"The hardest part about living here," muttered Sasuke, his voice barely audible over the crackle of the fire, "is the act."

The ANBU looked at him, his mask (a cat, painted in red and blue over white porcelain) shielding his expression. That was the weirdest thing about his handler, Sasuke reflected- the clothes changed- fuck, the skin colour and gender changed- but that mask was always there, hiding the face. For the first two meetings, Sasuke had thought he was dealing with a henge-specialist or something. It fit well with the purpose of a handler as explained by Danzo in his training, at least. They were supposed to be stealthy fuckers, even beyond the norm; they had even less cover then an Infiltrator, after all.

But after a while, he'd realised that no, these weren't henges. The Handler's chakra patterns were different every time he saw him (or maybe her. Or possibly them). That suggested some kind of possession jutsu, or...

Or that's a full-on body morph. I'm not sure which is more disturbing.

"The act?" The ANBU tilted his head slightly. Sasuke still hadn't gotten his real name, and right now Ichigo, the blatantly fake codename he'd been given, didn't feel appropriate.

"Yeah. Pretending I'm blank all the time. Empty. Focused on revenge."

"Aren't you?"

Sasuke glared at him. "If you're just going to insult me, I'm not going to answer your chakra taints next time."

"I'm not insulting you. I'm simply raising a point. You've taken on Infiltrator work- untrained, I must add, which is unheard of- in one of the most dangerous missing nin settlements on the Hidden Continent so you can have a shot at killing your brother. It's a perfectly admirable goal, and if I were in your position I'd be just as inclined to brutally castrate the bastard as I'm sure you are."

"I'm not going to castrate him. Too easy."

"Apologies, but my argument still stands. You're very focused on revenge. That part at least isn't an act."

Sasuke glared, but after a moment of awkward silence while he fumbled for a retort, he was forced to concede the point. "Alright, but that doesn't help the situation. People keep bringing up Konoha."

"Basic equivalent of hazing the new guy. You're trained for that."

"Doesn't mean I fucking like it."

"I'm not particularly fond of spending my time hiding in the forests outside a city full of people who'd like to kill me in excruciating ways. Life sucks. Welcome to ANBU."

"I'm not ANBU."

"Oh, yes you are," replied his handler, irritably, sitting back on his haunches. "You're doing infiltration work which most of the Konoha population will probably never hear about for bugger-all pay. You've got ANBU written all over you. The fact that you don't have a mask or a codename doesn't mean shit. Fuck, I'm pretty sure if you'd never got handed this mission, you'd have ended up ANBU in a couple of years anyway."

It was comments like that that made Sasuke wonder how much of this was the typical Handler-Infiltrator relationship, how much of it was genuine concern for him and how much was orders from Danzo. In all three cases, he'd normally be irritated. He wasn't interested in making friends, he was interested in learning techniques- fuck anything that got in the way of that. (He brutally crushed the bubbling thoughts of Naruto that rose in his head. He'd gotten good at that, and tried to avoid the ramifications of that thought.)

Instead of the usual anger at being patronised, though, he usually found himself oddly grateful for these little moments when he could stop being an infiltrator and just be an angry, nervous kid again. It made going back and lying through his teeth to everyone around him a little bit easier, and he needed that.

"Fine, whatever. My point is, this sucks. I mean, there are girls here, you know? Good looking girls. With personalities that do not cause me to retch in disgust every time they look at me. Do you realise how rare that is back home?"

"Kid, we really need to get you a psychologist. You are fucking screwed up."

"Fuck you."

There was a moment of silence.

"...Cute girls, huh?"

"Way cute."

"Damn. I've been out here six months. Been a long time since I've seen me some woman flesh. But this is neither here nor there!" The ANBU straightened abruptly. Sasuke tried not to roll his eyes. Even when he was being professional, this guy was ridiculous. "We've got trouble."

Sasuke went still. He felt himself ready his Sharingan by reflex. "What kind of trouble?"

"Someone's assigned a hunter-nin."

XXXXX

In Konoha, the ANBU are a large and nebulous organisation, with many arms and offshoots that occasionally overlap. Of these, the most distinct are the Hunter-nin. As field operatives, they are of course required to wear an ANBU mask at all times while on duty or pursuing a mission, but unlike the rest of the organisation, their masks tend to be abstract designs. Their codenames, as well, also tended towards oddity; individuals named "Screen" and "Wall" were remarkably common.

