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Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_312
🕑 Added 2024-11-01 20:22:13 +0000 UTCYamanaka Amami scouted the estate in the cover of the night. The main building and one of the secondary buildings, which seemed to be the guard quarters, were well-lit—but the rest of the grounds were covered in darkness. As long as she stayed clear of a couple of lamp posts around the property, she could observe the main building as long as she was careful.
Ukuri was inside the main building. Three samurai were stationed around the building. Two of them were stationary and lazed on chairs, leaving the one vigilant samurai who patrolled the longest section of the building.
She glanced at the other secondary building used as the staff quarters. It was dark, which made it a preferable entry and exit route.
A plan formed in her mind. They entered through the wall behind the staff quarters, using the darkness to their advantage. Take out the vigilant samurai, who would be the biggest problem if they failed to kill Ukuri stealthily. Taking out the vigilant samurai would also create a clear route for them to escape through—in case Ukuri made noise, while the two remaining samurai rushed to her, they would leave from the path they had cleared.
Amami observed for a bit more before carefully leaving the estate and regrouping with Thirteen.
"The back right of the estate is dark; we should go in from there and remove the samurai actively patrolling the long side."
As she expected, Thirteen frowned and immediately questioned her suggestion. "That's risky. We could alert everyone by confronting him. What if the target wakes up and decides to foot it out of here to avoid the entire situation?"
Since they started working two days ago, he had questioned her suggestions and advice. While she was relieved that he wasn't an imbecile asshole who couldn't do stuff unless it was his way; he listened to her, and if her suggestions made sense, which they always did, he would readily accept them—it was a little irritating he had to get a word in every time.
I could just take over the samurai's body, and we could finish him silently, thought Amami—but she didn't voice her thoughts.
Yamanaka clan practised their Mind-Body hiden jutsu, allowing them to possess their target's body and scour their minds if they wished. Their jutsu wasn't a bloodline limit, and anyone could learn it, but they wouldn't be able to gain the same proficiency as a Yamanaka because the jutsu was tied to the Yamanaka lineage. Not only had the clan created the jutsu so that it would work the best for them, but the Yamanaka people themselves had evolved through the generations to become more and more suited for the jutsu—resulting in their clan's jutsu being categorised as a hiden jutsu, or simply, hijutsu.
The Akimichi clan's Calorie Control and the Nara clan's Shadow Manipulation were also categorised as hiden jutsu.
Seven, the Hyuga, couldn't hide his bloodline limit because of his dojutsu's appearance, but she could hide her hiden jutsu. The candidates didn't know if the ANBU had something more planned for them, so keeping some of her cards hidden to retain an advantage was beneficial.
Amami glanced at Thirteen. The boy had been open to showing his skills. She knew he could use genjutsu; he possessed a chakra augmentation jutsu, which meant he preferred taijutsu; finally, he used Water Release on the ninjutsu front. By no means did she know everything about him—but what she knew was enough to gain an advantage during combat.
"You can use genjutsu to silence him," she answered, starting another conversation to make him understand her idea, "like you did with the old woman at the samurai's house."
"The paralysis worked as well as it did because she was a civilian," Thirteen shook his head. "This is a samurai with chakra training. My control over the genjutsu on him will not be anywhere as strong as it was on the old madam."
"So you can't paralyse him?" she sighed. It was her way of subtly challenging him.
In the short time they knew each other, she noticed he did not like it when she would speak down to him. She sensed that he was quick to bite back when someone assumed something about him. His usual bland tongue would turn hot, and he would throw sharp words instead of calmly explaining that he could.
She wanted to smile when Thirteen's eyes narrowed.
"I can do it," he said.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am sure. I just said I can do it."
"Great, it's decided then."
Amami wasn't being reckless by ignoring the risk of the chance that Thirteen might fail. Something told her that he had an appetite for risk and understood the value of the risk-reward equation—he had decided to assassinate someone in the middle of a busy street—but all of his suggestions and opinions played it safe. She realised it was because he didn't trust her and thus was compensating by choosing options that left room for mistakes—but in doing so, he made things needlessly things.
She was simply pushing him just enough so they could hit the sweet spot.
"... So, no qualms against someone just trying to make a living?" she asked him.
Amami was surprised at how clearly the scroll stated that the bounty on Ukuri's head was because she offended Hidden Leaf. One would think the ANBU would try to sugarcoat it when the target was openly being bullied so the duo would feel better about killing her, but they had very bluntly put the situation before them.
