She was too light...

They had sparred nearly every day when they were at Camp Banana. They had wrestled in mud and dirt; he had tossed her around plenty of times but now, as she collapsed into him, he felt that she had no weight to her. His hands holding her by the shoulder trembled—perhaps for the first time, he felt that a shinobi could be so fragile, so vulnerable.

Why was Rikku here?

By now, she and Kameko were supposed to clear out of the manor house property and get far enough that there was no chance for the other ROOT agents to catch up with them. He had very deliberately sent them both away so he wouldn't have to support them in combat—as much as he appreciated their help, they were weaker than the competition. They were taking his attention to support them while fighting Kon, which was proving to be complicated.

He looked at Kon's clone holding the bloody blade that had just been pulled out from Rikku. That blade was meant for him; if not for Rikku, the blood on it would've been his. His heart plummeted, his body was frigid, and the goosebumps tightened his skin. She had saved his life by risking hers—one of his teammates was now suffering from a life-ending injury because of him.

She was dying because of him.

The world stopped as an overwhelmingly crushing guilt descended on him. It felt like the weight of the sky was suddenly set on his shoulders—every muscle and bone in his body drained; all of his previous desires and intentions vanished like smoke. One second stretched to an eternity; in that moment, his entire world was focused on the girl in his arms.

Takuma's mind had been on the verge of breaking for a while and was being held together by his aim to see the mission through and his intense personal desire to find more about the boy's past unravelled the moment he felt Rikku go limp in his arms.

He had lost teammates in combat before—and he saddled blame on himself that he had continued to carry in the corner of his heart, but they had died during combat at the hands of the enemy while he was busy fighting his own battles.

This was different.

Rikku had jumped to save him. It was his fault that she was dying. His decision to capture Kon for his personal motives was the reason he was in the hallway in a heavily injured state. The mission was already accomplished, and he could've held back the enemy while retreating—but he chose to stand his ground.

It was his choice, and if he hadn't made it, he would've not gotten as injured as he did, and Rikku, who had returned to support him as a true comrade, wouldn't have had to jump in to save him. She would not have not taken the strike meant for him if he had not made the mistake of letting his emotions overtake him.

She wouldn't be dying if not for him.

It was all his fault.

The second of eternity shattered when the sound of metal scratching metal reached his ears as the ROOT agent behind him retrieved a kunai from his weapon pouch.

Takuma's mind was in chaos. He was still reeling and processing the horror before him, but he was mid-combat and didn't have the luxury of taking his time. When he heard the sound, the magma of anger rose up in his heart, flowing through the blood in his veins.

Takuma embraced the rage; he let himself drown in it.

It was easy because the alternative was to bear the unbearable guilt that sapped him of everything.

At that moment, he chose to blame someone else... because it was easy.

Takuma rushed to the wall and leaned Rikku against it. As he pulled back and slid down the wall, he got the first good look at her wound and then noticed her blood on his clothes. He flinched and turned his body away from her, putting himself between her and the enemy.

He looked at the ROOT agent, Kon, and the clone and saw red. The pain that tortured his head in the presence of Kon was absent—the wrath blinded him—and, from that, provided him with a clarity he had lacked since the start of the fight.

The sword that had been knocked out of his hand laid by his feet. Takuma stomped on the hilt, and it bounced into his mangled hand—his grip was solid this time as his blood stained the grip. The rage surpassed any pain he felt in his hand. He bellowed in anger and slashed the sword at Kon's clone, who laughed as he rebuffed the strike with ease.

Cling!

The ROOT agent moved in and swung his kunai. Takuma turned with his hips and put his momentum behind the sword with an upward swing that clashed against the kunai, sending sparks flying.

Clang!

He kicked the ROOT agent in the stomach, pushing him back a few steps before swinging at the clone. The difference in skill was apparent as the clone skilfully redirected the sword with ease as their blades screeched against each other.

Takuma then spat a spittle mixed with blood into the clone's eyes, who was startled by the move and backed away. Takuma didn't pursue him and turned again with his arm cocked and charged with chakra. His eyes met with Kon and just seeing the hateful man's face made him put more chakra through his arm.

He whipped a second form punch at him and felt the bone in his hand crack from overloading chakra. He spread the chakra out to create a blunt force rather than a penetrating one, which forced Kon to slide several metres back. Takuma flexed his arm; it still moved properly, which meant he had gotten away with a hairline fracture. He raised the sword and swung it down at the ROOT agent, who put his kunai up. Takuma raised the sword again and slammed it down again and then did it again. The sound of metal became louder and harsher with each swing as he put more force, channelling his anger.

clang! Clang! CLANG! The agent's knees buckled, and he was half-kneeling by the end of it.

