Takuma turned around to look at the three assassins who stood around him at a distance. No#1 and No#2 looked injured and hobbled—it seemed his Water Release: Wild Water Wave had done a good job. While No#3 looked tired, his cloaked body had lost the sharpness it possessed before.

Takuma dug into No#4’s weapons pouch and realized he only had one kunai left. He brandished the final kunai, wishing they wouldn’t notice it. He still had shuriken, but Takuma’s mind was too tired to make a plan to create an opportunity—he was moving purely on willpower at this point.

But even his addled mind realized that he wasn’t getting to the precinct. The fall, while not something serious, had broken Takuma’s motivation to continue on. He knew that he was going to die—it would either be on his way to the precinct, or it would be here.

He looked around. They were on a commercial street. It was already late at night, and the heavy rain had the street without any people. Takuma and the three assassins were the only ones left. There was a chance here that someone would contact the Police Force unlike his neighborhood where no one would even think about doing anything even close to that.

If he was going to lose his life, it would be while taking the three assassins with him instead of trying to make a run for the precinct and allowing the assassins a chance to escape after they kill him.

However, as Takuma raised his arms up, he noticed how none of them moved forward. It was strange. Until now, the assassins had been more aggressive than him. They had pursued, surrounded, and attacked him like hunters going after a prized prey. That aggression was now missing. With one of his legs not working, which Takuma was sure they had already noticed, it was the perfect opportunity for No#1 and No#2 to cast a combination jutsu and take him out for good. They even had No#3’s support this time around.

“You… You don’t have the chakra, do you,” he muttered.

Takuma didn’t know if they heard him over the rain, but he assumed they did. The realization made him chuckle. No#3 probably had exhausted himself after the Fire Release jutsu from just before, and No#1 and No#2 were perhaps running low since Takuma’s genjutsu had them use ninjutsu against an illusory army of clones.

Takuma wasn’t any different, but he felt he could go on for a few more C-rank jutsu. Before Minoru had praised him for his chakra volume, Takuma had never really noticed that he possessed the ability to produce a high volume of chakra. Because he never had to worry about chakra, he never paid any attention to it—even now, after he was cognizant about the fact, he still didn’t care about it as it wasn’t a problem, and Takuma was busy juggling with real problems which needed solving.

Today was the first time he really felt the advantage that trait provided him.

But as Takuma’s hopes were rising, he noticed No#3 reach for his pocket and retrieve something. It was barely visible in the faint lights from a lamp outside a shop. Takuma couldn’t figure out what it was for a moment, but then No#1 and No#2 followed suit, and all three popped the thing into their mouths.

Takuma’s breath hitched when he realized what it was.

“… Soldier pills.”

The faint hope in Takuma’s heart shattered when he realized they had taken the miraculous combat drug. The soldier pill nourished the body and replenished the user’s chakra. It was made up of powerful stimulants and nutrients that were near-instantly absorbed into the in-taker's body. It was said that a soldier pill could allow a shinobi to fight for three days and three nights without rest. At the end of the three days effect, the user is brought to the point of complete and utter exhaustion.

The three-day fact was misinformation. The soldier pill was surely effective, and it could keep a shinobi in combat-ready condition for an extended period of time; the efficacy depended upon the shinobi who ingested it and the subsequent combat they participated in.

But none of that mattered because unless they collapsed in the next couple of minutes, Takuma’s fate was sealed off. If the situation was dire before, it was impossible now.

At least the triple dose of Sango’s painkillers was working in full effect.

The soldier pills worked as advertised, and Takuma saw the three assassins perk up almost immediately. No#1’s and No#2’s injuries were still there, but now it looked like they weren’t bothering them as much. No#3, on the other hand, looked much better from a single glance.

Takuma felt a bitter taste in his mouth. The feeling of unwillingness rose from deep within, threatening to spill out, but Takuma kept it in check—until he could not.

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Chakra made its way to Takuma’s voice box, and he projected his voice.

“I killed your friend,” he yelled over the rain. “I murdered him like the pathetic dog he was. He died on the side of a filthy road with a gutter below him where he belonged. He should be grateful to me because I gave him a better death than he deserves. After I’m done with all of you, I’m going to go back to his body and piss on it… just for the fucking fun of it—and I would enjoy every single moment of it. I’ll make sure that the iryo-nin open every single part of his body when they do an autopsy so that by the end of it, his body isn’t recognizable from before—and then I’m going to dump the bloody mess into a ditch, never to see a grave or a funeral….”

Takuma felt his elation rise as he spat out the venomous words. It was clear from how well the four assassins worked that they had trained together for a long time, and it wasn’t a reach to assume they were close. The camaraderie was built easily when people shed blood, sweat, and tears together.

