Naruto: The Outsider’s Resolve

CH_10.13 (379)

The bunker wasn't the place in his vision.

Takuma sat behind his new desk in the big open space assigned to the team for the case. All five people involved had a desk in the space they would be using for the coming months. All sort of evidence was transported to the room, taking over half the room with shelves, boxes, cupboards, piles of paper, and everything else that contributed to the mess.

Jotomi and Bogoniro had done their best to organise, but it was too much for two people.

Two sets of architectural and construction plans lay on his table. One was retrieved from the bunker while the other was from ANBU's archives. They were over 80% identical to each other. As it turned out, the bunker followed the standard design created and used by ANBU and ROOT for a particular type of construction. There were dozens of buildings around the Land of Fire constructed using a similar design.

His chair creaked as he leaned back and stared at the ceiling. The new problem in his head was bothering him; there was a pit in his heart that he wanted gone, and yet, he was terrified of stepping into Inenpachi's clinic and potentially changing himself forever. He looked down and suddenly saw him nibbling on the skin around his nails and stopped doing so with a groaning sigh.

"This is ridiculous," he whispered to himself and got up to join his five water clones, who were processing documents.

Two of them looked out of it, and another had an unsettled body language. The remaining two were concentrated on work, but their furrowed brows made it clear they were using it to escape their thoughts; at least they were having a better time at it than he was.

"Updates, please."

He would hold off using the shadow clone until he visited Inenpachi, which was yet another reason to visit the Yamanka iryō-nin besides his memory problem. Water clones couldn't transfer memories and experience, which meant whatever they saw would disappear along with them, so he had them prepare reports and give him updates so he would have the knowledge that could be retained and passed on to the next set of clones.

"Supply records go back to three years," said one of the clones.

"The architectural blueprints are dated four and a half years ago," Takuma recalled. "That seems the right margin for construction and initial occupation. I think we can safely conclude that this research group were the first and only occupants."

Which was the proof that the bunker wasn't the place in his visions.

He asked them if they had found any signs of former residents. If the bunker had been operational for three years, there was bound to be some influx of people in and out. If they could identify someone who had left, they could track them down.

It was one of the focus points in Amami's interrogations.

"Not yet," replied another clone.

"Keep looking." He turned to another clone, "What's the status on the human test subjects? Is there any noticeable pattern?"

They had discovered subject files of twenty-two people. He had read the file of the kid he had found, and it was possibly the most horrifying thing he had laid his eyes upon. They saw no difference between human and animal subjects. Their general treatment, the experimentation forced on them, their adverse reaction to it—everything was incomparable to the worst torture.

"Yeah, there's a pattern. All of them wound up dead," the clone replied, his face twitching in anger.

The kid they had found was their biggest success, and even he died. None of the other test subjects ever survived.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath when the clone beside him rubbed his back. "The location... All of them are recorded as being from the south. The area is too big; I plotted it on the map," he pointed to the map spread on the rolling bulletin board behind him.

Takuma saw that his clone had drawn a big circle around the location pins. It was indeed too big for a viable search.

"There," Takuma pointed at a location printed on the map. "This city, we start here."

The city wasn't in the middle of the circle. It had two pins on it, which meant two people came from there, but he noticed how the other pins all seemed to avoid it. He could draw a circle around the city devoid of pins, making it appear that someone was actively trying to prevent it. 

And that seemed to be a place as good as any to start.

"Uhm, we might have a problem and an opportunity," said the clone that had been looking at supply documents.

"What is it?"

"The supply records are appended every month. That means someone either brings supplies to the bunker or someone goes out for supplies."

"A connection to the outside," Takuma muttered as his eyes widened because that's what they were chasing.

Before he could ask, the clone added. "There's no date on here, only the month, which might mean it's all on the same date—and that's the problem."

"Alright, I need to go tell Amami so that she can ask one of the prisoners. We might only be a day out from a delivery. This is top priority," Takuma said while walking to his desk to put on his flak jacket so he could leave for the facility maintained by Torture and Interrogation, of which ANBU leased a small portion, only to be stopped by the clones.

"If you go, we need to go with you."

The haste deflated out of Takuma's body. Water clones had to be near the original and would break down if they were out of range. And unlike shadow clones, the unused chakra didn't return to him, which meant he would be wasting a lot of chakra.

"Jotomi—"

"I heard it all. I'll go," Jotomi, one of the staff on the case, replied while putting on a coat.

"Thank you," he sighed while getting tired of sighing.

———
 .

The scientists and guards fessed up quickly. A man came to the bunker with supplies every month on the same date.

It was positive news for the team. Takuma had killed a lot of people in the bunker, which had become somewhat of a problem as they had lost many, including the senior guards, with more information whom they could've interrogated. If someone from the bunker had to collect supplies monthly, it would've been a problem because those with information probably would've been dead.

