Aug 1, 8 AK

The Hokage was not smoking his pipe today, wonder of wonders. It was put neatly away on the little stand next to his desk, nothing but cold ashes in the tray below it as he regarded me solemnly over steepled hands. That's sort of how I feel today, like the fire driving a life spent running has burned out, not even the spark of mania left behind now. Everything is washed out, not greyscale for there is far too much activity for that, but done in sepia tones and faded by long exposure.

"Uchiha Hiroki; report."

I nod with a somewhat stiff jerk from my position at attention.

"Yes Hokage-sama. On July 8th, Uchiha Itachi began his purge of the traitorous elements of the Uchiha Clan. I was…" I hesitate momentarily, searching for the right word, "...aware, that something had to happen in the near future, but I did not know the exact date until after the death of Uchiha Shisui, who I believe was friends with Itachi-okamisama, and whose death precipitated more drastic measures."

I pause again and almost bite my lip, before recovering with a quick dart of the tongue to moisten them slightly. I am stable. I am within tolerances. I am a good ninja.

"I have been attempting to make my distaste for clan policies and loyalty to Konoha more visible recently; I moved out of the Uchiha district and into the Chunin apartment block almost three months ago, and I have avoided associating with any… dissatisfied Uchiha for far longer. However, I was not certain of how… accepting Itachi-okamisama would be of merely tacit disapproval, or if he would require more stringent measures…"

I suppress a violent twitch and my right hand ghosts momentarily over the back of my left bracer before moving to grip the wrist. The itch is so deep and burns so fierce I know I wouldn't stop till I hit bone, but I have my bracers, Wasabi's gift, keeping me sane.

"Fortunately Itachi-okamisama felt I was… adequate, and spared me. However while executing a tactical withdrawal from the area, another individual accosted me and…"

My breath loses its even rhythm, becoming shaky as I pull myself back from the mental cliff's edge of hyper-vivid memory, before I steady myself.

"Might I ask that you omit this from the official record Hokage-sama?"

He regarded me emotionlessly for a long moment before replying, the long crags of his face shifting with the small movements of his jaw.

"I assume this has something to do with Clan secrets?"

I nodded, more fluid than before but still lacking in normal articulation, and after a moment he assents, touching a slightly glowing spot on the edge of the file folder and dimming it to invisibility.

"Thank you. There are further stages of the Sharingan than most know of, beyond the third tomoe, though even within the clan they are very rare and not well thought of. The Mangekyou is awakened by the trauma associated with the death of a close comrade." Wasabi, forgive me, forgive me- "It enhances all the other attributes of the Sharingan by a significant margin, and allows access to new techniques which vary from person to person."

I twitch again and my hand tries to drift towards my eye before I suppress the action once more, clasping my hands together more tightly and taking another deep, cleansing breath. I am alive.

"One is called Izanagi; it allows one to momentarily rewrite reality to avoid a killing blow. I did not believe I had access to this particular technique due to… circumstances. An individual claiming to be… Uchiha-sama found me in the forest and killed me. I recovered with the use of Izanagi, which costs the user one eye. I then returned to the Uchiha compound and began insuring that none of my clan's doujutsu were stolen by enemies of Konoha."

"How did you know the coup was imminent?"

I grimace slightly, lips pulling tight in distaste, and eyes drifting involuntarily around the room, reflexive search for an escape route which has never existed anywhere.

"I… I have dreams, Hokage-sama. Just… dreams. Different every time, some long and rambling, some short and prematurely ended... But some of them proved… informative. Not... not enough to be useful, just a, a forewarning, potentially. And even then I did not know, I could only guess. Itachi might have decided merely to cripple the clan, the coup might have never occurred at all… Mikoto-sama could have assassinated Fugaku-sama and started dating the Yondaime... I can only make informed guesses, occasionally, not predictions- and I am not in any of them. Scrambling blindly in the dark for half-forgotten fragments. I never really know."

The aged ninja nodded slowly, his expression thoughtful.

"Be that as it may, I would appreciate if you would write a summary of everything you can recall. Even if we can't rely on your dreams, they may still prove useful."

Sarutobi gazed at me impassively for several moments before nodding slowly. His face became a trifle softer as he addressed me, the lines losing their edge in the warm afternoon sun.

"Hiroki, I am sorry."

