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Pupil of the Serpent	By : Mario Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female Views: 2253 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters contained herein. I make no money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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A/N: Another short chapter—I prefer to write in one sitting, so I'm afraid my chapters are never very long.

To my reviewers:
@TiEnya: We will be seeing more of the Sannin as the story progresses, although their interaction will not always be pleasant. Insofar as the timeline is concerned, this story will end once Orochimaru leaves the village, simply because Anko and Orochimaru don't see much of each other after that. I am exceedingly pleased that you are here to cheer me on, it makes me ever so happy! I hope you continue to enjoy the story.
@Lynn: Yes, "poor Anko" really does sum this story up. Well, at least she'll have her time before it all comes crashing down.
@Arashi-Kumo: Thanks! Please keep reading!
@weaselchan: Thanks for your reviews, they're really appreciated! I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Anko sighed despondently as she stepped into yet another patch of mud, sinking into the sticky substance up to her knees. The mud clung to her as she lifted her leg out of the muck, forming a fine coating over her pants and the exposed skin of her ankle. She knew from experience that the mud would later harden so that it became nearly impossible to remove, and would itch every step of the way during the rest of the mission. The young kunoichi cursed silently, giving her sensei a sidelong glance in the vain hope that he might be exhibiting some small fraction of the discomfort she currently felt. Exasperatingly, he seemed untouched by the dirt that covered everything else within the brown landscape. His white robe and skin were as spotless as usual—he looked as if he had just bathed and his clothing had been meticulously cleaned. Anko wasn’t sure whether it was a testament to his skill or his vanity that his garments remained so impeccably pristine. Probably both, she decided.
A sudden idea struck her as she considered this. She came to a halt, letting her teacher pass by so that he was walking in front of her. Smiling mischievously, she bent down and scooped up a handful of the thick mud that covered the road on which they were traveling. She aimed carefully at the back of her sensei's head, but stopped before letting fly, hiding the mud behind her back.
“Orochimaru-sensei? If I did something annoying, what would you do to me?”
She swallowed hard as the Sannin turned slowly around to face her, giving her a dark look. She attempted to appear as innocent as possible, returning his gaze with a serene smile. Orochimaru growled under his breath, reflecting for the thousandth time on how much he hated dealing with children. His own little student was all right, as far as kids went. She did as she was told during training without whining or complaining about it, and she listened to what he was saying. On certain occasions, however, such as this moment, she managed to test the very limits of his patience.
“Anko, if you were to do something stupid right now, I think I’d crucify you,” he replied with patently false cheer, utilizing the sadistic grin he'd mastered at the age of ten. Without another word, he turned around, continuing down the path.
Anko watched him go, uncertain of whether or not he was serious. She didn't think that Orochimaru-sensei would do something like that—not to her, at least—but then again, you could never be sure with him.
She looked at the roughly-shaped ball of mud in her palm, weighing the considerations. Finally, she shrugged philosophically. She could only die once, right? Besides, she really wanted to see how her unnaturally dignified teacher would look with mud plastered all over the back of his head. She raised her hand, preparing to throw . . .
“Doton: Doryuuso.” With an awful grinding sound, a column of rock rose from the ground to loom over the roadside. Two pieces of stone jutted out from either side of the main pillar, forming a cross. Implacably, the forbidding totem cast its grim shadow over Anko, blocking out the light.
With a nervous giggle, Anko let the mud slide from her fingers to fall back onto the road before running to catch up with the rapidly disappearing figure of her instructor. He smiled dangerously down at her as she neared his side. “Are we done playing games today?”
Anko nodded emphatically, but she just had to ask: "Orochimaru-sensei? You wouldn't really hurt me, would you?"
"Hm. I wonder."
They continued for some distance, finally nearing their destination as night began to fall. Their mission was to deliver warnings to the civilian villages near the areas of fighting, making sure that the villagers had enough time to evacuate before they were engulfed in the spreading conflict between the Great Nations. Upon delivering their latest warning, the two ninja made their way toward the forest where they would make camp that night before rendezvousing with the next Genin group assigned to messenger duty.
