Chapitre 297: CH_8.32 (297)

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———

At six in the morning, Takuma and Maruboshi stood in front of the house. Takuma was dressed in the standard shinobi gear with a slightly chunkier backpack full of the things he would need for the two-week assessment. Seeing that they didn't know anything about the assessment, they built a survival kit that would at least keep him dry and fed.

"How are you feeling?" asked Maruboshi.

"Good, refreshed," Takuma answered, rolling his shoulders. "The nervousness will hit full force when I get there." It had been like that since his school days. He would be fine until the final moment when the teacher distributed the test sheets and the restlessness and worry would raise their head.

"Remember to pay attention to your surroundings, and nothing is more important than keeping yourself safe. I do not know what they might throw at you; I doubt it will be easy," said Maruboshi.

Takuma nodded. He wasn't in the mood for difficult things and wanted to gradually ramp up his training until he returned to his pre-Yu state of routine. So, even though he wanted to perform well, he wasn't excited about it.

"I haven't said this enough, but I'm grateful that you let me stay for so long. I know I would've been a very different person without your kindness." Takuma bowed until his torso was parallel to the ground. He didn't think he would've been able to recover as much as he did without Maruboshi. "After I return, I'll collect my belongings and move to Ai's house while I look for a new place."

Not only had Maruboshi lived for a very long time, but he also enjoyed spending time in the great outdoors—foraging, hunting, fishing, and cooking his catch outside in his garden—a lifestyle Takuma disrupted with his wanted Maruboshi to return to his life, and leaving would allow him to do that.

"I would not mind if you continue to live with me. I have come to enjoy the company," said Maruboshi.

Takuma stood up from his bow, surprised.

"Of course, I will charge rent, and you will have to share housekeeping duties, but if you do not mind having an old man like myself as a housemate, then I do not mind if we extend our current living situation."

Takuma's lower lip quivered briefly, and he bowed his head to hide it. He felt an overwhelming feeling wash over him, making him take a deep breath. "Thank you," he said, looking back up. "I will think about it and give you my answer when I return."

"Focus on the tasks they give you," said Maruboshi with a smile. "Now, get out of here. It wouldn't do to turn up late now, would it."

"I'll be off," Takuma said before walking out of the property with a warmth bubbling in his heart.

———

The meeting location provided in the scroll was one of the training fields reserved for high-level chunin and jonin. Takuma almost salivated as he entered the field because not only was it large and impeccably maintained, but it was also attached to a training facility with specialised equipment for targeted training.

There were other training facilities open to genin, but they weren't as good and were always overbooked. Takuma had used one while training his hearing for the Hidden Mist Jutsu, but from what he knew, this training facility was a state-of-the-art location. He could've accessed it through the Police Force, but he was so busy that he never had the time to make it happen.

He spotted a shinobi standing in the middle of the field who waved when he saw him.

"Welcome, Genin Takuma. I'm glad that you're on time. You have a busy day ahead of you, so let's waste no time and get started," the shinobi said with a polite smile. He took out a small scroll from his person and tossed it to Takuma. "In that scroll, you will find a set of clothes along with weaponry and some other supplies. Please remove everything you brought and equip the contents of the scroll."

"Is that necessary?" asked Takuma, pursing his lips.

"It's mandatory."

He saw no use in arguing and changed to the gear provided in the storage scroll out in the open field. The uniform was a boiler suit with a grey-and-green colour scheme; it was a perfect fit and allowed a full range of motion with comfortable margins that he suspected was tailor-made for him.

There were plenty of pockets, but not as many as he was used to. After joining the Police Force, he wore their uniform, but before that, he used to wear the standard shinobi gear without the flak jacket. But outside of the village, he always wore a flak jacket on missions because he needed pocket space.

Not only was he used to the pocket placement on the jacket, but he also had a system of what each pocket stored—all of which was programmed into his muscle memory. The new boiler suit rendered all of that useless. The provided gear included weapon pouches, which once again presented a similar problem because the ones he owned were customised to his exact preferences. These ones made his hand feel awkward when he reached for them.

