Naruto: The Outsider’s Resolve
CH_10.23 (389)

The vortex slowly dragged Takuma down under as he struggled to run on the turbulent surface. He looked up at the ROOT agent floating down toward the riverbank in frustration. The unstable flow of water forced him to constantly adjust the flow of chakra in the soles of his feet just to remain afloat. He wouldn't drown, but he couldn't cover the distance quickly either. It was faster to cover the distance with long jumps, but that option was closed by the powerful vortex in the middle of the river. Even on the outer edge, he felt the vortex's pull, which would only get stronger if he moved closer to the core. He was bound to get sucked in and trapped inside the spinning rapids.

He considered avoiding the area with the strong pull by moving around the vortex, and the plan seemed viable until he heard someone yell his name through the deafening noise of the roiling river.

"Ratel!" Krait waved his hands over his head. Behind him, Duroc was trying to get the curious civilians moving away from the edge. "Come back! It's dangerous! It's going to—" A wave of water drowned out the end of Krait's sentence by slamming into him.

Takuma was reluctant to return and turned around to look at the agent in the air. He was surprised to find him looking back, so he made up his mind and began running around the vortex. Their efforts would be diminished if even one of the ROOT agents managed to escape. Capture or death were the only two acceptable outcomes. As long as there was a non-zero chance that he could reach the agent, Takuma would try.

"Ratel!"

As he neared the centre of the river, the pull suddenly weakened. Takuma immediately quickened his pace because sprinting was now so much easier, but simultaneously, his instincts told him that the sudden relief was very wrong. Krait's call echoed in his mind. His mind told him to move forward, but his heart told him to turn back. The two opposing thoughts made him indecisive, and so he stopped in the middle of the river.

He looked at the vortex, then turned his eye to the agent who'd landed on the bank. His target was getting away—with those thoughts in mind, he moved forward only to feel a pulse from deep within the river hit his feet. It was so unexpected that he sank to his elbows.

Something was wrong. He immediately turned to swim back, but a second pulse a moment later screwed up his rhythm. There was a split second of silence before the river exploded and threw him back with such force that, when he crashed on the water surface, he bounced on it like a skipping stone.

Brackish water flooded his mouth, and when he held his breath, it felt like he was drowning. He tried to swim up, but the movement of the waves pushed him down with a vengeance.

Takuma was subject to the river's tender mercies.

Holding his breath became more difficult with each second that he remained underneath the water. His body screamed for air while he desperately tried to keep the water out. Panic threatened to rise, but he pushed it back down. His eyes burned as he tried to look around with his blurred vision until he recognised that he was heading toward the riverbank from which he'd entered.

If he hit the bank, he would be pinned to it by the waves, unable to rise to the surface for air. But instead of scaring him, the thought sparked an idea in his mind. Takuma quickly weaved hand seals while doing his best to mould chakra quickly, even as his body revolted against him for more air.

Earth Release: Subterranean Voyage.

It was the second iteration of his hunt for more ninjutsu. The first batch was the four Earth Release spike ninjutsu, while the second was three underground traversals similar to Takuma's D-rank, Earth Release: Hiding in the Rock Jutsu.

Subterranean Voyage was a C-rank ninjutsu that turned the ground into a fluid, allowing the user to close in on the enemy with high speeds by swimming underground.

He needed to be in contact with the ground to activate the jutsu and turn the ground into fluid. He was only confident doing so with his hands—but he was not comfortable with colliding with the riverbank with his hands first because that risked snapping his wrists if he timed it wrong.

With great difficulty, Takuma turned his back to the riverbank a moment before he collided. Against the force of the collision, he couldn't keep his mouth and nose shut and swallowed more water, some of which went into his lungs.

But he managed to slam one of his hands against the steep banks.

The hard, rocky earth behind him turned into gooey fluid as he sank into the wall. However, the work wasn't over because he had to hold his breath underground, which meant getting to the surface as soon as possible.

Fortunately, he only needed to go straight up for air.

The few seconds it took to reach the surface were possibly the longest seconds of his life. All the water in his lungs only made that wait all the more agonising.

"Are you alright?" Krait ran to him and knelt beside him. He helped Takuma pull the facemask behind his ANBU mask halfway so that his mouth and nose weren't covered.

"Y-Yeah," Takuma said between coughs and splutters.

Even though he wasn't bleeding anywhere, there were aches all over his body, and the water had sapped all the heat from him, leaving him shivering against the river's banks. As much as he wanted to continue chasing after the ROOT agent, he knew they had lost him, which only made him feel worse.

He wouldn’t have minded being tossed around by the river if it meant capturing the ROOT agent.

