Chapter 1: The Day We Left
"Ho ho ho... I've finally been found out... What a shame..." Orochimaru turned around slowly, the dim torchlight catching the gold of his slitted eyes as he regarded their sudden guests.
"I told you we should've hidden the hideout better, sensei." Anko crossed her arms, clicking her tongue as she took in the sight of Lord Hokage alongside two ANBU members storming into the experiment room. One wore the mask of a cat. The other, a bird. Both had their swords drawn, and both were trying very hard not to look at what was around them.
She didn't blame them.
Several bodies hung from chains bolted into the stone ceiling, their skin peeled back in long strips that dangled like wet ribbon. One corpse had its ribcage pried open and pinned with metal clamps, the organs inside it scooped out and placed in labeled jars lining the far wall. Another lay face down on a steel table, split from the base of its skull all the way to the tailbone, the spine exposed and glistening. A ceramic tub near the corner held a tangle of severed legs stacked like firewood, the cut ends blackened from cauterization. Cloth-covered shapes lay on the floor in a row, lumps beneath the fabric.
The smell was the worst part. You couldn't mask it with anything. Not incense, not cleaning agents, not even the sharp chemical stink of whatever preservatives her teacher used. Underneath all of it was the sweet, cloying rot of flesh.
Anko had gotten used to it a while ago. It was just another room now.
"Orochimaru! Anko! What is the meaning of this?!" Hiruzen's voice cracked across the chamber like a whip.
The Third Hokage stood at the entryway. His jaw was set. His old eyes that had seen three wars, swept across the carnage with the expression of a man watching his worst suspicions confirmed.
"And I thought I had rigged enough traps..." Orochimaru tilted his head, his long black hair spilling over one shoulder. "I was going to say I'm shocked, but I see it is you, Hiruzen-sensei..."
"There have been a series of disappearances recently, one after another. Not just genin and chunin, but several members of the ANBU." The cat-masked shinobi spoke first, her voice sharp behind the porcelain. "We received a report that you and your student have been acting in a suspicious manner."
"Me?!" Anko slapped a hand against her chest, her eyes going wide. She pointed at herself. "Just because I invited a few genin and chunin out to secluded areas to do stuff doesn't mean I'm suspicious! I'm very mature for my age." She struck a cutesy pose, one hand behind her head and her hip cocked, completely unbothered by the room full of mutilated corpses behind her or the armed shinobi in front of her.
"..." The silence from the ANBU and the Hokage was louder than any reply. They chose, very wisely, to ignore her.
"Lord Orochimaru..." The bird-masked shinobi's voice came out strangled, fighting past whatever was lodged in his throat at the sight of the room. "Why would a shinobi of your caliber engage in such things?!"
"It is precisely because I am a shinobi of my caliber that I do so." Orochimaru answered as though the question were obvious. As though it were anyone else's failing for not understanding.
"Orochimaru! Tell me what you have been doing here!" Hiruzen demanded, and the sorrow in his voice was almost harder to listen to than the anger.
"I suppose there isn't any use in hiding it anymore." Orochimaru turned fully to face his former teacher, spreading his arms to encompass the room, the bodies, the jars, the blood-stained tools, all of it. "I'm exploring jutsu development!" he announced.
"Through live human experimentation..." The cat-masked kunoichi muttered, and her sword hand tightened.
"Forbidden jutsu, eh..." Hiruzen's voice dropped low. "What is it that you seek?"
"Everything!" Orochimaru replied, and the word struck with conviction.
"Everything?!" Hiruzen repeated.
"Anything and everything!" Anko chimed in, swaying side to side like a child singing along to a song she liked.
Orochimaru didn't stop her. He rarely did. "I want to acquire all jutsu and grasp all of this world's rules... The fellow who first mixed blue and yellow was the one to name the newly created color green." He started pacing, slow and unhurried, his sandals clicking against stone. "I wish to do the same. Say blue is chakra, then yellow is signs, and green is jutsu... Just as there are an infinite number of colors, so there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of jutsu out in the world." His pacing stopped. He turned back to Hiruzen, and his smile was terrible. "However, in order to obtain each and every jutsu that exists, and the principles behind them, I need a long time... And he who masters all is truly worthy of the title 'The Ultimate Being'..." The smile dimmed to something almost wistful. "For me, the lifespan of the flesh is much too short. Even if I had become Hokage. For once one is dead, it's all over."
Hiruzen's face crumpled. Something old and broken moved behind his eyes. "Orochimaru... Don't tell me the jutsu you were experimenting with here was..."
"Yes..." Orochimaru hissed, and the torchlight made his eyes glow. "It's that which you fear... Furofushi no Jutsu... The art of immortality!"
The two ANBU members shifted forward in perfect sync, blades raised, ready to attack on the Hokage's word.
