[Log] Chick Fight!
Who: Kurenai and Anko
When: Wednesday, May 21st
Where: Cena
What: Two old friends have an unexpected run-in
Rating: R (Violence, Language)
It was disappointing really.
For all her years devoted to the military, there had never been anything like this during her time patrolling the streets, waiting and hoping for something to happen. Day after day of the random boring incidents of general misbehaving, maybe a murder here or there but never had she seen the streets lined with patrols, not like this.
And it was fucking exciting.
Especially as she walked amongst them with none of them any the wiser. It had only been a little tricky finding someone about her size, her last street uniform having been rendered to shreds courtesy of Rin, but the effect was worth it as she nodded to a pair situated at the end of the street. The air was rank with the smell of death and that distinctive smell of burnt flesh, whether that was the new alternative to mass graves or just the military's way of sweeping their evidence under the rug Anko wasn't sure but it was effective regardless. As she moved off the main streets the number of troops dwindled a bit, more distantly spaced out and far easier to pick off.
Or at least to be a decent warm up, a stretching of the legs in a way. She'd been cooped up entirely too long and in the time since Kankurou had followed her into a similar Cena side street, Anko hadn't done much of anything except tend to Gaara, try to make sure Kankurou was somewhat taking care of himself and not having time to herself. Especially not like this. This was the high she needed, the physical exertion, to focus on the plotting and planning gave her a sense of accomplishment where there was none in just existing day by day, the rush of holding another's life in her hands for those moments before permanently staining them with one more soul freed from it's mortal coil.
And there was the lucky chosen one now. A single troop hovering towards the end of this particular crossroads, not another person for at least a block. Flexing her wrists slightly, Anko tested the tautness of the spring mechanisms that would wait for the right movement where they would eject a set of blades into her hands in a split second if necessary. But for now, she just wanted to get her hands dirty, feel the delicious pain of busted knuckles and the contact that could only be found going hand to flesh.
She just had to make sure to rid him of his gun first.
Otherwise it just wouldn't be fair.
Strangely enough, it was cold.
Hollow sounds of military boots bounced off the asphalt lining the the crossroads as Kurenai paced back and forth, her right thumb hooked onto the gun strap that was slung over her shoulder and her left hand stiffly swinging back and forth. Her black helmet encased the world in gray, but it was still clear to see the roads leading up to where she was. Earlier, her men had been called back to the temporary base camp made near Sino . She was thankful that she hadn't lost any of them, but earlier during a house raid, they had all came onto a shocking discovery of a dead family within the abandoned apartment complex. The skeletal bones littering the place were the only visual evidence that the virus had taken its toll here in the Red, as well.
She wasn't able to down the meal that was dished out to the officers. Every time she looked down at her simple meal of mashed potatoes and corned beef, she would smell the rankness of the room they had came across. Being the only officer present during the event, she had taken off her helmet to take a good look around, knowing very well that she would be the one writing the report. And the stench of rotting meat was enough to make her forgo the military's mandatory nutrient intake for the day.
Now she found herself alone, a state that she needed to be in at the moment. An extra layer of a borrowed military jacket covered up the insignia of her lieutenant's rank, sewn onto her red Arma uniform.
And strangely enough, she wished she had a smoke.
Silently slinking amongst the shadows, Anko inched her way closer to the soldier, being ever so careful to not make the slightest sound to alert the other person. The person rotated on their heel to start pacing back in the opposite direction, allowing the dingy red light to reflect off the similarly colored uniform illuminating curves that had been unseen previously due to the angling of the soldier's body.
Well damn. The sudden rush of disappointment was nearly enough to make Anko break her stealth-mode and sulk away. Women were no fun, in her time spent clawing through the ranks there were only a select handful that she had been proud to call comrade while the rest had surely only been allowed in to keep back the protests of sexual discrimination. They were a whiny lot for the most part and completely unfit for anything beyond desk work.
But at this point she decided that it was a start, an elementary warm-up as opposed to the challenge her blood had been singing for but a start nonetheless. Watching silently from the shadows, the other woman was easily wearing a trench in the sidewalk, sixteen steps one way, sixteen back, turn and begin again. And even more surprisingly, she didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest about waltzing about in a place that had meant death for far stronger people.
The little ditz really needed to be taught a lesson about what sort of monsters were really lurking about.
She waited for that sixteenth step and the slight grinding of gravel beneath the military-issued boot before stealthily slipping behind the woman, a knife whipped out and slicing though the nylon webbing strap holding the gun in place, Anko's free hand quickly ripping the firearm out of the woman's grasp to send it skating across the pavement and into the shadows that had once been her hiding place.
"Hmm, shameful what they'd allow to pass as a soldier now-a-days. I guess good little lapdogs are hard to come by so they take whatever walks through the door." Hopping back a half step, Anko waited a few heartbeats to see what the woman would do before continuing, her body easily hovering in an attentive stance so that she could easily slide into either an offensive or defensive maneuver.
Oh well. At least it shouldn't take her too long to finish with this chick before moving on to a real challenge.
At the sudden change of the wind, Kurenai was alert and twisted around to face the disturbance. Her hands reached instinctively for the automatic that had been slung over her shoulder only a second ago, but she found that in the next second, it was already gone and twisted from her hold. Her entire body tensed at the sight of the offender before her and her hand immediately went for her service pistol-- which was not there. Silently, she cursed herself for being empty-headed and leaving her pistol back at the base before she came out. Hands clenched into fists, instead, positioning themselves in a defensive stance.
Red eyes narrowed behind the veil of tinted plastic as Kurenai observed the enemy, wondering if this was one of the Arma turning into a traitor or was it just someone playing dress-up? The uniform the offender was wearing seemed newly issued and included every little detail that had been incorporated into it that made it unique to the uniforms of past times. And by the looks of it, the offender was a woman from the physical appearance of curves and by the voice that carried out over to her.
For a moment, Kurenai froze her entire body in order to think straight and contemplate what was the next move that she should take. Taunting words hardly did anything to her own mental composure, herself being one of those people that could compose themselves even when inside a burning building. Emotions were a rare pleasure that she allowed herself to have from time to time, but she didn't carry them out into the field
"You act as if you'd know the difference," Kurenai calmly responded before bounding forward, her right hand slipping in her right boot to slid out a knife concealed within it. There were questions, but since arriving to Cena, things were always better to detain the offender and then question them. It was hard trying to get answers when bullets were still flying at you.
Her eyebrow lifted unseen through her visor at the other woman's composed state, could it be possible she miscalculated a little? Even still, she wasn't going to allow her hopes to raise just yet. But by the smooth way the woman moved to reach for the concealed weapon in her boot, opting for the offensive route, Anko's spirits lifted immensely, even more so seeing the blade glinting in the dim light of the street lamps. A woman after her own heart!
Almost gleeful that her night was suddenly looking up again, Anko's body moved automatically seeing the shifting of muscles underneath the fabric, her own stance loosening up to make it easier to follow the other woman's flow of movement. Her own blade was casually tossed into her non-dominant hand, the other reaching out at the right moment to wrap around the other woman's wrist when their bodies collided. Taking the impact easily with care to angle herself so that the blade just snagged the clingy fabric, Anko used the momentum to turn the two of them around, twisting the woman's arm so that her wrist was pinned against her back in an awkward position that could be quite painful with just the right amount of pressure, a point proven as it assisted in forcing her to drop the knife before it was kicked off to join the woman's lost firearm. Anko's other arm looped around her neck in an effective choke-hold, knife still in hand but not used as a threatening tactic, more as a kick to the woman's pride to say that weapons weren't even necessary in subduing her.
"Not bad sugar, almost thought you were actually going to be fun there for a moment," Anko purred, the close contact nearly having their helmets bumping together. "And trust me, I've seen my share of real soldiers over time. You're a far cry from the worst of them. But think of it this way, you'll finally have a real purpose, if only to be a small slap in the face of the failure of such a desolate institution."
Within the black confines of her helmet, Kurenai seethed at having been discharged of her weapon so quickly, especially when a loud gasp exited her tightly clenched teeth at the spark of pain from the other's firm hold. It again, filled her mind with doubts about her performance of late, but when you're pinned in a tight space like this with a knife waving in front of your eyes, it wasn't really the time to think about it.