“Hey, Orochimaru-sensei."
“What is it?”
“Couldn’t you have just used that one jutsu to bring us here instantly?”
Her sensei gave her a withering look. “Honestly, Anko. It took you that long to think of that?”
“I couldn’t think in all that mud,” Anko shot back defensively. “Anyway, why can’t you?”
“Because,” the raven-haired shinobi explained in a long-suffering tone, “I can’t use that jutsu to go places I’ve never been before. If I don’t know the area intimately enough to envision it in full detail, the technique will fail.”
“Oh.” Anko felt a little stupid. She should have realized that such a limitation would exist.
“If you have time to play around on missions, you should study more,” Orochimaru said reprovingly. "You've never slacked on your training, but your studies . . . did you sleep through all your Academy classes?"
She winced. Truthfully, she had slept through quite a few of the more boring lessons. If the teachers hadn't wanted her to fall asleep, they should have made the classes more interesting! Besides, what did any of that crap have to do with being a ninja? It wasn't as if you had time to calculate a kunai's projected flight trajectory in the middle of a fight! But she knew that this argument wouldn't score many points with Orochimaru-sensei. He would just give her that look, and tell her that his student would not be "another Jiraiya".
With a sigh, she looked down at the muddy ground. No matter how hard she tried, it seemed as if the distance between her and her teacher would never decrease. During their months together in the Forest of Death, she had trained fanatically, devoting every moment of spare time to the acquisition of the skills necessary to success as a ninja. Despite her efforts, however, her progress was maddeningly slow, at least when she considered how far away her goal was. She was still unable to summon a snake longer than the length of her arm, and mastery of her sensei's secret jutsu still eluded her. Her impatience stemmed from one all-consuming objective: to become a powerful ninja that her sensei would be proud of, so that she would remain precious in his eyes. For Orochimaru-sensei despised weakness, and she could not bear to see his disappointment—not when it was directed at her. From the day he had taken her in, accepted her and made her his student, he had become the most important person in her world.
Recently, she'd begun to fear that she was not living up to his expectations. He constantly brooded during the simple missions they were assigned, and though he wouldn't tell her what was troubling him, she worried that it was her; that she'd failed in some way. Somewhere in the depths of her heart, Anko had never been more than half-convinced that his choosing her had been anything more than an insane accident; the one mistake her teacher had made in his life. Though she tried as hard as she could, she felt as if she were trying to fit shoes that were several sizes too large; she could not see how someone like her could ever be as perfect as her sensei. Did he regret choosing her? It was her darkest fear—that she would wake one morning to find him vanished, gone from her life forever. Anko Mitarashi could not live in a world that did not have Orochimaru.
When her teacher came to a stop, Anko looked up to realize that they had already reached their campsite inside the forest. Orochimaru was already preparing the area, setting up traps around the perimeter. Exhausted from the day’s travels, she prepared to collapse on her bedroll, but her sensei stopped her, glancing around the area.
“Anko, there’s a lake south of here. Why don’t you go bathe?” he suggested.
“Bathe?” Anko questioned blankly.
“Yes,” he replied firmly.
“Why?” As much as she would have appreciated the opportunity earlier in the day, all she wanted to do now was sleep.
The pale shinobi raised an eyebrow. "You stink, Anko. Go take a bath.”
And so it was that Anko found herself walking through the forest with a set of clean clothes in her arms and a sour expression upon her face.
“He could have been nicer about it,” she complained. “That’s not something you should say to a girl!”
It didn't take her long to reach the lake. As she looked at the cool, clean water, bathing suddenly became a much more attractive prospect. Eagerly stripping off her clothes, Anko moved toward the lake, but stopped at the water’s edge, looking down at the clear pool and examining her reflection. She’d never had much cause to examine herself before, but she imagined she looked the same as she always had—medium-length hair, twisted back into a thick, spiky ponytail to keep it from interfering with her vision, amber eyes that were too big for her face, features that were too plain to ever be considered traditionally beautiful.