"... They're testing us by being so straightforward," said Thirteen as though reading her mind. "They most probably want to see if we will complete the mission despite our feelings about the situation... They wouldn't want to hire someone who won't follow orders every time something doesn't comply with their personal views."
"You will do anything as long as they say it's a test?" she asked. As for her, it wasn't really an issue for her. She had been involved in a couple of assassination missions where the target hadn't done anything averse to her and would even be considered innocent from certain points of view.
"Not at all," said Thirteen impassively. "Those who kill must be ready to be killed... The lives of shinobi, like the target, you, and me, aren't valuable enough to warrant guilt or hesitation during the question of killing us. By killing a shinobi, you rid the world of a killer."
"That's a grim view of yourself, don't you think?" she asked. As a shinobi herself, she thought her life had immense value not only to herself but to a good crowd of people.
Thirteen didn't reply, and Amami didn't feel like she should push it.
"But if someone hasn't killed a shinobi, wouldn't the number of killers stay the same?" she asked to move past the heaviness of the topic.
"Kill two then," he replied nonchalantly.
———
.
The moment twilight began, and the sky started to lighten, the duo infiltrated the property from the darkest portion of the boundary and slipped past the staff quarters. It was reasonable that some staff would wake up early to prepare for the day, so they had to be quick to keep their footprint minimum.
The plan was to exit after ten to twelve minutes.
The vigilant samurai patrolling his route suddenly heard a clicking sound from a few trees and thick bushes at a distance.
"Cricket?" he muttered to himself. It sounded off to him. Having been focused his entire shift, he strayed from his position momentarily and approached the trees to get a better listen.
As he approached, the sound got clearer and louder, and it became apparent that it wasn't a cricket but something else entirely.
Before the samurai could even get the chance to register suspicion, his body froze up, and he found himself paralysed, unable even to shift his weight over his legs. As the panic rose, Three emerged from the thick bushes and stabbed the man in his chest, almost instantly killing him. Not wasting any time, she dragged his body into the bushes, where Takuma helped her hide it before they swiftly closed in on the main building.
They had scouted the building for several hours but never had an indoor view of the main building; as such, they couldn't be sure that there weren't samurai stationed inside. However, it was unlikely for someone on guard duty to not step out for fresh air or stretch their legs in the time they had been observing.
With that assumption, they entered the building through an open door. They remained cautious and quiet in case their assumption turned out to be false. Fortunately, the house seemed empty, with no guard presence.
The next problem was to find the target's bedroom. As they traversed the house, they had to be utterly silent to prevent alerting the samurai outside and the Ukuri. As the minutes passed, the tension between the duo rose until, five minutes later, they found the bedroom.
As Takuma grabbed the handle to pull the sliding door open, Three stopped him and gestured for him to step aside, after which she inspected the door. He didn't know what she was doing and simply observed as she took out a rigid wire and slipped it between the gap in the door to check if it was bobby-trapped.
Clear, she gestured.
Takuma nodded and took out a kunai as Three slowly opened the door. The room had no bed-frame bed, and Ukuri had pulled her futon away from the door and was facing the door.
The moment Takuma entered the room, he threw his kunai for her throat.
Three looked surprised at his sudden action—but it was the right choice as Ukuri's eyes snapped open the split-millisecond before the kunai hit her. She had no zero time to react as the kunai tore through her throat.
Three reacted quickly and rushed towards Ukuri while she was still in shock and unable to even think about shouting to bring in the guard, much less do anything directly to defend herself.
Three finished her off with a stab to the heart. She trembled as her hand went to Three's mask, staining it with blood as she tried to pull it off, but the strength left her fingers, and her arm went limp as life extinguished inside her body.
The work wasn't done. Takuma stepped next to the body and used a dagger to remove her middle and ring finger from the base as proof of assassination for the bounty office. The most preferred proof was the entire body—which would get them the money the quickest as the verification could be done on the spot—but they didn't care about the money, and the risk of carrying an entire body without a storage scroll was too much, so the two fingers were enough as the bounty office could verify the authenticity later.
"Let's go," Takuma whispered as he bagged the fingers.
The plan went without a hitch. They left the estate without alerting the guards just as the sun became visible over the horizon. They immediately split up with the plan to rendezvous at the bounty office as they had decided before in case they exited without garnering attention.
Twenty minutes later, Takuma entered the bounty office, which was open 24/7.
The location was a single-storey building, but the office itself was built in the basement, accessible from the outside. The plain, white-painted metal pipe railings along the concrete steps leading to the green heavy, metal gate set the tone of what a bounty office would be like regardless of its location.