Takuma turned back once again and threw his sword at Kon's clone just as he closed in, who once again easily parried it, and it spun up towards the ceiling.

With his arms free, Takuma weaved hand seals, working through the pain in his hands.

Auditory Genjutsu: Bell Sound Clone— ver. Twice Modified

He didn't have the freedom to use his golden bell to lay the sound for the genjutsu, so he used the sound of metal banging against metal by slamming the sword against Kon's sword and the agent's kunai. The genjutsu was also made for a singler target, but he made a last-minute change which he would've never made during combat if he was in his right mind.

Cling!

All three of his enemies froze up as the genjutsu set in and hit them with full force. The sound of harsh metal against metal pierced into their ears while a dozen more Takumas appeared in the hallway. Takuma snatched the sword from mid-air as it descended and thrust it into the clone's chest, immediately popping him into smoke. He turned with his sword arm outstretched and beheaded the ROOT agent, wrenching the sword free and appearing in front of the final one.

A moment after Kon's clone was killed, he shuddered as the clone's experience transferred to him, and it broke him out of the genjutsu. His eyes widened when the three Takuma illusions before him evaporated to reveal the real one with the bloody sword in his hand. He backed away the moment he got control of his body.

Takuma roared, chakra instinctually coating his voice.

The sword swung and drew blood.

Kon stumbled back and looked down as half his right arm dropped on the marble floor. He flinched when Takuma stabbed the sword into the amputated arm. Silence returned to the manor house for the first time since the team had infiltrated it. The scene in the hallway was the picture of gore with blood dripping and pooling as a decapitated head and an amputated arm lay on the floor.

The two men stared at each other for a split moment.

Takuma felt no joy, no satisfaction, nothing as he stared at Kon's shell-shocked face; even if he had wiped the smirk off his face. It looked like he was still trying to process what had just happened. Despite how potent medicine was because of shinobi and chakra, losing an arm meant losing it forever if it wasn't re-attached quickly—and it practically crashed the shinobi's combat ability to the ground.

Most were never able to recover and those who did were never the same.

Both of them understood that fact. Kon tried to grab his arm, but Takuma shot forward and kicked him away—he wouldn't let Kon take it back. He stared straight into Kon's eyes as he stomped on the arm, pumping out chakra that shattered the bone and turned the arm into a gory mass.

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"No!" Kon yelled with bloodshot eyes; for the first time, his voice held genuine emotion.

He coughed up blood from the shock and swayed on his feet before catching himself. He gave one last look to his destroyed arm and then glared at Takuma with pure hatred before jumping out of a window to escape.

'He's injured; you can kill him—'

Takuma ignored the voice in his head and, without a second thought, ran to Rikku, sitting up against the wall.

Kon didn't matter anymore.

He checked her and felt his heart soar when he felt a faint heartbeat in her chest—but her body was cold; she had already lost a lot of blood and couldn't afford to lose any more. He tried his best to plug her wounds which was challenging because the sword pierced her clean, creating two openings.

Their team didn't have an iryo-nin, and the main force was still locked in a battle, which made getting to an iryo-nin risky—all of that stressed Takuma out, but he also held hope because there was a way to get Rikku help. Anko, with her Snake Summoning Contract, could help Rikku by summoning a snake that knew a form of iryojutsu.

While they had never talked about it, and he didn't know if Anko knew a snake like that—he desperately hoped that she did.

"You'll be fine," Takuma whispered as he picked her up in a princess carry and rushed out of the building.

She needed to be fine because there was no longer anyone else to blame.

———

.

Anko gazed up at the manor house in the background. A little while ago, Kameko and Rikku had exited the building. They managed to capture a ROOT agent, which completed the mission's minimum requirement, so she ordered Daiki to go with them because the city was plunged into warfare. Together, the three of them would be better equipped to protect themselves if they were interrupted on their way to the factory base.

For a moment, she thought the worst had happened to Takuma when he didn't come out with the girls but seeing that they hadn't brought his body, he was probably still alive. She speculated he had stayed back to allow the girls to escape with the ROOT agent. Her doubts were confirmed when halfway through, Rikku turned and rushed back into the building, presumably for support and Anko had continued to hear commotion from inside the building since then.

