Getting to Know You
Characters: Kurenai and Anko
Date: Once upon a time, in a faraway land...
Location: Ceno, mostly in the ARMA & ARCEOS compound
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Notes: Language and a glimpse of your favorite femme fatales being, well, kinda normal and awkward.
Summary: We cried together, we laughed together, and we lived together.
White teeth peeked out from underneath chapped lips, biting into the dry skin of Kurenai's lower lip as she walked down the crowded hallway. With a rucksack over her shoulder and her cropped black bangs purposely hanging around her eyes, she still could sense the occasional stares and whispers floating after and before her. But her face was stoic, completely devoid of emotion, just like how she was taught at home. She wasn't here to make an impression on her looks, no matter how eerie her eyes looked when they were wide with attention or narrowed in contempt. Actually, other than her blood-colored eyes, everything else was awkwardly long and lanky. Although not a giantress, Kurenai still towered over those considered of "average" height, making her always slouch a bit so to not stick out so much. But she was quite nonplussed about it all, sliding through an open doorway that led to the barracks in which she was to be familiar with for the rest of her time in Basic.
Picking a bed at back of the room and against the wall, Kurenai threw down her rucksack, which was filled with only a toothbrush, a wad of money, a picture of her family, and book her father had given her before she was shipped off to start her career for the Curia military. After a quick glance at the white clock hung at the other wall, Kurenai reached into the rucksack and took out the book, her legs stretched out on the cot and reading the fine print. It was still a good deal early before anything was going to happen, herself having been informed beforehand that she would arrive a day early before anything started to avoid the rush.
Not that there would be so many trainees after the grueling training of Basic was finished with them all.
It was like a new game, one with old players but a new game nonetheless. Anko breezed through the familiar halls like she owned the place, feeling the occasional horrified stare from the noobs....her peers, she had to remind herself, trying to keep a small portion of her mind focused on regardless on how many times her and Commander Koharu had sat down together with a cup of tea to talk about how her schooling was going, things were different now and she greeted the older woman with a polite bow and neutral greeting, warmed only by the familiar grin that couldn't be wiped away with her excitement.
Another quick glance at the paperwork she had been given, Anko hurried down the many winding corridors of the barracks set aside for those who hadn't managed to prove themselves worthy enough yet, but she knew it'd only be a matter of time before she would be moved into the main housing quarters with the others who'd been culled from all the riff-raff currently littering the hallways.
The numbers pasted clearly outside the the scuffed door matched those written in a rough scrawl at the top of the paper, giving Anko the permission she needed to barge in, tossing her few bags onto the unoccupied bed before turning to look over to her bunkmate for the next few weeks until the girl either proved her mettle or ended up like the other 97% of the original recruits - sent back to wherever it was they came from.
"The name's Anko, nice to meet'cha."
A long shadow stretched across Kurenai's book and legs, making her look up and brush away the black mess that covered her eyes. She had heard the sounds of another person moving around in the large room and had only treated it as background noise before she heard a voice speak out to her and it surprised her slightly that it was only two feet away from her Kurenai offered her an awkward smile, nothing suggestive, just neutral all around.
"Yuuhi Kurenai," she replied, her voice coming out in a soft increase of volume, the last syllable sounding louder than the first one. There was a slight rasp in her voice, but it was to be expected if this was the first time of the day she was using her voice to speak to another person. All through the day it was usually nods and listening to the registration officers, who would have rather the new recruits shut up and listen than talk.
"Neat eyes, you shouldn't hide them." Even at the tender age of 15 Anko already lacked ideas on personal boundaries and had no problem plopping herself on the edge of her bunkmate's bed, leaning forward to tilt her book up so that she could see what it was. "Good choice, liked his newer one better though." Violet eyes analyzed the other girl, trying to see if she could get a read on this one. Almost too girly looking to look as though she'd be able to make it through the exhausting runs and scrimmages.
There was always the hope that she could be wrong though, Anko liked the look of her.
"So you here because you want to be or you forced into it?" That was often a sticking point for a lot of people, very few actually wanted to be here and that was usually evident once training start just by watching who was making the effort and who was lagging behind.
Something that looked like a mixture between surprise and confusion crossed Kurenai's face, only briefly before said eyes watched this "Anko" character to look at the book in her hands, inciting another surprised look from Kurenai. It seemed that this girl was entirely different from those in the hallways, having already moved past the eyes and now was inquiring into the very reason Kurenai was here. Others had only stopped at the eyes and never moved quite that fast afterwards.
"Thanks. I haven't had a chance to read the newest one." Kurenai made a note, with a quick glance, at the current page that she was on before softly closing the book and looking back at Anko again, this time brushing her bangs away from her eyes and tucking the longer strands behind her petite ears. Red lips gave a more confidant smile, a faint one, but one that was better than the first one.
"I'm here because I want to. I want to help the Division out somehow and military seemed to be a good choice for me." It still fazed Kurenai as to what she saw in the long ranks of black outfits parading down the streets on holidays, but the look of confidence, respect, and duty each one held was captivating enough. And her parents were hardly one to force her to do anything, if not always telling her to slow down.
"You look a bit too upbeat to be here by force," Kurenai observed with a slight upward tilt of her mouth at the corner.
The positive response had Anko warming to the other girl even more, to have been stuck with someone who didn't want to be there would have just sucked.
"Those idiots don't know what they're missing out on," she snickered, bringing her hands to rest at the back of her head, grin nearly cracking her face. "Would have joined up sooner but rules are rules and this was the soonest I could have gotten accepted in for basics so here I am! Ready to get out there and get started but we've got all of the damned orientations and stuff." The grin dimmed only slightly as her nose wrinkled in distaste at the thought of having to sit through any boring speeches but brightened back up quickly enough at the prospect of getting out into the field.
"You know anyone else here or did you come on your own?"
Kurenai listened with a slight tilt of her head to the side, finding herself actually smiling her bunkmate's humor and eagerness. Although Kurenai didn't share the amount of knowledge Anko seemed to have for what was going to be expected of them, she couldn't help but agree in looking forward to getting some action rather than lounging about auditoriums and listen to the higher ups drone on.
"No, I'm new to this whole thing. My family have nothing to do with the military, so I'm the first." There was a tone of indifference in whether or not Kurenai cared about being the pioneer in this field and being entirely new to this. But from what her teacher in school had told her, the personality that was underneath all the awkwardness was enough to survive through the military.
"You?" Kurenai found herself wanting to know more about her peer, finding the other girl's energy very contagious and interested to know a bit more about her.
"Don't really know any of the recruits. I left school and had a private education for the past couple of years so none of 'em are classmates or nothin'. But I do know most of the trainers are really cool. Ain't got no family but my Sensei is here and I've wanted to get in for years, always wanted it far back as I can remember. Don't know what else I'd do with myself if I couldn't ya know?"
The excitement of the day had Anko nearly bouncing off the walls with excess energy and it was hard to force herself to keep still rather then expressing it in some annoying fashion (as she had been spoken to about it before on many other occasions), especially since she rather liked this Kurenai girl and didn't want to run her off just yet.
"You wanna go wander around and check out the rest of our crew? See if there's anyone interesting and get a feel for the lot?"
"Sure." With her new companion, it would be useful to use this time to know her better. Sure, Kurenai missed some of her friends that she had in school, most of them going off to lead normal lives in being normal people, but she had the strong feeling that from now on she was in new territory. And reading the hours away until something happened sounded nice, but Kurenai quickly remembered that she only had one book.
Putting down the book next to her, Kurenai straighted up and slid off the edge of the bed, her red eyes briefly looking at the doorway to the outside before looking back to Anko. "It seems that a lot of them aren't very happy to be here," she recalled, remembering the scowling faces and high whining from several girls in the hallway. "And some that look a bit too overconfident." A grinning boyish face popped into her mind as she looked back at the doorway again.
"See that all the time. The bitching ones will have their asses handed to them to shape it up and like it and the ones that think it's all going to be a breeze will get the same but they're the best ones to watch because they're the ones that have it the hardest," Anko giggled, grabbing Kurenai's hand and pulled her out into the fray.
Even though she had always looked forward to this day, it just seemed even better then Anko had anticipated.
