Organised Conflict
He spoke to me with a voice filled with guile, and his face was upturned in an expression of happiness, invoking the vibrant bloodied image of a predator circling their prey.
"You're clearly a strong kid, smart head on your shoulders too. Hell, you even know how to throw a party, whole town knows about what happened last night."
Actually, what did happen last night?
"Hah! You don't remember! That's a good lad."
He clasped his hand on my shoulder and it was only an active amount of will power and the haze of a hangover that stopped me from breaking it.
I welcomed him in, and he explained what his organisation did.
Essentially, they transported things from place to place, Takigami being the nexus point for the deliveries. It was all legit, on the surface. Apparently, it was more profitable to occasionally buy and sell common goods, especially when a region is in need, but it was mainly used for the obfuscation of the illegal items transported.
Drugs, animals, people.
The last one was accordingly met with shock, as my 'character' was meant to keep up the appearance of a naïve young adult, yet it was apparently placated with the claim that it was only willing people, a way to transport people from villages (ninja or no) a way to get away from conflict and pursuit.
It seemed like a pretty big and important operation, and it was impressive that Nezu managed to create it with his own hands, from the ashes of the third shinobi war. I doubted that was the full story, even as innocent as I was back then, but it seemed to have some truth to it. Every pile of bullshit has a sparse fragment of real to it, after all.
The man smoked. He wasn't supposed to in the inn's room, but he claimed being powerful (even relatively so) granted some benefits he could take advantage of. He looked older with a calmer expression, opposed to the wrinkle pulling smile he had earlier, wisps of smoke flowing next to grey wisps of hair.
It was hard to guess his age. He could be a stressed out 40-year-old or a youthful 60-year-old. He looked as if he hadn't lost hope yet, and that made him look younger, but he looked as if he had seen things, as if he knew something was coming for him.
"Ok, You're not gonna be a courier or whatever, it'd be a waste. Instead, you're working as my assistant before you learn the ropes. There is a lot of… stuff, you have to do in this business. Not all of it is clean work, you'll have to get your hands bloody, but I'm sure that's nothing to a young lad like you."
I nodded and agreed, eager, maybe too eager, to start the day and my job.
"Alright, First things first. This guy is being uncooperative. Some old guy, owner of some warehouses we use, Yu or something's his name. Convince him."
…
He said 'convince' but a silver tongue still gets stained by bullshit.
Talking a lot about bullshit, aren't I?
Eh, whatever, point is, I was meant to beat the shit out of the old guy. I would just do it, get it over with, but if I did that and news got out it would be pretty suspicious this newcomer had no qualms with battering a decrepit man.
Nezu was trying to desensitize me, and honestly, it had an effect. I only attacked ninjas up until then, perks of being a tracker nin. I had never hurt a civilian.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I found the guy by asking around. It was pretty easy to spot the wrinkled man with permanently closed eyes when you're looking for him, next to one of his warehouses.
"Ah, hello young man, are you the one meant to speak to me about my wares?"
I told him yes, and we moved to an obscured alleyway, out of prying eyes' purview.
And then I told him that Nezu wasn't going to take any shit, that he was powerful, and in a position to roll over him if he didn't work with him.
He responded.
"Oh, well I'm not going to do that."
I was confused, I asked him why.
And what he said next still kind of sticks with me.
"I won't because I don't need to. You see, you are a young boy, ambitious yes, but you still have morals, you are smart and nervous and value other people. Nezu cannot send other thugs after me, as they would beat me too much, kill me, and my lease would make it so none of you get it. The only other candidate then, is Nezu, and he much prefers games and puzzles to fights, the physical isn't something he uses. Really, there is nothing you can do to me."
I stayed silent for a moment. I knew what I needed to do. Yet he was nearly right.
Looking back, I admire him for his confidence, for the sheer audacity to say that to me.
Yet he was so very wrong.
His smile was broken with a fist to the face where he was laid out on the floor. The punch broke his nose, not his chin. I didn't want him to get knocked unconscious yet.
I mounted his body, me sitting on his torso.
I asked him if he wanted to continue.
"What!" He asked through a gurgle of blood and broken nose.
I punched his face, splattering blood over the floor.
I asked again, if he wanted to continue.
He looked up, dead in the eye, and said "No, you can have the damn warehouse!"
Satisfied, I picked myself up, and walked away, leaving him on the floor.
Mission complete
…
For brevities sake, I'm going to skip over the next few days.
