CH_8.9 (274)

CH_8.9 (274)

​​The first day was quiet.

Takuma arrived at Maruboshi's house around six and was tucked into a futon by seven after a shower and the re-application of his bandages. The next day, Maruboshi opted to take a break from his usual day-to-day to look after Takuma and waited for him to wake up, but noon passed, and he stayed asleep. Maruboshi didn't disturb his sleep, and when Takuma finally woke up, it was already four in the afternoon.

He had slept for a total of 21 hours without waking up.

Maruboshi served him food and sat at the table with him while he ate—not that he ate much, if anything. Takuma mostly picked at his food, pulling the meat off the fish bones but rarely ever bringing it to his mouth. His head slumped to the side, and he had a hollow, glossed-over look in his eyes that worried Maruboshi, but he didn't say anything.

Not yet.

After fifteen minutes of silence, Takuma finally spoke. "Sensei... I-I'm sorry for showing up here like that," he sniffled, "I don't know what came over me; I just..."

"It's okay," Maruboshi said with a comforting smile. "I'm glad that you came to me."

Takuma nodded with his eyes closed. His face twitched with emotion as they threatened to overflow, and he quickly hid them by raising his head to the ceiling and leaning back into his chair.

He calmed down soon, bowed his head, and returned to poking at the food.

"I promise I was fine when I entered the city. I was hap—happy, but I-I don't know what happened." Takuma closed his eyes. "Everything looked so... different. Out there, I-I...I..."

"It's okay," Maruboshi repeated, "we don't need to talk about it right now." He sensed that Takuma was struggling to articulate himself. "I'll be here when you're ready, so take your time. As I said, you can stay here as long as you want."

Takuma nodded and breathed out, relieving the tension in his stiff shoulder. He looked down at the food in front of him and set down his bowl of rice and chopsticks.

"I don't have an appetite," he said.

Maruboshi wanted him to eat but nodded understandingly. Takuma stood up, bowed to him, and then retired back to his room.

He didn’t emerge for the rest of the day.

———

.

The second day was silent.

Takuma seemed worse than the day before. He never left his room despite Maruboshi's pleas to eat something, even when Maruboshi left food at his door.

The only thing he touched was the bottle of water.

When Maruboshi went to replace the empty bottles, he heard the faint sounds of sobbing beyond the door. It wrenched his heart, but he knew it wasn't time for him to interrupt.

Takuma needed to be ready to talk before he could be there to listen and support him. What he needed right now was normality, and Maruboshi was ready to provide it the moment he put himself together just enough to receive help.V/\IssịT n0(v)eL/b(i)(n).co/m for the b/est novel reading experi/en/ce

———

.

The third day finally saw some progress.

"Take another week before you start looking. I like the company, and it gives us time to catch up," Maruboshi said and sipped his tea to let a silence separate the topics. "What happened out there, my child?"

Takuma scrunched his face and scratched his head. Maruboshi understood that the prospect of sharing brought pain because it involved reliving the darkest moments of one’s life, even if it left one better off for it.

Sharing things helped, but said things often had thorns that would unearth old wounds in the process.

"Did I tell you about the girl?" asked Takuma.

"The little girl from the refugee camp?" Maruboshi recalled one of Takuma's later letters. During the early days, he had sent a letter mentioning an incident on his way to the camp without going into any details, but then, in one of the later letters, he discussed that incident about a refugee camp.

Takuma nodded. "When I tortured the Frost shinobi, I was furious beyond any time in my life. I had this cold rage thrashing through my veins—and I channelled it into the torture and interrogation—I hated those men from the bottom of my heart."

Maruboshi nodded. The sentiment had come through clearly from the letter.

"My mission was to infiltrate an enemy-occupied city and collect information to send back to the main forces. The team also had an additional responsibility to weaken the enemy from the inside to make the ensuing recapture easy.”

Maruboshi nodded each time Takuma flicked his gaze up to see if he was still listening.

“These wealthy turncoat scums decided to throw a party, and a few shinobi were invited—there was a jonin and a few chunin, I think. I infiltrated that party as a dishwasher because it seemed like the perfect time to take those shinobi out and really," he stressed, "weaken the enemy." Takuma opened his mouth to speak, but a raw pain writhed across his expression. He closed his eyes and swayed back and forth for a few seconds. "During the party, I created a water clone with explosive tags inside it, and-and..."

Maruboshi wondered whether Takuma’s intrusion was wise when he mentioned the jonin and his plan to weaken the enemy—but the moment he mentioned a water clone and explosive tags, a chilly thought flashed through his mind as he precisely understood what Takuma had done.

"... I sent that water clone in and had him blow himself up." Takuma cleared his throat. "It killed everyone. The jonin died, the chunin died, the genin died, the turncoats died.... but the staff died as well." He paused, and all the nervous, twitchy energy went away, leaving him looking as weak as he was the day before. "I became the same as the people I hated... I knew what I was doing, and I still did it... I sacrificed those people to weaken the enemy and... murdered the people I was supposed to be saving."

His heart broke as he looked at Takuma. The child in front of him had done something terrible, and it had left him in a state worse than Maruboshi had seen in a long, long time.

"Oh, dear child... you're not the same as them. Look at you now; you're feeling such pain for what you did. This pain proves that you're different. Don't compare yourself to them."

"Anko said something similar about the pain," said Takuma, "but I still feel the same as them."

"Then you're doing yourself a disservice. It's a normal response to feel as you are, but do not let it bog you down. As shinobi, there are things we must do that our conscience vehemently disagrees with—but those things must be done. Learn from it and then rise better than you were yesterday. That's the only way for you to prevent such a thing from happening again," said Marubsohi, speaking as firmly as he could for his student's benefit.

He also saw that Takuma was sinking, so he immediately tried to change the subject.

"Where did you get that scar, Takuma?" Maruboshi pointed to the side of his own lip.

"Oh, this?" Takuma touched his scar. "A ROOT agent gave it to me."

His mouth almost fell open. "What?"

"A ROOT agent—and he was the same one who ordered my assassination."

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