Chương 314: CH_8.49 (314)
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———
.
The forsaken factory brought up bad memories. The dust in the air, the smell of abandon and rust, even the way faint sounds echoed—everything reminded him of the factory base in Yu, where he had spent the worst months of his life.
If it weren't for the task, Takuma would've left the building and the area the same moment he arrived. He tried to control his emotions, managing to compose himself outwardly—but his heart refused to calm down. He was embarrassed as Three had noticed something was off despite his best efforts to hide it; she didn't show it, but her frequent glances and lingering stares said it all.
"Someone is coming," he said, looking toward the source of the faint sounds in the distance.
Three looked around for a moment to check if they hadn't left behind a trace that would alert their targets before they both disappeared from the floor and hid underneath an empty window that had a clear view of the factory below.
Takuma focused inwardly and masked his chakra by lowering the natural mixing, thus obscuring his presence in case the group had a sensory-nin, which was unlikely due to their rarity. Three was also proficient in chakra masking, something she revealed only after he asked if she had the skill.
A minute later, a group of six men walked into the factory. All except for one person were dressed in gear inspired by the standard Leaf shinobi kit; the remaining man had a cloak over his, a simple pair of pants and a shirt, hiding whether he possessed weapons.
Takuma tried to deduce information from his gait, posture, and stride, but the cloak got in the way. From their conversation, the group was the sellers, which meant they had a shipment of explosive tags.
"Keep an eye on the cloaked man," Three whispered.
None of the men carried any big bags or cases, meaning the tags were stored in a storage seal, which would be worrying as that would make it difficult to target, but given the situation, the tags would be unsealed to confirm the contents for the buyer's confirmation—and that would be the duo's chance to strike and destroy the tags.
Takuma and Three split up and hid themselves as the seller group spread to check the abandoned factory. Takuma slipped into the shadow inside a room with abandoned junk and focused on masking his chakra to ensure complete stealth.
They looked around for ten minutes before deciding they didn't have unwanted company.
Soon after, the meeting time struck the clocks, but the buyer was nowhere to be seen. At first, the seller group wasn't nervous and bitched about the buyer for being late. However, as more time passed, the tension among the group rose; they went from cursing at the buyer in anger to being nervously silent, thinking that something might have gone wrong—or that the buyer had screwed them.
However, the buyer finally arrived at the factory thirty minutes after the decided time.
The seller group looked pissed and immediately questioned the buyers, who acted nonchalantly as though they had done nothing wrong. Some back and forth happened until weapons were drawn, and the two groups were on the verge of clashing until the two leaders calmed their groups down.
"Let's complete the delivery and get this over with so we can go our separate ways," said the cloaked man leading the seller group.
"I want nothing more," said the rugged man leading the buyers. "Let's see the goods."
The cloaked seller took out a scroll from his person and weaved a couple of hand seals before rolling it open on the ground for a cuboidal stack of explosive tags packed in bricks with plastic on a wooden pallet to appear on the factory floor.
Takuma narrowed his eyes when he tried to estimate how many tags were in the shipment, but he knew his estimations would be wrong. There was too much destructive firepower that could be used to do a lot of damage.
He took out a kunai equipped with an explosive tag of his own, ready to throw it at the shipment to destroy it. He looked at Three, who had her hand up in a fist, gesturing that it wasn't time yet.
"I would like to try one to check its authenticity," said the buyer as he stepped forward. This caused the sellers to draw their weapons, which caused the other side to do the same.
"I'm afraid that's too dangerous. Allow me to give a demonstration," said the cloaked seller as he stepped to the pallet with a kunai. He cut through the plastic wrapping and pulled one random explosive tag, which he tied to a kunai and threw in the air above them.
The kunai was still a safe distance from the ceiling when it reached its apex, which was also when the tag exploded. The harsh sound was amplified in the abandoned factory, scaring the rats, roaches, and birds who had made it their home.
"Satisfied?" asked the seller, patting the dust off his clothes that the explosion had unsettled.
"Very much so," said the rugged. He also pulled a scroll from his person and tossed it to the seller. "All the payment is in there. Feel free to check it."
And that's what the seller did. He unsealed the scroll to reveal a mound of money comparable to that of the explosive tags.
The explosive tag and money that had been sealed away in scrolls were now sitting in the open, and that was the window Takuma and Three were aiming for. They took out their tagged kunai and were ready to rain down explosions when Takuma heard the sound of rhythmically clanking metal. He was confused about what was making the sound, and it took him to realise it was the sound of armour parts tapping against each other.
"Three, someone is—" he began to say.
Before he could complete his sentence, Three grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him down to hide them behind the wall before ensuring he wouldn't throw the tagged kunai. Takuma, who had only removed his eyes from the floor for a moment, looked back at the two groups facing each other to find a new figure among them.
Every nation's samurai wore different coloured armour. The Land of Fire samurai who served the Fire Daimyo wore blood-red colour and held their swords in a scabbard licked by flaming tongues. The figure who had suddenly appeared wore the expected armour worn in Ember Capital City.
