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The next day, Takuma arrived at the office in the morning with his belongings in a crate and his office furniture packed in a storage scroll. The greetings to the relevant people in the headquarters had gone well; they had treated him better than they would've treated a new squad leader because he was a direct report to a captain.
It would take some time to build rapport with everyone. As the leader, it was his responsibility to create connections for his team. Fortunately, those connections would stay with him even if he went away, so it was well worth the time and effort.
Takuma greeted everyone as he entered the office.
"Good morning, everyone."
Tern, Boobook, and Aquilla were already there when he arrived. As he walked through the bullpen to reach his office, he noticed them looking at him strangely. He stopped and asked if there was something wrong.
"Are you well, Ratel?" Boobook asked.
"Is it okay for you to return? It's only been a week," Tern said with a hint of worry.
Even Aquilla was looking at him as though he was trying to look for something.
He turned to Goshiro, his head of staff, sitting in his office, through the open door. "They read the incident report for the assassination attempt yesterday," he said loudly.
Takuma laughed. Yes, the assassination attempt had left him in a poor condition, but he had been in worse condition before. The last time ROOT had sent assassins after him, he had needed a life-saving operation, had to relearn how to walk, and was deployed to the Steam-Frost war with a cane less than two months later.
"Yes, I'm well. Thank you for asking. ANBU has great medical benefits. I'm in no condition to fight, but I've resumed light training. I estimate I'll be back to normal in another week or so."
In truth, he could fight at his peak in his current condition. Iryo-jutsu was magic with its ability to heal him from his combat injuries in such a short amount of time. Regardless, his body was still injured not so long ago. He was currently in a state where the chances of injury under strain were much higher than normal. So while he could hit just as hard, run just as fast, and exert his chakra without any obstruction, he could get injured while doing any of those things.
In short, he was a glass cannon.
Ten minutes later, Mor and Hippo arrived.
Mor brought coffee for everyone in the office, including the staff. Takuma noticed it about him when they first met, but Mor was very good with people and had a knack for communication. Barbary told him that it hurt to let Mor go because of his soft skills, especially his interpersonal abilities, which allowed him to get people to cooperate or get more out of things than others usually could.
"Hey, Ratel. I have some questions about the assassination incident," Mor said as he handed him a cup of coffee.
"So do I!" Hippo yelled from his office.
Takuma looked around the office and felt the curiosity radiating from all of them. He could tell that everyone was curious about the incident. Having easy access to the main person of interest naturally made them want to ask questions. They were also in charge of the investigation, and having more information could only benefit them.
"Those who have questions can come to the meeting room in ten," Takuma announced.
Ten minutes later, the entire squad was in the meeting room.
"I'll do my best to answer. Let's start from the front and move back," he said, pointing to Mor.
"The site of the incident, the training field, wasn't maintained by ANBU. Was it a place you visited often on a fixed schedule?" he asked.
As operatives, they had access to high-quality training resources, so unless there was a reason like training with someone outside ANBU, there was no reason why an ANBU-nin wouldn't use department-provided benefits.
Mor was asking what he was doing there without outright asking. Takuma guessed that he already had some idea why he was there.
It was a sharp question to ask the new boss and ran the risk of offending him. From what he knew about him, he was trying to see how he would respond to a situation where he was doubted or his authority was questioned. It was important to know the leader's personality because it dictated how they responded to different situations. It was an attempt to gauge that, so he could alter his approach in the future.
The others also understood the hidden intention behind his question and gazed at him. Takuma didn't break eye contact with Mor.
"ROOT leveraged an acquaintance to lure me to the training field."
He made sure to be as calm and professional as possible because he wanted his subordinates to ask questions and communicate without the fear of retaliation. He had enjoyed great results because he had mostly worked alone, but there was a limit to that—something that he tried to remedy by supplying intel and resources he cultivated to others in the initiative. He wanted to do more with this squad, but throwing more people at the problem didn't guarantee results.
They needed to work together towards a common goal to be productive. His priority as the squad leader was to foster a healthy and correct work culture.
"Chūnin Enomoto, correct? What was your relationship with him?"
"We were acquainted through my work at the Leaf Military Police Force," Takuma said.
If it were anyone else, he would've avoided the question, but the group in front of him were ANBU-nin with the ability to pull background checks on most people. They would immediately know about Enomoto's drug trade connections if they decided to look into it. By twisting the truth with omissions, he presented a picture in which Enomoto was either an asset or they had dealings, both of which were true.
The latter didn't look good, but this was ANBU; shady dealings like that were common here.
"The reports claim him to be missing. That's unfortunate. I wouldn't lose hope," Mor said, relaxing his line of questioning. It seemed he had gotten what he wanted.
