CH_8.26 (291)

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As the week drew to a close, the weekend arrived, and Kameko found herself standing outside an izakaya nestled deep within the Entertainment District, away from the bustling main streets. The front door had a notice taped to it that said the place was reserved for the day for Inuzuka Hana's rank promotion celebration.

Her academy class always booked a small establishment for the evening so that they could enjoy the class gatherings by themselves. She entered through the door and was immediately greeted by the staff. The establishment was an open space lined with tatami mats, with low tables and floor cushions for seating. It was perfect for a large group, allowing people to move around and socialise easily.

"Kameko, you're late!"

She had just confirmed with the staff that she was there for the gathering when she heard her name called. Aimi latched onto her and pulled her towards the table where many classmates were already present and enjoying themselves. She looked around and roughly counted over twenty people present, a high number even for a class that always had a strong attendance for their gatherings.

A few people had not maintained contact with the rest of the class, while others were stationed outside or transferred out of the village. It made sense that everyone who possibly could have come was there because it was a special occasion. Kameko swept her eyes across the gathering to find a certain someone but couldn't see him, which was natural as he had never attended any of their class gatherings.

"Hana, congratulations." Kameko walked over to Hana's table, where she was the centre of attention as the host and subject of celebration and sat beside her. As a congratulatory gift, she presented her with a set of durable, high-quality sashes for her forehead protector.

"Thank you, Kameko," Hana smiled brightly. She used to wear her hair at chin length, but in the year Kameko was away, she had grown her hair past her shoulder. Kameko even noticed how the Inuzuka clan's traditional fang tattoos on her cheeks were now darker; she had heard that the tattoos were inked darker when an Inuzuka was promoted as a higher status symbol within the clan.

With the greeting done, Kameko wanted to leave the table and move to a quieter spot. She was excited to catch up with her friends, but she wanted to take it slow and build up from there, and the popular table wasn't the spot to do so.

It had been three and half years since their batch had graduated, and they had started participating in the Chunin Exams last year, having gone through two of them as they were conducted bi-annually—and managed to produce three chunin within the batch.

The first Chunin Exam resulted in two promotions.

Kameko looked across the table at a brunette with cinnamon-brown hair and sharp amber eyes. The first promotion was bagged by their batch's Rookie of the Year, Okubo Momoe, the civilian prodigy who had won the entire exam.

She had always been first at the academy and even maintained her top spot among the batch long after.

Sitting a few seats away from Momoe was Uchiha Izumi, with her long, straight, dark brown hair and a beauty mark under her right eye. She was the second promotion of their batch from the first Chunin Exams and had placed second, only barely losing to Momoe. And then there was Inuzuka Hana, the only one from their batch to be promoted in the second and latest Chunin Exam.

All three chunin at the gathering and their teams were sitting at the same table, and Kameko could tell that her classmates wanted to talk to them, especially the boys, who were all trying to impress them. She wanted no part of that and was about to leave when Hana grasped her arm to make her stay.

"Tell us what it was like out there in the war?" asked Hana.

Momoe, who had been chatting to someone else, turned towards Kameko. "I would also like to hear about it," she said.

Kameko suddenly felt everyone's eyes on her.

She realised she was the only one in their group who had participated in the war. Out of their academy, three people had been deployed to the Land of Hot Waters. One was deployed only a few months ago and was still out there. As for Takuma, he hadn't kept any connection with the class except for two people. She glanced at Fuma Arisu sitting beside Izumi and found her gazing at her with a neutral expression.

They worked together at the Police Force, and even though Takuma's relationship with the Military Police had soured before he left, it didn't extend to Arisu. She wondered if Takuma had told her about his experience; she got the sense he would not talk about it to anyone.

Kameko herself didn't want to talk about a lot of it.

"... The base I was stationed at ran a recapture mission," Kameko said, opting to share the parts she was comfortable with. "There was this gold mine that the enemy had taken over, using the captured workers to mine as usual. The gold which should have gone to the Land of Hot Waters was now going to the enemy... and our mission was to rescue the workers and run the enemy out of the mine. It was going to be a difficult mission because our base only had two jonin while the enemy had three on their side."