He had appeared in the blink of an eye as though he was invisible until a moment ago. Other than the two leaders, who were utterly startled, not a single person had even reacted to the new presence as their minds were still processing the sight before them.
"Don't move," said the samurai.
The two leaders who tried to move away froze in their spots, not daring to defy his order. Goosebumps rose on their skin, and panic sweat began to pour out. They hadn't seen him move or much less felt his presence; that was enough for them to understand that the samurai could kill them before they could twitch their fingers.
Takuma muttered, "I-Isn't that..."
The samurai didn't wear a helmet; thus, his face was visible. He had salt-and-pepper hair and faint wrinkles on his face that showed his age. Despite that, his figure donned in samurai armour screamed danger.
Takuma and Three recognised the man because they had recently seen his photograph.
"Zakahira Mahachi," Three nodded.
It was the samurai whose house they had robbed two days back.
A samurai who was classified as a "jonin-class" combatant.
This man wasn't someone to be messed with.
More samurai, fully decked in armour, ran into the factory with their swords drawn. Takuma couldn't help but think that ANBU orchestrated the samurai's arrival as part of a test because Zakahira Mahachi was too much of a coincidence at the meeting they were trying to sabotage.
The moment the samurai entered, one of the men from the seller group threw a smoke bomb onto the ground, triggering chaos as everyone decided to use the smoke screen as the opportunity to escape.
"Fools," sighed Mahachi as he drew his sword and swung it leisurely. A strong gust of wind rushed outward, almost lifting everyone off their feet. The opaque black smoke, which was rapidly spreading, vanished into absolute nothingness as the winds rapidly and aggressively dispersed the smoke particles far and wide.
Despite being far away, Takuma felt the gust of wind flutter his clothes and forced him to narrow his eyes to protect them from the sheer force behind the winds. It scared him to think what it would be like if Mahachi concentrated all that force along a thin edge. He could only imagine it going through him clean without any resistance.
"Thirteen," Three looked at him with a severe expression.
She didn't need to say anything. Even though the samurai's arrival was jarring and wholly unexpected, they still had to complete the task. Moreover, it was imperative that they completed it now because if the samurai seized the money and tags, he and Three weren't getting their hands on them.
And the chaos set the stage perfectly.
The samurai were fighting the criminals in the factory. The only reason the criminals even bothered to resist was that Mahachi's gaze was locked onto the stack of explosive tags without participating. His subordinates understood he wanted to deal with the capture of the tags, and the criminals wouldn't complain as it meant that there was a chance of escape.
———
.
On the ground, Mahachi gazed at the explosive tags with a frown. The quantity was too large; the estimates they had received from informants were nowhere near the amount before him.
If we didn't catch this, it could've turned into a disaster, Mahachi thought. The intel they had gathered told them that the explosive tags from the deal would be further distributed to illegal shops dealing with independent mercenaries and smaller groups. It wasn't anything new, as they had tried to crack down on such pipelines before, but in his experience, this was too big of an order to be regular.
This felt like something else.
They were lucky to receive the intel at the last minute.
Mahachi glanced at his subordinates fighting the criminals. His son, Nozan, was among them. He wasn't planning to help them unless they were in danger. How would they learn and grow if he did all the work.
As he was observing the combat, something caught his eye, and he looked up in surprise to see a volley of kunai descending towards him and the group. His eyes widened when he caught the fluttering explosive tags bound to the kunai.
"Look out above!" he yelled.
Mahachi's hand on his sword stilled for a moment before he drew it to release half a dozen slashes in the blink of an eye. Razor-thin crescents of chakra flew out of his sword and slashed through every single explosive tag, effectively defusing them. The kunai themselves didn't stop, but his warning was enough for his subordinate and the criminals to avoid them.
"Dad, are you alright?!" asked Nozan, momentarily removing his eyes from his opponent, who took advantage of the situation and charged for an attack that Nozan managed to block and evade at the last second.
"Pay attention to your fight!" Mahachi barked back. His son was still lacking in various regards; it always worried him as his parent and boss.
Mahachi traced the trajectory of the kunai to see where they came from and was stunned to see a man and a woman dressed in grey-and-green gear with masks identical to what his wife had described throwing another, larger volley of tagged kunai in their direction.
He gripped his sword as a flood of cold anger coursed through his veins. He drew his sword faster than anyone there could track and unleashed a single strike. It had none of the finesse or precision of his last attack and was pure power, which created a gust so strong and wild that it pushed against the kunai and cancelled their momentum, causing them to stall and explode mid-air.
Mahachi didn't stop and switched to a two-handed grip, which he never did unless he was serious about the fight—but the masked people had touched his wife, and he wanted them to feel pain.
He dug his foot into the floor and drew power from his lower body to unleash an even stronger strike. A visible wave of deep blue chakra raced out of his sword edge. One moment, the wall was good and standing, but the next moment, it exploded as though one hundred explosion tags stuck to it had exploded simultaneously.
