Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_575: Third Form (Patreon)

After nearly two hours of entertaining guests, Watari had a moment of rest. He walked to the bar and asked for a glass of water to soothe his throat. He was used to shouting at his men over the sound of explosions, but making small talk for two hours was tough on his throat; he was lucky that many of those he had invited loved the sound of their own voices.

From the bar, he gazed at the large hall of people enjoying themselves. Several more rooms held inner-city elites drinking, eating, appreciating performances, making deals, and hopefully talking about Kikyo.

He had spared no expense putting on the event, making no compromises, so none of these so-called elites with soft hands who hadn’t seen true hard work in their lives could call him an upstart. It was the twentieth anniversary of the greatest achievement of his life, and he wanted them to respect what he had managed to build. Most of them couldn’t even dream of doing the work that it took to get Kikyo to where it was. They had their wealth passed down, whereas he'd spilt blood to earn everything he owned.

If he had one regret, it was that he hadn’t been able to talk to any of his people properly. The month leading up to the day had been busy for him as he went around organising the preparations. The anniversaries had always been private things they enjoyed amongst themselves, but he wanted to build something stable for the people who had fought and bled beside him; for that, he needed to integrate them into the social circles of those who held sway over the country's centre of power.

“Boss…”

Watari smiled at the youngest and newest member of his core circle. He was only twenty-five years old and had reached “chūnin level” a year ago.

The Great Five were behemoths—powerful beyond measure, with resources that could support their shinobi armies—but their size was also a weakness. The hidden villages cast a wide net to recruit the young to train them into shinobi, hoping that they would catch some real talent that would bloom through their support. But even with tens of thousands of shinobi, some were bound to slip through.

Goshiki was one of them. He was a late bloomer who had gone unnoticed during his years as a Leaf shinobi, to the point that he thought he had no future and left after his contract expired.

He was a hard worker who had dedicated his childhood to being the best shinobi he could be, to the point that he couldn’t imagine himself as anything else, and he had thus taken on bodyguard work because that felt more comfortable than starting something new.

Watari had found him and provided much-needed guidance. The result? It took a mere two years for Goshiki to reach “chūnin level”, proven by two assassination jobs—one against a Mist chūnin and another against a target protected by a Cloud chūnin, who died alongside his charge.

“Good man.” Watari patted him firmly on the shoulder and then ordered Goshiki’s favourite drink from the bar. “You’re looking dashing today. Any thoughts of marriage? I know some people with very beautiful daughters who would love a strapping lad like yourself.”

Goshiki rolled his eyes. “Boss, please, none of that.”

Watari laughed.

“I looked into the chakra signatures outside like you asked. We couldn’t find the source,” Goshiki said.

“Are the signatures still active, or are they gone?”

Goshiki shrugged.

“Where’s Hayato? Probably with a woman,” Watari sighed.

“Should I look for him?”

Watari pursed his lips. “No, don’t do that.” He didn’t want to make a scene. “Did you inform the samurai?”

“They should be patrolling by now.”

“Good, leave it to them. They won’t slack off, knowing who all is here today.” Watari looked at Goshiki. “Just do one more thing for me, then you can enjoy the party. Go make a round of the third and fourth floors and check that everything’s fine and dandy.”

———

.

Snapping photos of the ledger pages while ensuring the text remained legible was a surprisingly delicate process. Even though he had gone unnoticed, he still needed to be quick in case the guards made a round, which was very likely. Fortunately, Uchiha Kano, his superior officer in his rookie days, had made him the crime scene photographer for all their cases.

He went through all but two rolls of film in his stock, capturing a great deal of promising information. How useful it all was would only become clear after a thorough read. Kikyo did a lot of business in the Land of Wind; traces of that country were all over everything, so finding a connection to the Hidden Sand in relation to the upcoming attack wasn’t easy. He skimmed through everything that could be relevant and hoped he hadn’t missed anything, primarily focusing on the red ledgers that lacked any label other than the year.

His job wasn’t done. He still had to seal everything he planned to ‘steal’ from the office into scrolls.

Kumahige wove the final hand seal, and with a poof, everything Takuma had gathered in the centre of the room vanished into a freshly prepared scroll that could hold it all.

“Here you go, boy. Your spoils.” The bearded bear tossed the scroll to him and then calmly packed his supplies.

Takuma bowed. “Thank you, Master Kumahige.” The old bear only hummed in response. “I’ll look forward to meeting more bears,” he said after pocketing the still-warm scroll.

“Some will fight you and then dine with you if they find you adequate.”

“I shall prepare for both. Spread the word,” Takuma said.

Kumahige scratched his beard and then disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Takuma’s expression and body language changed immediately. An urgency entered his body as he gave the room a final scan before exiting the office. The hard part was over, but it would mean nothing if he didn’t make it out with the film rolls.

The hallway was as quiet as when he had stepped into it half an hour ago, which was why Takuma clearly heard footsteps at the end of the corridor by the stairs. He stilled for a moment, his eyes darting around the long hallway with nary a place to hide. He thought of a few dark corners on the floor he could slip into undetected if the person wasn’t paying attention, but if he were noticed, he would be in the open, and there would be a fight. There were many rooms or offices on the floor—he remembered the blueprint—and he could hide in them, but he didn’t know if they were unlocked or not. There was no time to risk checking, only to find them locked.

In the end, he had few options as the footsteps grew closer, so he decided to hide in the place with the worst cover.

The Hidden Sand puppet was exhibited in a showcase—glass on all four sides—but it had a solid base high enough that he could hide behind it if he knelt close to the ground. He peeked through the glass, careful to stay behind the large puppet so he could get a look at the person.

