Chapitre 261: CH_7.43 (261)
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The link is also in the synopsis
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As the Wind Release: Breakthrough jutsu hit Anko, Takuma's instincts kicked in, and he moved in front of her path. Standing beside him, Daiki became an unexpected obstacle, blocking him from reaching her. Despite the hindrance, Takuma's hand shot up in an attempt to grab her, but it was too late. Anko crashed through the window, leaving a trail of shattered glass in her wake.
He saw two kunai thrown by unseen enemies hurtling towards Anko.
"Daiki, go," he shouted, pushing his larger teammate toward the shattered window.
They had barely engaged the enemy in combat and had already been forced to split up. As Daiki leapt out of the window, Takuma swiftly switched the formation, taking the forward-most position. He stepped toward the room at the end of the small corridor before stopping, which puzzled Kameko and Rikku.
He weaved hand seals for the Clone Jutsu and sent an illusory clone into the room. Even though it was easy to spot, an itchy trigger finger was difficult to contain—especially when the enemy was planning an ambush.
The clone stepped into the room and was instantly skewered by a sword in full view of Takuma and dissipated with an almost silent hiss into thin air. The moment that happened, Takuma charged towards the wall beside the door with his shoulder, augmenting it with chakra. He ran through the wall like it was made of cardboard and body-slammed the agent responsible for beheading the clone. While the wall absorbed significant force, the agent was still hurled to the other side of the large parlour room.
Takuma took in his surroundings and saw Kon and a second agent jump back in response to him bulldozing in. His and Kon's eyes met, and immediately, he was hit by a burning headache like never before. It was worse than the time he tried to force something when he was younger by staring at his scars in the mirror—but he bit his tongue to bear the pain and glared at the man.
He wanted to take advantage of the element of surprise, but the pain prevented him from reacting appropriately.
Kameko and Rikku entered the room and the tension spiked. Too many people were in a relatively minimal space. Chaos would break out the moment anyone moved—and the person to bring it was Rikkue.
He kicked furniture toward Kon and the second agent. Kon jumped up to the wall and stuck to it with his feet while the second agent cut down a cushioned chair, and that was when Kameko went after him with her sword buzzing with chakra.
The second agent was fast and parried her first swing, but she had the momentum and smoothly transitioned into the next strike that the second agent dodged by pulling back, but the sword held out in the front was pushed by an invisible force a moment before the front of his chest gear was shredded and his forearm started bleeding from a cut.
Kameko's Taketori kenjutsu allowed her to increase the reach of her sword with a near-invisible length of wind chakra. It was a dangerous technique as almost everyone got caught by it, and they only tried to avoid the visible sword blade. And many times, one strike was all it took to end the fights and lives.
The opponent had to figure out what had just happened, which was difficult mid-fight. She went for a stab at his throat, but the agent managed to dodge with enough distance to get clear of her invisible extension but then Kameko swung her sword again that he parried and then pulled back once more when she tried to swing for his shoulder.
Just when he thought he was safe, the invisible length cut a long and shallow wound from his left shoulder to his lower right chest. Kon threw a kunai at Kameko from the roof. Takuma countered it by deflecting it with a kunai of his own before following up with another kunai back at Kon, who went for a parry only to have the right side of his body blown back from the sheer force put behind the kunai with his augmentation.
The first agent tried to get up to join the fight. Takuma weaved hand seals as he turned toward him, and his chest expanded as he breathed in.
Water Release: Wind Water Wave
A powerful wave of water slammed into the agent, slamming him into the wall. As Takuma gained skill and experience, the jutsu had become stronger and more vigorous. The pressure behind the wave had increased considerably, and the first agent felt like he had run into the walls as his bones creaked for the second time.
He immediately went into a second set of hand seals for the Water Release: Eight Tentacles jutsu to reuse the water he had just created.
The ceiling cracked under Kon's feet as he shot down toward Takuma, his sword baring like a wolf's fangs.
Takuma felt his headache flare once more as he focused on Kon. He almost lost control of his chakra from the pain—which was so different from the physical pain from injuries that he had gotten used to—but he also was slow to decide whether to stop his hand seals to free his hands for Kon or take his chance on completing the jutsu and just dodge.
Rikku rushed forth and leapt into the sky with her feet toward Kon, who took the hit and let himself get knocked off his trajectory. She went for another hit when he landed, but Kon dealt her a quick kick to her knee this time and then took a step toward Takuma while swinging his sword. By now, Takuma had decided to complete his jutsu and jumped back to avoid the blade, aiming for his life.