Anko felt the change in the room before she saw it. That crackling, electric feeling that came just before people started killing each other. The hair on her arms stood up. Her tongue slid across her lower lip, and a grin split her face so wide it ached. She stepped in front of Orochimaru with her hands open at her sides, placing herself between her teacher and every weapon in the room.
Then Hiruzen's hands came together. One seal. Two. And the air beside him warped and erupted in a cloud of smoke that filled half the chamber. When it cleared, Enma the Monkey King stood beside the Third Hokage, ready to fight, his eyes locked on Orochimaru.
Anko's excitement didn't diminish one bit. If anything, it doubled. The Hokage and his legendary summon. Two ANBU operatives with drawn swords. Against her teacher and herself. This was going to be amazing!
She did know, however, that her teacher would have to pull his weight here. She wasn't stupid enough to think she could handle the God of Shinobi on her own. Not yet.
"You're going to kill me? Me...?" Orochimaru's smirk hadn't wavered. His hands began forming seals, fingers blurring. "Can you really do it, Hiruzen-sensei?"
And then all hell broke loose.
Hiruzen and Enma surged toward Orochimaru. In the same breath, Anko launched herself at the two ANBU with a laugh that echoed off the walls.
"Try not to die too fast!" she called to them, her voice bright and cheerful over the crash of jutsu behind her. "If you last long enough, you might get to see something totally awesome!"
Both ANBU members rushed her together. The cat came from the left, the bird from the right. They'd trained together, she could tell. Their movements mirrored each other. If she stayed put, their swords would cross inside her body and carve her into three separate pieces.
Anko laughed and jumped.
She timed it at the last possible instant, when their blades were committed and there was no room left to change anything. Their swords sliced through empty air beneath her feet. Anko split her legs apart mid-flight and caught each ANBU across the face with a kick that would've cracked bone if they hadn't gotten their arms up in time. Even so, the force sent them skidding across the stone floor toward opposite walls, their sandals raking dust.
She landed back on the ground, light on her feet, bouncing on her toes. The grin hadn't left her face.
The bird-masked ninja recovered first. He came at her fast, sword arm cocked back, and closed the distance in two long strides. When he got within range, he thrust the blade forward, aiming for her gut. The tip of the sword passed so close to her stomach that it almost nicked it!
But Anko was already moving. That narrow miss put her inside his guard, close enough to smell the sweat soaking through his uniform. She planted one foot on the floor, leapt off it, and swung her opposite leg around in a rising arc that caught the bird-masked shinobi square across the jaw. The crack was loud enough to hear over the chaos of Orochimaru and Hiruzen fighting behind them. The ANBU went airborne, sailed three meters sideways, and crashed back-first into one of the chained corpses. The body swung wildly on its chains, spraying blood and organs across his mask and shoulders.
Behind her, the whisper of air being cut.
Anko didn't turn around. She didn't need to. The cat-masked kunoichi was coming in for the kill, blade raised overhead, committed to a downward slash that would split Anko from collarbone to hip. Anko could hear the arc of the sword as it came down.
She giggled.
With a twirl, Anko spun on her heel and bent herself backward at an angle that should have broken her spine. The sword sliced through the air where her chest had been a heartbeat ago, close enough to clip a few strands of her violet hair. Before the cat-masked shinobi could pull the blade back for another swing, Anko completed her rotation and planted the heel of her foot into the woman's face.
The mask shattered. The cat mask exploded into a dozen pieces, revealing the face beneath. Pale skin, dark eyes wide with shock, a bloody nose already swelling. Pretty, actually. Younger than Anko expected.
"Ooh, cute!" Anko chirped.
The kunoichi stumbled back, blood pouring from her nose. Before she could recover her footing, Anko's hands were already moving. Snake. Dragon. Rabbit. Tiger.
"Fire Style: Dragon Flame Jutsu!"
The heat came first, blooming in her chest and racing up her throat, and then the fire roared out of Anko's open mouth in a concentrated stream that blazed toward the downed kunoichi like a living thing. The flames lit up the entire room, casting wild shadows across the walls, making the bodies on their chains look like they were dancing.
But the bird-masked shinobi was already there. He swept in from the side, grabbed his partner around the waist, and threw both of them out of the fire's path. The flames slammed into the far wall and detonated against the stone, scorching it black and turning two of the glass specimen jars into puddles of hissing, melted glass.
The two ANBU skidded to a stop across the room, the kunoichi cradled against the bird ninja's side. They were both breathing hard. The bird's mask had a fresh crack running down the center from where Anko's kick had connected.
And they were clumped together. Perfectly together. Shoulder to shoulder, tangled up, trying to untangle.
Anko's eyes widened with delight at their compromised position.
She crossed the gap between them in a burst of speed, chakra flooding her legs so fast the air snapped behind her. One instant she was across the room. The next she was right in front of them, close enough to touch. Both ANBU flinched, tried to bring their swords up, tried to jump apart.
Too slow.
