| Take the Mask | [Jul. 24th, 2013|10:14 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 19th, the day after Dangerous Game and Heaven's Got a Plan For You.]
The night before oath-day, Kakashi didn’t sleep.
He hadn’t had mission-related butterflies for years, and he didn’t now. These were tigers chewing on his spine. Excitement with teeth. And tense, over-thought—
Not fear, exactly.
He wasn’t afraid.
Maybe, for once in his life, he was actually ready for something.
He left the skeleton-crew boxes of his packed apartment when the moon was still setting, and went to the Hokage’s Monument, picking out a seat on stone spikes of the Sandaime’s hair. When dawn came, he had a perfect view.
Tuesday was fire-day, the namesake day of Fire Country, and someone had given nature the message. The sun rose in a blaze of orange and gold, draping Konoha in molten light. The river glittered. The forest swayed in a warm eastern breeze. Even the heavy crags of the carved Hokage faces looked less severe.
And Kakashi was late.
“Shit,” he said, and ran for it.
He was the last candidate to arrive outside the Hokage’s office, and the only one not dressed in ANBU armor. The quartermaster was waiting for him.
“Finally,” said Morita, and yanked Kakashi into a side-room. “After all this work, if you’d stood me up, Hatake, I don’t even know.”
“I was—”
“Don’t care! Strip down!”
Nakedness and the Quartermaster seemed to be a theme. This time, Kakashi didn’t argue. He yanked hastily out of his jounin blues, dropping them onto an indicated chair, and accepted the sleek black underpinnings. They felt like cool silk against his skin when he pulled them on, but with the deceptive strength of woven steel. The shirt was reinforced at front and back, making him stand straighter. The pants came with black leg-bindings that went from the knee down to a pair of dark, reinforced boots. Long, fingerless gloves were last, cinching securely at his biceps, with a metal plate curving over the backs of both hands.
It was the most well-fitted thing he’d ever worn.
“Armor now. Put your arms out.”
Kakashi did as ordered, standing like his own namesake. Morita strapped the ANBU vest on first; it almost felt like a jounin vest, but heavier, sturdier, with flexibility built in via articulated plates hidden beneath tough cloth. Stretching panels down the side allowed for breathing and easy movement. Arm-guards went on next, laid along his forearms from wrist to elbow. Then knee-guards made in the same tough-but-flexible style as the vest. A thigh-holster. A sturdy utility belt with more pouches than a typical jounin’s belt, to replace the pockets an ANBU chest-plate lacked. A standard-issue kodachi went at his back, hung at a cross-angle from the belt.
Morita tugged a loop hard, making Kakashi take a steadying step backwards. “You can put a tanto here,” he said. “In the small of your back. Or I can alter it, if you want to have it between your shoulderblades.”
Kakashi blinked. “Thank you,” he said.
“Yes, whatever,” said Morita brusquely, and slapped him on the butt. “You’re done. Get out there.”
Kakashi jolted like a startled horse, but went when Morita flapped at him. The armor felt strange, but comfortable, like something he could get used to.
When he walked back into the waiting room outside the office, there were less people. Only Fukui Ayane, stern and pale-faced; Shibata Hakone, the son of the T&I commander, Kakashi had learned; and Ryouma, who managed to look both leaner and taller, somehow, in the white and black lines of ANBU armor.
No one had a mask. That must come later.
“Fukui, Shibata,” Kakashi murmured, with a nod. Then, to Ryouma, “Idiot.”
Ryouma grinned, or at least bared his teeth. “We’re at nicknames already?”
“Not today,” Ayane said sharply, glaring at both of them.
Hakone’s face didn’t change. If he noticed them, he was doing an excellent job of not caring.
“Right, sorry, I forgot,” said Ryouma, unrepentant. “Today is a day for solemn ceremony.” He crossed his arms, tucking his bandaged hand underneath, and tapped his good fingers restlessly against his bare biceps. The bandage was smaller today, less of a club, more of a glove. He must have had another healing session.
The cut at his temple where Akiyama’s scalpel had sliced was already half-faded to a scar. Medics didn’t usually bother with the small stuff, but someone had made an effort for that one. Kakashi couldn’t blame Ryouma for wanting it off his face.
Behind Ayane, the Hokage’s doors opened. Sagara stepped through, fully armored and masked, and looked at Kakashi.
“You’re late,” she said, with death-knell judgement.
“I was—”
“I didn’t ask,” she said. “Follow me.”
Good luck! Ryouma mouthed, abandoning solemn ceremony to be a ridiculous human being.
If she’d been here, Rin would have done the same.
Kakashi folded that thought up, put it away, and followed on Sagara’s heels. The door slid closed behind him with a final click.
Standing in front of the desk, backed by the rising dawn light shining through the bank of windows, Minato was every inch Konohagakure’s fourth Hokage. The man dressed in unburning flames. He ducked his head slightly, a shadow falling across his face, and then Kakashi could see the teacher he knew—proud, excited, and a little sad.
“You grew up,” Minato said quietly.
Kakashi felt his mouth tug. “You made me.”
“Well, you were kind of a brat when you were ten,” Minato said reflectively, which couldn’t be part of the standard ANBU oath. He reached behind him without looking, and picked a white, curved mask off the desk, holding it so that Kakashi couldn’t see the face. “Kneel, candidate.”
