CH_7.39 (257)

CH_7.39 (257)

When Kon arrived at Ebi's office, he walked in on the man having a late dinner.

"Any clues about the intruders?" Ebi asked immediately, dismissing all formalities and talking through a mouthful of food. With the news that an entire shinobi army was marching towards the city, he wasn't in the mood for anything but the direct.

"Unfortunately no," Kon replied as he sat opposite to Ebi on a long table. One of the servants proceeded to set a plate for him but Ebi stopped them. Kon pursed his lips but didn't comment. "No one has come forward with any information and they've done a great job of keeping themselves independent. We caught both of their connections in Yu and neither of them knew anything about the intruders. That Gaku really must've had some pull for everyone to be involved with an outsider they knew absolutely nothing about."

For people to trust each other, both sides needed to have skin in the game, so that if one side decided to screw the other side, they couldn't just get away with it scot free. That kind of thing kept both sides honest.

"So you are completely and utterly useless," said Ebi.

That stung where Kon didn't want to admit. He had been looking for Takuma ever since their meeting, but he hadn't been able to get any clue about it. Just like Ebi, he regretted not going after the courtesan, but he had looked into them separately and nothing strange popped out.

"Unfortunately, they have played it smar—"

"You weren't able to find people inside a city we control."

The servants tried to lighten their presence as Ebi didn't mince his words while casually eating his meal. Kon stared silently at Ebi, hiding the coldness in his eyes that still came across as displeased. Ebi looked up at him as he slowly chewed his meat and looked like he was inviting Kon to say something.Alll latest novels at novelhall.com

"...There are only ten hours until the guests arrive. I wish you the best of luck for tomorrow," said Kon with a plastic smile.

Kon and his team weren't part of the forces and were technically only 'consultants' and weren't responsible for protecting the city against the attack.

Ebi hummed. But when Kon stood up to leave, he spoke again,

"You better not leave the city, Kon. You're still on the job. After we defend the city, you're going to go right back to doing what you've been doing until now."

Kon turned to look back at Ebi. He smiled, "Of course, that goes without saying."

"Seeing that ANBU hasn't shown up already, or if they have, they haven't made contact with us, I'm going to assume that they aren't in the city. I've decided that we're going to attempt to capture the ROOT team."

The haze of sleep lifted from Takuma's eyes and his body straightened as he paid full attention to the topic at hand. ROOT was a personal matter for him—more personal than the team knew as while they knew about what had happened while he was in the Police Force, they didn't know the other thing.

"We know their location, we know their numbers, but we don't have much information other than that," she continued. "That makes the situation uncertain, so we'll have to approach this situation differently. As we don't know what we might be going into, I propose that instead of trying to capture all of them, we aim to abduct one or two targets in a quick in-and-out attack."

Despite being aware of their existence, not much was known about the ROOT team. Takuma had stayed away from the part of the city where the shinobi resided and the ROOT's base was laid in that area. He had fought against them, and even managed to kill one, but it was risky to assess their combat capabilities off of that.

"We target them when the main forces knock on the door. It'll be chaos and the enemy forces will be occupied, creating a prime space of window for us to attack without worrying about getting outnumbered and surrounded. We operate aggressively and capture ideally two people alive. That would satisfy ANBU," said Anko.

"We should aim for Kon, the leader. He was confident to strut about without a mask, so he must be someone important. He'd have the most information," said Takuma.

The team looked at Takuma, internally wondering if those words were emotionally motivated as Kon had tried to kill Takuma. However, it was the truth that the leader of the group would be the prime target. But the team didn't have a handle on their target's strength, which made targeting the leader the highest risk proposition.

Anko gave Takuma a look. She said, "We take whatever we get our hands on. The moment we successfully catch two, we immediately leave. We will directly go to the main force's base outside the city. Now, because we are going to do it at the time of the city attack, one of us is going to not participate so that they can inform the main forces about the dead jonin so they don't waste their time and be more aggressive with their attack.

"Iori you'll be that person," said Anko.

It didn't need to be said, but Iori was the weakest among the group. And seeing that they weren't sure about their situation, she'd be the safest if she wasn't participating.

"Understood," Iori nodded.

"We leave in a few hours," Anko continued. "We'll be on their tail until it's time to strike. They're ROOT, so they might not participate in the defence. If they try to leave the city, we nab them before they get a chance to do so. Let's get this done and end this mission."

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