Her mind quickly ran through her other options for weapons on her self, only to come up with nothing. The words of her offender only made her delicate brows crease further, herself becoming disgusted at how this impersonator was talking about the armed forces of Curia in whole and as if she was nothing but a rag doll in all of this. She would be lying to herself if it wasn't the stab at her pride that finally made her take the risk and twist her legs within those of her offender's, successfully making the both of them painfully topple onto the ground, with the impersonator on the ground and Kurenai lying on top, face up.
Another harsher gasp escaped from her mouth again as her arm was now pinned under her own weight, but the grip on it had lessened, if only for a bit. This was enough for Kurenai to twist her body to the side, her helmeted head harmlessly batting away the knife hovering above her. With her arms finally free, she quickly stood up again, aiming a hard kick at the hand with the knife, enough to numb it with pain so that the weapon would drop. With one of her boots now stepping on the wrist of said hand with great pressure, Kurenai quickly pressed a knee against the chest of the masked woman.
"Shut up," Kurenai finally breathed out, still trying to catch her breath and deal with the throbbing pain traveling up her right arm. She twisted her foot against the outstretched hand pinned underneath her boot cruelly. "Shut up. I know my purpose but I question yours." Suddenly the blank reflective surface of the helmet looking up to her was the face of every single man, woman and child of Cena, those that resisted and those that have died.
"You have no right to talk about things you don't know. You have no right."
Even with her helmet taking the brunt of the impact, Anko still saw stars when it connected with the pavement, though it was swiftly forgotten with the crippling pain that suddenly was emanating from her now empty hand being ground into the pavement under the woman's heel. A small part of her was impressed with the turn-about, but she was even more so pissed off for ending up on her back with this bitch seething down at her like she knew what was she was talking about.
"I have no right??" she hissed, the knee planted on her chest making it only slightly difficult to draw a full breath. Before it became too much more of an issue she kicked a leg up and hooked it around the woman's neck, using the the tactic of surprise and brute force to yank her backwards, almost sighing in relief as the pressure was released from her chest and her hand simultaneously. There wasn't time for such a luxury sadly, instead she was quickly rolling over and away, pulling herself up to watch the form doing the same. A few flexes of her hand left Anko wincing, the blissful numb from the stunned nerves was wearing off quickly and the throbbing pain was swiftly taking over but it was shoved to the back of her mind like she had been taught to. "I have every right, far more than you do being here, you and all the others like you. Don't talk of having a purpose when mindless idiots like yourself end up here like chickens lined up for the slaughter. You're expendable, for all your fanciful ideas of camaraderie, they don't give a damn about you and you're willing to lay your neck on the chopping block at the first opportunity? People used to damn near kill themselves to get into that uniform, now you're putting it on just to die, where's the purpose in that?"
Rather than waiting for the other woman to jump first, this time Anko was closing in the distance, her non-injured hand balled up onto a fist that found itself swiftly planted in the woman's gut, while her throbbing one quickly palmed another one of her blades, the finely honed blade easily slicing though the lycra suit to expose the pale skin beneath, a thin line of red quickly appearing before bleeding into the crimson color of the uniform.
"First blood Princess. I can do this quick and easy if you just give over, or we can do this the hard way where there won't be a piece of you big enough to identify. It's your call."
A blast of hot air escaped from Kurenai's mouth as she gasped for air, fogging up her visor for a moment before the hot air escaped through the side vents of the helmet. Anyone could be good with a knife and anyone could be handy with a firearm. They both had the basic moves, but when it came to hand to hand combat, Kurenai didn't know any civilian that could maneuver themselves in the way that the woman had just did. In fact, Kurenai was counting on the woman being a civilian from the beginning, but so far the knife tricks and the able hand-to-hand proved her wrong.
She only had a couple of seconds to suck in sweet air before she was hit in the gut, the blow having been too fast for her to see coming. A thin line of blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth, blending in perfectly with her own crimson lips. It almost brought her down to her knees when a glimpse of the knife made her entire body jerk to the right, evading the deadly metal, only to be nicked as a result. Kurenai breathed heavily, her breath fogging up the helmet within with every second, but stopped when a step back alerted her of something hard beneath her boots. With a quick glance, she realized it was her knife from before and quickly picked it up, disregarding the firearm that laid near it. Seeing how fast this woman moved, Kurenai wouldn't have made it in time anyways.
"Don't be so confident," Kurenai breathed out, a gloved hand pressing against the thin slice of blood tracing down her arm. "It's called a 'duty'. Whether you're a citizen of this District or not, you know what's going on in here. It's madness. We're just making sure it stays here and doesn't go anywhere. It's not something that everyone can understand." Once again, the Lieutenant bounded forward but instead of going head on, she quickly swerved to the right and fell into a crouch, her knife slicing through the uniform and biting into the flesh of the woman's calf, before rolling away and then back on her feet again right behind the woman.
"Give up and surrender already!"
Cocking her elbow back, Kurenai then let it loose and jammed it into the back of the helmeted head with enough force to make the woman lose balance and tilt forward. Again, Kurenai tried to ground the offender for a second attempt to question her. After this, however, there would be no more attempts.
The burning sensation that snaked across the width of her calf was entirely too familiar but it was overshadowed in the more crippling hit to the back of her head, the second in intervals too close to be any good. Nor did it help her cause to pitch forward from the impact, increasing the damage to her already mangled hand when they instinctively hit the pavement to prevent her head from bouncing off the concrete. Before the bitch could make any attempt to pin her down, something Anko wasn't too sure she could deal with until her vision cleared, she drew a knee up and kicked back mulishly, hoping for that lovely cracking of a knee bone shattering. She wasn't privy to that particular sound but there was a satisfying grunt and the sound of the other woman hitting the pavement.
Immediately using the moment to her advantage, Anko rolled away to put a safe amount of distance between her and the other woman, idly noticing the copper taste in her mouth. If she had been half as cocky as she had been when she'd stalked up behind the trooper, Anko would have had no problem prying off the stifling helmet to spit out the bloody mouthful but with this woman proving to be more adept than originally thought, it wasn't worth the risk of the other woman being able to identify her at a later time if things didn't pan out as originally planned. Instead she suffered in silence, falling back slightly when too much weight was placed on her injured hand and wrist.
"If that's what you claim to be doing, then you've failed miserably. That I understand. Countless people have died and are still dying by your fuck ups, and you think killing off even more can fix that? For all you idiots know that damned thing probably originated from your very own labs and you wouldn't know any fuckin' different or you just don't give a damn about anyone who doesn't have a place in the Blue, not that that would be a big God-damned secret." Hefting herself up off the cool ground, Anko's vision only blurred slightly with the change of altitude. Seeing the Arceos trying to lift herself as well, a couple of sharp kicks were delivered to the woman's ribs, knocking her over and onto her back. Plopping down on the woman's thighs to hold her immobile, Anko's knife was pressed threateningly to her opponent's throat.
"I think I'd rather hear those sweet words from you now Princess, it's not nearly as satisfying an ending to not hear you give up like a good little girl."
The movement had not carried out as Kurenai planned, seeing that she had found herself coughing up more blood and flat on her back, with the knife now pressed lightly against her rising and falling neck. Along with a fine layer of moisture, her visor from within was now decorated with specks of blood. Air wasn't enough when it came to confined spaces like her helmet and it didn't allow her to look clearly at the woman, now bearing down on her, her own face obscured by an equally black visor. An attempt was made to muffle the long drawled out groan from her mouth by biting on her lips, the pain having been brought out by the slight shift of her upper torso. By the feeling of it, the woman must've caused a broken rib or two.
Kurenai tried swallowing, but every time it resulted in more painful coughing, with blood spraying across her visor and sliding down in red tendrils down her chin and slipping out onto her neck. It seemed futile to try anything at this point, seeing that the knife was closer to her throat than what the knife still gripped in her hand was to. Just for a moment, her thought process as a Lieutenant failed when all she was thinking about was clean air and the possibility of death staring down at her face.
"Go to Hell," she gasped out hoarsely, wincing at the further dent the knife made in her flesh. A lingering flame was behind her eyes as she looked back defiantly through her red tinted visor, not giving this woman the satisfaction of killing off yet another nameless soldier. "You're not doing anything differently right now. So why don't you just pull the knife and get over it. If you're waiting for me to surrender, then you really don't know anything about us at all."
