Chương 234: CH_7.16 (234)

Takuma released the Hidden Mist Jutsu and ran into the nearest alley with Orange-Mask on his tail. He looked behind and dodged the shuriken launched for his back, making sure he was routing away from the leader. Orange-Mask stuck to his tail like a bloodhound, but Takuma noticed there was a greater distance between them than before. He deduced that Orange-Mask was probably starting to get tired. He didn't have that problem because of his endurance and durability focused training.

It was an advantage he could exploit. Pushing himself further, Takuma kicked up the pace, increasing the distance between them. Orange-Mask tried to slow him down by throwing kunai and shuriken at him, but Takuma continued to pull away. He led them to the alley where he had kicked Orange-Mask through the building's walls. Takuma recalled the busted pipes leaking water and saw an opportunity. He started weaving hand seals the moment he entered the street and completed the seals as he passed by the hole in the wall.

The water rose and gathered to form a clone and the building's occupants, who had gathered around the hole, shrieked and ran back into the building. The clone hid in the building and waited until Takuma and Orange-Mask tore past, running off to find the leaders. On Takuma's side, he stopped in the middle of the street and faced Orange-Mask. The water mass behind him turned into four tentacles—the rest of the water was burned away during his fight with the leader.

He had spent more than 30% of his chakra on the two clones and nearly 10% on other jutsu—it was more chakra he ever wanted to spend in the first ten minutes of combat, especially when he spent most of it running away. With a kunai in both hands, Takuma charged toward Orange-Mask. He opened the throttle and rained down strikes on Orange-Mask, who defended with his sword.

Instead of his usual strategy of looking for openings and creating opportunities, Takuma barraged Orange-Mask with strike after strike, not giving him any chance to retaliate. Orange-Mask was more than capable of responding to a bull attack and defended every one of Takuma's strikes, so he amped up the intensity and pushed his body to the limit, single-mindedly attacking like a rabid dog. His tentacles moved in sync with the offence.

They tried to hinder Orange-Mask's movements by grabbing for his limbs, splashing water into his eyes, drenching him and his gear, and doing everything to divert his attention. They annoyed Orange-Mask so much that he prioritised cutting them—forcing Takuma to reduce them from four small tentacles, to two full-sized tentacles. Under the intense assault, Orange-Mask was pushed back, but he successfully defended himself without getting cut a single time. Then, all of a sudden, Takuma jumped away from Orange-Mask.

It was time to end this, thought Takuma as he weaved hand seals. ———. Orange-Mask was surprised when the target suddenly put distance between them. The abrupt shift from a full-on assault where he couldn't retaliate bothered him. Seeing the target form hand seals made him apprehensive. He had the choices to disrupt him from completing his hand seals, counter with a ninjutsu of his own, or back away and react to whatever the target was going to throw at him. His eyes went to the tentacles hanging behind the target.

If he went in to disrupt the target, they'd stop him and the target was dangerous enough that a moment of disruption could be enough to spell his doom. Orange-Mask considered his second option to counter with a ninjutsu of his own, which felt like a viable option—he knew they were standing in the open and that Lord Kon would arrive at any moment—but he thought he could take down the target on his own. Orange-Mask raised his hands and weaved hand seals for the Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu.

Their eyes met as both sides weaved hand seals, and Orange-Mask's vision blurred. He blinked his eyes, and his vision returned to normal, but the next second, his vision blurred worse than before. Colours started to leak into each other, objects blended together, and the world itself warped. He tried to focus on the target, but he couldn't see a thing. He looked down and saw his own body blurring into the road to the point where he couldn't tell where the road started and his body ended. ———.

The genjutsu was successful. Genjutsu: Haze was a touch-based jutsu that blurred the target's vision and twisted their sense of balance. Until very recently, he didn't think he would be able to use touch-based genjutsu in active combat because of the problematic pre-requisite. They required him to apply his chakra on the person's skin, and most people didn't allow their opponents to grab them long enough to sufficiently apply chakra for genjutsu. Not to mention, Orange-Mask was covered from top to bottom.

