CHAPTER 132: SHEDDING THE MASK
"Go head-on. Fight for Konoha's best interests."
Ragnar turned the White Fang's words over in his mind. There was a subtext there, something unspoken. It gnawed at him because it contradicted everything he knew.
ANBU were shadows. Assassins. Intelligence gatherers and headhunters. Their purpose was to strike from darkness, to eliminate key targets before a battle even began. Throwing an assassin onto a conventional battlefield was absurd—like sending a scalpel to do a sledgehammer's work. It was wasteful. It was suicide.
In the more "civilized" shinobi wars, there was an unspoken tradition: armies would often meet on a designated field. They would clash, ninja against ninja, technique against technique, until one side broke. It was a brutal, bloody test of a village's overall strength, but it had its own twisted rules.
Hatake Sakumo saw the confusion behind Ragnar's still expression. A small, weary smile touched his lips. "You've noticed. This is your first true World War. There's an ancient, express rule in these conflicts, one you wouldn't have been taught."
"What rule?" Ragnar asked, his brow furrowing slightly behind the mask.
"In a war of this scale, the head-on battle is a duel of ninjutsu, of conventional forces," Sakumo explained, his voice low and serious. "ANBU do not take the field in such a battle. Your identity as 'Rakshasa'… cannot appear there."
"Why?" The question was blunt, seeking the logic behind the tradition.
"Ragnar," Sakumo said, using his real name deliberately, stepping out from behind the desk. "You know my title. ANBU Captain. The Hokage's direct hand in the darkness. But the world knows me by another name: White Fang. Where did that name come from? From countless battles fought in the open, under the sun, for all to see. My ANBU identity is known to a select few. My identity as the White Fang is known to every shinobi across the continents."
He paused, letting the implication hang in the tense air of the command tent. "Captain… you're telling me to fight under my own name," Ragnar stated, the pieces clicking into place.
Hatake Sakumo stood before him, his posture one of a mentor delivering a crucial lesson. "Ragnar, your strength has already soared beyond anything I anticipated. But you are still young. You cannot spend your life buried in the ANBU, living in the shadows. The Will of Fire needs bearers who stand in the light. This war… it is your chance to forge a name of your own! Konoha doesn't just need one White Fang. It needs more pillars, more legends to stand against the world and ensure our village's stability. The shadows have shaped you, but your future should not be confined to them."
"I understand." The words were simple, but their meaning was vast.
Ragnar grasped the full scope of Sakumo's meaning. It wasn't just about battlefield tactics. It was about politics, about legacy, about survival. Remaining purely as an ANBU operative, as a faceless weapon, would eventually make him a target not just for enemies, but for factions within Konoha itself. Power that couldn't be openly claimed was power that could be easily denied, or worse, eliminated. Sakumo, a man who bore the weight of both light and darkness, was trying to steer him onto a path with more options, more safety.
A man like Hatake Sakumo, who knew the corrosive toll of the shadows, didn't want to see another brilliant flame guttered out in perpetual night.
Slowly, Ragnar raised his hands. His fingers found the edges of the blood-red Rakshasa mask, the porcelain cool and familiar against his skin. With a deliberate motion, he lifted it from his face.
The air that touched his skin felt different—colder, more real. The face revealed was young, handsome in a sharp, stark way, but its usual expression was one of carved ice. His eyes, however, held a brightness that the mask had hidden—a cold, starlit clarity, devoid of warmth but full of unwavering focus.
He looked down at the demonic visage in his hands. This mask. It had been his identity for so long. It had been there during his first kill, through the terror of the ANBU crucible, in the rain as he cut down Kiri-nin, facing down Danzo's agents. It had soaked in the fear of his enemies and hidden the cold calculation in his own eyes. It was both a shield and a prison.
It's time for you to rest, old friend, he thought, the sentiment surprising even him with its intensity. The next act belongs to Ragnar. Let that name be the one that makes the world tremble. This era… we will carve our place in it.
He spoke with Sakumo for a while longer, discussing logistics, the expected composition of the enemy forces, and the rough timeline. Then, with a final nod of respect to the older shinobi, he left the tent.
Walking alone through the bustling camp, his mind worked through the new parameters of his existence. Fighting openly presented its own constraints. Yama, the demonic blade that pulsed with palpable malice, was Rakshasa's signature. He couldn't draw it in front of a thousand allied shinobi without raising impossible questions.
The Three Haki were different. As Rakshasa, he'd always been swathed in dark robes, often drenched in blood. The brief, full-body flashes of black Armament Haki had been lost in the chaos of his kills. Most enemies who saw it didn't live to analyze it. The world believed Rakshasa was a ruthless, close-quarters butcher, not a master of an esoteric armor technique.
He could use Haki. He would just have to be… discreet.
"Hey! Aren't you… Ragnar? From the Academy?"
A familiar, boisterous voice cut through his tactical reverie.
Ragnar turned. A lean figure was jogging toward him, a grin splitting his face. Spiky blond hair, Konoha forehead protector proudly displayed, a blue windbreaker flapping behind him—the picture of youthful, reckless energy.
Senju Nawaki.
Ragnar knew him, of course. He'd saved the boy's life just days ago, though Nawaki had only ever seen Rakshasa's mask. On the surface, as Ragnar, their interactions had been minimal, confined to passing in Academy halls. Tsunade might consider Ragnar a little brother, but she'd never formally introduced her actual, hyperactive sibling.
"I didn't make the connection last time!" Nawaki said, skidding to a stop in front of him. "I kept thinking 'Ragnar' sounded familiar. You're the guy who topped the Academy! The genius who graduated early!"
The current Academy classes were a blend of ages due to the war. Nawaki and Ragnar had technically been peers, before Ragnar's accelerated graduation.
"Hey! Why the long face?" Nawaki leaned in, his grin not fading. "Getting cold feet about the big battle?" He clapped a familiar hand on Ragnar's shoulder, adopting a mock-serious tone. "You're not living up to the reputation of the Academy's number one, you know!"
Ragnar wordlessly brushed the hand from his shoulder. The similarity to the loud, irrepressible blond he'd seen in fragmented future memories was uncanny. No wonder Tsunade had doted on that boy in those visions. Nawaki was a prototype, all boundless optimism and unshakeable self-belief.
And, annoyingly, his chatter was actually pulling Ragnar out of his grim calculations.
Unfazed, Nawaki leaned closer again, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Look, Ragnar, I've gotten way stronger out here. If you're scared, just stick with me. I'm gonna be Hokage one day! I'm not dying here, and neither will anyone under my watch!"
Ragnar had to suppress the urge to point out that without a certain masked ANBU's intervention, Nawaki's heroic dreams would have ended in a muddy ditch with a detonator tag. The kid's confidence was staggering.
Seeing Ragnar's continued silence, Nawaki's eyes lit up. "Okay, okay. I'll tell you a secret. A big one! But you can't tell anyone, got it?"
"Wait. I never agreed to hear—" Ragnar began, but it was futile. Nawaki was a force of nature.
Leaning in so close Ragnar could feel his breath, Nawaki whispered, beaming with pride, "My boss… is Rakshasa. You know, the Rakshasa? The ANBU demon? Yeah, that's my superior. So stick with me, I'll cover you! You'll be totally fine on the battlefield!"
"..."
Ragnar stared at him, his expression utterly blank behind his normal face.
In that moment, he was struck by a profoundly absurd philosophical question. What is the greatest distance in the world?
It wasn't the span between continents. It wasn't the gap between life and death.
It was the distance between Senju Nawaki, bragging about his connection to the legendary Rakshasa, and the truth standing right in front of him, too exasperated to even correct him.
(End of Chapter)
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