The kenjutsu exploded the wall and even cut through a large portion of the ceiling that crumbled down at the other side of the building.
The wall exploded so violently that other samurai and criminals had to stop fighting to defend against the debris.
"Dad!" Nozan yelled in surprise
"Come out and face judgement," Mahachi announced as the chakra around his sword grew larger and harsher, forcing the others to step back in pure fear as it felt like something was cutting into their skin just by being near the sword.
———
.
One moment, Amami stood on the metal corridor, getting ready to throw her last volley of tagged kunai; the next moment, she had huge chunks of wall hitting her in the face as the corridor underneath her collapsed.
Zakahira Mahachi's strike was so fast that she literally had no time to react. She was lucky the kenjutsu didn't cut through her, killing her instantly.
No, it's not luck, thought Amami—the old samurai didn't want to kill them.
She hit the ground and immediately put her hands up as the wall collapsed over and around her. The debris hit her body all over, but she protected her head—it hurt, but it was nowhere enough to take her down.
Amami understood they would be killed after the samurai got what he wanted. They had to escape immediately if they wanted to live. She remembered that the ANBU-nin Leopard had told them that in case something went wrong, they would get them out, but it could take time—and things could go wrong in that time.
Waiting for ANBU to rescue them wasn't an option. They had to escape now. But how? How could they escape now that they had the old samurai's ire locked in on them.
"Thirteen," she called.
"Here."
She breathed a sigh of relief to confirm that Thirteen was fine. Her mind raced to see what they could do to escape the old samurai when she suddenly recognised something she had seen before.
Amami was sure she saw Zakahira Nozan, the old samurai's son. She recognised him from the file, and even though it took her a moment to recognise him because he was wearing samurai armour, she was sure it was him.
I'm going to take over his body, she decided.
Her clan's Mind-Body Switch jutsu to take over her target's body. There was too much risk-taking over the Mahachi's body with a chance he would resist and kick her out, which came with a high chance of blowback. But she was confident she could dominate Nozan's spirit and make his body do her bidding.
She was betting on the fact that the Mahachi and Nozan had a good relationship and the father wouldn't hurt his son.
"We need to leave now," said Thirteen as he crawled to her.
"I'm a Yamanaka," she said, cutting him off. "I'm going to stop the old samurai, so I want you to pick up my body and get us out of here. Do you understand what I mean?"
Thirteen was still for a split-second before he nodded. "I understand. Are you sure it will work?"
"Do you have a foolproof plan?"
"...No."
"Then we don't have a choice."
Amami wanted to hide her clan's hiden jutsu as a trump card, but her plans were no longer a factor with her life on the line. She took a deep breath to suppress her discomfort about leaving her body to someone she didn't trust to that level. If Thirteen wanted, he could kill her while her spirit was in someone else's body, and her spirit would still be alive while she was in her target's body, but the moment the time limit hit, her spirit would leave, and she would die.
"You better take care of my body."
———
.
"I can see you. Come out!" Mahachi yelled as he started walking towards the collapsed wall. His anger rose with every second the masked duo hid within the debris.
He pumped chakra into his sword for another swing. He was going to hurt them so they would understand the severity of the situation. Everyone was more cooperative after tasting some pain.
"Dad, what are y-you-you—"
Mahachi raised his sword to release another strike when his eyes widened as he felt something behind him. He moved on pure instinct and put his sword behind him just in time to block a slash aimed at his back.
"Nozan!" he gasped as he turned to face his son, who had a determined expression on his face. "What are you doing, boy!"
"...I despise you. It's all your fault, dad!" Nozan whispered as he swung his sword at him, which Mahachi parried and deflected effortlessly.
"What's got into you, Nozan!" Mahachi yelled, unable to understand what had gotten into his son. Not only did he suddenly attack him, but his kenjutsu was so sloppy that it was an embarrassment.
He pushed Nozan away and turned to look back at the masked duo, only to find a dense mist covering half of the factory. It was a shinobi ninjutsu.
"Shit," he cursed and immediately followed, not wanting the masked scum to escape, but was immediately obstructed.
"Mom is unhappy because of you!"
Mahachi stopped and faced his son, who attacked him while spouting nonsense, which angered him. He once again blocked poor swordwork. He paused to look at his son, wondering why he was doing this. He noticed the poor movements, and for a moment, reason peered through anger, and he realised something was wrong.
He disarmed Nozan's sword effortlessly, which wouldn't have happened that easily.
Genjutsu, he thought.
Mahachi kicked Nozan in the gut, forcing him to kneel before disrupting his chakra to pull him out of the genjutsu, but nothing changed as Nozan said,
"I'm ashamed to be your son!"
Nozan's eyes rolled over, and he suddenly keeled over, startling Mahachi, who immediately checked on his son. He sighed in relief because he didn't find anything outright wrong—but he couldn't be sure.
Mahachi pursed his lips as he looked at the opaque mist before clicking his tongue.
His son came first.
.
———
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