Fandom: Naruto

Pairing: Orochimaru/Mitarashi Anko

Theme Set: Delta

Rating: T

1: Air

When she first sees him watching the graduates, she can't breathe, but only because nothing gets past his golden gaze, including the embarrassing smudge of mochi powder on her cheek.

2: Apples

It is with no small amount of irritation that she watches her lunch drop to the ground, and with even greater irritation that she discovers that she had been seen punishing the cause.

3: Beginning

He hands her a throwing knife, and even he cannot miss the glow of contentment in her eyes as she adjusts her belt to hold her new weapon.

4: Bugs

Orochimaru cannot decide which is more frustrating: that Anko is sick or that Anko is still standing in front of him with a kunai in one hand and a tissue in the other.

5: Coffee

When she first asks him why he drinks the foreign beverage, he does not answer because it is still seven in the morning and the sun shows no signs of growing dimmer.

6: Dark

Anko isn't afraid of being alone; she is afraid of being abandoned.

7: Despair

The first night she goes on a mission with her new teacher, she notes with difficulty breathing that Orochimaru is not impressed by her capabilities at all.

8: Doors

His house seems locked at every turn, and Anko finds herself looking through the keyholes for some sign of him.

9: Drink

She didn't realize that in some circles it was all right for minors to drink, but all the same she was grateful that he held her hair back after her first time being drunk.

10: Duty

Watching the Yondaime take the station of Hokage hurts her as much as her teacher, and she dutifully takes the full strength of his anger during training later, thinking that the bruises were just as good as any words.

11: Earth

The taste of tea leaves never sat well with her, knowing that every bit of flavor that made her tea was drawn from a once living thing; he smiles slowly.

12: End

Feeling the blood chill on her arms does nothing to quell the nausea of knowing she has killed someone and that her teacher can do the same with a smile on his face.

13: Fall

He's gone on a mission, but that doesn't stop her from sitting in the leaves, hoping that he'll be home in time for afternoon lessons.

14: Fire

Anko fights off a number of men, and Orochimaru watches, thinking that the steel of her eyes makes her look more passionate.

15: Flexible

"You should warn me about things like that, ya know," she says, eyes still wide with shock as she sees his neck twice it's usual length and he looking smug.

16: Flying

Her thirteen-year-old body seems to think that it's not funny that he would push her off a cliff, even if her much older (but not wiser) mind thinks it's hysterical.

17: Food

"If you don't eat something other than red bean soup and dango, we'll have to put you on life support, "he says with a sigh and she smiles, still chewing her lunch.

18: Foot

When they arrive at the sea country, she vaguely wonders if her feet are going to fall off from all the running they have done; straight into the danger, she imagines.

19: Grave

The rocking of the boat doesn't bother her as much as the fact that the stones jutting out of sea look like little headstones, and that she is allowing him to take her towards one.

20: Green

The scales of the half human's body make her stomach do a flip and she fights the urge to stare at Orochimaru's jounin vest, which is a calming shade in the aquatic light.

21: Head

The feel of his teeth in her shoulder isn't like she has imagined in her adolescent dreams, and watching his body pull back, she feels a deep regret, pooling just in her eyes and in the shaking of her sweaty hands.

22: Hollow

The curse seal makes her weak, and the numbness in her limbs makes her think of someone drinking a glass dry; she ignores the image of Orochimaru and her refilling his cup with bancha.

23: Honor

Her head is much too heavy to lift when he comes in the next morning, but she does anyway because despite it all, she respects him enough to look at him eye to eye.

24: Hope

He offers everything she could ever want of him, and ignoring that nagging emotion in the back of her mind, she manages to say no and sense that feeling's death.

25: Light

"You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to, but consider what he has done to you," says the Sandaime, but she simply looks blankly out the window where the leaves are changing colors.

26: Lost

Anko fails her first mission ever when she realizes mid-fight that her favorite kunai is still with him and not at her hip, and she falls to her knees, feeling adrift.

