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Description
                               Who I Am Hates Who I've Been
                                           By RoseThourne
                                          Song By Reliant K

Light streams in through the window, waking me this morning. I stretch, pull a box of junk out of the closet, and open the curtains. Sitting on the bed, I marvel at the beaten, abused old ANBU uniform that dwells within the battered cardboard. The chest plate creaks softly as I release it to finger the blue spiral of my ANBU tattoo, tracing the purple arch that marked me as a Captain. I stare in wonder at the ink, which seems strangely vivid, almost alive in the glow of dawn. Three years… but it seems like only yesterday… I grub around in the bottom of the box, fingers searching for something I know to be there. The cool surface greets my fingertips, some places smooth, others rough from the scratches and nicks of battle. I draw it out, and hold it up to the light, still marveling in the translucent delicacy of my old mask as I remember…

                                      I watch the proverbial sunrise
                                      Coming up over the pacific and

A younger pair of hands, my hands, sheathed from knuckles to wrists in black leather. Those hands, my hands, holding my shiny new mask- the one that marked me as a captain. The mask I would have to recover tomorrow, as part of my Captain's Exam.  The mask I would have to pay for in blood; that of others, as well as my own.

                                   You might think I'm losing my mind
                                      But I will shy away from the specifics…

Again I study the mask in my hand. It is not a definite animal, like some of the others. The porcelain seems to hold a strange luminosity before me in the first rays of the sun. I wipe a solitary fleck of crimson from the rim of an eye hole as I rise and lift the mask to my face, making a hand sign to dispel the illusion my exam had taken place in. The blood on my clothes fades and vanishes, and the hill top around me becomes apparent. The bodies strewn across it do not disappear. "Congratulations, Keshi, you are now an ANBU Captain. You will be assigned a squad tomorrow. Go home and rest."

"Hai."

                   'Cause I don't want you to know where I am…

I'm pressed flush against my best friends chest, feeling his heart slow and stop. His body stiffens against my own, then relaxes as his life's blood flows hot down my arm and pools around our feet. I watch his eyes glaze over in death with calm detachment, knowing that he was innocent and not caring. Somewhere, far away from my consciousness, I hear his wife scream. Whirling, I wrench my blade out of it's resting place. It finds its mark in the woman's throat, pinning her to the wall and silencing her instantly. Still, I don't care. It's my mission to kill these friends. The mission takes priority over all else. Somewhere, far away in my body, a solitary pang of guilt winds it's way into my chest. I push it away. Shinobi like me are not allowed to feel such emotions. That's what being in ANBU is all about.

                                'Cause then you'll see my heart
                                   In the saddest state it's ever been.

The truth does not phase me; I've just killed my two closest friends. People I would give my life for under any other circumstances. I retrieve my blade from the woman's throat. I observe that it has cracked, sometime during the assassination. I fling the now useless tool aside in a wide arc. It spins dreamily through the air, moonlight skittering over the slick surfaces.

                                  This is no place to try and live my life.

The knife clatters to the ground as I turn and leave a trail of bloody footprints away from the house. A few dozen yards away, I take out my bingo book and a pen. I flip to the page with their faces. My pen hovers over the paper, poised to strike them from my life forever.

                             Stop right there that's exactly where I lost it
                               See that line, well I never should have crossed it

"Stupid old man… he should have gotten out of the country the moment he knew he'd been framed... baka!"

The pen comes down in a thick swath of crimson ink, like a spatter of fresh blood, crossing out the existence of an innocent life. Another red x follows, obliterating the man's partner as surely as the knife thrown earlier. I remove my suddenly stuffy mask, letting the damp breezes of the pre-dawn cool my face and make my long braid sway slightly.

                Stop right there, well I never should have said that
                   It's the very moment that I wish that I could take back.

The book smacks hard as it hit the dew-soaked grass, the cover falling open to reveal the two crimson x's over their faces. Blades of emerald grass spring back to obscure the pages, delivering their tears of dew to warp the paper, making the ink bleed and swim. I stand stock still for a second before I regain my detachment and retrieve the Bingo Book, tucking it into my pouch. Wiping a solitary bead of moisture off on my sleeve, I replace my mask and Flicker back to headquarters to debrief.

Back at headquarters, a sinister chuckle rolls through the office of the ANBU Commander General...

                               I'm sorry for the person I became

"The target has been eliminated. It was quick and quiet. His wife too. What's my bonus?" I stood at attention in the ANBU Leader's office reporting last night's events like they were some sort of story, told for the sadistic pleasure of the hulking, grinning man before me. Ugh, those scars around his mouth stretch when he smiles.

"You don't get a bonus." was his reply.

                       I'm sorry that it took so long for me to change
                      I'm ready to be sure I never become that way again

"Excuse me, leader-sama? But you made it clear that you were going to send a three-man squad, that is, before I took the job... You said you wanted this done quietly and quickly. I did it, and I didn't even have to seduce him, because he was already my friend. I say that deserves at least a bit extra."

"No deal, Keshi. However, since you're one of our newest Captains, and a pretty one at that, I will give you a bit extra..." His voice held the unmistakable leer of a pervert. I realized what he meant and felt my body tense into fighting stance. The lecherous grin spread to encompass the entire lower half of his face.