If he had to describe the interior, it would be— all function, zero form.
The interior was a reception area with not a single piece of furniture that had any aesthetic purpose. The reception desk looked like it was from another era. There were three types of mismatched waiting chairs without a care for any uniformity. Even the wall posters were only there for instructional reasons.
Takuma stepped to the reception desk and rang the bell.
There were two doors behind the desk—a single-panel door and a double-panel door—which closed off the rest of the building from the reception.
Thirty seconds later, a stout man exited the single door with a bored expression. He looked at Takuma, and the blood on him made him click his tongue with unhidden dissatisfaction.
"Do you want to claim or register a bounty?" he asked.
"Claim."
"Name or reference number?"
"Kinohei Ukuri."
The man quirked a brow when he heard the name, but it went back down almost immediately.
"What proof do you have?"
"Two fingers."
"Show me. Don't put them on the table," said the man quickly.
Takuma held the fingers in the small jute pouch and put it in the man's gloved hand, who then took out one and gazed at it for a moment.
"I can only issue the reward after I have confirmed the kill. It will take a week. After I confirm it, you can collect your reward—but only if I find this proof is from the target's body." The man reached into his pocket and took out a token. It was some sort of stamped metal in the middle, surrounded by a blue-coloured plastic outer ring. "Bring this back in a week and not a day before. You can show up a year later—I don't care, but you need this token. Anyone who has this token will be given the reward."
"Understood," said Takuma as he put the token into one of his pockets. "Anything else?"
"No, nothing."
Takuma turned around and left without another word.
He was nervous as he stepped out. He feared that someone would be waiting for him to catch him—but he breathed a sigh of relief when the street was as empty as it should be during that time of the day.
He caught a glimpse of Three on the edge of the street before she disappeared, which meant the situation was clear.
He weaved hand seals for the Body Flicker Jutsu and disappeared himself.
The bounty task was complete.
Comments
Corvus
Great chapter. How do they identity from just fingers? DNA? But how do they get other samples to compare against? Do authorities who collect the body and give it to the morgue just let the Bounty Org have a sample? Wouldn't that mean for the authorities that someone from the Bounty office saw who might have killed Ukuri? Wouldn't they want to interrogate? It's hard to believe that this neutrality of the Bounty Org would be so zealously respected. At some point, someone would challenge that.
Focus Armstrong
You're applying modern standards to Takuma's actions. In the world of ninjas, everything is about lies, deceit misdirection and might makes right. In this world there is a department funded by the state to torture and interrogate people. War-crimes are applauded, and the ninjas of the ninja world (ANBU) love the fact he's a drug dealer and crooked cop because he's able to keep it under wraps and is competent. He's a conforming to world and what he had to do to survive and thrive. You also called him "a petty liar and murderer", he's a ninja, that's what they do. Saying he "seeks revenge over any slight" is incorrect, he's only gotten even with Bishop due to him purposefully targeting him and had a chance to restore the reputation of his team. He hasn't gotten taken revenge on his academy bullies, Enomoto, the drill instructor, Iruka. He's also not a "remorseless snake" taking time to retrieve his teammates' ashes from the failed Frost mission. From trying to Rikku alive instead of hunting down Kon, to him hating the fact he killed civilians while targeting the Jonin. He's only got emotional bandwidth for people close to him. Killing Ukuri on this mission to the Leaf village is just business, and their business is death and subterfuge for profit. *(Author also said in the last chapter comments it isn't the leaf that make the hit, but I wouldn't put it past them to do something like this)
Marcin
Dude... would any Shinobi remained in open ? Within confines of easily accesible home ? And i highly doubt a Genin would be considered a competition to anything.
Zip Zilch
He might feel bad, sometimes, but that hasn't stopped him from lying, torturing, and murdering; he is remorseless in that he shows no mercy to enemies and people who have done him no wrong. Also, you have it mixed up in regards to Ms. Ukuri, the bounty target. She didn't betray her teammates or go out and murder Leaf ninja. She didn't even 'betray' the Leaf village. They are the ones who sent a hit squad to murder her, but she won the fight. They tried to kill her because she was taking jobs that in the eyes of the Leaf village were against them. She did this because the Leaf actively took all her work away by offering lower prices to get back at her for not joining with them and to get her out of the ninja business/recruit her. Keep in mind, we don't even know what was so bad about these jobs, just that the Leaf didn't like them. The nobles — the rulers of the country — seemingly had no problem with her. Lastly, Takuma has done a lot of terrible things, what are you talking about? I made a list of things he has done in a comment in this same thread if you want to check it out, just scroll a bit up. The dude has tortured people before he killed them, bombed a resturant with regular people, buried alive wounded and non-combatant ninja (basically a field hospital), killed unarmed prisoners, and so on. Just because the villages do terrible things too doesn't make them not terrible.
