Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve
TFTC
MrRobot
In doubt there's always the Sun!
Genjutsu don't quite work that way, the bombs on their backs may be fake trough.
TFTC. The Root guy is an Idiot. He should have gone under once Danzo died. His operation is literally obsolete at this point.
Oh dang, the root guy!? I didn't expect to ever see him again. Yeah, that's gonna make for a good villain on this arc.
I straight up did not remember Danzo bailing on Konoha though. ...I might be thinking of another fic, but I think this is the one where he fights Sarutobi and gets bailed out by Akatsuki at the last second?
I straight up did not remember Danzo bailing on Konoha though. ...I might be thinking of another fic, but I think this is the one where he fights Sarutobi and gets bailed out by Akatsuki at the last second?
CH_7.10 (228)
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
The masked group of four entered a rusty, dusty factory as they returned from blowing up a police station. They removed their porcelain masks to reveal Anko, Daiki, Iori, and Kameko. Upon entrance, they spotted the remaining three team members sitting on old couches.
"How did it go?" asked Gaku as he lit a new cigarette.
"According to the plan," Anko replied as she dumped herself beside Takuma and Rikku. She turned to Takuma. "How about you guys?"
Takuma pointed to several jute and duffle bags piled up in the corner. "We cleaned up the shop, tied up the guards, painted them blue, and stuck our posters on them," he said.
"It was child's play," said Gaku.
"All thanks to the recon and planning," said Takuma.
"They're common thugs. We could've gone without any preparation, and it wouldn't have made a difference," said Gaku with a chuckle.
"And that's the difference between you and me," said Takuma. "I don't leave any room for error."
"Can't you both just be happy that everything went well," Iori sighed as she threw crumpled paper balls at them.
"He was amazing," said Rikku. "He unlocked the safe in the office like it wasn't locked at all, we took all the money inside, and I thought that would be it, but then he started poking around in the room. He found three hidden stashes, each with more money than the last one. We have a lot of cash."
Everyone looked at Takuma. He shrugged, "I have a lot of experience looking for hidden stashes. It's a skill I picked up on the job."
Takuma had searched and raided plenty of drug stash houses. Some people were creative about their hiding places, but for most, there was a general pattern they followed when hiding things..
"Okay, now that this is over," Kameko said as she pulled out a water bottle from a cooler, "why did we do this? Isn't it better that the enemy has an unbroken supply of drugs? Let them drown in it."
"You're assuming that they're all addicts," said Takuma. "The drugs are addictive, but not everyone is waking up every day and shooting something up in to them before their feet touch the ground. Most people only do drugs at the recreational level.
These men are in a foreign land fighting a war far away from their home. They might be winning and controlling the town, but most don't want to be here; they want to be at home with their families. There's stress there that drugs can dull; they can find escape through them."
"So… you want them stressed," said Kameko.
"Yes, I want them to feel uncomfortable in this city to build up tension among the forces. I want them to complain about their time in Yu. They shouldn't be comfortable. I want it to snowball from minor inconvenience to something like… fear," said Takuma.
The Renge Gang was a secondary target; the primary target was always the shinobi forces in the city. The team's job was to weaken the enemy for the main forces. Takuma wanted all of the team's efforts to contribute to the cause of an increasingly hostile environment for the enemy shinobi.
"The shinobi aren't loyal to the Renge Family. They'll turn to someone else, and the entertainment train will continue," said Gaku, lighting up another cigarette.
"So, we just keep taking out the suppliers," said Rikku, slicing a kunai through the air.
"Actually, I'm counting on them to find another supplier. In fact, I can probably guess what will happen. The Renge Gang was the middleman; with them out, the Goharu Family will sweep in on the opportunity because of the increased margins," said Takuma.
"And you want that?" asked Iori.
"Yes, I want that, and I want the Goharu Family to have unprecedented levels of success," said Takuma.
"Why?"
"Because," Takuma leaned forward, "we're going to poison the drugs."
———
.
A blanket of smoke still lingered over the building as multiple people put in their effort to extinguish the fires, but the presence of a couple Hidden Frost shinobi, using water nature ninjutsu, brought both the crowd and the fires under control.
Ebi, a Hidden Frost jonin, walked down the road to the police station in shambles. The burnt-down building caught his eye, but he was more interested in the group of people lying down on the road with his shinobi surrounding them.
"What is happening here?" Ebi asked the nearest shinobi.
"S-Sir!" The genin tensed up in attention. "These men are refusing to get off the ground."
"And why is that?"
"There… they have explosive tags on their necks, and they're scared that they'll go off if we remove them."
Ebi gave the genin a look of dissatisfaction. "And why haven't you ripped the tags off?"
"Err... sir, we think they might be true."
Ebi looked at the man as if he couldn't believe what he was saying. He walked to one of the men lying on the ground and ripped the tag off his nape without permission.
"W-What are you doing, man!?"
Ebi ignored his protest and channelled a sharp burst of chakra through the paper. It burnt the paper and permanently disabled the tag. He observed the tag to sense for chakra palpitations, but there were none.
He turned to face the four genin that had come to the scene.
"You idiots need to learn how to disable explosive tags. It's not that difficult," he yelled at them. "And find a fuin-nin who'll teach you to recognize the difference between an explosive tag and a movement trigger explosive tag."
Normal explosive tags, for all intents and purposes, were time-based explosives. The moment chakra was funnelled into the tag, it would detonate depending on the time interval coded into the formulae. Most tags were set to detonate after a second or two, but they could be coded to detonate after several minutes. The longer the detonation time, the more expensive said tags were.
However, there were explosive tags that could be triggered on movement instead of time. Chakra was loaded into an isolated part of the tag, which would be funneled into the explosive part of the tag at the slightest disturbance, leading to detonation. Those type tags were more complicated to make and delicate to use, and looked quite different from the standard time-triggered ones, making them quite easy to distinguish.
"And these aren't even real tags." Ebi threw the burnt tag away. He turned to the lying men and told them that they weren't going to blow up.
He sighed.
It was embarrassing that the genin didn't understand the tools they were using. They didn't need to be fuin-nin with extensive formulae knowledge to recognize the difference between a standard explosive tag and a special trigger explosive tag.
Ebi looked down at the men covered in blue and plucked the blue poster that were posted around the city against them. It seemed the resistance was behind the demolition of the police station. It wasn't surprising because the Bentetsu Street police station was one of the stations where none of the police officers stayed on board.
But he was interested in the report he got stating that this was the work of shinobi.
Ebi raised his hand to call the one of the shinobi who had extinguished the fire.
"Were you able to find the cause of the fire?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. They used gasoline as an accelerant, and… we found signs that explosive tags were used."
"Are you sure? Are the signs definitive?" Ebi asked.
"We found two separate pieces of debris that confirm it."
Ebi breathed a deep sigh as he cracked his knuckles. The posters proved that this was the work of a resistance. Now, there were two ways to look at the situation. First, someone had supplied the resistance to the explosive tags, and there was someone in the resistance who had the capability to trigger the tags—which wasn't difficult as not much chakra was needed to trigger the tags. A second-year academy student triggers the tags. Teaching someone to channel enough chakra for blowing up tags wasn't tricky. The second option was that there were shinobi among the resistance. It meant there were enemy shinobi in the city.
The second option was much worse.
Ebi was staring at the poster when he sensed a gaze. His eyes sharpened, and he looked around to find a man standing in the shadow of a tree. Ebi recognized the man and walked toward him to have a chat.
"You find out about this quickly, "Ebi told the man.
Kon nodded. "I wouldn't be very good at my job if I couldn't find out about an explosion destroying one of the city's police stations."
Ebi gazed at the man. Kon wasn't part of the Hidden Frost, nor was a Hidden Cloud shinobi. Ebi didn't know where Kon came from, but he was sent to help them take control of the city. There were five jonin in the city, but none of them had any experience in controlling and converting a foreign city. The higher-ups at home had sent Kon and his team of masked men to give them their experience. Ebi didn't like Kon, but the man had done a great job extending their influence over the city in a short period of time.
"We found explosive tags," said Ebi.
"And?" asked Kon.
"One of those men said that the masked people who did this, one of them punched through a pillar…. I think it's safe to assume that we have at least one shinobi in this city. Worst case scenario, there are four unknown shinobi running free in the city."
"Worst case, we have seven shinobi," said Kon as he looked at the demolished building. "These men are from the Renge Gang… Their stash house was raided at the same time this happened. It seems they specifically targeted the Renge Gang."
"I have heard of them," said Ebi. He might not be well-versed in how to take over cities, but he had familiarised himself with the city on a level. He had heard of the Renge Gang because of their dealings with his shinobi. "I fear that this will have a negative impact on our efforts. I hope you have a plan for this."
"Well… if they're so keen on blowing up police stations, then how about we help them blow up another one," Kon smiled. "We will even throw some people as gifts."
———
.
"Poison their drugs?" asked Kameko.
Daiki's eyes shined. "We're going to poison their drugs to kill them?"
""" No!"""
Takuma, Gaku, and Anko all yelled at Daiki, who physically took a step back at the strong rebuke.
"If we poison their drugs enough to kill them, they're going to take it out on the city," said Gaku.
Takuma nodded in agreement. "There's no telling how they'll respond. There's a very high chance that they won't stop those involved in the drug trade and punish everyone for establishing control by spreading fear…. We'll have different ways to kill them."
"Then what? How much can we poison them?" asked Iori.
"Just enough to make them seriously sick for a while without actually being lethal," said Takuma. "What do you think happens when drugs that keep their minds occupied suddenly make them extremely sick?"
"They stop taking them," Anko replied.
Takuma snapped his fingers as he pointed at her. "They'll stop taking the drugs. Once the drugs are tainted, the shinobi are never going to touch any drug that comes from Yu, no matter who gives it to them. They'll be too scared that the next time, it won't end up with them only getting sick." He looked at Gaku and Renge. "When you poison the soil, all the fruit, no matter the tree, is poisoned."
And once drugs are out of the equation, the stress would continue to pile up.
"The city is running low on alcohol, so it's a good time for us to make this move," said Takuma.
"If the plan was to poison the drugs, why did we screw over the Renge Gang," Daiki asked. "We could've just tainted their drugs."
"Because the Renge Gang is a small fish, but the Goharu Family is a big player," said Takuma.
There were two big underworld mafia families in Yu. The Goharu Family and the Hatani Family. When Yu was invaded, the Goharu Family sided with the enemy, who gave them power, and the Hitani Family, who were once equal, were no longer in power. The Gohary Family was introduced into the police force, giving them the power of the law enforced by shinobi. The Hatani Family was immediately pushed back and lost much of their control over the city.
"If we tainted Renge Gang's drugs, the Goharu Family would've used them as scapegoats, but when they start providing drugs directly to the shinobi, they will get a serious blowback from the shinobi," said Takuma. "There's going to be serious tension between the enemy and their local lackeys—it'll decrease their influence because even though they're lackeys, even lackeys can be resentful."
Takuma leaned into his seat.
"As expected of working in Narcotics at the Police Force," said Anko.
Takuma took in a deep breath and sighed,
"Yeah, that's where that came from."
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link here and in signature.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
"How did it go?" asked Gaku as he lit a new cigarette.
"According to the plan," Anko replied as she dumped herself beside Takuma and Rikku. She turned to Takuma. "How about you guys?"
Takuma pointed to several jute and duffle bags piled up in the corner. "We cleaned up the shop, tied up the guards, painted them blue, and stuck our posters on them," he said.
"It was child's play," said Gaku.
"All thanks to the recon and planning," said Takuma.
"They're common thugs. We could've gone without any preparation, and it wouldn't have made a difference," said Gaku with a chuckle.
"And that's the difference between you and me," said Takuma. "I don't leave any room for error."
"Can't you both just be happy that everything went well," Iori sighed as she threw crumpled paper balls at them.
"He was amazing," said Rikku. "He unlocked the safe in the office like it wasn't locked at all, we took all the money inside, and I thought that would be it, but then he started poking around in the room. He found three hidden stashes, each with more money than the last one. We have a lot of cash."
Everyone looked at Takuma. He shrugged, "I have a lot of experience looking for hidden stashes. It's a skill I picked up on the job."
Takuma had searched and raided plenty of drug stash houses. Some people were creative about their hiding places, but for most, there was a general pattern they followed when hiding things..
"Okay, now that this is over," Kameko said as she pulled out a water bottle from a cooler, "why did we do this? Isn't it better that the enemy has an unbroken supply of drugs? Let them drown in it."
"You're assuming that they're all addicts," said Takuma. "The drugs are addictive, but not everyone is waking up every day and shooting something up in to them before their feet touch the ground. Most people only do drugs at the recreational level.
These men are in a foreign land fighting a war far away from their home. They might be winning and controlling the town, but most don't want to be here; they want to be at home with their families. There's stress there that drugs can dull; they can find escape through them."
"So… you want them stressed," said Kameko.
"Yes, I want them to feel uncomfortable in this city to build up tension among the forces. I want them to complain about their time in Yu. They shouldn't be comfortable. I want it to snowball from minor inconvenience to something like… fear," said Takuma.
The Renge Gang was a secondary target; the primary target was always the shinobi forces in the city. The team's job was to weaken the enemy for the main forces. Takuma wanted all of the team's efforts to contribute to the cause of an increasingly hostile environment for the enemy shinobi.
"The shinobi aren't loyal to the Renge Family. They'll turn to someone else, and the entertainment train will continue," said Gaku, lighting up another cigarette.
"So, we just keep taking out the suppliers," said Rikku, slicing a kunai through the air.
"Actually, I'm counting on them to find another supplier. In fact, I can probably guess what will happen. The Renge Gang was the middleman; with them out, the Goharu Family will sweep in on the opportunity because of the increased margins," said Takuma.
"And you want that?" asked Iori.
"Yes, I want that, and I want the Goharu Family to have unprecedented levels of success," said Takuma.
"Why?"
"Because," Takuma leaned forward, "we're going to poison the drugs."
———
.
A blanket of smoke still lingered over the building as multiple people put in their effort to extinguish the fires, but the presence of a couple Hidden Frost shinobi, using water nature ninjutsu, brought both the crowd and the fires under control.
Ebi, a Hidden Frost jonin, walked down the road to the police station in shambles. The burnt-down building caught his eye, but he was more interested in the group of people lying down on the road with his shinobi surrounding them.
"What is happening here?" Ebi asked the nearest shinobi.
"S-Sir!" The genin tensed up in attention. "These men are refusing to get off the ground."
"And why is that?"
"There… they have explosive tags on their necks, and they're scared that they'll go off if we remove them."
Ebi gave the genin a look of dissatisfaction. "And why haven't you ripped the tags off?"
"Err... sir, we think they might be true."
Ebi looked at the man as if he couldn't believe what he was saying. He walked to one of the men lying on the ground and ripped the tag off his nape without permission.
"W-What are you doing, man!?"
Ebi ignored his protest and channelled a sharp burst of chakra through the paper. It burnt the paper and permanently disabled the tag. He observed the tag to sense for chakra palpitations, but there were none.
He turned to face the four genin that had come to the scene.
"You idiots need to learn how to disable explosive tags. It's not that difficult," he yelled at them. "And find a fuin-nin who'll teach you to recognize the difference between an explosive tag and a movement trigger explosive tag."
Normal explosive tags, for all intents and purposes, were time-based explosives. The moment chakra was funnelled into the tag, it would detonate depending on the time interval coded into the formulae. Most tags were set to detonate after a second or two, but they could be coded to detonate after several minutes. The longer the detonation time, the more expensive said tags were.
However, there were explosive tags that could be triggered on movement instead of time. Chakra was loaded into an isolated part of the tag, which would be funneled into the explosive part of the tag at the slightest disturbance, leading to detonation. Those type tags were more complicated to make and delicate to use, and looked quite different from the standard time-triggered ones, making them quite easy to distinguish.
"And these aren't even real tags." Ebi threw the burnt tag away. He turned to the lying men and told them that they weren't going to blow up.
He sighed.
It was embarrassing that the genin didn't understand the tools they were using. They didn't need to be fuin-nin with extensive formulae knowledge to recognize the difference between a standard explosive tag and a special trigger explosive tag.
Ebi looked down at the men covered in blue and plucked the blue poster that were posted around the city against them. It seemed the resistance was behind the demolition of the police station. It wasn't surprising because the Bentetsu Street police station was one of the stations where none of the police officers stayed on board.
But he was interested in the report he got stating that this was the work of shinobi.
Ebi raised his hand to call the one of the shinobi who had extinguished the fire.
"Were you able to find the cause of the fire?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. They used gasoline as an accelerant, and… we found signs that explosive tags were used."
"Are you sure? Are the signs definitive?" Ebi asked.
"We found two separate pieces of debris that confirm it."
Ebi breathed a deep sigh as he cracked his knuckles. The posters proved that this was the work of a resistance. Now, there were two ways to look at the situation. First, someone had supplied the resistance to the explosive tags, and there was someone in the resistance who had the capability to trigger the tags—which wasn't difficult as not much chakra was needed to trigger the tags. A second-year academy student triggers the tags. Teaching someone to channel enough chakra for blowing up tags wasn't tricky. The second option was that there were shinobi among the resistance. It meant there were enemy shinobi in the city.
The second option was much worse.
Ebi was staring at the poster when he sensed a gaze. His eyes sharpened, and he looked around to find a man standing in the shadow of a tree. Ebi recognized the man and walked toward him to have a chat.
"You find out about this quickly, "Ebi told the man.
Kon nodded. "I wouldn't be very good at my job if I couldn't find out about an explosion destroying one of the city's police stations."
Ebi gazed at the man. Kon wasn't part of the Hidden Frost, nor was a Hidden Cloud shinobi. Ebi didn't know where Kon came from, but he was sent to help them take control of the city. There were five jonin in the city, but none of them had any experience in controlling and converting a foreign city. The higher-ups at home had sent Kon and his team of masked men to give them their experience. Ebi didn't like Kon, but the man had done a great job extending their influence over the city in a short period of time.
"We found explosive tags," said Ebi.
"And?" asked Kon.
"One of those men said that the masked people who did this, one of them punched through a pillar…. I think it's safe to assume that we have at least one shinobi in this city. Worst case scenario, there are four unknown shinobi running free in the city."
"Worst case, we have seven shinobi," said Kon as he looked at the demolished building. "These men are from the Renge Gang… Their stash house was raided at the same time this happened. It seems they specifically targeted the Renge Gang."
"I have heard of them," said Ebi. He might not be well-versed in how to take over cities, but he had familiarised himself with the city on a level. He had heard of the Renge Gang because of their dealings with his shinobi. "I fear that this will have a negative impact on our efforts. I hope you have a plan for this."
"Well… if they're so keen on blowing up police stations, then how about we help them blow up another one," Kon smiled. "We will even throw some people as gifts."
———
.
"Poison their drugs?" asked Kameko.
Daiki's eyes shined. "We're going to poison their drugs to kill them?"
""" No!"""
Takuma, Gaku, and Anko all yelled at Daiki, who physically took a step back at the strong rebuke.
"If we poison their drugs enough to kill them, they're going to take it out on the city," said Gaku.
Takuma nodded in agreement. "There's no telling how they'll respond. There's a very high chance that they won't stop those involved in the drug trade and punish everyone for establishing control by spreading fear…. We'll have different ways to kill them."
"Then what? How much can we poison them?" asked Iori.
"Just enough to make them seriously sick for a while without actually being lethal," said Takuma. "What do you think happens when drugs that keep their minds occupied suddenly make them extremely sick?"
"They stop taking them," Anko replied.
Takuma snapped his fingers as he pointed at her. "They'll stop taking the drugs. Once the drugs are tainted, the shinobi are never going to touch any drug that comes from Yu, no matter who gives it to them. They'll be too scared that the next time, it won't end up with them only getting sick." He looked at Gaku and Renge. "When you poison the soil, all the fruit, no matter the tree, is poisoned."
And once drugs are out of the equation, the stress would continue to pile up.
"The city is running low on alcohol, so it's a good time for us to make this move," said Takuma.
"If the plan was to poison the drugs, why did we screw over the Renge Gang," Daiki asked. "We could've just tainted their drugs."
"Because the Renge Gang is a small fish, but the Goharu Family is a big player," said Takuma.
There were two big underworld mafia families in Yu. The Goharu Family and the Hatani Family. When Yu was invaded, the Goharu Family sided with the enemy, who gave them power, and the Hitani Family, who were once equal, were no longer in power. The Gohary Family was introduced into the police force, giving them the power of the law enforced by shinobi. The Hatani Family was immediately pushed back and lost much of their control over the city.
"If we tainted Renge Gang's drugs, the Goharu Family would've used them as scapegoats, but when they start providing drugs directly to the shinobi, they will get a serious blowback from the shinobi," said Takuma. "There's going to be serious tension between the enemy and their local lackeys—it'll decrease their influence because even though they're lackeys, even lackeys can be resentful."
Takuma leaned into his seat.
"As expected of working in Narcotics at the Police Force," said Anko.
Takuma took in a deep breath and sighed,
"Yeah, that's where that came from."