----------
Anko let her backpack fall to the ground with a muffled 'thud', following behind it shortly with an exhausted grunt as she flung her arms out to the side like she would if she were diving onto a mattress. Only the ground wasn't nearly as forgiving. The scrimmage was fucking brutal, having just hurried across an ten mile stretch at a grueling pace and then thrown right into a combat situation immediately following that, there was now finally a chance to breath.
A violet eye cracked open sensing a familiar presence nearby, and she looked up to see her equally filthy and exhausted looking roomie.
"Why in the hell did we want to do this again?"
A violent cough followed before Kurenai had the chance to answer, the dirt build up from the grueling training having clogged up her throat for the moment. The black mess of hair on Kurenai's head had been tied up before the entire death-like episode but now lay in a dirty mess of black tendrils around her face. If this sort of training was going to be a habit, she might as well just chop off the entire length of her hair and end up looking like a hermaphrodite.
Leaning on the steel brace that separated both of their beds, Kurenai breathed in deeply, savoring the clean air surrounding the two of them. "Because we're masochists," she breathed out, the movement of her windpipes throwing her into a violent coughing fit again.
Digging out a couple of bottles of water, Anko forced an arm up to hand one off to Kurenai, the other had it's top twisted off and hurled into a corner to never be seen again. Chugging a good three quarters of the bottle, the rest was up ended over her face, the lukewarm water rinsing off just one of many layers of sweat and dirt from her skin and just barely dampening the shorter dark hair that was spread about on the cool cement floor.
"Masochists is too light a word I'm thinking. Maaaan, I think I wore a good couple of inches away from my feet with that little walk in the park. Sergent Madarame is fuckin' brutal...no one should be able to do that shit and keep going like that...it's sick and unnatural," Anko whined, taking the few precious moments to get it out of her system now before she went to go pay a visit to her Sensei. Such gripings were reserved for her bunk mate and her alone as he would only admonish her and whenever her next run would be would only be made worse by a few soft-spoken orders to her commanding officer that day, as Anko had learned the hard way.
"Wonder what it would take to convince ol' Danzou-bastard to keep a masseuse or eight on hand to pamper us after these damned things...some sort of a reward or somethin'."
Kurenai briefly thanked her bunk mate before downing the water as quick as Anko did, savoring each drop and swearing never to take calm moments like these for granted again. Carefully setting down the bottle of water next to her, Kurenai reluctantly pulled off her mud-caked shoes, eliciting a muffled groan in her mouth as a foot peppered with sores and blisters of the like slid out of it.
"I hate Sergeants," she decided, gingerly pulling off her other shoe, but nevertheless invoking another pained look and sound. "And I hate hills. Especially godforsaken-mud-covered -slippery-slopes kind of hills." With both shoes off, Kurenai plopped down next to Anko, her longer hair spread on the floor in a rather messy this-way-and-that-way arrangement. But at the moment, she didn't care and with her entire self as dirty as she was, the dust and dirt on the concrete floor did little for comfort or annoyance.
"He's not going to give us any rewards." Her hand reached over to grab the bottle, pouring a good amount of it on her face to cool down the heated blush of her cheeks to a healthy minimum. "We're just a couple of rookies. Might as well bring the dead back to life and he still won't even notice us."
She had seen their highest ranked officer of the ARMA, having been everything she thought a distinguished high military personnel would look like, complete with a highly raised nose and a stoic look that put her father's own graying looks to shame. The man seemed scary and dignified enough and talked sense, which was one of the little reasons that Kurenai found herself liking him and respecting him so early on, compared to the negative views of most of her peers. If it was someone that she didn't like, their training officer was a good scapegoat for all of her current frustration and strong dislike.
"Rookies or decorated captains, I don't think the wrinkly old prick would be willing to give anything that didn't involve some sort of torturous means. Hell, perhaps if we all chipped in and got him a couple of hookers from the Red he'd lighten up a bit. Get the old man laid then he could prosecute 'em. Would work wonders I'm tellin' ya." The thought of old Danzou standing there cluelessly with a couple of women on each arm incited a tired round of giggles from the violet eyed girl, even though the mental image was quite disturbing.
"I'll betcha if we asked that Sarutobi he'd know where to look. Just get you to bat them pretty eyes at 'im and he'd tell ya whatever you wanted to know," she teased, never giving up an opportunity to tease Kurenai about their scruffy looking comrade. The young man had some sort of radar where Kurenai was concerned and even though he flirted ruthlessly with anything with the extra X chromosome, he always seemed to stop and focus in on her whenever she came within a certain distance. And of course Anko couldn't help but exploit this much to her bunkmate's supreme annoyance.
"Thanks to you, I don't think I'll ever look at him the same again," Kurenai replied, a sound of disgust at the image of what Anko had drawn up, one that suspiciously sounded like a mix between a groan and a barely stifled laugh. If she learned anything from her roommate from these past couple of weeks it was Anko's own way of being blunt about things, whether serious or not. A complete opposite of Kurenai's own well-thought out process of thinking thoroughly before words went past her lips. Nevertheless, Kurenai enjoyed Anko's company despite the 360 degree difference in personality, especially during these first few weeks, they had found a certain sort of camaraderie and trust in each other that pulled them through every day.
But the only thing that Kurenai did not agree with Anko's personality was the fact that she liked to tease her about things constantly while Kurenai had voiced quite strongly on several occasions that she was highly annoyed by it and she wanted nothing to do with that particular male.
At the sly change of names, Kurenai pushed herself up from the floor and unconsciously straightened out her hair, throwing a mild scowl at Anko's head. "If that worked, I would have gladly asked him if he had an 'off' button. Now that I think about it, he never fully answered that question." An unwanted childish blush was creeping along the pale-colored planes of her face at the thought of said nuisance and the last time they spoke. The only part she found satisfying about the entire conversation was that it had ended with Sarutobi pinned against the wall with Kurenai's crimson glare, which oddly, seemed to work every time.
'Lace' or 'leather', indeed.
Kurenai emptied the rest of her water bottle on her bunkmate's unsuspecting head as a mild form of revenge before she stood up, tossing the now empty bottle into a nearby trashcan with dead-on accuracy. "You could ask one of your male friends," she pointed out before she started to rummage through her things for a quick shower. Even if Kurenai had tried to ignore it at times, the popularity of her bunkmate among the male recruits of their year was something close to bordering astonishing.
"Yeah, I probably could but y'know thats not nearly as amusing. Besides, most of them aren't too interested in conversation," she answered with a leer tilting her lips upwards, not phased in the slightest by Kurenai's retaliation. Far less painful then one of her boots aimed for violet-eyed woman's head, that was for damned sure.
The attention Anko received from the male faction amused the hell out of her, having gone from the flat-chested tomboy that reigned supreme in the orphanage to the curvier one that captured her fair share of glances and glares. If her physical assets weren't enough to win them over her loud, brash, but fun loving personality did though few knew that despite what most people may think, Anko wasn't one to amuse herself in that way with the boys, not with her Sensei's all-seeing eye reaching out to catch the slightest whisper of anything that could tarnish her and by association, himself. Not to mention most of the guys knew better than to try anything with Anko's infamous temper, a wandering hand would likely land them a blackened jaw if they were lucky, a trip to the infirmary if not, as an unfortunate few had found out early on. It was hard making a pass at someone who could kick your teeth in rather then waste time whispering sweet nothings into one's ear.
But her own troubles with their male colleagues aside, the slight flush on Kurenai's cheeks that had nothing to do with their exhaustion tickled Anko right to death, having latched on to the Asuma + Kurenai cheering squad from the get go. If her roommate had any clue that there was a betting pool going on as to how long it was going to take her to cave into the chain-smoking ruffian's woo-ing...let alone the fact that Anko was the one who instigated the entire thing, there probably wouldn't be pieces of Anko large enough to make a passable identification afterwards. For all her delicate features and demure attitude, Anko'd seen the other girl dig in and had been on the receiving end for a few one-on-one physical combat training sessions. When properly riled, the other girl could sucker punch with the best of them.
"But y'know, I'm surprised he hasn't popped around yet, to make sure his precious Kurenai survived the run, I'm sure you could con a decent foot massage out of him if nothing else," she teased, shoving herself up into a seated position before reaching up to wring the dampness from her hair.
"I'm not his," Kurenai retorted sharply, knowing full well that her reprimands on this topic would do nothing to stop her roommate. She was serious in her training, only allowing herself a dosage of fun now and then (mostly by Anko's influence). And because she reserved herself most of the times, it irked her that a guy like Sarutobi, who acted like everything was just a joke, would try to get under her skin so many times. He was one of those that had the potential (she had spied on him once in a sparring session) but didn't do anything to exploit it. She could only wonder why he spent so much of his efforts to get her attention.
