[Naruto] 1sentence IruAnko Gamma
Pairing: IruAnko
Fandom: Naruto
Theme set: Gamma
Author: runespoor7
Rating: R
Notes: another crack!ship that doesn't get written enough. (not that I can blame anyone, what with their complete and utter lack and interaction…) (implied pairings, among which OroAnko) Dedicated to Cephied Variable, who doesn't know me but whose ficlet here gave me this ship.
01 - ring
It's her first time as an escort at a chuunin exam and also the first time she's trusted with an official position since Orochimaru, when Anko looks down into the tournament arena where two boys are fighting, both older than she is, and she cuts into her fellow chuunins' commentary, "forget the Uchiha, Umino's going to win."
02 - hero
There's Anko, whose name will end on the cenotaph but whose name is also spat on as Orochimaru's student, and there's Iruka, who may be a mere Academy teacher but who gave a boy a hitai-ate.
03 - memory
Iruka, though it would seem strange to Naruto, had a sensei once, who was neither a father nor a mother to him, but who was a good sensei all the same; Iruka's sensei was killed by Orochimaru, and no-one cares except Iruka's still living teammate, but he doesn't resent Konoha for that, because he doesn't know the names of all of Orochimaru's victims either; Iruka goes to the cenotaph on the anniversary of his sensei's death, and he stays silent as he stands, because his sensei was never one for useless words, and he leaves after a few minutes, because his sensei disliked wasted time (but really it's because Iruka has made his peace with his sensei's death a long time ago, it was a ninja's death and his sensei was neither a father nor a mother to him); later, he feels Anko's eyes rest on him a little longer than on other days (Anko remembers the name of every person Orochimaru has killed, even when she wishes she didn't).
04 - box
It comes as such a shock to discover she wasn't a good girl after all, that she doesn't question the judgement that she's a bad one until she sees Umino Iruka - bright kid, Kyuubi-orphan, and poster Leaf-nin - roll his eyes at the Kyuubi kid and treat him to ramen.
05 - run
Anko has never raced faster in her life than when she's trying to keep up with Iruka and distance their pursuers - it's at times like these she wishes she could use her Curse Seal, with its nifty wings - "If they catch us," she pants as she pushes her body to new limits, "or if Orochimaru-sensei learns about this - you're dead," but that good-for-nothing, attention-seeker, practical joker Umino Iruka - of whom, as of ten minutes ago, she's now the partner in crime, oh kami - only cackles.
06 - hurricane
Iruka has never thought of himself as a particularly orderly man (well, except for where his desk is concerned, because the students' papers are like the students themselves; undisciplined and prone to slipping away) but when he looks at his flat, he knows that there's a before and an after Anko.
07 - wings
Years later, Anko is confronted to Uchiha Sasuke's Second Level of the Curse Seal and she wants to scream until her throat is raw and jump away or at him, but a hand suddenly seizes hers and squeezes until she remembers that she's alright, she's human, and Sasuke is only demonstrating as part of his trial; out of the corner of her eyes, Iruka isn't looking at her, but is focused on his ex-students, his jaw clenched, and Anko squeezes his hand back.
08 - cold
"Not at all~" Anko trumpets abroad, grabbing Iruka's hands and stuffing them under her raincoat, "here, see, I'm very warm~!"
09 - red
He knows he blushes, but is it really a reason for Anko to provoke him?
10 - drink
Orochimaru-sensei doesn't drink alcohol and always speak with faint, immeasurable contempt of those who do (and indeed, if Anko can speak for herself, Orochimaru-sensei holds his rank much better than either of his teammates); she tries to duplicate his expression of unutterable disdain for the dark-haired scarred kid - a genin, a trouble-maker, Umino Iruka - who's grinning cheekily at her, a bottle of sake in each hand (he's taller than her, but it doesn't matter; she has seen Orochimaru-sensei bring shinobi twice larger than him down under the force of his mere presence), but his grin doesn't even falter.
11 - midnight
On a roof, two children side by side; the girl wears a hitai-ate coquettishly tied around her waist, and, to the boy, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she stares intently at the sky, the starlight makes her pretty, delicate, unattainable in a completely different way than she is during the day, fierce and gifted and prissily trotting after her sensei's heels; "won't Orochimaru be angry if he learns you were here?" he mumbles (not knowing why because really, he's one who challenged her to come)-"shh," comes the imperious answer as she points a shooting star.
