Chương 367: CH_10.1 (367)

Takuma stared at Uchiha Gouki's photograph on the funeral altar. Gouki wore his Police Force uniform in the photo with a stern expression befitting an Uchiha. When Arisu told him that Gouki had died on a mission, he struggled to wrap his mind around the sudden news. Gouki was their colleague at Narcotics Taskforce, and the only Uchiha on their team before it gained momentum. He was there from the beginning, having joined immediately after the task force's formation was greenlit.

He had contributed to the team's growth and given them much-needed connections through his identity as a Uchiha. Takuma's relationship with him was that of a work friend for the most part, as they didn't meet outside of work, but they had fought alongside each other and risked their lives fighting the rogue chunin during the farm raid. That sort of experience built a strong connection that couldn't be easily defined.

He had invited him and everyone who had been with him during the farm raid to his rank promotion ceremony. He paid his respects to the deceased and offered his condolences to the family before joining Masaaki and Nenro in the back of the hall. Everyone involved with the farm raid was present at the funeral. The entire Uchiha shinobi population seemed to be present as well.

He saw Mikoto's family; Setsuna, who had introduced him to her; Kano, his first boss; Yakumi, the guy who had taken over the Narcotics Taskforce after him. He also spotted four Uchiha jonin he recognised. Even though he had worked in the Police Force, he had never seen this many Uchiha in one place. Gouki was only a chunin and didn't have impressive parents, so to see so much of the clan present showcased the kinship Uchiha felt for each other.

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" Nenro whispered as the ceremony proceeded, and a priest chanting sutras was in front.

"There would come a time in the future when we would part one day without knowing that it was the last time we saw each other." Takuma nodded with a sigh. It wasn't as though he was unfamiliar with loss, but he couldn't get used to the fact that in their occupation, someday, the people could suddenly die, and he wouldn't be there to protect them. Even thinking about it felt depressing because he couldn't figure out a solution, and he always came out of it feeling absolutely terrible.

"I would blame you if you die one day on a mission because it'd be your fault we didn't get to spend more time with you. And you would regret the same if I turned up dead," said Nenro bluntly as he gazed ahead. It was rare that he was so blunt without any of his usual polite tact. Takuma's lips pursed into a thin line. Those words weren't unique to Nenro. He knew most of his friends felt the same way. He tried to give them as much time as he could, but everyone, including him, agreed that it wasn't enough.

They had repeatedly asked and invited him to outings, meals, and parties time after time, so much so that he wouldn't blame them if they cut him off. He was surprised they hadn't done it already. Those harsh words brought up another question that tortured him. His job and choices put him in danger so he could get stronger to survive. But was the survival worth it if he wasn't enjoying his life?

He told himself he just needed to bear it all until the Fourth Shinobi World War, and then he could live his life like he wanted—but would he have anyone left to enjoy life with by then? And who was to say that his drive to gain strength to survive would disappear at that time? What if he could no longer change it after living one way for so long? He closed his eyes as he felt his thoughts started to overwhelm him.

He felt so helpless when facing those thoughts because he couldn't even slow down to properly contemplate them. Sometimes, he wondered if he should stop and live his life like a terminally ill cancer patient enjoying his limited days on the earth. ———. After the funeral, the farm raid team gathered for an after-meeting of sorts at an izakaya. There were nine of them around a long table.

The sombreness from the funeral had subsided, and the group chatted and laughed among each other until Yuhi Afumi posed a question,"Was the mission dangerous?" Arisu tapped the side of her tall glass of lime soda as she shrugged her shoulders.

"No, it wasn't. He had a full team with him. It should've been an easy job with the members, but it seemed the criminal..." She stopped talking with an uncomfortable expression. Minoru rubbed her back to comfort her. Only Gouki had died among his five-person team. Another had gotten severely injured but had avoided dying. According to the team's account, the injured member was hit before he could even detect his assaulter.

There was an explosion, which alerted the other members, and when they arrived, they found Gouki dead.

"Where was this?" asked Inuzuka Mune.

"North, a town near our border with Land of Rice Fields," she replied.

"Isn't it now called Land of Sound?" Yamanaka Iza added. Takuma frowned when he heard the country's name, wondering where he heard of it before remembering reading about the country renaming itself from Land of Rice Field and their daimyo starting a hidden village still in its fledgling beginnings. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Minoru seemed to be in thought as he smiled.

"I met him in the hall the day before he left. He joked that he wished the tip was false so he could take a trip to the Valley of the End."

"I've been there with my dad," said Akimichi Matanokoji.

"How was it?" asked Masaaki.

"Grand." It was a valley on the Fire-Sound border and the venue for the battle between the two Leaf founders that ended with Senju Hashirama being victorious and the death of Uchiha Madara. The destructive power displayed in the epic battle left a scar on the earth called the Valley of the End.

With a waterfall serving as the border with the countries on either side, the valley was later memorialised with two giant statues of the man combatants: Hashirama on the Land of Fire's side and Madara on the opposite side to symbolise his defection from the village.

"How strong would you think you need to be to feel safe?" Takuma posed a question to the table.

"Before you answer, consider this: getting stronger means going on more dangerous missions, but if you have noticed, the stronger you get, the fewer missions you go on because there's not a constant demand for that kind of strength. The missions you go on are more risky, but you don't have to take the risk as often.

