Mission name: Lifetime
Mission rank: C-Rank [Repeatable]
Objective: Find a shinobi with the same rank and spar.
Location: Sunagakure
Reward: 120 Ryo (loser) or 160 Ryo (winner)
Mission description: Sunagakure has lived isolated not only from the outside world but from each other as well. This mission is more of a nation wide game where any shinobi can participate but it is mostly focused on shinobis of the genin and chūnin rank. By sparring with your colleagues you just might make a new friend.
Mission details: Sparring with a fellow shinobi will bring both parties closer together. So long as you give your all and best, you will get a reward for participating. This mission is for within the Sunagakure borders only, and you cannot go to another village to complete this.

Asuna was not one who favoured fights or hurting people. Sure, it was almost necessary as a ninja that she would have to inflict pain upon others to get what she wanted. It was almost textbook in the ninja world that the more pain you could inflict to your opponents, the more you could increase your standing in the ninja world, since the tried and true concept that ninja understood in the pecking order was might, and if you didn’t show your might, you might as well not have it, and if you didn’t have any might, ninja didn’t fear you, they didn’t care about you, and they were more likely to ignore you.

Some people would have wanted might. Some people would have wanted acknowledgement from the stronger nations, from the stronger people, that they were indeed worthy for praise. Some people wanted to boast of their capabilities. Some people wanted to appear in the bingo books, measuring themselves with the other missing-nin or wanted ninja by comparing how much bounty was placed on their heads. Logically, the stronger you were, the more you were feared, and so the greater the incentive for capturing you alive. Hence, leading to the greater rewards placed on one’s head if they were brought in, either with or without the body.

Unlike most ninja, however, Asuna didn’t think that way. She wasn’t one who craved power or attention. She didn’t want to be known in the entire ninja world as someone famous. She wanted to remain as low key as possible. She had experienced attention, and right now, she hated it so utterly. Attention got her noticed, and when she was noticed, she knew that her father would be tracking her down. This wasn’t the loving father who wanted to find his daughter to reconcile after years of distrust; no, this was a lunatic who wanted her blood just as her mother had taken his.

He scared Asuna.

The pinkette knew she was in a better position to fight him. She might even be able to hold her own against him, given how he seemed to have lost all ability to think at a higher and more strategic level. However, she was psychologically still afraid of him, so much so that it impeded her rationality whenever she was faced with him. He was the Boogeyman that haunted her sleep at night, even when he could have been geographically miles and miles away. She was just too terrified of him. Terrified.

These were the thoughts that ran through Asuna’s head as she questioned why she had accepted this particular mission. It was a simple battle to test their strengths against each other, and in doing so bring the village shinobi, as well as those from outside of the village, closer together after a demonstration of each other’s abilities. In the long run, the village hoped that it would bring people in the Land of Wind together, more specifically shinobi, as they were the number one demographic that dueled each other for sport, and in a much more dangerous setting than one would when taking kendo or judo classes. Truly the nobles didn’t know what they were getting into whenever they tried emulating ninja for laughs, gags, and showing off.

She waited in one of the emptier training fields around Suna. This one had a small abandoned warehouse about the size of a toilet, with several old weaponry within it. She didn’t truly look through it, as being a Kuroka she already had her own weapon, tied to her soul itself, taught to her by her mother. However, she was sure that if her opponent wanted to try out any weapons, he or she would be able to practice their expertise in the department with little hindrance, though they would be hard-pressed to find any practical application for these old abandoned weapons, though.

663

A few more days, Joan thought. It would just be delayed a few more days until she would return to the capitol of the Land of Wind, where she would after three long years confront her mother over the issue of her independence and freedom.

Her departure from Sunagakure, sanctioned at the lower levels without need for Kage clearance simply because her travels were still occuring in the Land of Wind, had been scheduled for a week or two ago. However, several issues had come up, forcing her to delay her return to her home. Chief of them was the Kazekage’s unexpected return to the village, which had taken the entire village by storm when she had requested for an audience of the entire village. Her speech had been galvanising, explaining the reasons behind her disappearance, and Joan understood fully. She could only feel that how she felt upon said explanation was how her mother would feel when Joan herself returned home, though by no means would it be as welcoming or loving as the welcome that Sunagakure had given their Kage.

