I crack my eyes open to see the ceiling of my Palace room. I've collapsed on the floor when Ino invaded my mind. I push myself up on my feet and look at Ino who is doing the same.
"So now you understand." I say to her with an even tone. "You know what horrors lie in wait over at Oto. You comprehend the depravity of Orochimaru."
"Y-yes. I do." She shakily tells me while looking at me with a terrifying mix of fear, pity, longing and disgust. "I-I am so sor-."
"Don't you dare say you're sorry." I snarl out. "I am sick and tired of everyone always hollowly apologizing to me. You may have seen my memories but you didn't experience it like I did. The only words I want to hear come out of your mouth are: I am never going to Otogakure."
"I never knew you did those things." Ino doesn't say what I want to hear. "Such terrible things."
"Yeah I know I'm a fucking piece of shit. There is a reason I called myself a monster. Now I want to hear you say it." I demand once more.
"I am never going to Otogakure." She promises me. "But I am still going to hold you to your promise. Once it is all over come back to Konoha. You've suffered enough. You've done enough. You don't deserve to go through more."
"Even after all of that you don't hate me?" I question her. I did not pull any punches, she saw the worst of the worst. I showed her crimes against humanity as a whole, things so fucked up that no one sane would wish it on their worst enemy.
"I don't think I can hate you." She confesses. "I can definitely be pissed off beyond all belief with you but hate? I don't think I can. That being said I will never be able to look at you the same way again. I can't help but have those memories flash through my mind. They're so… so…"
"Fucked up beyond anything else you've ever seen?" I supply.
"Yeah." She slings her backpack over her shoulder and grabs the massive scroll up again.
Glad that's all done with. Hell I bet she doesn't have any romantic interest in me anymore, two birds with one incredibly fucked up stone.
~You're certainly not wrong, that was very harsh. I didn't even have to do anything, it was all you. Although I admit it would have been… amusing to show her one of your fantasies that involves her. Mix in a little pleasure with all that pain.~
Oh hell no! That would have been very counterproductive!
"Oh and Alvarcus?" Ino pauses halfway out of my door.
"Yeah?" I look at her.
"You're way better at kissing than Sasuke." She steps out and closes the door.
"Right." I awkwardly say out to the empty room. "I did not need to know that. I swear that this is going to come back to bite me in my ass. I swear it."
~Ass biting? You have the strangest sexual fetishes.~
"That's not what I meant and you know it!"
...
With Naruto and Shikamaru
"Naruto let me leave." Shikamaru demands. "How could you leave the two of them alone after that?"
"Because they needed to talk things out." Naruto says as he blocks yet another attempt from Shikamaru to escape. "Plus after that's all done Alvarcus is coming here to apologize to you about the knocking you out thing."
"Hey." I poke my head into the room to see Naruto strong arming Shikamaru. Literally, he's holding him back with an arm. "Sorry about you being so inept at being a shinobi that you didn't see the huge white spider on the ceiling and he managed to poison you. Buh bye!"
I quickly pull my head out of the room and slam the door shut.
"Hold up is that all I get?" Shikamaru asks in confusion. "That was more of an insult than an apology!"
"It's Alvarcus. Are you really that surprised?" Naruto asks.
"As sad as it is, no. I'm not even remotely surprised."
...
"Right." I start stuffing scroll after scroll into various coat pockets. "I'm getting the fuck outta here before anything else can go -"
"So loverboy." Anko says as she's leaning on my doorframe. She's even inspecting her nails to add a dramatic flare. "How'd it go?"
"It was fantastic." I dryly retort to Anko as I continue stuffing things into my coat. "So good that I have to run away because I don't think I can control myself around her anymore."
"Really?" Anko asks hopefully. "Damn I knew you'd be good but Ino is too? She's been holding out on me, the little minx!"
"No you moron." I scoff out with a roll of my eyes that goes unseen. Stupid sunglasses. "We barely even kissed and I put a halt to that as soon as possible."
"WHAT?" Anko roars. "Why the hell would you do that?!"
"Here." I pick up a scroll. "That will explain everything."
I throw it at her.
"Aw did you write her a love letter?" Anko snags the scroll out of the air. "It's a bit sappy but -"
POOF
The scroll explodes into a thick black cloud of dust. The cloud quickly expands to encompass the whole room, casting it into pitch blackness.
"Bitch you better not be running away from me!" Anko shouts through the thick smoke.
There's no reply. I already jumped out the window and am two roofs away.
"Dammit!" Anko stomps her foot as she leaves through the door, it's the only exit she can reliably find in the dark. "I never got them to boink!"
...
~You sure that was a good idea?~
"Oh shut up I said bye to everyone." I sassily reply to Sureddo as I'm sprinting over snow. I'm already outside of the city the Palace is in, it only took around two minutes to escape to the wilderness of the Land of Snow. "Well not really Shikamaru but I think he'll be okay with that. We were never that close to begin with. And about Ino, it's for the best that I make a rift between us. I wasn't kidding when I said she deserves better and that I don't have time for a relationship. Not to mention that I totally ruined whatever could have formed with that memory stunt."
~No not that. Anko can be scary and you just pissed her off. The next time you two meet it isn't going to be pretty.~
"You don't need to tell me that." I heave out a sigh as I'm sprinting towards a specific location. "She is one of the select few that Orochimaru has trained. She's got to know some very… intense jutsus."
~I have no doubt about that. So is there a reason you're heading west? The port is to the south.~
"I'm finally going to go see what this little doodad does." I pull out the Hexagonal Crystal and hold it up so it can twinkle in the light. "Really hoping for a super weapon."
~What are the chances it's something lame like a rainbow machine?~
"If it's a fucking rainbow machine then I'm blowing it up."
...
"Kakashi!" Anko bursts into his room without bothering to knock. "Your student up and ran out on us!"
"Huh." Kakashi barely spares her a glance from his book. He's revisiting the green one. "I'm surprised he managed to stay this long. He stayed a few extra days past what I expected, I thought that the instant Koyuki was safe he'd leave."
"You're not freaking out?" Anko asks in confusion as the masked jonin pays more attention to his book than the news she just shared. "We can get everyone together and chase him down. With your tracking skills it'll be a joke."
"No thanks." Kakashi turns a page in the book his favorite student gave him. "I'm at a good part."
...
"What the hell do you mean he left?" Shikamaru almost yells at Anko. He's pissed but not insane, he knows better than to actually yell at her.
He's seen what she's done with Ino, he doesn't want to become her next plaything.
"He left. Simple as that." Anko casually says as she's eating a snack. "Total dick move too, he threw a scroll at me that must have had a smoke bomb sealed into it. I hate those things."
"He tricked you?" Shikamaru sounds mildly impressed. It's not easy to fool a jonin, special or otherwise.
"I may have been a smidgen distracted. I was basking in my own potential success." Anko shrugs. "They kissed, and while it's not exactly what I wanted it's a start. I'm not giving up yet, they'll meet again. I can feel it."
"You do know that he rejected her right?" Shikamaru asks in confusion. "Pretty sure that ended whatever could have been. Ino has a vengeful streak in her, I know that first hand."
"Please, he's just playing hard to get." Anko waves off Shikamaru's words. "Extremely hard to get with the whole different villages thing. Stupid boy thinks that's going to stop me, like he knows me! Something as little as that will only make it more fun!"
"Yeah… I'm not touching that." Shikamaru turns and leaves the slightly insane kunoichi alone. "Why do I always get stuck with the crazy ones?"
...
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