And why Anko was so hellbent on reminding her, she'd never know. Although wads of money in her roommate's hands after "conversations" with said Prince Charming always made Kurenai slightly suspicious. If things turned out to be for the worse, Kurenai could always practice interrogation methods on her roommate. For the sake of practice, of course.
"Maybe if I strip now, he'll stop by sooner," she mused, flicking her towel over her shoulder. A foot massage was really tempting at the moment. Even so, her own conscience won over her bodily pains. "I'm going to hit the showers before evening roll call. If you don't see me after twenty, that either means I've collapsed in the showers from exhaustion, or I've found someone else to give me a foot massage."
Snickering at the thought of Kurenai roping anyone else but Asuma into gracing her with the desired massage, Anko somehow managed to pull herself from the floor with the minimal groaning and bone cracking to go see what kind of trouble she could turn up. Very few of their male classmates would even chance the wrath of the Sarutobi prodigy (or he would be if the idiot put half the effort into his training as he did his womanizing) for getting too close or lingering around her roommate any longer than necessary which alternately annoyed and amused the red-eyed woman and in Anko's case, she was definitely leaning towards the 'amused' spectrum.
With a brisk pace leading her through the hallways despite her wet and dirty appearance, Anko went in search of the man.
If anything else the resulting shrieks that would be heard once he realized Kurenai was showering would be funny as hell.
___________________
Anko ricocheted off some poor unsuspecting rookie as she barreled down the long corridor, running at full speed for the locker rooms where she knew Kurenai was probably already swapping out her Arma-issued uniform for civvies, something Anko hadn't bothered with yet when she had stopped by the dormitories to check the mail like she had religiously every day since they took their advancement exams. A rather insincere apology was thrown over her shoulder without breaking her stride in the slightest. Tightly grasped in her right hand were two official looking letters with the seal of the Chairman embossed fancily over the back flap and they were her driving force as she shoved the heavy door open and finally skidded to a halt back by the back row of lockers where she spotted the familiar long dark hair of her partner.
"They're here!" she wheezed, tripping over one of Kurenai's boots to thrust out the hand containing the letters that held their fate within.
After any sort of training and being on the field for several months in the Arma, Kurenai wasn't one to be startled or surprised by anything. Her ears had caught onto the hollow sounds of footsteps in the hallway, but had been unable to identify them until Anko burst around the corner. And through the times they have been together, Anko wasn't one to trip over anything either, but a quick glance at the papers she held within her hand told Kurenai exactly what the commotion was all about. Pausing for a moment, Kurenai gave her long-time partner and friend a "you sure about this?" look before pulling down the tank top that she had been in the middle of pulling on. Then only when her look was met with the continuing shoving of the letters, Kurenai finally took one of them.
"Anko, if this is another prank that you and someone else cooked up...I swear to God I'l-"
Words were suddenly caught in her throat as it went dry, a particular string of words in the letter being the cause of it all. Black lashes intertwined briefly as Kurenai slowly blinked in disbelief.
"...my sincere wish that you will continue to provide your services to the best of your abilities in your new assignment within the Arceos. Congratulations," Kurenai read off the paper, her voice hushed and still layered with a heavy layer of disbelief. She found herself then dumbly looking at Anko for clarification and to make damn sure that this wasn't a joke.
Kurenai's disbelief was only to be expected, especially with it coming from Anko who was notorious for her pranks but not with this. Not after they busted their asses to study, to train, to survive this test that meant so much to them. Pride welled up inside the young woman at her friend's success, her own letter still crumpled and unopened in her hand.
"You did it," she whispered, a wide grin slowly overtaking her face as the news sunk in. "You fuckin' did it!" Completely ignorant of the other occupants of the locker room and the not so soft density of their surroundings, Anko tackled Kurenai in her excitement, her laughter echoing off the polished tile walls. "You hear that bitches? We got ourselves an Arceos in our midst!"
Kurenai let out a surprised yelp at her friend's sudden embrace, but was quick to laugh the surprise away, the news finally settling into her mind. Relief finally took over her body, washing away the tension and nervousness that had built itself up inside of her ever since the tests. At the moment they were just a bunch of NCO's, but with the test, it was a good start on the road to becoming a commissioned officer at last. Eyes went back to the letter grasped in her hand before Kurenai let out another relieved laugh, her smile widening into a grin after seeing Anko's own elation at the news.
"Thanks," she finally said to Anko, the natural modesty settling in after the initial outburst of relief and joy. Kurenai then looked pointedly at a similar envelope in Anko's hand, wondering if Anko had already opened hers. "And yours? Well, don't let my glory overwhelm you, open it!"
The high of Kurenai's achievement dwindled slightly with the remembrance of the slightly crumpled envelope that remained unopened in her grasp.
"I-I can't! What if I didn't pass? I can still kick ass as an Arma grunt, right?" Suddenly taking that risk with the option of failure still clutched in her hands didn't seem like all that bright of an idea - especially in light of Kurenai's advancement.
That wasn't even touching on the subject of what would happen once he heard about such a disappointment.
For a moment Anko considered shredding the envelope along with its contents. Not knowing had to be better then the knowledge that she had failed, right? Up until now there had been no doubt that she would continue on, but realistically, what would become of her if she didn't? Progression through the ranks had been the only thing she had ever thought of, had ever planned on. There was nothing else she even knew how to do but to serve her government. But then again if she had passed, all of this worrying was moot and she was going to feel like a complete imbecile for letting in this shadow of a doubt.
"Here, you do it. Just...lie to me if it's not good news alright?"
Anko's own state of anxiety almost made Kurenai fall into her own lapse of hysterics, since her purple-haired companion hardly panicked at anything. Especially when it came down into pranks and breaking morning protocols, but being worried over test results. Well, it could've been ridiculous if the test results didn't have such an impact on their careers that is.
"Anko, I'm not going to lie if it's not it," Kurenai sighed, taking the offered envelope and using a finger to open the sealed flap. With the exception of the happy glow behind her eyes, Kureani tried to act serious as she read the letter, betraying no emotion as she went along. Only a slight twitch of her pupils indicated that Anko's worries were all for nothing.
Her lips firmly pressed shut, she was trying hard not to laugh with relief, instead pulling on her famous serious facade and gave out a theatrical sigh.
"Do you really want to know what it says?" she asked her, sounding deadly serious with a soft tone. Anko and Asuma weren't the only people in the compound that were good at tricking people.
If there was a ever a time where Anko thought that perhaps homicide wasn't such a bad idea...now would be that time. She released the breath she didn't even realize that she had been holding as she fixed the evillest glare she was capable of on her partner for prolonging her agony before wilting visibly. If it had been good news, surely there would have some sort of a favorable reaction but this almost pitying look that she was given instead? It made Anko want to just hide underneath the changing bench.
Instead, she settled for collapsing on top of it and burying her face in her hands.
"Oh God, what am I going to do? Even if I just stay here I'm always going to have that red flag of FAILURE marking my records and hovering over my head until the day that I die."
"And the rookies wouldn't mind making your life a living hell," Kurenai added, nodding sympathetically and patting her friend's head tenderly. "I guess it's karma. Or just what goes around comes around."
"By the way, I think we both should join a theatre group if we ever retire," she whispered as she allowed the letter to fall into Anko's lap, tapping the congratulatory lines towards the bottom of the letter. "Just a thought."
After ruffling Anko's hair, Kurenai quickly scooped up her letter and equipment and skipped out of the room, running as fast as someone did when an Arceos was on your tail. Or rather, a pissed Arceos.
Kurenai's cryptic words in regards to the theater bounced off of Anko's subconscious as she nearly worked herself up to the point of being sick.
Her life as she knew it was over.
She felt the tapping through the paper on her lap though, and wondered if with this change of station Kurenai would become like most other Arceos who would rub their Arma counterparts noses in their failure to rise above such meager standings.
Bleary violet eyes peeked through her fingers at the written proof of the end of her life as she knew it...but when had a letter of declination ever included the word 'congratulations'? There was only a wisp of dark hair visible after Kurenai turned the corner but Anko was too busy
snatching up the letter to read it through for herself to pay any attention to the other woman.