"For starters, the name isn't 'Princess'. It's Lieutenant Kurenai Yuuhi. We have names and we have lives. We don't take anyone else's without reason."
"Don't forget it."
Anko's snarky response was lost as all of the breath rushed from her lungs with the woman's revelation. Suddenly she couldn't get away fast enough, falling back off the other woman and hurrying to put as much distance between that prone body and hers. It couldn't be. She was hearing things, she had to be. Her mind had finally hit it's breaking point and this was it's game. Throw a ghost of her past at her now when she had really hit rock bottom and watch her break. What was next?
Was Sensei sitting on the next block waiting for her?
Flashbacks of a gangly girl with a wild rats-nest-tangle-of-hair at her side, trudging through the grueling training bled into a more self-assured partner with a perpetually amused quirk of her lips, listening to one of her own rants about another official, though Anko just couldn't meld her Kurenai with that of this faceless bitch she'd been seconds away from gutting.
Worried crimson eyes following her down the hallway as she was being led away, her training not allowing her to follow and rail at Anko like she could see Kurenai wanted to do, wanting to know what in the hell was going on when there would be no immediate answers coming.
I never even got to say goodbye...
The wall at her back rejected all efforts to meld herself with the brick, to somehow get away before this ghost could possibly damage her, that name doing more to her than either strike had since Anko had instigated this whole thing.
But even amidst her panic, Anko had to wonder what the helmet hid, just how had the years changed the woman she had once called friend. That invisible chasm that separated the Arceos Lieutenant and the Cena Exile wouldn't allow her that privilege though, and even now Anko already knew she would do anything to keep the other woman away. The old hurt of the people she had once called friend not doing anything to stop her persecution, to not seek her out and see if she even survived the death sentence a Cena exile usually meant to one of their kind reared its ugly head but then so did the shame of one still sitting at the pinnacle that had once been hers looking down from on high to see this person who amounted to less then the scum on their boot.
"No," she croaked out, more to herself then the other occupant of the desolate street. "I know too much, that's the fucking problem." And knowing only made it that much worse. Why hadn't Kurenai fought back more? Was she really just going to lay there and glare through the faceless mask and wait for Anko's knife to slice through tendons, veins and arteries, for her to slowly drown in her own blood if she didn't die from the blood loss first?
But which was worse? Hearing now who this previously faceless minion was or if she had found out after the fact, the blood staining the ground matching those once bright, now dead eyes?
Holding her knife out protectively in front of her, Anko watched the other woman with wide eyes that were only half focused on the here and now and half trapped in the past.
Where Kurenai had expected a thrust against her throat, she was then unexpectedly met with a breath of air as the pressure suddenly disappeared from her neck, allowing her to breathe easier. Then suddenly the entire weight of the woman on top of her was lifted away and through the red mist on her visor, all that was left was just the dark sky. She immediately jumped to the hope that she had been saved by a patrol, but when she pushed herself up, there were no other officers or soldiers to speak of. Only the shaking form of the offender that had suddenly backed herself into the wall, a sight that puzzled Kurenai and immediately put her on guard again. Maybe this was a second chance. Maybe she had somehow drawn fear into this woman and shed some light into her.
Even so, Kurenai kept her eyes on the woman at all times as she struggled to stand, the pain still resonating through her gut and ribs. By the feel of it, it seemed that quite the number were bruised and a few were broken. But seeing that she was still able to move, it couldn't have been that much harm. Military issued standard boots slid against the gravel once or twice as she placed an incredible amount of pressure on them as she stood up, her hand once more reaching out for the knife that she had released during her time of imprisonment on the ground.
This time, Kurenai had no energy left to be on the offense, only to copy the woman's stance and wait for her to give the first move. There was no sure chance that Kurenai would even survive whatever came this time, but she wouldn't give up right there. Crimson eyes stared through the visor at the woman, the vision swaying only slightly now and then because of her unsteady balance.
"Listen," she rasped out, carefully, trying not to provoke another string of violent and painful coughs, "I can get you help. You have to believe me when I say I don't want to kill you or harm you in any way that might endanger your life. Put down your weapon and step away from it. That's all it takes. Otherwise, neither of us will get any where with this. Do you understand? I can't let you loose to kill whoever you want. Those are my men out there and I cannot allow you to take them down like this."
From offensive tactics to defensive tactics to terrorist negotiations. At this point, Kurenai was pulling out every single thing out of the damn rule book, in order to assure that the second chance given to her was not wasted. Whatever happened to the woman that made her move away, at the moment was unclear to the Lieutenant. However, in a place like this, you don't take chances like this for granted. You bless your luck and you damn well try to make things stay that way.
Though Kurenai's injuries were evident in her voice, Anko snapped back to herself a little bit, hearing the soothing negotiator in place now rather than the hard ass who had been seeking her own submission not moments ago.
"Help? Why would I want help from the same bastards who put me here? The only help I would get would be a 4 x 4 cell before my execution, and that's if I'm one of the lucky ones," Anko spat out, her eyes slitting behind the obscuring faceplate. While she had no qualms against acting against a faceless soldier or even some who weren't so faceless when they were threatening her, Kurenai was different...but even with her own sense of morality leading her there was still that little voice that was slowly growing in intensity telling her to finish what she started. This woman was a threat to her and those she held dear just like every other person who donned that damnedable uniform.
"If your men can't hold their own against one person, they have no reason to be here, a fact I was in the process of drilling through your own head. You...I have no interest in you anymore." Slowly Anko pulled herself to her feet, her calf burning from the strain but she didn't lower the knife as she kept her eyes leveled on the Lieutenant. "Run back to your barracks, have them tend to you. I don't want to see you around here again. Stay in your safe little Blue District. Keep your men away from here unless you desire to be attending even more funerals."
It was said in training that the most reliable officers, were the ones lacking emotions. Pain, pride, happiness, love, grief, rage. They were all things that could turn against a soldier, getting them killed when they should've pulled the trigger or plunged the knife into someone's heart. From outside opinion, it made them less human and more machine, something people accused the government of making their soldiers into. But when your mind only knows how to wield a gun and which arteries within a human being are more vulnerable to break under pressure, or how to screw up a person's psyche so much that they break; it was the only thing worth knowing.
For Kurenai, she was imperfect in the light of these conditions. Flawed, even. But even she couldn't hold back herself when she stepped forward, painful as it was, but she couldn't let the words slide so easily. She was a mindless soldier at times, but when you only considered anyone else with a uniform as a bigger part of your family than blood ties, it was enough to make her wish she had enough energy to kick this faceless menace in the guts again and again.
Step by step, Kurenai stepped closer to the attacker, unintimidated by the words that granted her mercy, something that she would rather die than have. Like before, she was prepared to die at any moment, but only with the condition that this person knew who she was dealing with. Reaching upwards, Kurenai unfastened the clasps that surrounded the high collar of her uniform before pulling off the helmet, revealing her pale face, splattered with her own blood. If she was going to die, it was going to be in full color and in the air she breathed every moment of her life.
"Surprised?" she asked the faceless woman, stopping only when there was half a foot distance between the both of them. "This is my face. Everyone behind these helmets has a face. It might be easier to kill them with the helmets on, but if you're cold-hearted enough, you can kill me regardless of that fact. Otherwise, I will give you a last chance to put down your weapon."
A hand swiftly reached out to grip the woman's hand on the knife, the pressure was enough to make Kurenai wince herself, her muscles straining to put that much energy in the grip.
"Don't think we're all afraid of death. If your warnings are for me, you're talking to the wrong person."
It took everything Anko had not to flinch when she saw Kurenai's hand flash out to grip her wrist, and even more for her not to wrench that hand away to hurt the other woman for her bravado. But it wasn't as hard as it should have been, being as though she found herself completely transfixed by the face of a woman who she had once called friend. Even with the blood smearing her face, it was still the Kurenai she remembered, all of the softer lines her mind recalled had only become more defined over the passage of time. She had wanted to chuckle at the helmet head that did nothing to hide that Kurenai's hair had surely not been tamed and had only gotten wilder in contrast to the woman's personality - but that would have been horribly inappropriate for this macabre little reunion.
