Anko had been moving for so long that stopping felt like drowning.
She'd hopped rooftops and cut down Sound shinobi and shoved civilians toward safety with hands that shook from adrenaline and rage. Her lungs tasted like smoke. Her coat had a new tear. There was a shallow slice across her forearm and she didn't remember when she'd gotten it.
There was blood under her nails that wasn't hers.
The air tasted of burnt hair and pulverized stone, a dry, alkaline grit that coated her teeth and made every swallow feel like scraping a raw wound.
The stadium roofline sat a few blocks away, a bruise of purple light against the sky.
The barrier.
That smug wound.
She'd tried to crack it until her palms ached, until her chakra burned hot and thin. Until someone stopped her.
Not standard ANBU.
Too controlled. Too empty.
Root.
A masked operative had landed in her path like a door closing, and for a half-second Anko had been back in that other life—white tiles, clipped voices, Danzō's shadow in every corner.
"You're in the way," the operative had said, voice muffled, emotionless.
He didn't have a scent—no sweat, no iron, no humanity—just a hollow, sterile absence that made the air around him feel localized and cold, like standing next to an empty grave.
"The Hokage's dying in there," Anko had snapped back, spitting smoke. "Move."
"Orders," the operative replied.
That word again.
Anko had laughed—one sharp, ugly bark—and then she'd attacked anyway because she'd never been good at obeying.
Root hadn't tried to kill her.
Root had tried to manage her.
Pins. Redirects. Pressure points. The kind of fighting that said: you're not the threat, you're the complication.
And Anko hated it because it was familiar.
It was Danzō's hand on her throat without ever touching her skin.
So she'd bitten elsewhere.
Killed what she could. Refused to be herded like an animal.
But the whole time—every time she looked toward that purple glow—something in her chest had twisted.
Because inside that barrier was the one person she wanted to kill.
And the one person she didn't want to lose.
Anko landed on a rooftop two streets away, knees bending to absorb impact. Her breath steamed. Her heartbeat hammered in her ears.
For a moment, the fight sounds around her blurred into one continuous roar.
And then—
Something snapped.
Not audible.
Not physical.
A chakra snap, so clean it felt like a thread being cut behind her eyes.
A massive, low-frequency thrum rattled through the rooftop tiles, followed by a sudden drop in barometric pressure that made her eardrums pop as the violet energy was sucked back into the earth.
Her curse mark flared.
Cold heat.
Crawling electricity racing up her neck and into her jaw like someone had shoved ice into her veins.
The seal on her neck throbbed with a jagged, white-hot resonance, the skin around the mark turning an angry, bruised purple as the biological link spasmed in a violent feedback loop.
Anko's breath hitched.
Her knees buckled.
She caught herself on roof tiles with one hand, fingers splaying, palm scraping grit.
"No," she whispered, and it came out like a plea and a curse at the same time.
Because she knew that sensation.
That particular emptiness that followed it.
It was the feeling of a leash loosening.
It was the feeling of a contract breaking.
Edo Tensei.
The stolen dead.
The thread snapped—and the world exhaled.
Nausea hit her like a punch. She retched once, hard, bile splattering tile.
Her hands shook.
Not fear.
Rage so intense her body malfunctioned.
She lifted her head toward the stadium.
The purple glow was gone.
The barrier had collapsed.
The electric smell of the ionized air vanished instantly, replaced by the heavy, suffocating scent of fresh blood and the bitter smoke of the stadium's burning rafters.
For a heartbeat, Anko couldn't move because the universe had shifted and she needed to confirm it wasn't a hallucination.
Then she was up.
Then she was running.
Rooftop to rooftop, each leap fueled by spite and something dangerously close to hope.
She hit the stadium structure and vaulted up, boots skidding on stone. The air here smelled like blood and singed feathers and broken sleep.
Leaf shinobi crowded the rooftop now—ANBU, jōnin, med-nin pushing through.
And there—
There was the scorch-marked outline where violet flame had stabbed the sky.