12 - temptation
Anko pushes him against the nearest wall, hooks her leg around him, and assaults his mouth with hers, while Iruka clutches her forearms and kisses back for approximately ten seconds, before the door opens and they hastily break apart - be professional, be professional.
13 - view
The scary woman swept down and the handful of kids instinctively cowered, her sharp grin the only visible thing in the shadows of her face as she leant - "Sorry, kids, still not today you're gonna get your essays back, Iruka-sensei didn't have the time to grade them last night."
14 - music
Konoha says that Iruka lives to the beat of a different drum, but that's just because it's easier to ignore that he's actually helping Anko set up the percussion (and the trumpets, and the guitars…).
15 - silk
"Yeah, but I'm not really a kimono kind of girl," Anko explains; "Gurk," Iruka says.
16 - cover
Tsunade closed her eyes, because really, she knew from the first that it was a bad idea to condone that 'pretend to be a couple infiltration mission', when it had always been a matter of lovebirds wanting a vacation together, and always more trouble than it was worth; it had been the case for the Nara so-called genius and the Sand girl who owned his ass (they weren't even from the same village, how would such a mission even go, for crying out loud), it had been the case for Hyuuga Hinata and her cousin (wouldn't it have been more convenient to pretend they had to leave on 'Hyuuga business'), it had definitely been the case for Naruto and his Uchiha (Tsunade had tried to explain the concept of homophobia to them; when her apprentice came in claiming that she just had to go to that precise same area, she'd just thrown her arms in the air and given up), but this took the cake; she opened her eyes, took in the touching knees, gleaming eyes, and air of disgustingly bubbly sexual bliss around the two, and made a vague though eloquent gesture - "Just have at it, will you," she snapped, wishing Jiraiya to the deepest circles of hell for revealing to a select few individuals that she was a sucker for romance.
17 - promise
When he finds her, he knows at once that she's already been told of Uchiha Sasuke's defection, and he wants nothing more than reach out for her and shake her and tell her that it's not her fault, but it won't do any good if he's the one doing it; Morino Ibiki catches his look as Iruka turns to leave, and tilts his head to the side in a way that means he'll make sure she's okay.
18 - dream
Sometimes Anko fantasises about Orochimaru-sensei if he saw her now, how well she's shed the remnants of serpent skin clinging to her, how her happiness blazes under the Konoha sun (she's got a man she wouldn't exchange for anything, she's trusted by the Hokage, she's a Leaf-nin in all her glory and she can creep genins out of their mind and it makes Iruka groan, as if it was some lame joke), but then she's afraid she's just wishing for his approval, and she fears how devastated she'd be if he smirked at her - she could have been great, and now she's only trying to be good.
19 - candle
No use in cursing the darkness, especially when there are people in it, and in Konoha, there's no excuse for not firing a Katon; Iruka's willing to do his part, but what he admires most, though, is the way people like Mitarashi Anko light their own bonfire.
20 - talent
"I am a woman of many many many talents," Anko's hollering voice looms over the surrounding noise, "but I raise my glass - shut your pretty mouth Yamanaka and listen, you're gonna learn something - to the men who very enthusiastically use their mouth to get us-we women-I mean I-off, men who should be forgiven a lot because of this, even if the list of their mis-mish-misdemeanours includes inoculating the Uzumaki kid Hokage-sama with an obsessive love for ramen!" (at the bar, Iruka is choking on his drink.)
21 - silence [1/3]
Naruto gapes wordlessly; Sasuke seems frozen; and Sakura is looking swiftly to the side, biting on her lower lip as if her life depended on her ability not to burst into helpless, hysterical laughter; and as he feels Anko shift on top of him he just knows she's going to say something that will make the situation impossibly worse.
22 - journey [2/3]
He's understandably taken aback when she pushes away and all she says, in an embarrassed tone, is "Kami, I'm sorry, that's not how it is-" and that's when he realises that they - the two of them together, what they have - have come a long way.
23 - fire [3/3]
"That's exactly how it is," he contradicts her, "now Naruto, remind me the discussion we've had about KNOCKING ON DOORS?"
24 - strength
Iruka teaches her that there isn't always a first stone; Anko teaches him that there isn't always a last straw.
