Chapter 7: There's Darkness Beneath the Lamppost

She kept her eyes down, focused on the himitsu-bako between her hands where she shifted the wooden panels meticulously in an effort to open the box. She had bought it to help pass her time in Konoha while her team was occupied in the exam. But judging by how long it was taking her, she was well out of practice. She used to complete one every mission, partially as a tactic to subtly draw attention to herself. Glancing up from her puzzle box, she caught a few Konoha shinobi looking her way. With a wink, she sent them back to their conversations and sake cups with a blush in their cheeks.

Turning her eyes back down to her puzzle, a grin stretched across her lips as his footsteps came closer. Heavy as usual, she suspected he hadn't done much for his lumbering stride, though not that it mattered since he was the commanding officer of Konoha's Torture and Interrogation Force. She could only imagine how many traitors and criminals he struck fear into with just his walking into a room. Even some of the Konoha shinobi seated in the bar turned away.

"You haven't changed one bit, Tanak."

She flashed a toothy smile, sliding out of her seat to offer a hug for a greeting, "Ibiki, you son of a bitch. Those scars have made you all the more handsome."

"Your charm has hardly worn off." Ibiki nearly crushed her in his embrace, laughing as she wobbled back into the booth, "What's brought you back to Konoha? I'm surprised you didn't get arrested the moment you walked through the gates."

Tanak tugged her ninja band off her waist and tossed it onto the table, "I'm a sensei in Amegakure now."

"No shit, huh?" Ibiki examined the four vertical lines etched into the metal plate, "Which three were your brats?"

"A purple haired beauty, an anxiety prone redhead, and a vain blonde."

"Your little redhead fainted after the first exam."

"Somehow I'm not surprised."

Ibiki chuckled, "Where the hell have you been these past seven years? You disappeared one night and next thing I know, rumors are going around that you're not in the Bingo books but Kakashi went after you."

"To no avail…" Tanak drummed her fingers on the table after setting her puzzle box down, "It's honestly a long story, Ibiki, and I just don't see how we'd have time to cover it all."

"My part of the Chūnin Exam is over. So…" He gestured for a waitress, asking for a bottle of sake to split between them, "…I've got time."

Tanak smirked, "I feel bad we're leaving Hayate out of it."

"He won't take it personally."

The waitress returned with a thin, curved bottle and two ceramic cups, smiling as Ibiki paid her with the instruction to 'keep the change'.

Pouring herself and Ibiki a drink, Tanak raised it in a toast before slinging it down in one gulp. Fire stirred in her belly and she held back a grimace at the dry, full taste of the Daiginjo-shu, "How about you ask me questions, since interrogation is your specialty, and I'll answer as I see fit."

Ibiki refilled her cup with a laugh, more than willing to take her up on that, "How did you get citizenship in Amegakure? I didn't think they were a stable country."

"You align yourself with the right people and don't cause trouble, that's how."

"The right people?"

"The Saito Clan is very powerful and influential. Their youngest daughter became one of my students."

"How long have you been a sensei?"

"Let's see…" Tanak pretended to be deep in thought, "It's been four years since I got to Amegakure. I've had my team two of those years."

"So what were you doing those other two years…?"

Lots of things, but those are my best kept secrets. "I was traveling," she replied matter-of-factly before slinging back another cup of sake.

"Who's buying that story?"

Tanak rolled her eyes, "Is it really that hard to believe that I was just taking time for myself? Alone."

"Yes."

"I spent three years in a relationship. I think I earned it."

"Your refusal to tell anyone what you were doing is going to make it hard to still keep you out of the Bingo books."

She wrinkled her nose, "Obviously I wasn't doing anything that threatened Konoha."

"That's to be determined…" Ibiki rested his elbows on the table, "Why did you leave?"

Tanak bit at the insides of her mouth. She expected to hear that from everyone, and she had mulled over a good answer for a week. Shaking her head, she stared off to her right, "I left to run away from my problems."

