Three days after Anko had poisoned Takuma, forcing him to flush out the paralytic agent from his body with chakra, Takuma was bent over the toilet, puking his stomach out. He heaved noisily before hurling again into the toilet bowl.

The venom Anko had given him today had him crawl on the floor and lay just outside the washroom in case he needed to hug the toilet again. The only thing not negative about the experience was that his water clones were resilient— while he was suffering venomous hell, his two clones were doing their thing —as long as he didn’t suffer a mortal injury or got knocked out completely, the clones would stand stable.

Takuma closed his eyes and rotated chakra through his body. His head was churning, and his body was on fire, making focusing on molding his chakra a miserable experience. But he had ample motivation to get the chakra moving. He could either burn the venom early or suffer through the combination of a hellish hangover and burning fever.

A worried Daiki peered from the end of the hallway. “Are you okay?”

Takuma whimpered as he flopped to the side, but managed to shoot a weak thumbs-up to Daiki. He appreciated the guy, but there wasn’t much Daiki could do to help. Takuma needed to see it through by himself.

A few moments after Daiki left, Takuma’s tutor clone walked past on his way to the room with his hands full of books, scrolls, and writing material. It was sunny outside, and the clone had been studying under the warm sunshine.

“Lay to the side; you’re inconveniencing the others by blocking the bathroom.”

Daiki and Takuma had two other roommates living with them.

When Takuma didn’t respond, laying absolutely still in his spot, running chakra through his body, the study clone pushed Takuma’s body to the side with his foot. Takuma wanted to yell angrily but could only grumble from the heavy fatigue.

“You better not try to skip the study session,” said the clone before walking to Takuma’s room.

“Fuck you,” said Takuma, flopping onto his side.

“Not really into selfcest,” the clone spoke from inside the room.

Takuma regretted giving Anko permission to feed him venoms because, for three hours, his day turned to shit, with his body betraying him constantly. He couldn’t even blame it because he was the one voluntarily swallowing venom that put him in misery. He envied and cursed the duty and tutor clones for their normal days, while the original suffered through what he began to think was Anko’s way to exact revenge on him.

Takuma was about to grouch some words for his chunin lead, when his face turned green with disgust, and jumped up like a cat whose tail was stepped on, darting to the toilet bowl, looking like he would fall over any step.

Daiki walked into the washroom looking impatient and hurriedly unzipped his pants, only to see Takuma hurling vomit into the toilet. His eye twitched before he ran to the end of the hallway and jumped straight out of the window into the overgrown garden outside.

“It’s okay, I’ll do it outside,” he said, but Takuma was too busy to hear his teammate’s rushed words.

Three hours later, Takuma was forced by his roommates to clean up his handiwork in the washroom before they allowed him a bath.

———

.

The next day, Team-9 was called into the war room to meet with Toridasu and Shirakumo. It was Takuma’s first time in the war room, which was usually only reserved for chunin and jonin.

A large circular table covered a quarter of the room, which Toridasu seemed to have delivered from home. The walls were covered in pages of reports, maps, and memos that were regularly updated to give the most current and correct view of the war. Toridasu and Shirakumo held daily meetings with the chunin to communicate the latest happenings and changes at the war front.

“Ah, our most problematic team,” Toridasu smiled in greeting.

“Thank you, that means a lot,” Anko said, putting a hand on her chest and smiling back.

The two Hidden Leaf jonin weren’t the only ones waiting in the war room. Hidden Steam’s Tokubetsu Jonin Benzou and another man Takuma hadn’t seen before were sitting close to each other around the table. He had long hair tied in a loose ponytail, a tired and long face with a scruffy beard, and a lit cigarette between his lips. He was slumped in his chair as if the war room was his living room and the two jonin were his pals. Toridasu didn’t seem to mind, but Shirakumo’s unapproving gaze made his opinion clear.

Like everyone at Camp Banana, he didn’t wear a uniform, nor did he have a forehead protector. But from his seat beside Benzou, Takuma guessed this was a Hidden Steam shinobi.

The man looked at Takuma and flashed a lazy smile, leaving him surprised and confused. Takuma tried to search for the man in his memories, but failed. Perhaps the man was wordlessly greeting him, but Takuma definitely felt like the man knew him.

His gaze then met Benzou’s, but the two didn’t go beyond small nods to acknowledge and greet each other. Takuma had gotten into trouble because of his association with Benzou, and it was better for them not to appear all chummy in the presence of the leadership, especially Toridasu.

“So, what is this about, boss?” asked Anko with her feet on the table and balancing her chair on its hind legs, seemingly competing with the unknown man in terms of casualness. “It’s not another resupply run? Give us something more interesting to do, would you?”

Team-9 only did resupply missions, while other teams got other missions. The defensive captain in-charge of the base’s safety was on a rotation among the chunin leaders, but Anko had never been put in-charge. There was a clear divide between the responsibilities that made Team-9 isolated.

“Alright, let’s do something interesting then,” said Shirakumo, sliding a folder across the table that hit the sole of Anko’s feet.

Anko glanced at Daiki, who hurriedly got up to hand her the folder.

She opened the folder, and upon reading the first few lines, her legs immediately went off the table. Her eyes widened at the file’s content, and she looked at Takuma, who tilted his head in confusion before realization struck him.