25 - mask
Shikamaru stares morosely at the Hokage, whose sadistic streak, Shikamaru feels, is becoming more and more pronounced with each passing day; when it's become clear that Naruto is content grinning at him, he sighs and asks, "Naruto, do you hate me so much that you have to saddle me with a team of brats composed of Kiba's youngest cousin, the shark kid from Mist Country, and-" (what have I ever done to youuuu, he wants to wail, it’s not even as if I’d ended up with Sakuraaaaaa, but fortunately his dignity will not let him) "-Mitarashi Anko and Iruka-sensei's offspring?"
26 - ice
The silence of the villagers when they see Iruka smiling back at her, and the way he carries on, exactly as if he wasn't aware of it.
27 - fall
Anko snarls as she breaks out of the snake's deadly embrace, and with a flip that ends in a kick of the heels, breaks the monstrous beast's nape, then turns to help the grimacing chuunin back to his feet; he's not bleeding, but there's a stiffness in his walk indicating a definite if repressed limp; "You should never have come, Umino," she snaps, before grumbling, "I can't believe Tsunade thought you wouldn't be a dead-weight," and she's about to turn away and go when the other bristles and says sharply, "We're talking about my students here."
28 - forgotten
Konoha has a memory for the most unfair things, so when they think 'Umino Iruka' and 'Mitarashi Anko', they'll come up with a number of things - Orochimaru's student, man who cared for the Kyuubi, loud, disrespectful, suspicious - but not 'childhood sweethearts'.
29 - dance
"Coming through!" a loud voice cries as a blur of a body smashes through the window in a flip before landing on top of the chuunin's mission desk; the only person not utterly petrified in the room is the dark-haired chuunin with a scar running across his nose who snatched the mission scrolls, twisting down and to the side with an ease that denotes long practice.
30 - body
Iruka's last coherent thought, before becoming well and positively lost, is that there's a definite resemblance between her and Naruto's Oiroke no Jutsu, but thankfully not enough to jostle him out of the moment (it helps that Anko's really dark-haired).
31 - sacred
When Iruka licks her seal, nipping softly at the skin and making Anko thrash under him, it's as if she was still something beautiful.
32 - farewells
She's never been good at leaving things behind: in her experience, she's generally the one left behind, as exemplified by Orochimaru-sen-no, by Orochimaru, by that bastard Orochimaru- who didn't even bother killing her after he told her she was useless to him now (why, she'd wanted to scream, I'm yours, all yours, I've been a good student you said, Orochimaru-sensei, why why why am I not useful to you anymore, why) so when she's none-too-gently hauled into the village by ANBU (she wanted to be ANBU once, when Orochimaru-sensei was a captain) and a boy she feels she should remember from somewhere (but she can't remember anything, anything at all except the searing pain when Orochimaru-sama sealed her mark and it was like she'd lost a limb and a lung, and the pain searing through her when Orochimaru-sensei told her she bored him, as if a white-hot point had been driven through her skull), with a scar across his nose, stops dead when he sees her and shouts, "Anko!"
33 - world
"So, how was it, out of Konoha," Iruka asks quietly, and she can hear him sitting with his back to the door of her cell; she answers equally quietly, "I don't know - how was it in it?"
34 - formal
"We don't have to - I scared him half to death when he was twelve and you're Iruka-sensei, if there are two people in the world who don't have to dress up for the passing along of the funny hat, it's us!"
35 - fever
Of the many small crimes of Orochimaru that will never be condemned, because there's already so much to do with the big ones, first to Iruka's mind is Anko's shivers and the seal's rippling, reawakened years after it lay dormant by this sole encounter in the Forest - and he knows that the message is Orochimaru could take her back whenever he wanted and never bothered to; this, Iruka is even less likely to forget than the rest.
36 - laugh
The two froze, then relaxed as the steps started again and grew fainter; a few chuckles escaped them, and Iruka nibbled playfully on Anko's throat, "okay," he whispered, "now I think we can-" the door was flung open "AND WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE."
37 - lies
"I don't believe you," she sneers at the masked Interrogator (masked Interrogator, what the fuck, since when are ANBU and Intell & Interrogation on speaking terms, much less on take-a-leaf-from-the-other's-book terms) who leaves without another word; there's shuffling out of her cell, and a voice says (it's that annoying Umino Iruka again, she wants to forget his name, to not care, but she can't, because he reminds her his name every time he starts a one-sided conversation) "I'm Umino Iruka - remember me, Anko-san? - and I'm not an expert, but maybe you should give him a chance? Give Konoha a chance?" (she doesn't want to.)