Not much aside from your average thug-ish mission occurred. Most of the information on them is buried in a small hole next to a tree outside the takigami, next to and disguised as a porno mag. Pretty good excuse to hide stuff, as to not create suspicion, and absloutely no other reason.
I finished each 'mission' with a resounding success, and quickly gained more confidence in myself and my skills. Nezu told me I was being groomed to take over a part of his operations after the previous guy got beaten the shit out of and died. Pretty pathetic, considering how weak some of these thugs are.
It gets pretty easy to kill your average street thug when you can smash their teeth into their nose with a single punch.
Of course, I was worried. Mainly because the mission you had given me had a time limit and although I was acquiring power I still wasn't really sure if how to find out about Stone. Thugs aren't interested in ninja conflicts, so I would either need a reason to get involved or learn via osmosis.
The plan was to keep doing tasks and eventually rise to the position Nezu had set out for me. It didn't have an official name, but it put me in contact with a few important people around the city and was set up with the goal of preventing discovery and sabotage. Essentially counterintelligence, but rag tag and headed up by a makeshift spy (Yours truly).
It was a good position to have, but it would be hard to keep up appearances and not get killed by Stone.
Missions and days came by, until a month had passed and Nezu invited me into his office.
It was a homely, yet dingy place. It's nothing like your office, there is an amount of magnificence here that his lacked, yet there it reminded me of our first meeting. Funny, that.
I sat and we spoke. About meningeal things that don't really matter, but eventually he got down to business.
"You're a good lad, smart, loyal most of all. You know some people would stab you in the back for pocket change in this business. They don't stay long. It's only us, the people who trust each other, who work together that win."
Ironic, for a few reasons.
"Point is, you're competent and I like you, so I'm giving you a position. Of course, you'll still take orders from me, it is my organisation, but you'll have some autonomy."
Planned autonomy of course but I didn't and don't expect anything else really. Unlike you and me, Minato, criminals and missing nin only act in their own interests, not for the village or for an ideal.
They shit and eat and kill and survive. They die in pits of despair or vapidity because they don't have anything else to dedicate themselves to.
We may do all the same, but we have something to return to.
Anyways, where was I?
"You're first task is to meet up with shin, he's an interesting guy, use him to get information on the comings and goings of the city. Oh, and don't make a mess out there. Always be discrete when talking to contacts."
I nodded, got up and left.
…
Takigami itself is a weird place. Most of the buildings are old yet adorned with speckles of graffiti and gang signs. At least in the slums, where I had to travel through most of my early time. Eventually I would make it to the richer districts, which were ironically made up of even older building, yet were cleaner. You'd expect age to turn price down, but old money keeps old valuables.
But in that moment, I was simply making my way to the south of the slum districts. As I'm sure you know, slums are a great boon to smugglers. Not only is it hard to find shit in there, but there is also a lot of shit that can be hidden. People also don't ask questions either, so you can gut a guy without getting much attention.
It was a good place to set up a base of operations and continue to gain information about whatever topics are needed.
The rendezvous was a normal looking building, brown walls and tiling, nothing out of the ordinary. There were too many like it around to count, and making my way their sans the use of roof running was a challenge due to the amount of interlinking alleyways that made moving through the concrete jungle difficult. High walls of 2/3 storied houses connected together nearly wall to wall made for an oppressive sight, shadows cast below, stretching down the walls like a blackened tendril of shadowed deceit.
It wasn't uncommon to hear about stabbings around ne'er every street during my stay, though almost trivial to the common man was the attacks in the alleyways of the slums, the lack of any police permitting robberies and assault.
I reached the point, felt some aimless trepidation, as I did nothing with it, and walked in.
I was early, but the meeting's time was variable, and I wanted to be punctual. It didn't occur to me that the guy would be in another meeting.
When I heard the voices, it was unexpected, yet I recovered well enough. They were talking about this or that, but I decided to take a closer look, a mistake, I should have just listened in, would have given me more information.
Instead, I got closer, peering through the slight gap in the door.
I saw the agent or whatever, but the important thing was 4 Stone nin facing him.
Well, that was a problem.
For a moment I was paralyzed with fear, which lasted long enough for a Stone ninja to come up from behind and discover me. That was unlucky, but it was still stupid of me to not suspect a 5th and freeze up like that.
Regardless, he decided to attack straight away, which was a much bigger mistake. I wasn't really anywhere close to a full jonin back then, but a Tokubetsu was a Tokubetsu, and in that moment I was very fucking special.
