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———
.
In his quaint house on the outskirts of the village, silently taken over by ROOT, Danzo read the information set by his agents undercover in the Hidden Leaf Village. Because it wasn't a scheduled routine report, the contents were short and to the point.
The assassination had failed.
The village raised its security level.
ANBU was on the prowl.
"The Gemini twins are dead." Danzo's tone was no different than usual, but the three high-ranking agents in the room with him knew that he was less than pleased.
He closed his eyes, feeling a bubbling anger he hadn't felt in ages. ROOT wasn't a big entity; it never was, even during its height of power. Their main method of influence was to use Hidden Leaf's power to pull strings from the shadows. It always relied on setting up and manipulating pre-existing players on the board for a favourable outcome.
He trained agents because there were things that could only be accomplished on the field, and ROOT needed loyal soldiers who wouldn't doubt his orders or tattle to the ANBU Commanders or the Hokage just because their work was a little dirtier than what they usually did. Out of everything ROOT did, training agents was by far the most difficult and time-consuming task.
Only a handful of trainees had the potential to succeed, something that was difficult to quantify, leading to a relatively low return on investment. Even with the substantial resources at hand, they could only work on so many trainees because ANBU always stood in their way. Both ANBU Commanders were vehemently dedicated to limiting ROOT's growth. Now that they were free of ANBU's opposition, they no longer had the resources to grow rapidly.
And just when they were at their lowest, one man killed several successful investments. Any shinobi village, much less ROOT, had difficulty creating and nurturing jōnin, which made agents like Gemini Brothers—two shinobi who could produce a pseudo A-rank output through combination ninjutsu—so priceless. They were such a success that he had been trying to recreate them in successive batches of trainees without much favourable results.
Chūnin Takuma of the Hidden Leaf.
Leaf ANBU's Ratel.
Danzo had sent the Gemini Brothers after the growing threat and ordered them to kill him at all costs because he could kill it in his old bones.
At this moment, there was no one more concerning in the Hidden Leaf than Takuma.
Jōnin Uchiha Itachi, driven by his personal grudge over Uchiha Shisui's death or the Uchiha clan, due to their claim of bloodline theft, were much more powerful and dangerous, but neither of them was solely focused on ROOT. The youngest ANBU Captain had other responsibilities demanding his attention, and the founder clan wasn't allowed participation as that lay in the hands of ANBU.
It wasn't difficult to discover that ANBU had formed an anti-ROOT initiative under Captain Weasel and Fox—and about the rising star Ratel, who had shown impressive results against ROOT. He didn't fear Takuma for his combat strength, but for the ability he had shown in the Police Force and the Steam-Frost war. He had formed the Narcotics Taskforce against the village's drug trade and showed impressive results, and was now trying to do the same in ANBU. Danzo didn't need eyes in ANBU to guess that Takuma had Itachi's support—he was aware of their connection via Uchiha Mikoto—and knew the better Takuma succeeded, the more departmental resources he would receive to be directly used against ROOT.
He couldn't allow the ANBU efforts against him to gain traction, which was why Takuma's elimination was necessary. By now, those participating in the anti-ROOT initiative would've seen and heard about the benefits given to Takuma. However, if he were to be gone for some reason, others would vie for his position, seeking the benefits, which would create internal friction and distract them from their goal.
That was Danzo's goal. But it failed. The Gemini Brothers were dead, and the target remained alive. He could hope that Takuma was perhaps crippled, but working with the worst-case scenario was more prudent.
"Order the agents to keep an eye on the target but maintain their distance," Danzo said with much displeasure.
He didn't want to admit it, but they had lost too much.
If the Gemini Brothers had failed, then he didn't think he could send someone who wasn't a jōnin, and he didn't want to risk sending one into the village, which was the only place where they could feasibly track him down.
And if the threat was to stay alive, then Danzo needed to plan around Takuma as they moved forward.
———
.
By the time Takuma returned home, it was already noon. He entered the quiet house and walked directly to the backyard to find Maruboshi working on his garden crops. The old shinobi heard him coming. He turned around to look at him; there wasn't any worry on his face, but the way his gaze swept over his body told Takuma that he had been worried.
"I'm back," said Takuma.
"Welcome home." Maruboshi's crow's feet deepened as he smiled. "How was the meeting with your disliked acquaintance?"
"He didn't make it," Takuma replied as he sat on the outside verandah with a groan. "Though someone else showed up… Rikku's killer. He's dead now."
Maruboshi blinked in surprise at the utterly unexpected reveal. He dropped his garden shears and sat down beside him. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
"I feel light," Takuma said after a moment of thought. "I guess it's because I took my revenge? I avenged Rikku's death. It's funny, isn't it? I was working hard to find him one day, and the bastard came to me all confident, but I'm glad that he found me… At first, I was happy because I was getting to kill him so quickly, but then I couldn't sleep quickly at night, so I fell into thought and wondered what Rikku would think about it all. She must've been happy that it all ended quickly; she wouldn't've been happy if I spent my years fixating on that worthless bastard when there's so much more out there."
