As the last hour of the gathering wound down, Takuma and Arisu sat shoulder to shoulder, feet kicked out, leaning against the wall, away from the tables. The mood of the gathering had long since settled down; some people had left, and the conversations had turned softer; some had even laid down on the tatami floors.

"I really wanted to spar with you," Arisu sighed with a hint of irritation.

Takuma wanted to spar with Arisu as he did with Nenro and Masaaki, and she had readily agreed, but she ran into a work problem the day before their spar and thus had to pull out from the spar commitment.

"It's okay. Let's do it after I return from my trip," Takuma replied. He also wanted to fight Arisu because she had a unique combat style from her Fuma clan lineage that was often required to handle the giant fuma shuriken and turn it into an effective weapon. He wanted to see closely what insight he could gain from it.

"Don't you think it's too early for you to go out again? It hasn't even been a month since you came back," said Arisu, glancing up at him.

"It is early, but it's also the only time I'm free. I'm on leave until my contract runs out—if Setsuna somehow pulls through, I would need to start working in my new position; if he fails, I would need to start looking for work... and I think I've outstayed my welcome at Maruboshi-sensei's house. I feel bad for taking advantage of his generosity, so, when I return, I'll couch-surf at Ai's and Nenro's place while I find myself a new place to rent."

Of course, as Arisu said, it was indeed too early to leave on a leisure trip when he had just returned home after nearly a year at war. But he couldn't postpone the ANBU recruitment tests—and, in some ways, doing something challenging would be an excellent way to get him back in the grove.

"Did you decide where you're going?" she asked.

Takuma answered with the pre-prepared response of his trip taking him through a couple of major cities, a hunting hotspot, a long-standing temple, and some planned detours on his journey.

However, because he wasn't visiting any of those places, he would not have any stories to tell, nor any souvenirs to bring back—so he had thought of an excuse where he would come across a quaint little town in the middle of nowhere and decide to stay there after being captivated by itself.

The town was an actual lake-side settlement once found by Maruboshi during his travels and would give Takuma enough information to lie effectively.

"Dad said that you should come and visit," said Arisu.

"Sure, I'd like to see your dad again," said Takuma. He had known Arisu for a while now, and in that time, he had met some of her relatives, like her dad and aunt, who worked in the Police Force. He had also visited her home once to have dinner with her family. they

"How's the family doing?"

Suddenly, Arisu's face darkened, and her body stiffened as she bowed her head, causing her green hair to fall down and cover her face.

"Dad and mom are getting a divorce," she whispered.

"What?" Takuma was utterly shocked and taken aback by the sudden news.

She had been so cheerful since he had returned and showed no signs of any distress or a problem as grave as her parents getting divorced. Or she did show some signs that he'd missed because he was rotting in his own misery.

"Are you alright? How can I help? If you want to talk—"

"Pfft!" Arisu turned her head away with her hand covering her mouth. She shook from trying to hold her laughter back.

"You dick! Come on, I was genuinely worried!" Takuma punched her in the shoulder.

She wiped a tear from her eye while grinning ear to ear. "Everything is fine. They had their sixteenth anniversary two months ago. They're thinking about raising a chicken to see if they could manage up a coop in the future."

He sighed but was happy that everything was good. He noticed her gaze on him and asked what she was looking at.

"The scar really changed your look." Arisu held her face with one hand and gently brushed her thumb against the scar on the edge of his lips. "You should get it fixed. There's an iryo-nin in the clan who's really good in the reconstructive and cosmetic field—after he's done, it will be like you never had that scar."

It wasn't the first time they had talked about the topic of his scars. The Hidden Leaf standard uniform had a turtleneck and full-sleeved undershirt, which hid all of his body, and the Police Force uniform too covered his body so he never had to worry about other people seeing his scars.

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But for someone who had spent as much time with him as Arisu, she knew to a large extent how many scars he had. She never liked them and would bring up cosmetic reconstruction to wipe them off.

"I don't mind them," Takuma replied with the same answer as always. "They serve as reminders of mistakes I shouldn't make again."

His time in the Ring had put many more marks on his body, and he could immediately point to one and recall why he got it. They were signs of failure, but more importantly, signs of his learning. He didn't like his scars—he would prefer not to get new ones—but he was fine with keeping them. Then, there were the surgical scars; they were his connection to the boy's past—and ever since Yu, they had become more important in understanding the truth, which was now his past.

"ROOT was behind the assassination attempt," Takuma whispered just loud enough for Arisu to hear. The ANBU and Police Force had kept that information on the low so it hadn't spread out.

"That ROOT?" Arisu whispered back, her eyes widening.

