Chương 349: CH_9.34 (349)

Takuma was sitting on a rock in a dusty field under the sun when he heard the sound of footsteps and looked to his side to see his clone hauling two of the prison break culprits with him. He looked funny with the giant man twice his size on his shoulders.

"Yeah, laugh it off. I did more work than you," said the clone, unceremoniously dumping the two prisoners on the ground.

"Just because they were near each other," said Takuma, looking at his catch—the prisoners whom he had shot in the thigh and ankle to incapacitate. His target had taken a drastically different route in hopes that the chasing guards would prioritise the two closer to each other. He gazed at the man caught by the clone and saw the caved-in chest.

"Is he dead?" he asked.

"Do you think that'll be a problem?"

"Warden probably would've wanted more information from the mastermind to root out the vulnerability in his security." He looked at the dead man and noticed the chakra suppression seals were no longer present on his body.

"I guess the fūinjutsu vanished upon his death."

"Actually, no. He broke the seal on him before his death."

"He knew fūinjutsu?"

"No, he did it through sheer force, using knowledge gained by trial and error."

"That's possible?" asked Takuma, surprised. He didn't know"I mean, he did it. Do you think we could boot this out? It's uncomfortable." The clone tapped his left delt hidden underneath the cloak where the newly inked ANBU death-seal. There was no physical discomfort, but the idea of having a foreign thing attached to him that could kill him instantly was uncomfortable at the least. The only confidence-inducing trait of the death-seal was that it was closed to outside interference.

The seal was designed in a way that it could only be triggered by the operatives themselves, bound to their chakra. But he could already see a vulnerability in that system. While he wasn't sure because he hadn't asked around if ANBU had planned for edge cases in his mind, a Yamanaka with their Mind-Body Manipulation Jutsu could trigger the seal by taking control—and he worked with one with an office right next to him.

He wasn't sure about the Nara clan's Shadow Manipulation Jutsu, but he assumed they could fuck over operatives as well. It was a scary reality where he was walking around with a self-destruct button.

"I'm not sure. The ANBU death-seal should be much more complex and secure to prevent tampering," said Takuma, feeling a phantom heat in his left delt.

"And I also don't want to mess around with it. People have borked their computers by messing with the code—and in this case, our body is the hardware—don't want to bork that because we won't be able to fix that if things go wrong." There was a moment of grim silence between the two before Takuma stood up.

"Let's go meet our trash mailer." ———. Takuma wondered if he should've been selfish as he stood in a corridor of the seventh mining node's medical building, gazing at the room's closed door where the node's only iryō-nin worked on the prisoners who had gotten injured due to the mine collapse. One of the several injured people was the prisoner Takuma had come to visit. Uyegita Gekin. According to his file, Gekin worked at the Maizuru Quarters before he was sentenced to ten years of hard labour.

His background made his trash mail viable and supported the anonymous trash mail with the same claim. The door to the room opened, and the iryō-nin with a haste in his demeanour stepped out, surely wanting to move on to see more injured people, but stopped when he saw the masked and cloaked figure of the Takuma dressed in his full ANBU garb.

"How is Uyegita Gekin, doctor?" asked Takuma with a modulated voice. The iryō-nin looked tired and a smidge pale from having used a considerable amount of his chakra dealing with the great deal of injuries. He shook his head at Takuma's question.

"His condition is not good," answered the iryō-nin.

"I did all I could for him with my skill, but the collapse hit him in all the worst parts. It would've been better if a regular hospital team had been working on him, but here..." He paused with pursed lips.

"His survival now solely depends on him."

"Is he awake?"

"No, I've put him under." Takuma nodded, and the iryō-nin briskly walked to wherever he was needed next. Takuma clenched his fist within his robes. If he knew this was going to happen, he would've gone to retrieve Gekin instead of chasing after the runaway prisoners. With his only lead dying, he was at a loss at what to do. He hoped to find something substantial because only then would his work bear fruit, or the last two weeks would've been a waste.

He stepped up to the room and ignored the two guards standing watch. They didn't look happy to be there and didn't stop him from coming close. He peeked in through the half-open door at Gekin, who was one of the two people in the room who was hooked up to the limited machinery, indicating the seriousness of his injuries. There was a choice to be made. ———. A few hours later, the chaos subsided for the moment, and exhaustion took its place. Love what you're reading?

Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Half of the guards were gathered in the seventh node's mess hall, while the remaining half watched over the prisoners. The mood in the seventh node was taut like a high-strung wire with an edge of anger that didn't bode well for the prisoners, who were guaranteed to have no good days ahead of them for the foreseeable future. Shimura Bunradao didn't eat with his men at the mess hall.

No one wanted to be in their superior's presence while they relaxed at their meals, and he didn't enjoy the mess food and had the cooks prepare his meals separately. But today, he sat in the mess hall to share a meal with his men to boost morale. They had lost three men—one to the mine collapse and two to the prisoners—and another was in bad condition. Bunradao desperately wanted a smoke. Even though he was hungry, half of his food remained on his plate because he wanted to delay his meeting with Dogai Harazo.

He already knew what would happen in the meeting and didn't have the will to argue with the emissary after all that had happened today. He wanted to skip the meeting and go to bed. But that wasn't an option. He could've navigated the conversation with Harazo if the mastermind behind the prison break, Kaito, was alive and in their custody. The ANBU-nin had captured and brought all the perpetrators back, but Kaito only returned as a dead body.

The death didn't bother him personally, but professionally, he needed Kaito. He wanted to know which civilian employee had given him the soldier pills. That information could've been extremely helpful because Chibumi had twelve nodes with tons of civilians, and going through them would have taken a lot of time. He could buy some time by interrogating the other perpetrators, but sooner or later, he would need to find the culprit, and nothing would stop Harazo from shuffling all the blame onto his head.