But even more inappropriate would have been the guffaw at the prospect of that giving her victims a face would save them from the fate that Anko had planned for them.
"You're a fool, and if your captain knew that you were preaching this shit and unmasking yourself openly in a public arena, your ass would be slapped with desk duty for the next decade," she hissed, frantically grabbing at any straw to get some distance between them, to try and find the right button to push that would get Kurenai to leave. Hysterically she wondered if Asuma was somewhere nearby for her to manipulate into siccing Kurenai and keeping her preoccupied long enough for a quick escape - a method that had proven effectual many times in the past when Kurenai would corner Anko and start lecturing her on not taking things seriously enough.
"Do you think having a face makes you any less of a target than if you don't? Those bodies that are piling up due to your interference have faces too. Faces and families and friends who aren't any different than you or any of those other fuckers who think that they're doing something that's going to keep them safer at night. You people are no different than the murderers and thieves and people who didn't even do anything but be born and yet you think that that uniform nullifies the blood on your hands. You think the people you're here to eradicate are insane? Take a good fucking look in the damned mirror Lieutenant. Now I'm giving you one last chance to un-fucking-hand me and to get the hell out of here before I finish what I started."
While the words made it through her ears, all Kurenai was focused on was an eerie familiarity of tone with military standards and also the pitch itself. She knew this voice from somewhere, didn't she? It may have seemed like ages passed since the first day she was enrolled in the military, but it was hard to forget those that fought with you and lived your kind of life. Was this someone that had defected once they got here or was this another ghost of the past? There could be only a handful that would come back to haunt her to this day. And all that separated herself from the truth was a plastic visor.
With another hard jerk, the effort resonating pain down her arm, Kurenai freed the knife from the woman's hand and with another swift move, the butt of the knife was smashed into the reflective surface of the visor, breaking the mirror image into numerous pieces, leaving only behind the face of the ghost looking back at her.
At first all Kurenai could feel was the sharp pain in her side screaming in her mind, leaving her staring intensely at the newly revealed face within the shattered helmet. Faltering a bit, she had almost dropped the knife in her hand, ignoring the little bits of plastic shards embedded in her palm, only to make sense of this new information. The last time she had seen this face was within the corridors of a military compound. Kurenai had heard the news, the assassination attempt on one of the higher ups, and she had to question the one accused of it, herself. There was no way that her prank-loving partner would do such a thing. There was no way.
Except there was. When she got to their room, it was already ransacked by the MPs and all she could hear was her partner screaming in the background as they took her away. She questioned the truth, but the only person who could tell her about it was gone. All Kurenai could find herself doing was to watch the face of a woman she had loved like a sister, disappear around the corner, herself having been filled with a shock that was as great as this moment, when once again, Kurenai found herself unable to do anything but stare; questions burning behind her red irises and trapped in her throat.
"Anko?" Her voice sounded like a stranger to her ears as the sound of the forbidden name rolled thickly off her tongue.
When the knife had been snatched from her hand, Anko inhaled sharply, already feeling the phantom pain of that blade stabbing nastily into any one of the major organs, maybe a couple different ones with the way she had instigated the other woman...all of the things that she had never gotten to do flashed before her eyes. All the kisses she never got to steal from Kankurou, all of the fights her and Gaara had never gotten to, the attempted molestations of Rin, whether or not Naruto would end up ending Dei , all of that and so much more overran her mind so that the hilt of her knife smashing into her helmet didn't even register until it ricocheted off her cheek and fresh cool air replaced that of the overheated brand that caused her hair to cling damply to her cheeks. Shards of the tempered plastic stabbed at her as it fell into the helmet itself, a few pieces cutting her face in the process.
But none of that mattered in light of the utterance of her name, violet eyes meeting red ones dead on to see the same disbelief and shock that she had dealt with but moments before. Steeling her face into a mask of calm that she surely wasn't feeling, Anko stared blankly back at Kurenai, completely at a loss as to what to do. She should have killed her when she had the chance, but to have removed the helmet and found out her friend's identity afterwards? To hurt one of the few people she could honestly call friend, or could have once upon a time? But at the same token it was one or the other of them. Anko had made threats, shown she had the means and the will to follow through and Kurenai stood on the opposite side of the fence, her uniform a silent promise to uphold the rules and laws of Curia. But the even bigger problem at the moment was after sidestepping through the shadows for so long, someone could put a face and a name to her, and with that little bit of knowledge so much could now be connected back to her with the right researching - something Kurenai was entirely too capable of. Her little field trip into Cena had now put everything she had in danger and the full brunt of that knowledge was nearly enough to buckle her knees if she had not already still been trying to cope with reappearance of someone who was as good as dead to her from the time she'd been escorted away.
So much was running through her mind, her head ached like nothing she'd ever felt before due to her impact with the ground and the sheer overload of just everything. But even worse were the whispers that overshadowed everything else, telling her that if this person wasn't alive to share the information she now held, so many of her problems would be solved. To hurt this person who was hurting her and had backed her into so many corners...to see this person's blood staining her hands. Even still there was a tiny thread of hope that she wouldn't have to, the fact that this had once been one of the dearest people in her life and to hurt her would amount to the same as her raising a hand to Kankurou in this new reality...and if she could do it to one, why not the other some day?
Too many things to think about, too many things to take into consideration, too many things that could go wrong and too many other lives depended on what happened here. Anko could feel each of them bearing weight on her shoulders as she weighed her options.
"I'm not telling you again, Lieutenant. Unhand me and leave. I have no quarrel with you."
At the sound of her military title, Kurenai was suddenly pulled back into reality again, to the situation at hand and not of that of the past. In the end, there was nothing else that could mask the image of what her friend had become, or how real the blade held by her had felt when against Kurenai's own throat.
Almost instantaneously with her thoughts, Kurenai released all holds on Anko as if hot metal had scorched her hand. The look of familiarity was quickly overshadowed by one of indifference as her own strict logic settled into the muscles and bones of her body.
"Nor do I." Once again, red irises locked onto darker toned ones with meaning before Kurenai took a step back and pulled on her helmet once again.
"I don't have anything to do with you. And it would be best if I never heard from you again after today."
Though she knew it was a pointless gesture, as soon as Kurenai stepped back Anko tried to meld back with the wall even though she kept her features fixed in the same cold mirror image as those just a few feet away.
"What happened to your pretty speech about wanting to help and save the world, or does that not apply to traitors as well? Sure as hell didn't take you long to change your tune did it, Saint Yuuhi? No better than the rest of them but I don't know why I should have expected anything different from you of all people. And besides, you haven't heard anything from me since I was carted off all those years ago, why would I start now?" Violet eyes never left the Lieutenant's form, years of distrusting that uniform making her naturally wary even if this person had once proven themself trustworthy beyond a doubt.
Even as Kurenai snapped her helmet back into place, Anko undid the buckles on the sides of hers, the smashed faceplate offering none of the anonymity that it was intended to have, rendering it useless.
Tossing the ruined headgear off to the side, she slowly peeled herself off of the wall, never once letting her gaze waver in the slightest, moving around her old friend to create an escape route for herself before Kurenai could change her mind, or before she could change her own.
"You'd do well to heed my warnings Lieutenant. Take your men if you value their lives anymore than you did your old partner's, and get them the hell out of here or your whole squad could be lost. You have no idea what you're stepping foot into and you won't until it's too late." Slowly Anko began to walk away from where Kurenai stood, not looking back so as to not see her old friend in case she decided to attack from behind.
She'd rather not see it coming.
Gloved fingers tightened over a non-existent gun in her empty holster, the action invoked by old-age reflexes rather than mental choice. There was the silent rule of cowardice, how the best aim in defeating an opponent was to take advantage when their back is turned. But it wasn't Kurenai's goal to defeat a ghost. To do that was nearly impossible, so she had found out from today.
Dry blood still adorned her vision as she turned away from the retreating form and walked in the opposite direction, her cracked lips sealed shut in a silent response. Every stab of pain that flowed in her nervous system was a reminder of this meeting, something that she was going to be hellbent in forgetting in the coming days. But despite Anko's warning, Kurenai knew that she was going no where and Cena was where she would be for the moment.