Takuma nodded. "The man who most probably ordered the assassination was at the city I was operating... I got the scar while fighting him. I took his arm, but he escaped," he said.

"But why did they target you?"

"Remember the Farm Raid? That belonged to the ROOT; they wanted to retaliate and scare us away."

"Oh my god... That must've been terrible to see him there."

It was indeed terrible. The man had made his life miserable by releasing the wanted posters, which had led to innocent people getting tortured.

"He killed one of my teammates, Rikku, a dear friend," said Takuma. For a split second, a terribly dark flashed past his eyes. "He escaped back then, but when we meet the next time, I'll feed him to hyenas just so that he'll finally be of some use to the world."

Arisu placed a hand on his hand, and Takuma exhaled deeply to release the rage build-up.

"I'm sorry, let's change the topic," he said with an apologetic look.

"There are rumours that you are getting promoted," said Arisu, surprising him.

"Seriously?" he asked because he lacked confidence in Setsuna.

"I didn't talk about our conversation with anyone, and if you only shared the promotion talk with me, then it must be from Chunin Setsuna ... I heard that he has been meeting with department heads recently, and seeing that no higher-up has stopped him must mean that they don't mind it, which means that they're seriously considering your promotion."

Since meeting with Mikoto and her offer to swear allegiance to the Uchiha clan, Takuma saw two paths before him.

Assuming he got the Police Force promotion, if he went that route, then he was thinking of taking up the offer, becoming affiliated, and hitching his ride with the Uchiha clan; he would be working on the clan's home field, but unlike before, he would concretely be on their side—and he would have Jonin Uchiha Mikoto, the Uchiha matriarch as his backer. Not only would he have stable power in the Police Force, but he would also have a clan's resource—he wasn't delusional to think he would get the clan member treatment, but as long as he got anything comparable, that would be a huge boon.

The second route was joining ANBU, if he passed. The moment they had put the jutsu archive access on the table, Takuma had almost made up his mind to the point nothing would change it. His initial aim had been to survive; getting unfettered access to a C-rank archive and favourable access to a B-rank archive based on performance fulfilled that aim.

However, he was no longer comfortable aligning himself with the Uchiha clan if he wasn't working in the Police Force; the moment he revealed his position in the ANBU, he would undoubtedly be turned into an insider—and the moment the ANBU found his affiliation with the Uchiha, he could see them pressuring him to be their insider.

Takuma didn't want to get stuck between them, and hiding one from the other was impossible as it would inevitably be revealed.

Another of his concerns with ANBU was that one of his long-term goals was to become a jonin. He had lived in the world long enough to understand that rank promotions, especially jonin promotion, were deeply political affairs. While the ANBU was an optimal place to rack achievements by handling matters of national security and had all the power one could ask for; they weren't as politically influential as one of the two founder clans of the Hidden Leaf.

Having the Uchiha as his backers would raise his chances like almost no one else could.

While he could be incorrect, he also guessed that getting promoted inside ANBU itself would be more difficult when the average skill of their members, along with their achievement, would be higher, which meant harsher competition leading to lower chances of getting promoted.

Rank promotions were inherently essential to getting stronger for someone like him who didn't have a clan's deep shinobi culture to pull from. Without becoming a chunin, he wouldn't be able to do higher-level missions; would earn fewer mission points and money, limiting his purchasing power; and wouldn't have access to the B-rank archives, limiting him to weaker jutsu—thus stifling his growth.

And because of that, becoming a jonin was absolutely necessary if he wanted to become someone truly strong—without that promotion, the only way to get stronger was to take drastic measures requiring him to uproot his life, which wasn't something he wanted to do.

There was no doubt that both paths before him were excellent, and he would be fortunate to go either way—but he didn't know what the future had in store for him, and didn't want to regret taking one path only to realise then that he would have done better if he went the other way.

"Ugh, I don't want to think about it. It just makes me anxious," said Takuma, rubbing his arm.

"Well, you're lucky that you're going away," Arisu replied.

"Let's go on a trip somewhere together someday, even if it's only one day," said Takuma.

"Really? I would like that actually very much," said Arisu with a bright blooming on her face.

"Uh-huh, let's gather some of our friends and go somewhere relaxing," Takuma said. He hadn't ever been on a trip with friends other than school excursions and wanted that experience at least once.

Arisu's smile turned into a grimace, and she kicked him in the shin so hard that he yelped.

"Ouch, what the fuck!" Takuma yelled as he briskly rubbed his leg to ease the pain. "What was that for?"

"Your ugly face irritated me!"

"That makes no sense!"