                               'Cause who I am hates who I've been
                                          Who I am hates who I've been.

"Come now, why so tense? Don't you know that that was why I chose you for this mission? Your file said you were a virgin... at your age, that's not good for an ANBU. It was implied that you were supposed to seduce him..." He leaned across the desk, and in a casual, but still invisible movement plucked the kunai from my hand and flipped it into the air, catching it expertly and leveling it at me.

"You know you want it. Most kunoichi virgins never last past twelve, let alone fifteen," he sidled around the desk, taking off his vest and sizing up my coiled muscles and my eyes flicking toward the door. "It's no use attacking me. I'll just have the guards come in and take care of you if you if you decide to make too much noise. I promise I'll be gentle..."

                                       I talked to absolutely no one.
                                          Couldn't keep to myself enough.

Yeah, gentle my mask... I though hatefully, gazing in stoic shame at my bleeding wrists, bound tightly in the barbed ribbons I used to wind through my braid. I shifted my elbows to stabilize myself against the desk, feeling a rough hand rip a few more strands of hair out of my head. I didn't mind the pain really. It distracted me from what else was going on. Feeling the other hand grab a wad of my disheveled strands, I knew it would be over soon. I clamped my jaws on the knotted part of my headband that had been shoved in my mouth under my mask and screwed my eyes shut against the unbidden sensations as first he, then I shuddered and collapsed. After a few seconds, his hulking frame straightened up, landing a vicious smack on my limp, exposed backside. An involuntary grunt of pain made it past the wadded material in my mouth. I slid off the desk as the hand redirected itself at my head, connecting with my mask, flinging it off my face. Another blow, and the hand was getting tangled in my matted tresses. A few curses, and a few more strands parted company with my scalp.

"Get dressed bitch. I don't want you stinking up my office. Put the mask back on too, ugly. You have another solo mission tomorrow, so MOVE IT!" I moved it, pulling up my pants and scurrying out of the room to clean up at my flat. After all, what could I do? The bruises would be gone by tomorrow, and my commander had too good of a reputation to be ruined by a solitary voice, with no casts, no bandages or splints to back it up.

                          And the things bottled inside have finally begun
                              To create so much pressure that I'll soon blow up.

WHAM! My head made a dull crack as I was slammed against an unyielding wall. There was no mask on my face this time to break. My cry of pain only fetched me a high speed rendezvous with the polished stone floor as the bear like man pounced on my violated flesh yet again. This time, it was the torture chamber where I had been ordered to debrief, and, of course submit to another mandatory physical inspection. I took stock of my body as I lay there, watching a pool of blood spread from my face. Two broken ribs, seventh and ninth, and a broken nose.

"You're a disgrace, bitch. Shinobi don't feel pain, and if they are weak enough to feel it, then they hide it with their mask." He snatched my mask off the iron chair in the middle of the room, putting it up to his face and gesticulating wildly, mocking me. I lay as still as I could, pretending to be unconscious, hoping he'd leave me alone this time. We'd already been down here for four hours, if my time sense was correct. "Right, bitch?!?!!?" He picked me up like a rag doll with one arm, tossed me in the air and jammed his fist up into my gut. I would have screamed, had it not been for the blood spewing from my mouth and nose, splattering in crimson streaks across the floor and my body. His shout of sadistic glee assaulted my left ear, and I could feel the blast of hot air wash over my bruised cheeks. Somebody needs a breath mint... thought the small, detached part of me that was not either screaming in pain or calculating how much blood I'd lost, and how much more I was likely to lose yet. Surely, his guards must have heard that... but then, I remembered with a fresh wave of bitterness, the guards never heard any of our little meetings. They had been told not to. I could hear the pathetic flopping sound my body made as I slid off his raised fist and onto the floor. Knowing what was coming next, I ordered my body to go limp again, go unconscious, do something so I wouldn't have to be awake for this next part. I tried desperately to cling to the blackness eating away at the edges of my vision. Blood loss... Finally, it took mercy on me, and the last thing I remembered before the darkness engulfed my battered mind was the feel of my upper body, sliding in short, slick strokes along the floor, lubricated by my own blood. I need to stop this... I need... help...

                                 I heard the reverberating footsteps
                               Syncing up to the beating of my heart

Something came over me that night. Instead of walking past those evil, threatening doors into hell that night, I never came back from the mission. In fact, I never even completed the mission. I went to the old kunoichi's house and told her to get the hell out of the country. I even escorted her to the border. She asked me why I would ever do such a thing, and I didn't answer. I just locked gazes her cloudy old eyes, telling her everything and nothing of what I had been through. I think she understood, perhaps all too well. She gave me a small box with a few sweets left in it and patted my gloved hand, and told me she'd been a Mist ANBU too when she was young.

That night, I stayed in a cave overlooking the old woman's house. By morning, it was all charred cinders, and I had had to run for my life, losing my supply pack and the box of candy in the chase. All I had were a few kunai, a couple shuriken, my mask, and some food pills. I wandered for perhaps a week, perhaps a month, living on nothing but what the earth had to offer, or what I could steal from any small settlement.