She looked down at her body with some disgust—some of the kunoichi from her Academy class already had womanly curves, but no matter how you looked at it, hers was the body of a little girl. There was absolutely nothing attractive about her, much less to someone like Orochimaru-sensei, who routinely saw her when she was tired and disheveled. She stopped, startled at her own thoughts. Why was she thinking about her teacher in such a way? He was fun to tease, of course, and she'd certainly indulged in a bit of circumspect flirting, but she'd always known that there was a line she couldn't cross . . . not unless she wanted to get hurt. It would be beyond foolish, to risk what she had now, just to go chasing after something that could never be more than a dream.
I'm still a kid. There's no way he'd take me seriously. Besides, Orochimaru-sensei wasn't exactly the type of person you started talking to about your feelings—even if those feelings concerned him. Especially not if those feelings concerned him. Anyway, he’s not interested, and he never will be. He's my sensei . . . I should be happy with that.
Letting down her hair and taking a deep breath, she dove into the clear water, diving down as far as she could before surfacing. She shook her head vigorously, letting water fall from her hair in rivulets. The feel of the cool liquid on her skin was wonderfully refreshing after the hot, muddy trek she had undertaken that afternoon. She splashed around contentedly for a few minutes before allowing herself to float, her back resting lightly upon the water’s surface. Despite her resolution to put such thoughts out of her mind, she considered her relationship with her teacher. He was the first person to accept her, and she knew she would always love him for that, no matter what happened between them. But could there ever be anything . . . more? Involuntarily, she recalled the time in the Forest of Death, when he had taught her how to summon a snake—how it had felt to have him lick her injured hand, tasting her blood. It had felt . . . good, being so close to him, and not in a manner that was altogether platonic.
Abruptly, she turned and paddled back to the water’s edge, placing her forearms on the grassy bank and pulling herself out of the lake. There wasn’t any use in thinking about this now, especially when she should be trying her best to become a great ninja and fulfill the expectations set by her mentor. Putting on the clean clothes she had brought with her, she moved back toward the camp, fully intending to go to sleep and avoid any more troublesome thoughts. As she drew closer to the camp, however, she heard voices engaged in discussion. The voices didn’t seem hostile, so Anko considered simply walking into the clearing, but she discarded the idea almost immediately. She had a feeling that she'd been sent away for this exact reason, and if she made her presence known, she wouldn’t get to hear what her sensei's guests were talking about. Instead, she climbed a tree overlooking the area, slowly edging herself along a branch that offered concealment while allowing her to see and hear the conversation.
Below her, Orochimaru-sensei was speaking with two other ninja, both in the full outfit typically worn by Konoha's Jounin-rank shinobi. Anko recognized one of them as the white-haired man from the encounter at the dango shop, months ago. The shopkeeper had identified him as Jiraiya, which meant that he was one of her sensei’s original teammates. The other was a busty woman with her blonde hair tied in two loose ponytails. Although Anko had never seen her personally, it was not hard to guess at her identity. She almost perfectly matched the descriptions of Tsunade, another of the legendary Sannin, as well as the most famous kunoichi in the history of Konohagakure. Anko edged slightly closer, intrigued. What could these two be doing here?
“So that’s the mission,” the white-haired man was saying. “Just like old times, eh?”
“You can’t be serious,” muttered Orochimaru. “What is Sarutobi-sensei thinking? I’ll be better off without you two idiots in my way.”
“Geez, you’re always like this,” Jiraiya complained good-naturedly. “Just let your friends help you for once, all right? Besides, you owe me for treating you to dango.”
“You treated my apprentice, not me,” corrected Orochimaru.
“Whatever. How is the cute little kunoichi, by the way? I hope you haven’t broken her with your unreasonable demands.”
The snake Sannin started to reply, but Tsunade lifted a hand. “She’s watching us right now.” She raised her voice, letting it carry to the surrounding forest. “Aren’t you, Anko?”

A/N: Like always, I ask that you read, rate, and review the story. I'll see you next chapter!
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Pupil of the Serpent