Chapter 3 – Family

Family. It's an uncommon word in ANBU.

For one, most of us do not have families, like myself; we were orphans, our parents having died in the war or of a disease. Orphanages are not fun, homey places, as they like people to think; it's cold, hungry, disappointing, and strict.

For this reason, many of us do not speak about our chaotic pasts, and no one asks.

For us, ANBU is our family. Perhaps not the family we dreamed of, but a family we've come to love passionately with fierce loyalty.

However, sometimes it is different; though rare and far in between, some agents have their families, kids, a wife, maybe even a dog. They enter ANBU ignorantly; yes, they know what we do, the dark horrors that go on behind the scenes. But they have not realized it, lived it.

Knowing and living ANBU are two very, very different things.

These agents are usually the ones who last short periods of time, perhaps two years at the most; they choose to return to the normal Shinobi force, back into a life in which they may look upon their child without seeing the one they killed the night before.

ANBU is harsh, unforgiving, cold, numbing.

All things one cannot be in a family.