But the biggest annoyance was the weapons themselves. Each shinobi had custom loadouts built to accommodate and match their combat style. The weapon loadout provided was the 'recommended' set—which wasn't bad and was recommended for a reason, but it didn't fit him.

Takuma sighed and looked at the black balaclava mask provided with the gear.

"Am I going to steal something?" he asked.

"Please put it on and head to this address. You have twenty minutes; you'll be disqualified if you're even a minute late." The shinobi took out a scroll and weaved hand seals for smoke to puff out from the fuinjutsu seals. "The countdown has started; please hurry."

The address was a very tight twenty minutes away from their location, so he needed to be fast if he wanted to make it in time. Takuma handed his gear over and said, "I want all my stuff back when this is over. Not a thing should be missing."

"Please be unbothered. Everything will be taken care of properly."

Takuma was already running as he put his mask on.

———

He thought there would be some obstacles on his way to the address. He expected an ambush —but nothing happened, and he reached the location without any hitches. He didn't have a watch, so he couldn't be sure if he made it in time or not, but he believed so.

The building on the address was an unoccupied, drab, three-storey office building with boarded windows. There were no instructions on what to do upon reaching the location, and he would've opted to stay out and observe the perimeter, but seeing that there was a time limit, he didn't want to fail just because he didn't go inside.

He approached the backdoor and found a dusty plaque slotted in a door.

[Recruitment. Head Inside.]

That affirmed his doubts, and he entered the building and found himself in a large hall that workers would have used if anyone worked in the building. But instead of office workers, the cafeteria was occupied by a dozen or more balaclava-wearing shinobi who all looked at him when he entered through the door.

The room was already quiet, but it felt like it dipped further into silence as Takuma walked inside. He observed the people who were obviously his competition. He didn't know how many people the ANBU was aiming to recruit, so he assumed the worst and treated it like there was only one open position. If he wanted his promotion, he would need to trump everyone.

And if ANBU had invited someone, there was no doubt that they would be competent at the least.

Takuma swept his gaze around the hall to roughly memorise physical features like gender, body shape, height, and eye colour to identify the people. He was surprised when he noticed a man with white pupils; there was only one clan in the entire world with that dojutsu bloodline.

A Hyuga was participating in the ANBU assessment.

Their eyes met, and the Hyuga furrowed his eyes in displeasure before looking away. Takuma couldn't blame him. It was rude to stare. Even after living in the world for over four years, he hadn't gotten used to the white-eyed clan. Their eyes were so striking that he couldn't help but stare.

One by one, the masked candidates approached an unmasked kunoichi dressed in standard Leaf gear standing behind the serving counter attached to a small kitchen. Just like the receptionists he had met during his visit to the headquarters and the shinobi he met in the training field, she was an ANBU employee.

"Hello, welcome to the ANBU assessments," the kunoichi addressed Takuma with a polite smile when it was his turn to step up the counter. "While there is no rule barring you from revealing your identities during the assessment process to other candidates, we are allocating a number to everyone to use as identification. You will be here on addressed as Number #13." She took out a key from a drawer with the number thirteen written on the green tab. "For now, please head to the room marked with the number thirteen and wait for further instructions... Do you have any questions?"

He thought about it for a moment before shaking his head.

"Excellent," the kunoichi smiled.

Takuma took the stairs to get up to his room. On the base of the stairs, a masked ANBU-nin was sitting on a stool with his hood pulled up. He was still like a statue and had an intense vibe that said not to talk to him.

As Takuma passed by, his eye was drawn to the number of gem-encrusted gold rings on the man's freshly manicured fingers; they looked absurdly expensive and, in his opinion, gaudy. He wasn't against jewellery and thought about getting a piercing and a chain someday to wear off duty—but he preferred a more subtle style.