There would be plenty of other times to visit her ghosts again.
When: Wednesday, May 21st
Where: Cena
What: Two old friends have an unexpected run-in
Rating: R (Violence, Language)
It was disappointing really.
For all her years devoted to the military, there had never been anything like this during her time patrolling the streets, waiting and hoping for something to happen. Day after day of the random boring incidents of general misbehaving, maybe a murder here or there but never had she seen the streets lined with patrols, not like this.
And it was fucking exciting.
Especially as she walked amongst them with none of them any the wiser. It had only been a little tricky finding someone about her size, her last street uniform having been rendered to shreds courtesy of Rin, but the effect was worth it as she nodded to a pair situated at the end of the street. The air was rank with the smell of death and that distinctive smell of burnt flesh, whether that was the new alternative to mass graves or just the military's way of sweeping their evidence under the rug Anko wasn't sure but it was effective regardless. As she moved off the main streets the number of troops dwindled a bit, more distantly spaced out and far easier to pick off.
Or at least to be a decent warm up, a stretching of the legs in a way. She'd been cooped up entirely too long and in the time since Kankurou had followed her into a similar Cena side street, Anko hadn't done much of anything except tend to Gaara, try to make sure Kankurou was somewhat taking care of himself and not having time to herself. Especially not like this. This was the high she needed, the physical exertion, to focus on the plotting and planning gave her a sense of accomplishment where there was none in just existing day by day, the rush of holding another's life in her hands for those moments before permanently staining them with one more soul freed from it's mortal coil.
And there was the lucky chosen one now. A single troop hovering towards the end of this particular crossroads, not another person for at least a block. Flexing her wrists slightly, Anko tested the tautness of the spring mechanisms that would wait for the right movement where they would eject a set of blades into her hands in a split second if necessary. But for now, she just wanted to get her hands dirty, feel the delicious pain of busted knuckles and the contact that could only be found going hand to flesh.
She just had to make sure to rid him of his gun first.
Otherwise it just wouldn't be fair.
Strangely enough, it was cold.
Hollow sounds of military boots bounced off the asphalt lining the the crossroads as Kurenai paced back and forth, her right thumb hooked onto the gun strap that was slung over her shoulder and her left hand stiffly swinging back and forth. Her black helmet encased the world in gray, but it was still clear to see the roads leading up to where she was. Earlier, her men had been called back to the temporary base camp made near Sino . She was thankful that she hadn't lost any of them, but earlier during a house raid, they had all came onto a shocking discovery of a dead family within the abandoned apartment complex. The skeletal bones littering the place were the only visual evidence that the virus had taken its toll here in the Red, as well.
She wasn't able to down the meal that was dished out to the officers. Every time she looked down at her simple meal of mashed potatoes and corned beef, she would smell the rankness of the room they had came across. Being the only officer present during the event, she had taken off her helmet to take a good look around, knowing very well that she would be the one writing the report. And the stench of rotting meat was enough to make her forgo the military's mandatory nutrient intake for the day.
Now she found herself alone, a state that she needed to be in at the moment. An extra layer of a borrowed military jacket covered up the insignia of her lieutenant's rank, sewn onto her red Arma uniform.
And strangely enough, she wished she had a smoke.
Silently slinking amongst the shadows, Anko inched her way closer to the soldier, being ever so careful to not make the slightest sound to alert the other person. The person rotated on their heel to start pacing back in the opposite direction, allowing the dingy red light to reflect off the similarly colored uniform illuminating curves that had been unseen previously due to the angling of the soldier's body.
Well damn. The sudden rush of disappointment was nearly enough to make Anko break her stealth-mode and sulk away. Women were no fun, in her time spent clawing through the ranks there were only a select handful that she had been proud to call comrade while the rest had surely only been allowed in to keep back the protests of sexual discrimination. They were a whiny lot for the most part and completely unfit for anything beyond desk work.
But at this point she decided that it was a start, an elementary warm-up as opposed to the challenge her blood had been singing for but a start nonetheless. Watching silently from the shadows, the other woman was easily wearing a trench in the sidewalk, sixteen steps one way, sixteen back, turn and begin again. And even more surprisingly, she didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest about waltzing about in a place that had meant death for far stronger people.
The little ditz really needed to be taught a lesson about what sort of monsters were really lurking about.
She waited for that sixteenth step and the slight grinding of gravel beneath the military-issued boot before stealthily slipping behind the woman, a knife whipped out and slicing though the nylon webbing strap holding the gun in place, Anko's free hand quickly ripping the firearm out of the woman's grasp to send it skating across the pavement and into the shadows that had once been her hiding place.
"Hmm, shameful what they'd allow to pass as a soldier now-a-days. I guess good little lapdogs are hard to come by so they take whatever walks through the door." Hopping back a half step, Anko waited a few heartbeats to see what the woman would do before continuing, her body easily hovering in an attentive stance so that she could easily slide into either an offensive or defensive maneuver.
Oh well. At least it shouldn't take her too long to finish with this chick before moving on to a real challenge.
At the sudden change of the wind, Kurenai was alert and twisted around to face the disturbance. Her hands reached instinctively for the automatic that had been slung over her shoulder only a second ago, but she found that in the next second, it was already gone and twisted from her hold. Her entire body tensed at the sight of the offender before her and her hand immediately went for her service pistol-- which was not there. Silently, she cursed herself for being empty-headed and leaving her pistol back at the base before she came out. Hands clenched into fists, instead, positioning themselves in a defensive stance.
Red eyes narrowed behind the veil of tinted plastic as Kurenai observed the enemy, wondering if this was one of the Arma turning into a traitor or was it just someone playing dress-up? The uniform the offender was wearing seemed newly issued and included every little detail that had been incorporated into it that made it unique to the uniforms of past times. And by the looks of it, the offender was a woman from the physical appearance of curves and by the voice that carried out over to her.
For a moment, Kurenai froze her entire body in order to think straight and contemplate what was the next move that she should take. Taunting words hardly did anything to her own mental composure, herself being one of those people that could compose themselves even when inside a burning building. Emotions were a rare pleasure that she allowed herself to have from time to time, but she didn't carry them out into the field
"You act as if you'd know the difference," Kurenai calmly responded before bounding forward, her right hand slipping in her right boot to slid out a knife concealed within it. There were questions, but since arriving to Cena, things were always better to detain the offender and then question them. It was hard trying to get answers when bullets were still flying at you.
Her eyebrow lifted unseen through her visor at the other woman's composed state, could it be possible she miscalculated a little? Even still, she wasn't going to allow her hopes to raise just yet. But by the smooth way the woman moved to reach for the concealed weapon in her boot, opting for the offensive route, Anko's spirits lifted immensely, even more so seeing the blade glinting in the dim light of the street lamps. A woman after her own heart!
Almost gleeful that her night was suddenly looking up again, Anko's body moved automatically seeing the shifting of muscles underneath the fabric, her own stance loosening up to make it easier to follow the other woman's flow of movement. Her own blade was casually tossed into her non-dominant hand, the other reaching out at the right moment to wrap around the other woman's wrist when their bodies collided. Taking the impact easily with care to angle herself so that the blade just snagged the clingy fabric, Anko used the momentum to turn the two of them around, twisting the woman's arm so that her wrist was pinned against her back in an awkward position that could be quite painful with just the right amount of pressure, a point proven as it assisted in forcing her to drop the knife before it was kicked off to join the woman's lost firearm. Anko's other arm looped around her neck in an effective choke-hold, knife still in hand but not used as a threatening tactic, more as a kick to the woman's pride to say that weapons weren't even necessary in subduing her.
"Not bad sugar, almost thought you were actually going to be fun there for a moment," Anko purred, the close contact nearly having their helmets bumping together. "And trust me, I've seen my share of real soldiers over time. You're a far cry from the worst of them. But think of it this way, you'll finally have a real purpose, if only to be a small slap in the face of the failure of such a desolate institution."
Within the black confines of her helmet, Kurenai seethed at having been discharged of her weapon so quickly, especially when a loud gasp exited her tightly clenched teeth at the spark of pain from the other's firm hold. It again, filled her mind with doubts about her performance of late, but when you're pinned in a tight space like this with a knife waving in front of your eyes, it wasn't really the time to think about it.