As he got close enough to attack, the ninja thrust out a jab at my head, clearly expecting the 'civilian' spying to be an easy target. He barely had time to realise his mistake, as I deflected the jab to the side, then hit his chest twice rapidly, before finally taking him out with an elbow bash to the face.
Looking to my right at the room next to me, I noticed a kunai had been thrown into the agent's neck, and the remaining three were standing aggressively in the middle of the room.
And just in time I realised three was one too less and rolled back as the remaining nin thrust down at my former position. He attempted to continue, slashing upwards where I found an opening, smashing a fist into his ribs. He attempted to kick at me as he fell back, yet I blocked it with my own leg, before smashing my knee into the same rib I had hit earlier, then again and again.
His ally attempted to help, coming from behind and throwing a wide blow. I ducked under and turned, kicking him in the stomach and pushing him back, where I turned and hit the other man a few more times. The other ran towards me again and so I spartan kicked him away once more, turning and roundhouse kicking the other in the face, before using the momentum to leap in a spinning reverse roundhouse hitting the ninja with enough force right in the face to shatter his jaw and leave pieces of broken teeth scattered on the floor.
Landing from the kick, a kunoichi tackled me, bringing me a few steps back until I slammed my elbow into her spine, then kneed her stomach releasing her hold, giving me the opportunity to lift her up and powerbomb her into the ground, shattering through the weak floor below and plunging us further into the complex. Whilst falling I flipped again, using the momentum to slam her down again with even more force, completely destroying her spine.
So, good. 3 down, I looked around trying to find the last two.
Of course, I was fighting Stone nin. On the ground floor.
They came through the earth, the one in front springing out with a stationary drop kick, the impact making me stumble back, where the one behind tripped me by swiping my leg. I flipped onto my hands, springing back into a standing position where I was set upon by a flurry of blows, me quickly parrying and countering them, dishing out my own periodically, as fist dashed past one another so fast only after images remained. Blows got through bit by bit, harrying his defences.
Another nin attacked from behind, where I had to disengage and thrown a blow their way, where the previous ninja grabbed me from behind. In retaliation, I smashed the back of my head into his nose, once, twice, then he let go. This allowed me to rush towards the frontal Stone nin, committing to a jumping kick which landed in his guard, then attacking with a couple of overhead strikes, then kneeing him in the ribs as I landed.
I turned and kicked at the now recovered bloody nosed shinobi, who caught my leg and twisted me around, throwing me on the ground towards his partner, where I rolled into him, getting caught in a grip whilst the other attacker rushed towards me with a kunai. I stopped the thrust by lifting my legs up and catching the kunai with my boots, repeating for the next 3 stabs sent my way before drop kicking him in the already broken nose. I used the momentum of that kick to flip upwards over my previous capturer, and gripped his hips, German suplexing him over my head, smashing his spine into the concrete ground, creating spiderweb fractures in more than just the ground.
I twisted my legs into a standing position where the kunai user was once again rushing me, tears in his eye from his now permanently disrupted nose. I simply grabbed the kunai from his thrust, and shoved it into his own neck, the blade never leaving his hand. I then grabbed it and threw it at the downed nin, extracting a scream of pain.
I then ran over, kicking the bade even further in, then I mounted the weakened ninja and smashed him in the face several times with my elbows, then taking the kunai, ripping it out and stabbing him with it over and over again.
Then I rolled off him, knife still in hand, and took a moment to breath.
I didn't expect to kill 5 ninja that day. And I had still only killed 2.
I picked myself up, walked over to the unconscious kunoichi, and sluggishly stabbed her in the throat, killing her instantly.
I jumped up to the above floor, dodging a hasty attack and retaliating with a slash to the neck, then a stab through the ribs.
I looked over to the left, seeing the guy with his jaw broken had already bled out.
I sighed. I was tired already.
I walked into the room, the already fucked up looking place even more disorderly, random shit scattered about. The agent was there, hand clutched to the side of his neck and crawling with one hand towards the window.
I simply walked up to him. The slow thud of my dust covered boots alerted him to me, as he turned and looked at me.
I was standing tall and above him, having to look down to see his upward face. He lifted his head up and grinned, pain and anguish filled, yet a grin nonetheless.
"You. You're that kid, Takai. You came a little earlier than you were supposed to, little ninja."
I told him I was actually old for a ninja, and he laughed.