Ben.K15
Yes, she did kill a team of Genin that got sent after her, but these are Anbu prospects, who had ample time to study and scout her out. At the end of the day, Takuma has fought or killed half a dozen chunin or more, ambushing a genin with back up is child’s play
Ben.K15
He absolutely is not remorseless, it’s been a massive part of his character, especially with the Jonin bombing(which was morally messed up, but strategically and tactically a phenomenal move) he did rob the samurai family, but did so as non violent as possible, and the that “Fellow leaf ninja” is a missing nin who killed the last team that went against her for competing against her home country. Honestly most of what he has done is fair game and completely within the bounds of the world. The most evil non remorseful thing he did is be a corrupt police who got the hard drugs off the street and replaced them with weed(by all metrics the lesser of the two evils) and in the process set up a task force that will still hunt his ex criminal partner
Jairo Enrique Quevedo
In and out. Just how I like it.
HYP3R
In other words, a Shinobi. This is the logical conclusion of the world Kishimoto has set up, and I am loving the exploration of it. Takuma may be a scumbag at times, but he’s my scumbag, and a very sympathetic character IMO. The only way to be a good person in the Narutoverse is to be a victim or to have plot armor.
Zip Zilch
Going by what was given to Takuma, the Leaf had it out for her before that point. The Leaf wanted her after she got strong enough to be a problem. Afterward, they actively tried to undercut her mission rates. Later is when she started taking missions against the Leaf's interests. Keep in mind, we don't know what exactly she was doing wrong, just that the Leaf saw it as counter to them. It might not have been against the Land of Fire itself, because she was a guest with the nobility, the rulers of the Land, but just against the Leaf. It seems like she was a problem long before she started going against the Leaf, and this was just the excuse they wanted to get rid of her. Ask yourself this, if she didn't go against the Leaf, whatever that means, would the Leaf really let a competent competitor do business in their own land, with their own employers, and take the risk of her getting stronger and/or gaining more followers? She already had the support from at least one noble person, what if she got more.
David
The crime that triggered the bounty was probably not mere competition, but taking jobs against the Leaf specifically.
Marcin
Really ? You think a shinobi knowing how the leaf village works would be overconfident ? Oh well well see
Joan Casado
Fair enough.
Zip Zilch
Let me be more clear then. Takuma has been a drug dealer who used addicts as informants in exchange for giving them more drugs. He has been a crooked cop who used his drug ties to further his own career and help his partner of a drug lord set up a drug monopoly. He has resorted to torture often and been cruel. He has collapsed a cave on dozens of wounded and non-combatant ninja. He has murdered prisoners. He has bombed a resturant with the civilians still inside to kill one Jonin. He has taken a family hostage and robbed them to get a promotion. Finally, he just murdered a woman in her sleep — a fellow Leaf ninja — for the crime of being competition. He didn't even hesitate. Takuma is a petty liar and murderer who seeks revenge over any slight, and in another story, he would be the villain. He is a remorseless snake, in other words, a predator with no mercy.
Joan Casado
I feel like there’s a difference between Takuma killing a target who he has no emotional attachment to and comparing him killing someone he knows and cares for. Takuma helped save the Uchiha Clan and gave up meta knowledge (a pretty damn big advantage) because he came to care about Mikoto. Calling him a remorseless snake seems odd.
Zip Zilch
This killing made me feel nasty and shows what a remorseless snake Takuma has become. The Leaf is scum to do this to their own; even dogs know how to take care of their young; even dogs know how to be loyal.
LOOKOUT
Maybe they were overconfident of their safety or when she had fought the previous team of assassin's she had traps and was sufficiently prepared for them.
Beater
Quick and clean
SunGear
Nice chapter
Marcin
This seems awfully easy for a paranoid ninja that already killed a team of assasins...
Pegysussy
Takuma when he sees the target, "I'm seen enough movies to know where this is going." Immediately breaks fighting trope subversion
ZuuChen
I love how you are trying to develop the characters around Takuma. Tftc
Navdeep Sugandhi
Someone: if you kill a killer the number of killers remain the same. Takuma: simple kill two. Edit: morality aside nice chapter
