around her, holding her up and keeping her safe. Any time that she made an effort to linger in a tea shop, or have a conversation over a cart of produce in the market, she was met with enthusiastic acceptance. Kurenai helped her to put together a balcony garden where she could grow her own herbs (and poison ingredients, but nobody needed to know that). She sparred with Asuma whenever he happened to be home, and discussed poetry with Gai. She was still taking a lot of missions, probably more than she should. But whenever she got home, Iruka came over, made her food, and then was kind enough to snore beside her so that she could get some sleep. It was enough to keep her steady, and her kunai stayed in her pouch where it belonged. 

She dodged Ibiki as assiduously as she had ever ducked away from a kunai, though, and tried not to think too much about it. Kakashi kept giving her knowing looks, but he wasn’t exactly a bastion of mental health either, so she took no notice.

She definitely needed that feeling of community later when Naruto came screaming back into the village, the Akatsuki were nabbing jinchuuriki left and right, and the whole word was being flipped upside down. On the day that Anko heard that Sasuke had killed Orochimaru, she got roaringly drunk in celebration, but she didn’t eat any dango. The seal was still on her neck. She still wasn’t free, and a part of her didn’t trust that Sasuke had killed their sensei thoroughly enough.

Then the day came when Asuma left on a mission and never came back. Kakashi and Naruto ran off to go fight the Akatsuki that had murdered him, so Anko was the one that ended up staying to comfort Iruka. She held him close as he sobbed at the loss of his surrogate brother and her heart ached for him. Asuma was the closest thing to a family that Iruka had left, other than Naruto. She didn’t know what to say or do to comfort him, if comfort was even possible, but she did understand grief. So she tried her best to convey her love with a soft voice and gentle hands and attempts at edible meals. Iruka seemed to understand what she couldn’t express, as he always had before, and they were both grateful for each other. 

Following the funeral, she left flowers and small gifts on Kurenai’s doorstep and pretended not to notice the subtle swelling of the other kunoichi’s belly. It wasn’t her place to say anything more or try to help. Besides, it looked like Shikamaru had that end of things pretty well covered, and there was only so much her heart could bear. 

Not long after Asuma’s funeral, her pretty new balcony garden was just fucking gone, along with everything else she had ever owned or treasured, thanks to a maniac who was dramatic enough to go by the name of Pein. Anko hadn’t even been in the village at the time; she had been out looking for more signs of Kabuto. Naruto saved the day (of course) but then he was the cause of a world wide war (which was only to be expected). There was madness with a guy wearing a mask that claimed to be Uchiha Madara, but she wasn’t buying that one. Nor did she believe his words about wanting to turn the moon into a genjutsu, but decided to ignore everything about it. Anko honestly didn’t get paid enough to deal with this shit. There were other problems on her mind, namely Orochimaru (who wasn’t dead and she couldn’t even be glad that she had called it, even though a lot of people owed her money). 

Then she found Kabuto and he was part snake ( what the fuck what the actual fuck ) and doing something clever with the seal on her neck. The dark part of herself that Ibiki hated was frankly relieved when everything faded away.

…………………………………………….

She blinked awake from an incredible dream involving snow, an interesting lack of pants, and Ibiki and saw that she was inside some kind of wooden pod. The thing bloomed around her and spit her on the ground, and while a part of her brain was puzzled by all this, the rest of her didn’t bother to care. Weird shit was happening, what else is new? 

She heard a shout somewhere behind her, back where the sun arose each day, and turned around. Ibiki, scarred, strong, beautiful Ibiki was running towards her. She reached up with trembling fingers and felt the unblemished skin of her neck, then ran straight into his arms. 

The kunai up her sleeve fell out of her coat in her rush to reach him, and she didn’t even consider turning around to pick it back up again.

Ibiki held her to his chest as if she was something precious and for once, Anko didn’t need the bite of pain in order to feel something. “You’re alive,” he murmured into her hair. “It’s over and you’re alive. Thank god, I was so scared. Thank god or jinchuriki or whoever the hell I owe for bringing you back to me.”

Anko rubbed her face into Ibiki’s vest; she would burrow underneath his very skin if she could. “Did you see, Ibiki? The seal is gone. It’s over now; I’m finally free.”

“I know, I saw.” Suddenly Ibiki was shaking Anko from a hand on the back of her neck like a naughty kitten. “You stupid woman,” he growled. “If you hadn’t been running from me like a blushing virgin all this time, you would have known this earlier and saved us both a hell of a lot of heartache. I choose you too, Anko. You’re a disaster waiting to happen and stubborn and god knows that trying to get you to have a mature conversation is worse than having a tooth pulled. But dammit, you’re my disaster. I don’t give a flying fuck if you have a seal or sparkly pink wings and a tail, I’d still choose you. Are we clear on that or do I need to expound on it further for you to believe me?”