"Sir..." Bunradao looked over his shoulder to look at his assistant.

"Before I forget, make sure to show the ANBU-nin to the guest quarters," Bunradao said before the assistant could say anything.

"He helped us out today. Make sure that he is comfortable and has everything he needs..." The assistant glanced around and saw people sitting with the warden, glancing and gazing at them. He leaned down and whispered into Bunradao's ears, whose eyes widened for a moment before he controlled his expression and got up with a grim look with a furrow between his brows. ———.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked the iryō-nin with an unsure expression.

"You said he won't make it through the night," Takuma replied as he stared at the iryō-nin.

"He called me here. I'm sure he would be dissatisfied if he passed away without getting a chance to say his piece." They stood in the shared patient room where Gekin was recovering. His condition hadn't improved for the past several hours and showed signs of worsening. After checking on him multiple times, the iryō-nin finally declared that his chances of making it through the night were low. So, Takuma decided to wake him up so he could ask him about the trash mail before he passed away.

He turned around to face a bald monk, dressed in a simple orange attire, who lived at the Chibumi mines to meet the religious needs of the mine workers, including the prisoners.

"I hope you understand the importance of this, Venerable Sir," Takuma said respectfully. When Gekin woke up, he would first talk to the iryō-nin and the monk, who would explain his situation before introducing Takuma to join the conversation. He felt guilty for using a monk for his gain, but he feared that Gekin would shut down if he talked to him directly. The monk could soften him up and make him come to terms with his situation, increasing his chances to open up. The monk silently nodded.

Takuma looked at the uncomfortable iryō-nin before stepping to a corner of the room where Gekin couldn't see him. He listened as Gekin woke up and started crying when the iryō-nin told him that he didn't have long to live, which was when the monk stepped in and warmly spoke to him, guiding him through his emotions, even helping him to come to terms with his actions, helping him ask forgiveness for his ill-deeds, and doing everything one would expect.

Takuma worried about how long it was taking because Gekin's ability to speak was going down very quickly. He feared that he wouldn't be able to speak, but he didn't have a way to rush things, so he waited until he was finally introduced. The green curtains around the bed moved, and he stepped to the bedside where Gekin lay, silently heaving. Gekin was on painkillers that relieved him of the pain he should have been feeling because of his injuries.

"It's unfortunate we have to meet this way, Genin Gekin," said Takuma, treating Gekin as though he was still a Leaf genin and not a prisoner.

"We received the letter you sent our way, and I believe you were telling the truth, so I came here to listen to your story." Gekin was dying. Any previous thoughts of negotiating a deal were no longer an option, so as long as Takuma treated him with respect, he didn't expect any resistance. His approach seemed to work. Gekin called him to lean over, as he was no longer able to speak above a bare whisper. He leaned in and carefully listened to the words uttered slowly with much labour.

"Second Division, Third Squad?" Takuma repeated his words. Gekin nodded. He wanted to ask more, but Gekin turned to the monk, no longer interested in talking to him.

"Please leave now," said the iryō-nin sternly. Takuma gazed at Gekin for a moment before looking at iryō-nin and nodding.

"Thank you for your help, doctor," he said as he stepped away. The iryō-nin didn't appreciate his thanks, but he didn't mind and wanted to move to a corner and listen to Gekin's words in case he said something relevant, but the room's door opened to reveal Bunradao looking unhappy, his displeasure clearly focused on Takuma.

"We should talk, ANBU-nin." They stepped out of the room and walked to the end of the hallway. Bunradao had come with his assistant and his two lieutenants.

"You didn't have the authority to wake Gekin like that. You killed him!"

"He was going to die regardless. I got some information out of him this way," Takuma replied calmly, his mind still focused on Gekin's words.

"That's not your call to make! I'm the warden; you should've come to me and not do it without permission!" said Bunradao, aggressively stabbing his finger at him. Takuma stopped contemplating for a moment and looked at the fuming Bunradao.

"And yet the iryō-nin woke him up without your permission," he said.

"What?"

"Your people were guarding the room; they heard the entire thing, and not once did they try to stop me."

"You're ANBU. Of course, they couldn't stop you. They would be too scared to do anything." Bunradao glared at him, getting angrier with each word.

"I can see that, but they didn't even try a token attempt to cover their asses," said Takuma, looking at the two shinobi in front of the Gekin's room which actually held all of the prisoners with serious injuries.

"Do you know why they didn't try to stop me, warden? They didn't do it because they wanted him to die. Maybe he would've survived till the morning and his condition improved from then on if a miracle happened—but your people don't want that and thought me waking him up would seal the deal." He had been in the building the whole time, and he had heard them talk to each other. They didn't know who was behind the prison break, so they blamed all the prisoners—knowing it wouldn't have made a difference.

Their fellow guards had died today; they were angry. Takuma continued, "I think the only reason they didn't do anything was because I was there the whole time. As you said, they were scared of getting into trouble with me." Bunradao looked stunned.

"And you don't care about his death. I can tell. You're angry at me because Kaito died," said Takuma. Bunradao's face twitched because he had hit a nerve.

"I'm going to help you once more, warden. Use my name. Send a message that if the person behind the soldier pills comes forward on their own, you won't involve ANBU, but if they don't turn themselves in by the end of tomorrow, I'll get involved, and they won't like what will happen when—not if— when I catch them." The next day, Bunradao spread the message as Takuma advised him. It took four hours before someone turned themselves in.