Night had fallen over the Forest of Death. The crickets, which had previously filled the air with their monotonous chirping, had abruptly stopped singing.
Kabuto walked among the trees with his two teammates flanking him. Yoroi adjusted his gloves with a nervous gesture while Misumi checked the map for the third time under the dim moonlight.
"We should be near sector eighteen," Misumi said in a low voice. "If we keep up this pace, we will arrive soon."
"There is no rush." Kabuto stopped and looked toward the treetops, where the shadows seemed to take on a life of their own. "We have all night."
Yoroi frowned, visibly impatient. "Why are we taking the long way?"
"Patience," Kabuto resumed his march. "Arriving too early would raise suspicions. We are genin participating in the exams, remember? We should not know the forest well enough to move in a straight line toward the objective."
Misumi tucked the map away into his clothes. "Even so, this silence makes me nervous. You can't even hear the animals."
"That is because someone has been following us for ten minutes." Kabuto adjusted his glasses with his middle finger, a characteristic gesture that hid the icy glint in his eyes. "And I think it is high time they came out of the shadows."
The silence stretched for three eternal seconds, interrupted only by the whisper of the wind through the leaves. Then, a kunai slammed hard into the ground right in front of Kabuto's feet.
"Well, well. Orochimaru's lapdog has good instincts."
Anko emerged from the upper branches, landing lightly ten meters away. His trench coat billowed with the movement, revealing the mesh of her armor for a second.
Kabuto blinked, tilting his head with an expression of calculated confusion. "I beg your pardon? Orochimaru? Anko-san, I really don't understand what you are talking about."
"Oh, are you going to pretend you don't know who he is now?" Anko crossed her arms, maintaining a dominant posture. "Save the theater. I know exactly what you are."
"I am a Konoha genin participating in the Chunin Exams." Kabuto raised his hands in a gesture of feigned innocence. "Is there a problem with that? Did we do something wrong?"
Yoroi and Misumi exchanged sidelong glances, playing their roles as confused subordinates to perfection.
"Anko-san, with all due respect, this is very confusing," Yoroi intervened. "We were simply looking for a safe place to spend the night."
"Yes, the forest is dangerous after dark," Misumi added, forcing a note of concern into his voice. "Is everything alright? Do you need help with something, Proctor?"
Anko looked at the three of them. The confusion on their faces was convincing, almost masterful. Any other shinobi would have apologized for the mistake and let them go under the premise of paranoia.
And what she felt was clear: lies. Deceit. Hostility carefully hidden behind friendly smiles.
"You're good," Anko stated. "Really good. That confused kid face almost convinces me."
Kabuto maintained his innocent expression, though his muscles tensed imperceptibly. "I'm not acting, Anko-san. I truly don't know why you are so upset."
"No? Then explain to me why I can feel that every word coming out of your mouth is a poisonous lie."
Kabuto blinked, keeping his pulse steady. "Feel?"
"Call it snake intuition," Anko smiled with a hint of ferocity. "The point is that your little show doesn't work on me."
"Anko-san, I think there is a misunderstanding here." Kabuto took a step back, keeping his hands visible so as not to trigger a premature attack. "We are just genin. We have no connection to criminals. If someone gave you incorrect information about us..."
"No one gave me information." Anko pulled a kunai from her back holster. "I simply know how to recognize a snake when I see one. And you have stunk of Orochimaru from miles away."
Kabuto sighed, but did not lose his composure. The veil was beginning to tear. "This is very unfortunate. Are you going to attack innocent participants based solely on... intuition?"
"I'm going to do something better." Anko adopted a tight fighting stance. "I'm going to prove that I'm right."
She lunged forward like lightning.
Kabuto reacted out of pure survival instinct. His body moved before his mind could order him to maintain the facade of weakness. He dodged the kunai with a fluid twist that no rookie genin should possess and counterattacked with a precise palm strike aimed at Anko's solar plexus.
Anko blocked the impact with her forearm and smiled, her eyes shining with triumph.
"There it is."
Kabuto stopped in his tracks. He looked at his own hand, still extended in an attacking position, and understood his tactical error. He had taken the bait.
"Damn it."
"A first-year genin doesn't know that countermove." Anko stepped back a few paces, giving him space to fully reveal himself. "That is jonin-level taijutsu at the very least. Do you want to keep pretending, or can we skip to the part where I break your teeth?"
