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Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_255 [UPDATED]
🕑 Added 2024-05-28 04:20:58 +0000 UTCEDIT: Re-worked Anko and Takuma's conversation at the end of the chapter to have it make more sense why she's so mad and flow smoother.
———
.
Takuma opened the door to Aranai's room, waking up the prisoner laying down on the dusty floor. It had been a few days since the torture and beatings had ended, giving Aranai the time to recover; he would've recovered faster if not for his chakra locked under the prisoner seal.
"It's time," said Takuma.
Aranai sat up with a groan and looked at him suspiciously.
Takuma took out a syringe loaded with the sleeping agent he had received from Iori when she had come to refresh the prisoner seals.
"What's that for?" asked Aranai.
"Well... I can't have you leak our location, so we'll be transporting you while both of you're unconscious." He could've told them the truth now that he had the information, but he chose to continue the ruse about their being out of the city. "I'll leave you in front of the city council building; your people will pick you up from there."
Takuma knelt in front Aranai and reached out for his arm only for him to struggle violently with a fearful crazed look on his face.
"You're lying, aren't you?"
"Let's not do this."
Takuma didn't meet his eyes and grabbed his arm again, but he once again shook it off.
"You are lying... You never planned to let us leave alive," Aranai spoke barely above a whisper before opening his mouth to yell at the top of his lungs. "I DON'T WANT TO DIE! YOU'RE GOING TO KILL—!"
Takuma socked him in the face with an augmented punch, knocking him but not before his head slammed against the wall behind, doing more damage.
Takuma sat down with a deep sigh and suddenly felt so tired that he didn't move for a couple minutes and stared unmovingly at Aranai before lethargically injecting him with the sleeping agent. He struggled to grip the syringe and push the plunger down; his hands felt like they had no strength.
He laid down beside Aranai and mindlessly stared at the ceiling not wanting to move or think, finding everything too exhausting. He wanted to close his eyes and take a short nap to energise himself, and even closed them for a few seconds, but knew that if gave in, he won't wake up for at least half a day, and thus forced himself to get up to wrap Aranai's entire body bar his face in a thick cloth wrap, encasing him in a makeshift straightjacket. He then repeated the process with Ryoya, who had unfortunately heard Aranai's screams and was terrified. Takuma's patience had worn thin and he self-admittedly used excessive force to resolve the matter quickly.
He looked down at the two unconscious shinobi. Aranai was right in thinking that he wasn't planning to let them go alive. It wasn't always going to be like that; there was value in keeping them alive and letting the jonin decide what to do with them.
However, the plan was to incite chaos.
And their death would add to the already swirling pool.
———
.
Ebi didn't think he had made any big mistakes during his time in Yu. Perhaps he had not done enough, but he hadn't made any explicit mistakes which had led to the deterioration of the situation. He assumed responsibility for everything happened while also pointing fingers at the other jonin who had done nothing and dumped all the responsibility on his head—but he had to admit, he had made a mistake by being passive in pursuing leads in Aranai and Ryoya's abduction because that had lead to him loosing four more shinobi.
The four genin surveilling Chinatsu, the courtesan, and her group were missing.
He stood up on a roof of a house across from Chinatsu's house as the sun rose up at the horizon and the amount of blood on the roof told him that this surveillance team was dead. He didn't know when they were attacked, but when the other team arrived to relieve them of their shift duty, they found the blood and the team missing.
"Where are they?" he asked the chunin responsible for securing the area and collecting clues.
"...This is all we found, sir," the chunin said stiffly.
All they found was four set of uniform and gear belonging to the team; their bodies were missing.
"Why would they take their bodies? Are they alive? If so, why leave their clothes behind?" Ebi half-said to himself while also questioning the chunin.
"They are absolutely dead."
The one to answer was Kon standing on the other side of the roof.
"What makes you so sure?" Ebi asked as he walked to him.
"Look at this," Kon pointed at the blood stains on the floor. The stain was strange and looked like someone had dragged a body through blood, leaving a trail—but the trail was in a curved pattern.
