CH_7.12 (230)

CH_7.12 (230)

“This is very good,” Takuma said, giving a nod to Gaku.

“Really?” said Anko, surprised by his reaction. Given their relationship, she was sure Takuma would rip into Gaku.

The three of them were alone in the factory base. She had wanted to run Gaku’s plan by Takuma because she doubted her ability to look at the situation impartially and because Chinatsu was the cornerstone of their cover identity; putting her close to an enemy shinobi would risk them all getting exposed.

“It was a risky move, yes— but he was able to convince them and if she manages to convert the chunin into a regular and gain his trust, we’re golden,” Takuma said as he worked on sorting objects collected from around the factory like screws and bolts using chakra strings.

“That’s what I said,” Gaku smiled victoriously at Anko. “I’ll coordinate with Chinatsu and prepare her for the information we want from the guy. Leave it all to me.”

“Yeah, let’s not get ahead of us there. This one thing going well doesn’t mean everything will. Anko and I need to be keyed into everything you plan to do,” said Takuma. Gaku opened his mouth to argue, but Takuma cut him off before he could speak. “You can take the lead on this, but we need to be aware of everything before it happens. Got it?”

Gaku was peeved, but he didn’t say anything. On the other hand, Anko was surprised that Takuma gave Gaku the lead; she thought he would take on the lead from Gaku—but she nodded as she agreed that she needed to know about things before they happened. She allowed Takuma some freedom to operate independently but wouldn’t extend that treatment to Gaku.

“Alright, keep in touch,” Takuma said as he got off the couch and grabbed his weapon pouches and a long hooded overcoat to hide everything underneath.

“Going out?” asked Anko.

“Yeah, I think I have a lead on the Goharu Family.” Takuma looked at Gaku, “I followed that guy from the Goharu Family, and I think I found their stash house.”

“I knew they’d come in handy,” said Gaku.

The resistance group led by Motohiro had helped the team spread the anti-occupation posters around the city. They agreed with what the team was doing and wanted to help more. Seeing their success, the team decided to give Motohiro’s group another job—to find the Goharu Family’s drug stash house.

Takuma wanted to poison the drugs, but for that to happen, they needed to find the packaging and stash house. The team didn’t have enough time to find it by themselves, so Takuma decided to outsource it to the resistance group, which knew the city better than the team.

They failed to find it.

The Goharu Family had done an excellent job of keeping it hidden. However, they found a high-ranking person inside the family who was connected to Goharu’s drug trade, which was good enough as Takuma spent a few days following that guy and found the stash house.

“I’ll confirm it today,” he said to Anko, “after which, you and Daiki can go in to map the interior and plan how you want to do it.”

“That’s fine by me,” said Anko. “I want to talk to you.”

“Sure, let’s go,” said Takuma.

“You really gave Gaku the lead... just like that?” Anko said as they walked to the back entrance to the factory building.

“I would’ve liked to have the lead, but it’s clear that Chinatsu trusts him the most. She’ll be putting herself in danger by fishing for information so it’s imperative that she does whatever is asked of her. She needs to feel comfortable, and Gaku is the best choice for it... I could take the lead and ask Gaku to cooperate, and he might support me in the open but he’ll instruct her differently behind our backs.” Takuma shrugged. “It’s better to let him have this one. At least this way, there’s no risk of Chinatsu blowing our cover because of conflicting instructions.”

Anko thought that she would need to discipline Takuma about letting his personal feelings for Gaku interfere with the mission, but here he was, proving her wrong. He was self-aware enough to realise that Gaku was the best choice to directly work with Chinatsu.

“Good job—”

“And well... if he screws up and Chinatsu ends up blowing our cover, I’ll be safe,” Takuma smiled and patted her on the back, “I can’t say that about you guys, though.”

Anko was left speechless as she watched Takuma leave the factory while chuckling to himself. He might find it amusing, but Anko didn’t find it funny as she looked back at the base corner where Gaku probably had a cigarette in his mouth.

