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Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_432: Past, Present, and Future
🕑 Added 2025-09-28 00:42:37 +0000 UTCTakuma looked outside the living room and saw an ANBU-nin in the garden and the heads of four more regular shinobi patrolling outside the houseâs boundary wall. There was more security he couldnât see all around the house premises.
He turned around and looked into the living room, where the Hokage were chatting it up. Yesterday, he had asked his mentor to leave, but for this meeting, he wanted him to stay in the house because the most important person in the Hidden Leaf was coming to visit. It was so nerve-racking that it took him a few hours to fall asleep the night before.
Maruboshi Hiruzen knew each other, so Takuma wanted his mentor to get the Hokage comfortable before he brought up the topic of Greyâs past.
âKohima closed down last month,â Maruboshi said.
Hiruzen looked stunned at those words. âI havenât heard that name in such a long time. Is the old woman still alive?â
âShe passed away five years ago. Her elder son tried to run the shop, but it didnât work out.â Maruboshi shook his head.
âNot surprising. He never showed any interest in the business. The younger one, on the other hand, wouldâve been great. Itâs such a pity,â Hiruzen sighed.
The old men had been talking about things Takuma had never heard for the past fifteen minutes. Being housemates, they got along perfectly well, but they still belonged to different generations. There were some things that only came up in the company of people with similar experiences. He was sure they could talk about things of the past and present for hours. There werenât that many old shinobi alive in the village.
âHow are you feeling, Ratel?â asked the ANBU Commander of the Domestic Branch. He wore a stag-styled mask and a white cloak.
It was their first time meeting. If not for the Hokage sitting in his home, Takuma wouldâve been more nervous about meeting his bossâs boss. He knew that the man was the Hokageâs son, which was surprising to him when he first joined ANBU, but then he found out more about the position, and it made sense.
âThe hospital provided excellent care. Iâll be back to full strength in no time.â
âAny other time, I wouldâve assured that ANBU would do everything in our power to pursue this matter to the end, but in your case, you handle ROOT. Youâll be the one doing the pursuing,â Stag said with a smile in his voice. âIt was a slap to the villageâs face. I hope youâll continue the excellent work you have been doing until now.â
âI will do my best, Commander.â Takuma paused for a moment. âThe real tragedy is Captain Tachanidâs Inquisitor Unit. This incident destroyed a well-oiled machine. It would be great if thereâs a way to salvage itâŠ.â
It was a risky move for a squad leader who hadnât even taken control of his team to make of an ANBU commander. He had no expectations of his words doing anything, but he still wanted to try, even if it meant potentially overreaching his bounds.
âShuffling people around is policy to minimise the amount of information outside, but Tachanid has indeed done a great job with the unit. Iâm sure he, too, would agree that we should try to put some effort into it,â said Stag.
âIâm sure he would be delighted,â Takuma smiled.
âFishing at a stream, surrounded by the calmness of nature, is soothing,â said Maruboshi.
Takuma decided to join the conversation and sat down at the table. âPlease donât misunderstand him. He isnât talking about taking a rod and sitting in silence. He enjoys hiking up his pants and getting his feet wet while spearfishing.â
âItâs a good way to get the stiffness out of the body,â Maruboshi laughed. âNow, I will get out of your hair and let you gentlemen discuss work.â He got up and left the room, sliding the door behind him.
With all doors closed, only three people were left in the room.
Stag started by giving them a rundown of where they were in the investigation.
âThe person who called you to the training ground, Enomoto, we havenât been able to find him yet. We traced his movements and found his last known location to be at a private club. The trail, unfortunately, ends there because no one saw him after that. We interrogated the waiter and he told us who he was meeting with, but even that lead didnât reveal anything relevant to our matter.â
âHeâs most likely dead,â Takuma said. âSeeing that he didnât show up at the training field, they didnât have any more use for him, so itâs most likely that heâs dead.â
âI agree, but we still have to track his movements in case they lead us to some clues about ROOT,â said Stag.
Normally, an ANBU commander wouldnât be relaying that information to a squad leader, but these were unusual circumstances.
