Jumping Fox

Chapter 4: Serpent Stalking

Disclaimer: I own neither Naruto nor the Teen Titans. If I had Naruto would not have been such a chowder head and would not own far better and cooler shinobis with his disgrace of a jutsu arsenal. And Raven would have gotten a lot more screen time in TT if I owned that. Also there would be ore character deaths in both since I am a Martinite. Disclaimer over.

Here it is, doubt it was worth the wait; sorry.

_

Serpent Stalking

No alarm sounded; hangover or not she woke up on schedule without one. Anko Mitarashi was no morning person, but the pounding in her head was motivation enough to see to her morning rituals. Since she had set no alarm she knew without having to think that she had no pressing business this morning. Rising from her bed the cool air hit her face, further bringing her senses into focus; it had been years since she had bought proper night clothes, just wearing a comfortable bra and panty to bed. With no great difficulty, she groggily made her way through the cluttered room, sidestepping the trap triggers hidden by the clutter, to her bathroom.

Disarming the explosive trap that was the sole hazard in the washroom, Anko lifted the lid of her toilet tank to retrieve the bottle she kept there. "Hair of the dog that bit me," she thought.

As shinobi working in the field do without virtually all the luxuries that civilians mistake for necessities, personal hygiene often took a backseat quickly. Not just on the wilderness missions that make facilities inaccessible but in the midst of civilization one couldn't afford the momentary weakness of an actual bath or shower. So when you could a field shinobi's routine for cleaning themselves, it was scrubbing the face and appendages and applying deodorant.

As a result of this, shinobi when off duty tended to themselves usually in one of two ways. They took advantage of being able to actually enjoy the benefits of hot running water and accompanying products, knowing they could end up going without them very quickly. Others, like Anko, uncomfortable with the field set never fully leaving did it and got it over with.

So it was in short order Anko was cleaned, dressed, and on her way to the mission office. While she had no previous business to attend to, she saw herself as past due for some action. Unlike Maito Gai and some other ranking shinobi she was hardly a workaholic, but quite frankly other than work she had little to fill her time.

True there were always missions available but anything below a B-rank did not interest her. Such work might pay her bills, but a bored Anko was not good for clients.

For whatever reason she decided to walk the distance from her flat to the Tower rather than leap the rooftops. Perhaps it was the beautiful day, or possibly the lingering effects of her hangover causing acceleration to not sound appealing. After a few minutes of walking down one of the primary traffic arteries Anko noticed someone tailing her.

She couldn't exactly tell when, but she could figure it out within a few minutes. At one point, someone's attention went from casually observing her movements to a broken but constant surveillance.

While keeping her expression disinterested and grumpy, Anko frowned internally. Getting shadowed was nothing new to her. After all, in a village of shinobi it was pretty much policy to have the shinobi watch shinobi to ensure the Hokage's rule was secure. The policy had been lessened at certain points, but the Uchiha massacre had made it clear why the policy existed in the first place. And, of course, being of suspected loyalty, Anko had come to expect more than her fair share of scrutiny; not that she liked it one bit.

But this was wrong.

She did not know who was following her, but it sure as hell wasn't a yomi and in all hells was not an ANBU, or even a chunin. She had picked up on the tail far too easily. It could have been someone wanting to know she was being watched, but this just felt sloppy.