...Oh she was going to pay.
There was a shrill shriek as Anko went barrelling after her soon to be ex-roomie, blistering curses and detailed descriptions of what was going to happen to the other women being muttered for all to hear as she tore down the hallway with the intent to kill. Or at least maim. A lot
___________________
A couple of weeks earlier, if someone had told Lieutenant Yuuhi about the lack of sleep and cramped officer barracks, she would've honorably rejected the promotion and filed a complaint for assault. It was true that there were more privileges, like the food in the mess halls and the more comfortable rooming that allowed you to have your own private bathroom. However, with a bigger role came a bigger responsibility.
This included weeding out the new recruits as well as taking up the daily mess hall duty. The morning started with a nice little surprise with her name coming up on the rotation for the week.
Even if officers were allowed more to their private belongings, Kurenai still had the standard equipment littering her room and the occasional wrapper of a ration bar on the floor. For the past two hours, she was sprawled over her bed and trying to figure out which newbie to strike from a promising military. Papers everywhere, Kurenai occasionally grabbed at whichever one was nearest to her and continued to write down notes in neat red handwriting.
The silence of her own room had begun to grate on her nerves, the privacy being an unknown luxury that Anko had never really understood after being crammed into overcrowded dorms as a child and then in the barracks as she had gotten older. Added in to her own blatant disregard for other's privacy, and you had Anko slinking into Kurenai's room without waiting for an invitation, flopping down half on the bed and half on Kurenai. Neatly piled papers crinkled under her weight as she tried to squint at the neat font and red notations made neatly in the margins. Her nose wrinkled at all of the excess information that her old partner seemed to be gathering on the potential candidates. Her own approach focused more on her gut instinct with prospective team members then all the details that the red eyed woman seemed addicted to, but their methods worked out in end, regardless of the way they approached a common goal.
"If you don't want that one, I'll take her for my squad. Brat sounds like she's got some spunk in her," she announced, trying to tug the applicant from Kurenai's fingers.
Kurenai held back the wince that threatened to escape her face as Anko's weight scattered her papers and made its unwelcome presence known on herself. She quickly counted to five...ten...fifteen...twent--
"Who said I didn't want her?" Kurenai quickly retorted, snatching back the piece of paper from Anko's prying fingers. In truth, Kurenai was contemplating about the young woman, whether or not that similar temper of hers really held anything promising to be seen in the near future, or whether or not the girl could produce a restraint on her own temper...
"She's a hot head," she concluded bluntly, looking pointedly at her ex-partner. "Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's not. She's on hold." Red eyes briefly looked over the profile before hands placed it into the "maybe" pile (or what was left of it).
"So, what's your crew of newbies shaping up to be? Young men ready to lose their virginity for you at a moment's notice?" Several years ago, Kurenai wouldn't feel up to it to make a sarcastic joke like this, but now, with time, she was comfortable in speaking the lingo that would even make her longtime Sarutobi stalker swallow his cigarettes whole.
"Being a hot head only makes 'em more interesting. It's not just the quiet prissy ones that turn out well you know," she shot back, rifling through the once neat piles of paper to see what other offerings Kurenai was given for consideration, and if there was anyone worth snatching up before the other woman could.
"Only the most promising of course~ But overall the brats are ok. Nothing a few hundred miles of jogging won't whip into them." For a moment a truly wicked smile twisted the violet eyed woman's lips, but it was lost a second later with the sharp whistle through her teeth at the next prospect's test scores.
That must be Kurenai's 'keep' pile.
"Hell of a lot more fun ordering the little mutants to do all the shit then it was to do it ourselves, even you can't deny that. I've seen that sadistic little grin of yours sneak out on occasion. You may have everyone else fooled with your little golden girl schtick, but I can see whats working through that head of yours better then what the rest of them can. Makes me hella glad you're not my C.O.," she snickered, leaning over to bump Kurenai's shoulder with her own. And it was the God's honest truth too, she'd rather be on her old partner's good side any day then the one on the the red eyed woman's shit list. She'd learned that easily enough from other's mistakes, a certain bearded someone more often then others of course. There was just a certain appeal to be someone on the sidelines though, when Sarutobi found himself with his foot in his mouth and the other up his ass.
Always good times then.
"Almost a shame these poor brats don't see anything outside of all the boring shit. Been forever since anything exciting happened - damned kids'll probably shit themselves if there really was a code in the middle of the night," she mused, squishing Kurenai once more in a reach for another loose applicant, pausing in thought once she removed herself from the other woman's back again. "Maybe I'll have to pull the alarm tonight. Get their blood pressure going," she mused aloud, taking in the other's reaction out of the corner of her eye.
There was an barely repressed snort at the idea of pulling a stunt like that in the middle of the night with the new recruits. If anything, Kurenai was a fan of hardcore training, the type that actually made you learn something and never forget it. So maybe pulling something like what Anko suggested was tempting, but usually made the recruits hate your ass until you dismissed them or scared the living shit out of them. Not that Kurenai was looking to make "bonds" between the recruits and herself, but rather, something like a mutual respect was needed to get anywhere in ARMA. But with this particular bunch and with the generation past theirs, Kurenai easily sensed that her method wasn't exactly the preferred one if the government was pushing to get the troops in and out of training as quick as possible.
Suddenly annoyed at the whole process, Kurenai placed down the paper in her hand and favored facing her friend instead, her red eyes narrowing at violet ones before Kurenai sighed and broke eye contact.
"It's suppose to be easier than this," she gestured to the papers before reaching up to rub her forehead with both of her hands, gently massaging her temples. "It really is."
"Pfffft. This is easy. Too damned easy if you ask me. Any damned brat who walks through the gates can progress up through the ranks a hell of a lot easier then they could not a couple of years ago. It's a damned disgrace is what it is. If I knew this back when we were getting our asses kicked on the training fields, I would have dropped my shit, turned around and left without even looking back. Don't give a damn about what that old uptight prick is about but any brats that go through me is going to earn their rank and fucking like it, or get a swift kick in the ass towards the door."
Shamelessly, Anko used Kurenai's distraction to carefully edge away a few prospective candidates for her own squad, stuffing the hurriedly folded applications into a pocket before turning her full attention back to her friend.
"You know what we need? You and I, we are going to go out. We're going to get ourselves nice and stupid, maybe drag Sarutobi for laughs along with a few of the others who we actually like, then come back and rig one of the alerts to go off. We can all sit up on top of the armory and watch all the brats go scrambling about and all the higher ups go just as haywire. None of us are on duty tonight so it's no biggie if we're not 'here'." A wicked smile twisted the violet eyed woman' s lips at the prospect of chaos.
The idea was tempting, it really was. (The get "stupid" one, not the "expel brats who thinking screwing the instructors will get them to higher ranks" one. Although the latter sounded more sensible than the former.)
Eyes looked at the mess of papers strewn across her lap and the bed, then narrowing at a stack of papers that suddenly had the image of a scruffy looking man with an idiotic look on his face. So it had to come to this, seeing Asuma and Anko drink their asses off and sing horrible karaoke (like they always do) or deal with the brats that seem to have no brains in her unit?
Screw being sensible, leading a pack of hormonal and pubric ARMA recruits was craziness in iteself.
Suddenly shoving all of the papers out of her way, Kurenai crawled off of the bed and then marched to her closet, pulling open the doors to find something "suitable" to wear. Which meant strapless.
"Fire alarm or bomb threat?" A deep red shirt with a low V-neck line appeared to be the dark-haired woman's choice of the night.
The wicked smile turned into a full wattage grin as it sunk in that she had won (but truely, had there ever been any doubt?).
"Bomb threat, no doubt. It'll be at least three hours before they can check the entire place and call the place clear, but a fire alarm can be disproved in about fifteen minutes. One sleepless night ain't going to kill these brats," she gloated gleefully, completely giddy at the prospect of really running her troops down into the ground the next day.
"You want the red thing by the way, you always look damned hot in it. Give Sarutobi something to lust over, it'll do the man some good."
The other woman barely kept her calm and cool after hearing Anko's last comment, turning away at the perfect time so not to give Anko anything else to tease her about. Kurenai almost had the urge to shake her head, but she knew that it wouldn't change anything.
Not that she would ever want to change anything anyways. This was life with Anko and it would always be this way if she wanted it.
Hopefully, the future would share the same sentiments as she did.
