Chapter 4

Otter-5 stared at the door it read VIPER TEAM on it and in an almost childish scrawl underneath it someone had written "that means no one else" he wanted to nock he really did but something probably nervousness was holding him back. Bear-20 had left almost immediately after showing him the room with a surprisingly soft-spoken: "welcome to the team." The door opened and a kunoichi in a robin mask nearly ran into him

"oh, who are you" her voice was sharp and startled something in his stomach and her strawberry blond hair was really distracting, he shook himself out of whatever this was and introduced himself.

"I'm otter-5, I'm uh here'cus, I was uh, assigned to the team" he stiffly held out the orders that owl-22 had typed out for her to grab which she didn't do.

"hold on." She disappeared slamming the door in his face, again facing the VIPER TEAM sign he didn't expect this should he knock or say something. It wouldn't hurt to knock reaching up to do so the door opened, and he ended up knocking on a fox masked shinobis chest plate once.

"ah, sorry I didn't mean."

"It's okay kid. Robin-19 said you were assigned to our squad, I'm fox-7 by the way."

"right, I'm otter-5, and mantis-1 wanted me to give these to you" passing the orders over to fox-7, who began filtering through them, muttering a finally when he read that he was being transferred out.

"well, we might as well go introduce you, come on." He reopened the door leading otter-5 in. otter-5 counted five others in the medium-sized room aside from him and fox-7. "alright gents listen up I got some good news and some bad news as well; good news is this is otter-5" he gave a short wave "and he will be taking over as second for the squad, and the bad news is crow-4 is taking over primary." He sounded pretty sarcastic about the second part.

"But what about you sir?" a medium-sized man in a lion masked questioned

"I'll be moving over to OP center to help run missions." Rest of the team nodded "now I'm gonna get my things and head on over to OP center the rest of you should begin the indoc process for otter here."

"yes, sir" they coursed in sync.

After fox-7 had left with his gear and happy goodbyes crow-4 turned and addressed the squad "Alright boys, and girl today we have lost a great team leader, but we gained an even better one! In the shape of me!"

"boo you suck!" no one could pick out who had said it.

"fuck all of you, and to commemorate this great day we shall combine our introductions with otter-5 here with a celebration of my self-becoming a squad leader" by now otter-5 had figured out who had written on the front of the door. "so, we will all meet at the jonin lounge at fifty-seven-thousand tics. in the meantime, I will need to meet with the impressively young otter here dismissed." The rest of the squad made for the exit while otter-5 made to sit in one of the comfy chairs in the room.

"First, welcome to team one and also welcome to viper team as you know I am crow-4, you don't have your worry about any of this sir nonsense you're my new secondary so were good. I guess I'm your new team lead" crow had stuck his hand out and when otter took it, it was firm but the shake its self, relaxed "now straight to business. my expectations from you for this team are for you to give it your all never leave a man behind and to take care of yourself, none of this working yourself to death thing that some of the younger ANBU seem to have. Now the boring stuff is done let's get a quick skills demonstration out of the way for official purposes then we can head to the lounge."


Sweat dripped hands, it had been a skills check that was for sure but no quick at all roughly fourteen-hundred tics later and it didn't look like they were gonna stop soon. At least crow looked in a worse shape than he did, crow-4 would need new armor after this.

"Alright, I think I've seen enough" crow-4 panted out "you're really good otter I'll give you that your ninjutsu is fantastic for what you've got. Too bad you can't cast any genjutsu, but your detection and removal are great. And the only thing wrong with your taijutsu is that your small and we can't do shit about that, knife and swordplay are not too bad too. You're gonna be great one day."

"that's the plan"

"you don't say much do you kid?"

I've never had much freedom, I was recruited at 6, didn't really get much chance to talk or do much of anything outside of training for a while." Crow-4 nodded his head

"makes sense, well we'll just have to break you out of this shell won't we"

"I guess"

Alright, come on kid we got like seven-thousand tics before we have to be in the lounge and I want to freshen up a bit."