I made ghostly trails across land I did not know, a twisted, damaged puff-flower seed that faltered and dropped, only to be sustained grudgingly by yet another wind. All I knew or cared about was that I was not in my own country. A band of hunter-nin from Suna could pluck me up, and I'd have gone willingly enough.

                An I was positive that unless; I got myself together
                                       I would watch me fall apart.

It was not any sand ninja who found me when I collapsed under a scrubby overhang jutting out from the bare rock around me, but a pair of sound ninja. I awoke to cool water splashing through the eye holes of my mask, and a pair of strikingly sea-green eyes, set off by the red rings encircling them, and matching twin spots on his forehead. He motioned to his partner to come forward. I saw the other, a girl with messy, bristling orange hair and fierce brown eyes reminiscent of a hawk's. They debated about whether they should take me back to their master, and I cleared my throat.

"I don't care who your leader is. Take me to him, and I'll be your ally. I swear it, so long as you don't turn me in to my village."  It seemed a suitable proposition at the time. They stared at me for a few seconds, looked at each other, and nodded.

"Can you walk? Or do we have to carry your sorry ass?" The redhead snorted, picking up one of my arms by the mangled, dirty sleeve. She released it, watching it flop limply back into the dust, betraying me. Warm, strong arms encircled my torso, and in a dizzying blur, I had been swung around to rest like an ermine collar over the white haired guy's shoulders. I felt something hard supporting my limp frame where I draped behind white-hair's neck. I twitched a hand, and had to use the last of my strength to turn my head and affirm what I had felt: I was suspended on a semicircular shelf of white, hard bone. As my head rolled back into position against his chest, I heard him mutter something.

"Like my bones? They're quite unique, a kekkei genkai in fact... My master, Orochimaru-sama think they will be very useful when I become his vessel..." After that, his chatter stretched and blurred, fading with my consciousness.

                                 And I can't let that happen again,
              'Cause then you'll see my heart in the saddest state it's ever been.

I focused hard on my palms, feeling the crackly green glow stretch and expand inside the chest of the latest patient. The gray-haired boy was working furiously with his chakra scalpels as the body below us quivered in agony. I glanced up momentarily, and saw the gleeful grin and the flash of the glasses lenses.

"Just a few more minutes, then you can let him go. It'll be hopeless by then." My stomach turned at the cool words of the medical ninja across from me.

                             This is no place to try and live my life.

"But, why should I stop? We're trying to save this guy right? I mean, what's the use in healing someone who's going to die?" I replied. That was a mistake.

                              Stop right there that's exactly where I lost it
                               See that line, well I never should have crossed it

"No, baka, we're not trying to save this guy! He's for experiments, and you'll do what you're told. Get back to healing, this is a delicate bit." He sounded irritated, like a child who wanted to be left alone to play with a favorite toy.

"No." I stopped the healing. The patient went suddenly quiet. "I'm not going to help you torture people. You're sick." His glasses flashed, and he gripped my arm, practically dragging me out of the room.

"And you're coming with me to see my master."

                      Stop right there, well I never should have said that
                        It's the very moment that I wish that I could take back.

"You WHAT?!?!?! That is so, so wrong on so many levels, you disgusting, old, sick-" I was cut short by his tongue around my neck, lifting me bodily off the ground. He reeled me in, brought me close enough to his face to see the golden ripples in his irises, and spoke.

                                     I'm sorry for the person I became

"Yes. It's a small price to pay for immortality. And besides, some people just need to be put to good use. Take you, for example; your innate healing powers seem to surpass even my dear little assistant." He glanced at the gray-haired ninja, who had a smug little smile on his lips. "In the mean time, you would be very useful helping him to keep the test subjects fr-" He didn't finish the sentence, because I had smacked him hard across the face. He stared at me, golden eyes dilated in fury for a moment before unwrapping his tongue from my throat, dropping me hard on the floor.

"Kabuto, remove her from my sight. And talk some sense into her if you please. She may be quite valuable eventually." Two strong arms snaked under mine and pressed expertly into bundles of nerves, leaving my arms limp. Kabuto released me when we were in the dungeons and tried to talk to me. I spat at him. Bullseye, right on his glasses, making him fumble and curse at me. Kicking him against the wall, I ran to my room to collect my meager belongings. Strapping my mask onto my face, I fled like a bat out of hell, because that place, it could have no other name.

                        I'm so sorry that it took so long for me to change
                            I'm ready to try and never become that way again

I traveled for what seemed like weeks. Eventually, my path led me to meet more people like myself. The abused, disillusioned people that are the eventual product of any shinobi society. Our group grew to include ninja from many villages: Grass, Sand, Sound,  Stone, Leaf, and even a few from Mist. One of them was my cousin, Yukime Hyuuga. Another was one of my Uchiha half-brothers, his mother limping behind the group, still grieving for the death of her son's twin. Most of them called me their leader; those that did not either left, or were convinced by the others to do so. As we wound our way up into the refuge of the mountains, Yukime found a natural cluster of caves for our little group to shelter in.