"What is it?" Ebi asked, confused.
"These are snake trails," said Kon with a furrow between his brows.
"Snake trails?" Ebi looked at the the blood trail and felt doubtful because the width of the trails were at least a foot wide and he didn't think there were snakes that big in the region. But then the realisation hit him and his blood went cold. "Snake summoning contract. Are you saying it's him?"
As a jonin, there weren't many people who he genuinely feared in the world. A lot of people thought of jonin as monster, and they weren't wrong given the difference in power—but Ebi knew that he wasn't a monster—there were real monsters in the world—and the Snake Sannin was one of those monsters.
"It's not Orochimaru. We would probably already be dead if he was here," said Kon, displeased.
"Then who?"
"There's only one other person with the snake contract. It's his student, Mitarashi Anko.... She's in Yu, and she fed your shinobi to her snakes."
Ebi knew that Orochimaru had a student, but he wasn't aware of her name or her achievements. But seeing that she was his student, he could only guess that she wouldn't be a slouch.
"Is she a problem?" he asked.
"She holds the rank of chunin. She's strong, vicious, ruthless—everything you'd expect from the snake's student. You can take her in a fight, but that's not the problem," Kon placed a hand on his shoulder as he rolled it. "The problem is your two abducted shinobi. She would've wrung out all the information out of them—and that's a big problem."
"The surveillance reports don't show any suspicious activity," said Ebi.
"She could've deceived them. We can't rule that out."
Ebi tapped his feet. If Aranai and Ryoya gave up information, they were put at a disadvantage as the enemy would come prepared for the personnel they had in the city but also plan for their strategies and operating procedures they had established to combat attacks. Moreover, they had also lost a jonin and four chunin—and even though he had already sent a report back home yesterday, he knew that he won't be getting a jonin replacement. And even if they sent more chunin and genin, they would barely arrive in time according to Kon's estimate for the impending attack.
The jonin's death had finally woken up the forces and the jonin and chunin were finally moving, preparing their teams. Ebi had even given the order to update their strategies to make up for the troops they had lost to the blast—but if the enemy had their plans, he wondered if those updates would be useful. They would have to change everything drastically, but those things took time to not only plan but also implement. They had none—and that made it, as Kon said, a big problem.
As Ebi wrapped his head around the situation and thought of short-term solutions, a genin not part of the team handling the scene rushed to the roof.
"Sir!"
"What?" asked Ebi. He could tell that it wasn't good news.
"The bodies of Chunin Aranai and Genin Ryoya were just found hanging in front of the city council building."
———
.
When Takuma entered the factory base, he felt a wave of emotions well up inside of him when he saw the team sitting on the dirty couch and chairs, locked in a serious discussion. It hadn't been that long since he had seen them—he had seen Iori just a few days ago—but seeing them all together brought up a sense of comfort that he desperately needed.
He clenched his fist and dug his nails into his palm to control himself from tearing up and then took a few deep and long breaths before stepping out of the shadow.
"Where is Chinatsu and Gaku?" he asked as he announced his presence.
"Oh thank god, you're safe," Iori jumped from the chair and enveloped him in a hug.
Takuma leaned into the hug and embraced her back.
"...It's great to see you as well," he said and wanted to smile but couldn't muster one. "All of you as well," he nodded to everyone else. "So what about the other two?"
"They bounced and will stay hidden until everything's over," said Anko. She had been dressing in clothes suitable for a handmaiden, but now with that over, she quickly reverted back to her normal hairstyle and now only wore sports bra and short pants as she sat with her feet up on a table. Everyone else too had changed in to their comfort clothing.
"Of course, he's a piece of hot garbage," Takuma said and then slumped into the coach beside Rikku, leaning against her small frame.
"What about Aranai and Ryoya?" asked Kameko.
"I killed them," said Takuma flatly, "hung them in front of the city council building, and then slit their throats." To be quick and safe, he had created two water clones to do the job which used a significant amount of chakra; he was more exhausted than ever, he felt like he had a fever, and his muscles felt like lead.