The tension in the room rose at the mention of the jonin disparity.

Kameko roughly went through the preparation that went into planning such a big operation. Perhaps it was boring to listen, but having gone through it, she had come to learn the importance of preparation and planning.

"...as the stealth team was pulling the workers out, the enemy rang its sirens... the battle had already begun by the time we got down into the pit. In a few short minutes, the entire pit was covered with more than a hundred shinobi from both sides fighting against each other."

Kameko could recall the mine vividly. The earthy smell, the faint tremor in the wet ground, the cacophony of metal mixed in with all the yelling, and the brush of ambient chakra against her skin—even thinking about it made her heart pump faster.

"That sounds awesome," said one of her classmates. "So you fought beside jonin. What was that like?"

"... Terrifying," Kameko answered honestly. "Everyone kept clear of them, fearing they would be caught in one of their jutsu. That wasn't enough, though, because they affected too broad of an area with their ninjutsu. A Fire Release ninjutsu exploded and caused several substantial landslides, disrupting the battlefield."

The questions came pouring in from how many people died and how many she killed to what were the enemy jonin like. She tried her best to answer the question and ignored the unsavoury, insensitive ones.

Momoe, sitting across the table, caught her eye. She had an inquisitive look as she absentmindedly played with a thin braid in her hair. As though noticing Kameko's gaze, Momoe looked up with a sharp look and said,

"Interesting. What did you think about that combat experience? How did you manage everything that was happening around you?"

"What do you mean?" asked Kameko, not understanding the question.

"As in, when I spar, I don't have to focus on anything but my opponent before me. That changes when you add numbers on both sides; I have to keep track of my teammates and the enemy as I fight my opponent," said Momoe in a pondering tone. "I've never been in a battle with hundreds of people, but I assume that it would be difficult to keep track of your surroundings when there are so many people actively fighting around you—are you being mindful of them... are they being mindful of you? I believe having jonin there further complicates the situation as well."

Kameko had to pause because the questions until now were along the lines of "What was it like?" where she didn't have to think much. So suddenly, facing a more profound question warranted her thinking about the answer before she could reply properly.

"It's too much to keep track of, and I was scared because I hadn't been part of such a battle. Strangely, I wasn't as stressed as I should've been in that situation... and that was because I had a teammate covering my back, and I was doing the same for her." Kameko thought about how she and Rikku were protecting each other in the dangerous pit where lives were cut down every minute. "Instead of putting it all on myself and inevitably getting overwhelmed, I trusted my teammate, and we shared responsibilities."

Momoe looked at Aimi, sitting beside Kameko and Hideaki at the corner of the table, stuffing his face with food.

"I guess that makes sense," she smiled while gazing at her teammates.

"How did the battle end?" Izumi asked.

"It ended when two enemy jonin died, and the remaining one chose to flee. Everything started to collapse as some managed to flee, but most of them were killed," Kameko answered, but as she was looking back to her memories, she realised there was another just as significant turning point. "However, I think the first heavy blow to the enemy was when my team targeted the iryo-nin. Takuma found the mine the iryo-nin were hidden—"

"I did hear that Takuma was on your team. How's that wimp doing these days?"

Kameko was rudely interrupted. Sitting behind her at another table was Inuzuka Hiji, Hana's cousin and their batch's jackass. His annoying voice seemed more grating to her ears than it ever did when they were in the academy.

"No one's going to think you're a mute if you stay quiet, Hiji," Arisu said in a fed-up voice with disgust in her eyes.

"Oh, come on. I'm just asking how an old friend is doing," said Hiji, smirking.

Everyone in the gathering knew that the relationship between Takuma and Hiji was the farthest from friends. Hiji and his group had constantly bullied Takuma in the later years of the academy. In the final year, Takuma stopped following their orders and ceased showing any reaction to their words, which made Hiji and his group lose interest in him.

"Why do you have to be so childish, Hiji? Your attitude is the reason you were passed on for promotions after the exams," Hana sighed disappointedly at her cousin.

