A Shard Among Leaves: Snakes and Ants (Patreon)

[Snakes And Ants]

The husk of the Kiri girl sloughed off like a shed skin, collapsing to the forest floor in a wet heap of flesh as a figure emerged from her mouth, climbing onto shaky hands and knees.

Hirari stared as slime dripped from jet black hair and skin far paler than the girl’s original had been. The figure slowly stood to an intimidating height, and turned to regard Hirari with slitted yellow eyes rimmed by purple.

“Now that,” the figure said, their voice distinctly different from the girl's. “was quite unpleasant.”

Hirari watched as her newly-revealed opponent rolled his neck to free himself of the obvious discomfort from his sudden rebirth. His skin was completely smooth and pale white. Her parasites hadn't made the transition, rendering her gambit pointless.

After some painful twitching, she also found that she could barely move. Not entirely unexpected, but certainly unfortunate. The insects that she'd released were volatile and had damaged her on their way to her opponent. It wasn’t quite as severe as if they were set upon her, but there was a reason she kept them separated from the rest of the colony.

She could feel them right now, infesting the fleshy remains of her original opponent. Before she could issue a command to switch targets, the man turned and pressed his fingers to his lips, exhaling a thin stream of flame that quickly incinerated the corpse and the bugs within.

“As much as I'd like to examine those little bugs, I feel like they'd be more trouble than they're worth,” he chuckled as smoke curled into the air, accompanied by the smell of burning wood and flesh. 

He turned back to her and seemed to pause, tilting his head. realization lit his eyes after a moment and he chuckled. “Kukuku, I see. I wasn't the only one hurt by those little monstrosities, was I? You can't move.”

Hirari said nothing, but the man seemed to take that as confirmation. His chuckle deepened.

“I must admit, I'm tempted to disregard my earlier assessment,” he said, taking a slow step toward her. “You’re even more interesting than I thought. You’d make for quite the specimen. Sasuke-kun has escaped my grasp, but maybe as a consolation—”

As he took another step towards her, the few kikaichu still hidden inside of Hirari's body erupted outward. At the same time, the kikaichu that she had spent on the clone came from behind him, two streams of black seeking to entrap him and drain him of everything he had.

But her opponent was slippery. The moment her attack began, he was already moving. In an incredible display of acrobatics, he leapt ten meters into the air,  twisting his body so that what few kikaichu came close stuck to his clothes instead of his skin. He landed on the branch high above, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. He angled his head towards the swarm approaching him, and clapped his hands together as his chest swelled unnaturally.

When he exhaled, his breath came as a tunnel of rushing wind. Hirari's swarm tried to spread out, but were sucked into the vacuum created by the displaced air and torn to shreds by chakra-enhanced winds. In just a moment, her sneak attack had been completely eradicated.

What few kikaichu remained made their way back to Hirari herself, slipping into the folds of her outfit and then her body.

The man dropped back to the ground, seeming barely winded for all the effort he had expended. He eyed her, yellow eyes almost glowing in the gloom of the forest. There was a hint of respect behind his gaze.

“I was right. You are far too dangerous to capture. What a pity. I'm sure I would have loved to unlock the secrets your body is hiding.” He sighed, an almost wistful smile on his face as he reached towards his mouth. “Ah well. I'm sure there will be more opportunities soon enough.”

Hirari was forced to watch as the man's jaw unhinged and he reached into his mouth, far past the limits of his esophagus. His fingers closed around something solid and his arm retracted, alongside several feet of steel as he retrieved a slime-covered blade from the depths of his stomach.

Licking his smirking lips free of saliva, he pointed it at her from several feet away, the tip aimed right between her eyes. “I don't know what other kinds of nasty tricks you have hiding up your sleeves, so I'll do it like this. Please, hold still.”

Hirari didn't know what he was planning to do, nor was she in any position to stop it. She prepared to send the dregs of her colony forth in some vague attempt to stall him for her reinforcements, when an airy whistle reached her ears.