27: Metal

The investigation of Orochimaru's household is more intensive than originally assumed, and Anko finds herself kneeling over an iron door that the ANBU knock down, knowing that at one point he had been through here.

28: New

Life seems fresher without him, but the pain of his absence renews itself every morning in the form of anger and an empty sake bottle.

29: Old

"24 seems like a big number, but it's really not all that much," she finds herself explaining, but thinking that 11 years was an awfully long time to hear nothing from the only person she used to live with.

30: Peace

There are no wars, no conflicts, and there is a perfectly normal chuunin exam coming up, but for some reason her thoughts turn to him every time someone mentions harmony.

31: Poison

He hands her the kunai with another's face, but she does not realize it was her old one and that she is lucky that she misses the venomous joke at her expense.

32: Pretty

Anko has never thought of herself as a beautiful woman, only that betrayal has left her morbid, but looking at the corpses of the three genin missing their faces, she realizes Orochimaru had left her somewhat attractive after her uses wore out.

33: Rain

Knowing that he is back and that he has not bothered with her at all, Anko feels wetness on her face and blames it on the water that come from the cloudless sky.

34: Regret

The only regret she has as she forms the seals with his hands to kill both him and her is that she did not hold his hand before now.

35: Roses

The pain in her neck from her curse seal is unbearable, and with wry humor thinks she would prefer the flowers over the love bites.

36: Secret

"He told me not to cancel the exams," Anko tells them, while secretly hoping that they won't just so that she can see him again herself.

37: Snakes

When she first sees the animal summons making their way through the gates of Konoha, hissing and destroying, she never feels a more intense hatred for her own abilities and for the one who taught her them again.

38: Snow

At the end of the battles, she notes that the ground is so coated in blood that it's like a red snow, something she has seen only once before with a scroll in one hand and her heart in the other, offering both to Orochimaru's bloodlust in her youth.

39: Solid

Taking a genin team to the Sea Country gives her nightmares meaning, and her greatest fear (and hope) a face and flesh, one that she aims to meet.

40: Spring

Before when she left the ocean side to return to Konoha, it had been autumn, but now watching her young wards looking at blossoming white trees, she knows that the somber reds and decay had better suited her and Orochimaru's journey.

41: Stable

Three years, she figures, gives her enough time to equalize everything that he has disrupted in a few months.

42: Strange

Within one year, she has found another mission she feels capable of going on, and later notes that every mystery surrounding the deaths of 15 men pointed back to her sensei, giving her a nervous fluttering in her heart.

43: Summer

The cicadas are humming, and she lies on her back, deliberately ignoring the garter snake that watches her while she takes a break from defending a man who needs no help, it's cold golden eyes feeling slightly nostalgic.

44: Taboo

She meets his eyes by accident in a crowd while out on business, him surrounded by attendants, and her in a dirty Konoha uniform, but against her better judgment, she feels a curl of longing and desire in her gut.

45: Ugly

The mirrors in the guest room taunt her and her nondescript appearance, and she can still hear him saying "you'd look ridiculous if you tried to stand out, so stay the way you are."

46: War

He doesn't think of her often, because very time he does it is like beginning a battle he knows he'll lose to himself, and that is unacceptable.

47: Water

The only time Anko feels that they truly might be together is when she looks deeply into the forest stream and sees herself as a genin again, and him behind her looking torn between agitation and good humor.

48: Welcome

He knows that she'll never accept, but Orochimaru likes to think that the door is always open for Anko to accept his offer to stay with him.

49: Winter

The look of the bare branches in the woods make her wonder if that's what she looked like to Orochimaru when they met, and she feels inordinately displeased that she is even thinking about his opinion.

50: Wood

She still sits underneath the tree near the training grounds, half-expecting him to come walking down the lane, looking as if he has a chore to do, and he sometimes thinks that it would be good to go for a stroll and see Anko throwing dango sticks into the tree trunks.

Completed: 3/19/06

Done in a chronological order, but it wasn't the original intent.