Chapter 20
"Can she be trusted?"
"Won't she just follow her teacher's footsteps?"
"Shh, she might hear. Who knows what she will do to you? After all, she is just like her teacher."
Idiots, she could hear them. It would be embarrassing for Anko not to be able to hear them after all the training she had undergone to join the intelligence division. There was nothing they could hide from her, especially while they were at her back.
But she would rather just ignore them, as it would be tiresome to respond to every foolish comment that was said about her. No matter how much time goes by, there will still be people who distrust her. There will always be a shadow hanging behind her that she can't shake off.
There was nothing she could do about it either. Anko had long since accepted that the shadow cast by Orochimaru would hang over her forever. Unless it was she who finally killed that monster. And even then, it would not undo all that the snake in human skin did. It surely wouldn't make Iruka feel any better.
"You are going to get fat eating so much candy." Iruka came in just in time. With one glare from him, all the people whispering behind Anko's back shut up.
"You are going to die if you keep drinking so much," Anko replied.
As always, Iruka looked awful. If Anko didn't know better, she would have thought that Iruka was a middle-aged man rather than eighteen years old. He looked like he would fall over at any moment.
Still, she couldn't deny that his gruff appearance quite suited him. Especially when he glared at other people. He sure looked reliable. And she liked how people feared to even make a sound with him around. After all, many probably still remembered how he broke Mizuki's leg because he was speaking too much.
"It was my day off. After all the shit I have been through the past week, I deserve some reward."
"What are you talking about?" Anko asked.
"You don't need to know. Go get me some coffee before we begin."
Anko rolled her eyes again. He was ordering her around like in old times. But it made her happy. After so long, it seemed he was getting back to his old self. The confident asshole who thought he could take on the world by himself.
He lost that arrogance once their sensei died. Then he only got darker and darker with each passing day. Even Anko didn't know what kind of missions he took at that time. It was confidential. Even as an intelligence division member, she didn't have clearance for it.
At one point, she wondered if he hadn't joined the ANBU. But that wasn't the case, and that only made Anko more worried about him. What kind of missions did he take that even the ANBU didn't want?
Bringing down a cup of black coffee, Iruka just downed it like it was water, still rubbing his head. By now, Anko thought that he would be used to hangovers, but he probably just drank more than his body could handle every time.
"You were right." Anko pushed a document to him. "Every time new reforms took place in the Academy, a week prior, someone would visit the village. But even you probably didn't expect who it would be."
"Tch, the worst enemy one can have is an incompetent ally." Iruka looked over the information she gathered. "The Daimyo's wife, Madam Shijimi. What the hell is she doing getting into this mess?"
"My thoughts exactly," Anko agreed. "Every time she visited, a week later, some reforms were made in the Academy. Even though I don't have details of what she was doing in the village, that alone is suspicious, so I started digging further."
"Money?" Iruka guessed, flipping through the documents.
"She has her hands in various businesses, and she has spent a fortune to hire shinobi from Konoha to handle various things. From protecting her supplies and merchandise to eradicating various groups of troublemakers. Nothing too grand, but very frequent."
"That makes no sense. If she is employing us so much, why is she trying to make our shinobi weaker?"
"I think she doesn't realize it," Anko replied. "Look at the complaints she filed over our shinobi."
"Not organized? Lacking understanding of human nature? Little to no administrative mindset? Not able to carry out orders as instructed? Too keen on violence? What the hell is this nonsense? Does she not realize what a shinobi is?"
"In my opinion, no, she doesn't," Anko replied. "She is looking for a specific shinobi to hire to do her work. Always finding something to complain about them, I think now she is trying to make perfect personnel for her own use."
"Argh." Iruka massaged his head as he groaned in pain. "And I was thinking of some grand conspiracy, only to find total stupidity. And that idiot principal of mine is as stupid as she is. Probably already dreaming of a position close to her and at the same time close to the Daimyo. Corruption and stupidity are really all one needs to bring down a country."
"What are you going to do?"
Anko knew that Iruka wasn't keen on making rash decisions, but she also knew how angry he could get. Even if it was cold and patient anger, it was still anger that he couldn't control. Any wrong move now would bring a lot of trouble to him and the village.
"Inform me when she leaves the capital."
"Are you certain about it?"
"She has never experienced what a true shinobi can do. I will show her why the village doesn't need her opinion on our structure and education. As long as she can understand my message, I will leave her alone. It isn't like there is much I can do about her."
"If she doesn't?"
"Accidents happen. People can get sick very quickly."
That's why Anko didn't want to give him this information, but he would have found it out by himself anyway. And she wouldn't even have known what he was thinking of doing. Though that might have been better, as even she now knew, there wasn't much she could do to stop him.