Kon missed, but then he swiped his blade upwards and managed to nick Takuma on the side of his bottom lip. As Takuma completed the hand seals, he felt the faint taste of blood on his tongue and snarled from the pain in his head that was now actively hindering him. He charged at Kon, who tried to take out Rikku, the one closer to him. She barely parried one of his strikes but was put in a bad position with Kon swinging his sword down at her.
Takuma moved in hastily, parried the falling sword, and felt his arms strain against the weight. Now, both Rikku and Takuma were in a disadvantageous position. The blade edge of Kon's sword turned a burning red as the metal sizzled and hissed. As he swung down, the water finally arrived at Takuma's back. The water tentacles spurt out, grabbed Kon's legs, and pulled as hard as possible. The sword struck Takuma's kunai and immediately cut halfway through it. Kon's legs were pulled from under him, and he backed away, pulling the kunai latched to the sword along with him.
The tentacle grabbing the legs was cut through, but Takuma wasn't concerned as another tentacle dropped a kunai into his hand, which he threw toward the agent Kameko was fighting. Like Kon, the agent parried the kunai, but there was so much force behind the kunai that he miscalculated, and when the kunai was deflected down, it struck him square in the thigh.
Kameko took advantage of the mishap and switched from being mostly passive to hyper-offensive, her kenjutsu's speciality.
"Rikku, the other one," Takuma yelled.
She pulled back and switched to the ROOT agent hit by the Wild Water Wave.
So much had happened in such a short time that his head would've hurt regardless of Kon being there. Everything was happening so fast, and Takuma was acutely aware that his teammates were not as strong as the ROOT agents; he had already stepped in to support both of them—which was difficult when Kon demanded his attention just to keep him at bay.
His headache just made everything much worse.
"You're not going to escape this time," said Kon.
Takuma would've said something, but he wasn't in the mood and didn't have the mind space to exchange quips with him. The more his head hurt, the angrier he got—the angrier he got, the more he seethed—the more he seethed, the colder his head felt. At the moment, he desired nothing more than to kill the man before him, but he knew he had to get him alive to get information.
The bloody tang on his tongue only made want to spill Kon's blood even more.
His brain felt like it was lagging behind his eyes as he kept an eye on Rikku and Kameko at the opposite ends of the parlour room. At least the limited space allowed him to be a moment away to provide support. He wanted to focus on Kon, but the reality of the situation was that he was part of a team that was currently fighting multiple opponents.
Half of his tentacles pulled out a kunai each from his weapons pouch, while the other half remained free— and were about to make a move when Kon smiled in a way that rang all the wrong bells in his already pounding head. Kon glanced at Rikku and slid in her direction, which immediately made Takuma sprint toward her to get ahead of him so he could protect her—but the moment Takuma took a long stride in her direction, Kon switched his target and moved toward Kameko.
Takuma's combat boots screeched against the marble floor.
"Kameko!" he yelled as he ran toward her.
The feint made him a step behind and a moment late. The tentacles whipped their kunai at Kon, but he deftly deflected all of them, which gave Takuma almost enough time to catch up. The eight tentacles merged into four so that he could have more length and got them ready to give him a little more reach so that he could protect Kameko.
But then Kon yelled,
"Ni help San!"
The ROOT agent, who was on the back foot, suddenly disengaged from Kameko, jumped to the roof and headed in Rikku's direction. He followed the order so fast, almost like a robot completing an instruction.
Takuma's brain, which was running to the point of wheezing on the track, abruptly stopped; for a very long, short moment, he had no idea what to do and how to react. Rikku was fighting a beaten-up agent, which was the most he thought she could handle, but now there was another one heading toward her.
Kameko couldn't follow him because Kon was sprinting toward her, and he would cut her down if she tried to follow. He couldn't turn away to help Rikku, but if he engaged Kon, he would be locked in and unable to leave— and by then, Kameko would be too late to leave.
'What should I do? What should I do? What should I do?' he thought.
The four tentacles merged into two thicker ones and shot up toward the agent on the ceiling. The water flowed and wrapped around his body before Takuma tugged hard, and the agent was snatched and slammed to the ground. But that wasn't enough; the agent could cut himself out of the tentacles, and Rikku would once again be in danger.
As Takuma slid between Kon and Kameko, he weaved hand seals for a jutsu he hadn't used in over a year. With his head on fire, he almost forgot the hand seals, but his muscle memory carried him through.
Lightning Release: Shock
Kon tried to cut him down, but Takuma managed to half dodge while taking a shallow slice on his upper arm from the burning hot sword, which hurt so much that it overpowered his headache for a moment, something Takuma was momentarily thankful for.
