Chapitre 95: CH_3.36 (095)

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———

"I'm ready to leave," Iruka looked uncomfortable with two people hanging off him. Raiden was tied to Iruka's back while the lighter Susumu was in a princess carry. "Are you sure you don't want to leave together?"

"You should get them to safety," said Takuma, tightening the bandage around his shoulder wound. "I'll catch my breath for a second before starting out myself."

In truth, he felt pissed beyond words and wanted some time alone to calm himself down. Iruka was his team leader, who was leaving him alone in a foreign country whose shinobi had just betrayed them. On top of that, he was being asked to travel across two countries alone. He didn't want to see Iruka's face any longer in case he blew up at the chunin.

"… I understand," Iruka said quietly, "but don't stay here for long. We don't know when someone might come here looking."

"Yes, sir," Takuma went quiet and didn't look at Iruka.

"Get home safely, Takuma," Iruka said, and moments later, he disappeared into the woods.

Takuma, leaning against the tree, looked up at the sky that had grown dark. The overcast clouds blocked the stars from view. At no point since receiving the mission had Takuma thought it would go the way it had gone— he lost Yumiko and Dai, the two people he liked working with— he lost two friends. He bitterly questioned whether they would be alive if Takuma hadn't recommended them to Iruka.

After staring at the sky, Takuma stood up with a groan. He was thankful to Taro's father for recommending the first aid course— without it, he would be in a much worse condition than he was in right now, which wasn't good, but anything was better than the worst. He walked to the backpack he had thrown away during the fight and took the hand ax from it to chop the nearest trees down for lumber. He gathered all the materials he needed to start multiple fires before heading to the dead bodies of his comrades lying around the clearing.

'—A shinobi's body holds the village's secret that our enemies can use against us. We can't allow them to get our secrets for they can endanger us—'

One of Maruboshi's many teachings echoed in Takuma's mind as he dragged Yumiko, Dai, Aya, and Yuko's bodies into a line before stripping their bodies of gear and then redressing them in the plain clothes they had changed into the moment they had exited the Land of Fire. Yumiko's and Dai's wouldn't hold many secrets, but Yuko and Aya had secrets pertaining to the Onikuma and Izuno clans.

He didn't care about any of that. They were shinobi who had lost their lives for the village— they needed the best funerals he could provide them.

Takuma made four pyres from the wood he had chopped and laid the bodies of his friends and comrades on them before lighting them up on fire one by one. Takuma didn't know if they preferred to be buried or cremated— in the field, the only option was to be cremated to leave no evidence behind.

"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry," tears streamed out of Takuma's eyes as he lit fires on Dai and Yumiko's pyres. He recommended them to Iruka, but when the time came where he should've been protecting them, he was floundering on the field in panic like a pathetic loser. If only he had been prepared, he could've saved them, and they would've been alive.

"Please forgive me…." He didn't particularly like Yuko and Aya, but that didn't mean they had to die. They were young shinobi who didn't deserve to die like this— he had seen how excited they had been the entire time since they had left the village. The memories of the two having fun in the Shiyuka village flashed through his mind as he bowed his head in shame. Why did he have to fight with them?

Takuma dropped to his knees and prayed to the guardian of the forest to guide their souls safely to the afterlife so they could attain the peace they deserved.

Takuma didn't care if the fire and smoke from the funeral pyres attracted attention; he refused to have their funerals simultaneously as the Hidden Frost shinobi who had killed them. Only after the fires had died down did Takuma turn to his dead enemies. Despite his disgust and hate for them, Takuma gave the Hidden Frost shinobi the same treatment because they deserved basic human decency.

Soldiers didn't start wars. Takuma knew the Hidden Frost shinobi were only following orders, but it didn't matter— they had murdered his friends. Takuma lit their pyres on fire and briefly prayed for their souls before going through their gear.

The information they were supposed to obtain, if it existed in the scrolls, had been burnt to a crisp. He wanted to see if there was anything of importance he could find among their belongings. Unfortunately for Takuma, except for the map to the meeting place, he couldn't find anything of importance—

"Hmm?"

Takuma stared at the two kunai in his hands. They had come from the two Hidden Frost chunin shinobi, one from each— but as Takuma looked at the two kunai, they were different— one had a leaner blade while the other had a longer grip. He looked at the other kunai in the weapon packs and found that there were indeed two distinct types of kunai— the first type belonged to one of the chunin while the second type belonged to the other chunin.

