The location of the Leaf Village's ANBU headquarters wasn't a secret. It was common knowledge that the headquarters was inside Hokage Mountain. A single path carved into the mountain led to the entrance, which was restricted through several security checkpoints manned by regular shinobi.
Takuma walked that path and passed through all the checkpoints. The seal drawn inside the recruitment scroll served as his security pass but he was extremely nervous as he passed several signs bolted into the thick metal warning people that unlawful entry could result in death. He was given no time to prepare for his first interview. It was scheduled the very next day after he had received the scroll. This barely gave him the time to update and modify his resume to appeal to the ANBU but the problem was that he didn't know what they were looking for. It also wasn't like he could ask someone for advice on the matter.
Beyond the entrance lay a sizable front lobby area with a single reception desk and two receptionists sitting behind a long desk. They were dressed in the standard Leaf uniform like him, which was a surprise, but it made sense that not everyone in ANBU would be masked operatives.
The hall was shaped like a dome and lined with a thick layer of metal for structural integrity and fortification. It was spacious and clean, giving it a sanitary look, but the illumination was on the warmer side, projecting some light into the space.
Two more regular shinobi guards stationed inside the headquarters flanked him as he approached the reception desk.
"How may I help you?" asked a middle-aged kunoichi with a tight bun wrapped with a mesh cloth.
"I am here for my interview," Takuma said and presented his recruitment scroll as instructed within the scroll.
The kunoichi handled the scroll as though she had seen several of them and unfurled it to a point with a fuinjutsu seal. She weaved hand seals and pressed her thumb in the middle of the seal for the ink to reassemble into a pattern.
"I have confirmed the authenticity of the scroll." She smiled and returned it to him before reaching underneath the table to retrieve a tray. "Please deposit all of your weapons and belongings in here. You can collect them when you exit."
"I don't feel comfortable parting with my weapons," said Takuma. He had vowed not to leave home without the necessary weapons after the assassination attempt.
"Genin Takuma, you are a shinobi. We are taking your weapons away, not your ability to protect yourself," the receptionist said in an assuring manner. "I'm afraid there'll be no exception. If you don't wish to submit your weapons, you're free to leave, and we will consider our recruitment offer rejected."
Takuma bit the inside of his cheek and stared at the uncompromising receptionist before relenting with a sigh. He unbuckled his utility belt and weapons pouches and set them inside the trays.
"Please allow the guards to check you," said the receptionist.
The guards patted him down, and Takuma wasn't embarrassed when they found a tiny dagger and a few rolled-up explosive tags hidden on his body.
The kunoichi asked him to follow her and looked completely unbothered by his attempt to hide weaponry. They entered a circular staircase with multiple exit points on each floor. Takuma looked down into the well; it was deep enough that he would fracture a bone if he tried jumping. He looked up, and noticed there were fewer floors above than below.
"May I ask a question?" Takuma said as he observed the kunoichi.
"Please do, but I might not be able to answer the question."
"How did you end up working at ANBU?" he asked. Takuma noticed a weapon pouch with an open flap hanging from her waist.
"I was recruited for the position just like you're being recruited for your position," the kunoichi replied.
Their voices echoed in the staircase.
He couldn't take the pouch off her, and if he tried to pick something, the sound of metal would get him caught. He glanced at the railing along the stairs and felt the metal beneath the white paint.
"Oh. Any advice?"
"I don't know if my experience will help you, but if I have to say something, I'd say: be true to yourself. Let them know exactly what they're getting; if they like what they see, they'll take you. The work done here is of the utmost importance, which is why they need people who fit the bill. Presenting a false version of yourself will only get you in trouble when they find the real you."
Takuma charged his ring finger with a sliver of chakra and then flicked the metal railing. The metal sang like an instrument, filling the stairwell with a metallic, semi-melodious trill.
The kunoichi stopped and looked back at him in surprise.
"Sorry about that. Impulsive thoughts won," Takuma put on an apologetic and embarrassed look. "It's good advice, though. I'll be sure to follow it."
The kunoichi gazed at him for a moment before turning around with a sigh.