She didn’t exactly have a set return date. Her parents didn’t even know where she was. By their schedules, or her mother’s really, since her father was just more or less hopping aboard the bandwagon with most of her decisions, bar that to let her go, It had been three years ago that she had snuck out the window of her house, escaping from the second story and sneaking off into the night, before making her way to several villages around the Land of Wind and finally ending up in Sunagakure, where she decided the life of a ninja would be able to put her on the path of helping people and discovering her true place in this world, rather than being the obedient bride of some official in the Land of Wind at the tender age of sixteen or seventeen, eighteen if her mother was generous.

In particular, since her departure was delayed anyway, Joan had taken to some missions while she waited. She had already breezed through some D-rank and C-rank missions in the previous few days, following the Kazekage’s speech which had been epiphanous, and today was no different. Today, she had taken on a mission to help strengthen the bonds between Suna ninja, due to their increasingly segregated nature. She supposed it had something to do with the Kazekage’s disappearance, as the Kage was supposed to be the beacon of unity for the village, and her absence from the village would have had a subtle but effective psychological effect on her ninja.

Either way, Joan made her way to Training Ground 42, where she was expecting to meet her sparring partner. This mission wasn’t exactly something that she was looking forward to, since she preferred not to harm a fellow ninja, but if some good could come out of it, then she was all for it.

There, she saw a young girl, with pink hair, standing as if in wait. She walked up to her and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hello, are you my sparring partner?” she would ask. “My name is Joan. Ishido, Joan. I hope we enjoy our spar.”

With that, she would walk to one end of the training grounds, and prepare herself. She had been experimenting with several jutsu of her own, working on the basis of Taijutsu and almost purely that, but they were as the name suggested still completely experimental. She would never use them on a fellow ninja, and so she would rely on her Academy jutsu until she was able to properly determine the destructive capabilities of the jutsu she used. They wouldn’t do much damage, but she certainly didn’t want to take the risk that it did more damage than they were able to absorb at their current level.

She would wait for this person to attack first, whoever she was.

WC: 668
TWC: 668

Asuna didn’t have to wait long, it seemed. She had only been leaning against the wall of the small warehouse, waiting for her sparring partner underneath the simmering heat of the hot desert sun, especially in the day, when she saw someone approaching her from a distance.

It was a girl, by the looks of it, with blond hair tied into a braid that fell down her back. On her forehead seemed to be something akin to a tiara, while the rest of her was dressed in what looked to her like a blue… dress? Armor? She couldn’t really tell. It was a combination of both, with it seeming like a dress yet with several pads of armor attached to it.

The blond walked up to her, giving a quick “Hello, are you my sparring partner?”

Asuna herself only nodded in response before the girl continued, “My name is Joan. Ishido, Joan. I hope we enjoy our spar.”

“And I’m Asuna Kuroka,” she replied.

With that, the girl walked all the way to the other end of the training field, and Asuna herself prepared herself for the fight, standing straight up while she waited for her opponent to properly position herself a fair distance away. The girl stood on the other side, the two of them separated by roughly ten metres, but that would change very soon. It seemed as if this girl wanted to wait for Asuna to make the first move, and while Asuna herself had planned to be the one to react, it seemed as if she wouldn’t be given the chance in this scenario.

Asuna took off in a dash, the soles of her sandaled feet slapping against the soft yet firm sand, heading directly for Joan. As she sprinted, she channeled chakra into her left hand, feeling the solid form of her familiar Kuroka spear take shape as she closed her fingers around the smooth wooden surface of the handle. Her arms behind her, with the tip of her spear trailing along her in the sand, leaving behind a small trench where it cut the earth, she sped off in the direction of Joan, fully intent on attacking first now.

Upon reaching the girl, she would slash sideways, her left hand swiping all the way to the right and bringing the sharp edge of the trident she wielded swinging in exactly the same fashion.

1066

Chakra 135/150: