CH_4.20 (120)

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Takuma and his team waited at the drop-off point in silence. They had been lying in wait for two hours, patiently waiting for the delivery to arrive. Arriving early allowed them to hide without sounding any warning bells. Though he couldn't deny that doing nothing for two hours was tiring, he felt like going to sleep.

But then his comms came to life.

"The delivery has arrived."

The entire team's comms ran on the same frequency. Takuma had instructed one man to follow the delivery man so they could be informed and start getting themselves ready after a long period of time.

"Wake up, people," said Takuma. He stepped half out of the shadow and peered at the building designated as the drop-off point. It was a different location from where Takuma had dropped off his load, but just like his one, it was also on the edge of Maiko Triad territory.

The delivery man stopped in the middle of the street in front of the building and looked around like an idiot for a few seconds before heading inside.

In the two hours they had been perched around the building, they had detected the presence of two men who had arrived half an hour before. They were hiding over the building. It was clear that they were the men from Maiko Triad there to collect.

It took five minutes for the delivery man to exit the building and bolt in the direction away from the Maiko Triad facility as fast as possible.

"Follow him," Takuma said into his comm.

"Roger."

"Roger."

And as planned, two men— one from Arisu's team, who had been following the delivery man, and another one from Takuma's team went after the delivery man. Their orders were to follow the man to a distance before arresting him. Sending one man might have been enough, but Takuma didn't want to take the risk.

"They have moved," came from the comms.

"Hold," Takuma replied, "we will follow when they move out."

"Are we sure we don't want to catch them right here?"

Takuma looked at his comms with a frown. "No, we're following the plan. No deviations."

The plan was to follow the two men to their final destination and arrest everyone they found there. With the work he had put in, Takuma wasn't satisfied with getting two goons. There was a reason why he had brought five other people along with him (six if you considered the one man he had sent after the delivery man)— and it was hell for sure wasn't for two people.

The two Maiko Triad members left the building, and one had a large duffle bag on their back. Takuma gave the order, and the entire team followed them at a distance. Most of them kept to rooftops while their target stayed on the streets.

"Why… Why aren't they being more cautious?" said one of Takuma's teammates.

The two men were strolling through the streets without a hint of worry. They were jogging at best and showed no signs that they had an entire big bag of illegal goods.

Takuma replied, "It's the Maiko Triad territory, and they haven't been caught before. They have no reason to be cautious. And looking unbothered is the best way to deflect unwanted attention." Plus, the bag they used was the standard one most delivery men used.

Their nonchalant attitude represented what Maiko Triad represented in this part of the town. They had no fear, and Takuma had spent multiple weeks witnessing that as he did some study of the Maiko Triad. Takuma told his team to ignore the carefree attitude and keep vigilance.

Eventually, they reached their final destination, which seemed to be a dry cleaner shop.

"This is it," said Takuma before addressing one of his teammates. "Minoru, if you will."

Minoru was a well-sought-after sensory-type shinobi who could sense chakra signatures emanating from shinobi. Anyone could feel the presence of chakra when it was especially powerful or released in large enough quantities. However, only sensory-type shinobi had the ability to sense chakra at their own discretion, allowing them to detect it in non-combat situations, as well as tell individuals apart by their unique chakra signatures.

How did Arisu get someone like Minoru on the team? As it turned out, Minoru was socially-awkward, someone who struggled with networking and communication, which put him back in comparison to his more well-spoken and socially-competent peers, even though he had a gift not everyone had.

Takuma was elated when Arisu bought Minoru for him. He felt he had gotten a scout as good as a Hyuuga— well, not really, but Takuma was more than satisfied with what he got.

"Ten people inside," Minoru responded after half a minute. "Two of them are civilians."

A sensory-type shinobi could read the chakra signature to determine if someone was a shinobi or civilian from the amount held inside their body. And because of that, they could even—

"Is there a chunin inside?" Takuma asked and waited with bated breath to receive an answer. A lot depended on the reply. The Maiko Triad had chunin in their ranks, but they were the top-most leaders. Takuma didn't believe one would be present, but anything could happen.

