As the Wind Release: Breakthrough jutsu hit Anko, Takuma's instincts kicked in, and he moved in front of her path. Standing beside him, Daiki became an unexpected obstacle, blocking him from reaching her. Despite the hindrance, Takuma's hand shot up in an attempt to grab her, but it was too late. Anko crashed through the window, leaving a trail of shattered glass in her wake.

He saw two kunai thrown by unseen enemies hurtling towards Anko.

"Daiki, go," he shouted, pushing his larger teammate toward the shattered window.

They had barely engaged the enemy in combat and had already been forced to split up. As Daiki leapt out of the window, Takuma swiftly switched the formation, taking the forward-most position. He stepped toward the room at the end of the small corridor before stopping, which puzzled Kameko and Rikku.

He weaved hand seals for the Clone Jutsu and sent an illusory clone into the room. Even though it was easy to spot, an itchy trigger finger was difficult to contain—especially when the enemy was planning an ambush.

The clone stepped into the room and was instantly beheaded by a sword in full view of Takuma and dissipated with an almost silent hiss into thin air. The moment that happened, Takuma charged towards the wall beside the door with his shoulder, augmenting it with chakra. He ran through the wall like it was made of cardboard and body-slammed the agent responsible for beheading the clone. While the wall absorbed significant force, the agent was still hurled to the other side of the large parlour room.

Takuma took in his surroundings and saw Kon and a second agent jump back in response to him bulldozing in. His and Kon's eyes met, and immediately, he was hit by a burning headache like never before. It was worse than the time he tried to force something when he was younger by staring at his scars in the mirror—but he bit his tongue to bear the pain and glared at the man.

He wanted to take advantage of the element of surprise, but the pain prevented him from reacting appropriately.

Kameko and Rikku entered the room and the tension spiked. Too many people were in a relatively minimal space. Chaos would break out the moment anyone moved—and the person to bring it was Rikku.

She kicked furniture toward Kon and the second agent. Kon jumped up to the wall and stuck to it with his feet while the second agent cut down a cushioned chair, and that was when Kameko went after him with her sword buzzing with chakra.

The second agent was fast and parried her first swing, but she had the momentum and smoothly transitioned into the next strike that the second agent dodged by pulling back, but the sword held out in the front was pushed by an invisible force a moment before the front of his chest gear was shredded and his forearm started bleeding from a cut.

Kameko's Taketori kenjutsu allowed her to increase the reach of her sword with a near-invisible length of wind chakra. It was a dangerous technique as almost everyone got caught by it, and they only tried to avoid the visible sword blade. And many times, one strike was all it took to end the fights and lives.

The opponent had to figure out what had just happened, which was difficult mid-fight. She went for a stab at his throat, but the agent managed to dodge with enough distance to get clear of her invisible extension but then Kameko swung her sword again that he parried and then pulled back once more when she tried to swing for his shoulder.

Just when he thought he was safe, the invisible length cut a long and shallow wound from his left shoulder to his lower right chest. Kon threw a kunai at Kameko from the roof. Takuma countered it by deflecting it with a kunai of his own before following up with another kunai back at Kon, who went for a parry only to have the right side of his body blown back from the sheer force put behind the kunai with his augmentation.

The first agent tried to get up to join the fight. Takuma weaved hand seals as he turned toward him, and his chest expanded as he breathed in.

Water Release: Wild Water Wave

A powerful wave of water slammed into the agent, slamming him into the wall. As Takuma gained skill and experience, the jutsu had become stronger and more vigorous. The pressure behind the wave had increased considerably, and the first agent felt like he had run into the walls as his bones creaked for the second time.

He immediately went into a second set of hand seals for the Water Release: Eight Tentacles jutsu to reuse the water he had just created.

The ceiling cracked under Kon's feet as he shot down toward Takuma, his sword baring like a wolf's fangs.

Takuma felt his headache flare once more as he focused on Kon. He almost lost control of his chakra from the pain—which was so different from the physical pain from injuries that he had gotten used to—but he also was slow to decide whether to stop his hand seals to free his hands for Kon or take his chance on completing the jutsu and just dodge.

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Rikku rushed forth and leapt into the sky with her feet toward Kon, who took the hit and let himself get knocked off his trajectory. She went for another hit when he landed, but Kon dealt her a quick kick to her knee this time and then took a step toward Takuma while swinging his sword. By now, Takuma had decided to complete his jutsu and jumped back to avoid the blade, aiming for his life.

Kon missed, but then he swiped his blade upwards and managed to nick Takuma on the side of his bottom lip. As Takuma completed the hand seals, he felt the faint taste of blood on his tongue and snarled from the pain in his head that was now actively hindering him. He charged at Kon, who tried to take out Rikku, the one closer to him. She barely parried one of his strikes but was put in a bad position with Kon swinging his sword down at her.