38 - forever
She's stopped believing in it somewhere between the moment Orochimaru told her he didn't need her anymore and the moment she remembers waking up in a Konoha Intelligence and Interrogation cell; from now on, she's gonna take what she can and make the most of it (Iruka is always free on Saturday nights, she reminds herself).
39 - overwhelmed
She's back and alive and a special jounin and she's looking at him with a crooked little smile she never used to have and she's older and not exactly the same but it's okay because he too has changed and why can't he speak and she says/drawls, "Hi, Iruka," and Iruka realises that behind his desk the Hokage is quietly laughing at him and then Iruka realises that he's in love with her.
40 - whisper
"I can't believe I'm following you," Anko mutters furiously into the genin's ear, uncomfortably aware of being pressed against him in the closet they've found shelter in - correction, the closet in which Iruka has pulled her, ignoring her yelp, when their pursuers, judging from the sound of their running, where just about to turn the corner - "Orochimaru-sensei is going to be livid-" but Iruka interrupts her with a gleeful, "Oh, live a little."
41 - wait
"Oi, Iruka, aren't you done or what, keeping the brats in late-" the rest of the shouts are drowned by the earth-shaking sigh of Iruka-sensei as he pinches the bridge of his nose; the first stunned laugh comes out in giggles when the teacher opens the window and leans out to yell a response.
42 - talk
The door of his cell creaks open and Sasuke straightens so he can tell Naruto and Sakura to leave; but instead, he's astonished to see his old Academy teacher enter the cell, followed by - Mitarashi Anko, he remembers; Orochimaru's student - both smiling in a way that's strangely reminiscent of both Naruto and Sakura; "You and her are going to have something you should have had years ago," Iruka doesn't bother with social niceties, which Sasuke would appreciate more if it didn't clash with his memories of the man; "A talk."
43 - search
Anko leans so that her mouth is brushing against Iruka's ear as her hands roam over his chest; her coworkers are used to her quirks now, so they don't notice the abnormal tension in Iruka's shoulders or the words she slips into the chuunin's ear; "the Uzumaki kid has broken the Uchiha brat out and they've run away with Haruno, that's why Godaime wants to see you."
44 - hope
Anko has been gone for months now (he should call her Mitarashi Anko, especially since they've never been remotely close, but since she left, Iruka's been finding himself thinking of her more and more often, as 'Anko'), and he knows everyone thinks of her as a lost one at best, or a full-fledged enemy of the village, but genin Umino Iruka refuses to believe it; it's silly, but he trusts her.
45 - eclipse
It feels odd to realise one day that when people say "Orochimaru's student", they've stopped meaning her, and she feels liberated, but at the same time strangely lost; Orochimaru would call it a shift in paradigm, Iruka calls it an eclipse.
46 - gravity
With Anko in and out of his bed but never far from his life, with Naruto back in Konoha and as happy as he can beat it into his runaway teammate to be (Sakura helps), with a few of his old students expressing unexpected interest in his profession, Iruka can't help but think that there's another shoe waiting to be dropped, but as Anko shows every time she breaks through a window, that's what chakra control is for, right?
47 - highway
"Not much to be done to prevent an attack," Iruka sighs, dropping into a crouch next to the fire - that's why he hates escort missions, walking in the open with no other choice but to wait for the inevitable aggressors to show up for the obvious target in the shape of a wealthy-looking caravan, and not sensibly leaping from tree to tree; but his thoughts are interrupted by Anko's wild grin, "My genjutsu's gonna hold at least two more days."
48 - unknown
Anko thinks Iruka is the type of person who'd be given to romance, which is a realm she only knows from hearsay and childhood fantasies that should never have come true, but a shouted invitation to drink isn't romantic, and it's certainly not a date, so it's okay that she said yes, right?
49 - lock
Iruka ends up giving her a spare key because it's cheaper than replacing windows.
50 - breathe
"He's dead," Anko's choking, her head buried in the crook of Iruka's neck (warm), her fingers clasped in his hair and on his nape (must hurt), "he's dead and I wasn't there and I wasn't the one who killed hi-" she can't finish her sentence because she's sobbing and choking and (drowning, Iruka), and she feels his arms and hands go around her and hold her, as he says very quietly that Naruto and Sakura are going after Akatsuki to find their teammate and that there can be room on their team for her, and Anko feels laughter rising in her throat, and she takes big gulps of air.
