Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_327

Nasaki Isato had been working for ANBU for several years as staff and was surprised when Copperhead, a snake-masked ANBU iryo-nin, real name, Sango, told her that one of the new recruits wanted to talk to her. He didn't want her specifically, but a 'competent staff member'. Getting acknowledged as someone good at the job was always flattering to hear.

Usually, she would refuse anyone trying to meet her in her capacity as an ANBU staff member as it was seldom anything good, and she was not allowed to share anything about her job, even with her friends and family, other than the fact she worked at the Department of ANBU. At least she wasn't an operative who couldn't even share their true employment status and had to fake it to almost everyone in their lives.

But the recommendation had come from an operative, and since she was meeting one of the recruits, it made the entire thing inside ANBU, so she accepted the meeting because she was getting a meal out of it.

The next day, she found herself sitting in a nice restaurant she had been wanting to visit for some time after work, facing a kid who couldn't be any older than fifteen. He introduced himself as Takuma. Everything about him, from the gaze in his eyes to how he held himself, suggested he was mature beyond his years.

"So, I've been told you need my help? I'm not sure how I can help you," asked Isato.

"Copperhead told me you're a record keeper for ANBU."

Isato's responsibilities involved maintaining records for ANBU and organising and updating everything for ease of access and compliance with strict regulations. She and her fellow record keepers processed thousands of documents weekly, touching everything from memos to expenditure reports to personnel files. If someone wanted information from ANBU's intelligence archives, they had to rely on record keepers who treated data and information like gold.

"I will be joining a team after I end my training, and seeing how busy everyone is, I want to be of help, so I was wondering if you could walk me through best practices for paperwork in ANBU... I don't want to waste my team's time teaching me and correcting my mistakes—and I thought that learning from someone like you, who maintains the records, would be the best way to learn properly to avoid mistakes."

If Isato and record keepers hated one thing, it was incorrect and improper paperwork. Every day, some team from some unit would submit messy, faulty forms and reports that would be just a lazy or incompetent mess that the record keepers would have to send back to correct. She couldn't understand why they couldn't do it right the first time because it wasted everyone's time, and it wasn't like they learned from their mistakes as everyone kept making the same mistakes as though they were doing it out of spite.

Many people didn't take paperwork seriously and rushed through it, but paperwork was vital because it recorded everything. Over time, people could forget things, conflate facts, and confuse information, but once something was put into writing when it was fresh in the minds, it would never change.

"You are right. Learning from us would be the best," said Isato after dowing her drink to wash away her frustrations. "Do you know which unit you will be joining?"

"Not yet."

"Unfortunately, I don't think I can help you much right now."

Not everyone filled out the same paperwork. Units with different responsibilities had to fill out different forms related to their duties. Even if she wanted to teach him, she couldn't until she knew Takuma's unit to curate what kind of paperwork he would be filling on a daily basis.

"How about some general stuff that everyone deals with? I just want to help, so I will take anything I can learn... Of course, if it's not a problem for you. You must also be busy, and I don't want to take too much of your time."

"No, not at all," Isato hurriedly waved her hand. "Sure, let's focus on some basics. I can even help you with some of ANBU's standard operating procedures to get you more comfortable."

"Will you? Thank you so much," Takuma smiled gratefully.

Isato smiled. She was impressed that a new rookie showed great initiative before being assigned his codename, mask, and unit.

———
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At the start of the second week of the training period, Takuma received a letter in the mail that he had been waiting for since he got confirmation about his chunin promotion.

He got dressed, headed to the ANBU headquarters, and arrived at the ANBU's jutsu archives because he had just received his special exemption from the law forbidding new chunin not to purchase access to B-rank jutsu before their first year.

"Hello, I would like to buy a B-rank jutsu, please," Takuma said to the shinobi outside the heavily guarded archives inside the headquarters.

The shinobi guard looked up at Takuma for a moment. "Your identification," he asked.

The process from then on was similar to what he had experienced when he visited the general jutsu archives. They checked if he had necessary access, stripped him of any and all of his belongings except his clothes, patted him down and asked him to step through a metal detector, and had another shinobi escort him to one of the waiting rooms.

Inside, a shelf of catalogues sat for him to browse. The catalogues had a detailed section on each jutsu inside the archives that he could use to decide what jutsu he wanted. Takuma had spent hours in waiting rooms, reading Water Release and Earth Release C-rank catalogues from cover to cover to find the right jutsu for him.

He planned to do the same when he got his second B-rank jutsu.

He already knew what he wanted as his first B-rank jutsu.

He had no experience with Fire Release and Wind Release jutsu, so he skipped past them. He had a terrible affinity for Lightning Release jutsu, so that wasn't an option as well. He was obviously interested in the Earth Release and Water Release jutsu, but now was not the time to look at them. Mikoto told him there was no use in buying B-rank genjutsu and forbade him from ever wasting his mission points on them, making the catalogue useless.

His finger slid past the spines of all catalogues until he arrived at the last one.

{Non-Elemental B-rank Jutsu}

Takuma pulled out the catalogue and flipped through the pages until he arrived at the one-page spread about the jutsu to learn.

Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu was an A-rank ninjutsu invented by the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama. The jutsu allowed a user to create corporeal clones, which, unlike the basic Clone Jutsu, were physically real and could do real damage. The chakra was split equally between the original and the clones. Because they are visually identical and possess the same chakra as the user, shadow clones are indistinguishable from their original.

