I can help you heal the Cursed Seal

The classroom remained in chaos before the bell rang.

Kiba was stomping around, dragging Akamaru along to dance in circles with him.

Naruto was using chalk to draw a crooked Hokage Rock on the blackboard, painting all four faces to look like himself.

Shikamaru was slumped over his desk, fast asleep.

Sakura and Ino were by the window in the back row, locked in a hair-pulling match over some unknown grievance.

Sasuke Uchiha sat in the second-to-last row by the window, gazing quietly outside.

The classroom door was pushed open, but the woman who walked in looked nothing like a typical teacher.

Anko Mitarashi wore a dark gray Konoha ninja uniform with an open trench coat over it, the hem swaying with every step she took.

Her hair was tied up messily at the back of her head, with a few stray strands dangling by her ears.

With a toothpick dangling from her lips, she walked to the podium and tossed the attendance register onto the desk.

"I'm Anko Mitarashi, a Special Jonin." She took the toothpick out of her mouth. "Iruka is taking the day off, so I'm your substitute."

Naruto pointed a finger straight at her nose. "You're lying! You don't look like a teacher at all!"

Anko put the toothpick back in her mouth and walked right up to Naruto.

She raised her right hand, pressed her middle finger against her thumb, and aimed at Naruto's forehead.

"Flick."

Naruto staggered back three or four steps, the back of his head cracking against the edge of the blackboard before he slid down the wall to the floor.

He clutched his forehead, tears welling up in his eyes, howling in pain.

"Do I look like one now?" Anko looked down at Naruto on the floor.

Kiba silently scooped Akamaru off his chair and sat back down in his seat, behaving himself.

Sakura and Ino simultaneously let go of each other's hair and quietly pulled out their chairs to sit. Shikamaru lifted his face from his arms, glanced at Anko, and slumped back down.

Anko clapped her hands and nodded with satisfaction.

"Good. Today we're covering practical techniques for shuriken throwing."

She picked up a piece of chalk, scribbled a few target diagrams on the board, and used arrows to mark the angle of wrist force required for the throw.

Her handwriting was sloppy, but the diagrams were clear.

"Wrist force, forearm rotation; your fingers only need to control the timing of the release."

"The reason you brats can't hit your targets is mostly because you're gripping too tight and releasing too early."

As she spoke, she paced the aisles, the shuriken in her hand tracing arcs through the air to illustrate her points.

When she walked past Sasuke, her gaze swept over the White Dog at his feet.

The White Dog's belly rose and fell with its steady breathing, its ears twitching occasionally.

Anko glanced again at the shadow beneath it, which was noticeably darker than the surrounding area.

She then quickened her pace and returned to the podium.

Sasuke tapped his cheekbone with his fingers as he rested his chin on his hand.

This teacher knows there's something wrong with that shadow. Is she here for the White Dog?

Sasuke withdrew his gaze and continued looking out the window.

Anko's lesson wasn't bad.

She spoke in a casual, irreverent manner, but her understanding of shuriken throwing was solid; even Shikamaru crawled up from his desk, listening with half-closed eyes.

When the bell rang, Anko had just finished the final point.

She clapped the chalk dust off her hands.

"Class dismissed."

Several students immediately crowded around her.

"Anko-sensei! Are you really a Special Jonin? Is a Special Jonin even stronger than Iruka-sensei?"

"What kind of ninjutsu was that flick you used on Naruto? Can you teach me?"

Anko leaned against the edge of the podium, pulled a skewer of Three-Color Dango from a paper bag she had brought, and began to eat.

She answered the chattering questions while mindlessly munching on the snack.

Sasuke stood up from his seat, grabbed his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and walked toward the door.

As he passed the podium, a bamboo skewer suddenly blocked his path, stopping three inches from the tip of his nose.

Two pieces of dango, still coated in shiny syrup, were skewered on the end.

"Sasuke Uchiha, stay behind. I have something to ask you."

Sasuke stopped in his tracks and tilted his head to look at Anko.

She was still chewing on the dango, her expression as carefree and smiling as it had been during class, but there was no warmth in her eyes.

He said nothing, turned around, and walked back to his seat. He placed his backpack on the desk and sat down once more.

Naruto poked his head in at the doorway. "Hey, Sasuke, aren't you leaving? And Anko-sensei, you were looking for him—"

"Swish."

A shuriken flew from Anko's fingertips, embedding itself into the doorframe right beside Naruto's ear.

"Class is over, get lost."

Naruto pulled his head back, and the sound of his retreating footsteps echoed down the hallway.