Weapons like kunai were an essential part of a shinobi's life. They were so important that they needed to be forged exactly to a template dimension and weight. The blacksmiths forged so many of them that no matter where you went in the country, you'd find the same kunai everywhere without any discrepancies.

However, every country had its own way of forging its weapons. His own kunai were different from both types in front of him. Hidden Frost must've their own specifications— but it was beyond strange that they had two different types as shinobi liked their tools to be uniform.

Takuma searched the genin's weapons and found the same— two types of kunai. He then went beyond comparing the shuriken and the other gear… there were two distinct types of everything.

"What is happening—"

A chill rose up Takuma's spine as a thought passed through his mind.

Every country had its own way of forging its weapons.

"They're not from the Hidden Frost," Takuma muttered to himself. He swallowed the saliva as the conclusion shaped inside his brain. He looked at the gear— one chunin and three genin had the first type of gear while the other chunin and other three genin had the second type of gear.

One team wasn't from the Hidden Frost.

He recalled the genin he had pried away from Yuko, who had tried to say something to him before silencing himself. Another thought passed through Takuma's mind—

'What if the Hidden Frost hadn't betrayed them… What if this was someone else… What was the information Hidden Frost was trying to share?'

"But who?"

Takuma didn't have the answer to any of those questions.

———

Iruka sat on a bed in a medical ward of a border post on the Land of Fire-Land of Hot Waters border. He hadn't ever felt this exhausted in his life̦— the last sleep was already over two days ago. His Chunin Exam hadn't been this tough on his mind and body. The day and a half straight of sprinting with two bodies while his own body was injured were one of the toughest ordeals. It didn't help that he smuggled himself across the Land of Frost border to avoid any contact with Hidden Frost.

And yet, despite all that, his mind disallowed sleep no matter how much his body demanded it. The long, arduous travel without treatment had put Raiden and Susumu in a critical condition for which they were being treated by the iryo-nin… and Iruka's heart couldn't stop worrying about how Takuma was faring alone in foreign lands.

He sighed heavily into his hands covering his face only for the faces of Yumiko, Dai, Aya, and Yuko to flash behind his eyelids. He had lost four genin in a C-rank mission which rarely had any deaths.

"No, no... no… why…"

His body contorted from the inside thinking about the mission, and he couldn't think about anything else. All he wanted was for his mind to stop going there, but it was all he could think about.

"Chunin Iruka…"

Iruka tiredly looked up at the head iryo-nin of the border post. He had been treating Raiden from the moment they had stumbled into the camp.

"How are they?" asked Iruka.

"Aburame Susumu has been stabilized, but we can't do anything about the insects feeding on his chakra…. We were able to neutralize the poison in Shimura Raiden's body" — Iruka felt a wave of relief pass through him — "unfortunately, he wasn't able to survive the damage already done to his body… Chunin Shimura Raiden had passed away. I'm sorry…"

Iruka felt his mind go blank at the sudden news. Had he been too slow? Was that why Raiden failed to survive— because he wasn't able to bring him to treatment fast enough? That one thought now plagued Iruka's mind.

"We have already called for the Aburame clan for their help; they'll be here as soon as possible. We're in the process of contacting the Shimura clan to inform them about Chunin Raiden," said the iryo-nin.

Whatever said after didn't filter into Iruka's mind as he continued to fall into the tragedy he had been served. He didn't notice when the head iryo-nin left him. If Takuma didn't return safely, Iruka would've lost six people and salt on the wounds, the information they were sent to retrieve was absent.

He had failed worse than anyone could on a mission.

———

For the first time in very long, Takuma didn't enjoy sleeping outside in nature under the open sky. The Land of Frost's cold hurt his wounds— he could take the pain and discomfort during the day spent running, but he didn't appreciate it when it messed with his sleep at night. Nothing had made him appreciate Sango's medical care after every fight and their personal session than the days he had spent without healing as he traveled secretly through the Land of Frost.

'Just one more day,' Takuma thought.

Illegally crossing borders wasn't hard. Any type of border patrol could only cover so much ground, leaving many unprotected spots where people could cross in-and-out of countries. The real problem was surviving harsh undeveloped terrain that sat on the borders and reaching the nearest settlement only for them to reject shelter to the immigrants. He didn't have that problem. Takuma had the gear and experience to sleep outside every night, enough rations to feed multiple shinobi, and he could ground much faster than any civilian, even with his injured body.