The jutsu was classified as forbidden due to the sheer chakra requirement needed to use the jutsu, which put the user at risk of death via chakra exhaustion if used carelessly, and thus, only jōnin were allowed to learn the jutsu.

However, in reality, Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu was a derivative jutsu.

Senju Tobirama first created the Shadow Clone Jutsu, which allowed the creation of only a single clone, with the chakra split in half between the original and the clone.

Shadow Clone Jutsu was not only not forbidden, but it was also a B-rank jutsu.

Even though it was a lower-grade version, in essence, it was the jutsu that helped the world's main character to the heights of shinobi.

"When the clone is dispersed, their experience is transferred back to the original," Takuma read the passage on the page, "making it ideal for intelligence gathering and recon: a shadow clone can be sent into hostile territory, gather information without endangering the user, and disperse when finished, thus transferring what they learned..."

As Takuma expected, there was no mention that the experience transfer could also be used to cut down training time in half.

Perhaps it was not known because not many people learned it because even the B-rank version had significant chakra requirements, and they just didn't realise that it could be used for training.

But Takuma knew about it, so he was going to use it for all its worth.

If he had not been in ANBU, he would not have chosen it as his first B-rank jutsu because buying it meant draining all of his mission point savings and going broke. He would've chosen an Earth Release or Water Release offensive jutsu instead. But because he was in ANBU given limitless, free access to C-rank jutsu—he was going to use the training exploit to learn new jutsu to expand his jutsu arsenal.

He was sacrificing short-term gains for long-term ones.

In the future, he expected this investment to give him compounded results.

Takuma sighed. He was about to go broke and had no idea when he would get the next chance to learn another B-rank jutsu.

It all depended on his performance.

Fortunately, Sango had given him another gift other than connecting him with Nasaki Isato.

———
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Tapir sat in his office, reading a file on Takuma, the youngest recruit in the latest batch. He was beginning to understand why they had recruited him. It wasn't just because of what he did in the war or his accomplishments in the Police Force.

He looked at the optional tests Takuma had given in the second week of the training: lock picking, horse riding, voice modulation using chakra, radio operation, field first aid certification that was two levels beyond the ANBU recommendation, physical disguise, and chakra masking.

Then there were skills they hadn't tested, like surveillance, pickpocketing, electrical and plumbing, cartography, leather work, tailoring, shorthand transcribing, bookkeeping, computer skills, hunting, foraging, and more things he didn't even know how to test.

The kid knew so much that Tapir felt he was making up half of the things. But Takuma had passed all his tests, which gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Tapir heard a knock on the door. Takuma was standing at his threshold.

"Come in, Takuma," said Tapir, closing the file and putting it in his drawer. He wasn't surprised because Takuma had requested the meeting beforehand. He was not in the mood for small talk and cut right to the chase. "So, what do you want to talk about?"

Takuma didn't immediately speak. "I heard that the Master Instruction decides where the recruits will be assigned," he said.

"Why? Do you want me to send you to a certain unit?" asked Tapir with a smirk. The information wasn't a secret. It wasn't a surprise that he found out about it after two weeks.

"Not at all, but I was wondering where you plan to send me."

Tapir wondered why he was asking that. As far as he knew, Takuma had no connections inside ANBU. There was one connection to Weasel through his mother, but if the ANBU Captain wanted to use his position to influence Tapir's decision, he would've already shown up.

"Are you wondering why am I asking?" asked Takuma.

"I do," Tapir said straightforwardly.

"I want to use this training properly, so if I know where I will be working, I can focus my efforts to be better suited for the job. I heard that ANBU is stretched thin because of ROOT, so I want to do a good job and pull my weight right from the beginning."

Tapir narrowed his eyes. He didn't buy that reason. Maybe Takuma wanted to know about his decision before it was too late to change and try to shift it to something to his liking.

"I will respect your decision," Takuma smiled.

"Huh?"

"I am just excited to work that I'm willing to exit training in eight weeks."

Tapir raised his chin. The kid is trying to negotiate with me! He said 'willing' instead of 'going', which meant he was open to reducing that time if he got something in return.

Takuma understood that ANBU wanted the recruits to exit training as soon as possible, and that put pressure on Tapir, who, as the Master Instructor, was expected to make that happen—but he couldn't force the recruits—he did not want to force the recruits.

"Six weeks," Tapir said.

"Seven weeks," Takuma countered.

"Six," Tapir shook his head.

"Okay, six," Takuma nodded, "but you let me choose from a few options."

"I thought you were going to respect my decision," Tapir glared.

Takuma simply smiled.

Tapir clicked his tongue. "Alright... I haven't decided yet. Give me a week before I present you with some options—but you have to choose from them!" he glared.

"Of course," Takuma smiled. "Now, on to the next topic."

"Next topic?" Tapir asked, cautious about what else Takuma was planning.

"Master Instructor, please suggest some D-rank jutsu that would be useful to me as an ANBU-nin... I was serious when I said I wanted to focus my efforts, and who better to get advice from you, the Master Instructor."

Tapir could only gaze as Takuma pulled out a notepad and pen.

———

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A/N: HAT-TRICK! 3 for 3!!!