                                     Who I am hates who I've been
                                          Who I am hates who I've been;

Not everybody survived the first winter in the mountains. But those that did became the most loyal followers one could ever wish for. They trusted in my judgment, worked together, and gave me their guidance when they could. We all looked out for each other, and especially for the children. Our numbers grew steadily, as we came across more missing shinobi, accepting them and giving them new hope, a new life. Never mind the fact that they were being led by a girl so much younger than they were, what mattered was that I treated each person fairly, and never asked them to do anything I wouldn't do right alongside them. I think that's what made them trust me, even though I was still barely a child.  Sometimes, children could see things that adults couldn't.

But, nothing is perfect I thought, scooping handfuls of fresh snow over another grave; this one was smaller than the rest. A single tear ran sluggishly down to the tip of my nose and hung there, frozen for a moment before I wiped it away. I straightened up, and my people silently followed.

                                  Who I am hates who I've been
                     And who I am will take the second chance you gave me.

As I huddled that night in the meager shelter of a cave with my four adopted students, one older than I was, I realized that for the first time since I was very young... I was at peace. I reached into my backpack, pulling out my old ANBU mask, remembering things that had happened in my life. I think it was then, that I came to the conclusion; I was the leader of my own village. A ninja village unlike any other; a ninja village dedicated to life, rather than the taking of it. I tucked the mask back into it's cloth home and slept.

                                       Who I am hates who I've been
                                   'Cause who I've been only ever made me...

The council was not happy when I arrived for one of the summit meetings, declaring my intent to found another Hidden Village. The look on my face when I got home told everyone to prepare for the worst. The worst came, and everyone, man woman and child, turned out to defend their new village. Everyone gave it all they had, up to and including their lives. Even my cousin, Yukime.

                                      So sorry for the person I became.

WHACK! My foot connected with a head. The head disconnected from it's body, sailing through the air to bowl over another Mist ninja who had been menacing my half-brother. My mask pressed hot against my face as the old detached mind-state took hold. Everything blurred together, my arms and legs moving of their own accord, my eyes calculating every blow with the deadly efficiency honed by training I'd received since the age of four. I was nothing but a weapon to keep my comrades, my family safe. Although I couldn't protect all of them, I could damn well try. I jumped, kicked with both feet. The back of the ninja I'd hit snapped, and his head lolled between his ankles for a moment, mid-air. Another kick, and the one behind him sailed through the air to knock over a small tree with the force of his impact.

After it was all over, the others told me that I'd slain at least four dozen enemy ninja. I nodded, indicating everyone to go clean up. As they left, I did so too, removing my blood-slicked mask and walking over to the bushes to throw up. I... am never doing that again... I met my ragtag band of shinobi near the caves half an hour later and smiled at them. Well, what was left of them. So many lives... and the rest of them... was it worth it?

"Let's never do that again and say we did." Applause filled the air, and I was mobbed by all the youngsters as they piled onto me in a massive hug.

                       So sorry that it took so long for me to change.
                        I'm ready to be sure I never become that way again

As spring approached, the building began. Houses were built. Wells were dug. Hot springs were excavated, a real treat so far up in the mountains. The lush, temperate valleys overlooked by the cliffs were prepared for cultivation with every type of plant imaginable. Even the cave system was expanded and furbished to make a ninja academy for the children. The village seemed to blossom before my very eyes, even as I lifted roofing planks over my head and hit my thumb countless times with the hammer as I pounded endless nails into wood alongside my half-brother. My quarters were the last thing to be built, a noble, semi-circular tower set into the mountain itself, overlooking the alpine cliffs of the village like some great stone sentinel.

                               'Cause who I am hates who I've been.

I relax in my brand new Kage robes, reveling in the softness of the material and the snowy white color. I kick my feet up onto my first pile of paperwork, sinking back into the plush comfort of my chair. My stiff new Kage hat slides down over my eyes and I sigh, thinking on how I got here, and what I'm going to do now. A dull gleam of white porcelain catches my eye, peeking out from the rim of one of the boxes still strewn about the room.

I turn, picking it out of the box. The glazed surface is cool and smooth under my fingers. The reflection of my face, pale and calm, stares translucently back at me.

                                        Who I am hates who I've been.

The face in the mask shifts, changes, grows a bit older. Scar lines snake their way down my nose, and down each eyelid. The wide slit of a closed eye splits across my forehead, and I am back in the present, still holding the mask, and all it means to me. I blink once, and turn to replace it in the cardboard box. I remember the words of the orange-haired girl, and the warm embrace of the white haired boy as I told them why I'd run away from my village...

"I know what you mean, all too well in fact. Men are damn dogs." White hair shot her a sharp look, green eyes seeming to glow in the dark. "No offense, Kimimaro, but admit it, you guys are." He relaxed, returning to combing his fingers through his snowy locks. "The thing is, all you can do is learn from it, and use it to help you keep out of stuff like that in the future. It's what they want, when you back down and break. When you do that, they win; when you get back up and go on with your life, they lose. They lose big time."

"I win." I smiled, replacing the mask back in it's box and tucking the fishnet over it.