As he climbed the first step, Takuma raised his right arm and weaved a simple hand seal to disrupt the chakra inside him to shatter the genjutsu cast over him by the ANBU-nin. It was a decently strong genjutsu, but it was piss and shit when compared to what Mikoto used on him to build up his genjutsu recognition. Despite having the ability where he was passively able to see through genjutsu eventually, Mikoto ignored it and taught him how to recognise and break genjutsu properly.

As his skill with genjutsu—casting and breaking—rose, his passive ability had only become much stronger. He had reached a level where he could see through low-level genjutsu from the moment they were cast. For stronger genjutsu, he was able to see through them faster.

If he had to estimate, it would've taken three more seconds before his ability would've seen through the ANBU-nin's genjutsu. It was always a confidence booster when he was able to sense and break a genjutsu before his ability kicked in—which didn't happen a lot when his opponent was Mikoto, who admitted (shamelessly bragged) that it was difficult for someone on her level to cast weak genjutsu.

Takuma arrived at room number thirteen and saw two doors facing each other. One had a big red cross, while the other had a green check mark painted roughly on it. He guessed that the genjutsu made it seem like the room with the red X-cross was the correct one. The test was most probably to see if the candidates could break through the jutsu.

As he slotted his key into the correct lock, a door a few rooms over opened, and a tall and slender man with long hair that reached his lower back stepped out of a room with the red X-cross. The man wore a balaclava, but his frown was visible through the eye-opening.

Their eyes met, and the man looked flustered at being seen getting caught in the genjutsu. Takuma simply nodded to the man and entered his room without waiting for a reply.

When Takuma entered the room, he froze at the sight of the interior.

The rooms of the wall were painted into colours—white on the upper half and light green on the lower half—it was a familiar paint job because it was used at his house. Whoever had painted had gone through the trouble to fade and wear out the paint job, so it looked old, just like in his home that hadn't been painted in years.

Then his eye fell to the wall on the left where a large cork board hung with blank paper sheets pinned all over it... just like how he had it in his living room.

And finally, there was a simple metal sheet table and a cheap plastic chair in the middle of the room. It didn't match his furniture, but Takuma wasn't thinking about it because there was a leaf-themed hard front mask sitting on the tabletop—just like the one he wore when he fought in the Ring as Scars.

It wasn't subtle.

By setting up the room, they were making a statement—that they knew about him... that they knew him.

———

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Chapitre 298: CH_8.33 (298)

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———

At a location far from the office building with the candidates, a group of ANBU-nin and department staff used another building as their base. They preferred to be in the same location as the examinees, but a Hyuga was participating in the assessment, and they didn't want to be seen by the Byakugan.

They were inside a spacious room with a large conference table in the centre and a wall lined with tons of bulky electronic equipment connected to the cameras in the office building all over the building; each numbered room had a pair of cameras to observe the candidates. Another wall was covered with bulky monitors that showed grainy images of the candidates as they sat in their rooms, individually customised to surprise and unsettle them.

"Are all candidates settled down?" asked a man codenamed Eisbar, who was given a mask inspired by the polar bear. Eisbar was an ANBU jonin in charge of the current recruitment round.

"Yes, sir," answered another ANBU-nin codenamed Swine. He was one of the chunin involved in the recruitment process.

None of the ANBU-nin in the room wore their masks, as no outsider was in their company. The staff were aware of the ANBU-nin's identity as it was unrealistic to work with people without knowing who they were; they needed to know if they were talking to the right person.

"Was anyone late to reach the location?"

"No."

Eisbar nodded as he stared at the monitors. It would've been embarrassing for everyone involved if a candidate selected to be a potential ANBU-nin couldn't do something as simple as reach the location on time. He looked at the wall clock; it had been ten minutes since the last candidates entered their rooms, and that was the cut-off period to escape the genjutsu cast by the ANBU-nin at the location.

The ability to use genjutsu wasn't required for an ANBU-nin—it was heavily preferred, but not a cause of disqualification. However, one of the most basic requirements was a competent ability to detect and break genjutsu.