But for now, they had a entire night ahead of them that needed living.
Date: Once upon a time, in a faraway land...
Location: Ceno, mostly in the ARMA & ARCEOS compound
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Notes: Language and a glimpse of your favorite femme fatales being, well, kinda normal and awkward.
Summary: We cried together, we laughed together, and we lived together.
White teeth peeked out from underneath chapped lips, biting into the dry skin of Kurenai's lower lip as she walked down the crowded hallway. With a rucksack over her shoulder and her cropped black bangs purposely hanging around her eyes, she still could sense the occasional stares and whispers floating after and before her. But her face was stoic, completely devoid of emotion, just like how she was taught at home. She wasn't here to make an impression on her looks, no matter how eerie her eyes looked when they were wide with attention or narrowed in contempt. Actually, other than her blood-colored eyes, everything else was awkwardly long and lanky. Although not a giantress, Kurenai still towered over those considered of "average" height, making her always slouch a bit so to not stick out so much. But she was quite nonplussed about it all, sliding through an open doorway that led to the barracks in which she was to be familiar with for the rest of her time in Basic.
Picking a bed at back of the room and against the wall, Kurenai threw down her rucksack, which was filled with only a toothbrush, a wad of money, a picture of her family, and book her father had given her before she was shipped off to start her career for the Curia military. After a quick glance at the white clock hung at the other wall, Kurenai reached into the rucksack and took out the book, her legs stretched out on the cot and reading the fine print. It was still a good deal early before anything was going to happen, herself having been informed beforehand that she would arrive a day early before anything started to avoid the rush.
Not that there would be so many trainees after the grueling training of Basic was finished with them all.
It was like a new game, one with old players but a new game nonetheless. Anko breezed through the familiar halls like she owned the place, feeling the occasional horrified stare from the noobs....her peers, she had to remind herself, trying to keep a small portion of her mind focused on regardless on how many times her and Commander Koharu had sat down together with a cup of tea to talk about how her schooling was going, things were different now and she greeted the older woman with a polite bow and neutral greeting, warmed only by the familiar grin that couldn't be wiped away with her excitement.
Another quick glance at the paperwork she had been given, Anko hurried down the many winding corridors of the barracks set aside for those who hadn't managed to prove themselves worthy enough yet, but she knew it'd only be a matter of time before she would be moved into the main housing quarters with the others who'd been culled from all the riff-raff currently littering the hallways.
The numbers pasted clearly outside the the scuffed door matched those written in a rough scrawl at the top of the paper, giving Anko the permission she needed to barge in, tossing her few bags onto the unoccupied bed before turning to look over to her bunkmate for the next few weeks until the girl either proved her mettle or ended up like the other 97% of the original recruits - sent back to wherever it was they came from.
"The name's Anko, nice to meet'cha."
A long shadow stretched across Kurenai's book and legs, making her look up and brush away the black mess that covered her eyes. She had heard the sounds of another person moving around in the large room and had only treated it as background noise before she heard a voice speak out to her and it surprised her slightly that it was only two feet away from her Kurenai offered her an awkward smile, nothing suggestive, just neutral all around.
"Yuuhi Kurenai," she replied, her voice coming out in a soft increase of volume, the last syllable sounding louder than the first one. There was a slight rasp in her voice, but it was to be expected if this was the first time of the day she was using her voice to speak to another person. All through the day it was usually nods and listening to the registration officers, who would have rather the new recruits shut up and listen than talk.
"Neat eyes, you shouldn't hide them." Even at the tender age of 15 Anko already lacked ideas on personal boundaries and had no problem plopping herself on the edge of her bunkmate's bed, leaning forward to tilt her book up so that she could see what it was. "Good choice, liked his newer one better though." Violet eyes analyzed the other girl, trying to see if she could get a read on this one. Almost too girly looking to look as though she'd be able to make it through the exhausting runs and scrimmages.
There was always the hope that she could be wrong though, Anko liked the look of her.
"So you here because you want to be or you forced into it?" That was often a sticking point for a lot of people, very few actually wanted to be here and that was usually evident once training start just by watching who was making the effort and who was lagging behind.
Something that looked like a mixture between surprise and confusion crossed Kurenai's face, only briefly before said eyes watched this "Anko" character to look at the book in her hands, inciting another surprised look from Kurenai. It seemed that this girl was entirely different from those in the hallways, having already moved past the eyes and now was inquiring into the very reason Kurenai was here. Others had only stopped at the eyes and never moved quite that fast afterwards.
"Thanks. I haven't had a chance to read the newest one." Kurenai made a note, with a quick glance, at the current page that she was on before softly closing the book and looking back at Anko again, this time brushing her bangs away from her eyes and tucking the longer strands behind her petite ears. Red lips gave a more confidant smile, a faint one, but one that was better than the first one.
"I'm here because I want to. I want to help the Division out somehow and military seemed to be a good choice for me." It still fazed Kurenai as to what she saw in the long ranks of black outfits parading down the streets on holidays, but the look of confidence, respect, and duty each one held was captivating enough. And her parents were hardly one to force her to do anything, if not always telling her to slow down.
"You look a bit too upbeat to be here by force," Kurenai observed with a slight upward tilt of her mouth at the corner.
The positive response had Anko warming to the other girl even more, to have been stuck with someone who didn't want to be there would have just sucked.
"Those idiots don't know what they're missing out on," she snickered, bringing her hands to rest at the back of her head, grin nearly cracking her face. "Would have joined up sooner but rules are rules and this was the soonest I could have gotten accepted in for basics so here I am! Ready to get out there and get started but we've got all of the damned orientations and stuff." The grin dimmed only slightly as her nose wrinkled in distaste at the thought of having to sit through any boring speeches but brightened back up quickly enough at the prospect of getting out into the field.
"You know anyone else here or did you come on your own?"
Kurenai listened with a slight tilt of her head to the side, finding herself actually smiling her bunkmate's humor and eagerness. Although Kurenai didn't share the amount of knowledge Anko seemed to have for what was going to be expected of them, she couldn't help but agree in looking forward to getting some action rather than lounging about auditoriums and listen to the higher ups drone on.
"No, I'm new to this whole thing. My family have nothing to do with the military, so I'm the first." There was a tone of indifference in whether or not Kurenai cared about being the pioneer in this field and being entirely new to this. But from what her teacher in school had told her, the personality that was underneath all the awkwardness was enough to survive through the military.
"You?" Kurenai found herself wanting to know more about her peer, finding the other girl's energy very contagious and interested to know a bit more about her.
"Don't really know any of the recruits. I left school and had a private education for the past couple of years so none of 'em are classmates or nothin'. But I do know most of the trainers are really cool. Ain't got no family but my Sensei is here and I've wanted to get in for years, always wanted it far back as I can remember. Don't know what else I'd do with myself if I couldn't ya know?"
The excitement of the day had Anko nearly bouncing off the walls with excess energy and it was hard to force herself to keep still rather then expressing it in some annoying fashion (as she had been spoken to about it before on many other occasions), especially since she rather liked this Kurenai girl and didn't want to run her off just yet.
"You wanna go wander around and check out the rest of our crew? See if there's anyone interesting and get a feel for the lot?"
"Sure." With her new companion, it would be useful to use this time to know her better. Sure, Kurenai missed some of her friends that she had in school, most of them going off to lead normal lives in being normal people, but she had the strong feeling that from now on she was in new territory. And reading the hours away until something happened sounded nice, but Kurenai quickly remembered that she only had one book.
Putting down the book next to her, Kurenai straighted up and slid off the edge of the bed, her red eyes briefly looking at the doorway to the outside before looking back to Anko. "It seems that a lot of them aren't very happy to be here," she recalled, remembering the scowling faces and high whining from several girls in the hallway. "And some that look a bit too overconfident." A grinning boyish face popped into her mind as she looked back at the doorway again.
"See that all the time. The bitching ones will have their asses handed to them to shape it up and like it and the ones that think it's all going to be a breeze will get the same but they're the best ones to watch because they're the ones that have it the hardest," Anko giggled, grabbing Kurenai's hand and pulled her out into the fray.
Even though she had always looked forward to this day, it just seemed even better then Anko had anticipated.
----------
Anko let her backpack fall to the ground with a muffled 'thud', following behind it shortly with an exhausted grunt as she flung her arms out to the side like she would if she were diving onto a mattress. Only the ground wasn't nearly as forgiving. The scrimmage was fucking brutal, having just hurried across an ten mile stretch at a grueling pace and then thrown right into a combat situation immediately following that, there was now finally a chance to breath.
A violet eye cracked open sensing a familiar presence nearby, and she looked up to see her equally filthy and exhausted looking roomie.
"Why in the hell did we want to do this again?"
A violent cough followed before Kurenai had the chance to answer, the dirt build up from the grueling training having clogged up her throat for the moment. The black mess of hair on Kurenai's head had been tied up before the entire death-like episode but now lay in a dirty mess of black tendrils around her face. If this sort of training was going to be a habit, she might as well just chop off the entire length of her hair and end up looking like a hermaphrodite.
Leaning on the steel brace that separated both of their beds, Kurenai breathed in deeply, savoring the clean air surrounding the two of them. "Because we're masochists," she breathed out, the movement of her windpipes throwing her into a violent coughing fit again.
Digging out a couple of bottles of water, Anko forced an arm up to hand one off to Kurenai, the other had it's top twisted off and hurled into a corner to never be seen again. Chugging a good three quarters of the bottle, the rest was up ended over her face, the lukewarm water rinsing off just one of many layers of sweat and dirt from her skin and just barely dampening the shorter dark hair that was spread about on the cool cement floor.
"Masochists is too light a word I'm thinking. Maaaan, I think I wore a good couple of inches away from my feet with that little walk in the park. Sergent Madarame is fuckin' brutal...no one should be able to do that shit and keep going like that...it's sick and unnatural," Anko whined, taking the few precious moments to get it out of her system now before she went to go pay a visit to her Sensei. Such gripings were reserved for her bunk mate and her alone as he would only admonish her and whenever her next run would be would only be made worse by a few soft-spoken orders to her commanding officer that day, as Anko had learned the hard way.
"Wonder what it would take to convince ol' Danzou-bastard to keep a masseuse or eight on hand to pamper us after these damned things...some sort of a reward or somethin'."
Kurenai briefly thanked her bunk mate before downing the water as quick as Anko did, savoring each drop and swearing never to take calm moments like these for granted again. Carefully setting down the bottle of water next to her, Kurenai reluctantly pulled off her mud-caked shoes, eliciting a muffled groan in her mouth as a foot peppered with sores and blisters of the like slid out of it.
"I hate Sergeants," she decided, gingerly pulling off her other shoe, but nevertheless invoking another pained look and sound. "And I hate hills. Especially godforsaken-mud-covered -slippery-slopes kind of hills." With both shoes off, Kurenai plopped down next to Anko, her longer hair spread on the floor in a rather messy this-way-and-that-way arrangement. But at the moment, she didn't care and with her entire self as dirty as she was, the dust and dirt on the concrete floor did little for comfort or annoyance.
"He's not going to give us any rewards." Her hand reached over to grab the bottle, pouring a good amount of it on her face to cool down the heated blush of her cheeks to a healthy minimum. "We're just a couple of rookies. Might as well bring the dead back to life and he still won't even notice us."
She had seen their highest ranked officer of the ARMA, having been everything she thought a distinguished high military personnel would look like, complete with a highly raised nose and a stoic look that put her father's own graying looks to shame. The man seemed scary and dignified enough and talked sense, which was one of the little reasons that Kurenai found herself liking him and respecting him so early on, compared to the negative views of most of her peers. If it was someone that she didn't like, their training officer was a good scapegoat for all of her current frustration and strong dislike.
"Rookies or decorated captains, I don't think the wrinkly old prick would be willing to give anything that didn't involve some sort of torturous means. Hell, perhaps if we all chipped in and got him a couple of hookers from the Red he'd lighten up a bit. Get the old man laid then he could prosecute 'em. Would work wonders I'm tellin' ya." The thought of old Danzou standing there cluelessly with a couple of women on each arm incited a tired round of giggles from the violet eyed girl, even though the mental image was quite disturbing.
"I'll betcha if we asked that Sarutobi he'd know where to look. Just get you to bat them pretty eyes at 'im and he'd tell ya whatever you wanted to know," she teased, never giving up an opportunity to tease Kurenai about their scruffy looking comrade. The young man had some sort of radar where Kurenai was concerned and even though he flirted ruthlessly with anything with the extra X chromosome, he always seemed to stop and focus in on her whenever she came within a certain distance. And of course Anko couldn't help but exploit this much to her bunkmate's supreme annoyance.
"Thanks to you, I don't think I'll ever look at him the same again," Kurenai replied, a sound of disgust at the image of what Anko had drawn up, one that suspiciously sounded like a mix between a groan and a barely stifled laugh. If she learned anything from her roommate from these past couple of weeks it was Anko's own way of being blunt about things, whether serious or not. A complete opposite of Kurenai's own well-thought out process of thinking thoroughly before words went past her lips. Nevertheless, Kurenai enjoyed Anko's company despite the 360 degree difference in personality, especially during these first few weeks, they had found a certain sort of camaraderie and trust in each other that pulled them through every day.
But the only thing that Kurenai did not agree with Anko's personality was the fact that she liked to tease her about things constantly while Kurenai had voiced quite strongly on several occasions that she was highly annoyed by it and she wanted nothing to do with that particular male.
At the sly change of names, Kurenai pushed herself up from the floor and unconsciously straightened out her hair, throwing a mild scowl at Anko's head. "If that worked, I would have gladly asked him if he had an 'off' button. Now that I think about it, he never fully answered that question." An unwanted childish blush was creeping along the pale-colored planes of her face at the thought of said nuisance and the last time they spoke. The only part she found satisfying about the entire conversation was that it had ended with Sarutobi pinned against the wall with Kurenai's crimson glare, which oddly, seemed to work every time.
'Lace' or 'leather', indeed.
Kurenai emptied the rest of her water bottle on her bunkmate's unsuspecting head as a mild form of revenge before she stood up, tossing the now empty bottle into a nearby trashcan with dead-on accuracy. "You could ask one of your male friends," she pointed out before she started to rummage through her things for a quick shower. Even if Kurenai had tried to ignore it at times, the popularity of her bunkmate among the male recruits of their year was something close to bordering astonishing.
"Yeah, I probably could but y'know thats not nearly as amusing. Besides, most of them aren't too interested in conversation," she answered with a leer tilting her lips upwards, not phased in the slightest by Kurenai's retaliation. Far less painful then one of her boots aimed for violet-eyed woman's head, that was for damned sure.
The attention Anko received from the male faction amused the hell out of her, having gone from the flat-chested tomboy that reigned supreme in the orphanage to the curvier one that captured her fair share of glances and glares. If her physical assets weren't enough to win them over her loud, brash, but fun loving personality did though few knew that despite what most people may think, Anko wasn't one to amuse herself in that way with the boys, not with her Sensei's all-seeing eye reaching out to catch the slightest whisper of anything that could tarnish her and by association, himself. Not to mention most of the guys knew better than to try anything with Anko's infamous temper, a wandering hand would likely land them a blackened jaw if they were lucky, a trip to the infirmary if not, as an unfortunate few had found out early on. It was hard making a pass at someone who could kick your teeth in rather then waste time whispering sweet nothings into one's ear.
But her own troubles with their male colleagues aside, the slight flush on Kurenai's cheeks that had nothing to do with their exhaustion tickled Anko right to death, having latched on to the Asuma + Kurenai cheering squad from the get go. If her roommate had any clue that there was a betting pool going on as to how long it was going to take her to cave into the chain-smoking ruffian's woo-ing...let alone the fact that Anko was the one who instigated the entire thing, there probably wouldn't be pieces of Anko large enough to make a passable identification afterwards. For all her delicate features and demure attitude, Anko'd seen the other girl dig in and had been on the receiving end for a few one-on-one physical combat training sessions. When properly riled, the other girl could sucker punch with the best of them.
"But y'know, I'm surprised he hasn't popped around yet, to make sure his precious Kurenai survived the run, I'm sure you could con a decent foot massage out of him if nothing else," she teased, shoving herself up into a seated position before reaching up to wring the dampness from her hair.
"I'm not his," Kurenai retorted sharply, knowing full well that her reprimands on this topic would do nothing to stop her roommate. She was serious in her training, only allowing herself a dosage of fun now and then (mostly by Anko's influence). And because she reserved herself most of the times, it irked her that a guy like Sarutobi, who acted like everything was just a joke, would try to get under her skin so many times. He was one of those that had the potential (she had spied on him once in a sparring session) but didn't do anything to exploit it. She could only wonder why he spent so much of his efforts to get her attention.