Fandom: Naruto
Theme set: Gamma
Author: runespoor7
Rating: R
Notes: another crack!ship that doesn't get written enough. (not that I can blame anyone, what with their complete and utter lack and interaction…) (implied pairings, among which OroAnko) Dedicated to Cephied Variable, who doesn't know me but whose ficlet here gave me this ship.
01 - ring
It's her first time as an escort at a chuunin exam and also the first time she's trusted with an official position since Orochimaru, when Anko looks down into the tournament arena where two boys are fighting, both older than she is, and she cuts into her fellow chuunins' commentary, "forget the Uchiha, Umino's going to win."
02 - hero
There's Anko, whose name will end on the cenotaph but whose name is also spat on as Orochimaru's student, and there's Iruka, who may be a mere Academy teacher but who gave a boy a hitai-ate.
03 - memory
Iruka, though it would seem strange to Naruto, had a sensei once, who was neither a father nor a mother to him, but who was a good sensei all the same; Iruka's sensei was killed by Orochimaru, and no-one cares except Iruka's still living teammate, but he doesn't resent Konoha for that, because he doesn't know the names of all of Orochimaru's victims either; Iruka goes to the cenotaph on the anniversary of his sensei's death, and he stays silent as he stands, because his sensei was never one for useless words, and he leaves after a few minutes, because his sensei disliked wasted time (but really it's because Iruka has made his peace with his sensei's death a long time ago, it was a ninja's death and his sensei was neither a father nor a mother to him); later, he feels Anko's eyes rest on him a little longer than on other days (Anko remembers the name of every person Orochimaru has killed, even when she wishes she didn't).
04 - box
It comes as such a shock to discover she wasn't a good girl after all, that she doesn't question the judgement that she's a bad one until she sees Umino Iruka - bright kid, Kyuubi-orphan, and poster Leaf-nin - roll his eyes at the Kyuubi kid and treat him to ramen.
05 - run
Anko has never raced faster in her life than when she's trying to keep up with Iruka and distance their pursuers - it's at times like these she wishes she could use her Curse Seal, with its nifty wings - "If they catch us," she pants as she pushes her body to new limits, "or if Orochimaru-sensei learns about this - you're dead," but that good-for-nothing, attention-seeker, practical joker Umino Iruka - of whom, as of ten minutes ago, she's now the partner in crime, oh kami - only cackles.
06 - hurricane
Iruka has never thought of himself as a particularly orderly man (well, except for where his desk is concerned, because the students' papers are like the students themselves; undisciplined and prone to slipping away) but when he looks at his flat, he knows that there's a before and an after Anko.
07 - wings
Years later, Anko is confronted to Uchiha Sasuke's Second Level of the Curse Seal and she wants to scream until her throat is raw and jump away or at him, but a hand suddenly seizes hers and squeezes until she remembers that she's alright, she's human, and Sasuke is only demonstrating as part of his trial; out of the corner of her eyes, Iruka isn't looking at her, but is focused on his ex-students, his jaw clenched, and Anko squeezes his hand back.
08 - cold
"Not at all~" Anko trumpets abroad, grabbing Iruka's hands and stuffing them under her raincoat, "here, see, I'm very warm~!"
09 - red
He knows he blushes, but is it really a reason for Anko to provoke him?
10 - drink
Orochimaru-sensei doesn't drink alcohol and always speak with faint, immeasurable contempt of those who do (and indeed, if Anko can speak for herself, Orochimaru-sensei holds his rank much better than either of his teammates); she tries to duplicate his expression of unutterable disdain for the dark-haired scarred kid - a genin, a trouble-maker, Umino Iruka - who's grinning cheekily at her, a bottle of sake in each hand (he's taller than her, but it doesn't matter; she has seen Orochimaru-sensei bring shinobi twice larger than him down under the force of his mere presence), but his grin doesn't even falter.
11 - midnight
On a roof, two children side by side; the girl wears a hitai-ate coquettishly tied around her waist, and, to the boy, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she stares intently at the sky, the starlight makes her pretty, delicate, unattainable in a completely different way than she is during the day, fierce and gifted and prissily trotting after her sensei's heels; "won't Orochimaru be angry if he learns you were here?" he mumbles (not knowing why because really, he's one who challenged her to come)-"shh," comes the imperious answer as she points a shooting star.
