Chapitre 270: CH_8.5 (270)

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———

Takuma and Anko left the camp and headed towards the city walls. Their conversation opened with a discussion about the ANBU despite recognising the true topic of discussion, but both internally thought it better to gradually lean into the tense subject.

"What are you trying to do now?" she asked.

"I want answers about the assassination attempt on me, I want to know ROOT's involvement, and I want to know about Kon. ANBU is the only place I'm most likely to get those answers. And I know they have my answers; it's a matter of if I can get them to share with me," he replied.

"Kon," she said. There was no question or any specific tone in her voice, but the implication was clear.

"... I think he's the link between the assassination attempt and Yu. Those posters were his work. I don't have proof, but it has to be him. I have to know more about the man who has now tried to kill me multiple times." The matter of revenge for Rikku's death was left unsaid. He didn't look Anko in the eye, and she fortunately did not push in that direction, but there was a mutual understanding that Rikku was part of the motivation for Takuma to find out more about Kon.

"Do you have what they want? Or is this an ill-planned scheme?"

"I have enough."

As he had said to the ANBU, they could probably find what he knew and more from the captured ROOT agent, but they could give them what he knew much easier. They could use the information he gave to assist them in their agent's interrogation or directly take action based on it.

"I never told you or mentioned it in the packet we sent back because it wasn't relevant," Takuma regretted his words the moment he spoke them. It sounded like a justification for yet another thing he had done wrong.

"I understand. Information is power," said Anko.

"No, I didn't mean it that way..." He sighed exasperatedly, frustrated with himself. He truly had excluded it because it wasn't relevant. He also didn't think he would be negotiating with ANBU until the moment they had asked to meet with him, but now it seemed that it was his plan all along. "Whatever... I just want to get some answers, and this is my chance to get them.

"How're you doing?" he asked her.

Anko narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. "I'll be fine; it's nothing new for me. It's never going to be easy if that's what you're wondering, but you'll learn to deal with it. Just make sure that it's healthy. I have seen several people who go about it the wrong way."

"Like?"

"The pain comes from losing someone you cared about. For some people, the solution they find easiest is to stop caring. They shut themselves off from other people by building a cocoon around themselves so they don't get hurt when they inevitably lose yet another someone... It works, though—it changes people— but it works," Anko looked far into the distance beyond the destroyed portion of the wall. "But you don't want that. It gets lonely in that cocoon. What's life when you can't share your joy with others and celebrate their happiness with them—it's a miserable life; that's what it is. Also, you know... it's tough to bear the burdens of life alone; you will need people to help you if you want to continue being a shinobi."

"Are you talking from experience?"

Anko chuckled with a brief smile. "There are more reasons to build that cocoon. Fortunately, cocoons aren't that strong, and people can break through before it becomes too thick and rigid."

He guessed that it had something to do with her experience with Orochimaru. Perhaps a betrayal so profound that she lost her ability to trust? As he thought that, Takuma felt a weight in his abdomen. His situation with Anko was also trust-related and even though it sounded like she was recovered, experiences like that left behind permanent changes in people. He worried if it was too late.

"My teacher said to take it one day at a time," said Takuma, recalling Maruboshi's words after his C-rank mission in the Land of Frost.

"Sounds difficult and miserable. I would much rather get drunk and get laid."

Takuma laughed and agreed with her words. It was difficult and not at all enjoyable.

A comfortable silence settled between the two as they observed the burnt and broken wall. Takuma took a silent breath as a string of fear tickled his heart. When he had first seen the city wall, it had given him the impression of an immovable, indestructible object which had remained standing to protect the city in the world of humanoid weapons of mass destruction—but now, as he saw a massive portion of it in shambles, all done by a single old man he knew, it strengthened the dangers of the world.

He was no longer the weak, pathetic little runt and had grown strong enough to gain the ability to protect himself time and time again, and yet he was still not safe when looking at what shinobi were capable of. He was reminded that he had no time to stop; he had to keep moving forward, or he would be crushed without a choice.

"Man, he's strong," Takuma said in awe.

"He is," Anko nodded grudgingly. "It's absolutely infuriating. I would've slapped the shit out of his bald head if he wasn't so strong."

The tension in his body from being called into Toridasu's office to confront the ANBU duo left his body as he talked and laughed with Anko, but it returned again when Anko drove right into the main discussion—nay, she crashed through into the topic.

"You shouldn't have blown up that banquet hall," she said.

He had thought about what he had done in length, and in doing that, he had tried to justify his actions. "I... saw the opportunity and took it. There was a jonin missing in the enemy forces because of me," he said.

"What about the civilians you killed?"

"Those traitors deserved it."