They were a week out from the monthly supply, which was enough for them to prepare.

"Barbary has authorised the use of an assault squad," Krait communicated the update in their daily morning meeting.

Assault squads were teams consisting of shock troops specialising in field work. Takuma was offered to join an assault unit, but chose the inquisitor unit. They were using an assault squad due to the lack of manpower. Amami was busy with her interrogations, which left the other two, and sending a duo was considered too risky when a high-value target was involved.

"I'll be accompanying the squad to the bunker location to catch our target," said Krait.

"I'd like to go as well," said Takuma. Capturing this target was necessary for the case. He wanted to be there to see it go down successfully.

"No, you're needed here," Krait denied his request. "You and your clones are needed to process all this information. I, myself, don't want to go, and trust the assault squad to do their job, but there needs to be a representative from our side on the field."

Takuma wanted to argue, but couldn't deny that both of them were going to assist a five-member assault squad who didn't need any help capturing a single target in a surprise ambush, which would be a waste of time.

"It'll be a quick trip." Krait turned to Amami. "We'll bring the target to you as soon as possible, so you can get us some information. Depending on what we find in his head, we might be on a quick timeline and have to leave the village, so make the arrangements just in case."

———
 .

Takuma continued working on the documents with his clones for the next few days. He was doing the work of multiple people and dove into his work to avoid his thoughts. The only reason he clocked out on time was because he still cared about working on the Shadow Clone Jutsu with Inenpachi.

But he also added an after-work training session because the exhaustion helped him combat his own thoughts and get some semblance of the proper sleep schedule recommended to him by the man.

However, on the day Krait was out with the assault unit, he couldn't focus on his work and clocked out a little early. That day, he skipped out on training and instead went to the ANBU headquarters so he could visit the jutsu archives.

He had been thinking about his second B-rank jutsu since before he had decided to exchange his points for Shadow Clone Jutsu. For a while, he had been exploring Water Release ninjutsu like Water Release: Water Dragon Jutsu and Water Release: Water Colliding Wave because he was much more experienced with Water Release over Earth Release and wanted to spend time developing the latter before committing to a B-rank jutsu.

However, things changed when he saw Onikuma Komogoro falling from the sky with his skin the colour of charcoal.

He searched for the ninjutsu and found it to be B-rank, Earth Release: Earth Spear.

The user flowed Earth-natured chakra through all or parts of their body, causing it to turn darker, all while increasing their defensive power to become as hard as diamond, allowing the user to easily withstand attacks with little to no damage with the exception of Lightning Release.

Furthermore, the destructive power of taijutsu experienced a massive boost. It was perfect.

While the two Water Release choices caused massive damage in a single attack, Earth Release: Earth Spear gave Takuma a flexible defensive option he had been lacking; it also paired seamlessly with his taijutsu-forward combat style. It reminded him of Bishop's Fire Release: Chakra Mode and how deadly it was when he faced it. Takuma thought that this jutsu could be that for him; something that could give him a qualitative boost, benefiting his combat in a multiplicative manner.

The Water Release ninjutsu also risked wasting all the chakra if he missed the target. In exchange for not possessing the single massive destructive power, he was reducing the risk of wastage, as if he missed, he could just go in for a second strike.

He knew that he had a one-shot attack option like Water Release: Water Dragon Jutsu had its place, and he definitely needed and wanted one—in fact, it was the top contender for his third B-rank jutsu—but for his first combat-oriented B-rank jutsu, Earth Spear suited him more at the moment.

His recent experimentation with C-rank, Earth Release ninjutsu boosted his confidence by trying his hand at a B-rank, Earth Release ninjutsu.

"Are you sure about your choice?" asked the kunoichi at the ANBU jutsu archive. "Once you sign, there will be no going back. You're locked in with your choice."

Takuma signed the form and slid it to her. He was feeling mild purchase anxiety because of how big each B-rank jutsu was, but he trusted his research would pay off when he became proficient with the jutsu.

He spent an hour reading the jutsu scroll in an archive reading room before leaving.

As he walked through the headquarters corridors, he thought about how he had just prioritised his free time visiting the jutsu archive instead of visiting Inenpachi. He used the excuse of not having an appointment to not visit, but he hadn't even called in to check to see if there happened to be a free slot.

Just the thought of going to the clinic made his mind and his body reject the idea from the bottom of his being. He wished he could just escape the problem, but that would never be an option.

He was walking down the main stairwell in the ANBU headquarters while struggling with his thoughts, when he heard the door swing open and footsteps echo in the silent well. He looked down and saw someone had entered the stairwell from a lower floor, and that man also heard Takuma coming down and looked up.

Their eyes met, and usually, they would've ignored each other and gone their own way in silence, but both of them stopped in their track because they recognised each other.

Takuma recognised Uchiha Itachi standing a few steps below him.

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