Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_259

Anko swiftly withdrew her kunai from the Hidden Frost shinobi. Her eyes then shifted to the three-storey U-shaped manor house owned by one of the Yu wealthy who were blown up by Takuma's clone blast. A lush perimeter of trees surrounded the building, a meticulously maintained shrub hedge maze stood in the middle, and a neatly mowed grass spread covered the entire property. However, as they advanced towards the building, all cover disappeared, heightening the risk of detection.

Anko's gaze swept methodically across all the windows, a task she had been diligently performing for the past few hours. Her eyes halted abruptly on a window near the far left, where, in a heartbeat, she caught a fleeting glimpse of a man just as he disappeared behind the wall.

They had been seen. The enemy knew they were coming.

"We're made," she told Daiki.

"Crap," he muttered nervously.

The two groups converged at the manor's heavy double doors.

Anko informed Team B that they had been made, to which they responded with heavy nods.

"We're going to take it slow. Stick close, don't disappear from sight, and keep cover."

She maintained a steadfast front as the leader but was internally nervous about this undertaking. Having left Iori behind, their headcount was reduced to five. According to Aranai, the ROOT team had seven people, and given that one of them had died, their headcount was six, which put her team at a numerical disadvantage. Moreover, she clearly remembered Orochimaru telling her that ROOT agents were dangerous—not because they were talented, but because of the training the agents were put through.

She wasn't concerned about herself. From what Takuma had told her, regardless of how limited he knew from his encounter with them, she was confident she could take out the leader. If their goal were to exterminate the ROOT team, she would've lacked confidence, but they were only there to take an agent or two away—which was still very dangerous, but she thought her team had a better chance to succeed without casualties.

However, there was no such thing as a guarantee on an active field mission. Things could go south in an instant.

She signalled to Takuma and pointed at the doors. The team quickly fell back, creating a safe distance. Takuma launched a second form augmented punch; the burst of chakra hit the panes, broke the latch on the other side, and forced the doors open. He immediately jumped back, prepared for a potential booby-trapped explosion, but the doors remained still, and the entryway looked clear.

They swiftly entered the building with full heads of caution and slowly spread out in the expansive three-storey foyer, where the open corridors on the upper floors could be seen from the ground floor. A doorway in the front led deeper into the house, and a staircase led up in the corner.

Anko motioned the team to stay on the ground floor before moving up. Just as they were about to proceed deeper, a kunai with an explosive tag fluttering on its tail descended from the first floor.

Kameko was the first one to notice and yelled,

"Explosion—clear!"

Everyone jumped towards the walls to clear out of the way. The explosive tag burst near the floor, scorching the gleaming marble and ruining the lush carpet, but the warning saved anyone from getting injured.

Anko jumped to the first-floor corridor railings and saw a man back peddling towards a corner. She threw a volley of shuriken, but they got deflected, and the ROOT agent disappeared behind the corner. She didn't rush after them and called the team up. Around the corner was a small corridor with an open room at the end. Halfway through, a ROOT agent emerged before the open door and released a powerful gust of wind of the Wind Release: Breakthrough jutsu.

The gust of wind slammed full force into Anko, who was in the front and took her off her feet. She flew through the air and crashed out of a window.

As she fell down towards the manor grounds, Anko saw a duo of ROOT agents standing on the walls of the manor above the window she shattered. Suddenly, she had volleys of shuriken and kunai bearing at her when she couldn't change directions mid-air. She retrieved kunai in both her hands and did her best to deflect the rain of metal coming for her. Two kunai got her in the leg—one only grazed her, but the other one made a significant gash below her knee—a third sliced through her side.

She landed on the injured leg, sending a jolt of pain as she stumbled backwards off balance.

The two ROOT agents jumped towards the ground and then rushed towards her as she landed on the ground off-balance—but the moment they moved forward, Daiki jumped out from the shattered window and launched an explosive tag tied to a kunai towards them. The ROOT duo were late to hear the tag flutter and tried to jump away, but the tag exploded when the kunai struck the ground and caught the duo at the edge of the blast radius, throwing them to the side.

Anko used the time to find her balance and weaved hand seals for the Fire Release: Dragon Fire Jutsu. She spewed an invisible stream of chakra that struck Agent #1 before jumping towards Agent #2, and with a final tiger seal, flames sparked at her lips, igniting the stream of chakra. The flames looked like an oriental dragon that swallowed Agent #1 before jumping to Agent #2.

Agent #2 jumped back and swiped his hand to cut down the chakra stream, saving himself from the dragon, but immediately faced another source of danger as Daiki spat a globule of oil at him. Surprised, Agent #2 tried to move away, but the oil hit his hand and ignited into fumes with the freshly chakra-infused oil.

Agent #2 removed his coat a moment before the flames could eat through the fabric, but he wasn't fast enough with his glove, and the fire burned up his hand severely. On the other hand, Agent #1, who was completely covered with fire, shed off the flames but now was heavily damaged in the places of his body that weren't heavily covered by gear.

Anko put some weight on her injured foot and hid a wince. The injury by no means put her out of the fight, but it was sure to slow her down, which could make all the difference in a fight. Fortunately, the two adversaries were injured as well, which levelled the playfield to some degree.

She glanced up at the shattered window; the team was now split, and she wasn't close enough to provide immediate help. It worried her, but she quickly returned her attention to the enemies before her. There were two of them, which was perfect in the sense that she could put them down quickly and have Daiki carry them off the property. Then, she could support the rest of the team and get them away from the ROOT agents.