Takuma followed her down the stairs but couldn't help but be disappointed because he had only managed to steal a few senbon, a smoke bomb, and a small loop of metal wire. The smoke bomb was useful, but he didn't like senbon much and usually didn't carry metal wire, though anything was better than nothing.
They got off the stairs, and the receptionist stopped at a large, heavy-duty yellow door with a rectangular cutout of frosted glass.
"They're waiting for you," the kunoichi said.
Takuma stepped into an empty workspace. The floor was at least four times the size of the Narcotics Taskforce's new space. One half was converted into rooms and offices, while the other half was an open workspace. The walls and ceiling were white, with every light on the floor switched on.
Two masked ANBU-nin sat behind a desk in the middle of the floor and that desk and the accompanying chairs were the only pieces of furniture on the entire floor. One of the agents was a large man so jacked that it felt like his muscles wanted to pop out of his skin; he wore a boar mask with black and red markings. The other one was a brunette woman with white streaks in her hair and she wore a hornet mask with yellow markings.
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"Welcome, Genin Takuma. Please call me Swine," said the large man. His voice was quite light for his size.
"Thank you for having me," Takuma said as he sat opposite them. He thought it was amusing that the boar-masked ANBU was codenamed Swine, but the name made sense.
"Have you settled down since your return? I know that you stopped renting your home when you were deployed and that we had to deliver your recruitment offer to your mentor's home," said Swine.
"It's in process. He has been kind enough to open his house for me," Takuma said shortly. Frankly speaking, it was creepy that they delivered the scroll to Maruboshi's home. He briefly glanced at the hornet-masked woman who silently stared at him.
"I wish you the best in that regard. I know it can be jarring to return home from war," said Swine. It made Takuma wonder if they knew about his breakdown, which he didn't want strangers to know about. "Please consider this meeting as a simple introduction. This isn't part of your testing process, so you aren't being judged now."
"I see," Takuma nodded.
"Now, before we start, we have to clear the most important question," said Swine. "Are you interested in joining the ANBU? There's no sense in continuing if you don't want to join. Of course, I understand you might have doubts, so we will dedicate this meeting to clearing them. By the end of this meeting, you'll have to give us an answer—which won't be a final commitment, mind you. We are interested in you and want to see if you feel the same."
"Fair enough. I'll give you my answer after you have cleared my doubts," said Takuma, appreciating their straightforwardness. He could tell they wanted him to say something in the vein of being interested in the offer, but he withheld his answer.
"Excellent. How do you wish we proceed? I recommend you ask us questions, and we'll answer them to the best of our abilities."
"Hmm... I don't know anything about the ANBU. You said this meeting is an introduction; give me an introduction," said Takuma, pushing the ball in their field.
This question-and-answer system didn't sit well with him because they would only need to answer what he asked, and if he didn't ask the right questions, he wouldn't get the correct answers. He didn't think they were doing it on purpose because, as Swine said, they were interested in him—or maybe they were doing it on purpose and this was some kind of test.
"The Department of ANBU is in charge of matters pertaining to national security. It's our responsibility to keep domestic and foreign powers in check to protect our great nation. You have worked for the Police Force; a good portion of our work is not dissimilar to yours—and it can often look much like we're doing the same thing as them, but our scope is on a higher level with a reach that goes beyond the Leaf Shinobi institution and our borders."
ANBU sounded like a traditional intelligence agency. Takuma knew their existence wasn't a secret from living in the world, but he didn't know much beyond that, as there was not much about them in his incomplete meta-knowledge about this world.
Swine continued, "It's a misconception that there's no war if there aren't boots on the ground. The Five Great Nations are always at war with each other. Peace is a deadlock achieved by the great powers constantly trying to preempt threats from others."
"Peace is a deadlock," Takuma couldn't help but whisper as goosebumps rose. He had never considered it that way, but he couldn't help but feel those words were especially true in this world. "That is a grim outlook on the concept."
"It's the reality," said Swine, heavily. "The ideal future would be for the deadlock to persist through eternity, but we know that isn't possible, so it's our job to ensure that when this deadlock breaks, the Hidden Leaf will be on top. No matter what people might say— we aren't in the business of control; we simply exist to protect."