He had already crossed out of the Land of Frost into the Land of Hot Waters, and in the morning, he would skip the first line of border towns with shinobi presence and rest at one of the towns at a comfortable distance from the border. While he was 'safe' in the Land of Hot Waters, Takuma didn't want to meet any shinobi in his current condition.

Takuma snuggled into his sleeping bag with painful groans and closed his eyes to get some sleep….

A few hours later, Takuma snapped his eyes with his body drenched in sweat. His labored breathing couldn't beat out the sound of his rushing heart in his ears. He started at the cloudy sky through the insect net and saw the beautiful moon, whereas a few moments ago, he was dreaming of Yumiko and Dai's smiling faces that quickly turned lifeless and bloodied. They didn't say anything— they were dead after all— but they simply stared at him with their dull eyes as though judging him for being alive.

After drinking some water, Takuma went to sleep again… only to wake up to the same images.

Takuma looked to the side at the fire that burned slowly, providing him with some much-needed warmth. He stared at the fire for a moment before reaching into his pouch for a joint that he lit on the embers.

Takuma didn't know when he closed his eyes, but somewhere while blowing smoke at the moon, sleep overtook him— and this time, they didn't visit him in his dreams… because he didn't dream at all.

———

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Chapitre 96: CH_3.37 (096)

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———

Sneaking into a town wasn't tricky for Takuma. He scaled a wall, dipped into alleyways, and stayed in the shadows. A walk around the town found him in the less affluent part of the town at a distance from the main districts, a place much like where his home was situated in the Hidden Leaf.

He glanced at the "hotel" sign as he entered the three-storied building that hadn't seen maintenance in many cycles, something reflected by the interior. The floorboards creaked under his feet, the furniture setup in the tiny lobby was grimy, and the front counter was an old desk with scratches and dirty stains on the wood.

The woman sitting behind the reception read a woman's magazine with a cover as absurd as her over-the-top makeup and hairdo. She glanced at Takuma when he knocked on the countertop, giving him a look over. Takuma wore a fresh set of clothes that hid his bandaged wounds, but all of that was covered by a hooded travel cloak.

"Room for the night," said Takuma, modulating his voice to be a smidge fuller, "with water in the bathroom."

She pointed to the crooked board hanging on the wall with room prices that had been crossed out and written over multiple times. Takuma chose the cheapest room and put down some paper bills on the countertop, revealing his bandaged hand.

"We don't take that," the woman pointed at the Land of Frost currency that Takuma had put out.

Takuma stared at the woman, and a silence fell between them before the woman sighed in annoyance and took the foreign currency. "It'll cost more," she said pointedly, and Takuma gave her what she asked him. Only after that did she take a key off the wall key hanger and toss it on the counter.

Takuma took the key and went to his room on the second floor. The room ended before it could start and had the basic of basics in the form of a double bed, a dingy cupboard, a small study table with an old chair, and a less than pleasant bathroom.

First thing first, Takuma checked the entire room. He tested the door locks to see if the inside bolt was intact, checked the cupboards and side tables, lifted the bed for bed bugs, cleaned out the bathroom, and finished testing the integrity of the window grate— which was weak enough for Takuma to kick out in case he needed to make an emergency exit.

He locked the door, reinforced it with nylon wire, and immediately jumped into the bathroom. His injuries weren't severe, but they weren't shallow enough to be left alone. The only reason he had stopped at the town was to retreat his injuries to prevent infections. He planned to stay here for the day before starting the second leg of his journey back home.

Takuma took out the length of gauze that he had stuffed in the deep-deep hole in his hip with a long groan. He bathed, properly irrigated the wound with water treated with a few drops of iodine because he wasn't sure about the water quality in the town, and then redressed the wound while smoking another joint to help dull the pain. After repeating the process a couple more times, he ate his rations and drank plenty of water before crashing on the bed for a couple hours of rest.

A poor bed was better than an outdoor sleeping bag, and by the time Takuma woke up, he had overslept for several hours. The sun was already up. He looked at the clock in his room, and his checkout time was in two hours— not wasting any more time, he got dressed and was out of his room before the minute could move quarter way across the circle.

The woman was behind the counter again, her hairdo as ridiculous as yesterday. He wordlessly handed her the key and walked out when she acknowledged him. Takuma felt her eyes on him as he exited the building but ignored it.

