Has Sasuke Also Given Up?

The windows of the Hokage Building office were half-open, and with the sunset nearly finished, only a faint, dim light filtered in from outside.

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat behind his desk, pipe in hand, wisps of smoke curling upward from between his fingers.

The desk was piled high with documents awaiting approval; the one on top was a report from the Barrier Team regarding abnormal chakra fluctuations, dated the very day Orochimaru infiltrated the village.

Anko stood before the desk, hands at her sides, having finished a brief report on everything she witnessed at the training ground.

She did not mention that the Cursed Seal on her own neck had also been treated, saying only that Sasuke possessed a type of summoning creature with medical capabilities, capable of effectively alleviating the erosion caused by the Cursed Seal left by Orochimaru.

Hiruzen did not speak immediately after hearing this.

He returned the pipe to his mouth and took a deep drag, the tobacco making a faint crackling sound in the bowl.

Smoke was exhaled slowly from his nostrils, obscuring the expression on his face.

"I will consider sending someone to investigate the principles behind this ability," Hiruzen said, taking the pipe down and tapping it twice against the edge of the ashtray to clear the ash that had accumulated all afternoon.

"But for now, protecting Sasuke must remain the priority."

Anko frowned. "Lord Hokage, should we arrange for Anbu to tighten surveillance on him? Since Orochimaru could infiltrate once, he could do it a second time. Right now, Sasuke only has himself and those few summoning creatures."

Hiruzen shook his head.

He set the pipe on the desk, rested his chin on his crossed hands, and gazed through the window toward the distant Hokage Rock.

"That child, Sasuke, is too sensitive to malice," Hiruzen's voice dropped.

"If we add more personnel, he will sense it immediately. He will then feel that the village views him as a dangerous object to be guarded, rather than one of Konoha's own."

Hiruzen turned back, his gaze landing on Anko once more.

"The current strategy should be to give him space. Let him slowly come to see Konoha as his home, rather than a cage he is forced to stay in. Pushing him too hard will only drive him away with our own hands."

Anko snorted through her nose.

She shoved her hands into her trench coat pockets, her lips pressed into a thin line.

"Before he starts seeing Konoha as home, Orochimaru might have already eaten him."

Hiruzen tapped his pipe against the desk twice more.

He said nothing.

The sunset dipped lower, and the light in the office dimmed another shade.

A crow flew past the window, its shadow sweeping rapidly across the floor.

Anko stood before the desk for a while, and upon confirming that Hiruzen had no further orders, she turned toward the door.

Her hand had just grasped the doorknob.

"Anko."

Anko stopped and tilted her head.

"You look much more relaxed today than usual," Hiruzen said, putting his pipe back in his mouth as the corners of his lips curled up slightly.

"Did you eat too much Three-Color Dango, or is there some other reason?"

Anko pushed the door open and walked out without looking back.

The sound of her retreating footsteps echoed through the hallway.

Hiruzen leaned back in his chair and finished the last of the tobacco in his pipe.

Anko pushed open the main entrance of the Hokage Building and lowered her head to touch her neck.

The lingering warmth of the Round Deer's blue light had long since faded, but now that the pressure on her neck was gone, she truly felt much lighter.

She stepped down the stairs.

As her shoe hit the final stone step, her gaze swept over the figure standing by the stone pillar to the right of the entrance.

Sasuke was leaning against the pillar, holding a paper bag.

The evening breeze lifted the hair on his forehead, revealing the expressionless eyes beneath.

Anko stopped.

"What are you doing here?" Anko held up the paper bag and glanced inside.

A dozen skewers of Three-Color Dango were packed together, the syrup not yet fully set.

"Saw them for sale, so I bought some for Naruto to keep him from eating so much instant ramen," Sasuke said, shoving the bag into Anko's hand.

"Thought I'd drop some off for you while I was at it."

"I was going to have the Escaping Rabbit deliver them," Sasuke said, hands back in his pockets as he turned to leave. "Was afraid it would snack on them halfway."

"Stop."

Sasuke halted.

Anko circled around to face him, holding the paper bag in one hand while pulling out a skewer with the other to take a bite.

She chewed twice, pulled the bamboo stick from her mouth, and pointed it at Sasuke's nose.

"Buying dango for Naruto? To get him to eat less junk food?" Anko repeated Sasuke's answer, a malicious curve tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Did you forget you just told me you were only passing by?"

