I do not own the Naruto franchise.
Soldiers In The Shadows
The ANBU staggers into the well-hidden lobby of the Black Ops. headquarters, his dirtied gear hanging haphazardly off of his slight but muscular frame, one of the straps of his chest armor slashed deeply enough to bite into the muscle beneath. He stumbles to a halt, punch-drunk, in front of the security checkpoint, before managing to partially straighten to attention with an audible crack from his elbows as they unbent and fused to his sides. He stares sightlessly straight ahead, his eyes dull and lifeless behind his porcelain mask.
"ANBU Operative Number Seven-Oh-Eight, codename Wolf," he rasps out, his voice surprisingly strong in spite of his physical condition. "Reporting in from Mission three-oh-seventy-nine."
"Please confirm your identity," the deer-masked ANBU at the inner door replies neutrally. The two soldiers make a stark contrast; one slumped with a tattered cloak wrapped around his shoulders, the other ramrod straight and uniform immaculate.
The ragged ANBU Wolf raises a gloved hand and places it on the silvery sheet of plastic and metal near the pneumatic doors that lead into the inner sanctum of ANBU headquarters, pressing his palm firmly into the plate. It shimmers slightly with a white light, and Wolf channels the barest amount of his scant chakra through his ripped glove into the pane. It flashes a sickly pale purple and when he removes his hand, words appear, written on the inside of the double-layered plate. ANBU Wolf, they read, Operative #708.
ANBU Deer nods, his hood tugging back on his head and revealing the barest sliver of dark hair. "Identity confirmed, Operative 708, you may enter."
The Deer places his hand on the doors and they slide open with a hiss, revealing a Spartan corridor, well-lit by ceiling lights and with rows of doors proceeding down the sides.
With a nod, ANBU Wolf enters and the doors glide shut behind him with a whisper of air. Aside from a smudge of metallic-scented dirt in the lobby of the ANBU headquarters, there is no sign that he had even been there.
He shuffles down the corridor tenderly, his hip aching from where he had run through a bramble in his rush to get home, and his chest throbbing from the slash that had cut through his armor. He passes few masked operatives as he stumbles down the hallway, and each one nods to him respectfully as he reciprocates.
They do not speak.
Finally, he reaches the door he was headed too. It looks exactly the same as all of the other doors, and it is only by dint of much memorization that ANBU Wolf remembers which door leads to which room. Some are dead ends or trick doors, in case any enemy shinobi manage to infiltrate the ANBU sanctum, and others lead upstairs to the roof or the tunnels that honeycombed the Hokage monument's mountain. Yet others lead downstairs, to the sewer-tunnels, or to the other floors of the ANBU building. Pushing the door open, he steps into the warm, steamy and soap-scented air of the showers.
He retrieves a scrubber and some soap from one of the communal cubbyholes on the wall to clean his mask with, and as an afterthought grabs a set of clean boxers and some slacks. On his way towards an empty shower cubicle, he also picks up a hooded shirt and some deep grey tape for his ankles, as well as a clean towel. He pads along the white tiles the floor the shower room, passing occupied showers along his path—some by women and others by men. Finally, he comes to an empty shower. He gently slides the opaque door open and steps inside, placing his clothes in a covered niche to keep them dry. He pulls off his clothes, cloak first and mask last, before turning on the spigot and standing under the spray of hot water.
He shudders involuntarily when the water stings the gash on his chest and scrapes on his hip. He watches reddish mud swirl down the drain as he mechanically reaches towards the shampoo dispenser and lathers his hair. He scrubs it brutally, twice, before he is satisfied that the stench of death and metal does not linger in his hair, and quickly rinses the rest of his body to rid himself of the pungent odor of sweat and desperation.
When this is done, he reaches for his wolf-shaped mask and gently scrubs it, ridding it of every last trace of blood and dust. When he is finished, the porcelain is shining white, red lines painting a viciously snarling wolf's face, maw agape and teeth sharp, the eyeholes covered with reflective one-way glass. He shuts off the water and reaches for the towel that was hung on a hook right outside the door, drying himself off quickly and efficiently, carefully patting dry the raw areas where his flesh was laid open before dressing himself, attaching the mask to his face and pulling up the hood on the shirt last. He exits the shower room, absent-mindedly throwing his tatty cloak and destroyed chest plate in the trash and his others into the laundry heap, before continuing his trek down the corridor.
Eventually, he has reached the door that he was looking for. Unlike the other silvery-steel doors, this one does not shine, nor is it silver. Instead, the door to the medical bay is a deep grey and blends into the walls of the endless walkway. There is a plate on it, although one cannot see the door, not unlike the one that locks the true entrance to the ANBU headquarters. ANBU Wolf once again raises his hand towards it and pushes some of his energy into it, and as with its counterpart, it pulses with a sickly lavender light before the door sinks into the floor and allows him entrance into the infirmary.
