Chapitre 292: CH_8.27 (292)
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The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
The vibe of the class gathering had turned awkward when Takuma left the building soon after coming in to talk with Kameko outside. Taro, who had arrived alongside him, sat down and ordered a large oolong tea.
He had caught the tail end of the conversation before it was shut down. Takuma hadn't mentioned anything about a jonin when he had talked to him and the trio about the war. He glanced at Fuma Arisu, and she looked deep in thought—it seemed he had also kept it from her. It stung that Takuma didn't trust him with whatever it was, but he also didn't know what exactly had happened and could only guess there were reasons Takuma had kept it to himself.
He didn't look very pleased when he went out with Kameko.
Ono, one of his best friends, sat beside him with a plate of yakiniku skewers.
"So, do you know what that was about?" he asked, leaning closer.
"I have absolutely no idea," Taro shrugged.
"... Are you saying that because you actually don't know or because he doesn't want to talk about it."
"I said what I meant." Taro looked at Ono with a disappointed frown. "And even if I knew, he clearly doesn't want to talk about it—so let's just give him his space and keep our business to ourselves."
"Okay, I got it; no need to get snippy," said Ono, raising his glass of fizz for a cheer that Taro reciprocated and put the matter behind them. "But it doesn't look like they want to stop talking about it."
Taro followed his eyes and saw the people at the table where Kameko sat whispering. He could imagine their minds coming up with speculations to make their own guesses of what had actually happened. People tended to fill in the gaps with what they thought had happened, then the next person would add their own thing into it before sharing it—and before you knew it, something completely off was floating around.
"How did this even come up?" asked Taro.
"Hiji was running his mouth."
"Figures."
Taro glanced at the Inuzuka, who was sitting among his clique; he didn't look bothered that he was partly responsible for shaping the mood of the gathering and was chatting with his lackeys like nothing had happened. Taro glanced at the building's door; Takuma would return soon, and he couldn't help but wonder if Hiji would pick up a fight.
The Takuma of today were utterly unrecognisable from the days when all of them were in the academy.
———
.
"... I see," Takuma sighed after hearing all the facts from Kameko, who looked halfway between anger and regret.
"I don't know what came over me; that disrespectful piece of shit..." Kameko groaned and punched the wall she was leaning against. "I know you don't like to talk about it, but he was getting on my nerves," she clicked her tongue, "I shouldn't have said anything... I'm sorry."
"It's fine," said Takuma. "It's not like it's my secret to keep; you were in the city as well."
He didn't like what he had done, and while his teammates were kind and generous enough to keep it low, it was a fact that those things had happened. They were a permanent part of his record for anyone with the authority or clearance. Rather than trying to hide it, he needed to learn to live with his actions. He didn't want people to bring it up because it was uncomfortable and he couldn't see a future where he would openly talk about what had happened in Yu.
"Thank you for defending me," said Takuma. While he wasn't happy that Kameko brought it up, he understood her intentions were positive.
Kameko shook her head softly. "It'll be awkward when we head inside," she sighed.
"It's fine. Some small talk and people would want to take the opportunity to move past the awkwardness." As long as he avoided the topic and no one pushed like an asshole, it wouldn't be challenging to move the conversation forward.
"How are you?" Takuma asked. This was the first time they had met since their return.
"My room felt strange for the first week... I ate too much every day because I missed the taste... I went out for walks just because I could without worrying about danger," Kameko replied after a pause with a low-spirited look.
He could relate. Even though they were safely back home and happy to be reunited with loved ones, they couldn't help but think about their time at Yu and the war. Their war experience had only deepened now that they had something to contrast it.
"I barely came out of my room for the first week," said Takuma, staring at the ground.
Kameko nodded. "There were too many happy people making noise without a care. A part of me felt uncomfortable being out and seeing that."
"Made you want to stay inside to be away from it all?" he asked.
She closed her eyes and nodded with a deep breath.
