Ruby sooner heard the place than saw it, characterised by rowdy noises and the protests of individual members of either family, both of which were clearly desperate to get claim to the piece of land that would no doubt bring more money into their pockets, allowing them to further exert their influence in the area. Perhaps this was what happened whenever you had two large families within the same area. It wasn’t exactly big enough to be a political issue, but it was definitely larger than what was considered a simple spiteful dispute, and because of this the two families found themselves in the awkward position of having insufficient influential voices telling them to quell their arguments, while also having sufficient voices telling them that an all out conflict between the two families would not just be economically detrimental to their family members, but also vastly costly in terms of their lives. No one wanted to be part of a small skirmish, and since it was simple a few plots of land that were being argued over, no one felt the need to let things escalate to that point, lest they reach a point where they all regretted but could not come back from.
Shouldering her way past most of the crowd, Ruby endured most of the weird glances and stares she got from the people. Here she was, a random sixteen-year-old girl trying to move her way into the protests rather than out of it, eager to find some form of safe haven for when things eventually devolved into an all-out melee between the two sides. Ruby herself wasn’t particularly worried; she was sure she had enough skill to escape relatively unscathed if the two sides actually did begin a brutal free-for-all, but so long as it hadn’t yet reached that point, she still had to stick to her mission to deliver the blueprints which now rested in her ninja pouch, checked every once in awhile with her left hand guarding it in case anyone had any funny ideas about trying to snatch it from her again, just like the little boy from the Rudaku clan. Speaking of which, she kept in mind that she would have a word with the father about being easier on his child, for his running away had pointed out evidently to the slight to significant abuse his father must have put him through to have inspired in him such fear, while also reinforcing a word or two about trying to hinder a ninja’s duties. Granted, she wasn’t a member of Iwagakure’s forces and so that technically made her free meal for them, but attacking a ninja in general was a bad idea, since Iwagakure itself would’ve been reflected badly upon, and no one wanted that, especially not these two families, whose exports would be all but ruined if word got out that they tried to sabotage their own village’s operations, much less other villages’ by sending out questionable and what was essentially unchecked farm produce.
“Hello?” she squeaked amongst the crowd. “Hello?”
The two heads, however, at the middle refused to hear her. Or, maybe they couldn’t hear her across all the chanting that they were doing, and Ruby forced her way between two men, before being squished by their large bodies again in a very uncomfortable situation, before forcing herself ever closer to the crowd. These two families were huge! There had to be at least a hundred people present, and that was likely not even the entire extent of their family. Surely people had to continue working, and as most of the people she saw here were men, she also wondered where the other half of the population was at; some men also had to be at work, while taking the children into account would lead the numbers of each family individually ranging up to around three hundred people, maybe even four hundred, which surprised her greatly. Or, maybe it came as little surprise, since she was speaking about two families who individually ran large industrial farms and made profits that almost equalled to half of those made by actual corporate companies. What they failed to earn often was due to the lack of any advanced company strategies and outsourcing that occurred with those companies, preferring profits over reducing others’ profits to boost theirs by a relative scale. The last one was likely what she saw here, especially as the arguments got louder and louder.
“And we’re saying we own this piece of land!” came a gruff voice.
“And we’re saying that we own this piece of land!” came a surprisingly feminine voice.
She heard an old man mumble something, and the two sides got louder as each head screamed something at the other, accusing the other of sabotaging the ninja who attempted to come here. True as it was though, Ruby waved her hand, getting the attention of the old man sitting between the female and male who likely acted as the heads of the Uchaka and Rudaku families respectively. The two seemed locked in an argument of their own, not really noticing the girl dressed in red and black with red highlights in her hair waving vigorously at them as she finally cleared the crowd and walked up to the table.
“Sorry! I got held up!” she apologised. However, she didn’t reveal the reasoning that it had been a Rudaku child that had tried to sabotage her, aware that any such news was likely to case a frantic finger pointing contest between the two already aggressive groups, likely setting ablaze the already very volatile situation. Reaching behind her, hidden underneath her cloak, she withdrew both scrolls, and in what was seemingly an unprofessional sight, she looked through both before handing the second one to the now silent clan leaders, looking slightly embarrassed at the lack of professionalism she displayed. The man, the head of the Rudaku clan (although now that she thought about it that claim could also have been fabricated to put the blame on the Rudaku when the child had come from the Uchaka, to tip the side in the Uchaka’s favour by smearing the Rudaku name, even if she doubted that was possibly with such an innocent-looking child who’d displayed what she believed were genuine tears of fright when he’d sprinted from the area) accepted the paper, before looking outraged that the line clearly showed the Uchaka gaining legal authority over the disputed piece of land. He threw the piece of paper down and walked back to the crowd, who made way for their family head before parting, most of whom followed him amidst the cheers that went up amongst the Uchaka. The applause was deafening as a hundred or so people realised that they were right, and to them perhaps, that justice had shone through.