I blink slowly, completely at a loss, eyes flicking on for a moment as I scan the room for something I might have missed, my brow wrinkling slightly as I slip from rigid attention. I think my confusion saddens the Hokage, as his face gets a little older as he talks.

"It is the duty of the Hokage to ensure the safety of loyal ninja, and you have never proven yourself anything but. I can't change what has already happened but, if you would like, I can help build you a better future. I would like to offer you a position in ANBU."

I can't quite stop my mouth falling open as my face twists into an expression of vaguely horrified shock.

"Why?"

The word slips out before I have any conscious control and I hasten to append a deferential 'Hokage-sama' to the end.

Hiruzen smiles faintly at the lapse, bringing his head to rest on an upraised palm.

"I received a recommendation that you would do well in a more structured environment. ANBU can provide excellent training and experience, as well as the opportunity to form new connections with the village."

His face became a trifle sour.

"Without the Military Police, some duties will have to be covered by ANBU within the village; it might serve well as a proving ground for your abilities while you grow into the role a little bit. As a last note, your survival is virtually unknown at this time. Currently, Sasuke is 'the Last Uchiha', and it would likely improve your safety if that remained what everyone believed."

I stare vacantly at Hokage's hat for a long moment, tracing the strokes of the kanji over and over, a litany of fire while I think. I'm not sure, but I think my face must have been doing something completely on its own recognizance, because Hokage-sama started giving me a somewhat odd look while I pondered.

This would put me closer to Danzo, which is not certainly bad, but which the preponderance of evidence indicates to be detrimental to my health. This will also give me a significant boost in power; ANBU has some of the most strenuous conditioning regimens of any organization and I can likely learn a lot. While the missions will be high risk, that is not a supreme concern as I have collected a stockpile of replacement eyes, all to be jealously hoarded of course, but I can afford to die once or twice in the line of duty in the pursuit of greater strength, much as I loathe the prospect. It would not do to become overconfident, but I have earned myself at least a small margin for error. Besides, ANBU tends to focus on stealth and infiltration, it synergizes with my specialties and I won't be in the direct line of fire often. And there is security in remaining a corpse.

"I accept."

The Hokage gives me a somber smile, the warmth of his expression tinged with regret.

"Welcome, ANBU Squirrel."

. . .

The initiation to my new family is unpleasant.

The physical conditioning is punishing, but not excessively beyond what I had been doing on my own, save that it is far more efficiently organized and I now have watchers to keep pushing me to my true maximum capacity. Taijutsu is brutal, near constant sparring, but the medics patch us up every night and help me improve my own healing jutsu. I can still only manage small injuries on another person but healing yourself is a fair bit easier; no filtering or purification of the chakra required.

The chakra control exercises are very nearly easy, and it is a bizarre moment of anticlimax when I realize this is not intentional, as while the exercises themselves are more demanding than I am used to only three out of the dozen are actually new to me.

I am actually strong; I could potentially have qualified for ANBU work if not for Wasabi's death throwing a dreary pall over my reputation outside the clan. Perhaps not the more physically taxing assassination missions to be sure, but the slight pause in my Genjutsu instructors stream of questions when I demonstrate one of my own inventions is probably as good as a lesser ninja gaping openly. Apparently no one had thought of making an illusion to disrupt chronoception before.

It is a surreal sensation, the realization of relative competence, something like the fond nostalgia of finding notebooks yellowed with age and thinking back to childhood days when you wanted to be an astronaut, and then noticing that the scribbles in the margins contained the calculus necessary for a lunar orbital-insertion.

Not everything is so simple of course. The exacting lectures on protocol, codes, procedures, hand-talk, and the other minutia of the organization are tedious, and made more so by the physical fatigue, but I can use the Sharingan to memorize everything effortlessly and since no one chides me on it I do, whenever I can spare the chakra.

The sleep deprivation exercises, however, are truly hellish.

I blink at the ceiling, wide eyes drooping slightly while bags form heavy rings around them. The light is on, which means I need to be awake. Smiles everyone!

What was that, twenty minutes? Is it possible they might be trying to implement that ubermensch sleep thing? Wasn't that debunked? Then again, chakra, how does that work?

"7 Ochre Walnut."

"Gama 12 Major."

The call and response code appears in my brain and somehow makes its way out into the world as audible words despite me not really remembering my mouth moving at any point in the process.