Takuma had roamed the streets of Yu to observe and gauge the city. At that time, he had felt like a visitor from outside who had no connection to the place or people. That feeling hadn't completely gone away even though they were back home with deep connections. Kameko was no different in their regard and perhaps even felt it more as she had to live in the city undercover, which was living a lie that only served to worsen that feeling.
———
When Takuma and Kameko returned to the gathering, he headed to the popular table and sat beside Hana to greet her with all eyes on him.
"Congratulations, Chunin Hana," Takuma said as he handed her an envelope. "I didn't know what you'd like, so here's an overnight stay at a great onsen ryokan with all sorts of treatment and services included in your stay. I made sure they allow ninken in case you want to bring them, so go relax any stress away."
Hana accepted the gift with a smile and thanked him. "I hope everything went well?" she asked, glancing at Kameko, who was now sitting at another table with one of her friends.
"Yes, we cleared everything up. I hadn't seen her since we returned, so it was nice that we caught up," said Takuma before casually calling out his drink order to the staff to portray. He looked across the table at the other two chunin in the room. "Congratulations to you both as well, Chunin Momoe and Chunin Izumi. I don't have congratulatory gifts for you today, but please let me treat you to a warm meal in the future."
"Thank you, Takuma," Izumi smiled. "It's surprising that we didn't run into each other often when you work so close to home." The Leaf Military Police Force headquarters and the Uchiha Compound were located no more than ten to fifteen minutes of walking.
"I think it makes sense. You're a busy kunoichi, and I don't think the headquarters is where anyone wants to spend their free time. And I often found myself held up in the offices until odd hours, so it's not strange that we never ran into each other," he said politely.
"But I heard that you regularly visited the compound for training with Lady Mikoto, and we still didn't run into each other—that's why I'm so surprised."
"That's indeed surprising," said Takuma, given that he visited Mikoto's house five times a week.
"Lady Mikoto? As in Jonin Uchiha Mikoto?" asked Hana, her eyes widening in surprise.
"Yes, Lady Uchiha has been generous enough to spare me her time and wisdom," said Takuma. He wasn't surprised that Izumi knew about him and Mikoto's master-disciple relationship because she was the clan's matriarch—but it also made sense that someone like Hana wouldn't know as their relationship was low-key as they never went anywhere together or announced it to anyone.
Everyone at the table who didn't know about it already was surprised by the discovery that a Uchiha jonin was teaching Takuma, as it raised questions about how close he was to the clan. Through Arisu, they all knew that he was in a noteworthy position at the Police Force, and now he had a significant role to play in the clan leadership. In one moment, Takuma's background had gone from an orphaned civilian-born shinobi to someone remarkably connected.
Takuma raised his glass of cold pop to take a sip when he felt someone behind him move. He put his glass down a moment before a heavy hand patted and grasped his shoulder.
"Come on, don't ignore a friend you haven't met since the academy," said Hiji with a shit-eating grin on his face as he shook Takuma's shoulder. "I hear people say that you have changed. Have you really changed from the weak wimp who wasn't even allowed to test for a jonin team?"
Tension immediately rose as they surely thought a fight would break out between the two boys who had never gotten along. Hana looked like she was about to say something when Takuma turned to face Hiji.
"I think I have changed, but what about you? It still seems like you have the personality of someone who didn't grow past the mental age of five—but even that would be an insult to five-year-olds... As for not meeting since the academy, if I wanted to hear an asshole, I'd just fart."
Snorts and chuckles sounded in response.
Hiji angrily looked at the people who had laughed. Taro and Izumi had the decency to turn his head and cover her mouth with her hand, respectively, but Arisu just stared at him with a grin on her lips. Momoe quickly controlled the smile that tugged on her lips by eating the food before her while Hana simply sighed with her hand pressing against her forehead.
Takuma removed Hiji's hand from his shoulder. "And we were never friends, Hiji. Maybe you struggle with concepts because you never had any."
"I have plenty of friends, don't I, guys?"
The people Hiji was sitting with responded with their agreements.
Takuma shifted to look at Hiji's clique and sighed, "That's just sad... You're confusing lackeys with friends."
Hiji's smile stiffened, and anger flared in his eyes, but he pulled himself back together. "You have changed. You didn't have that mouth on you when we were in the academy."
