The ANBU training tests were held annually on one of the coldest times of the year. This logic, as to be expected, was not any surprise to the cadets. The bitter unforgiving wind bit and gnashed violently at their skin as they pursued targets, stalked in the snow covered trees silently, and made the kill as simply as they could in front of their peers and older member's critical gaze. Faults were not tolerated. Failure was not tolerated. Compassion was not tolerated. The only thing they expected from them was cold, ruthless killers who efficiently went about destroying their object at hand.
Morals and dreams had no place on the ANBU corps. What happened there, stayed there, it was code of law.

This may be how Itachi managed to stay relatively sane in Konoha all those years.

I'm coming out of my cage
And I've been doing just fine
Gotta gotta gotta be down
Because I want it all

Shadow.

His name here was shadow. It was well fit too, a perfect glove for the cold hand. He moved past people like their shadow, watching from a world entirely different from their own. Dark, forboding, always trailing just after them, watching, waiting. No one would ever know when the shadow would leave, when it would run freely into the darkness of night, casting aside it's boundaries and thirsting for the blood that it clentched in it's fingers. It killed to sedate that thirst in the darkness and when the sun would rise again, he would slowly trail behind once more, silent and dead, waiting for the opportunity to attack it's next prey.
His style said it all. He was the ANBU Shadow.

Itachi stalked into the room silently, staring at the empty desk about 3 feet from him. A pillar of smoke erupted, engulfing the desk in a pseudo, a false, flame, an illusion or terror to the untrained eye that could engulf your life in a second. Then, it vanished in a flash, as sudden as it had arrived, leaving behind a white spirit in its singeing wake. The white spirit, in the form of a man taller and with more physical frame than Itachi, stood before him behind the desk. He leaned forward, soundless eyes fixing on Itachi's freezing orbs.

"You're down to the last test of the year, Itachi."

Itachi acknowledged his statement with silence, moving one, two, three steps forward up to the desk and grasping his identity fully in the fingers of his left hand. Pulling it back up to him and flipping it around to the other side, the side he had memorized every nook and cranny in from having to stare at its backside so long, he measured the weight, the burden, of his plight this time.
It was recognized that there was much irony to traditional beliefs about the ANBU masks, their color was exact, pure, holy, beloved. Letting the hue of innocence rest on the outside, the attempt was to thwart such trivial burdens from the mind of the ANBU, let them rest in their dark hallow frame behind the white.
Everyone in this world of the shinobi recognized that angels of death descended in white.

The weight, surprisingly, was light today to Itachi. The wooden carved and delicately glossed mask caved into the importance, the relevance, of his missions, and he could, normally, feel the presence pounding the mask down. His eyebrows narrowed, from suspicion and curiosity, while turning back up to his superior before him. The man brought his hand out above the table, scroll being held firmly in his palm, extended out to the Uchiha.
Itachi stared at it, as if he had been very precarious about accepting it to those who did not understand that it was merely his habit alone that kept him staring at things for hours on end, no point of being for such waste of time, and, uponrealizing it, neither cared about how foolish it was or bothering to stop the cherade. Then, took it with the other hand, the man disappeared in a flash whenthe Uchihatouched the scroll and a whiff of ash encircling the room of burnt ember. Itachi moved the cover up to his face, gently laying it on.

By putting on one mask, he was taking down all others as the bloodthirsty eyes of Shadow stared at the ANBU corps walls, disappearing into the darkness.

---

-

Shadow stared at the inside of the closet long and hard, occasionally shifting his gaze outside the marginal crack to the outside world, to see what there was to see. The floor was a little cluttered with papers, the bed was in a strangling mess under the blanket and pillow, entangled in a knot. A few paintings hung on the walls, sad and silent from beind overlooked and ignored for, apparently, a very long time.
It was cozy inside, not too cold, not too warm, but even this is a relief from ducking underyard-longicicles.
Well, that still depended on who was the oneducking. Shadow didn't care either way, he just hoped this would be over with soon. Soft winter light continued to pour in from the window, orange in hue, symbolizing near dusk in one manner or another. The entire house remained deadly still, a mystery as to whether it was the fault of Shadow's presenceor a lack of movement in the air.

His sharingan suddenly activated without warning as his eyes narrowed. Across the room and down the hallway, the front door shifted, keys jingling as cold fingers fumbled with the match, clicking the lock open...

This probably won't make sense for a while. But something will, eventually. Review please!