Slowly, Kakashi settled onto one knee, planting his right fist on the sun-slanted wooden floor.
“The Special Assassination and Tactical Squad is neither Konoha's oldest division nor its noblest,” Minato said, with a conversational air, and Kakashi realized this wasn’t a prepared speech. This was just Minato laying out the facts like he always did, grounding the extraordinary in regular context. “Even inside the village, ANBU are feared more than they're respected. Citizens of our own village still call them baby-killers. Some ANBU have earned that title, under my command. You may.” He paused. "I have given those orders personally. Every order the ANBU receive comes through me. Sometimes the command is to protect the village, or to conduct a high-risk mission into enemy territory, or to assassinate an exceptionally strong ninja. Sometimes it's to sustain the village's lifeblood—to accept a mission so foul I can't offer it to the regular forces, to work for a client whose motives and methods are reprehensible but whose coin will feed and protect our children. You've accepted that first kind of mission, and excelled. Can you accept the second?"
“Yes,” said Kakashi, without hesitation.
“You've made a name for yourself, Sharingan no Kakashi.” Minato’s voice warmed with a smile Kakashi couldn’t see. "And for Obito. I don't think you'll have any objections to an additional mask, and you've never been a glory hound—but once you swear the ANBU oath, there's no glory to be had at all. You'll work as a member of a team, and the barest rookie at that. You'll obey your captain's orders, you'll support your teammates, and you'll damn well get along with them on-mission and off. There are no lone wolves in ANBU.”
So be warned.
Kakashi nodded, silver hair falling into his eyes without the hitai-ate to hold it back.
Minato sighed, very softly, and the mask turned over in his careful, clever fingers. “Take the face you will present to the world, and swear your allegiance.”
It was a lion-dog.
The flat-muzzled face was painted in black and scarlet lines, with a curling mouth and slanted eyes. Two streaks made whisker-like marks at the cheeks, and sharp little ears lifted up at the temples. The eyes were cut wider than other masks Kakashi had seen—to accommodate the Sharingan, he realized. The left eyehole had thin black mesh stretched over it, completely opaque, but he could feel the subtle hint of chakra in it.
That last thing was the only thing about it that made sense. Why red? Why not just a wolf?
At least it wasn’t a cockroach.
He took it carefully from Minato, cradling the light ceramic-polymer weight, and felt Sagara step up at his back. She leaned over him, put her hand over his hand, and brought the mask to his face. “The mesh will burn away with a thread of lightning chakra and the Bird seal,” she said quietly. "There should be self-adhesive replacement patches in your gear. See the Quartermaster when you need more." There were black straps fixed to both sides of the mask; he held still as she tied them firmly behind his head. The world narrowed slightly. His breath curled back against his face.
“Repeat after me,” she said, letting go. “I am Hatake Kakashi, ANBU. I have no face but this face.”
More face than he’d ever shown before. He repeated it, steady-voice.
“I have no heart, but the heart of Konohagakure.”
That had always been true. Kakashi repeated it.
“I have no will, but the will of my Hokage.”
Softly, Kakashi said it.
Konoha had forged him, Minato had sharpened him, ANBU would use him. Kakashi just had to get out of his own way and let them.
Minato laid a hand on his head, one thumb resting against the edge of a ceramic ear—this wasn’t the familiar hair-ruffle Kakashi had learned to tolerate, then secretly appreciate. This was the weight of a leader accepting a new fealty, and the warmth of it twined around Kakashi’s bones.
The hand fell away. “Rise, Agent Hatake.”
Kakashi drew in a breath, lifted himself off his knee—and had every last scrap of air driven out of him when Minato yanked him into a crushing hug. For a moment, Kakashi froze. They didn’t do this unless there was blood on the ground and a rent where something whole had been taken. But Minato didn’t let go, only gripped tighter, and Kakashi—
Was not his student anymore.
And never really would be again.
He wrapped his arms around Minato’s shoulders and ducked his head, pressing the side of his masked face against the wild golden hair. Minato was shorter than him, narrower across the shoulders, but his chakra was immense. An inferno wrapped around Kakashi’s pale blue flame. And yet, for the first time, Kakashi actually felt stronger.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“You say that now,” Minato said, but there was a catch in his voice. “I’m not doing you any favors, you know.” He leaned his head against Kakashi’s, just a little. “Wait until you meet your team.”
Whoever they were, they couldn’t touch his former team.
And Kakashi might never get this chance again. He tightened his grip, until Minato made a laughing, gasping sound as the breath accordioned out of him, and whacked Kakashi between the armored shoulderblades.
Kakashi released him, and stepped back. “Hokage-sama.”
The blue eyes were just a little too bright. “Go out and come back safely. I've got too much paperwork to go chasing after you these days.”
Behind the mask-over-mask, Kakashi smiled. Then bowed.
“Agent Hatake,” Sagara said, and led him to the door that led to the antechamber. “You’ll wait here to meet your team.”
The room was empty, but it smelled like stress and fresh armor. They’d been doing this since the first oath, he guessed.
“Sagara-sama,” he said, with another bow.
She closed the door.
The mask was actually a little warm. Kakashi gave it a careful tug, resettling it better, and sat down in one of the empty chairs to wait. |
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