**Um, I couldn't quite get this right, but I'm working with a deadline so…yeah. Not happy with it but here it is.**
Every ninja child in Konoha grew up knowing about the elite ANBU forces - or at least knowing that they existed. They whispered stories to one another on the playground about the secretive organization, stories about rogue-ninja who met gruesome deaths at the hands of the masked figures.
Raidou never cared about these tales. To him, the ANBU were a distant entity, one that didn't impact his life in any significant way. They were merely ghosts who took care of the unsavory parts of being a ninja village-for-hire.
Raidou focused on doing his duty as a child of one of the village's respected shinobi families – he studied hard at the academy, progressed smoothly on his Genin team, and passed the Chuunin exam with relative ease. The ninja lifestyle came easily to him and his abilities, coupled with his natural good-looks, made him popular with his peers. Like any normal teenage boy, the warm adoration of his friends and schoolmates went to his head, and he spent much of his time strutting around the village like he owned it.
His parents tried to break him of it, gently of course. When he was fifteen, his father overheard him bragging to a young neighbor about his most recent mission. The man drew him aside, determined to instill some sort of wisdom in the boy.
Namiashi Oshura was a large man, broad-shouldered and imposing but with eyes that could be exceedingly gentle with his children.
"Come walk with me," he said, throwing an arm around his son's shoulders, a move that was becoming increasingly difficult as the boy grew. They walked down the street in front of their home, away from the bustle of the village center.
"You are already a great shinobi," Oshura said to his son, "and I am incredibly proud of you."
Raidou slipped his hands into his pockets, sauntering lazily under his father's arm. He hated sentimental conversations but grudgingly put up with it because he loved his dad. They walked past the academy, toward the stone monument that commemorated the village's fallen warriors. A genin team trudged past them, heading in the opposite direction. The kids looked exhausted and their sensei wasn't even trying to hide the look of satisfaction on his face. Raidou smiled as the kids grumbled to one another.
"Son," his father continued. "With the title of shinobi comes a great responsibility. You've been lucky so far, but one day that won't be the case. There is still a lot you have to learn."
Raidou didn't think that luck had anything to do with it, but he remained quiet.
"I wish someone had told me these things when I was your age." Oshura spoke quietly, almost as if he was talking to himself. Raidou glanced up at him and was surprised to see a dark sadness lingering in the lines of his aging face. They stopped walking and Raidou looked around at the memorial stone that sat peacefully a few feet away. He seldom came here. They stood in companionable silence for a few minutes, enjoying the peaceful stillness of the village at sunset.
They both studied the names on the stone. Raidou recognized few of them – his father, too many.
Raidou took a deep breath and sighed. "Hiromi-sensei used to tell us that all these people are the heroes of the village." His father looked on in silence. Raidou rolled back his shoulders. "I'm going to be famous one day, dad. People in this village are going to know my name, even before it gets written on that stone. I am going to be a hero."
Before Raidou could take another breath, Oshura grabbed his shoulders and spun him so they were facing each other.
"Raidou," he said, locking eyes with the boy. "You have this fanciful idea of what it means to live life as a ninja. There is nothing glorious about the path you have chosen." His voice was rough with age and emotion and he dug his fingers into the muscles of his son's shoulders. "Some of the world's greatest heroes will never be recognized. Nothing is sacred, do you understand? You must never forget that nothing in a shinobi's life is sacred."
Raidou didn't wince at his father's strong grip, but the look in the man's eyes made him quiver. There was a darkness there, a desolation that made the man almost unrecognizable. Raidou swallowed and nodded. Those merciless brown eyes clung to his for a moment longer before Oshura pulled him into a stiff hug.
"You will be a great man someday."
Raidou stood pressed to the strong chest of his father. He was shaken, having glimpsed a part of his father that he thought few had ever seen. He wrapped his arms around the man's strong back.
"I love you, dad," he whispered. When his father released him, the strange darkness had left his eyes, and Oshura looked at him with familiar gentleness.
Nothing is sacred.
At the time he really had no idea what his father was talking about.
Raidou thought he had started to understand in the summer he turned seventeen, when hell descended on the village and the world was ripped out from under him. He stood by helplessly as his home crumbled under the feet of a demon; pulled the bodies of his friends out of burning rubble and watched in muted horror as the Fourth sacrificed his life for them all.
He thought he understood completely when he came upon the smoking body of his indestructible father, clothes burned away and features melted by the hot breath of the fox. Looking down at the remains of the man he had loved more than any other, he started to comprehend the truth behind his father's words.
With his mother and sister lying injured in a medic's tent, Raidou was left to the lonely task of bathing and burying his father's body. He hoisted the man onto his young shoulders and carried him reverently from the battlefield. There were hundreds of them – ninja and civilian alike. Families mourned in the open, burying their loved ones in a field far away from where the fox and the Fourth and finally fallen.
Raidou laid his father on the ground across from a boy who was standing over the bodies of his own family. The boy's shaggy brown hair hung down onto cheeks that were still full and smooth with youth. Raidou studied him absently for a moment before bending to the difficult task before him. He did his best to wipe away the blood and soot, attempting to return his father to a respectable state.
He uncovered something that afternoon, under the torn fabric of his father's shirt. Out of the grime of battle and death swirled a tattoo, one that Raidou recognized instantly. He sat back on his heels, fingers resting on the faded red mark, and recalled the bleak look that had filled his father's eyes two years before. He recognized it for what it was now – the look of a man who had seen the darkest pieces of the world.
Is that what you meant, dad?
He looked up at the sound of someone crying. The shaggy-haired boy was kneeling next to his parents' bodies, head hung in prayer. He sniffed loudly and opened, his eyes and noticing Raidou looking at him. He wiped his arm across his eyes self-consciously and bent to kiss his mother on the forehead. Raidou looked on as the kid stood, using a small shovel for support, and awkwardly started digging in the hard ground. His arm was bandaged, hindering his ability to work smoothly.
Raidou remained still for a moment longer before rising to his feet. He picked up his own shovel and walked over to stand next to the boy. Without a word, Raidou bent and started shoveling away clumps of dirt and rock. The boy froze for a moment, watching Raidou's efficient movements. More tears leaked from his once-innocent eyes, but he didn't bother wiping them away. They worked together in silence, digging three separate holes and slowly lowering the bodies of their parents to their final resting places. The sun was setting as they stood shoulder to shoulder at the foot of the small mounds, watching as other people – ninja and civilians alike – buried their own loved ones.
"What's your name?" the shaggy-haired boy asked quietly.
"Namiashi Raidou."
"Thank you for your help, Raidou-san."
Raidou looked down at the boy, who stared resolutely over the hundreds of fresh graves that dotted the field in front of them.
"What's yours?"
"Shiranui Genma."
His small shoulders were set in determination. Looking at the boy, Raidou suddenly felt a profound sense of reassurance. For the first time since the sky had rained flames down on them all, he realized that everything was going to be okay. If this kid could look over a new graveyard with such resolve in his eyes, then surely the village would survive.
"I am honored to lay my father next to yours, Genma-san."
The boy looked up and Raidou gave him a small smile.
Three years later, kneeling on a tile floor in the basement of the village headquarters, Raidou would look back on this moment and wonder at the direction it had led him. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the boy who would become his best friend, Raidou promised himself that he would achieve what his father had nearly a decade before. He would serve with the village's most elite forces; he would be a faceless hero like his father had been. He vowed that day, at the foot of his father's grave, that he would be ANBU.