"Haha, of course. You're dead, you know that. They won't stop trying to kill you, and Nezu will kill you himself when he finds out what you did. This entire city will be looking for you, you fucking idiot. We could have worked together, but you ruined it. Punctuality killed me."
No, I killed him.
I ripped his neck open with my bare hands, and he bled out.
I checked the bodies, each of them dead and no information.
And then I made a plan.
…
Nezu opened the door to his office to me with (what was the guy's name, Shin?) hoisted on my shoulder.
He looked at me shocked, opened his mouth, and asked, not yelled;
"What fucking happened?"
So I continued my plan.
Accordingly, a contingent of Stone nin had been meeting with Shin over here. Some deal or information exchange or whatever. The details aren't really important, and I wouldn't have known them anyway, the newcomer I was to the situation after all.
Essentially a Leaf squad or something had come through, found the Stone ninja, and killed everyone, including Shin.
I happened across the scene, searched around in the rubble, and got rid of any evidence linking us to that whole situation, which happened to include the body.
And so, we sat in Nezu's living room, in a scene that reminds me of when we first met, with the addition of a dead body placed on the floor nearby.
"Well, I can get rid of the body, but my question is, why did the Leaf not take the bodies of the Stone nin. It would cover up their actions pretty neatly, hell, even you wouldn't have suspected a thing from his disappearance, just confusion really."
"I don't know, maybe they wanted to send a message? I don't think Shin was secretly a Stone spy, he might have just been their way in and maybe the Leaf wanted to use their bodies as a physical threat. Don't try to sneak in kind of thing."
I had clearly come a long way in my subterfuge, my nervousness muffled and reduced. I appeared more passioned and hard spoken, rather than the mess I was earlier. There was little inflection that gave of the impression I was lying. The content however, that was up to interpretation.
Nezu gave me a hard look. Harder than the one he gave before. Then, he spoke.
"I knew a ninja once. He gave me a lot of advice on how shinobi do things, how they kill and function. They prefer silence, people going in the night, whenever they are out of war. They do things with no evidence unless they fail, and they usually don't fail. So, do you have another explanation?"
For whatever reason, sweat picked up on my body, trickled of my forehead.
"Well, if it was only one person, it makes sense for more stuff to be broken, and for the bodies to not be hidden, they wouldn't be able to carry them all."
"Yes, that seems probable, though if it was a lone ninja, then they would probably be a spy."
The air seemed to change at that, got denser, heavier. Then he continued.
"Well, we got off lucky because you got rid of all the evidence. Good job, but you still need to start your division. That's the most important part. It's going to be a lot harder, but you still have to do it."
He gave me a reward for the hard work, cold hard cash, and a drink.
I pocketed the gifts and went home.
…
The next weeks were chaotic. I made friends in bars, spoke to shopkeepers, the people who stole from the shops, the homeless, and did tasks for them.
It gave me an amount of humility honestly. As a ninja, we put ourselves above people, believe ourselves to be gods and powerful, but we still have to put effort in. We tend not to appreciate the difficulty of some of these people's lives, the endless toiling and struggling we distract ourselves from.
I was apparently attractive enough and blessed with the mark of sufficient charisma to convince women and girls alike to be more forthcoming, yet men were more difficult. Some were easy to get on my side, a bar fight with someone else or a bar fight with them, yet some others were complex and required attention, like how I had to help a thief in pickpocketing a crowd to get a box, where he took the jewels inside and pledged a favour to me.
I wasn't doing this work for the shits and giggles however, I needed a lot of favours, and I picked certain people, those in the know. Maybe they had a keen eye or maybe they knew another guy, or maybe when a lot of people got killed, they survived, and had enough guile to not tell the tale.
Each and every person had a purpose, either pointed out by Shin's reports, or by others, reporting their abilities for favours or for fun.
Eventually, I had a spy network. It was humble, yet it was powerful. Every week I had rounds to make to interrogate the respective pieces of information each person possessed. After, I would copy the information down to two scrolls, one being for Nezu, and one for me. Then another secret scroll, which I would hide with a selection of pornographic magazines under a tree, along with the report of each and every day.
I knew that if a spy was watching me I was already dead, but it never hurt to be thorough. If I played my role well enough one would imagine me a simple member of a criminal organisation, not a devious, villainous ninja spy.
