Part I

REBIRTH

"I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon."

― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

Prologue

I inhaled the smoke, causing a new wave of coughing to erupt in my throat. I knew it was pointless to continue running from the flames that tore through my village. I wasn't a ninja. I wasn't fit enough to jump over buildings and walk up trees. I wasn't anything.

The smog crowded over my eyes, and made it difficult to see my hands that attempted to wipe the dust from my vision as my feet slammed against the ground in a jog. My heart pounded in my chest as I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on edge. I still heard the screams, erupting in the distance. The smoke filled the environment and my disoriented breaths made it difficult to see where it was coming from.

I wasn't strong enough to help someone else, and I knew that the smart thing would be to keep on running. I squeezed my eyes shut as I used the last of my will power to continue my sprint. How am I supposed to help anyone if I couldn't save myself?

The screams kept me occupied enough to almost forget about the memory of my partner's throat, slashed open. I was certain those images would torment me if I let my thoughts stray. I squeezed my eyes shut as I used my shirt to block out the smoke. My kimono was already torn, so I didn't bother worrying about it now. I didn't bother worrying about much of anything besides running.

I didn't want to become anyone's dead victim...

I felt my shoe break, causing my body to slam into the ground just as I caught the glint of steel from the distance. I took a deep breath and attempted to kick off my broken shoe as my once perfectly clean hands clawed into the dirt when I tried to stand. I could tell my new attacker didn't expect me to get back up, as I obviously looked like a weak girl.

"You're rather pretty," the man stated and I saw that familiar shine in his eyes as his hand shot out and grabbed me by the chin. His body was slightly coated in the blood of villagers, and his face was rough and rather ugly.

I was going to be raped.

The thought shot through my head as his other hand went for my robes.

This was good. If his mind is clouded in lust, then it makes him that much more naïve and arrogant that a woman couldn't do anything when put in the position between a blade and a man.

He slammed my back against the house, his other hand trailing over my chest and in between my thighs. His tongue instantly devoured my neck as I felt him undo his pants.

"Please...be gentle," I whispered, timidly turning my head. He chuckled in my ear.

"I've never had someone be so compliant before," his tongue ran down my ear and I suppressed my inner disgust. "You're a slut aren't you? A whore? I can tell. I know a courtesan when I see one. Only whores are so easily swayed by the thought of a man's-" He let out a moan when he entered me, although I could barely feel it or anything else but the knife he held to my throat, whether or not I would feel it later was beyond my present comprehension.

Men with tiny dicks are always the first to consider rape.

I let out a fake moan, and I could tell by his expression that he was arrogant at whatever sound he could get out of a 'whore', as if his body was able to make a girl, no matter how experienced, turn into an innocent and amazed virgin. My hands gripped his sides, and he took that for pleasure, not noticing when my fingers nimbly twisted around his other knife and slid it from its holster.

"Please," I whispered, and if he wasn't so busy sucking on my neck, he probably would of noticed my eyes rolling as his exploring tongue felt more like a guy licking a lollipop rather than pleasuring a woman. He obviously was so lost in his ego that he didn't notice his hand that once held a dagger to my neck, was now in between his palm and the house for support. I rose the knife over the back of his neck, making it feel like I was embracing him from underneath his raised arms.

And the blade slid into his neck like cutting into bread, the tip puncturing through the skin that began to concave for its arrival. He quickly tried to separate, but trying to struggle or get away didn't turn a fatal wound whole. I ripped from his embrace before he could use his remaining breath to kill me. I wasted no more time to pull up my panties and run away from his last whisper of 'whore', leaving him gurgling in pain on the ground.

Getting raped was nothing I couldn't handle. It's only flesh. The only thing I feared was the fire, eating at my skin.

I could come back from rape...I can't come back from death.

My one bare foot made it difficult to run without hobbling, so I tore off my last shoe and continued bare. The dirt road soon ended and I was only beginning to get to the worst parts of the village, the parts that had been burned first by the ninja. I was forced to crush my robes to my face to block out the smoke. I had no doubt my face was smeared in dirt, so I was surprised to have been raped at all.

But not too surprised, as when it comes to men like them, they don't care what a person looks like as long as they have a hole in which to bury themselves.

It's only flesh...The chant I whispered didn't do much to take away the disgust in the back of my throat, and the feeling only succeeded in numbing me the further I ran. By the time the branches of the forest cut into my cheek, I was already feeling my eyes begin to redden with the unshed tears of anger and humiliation.