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link here and in signature.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
- Location
- USA
Hahaha, Takuma is gonna end up taking Danzo's former spot as the Mastermind/Kingpin of the Leaf quickly when this gets back to the village lol
He's pulling out strategies they wouldn't even think of.
Comes from a 21st century exposure to crime in media and history I guess.
Plus his time being an actual dealer in the village.
CH_7.11 (229)
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
Gaku was grateful for his cover identity as Chinatsu's pimp, Jimii, but he didn't take the job expecting to enjoy it. Turns out, spending his days in high-end men's clubs, sipping on expensive alcohol, wasn't a terrible way to spend his evenings. Perhaps he had judged the snobs too harshly.
Chinatsu was happy with Gaku's ability and paid him a fair commission for his services—one he didn't have to share with the team and used to get some really good, choice booze, and other creature comforts. He pulled a fat cigar from his robes and almost took out a kunai to remove the cap but caught himself and used a proper cutter to snip the cap. He sparked his lighter and toasted the tobacco end before igniting the cigar and taking a big puff.
The waiter came with a drink and spoke to Gaku as he set it down.
"Mister Fumito would like to talk to you in his private room." The waiter slid a paper slip with a room number beside the glass.
Gaku hid a smile. He could sit in these clubs and bars with the owners aware of who he was because their members and clients wanted what he could provide. The Fumito fellow was now a target that he needed to vet for Chinatsu.
It was time to get to work. As the waiter turned to leave, Gaku stopped him.
"Hey, boy. What's he like?" said Gaku. He could market Chinatsu to any man, but it was always nice to know what the target wanted so he could use that in his pitch and maybe even give Chinatsu some information she could work with later.
"Lose the cigar; he doesn't like the smell," said the waiter after telling what he knew about Fumito.
Gaku tipped the boy for his information, put out the cigar, and downed his drink before going to the room number on the paper slip. As he walked, he stealthily weaved hand seals. A veneer of chakra covered his body, erasing the smell of booze and smoke from his mouth and body. He popped a breath mint as an unnecessary precaution just to make sure.
He stopped in front of the door and took a deep breath. He relaxed his shoulder, leaned his neck forward just a smidge, stood up a bit less straight, and stretched a broad smile on his face.
He knocked on the door before entering the private room, which was set up like a lounge. It was clear that Fumito was planning to meet some friends and had fit Gaku in before they arrived.
"Ah, good day, Master Fumito. You're the picture of good health," he said. Jimii was much more upbeat than Gaku.
Fumito was the usual client demographic for Chinatsu. An older middle-aged man, wealthy, and someone who didn't mind using his wealth to feel powerful and important by having the beautiful fawning over them.
Sex itself was about to power.
"I've heard that there's a new beautiful woman in the city," said Fumito, a bald man with a pot belly, who was dressed sharply, making him look much more presentable.
"Lady Chinatsu has a rare ethereal beauty that is quite hard to find," Gaku passed some photos to Fumito. "Her beauty extends beyond her visage. She's full of grace and poise, her every movement refined to reflect everything exquisite about womankind."
Gaku smiled when he saw visible interest bubble up in Fumito. He didn't think he needed to say more because few women in a town like Yu so close to the border could match her beauty, and none worked as courtesans.
"All of these pictures are with clothes," said Fumito.
Gaku wanted to sigh deeply. Did mystery no longer mean anything?
"Lady Chinatsu's naked visage is for the eyes only… A reward and privilege only for those who prove themselves to be men amongst men, those who prove to her that they're true men," said Gaku.
The wealthy in Yu were considered the highest class in the city. They not only had money, but they also had power in the form of owning businesses that employed the people. They directly exerted influence over others' lives, but ever since the enemy had occupied the city, they had been knocked down from their thrones, replaced by a new power, one they couldn't even dream to dethrone.
Power was a potent drug. Once someone had a taste, it was easy to get addicted. The wealthy men in Yu, who always had been at the top, wanted to feel powerful; they were used to it—but things were different with a foreign power controlling their house—and having a beautiful woman like Chinatsu giving all of her attention to them was the dose of power they craved.
Gaku decided to hammer in the last nail.
"Lady Chinatsu was quite famous in the capital," said Gaku, gaining Fumito's complete attention. "She had several admirers in Daimyo's court, known for her singing and her skill with the shamisen."
Chinatsu, not being a Yu native, had an exotic charm to herself. Her being from the capital city was a real value point for country bumpkins like Fumito from Yu. A courtesan from their country's beating heart, someone who walked within the Daimyo's court, was a pull no one in Yu could deny.
"I would like to meet Lady Chinatsu," said Fumito, his eyes now stuck to the photos.
Gaku's smile couldn't grow bolder.
"Anything for you, Master Fumito. I'm sure Lady Chinatsu would be elated to meet you."
———
.
Gaku parted with Fumito after discussing future plans. He didn't need much as Chinatsu's pimp. One meeting per week made her more than enough money because she charged an exuberant amount on an hourly basis—and if every client spent 2-3 hours with her—she essentially earned just as much as he was earning at his peak as a Hidden Steam chunin. And she was already doing two meetings per week. If it continued, she would earn double what he made.
Life was indeed unfair.
With the meeting set up, his job for the day was over. As Gaku was about to leave, he saw a group of men across the hallway. He didn't even need to guess. The way they walked and the weapon pouch hanging from their backs was enough to identify them as shinobi.
He quickly crossed the hallway and followed the shinobi to see them enter a private room.
A waiter passed him, Gaku grabbed him by his shoulder. The waiter was a decently sized guy, but Gaku lifted him off the ground with ease before he placed him beside himself.
"Who're those people?" he asked.
"T-They're shinobi."
"Are they regulars?"
"I… think one of them has been visiting for the past two months. They said he's a chunin. He brings a group with him sometimes."
Gaku released the waiter's shoulder, handed him some money, and let him go. He walked closer to the room and tried to listen, but the door and walls were thick enough to prevent the sound from leaking.
This was a chance to establish contact with the enemy. If he could market Chinatsu to the chunin and somehow make him a regular, there was a chance they could get some information from the chunin through Chinatsu. A direct line like that would be more valuable than the information Takuma had been collecting through his recon and stakeouts.
He turned away from the door. He had to check the plan with the team and get Anko's approval to proceed. But then Gaku stopped and turned around to face the door.
He could do it now. He had to do it now. It would take time for Chinatsu to build a rapport with the man, and who knows how long it would take to get some valuable information. They couldn't delay this. If he backed off today, who knows when the chunin would return to the club and when Gaku would get to bring up Chinatsu.
Gaku decided he was going in.
It was better to listen to their praises rather than ask for permission.
He released a deep breath, and at the of it, he put on the biggest smile with energy lighting up his face.
And with that, he knocked on the door.
———
.
"You did what!?"
At Chinatsu's house, Anko yelled at Gaku after he told her he had managed to set a meeting between Chinatsu and an enemy shinobi.
"That's great!" said Chinatsu as she came downstairs to the dining room and gave Gaku a kiss on his cheek. She turned to Anko. "This is a good thing; why are you scolding him?"
"Because we don't know what kind of person he chose," Anko glared at Gaku in displeasure. "He might be a chunin, but we didn't vet him. He might be the violent kind; we can't guarantee your safety, but we can at least try to reduce the risk. He might have a possessive stalker personality and might get forceful.
"There were a dozen steps that he outright skipped without a word of consultation."
Other than Takuma, the entire team was present in the dining room and were waiting for Gaku to return so they could eat together. But then he reported about his progress and made dinner an afterthought.
Chinatsu gazed at Gaku, who shrugged. She turned to Anko.
"Don't worry, I can handle him. He might be a shinobi, but he's still a man," Chinatsu said as she sat down on the chair beside Gaku. Her every movement was sensual. "You have your skills, ladies; I have mine. I know how the inside of a man's mind works, and I know what strings to pull to get what I want."
"You're a civilian, Chinatsu," said Iori. "We can't put you at more risk than you're already."
"Oh, please, I wouldn't have agreed to do any of this if I was scared of the risk," Chinatsu scoffed. "I want to do this… I have to do this." A dark look flashed past her face before she smiled and leaned into Gaku, who hugged her.
Chinatsu hadn't left her very successful courtesan career in the capital to help them at Yu for no reason. She had personal reasons to help. Chinatsu's brother was a Hidden Steam shinobi killed in action during the war. He was only a genin at the front lines and was unlucky enough to meet his end on the battlefield.
Revenge was Chinatsu's motivation. Any help she could provide, she was ready to contribute—even if that meant abandoning her cushy life and putting herself in great danger for shinobi, who weren't even from the Hidden Steam.
"Let me do this," said Chinatsu.
Anko gazed at Chinatsu with a complicated expression. The look of revenge in Chinatsu's eyes felt so familiar. It was a horrifying mirror. Anko had her life destroyed and her reputation ruined probably forever. There were scars that'd never healed, and the flames of revenge would continue to burn until the day she saw Orochimaru's corpse with her own two eyes.
Anko sighed,
"Very well, if that's what you desire… but only if Takuma signs off on it."
Gaku looked severely displeased by her decision, and she could understand why. Due to their relationship, Takuma took a comb through each and every one of Gaku's proposals, and if he found any legitimate error, he would scrap the proposal. They worked together, but they had real friction between them.
Anko didn't have the heart to refuse Chinatsu her purpose, so she dumped the decision on Takuma, hoping he would do the right thing.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link here and in signature.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
Chinatsu was happy with Gaku's ability and paid him a fair commission for his services—one he didn't have to share with the team and used to get some really good, choice booze, and other creature comforts. He pulled a fat cigar from his robes and almost took out a kunai to remove the cap but caught himself and used a proper cutter to snip the cap. He sparked his lighter and toasted the tobacco end before igniting the cigar and taking a big puff.
The waiter came with a drink and spoke to Gaku as he set it down.
"Mister Fumito would like to talk to you in his private room." The waiter slid a paper slip with a room number beside the glass.
Gaku hid a smile. He could sit in these clubs and bars with the owners aware of who he was because their members and clients wanted what he could provide. The Fumito fellow was now a target that he needed to vet for Chinatsu.
It was time to get to work. As the waiter turned to leave, Gaku stopped him.
"Hey, boy. What's he like?" said Gaku. He could market Chinatsu to any man, but it was always nice to know what the target wanted so he could use that in his pitch and maybe even give Chinatsu some information she could work with later.
"Lose the cigar; he doesn't like the smell," said the waiter after telling what he knew about Fumito.
Gaku tipped the boy for his information, put out the cigar, and downed his drink before going to the room number on the paper slip. As he walked, he stealthily weaved hand seals. A veneer of chakra covered his body, erasing the smell of booze and smoke from his mouth and body. He popped a breath mint as an unnecessary precaution just to make sure.
He stopped in front of the door and took a deep breath. He relaxed his shoulder, leaned his neck forward just a smidge, stood up a bit less straight, and stretched a broad smile on his face.
He knocked on the door before entering the private room, which was set up like a lounge. It was clear that Fumito was planning to meet some friends and had fit Gaku in before they arrived.
"Ah, good day, Master Fumito. You're the picture of good health," he said. Jimii was much more upbeat than Gaku.
Fumito was the usual client demographic for Chinatsu. An older middle-aged man, wealthy, and someone who didn't mind using his wealth to feel powerful and important by having the beautiful fawning over them.
Sex itself was about to power.
"I've heard that there's a new beautiful woman in the city," said Fumito, a bald man with a pot belly, who was dressed sharply, making him look much more presentable.
"Lady Chinatsu has a rare ethereal beauty that is quite hard to find," Gaku passed some photos to Fumito. "Her beauty extends beyond her visage. She's full of grace and poise, her every movement refined to reflect everything exquisite about womankind."
Gaku smiled when he saw visible interest bubble up in Fumito. He didn't think he needed to say more because few women in a town like Yu so close to the border could match her beauty, and none worked as courtesans.
"All of these pictures are with clothes," said Fumito.
Gaku wanted to sigh deeply. Did mystery no longer mean anything?
"Lady Chinatsu's naked visage is for the eyes only… A reward and privilege only for those who prove themselves to be men amongst men, those who prove to her that they're true men," said Gaku.
The wealthy in Yu were considered the highest class in the city. They not only had money, but they also had power in the form of owning businesses that employed the people. They directly exerted influence over others' lives, but ever since the enemy had occupied the city, they had been knocked down from their thrones, replaced by a new power, one they couldn't even dream to dethrone.
Power was a potent drug. Once someone had a taste, it was easy to get addicted. The wealthy men in Yu, who always had been at the top, wanted to feel powerful; they were used to it—but things were different with a foreign power controlling their house—and having a beautiful woman like Chinatsu giving all of her attention to them was the dose of power they craved.
Gaku decided to hammer in the last nail.
"Lady Chinatsu was quite famous in the capital," said Gaku, gaining Fumito's complete attention. "She had several admirers in Daimyo's court, known for her singing and her skill with the shamisen."
Chinatsu, not being a Yu native, had an exotic charm to herself. Her being from the capital city was a real value point for country bumpkins like Fumito from Yu. A courtesan from their country's beating heart, someone who walked within the Daimyo's court, was a pull no one in Yu could deny.
"I would like to meet Lady Chinatsu," said Fumito, his eyes now stuck to the photos.
Gaku's smile couldn't grow bolder.
"Anything for you, Master Fumito. I'm sure Lady Chinatsu would be elated to meet you."
———
.
Gaku parted with Fumito after discussing future plans. He didn't need much as Chinatsu's pimp. One meeting per week made her more than enough money because she charged an exuberant amount on an hourly basis—and if every client spent 2-3 hours with her—she essentially earned just as much as he was earning at his peak as a Hidden Steam chunin. And she was already doing two meetings per week. If it continued, she would earn double what he made.
Life was indeed unfair.
With the meeting set up, his job for the day was over. As Gaku was about to leave, he saw a group of men across the hallway. He didn't even need to guess. The way they walked and the weapon pouch hanging from their backs was enough to identify them as shinobi.
He quickly crossed the hallway and followed the shinobi to see them enter a private room.
A waiter passed him, Gaku grabbed him by his shoulder. The waiter was a decently sized guy, but Gaku lifted him off the ground with ease before he placed him beside himself.
"Who're those people?" he asked.
"T-They're shinobi."
"Are they regulars?"
"I… think one of them has been visiting for the past two months. They said he's a chunin. He brings a group with him sometimes."
Gaku released the waiter's shoulder, handed him some money, and let him go. He walked closer to the room and tried to listen, but the door and walls were thick enough to prevent the sound from leaking.
This was a chance to establish contact with the enemy. If he could market Chinatsu to the chunin and somehow make him a regular, there was a chance they could get some information from the chunin through Chinatsu. A direct line like that would be more valuable than the information Takuma had been collecting through his recon and stakeouts.
He turned away from the door. He had to check the plan with the team and get Anko's approval to proceed. But then Gaku stopped and turned around to face the door.
He could do it now. He had to do it now. It would take time for Chinatsu to build a rapport with the man, and who knows how long it would take to get some valuable information. They couldn't delay this. If he backed off today, who knows when the chunin would return to the club and when Gaku would get to bring up Chinatsu.
Gaku decided he was going in.
It was better to listen to their praises rather than ask for permission.
He released a deep breath, and at the of it, he put on the biggest smile with energy lighting up his face.
And with that, he knocked on the door.
———
.
"You did what!?"
At Chinatsu's house, Anko yelled at Gaku after he told her he had managed to set a meeting between Chinatsu and an enemy shinobi.
"That's great!" said Chinatsu as she came downstairs to the dining room and gave Gaku a kiss on his cheek. She turned to Anko. "This is a good thing; why are you scolding him?"
"Because we don't know what kind of person he chose," Anko glared at Gaku in displeasure. "He might be a chunin, but we didn't vet him. He might be the violent kind; we can't guarantee your safety, but we can at least try to reduce the risk. He might have a possessive stalker personality and might get forceful.
"There were a dozen steps that he outright skipped without a word of consultation."
Other than Takuma, the entire team was present in the dining room and were waiting for Gaku to return so they could eat together. But then he reported about his progress and made dinner an afterthought.
Chinatsu gazed at Gaku, who shrugged. She turned to Anko.
"Don't worry, I can handle him. He might be a shinobi, but he's still a man," Chinatsu said as she sat down on the chair beside Gaku. Her every movement was sensual. "You have your skills, ladies; I have mine. I know how the inside of a man's mind works, and I know what strings to pull to get what I want."
"You're a civilian, Chinatsu," said Iori. "We can't put you at more risk than you're already."
"Oh, please, I wouldn't have agreed to do any of this if I was scared of the risk," Chinatsu scoffed. "I want to do this… I have to do this." A dark look flashed past her face before she smiled and leaned into Gaku, who hugged her.
Chinatsu hadn't left her very successful courtesan career in the capital to help them at Yu for no reason. She had personal reasons to help. Chinatsu's brother was a Hidden Steam shinobi killed in action during the war. He was only a genin at the front lines and was unlucky enough to meet his end on the battlefield.
Revenge was Chinatsu's motivation. Any help she could provide, she was ready to contribute—even if that meant abandoning her cushy life and putting herself in great danger for shinobi, who weren't even from the Hidden Steam.
"Let me do this," said Chinatsu.
Anko gazed at Chinatsu with a complicated expression. The look of revenge in Chinatsu's eyes felt so familiar. It was a horrifying mirror. Anko had her life destroyed and her reputation ruined probably forever. There were scars that'd never healed, and the flames of revenge would continue to burn until the day she saw Orochimaru's corpse with her own two eyes.
Anko sighed,
"Very well, if that's what you desire… but only if Takuma signs off on it."
Gaku looked severely displeased by her decision, and she could understand why. Due to their relationship, Takuma took a comb through each and every one of Gaku's proposals, and if he found any legitimate error, he would scrap the proposal. They worked together, but they had real friction between them.
Anko didn't have the heart to refuse Chinatsu her purpose, so she dumped the decision on Takuma, hoping he would do the right thing.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Sorry for the slow updates, writing has been slow.
NEXT RELEASE will be a SIX CHAPTER drop, so it will take time before you hear from me again. It's a string of combat chapters. I will try to release them as soon as possible
Sorry for the slow updates, writing has been slow.
NEXT RELEASE will be a SIX CHAPTER drop, so it will take time before you hear from me again. It's a string of combat chapters. I will try to release them as soon as possible
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link here and in signature.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
- Location
- Madness realms
Oh damn 6 chapter drop coming?
The situation continues to develop, I'm certain this city is going to be nearing a nice boil by the time Takuma and friends are ready.
The situation continues to develop, I'm certain this city is going to be nearing a nice boil by the time Takuma and friends are ready.
Very excited for the combat marathon, TFTC
TFTC. the build up is killing me xd.
CH_7.12 (230)
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
"This is very good," Takuma said, giving a nod to Gaku.
"Really?" said Anko, surprised by his reaction. Given their relationship, she was sure Takuma would rip into Gaku.
The three of them were alone in the factory base. She had wanted to run Gaku's plan by Takuma because she doubted her ability to look at the situation impartially and because Chinatsu was the cornerstone of their cover identity; putting her close to an enemy shinobi would risk them all getting exposed.
"It was a risky move, yes— but he was able to convince them and if she manages to convert the chunin into a regular and gain his trust, we're golden," Takuma said as he worked on sorting objects collected from around the factory like screws and bolts using chakra strings.
"That's what I said," Gaku smiled victoriously at Anko. "I'll coordinate with Chinatsu and prepare her for the information we want from the guy. Leave it all to me."
"Yeah, let's not get ahead of us there. This one thing going well doesn't mean everything will. Anko and I need to be keyed into everything you plan to do," said Takuma. Gaku opened his mouth to argue, but Takuma cut him off before he could speak. "You can take the lead on this, but we need to be aware of everything before it happens. Got it?"
Gaku was peeved, but he didn't say anything. On the other hand, Anko was surprised that Takuma gave Gaku the lead; she thought he would take on the lead from Gaku—but she nodded as she agreed that she needed to know about things before they happened. She allowed Takuma some freedom to operate independently but wouldn't extend that treatment to Gaku.
"Alright, keep in touch," Takuma said as he got off the couch and grabbed his weapon pouches and a long hooded overcoat to hide everything underneath.
"Going out?" asked Anko.
"Yeah, I think I have a lead on the Goharu Family." Takuma looked at Gaku, "I followed that guy from the Goharu Family, and I think I found their stash house."
"I knew they'd come in handy," said Gaku.
The resistance group led by Motohiro had helped the team spread the anti-occupation posters around the city. They agreed with what the team was doing and wanted to help more. Seeing their success, the team decided to give Motohiro's group another job—to find the Goharu Family's drug stash house.
Takuma wanted to poison the drugs, but for that to happen, they needed to find the packaging and stash house. The team didn't have enough time to find it by themselves, so Takuma decided to outsource it to the resistance group, which knew the city better than the team.
They failed to find it.
The Goharu Family had done an excellent job of keeping it hidden. However, they found a high-ranking person inside the family who was connected to Goharu's drug trade, which was good enough as Takuma spent a few days following that guy and found the stash house.
"I'll confirm it today," he said to Anko, "after which, you and Daiki can go in to map the interior and plan how you want to do it."
"That's fine by me," said Anko. "I want to talk to you."