The reason for this is never given. Most people will laugh it off, but it doesn't discharge the vague sense of unease that surrounds the Hunters. Because people don't like them. People are scared of them. They are a small, elite group that hunt down and kill any shinobi who goes missing- and as much as you may hate them, no-one is comfortable with the idea that their former friends and loved ones are about to be killed like dogs by a man in a mask who'll then chalk it up as another day at the office.

The problem wasn't that they killed missing-nin. It was that they treated it like swatting a fly; an aggravating necessity.

Perhaps the most frightening of these individuals, however, was Door. His existence wasn't widely known, but if you were in ANBU, and you read the right files, then you'd find your nightmares filled with him; a white mask scarred with red, hovering in a cloud of blackness that might have been his body and might have been something else. And you would look at that mask, and the two shadowed eye-holes, and you would know that behind it lay something terrible. You would watch, transfixed by dread, as your hands reached for that mask. You wouldn't want to take it off; you knew that whatever was behind it was not meant for human eyes. But you wouldn't be able to stop yourself- you had to see.

And then you would wake up screaming.

Door's identity is a mystery. People tend not to speculate, as that would require thinking about him for a prolonged period of time. But if they were inclined to consider the question, the name Hattori Nara wouldn't even be on the list.

Nara Hattori, after all, is nothing but a petty bureaucrat working in the Hokage's tower- a paper pusher with a clan-name and nothing else to distinguish him. He's not spoken of much back at the compound, and while he does turn up to the family dinners, there's always a vague sense of discomfort around him when he turns up. He's something of a disappointment, you see.

But Nara Shikaku knows perfectly well that Nara Hattori is one of the most gifted shinobi in his clan. For the past six years, he has taken the Nara's shadow manipulation jutsu and created amazingly innovative and complex new techniques. His talent is incredible.

He also knows that Hattori is a psychopath who needs to be kept on a short leash. He took far too well to the Shinobi way of life. Shikaku's just glad he's not his responsibility anymore.

Right now, Nara Hattori is getting undressed. He's in the Hunter-nin HQ, unofficially referred to as the stronghold, and he is preparing to shed the carefully constructed tissue of lies that he uses to convince (most of) the world that he is nothing but a polite and quiet and restrained young paper-pusher. It's vaguely ironic, really- the only time he takes his mask off is when he's putting his mask on.

Off come the glasses. Off comes the typical ninja uniform of chuunin vest, blue under jacket, and blue pants. Out come the hairclip and thin tie he uses to keep his ponytail back. And then, naked and clean, he places the mask onto his face. He wraps the black bandages around himself until he's covered again, skin invisible. The rough leather jerkin and combat pants, also black, follow that. And then the big, heavy, comfortable hooded coat, his favourite part, is swung over his shoulders and up over his head.

There is the slightest hum as the simple genjutsu he implanted into his mask sparks into life, and Door relaxes again. He isn't lying anymore, and that always feels good. Then he turns his attention to the file he was handed, and examines his target.

Uchiha Sasuke. Well, well. This was going to be interesting...

XXXXX

Right! The start of my favourite subplot, and one I've been kicking around for a long while. Door came to me while sitting on a bus in Dublin, trying to get back to my flat. Sitting about three seats ahead of me was this guy in a big coat and hoodie with the hood up, and I hadn't seen his face when he got on. I got gradually more and more creeped out as the ride went on, because I had no idea what he looked like and that scared the SHIT out of me. From this experience, Door was born. He's one of two non-canon characters in this fic, and I suspect he'll be more popular then the other one.

Right, now I realise this one is (a) late and (b) shorter then all of it's predecessors, for which I apologise, but I really wanted to get this written up and posted for you before you all lost interest. So you get this tidbit while I dash my brains to figure out what the hell I'm going to write next, because while I've got a vague idea of what I want to do, I don't have hard details and that makes things difficult.

This chapter, as I'm sure you'll all notice, is very different to the previous few ones, which are a bit more angst heavy. I felt it best to do something a bit lighter to keep y'all from topping yourselves due to an overdose of tween ninja misery. Plus, I've wanted to write that bit about Door for yonks, and he was always going to be introduced like that- the present tense should just be jarring enough to convey the sense of discomfort that being around him should invoke. I blame House of Leaves for that idea. :P

Now. Ser Davos asked why Tsunade and Sakura were so close in the last chapter, and helpfully pointed out that they wouldn't be as close as I've written them. Which is an entirely valid point. Normally, I'd respond with all my reasoning and logic as to why they're behaving like besties, but in this circumstance I'm going to have to come clean and admit that the only reason they got on so well was because I forgot Sakura only joined up later. I'd change it, but that fucks up the chapter. Sorry folks.

So... yeah. That's it. Keep on truckin', folks.