Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_312

Yamanaka Amami scouted the estate in the cover of the night. The main building and one of the secondary buildings, which seemed to be the guard quarters, were well-lit—but the rest of the grounds were covered in darkness. As long as she stayed clear of a couple of lamp posts around the property, she could observe the main building as long as she was careful.

Ukuri was inside the main building. Three samurai were stationed around the building. Two of them were stationary and lazed on chairs, leaving the one vigilant samurai who patrolled the longest section of the building.

She glanced at the other secondary building used as the staff quarters. It was dark, which made it a preferable entry and exit route.

A plan formed in her mind. They entered through the wall behind the staff quarters, using the darkness to their advantage. Take out the vigilant samurai, who would be the biggest problem if they failed to kill Ukuri stealthily. Taking out the vigilant samurai would also create a clear route for them to escape through—in case Ukuri made noise, while the two remaining samurai rushed to her, they would leave from the path they had cleared.

Amami observed for a bit more before carefully leaving the estate and regrouping with Thirteen.

"The back right of the estate is dark; we should go in from there and remove the samurai actively patrolling the long side."

As she expected, Thirteen frowned and immediately questioned her suggestion. "That's risky. We could alert everyone by confronting him. What if the target wakes up and decides to foot it out of here to avoid the entire situation?"

Since they started working two days ago, he had questioned her suggestions and advice. While she was relieved that he wasn't an imbecile asshole who couldn't do stuff unless it was his way; he listened to her, and if her suggestions made sense, which they always did, he would readily accept them—it was a little irritating he had to get a word in every time.

I could just take over the samurai's body, and we could finish him silently, thought Amami—but she didn't voice her thoughts.

Yamanaka clan practised their Mind-Body hiden jutsu, allowing them to possess their target's body and scour their minds if they wished. Their jutsu wasn't a bloodline limit, and anyone could learn it, but they wouldn't be able to gain the same proficiency as a Yamanaka because the jutsu was tied to the Yamanaka lineage. Not only had the clan created the jutsu so that it would work the best for them, but the Yamanaka people themselves had evolved through the generations to become more and more suited for the jutsu—resulting in their clan's jutsu being categorised as a hiden jutsu, or simply, hijutsu.

The Akimichi clan's Calorie Control and the Nara clan's Shadow Manipulation were also categorised as hiden jutsu.

Seven, the Hyuga, couldn't hide his bloodline limit because of his dojutsu's appearance, but she could hide her hiden jutsu. The candidates didn't know if the ANBU had something more planned for them, so keeping some of her cards hidden to retain an advantage was beneficial.

Amami glanced at Thirteen. The boy had been open to showing his skills. She knew he could use genjutsu; he possessed a chakra augmentation jutsu, which meant he preferred taijutsu; finally, he used Water Release on the ninjutsu front. By no means did she know everything about him—but what she knew was enough to gain an advantage during combat.

"You can use genjutsu to silence him," she answered, starting another conversation to make him understand her idea, "like you did with the old woman at the samurai's house."

"The paralysis worked as well as it did because she was a civilian," Thirteen shook his head. "This is a samurai with chakra training. My control over the genjutsu on him will not be anywhere as strong as it was on the old madam."

"So you can't paralyse him?" she sighed. It was her way of subtly challenging him.

In the short time they knew each other, she noticed he did not like it when she would speak down to him. She sensed that he was quick to bite back when someone assumed something about him. His usual bland tongue would turn hot, and he would throw sharp words instead of calmly explaining that he could.

She wanted to smile when Thirteen's eyes narrowed.

"I can do it," he said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am sure. I just said I can do it."

"Great, it's decided then."

Amami wasn't being reckless by ignoring the risk of the chance that Thirteen might fail. Something told her that he had an appetite for risk and understood the value of the risk-reward equation—he had decided to assassinate someone in the middle of a busy street—but all of his suggestions and opinions played it safe. She realised it was because he didn't trust her and thus was compensating by choosing options that left room for mistakes—but in doing so, he made things needlessly things.

She was simply pushing him just enough so they could hit the sweet spot.

"... So, no qualms against someone just trying to make a living?" she asked him.

Amami was surprised at how clearly the scroll stated that the bounty on Ukuri's head was because she offended Hidden Leaf. One would think the ANBU would try to sugarcoat it when the target was openly being bullied so the duo would feel better about killing her, but they had very bluntly put the situation before them.

"... They're testing us by being so straightforward," said Thirteen as though reading her mind. "They most probably want to see if we will complete the mission despite our feelings about the situation... They wouldn't want to hire someone who won't follow orders every time something doesn't comply with their personal views."

"You will do anything as long as they say it's a test?" she asked. As for her, it wasn't really an issue for her. She had been involved in a couple of assassination missions where the target hadn't done anything averse to her and would even be considered innocent from certain points of view.

"Not at all," said Thirteen impassively. "Those who kill must be ready to be killed... The lives of shinobi, like the target, you, and me, aren't valuable enough to warrant guilt or hesitation during the question of killing us. By killing a shinobi, you rid the world of a killer."

"That's a grim view of yourself, don't you think?" she asked. As a shinobi herself, she thought her life had immense value not only to herself but to a good crowd of people.

Thirteen didn't reply, and Amami didn't feel like she should push it.

"But if someone hasn't killed a shinobi, wouldn't the number of killers stay the same?" she asked to move past the heaviness of the topic.