He seemed to find that a sufficient answer, sipping from his cup, "How much of that had to do with Kakashi?"

She began to see that her relationship was common knowledge amongst Konoha's shinobi. Taking a long drink from her sake, she couldn't decide if the sourness in her stomach was from thinking of Kakashi or how fast she was drinking, "Every bit…"

"Meaning?"

"It's his fault I fell for him." A sad smile crossed her lips as she shook her head, "I could live believing he hates me."

Ibiki leaned back in his seat, "He tried for a few years to convince himself he could kill you." Tanak glanced at him with a furrowed brow as he continued, "If the Hokage asked him to…"

"You mentioned I'm not listed in the Bingo books." Tanak refilled her cup, "I thought I'd end up as a nukenin the moment I decided to leave."

Ibiki seemed happy she asked, "Kakashi begged the Hokage not to."

She felt like she had been slapped. Her eyes widened and she nearly knocked over her sake cup as she fumbled to lean back against the booth. The wood felt cool through her hanten, but not enough to calm a hundred raging thoughts, "Why would he do that?"

"Come on, Tanak." Ibiki shook his head with an irritated sigh, "He loved you, that's why."

"Then why didn't he defend me at my trial!" Tanak covered her mouth, face beaming red at the number of people that turned at her outburst. Shaking her head, she steeled her eyes on Ibiki's while hissing, "He just stood there while the Hokage made a criminal of me, while our teammates condemned me. If he loved me, he should have fought for me."

Ibiki drained his cup with a tilt of his head, "What you did in Kusagakure should have gotten you exiled."

"I protected my mission and my teammates."

"You wiped out a small village."

"To prevent us from being compromised."

"At the cost of a hundred lives."

"I'm one ninja, I didn't kill a hundred people."

Ibiki glared at her, "All accounts spoke of two white dragons circling the moon…"

"Most don't live when they're summoned."

"You went in with the intent to kill anyone that posed a threat to your ANBU squad."

She lifted her chin, "You can criticize me all you want, but I made a decision that ensured the safety of my team and the success of my mission."

"You're lucky Kusagakure wasn't strong enough to retaliate."

"I've been lucky several times in my life." Tanak filled his cup, weighing the bottle, half empty already, "How else would I still be alive?"

"I think that has more to do with a certain skillset you flaunt," Ibiki scoffed.

"Is that jealousy in your voice?" Tanak stretched her arms above her head, her fishnet shirt rising up beneath her breasts. Resting her elbows on the table, she let her shoulders slacken so her hanten slid down to her forearms, "We would have never worked."

He rolled his eyes, "Sometimes I forget you're a respectable shinobi..."

Tanak wrinkled her nose while pulling her hanten back on, "My line of work isn't for the softhearted."

"The hell made you choose to be…" He mulled over the right word, not trying to insult her, "…an oiran?"

She smiled at his use of a more formal term, taking a moment to glance around the room to confirm her suspicion that her oglers from earlier still looked her way, "I've always been vain, Ibiki. It was thrilling to be admired and doted upon by several men." A chill rolled down her spine as she recalled her first mission. Iwagakure at the height of the Third Shinobi War, "It was an art so few utilized and I mastered it."

"Then why get involved with Kakashi?"

"Why do you care?"

"I'm trying to make sense of you for once, Tanak."

"It sounds more like you're prying for Kakashi."

Ibiki finished off another cup of sake and refilled it, "Just answer the question."

"You're not impressing me with your interrogation techniques." Catching his unamused glare, she rested her chin in her palm and stared at a couple in the corner cuddled up together, "We were in too deep from the start. You try getting out of something that started when you were six."

"I'm hardly convinced that at six years old the two of you were already heading down a destructive path." He pushed his sake cup aside with disinterest, "I think that was just a result of your attitude when you both served in ANBU."

"And that excuses Kakashi's behavior?"

"I didn't say that."

"Why does it keep sounding like everything is my fault?"

