CH_8.33 (298)

Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @

[ https://www̧̧.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]

The link is also in the synopsis

———

.

At a location far from the office building with the candidates, a group of ANBU-nin and department staff used another building as their base. They preferred to be in the same location as the examinees, but a Hyuga was participating in the assessment, and they didn't want to be seen by the Byakugan.

They were inside a spacious room with a large conference table in the centre and a wall lined with tons of bulky electronic equipment connected to the cameras in the office building all over the building; each numbered room had a pair of cameras to observe the candidates. Another wall was covered with bulky monitors that showed grainy images of the candidates as they sat in their rooms, individually customised to surprise and unsettle them.

"Are all candidates settled down?" asked a man codenamed Eisbar, who was given a mask inspired by the polar bear. Eisbar was an ANBU jonin in charge of the current recruitment round.

"Yes, sir," answered another ANBU-nin codenamed Swine. He was one of the chunin involved in the recruitment process.

None of the ANBU-nin in the room wore their masks, as no outsider was in their company. The staff were aware of the ANBU-nin's identity as it was unrealistic to work with people without knowing who they were; they needed to know if they were talking to the right person.

"Was anyone late to reach the location?"

"No."

Eisbar nodded as he stared at the monitors. It would've been embarrassing for everyone involved if a candidate selected to be a potential ANBU-nin couldn't do something as simple as reach the location on time. He looked at the wall clock; it had been ten minutes since the last candidates entered their rooms, and that was the cut-off period to escape the genjutsu cast by the ANBU-nin at the location.

The ability to use genjutsu wasn't required for an ANBU-nin—it was heavily preferred, but not a cause of disqualification. However, one of the most basic requirements was a competent ability to detect and break genjutsu.

"How many of them are still under the genjutsu?"

"Three of them."

A total of seventeen candidates were being assessed in the current round of assessment.

"Send them home," Eisbar said, waving his hand. Not even an hour had passed since the assessment started, and three people had already been eliminated. "Has Angler sent a list yet?"

Codename Angler was the ANBU-nin at the office building who had cast genjutsu over the candidates and wore a mask inspired by the anglerfish.

One of the staff gave Eisbar a sheet of candidates sorted by how quickly they had broken out of the genjutsu.

"One second—Number #13, Genin Takuma. That's impressive," said Eisbar with an approving nod. "Isn't he the one we're going to promote to chunin if we select him? I didn't know he was a genjutsu specialist."

The recruitment process was only a part of his responsibilities, and he had many more duties as a jonin; as such, he wasn't familiar with the candidates, having delegated the task to his subordinates. It was his plan to get familiar with the candidates in the coming two weeks so that he could decide who would be inducted into the department.

But he knew about Takuma because of the rank promotion.

The Department of ANBU employed shinobi of all ranks and capabilities as agents. They even had genin agents for specific use cases, such as going undercover as a civilian or low-level non-shinobi chakra wielder in a scenario where the agent had to hoodwink a sensory-nin who would immediately catch a chunin or above because of their large chakra reserves.

The current round of assessment targeted 'chunin-level' shinobi. Most candidates were already chunin rank, but there were a few like Takuma who the ANBU deemed worthy enough to be chunin and thus offered them rank promotion if they managed to join the department.

"Negative, sir," said another ANBU-nin, codenamed Lowe, who had been given a mask inspired by a lion. He was another chunin involved in the recruitment process. "Genin Takuma was a prizefighter in the underground fighting establishment called the Ring. His fighting style is predominantly taijutsu, with a secondary focus on ninjutsu. However, he learned genjutsu under Jonin Uchiha Mikoto before he was deployed to the Frost-Steam war—that's the most probable source of his skill."

"The Ring, eh," Eisbar muttered.

The Ring was an open secret that was allowed to exist for a myriad of greedy reasons, but if anyone asked, it was because it allowed the Leaf shinobi to train their fighting skills. The Ring had produced a few ANBU-nin, mostly genin, as the shinobi that gathered in those circles were generally street-smart and, thus, suitable for work that the department gave to their genin agents.

He didn't miss Takuma's connection with Uchiha and his employment in the Police Force. His relationship with Uchiha Mikoto was notable, but it wasn't anything special; they had plenty of clan shinobi with notable connections in their ranks, and Mikoto's son was an ANBU Captain.

"Number #7, Chunin Hyuga Kojuro. Six seconds is impressive as well."

That was roughly the time it took to climb the stairs and reach the second floor. For most genjutsu users, it was extremely difficult to catch a Hyuga in a genjutsu as they could see the flow of chakra and would disrupt it before it could even hold effect—but that was only when they had their Byakugan active—with their eyes inactive, they were the same as anyone else.