"It's a waste of time. He's already dead; I asked one of the agents," Takuma replied before noticing that his nonchalant reaction had surprised others. "My apologies. We didn't really get along. Perhaps that's why he was chosen. If it were a friend or family member, they would've tried to alert me in some way. That bastard probably sold me out without hesitation to save his own neck; I can't even blame him for that either."
"Next question," he said, pointing to Hippo.
"It wasn't clear in the report. How did ROOT find out about your identity? There was mention of an agent codenamed Kon that you share some history with, but nothing beyond that."
Takuma sighed. The report wasn't clear about it because he himself didn't know how ROOT had found out about him—at least, he wasn't sure about it.
"Our best guess is that I was overexposed to ROOT. I have personally handled one too many cases to the point that they ended up noticing me. I was involved in a case where we discovered a sleeper cell. During the raid to capture them, one of them managed to escape." He clicked his tongue. "I'm sure Ratel entered ROOT's radar back then, if not earlier. As for how they connected me to Ratel, I can't be sure. The agent codenamed Kon was probably responsible in some capacity. I ran into him when I was deployed to the Steam-Frost war and had to deal with ROOT trying to interfere in the war."
"You weren't an operative back then," Hippo said, taken aback.
"I was not. It was a situation where ANBU couldn't send their own, so my team had to deal with them on our own. Kon knew me from back then and must have connected the facts. But that's not the problem right now," Takuma sighed, feeling irritation rising. "My exposure limits my movements. If I'm investigating something related to ROOT in the field and they somehow become aware of my presence, they might take extra precautions that they might not have if they were unaware."
When an operative wore their mask, they enjoyed the full authority and reputation of ANBU behind them. But the mask was like a bright beacon that couldn't be hidden. The moment ANBU-nin stepped into the scene, everyone knew of their presence. They could hide their presence, but they sacrificed the benefits by doing so.
On the other hand, when an operative removed their mask, they lost their authority but, in turn, gained anonymity that could be leveraged to appear harmless and invisible if utilised correctly.
Takuma had slipped into the Maizuru Quarters without his mask, and by the time they realised, it was already too late. He had used that same anonymity in other situations where he had combined it with his young age to present himself as just another teenager. That hadn't disappeared yet, but his face was out there, and there were always chances that someone someday would recognise him, putting whatever he was doing at risk.
What if that something was critical?
"…Because of that, I'll be relying on you to do field work when I think that my presence might be a risk," Takuma said with a smile, looking over the group.
It was a show of comforting trust that he believed in them, but also a warning that they better rise up to the occasion when the time came.
"About this case… You put all of us in charge of it. Who's the lead?" Tern asked.
Usually, even with multiple operatives on the case, there was always a lead. Even if two operatives decided to work together on equal standing, someone had to be put in the leading position, but yesterday, Takuma had put a whopping five operatives on the case without naming a lead.
"To be honest, I wanted to name myself the lead, but it's already unusual to assign a case to someone who is involved and naming me as the lead would be too much," said Takuma.
Stag had used his authority to assign the case to him. He hadn't asked for it because he wasn't expecting it, so Takuma was happy.
"Now, I won't lie by saying I don't care about the people—agents or not—who set up the barrier that kept me inside, but that's not the reason I decided to give this to you. Treat this like a justification to poke your nose where it usually wouldn't belong."
ANBU operatives were territorial about everything from the cases they handled to the informants they developed. They turned hostile at the mere glance from someone else at what they claimed to be theirs.
And the Hidden Leaf Village was a hotbed of territorial operatives who turned feral the moment someone even stepped as much as a pinky toe into their territory.
"There are ROOT agents in the Hidden Leaf. That's a serious problem that can't be ignored. By putting all of you on this case, which will require you to go around the Hidden Leaf Village, visiting places you shouldn't be, talking to people you aren't supposed to, I'm giving all of you a reason to do so. Use it as a shield. If anyone cries, send them my way. I will take care of it."
It was going to be very difficult to deny a guy who was the victim of an assassination attempt because of how it looked.
"Find me the rot festering in the village and uproot it," Takuma declared. "As for the on-paper lead, it's going to be Aquilla."
Everyone looked at the Hyūga with envy because even though Takuma had said that all of them were equal, there was some value in being the on-paper lead. It would be easier to claim credit when it was on the record.
"Boobook and Mor will be this team's contact with the anti-ROOT initiative," he said.
Boobook was part of the initiative, and Mor was good with people—a combination of the two would do well to settle the dissatisfaction brewing in the initiative due to his hiring decision.
"Hippo will be in charge of developing assets and informants."
Hippo had by far the most experience of anyone in the team. He had the right type of experience, which allowed him to connect with people who usually had the information. It wasn't like others couldn't develop their own assets, but Hippo was going to be in charge of most of them.
"That's it," Takuma said.
The silence that followed spoke volumes. There was only one person on the team who hadn't been addressed. And everyone wondered if her family had something to do with that.
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