âThis is the second time ROOT has tried to assassinate you for doing well at the job,â said Hiruzen, who sat opposite Takuma. âDanger is a part of the job, but the enemy going to such lengths to target a singular agent is rare even in the ANBU circles. It must be stressful. Have you thought about changing your assignment?â
Stag didnât say anything, and his mask hid his face, but the slight movement of his head towards the Hokage told that he wasnât expecting those words when just a couple of minutes ago he had asked Takuma to continue with his work.
Takuma didnât know what Hiruzen was probing for, but he decided to be semi-honest. âI wonât lie and say that it doesnât concern me. I would rather not die, but Iâm not going to roll over because my work mildly inconveniences someoneâŠâ
âMild inconvenience,â Stag chuckled. Even Hiruzen smiled.
ââŠand I have my reasons to stick to my current work.â
âAnd what might that be?â Hiruzen asked.
Takuma was wondering how to broach the topic, but seeing that Hiruzen keyed it up, he decided to gather courage and just ask.
âBecause of my past with them,â Takuma said to Hiruzen, whose eyes widened a fraction. âI donât remember much before I went to the orphanage, and to be honest, nor do I wantâbut some things remain⊠I remember seeing one of the three agents I killed in the memories of back then. So, I know what was done to me was by ROOT⊠You were there, Lord Hokage. You came to see me on the day I rescued. Youâre aware of my history, arenât you? Isnât that why you summoned me the last time?â he asked.
Hiruzen took a deep breath. A deep sorrow darkened his face, deepening his wrinkles. He suddenly looked older and tired. The joy he felt when talking to Maruboshi had completely vanished.
âI thought⊠I wished that you had forgotten about it,â he asked. âItâs revenge then?â
âI had my revenge, but that doesnât change the fact that they still want me dead. Instead of running away from the problem, I believe the only way to be safe is its complete and thorough elimination.â
Did Grey want revenge against ROOT? No, the remnant inside him was beyond that. But he still very much wanted ROOTâs utter annihilation.
Takuma remembered how he found himself in the world of shinobi. He woke up in an academy classroom in the middle of a lesson. Grey hadnât taken his own life. Even though he was miserable, he had no intention to forsake his life. He had died in the middle of a lesson on a random day. Whatever ROOT had done to him was the most likely suspect behind his death. Perhaps one day Grey wouldâve won his fight against his past and become someone he couldâve been proud of, but he would never get that opportunity.
What Grey wanted was not revengeâthe ten-year-old child who had suffered too much and couldnât bear the burden of his past simply didnât want anyone else to suffer the same fate as him at their hands.
The bunker experimentation Takuma had busted was proof that ROOT was still doing its vile experimentation. Unfortunately, he was already dead. Regardless of what Grey wanted, he was helpless to make it come true.
But Takuma was still very much alive.
He pulled off his shirt to reveal his scarred bodyâa mixture of scars gained in fights and those forced onto him in the name of experimentation.
âI donât want others to go through what I had to go through,â he said while momentarily glancing at the illusion of Grey standing behind the Hokage, staring at him with wide eyes.
The remnant of the boy who died still existed within him. He had directly felt a fraction of what Grey felt in the hell he was forced through. He now inhabited that body and wanted to know what was wrong with it. ROOT killed his friend. They tried to kill him multiple times and still wanted him dead. ROOT would never let Hidden Leaf go, actively putting his friends, loved ones, and innocent people in danger. He, too, didnât want ROOT to continue their vile experimentation.
There were too many reasonsâbut one thing was clear.
ROOT had to go.
âIâm scared of it; a black void that, I feel, could devour me, but I still want to know about my past, Lord Hokage. Who were my parents? What did ROOT do to me? How did I end up in their clutches? Do you have those answers?â Takuma asked.
Hiruzen was crestfallen as he gazed at him and couldnât get his emotions in control quickly enough.
âThere was no information about your parents or how ROOT got hold of you,â Stag said.
