111 CH_4.11 (111)

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Takuma sighed as he knocked on the heavy metal door, uncharacteristic of a grocery store's back door. The sun had long set down, and he was hungry because he hadn't had the time to have dinner— but here he was, hungry and exhausted after a day's worth of hard work, most of it spent outside under the sun.

He heard a pair of footsteps that abruptly stopped. The slot in the door slid open, and the man behind the door sighed before opening the door. Unfortunately, the guard behind the door wasn't the only one in the corridor; another man stood in the middle of the corridor.

He and Takuma met eyes, and almost straight away, the other man clicked his tongue upon seeing Takuma and walked past him, exiting the building with a displeased face. Takuma didn't say anything or acknowledge the man and simply fixed the mask over his face that imparted him another identity.

The fact that he hid his face didn't sit well with many of the dealers under Ryuu; they didn't like to be so closely connected to someone they didn't know anything about. Takuma couldn't blame them, and as long as they didn't mess with him, he didn't mind facing their displeased reactions from time to time. However, if they tried to disrupt his business, he would find where it hurt most and strike them there.

Ryuu's grocery store acted as a front for his drug dealing business. The first floor ran a profitable grocery business, while the basement was the drug shop that racked in even more, selling a commodity with a demand that never seemed to dwindle.

Takuma walked down the familiar stairs to the basement almost every week to renew his stash; it was a bother to visit every week, so much so that he had arrived today to increase his order so that he could cut his visits to every other week.

In the basement, one of Ryuu's men acknowledged Takuma.

"Late, aren't ya, Tobi." While many disliked Takuma, he wasn't without 'friends.' Some people were civil with him, and he usually only interacted with people.

"Work's a bitch," said Takuma, his voice distorted. He handed the man two thick stacks of cash and told him the order.

"Oh? This is more than usual," said the man as he counted the cash, "and you're getting more of the better stuff today, huh."

"Got me a few folks who can afford the better stuff," replied Takuma. There were different strains of weed, some more potent, some providing a different experience than others— people had their preferences, and they had their budgets. Recently, Takuma had found a few clients who could afford the better stuff, and he was more than happy to fulfill their demands because the better quality always had a better margin.

The man took out the produce, weighed it, and packed them in zip-lock bags before handing them to Takuma, who double-packed them in heavy-duty zip-lock bags. With the exchange done, Takuma was about to leave when the man spoke to him,

"The boss wanted to see you."

Takuma looked deeper into the large basement, where a small office made from sheet metal stood. After their first meeting, Takuma had only met Ryuu occasionally̦— once a month on average. Other than those, he usually only dealt with Ryuu's underlings who worked directly for him.

"Why?" asked Takuma. "Did he say why he wanted to meet me?"

The man shrugged his shoulders as he marked some entries into a ledger. "If he did, he didn't tell me. You should hurry, it's already late, and I doubt he'll be happy if you keep him waiting much longer."

Takuma sighed. He was tired and wanted to go home, but he couldn't say no to his supplier. He walked to the office and knocked on the door.

"Come in."

Takuma stepped inside the room and was immediately hit by a sweet smell lingering in the room. His eyes went to a candle sitting in the corner of the room, releasing wisps of smoke. It was a special-made candle, crazy effective at getting rid of smells— one of Takuma's best-selling accessories that he had to buy from another shop to sell to his clients.

"You wanted to meet?" he asked.

"Sit," Ryuu said from behind his desk. He read an old leather book with a title that Takuma couldn't spot because of the faded leather. "How's the business going?"

"Decent," said Takuma.

Ryuu chuckled, "Don't say that to other people."

"What's this about?"

"In a hurry, are you?" Ryuu looked up from his book.

"It's getting late, and I'm sure both of us want to return home now."

"That's why I like you, kid. So straight to the point, it's refreshing," Ryuu closed the book and looked up at Takuma. "I want you to do something for me."

"I refuse," Takuma directly shot down the topic. "We are supplier-and-dealer. I pay you upfront, and you give me the product. There's no need for anything to be added to our dynamic."

"Well, things change, kid. It's the natural world order," said Ryuu, unperturbed, "and if I say I want you to do something for me, you don't have a choice in the matter."

Takuma's eyes narrowed behind his mask. "What if I refuse?" he asked.

Takuma didn't see this coming. Until he had stepped into the office, nothing had given him any inkling regarding the current situation. He would've prepared in some ways if he had seen it coming. Even though he didn't know what Ryuu was asking him, Takuma did not doubt that it would be bothersome.

"If you refuse, we end our little business right here," said Ryuu with a smile. "I like you, kid, but you aren't an easy one to work with. In our business, trust is everything— and there are things that give substance to that trust, which you don't really have. I love working with you, and you're a good customer, but the fact remains that I know nothing about you, and you know everything about me— who I am, where I work, who I deal with…. That's not fair, don't you think?

