The shōji screen slid shut with a soft, dismissive clack, leaving Anko and Kakashi alone in their half of the inn room.
Anko dropped her pack onto the tatami mat with a solid thud. She stretched her arms over her head, her spine popping in a long, satisfying sequence. The cedar-scented heat of the inn pushed against the paper walls, slowly turning the damp, freezing sweat under her mesh armor into a sticky layer.
On the other side of the partition, a muffled thumping indicated the brats were unpacking. A faint voice—Sylvie's—drifted through the thin wall, accompanied by a creeping thread of sulfur from the baths that stung Anko's nose.
"Anko-sensei?" Sylvie called out, her tone carrying the raw, exhausted rasp of a kid who had just spent two days sprinting through a war zone. "Is there a trick to getting blood and mud out of the mesh? Or do I just scrub it in the spring?"
Anko looked down at herself.
The tan fabric of her overcoat was a disaster. The lower hem had stiffened into a solid crust of flash-steamed mud from the geothermal vents. The sleeves carried dark, rusty smears from handling Monju's wire-cut flesh. Ash from the burning mansion coated the shoulders in a fine, grey film. It smelled intensely of wet dirt, burnt hair, and oxidized iron.
"Don't put it in the hot spring, kid, you'll set the stain!" Anko yelled back, her voice booming easily through the paper wall. "Use cold water and a hard brush first! Or just burn it!"
A low, muffled groan came from the other side, followed by the sound of a zipper.
Anko shook her head, the rough straw of the tatami scratching against her shin guards as she shifted her weight. She ran a hand through her spiky, violet-tinted ponytail. "The kid has potential, I'll tell you that. She didn't freeze when the giant started crushing ribs."
Kakashi sat on the edge of the low table, his shoulders slumped as he methodically checked the edge of a kunai. His silver hair clung to his forehead with dried sweat, the metal plate of his headband sitting crooked over his left eye.
"Yeah, they do," Kakashi replied, his voice soft, lacking its usual lazy cadence.
Anko crossed her arms, leaning against the far wall. The damp mesh clung uncomfortably to her ribs as the sweat began to cool in the drafty edges of the room. "You were their sensei first. I didn't even meet the kids until their exams. I never thought I'd be out here dragging around brats like a step-parent."
Kakashi let out a light, breathy chuckle. He slipped the kunai back into his pouch and stood up, moving toward the partition separating them from the kids.
"We should get some rest," Kakashi said, lowering his voice so it wouldn't carry through the screen.
Anko snorted. "You think they are?"
"Doubt it."
A long beat of silence stretched between them. The ambient, rhythmic bubbling of the hot springs from somewhere below the floorboards filled the quiet.
Anko dropped to her knees on the tatami mat. She leaned forward, pressing her cheek against the rough straw, and peered through the small gap between the bottom of the shōji screen and the floor track. She could just make out Kakashi's boots. He hadn't moved a muscle.
"Yes, Anko-chan?" Kakashi's voice floated down, mildly amused.
Anko scowled, sitting back on her heels. "...do you seriously sleep in your entire uniform? Flak jacket and all?"
"Did you bring extra clothes?"
Anko opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked at her small tactical pouch, which contained explosive tags, wire, and exactly three emergency ration bars. She hadn't packed pajamas.
"...fair," Anko conceded.
"It's also the middle of the day," Kakashi pointed out gently.
"...okay."
She grabbed the wooden edge of the partition and pulled it open a few inches. Kakashi stood there, still fully dressed in his battered Konoha uniform, the dark blue fabric of his pants caked in dry, grey ash.
He looked at her, his visible dark grey eye scanning her form, before he deliberately averted his gaze, looking toward the window.
"What?!" Anko demanded, her pride immediately bristling.
Kakashi didn't say a word. He just raised a finger and pointed directly at her trenchcoat.
Anko glanced at her stained lapel and a sour smell hit her nose.
She groaned, a long, dramatic sound of defeat. "There's a reason I don't clean it."
"I know."
Anko's head snapped up. "What do you mean you know?!" She gripped a fist, raising it toward him, the metal mesh of her sleeve clinking sharply. "Don't act like you can read my mind, Hatake."
"Kamo was a good man."
Anko's fist dropped.
The ambient bubbling of the hot spring abruptly dropped out of her hearing, replaced by a high-pitched ring. Her own pulse boomed in her ears, thick and frantic. A freezing flush washed down her neck, plunging her stomach into a hollow, weightless freefall. She squared her shoulders, pressing her tongue hard against the back of her teeth to force the anger back to the surface, but the rigid posture immediately collapsed.
She opened her mouth to fire back a sharp, venomous deflection—You don't know shit about my old man—but her throat clamped shut.
Her jaw locked.
The words died on her tongue– it felt limp and numb.
Instead of a snappy retort, a sudden rush of formaldehyde flooded her sinuses.
The phantom smell of the academy science lab mixed violently with the thick smoke of the Nine-Tails attack. The ringing, absolute silence of the empty house after the funeral pressed sharply against her eardrums.
Her nails dug fiercely into her palms, biting into the flesh.
The oversized collar of her coat suddenly chafed raw against her neck, its weight pulling down on her shoulders.
Kakashi didn't advance. He kept his hands perfectly visible and still at his sides, took a deliberate half-step backward, and kept his gaze carefully averted.
"Look, just..." Anko started, trying to force a sneer that immediately splintered into a raw, rattling tremor. "Orochimaru... he's a bastard. He's a real piece of shit."
"Agreed," Kakashi said quietly.
Anko stared at the woven lines of the tatami mat, the straw blurring together as her vision swam. "But... he taught me things about the world that I won't ever forget. That I don't want to forget."
"Oh?"
Anko's grip slowly loosened. Her fingers drifted downward, tracing the rough, blood-stiffened fabric of the tan trenchcoat. The thick material dragged at her frame, a dense, living weight.
Her father's trenchcoat.
"Immortality... comes in many forms," the Snake Sannin had hissed in her ear, years ago. She could still feel the ice-cold tip of his pale finger tracing the oversized collar she refused to take off.
Kamo Mitarashi had died in this coat. Tsubuan had handed it to her, folded and reeking of burnt timber, when they told her she had no one left.
She wore it into battle. She bled in it. The stiff, oxidized blood on the cuff scraped against her bare wrist now as she twisted the hem, the rough fabric biting into her skin. She let it absorb the soot, the dirt, and the violence of her life, burying the scent of her father beneath layers of her own survival. Cleaning it felt like washing him away.
Anko swallowed the hard knot in her throat. She looked up at Kakashi, her light-brown eyes searching the visible half of his face.
"You knew Kamo... before?"
"He was a good sensei," Kakashi said softly. The skin around his visible eye crinkled into a genuine, tired smile. He didn't offer pity. He simply let out a slow, controlled exhale, his shoulders settling as he kept his gaze resting neutrally on the paper wall.
Anko watched him in the quiet room.
He stood perfectly still, wearing the grey ash and dry blood that dried into the seams of his uniform.