Takuma gazed at him. He wasnât surprised because Stag hadnât raised a question or acted confused. If there were anyone who would know secrets, it would be an ANBU commander.
Seeing Hiruzen didnât stop him, Stag continued, âThey had destroyed everything by the time the team in charge got there. You were in very bad condition and were barely saved by the best effort of the iryĆ-nin on the field team.â
âAsk their name,â said Grey, lowering his eyes. âIf possible, I would like to thank them.â
âMay I have their name?â Takuma asked.
âSheâs dead,â said Stag. âIâll send you the file. You can pay your respects at the memorial.â
âI-I see,â Takuma said, not expecting the response.
Grey looked sorrowful; his side of the room dimmed.
Stag continued, âANBU was interested in what experimentations ROOT was running, and you were the sole survivor, so we did look into it for some time, but with the destroyed records and your fragile condition, we couldnât make any headway. In the end, we could only speculate based on clues like the destroyed equipment and information gathered from the autopsy of the other test subjects we found.â
âYou seem to know a lot about it,â Takuma asked. Even if Stag was an ANBU commander, the way he talked seemed like he had studied the case in detail.
âStag led on that mission as the captain. He was the first one to go inside that day,â Hiruzen replied.
Grey walked around the room and stared at Stag as though trying to recognise him before shaking his head with a regretful expression.
âThank him for me,â he said.
âThank you,â Takuma said, deeply bowing his head to the man.
âNo need. That mission was a failure. They knew we were coming. If everything had gone well, we wouldâve saved more lives,â Stag said, giving an impression that he still gave himself a hard time about that particular mission.
âWhat was the conclusion? What were they experimenting on?â
Stag gazed at his torso as he replied, âFrom the presence, volume and location of the scars, itâs clear that they were putting your body under stress by withholding healing; otherwise, there wouldnât have been any at all.â If healed quickly and properly using iryĆjutsu, cuts left very minors scars that would fade away soon enoughâwhich wouldâve been the case in an experimentâs controlled environment, and yet Takumaâs body was riddled with surgical scars.
âThe experts concluded that it was some kind of substance trial. Around that time, ANBU was funding research into healing solutions because of iryĆ-nin in hopes that we could develop a first-aid solution to stabilise injuries until proper care.â
âWould they need a child for that?â Takuma asked. âWouldnât a much sturdier adult be more suitable for such trials?â
âThat was an argument against that specific conclusion,â Stag nodded. âThey couldâve been testing soldier pill efficacy against injuries⊠Or one extreme conclusion was that they were trying to induce drastic change by injecting things that would change the subjectâs biology and using injury to hasten the process by forcing the body to accept the foreign substances⊠And given that a child is still developing in all aspects, and might take well to those changes.â
The boy dressed in clothes too big for him was sickly pale with a tinge of blueish-green, had baggy eyes, and his skin seemed to hang from his skeleton. He had long, webbed fingers and his feet somewhat resembled flippers. It didn't take a genius to realise that the little kid was a victim of the experimentation that had given him some aquatic traits.
The image of a sickly pale boy with skin tinged with blueish-green and baggy eyes who had webbed fingers and feet resembling flippers flashed through Takumaâs mind when he heard those words, but someone voiced his thoughts before he could.
âBears resemblance to what ROOT was trying to accomplish in the research you shut down, Ratel,â said Third Hokage.
âââ
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A/N: Full disclosure, I pulled a lot of this right out of my behind. I'm not going to pretend that I'm a medical expert, and while I did go into a lengthy research expedition, which delayed this chapter, I just got more confused, so in the end, I just decided to go with this. So, please do suspend your disbelief.
Comments
Mohammed Sheekh
No chapter tonight?
Diego SĂĄnchez RamĂrez
I'm hoping what he got was something extremely niche or underwelming that somehow makes him very good. Maybe when his skin is broken it grows more terse and harder to break which makes him go trough a torture/training arc. Or it's something that has already been affecting him. Either way, i would hate it to be a whole "he was on the verge of death but got stronger" thing. Not to say that is something author would do, but still, years of troppy novels make a guy's mind go there.
