Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_374

A buzzing hive of insects flew up to the ceiling, leaving behind the guard's body, which they had swarmed and which fell to the ground.

Krait pulled out his short sword from another guard and let the lifeless body sink to the ground, leaving behind a long streak of blood on the wall. He heard a scared whimper and turned to look at the white coat scientist shivering in fear in a fetal position a few steps away from another dead guard with a pool of blood that stained the white coat's hem red.

"Get up," Krait said, emotionally. He didn't believe the man who performed horrifying experiments on man and animal alike would feel anything upon seeing a dead body or two.

When the scientist didn't get up, Krait slapped him on the face before pulling him up by the collar and then shoved his fingers into the man's mouth, releasing a few insects into his body. The man screamed in terror as he pushed Krait away and tried to spit out the insects to no avail.

"Disobey me, and those insects will eat you from the inside. It'll be painful," Krait lied. The insects could do no such things, but the scientist didn't need to do that. The scientist looked at Krait in horror but ignored the man and asked, "Come on, let's continue. Lead me to the alternate exit."

The scientist was a coward and had promptly fessed up to the existence of an alternate exit. He looked at one of his tracker bugs, and it told him Ratel's location. He was nearby, which meant they could pick him up on their way towards the exit.

He pulled the scientist along, carefully taking the corridors, ready for enemies to pop up, only to come across Ratel, leaning his head against a wall because he couldn't lean his back against the wall due to the kunai sticking out from his back.

"Are you alright?!" Krait exclaimed as he jumped over three bodies to reach his teammate, who was covered in blood, his clothes were dripping, and there seemed to be cuts all over his body. He wasn't in good condition.

"Huh?" Ratel sounded delirious for a moment before groaning as he stood up straighter. "Yeah, I'm just a little exhausted. Lost a little blood. Help me remove these from my back and dress me up, and I'll be good to go."

"Okay, let's get out of here," said Krait, looking around and preparing for the enemy encounter. Ratel was in no shape to fight, and getting them out was up to him.

"No need. I've killed all of them, I think."

He pointed around the corner, and Krait gasped when he saw seven or eight bodies with blood-soiled walls and floors with violent splashes that even reached the ceilings. The cracks and craters in the wall told him there were more in the next corridor. He had been hearing a lot of commotion while he was searching for the scientist, but he thought Ratel was occupying the guards. He didn't expect a massacre.

'How strong is he?' Krait thought as Ratel gently pushed him away, wanting to stand on his feet.

"Just rest. I'll deal with others... if there's anyone else," Krait commented as he saw the carnage. "Are any of them alive?"

"Thank you," said Ratel, breathing a sigh of relief. His words seemed effective as the tension in his body relaxed. "Yeah, one or two of them might be alive. I think I killed the ones in charge; they were too strong for me to capture alive." Ratel looked beyond Krait and saw the scientist. "Try to escape or do anything shady and I'll happily bash your skull in."

The scientist looked just as terrified as moments before when he was force-fed insects.

They forced the scientist to lead them to a room with medical supplies that they used to patch up Ratel. Krait looked around the cold operating room, which smelled of hospitals. He caught the scientist looking at a saw hanging on the ceiling; when their eyes met, the coward shrank back and began shivering.

"There's a child here." Ratel glared at the scientist. "They did some sort of experiment on him."

"I'll take him with me and go look around for the kid," said Krait, pointing at the scientist.

Ratel nodded. "Good, He'll probably be too scared to talk to me... Go, I'll be fine," he said while putting on his clothes.

"Are you sure?" asked Krait, worried about Ratel's injuries

"We need to secure this place and people before we can call for help. The faster we move, the faster we can finally rest."

Krait thought about it and nodded in agreement. He paused momentarily before raising his arm to release a swarm of insects covering the ceiling. "They aren't going to fight for you, but they'll buy enough time for you to make a move or support in other minor ways."

With what he had seen, Krait didn't think Ratel needed the help, but he was injured and there was always a chance that even a group of scientists could end up doing some harm.

———
.

Takuma didn't rest in one place and instead walked around the bunker. He looked up behind him, and Krait's insects followed after him.

He couldn't stop himself from knowing more about the bunker. He wanted to go to the room where he had seen the kid, but something within him felt the thought unnerving, like it was something he didn't want to face, especially the kid.

He recognised those weren't entirely his emotions, and they angered him greatly. He would've barged into that room and forced himself to face the uncomfortable as an act of defiance, but he was too tired and worn to do so at the moment, so he settled for a roam of the homogenous corridors.