Kabuto remained motionless for a moment. Then, slowly, a different smile, cold, superior, and devoid of any trace of innocence, spread across his face.
"I must admit you surprised me, Anko-san." He adjusted his glasses, this time with a glint of malice. "I expected you to fall for the provocation and attack erratically. But I did not expect you to actually be able to detect my deception so viscerally."
"Things have changed since the last time your master updated his reports on me."
"So I see." Kabuto looked at his companions and nodded slightly. Yoroi and Misumi immediately abandoned their submissive postures, adopting professional combat positions. "This complicates things a bit, but it doesn't make them impossible."
"Not really." Anko spun the kunai in her hand with dexterity. "It just means I can skip the part where I pretend I don't know who you are."
"And who exactly am I, according to you?"
"The personal bootlicker of the most pathetic snake that has ever stepped foot in this village." Anko smiled, but there was no humor in her expression. "Tell me one thing. Did he teach you how to lick his scales or is that something that comes naturally to you?"
Kabuto laughed softly, a dry sound that did not reach his eyes. "That was vulgar, Anko-san. It is a pity that Orochimaru-sama could not polish those manners when you were his favorite student."
"Don't mention that name in front of me with that traitorous mouth."
"Why not? After all, you wear his mark as a constant reminder." Kabuto touched his neck, pointing to the exact spot where Anko hid the seal. "We are practically family under the same shadow."
"The only family I have is somewhere else, protecting what matters." Anko did not look away. "And you know nothing of what really happened between us."
Kabuto tilted his head, studying her like a laboratory specimen. He expected to see pain in her eyes, or that ill-contained rage that usually consumes the abandoned. He looked for the typical cracks of someone whose past is an open wound. But, to his surprise, he found none of that.
"Interesting," Kabuto muttered. "It seems you really are different from what the records said."
"What did you expect? That I would start shaking or have a panic attack because you mentioned Orochimaru?"
"Honestly, yes." Kabuto took a step forward. "I know you were his favorite. He taught you techniques he didn't share with anyone else. And I know that in the end... you were not enough for his ambitions."
Anko did not respond, maintaining a calm that was beginning to disturb the spy.
Kabuto continued, seeking the reaction he needed to destabilize her. "He abandoned you because you were weak. You didn't have the drive necessary to feed the power of the seal. That is what you have always believed in the darkness of your mind, isn't it?"
"It's what he wanted me to believe to keep me under his emotional control even from a distance." Anko shrugged with total indifference. "But his opinion doesn't matter to me anymore."
Kabuto frowned. His mind games, usually infallible, were bouncing off a wall of steel.
"It doesn't matter to you? Orochimaru-sama told me what really happened that night he left the village. He told me that you rejected him. That you refused to follow him into the darkness. And that he had to take... certain measures."
"Measures?" Anko arched an eyebrow.
"He altered your memories, Anko-san. He made you believe you were cruelly abandoned when, in reality, it was you who had the courage to reject him." Kabuto smiled, waiting to see the impact of his revelation. "All that feeling of inadequacy you've carried for years... it was a lie. A lie he planted in your head because his pride couldn't accept that a simple genin despised him."
Anko stared at him for a few seconds that felt like an eternity. And then, to Kabuto's bewilderment, she let out a genuine laugh.
"Is that all? Is that your big jonin-class psychological blow?"
Kabuto blinked, taken aback. "Excuse me?"
"You expected me to break down, didn't you? That I would start screaming and attacking without thinking because you revealed some hidden trauma from my memories." Anko shook her head with a gesture of pity. "Bad luck, four-eyes. I already had that crisis. I already went through the pain, the rage, and everything else a long time ago. And I already got over it on my own."
"That is impossible. Mental manipulation of that magnitude is not overcome simply through willpower."
"What? Should I define the rest of my life by what a maniac did in my head?" Anko put away the kunai, but her posture became even more dangerous. "Listen, kid. I don't care if Orochimaru abandoned me or if I rejected him. I don't care if he altered my memories or if everything I remember was real. Do you know why?"
Kabuto did not answer, visibly irritated by having lost control of the conversation.
"Because I found something better. I found people who accepted me regardless of where I came from or what mark I wore on my neck. People who trusted me when I didn't even dare to look at myself in the mirror. And that is worth much more than any twisted truth your master wants to use to manipulate me."
"How moving, it almost makes me cry." Kabuto recovered, though his frustration was palpable in the tension of his jaw. "And who are these so-called special people? Other village failures?"