Description
                               Who I Am Hates Who I've Been
                                           By RoseThourne
                                          Song By Reliant K

Light streams in through the window, waking me this morning. I stretch, pull a box of junk out of the closet, and open the curtains. Sitting on the bed, I marvel at the beaten, abused old ANBU uniform that dwells within the battered cardboard. The chest plate creaks softly as I release it to finger the blue spiral of my ANBU tattoo, tracing the purple arch that marked me as a Captain. I stare in wonder at the ink, which seems strangely vivid, almost alive in the glow of dawn. Three years… but it seems like only yesterday… I grub around in the bottom of the box, fingers searching for something I know to be there. The cool surface greets my fingertips, some places smooth, others rough from the scratches and nicks of battle. I draw it out, and hold it up to the light, still marveling in the translucent delicacy of my old mask as I remember…

                                      I watch the proverbial sunrise
                                      Coming up over the pacific and

A younger pair of hands, my hands, sheathed from knuckles to wrists in black leather. Those hands, my hands, holding my shiny new mask- the one that marked me as a captain. The mask I would have to recover tomorrow, as part of my Captain's Exam.  The mask I would have to pay for in blood; that of others, as well as my own.

                                   You might think I'm losing my mind
                                      But I will shy away from the specifics…

Again I study the mask in my hand. It is not a definite animal, like some of the others. The porcelain seems to hold a strange luminosity before me in the first rays of the sun. I wipe a solitary fleck of crimson from the rim of an eye hole as I rise and lift the mask to my face, making a hand sign to dispel the illusion my exam had taken place in. The blood on my clothes fades and vanishes, and the hill top around me becomes apparent. The bodies strewn across it do not disappear. "Congratulations, Keshi, you are now an ANBU Captain. You will be assigned a squad tomorrow. Go home and rest."

"Hai."

                   'Cause I don't want you to know where I am…

I'm pressed flush against my best friends chest, feeling his heart slow and stop. His body stiffens against my own, then relaxes as his life's blood flows hot down my arm and pools around our feet. I watch his eyes glaze over in death with calm detachment, knowing that he was innocent and not caring. Somewhere, far away from my consciousness, I hear his wife scream. Whirling, I wrench my blade out of it's resting place. It finds its mark in the woman's throat, pinning her to the wall and silencing her instantly. Still, I don't care. It's my mission to kill these friends. The mission takes priority over all else. Somewhere, far away in my body, a solitary pang of guilt winds it's way into my chest. I push it away. Shinobi like me are not allowed to feel such emotions. That's what being in ANBU is all about.

                                'Cause then you'll see my heart
                                   In the saddest state it's ever been.

The truth does not phase me; I've just killed my two closest friends. People I would give my life for under any other circumstances. I retrieve my blade from the woman's throat. I observe that it has cracked, sometime during the assassination. I fling the now useless tool aside in a wide arc. It spins dreamily through the air, moonlight skittering over the slick surfaces.

                                  This is no place to try and live my life.

The knife clatters to the ground as I turn and leave a trail of bloody footprints away from the house. A few dozen yards away, I take out my bingo book and a pen. I flip to the page with their faces. My pen hovers over the paper, poised to strike them from my life forever.

                             Stop right there that's exactly where I lost it
                               See that line, well I never should have crossed it

"Stupid old man… he should have gotten out of the country the moment he knew he'd been framed... baka!"

The pen comes down in a thick swath of crimson ink, like a spatter of fresh blood, crossing out the existence of an innocent life. Another red x follows, obliterating the man's partner as surely as the knife thrown earlier. I remove my suddenly stuffy mask, letting the damp breezes of the pre-dawn cool my face and make my long braid sway slightly.

                Stop right there, well I never should have said that
                   It's the very moment that I wish that I could take back.

The book smacks hard as it hit the dew-soaked grass, the cover falling open to reveal the two crimson x's over their faces. Blades of emerald grass spring back to obscure the pages, delivering their tears of dew to warp the paper, making the ink bleed and swim. I stand stock still for a second before I regain my detachment and retrieve the Bingo Book, tucking it into my pouch. Wiping a solitary bead of moisture off on my sleeve, I replace my mask and Flicker back to headquarters to debrief.

Back at headquarters, a sinister chuckle rolls through the office of the ANBU Commander General...

                               I'm sorry for the person I became

"The target has been eliminated. It was quick and quiet. His wife too. What's my bonus?" I stood at attention in the ANBU Leader's office reporting last night's events like they were some sort of story, told for the sadistic pleasure of the hulking, grinning man before me. Ugh, those scars around his mouth stretch when he smiles.

"You don't get a bonus." was his reply.

                       I'm sorry that it took so long for me to change
                      I'm ready to be sure I never become that way again

"Excuse me, leader-sama? But you made it clear that you were going to send a three-man squad, that is, before I took the job... You said you wanted this done quietly and quickly. I did it, and I didn't even have to seduce him, because he was already my friend. I say that deserves at least a bit extra."

"No deal, Keshi. However, since you're one of our newest Captains, and a pretty one at that, I will give you a bit extra..." His voice held the unmistakable leer of a pervert. I realized what he meant and felt my body tense into fighting stance. The lecherous grin spread to encompass the entire lower half of his face.