And in that absence lay a body.
Small, suddenly.
Too small.
Old man.
Professor.
Hiruzen Sarutobi lay on the roof like a piece of Konoha had been carved out and set down gently.
He looked impossibly small in the center of the scorched tiles, the air around him missing the warm, sun-heavy pressure of his chakra, replaced by the hollow, metallic chill of the Reaper's passing.
Anko's throat went tight.
She didn't step closer yet. If she stepped closer, she'd have to feel it.
Instead her gaze snapped—wild, desperate—searching for the snake.
She saw him at the edge of the roofline, pale robe fluttering, posture wrong.
Orochimaru.
Still alive.
Of course.
But—
His arms hung limp like marionette limbs without strings. His fingers twitched—trying to form seals that wouldn't come, trying to remember movements his soul no longer owned.
His limbs didn't move like flesh; they hung with a rubbery, unnatural stillness, the skin gray and necrotic as if the blood had forgotten how to flow through those specific channels.
Wounded.
Not a bruise.
Not a scratch.
A real wound.
The kind that mattered.
Anko's curse mark burned again—not obedience, recognition—like it was screaming: He's still here. He's still yours. You still don't get to have him.
Orochimaru glanced back once.
His eyes met hers across the roof.
For a second, the world narrowed to just the two of them and all the history between them—labs and corridors and his warm rot voice saying You did so well.
Anko's grip tightened on her kunai until her knuckles went white.
"Run," she mouthed.
Orochimaru's lips twitched.
Not a smile.
Something uglier.
The light in his eyes flickered like a dying candle, refracting through the sweat on his face into a jagged, sickly yellow glare that made Anko's stomach churn.
Then he was gone—slipping away into chaos, leaving only the echo of his presence and the sick certainty that he would survive this too.
Anko's legs finally gave out properly.
She dropped to one knee.
Not dramatic.
Just gravity catching up.
Kakashi stood near Hiruzen's body, mask hiding his mouth but not the way his shoulders shook once—just once—like he'd swallowed something sharp.
Enma crouched beside the Third, a guard dog with a crown, daring anyone to treat the body like an object.
Enma's fur was matted with grey ash, and his breathing was a low, rhythmic growl that vibrated through the roof tiles and into the soles of Anko's boots.
Anko's chest burned.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to laugh.
She wanted to throw herself off the roof and chase Orochimaru until her bones snapped.
Instead she stayed kneeling and let the ugly truth settle in:
She had been outplayed again.
But not completely.
Because Orochimaru was hurt.
And the Hokage had died making sure of it.
Anko's voice came out rough, barely more than breath. "You old bastard."
Not an insult.
A fact with love stapled to it.
She pushed her palm into the tile, steadying herself. Forced her breath into something functional.
Below them, Konoha still burned. Still screamed. Still needed people with knives and bad attitudes to keep it from collapsing.
Anko stood.
Her legs trembled. She ignored them.
She stared once more at the place Orochimaru had been, the air still faintly tasting of him like snake musk soaked into stone.
A thick, viscous energy still clung to the tiles, smelling of formaldehyde and shed skin—a lingering rot that felt like it was trying to coat her lungs from the inside out.
"He's still beyond my reach," she muttered.
Then her eyes flicked to Hiruzen again.
"But not untouched."
The curse mark cooled from a burn to a simmer—still there, still hateful, still a reminder of what she'd survived.
Anko wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing bile and blood and grit together like it didn't matter.
Then she turned away from the roof.
Not because she didn't care.
Because she did.
Because the village didn't get to lose everyone in one night.
She launched herself back into the chaos, purple-haired and sharp, moving through smoke and screaming.
The stadium floor was a chaotic percussion of frantic footfalls and the rhythmic thud-hiss of fire-teams trying to drown the growing inferno with high-pressure water.
If she couldn't kill the snake tonight—
She'd make sure he remembered the taste of consequences every time he tried to breathe.