CH_8.5 (270)

CH_8.5 (270)

Takuma and Anko left the camp and headed towards the city walls. Their conversation opened with a discussion about the ANBU despite recognising the true topic of discussion, but both internally thought it better to gradually lean into the tense subject.

"What are you trying to do now?" she asked.

"I want answers about the assassination attempt on me, I want to know ROOT's involvement, and I want to know about Kon. ANBU is the only place I'm most likely to get those answers. And I know they have my answers; it's a matter of if I can get them to share with me," he replied.

"Kon," she said. There was no question or any specific tone in her voice, but the implication was clear.

"... I think he's the link between the assassination attempt and Yu. Those posters were his work. I don't have proof, but it has to be him. I have to know more about the man who has now tried to kill me multiple times." The matter of revenge for Rikku's death was left unsaid. He didn't look Anko in the eye, and she fortunately did not push in that direction, but there was a mutual understanding that Rikku was part of the motivation for Takuma to find out more about Kon.

"Do you have what they want? Or is this an ill-planned scheme?"

"I have enough."

As he had said to the ANBU, they could probably find what he knew and more from the captured ROOT agent, but they could give them what he knew much easier. They could use the information he gave to assist them in their agent's interrogation or directly take action based on it.

"I never told you or mentioned it in the packet we sent back because it wasn't relevant," Takuma regretted his words the moment he spoke them. It sounded like a justification for yet another thing he had done wrong.

"I understand. Information is power," said Anko.

"No, I didn't mean it that way..." He sighed exasperatedly, frustrated with himself. He truly had excluded it because it wasn't relevant. He also didn't think he would be negotiating with ANBU until the moment they had asked to meet with him, but now it seemed that it was his plan all along. "Whatever... I just want to get some answers, and this is my chance to get them.

"How're you doing?" he asked her.

Anko narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. "I'll be fine; it's nothing new for me. It's never going to be easy if that's what you're wondering, but you'll learn to deal with it. Just make sure that it's healthy. I have seen several people who go about it the wrong way."

"Like?"

"The pain comes from losing someone you cared about. For some people, the solution they find easiest is to stop caring. They shut themselves off from other people by building a cocoon around themselves so they don't get hurt when they inevitably lose yet another someone... It works, though—it changes people— but it works," Anko looked far into the distance beyond the destroyed portion of the wall. "But you don't want that. It gets lonely in that cocoon. What's life when you can't share your joy with others and celebrate their happiness with them—it's a miserable life; that's what it is. Also, you know... it's tough to bear the burdens of life alone; you will need people to help you if you want to continue being a shinobi."

"Are you talking from experience?"

Anko chuckled with a brief smile. "There are more reasons to build that cocoon. Fortunately, cocoons aren't that strong, and people can break through before it becomes too thick and rigid."

He guessed that it had something to do with her experience with Orochimaru. Perhaps a betrayal so profound that she lost her ability to trust? As he thought that, Takuma felt a weight in his abdomen. His situation with Anko was also trust-related and even though it sounded like she was recovered, experiences like that left behind permanent changes in people. He worried if it was too late.

"My teacher said to take it one day at a time," said Takuma, recalling Maruboshi's words after his C-rank mission in the Land of Frost.

"Sounds difficult and miserable. I would much rather get drunk and get laid."

“It’s not my place, butI think it’ll help if you hear it from someone else... If it’s any easier, I’m telling you to put it behind you,” she said and it sounded like an order from a superior officer. “You made a decision that wasn’t... I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my career and I’ve been punished for them, but I’ve also been forgiven by others and by myself.” She patted him on the back and asked him to stand up straight, “It’s easy to say, but move forward. If it truly bothers you, in the soul, then the best move is to forgive yourself... Let it be a lesson to guide your future actions.”

Takuma stood up straight with his eyes closed. Her words soothed him, but he knew it was only temporary. He had to confront himself and come to terms with it if he ever wanted to move forward.

"What about when the time comes when I'm ordered to take an innocent life?" asked Takuma. He was a shinobi, a mercenary for hire; there would inevitably come a day when he would have to fulfil the assassination contract posted by someone willing to pay—and the target was someone who didn't deserve to die. What was he supposed to do then?

"The world's unfair," said Anko with a sad look on her face. "I don't know the correct answer to this question—or even what you might want to hear at this moment. You're a shinobi—for all being a shinobi gives you, it takes just as much or even more away. You don't want to do something you don't like? You either stop being a shinobi, or you reach a place where you have the power to refuse. Even then, the chances are you'll do all kinds of things you don't like by the time you reach either of those places."

A Leaf genin signed a ten-year contract the moment they accepted their headband. A fifteen-year extension was part of the chunin promotion. Becoming a jonin meant another twenty-five years in service for the village. This meant, at minimum, a genin could leave the service after ten years, a chunin after twenty-five years, and a jonin after fifty years of minimum service.

Takuma had been a genin for three years, leaving seven more years on his contract.

However, he didn't want to stop being a shinobi.

"There's a third option—death," said Anko with a small smile. "No one can force you to do anything after you're dead."

Takuma stared at her and then burst into laughter that hurt his wounds, but he couldn't stop laughing.

"What?" asked Anko, confused.

"No, it's nothing," Takuma waved as he tried to stop laughing but failed." It's just a stupid joke—you had to be there for it to make sense."

It was funny because it came from Anko. She didn't know that her former teacher would master the technique to make the dead do his bidding. In the future, literally everyone important who had died would be forced to do all sorts of things against their will.

After the laughter subsided, he looked at her seriously and said,

"Hey, if I die, cremate me good, okay? Leave nothing behind."

"... Okay, if that's what you wish," she replied, utterly confused by the sudden change in demeanour.

Takuma nodded and sighed as he watched the city wall. He wasn't anyone important, so the chances of him being brought back from death were negligible, but there being an option bothered him deeply.

"Where did that come from? Any reason you stress it so much," she asked.

"Let's just say it's spiritual. I might not rest peacefully without it."

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