And why Anko was so hellbent on reminding her, she'd never know. Although wads of money in her roommate's hands after "conversations" with said Prince Charming always made Kurenai slightly suspicious. If things turned out to be for the worse, Kurenai could always practice interrogation methods on her roommate. For the sake of practice, of course.
"Maybe if I strip now, he'll stop by sooner," she mused, flicking her towel over her shoulder. A foot massage was really tempting at the moment. Even so, her own conscience won over her bodily pains. "I'm going to hit the showers before evening roll call. If you don't see me after twenty, that either means I've collapsed in the showers from exhaustion, or I've found someone else to give me a foot massage."
Snickering at the thought of Kurenai roping anyone else but Asuma into gracing her with the desired massage, Anko somehow managed to pull herself from the floor with the minimal groaning and bone cracking to go see what kind of trouble she could turn up. Very few of their male classmates would even chance the wrath of the Sarutobi prodigy (or he would be if the idiot put half the effort into his training as he did his womanizing) for getting too close or lingering around her roommate any longer than necessary which alternately annoyed and amused the red-eyed woman and in Anko's case, she was definitely leaning towards the 'amused' spectrum.
With a brisk pace leading her through the hallways despite her wet and dirty appearance, Anko went in search of the man.
If anything else the resulting shrieks that would be heard once he realized Kurenai was showering would be funny as hell.
___________________
Anko ricocheted off some poor unsuspecting rookie as she barreled down the long corridor, running at full speed for the locker rooms where she knew Kurenai was probably already swapping out her Arma-issued uniform for civvies, something Anko hadn't bothered with yet when she had stopped by the dormitories to check the mail like she had religiously every day since they took their advancement exams. A rather insincere apology was thrown over her shoulder without breaking her stride in the slightest. Tightly grasped in her right hand were two official looking letters with the seal of the Chairman embossed fancily over the back flap and they were her driving force as she shoved the heavy door open and finally skidded to a halt back by the back row of lockers where she spotted the familiar long dark hair of her partner.
"They're here!" she wheezed, tripping over one of Kurenai's boots to thrust out the hand containing the letters that held their fate within.
After any sort of training and being on the field for several months in the Arma, Kurenai wasn't one to be startled or surprised by anything. Her ears had caught onto the hollow sounds of footsteps in the hallway, but had been unable to identify them until Anko burst around the corner. And through the times they have been together, Anko wasn't one to trip over anything either, but a quick glance at the papers she held within her hand told Kurenai exactly what the commotion was all about. Pausing for a moment, Kurenai gave her long-time partner and friend a "you sure about this?" look before pulling down the tank top that she had been in the middle of pulling on. Then only when her look was met with the continuing shoving of the letters, Kurenai finally took one of them.
"Anko, if this is another prank that you and someone else cooked up...I swear to God I'l-"
Words were suddenly caught in her throat as it went dry, a particular string of words in the letter being the cause of it all. Black lashes intertwined briefly as Kurenai slowly blinked in disbelief.
"...my sincere wish that you will continue to provide your services to the best of your abilities in your new assignment within the Arceos. Congratulations," Kurenai read off the paper, her voice hushed and still layered with a heavy layer of disbelief. She found herself then dumbly looking at Anko for clarification and to make damn sure that this wasn't a joke.
Kurenai's disbelief was only to be expected, especially with it coming from Anko who was notorious for her pranks but not with this. Not after they busted their asses to study, to train, to survive this test that meant so much to them. Pride welled up inside the young woman at her friend's success, her own letter still crumpled and unopened in her hand.
"You did it," she whispered, a wide grin slowly overtaking her face as the news sunk in. "You fuckin' did it!" Completely ignorant of the other occupants of the locker room and the not so soft density of their surroundings, Anko tackled Kurenai in her excitement, her laughter echoing off the polished tile walls. "You hear that bitches? We got ourselves an Arceos in our midst!"
Kurenai let out a surprised yelp at her friend's sudden embrace, but was quick to laugh the surprise away, the news finally settling into her mind. Relief finally took over her body, washing away the tension and nervousness that had built itself up inside of her ever since the tests. At the moment they were just a bunch of NCO's, but with the test, it was a good start on the road to becoming a commissioned officer at last. Eyes went back to the letter grasped in her hand before Kurenai let out another relieved laugh, her smile widening into a grin after seeing Anko's own elation at the news.
"Thanks," she finally said to Anko, the natural modesty settling in after the initial outburst of relief and joy. Kurenai then looked pointedly at a similar envelope in Anko's hand, wondering if Anko had already opened hers. "And yours? Well, don't let my glory overwhelm you, open it!"
The high of Kurenai's achievement dwindled slightly with the remembrance of the slightly crumpled envelope that remained unopened in her grasp.
"I-I can't! What if I didn't pass? I can still kick ass as an Arma grunt, right?" Suddenly taking that risk with the option of failure still clutched in her hands didn't seem like all that bright of an idea - especially in light of Kurenai's advancement.
That wasn't even touching on the subject of what would happen once he heard about such a disappointment.
For a moment Anko considered shredding the envelope along with its contents. Not knowing had to be better then the knowledge that she had failed, right? Up until now there had been no doubt that she would continue on, but realistically, what would become of her if she didn't? Progression through the ranks had been the only thing she had ever thought of, had ever planned on. There was nothing else she even knew how to do but to serve her government. But then again if she had passed, all of this worrying was moot and she was going to feel like a complete imbecile for letting in this shadow of a doubt.
"Here, you do it. Just...lie to me if it's not good news alright?"
Anko's own state of anxiety almost made Kurenai fall into her own lapse of hysterics, since her purple-haired companion hardly panicked at anything. Especially when it came down into pranks and breaking morning protocols, but being worried over test results. Well, it could've been ridiculous if the test results didn't have such an impact on their careers that is.
"Anko, I'm not going to lie if it's not it," Kurenai sighed, taking the offered envelope and using a finger to open the sealed flap. With the exception of the happy glow behind her eyes, Kureani tried to act serious as she read the letter, betraying no emotion as she went along. Only a slight twitch of her pupils indicated that Anko's worries were all for nothing.
Her lips firmly pressed shut, she was trying hard not to laugh with relief, instead pulling on her famous serious facade and gave out a theatrical sigh.
"Do you really want to know what it says?" she asked her, sounding deadly serious with a soft tone. Anko and Asuma weren't the only people in the compound that were good at tricking people.
If there was a ever a time where Anko thought that perhaps homicide wasn't such a bad idea...now would be that time. She released the breath she didn't even realize that she had been holding as she fixed the evillest glare she was capable of on her partner for prolonging her agony before wilting visibly. If it had been good news, surely there would have some sort of a favorable reaction but this almost pitying look that she was given instead? It made Anko want to just hide underneath the changing bench.
Instead, she settled for collapsing on top of it and burying her face in her hands.
"Oh God, what am I going to do? Even if I just stay here I'm always going to have that red flag of FAILURE marking my records and hovering over my head until the day that I die."
"And the rookies wouldn't mind making your life a living hell," Kurenai added, nodding sympathetically and patting her friend's head tenderly. "I guess it's karma. Or just what goes around comes around."
"By the way, I think we both should join a theatre group if we ever retire," she whispered as she allowed the letter to fall into Anko's lap, tapping the congratulatory lines towards the bottom of the letter. "Just a thought."
After ruffling Anko's hair, Kurenai quickly scooped up her letter and equipment and skipped out of the room, running as fast as someone did when an Arceos was on your tail. Or rather, a pissed Arceos.
Kurenai's cryptic words in regards to the theater bounced off of Anko's subconscious as she nearly worked herself up to the point of being sick.
Her life as she knew it was over.
She felt the tapping through the paper on her lap though, and wondered if with this change of station Kurenai would become like most other Arceos who would rub their Arma counterparts noses in their failure to rise above such meager standings.
Bleary violet eyes peeked through her fingers at the written proof of the end of her life as she knew it...but when had a letter of declination ever included the word 'congratulations'? There was only a wisp of dark hair visible after Kurenai turned the corner but Anko was too busy
snatching up the letter to read it through for herself to pay any attention to the other woman.
...Oh she was going to pay.