"Sure, let's go," said Takuma.
"You really gave Gaku the lead… just like that?" Anko said as they walked to the back entrance to the factory building.
"I would've liked to have the lead, but it's clear that Chinatsu trusts him the most. She'll be putting herself in danger by fishing for information so it's imperative that she does whatever is asked of her. She needs to feel comfortable, and Gaku is the best choice for it… I could take the lead and ask Gaku to cooperate, and he might support me in the open but he'll instruct her differently behind our backs." Takuma shrugged. "It's better to let him have this one. At least this way, there's no risk of Chinatsu blowing our cover because of conflicting instructions."
Anko thought that she would need to discipline Takuma about letting his personal feelings for Gaku interfere with the mission, but here he was, proving her wrong. He was self-aware enough to realise that Gaku was the best choice to directly work with Chinatsu.
"Good job—"
"And well… if he screws up and Chinatsu ends up blowing our cover, I'll be safe," Takuma smiled and patted her on the back, "I can't say that about you guys, though."
Anko was left speechless as she watched Takuma leave the factory while chuckling to himself. He might find it amusing, but Anko didn't find it funny as she looked back at the base corner where Gaku probably had a cigarette in his mouth.
———
.
Takuma sat perched on a roof, staking out the Goharu Family building identified as the drug stash house. As he observed the building, it couldn't be clearer that the building was important. There were two guards with swords at both entries, the windows were boarded and barred, and anyone who stood close to the building for any reason was asked to move or leave under the threat of violence.
He had yet to go inside to confirm that the building was the drug stash house, but he didn't need to because one of the guards was particularly talkative and openly yapped to his partner about what was going on inside. To the guard's credit, he didn't talk about it around strangers but Takuma's ears were much sharper than the average guy—and he caught the conversation when the guard confirmed no one was in earshot.
So why was Takuma staking out the building when he already had confirmation?
In a conversation between the talkative guard and a packer working in the building, he heard that today was the fulfilment day of an important big order—that got Takuma interested.
He wanted to confirm his hunch that the big order was related to the enemy shinobi.
A carriage pulled up in front of the building while Takuma watched. A minute later, a bald man with a long scar on the top of his bald head stepped out of the building with a large duffle bag. He wore a tacky suit and shaded sunglasses and entered the carriage with two other sword-carrying men, most probably for protection.
Takuma got up and started the carriage from the rooftops.
The bald man was Waichi. He was the Goharu Family higher-up found by Motohiro's resistance group.Takuma had followed to find the drug stash house. Waichi was the brother-in-law of the Goharu Family's current head, a fortune that had granted him a privileged position in the family.
When Takuma arrived today, he didn't know if Waichi would be involved with the big order, but seeing him come out of the building with a duffle bag strengthened Takuma's belief that it was for the enemy shinobi.
In that case, Waichi taking point made sense. He had clearly attained his position through nepotism, but in the few days Takuma had spent following him, he seemed to be a capable, high-ranking family member.
There were advantages to leaving the client-facing of the drug trade with shinobi to the Renge Gang. Shinobi were dangerous, and having the Renge Gang between the family and the shinobi was a layer of separation and protection for them. But now, with the Renge Gang out, the Goharu Family were forced to deal with them directly and thus had to exercise caution.
A ten-minute journey later, the carriage stopped in front of a bar called the [Ice Sphere].
Takuma noted the name and address, intending to find out if the Goharu Family owned it.
Waichi and his guards entered the bar, and Takuma settled in the shadows to observe the entrance. He wished to head inside to take a look, but the risk of detection was high, and his personal safety was at risk as he speculated the attendance of shinobi. It was smarter for him to stay outside and infer the happenings inside from the context clues.
Takuma fell back on the rooftop and found a tap. He blocked the drain before opening the top to let the running water pool on the roof for a few minutes. He weaved hand seals for the Water Clone Jutsu. The chakra leaked out of his feet trickled outward into the water on the floor that gathered together into a human-shaped silhouette. Takuma felt a sizable amount of his chakra drain away as a clone formed before him.
"I'll go keep an eye on the back entrance," said the clone before disappearing off the roof.
Takuma returned to observe the front entrance. There was no movement in or out of the bar for half an hour until four men finally appeared at the bar's entrance. Seeing them jump down from a nearby rooftop made it clear they were shinobi.
Takuma shrunk himself into a corner and peered down at the bar. From the looks of it, there was a leader among the group, with the remaining three as followers. He assumed the leader was a chunin and the rest were genin.
As the shinobi entered the bar, Takuma was convinced that he had found the group acting as drug dealers for the enemy forces and that the Goharu Family was officially supplying for the shinobi.
At long last, he had found the link in the chain he could exploit to shake up the status quo in Yu. The meeting went on for another hour. As Waichi saw the shinobi out, they chatted outside the front entrance, so Takuma snuck to the back side of the bar to meet his clone.
"Anything to report?" he asked.
The clone replied with a negative.
"Okay, we're going to follow the shinobi to see if we can find something new."
The clone no longer had any use, but Takuma had already spent a considerable amount of chakra to create one, and there was no harm in having a secondary opinion—especially since it was his.
Takuma and his clone took off and tailed the four-person group. They exercised caution, staying well behind to avoid being detected.
"They're overconfident. They're travelling too openly," said the clone.
When Takuma was learning to tail someone, he had also done self-study on how to shake off tails. Shinobi, who frequently travelled through rooftops, added a few simple tricks to throw off a possible tail. One of those tricks was to make the tail lose sight by dipping down to the street level every once in a while. The shinobi in front of them were openly travelling across rooftops without ever stepping down on the streets.
Takuma nodded. "It's surprising given that the Renge Gang was targeted by shinobi." The use of the explosive tag in the Bentetsu police station bombing was enough of an indicator of shinobi involvement. "One would think they'd fear that they were the next targets… but from the looks, that doesn't seem to be the case."
"Good for us," said the clone.
"Is it incompetence, or do they have a reason not to be worried?" Takuma asked himself.
Much to his disappointment, the group returned to the area where the majority of shinobi resided in the city. The area was well-guarded and the most dangerous for the team. Anko had forbidden them from exploring the area because of the risk involved.
"That's unfortunate," said Takuma. "Well, we got the proof that the Goharu Family and the enemy forces are directly connected."
"Yeah," the clone dragged the word, "what do you think that's about?"
Takuma looked where the clone pointed and saw a pillar of smoke that rose and blot out the sky in the distance. The amount of smoke was the indicator of the massive size of the fire source.
"Should we go take a look?" asked the clone.
"Yeah, let's…"
———
.
"This is bad," said the clone, horrified as he looked down at the scene from a nearby rooftop.
Takuma stared at a burning police station building. Flames burst out of every orifice that building had: the windows, the doors, and the cracks in the ceilings and the walls.. Spectators stared at the fire from a distance as the firefighters tried to put out the raging fire to no avail.
The fire wasn't the horrifying part of the situation.
The police station was built on the corner of an active street. In the middle of the street in front of the police station, three bare poles were stabbed into the road. And from those poles hung three corpses of blue spray-painted men dressed in Yu's police force uniform. If it wasn't already similar enough, they had the blue posters stuck to their chests.
Someone had copied the police station bombing.
Takuma stared at the hanged man, unable to move his eyes away. His mind raced at what this meant and how it would affect the team's plans. It was clear they wouldn't be able to proceed as intended.
"I need to inform Anko—"
As Takuma spoke to the clone, he felt a gaze on him. Takuma straightened up and looked around to find the source of gaze. He scanned the crowd on the ground, and the windows of the buildings, but couldn't find the source—the gaze was still on him.
He felt his skin prickle as he scoured the rooftops.
In the same line of buildings, five rooftops away from him stood a solitary man dressed in black tactical gear with a sword on his back. The middle-aged man smiled at Takuma when their eyes met which sent chills down Takuma's back.
"Bro, we have company," said the clone, gravely.
Three more figures in black tactical gear and white porcelain masks were on the rooftops around then. They were all staring at Takuma. He was surrounded from all four sides.
"Bro?" The clone looked at Takuma when he didn't get a reply.
Takuma had grabbed his head as a sharp migraine stabbed his brain and was groaning in agony.
When Takuma found himself in the 10-year-old orphan, shinobi academy student's body, he wasn't given the boy's memories. It had been a big problem because Takuma had near zero idea about the situation he'd found himself in. However, instead of memories, he got something akin to intuition that told him things like his name, the academy teacher's name, the address of his apartment.
The intuition was godsend because without it, Takuma wouldn't have been able to pass himself as that 10-year-old orphan.
However, even that intuition had limitations.
Takuma had wanted to know about the origins of the scars on his body—but instead of giving him some answers, he was punished by harsh headaches. For whatever reason, the intuition didn't want him to know about the scars, and every time Takuma tried as much as to think about the story behind the scars, he was punished. It was so egregious that even looking at himself in the mirror would leave him in pain.
He had to force himself to not think about the problematic parts of the boy's past like the origin of scars and the identity of his parents. The pain acted as potent negative reinforcement, and beat the urge out of him. He wished he knew everything about the boy's past, but it wasn't worth it when it meant getting a horrible headache every time his thoughts wandered in that direction.
It had been a very long time since Takuma had one of the headaches, and he was glad for it.
But here it was again.
Takuma looked up at the man smiling at him. He had no idea who the man was… only that the man was somehow related to the boy's problematic past.
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Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
"Really?" said Anko, surprised by his reaction. Given their relationship, she was sure Takuma would rip into Gaku.
The three of them were alone in the factory base. She had wanted to run Gaku's plan by Takuma because she doubted her ability to look at the situation impartially and because Chinatsu was the cornerstone of their cover identity; putting her close to an enemy shinobi would risk them all getting exposed.
"It was a risky move, yes— but he was able to convince them and if she manages to convert the chunin into a regular and gain his trust, we're golden," Takuma said as he worked on sorting objects collected from around the factory like screws and bolts using chakra strings.
"That's what I said," Gaku smiled victoriously at Anko. "I'll coordinate with Chinatsu and prepare her for the information we want from the guy. Leave it all to me."
"Yeah, let's not get ahead of us there. This one thing going well doesn't mean everything will. Anko and I need to be keyed into everything you plan to do," said Takuma. Gaku opened his mouth to argue, but Takuma cut him off before he could speak. "You can take the lead on this, but we need to be aware of everything before it happens. Got it?"
Gaku was peeved, but he didn't say anything. On the other hand, Anko was surprised that Takuma gave Gaku the lead; she thought he would take on the lead from Gaku—but she nodded as she agreed that she needed to know about things before they happened. She allowed Takuma some freedom to operate independently but wouldn't extend that treatment to Gaku.
"Alright, keep in touch," Takuma said as he got off the couch and grabbed his weapon pouches and a long hooded overcoat to hide everything underneath.
"Going out?" asked Anko.
"Yeah, I think I have a lead on the Goharu Family." Takuma looked at Gaku, "I followed that guy from the Goharu Family, and I think I found their stash house."
"I knew they'd come in handy," said Gaku.
The resistance group led by Motohiro had helped the team spread the anti-occupation posters around the city. They agreed with what the team was doing and wanted to help more. Seeing their success, the team decided to give Motohiro's group another job—to find the Goharu Family's drug stash house.
Takuma wanted to poison the drugs, but for that to happen, they needed to find the packaging and stash house. The team didn't have enough time to find it by themselves, so Takuma decided to outsource it to the resistance group, which knew the city better than the team.
They failed to find it.
The Goharu Family had done an excellent job of keeping it hidden. However, they found a high-ranking person inside the family who was connected to Goharu's drug trade, which was good enough as Takuma spent a few days following that guy and found the stash house.
"I'll confirm it today," he said to Anko, "after which, you and Daiki can go in to map the interior and plan how you want to do it."
"That's fine by me," said Anko. "I want to talk to you."
"Sure, let's go," said Takuma.
"You really gave Gaku the lead… just like that?" Anko said as they walked to the back entrance to the factory building.
"I would've liked to have the lead, but it's clear that Chinatsu trusts him the most. She'll be putting herself in danger by fishing for information so it's imperative that she does whatever is asked of her. She needs to feel comfortable, and Gaku is the best choice for it… I could take the lead and ask Gaku to cooperate, and he might support me in the open but he'll instruct her differently behind our backs." Takuma shrugged. "It's better to let him have this one. At least this way, there's no risk of Chinatsu blowing our cover because of conflicting instructions."
Anko thought that she would need to discipline Takuma about letting his personal feelings for Gaku interfere with the mission, but here he was, proving her wrong. He was self-aware enough to realise that Gaku was the best choice to directly work with Chinatsu.
"Good job—"
"And well… if he screws up and Chinatsu ends up blowing our cover, I'll be safe," Takuma smiled and patted her on the back, "I can't say that about you guys, though."
Anko was left speechless as she watched Takuma leave the factory while chuckling to himself. He might find it amusing, but Anko didn't find it funny as she looked back at the base corner where Gaku probably had a cigarette in his mouth.
———
.
Takuma sat perched on a roof, staking out the Goharu Family building identified as the drug stash house. As he observed the building, it couldn't be clearer that the building was important. There were two guards with swords at both entries, the windows were boarded and barred, and anyone who stood close to the building for any reason was asked to move or leave under the threat of violence.
He had yet to go inside to confirm that the building was the drug stash house, but he didn't need to because one of the guards was particularly talkative and openly yapped to his partner about what was going on inside. To the guard's credit, he didn't talk about it around strangers but Takuma's ears were much sharper than the average guy—and he caught the conversation when the guard confirmed no one was in earshot.
So why was Takuma staking out the building when he already had confirmation?
In a conversation between the talkative guard and a packer working in the building, he heard that today was the fulfilment day of an important big order—that got Takuma interested.
He wanted to confirm his hunch that the big order was related to the enemy shinobi.
A carriage pulled up in front of the building while Takuma watched. A minute later, a bald man with a long scar on the top of his bald head stepped out of the building with a large duffle bag. He wore a tacky suit and shaded sunglasses and entered the carriage with two other sword-carrying men, most probably for protection.
Takuma got up and started the carriage from the rooftops.
The bald man was Waichi. He was the Goharu Family higher-up found by Motohiro's resistance group.Takuma had followed to find the drug stash house. Waichi was the brother-in-law of the Goharu Family's current head, a fortune that had granted him a privileged position in the family.
When Takuma arrived today, he didn't know if Waichi would be involved with the big order, but seeing him come out of the building with a duffle bag strengthened Takuma's belief that it was for the enemy shinobi.
In that case, Waichi taking point made sense. He had clearly attained his position through nepotism, but in the few days Takuma had spent following him, he seemed to be a capable, high-ranking family member.
There were advantages to leaving the client-facing of the drug trade with shinobi to the Renge Gang. Shinobi were dangerous, and having the Renge Gang between the family and the shinobi was a layer of separation and protection for them. But now, with the Renge Gang out, the Goharu Family were forced to deal with them directly and thus had to exercise caution.
A ten-minute journey later, the carriage stopped in front of a bar called the [Ice Sphere].
Takuma noted the name and address, intending to find out if the Goharu Family owned it.
Waichi and his guards entered the bar, and Takuma settled in the shadows to observe the entrance. He wished to head inside to take a look, but the risk of detection was high, and his personal safety was at risk as he speculated the attendance of shinobi. It was smarter for him to stay outside and infer the happenings inside from the context clues.
Takuma fell back on the rooftop and found a tap. He blocked the drain before opening the top to let the running water pool on the roof for a few minutes. He weaved hand seals for the Water Clone Jutsu. The chakra leaked out of his feet trickled outward into the water on the floor that gathered together into a human-shaped silhouette. Takuma felt a sizable amount of his chakra drain away as a clone formed before him.
"I'll go keep an eye on the back entrance," said the clone before disappearing off the roof.
Takuma returned to observe the front entrance. There was no movement in or out of the bar for half an hour until four men finally appeared at the bar's entrance. Seeing them jump down from a nearby rooftop made it clear they were shinobi.
Takuma shrunk himself into a corner and peered down at the bar. From the looks of it, there was a leader among the group, with the remaining three as followers. He assumed the leader was a chunin and the rest were genin.
As the shinobi entered the bar, Takuma was convinced that he had found the group acting as drug dealers for the enemy forces and that the Goharu Family was officially supplying for the shinobi.
At long last, he had found the link in the chain he could exploit to shake up the status quo in Yu. The meeting went on for another hour. As Waichi saw the shinobi out, they chatted outside the front entrance, so Takuma snuck to the back side of the bar to meet his clone.
"Anything to report?" he asked.
The clone replied with a negative.
"Okay, we're going to follow the shinobi to see if we can find something new."
The clone no longer had any use, but Takuma had already spent a considerable amount of chakra to create one, and there was no harm in having a secondary opinion—especially since it was his.
Takuma and his clone took off and tailed the four-person group. They exercised caution, staying well behind to avoid being detected.
"They're overconfident. They're travelling too openly," said the clone.
When Takuma was learning to tail someone, he had also done self-study on how to shake off tails. Shinobi, who frequently travelled through rooftops, added a few simple tricks to throw off a possible tail. One of those tricks was to make the tail lose sight by dipping down to the street level every once in a while. The shinobi in front of them were openly travelling across rooftops without ever stepping down on the streets.
Takuma nodded. "It's surprising given that the Renge Gang was targeted by shinobi." The use of the explosive tag in the Bentetsu police station bombing was enough of an indicator of shinobi involvement. "One would think they'd fear that they were the next targets… but from the looks, that doesn't seem to be the case."
"Good for us," said the clone.
"Is it incompetence, or do they have a reason not to be worried?" Takuma asked himself.
Much to his disappointment, the group returned to the area where the majority of shinobi resided in the city. The area was well-guarded and the most dangerous for the team. Anko had forbidden them from exploring the area because of the risk involved.
"That's unfortunate," said Takuma. "Well, we got the proof that the Goharu Family and the enemy forces are directly connected."
"Yeah," the clone dragged the word, "what do you think that's about?"
Takuma looked where the clone pointed and saw a pillar of smoke that rose and blot out the sky in the distance. The amount of smoke was the indicator of the massive size of the fire source.
"Should we go take a look?" asked the clone.
"Yeah, let's…"
———
.
"This is bad," said the clone, horrified as he looked down at the scene from a nearby rooftop.
Takuma stared at a burning police station building. Flames burst out of every orifice that building had: the windows, the doors, and the cracks in the ceilings and the walls.. Spectators stared at the fire from a distance as the firefighters tried to put out the raging fire to no avail.
The fire wasn't the horrifying part of the situation.
The police station was built on the corner of an active street. In the middle of the street in front of the police station, three bare poles were stabbed into the road. And from those poles hung three corpses of blue spray-painted men dressed in Yu's police force uniform. If it wasn't already similar enough, they had the blue posters stuck to their chests.
Someone had copied the police station bombing.
Takuma stared at the hanged man, unable to move his eyes away. His mind raced at what this meant and how it would affect the team's plans. It was clear they wouldn't be able to proceed as intended.
"I need to inform Anko—"
As Takuma spoke to the clone, he felt a gaze on him. Takuma straightened up and looked around to find the source of gaze. He scanned the crowd on the ground, and the windows of the buildings, but couldn't find the source—the gaze was still on him.
He felt his skin prickle as he scoured the rooftops.
In the same line of buildings, five rooftops away from him stood a solitary man dressed in black tactical gear with a sword on his back. The middle-aged man smiled at Takuma when their eyes met which sent chills down Takuma's back.
"Bro, we have company," said the clone, gravely.
Three more figures in black tactical gear and white porcelain masks were on the rooftops around then. They were all staring at Takuma. He was surrounded from all four sides.
"Bro?" The clone looked at Takuma when he didn't get a reply.
Takuma had grabbed his head as a sharp migraine stabbed his brain and was groaning in agony.
When Takuma found himself in the 10-year-old orphan, shinobi academy student's body, he wasn't given the boy's memories. It had been a big problem because Takuma had near zero idea about the situation he'd found himself in. However, instead of memories, he got something akin to intuition that told him things like his name, the academy teacher's name, the address of his apartment.
The intuition was godsend because without it, Takuma wouldn't have been able to pass himself as that 10-year-old orphan.
However, even that intuition had limitations.
Takuma had wanted to know about the origins of the scars on his body—but instead of giving him some answers, he was punished by harsh headaches. For whatever reason, the intuition didn't want him to know about the scars, and every time Takuma tried as much as to think about the story behind the scars, he was punished. It was so egregious that even looking at himself in the mirror would leave him in pain.
He had to force himself to not think about the problematic parts of the boy's past like the origin of scars and the identity of his parents. The pain acted as potent negative reinforcement, and beat the urge out of him. He wished he knew everything about the boy's past, but it wasn't worth it when it meant getting a horrible headache every time his thoughts wandered in that direction.
It had been a very long time since Takuma had one of the headaches, and he was glad for it.
But here it was again.
Takuma looked up at the man smiling at him. He had no idea who the man was… only that the man was somehow related to the boy's problematic past.
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CH_7.13 (231)
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
'Take a deep breath,' Takuma said to himself.
He groaned as another hot stab assaulted his head. There wasn't a worse time to get a headache than when he was surrounded by unknown hostiles. A part of him wanted to find out about the first person who had triggered his headache, but he could see a trap when he saw one.