The man turned on a dime, his blade flashing through the air. There came the sound of clashing metal and a kunai went spinning into the forest below. Three more slammed into the bark at the man's feet as he threw himself to the side, sandals scraping against bark as he tilted his head towards the treetops.

Hirari followed his eyes as a figure landed on a branch a few meters up, and even through the fuzz of her tunneling vision, Hirari recognized her fellow proctor crouched there, white-knuckling yet another kunai. Anko's eyes were wide and her teeth were bared like an animal. Hirari never considered herself the best at reading human expressions, but it was clear that the woman was absolutely furious.

“Orochimaru!” The name ripped from Anko's throat as if it had been forced from her. The man Hirari had been fighting lowered his blade, his stance relaxing despite the clear threat the woman posed.

“Anko-chan,” he said, his voice almost amused. “It's been a long time. To think that you'd be the one to find me. Did you miss me that much?”

Anko roared in response, flinging the kunai and launching herself towards Orochimaru nearly as fast. Orochimaru deflected the projectile and then stepped to the side as her foot came inches from his face. Anko straightened, beginning to exchange a series of furious blows with the Sanin that sent sparks sailing through the air. 

Their battle took them further into the forest and Hirari quickly lost sight of them. She sent a small cluster of kikaichu in their direction to observe the battle, before slumping deeper against the wood and passing out.

Anko Mitarashi was bored out of her skull.

She crouched on a high branch, one leg dangling lazily over the edge as she watched the utterly uninspiring display of violence happening below. Two teams were going at it in a clearing—one from Taki and the other from that new village, Oto or whatever. Neither of them looked very promising considering neither had even drawn blood yet.

“Kid's these days are such pussies. All so afraid of drawing a little blood,” she sighed, disappointed by the display going on before her. “These brats are gonna get eaten alive if any of them actually manage to make Chunin.”

Anko flicked a kunai out of her pouch, idly twirling it around a finger as the Taki kid threw a handful of shuriken that his opponent swatted aside like flies. He returned it with a barrage of his own that missed by a damn mile. Anko clicked her teeth. Sloppy sloppy sloppy. Back in her day, someone would have lost a finger by now.

What happened to the desperation? To the blood and mud and all that nasty stuff? These pansies barely knew their way around their own weapons.

An Oto girl landed a kick that sent the Taki boy tumbling, and Anko yawned, faced with the reality that nothing interesting was happening anytime soon. She climbed to her feet, turning away to find something more interesting, when, as luck would have it, something just like that caught her eye.

A short distance away, she caught sight of some of Hirari's massive beetles scuttling through the brush in a straight line. They weren't heading towards the fight, which was weird because both of those teams down there had an armband. Instead, they seemed to be heading single-mindedly towards something deeper in the forest.

“Huh,” Anko mused, squatting down to watch “Now what could she be up to?”

She left the lame battle behind without a second glance. Someone else would keep an eye on those teams; there were enough Anbu crawling around the woods that she didn't have to worry about that.

She followed the beetles for a few minutes, hands stuffed in her coat pockets as she bounded from branch to branch behind the little convoy. It grew as she moved along, ten becoming fifteen becoming twenty. She had no clue where they were going, but they were trying to get there fast.

“What's going on here, kid,” she wondered as she kept pace.

Maybe a minute or so after she said that, the smell of burning flesh and charcoal wafted into her nose, causing it to wrinkle. She raised her eyes to find smoke drifting listlessly through the forest ahead of her. The smell was emanating from deeper inside.

“Looks like a team bit it. Guess these guys are cleaners.” she mused as she jumped ahead of the pack, vaulting from trunk to trunk as she searched for the source.  There were a few signs of fighting. Kunai and shuriken littered the trees and a section of the forest looked like it had been trampled while another was actively burning from a fire jutsu. Anko followed the carnage upwards, landing on a thick trunk where she stopped dead in her tracks.

“Well shit,” she muttered, staring at the corpses of two Anbu laying beside a pile of mud. 