Hiji's smirk collapsed into a glare. The two cousins were the same age and often compared to one another. Hana had always been ahead and was used as an example for Hiji to do better. It had only gotten worse now that she had made chunin while he was still a genin.

"You should make amends with him the next time you see him," said Hana.

Hiji scoffed at the idea, which pissed off Kameko. She wouldn't have cared before, but after spending months on the same team with Takuma and having gone through their time in Yu, she felt more than irritation at Hiji's attitude.

"If you can't make amends, then you should at least act civil," Izumi added on the topic. She and Hiji were on the same jonin team, and in many ways, he was compared to Izumi more than Hana because they were on the same team, and she was yet another person ahead of him. "He's not the same person he was before. Takuma was made a senior officer in the Police Force while he was a genin and trusted to lead a new team. That's something to be respected."

"And Takuma has experienced a war, which none of us can claim to have done," said Arisu.

Hiji looked taken aback because he wasn't expecting so much pushback. He noticed people staring at him and how the merry vibe of the gathering had come down, and everyone was treating it like it was his fault.

He scoffed and rolled his eyes, "Whatever, I will respect that wimp when I see what's so impressive about him. We can fight if he wants, and we'ill definitely beat that weakling, won't we, Kuragari!"

Hiji's black ninken, Kuragiri, playing with Hana's Haimaru triplets in the side, stood up and barked excitedly while showing his sharp teeth. Just like the triplets, Kuragiri had grown as well, was bigger and bulkier, and looked more menacing than them.

Kameko wasn't intending to, but she scoffed and did it loud enough that Hiji glared at her.

"What? You don't think he would beat us, do you?"

She had seen and fought both of them and compared the two boys. They were similar in that their combat style was crude and brutal; she instantly felt the difference between them.

Hiji and his ninken were a pain to fight with their trained coordination and the Inuzuka clan's taijutsu and ninjutsu; he was also feral in his approach and went at his opponents with full force because he didn't have another gear, which often made him difficult to handle but it was quite one-dimensional.

Takuma, on the other hand, tried to overwhelm them by causing as much damage as possible to end fights quickly. However, Takuma could and did observe his opponent and adjusted his approach, which made it difficult for him to fight. Then there was his skill with all three disciplines of ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu—which not only made him defend to plan against; it also made him much more flexible in how he could go about causing damage. She had also seen him fight in the manor house against the ROOT agents. She could be wrong, but she didn't think Hiji had the combat sense and control Takuma had shown that day.

And that was all on top of the solid proof that Takuma had defeated an experienced chunin with a strong command over a B-rank jutsu.

"If you spar, he'll defeat you," Kameko said calmly to Hiji as everyone listened, "but if you fight, he will kill you..." She didn't know how to put it any other way— Takuma was a fighter in a spar, but he was a killer in a real fight.

Those two were very different shinobi, and the latter was ten times more terrifying than the former.

Hiji laughed so loud that it hurt their ears. He tumbled to the floor while holding his side, and his ninken mimicked his partner by barking joyously. "Takuma? Beating me? He hasn't touched me in our spars once—and you say that he could kill me!" he laughed.

Usually, she would only think of such behaviour as childish and beneath her, but perhaps because she had spent nearly a year with Takuma as her teammate, she felt bothered because they had gone through so much together. She wanted to wipe the smirk off Hiji's face and scare him, so she said something she wouldn't have said otherwise because of how it had affected Takuma.

"... Killing you won't be much of a challenge, seeing that he's already killed a jonin," she said.

Hiji didn't hear her, and on top of his own laughter, he asked, "What did you say?"

However, people sitting near her on the table did hear her. Sitting across from her, Momoe heard her but felt as though she had misheard.

"I'm sorry, Kameko, did you just say that... he killed a jonin."

Kameko turned to her and said, "Yes, he killed a jonin. And in fact, he—"

"Kameko..."

Kameko froze when she heard a familiar voice. She turned around and saw Takuma, along with Taro, standing a few steps away from their table. He had a grave expression on his face, and he only said one word.

"Enough."

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