The unknown shinobi had set the police station ablaze in hopes of drawing out the culprit behind the Bentetsu police station bombing, and Takuma had played right into their hands. He had to escape regardless of what he wanted because capture wouldn't mean good things for him. Fortunately for him, his hood was concealing his face from view—as long as he could shake them off, he could escape without the possibility of a sketch of his face plastered around the town.
"We're leaving," Takuma said, still trying to calm himself down.
Takuma and his clone jumped off the rooftop into a side alley and quickly headed towards the police station street, where the crowds gathered. Without a word, both of them used the Transformation Jutsu to turn into two young women in an attempt to blend into the crowd.
Transformation Jutsu was easy to detect when one was looking for it, but the difficulty spiked when the adversary was looking at a crowd from a distance. They consciously chose to transform into women in an attempt to throw off their pursuers.
"Stay," said Takuma.
"Are you sure?" asked the clone in the form of a young woman.
It was an extremely risky move to stay in the crowd instead of instantly taking off—but Takuma expected the pursuers to look for people leaving the crowd. They moved away from the side alley entrance as that area would be looked at with the most suspicion after people walked away from the scene.
"Yes," Takuma whispered as he stared at the burning building for an excruciating fifteen seconds. Every second that passed was one where he thought that the unknown shinobi would jump down to surround them.
"Okay, I think this is enough time," said the clone. "This is what we're going to do. I will go ahead and try to cross the roadblock to make a scene. Use that commotion to slip away. Agreed?"
The street had been closed off for safety as the firefighters tried to contain the fire.
Takuma nodded after a second of consideration.
"Go," he said,
The clone in the disguise of a young woman took a step forward before unexpectedly stopping.
"What happened?" asked Takuma, thinking the clone must've spotted something.
"… You've got that headache, so I don't know if you noticed it or not," said the clone, "but do you recognize their tactical gear?"
The clones were different from himself in various ways. Even though they were complex creations, at their core, they were simple simulacra of the user. Unlike Takuma, who focused on the middle-aged man and his intuition headaches, the clone's first order of business after seeing the masked figures was to ensure Takuma's safety. It was a noted factual observation that the clones didn't have strong self-preservation instincts unless ordered to, as they knew their life span was limited from conception. They would put the original before them in every matter and were highly receptive to orders from the original.
There could be many reasons why the clone didn't get the same headache as Takuma. Perhaps the clone didn't care about finding out the truth of the matter at the moment, or he didn't have a good look at the man before he spotted the masked figures, which caused his priorities to switch.
Whatever it was, it allowed the clone to focus on the many different things that Takuma missed in his fluctuating mental state.
"What do you mean?" asked Takuma.
"Their tactical gear… it's exactly the same as the assassins from that night," said the clone.
Takuma's entire world screeched to a stop. He stared at the clone through wide eyes, while the memories of that rainy night flashed through his mind. He recalled the assassins' gear, washed in the yellow light of their fire ninjutsu. The clone was correct; the assassins wore the same black and grey tactical gear he had just seen a minute before.
A phantom pain flashed through Takuma's left leg, reminding him of the injury that had given him so much trouble; he had to arrive at Camp Banana with a walking cane. He grabbed his leg tightly and bit the inside of his mouth as the spark of apprehension from getting caught in a trap surged into a choking swell of fear.
"Get a hold of yourself; you've got to make it out alive," the clone pinched Takuma's arm.
Takuma looked at the clone, who was still transformed as a young woman, and took deep, calming breaths.
"Go. I'll be fine," he said.
The clone wasted no time and pushed through the crowd towards the road back on the street corner. Takuma turned to walk away from the scene, and as expected, he heard a loud commotion. He ignored it and kept walking away. With the thoughts muddling his brain, it took him all to stop himself from tearing away at full speed—he couldn't even walk briskly because it would be too fast for a civilian.
Takuma stopped when he heard a faint whistle coming above him. He immediately side-hopped and pressed himself against the nearby building. A moment later, a kunai stabbed the pavement where he stood.
He could tell that the clone was still alive, but the distraction ploy had failed. Takuma dropped all pretence, shed his disguise, and bolted away at full speed. The civilians yelped and exclaimed at the scene of a seemingly normal young woman turning into a shady hooded figure. They screamed when another kunai descended from the sky, stabbing the pavement close to them.
Takuma ignored them and pressed forward. He glanced to the side and saw a masked pursuer, with orange highlights on the white mask, sprinting from rooftop to rooftop, keeping up with him. Takuma changed course very abruptly and turned into a narrow alley off the main street.
The unmasked man, the leader of the masked group, dropped down to the other end of the alley from the sky, cutting off Takuma's route.
"Surrender," said the leader.
Takuma dug his heels into the ground to stop and course corrected towards the adjacent wall. He leaped up the exposed brick wall and ascended as fast as his legs could go. The leader launched a kunai at Takuma and he spun in a quick, complete rotation, catching the kunai. Before gravity could take effect, Takuma was back on the wall and climbing to the roof.
The orange masked figure leaped from across the street and landed on the rooftop while Takuma was pulling himself up. Using the kunai he'd caught, he formed bogus hand seals to trick "Orange-Mask" into thinking he was applying ninjutsu to the kunai. The masked man dove to the side to evade the plain kunai instead of deflecting it.
Takuma didn't stop and directly leaped to the next rooftop, but he didn't reach it. The leader appeared beside him and kicked him completely off course. Taken by surprise, Takuma managed to raise his block, but was hurled towards a building across the street.
"Gah!"
His back smashed against the wall, crushing the bricks and cement. Takuma stuck to it and continued his escape from his pursuers. He ran around the building before dropping down to the street level, and tore through alleyways and bends, sticking close to the building walls and hiding within the long, arcing shadows.
It was reminiscent of the night of the assassination attempt. He was running with pursuers hot on his tail. Back then, he didn't like that it was raining, but right now he really wished it was. Yu was drastically smaller than the Hidden Leaf village, and a big commotion could have the enemy forces come down on him. To make things worse, Takuma didn't know Yu as well as he did the Hidden Leaf. He couldn't go towards the industrial district with the factory base, nor could he go towards Chinatsu's house—and those were the two areas he knew best.
For the first time since he had been in Yu, the city felt truly hostile. He cursed himself as he sprinted through the streets, unable to lose the pursuers—he shouldn't have gone out alone. He saw shadows leaping over the buildings and the sound of footsteps as they pursued him like he was a game animal.
The sounds grew closer. He glanced back to see the leader on his tail, a few metres between them. Takuma exerted himself to boost forward when Orange-Mask appeared at the other end of the alley.
Takuma immediately switched to running up the walls again.
On the ground, the leader weaved hand seals. He breathed out a thin stream of fire, cupping it between his hands to form a long spear in his hands. Takuma saw the leader cock his arm back for a javelin throw—he wasn't going to catch that. His danger instinct tingled, telling him that dodging it narrowly wouldn't be enough.
Takuma's mind moved faster as he cycled through his recollection of the street in his mind as his eyes were locked on the leader's spear.
'Window'
Takuma glanced at the window one story above him. As the leader heaved the spear, chakra flooded into Takuma's feet and expunged out of the soles of his feet. The wall underneath his feet cratered as the wall/tree-walking technique was overloaded, and Takuma was propelled off the wall.
Crash! The glass shattered as Takuma went through the window pane less than a second before the spear reached his position and exploded. The fiery rush of flames managed to enter through the window and he would have been consumed by the roaring fire if not for his forward roll onto the floor.
Takuma had no time to look back and stumbled forward into an apartment bedroom. He hurried out of it in search of an exit, having taken one step to run into a pudgy woman holding a kitchen knife to his face. In one fluid movement, he disarmed the screaming housewife and threw a kunai with an explosive tag out of the broken bedroom window.
It exploded right outside the window ledge, damaging the building and the room, but it bought him a few more seconds before the pursuers came in.
He looked down at the screaming housewife who quieted under Takuma's gaze.
"Shut up and hide," he said before hurrying deeper into the house. He saw an old woman closely hugging a five- or six-year-old girl in a living room, both of whom looked terrified. Despite the twinge of guilt in his chest, he had no time to calm them down, so he ignored them.
The apartment was small, and he immediately saw the front door up ahead. He was halfway through it when his peripheral vision caught the sight of a large bucket full of water through an open bathroom door.
Takuma took the risk and weaved hand seals for the Water Style: Eight Tentacles. Just as he finished the hand seals, the leader stepped into the bedroom through the hand seal. Their eyes met, and both of them immediately drew and threw a kunai at each other. The kunai collided in the narrow hallway, a few feet away from the housewife, who screamed and dropped to the ground in fear. In the living room, the little daughter started crying as the grandmother hugged her tighter.
Takuma backed up toward the door and threw three shuriken toward the leader. He deflected them with a kunai while the water inside the bucket rose up in a freeform blob and flew at Takuma, who smashed through the front door into the open corridor.
The leader threw a kunai through the house as Takuma vaulted over the open corridor. The water blob attached to Takuma and sprung out two tentacles that caught the kunai. As he jumped down, he saw Orange-Mask run into the street from around the corner.
Takuma bit his lip in frustration.
He could feel that his clone was still alive and by the looks of it, had taken two out of four pursuers away from him. Despite that, Takuma felt that as long as he had these two after him, he wouldn't be able to escape.
The situation was only getting worse. Takuma's directional sense was average in all purposes, and he was already confused about where he was. For all he knew, he could have subconsciously leading them to the industrial complex of Chinatsu's house. The longer he was on the run with his focus on shaking the pursuers, the worse thing would get. Even if he wanted to get some help by going close to Chinatsu's house in hopes that the team would notice, he wouldn't be able to find his way quick enough.
He needed to eliminate one of them if he wanted a fair chance at escaping, and between the two, Orange Mask not only felt less threatening, but Takuma also had questions he wanted to ask the leader about how the man related to his past.
"Looks like Orange Mask has to die," he muttered.
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He groaned as another hot stab assaulted his head. There wasn't a worse time to get a headache than when he was surrounded by unknown hostiles. A part of him wanted to find out about the first person who had triggered his headache, but he could see a trap when he saw one.
The unknown shinobi had set the police station ablaze in hopes of drawing out the culprit behind the Bentetsu police station bombing, and Takuma had played right into their hands. He had to escape regardless of what he wanted because capture wouldn't mean good things for him. Fortunately for him, his hood was concealing his face from view—as long as he could shake them off, he could escape without the possibility of a sketch of his face plastered around the town.
"We're leaving," Takuma said, still trying to calm himself down.
Takuma and his clone jumped off the rooftop into a side alley and quickly headed towards the police station street, where the crowds gathered. Without a word, both of them used the Transformation Jutsu to turn into two young women in an attempt to blend into the crowd.
Transformation Jutsu was easy to detect when one was looking for it, but the difficulty spiked when the adversary was looking at a crowd from a distance. They consciously chose to transform into women in an attempt to throw off their pursuers.
"Stay," said Takuma.
"Are you sure?" asked the clone in the form of a young woman.
It was an extremely risky move to stay in the crowd instead of instantly taking off—but Takuma expected the pursuers to look for people leaving the crowd. They moved away from the side alley entrance as that area would be looked at with the most suspicion after people walked away from the scene.
"Yes," Takuma whispered as he stared at the burning building for an excruciating fifteen seconds. Every second that passed was one where he thought that the unknown shinobi would jump down to surround them.
"Okay, I think this is enough time," said the clone. "This is what we're going to do. I will go ahead and try to cross the roadblock to make a scene. Use that commotion to slip away. Agreed?"
The street had been closed off for safety as the firefighters tried to contain the fire.
Takuma nodded after a second of consideration.
"Go," he said,
The clone in the disguise of a young woman took a step forward before unexpectedly stopping.
"What happened?" asked Takuma, thinking the clone must've spotted something.
"… You've got that headache, so I don't know if you noticed it or not," said the clone, "but do you recognize their tactical gear?"
The clones were different from himself in various ways. Even though they were complex creations, at their core, they were simple simulacra of the user. Unlike Takuma, who focused on the middle-aged man and his intuition headaches, the clone's first order of business after seeing the masked figures was to ensure Takuma's safety. It was a noted factual observation that the clones didn't have strong self-preservation instincts unless ordered to, as they knew their life span was limited from conception. They would put the original before them in every matter and were highly receptive to orders from the original.
There could be many reasons why the clone didn't get the same headache as Takuma. Perhaps the clone didn't care about finding out the truth of the matter at the moment, or he didn't have a good look at the man before he spotted the masked figures, which caused his priorities to switch.
Whatever it was, it allowed the clone to focus on the many different things that Takuma missed in his fluctuating mental state.
"What do you mean?" asked Takuma.
"Their tactical gear… it's exactly the same as the assassins from that night," said the clone.
Takuma's entire world screeched to a stop. He stared at the clone through wide eyes, while the memories of that rainy night flashed through his mind. He recalled the assassins' gear, washed in the yellow light of their fire ninjutsu. The clone was correct; the assassins wore the same black and grey tactical gear he had just seen a minute before.
A phantom pain flashed through Takuma's left leg, reminding him of the injury that had given him so much trouble; he had to arrive at Camp Banana with a walking cane. He grabbed his leg tightly and bit the inside of his mouth as the spark of apprehension from getting caught in a trap surged into a choking swell of fear.
"Get a hold of yourself; you've got to make it out alive," the clone pinched Takuma's arm.
Takuma looked at the clone, who was still transformed as a young woman, and took deep, calming breaths.
"Go. I'll be fine," he said.
The clone wasted no time and pushed through the crowd towards the road back on the street corner. Takuma turned to walk away from the scene, and as expected, he heard a loud commotion. He ignored it and kept walking away. With the thoughts muddling his brain, it took him all to stop himself from tearing away at full speed—he couldn't even walk briskly because it would be too fast for a civilian.
Takuma stopped when he heard a faint whistle coming above him. He immediately side-hopped and pressed himself against the nearby building. A moment later, a kunai stabbed the pavement where he stood.
He could tell that the clone was still alive, but the distraction ploy had failed. Takuma dropped all pretence, shed his disguise, and bolted away at full speed. The civilians yelped and exclaimed at the scene of a seemingly normal young woman turning into a shady hooded figure. They screamed when another kunai descended from the sky, stabbing the pavement close to them.
Takuma ignored them and pressed forward. He glanced to the side and saw a masked pursuer, with orange highlights on the white mask, sprinting from rooftop to rooftop, keeping up with him. Takuma changed course very abruptly and turned into a narrow alley off the main street.
The unmasked man, the leader of the masked group, dropped down to the other end of the alley from the sky, cutting off Takuma's route.
"Surrender," said the leader.
Takuma dug his heels into the ground to stop and course corrected towards the adjacent wall. He leaped up the exposed brick wall and ascended as fast as his legs could go. The leader launched a kunai at Takuma and he spun in a quick, complete rotation, catching the kunai. Before gravity could take effect, Takuma was back on the wall and climbing to the roof.
The orange masked figure leaped from across the street and landed on the rooftop while Takuma was pulling himself up. Using the kunai he'd caught, he formed bogus hand seals to trick "Orange-Mask" into thinking he was applying ninjutsu to the kunai. The masked man dove to the side to evade the plain kunai instead of deflecting it.
Takuma didn't stop and directly leaped to the next rooftop, but he didn't reach it. The leader appeared beside him and kicked him completely off course. Taken by surprise, Takuma managed to raise his block, but was hurled towards a building across the street.
"Gah!"
His back smashed against the wall, crushing the bricks and cement. Takuma stuck to it and continued his escape from his pursuers. He ran around the building before dropping down to the street level, and tore through alleyways and bends, sticking close to the building walls and hiding within the long, arcing shadows.
It was reminiscent of the night of the assassination attempt. He was running with pursuers hot on his tail. Back then, he didn't like that it was raining, but right now he really wished it was. Yu was drastically smaller than the Hidden Leaf village, and a big commotion could have the enemy forces come down on him. To make things worse, Takuma didn't know Yu as well as he did the Hidden Leaf. He couldn't go towards the industrial district with the factory base, nor could he go towards Chinatsu's house—and those were the two areas he knew best.
For the first time since he had been in Yu, the city felt truly hostile. He cursed himself as he sprinted through the streets, unable to lose the pursuers—he shouldn't have gone out alone. He saw shadows leaping over the buildings and the sound of footsteps as they pursued him like he was a game animal.
The sounds grew closer. He glanced back to see the leader on his tail, a few metres between them. Takuma exerted himself to boost forward when Orange-Mask appeared at the other end of the alley.
Takuma immediately switched to running up the walls again.
On the ground, the leader weaved hand seals. He breathed out a thin stream of fire, cupping it between his hands to form a long spear in his hands. Takuma saw the leader cock his arm back for a javelin throw—he wasn't going to catch that. His danger instinct tingled, telling him that dodging it narrowly wouldn't be enough.
Takuma's mind moved faster as he cycled through his recollection of the street in his mind as his eyes were locked on the leader's spear.
'Window'
Takuma glanced at the window one story above him. As the leader heaved the spear, chakra flooded into Takuma's feet and expunged out of the soles of his feet. The wall underneath his feet cratered as the wall/tree-walking technique was overloaded, and Takuma was propelled off the wall.
Crash! The glass shattered as Takuma went through the window pane less than a second before the spear reached his position and exploded. The fiery rush of flames managed to enter through the window and he would have been consumed by the roaring fire if not for his forward roll onto the floor.
Takuma had no time to look back and stumbled forward into an apartment bedroom. He hurried out of it in search of an exit, having taken one step to run into a pudgy woman holding a kitchen knife to his face. In one fluid movement, he disarmed the screaming housewife and threw a kunai with an explosive tag out of the broken bedroom window.
It exploded right outside the window ledge, damaging the building and the room, but it bought him a few more seconds before the pursuers came in.
He looked down at the screaming housewife who quieted under Takuma's gaze.
"Shut up and hide," he said before hurrying deeper into the house. He saw an old woman closely hugging a five- or six-year-old girl in a living room, both of whom looked terrified. Despite the twinge of guilt in his chest, he had no time to calm them down, so he ignored them.
The apartment was small, and he immediately saw the front door up ahead. He was halfway through it when his peripheral vision caught the sight of a large bucket full of water through an open bathroom door.
Takuma took the risk and weaved hand seals for the Water Style: Eight Tentacles. Just as he finished the hand seals, the leader stepped into the bedroom through the hand seal. Their eyes met, and both of them immediately drew and threw a kunai at each other. The kunai collided in the narrow hallway, a few feet away from the housewife, who screamed and dropped to the ground in fear. In the living room, the little daughter started crying as the grandmother hugged her tighter.
Takuma backed up toward the door and threw three shuriken toward the leader. He deflected them with a kunai while the water inside the bucket rose up in a freeform blob and flew at Takuma, who smashed through the front door into the open corridor.
The leader threw a kunai through the house as Takuma vaulted over the open corridor. The water blob attached to Takuma and sprung out two tentacles that caught the kunai. As he jumped down, he saw Orange-Mask run into the street from around the corner.
Takuma bit his lip in frustration.
He could feel that his clone was still alive and by the looks of it, had taken two out of four pursuers away from him. Despite that, Takuma felt that as long as he had these two after him, he wouldn't be able to escape.
The situation was only getting worse. Takuma's directional sense was average in all purposes, and he was already confused about where he was. For all he knew, he could have subconsciously leading them to the industrial complex of Chinatsu's house. The longer he was on the run with his focus on shaking the pursuers, the worse thing would get. Even if he wanted to get some help by going close to Chinatsu's house in hopes that the team would notice, he wouldn't be able to find his way quick enough.
He needed to eliminate one of them if he wanted a fair chance at escaping, and between the two, Orange Mask not only felt less threatening, but Takuma also had questions he wanted to ask the leader about how the man related to his past.
"Looks like Orange Mask has to die," he muttered.
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CH_7.14 (232)
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
As Takuma jumped from the apartment corridor, he considered his situation. Orange-Mask was waiting for him on the ground, and the leader was only a few seconds away inside the apartment. He was continuously being cornered and desperately needed something to change if he wanted to escape.
There was no use mindlessly running around hoping something would change. Doing so would only tire him out; he had to make the changes himself.
He listed out the problems plaguing him.
The combination of Orange-Mask and the leader had him trapped well, so the solution was to get rid of one of them. Orange-Mask was the obvious choice because Takuma wanted to interrogate the leader in the future. Once he got rid of Orange-Mask, there would be much more space and time to shake the leader off his tail.
But he had to separate Orange-Mask from the leader if he wanted to eliminate him. To do that, he needed to make sure the leader couldn't back up his subordinate.
The solution? Get familiar with his surroundings.
He couldn't miraculously install a map of Yu in his mind instantly, but he could build a map of a single block fairly quickly. Instead of running blindly, restricting himself to a limited area was a better choice. The downside was that Orange-Mask and the leader would also become used to block the more time they spent in it—but there was no other alternative.
Finally, there were the two other pursuers he had to consider. They were chasing his clone, but that could end at any moment—he expected it would happen soon because the clone was weaker than him. It was only a matter of time before the other two masked pursuers joined the hunt, and if that happened, his already bleak chances would plummet to zero.