Simply put, I need the incentive to put myself at this risk."

Takuma felt his heart grow heavy. He had finally begun to feel comfortable with dealing and had built a good amount of repeat customers who were coming back in their cycles, which brought him a reliable income.

He had moved to a new stage in his career and life— however, things hadn't changed much from before. Before Takuma had joined Iruka's team, he was like any Genin Corp genin who took a comfortable base pay and tried to bolster it with a day-in-day-out series of D-rank missions that paid peanuts.

Then Enomoto gave him the ticket to the Ring, another avenue to additional income— which he didn't see for three months, but at that time, he didn't have a need for it, and when the bulk pay hit, he had utilized the mission points to buy himself a new set of shiny jutsu while keeping the cash in the bank to collect some interest. However, that money wasn't given the time to collect as the entry to the Ring's weapons category brought an additional expense in the form of Sango's treatments. With a bump in lethality, he needed support that would allow him to keep fighting and maintain a normal life, but that support was costly, and it quickly ate into that cash pool sitting in the bank.

If it were just that, Takuma wouldn't have many problems. His other source of income was enough for a comfortable life— not one of luxury and indulgence, but one where he wasn't sacrificing basic creature comforts— the stable infusion of C-rank missions under Iruka brought an income higher than most Genin Corp genin.

However, he had more expenditures. Ring provided him an opportunity to improve his combat prowess while earning— other skills weren't so 'giving.'

Improvements cost money.

Learning new things cost money.

If he wanted to work on his shurikenjutsu skills, he needed to book training facilities with moving targets, plus the buying and maintenance costs of kunai and shuriken that would chip and bend after repeated use. Locksmithing required him to buy new locks to keep himself up to date. Working on safes had him pay experienced locksmiths for their time and access to safes to practice on. Training facilities for his work towards seeing in low visibility while fighting with the Hidden Mist Jutsu cost money. New high-quality maps for cartography were costly as he built his collection (and maps weren't the only things he had gotten in the habit of collecting).

Takuma was even learning how to ride a horse on the weekends because no other shinobi seemingly knew how to, and he thought it to be a unique skill in case he needed to pretend to be a civilian merchant. He had recently enrolled himself in a class that taught how to work a field radio for communication and had bought himself a second-hand radio for practice that took a lot of space in his small house. Similarly, he had worked on Morse Code proficiency during his first year as a genin, which had similarly cost money.

He attended the first-aid and other field emergency treatment classes in hospitals for practice because the last time he had stuffed gauze into an open wound in a foreign land, it was overly messy, revealing that attending those classes once wasn't enough and that he needed practice. Those classes were quite affordable, but they still cost some money.

There were ten other things that poked tiny prick-sized holes in the water bag known as his ryo reserves.

Working in the police force came with yet another set of requirements that had him learn new things—the training period had felt like he was back in school with a lot of theoretical (and practical) learning regarding how to investigate and process crimes and the shinobi law.

He had books that the Police Force gave him free of cost, and his status as a shinobi and Police Force member granted him access to the general shinobi libraries and the Police Force archives— but that didn't mean he didn't need to buy new books which he always needed on hand due to their importance. Those books, once again, were expensive.

In this world, Takuma realized how lucky he had access to the internet, where he could access a seemingly infinite amount of free information and knowledge at his fingertips—without that all-important utility, accessing various resources cost money if he wanted to learn anything.

If he could choose one motto to live his life by, then it would be Maruboshi's words that Takuma spoke to himself every day:

'—A shinobi is more than the chakra he wields—'

And thus, he couldn't stop learning.

He couldn't afford to let go of the drug dealing money because it freed money that enabled him to continue learning. The Police Force might have been a big step forward for his career, but when it came from a monetary standpoint, Takuma had only gotten a 15% pay hike from his Team Iruka days— the Police Force had used their reputation, and the current political unrest to lowball their new recruits, who couldn't say anything in the face of the great opportunity they were given. Takuma was one of the lucky ones, the special recruits, who had gotten a pay hike— most of them were either earning as much or in some rare cases lower than before.

He was satisfied with what the Police Force did for his resume, but he really expected them to pay him more.

Mission points might be an important currency in the world of shinobi, but cold hard cash (ryo) still made the world go around. Civilians and practically every career genin preferred ryo because the former couldn't use mission points, and the latter no longer used mission points as much.

Mission points could be used to buy equipment and other things, but Takuma had decided to earmark every single mission point for jutsu purchases— and nothing else.

He had even fucked himself in the short-term by the terms of his Ring contract. It was biased towards mission points over ryo. From per-fight winnings, to win-streak bonuses, his contract made sure it would maximize his mission points. It was good for him in the long-run, but not so much when he looked at the short-term.