———

.

Takuma sat perched on a roof, staking out the Goharu Family building identified as the drug stash house. As he observed the building, it couldn’t be clearer that the building was important. There were two guards with swords at both entries, the windows were boarded and barred, and anyone who stood close to the building for any reason was asked to move or leave under the threat of violence.

He had yet to go inside to confirm that the building was the drug stash house, but he didn’t need to because one of the guards was particularly talkative and openly yapped to his partner about what was going on inside. To the guard’s credit, he didn’t talk about it around strangers but Takuma’s ears were much sharper than the average guy—and he caught the conversation when the guard confirmed no one was in earshot.

So why was Takuma staking out the building when he already had confirmation?

In a conversation between the talkative guard and a packer working in the building, he heard that today was the fulfilment day of an important big order—that got Takuma interested.

“Yeah, let’s...”

———

.

“This is bad,” said the clone, horrified as he looked down at the scene from a nearby rooftop.

Takuma stared at a burning police station building. Flames burst out of every orifice that building had: the windows, the doors, and the cracks in the ceilings and the walls.. Spectators stared at the fire from a distance as the firefighters tried to put out the raging fire to no avail.

The fire wasn’t the horrifying part of the situation.

The police station was built on the corner of an active street. In the middle of the street in front of the police station, three bare poles were stabbed into the road. And from those poles hung three corpses of blue spray-painted men dressed in Yu’s police force uniform. If it wasn’t already similar enough, they had the blue posters stuck to their chests.

Someone had copied the police station bombing.

Takuma stared at the hanged man, unable to move his eyes away. His mind raced at what this meant and how it would affect the team’s plans. It was clear they wouldn’t be able to proceed as intended.

“I need to inform Anko—”

As Takuma spoke to the clone, he felt a gaze on him. Takuma straightened up and looked around to find the source of gaze. He scanned the crowd on the ground, and the windows of the buildings, but couldn’t find the source—the gaze was still on him.

He felt his skin prickle as he scoured the rooftops.

In the same line of buildings, five rooftops away from him stood a solitary man dressed in black tactical gear with a sword on his back. The middle-aged man smiled at Takuma when their eyes met which sent chills down Takuma’s back.

“Bro, we have company,” said the clone, gravely.

Three more figures in black tactical gear and white porcelain masks were on the rooftops around then. They were all staring at Takuma. He was surrounded from all four sides.

“Bro?” The clone looked at Takuma when he didn’t get a reply.

Takuma had grabbed his head as a sharp migraine stabbed his brain and was groaning in agony.

When Takuma found himself in the 10-year-old orphan, shinobi academy student’s body, he wasn’t given the boy’s memories. It had been a big problem because Takuma had near zero idea about the situation he’d found himself in. However, instead of memories, he got something akin to intuition that told him things like his name, the academy teacher’s name, the address of his apartment.

The intuition was godsend because without it, Takuma wouldn’t have been able to pass himself as that 10-year-old orphan.

However, even that intuition had limitations.

Takuma had wanted to know about the origins of the scars on his body—but instead of giving him some answers, he was punished by harsh headaches. For whatever reason, the intuition didn’t want him to know about the scars, and every time Takuma tried as much as to think about the story behind the scars, he was punished. It was so egregious that even looking at himself in the mirror would leave him in pain.

He had to force himself to not think about the problematic parts of the boy’s past like the origin of scars and the identity of his parents. The pain acted as potent negative reinforcement, and beat the urge out of him. He wished he knew everything about the boy’s past, but it wasn’t worth it when it meant getting a horrible headache every time his thoughts wandered in that direction.

It had been a very long time since Takuma had one of the headaches, and he was glad for it.

But here it was again.

Takuma looked up at the man smiling at him. He had no idea who the man was... only that the man was somehow related to the boy's problematic past.

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