The Secrets ANBU Keep

IV | New Places

New Places

It's an older member that spots them first and behind the mask of a badger his eyes narrow even as his lips quirk up.

The young recruits are new and wide-eyed for the most part about being let into ANBU headquarters - like they've suddenly found the supposedly hidden techniques of the Nidaime that are rumoured to be somewhere in the administration building. (The notes aren't in the building. He found them years ago in the floors of a black shrine on the outer edges of the cliffs right before the drop off that extends into the murky depths of the Hanguri Gulf.)

They are not yet broken - he can see that much. Young as they are, all of them are impressionable, malleable. Breaking them, he suspects, will be predictable and slightly boring for all involved.

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He's proven right, about those new recruits a few months later. When he sees them again as Cat, Rat, and Bird.

They are tired, and weary, and their masks hold small cracks and chipped edges. Their hands are red and he knows that feeling. He also knows it will only make them stronger in the end if they're forced to endure on their own.

Cat recovers the quickest - he also suspects that Cat will be the first to die, or drop out.

He's proven right about that too, when the Cat mask is put back up for grabs.

Bird recovers next.

Bird only lasts a few months longer than Cat before they decide to make their way to Death.

It's Rat that lasts the longest, if only because Rat took the longest to recover, so Rat had time to learn, and Rat learned how to survive.

So while the ANBU Headquarters might not have been a new place for Rat, Rat was a new person.

And the man behind the badger mask decided he could probably get along with Rat.

After all, going to new places didn't necessarily have to be a physical journey.