However, it seemed that the gaze spelled trouble. Just when Takuma walked out of the block, a trio of men approached him.

"Hey man, where you from?" asked one of them.

Takuma ignored them and turned into an alleyway.

"That's rude, oye," said the second man.

"Yeah, what's with the hurry? We only wants to talk to you," the third man smiled as he cracked his knuckle.

The trio followed Takuma into the alleyway, where he was waiting for them. They weren't allowed anything but to scream, which were stifled almost immediately. Takuma walked out of the alleyway a few moments later, leaving behind the battered trio to be found later that day by the time Takuma had already left.

Takuma didn't pursue the matter with the hotel and left the town. Every minute spent away from the Hidden Leaf made him feel sicker.

He just wanted to get home.

———

"The Hidden Frost betrayed and launched an attack during the exchange," said the tokubetsu jonin in charge of Iruka, who solemnly nodded. "You lost four genin in that attack. Unfortunately, Chunin Shimura Raiden died at the border post due to his injuries. Genin Aburame Susumu is out of danger… But you left one genin— Genin Takuma— as you rushed to get Shimura and Aburame back to the country."

"… Yes, sir," said Iruka.

"Even if we assume Genin Takuma can return home, less than half of the team made it back on a C-rank mission. Even if it was a multi-ranked mission, it doesn't change that it was a C-rank mission— and you even failed to get back the information… This is difficult, Chunin Iruka."

"… Yes, sir."

Iruka had no words. The facts were as follows: the mission had failed, and they had lost shinobi— and even though it wasn't his fault, this mission would cause difficulties between the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Frost, and in some ways, he would have to suffer the brunt of it. And they might have faced an equal number of opponents and had 'won,' but to lose a chunin and four genin was unacceptable. They were from the Hidden Leaf, one of the five great shinobi villages, while the opposition was the minor village of Hidden Frost— this type of loss was a slight to their reputation.

There was no silver lining to this mission. Iruka wasn't even allowed to wait at the border post so he could wait for the Takuma and was forced back to the Hidden Leaf only to be put in a room with T&I personnel who were put in charge of the aftermath of the situation.

Iruka knew the reason why a tokubetsu jonin was put in charge. Raiden was from the Shimura clan, an important chunin who had the potential to be a jonin in the future, who had now died on a C-rank mission. They were looking for foul play. It didn't help that Izuno and Onikuma clan members had died, and an Aburame had come close to death— on a C-rank mission. Shinobi didn't die on C-rank missions.

"Did you recognize any of the Hidden Frost shinobi?"

Iruka shook his head.

A bingo book was thrown on the table. "Try again," said the investigator, with a stare that wouldn't take no for an answer.

"Tell me about Genin Takuma," the invigilator asked as Iruka looked over the bingo book with Hidden Frost profiles.

Iruka looked up from the book and furrowed deeply. "What do you mean?"

"You left him behind? He agreed to that?"

"He had no choice in the matter… He followed the orders I gave him," said Iruka bitterly.

"And he must be bitter about it," the investigator looked at a file. "To be left behind on his first mission outside the country…. Do you think he'd defect because of that?"

"What?"

"I mean, he doesn't have any family here. And to be left behind right after being in a fight for his life, there must be some anger because of that— amplified as he's alone in a land with no friends…. I have seen men defect for much less. Do you think he'll defect?"

"Takuma won't defect," said Iruka with disgust. "He's a shinobi who the Leaf should be proud of. He will be back home soon."

"If you say so," the investigator shrugged. "He'll be back… if he's alive, that is…."

Iruka bit the inside of his cheek and returned his gaze to the bingo book.

The door to the interrogation room opened, and a genin peered inside, "Genin Takuma has crossed the border and is now getting treated at the Deguchi border post."

The investigator turned to Iruka and smiled, "Looks like you were right. Very well then, let's get our boy back home…."

———

Takuma breathed a sigh of relief as his feet touched the familiar pavements of the streets he had walked so many times. He looked behind at the inner-city gates behind him and the weight weighing his heart down ever since the ambush lifted. He closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh of relief.

He was back home.

"Come on, let's get a move on."

Takuma looked back at the two genin who had escorted him from the Deguchi border post to the Leaf village.

'Escorted,' Takuma clicked his tongue— more like detainers.