"You're the one who ran off!" She glowered at him, but he just rolled his eyes, "That's a guilty response."

"I lost my value."

"You're the only one who sees it that way-"

"How would you feel if you were demoted for a second time? Put on probation? Confined to the village?" She seethed, "I had nothing left in Konoha."

"So defecting to another country was your way of saving face?" He scoffed at that, "Poor excuse for running, Tanak."

"I don't need your approval."

"And you don't regret any of it?" He had a hard time comprehending that, "Just leaving after convincing him it was love?"

Tanak's eyes darkened, "I wouldn't be a very good courtesan if I couldn't lie about my emotions."

"That's cold. Even for you."

"I'm not going to keep chaining myself down because of a past infatuation."

"Infatuation? I remember you chasing after him when we were genin!"

"And it wasn't until we were in the same ANBU squad that things got out of control." She circled her finger around the rim of her sake cup in an attempt to keep her temper distracted, "If you're looking for a confession of my feelings, you won't get that."

Ibiki shook his head, filling her sake cup while pursing his lips. She waited anxiously to get a glimpse of his temper, "You just don't want to admit that you loved him and you really haven't let him go."

"I hardly believe Kakashi has spent all these years without feminine comfort-"

"Would you have done the same?" He leaned back in his seat with his arms crossed over his chest, fixing a glare on her that made her fidget, "Let's be honest here, Tanak, you've been flaunting your reputation for years. That's the only reason anyone knew you were alive."

"But no one ever found me."

"It wasn't for lack of effort from ANBU."

"And yet I remained only a name on desperate men's lips, nothing more than an apparition of their desires." Tanak finished her sake cup, her cheeks flushing pink from the heat rising through her chest, "I'm a different woman to many men. That's why Kakashi failed to find me."

"Maybe he didn't want to find you? Maybe finding you meant he had to kill you?" She kept her eyes on her cup as he continued, "The guy's lost enough in his life, and maybe having to kill the woman he loved would have been worse than knowing you were never just his."

Tanak sat silently, blaming the alcohol on the tears pushing at the corners of her eyes. She didn't have the energy to up and leave, to run away. If this was a version of his interrogation techniques, then she had easily fallen into it. ..

Her eyes scanned the room as the doors opened. What felt like hundreds of anxious glances stared her down as she moved toward the Hokage's desk. With people lining her right and left, the walk seemed to take forever. Her head craned as she glared at the ten members from Kakashi's ANBU Squad, the men and women she served beside. They all tried to avoid her bitter gaze, afraid she could kill them with one daggered glance.

She looked forward to discerning who the snitches were…and coming up with a creative end for them. Judging by the ones who turned away to look at their feet or at each other…The list was long. Maybe running earlier wasn't such a bad idea after all?

Standing tall, shoulders pulled back, chin tilted just high enough to give the impression she looked down on everyone, she let the words roll off her tongue. But it sounded more like a hiss, "What are the charges?"

The murmuring started, and she keened her ears to pick up traces of astonished whispers.

But it fizzled out as The Sandaime Hokage cleared his throat, "An investigation has been performed regarding your assignment in Kusagakure. We received a missive from Kusa describing a massacre in a small settlement on the outskirts of the village." He waited to see if she'd interrupt him, but she was too busy keeping her temper at bay, "Kusa is suspicious of us and Iwa."

Her eyes turned sidelong on her team, her lips pursing to a scowl. And still, none of them would meet her glare. Sighing impatiently, as if the ordeal just wasted her time, she cocked her eyebrows at Hiruzen, feigning surprise.

"It has been cited by Team Ro that your success in missions is owed to your ruthlessness. You don't carry an emotional burden because you've iced over everything in your heart." Hiruzen paused, almost hoping he had hit a chord with her to provoke a reaction. But that coldness in her eyes remained, "You insisted on staying behind. A heroic action to some, but suspicious to most…" She allowed a smirk to cross rose stained lips, "…and ultimately a misplaced trust by your captain."

