Boulders

Charnockite

The timeline in this is a little wonky. The first part is during the evening of the day Sakura got kicked out, the rest is the day after.

Enjoy!!

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Iruka felt rather bedraggled.

He'd wrestled with going to find Anko for the better part of the day, even with the prodding push from a young-but-romance-wise student.

In the end, though, it had already been decided.

Iruka had looked in one of the windows of a shop he passed by on his way home from work and had seen himself.

He'd been paler than usual, drawn and wane, and even though he'd had the triangle earring for less than a week, he missed seeing its scarlet twinkle.

If he looked this bad, what about Anko?

Iruka opened the door to another bar and tried not to gag at the overwhelming stench of alcohol.

Konoha had many places like this; small and cramped, and would serve drinks to any shinobi who flashed a forehead protector, no matter how old or young. (He made it a point to teach his young, impressionable students about the dangers of alcoholism, and never mentioned of places like this in an effort not to give newly minted ghenin ideas.)

Iruka sidled past a group of drunk civilians and made his way to the bar.

The bartender stood tall, despite his advancing age. His hair, slicked back in a firm low ponytail, glinted with grey in the bright light. He wore a suit and tie, and currently cleaned a glass, squinting at it through the spectacles perched on his nose.

"Excuse me," Iruka slid onto an empty stool and tried for a smile. "I'm looking for a kunoichi with purple hair and a tan overcoat."

The old man continued cleaning, slow to answer. When Iruka didn't budge or give up, though, the bartender raised a single hand and pointed.

Iruka's eyes followed his wrinkled finger until he saw-

Anko smashed her knee into the jaw of an Akimichi almost three times her size. The people around her cheered as he went down, and Anko raised a glass of clear liquid that was very definently probably not water.

She snapped it back, then stepped to the side in a drunken swagger.

The Akimichi tried to get up, but seemed to be too intoxicated to. Iruka watched with a sinking feeling as Anko swiped someone else's drink and stumbled back to her opponent. She tilted her head back and poured the also not water into her mouth, a fair bit dribbling down her face and front as well.

The Akimichi grabbed her foot and tried to pull her onto the ground with him. Iruka cursed, about to step forward when Anko spat the alcohol into the Akimichi's face, then kicked him while he was down.

The crowd cheered again, and this time Anko joined in.

"Oh, kami," Iruka breathed.

"She yours?" The bartender grunted.

"Yes sir," Iruka replied without thinking.

"Then get her out of my bar."

"...yes sir."

Iruka maneuvered his way through the crowd around Anko with a fair amount of shoving and muffled threats floating after him. He stepped over the unconscious Akimichi and grabbed Anko's sleeve.

It was thanks to both Iruka's nerves and the Anko's abhorrent amount of ingested alcohol that he noticed the hit coming.

He dodged.