"How many of them are still under the genjutsu?"

"Three of them."

A total of seventeen candidates were being assessed in the current round of assessment.

"Send them home," Eisbar said, waving his hand. Not even an hour had passed since the assessment started, and three people had already been eliminated. "Has Angler sent a list yet?"

Codename Angler was the ANBU-nin at the office building who had cast genjutsu over the candidates and wore a mask inspired by the anglerfish.

One of the staff gave Eisbar a sheet of candidates sorted by how quickly they had broken out of the genjutsu.

"One second—Number #13, Genin Takuma. That's impressive," said Eisbar with an approving nod. "Isn't he the one we're going to promote to chunin if we select him? I didn't know he was a genjutsu specialist."

The recruitment process was only a part of his responsibilities, and he had many more duties as a jonin; as such, he wasn't familiar with the candidates, having delegated the task to his subordinates. It was his plan to get familiar with the candidates in the coming two weeks so that he could decide who would be inducted into the department.

But he knew about Takuma because of the rank promotion.

The Department of ANBU employed shinobi of all ranks and capabilities as agents. They even had genin agents for specific use cases, such as going undercover as a civilian or low-level non-shinobi chakra wielder in a scenario where the agent had to hoodwink a sensory-nin who would immediately catch a chunin or above because of their large chakra reserves.

The current round of assessment targeted 'chunin-level' shinobi. Most candidates were already chunin rank, but there were a few like Takuma who the ANBU deemed worthy enough to be chunin and thus offered them rank promotion if they managed to join the department.

"Negative, sir," said another ANBU-nin, codenamed Lowe, who had been given a mask inspired by a lion. He was another chunin involved in the recruitment process. "Genin Takuma was a prizefighter in the underground fighting establishment called the Ring. His fighting style is predominantly taijutsu, with a secondary focus on ninjutsu. However, he learned genjutsu under Jonin Uchiha Mikoto before he was deployed to the Frost-Steam war—that's the most probable source of his skill."

"The Ring, eh," Eisbar muttered.

The Ring was an open secret that was allowed to exist for a myriad of greedy reasons, but if anyone asked, it was because it allowed the Leaf shinobi to train their fighting skills. The Ring had produced a few ANBU-nin, mostly genin, as the shinobi that gathered in those circles were generally street-smart and, thus, suitable for work that the department gave to their genin agents.

He didn't miss Takuma's connection with Uchiha and his employment in the Police Force. His relationship with Uchiha Mikoto was notable, but it wasn't anything special; they had plenty of clan shinobi with notable connections in their ranks, and Mikoto's son was an ANBU Captain.

"Number #7, Chunin Hyuga Kojuro. Six seconds is impressive as well."

That was roughly the time it took to climb the stairs and reach the second floor. For most genjutsu users, it was extremely difficult to catch a Hyuga in a genjutsu as they could see the flow of chakra and would disrupt it before it could even hold effect—but that was only when they had their Byakugan active—with their eyes inactive, they were the same as anyone else.

"If I remember correctly, he's a tracking and infiltration specialist. Typical Hyuga," Eisbar commented. However, no one could deny that no one was better at tracking than a Hyuga. As long as Kojuro managed to stay in till the end, he was guaranteed to join ANBU.

The five people after Takuma broke their genjutsu well before they reached their rooms. The eight after them took a few more seconds and broke them by the time they reached their pair of rooms. The remaining went into the wrong rooms before breaking the genjutsu and then going into the right one.

"Alright then," Eisbar clapped. "Let's find out more about them... Bring in their belongings."

To test the candidates appropriately, they needed to know more about them and what better way to get to know them than the weapons they wield?

———

While Takuma was most definitely surprised upon seeing the room's interior, he quickly calmed down and closed the door behind him.

He quickly scanned the room and noticed the two wall-mounted cameras with red dot lights indicating that they were watching him. The only items in the room were the table, chair, cork board covered with blank paper sheets, and the 'Scars' mask.

