Haruno Sakura is revered in the shadows. (Though, it is not by her name, it is by her alias)
Rabbit.
She gains a new moniker while serving in ANBU: Chi No Sakura (Blood Cherry). It’s a little corny, but her lips quirk up when she sees her name in the Bingo Book. Surprisingly, nobody knows her real identity. It’s hilarious, but reasonable. The world believes Haruno Sakura to be dead, and Agent Rabbit wouldn’t have it any other way; after all, it makes things easier.
To the world, Haruno Sakura is gone, she has disappeared with the wind and the world believes her to be dead. There is no funeral for her, Haruno Sakura was long dead before she left. Nobody knows the truth of it, Agent Rabbit is meticulous. Inner tells her she’s becoming too much like Hound — Hatake, she reminds herself. Then, she tells Inner that Hound exists as Hatake Kakashi outside the shadows, but Agent Rabbit only lives in darkness.
The only one who knows is her Hokage, the Godaime Hokage — her Shishō, her second mother, her family. The word has never sounded better.
Contrary to popular belief, Haruno Sakura did not know of family. She, however, knew of bruises littering her porcelain skin, of the scent of alcohol hanging high in the air, the lingering taste of blood. She, however, knew of envy at kids on their father’s shoulders (a memory so distant, so far-away that Sakura would wonder if it was a memory or another figment of her imagination), of keeping tight-lipped secrets underneath her stark-red qipao. Haruno Sakura then learnt of constantly lingering behind, being left behind. Incompetence was all she knew.
Agent Rabbit knows those things, but she also knows of concerned gazes, drunken singing, impromptu dinners, hands that are stern in training but gentle afterwards. Agent Rabbit finds family in Senju Tsunade, and she vows to serve Konoha under her. (Agent Rabbit can worry about life under Rokudaime Hokage when the time comes.)
One day, in the safety of the Senju compound, Shishō speaks.
‘Rabbit,’ Shishō looks at her with a familiar softness in her gaze. ‘If you ever step out of the shadows, I think I’d rather take you as my heir.’
Shishō does not call her Sakura, and Agent Rabbit is grateful.
‘I am honoured, Shishō.’ Rabbit lacks her ANBU mask, but her face is hidden by the shadows. ‘But I don’t know if the light will accept me.’
Shishō doesn’t continue the conversation, Agent Rabbit knows she wants to — but she doesn’t, for her student’s sake. Agent Rabbit is grateful.
Nobody has heard Agent Rabbit speak. She’s more mysterious than Hound, and he wears a mask even during his day-to-day life. At least they know what his eyes are like. Nobody knows what Agent Rabbit is like, except for the fact that she is terrifyingly good at her job, and terribly loyal to the Godaime Hokage, who she seems to be the apprentice of — judging by the crumbs her coworkers are able to gather from their interactions.
If Agent Rabbit has to say something, she uses sign-language. If Agent Rabbit has to take off her mask for a mission, she uses a henge.
Agent Rabbit does not exist outside the shadows.
(Haruno Sakura is forgotten. She’s been dead since the Chūnin exams, been dead since the event of Konoha Crush.)
Her coworkers, even her teammates, know not to pester her. They don’t try playing pranks on her to get her to speak or to get her mask off, everyone knows that while a precious few may be able to get away with it with Hound, nobody will get away with it with Rabbit.
Agent Rabbit is fully-aware of this, and uses it to her advantage. However, she wonders if it’s gone too far when one time, her teammate is in danger and puts the mission objective at risk, and then expects her to leave him behind.
He gets pleasantly surprised when Rabbit both rescues him and accomplishes the mission.
It isn’t much of a surprise to learn that Agent Rabbit is not trusted by her coworkers. However, this time around, it isn’t because everyone knows who she is and knows that she is weak — this time around, it is because she is powerful, and dangerous, and everyone knows that… except that is all they know about her.