It was Goshiki, one of Kikyo’s core members, and a former Leaf shinobi.

According to their records, he had left service as a genin, but one had to be equivalent to a chūnin to be inducted into Kikyo’s core. Kikyo could have lied to make themselves seem stronger, but Takuma doubted that.

It was also safer to assume the worst.

The next moment, Goshiki turned into one of the small corridors and shook the doors to see if they would open. They were all locked—even Watari’s office doors, which Takuma had relocked to delay the discovery of the break-in. He was safe; not even Kikyo’s core would go into the founder and leader’s office when he wasn’t in there.

Takuma ducked behind the showcase’s base when he heard Goshiki walk back to the hallway. Now, he just needed to hide out behind the showcase and wait out the former shinobi, who would shake every door to check if it was locked.

But then Goshiki turned into the corridor closest to the showcase. And when Takuma didn’t hear the doors shaking, he knew he had been spotted. He had no proof other than the simple absence of sound. Perhaps Goshiki had found something on the ground, was inspecting it, and would shake the doors in a few seconds.

But his instinct and intuition told him otherwise.

‘Damn it,’ he cursed inwardly.

What had given him away? Had he not knelt low enough? Had he cast a stray shadow that was spotted? Or had he made a sound? He did not know, and it did not matter. His decision had already been made.

Takuma got up and rushed into the corridor five seconds after Goshiki. He turned the corner at half speed, his body low. His left hand remained open while his right curled into a fist.

He had been correct, because Goshiki stood there with a kunai in his hand. There was no surprise on his face; instead, there was frustration that Takuma instantly recognised because he had just felt it moments before. His mistake had allowed the Kikyo mercenary to spot him. Now, the mercenary had made a mistake by not shaking the doors, which had given him away.

Goshiki instantly showed he was battle-tested as he moved back to avoid the incoming fist, but didn’t let himself be cornered or turned around so his back would face the hallway, all while expertly swinging his kunai to keep Takuma at bay.

Unfortunately, even though they were both chūnin, there were levels to it.

Takuma immediately switched gears and went full speed, closing the distance in the blink of an eye, timing his burst of speed for the moment Goshiki had to pull his kunai back for the next stab or swing. Takuma closed in faster than the mercenary could react and let his fist fly.

———

.

Goshiki felt the scarred fist smash into his face and wondered how someone could hit so hard. He had been kicked by Watari in the face when he was just a new genin recruit, and even that hadn’t hurt as much as the fist drilling into the bone beneath his right eye. Instantly, his vision blurred as his brain bounced inside his skull. But he was used to it; most shinobi who got hit in the face enough had no choice but to get used to it if they didn’t want to get hit more or put to sleep—and he was instead thinking about his next step.

He couldn’t make a commotion because that would ruin Kikyo’s reputation, which was the entire reason Watari had thrown the party. They couldn’t have a situation where they couldn’t protect their own castle while the inner-city elites were inside. This had to be taken care of quietly.

But as he felt the fist, he knew he couldn’t handle it alone, at least not quietly. He needed backup. Other core members were just a couple of floors down; it wouldn’t take long for them to come up. He just needed to send them a message—a silent message in the form of a spike in his chakra signature that Hayato couldn’t miss even if he were drunk to the gills.

Together, they could deal with the infiltrator quietly. Until then, he just had to stall his opponent.

He could do—

All thoughts vanished as, a fifth of a second later, while the fist was still touching his face, a second force bombarded his skull as a delayed burst of propelled chakra hit him. It felt like taking a ninjutsu right to the face, and it punched every thought out of his mind as his brain rattled like a bouncy ball.

His last thought as he went down was that perhaps ignoring the infiltrator would’ve been the better way to handle things quietly.

———

.

Takuma didn’t relax even after Goshiki hit the floor. He waited for any movement, and when it didn’t come, his mind rushed through the decision of whether to kill the mercenary to silence him permanently, but he decided against it.

If he killed a core member, Kikyo would hold a grudge and stop at nothing to find the killer. He would be a killer instead of a thief. The difference in severity between the two actions would be drastic in Kikyo’s eyes. One would be an embarrassment they could easily hide; the other would spark a deep grudge and permanently humiliate them, marking them as incompetent. The amount of effort they’d put into finding the culprit would be worlds apart.

Leaving the man alive was better if he wanted his constructed story to stand.

Takuma sighed as he looked at Goshiki’s broken and bruised face. He had overdone it by a lot; it was proof that he still didn’t have perfect control over his newest augmentation.

Chakra Augmentation: Third Form

Instead of releasing the propelled chakra at the point of contact, he delayed it by two to three-tenths of a second to create a second impact. Even though the First Form was the strongest and easiest, the second delayed impact created a shock that an opponent often couldn’t recover from quickly—it created a precious opportunity to do further damage with the next attack. However, timing the delayed impact was tough; it would either come too soon, resulting in a weaker version of the First Form, or be too late, causing the second impact to miss entirely.

Takuma stared at Goshiki. He suspected the mercenary hadn't wanted to make a commotion. If they had met in a different circumstance, the fight wouldn’t have ended so quickly.

He walked to the closest door, picked the lock, and then locked the man inside. He quickly cleaned the blood off the floor, but left the splatters on the wall alone because wiping them would only smear the blood and make the marks more obvious. He hoped that if anyone came looking for Goshiki, they would miss the blood, and that would buy him more time.

“What a mess,” Takuma said to himself, then walked away towards the staircase he had come up.

It was time to leave the castle.