Takuma didn't believe that last part. Wasn't control the best way to achieve protection? There was no need to protect against the threats if one could control them.
"Why me? Why do I interest the ANBU?" Takuma asked. He kept his questions short to get as wide an answer as possible.
"We have been following your career since you started in the Police Force. Thriving in an environment controlled by a few who only allow certain people inside and decide who gets to succeed and doing it as one of the first outsiders is impressive. Establishing and running the Narcotics Taskforce as you did was a highly impressive feat. In fact, you were so impressive that we thought it would be a waste to recruit you as you could've been a catalyst of change in a closed system that is the Police Force."
"What changed your mind?"
"Your demotion and deployment to the war," said Swine.
"I see." Takuma's lips pressed into a thin line. He had promised himself to let go of his bitterness, but it was an ongoing journey and a difficult one.
"Once we discovered that the Police Force didn't value you as much as we did, we decided we wanted to work with you. We were planning to approach you as soon as you returned from the war... and then you went ahead and showed us something that blew away any of our doubts."
He expected his war contributions to factor into ANBU's assessment of him. He didn't hold his experience in the Steam-Frost war in high regard and would rather forget it ever happened, but there was no denying that he had worked his ass off to accomplish what he did.
"You and your team were responsible for bringing down an oppressive power controlling that city. We read the reports, and we know how important your role was. The cherry on top is that you killed a jonin," said Swine, openly showing how impressed he was.
Takuma simply blinked as he was transported back to Yu for a moment. The sounds of explosions and screams echoed in his ear as he sat in the back of the banquet hall. He smelled the scent of blood and felt the weight of Rikku's body in his arms.
"...Thank you for the compliment," he said as he shifted in his chair to make it so that he was finding a comfortable spot, but in reality, he didn't want them to notice in case he was showing what was happening inside his mind. "The killing of a jonin wasn't received well by many."
"Of course, the way you did it shouldn't be done lightly by anyone, and I'm sure it was a difficult choice for you."
"It was."
"But there are times when someone has to make those choices. You made that difficult choice, and it had real, measurable benefits. You not only saved the lives of our shinobi, but you also damaged a foreign nation by killing one of their jonin, who could have escaped during the invasion," said Swine.
"I chatted with two of your ANBU-nin when I was in Yu. I don't think they liked me very much. How will that affect my chances of getting in?" asked Takuma.
He didn't want to get his hopes up, go through whatever arduous testing process they surely had, only to have the door shut in his face and waste his time.
"If you're implying what I think you are, then I feel insulted. If you fail to get in, it'll be because we don't think you can survive here," Swine said with the seriousness of a principal addressing students.
"That's great to hear." Takuma nodded.
"Though I must say, the so-called chat you had with our operatives was interesting in itself. I think if you manage to pass, you'll do well in ANBU."
Takuma thanked Swine for his confidence in him and swiftly moved on to the next question, "What will be my role here?"
"We don't know that currently. The Department of ANBU is divided into two sub-departments. One handles domestic affairs and the other deals with foreign threats. We will decide where to place you depending on your skills and how you perform in our testing process."
Takuma took his resume scroll out of his pocket and placed it on the table. The scroll got him on Iruka's team when he was doing D-rank missions. Iruka himself had used a semi-updated version of his scroll to get him into the Police Force and it worked with Anko when he joined the team when it was already established.
"These are my skills for your reference," he said.
"I like the initiative," Swine said as he received the scroll.
"Now that I know why the ANBU wants me," said Takuma as he sat up straighter, "it's time for you to tell me why I should join the ANBU."
"The ANBU is the best there is. It's an honour for anybody to serve with the best because you'll be among the best; I can promise you that you'll grow here—"
Takuma raised his hand to stop Swine from speaking. "On the risk of being crude, I understand how valuable the ANBU is in protecting the village and our nation, and the prestige that has been developed over decades of hard service, but the last time I joined a place because of its prestige and the promise of growth, they stripped me of the fruits of my effort and shipped me off to war.
It frustrated him that he couldn't see their reactions behind the masks, but Takuma continued to speak anyway.
"If you want me to be interested by the end of this meeting, I want you to tell me what tangible, measurable benefits ANBU can offer me."