The gathering continued, and Takuma changed tables in an attempt to preserve his social battery and found Taro on the least occupied table.

"Thank you for before. Things would've gotten awkward if you didn't speak up," said Takuma, grateful that Taro was the first to order when he offered to buy everyone a round of drinks, which allowed Hana to be comfortable about someone else paying at her celebration party.

"It would've been hell to sit here in that god-awful mood," said Taro before lowering his head to reach the straw instead of picking up the glass off the table. He gazed at Takuma, who realised he wanted to know about the "killed a jonin" conversation they had heard upon their arrival.

Takuma wasn't ready to share what he had done for fear of how his friends would take it. His teammates were not particularly enthused about his decision; they understood why he did it but only because they were there in Yu with him. None of his friends shared that experience and thus lacked a relationship with the situation—he feared that if he told them what he had done, he would lose them.

He didn't want to lose any more friends.

Takuma simply gazed back. Taro's eyes showed understanding, and he immediately dropped the topic and returned to his lethargic self.

"Wow," said Ono from beside Taro, "you two just had a conversation with your eyes, didn't you?"

"We did no such thing," said Taro.

"Aww, look at you being shy," Ono smirked before turning to Takuma. "Nice to see you again, Takuma. I can't believe it's been three years since we graduated."

Taro and Ono's group was a close group of four boys who sat in the middle of the social ladder. It might not have been the reason for their continued friendship, but they had become friends because they shared a background—all of them had at least one parent who was a first-generation shinobi.

"Feels like a lifetime ago," Takuma replied, but in truth, it felt like three years had passed in the blink of an eye, which regularly induced anxiety within him. "Allow me to apologise for what I said back there..."

Ono was on the same team as Izumi and Hiji. In Takuma's attempt to insult Hiji by saying that his jonin teacher was cutting ties because he didn't see potential in him, Takuma had insulted Ono as well, who was in the same position as Hiji.

"... I was riled up and said those things in the heat of the moment," said Takuma and bowed his head briefly. "I didn't actually mean any of that and certainly don't think that about you. I hope you understand that and look past my words."

"Of course, I'll forgive you... if you do me a favour," said Ono.

"Come on, now," said Taro, raising a brow, "don't be like that."

"As long as it's reasonable," said Takuma, gesturing for Ono to proceed. He didn't care if he and Ono didn't become friends, but if possible, he didn't want to make the situation strained for Taro, who would be stuck between two friends, which was a difficult situation, even in cases where one side was at apparent fault.

"I'm thinking about joining the Police Force." Ono sighed, "Even if you didn't mean it, the fact stands that our team disbands next year... I have to figure out what I want to do after that." He glanced at his two teammates at other tables. "Hiji is an Inuzuka; he doesn't have to worry about it. Even without her clan, Izumi's already a chunin and would already be independent by then... I don't want to get left behind, so I need to move ahead as well... and unlike someone I know, I don't want to rely on my parents," Ono shot Taro a side-eye.

Taro rolled his eyes. "I didn't ask to be born in my family."

"I once said this to Arisu—your background is a resource; regardless of what people might think, you shouldn't feel any shame in taking advantage of it," said Takuma before his eyes turned hard momentarily. "It's a tough world out there, and if you want to survive, you must claw at anything and everything within your reach... If I could make Taro's parents adopt me, I would've done it years ago."

Takuma realised that he was about to turn the conversation's tone heavy with someone who he was meeting after three years. So he quickly pivoted to a joke to hopefully turn the conversation around before it got awkward.

"You're joking, but my parents might consider it," said Taro with a chuckle.

"My old man's a chunin. If I do ask him, he will get me a job in his line of work, and I just don't find it interesting," Ono sighed as he rested his chin on his palm. "I would rather do something else and, well, from what I know about the Police Force, that's much more up my alley."

Ono's father was involved in the Hidden Leaf's relationship with the Daimyo's Samurai, and his place of work was responsible along with their counterpart on the other side in ensuring that the two of the nation's top forces didn't collide to create domestic conflict that could be disadvantageous to the nation.

"I'll answer your questions, but Izumi is your teammate; I'm sure she would be of more help than me," said Takuma.

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"Not really, if you think about it. Izumi is a Uchiha, yes—but she isn't part of the Police Force," said Ono. He waved his hands with a smile when Izumi sensed him looking at her and returned his wave with a smile. "She introduced me to some of her clan members who were of help, but for an Uchiha, entry to the Police Force is guaranteed if they desire it—that's not going to be my experience. For outsiders like you and me, we have to go through an evaluation and vetting process—and the people who Izumi introduced to me can't really help me with it... I even asked Arisu, and while she was much more helpful, the Fuma clan is an ally, and her experience is different as well."

"I'll try to help," said Takuma.

"Before anything else, should I try to join the Police Force?" asked Ono. "Is it worth it?"

The last few months before his deployment flashed past Takuma's mind. The pressure of the constant and growing reality that the Narcotics Taskforce would be taken away from him had affected his work. He recalled the day at the hospital when the Head of the Organized Crime Department had told him about his deployment to the war, which guaranteed that he was losing what he had created.