"My family." Anko smiled with a warmth that contrasted with the surroundings. "A family that chose me, and that I chose to protect. Something that someone who lives in the shadow of another, like you, would never understand."
"I understand much more than you think." Kabuto activated the chakra in his hands. The sharp, blue glow of chakra scalpels illuminated his face in a spectral way. "I understand that Orochimaru-sama no longer needs you for anything. The young Uchiha is a much superior vessel in every way. You are just a loose end from his past that must be eliminated to clear the board."
"Did he send you specifically to kill me?"
"Not specifically. But I am sure he will appreciate my initiative when I bring him your head." Kabuto looked at his companions and ordered coldly. "Yoroi. Misumi. Take care of her. We have a schedule to keep and I don't want to be late for the next phase."
"Wait, wait," Anko raised a hand in a lazy gesture. "Do you really think these two amateurs can handle me?"
"They are much more than they seem at first glance."
"I hope so. Because if I get bored, this is going to end very bloodily and very quickly."
The two subordinates lunged forward in a coordinated strike. Yoroi arrived first, his hand extended and glowing with a hungry aura ready to drain the jonin's chakra. Misumi came from the right, his arms already beginning to disarticulate and stretch like elastic bands to surround her in a deadly stranglehold.
"Hidden Shadow Snake Hands."
Snakes erupted from Anko's sleeves with a lightning speed that neither of them expected. Yoroi let out a muffled cry when three snakes bit deep into his outstretched arm, injecting paralyzing venom before his fingers could even brush Anko's clothes. Misumi tried to wrap her in his flexible body taking advantage of his altered anatomy, but Anko was no longer in her original position.
"Where...?"
Anko appeared instantly behind him, a kunai pressing against the skin of his throat.
"Too slow. Is this the best Orochimaru has on his payroll? I expected something more than circus tricks."
She delivered a chakra-infused kick to his back that sent him flying into a nearby oak tree. The impact made the wood creak and Misumi fell to the ground, unconscious before he even hit the grass. Yoroi was still standing, but his right arm hung uselessly at his side, turning an alarming purple color. Anko's venom worked fast.
"That... that's not possible..." Yoroi gasped, stumbling back. "The reports said your level was special jonin, but this speed is elite..."
"The reports are out of date, idiot." Anko walked toward him slowly, enjoying the fear in his eyes. "I've been training very hard while you were playing at being academy spies. You should have done your intelligence homework better."
Yoroi tried to form seals with his healthy hand, but Anko was relentless. A sharp blow to the solar plexus doubled him over, cutting off his breath. A second blow to the back of the neck knocked him out on the ground. Two down in less than thirty seconds.
Kabuto clapped slowly, though his eyes did not miss a single detail of the woman's movements.
"Impressive, Anko-san. Truly impressive. Your speed and reflexes have improved considerably since the last time Orochimaru-sama reviewed your combat data."
"Thanks. I've had the right motivation to improve."
"Special training? Or is there something else beneath that confidence?" Kabuto studied her with genuine, almost scientific curiosity. "I didn't detect any active enhancement seal. Nor the smell of combat drugs. It's something different... something internal."
Anko wiped a small drop of blood that had splashed onto her cheek with the back of her hand. It wasn't hers.
"Why don't you come find out for yourself if you're so eager to know?"
"I gladly accept the invitation."
Kabuto disappeared from sight with a high-speed body flicker. The first cut came from the left, a horizontal slash of pure chakra. Anko dodged it by just a few inches, feeling the heat of the chakra scalpel brush the fabric of her trench coat.
"Fast," she admitted, spinning on her heels.
"Thank you. Orochimaru-sama always insists that speed is the key to surgical precision."
"Do you always talk about him with such religious devotion? It's a bit pathetic, you know?" Anko blocked a second slash coming from below.
She jumped back to gain distance, but Kabuto was already there, waiting for her at her landing point with a glowing palm aimed directly at her heart. Anko performed an acrobatic twist in the air, a maneuver that defied gravity. The scalpel passed millimeters from her chest, tearing the fabric but without touching her skin.
"Almost," Kabuto said in a calm tone. "But almost doesn't count at this level, does it?"
"I say the same." She landed in a crouch and counterattacked immediately. Snakes shot out toward Kabuto from the ground, but he dodged them with a grace that spoke of years of constant practice.
"You know? You're better than I expected," Anko admitted as she threw a flurry of shuriken to cover her advance. "I thought you would just be disposable trash with glasses, but you seem to have some substance."
