Hello! :D I'm not sure if this has been asked before, but I just noticed that you changed Hakone's mask and was wondering if it was simply because you liked it more or if there was a special reason for it? I hope you're all doing well! ✨🌼😘
Wow, you are one sharp-eyed reader! I’m pretty sure the only way you’d have caught that is if you’d read Hakone’s bio twice: once before I changed his mask description, and once after. As a reward for your close reading, here is a brief story:
The ANBU quartermaster, Morita, laid down the law when it came to uniforms and equipment, and down that law remained. Hakone’d been warned not to cross the man. And he hadn’t. He’d been polite at his uniform fitting, taken the ridiculous fuuma shuriken the man had given him and even practiced with it a few times, and never complained. But he still found himself with a summons to the QM’s office not a week after he’d been given his mask.
“Shibata,” Morita said.
“Just Hakone’s fine.”
Morita’s mouth twitched in some kind of silent judgment. “Shibata,” he repeated. “Give me your mask.”
Oooooookay. If this was a ‘turn in your mask and leave ANBU in disgrace’ moment, it would have been the Hokage demanding Hakone’s mask, surely, and not the pugnacious little quartermaster. So this was what? A fit issue? Hakone unhooked the abstract mask from its clip on his belt and handed it over.
Morita took the mask, examined it for damage as if somehow in a week of limited training and no missions Hakone could have scuffed it already, and set it aside. He reached under the desk between them and pulled another dull white mask out. “This is your mask now,” he said. “Crow.”
Hakone took the new mask and eyed it critically. There was a suggestion of a hooked beak. Black lines like an ink painting sketched out a fierce, avian face. He raised his eyes to meet Morita’s. “May I ask why the change?” He had a guess at the answer.
Amusement lurked behind Morita’s bland expression. “Isn’t the Shibata line descended from Tengu? I’d have thought you’d know your own family history.”
Yep. That was the answer.
“It’s just a legend.” Hakone took the new mask and tried it against his face. It fit even better than the abstract Rain mask had.
“Then you have a legend to live up to. Shibata-san.”
“It’s Hakone.”
The quartermaster made a disapproving little sound in the back of his throat. “Dismissed. And if you break that mask, the next one will have a proper tengu nose.”
Hakone took one last look at the crow mask, clipped it to his belt, and saluted. “Thank you, Morita-san.”
As he walked back to Team Nineteen’s office, he picked the mask up again, tracing a finger over the sharp ridge of the beak. It was a good mask. Crow was a good code name. Definitely more frightening than Rain. And it was nice to have a legend to live up to that was even more fearsome than his father’s.
