[Starting in Naruto with a Daily Login System] Chapter 60: The Masked Identity Crisis

The mission scroll arrived like an omen, stamped with the Hokage’s seal and reeking of bureaucratic suffering.

I opened it lazily, sipping tea and hoping for a low-effort surveillance gig. Preferably one that involved minimal movement and maximum sitting.

“Another observation mission?” I muttered. “Please tell me it’s not another toddler. I still have kunai marks from the last one.”

Tokuma leaned over my shoulder. “No toddlers. Just a civilian gala. Low risk. Social mingling. Surveillance of a smuggling suspect.”

Shisui perked up like a puppy. “Sounds boring! I’m in!”

“Sounds suspicious,” Tokuma frowned.

“Sounds like free shrimp,” Genma added, already checking his wallet. “I’m definitely in.”

Then I read the line. The cursed, unholy line.

“All ANBU must attend unmasked to avoid suspicion.”

The silence that followed was so thick, you could cut it with a senbon.

“No,” I said immediately.

“You could just wear makeup,” Shisui offered way too cheerfully. “I’ll paint little cat whiskers on your cheeks. Maybe blush. Ooo, glitter?”

“I will set you on fire.”

“You say that like it’s a deterrent.”

Genma strolled in at that moment, already wearing an entirely different face—long nose, sunken eyes, thin mustache. He looked like a shady accountant from the Land of Iron.

“Boom. Problem solved.”

“You had that disguise ready,” Tokuma said, deadpan.

“I live in constant fear of being recognized. It’s a lifestyle.”

The Night of the Gala

The venue was bright. Loud. Sparkly. Full of civilians who laughed too hard and clapped too much. The air was suspiciously free of kunai. I hated it.

I wore my mask anyway.

“You’re supposed to blend in,” Tokuma whispered, clearly on the verge of a stress ulcer.

“I am blending,” I replied, already holding a drink. “This is what blending looks like.”

Someone asked about the mask. I stared into their soul and said, “Traditional allergy filter. Clan thing.”

They nodded solemnly. No one ever questioned clan things.

Shisui, meanwhile, showed up in full glitter eyeliner, white face paint, and a sparkly purple scarf that screamed “theatrical chaos.” Someone clapped and shouted, “The entertainment’s here!”

He grinned like it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. “Close enough.”

By hour two, Shisui was on a table leading a dance circle made entirely of drunk uncles and three dangerously enthusiastic grandmas.

Genma—now operating under the alias Kenji the Traveling Noodle Salesman—was somehow already talking business with a merchant about “spicy seafood miso distribution rights.”

“Did you just invent a business mid-mission?” I asked.

“I’m a man of many talents,” he replied, casually pocketing a shrimp skewer.

Tokuma arrived late on purpose, read the scene, and whispered, “Why are there backup dancers?”

“You missed the conga line,” I said.

“I missed nothing.”

I was then cornered near the dessert table by three elderly women with an ungodly amount of emotional energy and knitted shawls.

“Oh, you poor thing,” one of them cooed, straightening my collar like she was adjusting my entire life. “I can feel the sadness in your aura.”

“Chicken broth heals trauma,” another added solemnly, presenting a thermos like it was a divine relic.

“Have you tried smiling?” the third asked gently, like I was a particularly tragic stray dog.

“I’m fine,” I said.

They exchanged gasps.

“You say that,” one grandma whispered, “but your mask says ‘I haven’t emotionally connected with another human being in years.’”

…I mean, accurate.

Meanwhile, Shisui had fully transitioned from “dance leader” to “interpretive chaos.” He borrowed a silk curtain from somewhere and was now wearing it like a cape, spinning dramatically and pointing to the ceiling like he was summoning the moon.

“What is he doing now?” I asked, refusing to turn around.

“Expressing the existential dread of modern shinobi,” Genma said, sipping wine. “Or he’s possessed by a theater spirit. Fifty-fifty.”

Speaking of Genma, no one had seen him for an hour until he reemerged—this time wearing a rich merchant’s hat, a floral apron, and holding a soup ladle like a scepter.

“Your culinary experience has been curated by Chef Kenji,” he declared to absolutely no one.

Tokuma stared. “Where did you get the hat?”

“It was on the merchant.”

“Did you mug him for it?”

“No, I charmed him with my noodle philosophy.”

“You made that up just now.”

“Correct.”

I found Tokuma later, standing in a corner with a drink and the haunted look of someone rethinking every decision that led to this exact moment.

“I’m going to fake my own death,” he muttered aloud.

“You’d still get reassigned to us,” I reminded him gently.

He visibly deflated.

Shisui pirouetted past. “Tokuma! Come dance!”

“I will throw myself into the buffet fire.”

“There is no fire.”

“Then I’ll start one.”

Eventually, I escaped Grandma Support Group and wandered over. “What’s in your drink?”

“My will to live.”

“Refill it. We’ve got another hour,” Genma said, ladling soup into someone’s wine glass with a wink.

By the end of the night, Shisui had a fan club. Genma had booked a catering gig. I had a hand-crocheted scarf in Uchiha red. And Tokuma… aged. At least ten years.

We regrouped outside the venue, dignity in shreds.

“Mission success?” Shisui chirped.

“I think I spiritually died in there,” Tokuma muttered.

I held out the thermos a grandma had forced on me. “Soup?”

He took it without speaking. We didn’t talk the whole way back to HQ.

Honestly? I think he needed the soup.

I kind of did too.

The Next Morning, Hokage’s Office

They shuffled in, hungover on social interaction and shame. Hiruzen was waiting, arms crossed, holding a scroll.

“I have received seventeen formal complaints,” he said.

“Just seventeen?” Shisui blinked. “I think we broke a record!”

“Three of them were about you personally,” Hiruzen added, narrowing his eyes.

“One lady asked if I do weddings,” Shisui said proudly.

Hiruzen unrolled the scroll and cleared his throat dramatically. “Effective immediately: You are all banned from civilian galas until further notice. Officially.”

“Thank god,” Kakashi muttered, sinking into a chair.

“I had a fan club,” Shisui said, clearly offended.

Tokuma let out a long exhale, like the weight of humanity had finally been lifted.

Genma popped a shrimp into his mouth—no one knew where it came from—and casually asked, “So… what’s next?”

Kakashi’s eye twitched. “Please don’t let it be another toddler.”

“I hope it is,” Shisui grinned.

Tokuma stood up. “I’m going to fake my death again. Just putting that out there.”

Hiruzen sighed. “You’ll be receiving your next mission shortly. Pray it doesn’t involve diplomacy.”

“I’d rather fight Orochimaru again,” Kakashi muttered.

“Nope, I vote gala part two,” Shisui said, already looking for his glitter.