CH_2.16 (047)

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Takuma could feel everyone's eyes on him as he stared at Rei.

"I'm assuming you have the pentagon token," said Rei, smiling. "Come with us, and we will sleep under a proper roof tonight. Who knows, maybe we may very well be back at our homes by the end of the day. What do you say, let's go?"

Takuma didn't remove his eyes from Rei as he asked Taro, "How sure are you about the rules?"

"You're considering it?!" Ai exclaimed in disbelief as she stood up.

Takuma didn't respond to her. Instead, he turned to Taro. Kameko, Rei, and their two teammates believed the rules to be two sets of five tokens, not the first two teams. In the moment, he didn't know what to think— and Taro seemed to be the best person to ask for an opinion.

"H-Hey, Takuma. They possibly couldn't mean any five people. The instructor must've meant teams. He must've misspoken," said Masaaki, but even he sounded doubtful.

Ai nodded in agreement, "Yeah, let's not overthink it!"

Takuma kept his gaze fixed on Taro.

"... A shinobi must look underneath the underneath," Taro repeated the quote that Takuma remembered seeing on the academy walls— one of the shinobi rules.

"Taro!" Ai shouted at him. She knew as well as Takuma knew what Taro meant to say. A shinobi was supposed to discern the truth of any situation— and in this case, the truth was dangling right in front of them, without hiding.

Takuma squinted his eyes shut as he rubbed his face.

"Uhm, if you're worried about Yoshio's words, you don't have to, you know," Rei took out the triangle token from his person and held it in front of them in his palm. "The tokens are not customized in any way to distinguish between the teams. I compared mine against the other four, and there are no special signs on any of them, which clearly tells us that Yoshio really meant any set of five— not teams."

"Ai, your token," Takuma turned to Ai, who had the triangle token in their team.

Ai snorted and turned away from the group, clearly unwilling to participate in whatever was happening. Takuma asked again, but she refused.

"Ai, please," Taro also asked.

"You, too— why?!"

"We need to confirm if he's telling the truth. If we can confirm there's a difference between the token, then we can put this behind us and wait till Nenro arrives."

Ai gritted her teeth in frustration before throwing her token at Taro and walking away from the group but not before giving Takuma the stink eye. Takuma felt bad, knowing where she was coming from— but he quickly turned to Taro, who was comparing the tokens.

"They are... identical," said Taro. He looked at Takuma, "What're you going to do now?"

"I don't know," Takuma sighed.

"You tell him to turn the hell away and not disturb us!" Ai yelled from a distance.

"We should hurry, you know," said Rei, not sparing Ai one look. "It'll be getting dark soon... and who knows, someone might come along and take away the chance."

The meaning was clear. This was a transactional operation. They needed five people to get to the tower, and he only happened to have the token they needed. The moment someone else with the pentagon token came along, they would offer them the same deal.

Takuma thought about it. There was a reward on the line. Knowing Yoshio, it would be mission points, which Takuma desperately needed. Raiton: Shokku (Lightning Release: Shock) wasn't coming along as he expected— it was now functional but nowhere near usable in real fights. If he couldn't get into the final tournament to win the C-rank jutsu, he better start his mission points savings early to buy one on his own.

More powerful jutsu meant a boost in combat ability... which he desperately needed. Even if he didn't know the future, the world of shinobi was chaotic and thus dangerous. He needed to get stronger to secure himself by getting stronger, or else the chances of him finding himself lying in some ditch leaking blood remained rather high.

He had to make a decision. He looked at Taro, who stared at him impassively, giving out nothing. Masaaki, the person who could shine in the darkest of woods, looked worried as he gazed at Takuma, but he didn't say a word to dissuade Takuma. On the other hand, Ai didn't even look at him, her frowning gaze fixed on the river water with her arms crossed, showing her closed body posture. And even though Nenro wasn't here, Takuma could picture the prince-guy saying that he would support any decision Takuma made— because that was the kind of guy he was.

"No, can't do it," he said with a long groan.

"What?" Rei uttered in surprise.

Takuma stood up, pressed his hands into his face, and sighed in resignation. "Thank you for the offer, but you'll have to find someone else to complete the five. I'll not be joining you four," he said.

Ai turned her face to Takuma with her eyes glittering, her anger draining away as if washed away by the river beside her. Masaaki's imaginary dog ears perked up as his entire person glowed. Even Taro sighed a breath of relief.

"Are you serious?" Rei said as if he couldn't believe it.

"I am… can't believe it either."

He recalled his days when he was in the academy. How he felt from the moment he entered the classroom in the mornings, watching everyone spend time in their social and friend group— how it felt to train alone in the evening— how it felt to return to the empty home and do the chores in silence. It was the same every day as he operated his way through the same 'day' over and over again on his own. He didn't like anything about the rest of his days except for the early morning training.

He remembered how it felt when Taro questioned his ground-walking exercise and how the other three had left. That moment made him feel that he had returned to the most miserable year of his life, but worse— it felt worse when something was taken away than when it was never there in the first place.