Only Anko and Sasuke remained in the classroom.

Anko rose from the side of the podium, walked to the desk in front of Sasuke, braced one hand against the surface, and hopped up onto it in one fluid motion.

She turned around on the desk, crossed her legs, and looked down at Sasuke from her elevated position.

She held up a bamboo skewer, pointing it at the shadow by Sasuke's feet.

"Call out that dog that got bitten. The Hokage has already told me everything."

Sasuke looked up at her, remaining motionless.

Anko waited for a moment. Seeing that Sasuke had no intention of moving, she tossed the skewer aside.

Then, she reached out and pulled open the collar of her trench coat.

Sasuke thought she was about to do something oppressive, but that was not the case.

She exposed the skin on the side of her neck to Sasuke.

Three tomoe patterns were arranged in a ring, their colors faded, with the edges scarred by two layers of overlapping sealing jutsu.

The scar tissue appeared a darker, duller red than the surrounding skin, as if it had been repeatedly burned and healed several times over.

"Orochimaru was my teacher." Anko let go of her collar without pulling it back up. "This thing has been on my neck for many years."

She took out a new stick of three-colored dango and began to eat again.

The Third Hokage had sent her; this was official business.

Yet, not a single word of her previous statement had mentioned the Hokage's orders.

She wanted to see the dog bitten by Orochimaru, not because the Hokage had ordered her to monitor him, but because she wanted to find clues about Orochimaru through that dog.

"So I had to come see for myself. What if he's made some new progress on the Cursed Seal?"

Sasuke looked at the burn scars on her neck, then at her nonchalant expression as she chewed the dango.

"You might as well just say you want to know how strong Orochimaru is right now." Sasuke looked into Anko's eyes.

Anko's chewing paused for a split second.

She tossed the bamboo skewer onto the desk and licked the syrup from the corner of her mouth.

"You kids are even more troublesome to talk to than the Third Hokage."

She uncrossed her legs, braced both hands on the edge of the desk, and leaned forward, closing the distance between her face and Sasuke's to a mere palm's width.

"Fine, that's exactly what I want to know. Since he could sneak into the village without a sound, find you, and have his dog bite you, why didn't he just take you with him?"

Anko tapped her fingers against the desk twice.

"Orochimaru doesn't do useless things. If he set his sights on you, it means you have something he desires. The fact that he didn't take you means he encountered trouble that forced him to back off."

"Are you that trouble?"

Sasuke did not answer the question.

He looked at the Cursed Seal scar on Anko's neck and suddenly spoke.

"That Cursed Seal of yours—is it still hurting?"

Anko's brow furrowed. Her hand rose instinctively to touch the scar on her neck before dropping back down.

"That's none of your business."

"I can try to treat it for you."

Anko's fingers froze near her neck.

Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again.

"What did you say?"

"I said, I can try to treat it for you." Sasuke stood up from his seat, leveling his gaze with Anko's.

"Even though the Cursed Seal on your neck has been sealed, the sealing jutsu cannot completely isolate its erosion. You should know that better than anyone."

Anko jumped down from the desk, her soles hitting the floor with a dull thud.

She stared at Sasuke's face for a long time, her expression shifting from the earlier scrutiny into something else.

A complex emotion, caught somewhere between suspicion and hesitation.

"What makes you think you can cure it?" Anko's voice was slightly hoarse.

"I didn't say I definitely could." Sasuke picked up his backpack from the desk and slung it over his shoulder.

"Just testing. Since you've come all this way, you can't leave empty-handed."

Anko Mitarashi reached up to touch the Cursed Seal on her neck.

Every night, she dreamed of Orochimaru's face, a terror that left her paralyzed.

The medical team in Konoha could not treat what Orochimaru had left behind. Even the sealing jutsu of the Third Hokage could only suppress it, never eradicate it.

Anko Mitarashi had grown accustomed to the pain, so accustomed that she had almost forgotten it was still there.

"Fine." Anko pulled the collar of her trench coat tight.

"If you can actually cure it, I'll owe you a favor. If you can't, I won't blame you."

"But I have one condition."

Sasuke stopped in his tracks and tilted his head to look at her.

"Regardless of whether you can cure it or not, you have to tell me what Orochimaru actually did in front of you that night. Not the version you reported to the Third Hokage."

Sasuke turned back around, meeting eyes that were, for once, no longer indifferent.

"The information I gave the Third Hokage was already comprehensive, but if you want to know, I can tell you."

"Tomorrow after school, at the training ground in the Uchiha Compound. Come alone."