But I was alive. The thought of living let me run longer, but the fear hollowed and burrowed into my heart until the urge to lay down and cry became almost unbearable.

I couldn't feel my legs. They were like jelly beneath the wobbling mess of skin that barely managed to support my weakening bones. Running was my solace, and without it, I was as good as the inanimate objects beneath me, cold and lifeless and waiting for others to step on. I felt like I was waiting for others to squeeze and choke the last bit of air from my lungs, taking all thoughts out of my own weakening control.

The thought of catching my breath was almost a dream at this point, as stepping against the hardening ground and hearing the drumming of my own heartbeat made it difficult to understand a clear meaning behind the pressure dragging beneath my skin.

I could barely even hear the footsteps quicken from behind me. I could only hear the crystal clear springs, somewhere out in the distance where I knew nothing. It was almost as loud as my own raging heartbeat, pounding beneath tender flesh and just waiting to be devoured by dogs once my soul had left it's wretched shell. I knew the spring probably didn't exist, and my ears were playing tricks on me to keep my legs from giving up. The ninja who once chased me, who once boomed loudly behind me, were silent. The silence was what scared me the most. I knew I would be followed from the moment I ran from the main house.

I felt my body stumble forward as cold hands roughly threw me to the ground. I couldn't hear the cold wind and neither could I feel it. All I could feel were the hands, hot and callused beneath my clothing, sinking in through my legs, leaving rough marks of bruising over my skin. I recognized his bruising grip and rough hands. They brought me back to flashbacks of his fingers wrapping around Ohashi's throat, silencing my pleas with his glare just before I bashed his head in with a flower vase.

The fight for dominance began the moment he turned me around, adjusting my face to meet his as dry grass roughly dug in against my skin, cutting through me as a hot fire flooded underneath me. The fire burned so bright that I could barely hear, feel, or see the hands that shot out to grip me. They cut into the skin of my legs, further bruising my inner thighs, as my kimono was pushed high above my waist.

Hungry eyes, gazed upon me like a predator, ready to devour every last bit of sanity I had stored until my very end. The murmuring began in my head before I could put a stop to his wandering hands and the feeling of something hot upon my thigh, whilst a slimy wetness tore a trail up my neck and to my ear. My heart screamed 'not again' but my lips were swollen shut. It seemed like the chase had only let the animal out of its cage as it attacked me in human form.

I could feel the heat, an uncomfortable and deafening fire, spread through my skin. My hand almost immediately lifted to the man's face. "Finally giving in I see." The anger in his voice was still potent. I could tell that his bitterness was palpable as he remembered the feeling of glass shattering over his head while he tried to choke the life out of me with the blood of my oldest friend still dyeing his hands red.

I could immediately smell the stench of smoke and alcohol on his breath, matching well with the rugged way he pressed up against my body and his clumsy movements to adjust his position. The feel of something hard, scraping against my skin, just nearing and nearing, caused my heart to instantly stop, as if some unknown force had allowed me to clearly hear, see, and feel everything.

My palm against his face prompted him and as I felt his lips near my own I trailed my other hand down his chest, feeling him visibly tremble from above me. I grabbed ahold of his hardened member, making him groan in pleasure before his eyes widened as I squeezed harder.

Taking his surprise in my favor, I swiftly tore my leg from his grip and kneed him in between his legs, taking no hesitation to escape his hold, ignoring all bruises and pain in order to reach for his kunai and go for the swift kill by shoving the tip of the blade through his ear in an upward position. The strength of my grip around the kunai slackened slightly, as the pain from my injured shoulder made any further maiming increasingly difficult. His blood spilled over my face and my neck from his open wound and wide, dying eyes.

I struggled to get out of his grip, still tight around my wrist that I hadn't noticed he grabbed, his eyes stared me down, the last of his life set in motion to curse me. I grabbed the kunai and shoved it's point into his eye and that made his grip slacken as he opened his mouth to let out a banshee scream that would only give away my position. I shoved my lips to his and bought a moment worth of time to shove the tip of the kunai into the soft bit of skin just above his neck and through his jaw.

I didn't waste a moment of time to run from there. I couldn't hear anyone on my trail, but I knew the forest was filled with enemy ninja and my breathing turned rugged as the dying weeds continued to show me no place to hide as the trees were too thin to offer shelter. I felt like an open target for the entire world to see.