Her mind quickly ran through her other options for weapons on her self, only to come up with nothing. The words of her offender only made her delicate brows crease further, herself becoming disgusted at how this impersonator was talking about the armed forces of Curia in whole and as if she was nothing but a rag doll in all of this. She would be lying to herself if it wasn't the stab at her pride that finally made her take the risk and twist her legs within those of her offender's, successfully making the both of them painfully topple onto the ground, with the impersonator on the ground and Kurenai lying on top, face up.
Another harsher gasp escaped from her mouth again as her arm was now pinned under her own weight, but the grip on it had lessened, if only for a bit. This was enough for Kurenai to twist her body to the side, her helmeted head harmlessly batting away the knife hovering above her. With her arms finally free, she quickly stood up again, aiming a hard kick at the hand with the knife, enough to numb it with pain so that the weapon would drop. With one of her boots now stepping on the wrist of said hand with great pressure, Kurenai quickly pressed a knee against the chest of the masked woman.
"Shut up," Kurenai finally breathed out, still trying to catch her breath and deal with the throbbing pain traveling up her right arm. She twisted her foot against the outstretched hand pinned underneath her boot cruelly. "Shut up. I know my purpose but I question yours." Suddenly the blank reflective surface of the helmet looking up to her was the face of every single man, woman and child of Cena, those that resisted and those that have died.
"You have no right to talk about things you don't know. You have no right."
Even with her helmet taking the brunt of the impact, Anko still saw stars when it connected with the pavement, though it was swiftly forgotten with the crippling pain that suddenly was emanating from her now empty hand being ground into the pavement under the woman's heel. A small part of her was impressed with the turn-about, but she was even more so pissed off for ending up on her back with this bitch seething down at her like she knew what was she was talking about.
"I have no right??" she hissed, the knee planted on her chest making it only slightly difficult to draw a full breath. Before it became too much more of an issue she kicked a leg up and hooked it around the woman's neck, using the the tactic of surprise and brute force to yank her backwards, almost sighing in relief as the pressure was released from her chest and her hand simultaneously. There wasn't time for such a luxury sadly, instead she was quickly rolling over and away, pulling herself up to watch the form doing the same. A few flexes of her hand left Anko wincing, the blissful numb from the stunned nerves was wearing off quickly and the throbbing pain was swiftly taking over but it was shoved to the back of her mind like she had been taught to. "I have every right, far more than you do being here, you and all the others like you. Don't talk of having a purpose when mindless idiots like yourself end up here like chickens lined up for the slaughter. You're expendable, for all your fanciful ideas of camaraderie, they don't give a damn about you and you're willing to lay your neck on the chopping block at the first opportunity? People used to damn near kill themselves to get into that uniform, now you're putting it on just to die, where's the purpose in that?"
Rather than waiting for the other woman to jump first, this time Anko was closing in the distance, her non-injured hand balled up onto a fist that found itself swiftly planted in the woman's gut, while her throbbing one quickly palmed another one of her blades, the finely honed blade easily slicing though the lycra suit to expose the pale skin beneath, a thin line of red quickly appearing before bleeding into the crimson color of the uniform.
"First blood Princess. I can do this quick and easy if you just give over, or we can do this the hard way where there won't be a piece of you big enough to identify. It's your call."
A blast of hot air escaped from Kurenai's mouth as she gasped for air, fogging up her visor for a moment before the hot air escaped through the side vents of the helmet. Anyone could be good with a knife and anyone could be handy with a firearm. They both had the basic moves, but when it came to hand to hand combat, Kurenai didn't know any civilian that could maneuver themselves in the way that the woman had just did. In fact, Kurenai was counting on the woman being a civilian from the beginning, but so far the knife tricks and the able hand-to-hand proved her wrong.
She only had a couple of seconds to suck in sweet air before she was hit in the gut, the blow having been too fast for her to see coming. A thin line of blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth, blending in perfectly with her own crimson lips. It almost brought her down to her knees when a glimpse of the knife made her entire body jerk to the right, evading the deadly metal, only to be nicked as a result. Kurenai breathed heavily, her breath fogging up the helmet within with every second, but stopped when a step back alerted her of something hard beneath her boots. With a quick glance, she realized it was her knife from before and quickly picked it up, disregarding the firearm that laid near it. Seeing how fast this woman moved, Kurenai wouldn't have made it in time anyways.
"Don't be so confident," Kurenai breathed out, a gloved hand pressing against the thin slice of blood tracing down her arm. "It's called a 'duty'. Whether you're a citizen of this District or not, you know what's going on in here. It's madness. We're just making sure it stays here and doesn't go anywhere. It's not something that everyone can understand." Once again, the Lieutenant bounded forward but instead of going head on, she quickly swerved to the right and fell into a crouch, her knife slicing through the uniform and biting into the flesh of the woman's calf, before rolling away and then back on her feet again right behind the woman.
"Give up and surrender already!"
Cocking her elbow back, Kurenai then let it loose and jammed it into the back of the helmeted head with enough force to make the woman lose balance and tilt forward. Again, Kurenai tried to ground the offender for a second attempt to question her. After this, however, there would be no more attempts.
The burning sensation that snaked across the width of her calf was entirely too familiar but it was overshadowed in the more crippling hit to the back of her head, the second in intervals too close to be any good. Nor did it help her cause to pitch forward from the impact, increasing the damage to her already mangled hand when they instinctively hit the pavement to prevent her head from bouncing off the concrete. Before the bitch could make any attempt to pin her down, something Anko wasn't too sure she could deal with until her vision cleared, she drew a knee up and kicked back mulishly, hoping for that lovely cracking of a knee bone shattering. She wasn't privy to that particular sound but there was a satisfying grunt and the sound of the other woman hitting the pavement.
Immediately using the moment to her advantage, Anko rolled away to put a safe amount of distance between her and the other woman, idly noticing the copper taste in her mouth. If she had been half as cocky as she had been when she'd stalked up behind the trooper, Anko would have had no problem prying off the stifling helmet to spit out the bloody mouthful but with this woman proving to be more adept than originally thought, it wasn't worth the risk of the other woman being able to identify her at a later time if things didn't pan out as originally planned. Instead she suffered in silence, falling back slightly when too much weight was placed on her injured hand and wrist.
"If that's what you claim to be doing, then you've failed miserably. That I understand. Countless people have died and are still dying by your fuck ups, and you think killing off even more can fix that? For all you idiots know that damned thing probably originated from your very own labs and you wouldn't know any fuckin' different or you just don't give a damn about anyone who doesn't have a place in the Blue, not that that would be a big God-damned secret." Hefting herself up off the cool ground, Anko's vision only blurred slightly with the change of altitude. Seeing the Arceos trying to lift herself as well, a couple of sharp kicks were delivered to the woman's ribs, knocking her over and onto her back. Plopping down on the woman's thighs to hold her immobile, Anko's knife was pressed threateningly to her opponent's throat.
"I think I'd rather hear those sweet words from you now Princess, it's not nearly as satisfying an ending to not hear you give up like a good little girl."
The movement had not carried out as Kurenai planned, seeing that she had found herself coughing up more blood and flat on her back, with the knife now pressed lightly against her rising and falling neck. Along with a fine layer of moisture, her visor from within was now decorated with specks of blood. Air wasn't enough when it came to confined spaces like her helmet and it didn't allow her to look clearly at the woman, now bearing down on her, her own face obscured by an equally black visor. An attempt was made to muffle the long drawled out groan from her mouth by biting on her lips, the pain having been brought out by the slight shift of her upper torso. By the feeling of it, the woman must've caused a broken rib or two.
Kurenai tried swallowing, but every time it resulted in more painful coughing, with blood spraying across her visor and sliding down in red tendrils down her chin and slipping out onto her neck. It seemed futile to try anything at this point, seeing that the knife was closer to her throat than what the knife still gripped in her hand was to. Just for a moment, her thought process as a Lieutenant failed when all she was thinking about was clean air and the possibility of death staring down at her face.
"Go to Hell," she gasped out hoarsely, wincing at the further dent the knife made in her flesh. A lingering flame was behind her eyes as she looked back defiantly through her red tinted visor, not giving this woman the satisfaction of killing off yet another nameless soldier. "You're not doing anything differently right now. So why don't you just pull the knife and get over it. If you're waiting for me to surrender, then you really don't know anything about us at all."
