Title: Remnant of His Soul
Author: amarx17 - Marx
Rating: M (R to NC-17, depending on chapter)
Pairing(s): None as of now.
Warnings: Everything related to the crime and shinobi underworld, chaps: violence, language, debatable age issues, drug and alcohol use, prostitution, sex, and psychological mindfucks. Then, on its own personal pedestal, slash/yaoi. All in a day's work.
Summary: Slash/yaoi, no pairings. Sometimes it was hard for Kakashi to do his job as ANBU, but mostly it wasn't. Staying professional was harder when the mission tried so hard to break him and his partner, even if Itachi tried not to show it. Rated M for a reason.
Author's Note: Disclaimers are for stupid bumblefucks who can't figure out what site they're on. Also, this story is classified dark!fic — if you can't handle it, press the back button. Or flame. I like flames. They're used to make my sex life more feisty and my writing more devious. Bring it, bitches.

Prologue
A Unit of Death

-October-

Sometimes it was hard to do his job, but mostly it wasn't.

He could remember the first time he killed a man. The war had been raging-raging-raging, so waiting to gain experience through simple missions was long and pointless. There were too many people dying, and not enough shinobi to hold the front against Iwa and eventually Suna, so the village had taken the lesser of two evils.

The Hokage had taken him by the arm and sat him down in one of his office chairs. "Son," he had said, his tone grave and rough, "I have a mission scroll here, but I want you to know that you do not have to accept this. I will give it to someone else if you say so. If your father was here, I would run it by him, but he's not, and you're legally an adult now. I don't have to like it, but it's the truth." He had only glanced at it for a moment before accepting — the world was in war, and he had to be a good shinobi for his village.

At four months past six-years-old, he had taken his first life as a chūnin. Sometimes, when he was alone, he could still feel the blood on his face and hands, hot and thick and dripping red.

He hadn't regretted it, and he never would.

His platoon entered the gates of Konohagakure, all rowdy jokes and would-be-offensive humour. That was normal, and him not joining in the conversation was relatively normal as well. He listened and observed as the faceless shinobi he walked with tried to overcome their sins with, well, anything that could take their mind off it.

The beauty of anonymity was that they could be crude in every way and no one would call them out on it. It didn't matter if they were racist towards their enemies while wearing ANBU masks, because they were the underbelly of a functioning society. Outside of the masks, they had to be proper (usually), but as ANBU they were monsters. The mission they had just completed proved that in spades.

Besides, no one cared. Kakashi sure didn't. They were battle-hardened shinobi, so derogatory comments about the enemies that killed their friends and family in the war was seemingly warranted. Especially with Iwa and Suna; all was fair with offensive fodder for them.

The tallest of their group was a man who went by the alias of Fish. He said in an arrogant drawl, "There are five shinobi on an escort mission, all from different hidden villages. The guy from Kumo pulls out a beautiful katana that gleams in the sunlight. He laughs, and then throws the sword out of the wagon, saying, 'There's plenty more where that came from in my village.' Then the shinobi from Kiri huffs and pulls out his hitai-ate, which is scratched out, and says, 'I'm a missing-nin. Plenty more of me where I come from.' Then he throws himself out of the wagon and takes off running." The team laughed, because Kirigakure was infamous for the amount of missing-nin they had listed in the Bingo book. That in itself was shocking, considering what was legal in that country was atrocious.

Fish continued, "The nin from Suna picks himself up from the ground and pulls out a puppet that's filled with sand. He throws it out of the wagon and says, 'There are plenty more of these where I come from, but we're hoarders.' The puppet flies back into the wagon via chakra strings and they go back to moping in the corner. Then, the shinobi from Konoha looks over at his wagon-mates and simply slashes the Iwa shinobi's throat and throws the body out of the wagon. 'There's plenty more of that where we come from, but Kami forbid I come home with blood on me uniform.'"

The end of his joke was met with a mixture of rambunctious laughter and unamused groans. "That was shit, man," said a smooth female voice, a tone that belonged to Cat. "I gotta better one. What d'you call a bunch of Kiri shinobi running down a hill?" Without waiting for an answer, she continued, "An avalanche. What d'you call a bunch of Kumo shinobi running down a hill?" A pause, then: "A mudslide. So what d'you call a bunch of Iwa shinobi running down a hill?" With a snicker in her voice, she said, "A prison break."

That one was apparently a riot, even if Kakashi didn't quite relish the humour. He got the joke, but it was filled with stereotypes. Then again, all racist jokes towards enemies in or out of war were stereotypes, because they had to dog on someone.

A smooth, teasing voice belonging to Bear said, "What's the difference between a Iwa shinobi and a bag of shit?"

Kakashi rolled his eyes under his porcelain mask, because he knew no one would see it. He answered dully, "The bag," and was immediately cheered on by his team-mates. One pat on his back would've knocked him off his feet if he had been a civilian, but he didn't even stagger in the wake of it.

The shortest in their group with the moniker of Raven said in a deceptively deep voice, "How do you circumcise a Iwa shinobi?" Everyone just stared at the small kid, because it was rare for him to even speak, let alone joke. Then he answered himself, "Kick his sister in the chin." There was an explosion of laughter from their eight-man group and even Kakashi cracked a smile beneath his two masks.

Cat said, "Good one, kid, but I got one for ya. What d'you call five Suna shinobi hanging from a tree?"

"A fun Friday night?" asked Fish with a snicker.

"A Konoha windchime, you imbecile."

Kakashi felt the need to interject on that one. "We have much more self-respect than that. Well, except in the case of Ibiki or Orochimaru, but they're special cases. We'd have to give the honour of that morbidity to Kiri, because I've seen it there before."

