"ANBU Squirrel, Code name Chou, for your commendable actions in the field in saving the life of a comrade, after due consideration by the ANBU commander and Jounin commander, and the recommendation of your team captain, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Jounin."

I stare at the scroll the Hokage hands me with incomprehension, the earth lilting under my feet, the sky becoming floor, the vase becoming a face, the alignment of axioms shifting towards a new, fractal vector.

I do not understand this world. I do not want a promotion, it is not something I was trying for. More, it is not necessarily a good thing. The following little speech about duty and honor and the Will of Fire washes over me, registered and recorded, for that is the ANBU way, but unprocessed in this moment as I am set adrift, the surreal corollary of this moment to the last time I stood before Hiruzen. The light was colder then, but the soft green-tint cast over the beiges and browns of the office through the leaves of the surrounding trees is no less dreamlike. I had just died then too, is that how it works for me now? I can only get recognition when I die? That's sort of…

"Awful."

The word falls from my lips quietly, and Sarutobi pauses with a raised eyebrow.

"What was that?"

I hold the scroll back out to him and shake my head.

"Apologies Hokage-sama, but I do not believe I am deserving of a promotion at this time."

He chews on the stem of his pipe for a long moment, inspecting me minutely while his teeth click quietly against the worn wood.

"Are you sure? I've read your file and I think you are."

I shake my head again.

"I am not strong enough yet. And my actions were not so chivalrous as to warrant recognition."

The Hokage looks at me with cool assessment, a single eyebrow raised.

"I didn't realize you had learned how to use Izanagi deliberately."

I want to shift under his scrutiny but ANBU has knocked all of those little motions out of me. The new nervous tick is a notable absence of ticks, an unnatural stillness interrupted only by the swiveling of my eyes.

"...I have not, yet, but an obvious precedent was set. I was in little danger. Even if that was a minor risk, I still feel that I am unlikely to be able to live up to the demands set by such a prestigious position."

I clench my hands just a little bit, leather and metal of my bracers creaking faintly, but stand firm, suggestion of something which is certainly not a pout thankfully hidden by my mask.

"I've never even beaten Wolf-taicho in a spar or anything…"

A very small smile forms on the edge of his lips.

"Your standards must be much more stringent than Konoha's then. If you did not know that you would survive, only guessed, then it was still an extreme act of courage. Besides, could not the bomb have damaged your eyes too much for you to use such a technique?"

I hadn't thought of that, and the sudden realization makes me blink in reflex. I could have really died. The Hokage pressed on over my shocked comprehension.

"Beyond that, Kakashi-kun is an S-rank ninja. That you can even hold your own in a spar is testament to an impressive level of strength. That you can't beat him is not a mark against you."

I still don't like this, even if I appreciate the Hokage's reasoning. My mouth wants to twist into a perturbed line, but I can't actually find a flaw in Hiruzen's logic. And yet it feels like, like, cheating or...

"...Is this an order, Hokage-sama?"

He leans back in his chair and sighs a little, looking all of his more than seventy years all at once as a thin blue streamer of smoke coils into the air.

"No. It is not. But I think placing you in ANBU long term is perhaps not the best course. This promotion will give you an opportunity to shift to more surface level missions. You can still be part of Wolf Unit, and run missions with them, but we need to start building you a public persona as well. Even if we aren't going to reveal your identity just yet."

The bowl of the pipe makes a muffled thump as the Hokage knocks out the faded embers.

"Wolf will be surfacing a bit as well, for similar reasons. I'm going to see if he would be willing to take another Genin team. The first produced such exceptional ninja."

The surge of empty regret hits me like a physical wave and for a moment I cannot breathe. I blink rapidly to clear any moisture which might have accumulated under the mask.

Well, if Kakashi-sensei is starting to get back into the public sphere… There is a twinkle in the Hokage's eye and I know, that he knows, that I know that he has won. I sigh, very quietly, and pull off my mask, the lens-like clarity of the world viewed through the eyeholes fading away. Farewell, halcyon days.

"Very well Hokage-sama."

He hands me back the scroll with a very small smile.

"Congratulations, Hiroki-Jounin."

. . .

Choices are an unpleasant epiphany. I haven't had to think about so much for a very long time.