He felt the burden on his heart lift with every single jibe. He noticed a movement from No#3. His body language had visibly changed—the man was holding back his rage, but some of it was leaking out.

Takuma pointed at No#3 with his kunai. “And all of it will be because of all of you. You couldn’t protect your iryo-nin; you let him die. You’re a pathetic excuse of a shinobi, a scum who couldn’t protect his friend—or maybe he was just a tool for you to use—a disposable pawn ready to be exchanged by another one…. What a pathetic way to go, and yet so fitting.”

No#3 charged Takuma with the anger of 100 bulls with his sword-bearing. Takuma could barely stumble back a step when No#3 invaded his personal space and swung his sword. The blade sliced through Takuma’s lower torso, leaving a deep gash in his side.

Takuma screamed in pure agony but grabbed No#3 by the shoulder before punching out with a chakra-augmented fist that sent No#3 flying in the air, but the trained assassin landed on his feet like a cat and charged back in immediately.

“Sho!” No#1 suddenly yelled. “On your shoulder!”

No#3 didn’t seem to hear No#1 or directly ignored his call, his hate-filled eyes focused solely on Takuma.

Boom!

An explosive tag on No#3’s shoulder went off, and the man’s head and upper torso exploded like a watermelon. Chunks of blown-up human hit Takuma on his face, but he ignored it and began laughing through the coldness spreading through his body.

“It looks like they were friends,” said Takuma. That was Takuma’s last explosive tag. “At least now they’re together. Aren’t I a generous assassination target?”

No#1 and No#2 were staring at No#3’s remains, shocked, so they didn’t react when Takuma was weaving hand seals, and by the time they looked up, it was already too late.

Genjutsu: Mist Servant Jutsu

All but three tentacles retreated behind Takuma’s back. Two of them remained around Takuma’s leg while the final one traveled along the road to retrieve No#3’s sword. He then slowly dragged himself around the two assassins as they moved around as though fighting a horde of enemies, even though there was nothing in the vicinity.

After No#3’s final attack, Takuma was in no condition to physically run. His control over the tentacles was slipping, and he knew that if he tried to push it, the genjutsu would break. The chances of that happening were even higher as No#1 and No#2 were under the same genjutsu a short while ago. He had to be nearby and focused on keeping the two under the genjutsu.

He observed the two. It only took a moment for No#2 to use an Earth Release jutsu. The moment that happened, Takuma slowly sneaked behind No#2. There was a high probability that No#2 wouldn’t follow up with another ninjutsu immediately after the first one, and No#1 was fighting his own imaginary horde.

By the time Takuma made his way towards No#2, his vision was blurred, he could no longer even hear the rain properly, and his body had gone numb from the cold. The sword in his hands felt like a heavy warhammer, but his fingers had lost all sensation, so his sight was the only way to tell that he was still gripping the sword.

Takuma clutched the sword, and summoning all of his strength, he swung the sword for No#2’s neck, putting his body weight behind it. The sword sliced through 3/4th of No#2’s neck but got stuck because Takuma didn’t even have enough strength to swing properly.

But that was enough to end No#2. His body fell to the ground. Takuma tried to pull the sword out, but it refused to budge. After a pull or two, Takuma let the sword go and moved towards No#1, but one step was all he could do as he lost all control over his body and fell down next to No#2 on the road as the rain poured down at him. The Eight Tentacles immediately failed, and with it went the genjutsu over No#1.

No#1, the sole remaining assassin, snapped out the genjutsu and hurriedly looked towards No#2 to see his partner dead on the ground with Takuma lying down beside him. For a moment, the assassin stood there in silence, staring at No#2, but after a long ten seconds, No#1 walked towards Takuma with his sword in hand.

He silently stared at Takuma for a moment before kicking him face up. No#1 changed the grip on his sword so that the sword point was facing downward at Takuma’s chest before stabbing down. But before the metal could reach the body, Takuma’s arm moved, and the blade pierced through it, but in doing so, changed the trajectory, causing the sword to enter the wrong side of the chest.

No#1 hurriedly pulled out the sword for one more strike, but before he could stab it down, a kunai struck the sword. Startled, he looked in the direction of the kunai to see a group of shinobi running towards him.

No#1 turned to run away, but he unexpectedly stumbled to the ground. He looked towards his legs to see Takuma’s shaking hands had grabbed his legs. No#1 kicked Takuma’s head before running away, but before he could escape—

“If you have come, you better stay.”

A figure appeared behind No#1, and before anyone could do anything, the figure snapped No#1’s neck.

On the ground, Takuma weakly looked up to see a middle-aged man in casual clothing staring down at him. He had no energy to speak or do anything—so he did the only thing he could do and closed his eyes.