"Yes, it's worth it to join the Police Force. It's an excellent place to progress your career. And if you're smart about it, you can get resources that would be hard to procure otherwise," said Takuma. Despite what had happened to him, he knew he had grown in various ways in the Police Force—regardless of his feelings, the Police Force, in its current state of flux from external hiring, was a place rife with opportunities.

If he didn't believe that, he wouldn't've even responded to Setsuna's internal promotion offer with his demands and outright shut the man at the spot.

"If I can get the position I did, there's no reason you can not."

Ono asked, "How do I make sure I get in?"

"It's the same everywhere. Put your best before them, and if they like it, they will take you in. Create a resume which highlights your strengths and achievements, request your jonin teacher write a recommendation for you, put a spotlight on the fact that you're teammates and friends with Chunin Uchiha Izumi—anything that gives you value should be made known to them."

Takuma answered Ono's questions, expanded on some things from his conversation with Arisu, and gave him an idea of what sort of place he was trying to enter.

"One final piece of advice," said Takuma. "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket. Apply to other places as well. Take any place that interests you and drop a resume. If you apply to, let's say, thirty places, even if only half—or a third—reaches back, you will have ten tries to get a positive result."

The talk of options made Takuma think of the choices before him. In two days, he would be locked in for two weeks for the ANBU test, and by the time that ended, Setsuna would have an answer for him about the promotion. He would need to decide between those two options—but that was only part of the decision—he also needed to consider Mikoto's offer.

What was the best option to get revenge for Rikku? Was it to join ANBU and reach a place where he could target ROOT? Or was it to continue at the Police Force, a familiar landscape, and improve his status by attaching himself to the Uchiha clan while working on the side in hopes of a day when he could rip that bastard's heart and make him eat it?

It wasn't sure if he would be assigned ROOT cases at ANBU; if it was possible, he was semi-confident that he could work his way to getting there eventually, but who knew how long that would take given that he would be starting from the ground up at a new place of work and would have to work harder. The Police Force had the advantage of his reputation and familiarity, which would ease the work he would need to do; in addition, there were his words to Ono about the Police Force being rife with opportunities he could exploit to climb the career and influence ladder—but he didn't know how he could leverage any of that to get closer to Kon, who could be hiding outside the Land of Fire, which was outside the Police Force's influence.

"What are you thinking so hard about? This is a party, you know. Loosen up and have some fun!"

Takuma looked up to see Izumi standing beside him with big glasses of sparkling lemonade in her hands. She sat beside him with a smile and placed one glass before him.

"Thank you," said Takuma, accepting the drink. He also felt eyes on him and noticed some of the boys subtly glaring at him on a glance around. He ignored them and returned to the people around him.

"Takuma was telling me about the Police Force," said Ono.

"That was kind of you to do, Takuma," Izumi smiled brightly. "I hope it was all positive, though. You need to make up your mind quickly this time, Ono!"

"There's still a year; there's no need to rush," said Takuma, surprised. He could understand Izumi wanting to lock in her teammate for her clan's Police Force, but he would rather have Ono consider and weigh his options now over regretting his choices later on.

"No, you don't understand. If it were anyone else, I wouldn't be worried, but he's terribly indecisive; he will procrastinate months away if you let him be," Izumi said, staring pointedly at Ono, who turned his head away but failed to deny the accusation. "He once took an entire month to replace a pair of worn-out sandals. Do you know what happened? The old one snapped during a mission inside a forest; sensei had to carry him for an hour."

Ono got red in the face from getting his fault pointed out so directly.

"Oh yeah, you're not so perfect yourself, missy," he said.

Izumi crossed her arms and looked down at him as if challenging him to come up with one thing.

Ono narrowed his eyes before looking at Izumi. "She regularly falls for scam products!"

Izumi gasped, her face reddenning this time. "Okay, knock it off. I get it!"

"It would be one thing if they were well made, but she falls for the most obvious ones! One time, she burned through half of her monthly base stipend on the very first day—"

"Ono!"

"—all in one single shop!"

Izumi fished an ice cube out of her lemonade glass and threw it at Ono, who opened his mouth and caught it between his teeth before chomping on it with a smug look directed at her.

Takuma watched the two teammates squabble. It was quite a wholesome moment. This world was cruel and tough, but it needed joy and bliss for it to be worth living in. He was glad that shinobi still had the capability of smiling and laughing from the bottom of their hearts; they were perhaps the people who needed it the most.

With all the death, destruction, and chaos they would inevitably experience during their lives, it was important to balance it with something that would soothe their hearts before they became rigid and uncaring and lost the spark of life.

And yet, the emotion he felt as he watched them was not joy—it was envy. Even though they were arguing, it looked like so much fun, but he knew if he tried something like that with Taro, Arisu, or Kameko right now, it wouldn't be the same.

It wasn't like he forgot what it felt like... he had simply lost his capability to feel joy.

He wondered if it was too late for him; if he would ever get it back again—if his world would continue to feel empty and grey until the day he died.

It scared him tremendously.