CH_8.50 (315)

CH_8.50 (315)

Three woke up with a start and glanced at the running scenery around her.

"I am awake," she said from the princess carry in Takuma's arms, "you can put me down now."

Takuma didn't put her down and continued to run at full speed while following the standard procedure of throwing off a tail. Their opponent was a dangerous samurai who could kill them anytime he wanted; they had been lucky to escape, and he didn't want that to go to waste.

His heart was drumming fast. He had been too careless. Blinded by the task before him, he ignored all precautions and took no additional measures.

"We messed up back there," she groaned.

"Yes, we were careless," he said while leaping over three buildings.

"The tags and money are intact." Three removed her mask and bit on the nail of her thumb in frustration. "I should've triggered the explosive tags back there or at least done something to the money... Ugh!"

"No, it's good that you didn't. It could've become a bigger problem."

They had heard the news about the arsons, which they thought was another team's work. Even if not, it was already a big local incident; if they set off hundreds of explosive tags the very next day, the entire city was likely to go on high alert. This was their nation's capital—it was bad for the entire nation for their ruler's home to be in distress due to suspected terrorist activity.

"What should we do now?" she asked in a tired whisper.

"...We will report that we are done."

Three pursed her lips. "How about we try once more? Maybe... just maybe, there's a chance that we get lucky and the security is not tight."

Takuma didn't think she was wrong. There was a chance the samurai might store the tags and money as evidence in a location they could access. However, that was too much wishful thinking. They had to follow Zakahira Mahashi, which was already too big a risk. At the Police Force, evidence storage was always heavily guarded—he didn't think it would be any different with samurai.

A part of his heart wanted to believe they had another chance, but his brain knew it was too late.

"It's too risky," he replied.

Three didn't like his answer and frowned. For a moment, it looked like she wanted to argue and fight with him, maybe even go on her own, but all the tension deflated out of her body, and she lay dejectedly silent in his arms.

"Do you think any other team failed?" she eventually asked.

He understood her question. If any other team failed to complete one of their tasks, they might have a chance to remain in the winning.

Having run far enough, Takuma finally stopped and let Three down in an alleyway. She leaned against a wall and gazed up at the sky. He could tell she wasn't happy about it but had already moved on to thinking about a solution instead of wallowing in their failure. It was an admirable trait.

"We haven't failed," said Takuma, bringing up his solution to their current problem.

Her brows were furrowed as she asked, "What do you mean?"

Takuma took out the task scroll and pointed out a section as he passed it on to her.

"I don't know if this will work, but if you look here, it says...."

———

.

As the evening approached, the candidates began to gather at the designated location mentioned in their scrolls. The location was at the edge of the entertainment district and near the slum area, making it an unsavoury part of the town and a place without many eyes, making it suitable for people who wanted to hide.

ANBU had chosen the basement of an old building as their temporary base. It wasn't one of their official hideouts in the Ember Capital City, as using those would mean exposing valuable locations to candidates who weren't part of ANBU yet.

"So, they failed?" asked Eisbar, the jonin in charge of recruitment, who had visited the city on the second day.

"The raid was successful. They got the people, money, and goods," Leopard laid down on a couch that had faded from age with no care about being in the presence of a jonin and her superior officer.

Eisbar, familiar with her behaviour, knew that speaking or scolding her would make no change. The Department of ANBU had a strict hierarchy structure; orders from superiors had to be followed, but the culture of military-like formality was missing. People didn't care much about manners and courtesy beyond basic politeness as long as work got done—a partial byproduct of the flexibility given to the operatives to perform their jobs.

"It's not entirely unexpected when someone like Zakahira Mahachi suddenly shows up," he said.

"I guess the samurai got the information at the last moment," she commented.

"But neither of you had any part in it," said Leopard.

"What does that have to do anything?" asked Three. "We completed the task, and at the end of the day, that's all that matters..."

"What she said," said Thirteen, pointing at his partner.

Eisbar gazed at the two candidates before him, who looked confident and comfortable in their claims. He realised they were trying to pull one over them using a technicality, but they were also not wrong. How a mission was executed was often just as important as the end result—but in this case, the final result was all that mattered. The money and tags were off the market and in the possession of the samurai, and would unlikely never return to their original owners.

"We stand corrected. You completed all three tasks. It might not—"

Thirteen once again cut Eisbar off for the third time, which was now getting on his nerves.

"I'm sorry, but we did four tasks."

"Four tasks?"

"The robbery, the assassination, the bounty, and the sabotage," Three listed the tasks.

"We never ordered an assassination other than the bounty," said Leopard hastily when she saw Eisbar looking at her confused.

Seeing the ANBU-nin's reactions, the candidates looked at each other and silently communicated, which turned into an open show of displeasure.

Three's face twisted in anger as she slapped her thigh. "I'm going to kill that fucking pig of a man," she said with acid in her voice.

"It seems your informant duped us all and had us do something private for him," said Thirteen, not looking impressed.

"Not only did he make us do a fake task, he also messed up our timings," Three said in a pointed tone. "We didn't sleep before going to the exchange meeting; if we had proper rest, we could've been more alert and possibly not shown ourselves to the samurai at all. Now, the samurai know that the two incidents are somehow connected and will needlessly look into them, which is good for no one!"

The tone of the conversation suddenly made it seem as though ANBU was at fault, which was true, as their informant was the offending culprit. However, they didn't know about the fake mission until then.

"He'll be dead before I leave this town," said Three.

Thirteen nodded, showing his support.

"You will do no such thing. He's an important informant," Eisbar said, looking at two angry shinobi. "But I promise that ANBU will handle it, and he will be punished for his actions."

And despite their affront at his shutting down of their improptu assassination, he genuinely planned to do something because ANBU couldn't have their informants using them like this without their explicit intention. The ANBU-informant relationship was a two-way street where both parties benefited from the relationship—but ANBU couldn't have the informants think they had the dominant role.

Moreover, he suspected the informant had sold the information to the samurai. If that turned out true, then,

Maybe he's better off dead, thought Eisbar.

"You must be tired. Ant will show you to your rooms and bring you something to eat," said Leopard, dismissing the two candidates when she sensed Eisbar's mood worsening.

She suspected the informant’s handler had made their next few weeks unpleasant by loosening the leash too much.

———

.

Ant was sitting in the hallway when Three and Thirteen walked out

They closed the door behind them and looked at each other. A bratty grin split Three's face. Thirteen also had a small smile on his face and both raised their hands and high-fived each other.

I guess it went great, Ant thought, which surprised him because he knew they had missed a task. However, he was happy because he hoped both of them would enter the ANBU.



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