When I was a stupid, stupid, child, there was only ever the goal, the light at the end of the tunnel, the target to sprint towards with not a moment to think.

What do you want for the future?

To live to my twelfth birthday.

Well, wish granted.

When that passed it was replaced with ANBU, which was better because I did not need to push myself, merely obey instructions. It was a sort of bliss, a minor ecstasy, the mechanicality of it all. Not having to choose means not being responsible for failure. There was no 'try' only the command to 'do', so I did. The endless click, click, clicking of well oiled and precision machined gears, sliding against each other in a frictionless symphony of motion producing product. Sure that product was mostly 'dead people', but that has never really bothered me except in a dim, distant way.

But now there is no great machine; now there is just me. No more Squirrel, only Hiroki.

Not being ANBU means not having a uniform, so I need to buy my own clothes for the first time in my life. I still favor dark grey, mostly in shades of green and brown, though occasionally slightly blue. The shirts are sleeveless now, to keep the bracers sitting easy on my bandage wrapped arms, and come with a hood because the sunlight is annoying when I'm out in it all the time rather than skulking about at night or under a mask. The Genjutsu woven into the lining casts a shadow over my eyes to help conceal Sharingan usage and helps with… emotional leakage. As does the so-red-it's-black mask in the same fashion as Kakashi-taicho's. That it makes me look like a terrifying wraith assassin is completely coincidental, and at any rate rather spoiled by me being barely 14 and rather gangly from my newly acquired height. I'll grow into it.

Uchiha Hiroki is still dead, but it is not so uncommon a first name that I need another, so I join the ranks of shinobi with only a single appellation; standard practice for orphans, which I qualify as anyway.

It also means I need a new apartment. The one originally registered to Uchiha Hiroki is long gone, since the massacre, and the ANBU quarters aren't an option anymore.

The new place is still small, though not quite tiny, painted all over in a pale lavender, with an extra room for guests or as an office, and a living room large enough that it can double as a little dining room. I keep the tiny couch. Now it has friends though, a trio of bookshelves, sadly empty.

I always loved books, but there has seemed less point with a photographic memory; it would be a minor comfort to have them around again. The bookshelves are nice for decoration at least, especially once they are all filled with various and sundry tomes and scrolls.

One subject per shelf, neat and tidy. The first case filled is for the important things.

Fuinjutsu, Poisons, Genjutsu, Speed-style Taijutsu, Iryo-ninjutsu.

The other two are for… hobbies, I suppose.

Puppetry, Kenjutsu, Bukijutsu, Technique Creation, Gardening, Earth Element Ninjutsu, Fire Element Ninjutsu, Origami, Strong-style Taijutsu, Gentle-style Taijutsu, Politics, Bloodlines, Flower Arranging, Fabled Kinjutsu…

Most of the collection is transient, scrolls borrowed for a few days or books bought, memorized, and resold. Only a few are worth holding on to for longer, to keep the shelves looking used, encyclopedias and primers and a handful of coded notebooks written in a phonetic transposition using the scraps of English I can still remember. It is a slight surprise how many such repositories of knowledge exist, given ninja paranoia, but I suppose that is one of the perks of being an ex-ANBU Jounin. Trust. Though it may also be an indicator of how widely known or frequently stolen the information is.

Actual decoration is unnecessary, but a few potted plants near the windows hold herbs with useful properties for medicine or poison (there is frequently little difference), and I… well. I've always liked collecting things, and ANBU took us all over so… one wall features a thick board with a line of Hitai-ate pinned to it from various villages, a few of them rather scuffed and worn, but most in a generally good condition (genjutsu leaves few marks). I have almost the complete set, one from each major village and six of the ten minor ones. Even one from Hot-Springs! Very rare those; the village doesn't even exist anymore. A few of them were rather hard to get, like the Leaf headband I took off a missing-nin, but I am looking forward to completing the set one day; it will be very hard to get an Uzushio headband though, and some might think it in rather poor taste.

Running missions that aren't as high stress is… nice? I still have trouble with less intense interaction, but I do okay, mostly, I think. I don't become bosom buddies with everyone I work with, but I can at least conclude most missions on cordial, almost friendly terms with my fellow Leaf-nin, the tension of a youth spent in near perpetual panic paradoxically eased by years in blackops.

