The sun climbed up the sky, bringing about the early morning. Takuma opened his eyes at dot six in the morning in the industrial district’s factory base. His comfy camping roll sat a few minutes away, but he was separated from the cold, concrete floor by a thin bed sheet. He stayed down for a minute before getting up and putting on some pants along with his weighted gear: a vest and a pair of wrap-around ankle and wrist weights. The gear’s load had been increased, putting even more of a burden on Takuma’s body with every movement.

He walked to the nearest reinforced steel column, stopping a couple of metres away. He put his hands up front and punched the air in the steel column’s direction. The shadow boxing slowly ramped up in intensity until beads of sweat dripped to the ground around his feet. Eventually, Takuma began to slow down, but he forced himself to cycle through jabs, hooks, crosses, uppercuts, and elbow strikes until he couldn’t move without feeling the burn. After letting his arms rest for fifteen seconds, he repeated the same exercise with his legs, cycling through kicks until his body forced him to stop.

With the warm-up done, Takuma eyed the column before him and jabbed in its direction. The chakra jetted up his arm and shot out his fist.

Ting!

The chakra from the second-form augmentation touched the reinforced steel, producing a sonorous sound.

Takuma jabbed towards the column again.

TONG!

Too much power. He took a deep breath and threw another augmented jab to create the proper sound. Takuma threw second-form augmentation strikes at the steel column, judging and training his fine control over his augmentation by using sound. He couldn’t train outdoors; fortunately, the factory was large enough for his needs. As long as he kept the noise down, he was free to do whatever he wanted.

Despite how open the factory was, he sometimes felt stifled from not getting to train under the open sky with grass under his feet like he was used to, but he couldn’t be greedy. If there were one thing he could ask for, it would be sparring—he hadn’t sparred since he had left Camp Banana. Sparring was vital as he got to make and test adjustments to his fighting style and combat strategy by testing them out against living and, more importantly, thinking opponents. And for that, there was no better environment than the Ring—a place he missed every day.

Takuma constantly moved his body for two hours, switching between intense and light stretches. His increased physical conditioning had begun to show results and the imbalance between his physical and spiritual energies seemed to have shortened. By his estimates, he would attain balance in around a year and a half. His chakra quality hadn’t improved enough for him to see any real benefits, but he was looking forward to it.

Immersing himself in training could keep him away from his thoughts for so long.

He walked to a table where the naked blade sat with the familiar smith’s touchstone. Not in his wildest dreams did he think he would see that touchmark while he was out of the Land of Fire, fighting in a foreign war. He assumed the assassins belonged to a local organisation, but if they were present in Yu, helping the Hidden Frost control the city—then the organisation’s scale couldn’t be local.

“Hey, I brought some food!”

Takuma flinched and looked back to see Daiki walking to them with a parcel. For a massive guy, he had deceptively silent footsteps—but it was to be expected, Daiki was a ranger.

“Thank you,” Takuma smiled as he received the hot food parcel.

Daiki noticed the knife blade on the table and looked at Takuma. “Remember anything new?”

Takuma shook his head and sighed, “I feel I know less about them now than before.”

“I heard Anko’s already sent a letter to the Uchiha,” said Daiki.

Daiki was the team member who visited the factory base the least because of his duty as the “muscle.” He was either at home to protect Chinatsu or visiting prospective clients with Gaku as his bodyguard. Due to his size, he was an eye-catching figure, and thus, just like Takuma, couldn’t be connected to the team.

Especially Takuma, which was why he visited the factory base the least.

“She did. After it reaches the camp, they’ll send it to the war commission, which will communicate with the Police Force. Depending on how quickly all the parties move and the cooperation level of the Police Force, we could be looking at a week before we get a response,” said Takuma.

“The war commission will move quickly, given our mission and location.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“So, what’s the plan now?”

“Gaku and I will be going to meet the resistance group. We need their support so we’ve got to convince them that we weren’t behind the police station fiasco.”

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“How’re you going to do that?”

“No idea yet,” Takuma sighed. “Hopefully, something will come to me before the meeting.”

———

.

Takuma stood in an empty basement of some building in a random part of Yu. He wore a full-body robe and a blank white porcelain mask identical to the last meeting. As Gaku talked to Motohiro, the leader of his resistance group, Takuma could feel the other members’ eyes on him—the youngsters in the room didn’t even bother to hide their doubt and blame, and they knew he was a shinobi who could slaughter them all.

That was a huge problem. If Motohiro’s group genuinely resented them, no amount of healthy fear would stop the resistance screwing them over by reporting them to the Hidden Frost forces.

“No matter how you ask, how many times you ask, my answer will be the same,” Gaku spoke calmly to Motohiro and his group. “We weren’t involved in the arson at the police station.”

“It sure looked like your work, and you even went one step ahead and killed this time,” said Motohiro, glancing at Takuma.

“You killed a good man!”