                               'Cause who I am hates who I've been
                                          Who I am hates who I've been.

"Come now, why so tense? Don't you know that that was why I chose you for this mission? Your file said you were a virgin... at your age, that's not good for an ANBU. It was implied that you were supposed to seduce him..." He leaned across the desk, and in a casual, but still invisible movement plucked the kunai from my hand and flipped it into the air, catching it expertly and leveling it at me.

"You know you want it. Most kunoichi virgins never last past twelve, let alone fifteen," he sidled around the desk, taking off his vest and sizing up my coiled muscles and my eyes flicking toward the door. "It's no use attacking me. I'll just have the guards come in and take care of you if you if you decide to make too much noise. I promise I'll be gentle..."

                                       I talked to absolutely no one.
                                          Couldn't keep to myself enough.

Yeah, gentle my mask... I though hatefully, gazing in stoic shame at my bleeding wrists, bound tightly in the barbed ribbons I used to wind through my braid. I shifted my elbows to stabilize myself against the desk, feeling a rough hand rip a few more strands of hair out of my head. I didn't mind the pain really. It distracted me from what else was going on. Feeling the other hand grab a wad of my disheveled strands, I knew it would be over soon. I clamped my jaws on the knotted part of my headband that had been shoved in my mouth under my mask and screwed my eyes shut against the unbidden sensations as first he, then I shuddered and collapsed. After a few seconds, his hulking frame straightened up, landing a vicious smack on my limp, exposed backside. An involuntary grunt of pain made it past the wadded material in my mouth. I slid off the desk as the hand redirected itself at my head, connecting with my mask, flinging it off my face. Another blow, and the hand was getting tangled in my matted tresses. A few curses, and a few more strands parted company with my scalp.

"Get dressed bitch. I don't want you stinking up my office. Put the mask back on too, ugly. You have another solo mission tomorrow, so MOVE IT!" I moved it, pulling up my pants and scurrying out of the room to clean up at my flat. After all, what could I do? The bruises would be gone by tomorrow, and my commander had too good of a reputation to be ruined by a solitary voice, with no casts, no bandages or splints to back it up.

                          And the things bottled inside have finally begun
                              To create so much pressure that I'll soon blow up.

WHAM! My head made a dull crack as I was slammed against an unyielding wall. There was no mask on my face this time to break. My cry of pain only fetched me a high speed rendezvous with the polished stone floor as the bear like man pounced on my violated flesh yet again. This time, it was the torture chamber where I had been ordered to debrief, and, of course submit to another mandatory physical inspection. I took stock of my body as I lay there, watching a pool of blood spread from my face. Two broken ribs, seventh and ninth, and a broken nose.

"You're a disgrace, bitch. Shinobi don't feel pain, and if they are weak enough to feel it, then they hide it with their mask." He snatched my mask off the iron chair in the middle of the room, putting it up to his face and gesticulating wildly, mocking me. I lay as still as I could, pretending to be unconscious, hoping he'd leave me alone this time. We'd already been down here for four hours, if my time sense was correct. "Right, bitch?!?!!?" He picked me up like a rag doll with one arm, tossed me in the air and jammed his fist up into my gut. I would have screamed, had it not been for the blood spewing from my mouth and nose, splattering in crimson streaks across the floor and my body. His shout of sadistic glee assaulted my left ear, and I could feel the blast of hot air wash over my bruised cheeks. Somebody needs a breath mint... thought the small, detached part of me that was not either screaming in pain or calculating how much blood I'd lost, and how much more I was likely to lose yet. Surely, his guards must have heard that... but then, I remembered with a fresh wave of bitterness, the guards never heard any of our little meetings. They had been told not to. I could hear the pathetic flopping sound my body made as I slid off his raised fist and onto the floor. Knowing what was coming next, I ordered my body to go limp again, go unconscious, do something so I wouldn't have to be awake for this next part. I tried desperately to cling to the blackness eating away at the edges of my vision. Blood loss... Finally, it took mercy on me, and the last thing I remembered before the darkness engulfed my battered mind was the feel of my upper body, sliding in short, slick strokes along the floor, lubricated by my own blood. I need to stop this... I need... help...

                                 I heard the reverberating footsteps
                               Syncing up to the beating of my heart

Something came over me that night. Instead of walking past those evil, threatening doors into hell that night, I never came back from the mission. In fact, I never even completed the mission. I went to the old kunoichi's house and told her to get the hell out of the country. I even escorted her to the border. She asked me why I would ever do such a thing, and I didn't answer. I just locked gazes her cloudy old eyes, telling her everything and nothing of what I had been through. I think she understood, perhaps all too well. She gave me a small box with a few sweets left in it and patted my gloved hand, and told me she'd been a Mist ANBU too when she was young.

That night, I stayed in a cave overlooking the old woman's house. By morning, it was all charred cinders, and I had had to run for my life, losing my supply pack and the box of candy in the chase. All I had were a few kunai, a couple shuriken, my mask, and some food pills. I wandered for perhaps a week, perhaps a month, living on nothing but what the earth had to offer, or what I could steal from any small settlement.

