The control room was a tomb of smoke, sparks, and the copper-sweet scent of blood.
Ryugo leaned heavily against a shattered desk. There, maps and notes, or rather remnants of an operation material, could be seen. His breath came in ragged, painful hitches. Every inch of his body screamed—the deep gash in his flank, the burns from the steam, the myriad cuts from the bladed chains. He had taken two soldier pills already, twice more than the recommended dosage.
But even the highest quality soldier pills could not restore blood.
His head was dizzy.
His chakra felt like a drained, gritty well.
A soft rustle at the doorway. Tetsu stood there, his weeping-smile mask tilted.
He was unscathed physically. Unlike Ryugo, he had been in control of his fight from start to finish. His opponent was not a jonin, but a mere chunin who was helpless against his bloodline release. Still, his chakra pool dwindled, and his spirit felt fatigued. Each coming of the Grief-Joy demon made his most traumatic memories resurface, a curse that all Waraiko went through.
His eyes, visible through the mask, went wide at the sight of Ryugo.
"Captain! Your wounds-" He rushed forward, his hands already moving to his medical kit
"Stabilize only", Ryugo coughed, waving him off, "Ameruyi. She engaged two. A taijutsu specialist and a kenjutsu user. We need to find her. Now"
The urgency in his voice, raw and stripped of its usual calm, cut through Tetsu's exhaustion.
He nodded, applying a quick coagulant and pressure bandage to the worst of Ryugo's flank wound. It was a patch job, but it would have to do.
They moved out of the control room. They did not talk. It seemed like Tetsu never expected Ryugo to lose, and likewise. There was an unbreakable trust between the two, a brotherhood forged in numerous missions and training together.
They moved at moderate speed. Ryugo limped, using his sword as a cane. Tetsu scouted ahead, his senses extended. The roar of the spillway guided them to the southern platform.
[You have killed a [Lv. 18 Tanigakure Genin]. You have gained 36 EXP]
[You have killed a [Lv. 12 Tanigakure Genin]. You have gained 24 EXP]
[You have killed a [Lv. 3 Civilian]. You have gained 3 EXP]
Neither Ryugo nor Tetsu were blind. They had been had by Tanigakure. Their presence on the dam justified any of their actions. They had planned to leave no witness in the first place.
They found the scene quickly. The massive, cooling corpse of the chunin called 'Brawler', cleaved nearly in two by a flawless Takeda strike. The scorch marks on the platform, the peculiar, granular soot staining the concrete, and the acrid smell of a sudden, intense fire.
But no Ameruyi. No second body.
Ryugo knelt, ignoring the protest of his injuries.
His fingers traced the edge of a scorch mark.
"Contained incendiary blast. Specialist technique. Not a standard Katon", his Raikōgan flickered weakly, but he saw enough. There were not many clans in Tanigakure, but he had made sure to research enemies before stepping on the borders. To know the enemy was an advantage the previous forces of Amegakure paid dearly during the first shinobi war.
And the remnants of the battlefield screamed of yet another of the five founding clans of Tanigakure: the Dotuki Clan, and their hidden art Kokuen no Mai.
"This is Dotuki work", Ryugo spoke
Tetsu nodded. He, too, came from a clan of Amegakure. He knew this classified information. Black, inflammable smoke. A deadly combination of doton and katon.
He stood, his face a mask of cold fury under the grime and blood.
"They didn't kill her. They cooked her to incapacitate, then took her. The taijutsu specialist who fell was not a genjutsu specialist, and neither was your opponent or mine. This means the last one was their sensor and genjutsu specialist, the one who trapped us in the mist when we arrived in the control room"
He paused. Tetsu's hands clenched. "What should we do?"
"I would love to go after them", Ryugo's voice was resolute, a stone dropping into a well, "But look at us, Tetsu. I can barely walk. You're at your chakra limit after summoning. A chase, into unknown territory, against an enemy who just captured a Takeda heir in combat? It's a suicide run. A failed mission. And it gets Ameruyi killed for certain when they realize we're coming"
"But she's our teammate!" Tetsu's voice broke, the mask doing little to hide his anguish.
"She is", Ryugo said, his gaze relentless, "And that's why we will do everything we can to save her. But we won't charge head first. We won't play in their game without gaining the upper hand first"
Tetsu calmed down. He knew Ryugo was a seasoned strategist. Their sensei, Mumei, had often said that it was perhaps Team 11's strongest asset. Not Ameruyi's hidden art, or his dojutsu. But his mind. A ruthless void that was far more evil than the Grief-Joy Demon.
Ryugo explained: "Let's do this. We get the intelligence Batto needs. Proof of Tanigakure involvement. We secure our position. There are still rats in the dam. We do whatever we need to find out where Tanigakure would take a high-value prisoner like her. We capture Sato Ren. We trade him for her. Or we go in with an army. Not as two wounded chunins stumbling in the dark"
He turned from the platform, his jaw set. "The mission takes priority. But the objective just changed. We're not killing Sato Ren. We're taking him alive. And since he was so heavily protected, he is going to tell us everything"
====
They found the chief administrator's quarters in a reinforced section of the dam's base, far from the fighting. The man himself, Sato Ren, was a plump, pale figure in silk robes, hiding under his desk. He wasn't a fighter. His chakra signature was that of a faint, flickering candle.
[Sato Ren - Lv. 5 Civilian]
Two remaining civilian guards—actual River Country samurai—made a pitiful stand at the door. A flick of Ryugo's wrist and a single, exhausted Lightning Arc (D) dropped them both, twitching.
[Honto - Lv. 12 Samurai]
[Ponto - Lv. 13 Samurai]
Ryugo hauled Sato out by his collar and threw him into a chair in the lavish office. The man gibbered, offering money, influence, promises of peace.
"Silence him," Ryugo said to Tetsu.
Tetsu approached. He didn't need complex seals. He simply removed a small vial from his pouch—Etherium powder—and blew a tiny cloud into Sato's face. The man's eyes immediately welled with involuntary, profound tears.
"Now", Tetsu whispered, his voice weaving into the chemical-induced sorrow, "Look at me."
[Genjutsu: Sorrow's Truth (D)]
It was a gentler cousin to the horror he'd inflicted on Veil.
It didn't break the mind; it opened it. It amplified the subject's own fears, regrets, and guilt, making the need to confess, to unburden, an overwhelming physical ache.
Sato Ren broke in less than a minute.
He was not a trained shinobi. He was not even half as strong as an academy student.
He spoke in a gasping, tear-choked rush. The words spilled out: not just about bribes, or simple border provocations.