Progress.

. . .

I have a single day off at the end of the first month, and I use it to visit the Naka Shrine. The tablet is easy enough to find, and it's not like I have to worry about someone coming across me. The ANBU patrols simply note my presence and allow me to pass unhindered.

The words on the tablet are… unexpected: instructions in Susanoo and Tsukuyomi, Izanagi and Izanami. I can feel the paths in my head, the readiness, the routes my chakra would follow if I flipped the necessary switch, though something has gone wrong with one of them. Instead of an easy to follow trail of little circuits, it is… burnt. Where the others can be gently prodded, tentatively explored and felt out, this last one is… Fused. Locked in one configuration. I am not certain, but I don't think I will ever be able to use Izanagi on purpose.

I don't know if I really trust anything written on the stone, either.

I linger for long moments, debating whether or not I should… do something as I stare absently off into the flickering torchlight. Destroy the tablet, or cloak it in an illusion; collapse the Shrine maybe, or scrawl my own warnings over the walls. I takes far longer than it should to choose, but eventually I simply leave. It is not my place to challenge the will of Itachi.

. . .

February 16, 9 AK

"Skills? Specialities? Weaknesses?"

I made it through basic and a handful of simple missions, and have been assigned a team. I'm not certain this will work as the Hokage wishes; humans are designed to experience greater empathy for other humans, and masks make that difficult. My eyes blink on for a second in the cool shadows of my mask, quickly cataloguing the visible features of my comrades as much as possible behind the creamy white ceramic composite of their false faces. Is that purple hair?

"Genjutsu, speed, active Sharingan. Minor specialization in medical jutsu, poisons, and seals. Can share the visual field of the target and swap to a new target based on previous target's eye contact. Limited chakra reserves, limited stamina, low strength."

My team is well trained, there is only a change in the texture of the silence to indicate interest, subtle shift in the lines of shadow the harsh fluorescent-white light casts onto the walls.

"Shared visual field? Elaborate."

I nod sharply, trying to place the voice which sounds somehow familiar despite the distortion of the mask.

"Making eye contact with a subject allows me to 'tag' that subject. Maintaining the tag requires a small, constant input of chakra, and while the target remains tagged I can see anything they can see. If the tagged individual makes eye contact with another, I can swap the tag to the new target, with a small expenditure of chakra. I have not had opportunity to test it extensively, but I believe I could maintain it for… eight hours before exhausting my reserves. Less twenty minutes for each swap to a new target."

"Interaction with other Doujutsu?"

I lick my lips uncertainly.

"Unknown."

There is another moment of silence. One of the others in the team coughs slightly and attention subtly shifts to focus on him. Or her. Not a hundred percent, the masks generate a low grade Genjutsu around us to help disguise our voices, figures, hair color...

"That sounds... useful."

I nod sharply again, and brutally suppress the desire to offer a wry grin.

There is no Hiroki, only Squirrel.

. . .

We tend to take missions near and around the village; more than once I am assigned to guard Sasuke. I ponder the irony that I am fulfilling my babbled promise to Itachi unintentionally.

I spend hours watching Sasuke, tiny Sasuke, who is almost as good at hiding his emotions as I was at his age. I have seen the standard template form for bodyguard missions, and I note that the orders I receive are not quite the same. There is no clause about remaining undetected, or about avoiding contact with the primary.

I am not sure what to make of it. Subtle encouragement to connect with my remaining family? It is beyond futile to try and second guess the Hokage, a man of his experience likely knows my reactions far better than I do.

As always, the knowing is pointless; I can only act.

I start small. Very small.

I let Sasuke see me, once or twice.

He flinches the first time, and the second, but by the sixth he has settled for pretending I don't exist.

I never get close, never speak, never change my position or body language. Maybe I loom a little bit when I notice a civilian approaching the 'poor orphan Uchiha' with the spark of greed in their eyes, but that can hardly be called interference.

But I can see the pain in the raven haired boy's eyes, in the way he walks, attempts at confidence ruined by the occasional bird-like twitch. It is acutely familiar, and I cannot decide whether to hate Sasuke or feel sympathy.