I made ghostly trails across land I did not know, a twisted, damaged puff-flower seed that faltered and dropped, only to be sustained grudgingly by yet another wind. All I knew or cared about was that I was not in my own country. A band of hunter-nin from Suna could pluck me up, and I'd have gone willingly enough.

                An I was positive that unless; I got myself together
                                       I would watch me fall apart.

It was not any sand ninja who found me when I collapsed under a scrubby overhang jutting out from the bare rock around me, but a pair of sound ninja. I awoke to cool water splashing through the eye holes of my mask, and a pair of strikingly sea-green eyes, set off by the red rings encircling them, and matching twin spots on his forehead. He motioned to his partner to come forward. I saw the other, a girl with messy, bristling orange hair and fierce brown eyes reminiscent of a hawk's. They debated about whether they should take me back to their master, and I cleared my throat.

"I don't care who your leader is. Take me to him, and I'll be your ally. I swear it, so long as you don't turn me in to my village."  It seemed a suitable proposition at the time. They stared at me for a few seconds, looked at each other, and nodded.

"Can you walk? Or do we have to carry your sorry ass?" The redhead snorted, picking up one of my arms by the mangled, dirty sleeve. She released it, watching it flop limply back into the dust, betraying me. Warm, strong arms encircled my torso, and in a dizzying blur, I had been swung around to rest like an ermine collar over the white haired guy's shoulders. I felt something hard supporting my limp frame where I draped behind white-hair's neck. I twitched a hand, and had to use the last of my strength to turn my head and affirm what I had felt: I was suspended on a semicircular shelf of white, hard bone. As my head rolled back into position against his chest, I heard him mutter something.

"Like my bones? They're quite unique, a kekkei genkai in fact... My master, Orochimaru-sama think they will be very useful when I become his vessel..." After that, his chatter stretched and blurred, fading with my consciousness.

                                 And I can't let that happen again,
              'Cause then you'll see my heart in the saddest state it's ever been.

I focused hard on my palms, feeling the crackly green glow stretch and expand inside the chest of the latest patient. The gray-haired boy was working furiously with his chakra scalpels as the body below us quivered in agony. I glanced up momentarily, and saw the gleeful grin and the flash of the glasses lenses.

"Just a few more minutes, then you can let him go. It'll be hopeless by then." My stomach turned at the cool words of the medical ninja across from me.

                             This is no place to try and live my life.

"But, why should I stop? We're trying to save this guy right? I mean, what's the use in healing someone who's going to die?" I replied. That was a mistake.

                              Stop right there that's exactly where I lost it
                               See that line, well I never should have crossed it

"No, baka, we're not trying to save this guy! He's for experiments, and you'll do what you're told. Get back to healing, this is a delicate bit." He sounded irritated, like a child who wanted to be left alone to play with a favorite toy.

"No." I stopped the healing. The patient went suddenly quiet. "I'm not going to help you torture people. You're sick." His glasses flashed, and he gripped my arm, practically dragging me out of the room.

"And you're coming with me to see my master."

                      Stop right there, well I never should have said that
                        It's the very moment that I wish that I could take back.

"You WHAT?!?!?! That is so, so wrong on so many levels, you disgusting, old, sick-" I was cut short by his tongue around my neck, lifting me bodily off the ground. He reeled me in, brought me close enough to his face to see the golden ripples in his irises, and spoke.

                                     I'm sorry for the person I became

"Yes. It's a small price to pay for immortality. And besides, some people just need to be put to good use. Take you, for example; your innate healing powers seem to surpass even my dear little assistant." He glanced at the gray-haired ninja, who had a smug little smile on his lips. "In the mean time, you would be very useful helping him to keep the test subjects fr-" He didn't finish the sentence, because I had smacked him hard across the face. He stared at me, golden eyes dilated in fury for a moment before unwrapping his tongue from my throat, dropping me hard on the floor.

"Kabuto, remove her from my sight. And talk some sense into her if you please. She may be quite valuable eventually." Two strong arms snaked under mine and pressed expertly into bundles of nerves, leaving my arms limp. Kabuto released me when we were in the dungeons and tried to talk to me. I spat at him. Bullseye, right on his glasses, making him fumble and curse at me. Kicking him against the wall, I ran to my room to collect my meager belongings. Strapping my mask onto my face, I fled like a bat out of hell, because that place, it could have no other name.

                        I'm so sorry that it took so long for me to change
                            I'm ready to try and never become that way again

I traveled for what seemed like weeks. Eventually, my path led me to meet more people like myself. The abused, disillusioned people that are the eventual product of any shinobi society. Our group grew to include ninja from many villages: Grass, Sand, Sound,  Stone, Leaf, and even a few from Mist. One of them was my cousin, Yukime Hyuuga. Another was one of my Uchiha half-brothers, his mother limping behind the group, still grieving for the death of her son's twin. Most of them called me their leader; those that did not either left, or were convinced by the others to do so. As we wound our way up into the refuge of the mountains, Yukime found a natural cluster of caves for our little group to shelter in.