Breathing deeply to steady her erratic heartbeat at the mention of him, she glanced over her shoulder and caught him turning his eyes away, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned on the wall. Hidden in the corner, denying he had anything to do with her court martial. Fucking coward. It took everything inside her to ease her temper, to just keep it burning behind her eyes. I won't forget this.

"Furthermore, multiple accounts detail two white dragons, your summoning, Watatsumi and Otohime, circling the moon-"

Her voice steeled as she caught her team's nervous, fleeting glances, "Most don't live when they're summoned…"

They all froze for a moment before shuttering away to find comfort in each other, in their decision to condemn her. All except one. Uchiha Itachi just watched her with what she probably mistook for compassion.

"Do you accept the charges of intentionally killing civilians and employing brutality?"

One more look at Kakashi set her blood boiling. Fuming at his refusal to meet her eyes, she clenched her hands into fists. She breathed harder. Glaring at Hiruzen, she spat, "I assured the safety of my team and the success of our mission."

"At the cost of innocent lives-"

"No one is innocent during missions."

Hiruzen folded his hands and pressed his lips to his thumbs. She anxiously waited to hear his rebuttal. How could he deny she was right? He had to doubt himself, even if just for a moment.

Her skin felt hot and clammy, fire rising up her neck, stinging through her veins. Her fingers twitched above the shuriken holsters on her thighs.

"The body count is upwards near a hundred." Her brows knitted and her arms slackened by her sides as he continued after releasing a tense breath, "You had to summon your dragons or else you would not have succeeded-" She scoffed loudly, tempted to laugh, but he narrowed his eyes on her, "Even you are not that strong."

"I'm strong enough that people fear me."

"You went in with the intent to murder-"

"When is a shinobi not supposed to?!"

Her voice rose to echo off the walls, her hands clenching into fists. One foot staggered forward, but she kept herself from making any other threatening gesture. Appalled expressions danced across her teammates' faces, dropped jaws hung from Konoha officials' mouths. Scolding herself for losing her temper, she closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. The silence felt comfortable, long enough to let her resume her haughty demeanor. Her blue eyes found Hiruzen's face that looked tired and worn from the emotional toll his investigation had caused. She wanted to pity him, but couldn't find it in herself.

"Hokage-sama, if I may…" Her teammate, Mitsuru, stepped forward, his voice wavering, "Th-This… is m-my fault." He ignored murmured instructions to just 'shut up' while trying to avoid staring at his feet, "If Tanak-senpai hadn't chosen to stay behind, our mission would have been compromised. So maybe her methods were controversial, but we might all be dead if she hadn't acted! So please reconsider-"

Another of her teammates stepped forward, pushing Mitsuru aside, "As ANBU we are meant to move about unseen! Her actions have brought an alert to all the countries!"

"What would you have done?!"

"Anything that didn't involve murder!"

"You're not thinking straight, Mitsuru! You don't even know if those villagers planned to tell Kusagakure!"

"Lay off, Kyo, she saved our asses."

"She's out of control and too dangerous to keep in ANBU."

Tanak kept her eyes closed as the voices condemning her rose higher. Her ears stung, reverberating with the same word over and over. Murderer. When did she stop caring? When did it become easy?

"That's enough!" Hiruzen bellowed.

Blinking a few times, she watched The Sandaime ease himself back into his chair, "You sentence is as follows…" He cleared his throat, stalling as long as he could before reading, "You are hereby removed from ANBU, confined to the village under surveillance, subjected to weekly reviews, and placed in behavioral therapy until it is determined that you can comply with Konoha's regulations. Should your conduct improve, and empathy be restored in you, you may resume missions under supervision."