Maruboshi smiled faintly when he saw Takuma trying to smile, but his eyes were brimming with tears. All he could do was gently pat his back and let the emotions that came up on returning home run their course.
" I've put you in danger," Takuma said after a while.
"How so?"
"They mentioned you, tried to threaten me by saying that they will kill you."
Maruboshi smiled. "You don't need to worry about me. I'm old and I've seen my fair share. I'll be able to handle whatever they throw at you."
"Are you bragging right now?" Takuma laughed. "Ah, I almost forgot. They assigned a security detail to me. I guess they'll be hanging around for a few days. I know it's probably going to be uncomfortable, but we'll have to bear through it."
"So that means you'll be resting for at least the next few days? That's very good," Maruboshi said, taking away something entirely else from his statement.
Takuma knew that he worked too much, and he considered himself to be thick-skinned because people consistently threw that fact to his face, but even he felt embarrassed to hear that only injury and bad health were the only ways to stop him from working, even though it was mostly true.
"But I don't think it's going to be all rest," Takuma sighed.
"What do you mean?"
"It's not over yet. In fact, it's about to get really messy."
———
.
The very next day, Takuma asked Maruboshi to step out for a couple of hours. The owner of the house was more than happy to spend a day fishing and eating seafood, and left the house at sunrise.
An hour after breakfast, Takuma's guest arrived in the form of two ANBU captains and a lieutenant. Since they were outside the ANBU premises, the operatives were in robes and masked up, making it a strange scene in what was usually a mundane living room.
"I'm not going to bother with hostly duties," Takuma said as he sat down around the small table along with Weasel, Tachanid, and Barbary. He had only called Barbary, but he didn't think the two captains would show up as well. It seems ANBU was taking everything related to him pretty seriously.
"Let's get straight to the point, then." said Itachi, codenamed Weasel.
"I think the identities of Captain Tachanid's Inquisitor Unit are in jeopardy," Takuma said bluntly.
"What do you mean?" asked Seinpachi, codenamed Tachanid, with a frown in his voice.
"It should be obvious that if ROOT tried to kill me, they would've observed me first. They used an acquaintance, who they knew would not only cooperate with, but who also holds enough sway to make me go wherever they wanted. And, they definitely did their research. If they physically followed me for as little as a week, they would know about the Ironwood Protection Company."
For assassinations, a person's schedule was important. The assassins had to determine the location that would work best for them. For most people, their home and place of work were often the most visited places, and assassins would often choose a spot somewhere between them.
In Takuma's case, his place work was disqualified because it was full of ANBU, and at home, they would have to deal with Maruboshi. And given that Takuma had given him the slip in Yu despite being ambushed in hostile territory, Kon must not have felt confident attacking him somewhere in between those two places.
But to finalise the training field as the location, ROOT would've still needed to do their due diligence to reach that conclusion.
"You are there nearly every day," Barbary said, nodding.
"And they knew I was an ANBU-nin." Enomoto had used that secret as a threat, and if he knew, ROOT most definitely knew. They probably fed him that information. "Which means, if they saw others go in and out of our building, there's an extremely high chance—"
"That they have my operatives and staff's identities," Tachanid sighed.
"Yes, sir," Takuma said, feeling some guilt about the situation. "What does the playbook say about situations like this?"
"The unit will be disbanded," Weasel replied.
Takuma expected as much, which was why he felt especially guilty. Due to Barbary's and Campbell's leadership, the Inquisitor Unit was a fantastic place to work. But now, because of the incident, all of that was at risk.
"No one's going to lose their job, right?" Takuma asked the question that concerned him the most.
"We aren't going to kick competent operatives just because their identities are known. You guys are expensive to replace," Barbary chuckled. He still had a laidback demeanour in even such a dire situation when he was directly involved.
Identities were hidden to protect the operatives and to make it difficult for someone to target them from outside their work through their personal lives. It was also a way to protect ANBU from being exploited by someone via its members. If an identity leak was due to incompetence or intentional leakage, then there was a strict punishment that often involved getting kicked out, but if it was not intentional, ANBU shuffled those exposed around.
In cases like honeypot schemes, the outsider party knew about the operative's work beforehand and exploited them for access and information because of it. Blindly targeting a trained operative rarely turned out well.
"Will the squads be kept together?" Takuma asked.
"We will see," Tachanid said as he got up. "If that's all, I'll take my leave. There's a lot of work to do."
"Can't let the boss man leave alone," Barbary said as he too got up. He patted Takuma on his back and walked out of the room after telling him to rest well.
That left Itachi alone with him in the living room. They looked at each other for a moment in silence. Since he was wearing a mask, Takuma had no idea what his boss was thinking, so he decided to make idle chatter about work.
"So, will that be all or—"
"Lord Hokage is going to visit you tomorrow."
"Pardon?!"
Itachi smiled. "Not that I mind this, but you'd better play a proper host to him."
.
———
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The link is in the synopsis!