He picked up the mask to confirm that it wasn't one of his masks stored in the storage locker. He hadn't seen them since his return, as they were packed away in a box in the back. The mask was brand new without a single scratch or embellishment, while all of his masks had seen use in fights. He then checked under the chair and table to see if there was anything, only to find nothing out of place. Finally, he went to the corkboard and looked through the pages to find a page with a single line of text.

[Number #13, remove your mask and wait for further instructions]

Takuma didn't follow the instructions immediately and took the corkboard off the wall to check behind it, but there was nothing there either. The only other thing of interest in the room was that the door had a post-box slot for someone to slip something in from the outside.

He sat down on the chair, and only then did he pull off his mask.

After taking a moment, Takuma realised that the things in the room weren't as surprising as he had first thought. The paint job of his house wasn't difficult to find. If the Police Force knew about him being Scars, then it wasn't surprising that the ANBU knew about it; moreover, he was no longer worried if people knew—in fact, he was ready to share the prizefighting part of his life with his loved ones.

The corkboard, however, did concern him. Had they looked into his storage locker, or had they broken into his house before he had left for the war? Perhaps both since, before he purchased a corkboard, important information was always posted on a wall in his house. All of it was encrypted in a mixture of two other-worldly languages, and while he knew it was near impossible to decrypt, he was worried that ANBU just might pull it off somehow.

But seeing that they had put up blank pages, he suspected they had nothing on him in that avenue.

Then there was the question of if this was all they knew about him. He doubted that. If it were him, he would like to lull the target into a false sense of comfort before striking hard to panic them. He wouldn't be surprised if they knew about his dealings with Enomoto.

While he had been careful to compartmentalise his life and keep things apart, he wasn't arrogant enough to think he hadn't made any mistakes. Just looking at his work at the Narcotics Taskforce would raise some doubts. If someone looked deeply into it, they would find something off. However, Takuma was confident they wouldn't find any incriminating proof to nail him for his dealings.

If someone wanted to ruin him, they would need Enomoto's help, and while he didn't believe the shady iryo-nin would do it—that help didn't need to be given willingly. There were ways to make Enomoto open his mouth through painful means and the ANBU was more than capable of doing that.

Takuma wanted to sigh deeply, but the cameras were watching, and he didn't want to give anything away.

A clicking sound came from the door, indicating that the lock on the door had been engaged.

He got up and tried the door; it was locked. The door was sturdy but not enough to stop him from breaking out. He guessed that the next test was about to commence, so he returned to his chair to wait. Time passed, but nothing happened. Takuma didn't have a watch, so he didn't know how many minutes had passed, but it felt close to an hour.

Takuma familiarised himself with the weapon pouches so that he could use them effectively. He laid out the weapons on the table to visualise the loadout and remember the quantity of all the different units to strategize how he might want to use his weapons during fights.

"Hmm?"

Takuma looked at the kunai in his hand. It looked normal, but something felt off about it. For a moment, he wasn't able to identify the problem, but when he tossed it in the air, he immediately recognised that the kunai was imbalanced when it leaned to the side in the air. It was a minute lean because the throw height was short, but he knew that the kunai would deviate over long distances.

He gazed at the spread on the table and suddenly couldn't trust anything. Were the explosive tags duds? Did they weaken the standard rope somehow to lower its fail point? Was the chemical mixture in smoke bombs altered so it wouldn't work properly? Questions about every piece of equipment raised his mind.

While Takuma thought that, he kept himself from looking up at the camera because he didn't want to give anything. He remembered his academy days when he had no money and picked up extra weapons from clearance bins, which often had flaws like chips or terrible balance. He learned to work with them, and while it had been three years since he had that problem, he felt like he could still pull it off.

They were trying to mess with his head, but it would take a lot more than this to get to him. Takuma sat up straighter and prepared to face whatever they were going to throw at him.

However, nothing happened... and six hours had passed.

———

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