"Thanks for the compliment, I suppose."
"It wasn't a compliment. It's a tactical observation." Anko formed hand seals with astonishing speed. "Striking Shadow Snake Thousand!"
More snakes, larger and more aggressive, filled the space between the trees, attacking from every possible angle. Kabuto sliced through three in the air with precise movements of his hands. He dodged another five with side steps. But one, smaller and camouflaged among the leaves, managed to bite his ankle before he could sever it.
"Venom," Kabuto observed with an unsettling calm, looking at the small bleeding wound. "Interesting mixture. How much time do I have before it becomes critical?"
"Ten minutes before total paralysis starts. Five more before your respiratory system collapses." Anko smiled smugly. "Unless you have the exact antidote, which I assure you you do not."
"I have something much better than an antidote."
A vibrant green chakra glowed in Kabuto's hand as he pressed it against his ankle. The healing technique began to work immediately, neutralizing the toxins before they could enter the main bloodstream.
"Yin Healing Wound Destruction. A technique I developed for situations like this." Kabuto stood up as if nothing had happened. "I anticipate the damage and heal it almost the same instant it occurs. Poison is no longer a problem for me."
"Then I'll have to be much more direct and lethal."
Anko lunged into close combat. The fight became brutal and rhythmic. The steel of the kunai clashed against the chakra scalpels, producing sparks that lit up the darkness of the forest. Anko's snakes attacked from unforeseen angles while Kabuto cut, dodged, and countered with clinical precision.
An unforeseen blow from Anko took Kabuto by surprise; her fist connected solidly with his jaw and sent him staggering back, breaking his glasses.
"He is not your master," Anko spat at him while he regained his balance. "He is a monster who is using you exactly the same way he used me. Do you really believe you matter to him? Do you think you are special to him?"
Kabuto wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his gaze clouded for the first time. "The fundamental difference between us, Anko-san, is that I chose this path consciously. I know exactly what I am to Orochimaru-sama and I accept my role in his design."
"Then you are much more of an idiot than I thought."
"And what did you choose?" Kabuto attacked again, his hands glowing with a renewed intensity. "To run away? To hide behind a supposed new family to try to forget that you were once exactly like me?"
"No." Anko blocked the attack and connected a knee to the spy's ribs. "I chose to stop defining myself solely by what Orochimaru did to me."
"How inspiring, truly moving." Sarcasm dripped from every word of Kabuto. "And you think that makes you superior to me?"
"It makes me free." Anko landed a direct blow to Kabuto's plexus, sending him back. "You're still his pet on a leash. I stopped being that a long time ago."
Kabuto groaned in pain, but did not back down. "Free? Tied to a village that still looks at you with distrust and fear because of what you wear on your neck? Protecting brats who don't even know who you really are?"
"They know exactly who I am." Anko dodged a cut aimed at her jugular with a tilt of her head. "And they accepted me with scars and all. That is more than Orochimaru will give you in a thousand lifetimes."
Kabuto's chakra scalpel finally managed to graze Anko's arm, opening a superficial cut. She groaned in pain, but did not yield an inch of ground.
"You're right about one thing," she said as she formed seals with blood-stained hands. "I can't completely erase my past. It will always be part of my story. But I've learned to use it to my advantage."
"What...?"
Something on Anko's neck began to glow with a strange intensity. It wasn't the dark glow of the Cursed Seal, but something different, purer and more controlled that Kabuto couldn't identify in his mental archives.
"What are you doing? That chakra flow... it's not normal."
"Did you know there are ways to improve the human body without resorting to Orochimaru's warped methods?" Anko smiled as a new power flowed through her veins. "Ways that don't require cursed seals or inhuman experiments. Ways that give you strength without taking away your humanity in return."
Her speed increased exponentially. Kabuto could barely cross his arms to block the next attack. The massive impact sent him back several meters, leaving deep ruts in the damp earth.
"Impossible. That physical strength was not in any intelligence report. No known technique in Konoha can grant that increase without side effects..."
"I told you your reports are out of date." Anko didn't give him a breather. She attacked mercilessly, each blow faster and heavier than the last. Her senses, now sharpened by her Snake Intuition, picked up every intention from Kabuto before he could execute it.
Fear, Anko felt through her elemental connection. Confusion. Growing desperation.
