Chương 432: CH_11.29 (432)

Takuma looked outside the living room and saw an ANBU-nin in the garden and the heads of four more regular shinobi patrolling outside the house's boundary wall. There was more security he couldn't see all around the house premises. He turned around and looked into the living room, where the Hokage and Maruboshi were chatting it up. Yesterday, he had asked his mentor to leave, but for this meeting, he wanted him to stay in the house because the most important person in the Hidden Leaf was coming to visit.

It was so nerve-racking that it took him a few hours to fall asleep the night before. Maruboshi and Hiruzen knew each other, so Takuma wanted his mentor to get the Hokage comfortable before he brought up the topic of Grey's past.

"Kohima's closed down last month," Maruboshi said. Hiruzen looked stunned at those words.

"I haven't heard that name in such a long time. Is the old woman still alive?"

"She passed away five years ago. Her eldest son tried to run the shop, but it didn't work out." Maruboshi shook his head.

"Not surprising. He never showed any interest in the business. The younger one, on the other hand, would've been great. It's such a pity," Hiruzen sighed. The old men had been talking about things Takuma had never heard of for the past fifteen minutes. Being housemates, and practically grandfather and grandson, he and Maruboshi got along perfectly well, but they still belonged to different generations. There were some things that only came up in the company of people with similar experiences.

Takuma was sure they could talk about things of the past and present for hours. There weren't that many old shinobi alive in the village.

"How are you feeling, Ratel?" asked the ANBU Commander of the Domestic Branch. He wore a stag-styled mask and a white cloak. It was their first time meeting. If not for the Hokage sitting in his home, Takuma would've been more nervous about meeting his boss's boss. He knew that the man was the Hokage's son, which was surprising to him when he first joined ANBU, but then he found out more about the position, and it made sense.

"The hospital provided excellent care. I'll be back to full strength in no time."

"Any other time, I would've assured you that ANBU would do everything in our power to pursue this matter to the end, but in your case, you're the one who handles ROOT," Stag said with a smile in his voice.

"It was a slap to the village's face, so I hope you'll continue the excellent work."

"I will do my best, Commander." Takuma paused for a moment.

"The real tragedy is Captain Tachanid's Inquisitor Unit. This incident destroyed a well-oiled machine. It'd be great if there's a way to salvage it…." It was a risky move for a squad leader who hadn't even taken control of his team to make a request of an ANBU commander. He had no expectations of his words doing anything, but he still wanted to try, even if it meant potentially overreaching his bounds.

"Shuffling people around is policy to minimise the amount of information outside, but Tachanid has indeed done a great job with the unit. I'm sure he, too, would agree that we should try to put some effort into it," said Stag.

"I'm sure he would be delighted," Takuma smiled.

"Fishing at a stream, surrounded by the calmness of nature, is soothing," said Maruboshi. Takuma decided to join their conversation and sat down at the table.

"Please don't misunderstand him. He isn't talking about taking a rod and sitting in silence. He enjoys hiking up his pants and getting his feet wet while spearfishing."

"It's a good way to get the stiffness out of the body, Takuma. One of these days, you'll cave and join me!" Maruboshi laughed.

"Now, I will get out of your hair and let you gentlemen discuss work." He got up and left the room, sliding the door behind him. With all doors closed, only three people were left in the room. Stag started by giving them a rundown of where they were in the investigation.

"The person who called you to the training ground, Enomoto, we haven't been able to find him yet. We traced his movements and found his last known location to be at a private club. The trail, unfortunately, ends there because no one saw him after that. We interrogated the waiter and he told us who he was meeting with, but even that lead didn't reveal anything relevant to our matter."

"He's probably dead," Takuma said.

"Seeing that he didn't show up at the training field, they didn't have any more use for him beyond getting me to the location."

"I agree, but we still have to track his movements in case they lead us to some clues about ROOT," said Stag. Normally, an ANBU commander wouldn't be relaying that information to a squad leader, but these were unusual circumstances.

"This is the second time ROOT has tried to assassinate you for doing a good job," said Hiruzen, who sat opposite Takuma.

"Danger is a part of that job, but the enemy going to such lengths to target a singular agent is rare even in the ANBU circles. It must be stressful. Have you thought about changing your assignment?" Stag didn't say anything, and his mask hid his face, but the slight movement of his head towards the Hokage told that he wasn't expecting those words when just a couple of minutes ago he had asked Takuma to continue with his work. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site.

Support the author by reading it there. Takuma didn't know what Hiruzen was probing for, but he decided to be semi-honest.

"I won't lie and say that it doesn't concern me. I would rather not die, but I'm not going to roll over because my work mildly inconveniences someone…"

"Mild inconvenience, he says." Stag chuckled. Even Hiruzen smiled.

"…and I have my reasons to stick to my current work."

"And what might they be?" Hiruzen asked. Takuma was wondering how to broach the topic, but seeing that Hiruzen keyed it up, he decided to gather courage and just ask.

"Because of my past with them," Takuma said to Hiruzen, whose eyes widened a fraction.

"I don't remember much before I went to the orphanage, and to be honest, nor do I want to—but some things remain… I remember seeing one of the three agents I killed in the memories of back then. So, I know what was done to me was by ROOT… You were there, Lord Hokage. You came to see me on the day I was rescued. You're aware of my history, aren't you? Isn't that why you summoned me the last time?" he asked. Hiruzen took a deep breath. A deep sorrow darkened his face, deepening his wrinkles.