That was the kind of language Anko understood. “Crystal clear. I feel the same way about you, just in case you were curious. You’re not disaster, though. You’re salvation.”

“And you’re mine,” he said, so softly that only Anko and the sunlight could hear.

They stood in silence for a minute, glorying in the truth and each other, but Anko could never let a moment pass by without making it awkward. “Can we have sex now?” she asked hopefully. “I feel like this is the perfect time for hey-we’re-alive-let’s-celebrate sex.”

Ibiki groaned and pried Anko from his chest. He started frogmarching her in what she recognized as the direction for home. “Don’t tempt me, woman. Let’s get back to Konoha first, where there are beds and doors that lock. I don’t want just celebration sex from you, Anko.” His breath ghosted over Anko’s ear and she shivered deliciously in anticipation. “I want everything you can give me. I want to give you everything I have until you can’t walk anymore. What are your thoughts on that?”

Oh, this was going to be so, so good. “Hell, yes. Yes to anything and everything. Race you back home!” she chirped as she flickered away. Ibiki cursed fluently and disappeared, too. 

The kunai was left in the dirt, to rust away until it was nothing more than a distant memory.

………………………..

A year later found Anko standing in the Hokage’s office once again. This time she was staring down at a scroll in utter confusion instead of poking at the feeble remains of Tsunade’s composure. “A genin team? Me? Are you serious? Are you running a fever or something?”

Kakashi’s eyes twinkled above his mask, and she wondered how in the world anyone had thought that he was kage material. “Yes, you. I’m absolutely serious. Don’t you think that you have something to pass on to the next generation?”

Anko blinked at him. “You must be joking, or the job has already driven you around the bend. Nobody in their right mind would make me a teacher. I’m impatient, I leave my poisons everywhere, and I cuss too fucking much to be exposed to children. I’m going to ruin them. Are you sure about giving them to me? Did Iruka approve this? We all know that he’s really the one in charge around here.”

“Anko, he’s the one that suggested it,” Kakashi said gently. “Look, giving me a genin team was probably an even worse idea than giving you one, and that turned out okay.” He thought for a minute. “I mean, eventually it did. After the betrayal...and the attempted murders…and the double amputation...” He shook himself out of his reverie. “But honestly, I think that you could be a great jounin-sensei. In a couple of years, I’m confident that we’ll have three brand new chunin running around, swearing, sprouting snakes from various orifices and being good shinobi. Just like their teacher.”

“No snakes,” Anko quickly corrected. “I’m never using a snake again.”

“Whatever,” Kakashi said, pointedly twirling around in his chair. “You have your assignment. Now get out of here; I’ve got too much to do to sit here and coddle your fragile self esteem. Go talk to Iruka if you need to have your hand held.”

“You just want me to leave so that you can read your porn in peace. You’re not fooling anyone, you know,” Anko shot back, but she left the office anyway. At least this time her retreat wasn’t punctuated by yelling.

She stumbled into the Mission Room and Iruka immediately started cackling at the stunned look on her face. “So you got your next mission from the hokage, huh? How do you feel about it, sensei?”

“I’m doomed,” Anko moaned, and flopped across the desk. “ They’re doomed. How could you subject the future of Konoha to someone like me?”

Iruka scoffed and stood up, loudly popping his back with an accompanying groan. “It’s a low bar, Anko. You can’t be any worse a jounin-sensei than Kakashi was.”

“You underestimate me,” Anko growled.

“Ugh, I can’t handle you when you’re being dramatic,” Iruka said, signaling for another shinobi to take his place at the desk. “I’m taking you to get something to eat. You can’t whine when your mouth is full.”

“Dango?” Anko asked hopefully, peeking up from her sprawl. “Your treat, though. Kakashi admitted that this was all your big idea in the first place.”

“I’m going to make him pay for that,” Iruka muttered. “Fine, yes, dango. When did you get such an obsession with the stuff, anyway?”

Anko looked at her arms. Instead of being as sharp as cut glass like they used to be, now they were softly rounded. She liked it much better. She liked being able to be soft. “I’ve always loved it,” she said with a secret smile, “but now I’m allowed to love it.”

Iruka’s eyes went gentle at that. “Okay, that’s fair. It’ll be my pleasure to treat you.” As they walked down the stairs, he asked, “So, what will Ibiki think of you being a teacher?”

Grinning evilly, Anko replied, “He’ll probably enjoy thinking up new techniques for me to teach my brats. T&I could use some new blood, after all, and you gotta train them young.”

“And here I thought you were already an evil, conniving gremlin,” Iruka groaned, “but it’s ten times worse with Ibiki added to the mix. We should have never let you two get together.”

“Probably not, but it’s too late now. You’ll never pry us apart.” Still smiling, Anko followed her best friend out of the Tower, on their way to enjoy food and each other’s company. Even better, she was clutching the scroll that promised her children to teach close to her heart. 

Life was very sweet.