Anko turned to Toridasu and held up the file. It was the mission file for the precursor mission that Anko had been trying to get for Team-9.

“You’re giving this to me?” she asked.

“Don’t get a big head; you weren’t my first choice.”

Shirakumo interrupted the conversation before it devolved into a back-and-forth between Anko and Toridasu. He looked at Takuma as he said that, “Among all the teams, we found that Team-9 is the best suited for the mission.”

It seemed that Takuma’s fight against Masumoto had done its job by elevating the team’s value in the eyes of the leadership.

“And what is this mission?” Anko asked and glanced at Benzou and the other man. She passed the file onto Iori, and Kameko leaned into reading the contents as well.

Shirakumo stood up and walked to a large map plastered over a wall. The map depicted the large border region, some of which fell under Camp Banana’s coverage; it was marked with mini-notes, pins, and threads marking the trade routes and roads. Shirakumo took a pointer stick and tapped on three marker points on the map.

“Hidden Frost has captured three major border cities and has established a choke hold on the region. The cities are the strongholds, and the small villages all feed into them. The villages and their farms sell their produce to the cities, which keeps them running. The villages can’t stop feeding them for the fear of retaliation—they made an example of a small village, and instilled fear by ruthlessly punishing the rebel elements in all the villages.”

“Oh, my god.” Iori turned her face away in repulsion and pushed the file to Kameko.

“What?” asked Rikku.

Kameko held up the file, and there was a particularly gruesome photo of what looked like a mass grave with the bodies of a dozen or more men. The entire Team-9 turned their faces away from the photographs.

Shirakumo continued, “Other than the fact they’re captured, the cities function as normal with the exception of a strict martial law… In over a month and a half, Camp Banana will mount a recapture on the Spring City of Yu, the first phase of breaking the chokehold.”

“So, you want us to target the villages that feed into the city?” asked Anko.

That was the precursor mission Anko had been aiming for. There were small shinobi teams that traveled from village to village to ensure that the food and ration were delivered on time, and the fear remained strong. The plan was to hunt down that roaming team and cause some chaos to draw out more shinobi.

“No, that mission will be assigned to another team,” said Shiruakumo.

“Then what?”

Shirakumo looked to Kameko, who was engrossed in the file with wide eyes. Sensing everyone looking at her, she looked up.

“You want us to infiltrate Yu?” she uttered, her tone doubting what she had just read.

“Correct,” Shirakumo nodded. “The mission’s objective is to infiltrate the city and weaken it from the inside for the advantage of the main forces when we mount a recapture….”

Takuma leaned back in his chair and stared at the map, and the Spring City of Yu marked on it.

“Turn the enemy against themselves,” said Toridasu, “spread fear, doubt, confusion in the minds of the enemy occupying the city. Chip away at them slowly in a way that they don’t know who’s attacking them and how—so they have no choice but to doubt everyone, even themselves. Your objective is not to defeat the enemy but to wear them just enough that when the strong wind arrives, they blow over like a house of cards.”

“Urban Guerrilla Warfare,” said Takuma.

Shirakumo nodded.

“Why us?” asked Anko.

“Your team is suited,” said Toridasu. “Mitarashi specializes in information extraction, which is an important skill for the mission. Muscles here is a ranger and experienced in stealth. You have a fuin-nin, which makes her infinitely resourceful in most situations. The tiny girl and Taketori are good muscle.” He then looked at Takuma. “You, of course, proved your worth as muscle—but you have relevant experience, which is important…”

“…How so?” asked Takuma.

“Torture and interrogation like your team lead, you have experience with field intel gathering, and you have done a lot of informant cultivation,” said Shirakumo.

“You ordered my case files?” asked Takuma, not pleased that someone outside the Police Force was poking around in his work. “And they gave you the files?”

He had done all of that. He was in no way as good as Anko when it came to information extraction, but he had some experience. He had done some fieldwork for the Maiko Triad case, which he had then converted into a raid with the help of Arisu, which then got him the Narcotics Taskforce, where he had done a lot more fieldwork. And finally, he had cultivated so many informants in an attempt to reduce his dependence on Enomoto.

“You had to work in the Police Force; they treat everything like a state secret,” Toridasu sighed.

“Okay… I don’t want to undermine myself, but I had power and leverage back at home. I won’t be able to cultivate informants and curry favor with locals—they would never trust me because I’m not from that city. They will look me up, and the moment they don’t find me, they will protect themselves, which means turning on me,” said Takuma.

Takuma wanted to curb the expectations before they decided to send his team into the enemy’s den. If he promised something he couldn’t do, he was actively putting the lives of his team members at risk.

“We’re not stupid, kid,” Toridasu scoffed. He pointed at the man beside Benzou.

The man sat up in his chair and put out his cigarette in the ashtray on the table. “My name is Gaku. I’m a retired Hidden Steam shinobi and a resident of Yu,” said Gaku.

“Gaku will be joining your team,” Benzou spoke for the first time in the meeting. “He will be your local contact, the one they will trust, which you can use…. As power and leverage, I fear you will have to build that yourself.”

Toridasu leaned forward with a smile,

“You wanted something interesting; you got it...”