The combat came to a pause as the four shinobi looked at each other, ready to react in case anyone made a move and itched to take advantage of any opportunity that would allow them to end the fight as quickly as possible.

Anko looked between the two agents and suddenly rushed towards the more injured one—but the moment she moved, both agents moved as well, moving towards Daiki.

'Shit!'

Her plans immediately changed. She shot towards Agent #2 and weaved a modified version of the Summoning Jutsu, which simplified the hand seals in exchange for limiting the scope of the summoning. Hidden Shadow Snake Jutsu. Half a dozen dark, long snakes, as thick as her arm, emerged from the oversized sleeves of her overcoat and flew towards Agent #1; they bit into him and constricted his legs and body, tripping and temporarily stopping his pursuit of Daiki.

Despite her injury, she was still faster and stronger than Agent #2 and crashed into him. They wrestled on the ground, and Anko managed to get on top. She swung the kunai at his heart, but before she could stab him, an earthen spear struck her hand, knocking the kunai out of her hand. The next moment, Agent #2 struck her in the wound on her side before kicking her off of him.

A third ROOT agent stood on the manor house's roof with two earthen spears hovering. He swiped his hand down for the spear to shoot toward Anko, who avoided it by rolling to the side.

"Rooftop!" Anko didn't forget to warn Daiki as she dodged the attack.

The second spear flew toward Daiki, who was moving away from Agent #1 and had to haphazardly twist his body at an awkward angle after Anko's callout. The front half of the earthen spear missed him, but the back half grazed his upper shoulder. He fell to the ground before getting up, holding his shoulder with a look of pain.

Anko jumped and placed herself in between Daiki and the three ROOT agents.

"We should—" Diaki tried to say something, but Anko silenced him.

"Shut up... let me think," said Anko, taking in the enemies before her.

There were three ROOT agents to deal with—and only one was injured enough to make a real difference. And it was clear that they were used to fighting together; the third hidden agent aiming for an opening was clearly a planned action. She could tell that they were around the level of combat-forward chunin—they were at a level that if any of them got their hands on Daiki, he would be dead—which meant she had to protect him while she fought them. Moreover, neither was the leader, Kon, which meant that the strongest of them was in the building.

Agent #3 dropped from the roof, and Agent #2, who was the most injured, backed off until he was near the building, putting the most injured one on the back.

"Stay behind me and support. Don't try to deal with them directly," she said.

Agent #1 followed after Agent #3, who drew his sword, and they closed in towards them.

Anko breathed out as she got ready for an ugly when a large commotion induced by an explosion from inside the building reached them. The ROOT agents paused for a second, and in the second their attention shifted to what was happening inside the building, Anko rushed toward Agent #1. They didn't turn their eyes, but the sudden shift from falling back on defence to the aggressive offensive rush in that moment of stoppage was startling.

The ROOT agents tried to put some distance between them, but she was faster. She pushed hard, even on the injured leg, and instantly closed in on Agent #1. In the intense moment, the agent tried to fall back before hastily switching to confronting her, weakening his position. She cracked him in the calf with a powerful whipping kick, destroying his balance.

In one fluid motion, she pulled out three shurikens and threw them at Agent #3 to keep him away from double-teaming her—and then returned to Agent #1 and nailed him with two consecutive kicks that made hard contact on his side and face. She immediately pulled him close and grabbed him by his gear while gazing at Agent #2 in the back, trying to strike her from a distance with explosive tags. She dared him to throw because she was going to make it hurt. In the same second, her attention shifted to Agent #3, and she threw Agent #1 into him as he tried to get close.

Agent #3 had a sword in his hand and couldn't sidestep to avoid Agent #1 because he was parallel to the ground as he flew toward him. He also couldn't catch Agent #1 to steady him because he had a sword in his hand, which made the situation slightly awkward as they made full contact and fell back.

Anko, now open, kept an eye on Agent #2, who threw his explosive tag kunai toward her. She was about to jump away to dodge, which would put more distance between the two agents she had just disrupted—but another kunai flew from behind her and deflected the explosive tag kunai from reaching her.

She smiled as she sprinted toward the two agents. That was excellent support.

She weaved hand seals for a Fire-Release jutsu, and her left hand ignited with screaming fire. As Agent #3 stumbled back from the crash, Anko grabbed Agent #1 with her right and slammed her burning left into his throat, squeezing as the fire grew bigger and whiter as it scorched and ate through his neck, shoulders, and head. There was a moment of screaming from pain before the fire melted the voice box.

Anko once again pushed him toward Agent #3, who dodged this time.

The limp body hit the ground, the flames still burning bright and hot from the chakra sticking to his that supplied the fire with the most potent fuel.

"Now, this...," Anko looked at Agent #2 and Agent #3, "this is much more manageable."

———

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A/N: Writing this fight made me realise that I struggle with writing fights that don't involve fights that don't include Takuma because I don't know the skillset of the fighter on a deeply personal level.

Anko is Orochimaru's student, and she survived a lesser refined curse mark, which is an accomplishment in itself. Even though she was taken by surprise, injured by a planned attack, and had to defend Daiki, she managed to kill one of them. I was going to have Snake Summoning play a bigger part of it—but then I thought that was too one-dimensional and decided to showcase use of Fire ninjutsu—it wasn't a lot, but it was efficient and she conserved her chakra as she knows Kon is inside the building and she has to pace herself for the future.