From the crowd, a man yelled at Takuma and Gaku. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was flushed as he pointed furiously at them. The people around the man held him back, fearing he would do something stupid.

“We didn’t,” said Gaku, “why would we kill those men?”

“Because you’re shinobi,” Motohiro said as though stating the obvious. “One of them was a good man—a great man!”

“Even though he was in the police?”

“Because he was in the police!” said the man who had yelled.

Motohiro explained: “He had been in the police for a decade. He stayed in the force to protect the city when your kind put thugs into power. And because he did that, he... he was killed.”

The entire room looked sombre. There was a clear distance between the resistance group and them. Just one week back, the resistance group was excited and willing to help them, but today, they looked like being in the same room was a grave sin.

Gaku looked at Takuma before turning to Motohiro. “Be reasonable, Motohiro. If we wanted anything like this to happen, we would’ve done it the first time. We didn’t even know the connection between you and that police officer. Ask around; you’ve been there for all the meetings. We didn’t go around you to get some information.”

Gaku took a step toward Motohiro, which made the entire resistance group react negatively and move towards Motohiro to protect him.

Motohiro raised his hand to calm the group down.

“Even if I wanted to work with you, my people don’t trust you anymore,” he said. “I’m their leader, not their ruler. They trust me to do the right thing. If they don’t want to work with you, I’ll follow their wishes. And right now... the right thing to do is to not work with you.”

‘Bullshit,’ thought Takuma—if Motohiro wanted, he could smooth this kink quickly; the group trusted him completely and would follow his command even if they didn’t like it. Motohiro’s milling business had been feeding the families connected to his resistance group; he was their saviour.

So, he was talking about separating from the team because Motohiro didn’t want to work with them.

Takuma stepped forward to stand beside Gaku.

“What can we do to earn the group’s trust back?”

Motohiro stood up straighter and looked at his group behind him.

“We have simple demands,” he said. “We realise we don’t trust you because we know nothing about you. We want you to open up about your operations instead of only coming to us at the end when you need our help.”

“We can do that,” said Gaku before Takuma could answer.

“We need a token to support that claim.” He looked at Takuma. “We want you to show your face... Right here, right now.”

Takuma was taken aback and genuinely didn’t know how to respond. However, it wasn’t his first time facing a situation like this. When he was operating as Tobi, the drug dealer, he wore the mask to hide his identity—and most of the time, people refused to work with him because of his insistence on wearing the mask.

All of his connections as Tobi were built on the back of Enomoto acting as a guarantor, which only got him so far, even with the man’s backing. He had more connections in the underworld as Takuma, which he had gained through the Ring. People liked to put a face to the name, so while it shouldn’t be surprising that Motohiro wanted to see his face, he was nevertheless momentarily rendered speechless.

There were other resistance groups they could work with, but Motohiro’s group was the most organised. As a leader, had the perfect level of agreeableness and capability, and the trust of his people without much internal struggle or disputes. They could switch to those other groups, but it would take time and effort. Moreover, if the news leaked that Motohiro’s group had broken the partnership, the different resistance groups might not be as malleable as the team would like.

Takuma decided to cooperate with Motohiro’s group. He had already put the team in danger by getting caught by an unknown organisation; he didn’t want to create another problem by protecting his face.

“We agree,” said Gaku before Takuma could speak.

He gritted his teeth. If he had wanted to refuse, it would have looked like there had been no communication between him and Gaku—in front of a resistance group at that.

“If that’s what’s required...”

He reached for his porcelain mask and pulled it down to reveal his face.

“You... you’re a kid,” said Motohiro, surprised.

Takuma sighed, having gotten used to the reaction from civilians. He had found that showing his scars was an excellent way to stop the kid talk; unfortunately, he was wearing too many clothes to strip. So he decided to go with a simple demonstration. Takuma raised his foot, pumped chakra through, and stomped it down lightly. The tiled floor of the basement shattered from end to end. He controlled his strength so only the topmost layer cracked, but the entire room jumped, flinched back, and screaming in surprise, their eyes stuck to Takuma in fear.

“Show off,” Gaku whispered between coughs.

“I hope this is enough for my competence to be clear moving forward,” Takuma ignored his colleague and addressed the Yu citizens.

There was fear in Motohiro’s eyes, but he put up a strong front and stood up to Gaku and Takuma.

“One more thing...”

“You’re pushing it," said Gaku, his laidback attitude quickly draining.

“I said we had simple demands, and this show of trust is beneficial for both parties; we will match what you showed—but before that, you must do something for us.”

Takuma narrowed his eyes. It was a crucial moment; they couldn’t let the resistance group become so cocky that they could hold their support over the team’s head as a hostage.

Takuma thought for a moment before asking Gaku to stand.

The man frowned. “What is it? I won’t guarantee we’ll help until I hear the demand.”

“We want you to help us with a robbery.”