Arcs of lightning snaked down his, forming an orb of lightning. On paper, a D-rank jutsu of nature he wasn't proficient in and hadn't used in a long time wasn't a good choice made under pressure—but he knew that water and lightning were complementary—and he had read the jutsu scrolls, the books on chakra theory, to the best of his ability, and even though he hadn't tried it before, he was confident that it would work, so much so he put his and his teammate's lives on the line.
He shot the orb of lightning into his tentacles, and then the magic happened.
Takuma didn't have the liberty to look at the agent with Kon right in front of him, but the screams told him that his gambit had worked.
.
———
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The link is in the synopsis!
Chapitre 262: CH_7.44 (262)
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The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
Kon looked at "Ni", who was writhing on the floor from the lightning ninjutsu channelled through the water tentacles. Water and Lightning-release being complementary elements meant both jutsu had been enhanced.
He immediately pumped fire nature chakra into his sword and swung at Takuma, thinking that Takuma's lightning ninjutsu would damage him as well—but he stood unfazed by it as he evaded the blade and countered by jabbing a lightning-charged tentacle at Kon, who didn't want any part of and backed away.
Kon clicked his tongue. The water ninjutsu insulated Takuma from the lightning but it was already depleting so he waited for it to completely disappear before making his move. He glanced at Ni, who was no longer moving and was knocked unconscious by the lightning.
The loss of one team member had shifted the fight's dynamic, tilting the balance towards the middle. Despite this setback, Kon maintained his confidence, knowing his team still held the upper hand. However, the question of whether his men could match Mitarashi Anko's prowess lingered in his mind.
"Take him and get out, both of you," Takuma said to the sword-wielding kunoichi beside him.
She looked hesitant, but rushed Ni and threw him over her shoulder. Kon moved to stop her, but Takuma very aggressively closed in and swung his fist. He felt the phantom pain in his shoulder at the sight of his glowing fist and quickly backed away.
It was the right move as a rush of wind brushed past his ears. Takuma's chakra augmentation was dangerous; he had felt it first-hand and didn't want a second experience.
"Go!" Takuma yelled when he saw his teammates hesitate.
The second kunoichi moved toward the door, and "San" followed after her, but Takuma positioned himself at the door, intending to hold them back while they escaped.
In taking one of his men alive, Kon recognised that their aim was not extermination but capture for information extraction. Measures like anti-interrogation seals were a standard operating procedure for ROOT agents on missions—all of his men, including himself, had them active on their bodies—and ROOT agents were trained to self-eliminate to stop a potential information leak.
However, seals could be broken, and the self-preservation instinct was difficult to beat out of people. As the mission leader, he couldn't allow one of his men to be captured. The correct thing to do was for one of them to take on Takuma while the other chased after the kunoichi. But as Kon gazed at Takuma, his shoulder began to burn and ache, causing a cocktail of feelings to rise in his throat.
"We're taking him out," Kon said to San, venom in his tone.
Takuma's tentacles flared out at his words as though attempting to cover more of the door and the broken wall beside it.
There was a moment of pause as the two sides measured each other before all three shinobi exploded into action. Takuma acted aggressively and moved toward Kon with one of his tentacles swiping a kunai at the latter's neck. Kon jumped back toward the wall and started weaving hand seals. San shifted between them and attacked Takuma with a dagger that Takuma parried using a tentacle holding a kunai and then countered with an augmented palm strike to the chest.
San gurgled out blood and stumbled back. Takuma closed the distance between them and threw a follow-up augmented liver shot that San barely avoided by shifting his body back at the last second.
"Clear!"
In the back, Kon breathed fire between his hands as he pulled his arms apart, creating a burning fire spear that cast a nasty light on his face.
San half-stumbled and half-jumped to the side, clearing the way between Kon and Takuma.
Kon flicked his wrist, and the fire spear raced toward Takuma, who couldn't dodge because they were so close. His tentacles bunched before him just as the fire spear hit him, and he was sent barreling through the wall. The fire spear exploded into a mass of fire, lighting up that section of the room. He didn't let himself slow or stop as he flowed into another set of hand seals while staring at the wall of fire with eyes taut with attention. He knew it wasn't over; that would be too easy, and if it was that easy, he would've killed him the first time they met.
His intuition was spot on as Takuma surged out of the intense fire.
He was soaking wet, and the tentacles behind his back were missing. He instantly slid down into a sliding tackle and kicked a broken piece of furniture in Kon's direction. Kon turned his back to the flying furniture and took the hit to continue weaving the hand seals. Another fire spear bloomed in his hand and was immediately launched at Takuma.
The distance between them was shorter than before; there was no time to dodge or any tentacles to protect him. Kon was sure—this was going to hit, and it was going to hurt.