There was a shrill shriek as Anko went barrelling after her soon to be ex-roomie, blistering curses and detailed descriptions of what was going to happen to the other women being muttered for all to hear as she tore down the hallway with the intent to kill. Or at least maim. A lot
___________________
A couple of weeks earlier, if someone had told Lieutenant Yuuhi about the lack of sleep and cramped officer barracks, she would've honorably rejected the promotion and filed a complaint for assault. It was true that there were more privileges, like the food in the mess halls and the more comfortable rooming that allowed you to have your own private bathroom. However, with a bigger role came a bigger responsibility.
This included weeding out the new recruits as well as taking up the daily mess hall duty. The morning started with a nice little surprise with her name coming up on the rotation for the week.
Even if officers were allowed more to their private belongings, Kurenai still had the standard equipment littering her room and the occasional wrapper of a ration bar on the floor. For the past two hours, she was sprawled over her bed and trying to figure out which newbie to strike from a promising military. Papers everywhere, Kurenai occasionally grabbed at whichever one was nearest to her and continued to write down notes in neat red handwriting.
The silence of her own room had begun to grate on her nerves, the privacy being an unknown luxury that Anko had never really understood after being crammed into overcrowded dorms as a child and then in the barracks as she had gotten older. Added in to her own blatant disregard for other's privacy, and you had Anko slinking into Kurenai's room without waiting for an invitation, flopping down half on the bed and half on Kurenai. Neatly piled papers crinkled under her weight as she tried to squint at the neat font and red notations made neatly in the margins. Her nose wrinkled at all of the excess information that her old partner seemed to be gathering on the potential candidates. Her own approach focused more on her gut instinct with prospective team members then all the details that the red eyed woman seemed addicted to, but their methods worked out in end, regardless of the way they approached a common goal.
"If you don't want that one, I'll take her for my squad. Brat sounds like she's got some spunk in her," she announced, trying to tug the applicant from Kurenai's fingers.
Kurenai held back the wince that threatened to escape her face as Anko's weight scattered her papers and made its unwelcome presence known on herself. She quickly counted to five...ten...fifteen...twent--
"Who said I didn't want her?" Kurenai quickly retorted, snatching back the piece of paper from Anko's prying fingers. In truth, Kurenai was contemplating about the young woman, whether or not that similar temper of hers really held anything promising to be seen in the near future, or whether or not the girl could produce a restraint on her own temper...
"She's a hot head," she concluded bluntly, looking pointedly at her ex-partner. "Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's not. She's on hold." Red eyes briefly looked over the profile before hands placed it into the "maybe" pile (or what was left of it).
"So, what's your crew of newbies shaping up to be? Young men ready to lose their virginity for you at a moment's notice?" Several years ago, Kurenai wouldn't feel up to it to make a sarcastic joke like this, but now, with time, she was comfortable in speaking the lingo that would even make her longtime Sarutobi stalker swallow his cigarettes whole.
"Being a hot head only makes 'em more interesting. It's not just the quiet prissy ones that turn out well you know," she shot back, rifling through the once neat piles of paper to see what other offerings Kurenai was given for consideration, and if there was anyone worth snatching up before the other woman could.
"Only the most promising of course~ But overall the brats are ok. Nothing a few hundred miles of jogging won't whip into them." For a moment a truly wicked smile twisted the violet eyed woman's lips, but it was lost a second later with the sharp whistle through her teeth at the next prospect's test scores.
That must be Kurenai's 'keep' pile.
"Hell of a lot more fun ordering the little mutants to do all the shit then it was to do it ourselves, even you can't deny that. I've seen that sadistic little grin of yours sneak out on occasion. You may have everyone else fooled with your little golden girl schtick, but I can see whats working through that head of yours better then what the rest of them can. Makes me hella glad you're not my C.O.," she snickered, leaning over to bump Kurenai's shoulder with her own. And it was the God's honest truth too, she'd rather be on her old partner's good side any day then the one on the the red eyed woman's shit list. She'd learned that easily enough from other's mistakes, a certain bearded someone more often then others of course. There was just a certain appeal to be someone on the sidelines though, when Sarutobi found himself with his foot in his mouth and the other up his ass.
Always good times then.
"Almost a shame these poor brats don't see anything outside of all the boring shit. Been forever since anything exciting happened - damned kids'll probably shit themselves if there really was a code in the middle of the night," she mused, squishing Kurenai once more in a reach for another loose applicant, pausing in thought once she removed herself from the other woman's back again. "Maybe I'll have to pull the alarm tonight. Get their blood pressure going," she mused aloud, taking in the other's reaction out of the corner of her eye.
There was an barely repressed snort at the idea of pulling a stunt like that in the middle of the night with the new recruits. If anything, Kurenai was a fan of hardcore training, the type that actually made you learn something and never forget it. So maybe pulling something like what Anko suggested was tempting, but usually made the recruits hate your ass until you dismissed them or scared the living shit out of them. Not that Kurenai was looking to make "bonds" between the recruits and herself, but rather, something like a mutual respect was needed to get anywhere in ARMA. But with this particular bunch and with the generation past theirs, Kurenai easily sensed that her method wasn't exactly the preferred one if the government was pushing to get the troops in and out of training as quick as possible.
Suddenly annoyed at the whole process, Kurenai placed down the paper in her hand and favored facing her friend instead, her red eyes narrowing at violet ones before Kurenai sighed and broke eye contact.
"It's suppose to be easier than this," she gestured to the papers before reaching up to rub her forehead with both of her hands, gently massaging her temples. "It really is."
"Pfffft. This is easy. Too damned easy if you ask me. Any damned brat who walks through the gates can progress up through the ranks a hell of a lot easier then they could not a couple of years ago. It's a damned disgrace is what it is. If I knew this back when we were getting our asses kicked on the training fields, I would have dropped my shit, turned around and left without even looking back. Don't give a damn about what that old uptight prick is about but any brats that go through me is going to earn their rank and fucking like it, or get a swift kick in the ass towards the door."
Shamelessly, Anko used Kurenai's distraction to carefully edge away a few prospective candidates for her own squad, stuffing the hurriedly folded applications into a pocket before turning her full attention back to her friend.
"You know what we need? You and I, we are going to go out. We're going to get ourselves nice and stupid, maybe drag Sarutobi for laughs along with a few of the others who we actually like, then come back and rig one of the alerts to go off. We can all sit up on top of the armory and watch all the brats go scrambling about and all the higher ups go just as haywire. None of us are on duty tonight so it's no biggie if we're not 'here'." A wicked smile twisted the violet eyed woman' s lips at the prospect of chaos.
The idea was tempting, it really was. (The get "stupid" one, not the "expel brats who thinking screwing the instructors will get them to higher ranks" one. Although the latter sounded more sensible than the former.)
Eyes looked at the mess of papers strewn across her lap and the bed, then narrowing at a stack of papers that suddenly had the image of a scruffy looking man with an idiotic look on his face. So it had to come to this, seeing Asuma and Anko drink their asses off and sing horrible karaoke (like they always do) or deal with the brats that seem to have no brains in her unit?
Screw being sensible, leading a pack of hormonal and pubric ARMA recruits was craziness in iteself.
Suddenly shoving all of the papers out of her way, Kurenai crawled off of the bed and then marched to her closet, pulling open the doors to find something "suitable" to wear. Which meant strapless.
"Fire alarm or bomb threat?" A deep red shirt with a low V-neck line appeared to be the dark-haired woman's choice of the night.
The wicked smile turned into a full wattage grin as it sunk in that she had won (but truely, had there ever been any doubt?).
"Bomb threat, no doubt. It'll be at least three hours before they can check the entire place and call the place clear, but a fire alarm can be disproved in about fifteen minutes. One sleepless night ain't going to kill these brats," she gloated gleefully, completely giddy at the prospect of really running her troops down into the ground the next day.
"You want the red thing by the way, you always look damned hot in it. Give Sarutobi something to lust over, it'll do the man some good."
The other woman barely kept her calm and cool after hearing Anko's last comment, turning away at the perfect time so not to give Anko anything else to tease her about. Kurenai almost had the urge to shake her head, but she knew that it wouldn't change anything.
Not that she would ever want to change anything anyways. This was life with Anko and it would always be this way if she wanted it.
Hopefully, the future would share the same sentiments as she did.
But for now, they had a entire night ahead of them that needed living.