She was brought out of her thoughts as she felt the temperature rise and felt an intense heat coming from a Great Fireball charged toward her like a raging bull, both melting and wrecking the ground in its path. Anko bent her knees and jumped high up in the air as the tongues of flames licked the soles of her boots. She flew straight toward the ROOT agent casting the fire ninjutsu with kunai in both her hands.

The agent jumped away a moment before she landed on the ground and a second agent flew towards her feet first. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and absorbed the contact while her feet uprooted grass as she was forced to slide back.

There was no time to rest as she ducked to avoid a volley of shuriken from the first agent. She bought herself a few seconds by throwing a kunai at the first agent and then used the opportunity to throw her other kunai at the second agent.

She stayed down and leapt forward at the second agent's feet. He kicked her in the face, but she still managed to take him down by his legs, climbed up his body, and pummelled him with half a dozen hits before she was kicked off.

The first agent threw a kunai at her as he closed in. Anko barely avoided it by rolling off the second agent, and it nicked her cheek, drawing a drop of blood. She wasn't able to get up in time and had to push herself back on the ground as the first agent swung his kunai at her.

The second agent sprinted toward them and was about to join in, which would make the situation much worse for her. She managed to get out when she grabbed the first agent's arm and kicked him in the knee while pulling him down. As he fell, she got up and kicked him hard in the stomach.

The first agent flew towards the second agent, who had to catch his partner, forcing him to abandon the chase.

Anko quickly weaved hand seals for ninjutsu to help her ease the situation.

Fire Release: Twin Flame Whips

Two thick whips, twice the length of a standard katana and made of pure flames, appeared in her palms. The grass burned on contact, and the flames spread as the lawn caught on fire.

"Time to get tamed, boys," Anko smiled.

She switched from defence to attack, dragging the whips behind her, leaving smouldering trails in the grass. The flame whips screeched every time she swung and set the grass around them on fire.

The two ROOT agents couldn't come close to her, or they would risk being lashed by her flaming whips.

Anko observed both agents and noticed that the second one seemed to struggle more against the whips. The first agent had to be more aggressive to keep her attention on him so that the second agent would have time to breathe.

She grinned and clenched her whips tighter.

Making an abrupt motion, she completely ignored the first agent and focused her violence on his struggling comrade, moving her hands faster and swinging harder than ever before; she moved closer to him, pushing him back—and then, as she was expecting, he crumbled under the onslaught and stumbled to the ground.

Her cheer was equal parts exertion and elation.

"Ha!"

"ARGH!"

Anko struck him down. The whip cut through his face, chest, and abdomen. She wanted to finish him, but she turned around and swung her whip parallel to the ground just at the right time to keep the first agent away from her. He jumped back and Anko couldn't hold back her smirk. She skipped forward while raising both her hands above her head before swinging the whips down with all her might.

The first agent backed away to keep himself out of the whips' range—but his eyes widened when he noticed the whips coming down at him were longer than before and he froze, the whips melting through his armour and sizzling the flesh beneath.

As the whips weren't made from a physical substance, she could change the length at will.

Anko moved closer and whipped him in the face, ending his life while burning the inside of his skull—and then turned away to kill the other one as well, ending his agonised existence.

With all her enemies dead, Anko stood between the two dead bodies in silence. She heaved deep breaths despite the brunt of excessive adrenaline thrashing through her veins.

She wanted to scream and let her bloodlust flow—but she needed to calm down to retain control over her instincts, so Anko took deep breaths and released the ninjutsu to bring herself back down. The battle-high had its use; it allowed the body and mind to work in conjunction to work like a killing machine—but it erased everything else that didn't have to do with killing the enemy in front of her.

She glanced at the two dead ROOT agents, realising she should've kept one of them alive to properly accomplish the mission.

As she felt herself back in control, Anko remembered that Takuma and Rikku were still fighting in the manor house and ran toward the building, but before she could enter, she saw something that made her feel as though someone dumped a bucket of ice cold water over her.

Whatever remains of the battle high still lingering in her veins died at the sight before her.

Takuma rushed out of the building, holding a limp Rikku in his arms. Even though his face was burnt and bloody, she could make out the absolute terror on his face as he rushed toward her and knew instantly that Rikku was either dead or dying.

"A snake who knows iryojutsu!" Takuma yelled at her. "S-Summon a snake who can heal her! DO IT! NOW!"