Their eyes met for two-tenths of a second, and at that moment, Kon saw his fire spear reflect in Takuma's eyes. He expected to see fear and trepidation, but the eyes he met were steady—not even a hint of unease. What he saw was a picture of focus—and the focus was him, which made Kon's heart jolt.
Takuma's half-cocked fist punched out, and the fire spear that was only a foot away from the fist quavered as an unseen force struck and travelled through it.
'Impossible!' thought Kon.
The unstable fire spear lost shape as it broke down, losing its penetrative power, and yet it still exploded in Takuma's face. With only a portion of its intended power, the weakened fire jutsu singed his face and hair. Kon felt his heart ease up at the jutsu still doing damage, but then Takuma's face became visible, and he saw the same focused look persist as though the ninjutsu hadn't affected him at all.
There was an intensity in his eyes that sent a shot of fear up Kon's spine. Even as he got his face blasted by fire, even as he stumbled back, there was a single-minded intent focused on Kon, which alarmed him to his core. It was feral ferocity reigned in and harnessed via cold reasoning—and that was a dangerous combination.
Kon had no intention of letting Takuma leave alive, but the last exchange only intensified his desire. The kid before him was dangerous, and all of his instincts screamed that if he was given time to grow, he would become even more dangerous.
He had seen what geniuses were like; Takuma wasn't like them; he was different—and that made him even more dangerous. He couldn't put a finger on it, but the answer came just as quickly and hit him.
The kid before had already seen the darkness, dragged into it, and managed to climb out. This was someone who was willing to do anything and everything to achieve what he wanted. Kon remembered the bombing that had taken out the jonin—and even though he had no proof—he knew that Takuma was behind it.
He had wiped out dozens of civilians to eliminate a jonin and not many people would be willing to do that.
Given that the ROOT had targeted him twice, they had become bitter enemies. There was a chance just now when Takuma could've run away, but he made the choice to come after him, which was enough to show that the grudge ran deep enough for him to risk his life.
Kon had to end him before he became a threat far too big.
Takuma lunged at him, which made him pull back to enough to cleanly dodge an augmented strike—but Takuma faltered with a look of great pain on his face.
'He's injured?' thought Kon—had the fire spear managed to do substantial damage?
Regardless of what it was, Kon took advantage of the opportunity. He took a quick forward step and stabbed his heart. Takuma raised his hand at the last moment, and the sword stabbed through his palm as he pushed the sword to the side, leaving a deep laceration just under his armpit.
———
.
With the unconscious ROOT agent on Kameko's back, her and Rikku sprinted across the manor house as fast as possible. The team wanted to capture more ROOT agents to facilitate cross-checking and verify the authenticity of the information during interrogation, but the mission's minimum requirement was completed by capturing just one.
The team now had to judge the situation and see if they wanted to take their chances by going for a second capture and the final decision was Anko's to make. The two kunoichi jumped out of a window near the side of the manor house so they were visible to Anko and Daiki while still having enough distance between them to allow a quick enough escape in case other ROOT agents tried to stop them.
As they jumped, they noticed Anko was fighting two ROOT agents simultaneously while Daiki provided support from a distance. Anko spotted them immediately. She disengaged and backed away for a moment and then yelled something they couldn't hear. Daiki, who was positioned at a distance, looked towards them and seemed to hesitate but sprinted towards them after being yelled at by Anko again.
Kameko instantly realised what was going on—Anko was going to cover for the three of them to escape.
When one of the ROOT agents tried to go after Daiki, she charged with reckless aggression and put herself between the two agents so they would focus on her rather than Daiki.
"Let's go," Kameko said as she started to run away from the manor house.
Rikku followed, but only a couple of seconds later, she stopped.
"What are you doing?!" Kameko exclaimed while constantly looking toward Anko, fighting the two ROOT agents, scared that they would lose their opportunity to escape with the unconscious agent.
"I'm going back," said Rikku, already back-peddling towards the manor house.
Kameko was flabbergasted for a split second before realising what Rikku was going to do.
"Rikku, no—"
"Takuma will need help. I can't leave him alone when I can support him. You and Daiki go—GO!"
Rikku turned away and sprinted without waiting for a response. Kameko shouted at her to stop but was ignored as she picked up more speed.
"What happened? Why is she running to the house?" Daiki asked the moment he was in earshot and gazed worriedly at Rikku as the distance between them and her stretched.
"...Let's go," Kameko said bitterly as her face twitched with frustration. She stayed still for a moment as she internally struggled with how to proceed until, ultimately, she turned her back to the manor house and started running with a hard stop to vent her feelings.
"We have our orders."
.
———
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The link is in the synopsis!
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
200+ Classement
Power Stone 
109 Power
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