Anko dropped down to the forest floor, crouching beside the nearest body. She didn't need to check for a pulse considering the inches of steel peeking out from the mask, but she did lean down to inspect the pile of mud laying next to their swords. She put two fingers into it. It was thick and cold and clung to her fingers just slightly, laden with chakra. Mud clone.

Anko's head snapped up as a branch broke near her, followed by more. A tunnel of wind broke through the treeline, carrying wooden shrapnel as it shredded through the forest towards her. 

She threw herself sideways off the branch as the jutsu tore through the space she'd been occupying. Bark shredded into a storm of splinters around her as she jumped to a new branch just as the one she'd been on creaked and then broke free, hurtling towards the ground.

Anko looked to where the jutsu had come from with a frown before moving towards it. She climbed higher into the impossibly tall trees until she heard a voice. One that sent chills down her spine.

No, she thought, the skin on her collar itching in sympathy as she prayed she was wrong. She burst through the treeline overlooking a branch as thick as a house, and stopped dead in her tracks. Nonononono.

He was there. He looked just like she remembered, pale skin and long limbs and impossibly fucking creepy, and there was no doubt in her mind that it was him that she was looking at. Orochimaru was here, right in front of her after years of haunting her nightmares.

Hirari was there too. The kid was slumped up against the tree like a puppet with her strings cut. Her heavy clothes made it impossible to see her face, but the way she was slumped over… Anko would have been sure she was dead if Orochimaru wasn't still talking to her. 

Then again, that sick bastard would be the type to talk to corpses.

Anko was gripping a kunai before she even realized she had pulled it out of her tool pouch. It left her hand in the next moment, aiming straight for that smug bastard's head. She'd do him like he did those Anbu.

He turned, deflecting her attack with a flick of his wrist. She threw three more for good measure, listening to her own teeth grind as he dodged those too.

“Orochimaru!” She screamed, her blood screaming in her ears as those yellow eyes turned her way. 

“Anko-chan.” His voice sent a shiver up her spine as he smirked at her. “It's been a long time. To think that you'd be the one to find me. Did you miss me that much?”

She answered him with another kunai and a roar that contained a tiny fraction of the rage she felt at the sight of him. She kicked off of the tree, the bark exploding behind her as her chakra ran rampant, sending her straight toward the object of her torment.

He deflected her kunai and she landed beside him, her kunai skittering off of his blade and sending sparks flying. She lashed out with a sandaled foot and he danced backwards to a nearby branch. She followed, not willing to let him get away.

“What a touching moment,” Orochimaru chuckled as he deflected a kunai and ducked past the senbon hidden in its shadow. “Master and student, reunited at long last.”

Anko snarled, her kunai skittering against his sword as she bore down on him. “And this is going to be the last time. You’re dying here, you bastard.”

Orochimari just smirked at her threat. 

Hirari was not the type to wake up slowly, so when she opened her eyes to a blinding white light, she was fully cognizant of the pain it caused her, as well as the fact that the gentle rousing inside of her body should have been much more violent. 

She raised a hand to shield her sensitive eyes. Her colony settled almost immediately, but the angry thrumming behind her eyes didn't get any quieter.

Something was pressed into her palm. “Here.”

Hirari's fingers closed blindly around the object, digits grazing smooth plastic and slightly pitted metal. She grabbed her goggles and slid them on. The tinted plastic cut the glare in her vision to something bearable. She lowered her arm, blinking the spots out of her vision. When the world resolved itself, she found herself laying in a stark white room, an Anbu in a cat mask standing at her bedside.

She was mildly surprised to find herself here. When she lost consciousness, she estimated that the odds were quite high that she would not wake up again given the state of her body and the type of enemy lurking nearby. Speaking of which...

Hirari turned to the Anbu. “Orochimaru?”

The woman went rigid before her posture slowly relaxed. “He fled the scene before we arrived. Anko has given a report.”

So Anko was alive as well. That was mildly impressive, given the woman's skillset.

Then again, that she herself had survived was equally surprising. Perhaps they had both simply been fortunate.

She looked around the room once more, and noted with some relief that her external colony was also present—the box resting on the floor beside her bead, panels mercifully shut. She pressed a hand to her abdomen, feeling for tender flesh and finding none. 