It helped that since I had no help or assistance, or any prior training for that matter, that I didn't act like a Leaf spy. Spies are hard to pick out if they are comfortable, but what lets you figure them out is their responses to pressure. They tend to retreat back to a set of rules and responses, either due to inexperience or fear. Since I didn't have those responses already planned, my improvisations had to be strong, had to be convincing. That made me seem normal. Plans were made, yet not premade responses. The only people who did that tended to be shinobi or psychopaths, (Or both) and since I wasn't meant to be either, I was acting the part pretty closely.
You could call it method acting if you wanted to be very fucking pretentious. But I don't, so I won't.
The city Itself was peculiar. It had an architectural presence such that even with the shining Fire country sun above, it still had patches of dark, shadows pitch such that it seemed as if no light could escape from it. A lot of it was made from oak wood too, which lent itself to the purpose of creating presences of guile around every single corner.
Even those most expensive houses still had the inherent contrast afforded by the dualistic dichotomy of light and dark, the craftsmanship going into the houses and streets almost made to shield it more than any defence could.
I had learnt that Throughout all 3 great shinobi wars the town had seen little conflict. This may be because of its unassuming nature and its location in the middle of Fire country, yet part of the protection afforded is most likely because of the shadows, metaphorical and physical, which shields any ninja contained.
This may have been why a spy network was easy enough to create, the walls of the city accustomed to stretching to fit wide secrets and conspiracies. Mine was small fry compared to some of the shit that was hidden in this metaphorical, metaphysical alcove.
But I digress.
I had moved from a motel to an actual apartment after the creation of the network. It had already paid in dividends by that point, as the apartment was a 'gift' given by a particularly unfaithful landlord.
Blackmail was an important tool as it allowed me to get things without Nezu's notice or help. I doubt he would refuse me required resources, as my operations tended to be cheap, but he wasn't a fool and wouldn't've chased after Stone for no actual benefit. Not only would asking compromise me, but It would also draw Stones attention. Individual questionings tends to be harder to hear about than a gang going around and making people tell them.
This way I also managed to allow myself the ability to kill the Stone nin myself. It would allow me to cover my tracks and not draw any heat, which is the chief objective of my position as a spymaster, as amateurish as I was.
Essentially, I had created a strong foundation for any future ventures. I was in a good position, with an amount of influence, the backing of a gang leader, my own improving skills (As I had never stopped training, getting better bit by bit), and the shrowd the city provided.
I had a hunch, a big one, that Stone wasn't just those few ninja, it was likely there were way more hidden in the nooks of the city. Like I said before, I doubted Shin was actually a big fish, just a person used and tossed aside, but the more I thought about it, and the more I looked in, the more usual those Stone nin looked. I had asked a few, including my 'agents', and they all said though Stone nin couldn't walk the streets, they were seen at night in the dark, having meetings with people, doing missions, ect; and they weren't ever reported.
The city felt like a no man's land. Neither of one side ever seemed to have a hold, yet whoever did would have a great boon. Clearly.
So that was the state of my job for a decent amount of time. I would get told by Nezu to investigate somebody, I would find out who they were, what they wanted, what they were doing, and Nezu would take that information and absorb it, use it. Or maybe not. I would get paid anyway.
I would get my leeway too. Nezu usually did me the service of telling me what the information would do, which was more of a formality than anything else, seeing as I would find out eventually.
If I was lazy I would have simply waited for the money and files to roll in, but I wasn't, so I increased my knowledge of the ninja arts and my connections too. Having money laundered and laundering cash made you popular with the people you gave it to, and eventually some higher class people talked to me, considered me a contact, not just a person on the street beneath them.
I still wasn't a big fry but they were forced to give me some respect, something very useful when you want to convince them to help you.
I shook hands with a mercenary corps Nezu was familiar with, renown for their discretion. It wasn't much to a ninja, but they could use chakra and most of all planned hits and protection missions brilliantly. As much as the body of a ninja is important, the mind of a civilian can beat it in the right circumstance. We being the scum we are, never let that situation arise. Better that way.
Both kinds of links gave me some feasible power to start shaking things up. I didn't want to do anything big, but instead shake the proverbial tree to get out the fruits of knowledge out, get some information on the Stone ninja who were proving elusive.
Part of me back them thought they weren't real, that they were simply well hidden because they didn't exist.
Regardless, I investigated slowly. I couldn't ask about Stone ninja, I'd be outed, but I could ask about ninja. There are many reasons ninja would allow this, such as threats, information exchanges, and making contacts and spies. It would be advantageous to learn about the Stone from this, but them meeting with me could possibly go well as long as nobody recognized my young features (Which would only happen if there was a security breach, but it was still good to be paranoid, lest I be caught).