This time around, he saw the mundane side of the bunker, which included sleeping quarters, a kitchen and pantry, toilets and bathrooms, and an electricity generator, among other things that made the bunker a liveable place.

Eventually, he reached a door that seemed more fortified than others. He went into his pouch for his tools only to find the door to be opened, and was surprised to find himself in the armoury with a decent cache of weapons and equipment.

However, his eyes soon fell upon the tactical gear hanging in the corner and immediately realised that he wasn't in one of Orochimaru's secret laboratories, but in a ROOT facility because the gear was identical to what he had seen in Yu. He guessed that the guards were surprised by his and Krait's infiltration and didn't have the time to change into full ANBU-style tactical gear, so they just picked up weapons before rushing out to face the problem.

The young Kon in his visions, the familiar room, and now the presence of ROOT—all signs pointed to one conclusion. The boy's past was all tied to ROOT in some way. Takuma increasingly became sure that this bunker was the same place he had seen in his vision.

After standing in the armoury for who knew how long, he moved on with his thoughts weighing down his mind. He opened another couple of doors until he opened a door and saw four large animal cages.

He switched on the light and recognised a giant-sized squirrel, a brown bear cub, a lynx, and a mink.

All four animals shifted in when the light hit their cages. They opened their eyes to look at him but stayed silent, unlike the last two animal rooms he had opened. This room was also much cleaner than the others.

The giant squirrel stepped closer to the bars and, to his surprise, spoke to him,

"Who are you?"

He wasn't expecting the animal to speak and was stunned into silence when the mink slammed against the cage and pushed its face against the bars, trying to push its face through the gaps.

"He doesn't smell like those bastards," the mink hissed. "You reek of blood—human blood. I heard some commotion. What happened?"

Not all chakra-enabled beasts were the same. Some only had rudimentary access to chakra, which allowed them to be physically stronger or slightly more intelligent than their mundane counterparts. Then there were others who were so advanced that they possessed human-like intelligence, like the squirrel and mink before him—those were most of the time part of beast clans who had progressed over generations.

He guessed these four were special and thus kept separately in better conditions than others because they held more value to the scientists.

"We have captured this place. The people who ran this are mostly dead." Takuma replied after composing himself. "I am from Hidden Leaf Village. You won't be experimented upon any longer," he tried to comfort them after imagining what they would've gone through.

"I don't trust you. You vile humans are all the same," the squirrel replied, his giant size made him intimidating. His tail, however, seemed in poor health, with only half the fur there should be, which resulted from experimentation.

"Prove it!" the mink slammed against the other, his voice tinged with craze. His tone was as though he was challenging and goading him into doing something he didn't like. "Let us out; let us leave! If you can do it, I will believe you!"

"That's fine, but only after you can answer some of my questions about what was happening here."

The moment he said that, the squirrel and mink fell silent and retreated into their cages, losing all interest in him. He didn't need to think to understand that their experiences had made it so they won't cooperate with any human regardless of their intention.

The bear cub and lynx, who were silently listening, followed suit and went back in.

"Don't bother with them. They don't speak human," the squirrel said, apathetically.

"Alright, I'll unlock those cages so you can leave," Takuma said. If they weren't going to cooperate, there was nothing he could do. He had zero interest in interrogating or torturing them after what they had been through. He took out a kunai to break the locks enforced with fuinjutsu seals, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him before he could step into the room.

It was Krait. "You can't let them leave," he said.

"Why?" he asked, confused. He also looked up at Krait's insects, who probably notified their host that he had moved.

"They need to be released into their proper habitats. Releasing them here might create problems for the native species in this forest." Krait looked at the quartet of animals. "We will have you transported to your homes as long as you tell us where you wish to go."

Takuma recalled Krait's action, killing his insects so they won't become invasive species, and stepped back. He seemed to know more about the subject, so it was better to leave it to him.

"This place isn't my home; it'll never be," the squirrel sounded heated. "Let us out of here and we can reach our home without your help... This place stops us from calling for help."

"Summoning Jutsu?" Takuma garnered a guess.

"Yes," the squirrel whispered.

He looked around and guessed that the bunker must've some fuinjutsu which blocked space-time jutsu that stopped these animals from returning home.

"All of you?" asked Krait.

"Fortunately," said the squirrel sarcastically.

Takuma didn't know how Summoning Jutsu worked, but he guessed each beast clan had to establish an elaborate foundation to enable what seemed like a reasonably advanced jutsu.