Those who will gather enough courage to admit that they snooped around the archives for her file (AKA nobody though many have done it) will also admit that her file conveys zero personal information. Only the Godaime Hokage knows who lies behind that mask, and that causes distrust. They don’t even know who she is, where she’s from, when she becomes a ninja, nobody knows — if she can’t trust them with their identity, how can they trust her with their lives?
Sometimes, they’re forced to do it anyway. It is not in vain. Rabbit does not leave her teammates behind. It’s an unfamiliar concept in ANBU, but it builds up trust. Rabbit can both save her teammates, and accomplish the mission.
Agent Rabbit is an unusual ANBU Agent, though perhaps the best example of one. Everyone knows that while the archives don’t hold completely reliable information (just in case), there is still some truth to certain things. ANBU Agent Rabbit’s file barely says anything other than completed missions, body count, and RABBIT that is written in bold.
There are tidbits of information that are passing on about her.
Agent Rabbit is really young. Agent Rabbit is short. Agent Rabbit can also definitely kill you if piss her off.
Agent Rabbit rotates teams, she’s never only on one team.
Agent Rabbit never works with a Hyuuga.
Agent Rabbit is allegedly related to the Hokage, thus explaining her terrifying loyalty. Agent Rabbit is an orphan. Agent Rabbit never changes or showers around company. The Godaime Hokage is definitely protecting Agent Rabbit’s identity.
There is jealousy to be provoked by that.
Hound hasn’t been in ANBU in a while, but it’s good to be back, to a certain extent. The familiarity is good, but the fact it is a covert organisation that kills and is probably a toll on his mental health is not good, but Kakashi could care less.
When Kakashi steps into the premises, he morphs into Hound.
He hears of Rabbit, he listens to how whispers pass. Her name carries itself on the wind as if she’s a legend. His curiosity is piqued, but he doesn’t inquire. Well, until his patience wears thin and he ends up asking Genma during one of their nights at the bar.
The man laughs and claps him on the back.
‘She’s a menace,’ Genma grins. ‘Nobody knows what she looks like, or what she sounds like. Fuck, man, we don’t even know her actual name! Y’know, she’s like you, a little.’
Agent Rabbit does not exist outside the shadows.
Hound ends up going on a mission with her once. It is only time, and both of them work together on a level that is scarily good, considering that this is their first time together. Or rather, Rabbit works really well with him, because she moves around him and fights with him in a manner that only a skilled, long-term teammate would and that scares Kakashi. He’d be terrified to fight against her.
Agent Rabbit begins to surpass the Godaime Hokage. Her medical ninjutsu is renowned, and it is well-known that the Earth trembles and crumbles for miles, under her fist. However, this fact does not exist outside the shadows.
Anyone who is unlucky enough to be caught in a situation where they aren’t her ally and forces her to use these assets, they never make it out alive.
Agent Rabbit begins taking an interest in weapons. She has a certain talent for genjutsu, and that skill is eventually refined. Weapons, however, have never been her strong suit. She prefers her hands – hands which heal, hands which destroy. However, a hammer axe that is twice her size catches her eye one day, and she picks up the weapon and decides that it is now going to be her’s, and she will learn to wield it.
Agent Rabbit becomes a menace.
Tenzō knows of Rabbit. He keeps hearing an awful lot about her, but what he never hears in the shadows is the fact that she wields Mokuton. KI leaks from his temporary taichō, and then suddenly roots are springing from the ground and the trees are attacking their enemies with their branches and Tenzo sure wasn’t the one to do that.
The kunoichi leaps and brings down her hammer axe and her teammates jump when they see her coming down, Tenzō leaps away moments before the hammer axe splinters the ground where he was standing just a second ago. After the mission, she brings a finger to where her mouth hides behind her mask and Tenzō recognises the gesture for what it is.
He nods, and seals his lips shut. He’s been doing that for a better part of his life anyway.
Mokuton was an accident, really.
One night, her Shishō drunkenly proposes a challenge, and Rabbit – equally as intoxicated – discovers she has an affinity for a kekkei genkai that isn’t a kekkei genkai. It’s more of a surprise than it should be, Rabbit, even before she became Agent Rabbit, always had an affinity for nature. It comes to her like second nature, she’s always been able to mingle her chakra with nature in ways that are usually impossible if you weren’t Senju Hashirama, AKA the Shodai Hokage — or (now,) Agent Rabbit of Konoha’s ANBU Black Ops.
Agent Rabbit knows she’s juggling too many skills, but who can blame her?
In Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai, there is no room for mistakes and there is little space for improvement. That space should never be taken up, there should never be need for further improvement.
ANBU has taught her to be cold, to be ruthless. It reflects in battle.
Agent Rabbit is merciless. Her teammates aren’t in sight, and Rabbit weaves in and out of her enemies. Crimson begins to fly around as roots erupt from the ground to grab bodies and twist them in ways that should never be possible. Whatever, or whoever, meets her fist is thrown away and is reduced to a broken marionette cut from its strings. Her senbon digs into someone’s jugular, while her kunai makes its way to meet another’s vena cava. Her shuriken cleanly slices off someone’s wrist, and another shuriken digs its way through her target’s eyes.
Agent Rabbit quickly dispatches her shadow clones to move quickly. She is done with her batch of enemies, but she has no clue about her teammates.
When she finds them, they are down one man, and outnumbered.
Agent Rabbit goes over the objective of the mission, it was to terminate a low organisation before they became a world-renowned mercenary group. If the intel was correct, this was all of them. She had already dealt with a great number of them, and so had her teammates but now they were outnumbered and low on chakra. Neko was down too, so they were at a disadvantage.
One of Rabbit’s shadow clones pops when she retracts her chakra, and she is satisfied to learn that a barrier to contain collateral damage has been set up. Rabbit barks out a command, loud and clear.
“EVACUATE, IMMEDIATELY!” Her voice is rough with disuse, but it is loud and it rings even in the midst of battle, and her teammates follow her command. Neko is dragged away with one of her teammates right before Rabbit’s fist meets the ground and the Earth beneath her trembles. Rabbit releases her Yin Seal that lies beneath her mask (something she’s terribly proud of, but also something she can’t show off even though it only took her three years to obtain and even Shishō agrees that is a feat to show off.)
She shunshins away, and finds herself back to Neko’s side. Her teammate is bleeding out, and she immediately sets to work.
That night, she brings a nearly-dead man back to life.
The Godaime Hokage is on edge today.
She calls in Hound, Tenzō, Yugao and Genma. They’re not wearing their ANBU masks.
“As of tomorrow night, you will be dispatched on an undercover mission in the regions of Lighting and Iron,” said the Hokage. Rabbit hides in the shadows where Shishō knows she is. She listens carefully, this mission had been the cause of long conversation that occurred over the span of a whole week. “However, you are only to guard and observe. You will be working with Agent Rabbit.”
At the mention of her name, Agent Rabbit steps out of the shadow, and stands at ease next to her leader.
“This mission requires the best of the best, and it also requires heavy trust,” her Shishō explains. “I understand what I am risking with the latter requirement,” she pauses, “Rabbit will be unable to get by with a henge. The only… method we can resort to is her physically alternating her appearance, not that it will change much. I understand that nobody knows what she looks like?”
Rabbit feels something satisfactory when the group nods.
“Good, it makes things easier,” the Hokage sighs. She funnels chakra into the privacy seals, not that there weren’t already a few in place. The Shinobi of the Leaf were just (rightfully) paranoid. “Not a word of her identity is to leave this room.” Shishō turns to her. “Rabbit.”
The kunoichi lifts a hand to take off her mask, and there is mirth swirling in her seafoam green eyes. She observes with a sick satisfaction as Genma’s eyes widen, Yugao and Tenzō watch with confused awe, but the reaction that fuels the fire the most is Hound’s —- the reaction of Hatake Kakashi, who was once the Jōnin sensei of her old Genin team. Shock fills his entire body, so much so that he can barely hide it from her.
This will only cause further issues, but Agent Rabbit cannot for the life of her, find it in herself to care.
“I look forward to working with you,” she says.