He had failed to escape death last time and had to be rescued by a passing jonin. Deep in enemy territory, the only thing waiting for him was a kunai in the dark and the high likelihood of torture if he was captured. Moreover, his limited area plan also made them easier to find as they were in the same location.
Time was an important factor. He had to kill Orange-Mask and escape the leader quickly. Otherwise, backup would arrive, sealing his fate.
As Takuma landed on the ground, he threw a smoke ball toward Orange-Mask, who rushed toward Takuma with his sword drawn. He cut the smoke ball down, causing it to burst into a cloud of black smoke. Blinded, Orange-Mask skipped ahead and swung his sword, but it slashed the air. Takuma could've retaliated inside the smokescreen, but he chose to run away.
It was time to play cat-and-mouse.
———
.
Inside the apartment unit, Kon ignored the crying woman begging him to spare them, walked through the unit, and left through the front gate.
His plan to lure the culprits behind the police station bombing had been successful. He had to sacrifice a few lives to taint their image, but it was at an acceptable cost. It was fortunate that Yu didn't have a native shinobi population, so it was very easy to locate the two hooded men peering down at the scene from the rooftops.
Though he had to say, the one he was following was quite slippery.
From the corridor, Kon saw Orange-Mask step out of the haze of black smoke, looking for the target. He looked around and saw a glimpse of the target entering an alley, giving chase by running on the apartment building. He saw the target closing toward the exit to the alley. Kon pushed chakra into his feet, shattered the bricks beneath him.
"Got you," Kon whispered as he drew his sword to cut down the target.
But to his surprise, his sword cut through an afterimage. It was the Body Flicker Jutsu. By the time his feet touched the ground, the target was several metres away from him and was heading towards another alley.
"…Really slippery," Kon whispered to himself—but he didn't mind it; he had been in the city for months, and it was getting dull—a hunt like this was just the pep-up he needed.
Kon used the Body Flicker Jutsu himself and flashed forward. He saw the target was once again running up a building and followed him to the rooftop and across to the next one. He drew three kunai and threw them at his target. It was a mistake to be in such an open area. Plus, the target was in mid-air with no means to change direction. Once again, he was met with an unexpected result as the kunai passed through the target's body without resistance.
Then, the target's disappeared into nothing while he was in the air.
The answer evaded Kon for a lengthy moment before he recognized it to be the Clone Jutsu. It was a basic tactic taught in Shinobi Academies worldwide with nearly no use in the real world because illusory clones didn't cast shadows, which was an uncanny tell—but the target's clone was mid-jump, eliminating the shadow problem.
A vein throbbed on Kon's forehead; he wasn't pleased to have been duped by such a simple trick.
———
.
Thanks to the Clone Jutsu, Takuma had bought himself a few precious seconds. He looked around, memorising all he could about the place. They were in a residential area with small apartment buildings. There was an alley between each building, which provided excellent access and gave him a lot of options. He was on the street, which made him highly visible, so Takuma quickly went towards the alley nearest him. As he was about to enter, he noticed a shadow in his peripheral vision.
It was Orange-Mask.
Takuma increased his speed and dashed through the alley when he noticed that the alleys between the buildings were there for garbage as there was a garbage collection corner in every alley.
He had an idea. Takuma jumped into the garbage collection corner and knelt down beside the garbage.
He heard the footsteps grow closer until Orange-Mask ran past him. Takuma jumped Orange-Mask and threw an augmented punch towards the man's face. Orange-Mask ducked under the punch and stabbed out with his sword. Takuma dodged with a quick step back before going in with a counter augmented-punch.
Orange-Mask pulled his torso back to get out of the punch's range—and evaded more of his strikes when Takuma tried to follow up with an agile combo. His skills weren't a surprise, given the skills of the assassins he'd fought.
However, he was no longer the same shinobi he was that night.
He punched out the final strike of the combo that Orange-Mask avoided by pulling back his torso and getting his sword into position for his counter, but it didn't matter as Takuma turned the final punch into a second-form augmentation. The chakra flowed out of Takuma's fist and crashed into Orange-Mask's face, shattering the mask and revealing the black balaclavas underneath.
Orange-Mask stumbled back a few steps.
The water tentacles snapped forward and wrapped themselves around Orange-Mask's wrists. Takuma pulled Orange-Mask toward him with the tentacles and went for a stab with a kunai. Orange-Mask resisted the pull, broke free from the tentacle's grasp, and pulled his sword up. Sparks flew as the metal scraped against metal. The kunai missed the Orange-Mask's chest but left a shallow scar on their left shoulder.
Takuma jumped back to avoid a sword slash, but four of his tentacles, wielding kunai, went ahead. Orange-Mask's sword turned into a blur as he dealt with an onslaught of five tentacles. He couldn't dodge the three shuriken Takuma threw with his hands, though. The shuriken struck Orange-Mask right in the chest, but he knew they weren't enough.
Takuma moved in to strike the killing blow: a stab aimed at Orange-Mask's neck. But before he could connect, Takuma sensed a heat and heard a sharp screech. He jumped back, and a second later, a fiery spear impaled the ground between him and Orange-Mask.
He followed the trail to find the leader standing horizontally on a wall.
———
.
Kon followed the sound of clashing metal and looked down from a rooftop to see Orange-Mask and the target fighting each other. The Eight Tentacles was a curious choice of jutsu, but from the looks of it, the jutsu was being well-utilised.
He waited for a few moments longer to watch the exchange conclude. It was clear that Orange-Mask was being pushed back. He silently descended onto the wall and weaved hand seals for the Fire Release: Fire Spear. Kon wanted to wait until he had a clean shot, but when he saw the three shuriken hit Orange-Mask, he threw the spear immediately before the target could move in and land the finishing blow.
Unfortunately, the target jumped back, avoiding the spear.
Their eyes met, and Kon tried to glean their face through the hood to no avail. It cast too much of a shadow. Kon's hand twitched. One command and he could explode the fire spear, but with his subordinate in the blast radius, that wasn't an option.
Orange-Mask raised his sword above his head and swung for the target, who kicked him back before he could swing down. Orange-Mask went through the wall, leaving a hole in the building. The water pipes in the walls snapped and started spraying water everywhere.
Kon was surprised at the display of strength. He even felt the entire building shaking through his feet.
The target threw an explosive tag into the hole. It blew up, further damaging the building. When Kon saw the target turn to run, he weaved fingers into hand seals for another fire spear. By putting distance between him and Orange-Mask, the target had allowed Kon to deal some real damage of his own, and from the looks of it, the target had realised it.
He stopped and formed hand seals of his own. Kon smiled as he put more chakra into the jutsu than before. He pulled his arm back and threw the spear as hard as he could. It screeched as it ripped its target with a smokey trail. At the same moment, the target slammed his hand onto the concrete floor that split apart for the ground to rise and cover him in a dome. When the fire spear struck, the impact fractured the dome. It withstood the explosion but broke down immediately after.
Kon drew his sword and jumped down. He would cut down the target the moment he emerged from the dome. However, as the dome crumbled completely, he realised that the target wasn't inside. By the time he reached the ground. He stared at the empty, half-destroyed dome for a few seconds until the answer struck him.
It could only be the Hiding in the Rock Jutsu.
Kon immediately sprinted in the direction the target was previously running. The jutsu only allowed travel in straight lines—and with buildings everywhere, their underground foundations would block alternative routes, leaving only the alleys and streets as viable paths.
———
.
Takuma appeared above ground next to the alley. He broke into a run and headed towards another alley between the buildings when he felt his clone die. Hedidn't know the clone's location or how far away he had pulled the other two pursuers from him—but he knew that the clock had started.
Takuma entered the alley and, halfway through, looked back to shock himself when he saw the leader dashing into the gallery. He hadn't expected to be caught that quickly. The leader blitzed through hand seals and breathed out an orb of fire. Takuma thought the orb would chase him, but it just floated in front of the leader. The leader threw a shuriken through it, it emerged, completely alight.
Takuma knew he didn't want to be hit by that.
He jumped to the side to evade it, but the shuriken burst into a ball of scorching fire beside him. He moved the water tentacles forward to protect him, which they did—but instantly evaporated.
Now, Takuma had a concrete reason for why he shouldn't get hit by it. He glanced up at two small balconies that opened on the far side-alley. He jumped up the first floor and knelt inside a balcony to get some cover. The leader narrowed his eyes and threw a shuriken above the balcony.
Takuma saw the flaming shuriken fly above him and immediately formed an umbrella with his water tentacles. He was protected, but lost even more water. He thought about it for a moment before standing up and drawing a shuriken. The leader threw another flaming shuriken the moment he became visible, but this time, Takuma met it with his own. They clashed for a split second before both went flying in a small, self-contained explosion.
Takuma smiled, but knew he wasn't safe. He couldn't just keep standing on the balcony deflecting the leader's flaming shuriken. Orange-Mask could arrive at any point, and he would be cornered so he had to be on the move.
He blocked another flaming shuriken with his own before jumping to a second-floor balcony of the opposite building. Knowing he was going to be mid-air and thus, unable to change his direction, Takuma was ready to deflect another flaming shuriken, but as he leaped up and across, he noticed the leader 's fire orb move—it was on the right because Takuma was standing on the right, but now as he was going left, the orb moved along with him.
Takuma realised something. The leader had to throw the shuriken through the orb to convert it into a flaming shuriken, which meant he had to adjust the orb's location to be in the trajectory of the shuriken—however, the orb was relatively slow to move.
He could outrun it.
The moment Takuma landed on the second-floor balcony, he immediately jumped to the opposite third-floor balcony—and as he expected, the orb which had just got in position to strike the second-floor balcony, couldn't move quick enough. When it reached the third-floor balcony, Takuma was already on the roof of the three-storey building.
He would be out of sight just for a moment. He weaved through hand seals. Chakra accumulated in his lungs, and his chest widened as he took a deep breath. The jutsu was primed, ready to be launched. Takuma recalled the leader used a sword and used his shortened tentacles to retrieve five shuriken from his weapon pouch.
Woosh! The moment the leader jumped to appear over the roof, the tentacles simultaneously launched the five shuriken. As predicted, the leader used his sword to deflect them—an easy feat for him—but it still meant his sword was engaged, leaving him no defensive option other than to evade.
However, the leader was in mid-air, and couldn't change his direction.
Water Release: Wild Water Wave
Takuma shortened the spread of the wave and concentrated it into a straight spray to increase the offensive output. And the distance between Takuma and his target was more than double than it was now between him and the leader —they were close enough that it was really going to hurt.
The concentrated spray of water slammed into the leader head-on. He was pushed back, and with no foothold, he dropped down the building. On his way down, he hit his chest on a balcony railing, and then hit his head on the side of the balcony.
'This was it,' thought Takuma.
This was his chance to escape.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link here and in signature.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
There was no use mindlessly running around hoping something would change. Doing so would only tire him out; he had to make the changes himself.
He listed out the problems plaguing him.
The combination of Orange-Mask and the leader had him trapped well, so the solution was to get rid of one of them. Orange-Mask was the obvious choice because Takuma wanted to interrogate the leader in the future. Once he got rid of Orange-Mask, there would be much more space and time to shake the leader off his tail.
But he had to separate Orange-Mask from the leader if he wanted to eliminate him. To do that, he needed to make sure the leader couldn't back up his subordinate.
The solution? Get familiar with his surroundings.
He couldn't miraculously install a map of Yu in his mind instantly, but he could build a map of a single block fairly quickly. Instead of running blindly, restricting himself to a limited area was a better choice. The downside was that Orange-Mask and the leader would also become used to block the more time they spent in it—but there was no other alternative.
Finally, there were the two other pursuers he had to consider. They were chasing his clone, but that could end at any moment—he expected it would happen soon because the clone was weaker than him. It was only a matter of time before the other two masked pursuers joined the hunt, and if that happened, his already bleak chances would plummet to zero.
He had failed to escape death last time and had to be rescued by a passing jonin. Deep in enemy territory, the only thing waiting for him was a kunai in the dark and the high likelihood of torture if he was captured. Moreover, his limited area plan also made them easier to find as they were in the same location.
Time was an important factor. He had to kill Orange-Mask and escape the leader quickly. Otherwise, backup would arrive, sealing his fate.
As Takuma landed on the ground, he threw a smoke ball toward Orange-Mask, who rushed toward Takuma with his sword drawn. He cut the smoke ball down, causing it to burst into a cloud of black smoke. Blinded, Orange-Mask skipped ahead and swung his sword, but it slashed the air. Takuma could've retaliated inside the smokescreen, but he chose to run away.
It was time to play cat-and-mouse.
———
.
Inside the apartment unit, Kon ignored the crying woman begging him to spare them, walked through the unit, and left through the front gate.
His plan to lure the culprits behind the police station bombing had been successful. He had to sacrifice a few lives to taint their image, but it was at an acceptable cost. It was fortunate that Yu didn't have a native shinobi population, so it was very easy to locate the two hooded men peering down at the scene from the rooftops.
Though he had to say, the one he was following was quite slippery.
From the corridor, Kon saw Orange-Mask step out of the haze of black smoke, looking for the target. He looked around and saw a glimpse of the target entering an alley, giving chase by running on the apartment building. He saw the target closing toward the exit to the alley. Kon pushed chakra into his feet, shattered the bricks beneath him.
"Got you," Kon whispered as he drew his sword to cut down the target.
But to his surprise, his sword cut through an afterimage. It was the Body Flicker Jutsu. By the time his feet touched the ground, the target was several metres away from him and was heading towards another alley.
"…Really slippery," Kon whispered to himself—but he didn't mind it; he had been in the city for months, and it was getting dull—a hunt like this was just the pep-up he needed.
Kon used the Body Flicker Jutsu himself and flashed forward. He saw the target was once again running up a building and followed him to the rooftop and across to the next one. He drew three kunai and threw them at his target. It was a mistake to be in such an open area. Plus, the target was in mid-air with no means to change direction. Once again, he was met with an unexpected result as the kunai passed through the target's body without resistance.
Then, the target's disappeared into nothing while he was in the air.
The answer evaded Kon for a lengthy moment before he recognized it to be the Clone Jutsu. It was a basic tactic taught in Shinobi Academies worldwide with nearly no use in the real world because illusory clones didn't cast shadows, which was an uncanny tell—but the target's clone was mid-jump, eliminating the shadow problem.
A vein throbbed on Kon's forehead; he wasn't pleased to have been duped by such a simple trick.
———
.
Thanks to the Clone Jutsu, Takuma had bought himself a few precious seconds. He looked around, memorising all he could about the place. They were in a residential area with small apartment buildings. There was an alley between each building, which provided excellent access and gave him a lot of options. He was on the street, which made him highly visible, so Takuma quickly went towards the alley nearest him. As he was about to enter, he noticed a shadow in his peripheral vision.
It was Orange-Mask.
Takuma increased his speed and dashed through the alley when he noticed that the alleys between the buildings were there for garbage as there was a garbage collection corner in every alley.
He had an idea. Takuma jumped into the garbage collection corner and knelt down beside the garbage.
He heard the footsteps grow closer until Orange-Mask ran past him. Takuma jumped Orange-Mask and threw an augmented punch towards the man's face. Orange-Mask ducked under the punch and stabbed out with his sword. Takuma dodged with a quick step back before going in with a counter augmented-punch.
Orange-Mask pulled his torso back to get out of the punch's range—and evaded more of his strikes when Takuma tried to follow up with an agile combo. His skills weren't a surprise, given the skills of the assassins he'd fought.
However, he was no longer the same shinobi he was that night.
He punched out the final strike of the combo that Orange-Mask avoided by pulling back his torso and getting his sword into position for his counter, but it didn't matter as Takuma turned the final punch into a second-form augmentation. The chakra flowed out of Takuma's fist and crashed into Orange-Mask's face, shattering the mask and revealing the black balaclavas underneath.
Orange-Mask stumbled back a few steps.
The water tentacles snapped forward and wrapped themselves around Orange-Mask's wrists. Takuma pulled Orange-Mask toward him with the tentacles and went for a stab with a kunai. Orange-Mask resisted the pull, broke free from the tentacle's grasp, and pulled his sword up. Sparks flew as the metal scraped against metal. The kunai missed the Orange-Mask's chest but left a shallow scar on their left shoulder.
Takuma jumped back to avoid a sword slash, but four of his tentacles, wielding kunai, went ahead. Orange-Mask's sword turned into a blur as he dealt with an onslaught of five tentacles. He couldn't dodge the three shuriken Takuma threw with his hands, though. The shuriken struck Orange-Mask right in the chest, but he knew they weren't enough.
Takuma moved in to strike the killing blow: a stab aimed at Orange-Mask's neck. But before he could connect, Takuma sensed a heat and heard a sharp screech. He jumped back, and a second later, a fiery spear impaled the ground between him and Orange-Mask.
He followed the trail to find the leader standing horizontally on a wall.
———
.
Kon followed the sound of clashing metal and looked down from a rooftop to see Orange-Mask and the target fighting each other. The Eight Tentacles was a curious choice of jutsu, but from the looks of it, the jutsu was being well-utilised.
He waited for a few moments longer to watch the exchange conclude. It was clear that Orange-Mask was being pushed back. He silently descended onto the wall and weaved hand seals for the Fire Release: Fire Spear. Kon wanted to wait until he had a clean shot, but when he saw the three shuriken hit Orange-Mask, he threw the spear immediately before the target could move in and land the finishing blow.
Unfortunately, the target jumped back, avoiding the spear.
Their eyes met, and Kon tried to glean their face through the hood to no avail. It cast too much of a shadow. Kon's hand twitched. One command and he could explode the fire spear, but with his subordinate in the blast radius, that wasn't an option.
Orange-Mask raised his sword above his head and swung for the target, who kicked him back before he could swing down. Orange-Mask went through the wall, leaving a hole in the building. The water pipes in the walls snapped and started spraying water everywhere.
Kon was surprised at the display of strength. He even felt the entire building shaking through his feet.
The target threw an explosive tag into the hole. It blew up, further damaging the building. When Kon saw the target turn to run, he weaved fingers into hand seals for another fire spear. By putting distance between him and Orange-Mask, the target had allowed Kon to deal some real damage of his own, and from the looks of it, the target had realised it.
He stopped and formed hand seals of his own. Kon smiled as he put more chakra into the jutsu than before. He pulled his arm back and threw the spear as hard as he could. It screeched as it ripped its target with a smokey trail. At the same moment, the target slammed his hand onto the concrete floor that split apart for the ground to rise and cover him in a dome. When the fire spear struck, the impact fractured the dome. It withstood the explosion but broke down immediately after.
Kon drew his sword and jumped down. He would cut down the target the moment he emerged from the dome. However, as the dome crumbled completely, he realised that the target wasn't inside. By the time he reached the ground. He stared at the empty, half-destroyed dome for a few seconds until the answer struck him.
It could only be the Hiding in the Rock Jutsu.
Kon immediately sprinted in the direction the target was previously running. The jutsu only allowed travel in straight lines—and with buildings everywhere, their underground foundations would block alternative routes, leaving only the alleys and streets as viable paths.
———
.
Takuma appeared above ground next to the alley. He broke into a run and headed towards another alley between the buildings when he felt his clone die. Hedidn't know the clone's location or how far away he had pulled the other two pursuers from him—but he knew that the clock had started.
Takuma entered the alley and, halfway through, looked back to shock himself when he saw the leader dashing into the gallery. He hadn't expected to be caught that quickly. The leader blitzed through hand seals and breathed out an orb of fire. Takuma thought the orb would chase him, but it just floated in front of the leader. The leader threw a shuriken through it, it emerged, completely alight.
Takuma knew he didn't want to be hit by that.
He jumped to the side to evade it, but the shuriken burst into a ball of scorching fire beside him. He moved the water tentacles forward to protect him, which they did—but instantly evaporated.
Now, Takuma had a concrete reason for why he shouldn't get hit by it. He glanced up at two small balconies that opened on the far side-alley. He jumped up the first floor and knelt inside a balcony to get some cover. The leader narrowed his eyes and threw a shuriken above the balcony.
Takuma saw the flaming shuriken fly above him and immediately formed an umbrella with his water tentacles. He was protected, but lost even more water. He thought about it for a moment before standing up and drawing a shuriken. The leader threw another flaming shuriken the moment he became visible, but this time, Takuma met it with his own. They clashed for a split second before both went flying in a small, self-contained explosion.
Takuma smiled, but knew he wasn't safe. He couldn't just keep standing on the balcony deflecting the leader's flaming shuriken. Orange-Mask could arrive at any point, and he would be cornered so he had to be on the move.
He blocked another flaming shuriken with his own before jumping to a second-floor balcony of the opposite building. Knowing he was going to be mid-air and thus, unable to change his direction, Takuma was ready to deflect another flaming shuriken, but as he leaped up and across, he noticed the leader 's fire orb move—it was on the right because Takuma was standing on the right, but now as he was going left, the orb moved along with him.
Takuma realised something. The leader had to throw the shuriken through the orb to convert it into a flaming shuriken, which meant he had to adjust the orb's location to be in the trajectory of the shuriken—however, the orb was relatively slow to move.