Anko's right arm had transformed. A massive snake, blue-scaled and thick as a grown man's torso. It came out of her arm like it had been coiled in there all along, waiting for the invitation. Its body unraveled at terrifying speed, looping once around the cat-masked shinobi's waist, twice around the bird ninja's chest, and then cinching tight with the sound of ribs groaning under pressure.
They screamed.
Both of them, through clenched teeth and masks (or what remained of masks), screamed as the blue snake crushed inward. The sound of cracking could have been armor. Could have been ribs. Anko didn't particularly care which. She looked into the eyes of both ANBU members through the gaps in their broken masks and smiled.
"This won't be pretty," she told them. Her voice was almost apologetic. Almost. "Sorry."
The snake's jaw unhinged. Its mouth opened impossibly wide, the inner flesh a deep blue-black, the fangs as long as kunai. And then it consumed them both in a single, wet, crunching gulp. Their screams were muffled, then silenced altogether, swallowed down into darkness.
The blue snake lingered for a moment, its body thick and distended with the shape of two human beings. It turned its head toward Anko and flicked its tongue against her cheek.
"Thank you, Soma!" Anko patted the massive serpent on the snout. It gave her a small nod before dissolving in a cloud of smoke, returning to wherever summoned snakes went when their work was done.
And then it hit her.
A rush of warmth that started in the center of her chest and spread outward through every limb, every finger, every toe. It poured through her like hot water filling a cold vessel, seeping into her muscles, her bones, the pathways through which her chakra flowed. She could feel herself changing, growing, becoming more.
[You have fought magnificently and achieved a 47-fold training effect this time!]
"Sweet!" Anko leaped into the air with her fist raised above her head, unable to contain herself. Forty-seven times! That was one of her best results yet! She could feel the difference already, a subtle but unmistakable sharpening of her reflexes, a deepening of her chakra reserves, a new looseness in muscles that had been tight before. "Lucky, lucky, lucky!"
"Anko!" Orochimaru's voice cut through her celebration, sharp and stern.
"Ah!" Anko jumped, snapping to attention. She whipped around and found her teacher standing over the sitting form of the Third Hokage. Hiruzen lay on his back, his robes torn and bloodied, Enma the same. The old man was still breathing, still conscious, but he wasn't getting up anytime soon. Whatever Orochimaru had done to him, it had been enough to put him down.
For just a moment, Anko caught it. The briefest flicker on her teacher's face as he looked down at the man who had raised him. She couldn't tell what the expression meant.
"It's time we leave Konoha, child. Let's go."
Anko gave the room one last look. The bodies, the jars, the ruined walls, the scorch marks from her fire jutsu, the unconscious Hokage bleeding on the floor. She burned the image into her memory. This was the last time she'd see this place.
Then she turned to the battered old man and the big empty space where his monkey used to be, and she waved.
"Bye, Hokage-sama! Thanks for everything!"
Hiruzen didn't respond. He just watched them go with those old, exhausted eyes.
…
They ran.
Anko and Orochimaru departed the hideout and hit the trees without stopping. Her teacher moved through the treetops of the Land of Fire's great forests. Anko followed behind him, leaping from limb to limb, the night air cool against her face and the adrenaline still singing through her veins.
She was a chunin of Konoha just this morning. Now she was a rogue ninja wanted by every shinobi wearing a leaf headband. Strange how fast things changed. Stranger still how little she cared. The village had been fine. The food was good, the training grounds were alright, and there were plenty of interesting people to mess with. But none of that compared to this. To being at Orochimaru's side. To learning from the greatest mind in the entire shinobi world. To feeling herself grow stronger with every passing day at a rate that would make other ninja weep.
Her teacher was the reason for everything she had. Every jutsu in her arsenal, every technique she'd mastered, every ounce of strength she carried. He'd taken a nobody genin with nothing special about her except a rotten attitude and a willingness to get her hands dirty, and he'd turned her into something worth being afraid of.
She wasn't about to give that up for a headband and a village.
"Sensei, where are we going?" Anko asked as they sailed between the ancient trees, the lights of Konoha shrinking to a distant glow behind them.
"The where isn't the important part." Orochimaru didn't look back. His voice carried perfectly through the rushing wind. "Where can't we go?"
Anko thought about it for exactly two seconds. "Probably back to Konoha. They'll kill us since we're rogue ninjas now!" She said it so cheerfully that a passing owl spooked off its branch.
"I suppose you aren't incorrect..." Orochimaru conceded, and Anko thought she caught the ghost of amusement in his tone. "Now please hush so I can think."
"Mhmm!" Anko nodded eagerly while humming softly to herself, a little tune without any words.
The forest stretched on in every direction, dark and endless and full of things that didn't want to be found. The moon hung overhead like a pale eye watching them go. Somewhere behind them, reinforcements were probably already scrambling. Tracker teams, sensor squads, maybe even some of the other Sannin if word spread fast enough.
None of that bothered Anko.
She couldn't wait to see what came next.