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By the time Takuma's clone and Raven arrived at the dock, the members of the reconnaissance squad were already there.
"Two of you come with us. The rest of you, go support the others," Takuma said. Perhaps because he was taking the initiative or because he was the leader of the anti-ROOT squad, they agreed without much resistance. The reconnaissance team quickly decided how to split themselves, but when Takuma saw the sensory-nin walk to his side, he stopped him. "No, not you. I need you to focus on civilians. Help reduce the casualties."
The reconnaissance squad didn't seem to like that, but there was no time to argue, so they followed his orders.
"Kingfisher is out. Team 2's Hippo will be the on-field leader," Takuma said to the remaining reconnaissance squad before turning back.
"He's not on the ship," the sensory-nin said. "I had a track on him, but I lost him during the explosion. I don't know where he is now, but he's not on the ship."
Takuma clicked his tongue. It hadn't been that long, so the courier couldn't have escaped far, but the problem was knowing where to start. They had limited manpower, so even spreading out wasn't going to do much when only two of them had a high level of tracking experience. Furthermore, he and Raven didn't even know what the courier looked like, other than having a general description.
"We should start from the ship regardless," Raven said, and they leapt onto the ship without waiting for the others.
"That's a better option than guessing." The reconnaissance squad member's words made Takuma move, and all of them boarded the ship, furiously searching it for any clues.
He decided to ask people on the ship if they had seen the courier. The explosion had brought everyone to the deck, so finding them was easy. It turned out that Raven had the same idea because Takuma ran into him interrogating one of the ship's crew. Takuma was briskly walking to question another person when he saw Raven weave a short series of hand seals before putting his palm over a crewman's head. The crewman's eyes rolled back as his body went partially limp. A few seconds later, Raven removed his hand, and the crewman suddenly and abruptly regained consciousness.
"Huh, what happened?! What did you do?" he asked, stepping away from Raven with shaky legs.
"Found him. He crossed the river," Raven said when he noticed Takuma.
"Yamanaka?"
Raven nodded. "We should hurry." When the four gathered, he told them that he had seen the courier jump off the boat and run across the river in the crewman's memories.
"We can work with that," said one of the trackers.
Even though Fune was a port city, it only existed on one side of the river because the river's bend made it deep enough for large vessels to dock only on the outside curve, so only one side flourished. In contrast, the inside curve, which was too shallow and muddy, was essentially a swamp prone to flooding and thus left undeveloped.
It was as though the trackers could see tracks invisible to others' eyes. They saw broken stems, displaced rocks, and smudges of moss—patterns that were invisible to Takuma and Raven until they pointed them out. While both were ANBU and taught the basics of tracking, they couldn't hold a candle to real trackers.
"He's sticking parallel to the river."
The trackers looked at the swampland surroundings, which turned into a dense forest as one moved farther from the river. The woods were dense and widespread enough that even shinobi could get completely lost inside with no landmarks to follow and lose their sense of direction, unable to get out without the proper know-how to navigate the dangerous terrain. Even using chakra to keep them above the swamps and mud—which would normally sink a person up to their knees—didn't make traversal exactly easy. The water-logged terrain was too varied and unpredictable for them to consistently control their chakra, causing them to sink into the mud up to their ankles at times. The trackers, who had vastly superior knowledge of the terrain, did much better than the other two, whose feet were wet and caked with dirt.
"Are you fine with splitting your chakra? Wouldn't it be dangerous for you back in the city?" Raven asked. From what he knew, a shadow clone took half of the user's chakra.
"It's not ideal, but I think I can afford one split. Maybe one more, if push comes to shove," Takuma replied while keenly observing their surroundings for any danger as they made their way through the muck.
He could make three clones at home because there was no mortal danger, and he could afford to have clones that had lower levels of chakra. However, in combat situations, he didn't feel comfortable parting with a majority of his chakra.
"You must have heard about me from the shadow clone research," Raven said while looking up to see some crows flying silently through the sky.
Takuma glanced at Raven, one of the Hokage's ANBU and a mindwalker. It was completely viable that someone with that background would know about Inenpachi's research, especially when the ANBU were now funding the research alongside the Yamanaka clan.
"What about it?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing. It's not my field, but I found it immensely fascinating. And I was talking to my clan leader about it, and he, too, found it very fascinating. If you're interested, he'd be glad to host you at his home for a conversation over a meal," Raven said.
"You're doing this now? Here?" Takuma asked, surprised that Raven was bringing up the topic of a potential relationship—most definitely in the form of a sponsorship or fealty—now that they were in the middle of chasing a ROOT agent. "I'm honored that he wishes to meet me, but I can't give an answer right now," he said, pushing this topic down the line for when he had the time to give it proper headspace.
"I understand," Raven nodded.
They continued for a couple of minutes before one of the trackers whispered urgently, "Found him."
The group of four halted in their steps. Initially, Takuma couldn't see the courier until he noticed a man wearing a ghillie cloak that hid him in the environment.
"Be quiet," he said.
They had their target in sight; as long as they were careful, they would have him in custody, ready to have their mindwalker pull the information out of his head. But things weren't going to be that easy, as the courier almost immediately spotted them and bolted.
