Chapter 29 : Jonin Test(1)

The people of my village have only ever heard of the Bringer of Hope being some kind of valiant hero who does the right thing in every situation.

They couldn't be more wrong.

I'm a monster, a soldier of a God. The peace and justice I fight for are all for the sake of my commander. I am the sword of God, and the shield of Heaven. I only do what is expected from me.

That was how it used to be, at least.

Now, I am a part of the whole. I have no mask to aid me, to distinguish me from the others. What you see is what you get. My fellow shinobi will never accept me as one of them unless they are shown what I am capable of firsthand.

It's going to be something they never forget. This, I promise to you.

Somehow, for reasons unknown to her, Anko had taken Naruto to her shared apartment with Kurenai.

She didn't know why they ended up here. She had wanted to speak to the boy in private, and she guessed her subconscious mind thought that that place was her room. She was still upset with Yugao for keeping her away from him, but decided to think about that later, after she spoke with the person responsible for her freedom.

Now, in her room with the Bringer of Hope, she was uncharacteristically nervous. Anko was usually a brash and brave woman, unaffected by what people thought of her – in their presence at least – and couldn't understand why the blond made her feel so shy.

It could be because of his legendary hero status among most of the world, but that thought hadn't crossed her mind yet. She felt like a peasant staring in awe at a giant.

So here they were, the Snake Mistress and Kamikage, alone, in her room. Alone…

"I'm Mitarashi Anko." She blurted out suddenly. Then she face-palmed. He already knew who she was. "But you already knew that…" She said somewhat sheepishly. "So your name is Uzumaki Naruto, right?" She repeated the name that Yugao had introduced him as. God, why was she being so shy? This was not like her at all. She hated feeling this way.

Naruto tried to give her a reassuring smile. "Yes, Anko-san." It was a little weird being in the woman's bedroom alone with her. He could feel her nervousness and her embarrassment. She had closed the door when she walked in on habit, and was regretting it now. She didn't want him to think she brought him here to sleep with him.

"Just Anko is fine." She informed him. She was never big with honorifics and the sort. "I, uh, brought you here to," she started speaking softer and softer, "thank you, for what you did." She finished in a very hushed tone.

It was hard for Anko to thank anyone, even her superiors. She wasn't a very emotional or clingy girl, so 'thank yous' and apologies were very rare from the kunoichi.

Naruto, however, seemed to be the exception. And he was. The blond had taken away the thing that she looked at first thing in the morning and last thing at night. The curse mark was exactly that, her curse. It disgusted her every time she looked at it, and only checked all the time to see if it miraculously disappeared.

It never did.

Not until she met the Kamikage, that is. With one encounter with the famed shinobi, he had changed her life for the better. He was like no one she had ever met before, and she had only met him once.

"It's not a problem, Anko-" he stopped himself from adding the –san suffix to her name like she asked. "If it's for my fellow Konoha-nin, I'd do anything to help." His smile was absolutely beautiful.

Anko was a little taken aback by the way the blond was talking. What she had witnessed two years ago was a stark contrast to the cheery boy standing in her room. The boy was amazing and incredibly terrifying when he wanted to be, so to see him act so friendly was a little strange for her.

"Well, whatever the case may be, thank you." She replied. "You have no idea how much it means to me." She added.

Naruto smirked. He knew exactly how she felt, just as much as she did. He had synced with her all those years ago, so he knew the women better than any of her longtime friends did. He wasn't going to tell her that though. Most people found his ability to perfectly understand them somewhat creepy. They felt like he was invading their personal privacy, which, in a sense, he was. He never used their feelings against them though, and never brought them up. Ever. Still, even some of the people on his team found it a little weird, and at times, annoying.

They could never get anything past him.

"You're welcome." He finally said. He didn't really see it as something he needed to be thanked for though. It was a simple procedure. Yeah, he might be the only person alive who could do it with such ease, but it was still simple nonetheless, to him at least.

But for the kunoichi's sake, he accepted the compliment. He knew how hard it was for the woman to thank people, and it showed how much it meant to her when she did.

"Is that the only thing you needed, Anko?" He asked. They were still just standing in her room.

Anko bit her lip in thought. She did want to ask him something else but didn't know if it was alright or not. After all, he was an ANBU agent at the time, so it might be confidential, but she wanted to know anyways. She needed to know why he did it.

"When we first met, why did you kill that Iwa GOLEM the way you did?" To her, the Kamikage was a hero, a man – or boy – who helped the weak and protected his village. Someone like that wouldn't have killed a man so brutally.

Naruto sighed. He knew this was going to come up.

"All I can tell you is that the man was guilty, and I only showed him the same courtesy he showed our men." He knew that when he decided to let himself be a monster, people would be wary of him, in one way or another. He had hoped that Anko wouldn't ask him about the Iwa scum, but he knew her. She was a curious woman.

"How do you know he was guilty though?" She asked suddenly.

All she had seen was the Hokage ask questions and receive no answers. There was no way he was able to get the answers just from being near the man, right? If not, then he had killed a man in the worse way there was. Even Ibiki had boundaries, and killing an unarmed and completely subdued man was something no one should be willing to do. They would do it if their Hokage ordered them to, but their leader never gave orders like that, not to them at least.

"I'm a sensor, I know things." He could tell Anko didn't appreciate the half-truth of his reply. He was a sensor, and he did know things about people because of it, but he didn't go into detail about it, which is what the woman wanted.

"I just don't know why someone like you, a hero, would do that to someone…" She said. It really didn't make sense to her. He was the person to set an entire country free from its oppressor, and had, supposedly, asked for nothing but a healthy alliance between the two nations in return.

Naruto gave the woman a sad smile, which shocked her a little. He then turned to the door and opened it. Before he walked out, he told her the most truthful thing he'd ever say to her.

"I've never claimed to be a hero." As he was walking out she caught the last part of his sentence. "What I am…is a monster." And with that, Naruto left the woman alone with her thoughts. And they were many

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