As it stood, Takuma was not living paycheck to paycheck with close to no ryo savings, but he cut it close every month— and he didn't care about savings that much as he thought investing himself was better, but that didn't mean he didn't understand the importance of saving money for a rainy day.

Streat dealing, with its lean margins, had finally begun to grow to a level that he could actually save a little bit.

He weighed the pros and cons, and the result told him that the best possible thing for him was to stay with Ryuu and continue. Changing things now would halt his business, tear his clients away from him, and would set him back several steps that would be a pain to climb back up.

"So be it," said Takuma as he stood up. He would build his business back up. "Short it may be, but it was a good run. I wish you continued success."

He would go to Enomoto and have the chunin introduce him to one of the other suppliers under Enomoto. Ryuu wasn't the only one who bought from Enomoto; there were a couple more suppliers who bought from Enomoto.

"Did you ever think why Enomoto brought you to me?" Ryuu asked as Takuma turned his back to him. Takuma paused with his hand on the doorknob. "You've been doing this long enough to understand how unique your position is. Do you think someone else would be willing to work with you without knowing your identity? Do you believe Enomoto would vouch for you another time?"

Takuma bit the inside of his cheek.

He couldn't deny Ryuu's pointed questions. In the several months he had been dealing, he hadn't met a single dealer, no matter the supplier, who hid their identity as he did. It was because of Enomoto's vouching that Ryuu accepted Takuma. And as Ryuu said, the chances of Enomoto vouching for him another time might not work if the supplier didn't want to work with Takuma. Enomoto couldn't –wouldn't­– force them. It was bad business.

"As far as I know, I was the only one even willing to meet with you when Enomoto told us about your condition," Ryuu continued. "How do you think it'll look to others on the outside when they see me and you fall out?"

It'd be terrible.

As Takuma began to rethink his decision, he realized that he was being overly optimistic. His one advantage had become the biggest hindrance, keeping him from moving on.

At the same time, he didn't want to slow down his progress as a shinobi. He was in the Police Force, and from his chance meeting with Naruto, he knew the little blonde was already in the academy. Takuma didn't know when the Uchiha massacre would happen, but he knew it was close. He had to keep learning; make himself more valuable.

"Sit down, kid. If you leave now, even if you agree later, the offer will be closed," Ryuu said. "The way I see it— you get to keep your identity a secret, and I get a little something out of it. Disagree if you will, but this is your best option. You're a shinobi; treat me as a patron and what I ask you as a mission. It's simple if you look at it that way. In return, just like a patron, I'll pay you in the form of a discount on the product."

Takuma disagreed wholeheartedly, but he sat down.

"What's the job?" he asked.

"I want you to deliver something across the village."

"Why can't your people do it?"

"Because my men are known for their association with me. We can't be connected to this. You, on the other hand, are an unknown; change your look a little bit and drop the package at the destination— nothing more, nothing less."

"What's in the package?"

"The less you know, the better for everyone," said Ryuu.

"This has been great." Takuma stood up. "I'll not do a job if I don't know everything about it." He understood where Ryuu was coming from, but after the Land of Frost, he preferred to know more, even if that knowledge later became a curse later on.

Ryuu didn't say anything.

Takuma shrugged and moved to exit the office. It was a pity that he would no longer be able to work with Ryuu, as that was the most stable thing for him in the drug business. He knew that the chances of getting another supplier were on the floor.

Even if he revealed his identity and became like every other dealer wouldn't work because when people knew that he was in the Police Force, they wouldn't touch him with a ten-feet pole.

It was over… he would find some way else to earn more, or else cut down his classes.

"Soldier pills and other medicinal mixtures."

Takuma's lips curled briefly up behind his mask before he turned back and sat down.

"Who's the recipient?" asked Takuma.

"You're to drop the package in a location. Someone will collect it after you're gone," said Ryuu.

Takuma let the room sit in silence as he matched his eyes with Ryuu.

Ryuu sighed, "Are you sure you want to know, kid? Sometimes it's better not to know and leave things behind."

"I don't want to do this, but if you're going to have me do this job, I need you to answer all of my questions," said Takuma.

"The Maiko Triad," answered Ryuu.

Takuma's eyes narrowed when he heard the name. He knew about the Maiko Triads from both his time as a dealer and from the information binders he had to memorize during the Police Force training period.

They were dangerous people; some very not nice shinobi.

Takuma's eyes shined.

"Alright, let's do this," he said.

"I knew you wouldn't refuse me, kid," Ryuu's words along with a few chuckles followed Takuma as he walked out of the office.

Takuma looked up at the starry sky outside and sighed as he lit a blunt.

He had agreed with Ryuu, but that didn't mean he was going to do it. From the looks of it, he most probably was going to do it— but not before he paid Enomoto a visit to see if he could get some help from that avenue before he was forced to fulfill his commitment.

He felt twice as fatigued as before, but his appetite had been thoroughly killed.

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