Kabuto attempted a desperate counterattack, but she seemed to be everywhere at once. A blow to the ribs that sounded like broken bone. A kick to the knee that made him stagger. A final punch to the stomach that emptied his lungs of air.
"Is this all you have?" Anko grabbed him by the shirt collar, lifting him slightly. "Is this the best the great Orochimaru can send to settle his past debts?"
Kabuto coughed up blood, staining Anko's hand. "I don't... I don't understand... What kind of power is this? There are no records of any technique that allows such control without sacrificing one's life..."
"It's the power of someone who finally stopped seeing themselves as a victim." Anko hit him again, letting him go. "The power of having something real to protect."
"Protect?" Kabuto laughed despite the pain, though the sound was forced and agonized. "Who? Those three brats running through the forest?"
"My family."
"Family?" Kabuto's laughter became more hysterical. "You? The abandoned and broken student of Orochimaru claims to have a family? Who would be so stupid as to want...?"
"I found one," Anko interrupted him with a sharp blow that shut his mouth. "And I'm going to make sure that neither you nor your disgusting master ever lay a finger on them again."
She let him go for good and took two steps back, watching him. Kabuto fell to his knees, breathing with evident difficulty. He had at least three fractured ribs, a likely internal hemorrhage, and the initial poison, though mitigated, was hampering his cellular regeneration.
"I should kill you right here and save the world some trouble," Anko said coldly.
"Then why don't you do it?" Kabuto looked up, his glasses broken and his face covered in dust and blood. "Is it compassion? Moral weakness?"
"Neither." Anko glanced toward the thicker shadows of the trees. "You have information the village needs. Where exactly is Orochimaru hiding? What is his true final goal in these exams beyond Sasuke?"
Kabuto smiled grimly despite his condition. "Do you really think I'm going to tell you anything? After all the time I've served him?"
"Not really. But as a proctor, I had to try before moving on to the physical side." Anko pulled out one last kunai. "Last chance. Speak and maybe I'll let you live long enough to reach an interrogation cell in the village."
"Go to hell, Anko-san."
"You first."
Anko lunged forward to deliver the finishing blow that would knock him unconscious. But Kabuto, true to his nature, still kept one last trick up his sleeve.
"Dead Soul Jutsu."
Suddenly, Misumi's body rose abruptly behind Anko. His eyes were completely empty and his movements were mechanical, like those of a macabre puppet. Anko felt the impact on her back before she could fully react. A chakra scalpel that Kabuto had left implanted and active in his own companion's body dug deep between her shoulder blades.
"Argh!" Anko screamed in pain and surprise.
She turned in rage and shredded Misumi's body with a flurry of snakes that sent him flying, but the damage was already done. The chakra blade had cut deep muscles near the spine. Her left arm lost feeling and stopped responding correctly.
"Dirty, crawling trick," she gasped, ripping the scalpel from her back with a grunt of pure pain.
"Basic survival, nothing personal." Kabuto stood up with extreme difficulty. His face was pale as wax from blood loss, but he maintained that arrogant smile. "You made the tactical error of assuming my companions were simple disposable genin. Even in that state, Misumi is still a useful tool."
"And you made the mistake of thinking a cut to the back would stop me after everything I've been through."
Anko began to form the seals for her most forbidden technique. The technique she had sworn in her heart never to use unless the world was ending.
"Twin Snakes Mutual Death."
Kabuto's eyes widened, reflecting genuine panic. "Are you crazy? That technique is suicide, it will kill you too!"
"I know it perfectly well."
Snakes began to emerge from her healthy right arm, intertwining with a savage violence and forming a living spear of fangs, scales, and concentrated venom.
"But if I have to die tonight to take you with me to the other side, I will gladly do it. Killing you and cleaning up this forest a bit is all that matters now."
Kabuto stepped back, tripping over his own feet. For the first time in the entire fight, the fear of death was real in his eyes.
"You... you are really willing to go that far for..."
"I told you before, I have something to protect." Anko raised her power-charged arm. "Something worth infinitely more than my own life. Does Orochimaru have anything like that to offer you? Do you have anyone you would voluntarily give your life for?"
Kabuto remained silent, unable to respond to the woman's conviction.
"That's what I thought. A void that is only filled with the power of others." The snake spear tensed for the final blow. "Say goodbye to this world, spy."
Kabuto, cornered, made a desperate last-second decision. He reached into his hidden pocket and pulled out a small matte black sphere. He slammed it to the ground with all his might without a moment's hesitation.