12 - temptation
Anko pushes him against the nearest wall, hooks her leg around him, and assaults his mouth with hers, while Iruka clutches her forearms and kisses back for approximately ten seconds, before the door opens and they hastily break apart - be professional, be professional.
13 - view
The scary woman swept down and the handful of kids instinctively cowered, her sharp grin the only visible thing in the shadows of her face as she leant - "Sorry, kids, still not today you're gonna get your essays back, Iruka-sensei didn't have the time to grade them last night."
14 - music
Konoha says that Iruka lives to the beat of a different drum, but that's just because it's easier to ignore that he's actually helping Anko set up the percussion (and the trumpets, and the guitars…).
15 - silk
"Yeah, but I'm not really a kimono kind of girl," Anko explains; "Gurk," Iruka says.
16 - cover
Tsunade closed her eyes, because really, she knew from the first that it was a bad idea to condone that 'pretend to be a couple infiltration mission', when it had always been a matter of lovebirds wanting a vacation together, and always more trouble than it was worth; it had been the case for the Nara so-called genius and the Sand girl who owned his ass (they weren't even from the same village, how would such a mission even go, for crying out loud), it had been the case for Hyuuga Hinata and her cousin (wouldn't it have been more convenient to pretend they had to leave on 'Hyuuga business'), it had definitely been the case for Naruto and his Uchiha (Tsunade had tried to explain the concept of homophobia to them; when her apprentice came in claiming that she just had to go to that precise same area, she'd just thrown her arms in the air and given up), but this took the cake; she opened her eyes, took in the touching knees, gleaming eyes, and air of disgustingly bubbly sexual bliss around the two, and made a vague though eloquent gesture - "Just have at it, will you," she snapped, wishing Jiraiya to the deepest circles of hell for revealing to a select few individuals that she was a sucker for romance.
17 - promise
When he finds her, he knows at once that she's already been told of Uchiha Sasuke's defection, and he wants nothing more than reach out for her and shake her and tell her that it's not her fault, but it won't do any good if he's the one doing it; Morino Ibiki catches his look as Iruka turns to leave, and tilts his head to the side in a way that means he'll make sure she's okay.
18 - dream
Sometimes Anko fantasises about Orochimaru-sensei if he saw her now, how well she's shed the remnants of serpent skin clinging to her, how her happiness blazes under the Konoha sun (she's got a man she wouldn't exchange for anything, she's trusted by the Hokage, she's a Leaf-nin in all her glory and she can creep genins out of their mind and it makes Iruka groan, as if it was some lame joke), but then she's afraid she's just wishing for his approval, and she fears how devastated she'd be if he smirked at her - she could have been great, and now she's only trying to be good.
19 - candle
No use in cursing the darkness, especially when there are people in it, and in Konoha, there's no excuse for not firing a Katon; Iruka's willing to do his part, but what he admires most, though, is the way people like Mitarashi Anko light their own bonfire.
20 - talent
"I am a woman of many many many talents," Anko's hollering voice looms over the surrounding noise, "but I raise my glass - shut your pretty mouth Yamanaka and listen, you're gonna learn something - to the men who very enthusiastically use their mouth to get us-we women-I mean I-off, men who should be forgiven a lot because of this, even if the list of their mis-mish-misdemeanours includes inoculating the Uzumaki kid Hokage-sama with an obsessive love for ramen!" (at the bar, Iruka is choking on his drink.)
21 - silence [1/3]
Naruto gapes wordlessly; Sasuke seems frozen; and Sakura is looking swiftly to the side, biting on her lower lip as if her life depended on her ability not to burst into helpless, hysterical laughter; and as he feels Anko shift on top of him he just knows she's going to say something that will make the situation impossibly worse.
22 - journey [2/3]
He's understandably taken aback when she pushes away and all she says, in an embarrassed tone, is "Kami, I'm sorry, that's not how it is-" and that's when he realises that they - the two of them together, what they have - have come a long way.
23 - fire [3/3]
"That's exactly how it is," he contradicts her, "now Naruto, remind me the discussion we've had about KNOCKING ON DOORS?"
24 - strength
Iruka teaches her that there isn't always a first stone; Anko teaches him that there isn't always a last straw.