"It was indeed on my way."

"From your house to the dango shop and then to the Hokage Building—you call that on your way?" Anko clamped the bamboo skewer back between her teeth.

"That's clearly a special trip. Tell me, how did you think of bringing this stuff to your teacher?"

Sasuke looked at her face, which had leaned in close, and remained silent for a moment.

"Black Dog said your fingers were trembling when you walked out of the training ground."

Anko's movement of chewing the skewer stiffened. She took it out of her mouth and looked down at her right hand.

Her fingers weren't shaking now; they held the skewer, half-stripped of dango, with perfect steadiness.

But at Sasuke's mention, that uncontrollable sensation of tremors rose up from the depths of her memory.

Anko leaned against the stone pillar, her shoulders slumping.

She cradled the paper bag in her arms, twirling the skewer between two fingers.

"Orochimaru was my teacher."

Her voice suddenly turned soft.

"It was a long time ago. I was still at the Ninja Academy when he took an interest in me, took me on as his disciple, taught me ninjutsu, and took me out for dango."

"The Three-Color Dango from this shop—that's where he took me the first time."

Anko looked up toward the distant dango shop, a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes pulling at her lips.

"Later, he planted the Cursed Seal on my neck, abandoned me, and defected. Before he left, he even erased a portion of my memories."

She tapped her temple with her finger.

"I can remember the ninjutsu he taught me, remember that the dango tasted good, and remember the way he smiled, but some things I just can't recall no matter how hard I try."

"Like why he did those things to Konoha, why he chose me as his disciple, or what he actually said when he left me behind."

Anko shoved a piece of dango into her mouth, biting down until the bamboo skewer rattled against her teeth.

"That's how it is. A student discarded like trash by her own teacher, now a Special Jonin of Konoha."

Sasuke understood. He leaned against the other side of the stone pillar, hands tucked into his pockets, not rushing to speak.

"So, what is it that Anko-sensei is struggling with now?" Anko had expected the cold-hearted Sasuke to ask something accusatory, but he asked this instead.

The rhythm of Anko's chewing slowed.

"Struggling with what?" she repeated, her voice muffled.

"You just said you were discarded by him, that your memories were erased, that he abandoned you." Sasuke turned his head to look at her.

"You've been saying these things to yourself for many years now, haven't you?"

Anko didn't answer, but her fingers tightened around the skewer.

"If you truly believed you were trash that had been thrown away, you wouldn't have come to ask me about Orochimaru."

"You wouldn't have laughed so loudly after seeing the Cursed Seal on Black Dog's neck at the training ground."

"The reason you're struggling isn't because you hate him. It's because you feel he made the choice for you."

Anko pulled the empty skewer from her mouth.

"You feel you were cast aside for no reason; even though you were his student, you never even got the chance to decide for yourself whether to go with him or not," Sasuke said, watching her. "Right?"

Anko twirled the empty skewer between her fingers.

"You really are... not cute at all for a kid."

She flicked the skewer toward a nearby trash can; it struck the rim, bounced once, and fell inside.

"Right." Anko leaned back against the pillar, arms crossed. "I want to find him. Not for any other reason, just to ask him a few things to his face. To ask why he chose me, why he left me behind, and what the real reason was for him leaving back then."

She tilted her head back to look at the darkening orange sky.

"But I am a Konoha ninja. I can't betray Konoha to go find an S-Rank Missing-nin just to ask such pointless questions. So I can only stand here, curse him a few times, and continue being a Special Jonin."

"Then do you want to be a missing-nin?" Sasuke's voice suddenly rang out.

Anko whipped her head around, her gaze cutting into Sasuke's face like a blade.

"I didn't—"

"Do you want to find Orochimaru?" Sasuke interrupted her.

"Of course I don't want to be a missing-nin!" Anko's voice rose by half an octave; the hem of her trench coat flared with her sudden turn, and the paper bag swayed in the crook of her arm.

"I just want to find Orochimaru to ask him a..."

Anko froze.

Sasuke watched her, mouth agape and unable to finish her sentence, his expression unchanging.

"Hm. Has Sensei finally realized it?"

Anko Mitarashi instinctively raised her hand to retort, but her fingers paused in mid-air for half a second before slowly retracting.

"Isn't it because of your own will that you left Orochimaru?" Sasuke continued.