"Oh no, I had this mouth before; you just weren't worth it for me to use it."
"Okay, that's not enough, both of you; let's stop this now," Hana said, interrupting. She shot a hot look at Hiji, who was staring daggers at Takuma, who gazed back impassively.
"Taketori said something really interesting before you came—"
"I also heard something interesting," Takuma cut off Hiji. "I heard your jonin-sensei isn't renewing your team next year."
The jonin-led genin teams formed after the academy ran for four years before it was up to the jonin to decide if they wanted to renew the team's active status—if the jonin refused, the team would be turned inactive, and the genin on the team would be transferred to the Genin Corp if they hadn't secured an assignment in a department. Their batch had already been genin for three years.
Takuma turned to Izumi, who was on the same team as Hiji. "It must've been a tough time being on the same team like him, but you must be happy now that you're going your separate ways." He turned back to Hjij. "Telling you one year in advance is a bit too early, don't you think? Maybe he knew you aren't making chunin rank anytime soon and thinks it's not worth it to waste any more effort, so he's cutting you off the leash."
"Let's get out of here, you and me," said Hiji with a vein popping on his head. In the corner, his ninken slowly walked over to the table, the dog's muscle building under its luscious black fur; Kuragiri's eyes were those of a hunter locked onto his prey, waiting for his partner to give the command.
"Enough, both of you," Hana interrupted in a grave tone, the fang tattoos on her face deepening. She turned to Hiji and said in a short tone. "If you can't act civil, get out of here."
"He—"
"You started it, Hiji," Hana raised her voice. "Don't test my patience. You're this close to ruining today, and you won't like it if you go further." She turned her eye to Kuragiri, who was still locked on to Takuma, making the ninken step back with caution in his eyes.
Hiji looked at Takuma nasty before turning his back with a huff and sitting down at his table.
Hana turned to Takuma and was about to say something, but Takuma beat her to it,
"I am sorry."
Hana's anger immediately deflated, and she suddenly looked like she didn't know what to say.
"No, that idiot started it. It's not your—"
"It takes two hands to clap. I shouldn't have engaged him by falling down to his level." Takuma looked around and pursed his lips. "It soured the mood of a gathering for such a joyous occasion. Let me make it up by buying everyone a round."
"No, it's fine. You don't have to."
"I insist."
Hana looked troubled and was about to refuse when Taro, reading the situation, ordered a vanilla milkshake to move the party along before it got stuck in the awkwardness. Arisu understood the situation and placed an order as well. With two people ordering quickly, Hana looked at Takuma, who handed her a menu, making her give up and ordering something which made everyone else comfortable enough to order. It almost instantly erased any bad mojo that could've persisted from Hiji and Takuma's exchange.
"Now, if you will excuse me," said Takuma and got up to go sit with Taro.
"Takuma, won't you stay?" Momoe cupped her chin in the palm of her hand. "I'd love to talk to you."
.
———
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The link is in the synopsis!
Chapitre 293: CH_8.28 (293)
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The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
"Kameko was talking about the gold mine operation your base ran, and I asked a question about keeping track of your surroundings when there's such a sheer quantity of enemies and allies around you," said Momoe.
It had been almost two years since she had seen Takuma after their impromptu sparring session. He had always looked tired and haggard from their academy days, but it had only seemed to worsen with age. He looked worn out as though he hadn't properly rested in who knew how long... and yet his eyes were alert.
There was a focused clarity in them as he sat across the table listening to her.
"How did you manage in all that chaos?" she asked.
Takuma glanced at Kameko for a moment before turning back to her. "Trust your teammates with your back. Protect them, and they will protect you," he said.
"Kameko said the same thing," said Momoe, nodding. She was expecting another answer, but it made sense, seeing that they shared the same experience.
She wanted to know more about what Kameko was saying before Takuma had stopped her. Kameko claimed that he killed a jonin, which she found hard to believe, but Kameko wasn't the type to make false claims, so there had to be some truth to it.