A massive explosion of thick smoke and pepper gas filled the clearing completely, blurring all senses. Anko fired her technique blindly toward where she remembered his position, but when the smoke finally cleared, Kabuto was no longer there. All that remained was a pool of thick blood and an erratic trail leading deep into the undergrowth.
"Cursed... coward..."
Anko tried to take a step forward to pursue him, but her legs, finally at their limit, gave way. She fell heavily to her knees, breathing with distressing difficulty. The wound in her back was much worse than her adrenaline had initially allowed her to feel; she could feel the heat of the blood soaking all her clothes and running down her spine. Her vision began to darken at the edges. The pain, previously sharp, became strangely distant, which was the worst possible medical sign.
Now I just need those idiots to arrive before I completely bleed out on the mud.
"Anko-san!"
"Medical team, fast! She has severe penetration wounds in the dorsal area!"
"The primary target is heading northeast! Teams three and four, follow him immediately! Don't lose sight of him, use the hounds!"
Anko opened her eyes with effort, focusing on the figures surrounding her. Four ANBU operatives in porcelain masks were around her. Two of them were already applying emergency medical jutsu to her back, while the other two coordinated the chase by radio.
"Anko-san, stay awake. Can you hear me?"
Anko blinked slowly. And then, to the rescuers' surprise, she began to chuckle, though the gesture caused her stabs of pain.
"It worked... it all really worked..."
"Anko-san? Are you delirious from blood loss?"
"The plan, idiot." Anko coughed up a bit of blood, but the smile did not leave her face. "Everything went... exactly as I planned since I set foot in this clearing."
The lead ANBU looked at her with absolute confusion from behind his cat mask.
"You planned to almost be killed by a slash to the back? That's... risky, even for you."
"I planned for Kabuto to believe that I was alone, vulnerable, and acting out of pure emotional desperation." Anko closed her eyes for a second to regain her strength. "An enemy who thinks they are superior and sees their opponent as desperate becomes careless and predictable. Did the bastard really think I was going to use the Mutual Death Jutsu to kill him? Please. If there is anyone I will use that final technique on in this life, it will only be Orochimaru. Now Kabuto, wounded and scared, is going to run straight to his master seeking refuge and immediate healing."
"And we will follow him covertly to his main hideout."
"Exactly." Anko coughed again, feeling the medical technique begin to close the wound. "See? I had everything under control. It was just a bit... more painful than expected."
"With all due respect, Anko-san, you were millimeters from permanent paralysis. You were losing too much blood."
"Minor details of the profession." Anko tried to sit up and failed miserably, falling back onto the makeshift stretcher. "Okay, maybe they're not such minor details. Could you stop lecturing me and finish fixing this damn hole in my back? It hurts like hell now that the chakra is cooling down."
"Yes, ma'am! Increase the power of the healing jutsu!"
The medics worked more quickly while the tracking teams disappeared among the trees, following the trail of blood and the chakra marker Anko had subtly managed to place on Kabuto during their exchange of blows.
Anko lay on the ground, looking at the distant stars through the thick canopy of the treetops.
Orochimaru, she thought with renewed determination. I don't know if what Kabuto said about my memories is true. I don't know if you really manipulated me in that cave or if it was all a lie designed to destabilize me today.
She closed her eyes, feeling the pulse of the village around her.
But the truth is, it doesn't matter anymore. I'm not going to let my past with you, real or invented, define who I am or what I am capable of doing for the people I love.
An ANBU approached quickly as the medics finished bandaging her.
"Anko-san, the tracking teams report that Kabuto is heading at high speed toward sector twenty-three. It seems he knows the terrain perfectly, moving through pre-established escape routes."
"Of course he knows it. He's been spying on and mapping these exams for years under our noses." Anko winced in pain as the medic applied final pressure. "Don't lose him, but don't confront him directly if it's not necessary. He's wounded and cornered, which makes him doubly dangerous. He's a lab rat with dirty tricks."
"Understood. Any other instructions ?"
"Yes. Inform Kurenai immediately."
The ANBU nodded with respect and disappeared in a burst of speed among the trees. Anko closed her eyes again, finally letting exhaustion wash over her as the medics prepared her for transport, her conscience clear from having won an internal battle far more important than the physical one.
*******
if you want to stay ahead, you can find 24+ advanced chapters exclusively on:
P @ t r e o n.com/shurazero
hitting that like button is the best way to let me know you want more.