"For starters, the name isn't 'Princess'. It's Lieutenant Kurenai Yuuhi. We have names and we have lives. We don't take anyone else's without reason."
"Don't forget it."
Anko's snarky response was lost as all of the breath rushed from her lungs with the woman's revelation. Suddenly she couldn't get away fast enough, falling back off the other woman and hurrying to put as much distance between that prone body and hers. It couldn't be. She was hearing things, she had to be. Her mind had finally hit it's breaking point and this was it's game. Throw a ghost of her past at her now when she had really hit rock bottom and watch her break. What was next?
Was Sensei sitting on the next block waiting for her?
Flashbacks of a gangly girl with a wild rats-nest-tangle-of-hair at her side, trudging through the grueling training bled into a more self-assured partner with a perpetually amused quirk of her lips, listening to one of her own rants about another official, though Anko just couldn't meld her Kurenai with that of this faceless bitch she'd been seconds away from gutting.
Worried crimson eyes following her down the hallway as she was being led away, her training not allowing her to follow and rail at Anko like she could see Kurenai wanted to do, wanting to know what in the hell was going on when there would be no immediate answers coming.
I never even got to say goodbye...
The wall at her back rejected all efforts to meld herself with the brick, to somehow get away before this ghost could possibly damage her, that name doing more to her than either strike had since Anko had instigated this whole thing.
But even amidst her panic, Anko had to wonder what the helmet hid, just how had the years changed the woman she had once called friend. That invisible chasm that separated the Arceos Lieutenant and the Cena Exile wouldn't allow her that privilege though, and even now Anko already knew she would do anything to keep the other woman away. The old hurt of the people she had once called friend not doing anything to stop her persecution, to not seek her out and see if she even survived the death sentence a Cena exile usually meant to one of their kind reared its ugly head but then so did the shame of one still sitting at the pinnacle that had once been hers looking down from on high to see this person who amounted to less then the scum on their boot.
"No," she croaked out, more to herself then the other occupant of the desolate street. "I know too much, that's the fucking problem." And knowing only made it that much worse. Why hadn't Kurenai fought back more? Was she really just going to lay there and glare through the faceless mask and wait for Anko's knife to slice through tendons, veins and arteries, for her to slowly drown in her own blood if she didn't die from the blood loss first?
But which was worse? Hearing now who this previously faceless minion was or if she had found out after the fact, the blood staining the ground matching those once bright, now dead eyes?
Holding her knife out protectively in front of her, Anko watched the other woman with wide eyes that were only half focused on the here and now and half trapped in the past.
Where Kurenai had expected a thrust against her throat, she was then unexpectedly met with a breath of air as the pressure suddenly disappeared from her neck, allowing her to breathe easier. Then suddenly the entire weight of the woman on top of her was lifted away and through the red mist on her visor, all that was left was just the dark sky. She immediately jumped to the hope that she had been saved by a patrol, but when she pushed herself up, there were no other officers or soldiers to speak of. Only the shaking form of the offender that had suddenly backed herself into the wall, a sight that puzzled Kurenai and immediately put her on guard again. Maybe this was a second chance. Maybe she had somehow drawn fear into this woman and shed some light into her.
Even so, Kurenai kept her eyes on the woman at all times as she struggled to stand, the pain still resonating through her gut and ribs. By the feel of it, it seemed that quite the number were bruised and a few were broken. But seeing that she was still able to move, it couldn't have been that much harm. Military issued standard boots slid against the gravel once or twice as she placed an incredible amount of pressure on them as she stood up, her hand once more reaching out for the knife that she had released during her time of imprisonment on the ground.
This time, Kurenai had no energy left to be on the offense, only to copy the woman's stance and wait for her to give the first move. There was no sure chance that Kurenai would even survive whatever came this time, but she wouldn't give up right there. Crimson eyes stared through the visor at the woman, the vision swaying only slightly now and then because of her unsteady balance.
"Listen," she rasped out, carefully, trying not to provoke another string of violent and painful coughs, "I can get you help. You have to believe me when I say I don't want to kill you or harm you in any way that might endanger your life. Put down your weapon and step away from it. That's all it takes. Otherwise, neither of us will get any where with this. Do you understand? I can't let you loose to kill whoever you want. Those are my men out there and I cannot allow you to take them down like this."
From offensive tactics to defensive tactics to terrorist negotiations. At this point, Kurenai was pulling out every single thing out of the damn rule book, in order to assure that the second chance given to her was not wasted. Whatever happened to the woman that made her move away, at the moment was unclear to the Lieutenant. However, in a place like this, you don't take chances like this for granted. You bless your luck and you damn well try to make things stay that way.
Though Kurenai's injuries were evident in her voice, Anko snapped back to herself a little bit, hearing the soothing negotiator in place now rather than the hard ass who had been seeking her own submission not moments ago.
"Help? Why would I want help from the same bastards who put me here? The only help I would get would be a 4 x 4 cell before my execution, and that's if I'm one of the lucky ones," Anko spat out, her eyes slitting behind the obscuring faceplate. While she had no qualms against acting against a faceless soldier or even some who weren't so faceless when they were threatening her, Kurenai was different...but even with her own sense of morality leading her there was still that little voice that was slowly growing in intensity telling her to finish what she started. This woman was a threat to her and those she held dear just like every other person who donned that damnedable uniform.
"If your men can't hold their own against one person, they have no reason to be here, a fact I was in the process of drilling through your own head. You...I have no interest in you anymore." Slowly Anko pulled herself to her feet, her calf burning from the strain but she didn't lower the knife as she kept her eyes leveled on the Lieutenant. "Run back to your barracks, have them tend to you. I don't want to see you around here again. Stay in your safe little Blue District. Keep your men away from here unless you desire to be attending even more funerals."
It was said in training that the most reliable officers, were the ones lacking emotions. Pain, pride, happiness, love, grief, rage. They were all things that could turn against a soldier, getting them killed when they should've pulled the trigger or plunged the knife into someone's heart. From outside opinion, it made them less human and more machine, something people accused the government of making their soldiers into. But when your mind only knows how to wield a gun and which arteries within a human being are more vulnerable to break under pressure, or how to screw up a person's psyche so much that they break; it was the only thing worth knowing.
For Kurenai, she was imperfect in the light of these conditions. Flawed, even. But even she couldn't hold back herself when she stepped forward, painful as it was, but she couldn't let the words slide so easily. She was a mindless soldier at times, but when you only considered anyone else with a uniform as a bigger part of your family than blood ties, it was enough to make her wish she had enough energy to kick this faceless menace in the guts again and again.
Step by step, Kurenai stepped closer to the attacker, unintimidated by the words that granted her mercy, something that she would rather die than have. Like before, she was prepared to die at any moment, but only with the condition that this person knew who she was dealing with. Reaching upwards, Kurenai unfastened the clasps that surrounded the high collar of her uniform before pulling off the helmet, revealing her pale face, splattered with her own blood. If she was going to die, it was going to be in full color and in the air she breathed every moment of her life.
"Surprised?" she asked the faceless woman, stopping only when there was half a foot distance between the both of them. "This is my face. Everyone behind these helmets has a face. It might be easier to kill them with the helmets on, but if you're cold-hearted enough, you can kill me regardless of that fact. Otherwise, I will give you a last chance to put down your weapon."
A hand swiftly reached out to grip the woman's hand on the knife, the pressure was enough to make Kurenai wince herself, her muscles straining to put that much energy in the grip.
"Don't think we're all afraid of death. If your warnings are for me, you're talking to the wrong person."
It took everything Anko had not to flinch when she saw Kurenai's hand flash out to grip her wrist, and even more for her not to wrench that hand away to hurt the other woman for her bravado. But it wasn't as hard as it should have been, being as though she found herself completely transfixed by the face of a woman who she had once called friend. Even with the blood smearing her face, it was still the Kurenai she remembered, all of the softer lines her mind recalled had only become more defined over the passage of time. She had wanted to chuckle at the helmet head that did nothing to hide that Kurenai's hair had surely not been tamed and had only gotten wilder in contrast to the woman's personality - but that would have been horribly inappropriate for this macabre little reunion.