                                     Who I am hates who I've been
                                          Who I am hates who I've been;

Not everybody survived the first winter in the mountains. But those that did became the most loyal followers one could ever wish for. They trusted in my judgment, worked together, and gave me their guidance when they could. We all looked out for each other, and especially for the children. Our numbers grew steadily, as we came across more missing shinobi, accepting them and giving them new hope, a new life. Never mind the fact that they were being led by a girl so much younger than they were, what mattered was that I treated each person fairly, and never asked them to do anything I wouldn't do right alongside them. I think that's what made them trust me, even though I was still barely a child.  Sometimes, children could see things that adults couldn't.

But, nothing is perfect I thought, scooping handfuls of fresh snow over another grave; this one was smaller than the rest. A single tear ran sluggishly down to the tip of my nose and hung there, frozen for a moment before I wiped it away. I straightened up, and my people silently followed.

                                  Who I am hates who I've been
                     And who I am will take the second chance you gave me.

As I huddled that night in the meager shelter of a cave with my four adopted students, one older than I was, I realized that for the first time since I was very young... I was at peace. I reached into my backpack, pulling out my old ANBU mask, remembering things that had happened in my life. I think it was then, that I came to the conclusion; I was the leader of my own village. A ninja village unlike any other; a ninja village dedicated to life, rather than the taking of it. I tucked the mask back into it's cloth home and slept.

                                       Who I am hates who I've been
                                   'Cause who I've been only ever made me...

The council was not happy when I arrived for one of the summit meetings, declaring my intent to found another Hidden Village. The look on my face when I got home told everyone to prepare for the worst. The worst came, and everyone, man woman and child, turned out to defend their new village. Everyone gave it all they had, up to and including their lives. Even my cousin, Yukime.

                                      So sorry for the person I became.

WHACK! My foot connected with a head. The head disconnected from it's body, sailing through the air to bowl over another Mist ninja who had been menacing my half-brother. My mask pressed hot against my face as the old detached mind-state took hold. Everything blurred together, my arms and legs moving of their own accord, my eyes calculating every blow with the deadly efficiency honed by training I'd received since the age of four. I was nothing but a weapon to keep my comrades, my family safe. Although I couldn't protect all of them, I could damn well try. I jumped, kicked with both feet. The back of the ninja I'd hit snapped, and his head lolled between his ankles for a moment, mid-air. Another kick, and the one behind him sailed through the air to knock over a small tree with the force of his impact.

After it was all over, the others told me that I'd slain at least four dozen enemy ninja. I nodded, indicating everyone to go clean up. As they left, I did so too, removing my blood-slicked mask and walking over to the bushes to throw up. I... am never doing that again... I met my ragtag band of shinobi near the caves half an hour later and smiled at them. Well, what was left of them. So many lives... and the rest of them... was it worth it?

"Let's never do that again and say we did." Applause filled the air, and I was mobbed by all the youngsters as they piled onto me in a massive hug.

                       So sorry that it took so long for me to change.
                        I'm ready to be sure I never become that way again

As spring approached, the building began. Houses were built. Wells were dug. Hot springs were excavated, a real treat so far up in the mountains. The lush, temperate valleys overlooked by the cliffs were prepared for cultivation with every type of plant imaginable. Even the cave system was expanded and furbished to make a ninja academy for the children. The village seemed to blossom before my very eyes, even as I lifted roofing planks over my head and hit my thumb countless times with the hammer as I pounded endless nails into wood alongside my half-brother. My quarters were the last thing to be built, a noble, semi-circular tower set into the mountain itself, overlooking the alpine cliffs of the village like some great stone sentinel.

                               'Cause who I am hates who I've been.

I relax in my brand new Kage robes, reveling in the softness of the material and the snowy white color. I kick my feet up onto my first pile of paperwork, sinking back into the plush comfort of my chair. My stiff new Kage hat slides down over my eyes and I sigh, thinking on how I got here, and what I'm going to do now. A dull gleam of white porcelain catches my eye, peeking out from the rim of one of the boxes still strewn about the room.

I turn, picking it out of the box. The glazed surface is cool and smooth under my fingers. The reflection of my face, pale and calm, stares translucently back at me.

                                        Who I am hates who I've been.

The face in the mask shifts, changes, grows a bit older. Scar lines snake their way down my nose, and down each eyelid. The wide slit of a closed eye splits across my forehead, and I am back in the present, still holding the mask, and all it means to me. I blink once, and turn to replace it in the cardboard box. I remember the words of the orange-haired girl, and the warm embrace of the white haired boy as I told them why I'd run away from my village...

"I know what you mean, all too well in fact. Men are damn dogs." White hair shot her a sharp look, green eyes seeming to glow in the dark. "No offense, Kimimaro, but admit it, you guys are." He relaxed, returning to combing his fingers through his snowy locks. "The thing is, all you can do is learn from it, and use it to help you keep out of stuff like that in the future. It's what they want, when you back down and break. When you do that, they win; when you get back up and go on with your life, they lose. They lose big time."

"I win." I smiled, replacing the mask back in it's box and tucking the fishnet over it.