"Kill two then," he replied nonchalantly.

———
.

The moment twilight began, and the sky started to lighten, the duo infiltrated the property from the darkest portion of the boundary and slipped past the staff quarters. It was reasonable that some staff would wake up early to prepare for the day, so they had to be quick to keep their footprint minimum.

The plan was to exit after ten to twelve minutes.

The vigilant samurai patrolling his route suddenly heard a clicking sound from a few trees and thick bushes at a distance.

"Cricket?" he muttered to himself. It sounded off to him. Having been focused his entire shift, he strayed from his position momentarily and approached the trees to get a better listen.

As he approached, the sound got clearer and louder, and it became apparent that it wasn't a cricket but something else entirely.

Before the samurai could even get the chance to register suspicion, his body froze up, and he found himself paralysed, unable even to shift his weight over his legs. As the panic rose, Three emerged from the thick bushes and stabbed the man in his chest, almost instantly killing him. Not wasting any time, she dragged his body into the bushes, where Takuma helped her hide it before they swiftly closed in on the main building.

They had scouted the building for several hours but never had an indoor view of the main building; as such, they couldn't be sure that there weren't samurai stationed inside. However, it was unlikely for someone on guard duty to not step out for fresh air or stretch their legs in the time they had been observing.

With that assumption, they entered the building through an open door. They remained cautious and quiet in case their assumption turned out to be false. Fortunately, the house seemed empty, with no guard presence.

The next problem was to find the target's bedroom. As they traversed the house, they had to be utterly silent to prevent alerting the samurai outside and the Ukuri. As the minutes passed, the tension between the duo rose until, five minutes later, they found the bedroom.

As Takuma grabbed the handle to pull the sliding door open, Three stopped him and gestured for him to step aside, after which she inspected the door. He didn't know what she was doing and simply observed as she took out a rigid wire and slipped it between the gap in the door to check if it was bobby-trapped.

Clear, she gestured.

Takuma nodded and took out a kunai as Three slowly opened the door. The room had no bed-frame bed, and Ukuri had pulled her futon away from the door and was facing the door.

The moment Takuma entered the room, he threw his kunai for her throat.

Three looked surprised at his sudden action—but it was the right choice as Ukuri's eyes snapped open the split-millisecond before the kunai hit her. She had no zero time to react as the kunai tore through her throat.

Three reacted quickly and rushed towards Ukuri while she was still in shock and unable to even think about shouting to bring in the guard, much less do anything directly to defend herself.

Three finished her off with a stab to the heart. She trembled as her hand went to Three's mask, staining it with blood as she tried to pull it off, but the strength left her fingers, and her arm went limp as life extinguished inside her body.

The work wasn't done. Takuma stepped next to the body and used a dagger to remove her middle and ring finger from the base as proof of assassination for the bounty office. The most preferred proof was the entire body—which would get them the money the quickest as the verification could be done on the spot—but they didn't care about the money, and the risk of carrying an entire body without a storage scroll was too much, so the two fingers were enough as the bounty office could verify the authenticity later.

"Let's go," Takuma whispered as he bagged the fingers.

The plan went without a hitch. They left the estate without alerting the guards just as the sun became visible over the horizon. They immediately split up with the plan to rendezvous at the bounty office as they had decided before in case they exited without garnering attention.

Twenty minutes later, Takuma entered the bounty office, which was open 24/7.

The location was a single-storey building, but the office itself was built in the basement, accessible from the outside. The plain, white-painted metal pipe railings along the concrete steps leading to the green heavy, metal gate set the tone of what a bounty office would be like regardless of its location.

If he had to describe the interior, it would be— all function, zero form.

The interior was a reception area with not a single piece of furniture that had any aesthetic purpose. The reception desk looked like it was from another era. There were three types of mismatched waiting chairs without a care for any uniformity. Even the wall posters were only there for instructional reasons.

Takuma stepped to the reception desk and rang the bell.

There were two doors behind the desk—a single-panel door and a double-panel door—which closed off the rest of the building from the reception.

Thirty seconds later, a stout man exited the single door with a bored expression. He looked at Takuma, and the blood on him made him click his tongue with unhidden dissatisfaction.

"Do you want to claim or register a bounty?" he asked.

"Claim."

"Name or reference number?"

"Kinohei Ukuri."

The man quirked a brow when he heard the name, but it went back down almost immediately.

"What proof do you have?"

"Two fingers."

"Show me. Don't put them on the table," said the man quickly.

Takuma held the fingers in the small jute pouch and put it in the man's gloved hand, who then took out one and gazed at it for a moment.

"I can only issue the reward after I have confirmed the kill. It will take a week. After I confirm it, you can collect your reward—but only if I find this proof is from the target's body." The man reached into his pocket and took out a token. It was some sort of stamped metal in the middle, surrounded by a blue-coloured plastic outer ring. "Bring this back in a week and not a day before. You can show up a year later—I don't care, but you need this token. Anyone who has this token will be given the reward."

"Understood," said Takuma as he put the token into one of his pockets. "Anything else?"

"No, nothing."

Takuma turned around and left without another word.

He was nervous as he stepped out. He feared that someone would be waiting for him to catch him—but he breathed a sigh of relief when the street was as empty as it should be during that time of the day.

He caught a glimpse of Three on the edge of the street before she disappeared, which meant the situation was clear.

He weaved hand seals for the Body Flicker Jutsu and disappeared himself.

The bounty task was complete.