"We killed the shinobi keeping an eye on us."
"Anko fed them to her snakes," said Rikku.
"That's great. Six shinobi found dead in two different spots, that's a massive blow." Takuma then looked at Anko. "Gnarly. That must've helped with making up the snakes." He knew that the snakes were displeased with Anko as she hadn't been able to pay them.
"It did. I just might be able to summon a big one to help me in the battle."
"That's good..."
A quietness snuck into the base as the team stared at Takuma, who was staring down at the floor until he noticed everyone had gone silent. He looked up and was surprised to see everyone looking at him.
"What?"
"Do you want to talk about the blast?" Daiki asked the question everyone wanted to ask about.
Takuma clamped up and leaned away from Rikku as he felt the eyes on him. At first he felt they were judging him and almost burst aloud on them. He then noticed that he were simply curious and realised that he was overthinking it.
"What do you want to know?"
"How did you do it?" asked Kameko.
"Got myself a dishwashing job at the banquet hall. Inserted waterproof explosive tag into a water clone, dressed him as a waiter, and then sent him right next to the jonin where he blew himself up... The people there were rich and powerful, and none of them saw a lowly waiter as a threat."
He noticed that they wanted to talk more about what more he had done but didn't want to talk and was about to switch the topic to their experience when Anko interrupted,
Takuma, I want to talk to you alone.
He got up and followed her to the other side of the factory base. "Is this about the blast?" he asked. Seeing that she had taken him away from the team, he guessed that she wasn't happy with him and didn't want to scold him in front of the team.
"Of course, it's about that!" Anko's voice was sharp, her expression stern. She had a deep frown on her face. "Do you realise what you did?"
"I killed a jonin," said Takuma stiffly as though repeating a mantra to fortify his mind.
"You blew up dozens of civilians! That's what you did," Anko raised her voice. "Do you know much of a mess this might lead to? The Hidden Steam will make a huge stink out of this. This could reach the Hokage and Fire Daimyo, and all of us will be screwed if the tiles fall on the wrong side."
"They were traitors; they deserved to die," Takuma said in his defence.
"Really? You want to justify it like that?" Anko stared down at him with a hard look. "What about the staff? Did they deserve to die? Was simply working in that hall to put food for their families made them traitors?"
The screams of terror echoed in his head. Takuma grabbed the bridge of his nose and turned his head away slightly as he said, "They were unfortunate collateral damage. There was no better place to take out a jonin than that banquet hall. Most of the staff was in the back of the house; they were safe."
"That was not your choice to make!" said Anko, the look of anger worsening. He hadn't seen her this angry ever, not even when she was mistreated by Toridasu. "We are not Hidden Steam shinobi. This is not our country. We are outsiders with limited operational freedom. A few people here and there are understood and thus covered—but blowing up a banquet hall and sacrificing civilians is not something you can do! It's not something any of us—even me—can do!"
She began to pace around with her hands in her hair. He could hear her taking deep breaths out of anger to calm down. She continued, "Yes, I gave you the autonomy to operate; you are allowed plenty of freedom. But you should've known better, Takuma."
"I have saved lives," Takuma defended himself, but couldn't meet her eyes. "It was our mission to weaken the enemy; I just did my mission. I have made the attack on the city safer for the main forces by taking out the jonin and the four chunin. I have made sure that after the city is freed, the good people of Yu will be in control of their homes instead of those turncoat traitors!" His volume rose, and his tone became harsher as he defended himself. He had to justify his actions because he didn't want to accept any other scenario where he hadn't done good.
When Anko didn't reply, he looked up to see that the anger had disappeared, replaced with a muted look of disappointment, which somehow hit much deeper. He clenched his fist as his heart thumped louder.
Don't look at me like that, he thought. Go back to being angry.