It also means I have more private time to work on myself and my own pursuits. ANBU was excellent for physical conditioning and developing my now near perfect chakra control, but it leaves little time to improve your other skills, which always takes a little bit of experimentation. Some of it literal.

Ninja are, by nature, acquisitive, ambitious, and willing to grab at anything that might help them get ahead. However there are some lines of research they have never considered valuable enough to pursue with the requisite dedication to see the payout. I'm not really a chemist, but I know what you can make from the mold which grows on wheat. LSD will make a nice complement to my Genjutsu repertoire.

With a bit of time on my hands I am able to invent two new jutsu variants. The Twitch-Flicker is exactly what it says on the bottle; a short range, very rapid derivation of the Body Flicker which is just enough to reposition the limbs for a block or a strike. Ghostfire is a strain of Grand Fireball, but rarified to have no visible component, just a wave of searingly hot air projected from the mouth. They'll never know what hit them. Or broiled them, as the case may be.

I can try new things too, for with a matured Sharingan and my current level of physical conditioning I can develop proficiency in whatever I please fairly rapidly. Swords are still cool, and acquiring something like a mid-Chunin level of skill in kenjutsu is the work of only a week; reading scrolls, watching the few practitioners in the village, getting a feel for the art with some practice katas. It becomes a new way to relax, whenever my training stalls in a core area, to become competent in another branch of the ninja arts. Mastery is impractical, most of these skills will never see use, but if patching the hole is easy enough...

It is nice to see obvious progress occasionally, especially given the setbacks I am encountering in other areas; despite my best efforts I'm not really making much progress with my Seals. I may need dedicated instruction from someone knowledgeable, which basically means Jiraiya, Danzo, or Hiruzen. None of whom are likely to have the time or the inclination towards helping me.

I do make one interesting discovery though: apparently cousin Soramaki was sandbagging. He had a Mangekyou as well. Makes sense, honestly. More than a Hundred Uchiha ninja, most had their Sharingan active, and none of them awakened the Mangekyou? The change isn't especially noticeable appearance wise, but the ability is nice.

Fuujin; Line-of-sight teleportation. About as costly in chakra as a Body Flicker over a hundred meter distance, so not cheap, but the cost stays constant regardless of distance where the Shunshin grows more expensive, and more importantly the new technique leaves no trail of chakra to follow, nothing for the enemy to track so they might anticipate my arrival point. I can get from my apartment to anywhere in the village in about two blinks. Not as good as Kamui or anything, but… efficient.

I finally manage to trigger Susanoo as well, and it is that which really makes it clear to me what my eyes are for.

My Susanoo is only about thrice the height of a full grown man. Tiny, compared to all others. It does not come with a sword, but with a longbow, and though the arrows are not bullshit sealing nonsense, they are special, for they suppress chakra. Of dubious utility in most cases, I shouldn't wonder, given that the arrows are wrist thick and almost as long as the construct is tall so most of what I shoot should be dead anyway, but it perfectly exemplifies the paradigm. Efficiency. Low cost, low reward, repeatable, reusable, distant.

I'm not sure if my eye is now an Eternal, I sort of doubt it, actually, but it is unlikely to be relevant regardless at the rate I need to swap them out. But they make me safe, they make me, not dangerous, but difficult.

Sasuke and Itachi can keep their Amaterasu. I have no need of it.

. . .

A/N: Hiroki is actually experiencing a fairly steady linear increase in strength. He has now been an active ninja for about 6 years. 2.5 as a Genin, 1 as Chunin, 2.5 as ANBU.

Important to note: When Hiroki told Nikkei that the Sharingan doesn't make you great at everything, he was telling the truth. Most of his skills are Jounin standard, something new like Kenjutsu is coming in at a low-Chunin level. If he tired to fight Zabuza with a sword, he would get his ass handed to him. But, he now knows enough about the topic to be useful; he can spot flaws in someone's form more easier, for example, because he has at least a working knowledge of the topic.

Oh, just remembered! The minor villages with ninja are: Rain, Grass, Waterfall, Fang, Moon, Stone, Sound, River, Frost, Swamp. By ;minor; we mean, about 1/5 to 1/6 the size of one of the Big 5