"Your current identity is a Special Jonin of Konoha. You stand here, wearing the Konoha forehead protector, eating dango from a Konoha shop, and surrounded by Konoha comrades. None of these were chosen for you by Orochimaru; you chose them yourself."

Sasuke looked into Anko Mitarashi's eyes.

"Is anyone stopping you from going to find Orochimaru? Your legs are your own. If you truly wanted to go, you could walk out of the village gates right now; no one is shackling your hands."

"But you didn't go. Because deep down, you don't want to follow him."

Anko Mitarashi fell silent. Her fingers, clutching the paper bag, tightened and then relaxed against its edge.

The pedestrians on the street gradually thinned out, and the bell from the Ninja Academy rang in the distance—likely the training ground caretaker finishing their shift.

"You're right." Anko Mitarashi finally spoke, her voice softer than before, but no longer trembling.

"No one is shackling me. I chose Konoha myself."

The corners of her mouth tugged into an arc, as if she wanted to smile but held it back, leaving behind an incredibly complex expression.

"Something in my heart seems to have loosened. Your psychological counseling skills are actually quite impressive, kid."

"I'm not giving you counseling." Sasuke shifted his gaze from her face, looking back at the darkening street ahead.

"I just don't want a teacher who taught me to be an idiot."

Anko Mitarashi was choked up by his words. She shifted the paper bag to her left hand, wanting to say something in rebuttal, but Sasuke's next sentence made her swallow it back.

"I once thought I had lost everything." Sasuke began, his gaze falling on the shadow at his own feet.

"Family, teachers, and the daily life I thought would never change. It was all gone."

Anko Mitarashi's breathing hitched. She set aside all the playfulness and jokes on her face, listening quietly.

"At that time, I thought, since everything is gone, I might as well just rot away until I die."

Sasuke paused, as if recalling someone's face.

"Later, someone told me that he would be very lonely without me."

"I hadn't known that person for very long; he was simple, acted without thinking sometimes, and loved to say meaningless things."

Sasuke's tone remained unchanged, that same flat, almost emotionless cadence.

"But when he said those things, he was serious."

Anko Mitarashi held the paper bag, watching Sasuke's profile, which was sharply defined under the streetlamp.

If a seven-year-old child said such things, she would think they were just pretending to be an adult.

But Sasuke was different. Every word he spoke had been forged in a darkness she couldn't even imagine.

"Does Sasuke mean..." Anko Mitarashi realized she had unconsciously added an honorific after Sasuke's name.

"Teacher Anko Mitarashi should already understand in her heart." Sasuke said unhurriedly.

"A person cannot return to the very beginning, because that road collapsed long ago. But a road can also start right from where your feet are."

"You have walked this far by your own will, and you already have new bonds and new goals. So, there is no need to dwell on the road you came from."

Anko Mitarashi hugged the paper bag tighter, lowering her head until her forehead was almost buried in the edge of the bag.

Her shoulders tensed first, then slowly, bit by bit, they relaxed.

The tightness that had been locked in the center of her chest ever since she was abandoned by Orochimaru finally, at this moment, completely unraveled.

There was no crying, no melodrama; it was just as if something that had been soaking in her body for a long time was slowly dissipating.

Anko Mitarashi raised her hand to rub the bridge of her nose, forcing the messy emotions back into her eye sockets.

"You little brat." Anko Mitarashi's voice was noticeably hoarse, but her tone had recovered that signature Anko Mitarashi-style playfulness.

"You're just a child, you aren't allowed to say things like that—at least not to your teacher."

She walked over, her body moving faster than her words, and reached out to wrap her arms around Sasuke's neck.

Before Sasuke could react, Anko Mitarashi had already pulled him into her embrace.

"Children shouldn't always pretend to be adults and lecture their teachers! Do you even know what seniority is? You're the idiot! You jerk!"

As she spoke, she used her other hand to roughly ruffle Sasuke's hair, completely messing up his hairstyle into a chaotic duck-butt shape.

Anko Mitarashi released Sasuke and patted the hem of her trench coat.

Sasuke, his hair now a mess, adjusted his collar with an expressionless face, though the corners of his mouth were clearly pursed tighter than usual.

"I'm leaving, thanks for the dango." Anko Mitarashi turned around and strode toward the shopping district with her back to Sasuke.

She held up a finger and shook it in the air.

"There aren't many missions lately, so I'm going to train you strictly!"