However, as Anzu fell on the mountains, tumbled down cliffs and slopes, and eventually crashed down into the forests of the Land of Fire that she had managed to make her way back to, an opportunity presented itself. Injured,
exhausted, Anzu was asked by Astarot if she trusted him. She replied she did, and apologized for what she'd dragged him into, telling him to escape and take care of himself.
He instead bit her and injected her with a neural inhibitor venom that he had learned to produce. At first surprised, Anzu just relaxed instead of fighting back, easing into the venom that coursed through her veins, thinking that perhaps he was doing her a favor by not leaving her alive to interrogate or torture.
At least she wouldn't be able to betray the cult this way.
But instead, as she slipped into a death-like sleep, the venom worked upon her mind and memory, suppressing her ability to recall the past several years. Because she appeared to be dead, in her stasis-like state, with no
Chakra to detect, her pursuers were unable to find her. It was many hours after they'd moved on that Anzu awoke, with no memory of what had happened to her, and a snake wrapped around her shoulders. Infact, she didn't
remember much of anything outside her name and a few things like how to understand the spoken word.
Astarot had intended to spare her the suffering of the life she had led, taken in by those cultists without any say in how to run her own life. But his venom had been a bit too effective. And now she knew nothing at all. The
next person she encountered, as she staggered through the woods, bleeding and confused, was a woman running an inn. The woman's name was Matsuri, and she took Anzu in and treated her, and helped nurse her back to health.
She met and befriended some of the others orphans there, and slowly built a new life. Her snake companion mostly spends his time sleeping in his advanced age, and being Anzu's patient listener as she talks about her life
as a civilian and a young woman happy with her simple existence. But he is also watching over her, and always alert for any sign of pursuit that could ruin the new future Anzu is building for herself… Or any sign of memories
surfacing.