25 - mask
Shikamaru stares morosely at the Hokage, whose sadistic streak, Shikamaru feels, is becoming more and more pronounced with each passing day; when it's become clear that Naruto is content grinning at him, he sighs and asks, "Naruto, do you hate me so much that you have to saddle me with a team of brats composed of Kiba's youngest cousin, the shark kid from Mist Country, and-" (what have I ever done to youuuu, he wants to wail, it’s not even as if I’d ended up with Sakuraaaaaa, but fortunately his dignity will not let him) "-Mitarashi Anko and Iruka-sensei's offspring?"
26 - ice
The silence of the villagers when they see Iruka smiling back at her, and the way he carries on, exactly as if he wasn't aware of it.
27 - fall
Anko snarls as she breaks out of the snake's deadly embrace, and with a flip that ends in a kick of the heels, breaks the monstrous beast's nape, then turns to help the grimacing chuunin back to his feet; he's not bleeding, but there's a stiffness in his walk indicating a definite if repressed limp; "You should never have come, Umino," she snaps, before grumbling, "I can't believe Tsunade thought you wouldn't be a dead-weight," and she's about to turn away and go when the other bristles and says sharply, "We're talking about my students here."
28 - forgotten
Konoha has a memory for the most unfair things, so when they think 'Umino Iruka' and 'Mitarashi Anko', they'll come up with a number of things - Orochimaru's student, man who cared for the Kyuubi, loud, disrespectful, suspicious - but not 'childhood sweethearts'.
29 - dance
"Coming through!" a loud voice cries as a blur of a body smashes through the window in a flip before landing on top of the chuunin's mission desk; the only person not utterly petrified in the room is the dark-haired chuunin with a scar running across his nose who snatched the mission scrolls, twisting down and to the side with an ease that denotes long practice.
30 - body
Iruka's last coherent thought, before becoming well and positively lost, is that there's a definite resemblance between her and Naruto's Oiroke no Jutsu, but thankfully not enough to jostle him out of the moment (it helps that Anko's really dark-haired).
31 - sacred
When Iruka licks her seal, nipping softly at the skin and making Anko thrash under him, it's as if she was still something beautiful.
32 - farewells
She's never been good at leaving things behind: in her experience, she's generally the one left behind, as exemplified by Orochimaru-sen-no, by Orochimaru, by that bastard Orochimaru- who didn't even bother killing her after he told her she was useless to him now (why, she'd wanted to scream, I'm yours, all yours, I've been a good student you said, Orochimaru-sensei, why why why am I not useful to you anymore, why) so when she's none-too-gently hauled into the village by ANBU (she wanted to be ANBU once, when Orochimaru-sensei was a captain) and a boy she feels she should remember from somewhere (but she can't remember anything, anything at all except the searing pain when Orochimaru-sama sealed her mark and it was like she'd lost a limb and a lung, and the pain searing through her when Orochimaru-sensei told her she bored him, as if a white-hot point had been driven through her skull), with a scar across his nose, stops dead when he sees her and shouts, "Anko!"
33 - world
"So, how was it, out of Konoha," Iruka asks quietly, and she can hear him sitting with his back to the door of her cell; she answers equally quietly, "I don't know - how was it in it?"
34 - formal
"We don't have to - I scared him half to death when he was twelve and you're Iruka-sensei, if there are two people in the world who don't have to dress up for the passing along of the funny hat, it's us!"
35 - fever
Of the many small crimes of Orochimaru that will never be condemned, because there's already so much to do with the big ones, first to Iruka's mind is Anko's shivers and the seal's rippling, reawakened years after it lay dormant by this sole encounter in the Forest - and he knows that the message is Orochimaru could take her back whenever he wanted and never bothered to; this, Iruka is even less likely to forget than the rest.
36 - laugh
The two froze, then relaxed as the steps started again and grew fainter; a few chuckles escaped them, and Iruka nibbled playfully on Anko's throat, "okay," he whispered, "now I think we can-" the door was flung open "AND WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE."
37 - lies
"I don't believe you," she sneers at the masked Interrogator (masked Interrogator, what the fuck, since when are ANBU and Intell & Interrogation on speaking terms, much less on take-a-leaf-from-the-other's-book terms) who leaves without another word; there's shuffling out of her cell, and a voice says (it's that annoying Umino Iruka again, she wants to forget his name, to not care, but she can't, because he reminds her his name every time he starts a one-sided conversation) "I'm Umino Iruka - remember me, Anko-san? - and I'm not an expert, but maybe you should give him a chance? Give Konoha a chance?" (she doesn't want to.)