"We are shinobi of the Hidden Leaf from the Land of Fire," she said, her voice much calmer—no flatter—than before. "The rules of engagement between civilians and shinobi have long been established. Not to mention this is the Land of Hot Waters; we are outsiders—we can't make judgments like the one you made. The people of this country deserve to deal with the people you call traitors on their own; that's their right—you took it away from them. If someone else did what you did in the Land of Fire, the Hidden Leaf would've considered it an insult to the entire nation, even if it was one of our allies."
Takuma knew that. He knew all of that. He had simply chosen to ignore all of it so that he could hurt the enemy in the worst way possible. Taking away a jonin was the way to send fear into the hearts of the enemy who were abusing the lives of the people in the city.
"I'll be honest; I don't think you'll be punished," said Anko with a sigh. "I don't really care about the turncoats; they're dead—that's it. I care about the staff, but I don't think the people up the chain will care because you killed a jonin, and unlike us, they aren't here in this city to see what it's like for the people. As you said, you did your mission and made it safer for the main forces... I just don't like the way you did. The fault also lies with me because it only happened because I gave you the autonomy... If things do go wrong for us, don't worry, I'll take my share of the responsibility."
Anko shook her head and then turned to walk away, leaving Takuma alone to deal with what he had been thinking all along and was now thrown more bluntly than he had expected.
Two days remained until the main forces arrived at Yu.
———
.
A/N: It wasn't that easy for him.
Comments
Kelevra
I wouldn’t expect this scenario to come to pass before like 10-20 years with the way the strength system is set up in this fic. I’d expect if the story goes the ANBU path he either hardens or breaks. He might just decide he don’t want the shinobi lifestyle anymore and is sufficiently confident he can hide because he’s spent the last x amount of time training for it. Nothing keeps him loyal to Konoha as such anyway, except for the few friends he has
HYP3R
There’s clearly two sides to this argument, and it comes down to personal values at the end of the day. Which values does Takuma hold?
Chris
He was given free rain to act independently based on how she decided to lay out the mission. He used that authority to kill mission critical enemies. As she admits his decision will be supported. If she used your argument that it would cause an incident then you may be right but she doesn't. She is saying his decision is wrong not because of what he did in terms of the mission but it is wrong on moral grounds and that is bullshit.
H
That's not what Anko was concerned about - she would have been LESS disappointed if he did it for the mission. Her first concern was the potential political blowback, her second concern was that Takuma specifically said he was motivated by a desire to "punish" the quisling civilian collaborators. Takuma let his reasoning be compromised by his anger at Frost for what had been done to the civilian resistance. Had it been done only for the mission and not because of his sympathies with people of a foreign country she would have had less of a problem with it.
H
When was Takuma given the mission of undermining Anko's operational authority and abusing his limited independence to create a political incident that could threaten the Daimyo of the Land of Fire's relationship with the Daimyo of Hot water? Worse, he did it to "punish" quislings in a nation that isn't his for collaborating with occupiers from a nation the Land of Fire isn't even at war with.
H
I can't overstate how dumb I think this idea is. Takuma is a pragmatist, self-interested, and has no illusions about the shinobi lifestyle and he just proved that by detonating a restaurant full of people. He knows his chances of survival as a traitor are slim. Additionally, he knows the Leaf is the safest place for him and the place he has the most intel on. There's nothing that would motivate him to betray Konoha. Also, he has spent too much time and effort building his career there to waste it. The only way remotely acceptable way he ends up as a rogue ninja is if he is set up for something or creates a misunderstanding while in deep cover. Either way his next course of action will be to prove his innocence because Konoha is and always will be his best option. Given his contacts and experience, gathering the evidence to prove his innocence and the opportunity to do so should be possible. I find this scenario to be improbable at this point and it probably wouldn't be a great direction unless it's temporarily and takes place over the course of a few days.
Kelevra
I wouldn’t discount Takuma eventually becoming disenfranchised with the Shinobi system and becoming a nuke nin. But I doubt it to even be an inkling of possibility in his mind before he reaches a certain level of strength. A or S rank.
