Grasping at the Sky

Chapter 30: Deceptions

The first time Kira met her ANBU team leader, Shura, was the first time she found out life could be different for her. She'd been unsettled by the order to join a team, one that Shura himself had apparently requested be formed. It would have been almost creepy - an older man asked to form a team with two teenagers - if it wasn't for the fact that upon mentioning him to her mother, she'd been reassured. Her adoptive father had worked with the man and liked him and that had been enough for Kira to not worry about becoming another ANBU's subordinate.

Shura the Third Eye had been known for solo missions, so him suddenly forming a team, let alone one with her in it, had been puzzling to Kira. He was an imposing figure, even after so many years, but back then he had been unnerving with the disciplined haircut, sharp eyes, and half covered face. If that hadn't been enough, his first action with her had been to order her to take her mask off and give it to him. Kira had been... confused to say the least, and a bit taken aback by it. Still, orders were orders and so she had given it to him. He'd put it away instantly and then told her just as easily that she was only to wear it on assignment from now on.

Not during training.

Not during team meetings.

Only when they were actively doing ANBU assignments or receiving orders.

She was to be Kira instead of Koyote.

It had made Kira angry, a vulnerable part of her left to be scorched under the sun and exposed to the eyes of people.

"What about you?" she'd snapped, irrational as ever and she'd remembered seeing Aya tense at the tone. "You're wearing a mask, aren't you?"

Looking back on it, Kira wondered if she'd subconsciously been looking for punishment. After two years of being under Korin's foot after her graduation, followed by being left to her own devices for a few months, she wasn't quite sure how to deal with normal people. To his credit Shura had just given her an even look as if expecting the outburst.

"I wear this mask to set others at ease - not myself," he explained calmly. "That is the difference between us Kira, and one you need to learn." It had been a hard lesson, one that became clearer once she'd found out about the ripping scar on Shura's face, the one had made it look like he was always grinning widely with all his teeth on one side of his face.

She'd had to learn that the mask wasn't something she could hide behind for her entire life. It was meant to be used when she was acting as an ANBU and only then, a way to separate herself from the job and her life. To a point she still struggled with that, but Gaara had helped her without even realizing it, so she could get over that part of her tendencies. The ANBU mask was a tool; it helped shinobi play the role they had been assigned while it was on.

That training, that understanding, was probably the only reason she was still alive.

It was all a bit too unsettlingly easy to slip back into her role as Korin's hound. Simple and repetitive - a muscle memory never really forgotten - like slipping on a mask. That's all it was; a mask, a tool. It had to be, or else she'd lose who she'd become since gaining her freedom. She couldn't falter.

It was a mask.

That's what she told herself over and over again as she ran across the dunes of the Land of Wind behind a man she'd sworn to take down. It was an old forgotten mantra she hadn't used in years since being on a team and learning it.

She worried absently once again that it had been too easy, but then thought better because really it hadn't been that easy. It hadn't been easy to act like she didn't care when she'd turned on Sai, watching as his blood had pooled onto the ground. Walking away with Korin had been one of the hardest things she'd ever done, but for her friends, for the people who'd so easily accepted her, she did it.