He could outrun it.
The moment Takuma landed on the second-floor balcony, he immediately jumped to the opposite third-floor balcony—and as he expected, the orb which had just got in position to strike the second-floor balcony, couldn't move quick enough. When it reached the third-floor balcony, Takuma was already on the roof of the three-storey building.
He would be out of sight just for a moment. He weaved through hand seals. Chakra accumulated in his lungs, and his chest widened as he took a deep breath. The jutsu was primed, ready to be launched. Takuma recalled the leader used a sword and used his shortened tentacles to retrieve five shuriken from his weapon pouch.
Woosh! The moment the leader jumped to appear over the roof, the tentacles simultaneously launched the five shuriken. As predicted, the leader used his sword to deflect them—an easy feat for him—but it still meant his sword was engaged, leaving him no defensive option other than to evade.
However, the leader was in mid-air, and couldn't change his direction.
Water Release: Wild Water Wave
Takuma shortened the spread of the wave and concentrated it into a straight spray to increase the offensive output. And the distance between Takuma and his target was more than double than it was now between him and the leader —they were close enough that it was really going to hurt.
The concentrated spray of water slammed into the leader head-on. He was pushed back, and with no foothold, he dropped down the building. On his way down, he hit his chest on a balcony railing, and then hit his head on the side of the balcony.
'This was it,' thought Takuma.
This was his chance to escape.
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link here and in signature.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
CH_7.15 (233)
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
His initial plan was to kill Orange-Mask and then shake off the leader before escaping—but now, as he stood on the rooftop after blasting the leader off the roof and Orange-Mask was nowhere to be seen, Takuma wondered if he had found a window to escape.
He could tell that his two pursuers were trying to keep the whole ordeal quiet for some reason, and the leader was especially holding back—he deduced they were trying to keep it all relatively quiet so they could rope the rest of his team in. Takuma knew if he pushed it, there was a risk that the situation would escalate to a point he didn't want it to.
He weaved hand seals for the Hidden Mist Jutsu. In a couple seconds, a mist descended over the rooftops and spilled out down the street level. He jumped down into the thickening mist and was still in mid-air when he heard the intimidating scratching of a sword being released from its scabbard.
Goosebumps rose on his skin as Orange-Mask suddenly appeared through the mist. He was ascending while Takuma fell. The masked shinobi's sword struck quickly; Takuma only had the opportunity to raise his guard. The steel shredded his metal-plated arm guards and left a painful gash along both his arms.
He cursed as he stumbled to the floor, the water tentacles stabilising him, holding his breath and focusing on his hearing. There was a pin drop silence until Takuma heard soles rubber against the rough surface. He looked up and caught Orange-Mask zooming down at him, barely a few metres away. A tentacle contested the razor-sharp sword with a kunai that bounced off against the sword firmly held by Orange-Mask, allowing Takuma to sidestep the swing at the last moment.
Orange-Mask blitzed Takuma with a sword dance the moment his feet touched the ground. Takuma was pushed to his physical limits as he moved every part of his body; every swing had enough speed and power to end him. s tentacles rushed forth, but Orange-Mask immediately retreated, disappearing into the mist Takuma had created.
He realised he had set up the perfect playing field for an assassination. He had a choice to make, he could decide to trust the training he had done to fight in the mist, or lift the jutsu to revert back to the previous combat environment. A shadow cut through the air. One of the tentacles threw a kunai that Takuma caught, and he raised his hands above his head at the exact moment Orange-Mask brought his sword down at Takuma.
The sword slashed against the flat of kunai supported with both of Takuma's hands. Sparks flew and Takuma's heart leaped when he felt the sword slice through the kunai. His skin tingled at the shuddering sensation rattling his bones. He had felt it before with Kameko when she used her kenjutsu.
Orange-Mask was using chakra flow to enhance his sword's lethality.
Takuma urged his tentacles forward, eager to put some space between them. They wrapped around Orange-Mask's thighs and waist and threw him away. Takuma diverted the water to strengthen the tentacles and commanded them to slam Orange-Mask to the ground..
He'd use the brief break to prepare his strongest augmentation yet.
Orange-Mask used his core to spin in the air and got in the position. He swung his sword, cut through all the tentacles holding him, landed directly on his feet, and disappeared into the mist before Takuma could even raise his fist.
This won't do, he thought.
Takuma flexed his back, and the tentacles retreated into the water mass on his back. As much as he liked the flexibility of the tentacles, he didn't think he could split his focus between his body and the tentacles. He needed the extra concentration to focus on his senses to help him in the mist.
He held a kunai in his left while his right hung loosely at his waist.
"Come on," he mouthed to himself.
The mist split near Takuma as Orange-Mask snuck in from behind. He turned and blocked the repelled sword with a kunai swing, drawing closer with an augmented strike, ready to turn it into a second-form augmentation.
Takuma's fist passed through an afterimage. A second later, Orange-Mask reappeared to Takuma's right. He stabbed his sword into Takuma's neck, but the blade pierced the back of Takuma's hood as he bent forward at the last moment. Orange-Mask disappeared, and a volley of shuriken flew from the direction he'd exited from. Takuma deflected all of the shuriken but his balance was uneven, so he rolled forward, and a split-second later, Orange-Mask appeared from above to stab the empty ground.
He charged Takuma, who hit him in the crotch with a swift kick. Takuma used the kick's momentum to lift himself up and rushed a stumbling Orange-Mask. He tried to take him down to the ground, but Orange-Mask eluded Takuma's grab with a skillful sidestep and pushed Takuma's back to put some distance between them while he recovered.
Takuma turned back, intending to continue the pressure, but Orange-Mask had disappeared.
He could do this; he could contend, Takuma said to himself—but he didn't have a clear advantage. He was proficient in low-visibility combat, but his opponent was efficient and even masterful with the sword. If he wasn't winning against Orange-Mask, he feared what would happen if the leader joined the fray.
Takuma formed a quick release-seal and the mist thinned out. He saw Orange-Mask a few metres away from him, trying to sneak around to get at him from behind.
He turned around and dashed into the nearest alley just as Orange-Mask gave chase.
———
.
Kon leaned against the building in an alley with a groan and grabbed his head. His vision swam and then everything he saw doubled. He fumed in anger when he remembered getting caught up in another trick. He could almost hear the Master Instructor, who had taught him to be a shinobi since he was a five-year-old babe and had turned him into a ROOT agent.
He had let himself go. It had been years since he had been involved in active combat—in fact, he didn't like combat—it was crude and inelegant. He understood its place and importance in society; he just didn't like participating in it. He was among the weakest in his batch and his other peers—which is why he had made himself useful in the intellectual side of things and had managed the drug trade for ROOT.
But that didn't mean he was a slouch in combat. He cleared the ROOT standards in his category. Which was why it pissed him off that he wasn't able to engage the target in combat because he wasn't able to stay with him for long enough. He looked around and noticed mist from the Hidden Mist Jutsu thinning out. By the time he emerged from the alley, the mist was all but gone. His subordinate was known to use that jutsu, but he couldn't figure out why the jutsu was released.
Was his subordinate killed by the target? Or was the target able to hold an advantage in the mist? The second didn't seem viable—which, in turn, increased the former holding true. In one leap, Kon crossed the height to the nearby rooftop to find his subordinate and the target. As he looked around, he spotted the target running across the street. His concern for his subordinate vanished, and he furiously chased after the target, closing the distance.
Kon heard the sound of fighting in the opposite direction and stopped in surprise. Did the second target kill his other two subordinates and proceeded to find them? Kon didn't turn away and continued chasing the target. If he had indeed lost subordinates, then he had to ensure the capture of the target.
At the entrance of another alley, Kon blitzed through hand seals for Fire Release: Running Fire. He put a finger on his lips and breathed out two streams of fire that attached to the walls on both sides and crossed the surface. The fire streams ran past the target and reached the other end of the alley, gathering to form a wall blocking exit through the alley.
The target stopped and turned back to face Kon. With the fire in the background, there was a shadow over the target, which, along with the hood, obscured the target's face.
"I'd advise that you don't struggle; I might end up killing you," said Kon.
The target didn't reply and pulled out a kunai.
Kon pulled out his sword from its scabbard and dashed towards the target, but just before he reached him, he abruptly shifted direction towards the wall and used it as a springboard to shoot himself to the opposite wall and launch himself toward the target with his sword at the ready.
The target froze up for a split-second, making him a beat late as he tried to follow Kon. There was no time to evade. Kon thought the target would use his kunai to block the sword and was ready for a contest of strength—he had the momentum on his side. However, to his surprise, the target pulled his fist back. It seemed he was planning to trade damage—accepting to be pierced by Kon's sword in exchange for getting in a strike of his own.
Kon recalled the target's physical strength when he had kicked his subordinate through the wall. He accepted the trade—his body had been forged from the torture the Master Instructor liked to dress up as light sparring.
The target's strength didn't worry him.
Kon had the advantage of range and stabbed his sword forth. He smirked as the blade cleanly pierced through the target's shoulder. He then braced himself for the target's hit—but as he did, he detected chakra.
Anyone who trained chakra had the innate sense to detect the presence of chakra—but that sense was extremely dull. Two shinobi with enormous reserves could be sitting next to each other, and neither would detect chakra in the other. Only sensory-nin with a highly sensitive chakra sense could detect innate chakra in a meaningful way.
For everyone else, they could only detect chakra when it was being used near them in a high volume.
Kon's eyes shifted to the target's arm, which was about to hit him. He saw a translucent blue sheen covering the target's fist and wrist. Chakra was usually colourless when released out of the body in cases like chakra adhesion used for wall/tree and water walking—but it gained a blue colour when a high volume was concentrated.
Kon instantly recognized that he was about to be hit by an augmented strike with so much chakra packed into it that it had gained a visible blue colour—and it was coming directly for his face.
He had made an error in judgement.
He shifted his body at the last moment to move his arm up to protect his face. The target's fist collided with Kon's upper arm, immediately shattering it to the bone. Before Kon felt the pain, he felt a flood of foreign chakra rampage out of the fist and into his arm. He'd stopped the blow itself, but the target's violent chakra rampaged. The force fractured his shoulder blade and snapped his collarbone in half.
Before Kon's body could fire any pain signals, he saw something much worse. The moment the fist collided with Kon's arm; the target's entire arm exploded. Kon expected blood, flesh, and bone—but instead, he felt a splash of water in his face. Before his mind could process the information, the target turned into a human-shaped mass of water and then a puddle.
Kon landed on the ground, his left arm hanging limp by his side, and a shoulder that was sagging dangerously. The pain hit him; it was intense, even with the adrenaline running through him. He ignored it; his pain tolerance had been thoroughly developed.
But the shock was a welcome addition to help numb the pain. He had traded damage… with a clone. He had lost his left arm, taken damage that would require weeks to fix, and then a further few weeks in therapy to regain his original performance… all to kill a clone.
Kon remembered the sound of fighting he had heard prior, and it hit him: he'd been baited again. The target had used the clone to draw him away while the target engaged his subordinate in combat.
Kon swallowed his anger, held his broken arm with his other arm, and went to find his subordinate. Fifteen seconds later, Kon was standing over the dead body of his subordinate. His mask and weapons belt were missing.
He stared at the bloody hole in his subordinate's forehead as his other two subordinates arrived.
"Reporting," said one of them. "The target was a clone."
Kon closed his eyes, taking deep breaths to contain the rage as his iryo-nin subordinate immediately tended to his mangled arm.
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He could tell that his two pursuers were trying to keep the whole ordeal quiet for some reason, and the leader was especially holding back—he deduced they were trying to keep it all relatively quiet so they could rope the rest of his team in. Takuma knew if he pushed it, there was a risk that the situation would escalate to a point he didn't want it to.
He weaved hand seals for the Hidden Mist Jutsu. In a couple seconds, a mist descended over the rooftops and spilled out down the street level. He jumped down into the thickening mist and was still in mid-air when he heard the intimidating scratching of a sword being released from its scabbard.
Goosebumps rose on his skin as Orange-Mask suddenly appeared through the mist. He was ascending while Takuma fell. The masked shinobi's sword struck quickly; Takuma only had the opportunity to raise his guard. The steel shredded his metal-plated arm guards and left a painful gash along both his arms.
He cursed as he stumbled to the floor, the water tentacles stabilising him, holding his breath and focusing on his hearing. There was a pin drop silence until Takuma heard soles rubber against the rough surface. He looked up and caught Orange-Mask zooming down at him, barely a few metres away. A tentacle contested the razor-sharp sword with a kunai that bounced off against the sword firmly held by Orange-Mask, allowing Takuma to sidestep the swing at the last moment.
Orange-Mask blitzed Takuma with a sword dance the moment his feet touched the ground. Takuma was pushed to his physical limits as he moved every part of his body; every swing had enough speed and power to end him. s tentacles rushed forth, but Orange-Mask immediately retreated, disappearing into the mist Takuma had created.
He realised he had set up the perfect playing field for an assassination. He had a choice to make, he could decide to trust the training he had done to fight in the mist, or lift the jutsu to revert back to the previous combat environment. A shadow cut through the air. One of the tentacles threw a kunai that Takuma caught, and he raised his hands above his head at the exact moment Orange-Mask brought his sword down at Takuma.
The sword slashed against the flat of kunai supported with both of Takuma's hands. Sparks flew and Takuma's heart leaped when he felt the sword slice through the kunai. His skin tingled at the shuddering sensation rattling his bones. He had felt it before with Kameko when she used her kenjutsu.
Orange-Mask was using chakra flow to enhance his sword's lethality.
Takuma urged his tentacles forward, eager to put some space between them. They wrapped around Orange-Mask's thighs and waist and threw him away. Takuma diverted the water to strengthen the tentacles and commanded them to slam Orange-Mask to the ground..
He'd use the brief break to prepare his strongest augmentation yet.
Orange-Mask used his core to spin in the air and got in the position. He swung his sword, cut through all the tentacles holding him, landed directly on his feet, and disappeared into the mist before Takuma could even raise his fist.
This won't do, he thought.
Takuma flexed his back, and the tentacles retreated into the water mass on his back. As much as he liked the flexibility of the tentacles, he didn't think he could split his focus between his body and the tentacles. He needed the extra concentration to focus on his senses to help him in the mist.
He held a kunai in his left while his right hung loosely at his waist.
"Come on," he mouthed to himself.
The mist split near Takuma as Orange-Mask snuck in from behind. He turned and blocked the repelled sword with a kunai swing, drawing closer with an augmented strike, ready to turn it into a second-form augmentation.
Takuma's fist passed through an afterimage. A second later, Orange-Mask reappeared to Takuma's right. He stabbed his sword into Takuma's neck, but the blade pierced the back of Takuma's hood as he bent forward at the last moment. Orange-Mask disappeared, and a volley of shuriken flew from the direction he'd exited from. Takuma deflected all of the shuriken but his balance was uneven, so he rolled forward, and a split-second later, Orange-Mask appeared from above to stab the empty ground.
He charged Takuma, who hit him in the crotch with a swift kick. Takuma used the kick's momentum to lift himself up and rushed a stumbling Orange-Mask. He tried to take him down to the ground, but Orange-Mask eluded Takuma's grab with a skillful sidestep and pushed Takuma's back to put some distance between them while he recovered.
Takuma turned back, intending to continue the pressure, but Orange-Mask had disappeared.
He could do this; he could contend, Takuma said to himself—but he didn't have a clear advantage. He was proficient in low-visibility combat, but his opponent was efficient and even masterful with the sword. If he wasn't winning against Orange-Mask, he feared what would happen if the leader joined the fray.
Takuma formed a quick release-seal and the mist thinned out. He saw Orange-Mask a few metres away from him, trying to sneak around to get at him from behind.
He turned around and dashed into the nearest alley just as Orange-Mask gave chase.
———
.
Kon leaned against the building in an alley with a groan and grabbed his head. His vision swam and then everything he saw doubled. He fumed in anger when he remembered getting caught up in another trick. He could almost hear the Master Instructor, who had taught him to be a shinobi since he was a five-year-old babe and had turned him into a ROOT agent.
He had let himself go. It had been years since he had been involved in active combat—in fact, he didn't like combat—it was crude and inelegant. He understood its place and importance in society; he just didn't like participating in it. He was among the weakest in his batch and his other peers—which is why he had made himself useful in the intellectual side of things and had managed the drug trade for ROOT.
But that didn't mean he was a slouch in combat. He cleared the ROOT standards in his category. Which was why it pissed him off that he wasn't able to engage the target in combat because he wasn't able to stay with him for long enough. He looked around and noticed mist from the Hidden Mist Jutsu thinning out. By the time he emerged from the alley, the mist was all but gone. His subordinate was known to use that jutsu, but he couldn't figure out why the jutsu was released.
Was his subordinate killed by the target? Or was the target able to hold an advantage in the mist? The second didn't seem viable—which, in turn, increased the former holding true. In one leap, Kon crossed the height to the nearby rooftop to find his subordinate and the target. As he looked around, he spotted the target running across the street. His concern for his subordinate vanished, and he furiously chased after the target, closing the distance.
Kon heard the sound of fighting in the opposite direction and stopped in surprise. Did the second target kill his other two subordinates and proceeded to find them? Kon didn't turn away and continued chasing the target. If he had indeed lost subordinates, then he had to ensure the capture of the target.
At the entrance of another alley, Kon blitzed through hand seals for Fire Release: Running Fire. He put a finger on his lips and breathed out two streams of fire that attached to the walls on both sides and crossed the surface. The fire streams ran past the target and reached the other end of the alley, gathering to form a wall blocking exit through the alley.
The target stopped and turned back to face Kon. With the fire in the background, there was a shadow over the target, which, along with the hood, obscured the target's face.
"I'd advise that you don't struggle; I might end up killing you," said Kon.
The target didn't reply and pulled out a kunai.
Kon pulled out his sword from its scabbard and dashed towards the target, but just before he reached him, he abruptly shifted direction towards the wall and used it as a springboard to shoot himself to the opposite wall and launch himself toward the target with his sword at the ready.
The target froze up for a split-second, making him a beat late as he tried to follow Kon. There was no time to evade. Kon thought the target would use his kunai to block the sword and was ready for a contest of strength—he had the momentum on his side. However, to his surprise, the target pulled his fist back. It seemed he was planning to trade damage—accepting to be pierced by Kon's sword in exchange for getting in a strike of his own.
Kon recalled the target's physical strength when he had kicked his subordinate through the wall. He accepted the trade—his body had been forged from the torture the Master Instructor liked to dress up as light sparring.
The target's strength didn't worry him.
Kon had the advantage of range and stabbed his sword forth. He smirked as the blade cleanly pierced through the target's shoulder. He then braced himself for the target's hit—but as he did, he detected chakra.
Anyone who trained chakra had the innate sense to detect the presence of chakra—but that sense was extremely dull. Two shinobi with enormous reserves could be sitting next to each other, and neither would detect chakra in the other. Only sensory-nin with a highly sensitive chakra sense could detect innate chakra in a meaningful way.
For everyone else, they could only detect chakra when it was being used near them in a high volume.
Kon's eyes shifted to the target's arm, which was about to hit him. He saw a translucent blue sheen covering the target's fist and wrist. Chakra was usually colourless when released out of the body in cases like chakra adhesion used for wall/tree and water walking—but it gained a blue colour when a high volume was concentrated.
Kon instantly recognized that he was about to be hit by an augmented strike with so much chakra packed into it that it had gained a visible blue colour—and it was coming directly for his face.
He had made an error in judgement.
He shifted his body at the last moment to move his arm up to protect his face. The target's fist collided with Kon's upper arm, immediately shattering it to the bone. Before Kon felt the pain, he felt a flood of foreign chakra rampage out of the fist and into his arm. He'd stopped the blow itself, but the target's violent chakra rampaged. The force fractured his shoulder blade and snapped his collarbone in half.
Before Kon's body could fire any pain signals, he saw something much worse. The moment the fist collided with Kon's arm; the target's entire arm exploded. Kon expected blood, flesh, and bone—but instead, he felt a splash of water in his face. Before his mind could process the information, the target turned into a human-shaped mass of water and then a puddle.
Kon landed on the ground, his left arm hanging limp by his side, and a shoulder that was sagging dangerously. The pain hit him; it was intense, even with the adrenaline running through him. He ignored it; his pain tolerance had been thoroughly developed.
But the shock was a welcome addition to help numb the pain. He had traded damage… with a clone. He had lost his left arm, taken damage that would require weeks to fix, and then a further few weeks in therapy to regain his original performance… all to kill a clone.
Kon remembered the sound of fighting he had heard prior, and it hit him: he'd been baited again. The target had used the clone to draw him away while the target engaged his subordinate in combat.
Kon swallowed his anger, held his broken arm with his other arm, and went to find his subordinate. Fifteen seconds later, Kon was standing over the dead body of his subordinate. His mask and weapons belt were missing.
He stared at the bloody hole in his subordinate's forehead as his other two subordinates arrived.
"Reporting," said one of them. "The target was a clone."
Kon closed his eyes, taking deep breaths to contain the rage as his iryo-nin subordinate immediately tended to his mangled arm.