Mohammed Sheekh
you weren't coherent with your point, also I would agree that original naruto had very dark elements for example like orochimaru and his experiments, it was overshadowed with how unrealistic the outcome is. at the end of the day it is a shounen, author here has a chance to focus on the realism of the ninja world and expand on it
Aeon
(Fuck can't make paragraph easily here, sorry for Double Post) This fiction already showed enough blood and dark time, and writing pace demand that the next few chapter (the end of the arc) is lighter or at least more toward a positive resolution for Takuma. Either that or the complete next arc is, but this arc finishing in a lighter tone would make a perfect symetry with the previous arc which began lighter (became a cop which is a major turning point in the story) before dipping fast (Root attempt on his life then thrown to war) where as this one could be beginning hard and dark (war itself) and finishing lighter (end of war/end of Takuma's involvement in it then therapy with either Arisu or Maruboshi or his friends or all of the above). It'd be more interesting, way more interesting than the Nuke-nin route which adds nothing to this story at this point.
Aeon
You clearly are not reading what you respond to. I said that Original Naruto is darker than the rest of the series, not darker than this fic. Original Naruto was the perfect point between cynical dark Fantasy and upbeat and positive fantasy.
Banana19
Killing civilians is bad for mental health especially to a shinobhi like Takuma but it is part of the package. You need to deal with it in your own way.
LOOKOUT
This is peak writing when comparing the takuma who had killed innocents to the tamuka at the start of the war who was angered at the sight of shinobi killing civilians at the refugee camp
Mohammed Sheekh
ain't no way you said this is tamer than the original, are we reading the same thing? because this chapter alone he just mercilessly killed two people begging for their lives. and to add on to that he just clone bombed civilians, what part of that is tamer than the original? listen I get it, you like lighthearted stuff but naruto in its most realistic form is cynical at the minimum.
Aeon
You being cynical doesn't mean that the world has to be, moreover you are confusing fanon vision of Naruto (which lead to shippuden being tamer than the original and the less we talk about Boruto the better we are) with the canon original vision.
Mohammed Sheekh
takuma is a shinobi the author modeled to make as realistic as possible, the trauma, the necessity of his actions and the weight it carries in his mental health. it wouldn't be out of his character to hit back at the people critiquing him about his actions and lash out at the shinobi world. like I said, everything being sunshine and rainbows in the original is highly unrealistic but it's a shounen so it's to be expected
Aeon
It'd be nice if Iori or someone else from the team go and talk in depth with him so that it can lead to him realizing the present issue
Aeon
Nah, it'd be bad writing as it would go against Takuma's character
David
I like that you shoe how being overly dedicated to the mission's end goal can obfuscate the choices made by Takuma. Despite how people may feel and Takuma's success, he did kill a boat load of allied civilians without authorization from their government. It looks bad for the leaf to callously use their civilians as mass collateral. On top of that, ninja are not robots and they are going to have their own morals, and she can probably recognize that a willingness to complete the mission regardless of collateral can eventually cloud his morality and sense of right and wrong, leading to a next Orochimaru type. Loving the story.
Chris
Kinda bullshit about her reasoning?? Who are you to decide to murder them? Ahh he is a shinobi doing his mission.
Lazerate
I hoped she will try to counsel Takuma and he will talk about his feelings... But it is like she blames him a bit and he couldn't even excuse himself. Not really blaming, but still...
Joan Casado
I’m glad Anko chose to be realistic and admit Takuma wouldn’t be punished for this because of course he wouldn’t be. To any Leadership, a couple dead civilians in exchange for one dangerous Jonin is a fucking steal as far as anyone well versed in war is concerned. Takumas mental state is something else entirely.
Mohammed Sheekh
have to pat myself on the back for that fire storyline
Mohammed Sheekh
you know what would really spice things up, takuma turning traitor, I never really liked the naruto talk no jutsu, world eventually becoming sunshine and rainbow. this fan fiction is as real as it gets and I think takuma is moments away from a mental breakdown and just kill anyone with a headband on, we can estimate the population of shinobi kind to be around 80k to 100k as per the 4th ninja war and takuma can pull a kenjaku to make 'humanity great again'