"I've got one for ya," said Bear, as they used chakra-infused legs to jump to the top of Hokage's staircase. "What d'you call a medic-nin who performs abortions on Iwa shinobi?"

Raven's shoulders tensed noticeably, but only just. Kakashi felt the urge to shudder himself, but he had stopped himself at the last moment. There was only so much he could take before he simply couldn't take it any more, and his company was edging closer and closer to the line. At least they'd separate soon to their normal lives, at least until the next mission.

"A crime stopper," said Bear, and their mildly insane group minus two laughed even harder.

It stopped rather quickly though, because they reached the double doors leading to the Hokage's office. Sarutobi had been notified of their arrival even before they had reached the gates, and the proof of that was shown through the soft glow beneath the door. Kakashi, being the captain of the mission, went to the ANBU guarding the door and said, "Cell Fourteen for debriefing."

The doors opened.

Inside, nearly hidden by a mountain of paperwork, sat Sarutobi Hiruzen, looking as unimposing as usual. Kakashi had seen the man fight before, and the short, elderly man clearly used the misconception of his appearance to the full extent. Regardless, the man was in a calm manner like usual, and looked like he fancied nothing more than a long nap.

"Cell Fourteen for debriefing," Kakashi repeated, his back ramrod straight just like the rest of the eight-man group behind him. His voice was slightly muffled behind his masks, which wasn't exactly a bad thing due to being recognised, and he fought the need to take off his black travelling cloak due to the stifling heat.

"Mission status?" said the Hokage tiredly, his fingers under his chin as he stared at them with a level gaze.

"Mission was successful. The targets have been neutralised and no casualties to report on our side," answered Kakashi. The mission had been quick but brutal, due to the fact that eight men had taken out sixteen A-ranked missing-nin. They had been causing unrest in neutral countries, and there had been rumours of a strategic ploy to conquer the nations of Fang, Waterfall, and Rice Fields. So they had killed all of them, and all of their allies, including eleven children and twenty-three women.

Kakashi had done worse, but it made his stomach hurt with phantom pain when taking the life of a child. Getting an order like that was what made his job sometimes hard, in the sense that he would never forget their faces.

The next hour was spent debriefing with the Hokage about every detail of the mission, with emphasis on their efforts to make a statement. They hadn't been quiet about it but they hadn't been blatant about it either, because they would've sent high-class jōnin otherwise, so it had been crucial to make sure that the right people knew about the village who ordered the assassinations. The last thing they needed was another war over the countries.

"You're dismissed," Sarutobi eventually said, when all of them had given personal mission statements. The best part about ANBU was the lack of paperwork Kakashi himself had to do, although he didn't want to know what Sarutobi (and Sensei before him) had to do in terms of paperwork. Judging by the load on his desk, he was in for a rather long night, because classifieds were not meant to be read by just anyone.

They simultaneously all chanted "Yes sir!" before turning on their heels and marching single-file out the door. Not a word was said after Sarutobi's office door was closed, nor any derogatory jokes and comments about old and sore enemies. Everyone just wanted to go home, and Kakashi didn't blame them. ANBU was a dark, mysterious, and even malicious in its deeds to service the village, so any moment of downtime was much appreciated.

They'd probably see each other later anyway. Well, anonymity was a slippery slope for someone like Kakashi, due to his heightened sense of smell and the transplanted Sharingan — he tried to avoid the scents of the ANBU he worked with, in the sake of everyone's privacy, but it wasn't that easy. Konoha wasn't a small village by any means, but it wasn't overly large, and shinobi tended to run in circles. He knew who over half of the ANBU shinobi were just by scent alone, and a good dozen more due to his Sharingan noting fighting styles that he recognised from the field.

A lot of people he worked with knew who he was. In the village he could use a henge to change his tell-all hair colour or even wear a stark white captain's cloak, but in the field he wasn't that lucky. Henge jutsu took control and chakra, and between self-preservation and suppressing his chakra to hide from enemies, he didn't have the luxury. Furthermore, his fighting style was rather unique in itself, even if he tried to not use his more well-recognised ninjutsu and dojutsu when he donned his dog mask.

He knew the names of all eight of his comrades, but he didn't let them know it. They didn't acknowledge him either when they were not incognito. They had more honour than to callously chat about things like that. It was common courtesy.

Also, they'd probably be imprisoned for leaking information like that.

Kakashi took to the rooftops the second he exited the Hokage's building, not once looking back at the people he had spent a week doing unspeakable deeds with. His soft, comfy bed was waiting for him, and he felt the need to sleep for days upon days. He wouldn't get that lucky though, because killing kids wasn't good for dreams about rainbows and butterflies.

When he reached his apartment, making sure he wasn't seen or followed thoroughly, he effortlessly disabled the traps and genjutsu that kept intruders out. When he finally made it inside, he immediately tore off his porcelain mask and breathed, taking in the slightly stale air of his flat. He had only been gone a week, but the dust was already littered about in the sparsely furnished room. He would have to do housework after he woke and spent his time with Obito, Rin, and Sensei. Talking about unimportant things made him feel better, helped him take his mind of the horrors of his professions (he still wouldn't trade his profession for all the money in the world).

Although his serenity would probably be ruined by that crazy, spandex-wearing taijutsu freak. He tended to find out unnervingly quickly that Kakashi was back in the village, and then he would have to be on his guard constantly to make sure he wasn't pulled into another ridiculous 'challenge'.

He replaced the genjutsu and booby traps, tore off his clothes, took a quick shower, brushed his teeth, and with a damp head he fell stomach-first into bed, stark naked and not caring.

He was asleep the second his head hit the pillow.