But Takuma figured out a workaround using the Water Style: Eight Tentacles. He poured his chakra into the tentacles and used the water to get his chakra onto Orange-Mask's skin. While fighting, each time the tentacles made contact, they left behind a small amount of chakra-charged water on Orange-Mask's. The gear wasn't waterproof; the water passed through the fabric and wet his skin, and delivered the chakra to the tenketsu points near the skin.

Takuma felt an exhilaration run up his spine when he saw Orange-Mask's body language change. He tried to hide it, but it was apparent that Orange-Mask was deep in the genjutsu—or else why would he stop forming hand seals? Takuma hadn't tested the application before, but the concept was sound— so seeing it work told him he had another combat-ready weapon available. But Takuma's genjutsu were supplementary options—he still needed to finish the job.

He released the Eight Tentacles jutsu and let the water tentacles fall as he weaved hand seals for Water Release: Spirit Water Wave. The water from the fallen tentacles was pulled into a glob in front of Takuma's finger gun. Takuma aimed for Orange-Mask and shot a high-speed water bullet at his forehead. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"Bang," he whispered. There was no sound as the water bullet cut through the air. Orange-Mask shuddered before going limp and crumpling to the ground. Takuma carefully moved toward him with another shot ready in case he wasn't dead. After confirming the kill, he breathed a sigh of relief before stiffening. His clone had died. Dispelling the jutsu, he rushed to remove Orange-Mask's weapon belt. After a moment, he decided to take the mask as well and sprinted to safety before the leader arrived. ———.

That evening, the team, except for Gaku, who had chosen to remain home with Chinatsu, visited the factory base. The news about the " second" police station attack had spread like wildfire in Yu. The team wasn't involved, so they knew it was the work of a copycat—which was a severe problem that needed to be discussed and tackled immediately. When the team reached the factory base, they found Takuma lying on the couch with his arm covering his eyes. His hair were wet from having bathed recently.

They didn't think much of it, but then Takuma glanced at them after hearing them arrive and slowly sat up with a groan to reveal a bloody bandage over his other arm hidden from view.

"How did that happen?" asked Anko, surprised along with the rest of the team.

"A police station was set on fire today," Takuma replied as Rikku sat beside him and looked over the bloody arm.

"Yes, we know," said Anko.

"Well, I ran into the people who did it," Takuma hissed in pain when Rikku pulled the bandages, "and let's just say we ended up in an intense game of tag that went a bit too far."

"Oh my god," Iori gasped.

"I want to know everything from the top," said Anko, her already bad mood worsening at the state her subordinate was in. Takuma didn't look like he wanted to, but he did so anyway. The news about the drug exchange between the Goharu Family and the enemy shinobi would've been good news, but when Takuma told them that the police station arson was a plot to draw out the team, it no longer seemed to be of any significance.

"I managed to escape them and then spent an hour roaming the city as a precaution before returning here." Takuma looked disgusted as he continued: "They killed and hung three people on poles outside the police station... just to poison our efforts and stifle the support we had rallied in the revolutionaries. We'll have to take steps to mitigate the damage quickly."

"We can talk about that tomorrow, Takuma," said Daiki, worried.

"Are you alright? Is there something we can do for you? You can come with us to the home and stay there for the night if you want."

"I agree," said Anko immediately.

"Thank you, but I'm fine," Takuma shook his head and stared at the entire team for a long moment.

"What is it?" asked Anko.

"... I found that—" Takuma stopped talking, fully leaned into the couch, and closed his eyes briefly before sitting back up.

"... When that group was pursuing me, I noticed—well, my clone noticed—that I recognized the gear they were wearing." Takuma bowed his head.

"The assassins who tried to kill me back home... they were wearing the same gear I saw today." Iori and Daiki gasped while the rest stared at Takuma in shock.

"Are you sure?" asked Kameko. Takuma nodded.

"Yes... I, of course, had my doubts, so I got proof." He rose and walked to a nearby table, tossing a hiltless blade to Kameko. She looked down at the blade. It seemed like a normal blade, but she flipped and saw a pattern of a tree, with its underground roots visible, imprinted on its base.