"Will do." Anko could do nothing but give him what he wanted, but that didn't mean she wouldn't do things her way, either.
If she could have done something different in the past, if she wasn't so damn afraid at the time, maybe Sensei would have lived. And so would Iruka. The arrogant asshole who thought he could take on the world. Her first friend who accepted her without questioning her past.
Now, only a miserable shadow was left of him. And as years passed, she could only watch as that shadow got darker and darker until nothing of his old self was left.
And when she thought that finally he was getting better, that light was coming back to him after he started to befriend the Uchiha, all of it fell apart once again. And it only got worse as things tend to do.
His eyes once again turned cold as he read through the document she gave him. And he wouldn't be able to hear a word she said now. If he did, he would have already stopped drinking. But she also couldn't really blame him.
Sensei's loss hit them all hard, and she also wasn't in the best place to be with him when he needed her most. Now, she had lost her opportunity. And could only regret being afraid of being rejected. She couldn't handle it, not from him.
"Is something bothering you?" Iruka asked, probably trying to read her expression. "Don't worry about me, I will take care of it quickly."
"Is there anything else you need help with?"
"No, I got it. Just inform me if you manage to get the whereabouts of Madam Shijimi."
What a liar. Like she hadn't noticed that he was worried about something. Even though there was no way to know what he was doing most of the time, as he knew how to hide himself from prying eyes, it wasn't hard to notice that he was acting differently from his usual self.
She knew when something was happening, and she was kept away from it. But once again, she could only hope that he wouldn't be stubborn enough not to ask for help when he needed it. Anko didn't want to lose him, too.
"Don't drink yourself to death." Anko finished her meal as she prepared to leave.
"Oh, and if you hear anything about Akatsuki, tell me about it."
Anko paused and bit her lip at the request. Iruka still hadn't let go of Itachi. Even though she didn't know how he knew that Itachi Uchiha had joined that mercenary group, it didn't surprise her.
She didn't know the depth of their bond, but she knew he was close to him. And the massacre hit him hard. That day when she saw him, she knew that something important was broken inside him.
It was so bad that he couldn't even hide in the darkness. He just gave up on himself and everyone around him, and for almost a year, Anko watched him drown himself in alcohol and despair. And there was nothing she could do but pretend that she didn't notice how deep he had fallen.
…
It was funny how she felt safest in the darkest corners of the village. Where no one would ever want to go, as it would mean the end of their lives and the beginning of their torture until they got what they wanted from them.
It was Iruka's idea for her to join the intelligence division. At first, she thought he was crazy since she had heard of things they had done, and she didn't know if she wanted to be around people who were comfortable doing such things.
It was a good thing she trusted him and saw for herself what kind of place it was. She didn't expect that the people she worked with would be the most accepting people she had ever met. Maybe it was because of their profession, but they had no trouble accepting Anko's past and never questioned her about it.
"Anko, here is the information about Mizuki you asked for." What Anko liked most was her cute juniors who seemed to want to please her more than anything else. "As you said, there's something fishy going on with him. It seems he got his new job out of nowhere. There was no connection between him and any of the Academy personnel before it."
"Good job, keep watch on him."
What was Mizuki doing? She never liked him, and she feared that someone as petty as him would seek revenge on Iruka sooner or later. And the moment he became a teacher, just after Iruka did, she got suspicious of him.
There were no reports of him ever showing any interest in teaching. And he wasn't very qualified to teach Ninjutsu either. Nor did he seem to have received any recommendation to enter the Academy. She needed to see for herself what was going on with him.
"Everyone, drop everything you were doing." Anko, as well as everyone else, looked at their captain. "We received word that Hanzo the Salamander has been killed. We need confirmation of it as soon as possible. I want every single person leaving Amegakure to be watched and, if an opportunity arises, questioned. It is a priority to confirm it and to find out who did it."
Anko could already feel a headache coming up. They didn't have enough manpower to investigate it. And she was going to request an investigation into Madam Shijimi and Mizuki, too. She wanted it to be done by the books, so she could deal with Mizuki herself.
But if it were true that Hanzo had been killed, all hell would be let loose soon. He was too important a character in the current political world. And not someone who would just go and die so easily.
She felt a foreboding feeling blossoming inside her heart, as if it was just part of something that was going to be far bigger very soon. But she was still more worried about Iruka and what he was going to do. So, in the end, she couldn't let it go and would have to investigate Mizuki herself. Even if it meant she would go against her superiors.
A.N. As always, thanks for reading and supporting me, so I can continue writing without any concerns, and if you want more, up to 7 more chapters and 28 chapters in total with all my other stories, you can support me on pa treon. com \ ironwolf852.