He walks in silently, but as always the head medic of ANBU lifts his head as soon as he has stopped moving and greets him. He is unmasked, but it does not matter. The medics do not work in the field and as such do not need to conceal their identities. He is thinner than the last time ANBU Wolf has seen him, and there are deep worry lines etched into his forehead. His watery green eyes crease with a smile and he puts down his pen, folding his hands on his desk.
"Wolf-san," he says. "What have you done to yourself this time?"
As a good soldier, ANBU Wolf does not respond with an embellished tale of how his injuries came to be, but rather he keeps his report concise: "Katana slash to the chest and bramble scratches on my hip."
The medic nods and does not push for more information; he knows that he does not have the proper security clearance and merely points ANBU Wolf towards a door.
"In there," he says tiredly. "Medic Seven will patch you up."
"Thank you," ANBU Wolf responds woodenly, moving towards the door indicated. He does not say more than that, but the medic understands.
ANBU do not speak more than necessary. There is always the risk of others recognizing them from their voices alone.
ANBU Wolf gently pushes open the door and sits on the stool provided, and before long a young medic has bustled in, a long fringe pale green hair shadowing deep purple eyes and a short ponytail bouncing on her head.
ANBU Wolf starts every so slightly. His baggy clothes hide the motion. It is unusual to see one so unstressed and lively in the bleak grey hallways of ANBU headquarters. He supposes that she must not have been here very long, because the eternal hues of grey of the center of the Black Ops. takes a toll quickly, sucking joy out of the people who live there.
"Hi, I'm Medic Seven," she exclaims cheerfully. "And you are?"
"…ANBU Wolf," he replies stiffly, uncomfortable giving even such an obvious piece of information away.
"And what did you do to land yourself here today?" Medic Seven asks him perkily, not put off in the least by his discomfort.
"Katana slash to the chest," he answers quietly.
"Alrighty then," she says, still exuberant. "I'll need you to take off your shirt so I can take a look at it, then."
ANBU Wolf says nothing, and rolls his shirt hem up far enough for her to see the ugly gash across his pectoral, but makes no further move to pull it off.
She clucks in disapproval—though he cannot tell if it is because of the wound or because he did not remove his shirt entirely that causes it—and leaves the room quickly, only to come back with a white rag and a shallow dish of warm, slightly soapy water. She dips one end of the rag into the water and gently dabs around his wound and then very gently cleans the inside of it. He tenses slightly as the rough texture of the cloth grates against his open flesh. When she removes the cloth, he glimpses mud and few irregularly shaped pebbles before she has folded it and placed it in the dish.
Medic Seven leans in close to his chest and her cold fingers flutter at the edge of the wound. ANBU Wolf shifts uncomfortably when her finger brushes something in his chest, and is unable to restrain a gasp when she pries a chip of the katana from the cut.
"There we go," she chirps, and as her hand is bathed in a green glow that she presses to his chest, she asks, "Is there anything else I can take care of for you?"
"Bramble scratches," he tells her, "On my hip."
She nods, and ANBU Wolf is glad to see that her eyes are still intent on fixing his chest instead of glued to his mask's eye-holes with a hint of a blush like the last female medic he was treated by. She shifts his pants and boxers aside and quickly heals the scratches before bouncing back.
"You're all done, Wolf-san," she nearly sings, "You can go now!"
"Thank you," he says, adjusting his pants over the new skin on his hip and pulling at his shirt.
She leaves, and ANBU Wolf slips through the door as she lets it swing closed. Intellectually, he knows that there is no reason for him to still be sneaking around in the headquarters, but he cannot help it. It has been drilled into him until it became instinct.
He drifts back down the hallway after he leaves the medical bay, and enters yet another door. He trots down the stairs soundlessly and walks into the armory.
"Wolf," greets the ANBU Quartermaster. Like the medics, the Quartermaster does not wear a mask.
"Quartermaster-san," ANBU Wolf acknowledges respectfully. "I need another cloak and chest plate, please."
"Of course." The Quartermaster glides away and ANBU Wolf stays in his place. The Quartermaster does not allow others into his domain past his desk, and ANBU Wolf does not want to be on the bad side of the Quartermaster. He has the power to make an ANBU's missions miserable with next to no effort, and ANBU Wolf has heard whispers of how terrible it is to be on the Quartermaster's bad side. Tales of faulty armor and uncomfortably tight clothing, or chipped weapons and unstable minor tags. Nothing outright lethal, but enough to make missions more difficult.
Soon enough, the Quartermaster is back, bearing a chest plate that gleams like polished bone and a hooded cloak as dark as the soul of an ANBU.
"Here you are." The Quartermaster hands them to him and ANBU Wolf takes the proffered items carefully. His equipment is his life and even inanimate objects should be handled with care and respect if he expects them to keep him alive.
His calloused hands slide over the oiled cloak, slightly slimy in order to dispel water and the white armor plate thumps against his chest solidly. It is good equipment.
