bittersweet
His mission particulars had been direct and simple. Get in, get the target and then get the fuck out.
The plan had gone well until he retrieved the target, a scroll detailing the blueprints of Konoha's safe houses. Then all the traps went off, killing two of his squad members.
He cursed violently as he tucked the scroll into his armour. He should have noticed the traps!
He wasn't an inexperienced fifteen-year-old chunin any more. He was an ANBU tracker, the best of Konoha. Because of his mistake, half of his team were dead.
As an Inuzuka, he was excellent for espionage and tracking and when ANBU snatched him up, they moulded and refined his clan abilities. It was a crushing blow to his pride that those abilities had not helped him sensed out the traps in place and now he had gotten two members of his squad killed.
The enemy swarmed around them, chakra blazing in the tiny, confined room. He twitched as he measured out their strength with his nose. At least a dozen that was above jounin level. Even the remaining ones possessed the strength of an average chunin.
Could this be the end?
He shook his head, ridding himself of the doubts and anxiety that plagued him. This wasn't the time to be thinking such morbid thoughts. He was Inuzuka Kiba. He's not going to die that easily.
"Rat, we're splitting up." He said quietly, pitching his tone low enough to deceive the enemy into thinking that they were not planning any trickery but loud enough that the ones close to them could hear him. Let them think they were just desperate.
He shared a short glance with his fellow ANBU, and even with the porcelain masks covering their faces, he knew that Rat had understood the half-baked plan he just came up.
It's him or me, Kiba thought.
Then let it be me!
He jumped into the fray, Akamaru ghosting his side like a giant wraith. He caught the fake scroll that Rat tossed at him, and while he has everyone's attention, carrying the real scroll to his fellow ANBU was Akamaru, who covered the man's escape.
He saw Rat disappearing at his peripheral vision and turned back to the mob. Akamaru nosed his elbow fondly, lips pulling back into a snarl and a row of blood stained teeth.
"Well, Akamaru," he laughed, exhilaration making him giddy. "Care to clear a path here?"
Akamaru answered with a loud growl that vibrated through his bones.
As the great white dog spun a tornado through the room, blowing a hole in the wall, he seized the opportunity and fled. Three years back, he'd have attacked first. But ANBU had knocked common sense and logic into his skull.
There was a time and place for heroics, but ANBU were not heroes.
Recovering the two broken masks of his dead comrades, he ran.
He woke up staring at the ceiling of the hospital above him. He bit back a tired sigh. The hospital was a place that he was getting intimately familiar with.
His body ached, muscles stiff with drugs running through his veins. He slowly stretched his senses and smelled Akamaru resting by the doorway.
Slowly, cautiously, he swung his legs out of the bed and rested his feet on the cold floor. His right ankle hurt slightly and he suppressed a pained wince as he stood up.
"Go to sleep, Akamaru," he said when his ninken lifted up his head drowsily. "I'm just heading to the Memorial Stone."
Akamaru gave a pitiful whine and lay his head back down. He grimaced in pity as he observed the dog's injuries. The hind legs were bandaged, the fur shaved for the stitches. The skin around Akamaru's jaw looked reddened under the grey fur.
He ignored the fact that he looked worse off compared to Akamaru.
He took the longer, civilian way out of the hospital, knowing that going through the window would alert the ANBU of his escape. He'd have the Hokage after his head in less than five minutes.
He created a slight henge over himself, so no one could see him limping his way down the streets.
The journey towards the Memorial Stone had him panting heavily in exhaustion by the time he reached his destination. He pressed his palm against the smooth surface of the stone, feeling the slight indents of the numerous names carved painstakingly under his fingertips.
Cat and Deer, he thought. Two more to join the never ending list of names chiselled into the stone.
He doesn't even know the two ANBUs' real names and identities.
Such was the life of an ANBU, he thought solemnly to himself.
When he first joined ANBU, he knew that he was committing himself to a life of secrecy. The anonymous nature of his work had not sat well with him at first, his boisterous personality constantly vying for the spotlight.
Ten missions in, and the enormity of what an ANBU does and sacrificed for the village hit him. He had seen Orochimaru desecrated the dead, bore witness to the tragedy of two brothers, and watched as Uchiha Madara destroyed the entire world just for the sake of creating a false reality in a dream world. But it was the little things, the crimes committed by evil men that no one noticed or bothered about.
He never told anyone that he had watched as a merchant raped his five-year-old daughter and not be able to do anything to stop him. Or when he had to track down a power hungry rogue shinobi as he kidnapped small children and women from town to town to sell as sex slaves, feeling the anger and dread built in his chest as he race against time and witnessed the broken homes left behind.
He gingerly sat down in front of the Memorial Stone, closing his eyes as he prayed for the two ANBUs that had - for a brief period of time - fought alongside him.
He felt a flicker of presence behind him and recognized the scent. He relaxed and let a small smile crossed his face. At least Rat had reached Konoha safe.
And so he sat in front of the Memorial Stone, cross-legged and pensive-eyed, not moving for the entire day. Rat remained still in his position, keeping a vigilant watch on him.
It was only when the Hokage came to collect him in the evening did he finally moved.