Takuma moved in hastily, parried the falling sword, and felt his arms strain against the weight. Now, both Rikku and Takuma were in a disadvantageous position. The blade edge of Kon's sword turned a burning red as the metal sizzled and hissed. As he swung down, the water finally arrived at Takuma's back. The water tentacles spurt out, grabbed Kon's legs, and pulled as hard as possible. The sword struck Takuma's kunai and immediately cut halfway through it. Kon's legs were pulled from under him, and he backed away, pulling the kunai latched to the sword along with him.

The tentacle grabbing the legs was cut through, but Takuma wasn't concerned as another tentacle dropped a kunai into his hand, which he threw toward the agent Kameko was fighting. Like Kon, the agent parried the kunai, but there was so much force behind the kunai that he miscalculated, and when the kunai was deflected down, it struck him square in the thigh.

Kameko took advantage of the mishap and switched from being mostly passive to hyper-offensive, her kenjutsu's speciality.

"Rikku, the other one," Takuma yelled.

She pulled back and switched to the ROOT agent hit by the Wild Water Wave.

So much had happened in such a short time that his head would've hurt regardless of Kon being there. Everything was happening so fast, and Takuma was acutely aware that his teammates were not as strong as the ROOT agents; he had already stepped in to support both of them—which was difficult when Kon demanded his attention just to keep him at bay.

His headache just made everything much worse.

"You're not going to escape this time," said Kon.

Takuma would've said something, but he wasn't in the mood and didn't have the mind space to exchange quips with him. The more his head hurt, the angrier he got—the angrier he got, the more he seethed—the more he seethed, the colder his head felt. At the moment, he desired nothing more than to kill the man before him, but he knew he had to get him alive to get information.

The bloody tang on his tongue only made want to spill Kon's blood even more.

His brain felt like it was lagging behind his eyes as he kept an eye on Rikku and Kameko at the opposite ends of the parlour room. At least the limited space allowed him to be a moment away to provide support. He wanted to focus on Kon, but the reality of the situation was that he was part of a team that was currently fighting multiple opponents.

Half of his tentacles pulled out a kunai each from his weapons pouch, while the other half remained free— and were about to make a move when Kon smiled in a way that rang all the wrong bells in his already pounding head. Kon glanced at Rikku and slid in her direction, which immediately made Takuma sprint toward her to get ahead of him so he could protect her—but the moment Takuma took a long stride in her direction, Kon switched his target and moved toward Kameko.

Takuma's combat boots screeched against the marble floor.

"Kameko!" he yelled as he ran toward her.

The feint made him a step behind and a moment late. The tentacles whipped their kunai at Kon, but he deftly deflected all of them, which gave Takuma almost enough time to catch up. The eight tentacles merged into four so that he could have more length and got them ready to give him a little more reach so that he could protect Kameko.

But then Kon yelled,

"Ni help San!"

The ROOT agent, who was on the back foot, suddenly disengaged from Kameko, jumped to the roof and headed in Rikku's direction. He followed the order so fast, almost like a robot completing an instruction.

Takuma's brain, which was running to the point of wheezing on the track, abruptly stopped; for a very long, short moment, he had no idea what to do and how to react. Rikku was fighting a beaten-up agent, which was the most he thought she could handle, but now there was another one heading toward her.

Kameko couldn't follow him because Kon was sprinting toward her, and he would cut her down if she tried to follow. He couldn't turn away to help Rikku, but if he engaged Kon, he would be locked in and unable to leave— and by then, Kameko would be too late to leave.

'What should I do? What should I do? What should I do?' he thought.

The four tentacles merged into two thicker ones and shot up toward the agent on the ceiling. The water flowed and wrapped around his body before Takuma tugged hard, and the agent was snatched and slammed to the ground. But that wasn't enough; the agent could cut himself out of the tentacles, and Rikku would once again be in danger.

As Takuma slid between Kon and Kameko, he weaved hand seals for a jutsu he hadn't used in over a year. With his head on fire, he almost forgot the hand seals, but his muscle memory carried him through.

Lightning Release: Shock

Kon tried to cut him down, but Takuma managed to half dodge while taking a shallow slice on his upper arm from the burning hot sword, which hurt so much that it overpowered his headache for a moment, something Takuma was momentarily thankful for.

Arcs of lightning snaked down his, forming an orb of lightning. On paper, a D-rank jutsu of nature he wasn't proficient in and hadn't used in a long time wasn't a good choice made under pressure—but he knew that water and lightning were complementary—and he had read the jutsu scrolls, the books on chakra theory, to the best of his ability, and even though he hadn't tried it before, he was confident that it would work, so much so he put his and his teammate's lives on the line.

He shot the orb of lightning into his tentacles, and then the magic happened.

Takuma didn't have the liberty to look at the agent with Kon right in front of him, but the screams told him that his gambit had worked.