"That wasn't your decision to make, and I'm not talking about them; I'm talking about the workers and staff that you sacrificed," Anko said in a harder voice. "Did they deserve it?"

Takuma looked down at the floor, scared of finding the look on her face. Anko had a deep frown with tight expressions that softened when he refused to meet her eye.

"You don't think you did anything wrong, do you?" she said with a sigh.

"... I didn't think about them when I was planning it," Takuma said after staying silent for a moment. "I was too focused on that jonin and what it would mean for the battle... I was angry because Motohiro and others had been captured because of Gyon. I had two Hidden Frost shinobi in my captive, so I knew what was most probably happening to Motohiro—and they had nothing they could give to stop the torture. I blamed myself for it." Hoshiguro was the only one who knew his location, and he had gone down because of his health. No one could've led the Hidden Frost to him, which meant that everyone the enemy captured for information was bound to suffer without any chance of relief.

He continued, "I only realised what I was about to do when I was washing dishes in the back and saw them working in a hurry so that the people in the hall could enjoy their time. But it was too late to stop by then. I was too close. The jonin was a room away... I had to go through it." He had made the easy choice to ignore them.

Takuma exhaled deeply as he thought back to the moment and his memory of it was pretending to wash dishes. His clone was the one to execute the blast, so he didn't know what he would've felt in the moment—which only made it worse because the imagination of his mind made everything much worse. A dance troop was performing in the hall when the explosive tags went off, killing all of them—he had seen them briefly when they had arrived at the hall before the party—and his mind spurned horrifying images based on that brief moment he had seen them.

"I c-can't think about them anymore," Takuma said, his voice hoarse. "The more I think about them, the worse I feel. I become sick; my mind grows restless, my conscience grows heavy, grimy... I can't do it, I don't want to... I'll destroy myself."

A chaotic panic made his breathing laboured. He stopped and grabbed one of his knees with his good arm as he calmed himself with quick, short breaths. The thoughts of his actions wanted to make him run away, but there was no escaping from what was inside of him.

Anko waited in silence as he calmed himself down. "I'm glad you feel this way," she said.

Takuma looked up at her in shock and disbelief. "What the fuck, Anko!?"

"You are a killer—a murderer," she continued, unfazed, "so am I, a lot of shinobi are. It comes with the job. The important thing is to not become a mindless killer. Lives have value, the lives you took had value, and it'll do you good if you don't ignore them... I blame you for killing those people; I don't like it one bit—but I thought about it, and I honestly don't know what I would've done if you had asked for permission. If you ask me now, I would've refused, but at that moment with the opportunity to kill a jonin... I don't know—it would've been a tough decision.

"It's not my place, but I think it'll help if you hear it from someone else… If it's any easier, I'm telling you to put it behind you," she said and it sounded like an order from a superior officer. "You made a decision that wasn't… I've made plenty of mistakes in my career and I've been punished for them, but I've also been forgiven by others and by myself." She patted him on the back and asked him to stand up straight, "It's easy to say, but move forward. If it truly bothers you, in the soul, then the best move is to forgive yourself… Let it be a lesson to guide your future actions."

Takuma stood up straight with his eyes closed. Her words soothed him, but he knew it was only temporary. He had to confront himself and come to terms with it if he ever wanted to move forward.

"What about when the time comes when I'm ordered to take an innocent life?" asked Takuma. He was a shinobi, a mercenary for hire; there would inevitably come a day when he would have to fulfil the assassination contract posted by someone willing to pay—and the target was someone who didn't deserve to die. What was he supposed to do then?

"The world's unfair," said Anko with a sad look on her face. "I don't know the correct answer to this question—or even what you might want to hear at this moment. You're a shinobi—for all being a shinobi gives you, it takes just as much or even more away. You don't want to do something you don't like? You either stop being a shinobi, or you reach a place where you have the power to refuse. Even then, the chances are you'll do all kinds of things you don't like by the time you reach either of those places."

A Leaf genin signed a ten-year contract the moment they accepted their headband. A fifteen-year extension was part of the chunin promotion. Becoming a jonin meant another twenty-five years in service for the village. This meant, at minimum, a genin could leave the service after ten years, a chunin after twenty-five years, and a jonin after fifty years of minimum service.

Takuma had been a genin for three years, leaving seven more years on his contract.

However, he didn't want to stop being a shinobi.

"There's a third option—death," said Anko with a small smile. "No one can force you to do anything after you're dead."

Takuma stared at her and then burst into laughter that hurt his wounds, but he couldn't stop laughing.

"What?" asked Anko, confused.

"No, it's nothing," Takuma waved as he tried to stop laughing but failed." It's just a stupid joke—you had to be there for it to make sense."