"Fuck!" Takuma spat as they chased after the courier. Time was of the essence; they needed to get the information back to the Hidden Leaf Village. He looked at the two trackers, who were faring better than he was on the terrain, and barked, "Push him closer to the river; I'll handle the rest."
The two trackers nodded and rushed ahead faster than Takuma had expected, revealing that they had been holding back.
"Get ready to do your work," he said to Raven.
"You can't kill him, you know."
"I won't, but it will surely hurt."
The courier was fast. He managed to maintain the distance even after the trackers sped up, and it seemed they wouldn't be able to catch up until the courier tripped over a protruding cypress root. He went down for only a second before recovering, but that one second made all the difference. It could've been panic, but the courier wasn't able to recover properly, allowing the trackers to close the distance and push him toward the river. Even Takuma and Raven closed the distance considerably.
"Hey, we are plenty close to the river. What's the plan?" Raven said, hearing the river rage on his right.
Takuma didn't reply and kept an eye on the courier, his breathing echoing in his ears along with the roaring river to his right. His fingers turned into a blur of motion, weaving a flurry of hand seals. Immediately, he realized a gap in his training. He had never trained building up a B-rank ninjutsu while running at full speed over uneven terrain, and it was much more challenging than he had expected. He didn't slow down. Instead, he veered sharply toward the riverbank, his feet skimming the surface of the mud as he channeled chakra out of his body and into the roaring waves. He felt the massive volume of the river, the raw energy of the countless cubic meters of water surging towards the coast, as he threw his arms to the left.
Water Release: Water Colliding Wave
Takuma had learned the jutsu to create enough water to power Water Release: Water Dragon Missile Jutsu, but like all Water Release ninjutsu, it could be used from an existing water source.
The river revolted and the wave detonated—the high-velocity plane became a horizontal tsunami that shredded everything in its path. Ancient cypress trees were snapped like dry kindling. He pushed his hands forward, and it felt like he was pushing a mountain. The trackers running forward felt their hearts leap in their chests when they saw a mini tsunami about to consume them whole, only for the wave to curve forward, barely missing them and instead making only the courier its meal.
Takuma lost his ground and went tumbling, almost slipping off the riverbank into the river if not for Raven pulling him back.
"Are you alright?" Raven asked, a look of shock on his face.
Takuma lay on the ground, the lower half of his body submerged in the cold, water-logged mud, his chest rising and falling in a controlled rhythm.
"Go, go! I'm fine. Find him and get the information out!" Takuma said between breaths.
"If he's still alive, that is," Raven said, patting Takuma on the chest and rushing forward towards what was once a dense thicket, but had now been ravaged into a muddy scar of flattened reeds and broken timber. The trackers cursed and hurled abuses at Takuma, even though he wasn't the one who had approached them. Still, Raven managed to rally them into finding the courier, and they eventually found him tangled in a mess of uprooted fern, knocked out by the sheer hydrostatic shock of the B-rank jutsu, but still alive.
Raven put his hands on the courier's head and began the retrieval process.
Takuma eventually got up with a groan. With a water source present, he could've used the Water Dragon Missile Jutsu, but that had a greater chance of outright killing the courier. Using a B-rank jutsu was definitely overkill, but he needed something that would outright knock out the courier without killing him, so the ROOT agent wouldn't have a chance to take his own life. The mass of the Water Colliding Wave could be spread out, allowing him to reduce the impact it would have on the target. Not to mention, providing a Water Release ninjutsu—which was heavily geared towards water creation and water control—with a source of water significantly reduces the chakra cost. And he needed to conserve his chakra reserves in case the original released him.
He got up and slowly walked to where Raven was working on the courier with the two trackers protecting him from any interference.
"That was not okay," one of them said, genuinely upset about almost dying.
"I apologize, and I'll explain more of it when all of this is over," Takuma said.
"Got it," Raven said after barely a couple of minutes.
"Already?" Takuma was surprised, thinking it would take longer—but then, the courier, who was leaning against a stump, fell limp to the ground with thin blood trails pouring out of his nose, ears, and eyes before pale blue flames erupted on his body, the sign of a death-seal triggering. "What the hell? He's dead!"
Raven ignored him and instead pulled out a small notepad and pen to write down the locational details of ROOT's base and handed copies to the other three. "Memorise it and keep it safe." He breathed a tired sigh before speaking. "I had a choice between taking my time, where I could've kept him safe, but it would've taken more time—maybe even hours—to find the information. Or, I could take a risk and increase my chances of quickly finding the information, but frying his brain in the process…"
"A risk? You mean, it wasn't guaranteed?" one of the trackers asked.
"Nothing is guaranteed in my line of work."
Takuma looked at the dead ROOT agent and quickly resolved his feelings on the matter. He took ample risks in his work and life, so he wasn't in a position to criticise Raven.
"We need to get this information back home as soon as possible—"
Takuma's words were cut off when suddenly the riverbank on the other side exploded as a figure dressed in a black cloak and a mask with red swirl patterns, with two swords strapped to his back, landed at the edge.
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The link is in the synopsis!