He was breathing erratically and had a crazed look in his eyes—his words devolved into something incomprehensible as he screamed and cried the order again. It was like looking into a pit of despair and felt his sole want of her saving Rikku—it was overwhelming because he wasn’t one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, so seeing him so animated and hysterical hit much harder.

Anko didn't even notice she had already weaved through the hand seals for the summoning jutsu. She slammed her hand on the ground and felt her chakra levels sink as a bright orange snake big enough to swallow two of her emerged from the mist.

The snake immediately hissed and bared his teeth at Anko as though deeply offended at being summoned by her.

"You dare summon me, girl! You better be able to pay immediately, or I'm going—"

"Three dead humans!" Anko quickly pointed at the ROOT agent corpses behind her. "Heal her now, Kizan!"

The orange serpent's slitted eyes observed the corpses to check if she was lying, which made Anko feel irritated as one of her people was dying—and if she was feeling that, she knew how Takuma would be feeling. She looked at him and saw his bloodshot eyes glared holes into the back of Kizan's head.

"Takuma, go get the corpse from inside the house. Go, quickly, now!" Anko said as she took Rikku from him and pushed him back twice, and only then did he run into the house.

She felt a chill as she glanced at Rikku in her arms. She was cold, pale, and wet from her own blood that had coloured her front in red. She had only just seen Rikku enter the building completely fine, but she was now on the verge of death, and for a moment, she refused to believe it.

She turned to her summoned snake and laid Rikku's body before her.

"Kizan, now..." she said as she pushed Rikku's short hair sticking to her face to the side.

"Alright, alright."

The snake hissed softly as he coiled his massive trunk around Rikku's body, completely covering her up.

Anko fought down the instinct to pull Rikku out, fearing that Kizan was crushing her but then saw the familiar green glow of iryojutsu exude out of his long body and held herself back. She was so restless that she couldn't even force herself to stand still and began pacing around; her body physically began to reject the possibility of Rikku's death by making her feel sick. She had lost teammates before and it wasn't something one got used to—it was one of the most terrible things any shinobi could go through.

She grabbed her hair and squatted down as guilt seeped in. What if she hadn't taken the mission? Their team's primary mission was to weaken the forces inside the city; they prepared for it and pulled it off—but they hadn't prepared for taking out a ROOT team, and now it was punishing them. It was her call as the leader to take the mission, and now Rikku was paying the price for her decision.

There was movement, and Anko turned to see Kizan releasing Rikku from his grasp.

"What happened? Why did you stop?" Anko asked with panic in her voice—though she already knew the answer.

"It was too late," said Kizan sombrely.

"No, no, no, you have to save her," Anko stepped to him and pushed his body. "You didn't even do anything! Come on, try seriously, Kizan!"

"It's over, Anko," said Kizan, shaking his head. "The lass is dead."

A dull thud caught their attention, and they saw Takuma, covered in more blood, standing at a distance with a decapitated body lying at his feet as he held half an arm in his grip and a beheaded head tucked under his arm. He had an anguished shock on his face, but as he gazed at Rikku, a hundred emotions contorted his face before colour drained from his face, the light vanished from his eyes, and soon a look of complete and utter loss settled over his face with silent tears streaked down his face.

Anko felt the stifling expansion of grief in her chest as the fires consumed the manor gardens behind her. Thanks to Team-9’s intel, the main forces were carrying out a successful raid beyond the manor walls and they had gone above and beyond to give themselves one final mission: to apprehend at least one of the ROOT agents Takuma encountered all those weeks ago. On paper, that mission was a resounding success; not only had they captured a ROOT agent, but they had succeeded in essentially eradicating the team.

However, the price of that success was Rikku’s death. Her body lay limp and lifeless between Anko and Kizan. Takuma had crawled to her and now knelt beside her body, the blood from the beheaded corpse pooled and extended until it touched Rikku.

By all metrics, the mission was a success but the devastation of Rikku’s death… the loss of yet another comrade… and the sheer sorrow and devastation on Takuma’s face… Anko was under no illusion that a mission in hostile territory was one of the most dangerous things a shinobi could do—but after everything they’d been through: posing as courtesans, recruiting the city’s criminals, collaborating with the city’s rebellious elements, kidnapping a chunin—and as much as it happened without her authorization—killing a jonin and more chunin…

After all of that, Rikku dying at the final hurdle in a foreign land was a pyrrhic victory in every sense.