38 - forever
She's stopped believing in it somewhere between the moment Orochimaru told her he didn't need her anymore and the moment she remembers waking up in a Konoha Intelligence and Interrogation cell; from now on, she's gonna take what she can and make the most of it (Iruka is always free on Saturday nights, she reminds herself).
39 - overwhelmed
She's back and alive and a special jounin and she's looking at him with a crooked little smile she never used to have and she's older and not exactly the same but it's okay because he too has changed and why can't he speak and she says/drawls, "Hi, Iruka," and Iruka realises that behind his desk the Hokage is quietly laughing at him and then Iruka realises that he's in love with her.
40 - whisper
"I can't believe I'm following you," Anko mutters furiously into the genin's ear, uncomfortably aware of being pressed against him in the closet they've found shelter in - correction, the closet in which Iruka has pulled her, ignoring her yelp, when their pursuers, judging from the sound of their running, where just about to turn the corner - "Orochimaru-sensei is going to be livid-" but Iruka interrupts her with a gleeful, "Oh, live a little."
41 - wait
"Oi, Iruka, aren't you done or what, keeping the brats in late-" the rest of the shouts are drowned by the earth-shaking sigh of Iruka-sensei as he pinches the bridge of his nose; the first stunned laugh comes out in giggles when the teacher opens the window and leans out to yell a response.
42 - talk
The door of his cell creaks open and Sasuke straightens so he can tell Naruto and Sakura to leave; but instead, he's astonished to see his old Academy teacher enter the cell, followed by - Mitarashi Anko, he remembers; Orochimaru's student - both smiling in a way that's strangely reminiscent of both Naruto and Sakura; "You and her are going to have something you should have had years ago," Iruka doesn't bother with social niceties, which Sasuke would appreciate more if it didn't clash with his memories of the man; "A talk."
43 - search
Anko leans so that her mouth is brushing against Iruka's ear as her hands roam over his chest; her coworkers are used to her quirks now, so they don't notice the abnormal tension in Iruka's shoulders or the words she slips into the chuunin's ear; "the Uzumaki kid has broken the Uchiha brat out and they've run away with Haruno, that's why Godaime wants to see you."
44 - hope
Anko has been gone for months now (he should call her Mitarashi Anko, especially since they've never been remotely close, but since she left, Iruka's been finding himself thinking of her more and more often, as 'Anko'), and he knows everyone thinks of her as a lost one at best, or a full-fledged enemy of the village, but genin Umino Iruka refuses to believe it; it's silly, but he trusts her.
45 - eclipse
It feels odd to realise one day that when people say "Orochimaru's student", they've stopped meaning her, and she feels liberated, but at the same time strangely lost; Orochimaru would call it a shift in paradigm, Iruka calls it an eclipse.
46 - gravity
With Anko in and out of his bed but never far from his life, with Naruto back in Konoha and as happy as he can beat it into his runaway teammate to be (Sakura helps), with a few of his old students expressing unexpected interest in his profession, Iruka can't help but think that there's another shoe waiting to be dropped, but as Anko shows every time she breaks through a window, that's what chakra control is for, right?
47 - highway
"Not much to be done to prevent an attack," Iruka sighs, dropping into a crouch next to the fire - that's why he hates escort missions, walking in the open with no other choice but to wait for the inevitable aggressors to show up for the obvious target in the shape of a wealthy-looking caravan, and not sensibly leaping from tree to tree; but his thoughts are interrupted by Anko's wild grin, "My genjutsu's gonna hold at least two more days."
48 - unknown
Anko thinks Iruka is the type of person who'd be given to romance, which is a realm she only knows from hearsay and childhood fantasies that should never have come true, but a shouted invitation to drink isn't romantic, and it's certainly not a date, so it's okay that she said yes, right?
49 - lock
Iruka ends up giving her a spare key because it's cheaper than replacing windows.
50 - breathe
"He's dead," Anko's choking, her head buried in the crook of Iruka's neck (warm), her fingers clasped in his hair and on his nape (must hurt), "he's dead and I wasn't there and I wasn't the one who killed hi-" she can't finish her sentence because she's sobbing and choking and (drowning, Iruka), and she feels his arms and hands go around her and hold her, as he says very quietly that Naruto and Sakura are going after Akatsuki to find their teammate and that there can be room on their team for her, and Anko feels laughter rising in her throat, and she takes big gulps of air.