"So my question is: what's the minimum or where's the balance where you think you'd be the safest as shinobi." He leaned back and watched as everyone contemplated his words.

"It has to be jonin, right?" Yamanaka Iza.

"The jonin I know rarely go out on missions. Like maybe once or twice a year."

"A good number of them are retired as well," said Masaaki, nodding.

"No, that's an incomplete view," Akimichi Matanokoji shook his head.

"That's only for older, more experienced jonin. Newer jonin goes on more missions alone or lead a team of chunin. That means the risk is higher when you become a jonin and only goes down later. The village gets the work out of jonin before reserving them."

"I don't know if I agree. Statistically speaking, how many shinobi who make jonin die?" asked Arisu, making the people around the table hum in agreement.

"Not that many. The truth is that the village protects jonin because they're essential assets."

"They're protected until it's time for a war," said Yuhi Afumi.

"Wars are outliers," Yamanaka Iza argues.

"They are not. We have seen three world wars. And they happen what—every fifteen to twenty years? That seems consistent to me. I heard it from someone, but wars are where jonin rosters are refreshed as the existing ones die and new ones are promoted into their place."

"What do you think?" Takuma asked Nenro, one of his most intelligent friends.

"I think... it's a privileged question, isn't it? We're assuming that everyone here has what it takes to become a jonin," Nenro said, looking at everyone.

"It's nothing personal, and I'm including myself in it, but the chances of a jonin emerging from this group is ridiculously low." Even though those words were harsh and stung, no one blamed Nenro because he was right. Becoming a jonin was extremely hard, and it took a mixture of talent, hard work, and a copious amount of luck to make it happen.

"We only have a single chunin here among us," Nenro pointed to Takuma sitting behind him, "and yes, we are still young, but it's also true that an early chunin promotion is an indicator of future jonin potential. But at the same time, it's not enough; I have heard people talk about chunin who were promoted young but never grew beyond it, so I don't know. If I could grow reliably, sure, I would say jonin—but that's not something I can confidently say; my answer will be to get as strong as I can."

Everyone around the table nodded. It was a tedious but sensible answer. They talked about achieving something most people failed to accomplish despite working hard their whole lives.

"And what about you?" Arisu asked Takuma. He shrugged.

"If I knew the answer, I wouldn't have asked it. How about I remain a chunin for the rest of my life but work on escape techniques? Like, even if I can't become a jonin, what if I could flee from one reliably? Isn't that also a way to measure safety? If I can escape before a group of chunin can kill me, isn't that good enough? It's not gold, but I'll take silver any day." That caused another round of discussion around the table, which developed into new topics, such as glass canon versus stone walls.

Takuma just sat there among the people he had fought alongside, listening to them and chiming in from time to time. Even though they had lost one of them, they were still together, which mattered. ———. After parting from others, Takuma didn't want to return home and wandered around the village to have some time to himself, but he didn't want to be alone, so he stuck to the busy parts and just walked among the crowd.

In truth, he didn't want to think about the thoughts crowding his mind and wanted nothing more than to distract himself as he had done with the farm raid group that kept his mind off things. But he also knew they would bloat and bother him later if he didn't give them space. After the shadow clone situation, Sango put him on rest. He was to first recover to a state where he was getting healthy sleep before he could resume using clones in a limited capacity.

It had disrupted his plans to the point that his anxiety levels were spiking, sometimes making him feel as though something was lodged in his throat. Gouki's death hadn't helped. Once he was allowed to use the Shadow Clone Jutsu again, he would need to find his ideal duration, which would not only take time to experiment, but he also didn't know if the results would be to his liking.

What if he found that his brain could only handle four hours of a clone's experience before his brain began to struggle—that was nowhere near enough, in his opinion.

"Ah, this is so annoy—" Takuma's whisper to himself died when his eyes caught the face of the person walking past him. He saw onyx eyes behind black-rimmed circular glasses and ash-grey hair tied up in a ponytail. Even though his memory was shoddy, there was no mistaking that he had just walked past Kabuto, one of Orochimaru's closest subordinates. He had completely forgotten and wasn't sure if Kabuto would be in Hidden Leaf Village.

The shock of spotting someone instrumental to the chaos, destruction, death, and tragedy in the future shocked the dust of his memories, and suddenly, he remembered that Land of Sound was the home to the Hidden Sound Village, founded by Orochimaru.' Kill him!' said a voice in his head. If he could kill Kabuto right now, he could possibly eliminate much of the danger waiting for the world in the future. He started following him through the crowd in hopes of getting to an isolated place for a possible ambush.

Takuma had no idea how strong he was, but if he had an element of surprise, he could kill him—he had killed a jonin, he could do it with Kabuto. Takuma's hand went to his weapon pouch, which was not there because bringing weapons to a funeral ceremony was beyond rude. He stopped in the middle of the road. The lack of a weapon made him calm. Kabuto was present at the Chunin Exam he had read about, which was still a couple of years in the future. There was no need to be careless because Kabuto wasn't running away.'

I'm an ANBU-nin,' Takuma said to himself. As much as he wanted him dead, an alive Kabuto had his value. There was no need to hurry. There was an opportunity to milk the cow before butchering it for meat.