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CH_7.16 (234)
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
Takuma released the Hidden Mist Jutsu and ran into the nearest alley with Orange-Mask on his tail. He looked behind and dodged the shuriken launched for his back, making sure he was routing away from the leader. Orange-Mask stuck to his tail like a bloodhound, but Takuma noticed there was a greater distance between them than before. He deduced that Orange-Mask was probably starting to get tired. He didn't have that problem because of his endurance and durability focused training.
It was an advantage he could exploit. Pushing himself further, Takuma kicked up the pace, increasing the distance between them. Orange-Mask tried to slow him down by throwing kunai and shuriken at him, but Takuma continued to pull away.
He led them to the alley where he had kicked Orange-Mask through the building's walls.
Takuma recalled the busted pipes leaking water and saw an opportunity. He started weaving hand seals the moment he entered the street and completed the seals as he passed by the hole in the wall. The water rose and gathered to form a clone and the building's occupants, who had gathered around the hole, shrieked and ran back into the building. The clone hid in the building and waited until Takuma and Orange-Mask tore past, running off to find the leaders.
On Takuma's side, he stopped in the middle of the street and faced Orange-Mask.
The water mass behind him turned into four tentacles—the rest of the water was burned away during his fight with the leader. He had spent more than 30% of his chakra on the two clones and nearly 10% on other jutsu—it was more chakra he ever wanted to spend in the first ten minutes of combat, especially when he spent most of it running away.
With a kunai in both hands, Takuma charged toward Orange-Mask. He opened the throttle and rained down strikes on Orange-Mask, who defended with his sword. Instead of his usual strategy of looking for openings and creating opportunities, Takuma barraged Orange-Mask with strike after strike, not giving him any chance to retaliate. Orange-Mask was more than capable of responding to a bull attack and defended every one of Takuma's strikes, so he amped up the intensity and pushed his body to the limit, single-mindedly attacking like a rabid dog.
His tentacles moved in sync with the offence. They tried to hinder Orange-Mask's movements by grabbing for his limbs, splashing water into his eyes, drenching him and his gear, and doing everything to divert his attention. They annoyed Orange-Mask so much that he prioritised cutting them—forcing Takuma to reduce them from four small tentacles, to two full-sized tentacles.
Under the intense assault, Orange-Mask was pushed back, but he successfully defended himself without getting cut a single time.
Then, all of a sudden, Takuma jumped away from Orange-Mask.
It was time to end this, thought Takuma as he weaved hand seals.
———
.
Orange-Mask was surprised when the target suddenly put distance between them. The abrupt shift from a full-on assault where he couldn't retaliate bothered him. Seeing the target form hand seals made him apprehensive. He had the choices to disrupt him from completing his hand seals, counter with a ninjutsu of his own, or back away and react to whatever the target was going to throw at him.
His eyes went to the tentacles hanging behind the target. If he went in to disrupt the target, they'd stop him and the target was dangerous enough that a moment of disruption could be enough to spell his doom. Orange-Mask considered his second option to counter with a ninjutsu of his own, which felt like a viable option—he knew they were standing in the open and that Lord Kon would arrive at any moment—but he thought he could take down the target on his own.
Orange-Mask raised his hands and weaved hand seals for the Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu.
Their eyes met as both sides weaved hand seals, and Orange-Mask's vision blurred. He blinked his eyes, and his vision returned to normal, but the next second, his vision blurred worse than before. Colours started to leak into each other, objects blended together, and the world itself warped. He tried to focus on the target, but he couldn't see a thing. He looked down and saw his own body blurring into the road to the point where he couldn't tell where the road started and his body ended.
———
.
The genjutsu was successful.
Genjutsu: Haze was a touch-based jutsu that blurred the target's vision and twisted their sense of balance.
Until very recently, he didn't think he would be able to use touch-based genjutsu in active combat because of the problematic pre-requisite. They required him to apply his chakra on the person's skin, and most people didn't allow their opponents to grab them long enough to sufficiently apply chakra for genjutsu.
Not to mention, Orange-Mask was covered from top to bottom.
But Takuma figured out a workaround using the Water Style: Eight Tentacles. He poured his chakra into the tentacles and used the water to get his chakra onto Orange-Mask's skin. While fighting, each time the tentacles made contact, they left behind a small amount of chakra-charged water on Orange-Mask's. The gear wasn't waterproof; the water passed through the fabric and wet his skin, and delivered the chakra to the tenketsu points near the skin.
Takuma felt an exhilaration run up his spine when he saw Orange-Mask's body language change. He tried to hide it, but it was apparent that Orange-Mask was deep in the genjutsu—or else why would he stop forming hand seals? Takuma hadn't tested the application before, but the concept was sound— so seeing it work told him he had another combat-ready weapon available.
But Takuma's genjutsu were supplementary options—he still needed to finish the job.
He released the Eight Tentacles jutsu and let the water tentacles fall as he weaved hand seals for Water Release: Spirit Water Wave. The water from the fallen tentacles was pulled into a glob in front of Takuma's finger gun. Takuma aimed for Orange-Mask and shot a high-speed water bullet at his forehead.
"Bang," he whispered.
There was no sound as the water bullet cut through the air.
Orange-Mask shuddered before going limp and crumpling to the ground.
Takuma carefully moved toward him with another shot ready in case he wasn't dead. After confirming the kill, he breathed a sigh of relief before stiffening.
His clone had died.
Dispelling the jutsu, he rushed to remove Orange-Mask's weapon belt. After a moment, he decided to take the mask as well and sprinted to safety before the leader arrived.
———
.
That evening, the team, except for Gaku, who had chosen to remain home with Chinatsu, visited the factory base. The news about the "second" police station attack had spread like wildfire in Yu. The team wasn't involved, so they knew it was the work of a copycat—which was a severe problem that needed to be discussed and tackled immediately.
When the team reached the factory base, they found Takuma lying on the couch with his arm covering his eyes. His hair were wet from having bathed recently. They didn't think much of it, but then Takuma glanced at them after hearing them arrive and slowly sat up with a groan to reveal a bloody bandage over his other arm hidden from view.
"How did that happen?" asked Anko, surprised along with the rest of the team.
"A police station was set on fire today," Takuma replied as Rikku sat beside him and looked over the bloody arm.
"Yes, we know," said Anko.
"Well, I ran into the people who did it," Takuma hissed in pain when Rikku pulled the bandages, "and let's just say we ended up in an intense game of tag that went a bit too far."
"Oh my god," Iori gasped.
"I want to know everything from the top," said Anko, her already bad mood worsening at the state her subordinate was in.
Takuma didn't look like he wanted to, but he did so anyway. The news about the drug exchange between the Goharu Family and the enemy shinobi would've been good news, but when Takuma told them that the police station arson was a plot to draw out the team, it no longer seemed to be of any significance.
"I managed to escape them and then spent an hour roaming the city as a precaution before returning here." Takuma looked disgusted as he continued: "They killed and hung three people on poles outside the police station... just to poison our efforts and stifle the support we had rallied in the revolutionaries. We'll have to take steps to mitigate the damage quickly."
"We can talk about that tomorrow, Takuma," said Daiki, worried. "Are you alright? Is there something we can do for you? You can come with us to the home and stay there for the night if you want."
"I agree," said Anko immediately.
"Thank you, but I'm fine," Takuma shook his head and stared at the entire team for a long moment.
"What is it?" asked Anko.
"...I found that—" Takuma stopped talking, fully leaned into the couch, and closed his eyes briefly before sitting back up. "...When that group was pursuing me, I noticed—well, my clone noticed—that I recognized the gear they were wearing." Takuma bowed his head. "The assassins who tried to kill me back home... they were wearing the same gear I saw today."
Iori and Daiki gasped while the rest stared at Takuma in shock.
"Are you sure?" asked Kameko.
Takuma nodded. "Yes... I, of course, had my doubts, so I got proof."
He rose and walked to a nearby table, tossing a hiltless blade to Kameko. She looked down at the blade. It seemed like a normal blade, but she flipped and saw a pattern of a tree, with its underground roots visible, imprinted on its base.
"That day, I had to scavenge weapons from one of the assassins and investigated them to find that smith's touchmark," Takuma pointed at the blade. "I can accept mistaking the gear, but with that mark on the blade, I'm a hundred percent sure that they're connected. I guess they belong to the same organisation."
The atmosphere in the base was indescribable. The team gazed at Takuma, unsure what this meant for them and their mission.
"I'll have to report this, you know," said Anko.
"Do it," said Takuma, sombre. "Tell them to contact Uchiha Kano in the Leaf Military Police Force. Last I knew, she was handling my assassination case. I gave her the knife with the touchmark. She might have some more information about the organisation, and now that we know that there are living organisation members, we can interrogate them for even more information!"
Takuma looked up at Anko with a fire in his belly. The look on her face confused him, but then he recognized the damp look of doubt and concern in her eyes.
"The mission is and will remain my main priority," Takuma stressed.
"I hope so," she replied.
Clearly, she wasn't entirely sure if Takuma's desire for revenge wouldn't distract him from their mission.
———
.
Kon lay on a bed in a clean room as an iryo-nin worked on his shoulder. The iryo-nin had been working on Kon's shattered shoulder for an hour. The operation would continue for another hour to stabilise Kon's shoulder and put it in a position for accelerated healing through further sessions.
Kon opened his eyes, revealing he wasn't put under for the operation. He was given something for pain, but he was wide awake.
He stared at the ceiling, going through everything he could remember from the chase and fight against the target. The day had been terrible—he'd been injured and lost one of his men. His report back to his superior officer would put his situation in danger with a real chance of getting pulled from the assignment. If, by some miracle, that didn't happen, the Hidden Cloud jonin would use his failure to catch the culprit behind the police force bombing as a reason to shove their pea-brained ideas into the city conversion strategy.
No matter which way he cut it, Kon had to resolve this problem; for that, he needed information, and his memories were the only source. He closed his eyes and recalled the target. His clothes, movements, body language, the jutsu he used, and every minute detail he could pull out of his memories.
"It was the Hidden Leaf Kata," Kon opened his eyes.
"Pardon, sir?" asked the iryo-nin.
"I recognized the vestiges of the Hidden Leaf Kata in the target's combat style." Kon narrowed his eyes as he focused on the little taijutsu the target had shown. "Adopted as the base but… modified to suit the target's needs."
Kon clicked his tongue. He wasn't a taijutsu specialist. It was lucky that he had even noticed the relics of the Hidden Leaf Kata in the target's combat style, but trying to gain deeper insight into the target through his combat style was far out of his capabilities.
Knowing that the target showed the Hidden Leaf Kata reduced his search circle to the Land of Fire. He couldn't be sure if the target was someone from the Leaf shinobi organisation as the style was widespread in the nation, and every other dojo run by a retired shinobi taught the style. However, the Hidden Leaf supported the Hidden Steam in the Frost-Steam war, so it was a reasonable assumption that the target could be a Hidden Leaf spy.
But the target had bombed a police station, which was an act of altering the status quo in Yu.
"He could be a Leaf ANBU," Kon said aloud—but it didn't sound right to him. An ANBU wouldn't approach the burning police station so brazenly, leaving themselves open and easily spotted. That showed surprisingly bad spycraft.
"What else?"
"The target must've been skilled with chakra augmentation for this level of damage," said the iryo-nin.
"Chakra augmentation," Kon hummed before shaking his head. Chakra augmentation wasn't a commonplace technique, but they were universally present worldwide—which didn't help him narrow down the target's identity any further.
Just when Kon was about to move on from chakra augmentation, a thought entered his mind. He recalled the last time he had read about chakra augmentation—the hateful face of the person Kon blamed for all his recent problems flashed into his mind.
"Chakra augmentation... Hidden Leaf Kata..."
It couldn't be, Kon said to himself—plenty of people in the Hidden Leaf knew chakra augmentation.
Kon swallowed hard.
"...Could you send for an intel request," he said to the iryo-nin.
"The subject, sir?"
"Genin Takuma of the Leaf Military Police Force... Where is he right now?"
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It was an advantage he could exploit. Pushing himself further, Takuma kicked up the pace, increasing the distance between them. Orange-Mask tried to slow him down by throwing kunai and shuriken at him, but Takuma continued to pull away.
He led them to the alley where he had kicked Orange-Mask through the building's walls.
Takuma recalled the busted pipes leaking water and saw an opportunity. He started weaving hand seals the moment he entered the street and completed the seals as he passed by the hole in the wall. The water rose and gathered to form a clone and the building's occupants, who had gathered around the hole, shrieked and ran back into the building. The clone hid in the building and waited until Takuma and Orange-Mask tore past, running off to find the leaders.
On Takuma's side, he stopped in the middle of the street and faced Orange-Mask.
The water mass behind him turned into four tentacles—the rest of the water was burned away during his fight with the leader. He had spent more than 30% of his chakra on the two clones and nearly 10% on other jutsu—it was more chakra he ever wanted to spend in the first ten minutes of combat, especially when he spent most of it running away.
With a kunai in both hands, Takuma charged toward Orange-Mask. He opened the throttle and rained down strikes on Orange-Mask, who defended with his sword. Instead of his usual strategy of looking for openings and creating opportunities, Takuma barraged Orange-Mask with strike after strike, not giving him any chance to retaliate. Orange-Mask was more than capable of responding to a bull attack and defended every one of Takuma's strikes, so he amped up the intensity and pushed his body to the limit, single-mindedly attacking like a rabid dog.
His tentacles moved in sync with the offence. They tried to hinder Orange-Mask's movements by grabbing for his limbs, splashing water into his eyes, drenching him and his gear, and doing everything to divert his attention. They annoyed Orange-Mask so much that he prioritised cutting them—forcing Takuma to reduce them from four small tentacles, to two full-sized tentacles.
Under the intense assault, Orange-Mask was pushed back, but he successfully defended himself without getting cut a single time.
Then, all of a sudden, Takuma jumped away from Orange-Mask.
It was time to end this, thought Takuma as he weaved hand seals.
———
.
Orange-Mask was surprised when the target suddenly put distance between them. The abrupt shift from a full-on assault where he couldn't retaliate bothered him. Seeing the target form hand seals made him apprehensive. He had the choices to disrupt him from completing his hand seals, counter with a ninjutsu of his own, or back away and react to whatever the target was going to throw at him.
His eyes went to the tentacles hanging behind the target. If he went in to disrupt the target, they'd stop him and the target was dangerous enough that a moment of disruption could be enough to spell his doom. Orange-Mask considered his second option to counter with a ninjutsu of his own, which felt like a viable option—he knew they were standing in the open and that Lord Kon would arrive at any moment—but he thought he could take down the target on his own.
Orange-Mask raised his hands and weaved hand seals for the Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu.
Their eyes met as both sides weaved hand seals, and Orange-Mask's vision blurred. He blinked his eyes, and his vision returned to normal, but the next second, his vision blurred worse than before. Colours started to leak into each other, objects blended together, and the world itself warped. He tried to focus on the target, but he couldn't see a thing. He looked down and saw his own body blurring into the road to the point where he couldn't tell where the road started and his body ended.
———
.
The genjutsu was successful.
Genjutsu: Haze was a touch-based jutsu that blurred the target's vision and twisted their sense of balance.
Until very recently, he didn't think he would be able to use touch-based genjutsu in active combat because of the problematic pre-requisite. They required him to apply his chakra on the person's skin, and most people didn't allow their opponents to grab them long enough to sufficiently apply chakra for genjutsu.
Not to mention, Orange-Mask was covered from top to bottom.
But Takuma figured out a workaround using the Water Style: Eight Tentacles. He poured his chakra into the tentacles and used the water to get his chakra onto Orange-Mask's skin. While fighting, each time the tentacles made contact, they left behind a small amount of chakra-charged water on Orange-Mask's. The gear wasn't waterproof; the water passed through the fabric and wet his skin, and delivered the chakra to the tenketsu points near the skin.
Takuma felt an exhilaration run up his spine when he saw Orange-Mask's body language change. He tried to hide it, but it was apparent that Orange-Mask was deep in the genjutsu—or else why would he stop forming hand seals? Takuma hadn't tested the application before, but the concept was sound— so seeing it work told him he had another combat-ready weapon available.
But Takuma's genjutsu were supplementary options—he still needed to finish the job.
He released the Eight Tentacles jutsu and let the water tentacles fall as he weaved hand seals for Water Release: Spirit Water Wave. The water from the fallen tentacles was pulled into a glob in front of Takuma's finger gun. Takuma aimed for Orange-Mask and shot a high-speed water bullet at his forehead.
"Bang," he whispered.
There was no sound as the water bullet cut through the air.
Orange-Mask shuddered before going limp and crumpling to the ground.
Takuma carefully moved toward him with another shot ready in case he wasn't dead. After confirming the kill, he breathed a sigh of relief before stiffening.
His clone had died.
Dispelling the jutsu, he rushed to remove Orange-Mask's weapon belt. After a moment, he decided to take the mask as well and sprinted to safety before the leader arrived.
———
.
That evening, the team, except for Gaku, who had chosen to remain home with Chinatsu, visited the factory base. The news about the "second" police station attack had spread like wildfire in Yu. The team wasn't involved, so they knew it was the work of a copycat—which was a severe problem that needed to be discussed and tackled immediately.
When the team reached the factory base, they found Takuma lying on the couch with his arm covering his eyes. His hair were wet from having bathed recently. They didn't think much of it, but then Takuma glanced at them after hearing them arrive and slowly sat up with a groan to reveal a bloody bandage over his other arm hidden from view.
"How did that happen?" asked Anko, surprised along with the rest of the team.
"A police station was set on fire today," Takuma replied as Rikku sat beside him and looked over the bloody arm.
"Yes, we know," said Anko.
"Well, I ran into the people who did it," Takuma hissed in pain when Rikku pulled the bandages, "and let's just say we ended up in an intense game of tag that went a bit too far."
"Oh my god," Iori gasped.
"I want to know everything from the top," said Anko, her already bad mood worsening at the state her subordinate was in.
Takuma didn't look like he wanted to, but he did so anyway. The news about the drug exchange between the Goharu Family and the enemy shinobi would've been good news, but when Takuma told them that the police station arson was a plot to draw out the team, it no longer seemed to be of any significance.
"I managed to escape them and then spent an hour roaming the city as a precaution before returning here." Takuma looked disgusted as he continued: "They killed and hung three people on poles outside the police station... just to poison our efforts and stifle the support we had rallied in the revolutionaries. We'll have to take steps to mitigate the damage quickly."
"We can talk about that tomorrow, Takuma," said Daiki, worried. "Are you alright? Is there something we can do for you? You can come with us to the home and stay there for the night if you want."
"I agree," said Anko immediately.
"Thank you, but I'm fine," Takuma shook his head and stared at the entire team for a long moment.
"What is it?" asked Anko.
"...I found that—" Takuma stopped talking, fully leaned into the couch, and closed his eyes briefly before sitting back up. "...When that group was pursuing me, I noticed—well, my clone noticed—that I recognized the gear they were wearing." Takuma bowed his head. "The assassins who tried to kill me back home... they were wearing the same gear I saw today."
Iori and Daiki gasped while the rest stared at Takuma in shock.
"Are you sure?" asked Kameko.
Takuma nodded. "Yes... I, of course, had my doubts, so I got proof."
He rose and walked to a nearby table, tossing a hiltless blade to Kameko. She looked down at the blade. It seemed like a normal blade, but she flipped and saw a pattern of a tree, with its underground roots visible, imprinted on its base.
"That day, I had to scavenge weapons from one of the assassins and investigated them to find that smith's touchmark," Takuma pointed at the blade. "I can accept mistaking the gear, but with that mark on the blade, I'm a hundred percent sure that they're connected. I guess they belong to the same organisation."
The atmosphere in the base was indescribable. The team gazed at Takuma, unsure what this meant for them and their mission.
"I'll have to report this, you know," said Anko.
"Do it," said Takuma, sombre. "Tell them to contact Uchiha Kano in the Leaf Military Police Force. Last I knew, she was handling my assassination case. I gave her the knife with the touchmark. She might have some more information about the organisation, and now that we know that there are living organisation members, we can interrogate them for even more information!"
Takuma looked up at Anko with a fire in his belly. The look on her face confused him, but then he recognized the damp look of doubt and concern in her eyes.
"The mission is and will remain my main priority," Takuma stressed.
"I hope so," she replied.
Clearly, she wasn't entirely sure if Takuma's desire for revenge wouldn't distract him from their mission.
———
.
Kon lay on a bed in a clean room as an iryo-nin worked on his shoulder. The iryo-nin had been working on Kon's shattered shoulder for an hour. The operation would continue for another hour to stabilise Kon's shoulder and put it in a position for accelerated healing through further sessions.
Kon opened his eyes, revealing he wasn't put under for the operation. He was given something for pain, but he was wide awake.
He stared at the ceiling, going through everything he could remember from the chase and fight against the target. The day had been terrible—he'd been injured and lost one of his men. His report back to his superior officer would put his situation in danger with a real chance of getting pulled from the assignment. If, by some miracle, that didn't happen, the Hidden Cloud jonin would use his failure to catch the culprit behind the police force bombing as a reason to shove their pea-brained ideas into the city conversion strategy.