"No," answered Minoru.

Minoru's short answer relieved Takuma more than Sango's healing on a searing wound.

"Alright, it's time to breach, people," said Takuma. "The enemy outnumbers us by two people, and two civilians are in their midst. We need to be careful about how we handle them. Minoru, where are the civilians?"

"In the front. Shinobi in the back."

That made their work much more manageable.

"Minoru and Shinju with me; we enter from the back. Rest approach from the front— secure the civilians before engaging," Takuma issued a command.

The dry cleaner shop wasn't big enough to mount a stealth attack, and the density of people in that space made it so they couldn't pick off people one at a time, but that didn't mean they couldn't employ a little bit of stealth to get themselves an advantage.

The back doors of the building were the standard heavy-duty industrial double doors. Alas, the sturdiness of the door panels didn't mean anything if a poor lock as a weak link turned everything useless. Takuma knelt beside the door and worked on the lock as silently as possible to not alert anyone inside.

*Click!*

The door was pushed open slowly, and the trio of Takuma, Minoru, and Shinju entered the building. The back hallway was lined with boxes and other things that hadn't seen use from the coating of dust on them.

Minoru signaled to the left door down the hallway. Takuma himself picked up low chatter noise from the same direction.

With silent steps, they shuffled to the door. Takuma took out a kunai with a tag on its tail before looking at the other two. They nodded, and Shinju whispered into her comms: "Go in 3."

Takuma quickly stepped in front of the door and took a mental snapshot of the room. Four people around a table with the large duffle bag sitting on it. No windows that could be used as an escape route. There was another open door in the room, and by deduction, the other four targets could be in that room.

As Takuma processed that, he threw up his kunai into the room.

"Hey!" he yelled, and everyone looked at him— and, in turn, caught the kunai in their field of vision.

Takuma stepped away from the door and closed his eyes a split moment before the flash tag on the kunai went off.

Not wasting a millisecond, Takuma began weaving hand seals.

Minoru was next to step to the door and threw a regular explosive tag at a height above the four Maiko Triad men who were temporarily blinded by the sharp flash.

*Bang!*

The explosive blast threw the blinded men off their feet, further disrupting their balance.

Minoru stepped away, and Takuma switched in. He weaved the last hand seal and felt the chakra gather in his chest and throat. He took a deep breath before spewing water from his mouth in a waterfall-like manner, focusing it on the two men closest two him, swamping them with a force of a rampaging river. He moved his head to the side, and the other two got the same treatment, slamming them into the wall.

Water Release: Wild Water Wave

His newest C-rank jutsu, among others, that he had acquired in preparation for Ring's ninjutsu category.

He held the water barrage and pressure for a few more seconds before stepping inside. Behind him, Shinju finished her hand seals. The water that had pooled and flowed out of the room rippled, and four thick tentacles rose from the water and whipped the four prone men before wrapping around them like slithering snakes restricting their prey.

"Leaf Military Police Force. Surrender at once! Stay down, or it'll only hurt more!" Takuma shouted. He should've done that before he blasted them with water, but it didn't matter. They had illegal military-grade medical drugs— that was more than enough cause for Takuma to get rough with shinobi.

The duffle bag was in surprisingly good condition after the explosion tag though many things had spilled out due to the surprise attack they had mounted. Takuma picked up the bag and threw it to Minoru outside the room to secure it.

From ahead in the building, the noise of struggle could be heard.

Takuma headed towards the front to provide the other team back up. However, he wasn't worried as the general combat capability of a Police Force member was substantially higher than their peers; plus, the other team had an Uchiha with them— though that Uchiha had yet to activate his Sharingan.

Suddenly, one of the men who Takuma and his team had followed appeared out of the corner and landed a solid punch on Takuma's face.

Takuma was forced one step back. He looked back at the man and whipped a punch of his own with chakra flowing out on impact. The man doubled over as Takuma's fist bit into his stomach, making the man spit out fluids.

"Infants punch harder than that," Takuma said as he kicked the man square in the face, knocking him cold out.