I found some developments, rumors and such. It wasn't enough to prove anything, but it resonated with my mind and gut, a hunch vibrating like glass ready to shatter, the bare flickers of light ready to clear the shroud of subterfuge.
There was the faint idea of a large group of Stone. Hidden, hiding, lying, and undercover. The rumors of movements only made sense if there was an established site here, as they weren't doing very impactful things, only smaller, more contained actions. I had little experience with Stone protocol, thank you for that by the way, but I could reason that ninja never acted in small unless it was needed.
Be able to move mountains and you tend to want to, more than anything else.
Guess that's why we've warred so much.
But I digress.
I doubt they were in small gatherings when it wasn't needed or efficient. It follows they have an FOB, set up here, with a commander and such.
So why not just come back to you then? Well, it would blow my cover, could end up with me dead if there was a spy on my ass, and also had the possibility of getting me sent to prison anyway. The info was only circumstantial and asking for more resources just makes me seem weak.
In the end, that reasoning would save my life.
I needed solid information, and so I set off to find it.
There was a kind of underground club, where all parts of the town, rich, poor, old and young meet up, typically for occult or illegal actions. Of course, even now, if I wanted to disperse fake information or scry any rumors, it would be there.
…
[Firestorm]
…
Minato looked at Takai with a hard and close eye. His story seemed perfect so far, too perfect. Though maybe that was hypocritical, he was always seen to be the saviour of the Leaf in every metric. Regardless, he was suspicious of the unerring loyalty the boy turned man proposed. So, he prodded at it.
"You say that you were loyal to the Leaf beyond anything, though not much here really shows me that, rather the actions of a man aiming to save themselves, keep either side from killing them. You put yourself in a criminal organisation, simply to save yourself from the scum of the street. You make reports in case we check up on you."
Takai, still smiling, looked Minato in the face. His eyes were filled with recognition and interest in equal measures.
"Ninja lives for two reasons. Ideals, or fear. They love their home, and so they fight for it. They fear the enemy so they fight against it.
You are right, I did it for fear, out of my life and a fate worse than losing it, but I also had the ideal, that I loved the Leaf, and wanted to return, to help it."
"Loved?"
"You know what I meant. Either way, I have no fear now, I do not fear pain nor death, and so I only have ideals."
Minato looked forth for a minute.
"That is comforting, yet is the exact answer I wanted to hear."
"Then it should be fine."
"Should be. Yet I doubt it somewhat. Call it intuition."
Takai smiled even wider.
"Well with all due respect sir, I aim to prove you very wrong."
"You're saying you are truthful, fully?"
"The most. This village is all I have."
Though it was said with a conviction more than any other, it felt sad, solitary, desperate. If the village was really all he had, what had he lost?
Takai spoke again, smile still etched in his face, its presence feeling lethal and dangerous, unhinged lip's arc on jaw hinge wide and strong.
"I was foolish back then, I couldn't even imagine the depth of what I didn't know. It feels almost foreign, that younger me, the one with both hope and fear. It feels like I know too much, I've seen too much, had to become too much.
That's why I have faith you will see me for who I am, an ally. Because you had to take that same journey too."
A/N: 1st chapter, took a while to make but I'm decently proud of it. I wanted this one to be long, but having hundreds of lines of dialogue without any waffling is very challenging, requires a lot of thought.
There are plot threads that have been planted, hints put throughout the story, but I aim to surprise. Mainly via red herrings, characters being very good at hiding things.
Each chapter will have a major theme, this one being darkness, the way it can cloak actions and people and thought and time and everything. Takai's current struggle is the lack of information he has. He walks amongst snakes and doesn't see any of them, when he really should kill all of them. Every action he does has a consequence, yet he has not enough experience nor guile to recognize them yet.
Nezu knows there is a spy.
Stone know some of their own are dead, and hence suspects a lone operative, like Nezu.
Takai is vulnerable as long as at least one person he attacks or who attacks him survives.
There are many more consequences, yet I will not tell you them yet. As of the present day, Minato, and you from his perspective, are trying to find out if Takai is acting out of a fear for the leaf, or a love.
Takai in present day is pretty big, 6 foot and built wide and strong, similar to Zabuza I would guess.
All will be answered. If it isn't, leave a review, I might have missed something.
Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing.