He looked around to see chaos everywhere. Everyone and everything were soaking and drenched. People were running away to safety, but some recognised the danger was over and stood around, looking shell-shocked. Many stalls and shops set up next to the street had suffered damage from being hit with water.

"Ah, shit," Krait whispered.

Takuma followed his eyes and saw a group of local shinobi dressed in standard Leaf gear arrive. They hadn't informed the local administration about their mission, which was a problem when they raided an inconspicuous mill and then went on a chase around the city, causing property damage and danger to the residents. To the local shinobi, they had every reason to treat them as dangerous elements who needed to be contained or eliminated.

He quickly pulled his mask down and got up, ready for a confrontation.

"Should we escape?" Duroc asked.

They looked at Krait, who was in charge. The Aburame gazed as the local shinobi worked to get the civilians away while closing in on them. They didn't know how the rest of the team was doing, so they couldn't match their decision with theirs. If they had cooperated with the local shinobi, and everyone else didn't, the result could lead to hostility towards them, which would in turn lead to the worst-case scenario.

"We should—"

He paused when another shinobi appeared on top of a building. He was a man in his thirties with long black hair that reached the small of his back. He wore an intricate red kimono with long sleeves and a white hakama with a heavy black obi belt around his waist. He was dressed for a social function, and his clothes didn't look comfortable for moving around in, much less jumping around buildings.

All three operatives felt their muscles tense as the man stared them down. If one wasn't a sensory-nin, there wasn't any sure-fire way to tell if a person was a shinobi or if a shinobi was a genin or jōnin. However, intuition fueled by subconscious observation sometimes allowed people to gauge things about people.

And their intuitions screamed that they didn't want to offend or anger the man.

"He's the jōnin," Duroc whispered. His body language struggled between being defensive to protect himself in the face of an overwhelming threat and not making any sudden moves that might tick off the man on the building.

"When he asks, we—"

Krait tried to speak, but trailed off when a voice whispered into their ears with chakra.

"Surrender yourself willingly."

The words nullified anything Krait was about to suggest.

———

 .

Rui ran and continued to run until he didn't see or smell the shadow of an ANBU-nin anywhere near him for several minutes. Once he was sure he had lost the tail, he patched himself up using the medical kit sealed in his emergency pack and robbed a small pharmacy to supplement what he lacked.

His body was black and blue from being smashed into walls, and he'd only been getting by with the physical boost that Wind Release: Second Wind had provided. He suffered minor burns that stung from Fire Release ninjutsu, and his back was throbbing in agony from getting hit by the badger-masked ANBU-nin's Water Release ninjutsu. 

Ideally, Rui wanted to rest for the night and recover before leaving the city, but he couldn't take the risk with his teammates captured by ANBU. They all knew the same information regarding exit plans, routes, and hidden caches. If that information was extracted quickly, the ANBU could be on his tail again. By leaving quickly, he would be ahead of them and thus safer. 

But he doubted his teammates would fess up any information because of their training. Still, as today proved, assuming the worst-case scenario would always serve him well.

Within an hour, Rui left the city. He flipped coins to choose his routes to add an element of randomness and eliminate his biases. While it delayed him from reporting the ANBU raid, doing so also kept him safe, which circled back to increasing the chances of getting the information across.

After a few hours of travelling on foot, he reached a civilian caravan and hitched a ride by offering some money. As he sat in a cart, the fatigue finally set in as he leaned against the side of the cart.

As he contemplated the day's events, his thoughts took him to the badger-masked ANBU-nin.

"He sure was young..."

Despite the mask and full-sleeved clothes, he could tell that the operative who had hounded him the most was fairly young—younger than eighteen or even sixteen—which was rare for ANBU, as they didn't recruit young, which meant they saw something valuable in the kid.

He had noticed the gear of the operatives who had chased after him and saw how only the Boar ANBU had gear worn by assault operatives. From that, he could safely deduce that the other two were from another unit.

The Aburame and Badger ANBU were likely the ones who had found the lab in the Taiheiyo Evergreen Forest, captured their youngest when he was visiting, and extracted the information on their whereabouts from him. And since their youngest was only late by a day, it was highly likely that a Yamanaka was involved in the information extraction.

"A kid, an Aburame, and a Yamanaka," Rui spoke to himself. If he assumed that the Yamanaka was part of the team, he had information on three out of five members of a standard ANBU squad.

He groaned in pain as the cart jostled about his injured frame. "I'll just report it and let the others worry."

As far as the day went, Rui had escaped three ANBU-nin and a clone, and that was enough for him.

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