"If I remember correctly, he's a tracking and infiltration specialist. Typical Hyuga," Eisbar commented. However, no one could deny that no one was better at tracking than a Hyuga. As long as Kojuro managed to stay in till the end, he was guaranteed to join ANBU.

The five people after Takuma broke their genjutsu well before they reached their rooms. The eight after them took a few more seconds and broke them by the time they reached their pair of rooms. The remaining went into the wrong rooms before breaking the genjutsu and then going into the right one.

"Alright then," Eisbar clapped. "Let's find out more about them... Bring in their belongings."

To test the candidates appropriately, they needed to know more about them and what better way to get to know them than the weapons they wield?

———

While Takuma was most definitely surprised upon seeing the room's interior, he quickly calmed down and closed the door behind him.

He quickly scanned the room and noticed the two wall-mounted cameras with red dot lights indicating that they were watching him. The only items in the room were the table, chair, cork board covered with blank paper sheets, and the 'Scars' mask.

He picked up the mask to confirm that it wasn't one of his masks stored in the storage locker. He hadn't seen them since his return, as they were packed away in a box in the back. The mask was brand new without a single scratch or embellishment, while all of his masks had seen use in fights. He then checked under the chair and table to see if there was anything, only to find nothing out of place. Finally, he went to the corkboard and looked through the pages to find a page with a single line of text.

[Number #13, remove your mask and wait for further instructions]

Takuma didn't follow the instructions immediately and took the corkboard off the wall to check behind it, but there was nothing there either. The only other thing of interest in the room was that the door had a post-box slot for someone to slip something in from the outside.

He sat down on the chair, and only then did he pull off his mask.

After taking a moment, Takuma realised that the things in the room weren't as surprising as he had first thought. The paint job of his house wasn't difficult to find. If the Police Force knew about him being Scars, then it wasn't surprising that the ANBU knew about it; moreover, he was no longer worried if people knew—in fact, he was ready to share the prizefighting part of his life with his loved ones.

The corkboard, however, did concern him. Had they looked into his storage locker, or had they broken into his house before he had left for the war? Perhaps both since, before he purchased a corkboard, important information was always posted on a wall in his house. All of it was encrypted in a mixture of two other-worldly languages, and while he knew it was near impossible to decrypt, he was worried that ANBU just might pull it off somehow.

But seeing that they had put up blank pages, he suspected they had nothing on him in that avenue.

Then there was the question of if this was all they knew about him. He doubted that. If it were him, he would like to lull the target into a false sense of comfort before striking hard to panic them. He wouldn't be surprised if they knew about his dealings with Enomoto.

While he had been careful to compartmentalise his life and keep things apart, he wasn't arrogant enough to think he hadn't made any mistakes. Just looking at his work at the Narcotics Taskforce would raise some doubts. If someone looked deeply into it, they would find something off. However, Takuma was confident they wouldn't find any incriminating proof to nail him for his dealings.

If someone wanted to ruin him, they would need Enomoto's help, and while he didn't believe the shady iryo-nin would do it—that help didn't need to be given willingly. There were ways to make Enomoto open his mouth through painful means and the ANBU was more than capable of doing that.

Takuma wanted to sigh deeply, but the cameras were watching, and he didn't want to give anything away.

A clicking sound came from the door, indicating that the lock on the door had been engaged.

He got up and tried the door; it was locked. The door was sturdy but not enough to stop him from breaking out. He guessed that the next test was about to commence, so he returned to his chair to wait. Time passed, but nothing happened. Takuma didn't have a watch, so he didn't know how many minutes had passed, but it felt close to an hour.

Takuma familiarised himself with the weapon pouches so that he could use them effectively. He laid out the weapons on the table to visualise the loadout and remember the quantity of all the different units to strategize how he might want to use his weapons during fights.

"Hmm?"

Takuma looked at the kunai in his hand. It looked normal, but something felt off about it. For a moment, he wasn't able to identify the problem, but when he tossed it in the air, he immediately recognised that the kunai was imbalanced when it leaned to the side in the air. It was a minute lean because the throw height was short, but he knew that the kunai would deviate over long distances.

He gazed at the spread on the table and suddenly couldn't trust anything. Were the explosive tags duds? Did they weaken the standard rope somehow to lower its fail point? Was the chemical mixture in smoke bombs altered so it wouldn't work properly? Questions about every piece of equipment raised his mind.

While Takuma thought that, he kept himself from looking up at the camera because he didn't want to give anything. He remembered his academy days when he had no money and picked up extra weapons from clearance bins, which often had flaws like chips or terrible balance. He learned to work with them, and while it had been three years since he had that problem, he felt like he could still pull it off.

They were trying to mess with his head, but it would take a lot more than this to get to him. Takuma sat up straighter and prepared to face whatever they were going to throw at him.

However, nothing happened... and six hours had passed.

.

———

Chat with me and the rest of the community on our DISCORD server.

The link is in the synopsis!