"uh…"

"what is It?"

"well it's three things really" otter-5 had never felt so embarrassed

"and they are?"

"Well I'm only a chunin, and I don't think they'll let me into the jonin lounge, and I also don't have any civis." He looked down feeling his face burn.

"that's it! Don't worry kid I'll just borrow some of my nephew's stuff it might fit you and you don't gotta worry about the lounge your ANBU remember, just act the part."


Crow-4 had met him at his room in the ANBU barracks with clothes that fit surprisingly fine now in jeans and a polo shirt Naruto took a little time to attempt to fix his hair before giving up and moving into his room where crow-4 was waiting.

"Looking good uh…shit"

"Naruto Uzumaki"

"ah Naruto, cool name, by the way, I'm Riku Nara." They made to leave the barracks

"your pretty energetic for a Nara"

"ya, I get that a lot, I get it from my mom." He sounded somewhat depressed about it. "but at least I use it for something, ya know, my older brother got the laziness and a majority of the brains too."

"Shakuka right"

"yep!" the rest of the trip was made in a somewhat comfortable silence at least for Naruto he spent it thinking how he would introduce himself to the team should he play it cool, or should he be formal he stopped his pondering when they arrived, and the butterflies landed in his stomach.

True to the shinobi way, epically the higher ranks of jonin, the ever famous jonin lounge was a sequestered hidey-hole smack in the middle of a random market street. its entrance is hidden in a back-alley way of some nondescript clothing store. When they prepared to enter the bouncer a retired jonin himself was ready. Riku got in no problem being a loyal customer, Naruto on the other hand.

"The fuck you think you're doing kid." It didn't matter that he had come with Riku all that mattered was his worth and he obviously couldn't go around spouting out that he was ANBU but he kind of needed to get in the only thing he could think to do was give the ANBU greeting as discreet as possible his right hand popped up tapping above his heart with two fingers. The bouncer seemed to judge him for a minute before moving off and letting him in. Naruto released a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Relax kid, it not like he would have beat you up for trying." when they entered all eyes flashed to them and immediately away some gazes lingered, mostly on Naruto, and Naruto took the time to observe around him he recognized some faces but didn't show it mostly for the traditional secrecy that ANBU upheld, and the fact that most of the ANBU he recognized here had gotten out.

They were waved down by a lumberjack faced man with the hair to match at the bar who Riku moved to join. "everyone else is at the fifth table on from the back, I'm just grabbing the drinks." Riku made to move away towards the table.

"Do you need any help carrying them? I'm Naruto by the way."

"Asahi no last name, and are you even allowed to touch alcohol?"

"I can touch a tanto."

"Ya got me there" the drinks came with an odd look from the barkeep before the made their way towards their table and passed them out. Naruto found himself sitting between Asahi and the pretty blond from before.

"Alright everybody this is Naruto Uzumaki, our new 'fiend" he meant that as, they would probably all become friends at some time, but for now it meant that he was new to the squad "Naruto, you've probably met Asahi, but the pretty blond next to you is Yui Chiba" she gave a small wave " the angsty teen here is Yuuto Hyuga" he just grunted "and last but not least handsome party boy here is Reo Sano"

"you know I thought you were just a short teenager, now I can see your like ten"

"I'm twelve"

They looked a little stunned "so you're like a super ninja or something?"

"no, I was just recruited at six, and trained at HIGHCOMM until I turned eleven, and finally ran my final test op at twelve." though Naruto had been practically raised by the ANBU he hadn't been raised with the ANBU he had spent most of his time at HIGHCOMM training center sure there were a few faces and names he could remember but it was mostly just him rat-2 and snake-16 until her death in the Uchiha slaughter. All, except Riku who knew most of this already, seemed a little put-off but accepted it as just another village Skelton.


drop a review with criticism or anything really