Seeing that Takuma was quick to shut Hiji down when he brought up the jonin topic, it was evident that he wasn't willing to talk about it and would most likely change the subject or perhaps even straight out leave. But she could learn more about him by simply talking to him and gaining some insight through that route.
"But what do you do if you are separated from your teammates?" Takuma proposed a question.
"Oh?"
"I have only been in one such situation, so I don't know if it's natural, but crowds formed in that pit. Because there are too many people to keep track of, you automatically want to get away to avoid danger—to get to a place where you don't have to be on the watch for so many people... That seems to be a natural response for everyone. Do you agree?"
"That makes sense, yes," she replied.
"The same response from over two hundred people resulted in the formation of small crowds or groups across the battlefield. These small crowds had perhaps seven to nine people, equally divided into allies and enemies—which is just enough that someone can keep track comfortably." Takuma paused for a moment and looked as though he was finding it difficult to find the correct words until he looked around the gathering. "Take our tables as an example..."
The izakaya's dining space was open, with six low tables in two rows of three. The class had occupied four tables, with the last two tables empty. The popular table had moved two tables closer to merge them into one.
"...Groups like our tables formed in that pit," Takuma continued, "people distancing themselves created dense zones, creating enough space between each table where you no longer had to watch out for people on the tables. They were still very much a threat, but the common response had everyone more worried about what was near them."
"I see... so now, instead of teammates, you have allies to protect your back," said Momoe as the bird-eye view of a battlefield of hundreds of shinobi divided into smaller zones.
"Not as good as having a trusted teammate, but it's the next best option."
As they talked, Arisu took Hana's place beside Takuma after she moved to another table to play host. On the other side of the table, Izumi moved to Momoe's side.
"But what if the allies around you choose to focus on their own opponent? You can't be sure they would cover for you," asked Izumi. She had been following the conversation.
Takuma snapped a pair of disposable chopsticks as Arisu placed a plate of fried chicken on the table between them. "That's very much possible, but it becomes difficult when other enemies are constantly in your field of view. You start to think what would happen if one of your allies died..."
"The enemy would outnumber you, and the balance would crumble," Momoe pursed her lips.
"That's exactly right. And when you arrive at that thought, you realise you can't allow one of your allies to die because your chances of survival go down with them," said Takuma as he put down the chopsticks. "Just like any battle, it takes one second, one move, one mistake for the tide to change and for things to go horribly wrong. Any competent fighter knows that, unlike spars, most real battles aren't fought in a vacuum."
"So the key is to outlast the other side. Keep each other alive until someone from the other side falls," Arisu commented as she poured a little bit of sauce on her plate.
"You are half correct, or at least, you're looking at it slightly incorrectly," said Takuma. "Maintaining balance between the two sides shouldn't be a priority—breaking it should be."
"What do you mean?" asked Izumi with a furrow in her brow.
"It's impossible to maintain that balance because someone is going to die sooner or later. The longer you wait, the more likely it is that something will go wrong., If you find yourself in a position like that, do not be on the defensive—try to help your allies kill their opponents... Throw a kunai to catch the opponent off guard; if you're using a ninjutsu, try to aim it in a way that it gets a second target as well—try to sow chaos because one second, one move, one mistake…. that's all it takes for things to start going right. It's a domino—you just need that first tile to fall to set off the chain... One second, one move, one mistake—that's all it takes for the tide to change and for things to go right."
All three girls went silent at his words. This was the type of knowledge you could only get from someone who had experienced the situation.
He is smart, thought Momoe.
There was a time when she had the lowest impression of Takuma. He was everything shinobi expected a civilian student would be—always lower quality than those with shinobi pedigree. He was at the absolute bottom of their class, and it only worsened when they entered their final year. She understood that someone had to be in the last place, but that didn't mean he needed to be so much worse than everyone else.
Even though he somewhat bridged that gap by the end of the year, it was perhaps the reason he wasn't allowed to test for a jonin team and no one was surprised by that news. It was because of his poor track record, but she could tell that, in addition to that, a lot of people pointed to his civilian, orphan background as a fault.