"That day, I had to scavenge weapons from one of the assassins and investigated them to find that smith's touchmark," Takuma pointed at the blade.

"I can accept mistaking the gear, but with that mark on the blade, I'm a hundred percent sure that they're connected. I guess they belong to the same organisation." The atmosphere in the base was indescribable. The team gazed at Takuma, unsure what this meant for them and their mission.

"I'll have to report this, you know," said Anko.

"Do it," said Takuma, sombre.

"Tell them to contact Uchiha Kano in the Leaf Military Police Force. Last I knew, she was handling my assassination case. I gave her the knife with the touchmark. She might have some more information about the organisation, and now that we know that there are living organisation members, we can interrogate them for even more information!" Takuma looked up at Anko with a fire in his belly. The look on her face confused him, but then he recognized the damp look of doubt and concern in her eyes.

"The mission is and will remain my main priority," Takuma stressed.

"I hope so," she replied. Clearly, she wasn't entirely sure if Takuma's desire for revenge wouldn't distract him from their mission. ———. Kon lay on a bed in a clean room as an iryo-nin worked on his shoulder. The iryo-nin had been working on Kon's shattered shoulder for an hour. The operation would continue for another hour to stabilise Kon's shoulder and put it in a position for accelerated healing through further sessions. Kon opened his eyes, revealing he wasn't put under for the operation.

He was given something for pain, but he was wide awake. He stared at the ceiling, going through everything he could remember from the chase and fight against the target. The day had been terrible—he'd been injured and lost one of his men. His report back to his superior officer would put his situation in danger with a real chance of getting pulled from the assignment.

If, by some miracle, that didn't happen, the Hidden Cloud jonin would use his failure to catch the culprit behind the police force bombing as a reason to shove their pea-brained ideas into the city conversion strategy. No matter which way he cut it, Kon had to resolve this problem; for that, he needed information, and his memories were the only source. He closed his eyes and recalled the target. His clothes, movements, body language, the jutsu he used, and every minute detail he could pull out of his memories.

"It was the Hidden Leaf Kata," Kon opened his eyes.

"Pardon, sir?" asked the iryo-nin.

"I recognized the vestiges of the Hidden Leaf Kata in the target's combat style." Kon narrowed his eyes as he focused on the little taijutsu the target had shown.

"Adopted as the base but… modified to suit the target's needs." Kon clicked his tongue. He wasn't a taijutsu specialist. It was lucky that he had even noticed the relics of the Hidden Leaf Kata in the target's combat style, but trying to gain deeper insight into the target through his combat style was far out of his capabilities. Knowing that the target showed the Hidden Leaf Kata reduced his search circle to the Land of Fire.

He couldn't be sure if the target was someone from the Leaf shinobi organisation as the style was widespread in the nation, and every other dojo run by a retired shinobi taught the style. However, the Hidden Leaf supported the Hidden Steam in the Frost-Steam war, so it was a reasonable assumption that the target could be a Hidden Leaf spy. But the target had bombed a police station, which was an act of altering the status quo in Yu.

"He could be a Leaf ANBU," Kon said aloud—but it didn't sound right to him. An ANBU wouldn't approach the burning police station so brazenly, leaving themselves open and easily spotted. That showed surprisingly bad spycraft.

"What else?"

"The target must've been skilled with chakra augmentation for this level of damage," said the iryo-nin.

"Chakra augmentation," Kon hummed before shaking his head. Chakra augmentation wasn't a commonplace technique, but they were universally present worldwide—which didn't help him narrow down the target's identity any further. Just when Kon was about to move on from chakra augmentation, a thought entered his mind. He recalled the last time he had read about chakra augmentation—the hateful face of the person Kon blamed for all his recent problems flashed into his mind.

"Chakra augmentation... Hidden Leaf Kata..." It couldn't be, Kon said to himself—plenty of people in the Hidden Leaf knew chakra augmentation. Kon swallowed hard.

"... Could you send for an intel request," he said to the iryo-nin.

"The subject, sir?"

"Genin Takuma of the Leaf Military Police Force... Where is he right now?"