I felt the exhaustion start to hit its peak, trying to get me to rest. I knew that this time if they caught me I would surely die, as attacking the other's genitals is not a path these men would continue to fall for and not all these men would feel the need to rape. I had gotten lucky to be attacked by two who did, instead of two who wanted me first and foremost, dead.

I knew this and yet getting myself to keep running was growing increasingly difficult as I was having the hardest time just standing. My legs were practically quivering as I felt parts of my body slowly start to feel the exhaustion that adrenaline had kept from me. My lips were dry and almost felt like sandpaper while my fingers shook, exhaustion creeping in through my bones.

I wanted nothing more than to fall into a safe hole, somewhere, anywhere, and rest for the rest of my life. My eyes sunk as I felt something suddenly twist at my feet, dragging me into the grassed cushioned ground. I nearly was tempted to rest there before I forced my legs up, ripping my dress down the middle in the process.

There was no smoke soon enough, but my throat felt dry as if it had never left. I was left alone in a darkening forest. My once sprinting pace had slowed immensely until I was walking, limping, far before I noticed it.

I used the trees to keep me standing; my panting breath became the only source of sound in the empty forest. I used its sound as my lullaby, to calm my racing heartbeat. The moon was already high up in the sky by the time I controlled my breathing, and I began to wonder how long I absentmindedly moved to make the moon rise so high without my realizing it.

By the time I checked my surroundings, I knew that I was lost. I wasn't the type of girl, fit for these types of environments of forests and I didn't know how to hunt and neither did I have the energy to hunt. The spring I thought I heard was gone and bugs floated around my face, flying and buzzing, but the bugs I could handle. The dirt I could handle and even the cold didn't hurt me as much as it would other people. This was my life before being a courtesan. Being hungry, cold, and dirty wasn't new, but it hurt all the same.

I was reluctant to look down at my feet, but unsurprised when I saw they were covered in blood. Walking barefoot on a war zone and the roots and plants didn't accept me kindly, and I saw there was still dried blood, caked on my inner thighs from the rough way I was taken. And there was still dried blood on my hands from the rough way I had taken them in return.

I fell to my knees, unable to continue standing. I barely felt the pain of rocks digging into my skin. My throat was dry and my tongue begged for water. It was hard to think of any pain outside my thirst.

My head was spinning and my eyesight was beginning to blur. The tiny glow of red cut through the darkness, and I felt my form start to move toward it. My bloody feet dragged across the ground, forcing my movements as I walked towards the light, clouded through trees. I felt myself roughly scrape up against the bark as I clumsily walked through the forest.

By the time I reached that light, forcing myself through thick leaves, I saw the blurry faces of three people, tense with weapons drawn.

I forced my delirious gaze away from the fire that drew me in like a moth. My body was shivering, and the thought of letting the fire consume me darted across my mind. My blurry eyes slowly drifted to the closest one to the fire, a boy in a mask with the familiar ninja metal headband over his forehead. My heart burned in fear for a moment, as their blurry faces that ran through my exhausted vision was slow to recognize any details and I knew I had no strength left to run. It was still blurry, but the snail shaped marking on the headband was different than the Kumo ninja who attacked my village. I walked closer to the man next to the fire, making his slowly relaxing grip over his kunai, suddenly tense.

I saw his eyes widen as I began to fall forward, all my strength leaving me as I let out my last whisper, "help me."

I couldn't stop the blackness from overtaking me.

Author's Note

Ah, well, I hope this story will be well received, because characters like Anomie-well, I'm oddly good at portraying them. More so than any other type of personality. I've been listening to too much Melanie Martinez and Halsey lately aha.

So, first chapter. I tried not to sexualize rape, but I also tried not to make her succumb to it, because considering her profession...well, I just don't think she would.

I have never read a Naruto fan fiction where the female character was a prostitute, so I hope I am not pushing the boundaries aha.

I will try to make Anomie as realistic as possible, keeping her emotions and life fit my image of what war is like. Naruto is a show that easily kills off my favorite characters (Minato...) but it kind of skimps on the really gory, harsh part of being a female in the mitts of war. I get that it is a kids show, but I refuse to believe that rape doesn't exist in this world. If it didn't, then that's one step closer to utopia in my opinion.

My goal is to make Anomie a strong character, not necessarily a fighter. She will have her own mysteries and strengths, and she's, first and foremost, an entertainer. But who knows where she will end up in the future. All I know is that I always try and stay away from slut shaming, because like...it's stupid.

I really hope the prologue was okay, thank you all for reading~ :)

Hana of course means 'flower'