Takuma weaved hand seals and lightning arcs of Lightning Release: Shock snaked around his arm as he entered the room. He raised his arm to shoot the first Maiko Triad person he saw, only to find that the second team had taken care of the mess.

"One of them ran out," one of them said. "We have to find him."

"It's okay; we took care of him and the others," Takuma smiled as he put his hand down and dissipated his chakra.

"We did it, everyone," he smiled and felt a huge weight lift off his shoulders.

It took a long time to plan for this operation. In his seemingly already full life, he had to find more time to collect information, manage an informant, tail people, and carefully work around office politics— all the while treading a fine line of a possibility that it was all for nothing. It was his first time leading a team— not to mention a team with more than ten people— even now, he felt it wasn't real.

But now, all of it was over.

"We fucking did it!"

———

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Takuma might have been overly emotional when he thought it was all over. In fact, arguably the most difficult part of the ordeal was yet to come.

"— you better keep that sewer rat of yours in check, Kano! I want to see him suffer—"

Kano slammed the door to her office behind her and sat down at her desk, all the while staring at Takuma sitting in front of her desk. It was already late at night, but because Takuma and his team had arrested so many people, it had attracted attention, which had brought chunin like Kano and Yoshiaki to the office.

"You know, there's showing initiative, and then there's going above not one but two chunin's heads to mount a high-risk operation with so many moving parts," said Kano.

It was scary, thought Takuma as they sat there under Kano's gaze. He knew the look she had— it was the one that she usually had when interrogating suspects. But the scary part of it was that she wasn't even trying to hide her activated Sharingan behind her red glasses.

Takuma could clearly see the pair of red Sharingan trained on him. They judged his every twitch and movement. He couldn't describe the feeling, but he could now first-hand understand why Sharingan was as feared as it was— and it wasn't even a combat situation.

"I understand why you wouldn't want to work with Chunin Yoshiaki; given his words and actions towards you, I can empathize with why you would sideline him— but me, Takuma?" she asked. "Have I mistreated you in any way? Have I not done enough to make you feel included? I might not have been chummy with you, but I believe treating you the same as anyone under my charge without any bias was the most respect I could give to someone in your position.

Was that not enough?"

"No, ma'am. You aren't at fault—"

"Of course, I'm not at fault. That was never in doubt, Genin Takuma. It was you and your group who launched an unauthorized operation today in a territory that has always been a sensitive area in the village. You have no idea how wrong this could've gone for you and for all those you had involved in it," said Kano. "Did you perhaps think that if you had come to us, we would've shut this down? That we would've not accepted it even if you had shown us sufficient proof. Do you think so little about me?"

"No, Ma'am; that's not—"

Takuma pursed his lips. He couldn't deny any of the questions Kano had thrown to him. He knew why he had done it. For credit. But he couldn't say that to Kano.

Kano heaved a deep sigh.

Takuma knew nothing he could say would solve this situation, but he had already accounted for this situation. He took out a case file he had kept at his desk and placed it in front of Kano.

"What is this?" she asked.

It was everything he had on the case, and it was formatted as such that it was a true case file— he had checked and re-checked the file three to four times before he was satisfied. In fact, all it needed was a signature for it to become an official case file.

He knew what was at stake, Arisu and others knew what was at stake, but everyone else had no idea how long of a net Takuma had cast.

"Ma'am, I know what we did was wrong. We broke protocol that's set in place for logical reasons. I admit I should've come to you. But I assure you that our actions were towards a just cause," Takuma started when Kano was already a few pages into the report and was beginning to understand what Takuma's vision.

It had convinced Arisu, and she had used it to persuade others as well, two of whom were Uchiha. It was proven what he had accomplished was valuable…

However, he hadn't revealed everything to Arisu— he had withheld one fact from her.

His ace.

"Ma'am," Takuma called.

Kano looked up at Takuma, and while the Sharingan remained the same, he could tell the mind behind those eyes wasn't focused on him.

"Today, we might have stopped a gang war from happening, which would've caused a lot of shinobi deaths."

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The link is in the synopsis!