She had waited for it the entire time, his voice breeching the void he'd placed between them. Hating herself for even bothering, she half turned to find his eyes moving to meet hers. But he just shook his head. Nothing. Nothing but disappointment on his face as he saw her begin to tremble. Grabbing for the mask on her belt, she tore it off and slammed it into the ground. Porcelain shattered across the wooden floorboards, the sound startling the Sandaime –

"Tanak." Ibiki reached across the table, tapping her hand to pull her back, "It's not too late to fix things."

"You don't get it, do you?" She shoved his hand aside, snarling, "He betrayed me."

"And what have you done?"

"This isn't about simple apologies."

"You're just making things worse by bottling it all up."

"I've been doing it for years!" Shooting to her feet, she saw that most of the restaurant stared at her. She flipped them the middle finger before turning any icy glare to Ibiki, "He knew it was over. He said it himself!"

He rolled his eyes, "He didn't want to get hurt again."

"How the fuck would you know?"

"You two weren't exactly keeping your personal life a secret…"

She finally sat back down, crossing her arms over her chest, "It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing is going to change between us."

"Is that because you don't want it to?"

Her glare would have frightened anyone else, but Ibiki practically grew up seeing it. And his cheeky grin nearly set off her temper like he always used to, "There's no going back. I said things that day that don't just go away…"

Ibiki contemplated his sake cup, "Stop making excuses for yourself. If he rejects you, then you got what you wanted when you left." She opened her mouth to argue, silenced as he held up a finger, "But somewhere in your cold heart you were hoping he would be here waiting for you."

Tanak stared at her himitsu-bako on the table, picking it up and shifting around the blocks to distract herself from confessing. She wasn't ready to be emotional, despite the tugging in her chest, "I'm not as heartless as I look."

"Prove me wrong then." He grinned when she stuck her tongue out at him, "You're back in Konoha and you've got plenty of time to mend things."

"I'll think about it." She stumbled to her feet as Ibiki stood, wrapping him in as tight a hug as he greeted her with, "Thank you."

"Anytime." He patted her on the shoulder while turning to leave the bar.

Alone again, Tanak collapsed into her seat. She furiously shifted the squares on her puzzle box. Giving up as she completely undid her earlier progress, she buried her face in her hands with a sigh. Part of her wanted to go find Kakashi, but the other part would have been just fine drowning in another sake bottle.

The fire in her stomach began twisting violently, and she let out a tiny whimper. Hands covering her mouth, her vision reeled and a wave of nausea swept over her. She gagged, eyes watering again. A cold sweat formed around her forehead, an involuntary shutter rippling down her spine. Slouching against the back of the booth, she swallowed as her throat began to tighten. Her breath reduced to gasps. She clawed at her shirt, suffocated by its tightness. Tripping from the booth, she wiped away sweat trickling down her brow as she wobbled out of the restaurant.

The outside air brought no comfort. It felt as muggy as the bar. Struggling out of her hanten, she damn near ripped her clothes to cool her skin before it melted off. Falling over herself, she crashed against a fruit stand, knocking over several strawberry baskets. Apologizing profusely to the angry woman, she teetered to her right then left. She cried out as the muscles in her neck constricted, jerking her head backwards. Yelling mixed with concerned murmuring rattled her skull. Her hand instinctively clutched at the skin between her neck and shoulder.

It can't be happening now. She shoved aside the people crowding, starting into a weak run down the street. Her feet carried her left and right, a weaving path that nearly sent her tumbling into passersby. Mumbling something close to coherent, she shook her head several times to clear her vision. She stumbled further down the road, thankful that less and less people were around as she came to the small house she stayed in. Her stomach roiled while she slowly ascended the stairs to the front door. But as soon as she touched the sliding screen, she spun around and vomited.

Coughing between the sake slews spewing from her lips, her eyes clouded with tears. She pulled herself upright and forced herself inside. Two steps and she collapsed onto the floor, half laughing to ignore the feeling of someone splitting her skull. On hands and knees, she crawled across the tatami mats until she reached the bathroom. The tile felt welcoming beneath her as she laid down, eyes fluttering closed.

Four years…Four years without incident. The fuck was going on?