No matter which way he cut it, Kon had to resolve this problem; for that, he needed information, and his memories were the only source. He closed his eyes and recalled the target. His clothes, movements, body language, the jutsu he used, and every minute detail he could pull out of his memories.
"It was the Hidden Leaf Kata," Kon opened his eyes.
"Pardon, sir?" asked the iryo-nin.
"I recognized the vestiges of the Hidden Leaf Kata in the target's combat style." Kon narrowed his eyes as he focused on the little taijutsu the target had shown. "Adopted as the base but… modified to suit the target's needs."
Kon clicked his tongue. He wasn't a taijutsu specialist. It was lucky that he had even noticed the relics of the Hidden Leaf Kata in the target's combat style, but trying to gain deeper insight into the target through his combat style was far out of his capabilities.
Knowing that the target showed the Hidden Leaf Kata reduced his search circle to the Land of Fire. He couldn't be sure if the target was someone from the Leaf shinobi organisation as the style was widespread in the nation, and every other dojo run by a retired shinobi taught the style. However, the Hidden Leaf supported the Hidden Steam in the Frost-Steam war, so it was a reasonable assumption that the target could be a Hidden Leaf spy.
But the target had bombed a police station, which was an act of altering the status quo in Yu.
"He could be a Leaf ANBU," Kon said aloud—but it didn't sound right to him. An ANBU wouldn't approach the burning police station so brazenly, leaving themselves open and easily spotted. That showed surprisingly bad spycraft.
"What else?"
"The target must've been skilled with chakra augmentation for this level of damage," said the iryo-nin.
"Chakra augmentation," Kon hummed before shaking his head. Chakra augmentation wasn't a commonplace technique, but they were universally present worldwide—which didn't help him narrow down the target's identity any further.
Just when Kon was about to move on from chakra augmentation, a thought entered his mind. He recalled the last time he had read about chakra augmentation—the hateful face of the person Kon blamed for all his recent problems flashed into his mind.
"Chakra augmentation... Hidden Leaf Kata..."
It couldn't be, Kon said to himself—plenty of people in the Hidden Leaf knew chakra augmentation.
Kon swallowed hard.
"...Could you send for an intel request," he said to the iryo-nin.
"The subject, sir?"
"Genin Takuma of the Leaf Military Police Force... Where is he right now?"
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Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
CH_7.17 (235)
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
The sun climbed up the sky, bringing about the early morning. Takuma opened his eyes at dot six in the morning in the industrial district's factory base. His comfy camping roll sat a few minutes away, but he was separated from the cold, concrete floor by a thin bed sheet. He stayed down for a minute before getting up and putting on some pants along with his weighted gear: a vest and a pair of wrap-around ankle and wrist weights. The gear's load had been increased, putting even more of a burden on Takuma's body with every movement.
He walked to the nearest reinforced steel column, stopping a couple of metres away. He put his hands up front and punched the air in the steel column's direction. The shadow boxing slowly ramped up in intensity until beads of sweat dripped to the ground around his feet. Eventually, Takuma began to slow down, but he forced himself to cycle through jabs, hooks, crosses, uppercuts, and elbow strikes until he couldn't move without feeling the burn. After letting his arms rest for fifteen seconds, he repeated the same exercise with his legs, cycling through kicks until his body forced him to stop.
With the warm-up done, Takuma eyed the column before him and jabbed in its direction. The chakra jetted up his arm and shot out his fist.
Ting!
The chakra from the second-form augmentation touched the reinforced steel, producing a sonorous sound.
Takuma jabbed towards the column again.
TONG!
Too much power. He took a deep breath and threw another augmented jab to create the proper sound. Takuma threw second-form augmentation strikes at the steel column, judging and training his fine control over his augmentation by using sound. He couldn't train outdoors; fortunately, the factory was large enough for his needs. As long as he kept the noise down, he was free to do whatever he wanted.
Despite how open the factory was, he sometimes felt stifled from not getting to train under the open sky with grass under his feet like he was used to, but he couldn't be greedy. If there were one thing he could ask for, it would be sparring—he hadn't sparred since he had left Camp Banana. Sparring was vital as he got to make and test adjustments to his fighting style and combat strategy by testing them out against living and, more importantly, thinking opponents. And for that, there was no better environment than the Ring—a place he missed every day.
Takuma constantly moved his body for two hours, switching between intense and light stretches. His increased physical conditioning had begun to show results and the imbalance between his physical and spiritual energies seemed to have shortened. By his estimates, he would attain balance in around a year and a half. His chakra quality hadn't improved enough for him to see any real benefits, but he was looking forward to it.
Immersing himself in training could keep him away from his thoughts for so long.
He walked to a table where the naked blade sat with the familiar smith's touchstone. Not in his wildest dreams did he think he would see that touchmark while he was out of the Land of Fire, fighting in a foreign war. He assumed the assassins belonged to a local organisation, but if they were present in Yu, helping the Hidden Frost control the city—then the organisation's scale couldn't be local.
"Hey, I brought some food!"
Takuma flinched and looked back to see Daiki walking towards with a parcel. For a massive guy, he had deceptively silent footsteps—but it was to be expected, Daiki was a ranger.
"Thank you," Takuma smiled as he received the hot food parcel.
Daiki noticed the knife blade on the table and looked at Takuma. "Remember anything new?"
Takuma shook his head and sighed, "I feel I know less about them now than before."
"I heard Anko's already sent a letter to the Uchiha," said Daiki.
Daiki was the team member who visited the factory base the least because of his duty as the "muscle." He was either at home to protect Chinatsu or visiting prospective clients with Gaku as his bodyguard. Due to his size, he was an eye-catching figure, and thus, just like Takuma, couldn't be connected to the team.
Especially Takuma, which was why he visited the factory base the least.
"She did. After it reaches the camp, they'll send it to the war commission, which will communicate with the Police Force. Depending on how quickly all the parties move and the cooperation level of the Police Force, we could be looking at a week before we get a response," said Takuma.
"The war commission will move quickly, given our mission and location."
"Let's hope so."
"So, what's the plan now?"
"Gaku and I will be going to meet the resistance group. We need their support so we've got to convince them that we weren't behind the police station fiasco."
"How're you going to do that?"
"No idea yet," Takuma sighed. "Hopefully, something will come to me before the meeting."
———
.
Takuma stood in an empty basement of some building in a random part of Yu. He wore a full-body robe and a blank white porcelain mask identical to the last meeting. As Gaku talked to Motohiro, the leader of his resistance group, Takuma could feel the other members' eyes on him—the youngsters in the room didn't even bother to hide their doubt and blame, and they knew he was a shinobi who could slaughter them all.
That was a huge problem. If Motohiro's group genuinely resented them, no amount of healthy fear would stop the resistance screwing them over by reporting them to the Hidden Frost forces.
"No matter how you ask, how many times you ask, my answer will be the same," Gaku spoke calmly to Motohiro and his group. "We weren't involved in the arson at the police station."
"It sure looked like your work, and you even went one step ahead and killed this time," said Motohiro, glancing at Takuma.
"You killed a good man!"
From the crowd, a man yelled at Takuma and Gaku. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was flushed as he pointed furiously at them. The people around the man held him back, fearing he would do something stupid.
"We didn't," said Gaku, "why would we kill those men?"
"Because you're shinobi," Motohiro said as though stating the obvious. "One of them was a good man—a great man!"
"Even though he was in the police?"
"Because he was in the police!" said the man who had yelled.
Motohiro explained: "He had been in the police for a decade. He stayed in the force to protect the city when your kind put thugs into power. And because he did that, he... he was killed."
The entire room looked sombre. There was a clear distance between the resistance group and them. Just one week back, the resistance group was excited and willing to help them, but today, they looked like being in the same room was a grave sin.
Gaku looked at Takuma before turning to Motohiro. "Be reasonable, Motohiro. If we wanted anything like this to happen, we would've done it the first time. We didn't even know the connection between you and that police officer. Ask around; you've been there for all the meetings. We didn't go around you to get some information."
Gaku took a step toward Motohiro, which made the entire resistance group react negatively and move towards Motohiro to protect him.
Motohiro raised his hand to calm the group down.
"Even if I wanted to work with you, my people don't trust you anymore," he said. "I'm their leader, not their ruler. They trust me to do the right thing. If they don't want to work with you, I'll follow their wishes. And right now... the right thing to do is to not work with you."
'Bullshit,' thought Takuma—if Motohiro wanted, he could smooth this kink quickly; the group trusted him completely and would follow his command even if they didn't like it. Motohiro's milling business had been feeding the families connected to his resistance group; he was their saviour.
So, he was talking about separating from the team because Motohiro didn't want to work with them.
Takuma stepped forward to stand beside Gaku.
"What can we do to earn the group's trust back?"
Motohiro stood up straighter and looked at his group behind him.
"We have simple demands," he said. "We realise we don't trust you because we know nothing about you. We want you to open up about your operations instead of only coming to us at the end when you need our help."
"We can do that," said Gaku before Takuma could answer.
"We need a token to support that claim." He looked at Takuma. "We want you to show your face... Right here, right now."
Takuma was taken aback and genuinely didn't know how to respond. However, it wasn't his first time facing a situation like this. When he was operating as Tobi, the drug dealer, he wore the mask to hide his identity—and most of the time, people refused to work with him because of his insistence on wearing the mask.
All of his connections as Tobi were built on the back of Enomoto acting as a guarantor, which only got him so far, even with the man's backing. He had more connections in the underworld as Takuma, which he had gained through the Ring. People liked to put a face to the name, so while it shouldn't be surprising that Motohiro wanted to see his face, he was nevertheless momentarily rendered speechless.
There were other resistance groups they could work with, but Motohiro's group was the most organised. As a leader, had the perfect level of agreeableness and capability, and the trust of his people without much internal struggle or disputes. They could switch to those other groups, but it would take time and effort. Moreover, if the news leaked that Motohiro's group had broken the partnership, the different resistance groups might not be as malleable as the team would like.
Takuma decided to cooperate with Motohiro's group. He had already put the team in danger by getting caught by an unknown organisation; he didn't want to create another problem by protecting his face.
"We agree," said Gaku before Takuma could speak.
He gritted his teeth. If he had wanted to refuse, it would have looked like there had been no communication between him and Gaku—in front of a resistance group at that.
"If that's what's required..."
He reached for his porcelain mask and pulled it down to reveal his face.
"You... you're a kid," said Motohiro, surprised.
Takuma sighed, having gotten used to the reaction from civilians. He had found that showing his scars was an excellent way to stop the kid talk; unfortunately, he was wearing too many clothes to strip. So he decided to go with a simple demonstration. Takuma raised his foot, pumped chakra through, and stomped it down lightly. The tiled floor of the basement shattered from end to end. He controlled his strength so only the topmost layer cracked, but the entire room jumped, flinched back, and screaming in surprise, their eyes stuck to Takuma in fear.
"Show off," Gaku whispered between coughs.
"I hope this is enough for my competence to be clear moving forward," Takuma ignored his colleague and addressed the Yu citizens.
There was fear in Motohiro's eyes, but he put up a strong front and stood up to Gaku and Takuma.
"One more thing..."
"You're pushing it," said Gaku, his laidback attitude quickly draining.
"I said we had simple demands, and this show of trust is beneficial for both parties; we will match what you showed—but before that, you must do something for us."
Takuma narrowed his eyes. It was a crucial moment; they couldn't let the resistance group become so cocky that they could hold their support over the team's head as a hostage.
Takuma thought for a moment before asking Gaku to stand.
The man frowned. "What is it? I won't guarantee we'll help until I hear the demand."
"We want you to help us with a robbery."
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He walked to the nearest reinforced steel column, stopping a couple of metres away. He put his hands up front and punched the air in the steel column's direction. The shadow boxing slowly ramped up in intensity until beads of sweat dripped to the ground around his feet. Eventually, Takuma began to slow down, but he forced himself to cycle through jabs, hooks, crosses, uppercuts, and elbow strikes until he couldn't move without feeling the burn. After letting his arms rest for fifteen seconds, he repeated the same exercise with his legs, cycling through kicks until his body forced him to stop.
With the warm-up done, Takuma eyed the column before him and jabbed in its direction. The chakra jetted up his arm and shot out his fist.
Ting!
The chakra from the second-form augmentation touched the reinforced steel, producing a sonorous sound.
Takuma jabbed towards the column again.
TONG!
Too much power. He took a deep breath and threw another augmented jab to create the proper sound. Takuma threw second-form augmentation strikes at the steel column, judging and training his fine control over his augmentation by using sound. He couldn't train outdoors; fortunately, the factory was large enough for his needs. As long as he kept the noise down, he was free to do whatever he wanted.
Despite how open the factory was, he sometimes felt stifled from not getting to train under the open sky with grass under his feet like he was used to, but he couldn't be greedy. If there were one thing he could ask for, it would be sparring—he hadn't sparred since he had left Camp Banana. Sparring was vital as he got to make and test adjustments to his fighting style and combat strategy by testing them out against living and, more importantly, thinking opponents. And for that, there was no better environment than the Ring—a place he missed every day.
Takuma constantly moved his body for two hours, switching between intense and light stretches. His increased physical conditioning had begun to show results and the imbalance between his physical and spiritual energies seemed to have shortened. By his estimates, he would attain balance in around a year and a half. His chakra quality hadn't improved enough for him to see any real benefits, but he was looking forward to it.
Immersing himself in training could keep him away from his thoughts for so long.
He walked to a table where the naked blade sat with the familiar smith's touchstone. Not in his wildest dreams did he think he would see that touchmark while he was out of the Land of Fire, fighting in a foreign war. He assumed the assassins belonged to a local organisation, but if they were present in Yu, helping the Hidden Frost control the city—then the organisation's scale couldn't be local.
"Hey, I brought some food!"
Takuma flinched and looked back to see Daiki walking towards with a parcel. For a massive guy, he had deceptively silent footsteps—but it was to be expected, Daiki was a ranger.
"Thank you," Takuma smiled as he received the hot food parcel.
Daiki noticed the knife blade on the table and looked at Takuma. "Remember anything new?"
Takuma shook his head and sighed, "I feel I know less about them now than before."
"I heard Anko's already sent a letter to the Uchiha," said Daiki.
Daiki was the team member who visited the factory base the least because of his duty as the "muscle." He was either at home to protect Chinatsu or visiting prospective clients with Gaku as his bodyguard. Due to his size, he was an eye-catching figure, and thus, just like Takuma, couldn't be connected to the team.
Especially Takuma, which was why he visited the factory base the least.
"She did. After it reaches the camp, they'll send it to the war commission, which will communicate with the Police Force. Depending on how quickly all the parties move and the cooperation level of the Police Force, we could be looking at a week before we get a response," said Takuma.
"The war commission will move quickly, given our mission and location."
"Let's hope so."
"So, what's the plan now?"
"Gaku and I will be going to meet the resistance group. We need their support so we've got to convince them that we weren't behind the police station fiasco."
"How're you going to do that?"
"No idea yet," Takuma sighed. "Hopefully, something will come to me before the meeting."
———
.
Takuma stood in an empty basement of some building in a random part of Yu. He wore a full-body robe and a blank white porcelain mask identical to the last meeting. As Gaku talked to Motohiro, the leader of his resistance group, Takuma could feel the other members' eyes on him—the youngsters in the room didn't even bother to hide their doubt and blame, and they knew he was a shinobi who could slaughter them all.
That was a huge problem. If Motohiro's group genuinely resented them, no amount of healthy fear would stop the resistance screwing them over by reporting them to the Hidden Frost forces.
"No matter how you ask, how many times you ask, my answer will be the same," Gaku spoke calmly to Motohiro and his group. "We weren't involved in the arson at the police station."
"It sure looked like your work, and you even went one step ahead and killed this time," said Motohiro, glancing at Takuma.
"You killed a good man!"
From the crowd, a man yelled at Takuma and Gaku. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was flushed as he pointed furiously at them. The people around the man held him back, fearing he would do something stupid.
"We didn't," said Gaku, "why would we kill those men?"
"Because you're shinobi," Motohiro said as though stating the obvious. "One of them was a good man—a great man!"
"Even though he was in the police?"
"Because he was in the police!" said the man who had yelled.
Motohiro explained: "He had been in the police for a decade. He stayed in the force to protect the city when your kind put thugs into power. And because he did that, he... he was killed."
The entire room looked sombre. There was a clear distance between the resistance group and them. Just one week back, the resistance group was excited and willing to help them, but today, they looked like being in the same room was a grave sin.
Gaku looked at Takuma before turning to Motohiro. "Be reasonable, Motohiro. If we wanted anything like this to happen, we would've done it the first time. We didn't even know the connection between you and that police officer. Ask around; you've been there for all the meetings. We didn't go around you to get some information."
Gaku took a step toward Motohiro, which made the entire resistance group react negatively and move towards Motohiro to protect him.
Motohiro raised his hand to calm the group down.
"Even if I wanted to work with you, my people don't trust you anymore," he said. "I'm their leader, not their ruler. They trust me to do the right thing. If they don't want to work with you, I'll follow their wishes. And right now... the right thing to do is to not work with you."
'Bullshit,' thought Takuma—if Motohiro wanted, he could smooth this kink quickly; the group trusted him completely and would follow his command even if they didn't like it. Motohiro's milling business had been feeding the families connected to his resistance group; he was their saviour.
So, he was talking about separating from the team because Motohiro didn't want to work with them.
Takuma stepped forward to stand beside Gaku.
"What can we do to earn the group's trust back?"
Motohiro stood up straighter and looked at his group behind him.
"We have simple demands," he said. "We realise we don't trust you because we know nothing about you. We want you to open up about your operations instead of only coming to us at the end when you need our help."
"We can do that," said Gaku before Takuma could answer.
"We need a token to support that claim." He looked at Takuma. "We want you to show your face... Right here, right now."
Takuma was taken aback and genuinely didn't know how to respond. However, it wasn't his first time facing a situation like this. When he was operating as Tobi, the drug dealer, he wore the mask to hide his identity—and most of the time, people refused to work with him because of his insistence on wearing the mask.
All of his connections as Tobi were built on the back of Enomoto acting as a guarantor, which only got him so far, even with the man's backing. He had more connections in the underworld as Takuma, which he had gained through the Ring. People liked to put a face to the name, so while it shouldn't be surprising that Motohiro wanted to see his face, he was nevertheless momentarily rendered speechless.
There were other resistance groups they could work with, but Motohiro's group was the most organised. As a leader, had the perfect level of agreeableness and capability, and the trust of his people without much internal struggle or disputes. They could switch to those other groups, but it would take time and effort. Moreover, if the news leaked that Motohiro's group had broken the partnership, the different resistance groups might not be as malleable as the team would like.
Takuma decided to cooperate with Motohiro's group. He had already put the team in danger by getting caught by an unknown organisation; he didn't want to create another problem by protecting his face.
"We agree," said Gaku before Takuma could speak.
He gritted his teeth. If he had wanted to refuse, it would have looked like there had been no communication between him and Gaku—in front of a resistance group at that.
"If that's what's required..."
He reached for his porcelain mask and pulled it down to reveal his face.
"You... you're a kid," said Motohiro, surprised.
Takuma sighed, having gotten used to the reaction from civilians. He had found that showing his scars was an excellent way to stop the kid talk; unfortunately, he was wearing too many clothes to strip. So he decided to go with a simple demonstration. Takuma raised his foot, pumped chakra through, and stomped it down lightly. The tiled floor of the basement shattered from end to end. He controlled his strength so only the topmost layer cracked, but the entire room jumped, flinched back, and screaming in surprise, their eyes stuck to Takuma in fear.
"Show off," Gaku whispered between coughs.
"I hope this is enough for my competence to be clear moving forward," Takuma ignored his colleague and addressed the Yu citizens.
There was fear in Motohiro's eyes, but he put up a strong front and stood up to Gaku and Takuma.
"One more thing..."
"You're pushing it," said Gaku, his laidback attitude quickly draining.
"I said we had simple demands, and this show of trust is beneficial for both parties; we will match what you showed—but before that, you must do something for us."
Takuma narrowed his eyes. It was a crucial moment; they couldn't let the resistance group become so cocky that they could hold their support over the team's head as a hostage.
Takuma thought for a moment before asking Gaku to stand.
The man frowned. "What is it? I won't guarantee we'll help until I hear the demand."
"We want you to help us with a robbery."
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Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.
Fiction
Feel free to ask me questions.
It's good to be back.
Takuma's improving, and there's more changing to be done in this ARC.
- Location
- North Wales
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
A lot of action in this set of updates. Good job in keeping it clear what's going on through the fight despite all the flashy moves and multiple perspectives.
MrRobot
In doubt there's always the Sun!
Takuma a the opportunity to commit more crime: Why didn't you started with that?
J.I.M.S
BookWyrm
- Location
- Latveria
So my first guess with Takuma's past being connected to Root is that he's a experiment for anti genjutsu (read anti Uchiha) mental architecture or bloodline.
You accomplished your goal in the last chapter, Gaku was grating. One can't help wonder if Takuma in the future when wearing a mask will use cosmetics and or jutsu to disguise himself.
You accomplished your goal in the last chapter, Gaku was grating. One can't help wonder if Takuma in the future when wearing a mask will use cosmetics and or jutsu to disguise himself.