But even more inappropriate would have been the guffaw at the prospect of that giving her victims a face would save them from the fate that Anko had planned for them.
"You're a fool, and if your captain knew that you were preaching this shit and unmasking yourself openly in a public arena, your ass would be slapped with desk duty for the next decade," she hissed, frantically grabbing at any straw to get some distance between them, to try and find the right button to push that would get Kurenai to leave. Hysterically she wondered if Asuma was somewhere nearby for her to manipulate into siccing Kurenai and keeping her preoccupied long enough for a quick escape - a method that had proven effectual many times in the past when Kurenai would corner Anko and start lecturing her on not taking things seriously enough.
"Do you think having a face makes you any less of a target than if you don't? Those bodies that are piling up due to your interference have faces too. Faces and families and friends who aren't any different than you or any of those other fuckers who think that they're doing something that's going to keep them safer at night. You people are no different than the murderers and thieves and people who didn't even do anything but be born and yet you think that that uniform nullifies the blood on your hands. You think the people you're here to eradicate are insane? Take a good fucking look in the damned mirror Lieutenant. Now I'm giving you one last chance to un-fucking-hand me and to get the hell out of here before I finish what I started."
While the words made it through her ears, all Kurenai was focused on was an eerie familiarity of tone with military standards and also the pitch itself. She knew this voice from somewhere, didn't she? It may have seemed like ages passed since the first day she was enrolled in the military, but it was hard to forget those that fought with you and lived your kind of life. Was this someone that had defected once they got here or was this another ghost of the past? There could be only a handful that would come back to haunt her to this day. And all that separated herself from the truth was a plastic visor.
With another hard jerk, the effort resonating pain down her arm, Kurenai freed the knife from the woman's hand and with another swift move, the butt of the knife was smashed into the reflective surface of the visor, breaking the mirror image into numerous pieces, leaving only behind the face of the ghost looking back at her.
At first all Kurenai could feel was the sharp pain in her side screaming in her mind, leaving her staring intensely at the newly revealed face within the shattered helmet. Faltering a bit, she had almost dropped the knife in her hand, ignoring the little bits of plastic shards embedded in her palm, only to make sense of this new information. The last time she had seen this face was within the corridors of a military compound. Kurenai had heard the news, the assassination attempt on one of the higher ups, and she had to question the one accused of it, herself. There was no way that her prank-loving partner would do such a thing. There was no way.
Except there was. When she got to their room, it was already ransacked by the MPs and all she could hear was her partner screaming in the background as they took her away. She questioned the truth, but the only person who could tell her about it was gone. All Kurenai could find herself doing was to watch the face of a woman she had loved like a sister, disappear around the corner, herself having been filled with a shock that was as great as this moment, when once again, Kurenai found herself unable to do anything but stare; questions burning behind her red irises and trapped in her throat.
"Anko?" Her voice sounded like a stranger to her ears as the sound of the forbidden name rolled thickly off her tongue.
When the knife had been snatched from her hand, Anko inhaled sharply, already feeling the phantom pain of that blade stabbing nastily into any one of the major organs, maybe a couple different ones with the way she had instigated the other woman...all of the things that she had never gotten to do flashed before her eyes. All the kisses she never got to steal from Kankurou, all of the fights her and Gaara had never gotten to, the attempted molestations of Rin, whether or not Naruto would end up ending Dei , all of that and so much more overran her mind so that the hilt of her knife smashing into her helmet didn't even register until it ricocheted off her cheek and fresh cool air replaced that of the overheated brand that caused her hair to cling damply to her cheeks. Shards of the tempered plastic stabbed at her as it fell into the helmet itself, a few pieces cutting her face in the process.
But none of that mattered in light of the utterance of her name, violet eyes meeting red ones dead on to see the same disbelief and shock that she had dealt with but moments before. Steeling her face into a mask of calm that she surely wasn't feeling, Anko stared blankly back at Kurenai, completely at a loss as to what to do. She should have killed her when she had the chance, but to have removed the helmet and found out her friend's identity afterwards? To hurt one of the few people she could honestly call friend, or could have once upon a time? But at the same token it was one or the other of them. Anko had made threats, shown she had the means and the will to follow through and Kurenai stood on the opposite side of the fence, her uniform a silent promise to uphold the rules and laws of Curia. But the even bigger problem at the moment was after sidestepping through the shadows for so long, someone could put a face and a name to her, and with that little bit of knowledge so much could now be connected back to her with the right researching - something Kurenai was entirely too capable of. Her little field trip into Cena had now put everything she had in danger and the full brunt of that knowledge was nearly enough to buckle her knees if she had not already still been trying to cope with reappearance of someone who was as good as dead to her from the time she'd been escorted away.
So much was running through her mind, her head ached like nothing she'd ever felt before due to her impact with the ground and the sheer overload of just everything. But even worse were the whispers that overshadowed everything else, telling her that if this person wasn't alive to share the information she now held, so many of her problems would be solved. To hurt this person who was hurting her and had backed her into so many corners...to see this person's blood staining her hands. Even still there was a tiny thread of hope that she wouldn't have to, the fact that this had once been one of the dearest people in her life and to hurt her would amount to the same as her raising a hand to Kankurou in this new reality...and if she could do it to one, why not the other some day?
Too many things to think about, too many things to take into consideration, too many things that could go wrong and too many other lives depended on what happened here. Anko could feel each of them bearing weight on her shoulders as she weighed her options.
"I'm not telling you again, Lieutenant. Unhand me and leave. I have no quarrel with you."
At the sound of her military title, Kurenai was suddenly pulled back into reality again, to the situation at hand and not of that of the past. In the end, there was nothing else that could mask the image of what her friend had become, or how real the blade held by her had felt when against Kurenai's own throat.
Almost instantaneously with her thoughts, Kurenai released all holds on Anko as if hot metal had scorched her hand. The look of familiarity was quickly overshadowed by one of indifference as her own strict logic settled into the muscles and bones of her body.
"Nor do I." Once again, red irises locked onto darker toned ones with meaning before Kurenai took a step back and pulled on her helmet once again.
"I don't have anything to do with you. And it would be best if I never heard from you again after today."
Though she knew it was a pointless gesture, as soon as Kurenai stepped back Anko tried to meld back with the wall even though she kept her features fixed in the same cold mirror image as those just a few feet away.
"What happened to your pretty speech about wanting to help and save the world, or does that not apply to traitors as well? Sure as hell didn't take you long to change your tune did it, Saint Yuuhi? No better than the rest of them but I don't know why I should have expected anything different from you of all people. And besides, you haven't heard anything from me since I was carted off all those years ago, why would I start now?" Violet eyes never left the Lieutenant's form, years of distrusting that uniform making her naturally wary even if this person had once proven themself trustworthy beyond a doubt.
Even as Kurenai snapped her helmet back into place, Anko undid the buckles on the sides of hers, the smashed faceplate offering none of the anonymity that it was intended to have, rendering it useless.
Tossing the ruined headgear off to the side, she slowly peeled herself off of the wall, never once letting her gaze waver in the slightest, moving around her old friend to create an escape route for herself before Kurenai could change her mind, or before she could change her own.
"You'd do well to heed my warnings Lieutenant. Take your men if you value their lives anymore than you did your old partner's, and get them the hell out of here or your whole squad could be lost. You have no idea what you're stepping foot into and you won't until it's too late." Slowly Anko began to walk away from where Kurenai stood, not looking back so as to not see her old friend in case she decided to attack from behind.
She'd rather not see it coming.
Gloved fingers tightened over a non-existent gun in her empty holster, the action invoked by old-age reflexes rather than mental choice. There was the silent rule of cowardice, how the best aim in defeating an opponent was to take advantage when their back is turned. But it wasn't Kurenai's goal to defeat a ghost. To do that was nearly impossible, so she had found out from today.
Dry blood still adorned her vision as she turned away from the retreating form and walked in the opposite direction, her cracked lips sealed shut in a silent response. Every stab of pain that flowed in her nervous system was a reminder of this meeting, something that she was going to be hellbent in forgetting in the coming days. But despite Anko's warning, Kurenai knew that she was going no where and Cena was where she would be for the moment.
There would be plenty of other times to visit her ghosts again.