They had stuck to him like glue ever since he had appeared at the border post. His reception at the border post had been warm and respectful— a chunin iryo-nin had treated his injuries— he hadn't been treated that well since Enomoto— and they had made him feel as comfortable as possible. But then the order from Hidden Leaf came— he was to return to the village as soon as possible. Takuma had been more than happy to oblige; there was nothing more he wanted but to return home.

However, he was told that two genin would accompany him back to the village. Upon asking, he was told they were escorts because he had just been healed. Takuma found it strange, but he graciously accepted their offer. But the entire time on the road, his two 'escorts' tried to subtly control his actions.

"Where should we go?" asked Takuma.

"Err, to the," one of the genin took out a slip of paper, "the T&I Force headquarters…."

"And where's that?" asked Takuma. He had got them talking during their travel and knew for a fact that neither had been to the Leaf village— even now, their eyes were darting from place to place like country bumpkins in the big city for the first time.

"… W-We don't know," their voice grew smaller at the end.

Takuma sighed. He knew they were following orders, but it pissed him off regardless.

"Come, follow me," Takuma sighed, and he led them to the T&I Force headquarters situated in one the most protected regions inside the village, for which they had to go through two layers of security.

When they finally reached the headquarters, Takuma was allowed inside while his escorts were stopped at the door. He was sat down in a small interrogation room.

"Genin Takuma," a shinobi entered the room soon after. "I'm Tokubetsu Jonin Shiroma. I just have some routine questions about the Hidden Frost mission."

Shiroma sat down across from Takuma and set down some files on the table; the topmost one had Takuma's name on it. Takuma looked up from the file to Shiroma, who was now staring at him silently. Takuma stared back— and a silence settled in the room.

"How was the journey back home?" asked Shiroma.

"Lonely," replied Takuma.

"Yes, you were ordered by Chunin Iruka to return home alone. You must've been hurt by that order, Takuma. To be left behind by your team leader— must've been tough."

"It's not my place to question orders, sir," answered Takuma calmly. "Chunin Iruka did what he felt was the best for the team. I simply followed the orders."

"But to leave someone who hasn't been out of the village, much less out of the country… was that wise?"

"Chunin Iruka's decision to go ahead and get Chunin Raiden and Genin Susumu the help they needed showcased his trust in my ability to handle myself in tough situations. I'm flattered if nothing else," Takuma said. He knew what the investigator was trying to fish for, but he wasn't going to give it to him.

Shiroma hummed. "Can you tell me about the mission? Start from the beginning and narrate your recollections of the events. Don't leave anything out."

Takuma gave his account. He told him everything except for a few things. First of all, he omitted the conflict with Raiden's team. And as they arrived at the meetup with Hidden Frost, Shiroma interrupted him and asked,

"Don't you find it strange that the Hidden Frost betrayed us? They've been our allies for a very long time— why so suddenly?"

Takuma said, "I found it strange, yes. And I also think that things weren't as simple as they seemed on the surface," saying that Takuma began unpacking weapons on the surprisingly large table. Shiroma was surprised by Takuma's action, but he didn't seem worried. Why would he? A tokubetsu jonin had no reason to be worried of a genin.

"What am I looking at?" asked Shiroma.

There was a row each of kunai, shuriken, senbon, explosive tags, smoke bombs, and a single short sword. The numerous weapons covered the entire table.

"Do you notice the difference between these weapons? This here is a kunai I purchased from the supply," Takuma pointed at the first kunai, "then there's this one that I picked up from one of the Hidden Frost shinobi," he pointed to the kunai with a thinner blade, "and this one here is from another shinobi," which had a longer grip. "Do you notice how each set is different? Of course, we would expect our kunai to differ from Hidden Frost's— but why would Hidden Frost shinobi have kunai different from each other on them? And it's not just the kunai. Everything on this table is of three different types. One of them is mine, and thus from the Hidden Leaf, while the other two are from the Hidden Frost…."

Shiroma looked up from the table to Takuma. His previous carefree expression of observation he had pointed at Takuma was nowhere to be seen— it had been replaced with something that showed that he was hanging off every word that Takuma said with a hint of alarm in his eyes.

"Sir… it's either that Hidden Frost has changed the designs of all of their official weapons recently, which is unlikely based on how I found them— Or one of the teams that we fought wasn't Hidden Frost and were only disguised as them." Takuma probably had never held someone's attention as firmly as he did at the moment,

"I'm sure we have samples of weapons from other villages lying around somewhere in our archives, and if we compare them with these… we will know the third party's identity."

———

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