Takuma didn't want to experience that ever again.

It was okay. He would grind Raiton: Shokku harder until it was usable. He would take more missions in the future to save more mission points. Until he got a stronger jutsu, whenever that was, he would try to improve his plateaued taijutsu. He would work harder to make up for the missed opportunity.

... He just didn't want to be isolated again.

"You heard him; go away, shoo," Ai stood between Rei and Takuma and badgered him until he walked away.

Takuma sat down again with a heavy sigh. He turned to Taro and asked, "What would you have done?"

The lazy teammate shrugged. "I don't know. I wouldn't know until I was offered the same opportunity."

Takuma could appreciate the answer. It felt more real than a simple negative or positive.

"Why did you refuse?" asked Taro.

"... A shinobi must see underneath the underneath," Takuma said as he leaned back, rested his weight on his hands, and stared up at the faint shadows of the stars that could finally appear with the sun's overwhelming shine fading away. "I just followed your advice..."

"Huh?"

Takuma shook his head. He had simply decided to believe. Only time would tell if the gambit would pay off... He wished it would pay off— he would be fine even if he didn't win anything for it.

He smirked and jutted his chin to Ai. "I can't live without her constant yapping in my ear. I fear that I have dug myself into a relationship that I can't see myself escaping— really toxic, actually."

"I don't yap. Why don't you admit that you're too shy to say it," Ai playfully kicked his thigh.

"I'm happy that you stayed, Takuma!" Masaaki said with a bright and loud smile.

"Me too, buddy, me too," said Takuma before sighing.

"It's not all over, you know," said Ai. "Nenro can still come here before they get their fifth member. We can still win, I believe we can!"

It was true. Both parties had four members— the fifth member could arrive for any of them. Takuma really hoped Nenro would arrive first. In fact, Takuma was surprised Nenro hadn't come earlier.

But then another person did arrive, and it wasn't Nenro. Rei immediately approached the girl and entered communication.

"She could have the wrong token," Ai said nervously. Takuma gulped and nodded.

But then Rie turned towards Kameko and shot them a thumbs up with a smile. Upon seeing that, the group began to pack up, getting ready to move.

"Should... Should we fight them?" Masaaki asked, looking between the team and the group about to leave.

"It'll be four against five, and with Kameko there, I can see mutual destruction as the only outcome. Not worth it," Taro said.

"I don't know about that. Mutual destruction seems pretty good right now," said Takuma, dipping a hand into his pouch that held his three explosion tags. He lipped one of them, ready to stick one on a kunai and chuck it toward the group.

"We should wait for Nenro and try our chances here rather than bleeding here so close to the tower," said Taro.

"Are we going or not?!" asked Masaaki.

The team remained tense and still as they watched their competition until they disappeared into the forest.

"... Shit, we just watched," Taro muttered.

"Well, Nenro usually makes the final decision," Ai sighed and kicked the gravel.

Takuma let himself lie down on the gravel and sighed. Now that Kameko and Rei had left with another person, who very well could've been him, Takuma wondered if his decision was the correct one. Team-5 was a temporary assignment for basic training. They weren't like the genin led by a jonin who stuck together for years. As far as he knew, genins part of the Genin Corps didn't stay together after basic training. In fact, he had zero ideas what his life would be like after the basic training.

He didn't regret his decision, but he did entertain the possibility in his mind.

"Oh, everyone's here," they heard the voice they had been waiting for.

The entire group turned over to look across the stream to see a battered Nenro waving at them. He was caked in mud, there was a bandage covering his upper arm, and a cut had almost split his headband. Upon seeing him, Ai immediately jumped over the river to fuss over Nenro, checking his injuries. While Nenro didn't seem too injured, he did look like he had been in a nasty fight.

"What happened to you?" asked Takuma after Nenro came to their side.

"Somehow, three team members ended up finding each other... and I ended up finding them," Nenro cracked a kink in his neck. "It turned out they didn't like me very much, and we ended up getting into a scuffle. I lost them somewhere, good for me because I was on the verge of pulling the flare."

Takuma could see that happening. Everyone liked Nenro— but did they? A completely positive reaction was impossible on any topic. There will always be people who will hold opposing reactions. It wasn't a bad thing to have opposing views, but in cases like this, it could cause more harm than good.

People could be cruel, Takuma knew that very well.

"Let's go to the tower," Masaaki directly got up and swung his backpack over his shoulder.

"Can you stand in there for a few more minutes?" Takuma asked.

"I can go on all day long," said Nenro with his usual smile, which looked as good as it would if he was squeaky clean out of a bath.

"The day is about to end," said Masaaki.

"Read the vibe," Takuma chuckled as he slapped Masaaki on his back. Inside, Takuma was thrumming with urgency.

They needed to hurry and get to the tower as soon as possible before it was too late.

———

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"Too late," said Yoshio.

Was what they got when they reached the tower.

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———

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