“I just wanted a blood sample, psycho-girl,” I complained.
“I know,” she said sweetly. “But certain people need to see how serious I am about this. Besides, you can fix it.”
“True.” I slapped a biostasis field on the eyes, slipped them into one of the empty sample vials I’d taken to carrying, and tossed it to Kakashi. “Here, this should take care of the Hyuuga for now.”
He frowned at me. “But what about cute little Hinata?”
“Oh, she’ll be fine,” I said, and put my hand on her shoulder. A moment later she had eyes again.
“My Sakura is the best medic-nin in the world,” Hinata said smugly. “Oh, and Kurenai-sensei, your invisibility genjutsu isn’t fooling either of us. If you step any closer I’ll have to hurt you.”
Kakashi uncovered his Sharingan, and I tensed. With Hinata at my side I wasn’t worried about winning this fight, but doing it without killing anyone would be hard. The Kurenai we’d been talking to was an illusion, of course, and the Anko must be a shadow clone, because the real kunoichi had circled around behind us during the conversation. I traded a glance with Hinata, and she changed her stance minutely as she prepared to charge the Copy Nin. Her inhuman speed would largely negate his Sharingan, and once she engaged him there was no way he’d be able to break contact. Meanwhile I shifted my chakra nature to water, a hint of mist forming in the air around me as I prepared to spin and engage the pair behind us. My mist shroud wouldn’t hamper either of us, but if I added a silence illusion it would give all our opponents serious trouble.
Of course, they weren’t exactly rookies. Anko realized she’d been made, and I felt her ready a replacement with her clone in hopes of catching me from behind when I completed my spin. Kakashi’s stance shifted slightly as he readied himself to duck underground, but Hinata just smiled serenely and readied a Cutting Water Lance. Knowing Anko’s clone was almost as dangerous as she was, I formed a marble-sized Water Rasengan in the palm of my hand where neither of her could see it, and prepared to body flicker it into the clone. Any second now they’d make their move, and my timing had to be perfect or I’d hit the wrong Anko and kill her…
Kakashi relaxed, and covered his Sharingan eye.
“Well, well, what a surprising pair,” he commented. “Alright Anko, we’ll be counting on you.”
Anko switched places with her clone and dismissed it with a relieved look that said she’d suspected she was about to get her ass kicked. Hana frowned in confusion. “Sir, not that I’m complaining, but I thought we had orders to fight them?”
“We lost, Hana-chan,” he explained. “No need to go on, and deprive Konoha of our services while we recover, eh? Besides, the Hokage will want to hear about this.”
“I’m sure,” I nodded. “Oh, and Kakashi? Tell him… tell him that we’ll follow Kushina’s son gladly, when the time comes.”
Maybe that would get him off our backs. Probably not, but it was worth a try.
Since I knew Anko’s abilities inside and out I figured my contest with her would just be a diversion and a chance to stay in practice. There was no way she was going to turn me into a lovesick puppet, and I made it clear from the beginning that if she tried it on Hinata there was going to be bloodshed. But at the same time I knew that she’d been resisting Orochimaru’s cursed seal since she was a kid, so the odds of me turning her were also just about zero.
But it was actually a lot of fun to flirt and tease and play little technique tricks on each other. It reminded me of the loops where I’d been her student, and the good times we’d had together. She and Hinata circled each other like strange cats for a couple of days until we reached our destination, and ended up being attacked by a ninja clan that was so paranoid they took the fact that we’d even found them as an insult. By the time the bodies stopped falling the two had decided they were kindred spirits, kami help me.
“So, what are you really up to out here?” Anko asked me one day. “You could have gone back and taken over the Hyuuga months ago if you’d wanted, so why didn’t you?”
“It’s a secret. I’ll tell you about it after you swear your undying devotion,” I teased.
She pouted. “Aw, come on! You won’t even remember by the time I’m done turning your brain to mush, so if you don’t tell me now I’ll never know.”
I laughed. “Dream on, Anko. Tell you what, track down Minato’s son and swear fealty to him, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“The Fourth had a kid?” She frowned thoughtfully. “That’s actually kind of intriguing, but I don’t even know him.”
We bantered on in that vein for days, and by the end of our first week I think she was more interested in figuring us out than subverting us. We were all getting pretty comfortable together by then, so when she woke one morning to find me examining her cursed seal she didn’t react violently. She just stretched, and asked me what the hell I was doing.
“Oh, I’ve always wondered what made these things so hard to remove,” I told her. “My chakra sight is getting pretty good these days, and I wanted to see if I could spot the problem. I’m not having much luck, though. I can see the seal itself is so booby-trapped it’d be impossible to alter, and that demonic chakra leaking out of it can’t be doing you any good. But I don’t see any ties to your soul, and the other links could all be severed.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s why it’s on my neck, dummy. It’s not like we can amputate my head.”
“Oh.”
I sat back on the bed, my mind racing as I contemplated the strands of dark chakra the seal had sunk into her body. It was attached to her chakra circulatory system in a dozen places, but none of them were above the neck. So that meant…
“Sakura-sama can,” Hinata said softly. “She can make a whole body with her healing techniques, and I’ve seen her reattach limbs before.”
“What, seriously?” Anko asked. “Because I’m going to be really pissed if you’re just yanking my chain.”
“No, she’s right,” I said. “I’ve done it before. I can do it right now if you want.”
For once, Anko was speechless.
“What do you want?” She finally asked. “No one does favors like that for free. Do I have to trade your chain for his?”
“Anko, I despise mind control,” I admitted. “I wouldn’t do that to you even if you let me. Why do you think I’ve just been having fun with you, instead of seriously trying to influence you? Besides, I think you’ve figured out by now that I actually like you. Let me do this for you.”
She nodded shakily. “Ok. If you’re sure you can do it. Damn, I’m going to owe you big time for this.”
20. Final Solutions
Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto.
AN: Responses to reviews can be found on my personal blog (see the home page link in my profile).
I hadn’t expected anything to come of our temporary association with Anko, but events proved me wrong. Apparently honest friendship is sometimes a more effective means of influence than any mind control technique.
Cutting off Anko’s head and growing a new body for it was a little tricky, but well within my abilities by this point. Anko was insanely grateful to finally be free of Orochimaru’s seal, though it was nearly a week before I found out why. We were camped on a mountainside in southern Lightning Country, and I woke in the middle of the night to find that Anko had vanished from the cozy pile of furs the three of us generally slept in. I sat up silently so as not to disturb Hinata, and found our missing companion perched atop a nearby boulder watching the stars.
She hadn’t bothered to dress, and there were tears in her eyes.