She could feel her kikaichu moving inside of her body. Their numbers were devastated, but they'd been hard at work repairing the damage that her parasitic insects had caused. By her estimates, between the damage she'd felt and what she was feeling now, she'd been unconscious for several days.

“What will Hokage-sama do about the examinees?” she asked.

Cat paused, seeming confused, then asked, “What do you mean?”

“Now that the Chunin Exams are cancelled, the foreign delegations must be unhappy. They traveled a significant distance to attend, and several of them will see Konoha as to blame for them not becoming Chunin. I am wondering if there will be reparations, or...” Hirari trailed off, her mind unusually sluggish. “An apology of some kind? I am unfamiliar with the protocol for this situation.”

“The exams aren't cancelled, kid.”

Hirari turned towards the voice and found Anko Mitarashi sitting on the window sill, one knee drawn up to her chest which had been wrapped tightly in bandages. She hadn't been there before, and Hirari had not sensed her arrival at all. Given the current state of her colony, it was understandable that her senses were limited but it was still mildly concerning.

Even more concerning was the fact that it took a solid second or two for Hirari to register what she just said. Once she did, she straightened, giving the woman her full attention. “What do you mean?”

“You heard me.” Anko reached up and tugged at the bandage on her arm, as if it itched. “Hokage-sama's still going through with the whole thing. The second round wrapped up a couple days ago. Just enough teams passed to make the final exams.”

Hirari stared at her.

“...Is that a joke?” She asked, hoping that she was the one misunderstanding this time.

“Wish it was, kid.” Anko sighed.

Hirari stared for a moment longer, then threw the covers off and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her body ached in strange places, reminding her that she wasn't quite at one hundred percent yet. She probably wouldn't be for several more days, but this took precedence.

“Where are my clothes?” she asked. Her hospital gown was uncomfortably exposing. Far too much skin was visible and she was cold.

“In the wardrobe,” Cat said, gesturing to a cabinet against the far wall. “Hokage-sama wanted to speak with you when you were awake.”

“I was intending to see him anyway.”

She made her way to the wardrobe, pulling it open to find her clothes folded neatly inside. She could instantly tell that her clothing had been cleaned while she was asleep; the smell of citrus clung to the fabric from whatever soaps they used here. She pulled off the hospital robe and began dressing, heedless of the women behind her.

“I'll let him know to expect you,” Cat said, then disappeared in a swirl of leaves before Hirari could respond.

“So, how are you doing, kid?” Anko asked as Hirari began putting on her pants.

Hirari considered the question as she threaded one arm through a mesh sleeve. She was alive, which was more than she had been hoping for at the end of the fight.

“My colony is at an effective fifteen percent,” she said, pulling her coat over her shoulders. “I'll need to retrieve the ones I lost in the forest. Assuming they haven't been consumed by the local wildlife.”

Anko scratched her cheek. “Sounds rough. But hey. At least you put up a good fight. Can't say I know of many Chunin that Orochimaru wouldn't have made lunch out of. The fact that you're still here could probably net you a promotion, heh.”

“I doubt it. Field promotions outside of wartime are exceptionally rare.” Hirari wrapped her face in her scarf, the fabric settling comfortably around her jaw as she turned to Anko. “Did Sasuke manage to escape?”

Anko tilted her head. “Sasuke?”

“He was Orochimaru's original target,” Hirari explained. “He seemed to take a special interest in him. He mentioned a mark, and was uncertain whether Sasuke would survive it. If he escaped you, there's a possibility Orochimaru sought him out afterward.”

Anko looked strangely horrified all of the sudden. The blood had drained from her face and her eyes were wide. 

“Oh shit,” she breathed, and then disappeared with a body flicker before Hirari could ask after the reaction.

Hirari stared where the woman had just been sitting, then turned away to grab her box, before following the woman out through the window, heading towards Hokage Tower. She imagined the nurse would be quite surprised to come back to an empty room, but matters of village security won out against proper outtake.