The sun is particularly anemic, clouds promising rain scudding across the sky, stifling shadows chasing each other across the canopy of the village as the wind high above moves the clumps of condensation about. The world is positively cancerous with the glut of green leaves and multihued flowers, the warmth of an early spring already setting the riot of color to rot, fat and heavy with the bloat of life.

How I hate the heat and humidity. Learning to ignore such things is a wonderfully immediate benefit of ANBU.

My eyes nictate, embedding this moment in my memory by Sharingan flicker, and I use a tiny bit of chakra to push a drop of sweat away from my left eyebrow as I watch tiny Sasuke practice kunai throwing.

My rotation on his detail is nearly up, and Wolf-taicho is already being briefed on our next mission. I may not see Sasuke again for quite a while, and the slightly possessive tingle I have been feeling is stronger today than usual, compounded perhaps by the slight drain of will that comes with summery heat.

His form is stiff, muscles tight with effort and face pinched with concentration. It is throwing off his aim, the timing of his release is pushed all out-of-whack by the tension vibrating through his whole body. He misses the target yet again, and scowls, baby fat cheeks puffing up in… the… most… adorable… way…

I viciously garrote the impulse to squee and squish his precious little face, taking a second to recompose myself. I won't interfere, I won't interfere, I'll just interfere a little-

"You try too hard."

I am surprised enough by my own words that I almost tip off the log, catching myself at the last moment. Sasuke glances towards me and his face twitches with poorly shielded emotions. Shame makes a brief appearance, before being supplanted with a familiar despair which is in turn quickly suppressed beneath cold determination.

"I need to be strong, to… "

He trails off uncertainly, gripping his practice kunai tighter. I hum under my mask, considering what to say to most concisely convey my thoughts, particularly with my new... perspective.

"Strong is subjective. A rock is strong. Don't be strong."

My shoulders ripple languorously as I stretch my back out before a thunk on the training post draws his attention away from me, a sharp stone shot from my hand too fast for an academy student to follow buried dead center in the bullseye. He turns back but I am already gone, voice lingering on the wind.

"Be flexible."

I don't meddle again. Though if the occasional scroll on meditation and chakra control appear on the shelves of Sasuke's apartment, well, these things happen.

Not all of my tasks are so conflicting, most are very banal. Breaking up bar fights between Ninja is annoying, but drunk shinobi are easy prey for Genjutsu which makes my life easier.

It is not until my fourth assignment with my new team that things get… sticky.

. . .

A/N: So many little things, first, it should be noted that ANBU is pulled from Chunin, Special Jounin (Tokujo) and Jounin. It is not where all the best ninja go, necessarily, because that isn't what it is for. ANBU is primarily about deniability, things the village needs done but can't afford to be tied to. Stealth, speed, and the ability to keep going no matter what are what they look for. The other nice thing about ANBU is the internal secrecy; think about Tenzo, who didn't really have super ANBUy skills, but needed to be kept out of sight until they really needed him. That's what's happening to Hiroki here; currently, all of five people in Konoha know he's still alive: Boar, another ANBU working in TnI involved in processing, Inoichi, Ibiki, Hiruzen. If you count Itachi, who probably assumes Hiroki died anyway, that's 6. Danzo doesn't know. Danzo probably won't ever find out; Hiruzen is going to be much harder on him this time because this time, he actually had to apologize to one of the people who had been hurt but his negligence. Root is going to be hit with much harder scrutiny.

On Hiroki's animal: it was a suggestion by a co-worker and I thought it was a good fit.

Hiroki is... okay, skill wise. Comparing him to one of those actual prodigy types, he blows. But in terms of absolute skill, he's... okay.

Chakra control: Low Jounin
Genjutsu, Accuracy, Speed: High Chunin
Taijutsu: Low Chunin
Stamina, Fuinjutsu, medical jutsu, Ninjutsu, Strength: High Genin

The suffix 'okamisama' can be broken down fairly easily as 'Lord God'. 'Sama' is generally respectful without being a title, compare to 'dono' which means 'lord' as in the political position; you might translate 'sama' as 'sir'. 'kami' means 'spirit' or 'god' in a technical sense, so 'okami' means something like 'great god' or possibly 'ruling spirit' ('o' can mean 'king') so 'okamisama' means 'sir king god' or, 'supreme god', or more simply, 'Lord God'.

There is a big section explaining how the sharingan works in this universe on the SpaceBattles post of this chapter