He suddenly looked older and tired. The joy he felt when talking to Maruboshi had completely vanished.

"I thought… I wished that you had forgotten about it," he asked.

"It's revenge then?"

"I avenged Rikku when I killed Kon, but that doesn't change the fact that they still want me dead. Instead of running away from the problem, I believe the only way to be safe from ROOT is through its complete and thorough elimination." Did Grey want revenge against ROOT? No, the remnant inside him was beyond that. But he still very much wanted ROOT's utter annihilation. Takuma remembered how he found himself in the world of shinobi. He woke up in an academy classroom in the middle of a lesson.

Grey hadn't taken his own life. Even though he was miserable, he had no intention to forsake his life. He had died in the middle of a lesson on a random day. Whatever ROOT had done to him was the most likely suspect behind his death. Perhaps one day Grey would've won his fight against his past and become someone he could've been proud of, but he would never get that opportunity.

What Grey wanted was not revenge—the ten-year-old child who had suffered too much and couldn't bear the burden of his past simply didn't want anyone else to suffer the same fate as him at their hands. The bunker experimentation Takuma had busted was proof that ROOT was still doing its vile experimentation. Unfortunately, he was already dead. Regardless of what Grey wanted, he was helpless to make it come true. But Takuma was still very much alive.

He pulled off his shirt to reveal his scarred body—a mixture of scars gained in fights and those forced onto him in the name of experimentation.

"I don't want others to go through what I had to go through," he said while momentarily glancing at the illusion of Grey standing behind the Hokage, staring at him with wide eyes. The remnant of the boy who died still existed within him. He had directly felt a fraction of what Grey felt in the hell he was forced through. He now inhabited that body and wanted to know what was wrong with it. ROOT killed his friend. They tried to kill him multiple times and still wanted him dead.

ROOT would never let Hidden Leaf go, actively putting his friends, loved ones, and innocent people in danger. He, too, didn't want ROOT to continue their vile experimentation. There were too many reasons—but one thing was clear. ROOT had to go.

"I'm scared of it; a black void that, I feel, could devour me, but I still want to know about my past, Lord Hokage. Who were my parents? What did ROOT do to me? How did I end up in their clutches? Do you have those answers?" Takuma asked. Hiruzen was crestfallen as he gazed at him and couldn't get his emotions in control quickly enough.

"There was no information about your parents or how ROOT got hold of you," Stag said. Takuma gazed at him. He wasn't surprised because Stag hadn't raised a question or acted confused. If there were anyone who would know secrets, it would be an ANBU commander. Seeing Hiruzen didn't stop him, Stag continued, "They had destroyed everything by the time the team in charge got there. You were in very bad condition and were barely saved by the best effort of the iryō-nin on the field team."

"Ask their name," said Grey, lowering his eyes.

"If possible, I would like to thank them."

"May I have their name?" Takuma asked.

"She's dead," said Stag.

"I'll send you the file. You can pay your respects at the memorial."

"I-I see," Takuma said, not expecting the response. Grey looked sorrowful; his side of the room dimmed. Stag continued, "ANBU was interested in the experiments ROOT was running, and you were the sole survivor, so we did look into it for some time, but with the destroyed records and your fragile condition, we couldn't make any headway. In the end, we could only speculate based on clues like the destroyed equipment and information gathered from the autopsy of the other test subjects we found."

"You seem to know a lot about it," Takuma asked. Even if Stag was an ANBU commander, the way he talked seemed like he had studied the case in detail.

"Stag led on that mission as the captain. He was the first one to go inside that day," Hiruzen replied. Grey walked around the room and stared at Stag as though trying to recognise him before shaking his head with a regretful expression.

"Thank him for me," he said.

"Thank you," Takuma said, deeply bowing his head to the man.

"No need. That mission was a failure. They knew we were coming. If everything had gone well, we would've saved more lives," Stag said, giving an impression that he still gave himself a hard time about that particular mission.

"What was the conclusion? What were they experimenting on?" Stag gazed at his torso as he replied, "From the presence, volume and location of the scars, it's clear that they were putting your body under stress by withholding healing; otherwise, there wouldn't have been any at all." If healed quickly and properly using iryōjutsu, cuts left very minor scars that would fade away soon enough—which would've been the case in an experiment's controlled environment, and yet Takuma's body was riddled with surgical scars.

"The experts concluded that it was some kind of substance trial. Around that time, ANBU was funding research into healing solutions because of iryō-nin in hopes that we could develop a first-aid solution to stabilise injuries until proper care."

"Would they need a child for that?" Takuma asked.

"Wouldn't a much sturdier adult be more suitable for such trials?"

"That was an argument against that specific conclusion," Stag nodded.

"They could've been testing soldier pill efficacy against injuries… Or one extreme conclusion was that they were trying to induce drastic change by injecting things that would change the subject's biology and using injury to hasten the process by forcing the weakened body to accept the foreign substances… And given that a child is still developing in all aspects, and might take well to those changes."

The boy dressed in clothes too big for him was sickly pale with a tinge of blueish-green, had baggy eyes, and his skin seemed to hang from his skeleton. He had long, webbed fingers and his feet somewhat resembled flippers. It didn't take a genius to realise that the little kid was a victim of the experimentation that had given him some aquatic traits.

The image of a sickly pale boy with blueish-green skin, baggy eyes, and webbed fingers and feet resembling flippers flashed through Takuma's mind when he heard those words, but someone voiced his thoughts before he could.

"It bears some resemblance to that research facility you shut down, Ratel," said Third Hokage.