"Thank you, Quartermaster-san." He honors the tall man with a slight bow and leaves the room silently.
He walks down another hallway and descends once again into a maze of corridors, navigating through them effortlessly and finally coming to his assigned sleeping area. It is small, not much larger than a coffin, but that is the point—the small area is efficient and allows room for many more of the small coffin-rooms to be built above and below each unit. ANBU are not used to luxuries anyway, and the sleeping area is padded, with a blanket, pillow, and heating. It is more than enough.
ANBU Wolf opens a small panel next to the horizontal, long metal flap that shuts his sleeping area off from the multi-level maze that is the ANBU barracks and places his new equipment inside. His sandals, shin guards, and arm guards soon follow. It is not a large area, barely large enough for two changes of clean clothes, his sandals, ninjato, assorted pieces of armor, and cloak. There is a hook inside the coffin-room for his mask.
He opens the flap—two up from the ground—and slides himself in with the ease of long practice, head finding the pillow instantly and automatically wrapping himself in the grey fleece blanket just so. He relaxes for the first time in a long, bloody week and falls asleep on his back, a kunai in hand, two more in the padding of the floor, and a handful of shuriken under his pillow.
ANBU Wolf awakes with a start, well-trained reflexes stopping him from bashing his head on the concrete ceiling of his barrack a mere twelve inches from his forehead. He is sweating and his muscles flutter with tremors from his nightmare. The hand that grasps his kunai is going white around the knuckles and he feels something creak in his wrist.
He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly and calmingly into the absolute darkness of his sleeping area. As he reaches for his mask, he rolls himself out of the barrack and lands on the chilled concrete floor with his bare feet, careful not to knock the other coffin-rooms in his column and disturb their high-strung occupants. His mask was pulled on and attached perfectly with chakra in a single smooth movement that is one with his roll out of bed. He carefully lowers the khaki sheet-metal "door" back to the wall, careful to not make a sound. He does not wish to wake the other ANBU. Equally carefully, he pulls out his sandals and slips them on.
He pads silently through the fluorescently lighted hallway, his eyes adjusting quickly to the clinical brightness of the corridors of the ANBU headquarters.
He walks back to ground level and stops by another room filled with generic jounin and lighter-colored chūnin uniforms and hitai-ite. He selects an armored vest with a single scroll already in one of the allotted slots and erects a minor genjutsu around his head, preserving his identity as he pulls off the mask and stows it in the provided scroll before uncovering his hair and pulling the vest on, taking care to tuck the hood under the vest so that it fit comfortably. He ties on a forehead protector tightly before he leaves the room again with his genjutsu intact, leaving the building the same way he came in and nodding too the new guard at the door, who is wearing a cat mask.
She nods back and he feels her eyes following him as he leaves through the next door, making sure that he actually leaves.
As soon as he has cleared the fifty-foot radius from the door that is watched carefully by other hidden ANBU, he allows his genjutsu to drop and reveal his features to the rest of the world. He feels naked without the comforting weight of his porcelain mask, but hides his uneasiness behind a façade of stone. He walks to his intended destination quickly, his senses alert and his chakra enhancing his them until he can hear a civilian's conversation perfectly clearly from the other side of the wide street.
He stoops into a stand sitting on the street, lifting aside a cloth flap as he does so. He silently sits on a stool and requests whatever their special of the day is. He eats and pays for his tonkatsu quickly before leaving to meander around the town on his way to the Hokage's office. He knows that he is to report orally at precisely two o'clock—in half an hour—because it was in his mission details. The mission had been on an extremely tight time limit and if he does not report in at the assigned time, he will be assumed dead and his name will go on the memorial stone.
He leaps up to a roof easily, adhering to the wall and propelling himself the rest of the way up in two bounds. He looks over the city as he walks along on the rooftops. It is much easier to maneuver along them rather than on the streets, which was a maze at the best of times, having simply sprung up around a central point with no real rhyme or reason. He walks at a leisurely pace, watching the life around the city that his has sworn to protect with his life. He smiles, the facial movement barely lifting the corner of his lips.
Finally, he reaches the Hokage's office, and with a nod too the smiling and flirty blonde secretary, he knocks.
"Enter," the Hokage's smooth baritone calls through the solid oak door, and he pushes his way inside.
He closes the door behind him quietly and snaps to attention. "Hokage-sama," he barks.
"At ease, Wolf-san," the Hokage says, and he eases himself into a picture-perfect parade-ground stance.
His eyes are at midlevel and his feet are spread to shoulder-distance, his hands locked neatly behind his back and his shoulders straight.
"Report!"
ANBU Wolf does so without hesitation, leaving no detail out and his voice detached.
"End report, Hokage-sama!" he barks, firing off a salute before returning to his stance.
"Thank you, Wolf-san," the Hokage says. "You are dismissed."
"Yessir!" ANBU Wolf says, bowing at the waist before leaving the office quickly.
He has two days before he will be dispatched again.