"I'll take them," Takuma said to Krait.

———
.

Takuma slowly approached the bunker's entrance with the four animals tagging behind him. All of them were unhealthy or injured in some way. The little brown bear cub had a bandage around its torso, the lynx strolled with a pained expression, the squirrel walked behind everyone with paranoid caution, and the minx seemed most excited.

Fortunately, none of them attacked Takuma, which he was expecting to happen.

As they exited the bunker, he asked if they needed any help, but none of them answered him and seemed enamoured by the forest after having not seen the sight of nature for who knew how long. He was expecting them to run the moment they left the bunker, so this was much better.

The minx was the first to break out of his revere and slapped his paws on the ground, which caused a Summoning Jutsu jutsu-formulae which poofed into smoke for a minx four times as large, dressed in a colourful fez and coat, as it appeared.

"You're alive?!" The bigger minx exclaimed in surprise, picked up the minx by the scruff of his neck to examine him with surprise, and then shook like he was a toy.

"Get me home! Now!" the minx screamed, actively shaking from excitement and freedom.

The summoned minx looked at Takuma, and the animal's eyes sharpened.

"Don't bother! He freed us. I just want to go home," said the minx, swiping at his bigger counterpart.

The bigger minx glared at him for an extended moment before disappearing in a puff of smoke. The minx fell to the ground on its feet and turned to the other animals. "You get home safely! If you want help, don't call me! But if you want to have fun, you better invite me!" he waved at them before disappearing in the puff of smoke.

Takuma's eyes widened. The small minx had the bigger minx, who went back and then summoned the minx back home. He hadn't thought about it, but it made sense that it worked that way.

"Go on," the squirrel gently spoke to the lynx, who had lain down from exertion caused by the walk outside.

The lynx joined her paws for tens of seconds with a struggle on her face before the jutsu-formulae appeared, followed by the arrival of a normal adult-sized lynx who immediately attacked the nearby squirrel on instinct. The squirrel seemed to be expecting it as he avoided it without problem. The small lynx cried out, which made the adult lynx stop and leap to her side and pick her up with her mouth with protective intent as he glared at all of them. The small lynx cried again. The adult lynx looked hesitant but put her down and disappeared like the bigger minx had done.

The lynx cried to the squirrel and bear cub.

"Yeah, you take care as well," said the squirrel warmly, and the bear cub roared weakly.

A moment later, she was gone.

"Now, it's your turn," the squirrel stroked the bear cub's head, who sat on his bum with his front paws pressed together and twisted expression marring his face and tried to summon someone from his clan, only to fail. "It's okay, you can try again," said the squirrel.

The second time was a charm as a two-storey tall bear appeared from smoke and let out a roar that struck fear and terror in the hearts of everyone in the forest, including Takuma, who immediately weaved hand seals for Body Flicker Jutsu. He had learned from the squirrel and was ready, which served him well when the big bear swiped its car-sized paw in his direction. The bear would've crushed several trees in a single swipe if they were not in a clearing.

"Fuck," Takuma winced as his wounds hurt while he dodged the rampant colossal bear attacked again. The adrenaline rush had passed, and his body felt its effects. He looked at the bear and thought that the only way to escape death was to run because there was no way he was winning, even if he was at his full strength.

Fortunately, the colossal bear stopped, and the process followed when the summoned party disappeared and then summoned the summoner. The bear cried tears as he hugged the squirrel before being pulled home by the space-time ninjutsu.

"You must care about them a lot," Takuma spoke to the squirrel who had purposefully seen others go before her. He was too tired to freak out that he had come closer to death than when he was fighting inside the bunker.

"Caring and worrying for them was what allowed me to retain my sanity," the squirrel said as he summoned another one of his kind. While everyone had summoned bigger or adult versions of them, the squirrel summoned a younger, smaller squirrel, or perhaps that's all he could summon—he was in the worst shape of them all.

The tiny squirrel disappeared without attacking Takuma.

"I don't like your kind, but I'll admit that your kind was the one who suffered the most in there," the squirrel with a dark look in his eyes. "I don't like you, but you have my gratitude."

Takuma nodded.

"Goodbye. Let's never meet again," said the squirrel before disappearing.

He looked up at the forest and found it to be beautiful. He hadn't spent a night outdoors since the ANBU recruitment and missed being alone in the great outdoors. He took in the forest's beauty one last moment before re-entering the bleak bunker.