She blamed him for representing the stereotype. She hated that people thought of civilian-born shinobi as worse than their clan counterparts. She understood there was a difference between the two groups because of the resources available to each— and that she was privileged because of her parents—but people who didn't put in genuine effort got on her nerves.
Then, there was Hiji's bullying that Takuma never opposed. She had tried to help, but he took no initiative of his own, which only served to drop her opinion of him. She disliked the academy teachers who did nothing about the bullying when there was no way they could've missed it.
Did they not care because Takuma was a civilian while Hiji came from a clan?
She hated all of it.
After their class graduated, Momoe no longer had a connection with Takuma, which, along with her busy life, made her forget about him.
Out of sight, out of mind.
That changed when she found that Takuma had entered the Police Force from Arisu. It was a mighty fine opportunity to be one of the first outsiders to enter a closed organisation like the Police Force, and if he could grab it, Takuma could turn his life around. She was doubtful he could accomplish it because of his track record, but seeing that the Police Force had hired him, perhaps they had seen something she had missed, or he had changed since graduation.
And Takuma had indeed changed. It was utterly shocking when he fought toe-to-toe with her teammate, Akimichi Hideaki. She was utterly surprised by the rate at which Takuma had improved to the point he had caught up to Hideaki, who, while not the hardest worker, always did what was asked of him without complaints—which included training.
She wanted to see how much he had improved, so she threw the B-rank ninjutsu she had just learned at him to see what he would do. Her teacher was there, so she wasn't worried about things going wrong, and he didn't need to interfere as Takuma handled himself.
He gave up the fight in the end—but there was no shame in it.
His progress was undeniable proof that he had made a real effort to improve. She hated people who didn't put in effort, but she respected those who gave it their all. And she could tell that he must've given it more than his all to reach the point he did after starting behind everyone else.
Takuma had indeed turned his life around because even though news articles about the Narcotics Taskforce didn't have his name, she knew from Arisu that he was the leader. He had turned the opportunity into exemplary results. It was deserving of praise.
"I have been following your career through the news articles about the Narcotics Taskforce," she said. "It's utterly late, but nevertheless, allow me to congratulate you. You have done some great work." She gave a nod to Arisu as well.
"Thank you," said Takuma.
"So what's in the plans now that you have returned?" asked Momoe.
She was expecting to tell him something like he was settling in after his return, but the awkward look Arisu and Takuma shared said to her that something else was going on.
"Let's just say that a lot of things are in the process, and I'm excited to be back," said Takuma. "Now, I must admit, I'm interested in your experience as a new chunin..."
He changed the topic. Momoe hid her surprise and wondered what had happened for them to react like that.
"...I must say I was out of my depth when I started with the Narcotics Taskforce. If not for Arisu, I would not have been able to handle the managerial side of things. She's still better at it than me."
"Shower me with more praise," Arisu said, puffing her chest.
"How has it been leading teams on missions?" Takuma asked Momoe.
Momoe had been a chunin for half a year. Most new chunin split their time between joining missions led by jonin or other experienced chunin to learn on the job—and then applying what they had learned by leading genin on missions.
"I'm grateful that Kazuo-sensei prepared us by allowing us to practise leadership," said Momoe, thinking back to her experience as a genin. "I believe it was seven or eight months into our time as genin when he started sending us on every third D-rank mission on our own; we rotated the leader position and had to complete the mission to the client's satisfaction—quarterway through our second year, he stopped participating in D-rank missions altogether, and trusted us to do it on our own... He repeated the same method with C-rank missions halfway through our second year, and the moment I made chunin, he stopped participating in them as well.
"So I wasn't nervous leading missions, and I'm sure it would be the same with Hideaki and Aimi."
Takuma looked surprised but nodded. "That makes sense, actually. Just simple and practical teaching."
"Indeed," said Momoe.
Takuma then started asking more questions that Momoe was happy to answer. Out of all civilian-background genin in their batch—or the two batches above then—he was the one who seemed to have accomplished the most, and she wanted to get to know him better and perhaps establish a better peer relationship.
.
———
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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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