It was funny because it came from Anko. She didn't know that her former teacher would master the technique to make the dead do his bidding. In the future, literally everyone important who had died would be forced to do all sorts of things against their will.

After the laughter subsided, he looked at her seriously and said,

"Hey, if I die, cremate me good, okay? Leave nothing behind."

"... Okay, if that's what you wish," she replied, utterly confused by the sudden change in demeanour.

Takuma nodded and sighed as he watched the city wall. He wasn't anyone important, so the chances of him being brought back from death were negligible, but there being an option bothered him deeply.

"Where did that come from? Any reason you stress it so much," she asked.

"Let's just say it's spiritual. I might not rest peacefully without it."

———

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Chapitre 271: CH_8.6 (271)

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———

Another day passed and Takuma once again found himself sitting before the masked ANBU duo in the same tent where he had met them first.

"How's the interrogation going? Got anything good out of him yet?" he asked, knowing it was unlikely.

He would've been beyond impressed if they managed to get the ROOT agent to open up within a day. Unlike the people Takuma had interrogated, the ROOT agent was most definitely trained in resisting torture and interrogation.

"We are ready to meet your demands," said the man.

"Don't put it like that—that makes it seem like I'm sort of a terrorist. This is a simple, honest trade," said Takuma.

"What do you want to know?" asked the woman.

"Who was behind my assassination?" Takuma replied without hesitation, all pretence draining from his face.

"You were targeted by ROOT itself," said the woman. "The bodies of your assassins went missing, but from your official statement and the fact that you made it out alive—we believe that they were trainees and you were assigned to them as a mission. You wouldn't have had a chance if they were genuine ROOT agents."

"Who ordered it? Give me the name of the drug lord?" Takuma asked; he didn't care about the assassins themselves; they were dead. He wanted to know the name of the drug lord who was so threatened by his work at the Narcotics Taskforce that he put a hit out on him.

Once he had a name, he would either kill the bastard in his free time or straight up put a bounty on his head and let someone else do the work.

"There is no drug lord."

"What?" Takuma frowned. "What do you mean there's no drug lord? Who ordered the assassination then?"

"ROOT ordered the assassination. The organisation itself wanted you dead," said the woman.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand," Takuma leaned forward, his brows tightening. "Please explain it to me like I'm five."

"You're correct in assuming the assassination attempt was related to your work in the Narcotics Taskforce. We looked into it, and the farm raid you conducted was the reason behind the assassination. That farm was connected to ROOT as one of their external revenue sources to fund their illegal operations. It seemed they didn't like a mere genin encroaching into their business and decided to send a message. They failed, of course— or maybe they didn't since you no longer work there."

Takuma fell into silence as his mind worked on the information he had received. It wasn't a drug lord, but ROOT itself targeting him. He hadn't thought of that because he didn't think ROOT would be in the drug trade and because he was too unimportant to be targeted.

Apparently not.

"You asked me about the posters with my face on them, right? It has to be Kon's doing. Was he involved in the assassination?"

"ROOT agent, codename: Kon. Real name: unknown—or if he has one. Many ROOT agents are registered because they're technically Leaf shinobi, but Kon wasn't one of them—he was never part of the Leaf shinobi system. However, he's one of the better-known agents due to his involvement in management rather than being a field agent. Last we know, he was in charge of several of ROOT's financial investments."

The woman glanced at her partner, who put a scroll on the table.

"What's that?" asked Takuma.

"That's everything ANBU has on Kon. This is our offer for the trade," said the man. "I'm sure you'd be interested in finding out more about the man who killed your teammate."

Takuma stared at the scroll resting on the table and considered what else he could get out of ANBU. What could they give him that would benefit him the most? He could ask them for an obscene amount of mission points which he could use to improve himself and grow stronger.

If he had been stronger, Rikku would still be alive so mission points made the most sense.

He stared at the scroll, and it stared back. The scene of the hallway in the manor house played in his mind. He felt Rikku's feeble weight against him and saw Kon's elated grin as he stared at him. He closed his eyes as the sludge of emotions pushed through his veins.

"Take it or leave it," said the woman.

"I'll take it," said Takuma, the feeling of anger blowing fires in his chest. He wanted to know everything there was about Kon to one day build an opportunity where he would have the bastard's neck in his grip so he could snap it with a twist. "This is all the information I have. It has names, connections, confirmed facts, theories, snippets—everything the Frost shinobi said is in here."

"We will still want to ask questions," said the man as Takuma set down his own scroll before picking up the one on Kon.

"Sure, I don't mind." Takuma opened the scroll to start reading it.

Across from him, the woman also picked up Takuma's scroll and found it to be completely empty.

"This is empty," she said.

"Yeah, sorry about that; I don't trust you guys," Takuma said. He gave them another scroll and continued to read its contents to see if it was authentic, which it seemed to be. "Now, ask your questions and let's get this over with."

———

The day after Takuma had the meeting, the ANBU duo left with their ROOT agent prisoner. He was surprised because he thought they would ask for at least two more follow-up meetings, but it seemed that they took his warning of putting the agent in danger seriously. He was tired and didn't want to play stressful mind games with the ANBU-nin so that was fine by him.

Takuma didn't even have the motivation to continue reading the scroll about Kon after the first reading—in fact, he didn't want to do anything but lay in his bed. Just when he thought he would have a complete day off, the entire team was summoned to Toridasu's office. There was tension among the team; they thought they were being assigned another team member to fill in the slot left behind by RIkku.

Takuma wasn't sure if they were ready to let someone inside so soon after Rikku's death and whether that person would fit.

"You have until the end of the month to file your mission report," said Toridasu.

"Yes, sir," said Anko, waiting for him to continue. That couldn't be everything he wanted to say because that could've been conveyed through a memo delivered by a genin.

Takuma took a silent, deep breath to calm down his irritation. If he had been pulled out of bed because of this, then he wanted to bash Toridasu's bald skull in.

"Anything else, sir?" asked Anko.

"No, nothing else," said Toridasu as he looked up at the team. "Just that when you're done with that report, all of you will be relieved of your duties... congratulations, you're being sent home."

———

The team spent the next few days drafting their joint and individual mission reports, motivated by the announcement of their return orders. The speed at which they worked was impressive because none of them hadn't thought they would be going home and fully believed that they would be either staying in Yu to defend the city as it was now Camp Banana's new base location or eventually going to help out with the other border cities.

So, when they got the news that they were going back home, they started to work furiously on the report, which wouldn't have seen any work for at least another half-month if they weren't going home. They completed and turned in their reports in three days, an amazing time for a mission as complex as the Yu precursor mission.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush; the Hidden Steam is complaining about what you did," said Toridasu.

Takuma, standing across from his table, stayed silent. He had been called for a private meeting in Toridasu's office a day after they handed in their reports. He was surprised that it had taken so many days for the topic to come up. He had expected it to happen as soon as the Steam shinobi had started talking with the civilians.

"They want me to punish you strictly."

"...I'll take whatever punishment you deem suitable," said Takuma; there was no use arguing for himself—what he had done was deeply wrong.

"I'm not going to punish you, even though I should," said Toridasu. "You can't just blow up so many people from another nation on their home soil and expect not to be treated as a terrorist. I mean, they would've understood if the people you blew up were enemies of the state—but you blew up poor workers."

Takuma simply stood there, ready to take whatever was coming his way.

"I'll take whatever punishment—"

"Did you not hear me?" Toridasu sighed. "You killed a jonin—that was a big contribution. You made the recapture much easier and prevented many casualties during the battle. However, that doesn't mean what you did was right. I'll say it straight so there's no confusion: what you did would levy heavy punishments if Shirakumo was your commanding jonin. He would make sure that you wouldn't be able to leave the Genin Corp for several years—no department would take you in—and because it goes on your record, the chunin would hesitate to take you up for out-of-village missions."

Takuma looked at Toridasu, wanting him to move on to the punishment. The man had said that he wasn't going to punish him, but with Toridasu it could be something else which was just as bad as official punishment.

"But I'm your commanding jonin, so I'm letting it slide. As you're leaving soon, I'm going to make it seem that you and the entire team are being sent away due to your actions—that will make the Hidden Steam happy," said Toridasu and then his expression grew solemn as he continued. "But Genin Takuma—"

Takuma stiffened when he heard his rank along with his name.

"—see that this doesn't happen again. You were lucky that the Hidden Steam recognised your contribution and only demanded that I discipline you. It could've easily gone up the chain of command and every single one of them would've played hot potato with the issue until they would, without doubt, decide that the only solution is to punish the person responsible as harshly as possible. At worst, you could've been sent to the Hidden Steam so they could deal with you according to their laws and your team would pay dearly for your actions—especially Mitarashi. Her career would've screeched to a halt because of her past and the rest would've had rocky futures.

"I'll say this in case you have some idiotic view of things: you can't treat civilians as though their lives don't matter. I've seen plenty of shinobi who believe that, and let me tell you, those guys feel untouchable until they do something they shouldn't have even dreamed about, and it never ends well. Do you understand?"

Takuma nodded, "Yes, sir."

That was all he could say.

———

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