“Thank you,” the woman, in her late-thirties, Ruby thought, said in gratitude, standing up from her position at the round table, made of wood, polished in some areas with the shine lost in some others, likely due to old age. Who knew how long this table had already existed, though if it was traditionally passed down, she could understand why they used it for as sensitive a meeting as this. She took Ruby’s hand with a scarred and tan one of her own, and Ruby simply shook it dumbfoundedly, having expected a little more than the man grumpily walking off. After all, he’d sent what was likely his son (if his story was to be believed, and Ruby felt a bit sorry for the boy so she sort of did leaned towards believing his story, even if the possibility of doubt was there in very small and miniscule and probably negligible amounts to some but definitely not so to her) to steal the deed to the land that these two large families shared, so Ruby had been half-expecting something more than a simple walkaway from him and his group. Perhaps a riot or some sort? Or maybe that was just the child in her hoping for something more than a simple walkaway so that she could claim to be a hero of sorts; Ruby was aware she was slightly naive in that way, but naivety was something important if anyone were to have hope.
“Can I interest you in some tea?” the woman asked, and Ruby shook her head. She wasn’t interested in that at the moment, rather, her mind was on the little boy who she had inadvertently scared off while she was trying to return the blueprints which had assured the Uchaka got the deed to the land, rather than continuing to argue with the Rudaku for however long it seemed they were meant to argue for. Still, though, Ruby couldn’t help but feel something wasn’t entirely right with the situation. The Rudaku clan couldn’t have simply asked a child to steal those blueprints if they weren’t sure they could follow up with something. Were they planning to change the contents and details on the mission scroll so they themselves could claim the blueprints? But Iwagakure’s administration’s stamp was on it; there was no way they would dare to go past that, right? To do so was tantamount to treason, but she supposed that no one would actually double-check it since they wouldn’t be suspicious of the results, considering neither side was even aware in the slightest what the results were, if what she had been told at the place had been correct. Surprisingly, at the end of this thought process, Ruby found herself being dragged by the woman who led the Uchaka clan into one of the tea rooms, having been too sidetracked to properly refuse her offer, even though she was intending on searching for the young boy who had gotten himself lost. Making up her mind, she resolved to search for him immediately after she was done with this small tea party, however long this would seemingly take.
Even as the tea party went on and she was served with some apparently healthy vegetables, which she didn’t like regardless of how healthy they were for her body, instead preferring the much less healthier alternative of going for sweet food even that was probably going to have negative effects on her health in the long term, and possibly in the short term with how much she ate it, but she still found it okay that she would eat that much… right? There wasn’t going to be anything wrong, and if something did eventually and imminently go wrong then… well, they didn’t really live life unless they were living life the way they wanted, and with this in mind Ruby shut out the logical part of her mind that reminded her of all the advice her sister and her father had given her regarding healthy eating, as well as all the tips and tricks to remaining healthy that she had read in the textbooks her parents had bought her when she was young. If she was going to love sugary foods, she was going to eat sugary foods, damnit! And there was nothing an adult could say to change her mind, and nothing they could do about it except serve her the very sugary foods that she wanted! She was a ninja, she could handle it and burn out the excess sugar!
“Here, have some more tea,” the old woman said, pouring her her third cup of extremely extremely extremely bitter tea. Like, Ruby really, really didn’t like bitter foods. As expected, she liked sugary foods, so bitter foods would likely be on the less well-received end of her tastebuds… but come on! She was going to die if this continued any further! However, trying not to be impolite, she picked up the cup by its top, hoping that it wouldn’t be hot as the tea inside it would be, but failing to actually accomplish anything and retracting her hand for the third time that day as she struggled to pick up the tea cup which had somehow attained the attributes of her hated element of fire. She idly noted that her most favourite person in the world – her sister, Yang Xiao Long – was an avid practitioner of the fire element, but despite the irony in that statement, her idea of the element of fire still remained that she really, really hated it. Maybe it was to this reason that she also really, really hated the hot cup. Hot tea she was okay with, but if it was anything other than drinking or showering, she could claim to really not like the heat at all. Nope, not whatsoever.
So, humouring the woman for her tea party, Ruby resolved to search for the boy after the entire session was over and done with. Try as she might, she couldn’t get over the fact that she was the one who had scared him to that degree, building on only on what his father had. Where though, the Rudaku or the village, she’d leave to later to decide, after this bitter tea-tasting session was over. But oh god please have it over soon, she begged to whatever deity up there, for she didn’t think she could take more of this foul taste exploring her mouth and invading her intestines. Her body was made for sugar, not bitterness, and it came as a realisation to her – as it did many times in the past whenever she was accidentally and against her will dragged into some post-mission celebratory haze when she would rather have been doing something else with the free time that she would otherwise have following the claiming of her reward from the mission counter – that this was definitely not what she had signed up for. Catching a little boy had been addition enough into the mission, something that she had not anticipated, but in the heat of the moment it was still something she was okay with doing since every mission needed some form of excitement lest it become a simple chore, and Ruby was against doing simple chores like the ones that her dad almost always had her do before she had left the house on her adventure, along with Yang, her sister, albeit the two of them had gone their separate ways, seeking different types of adventure and thrill, while they were at it, quite early on in their journey actually had this small split happened, and Ruby couldn’t wait until she saw Yang again when they met up, whenever that would be.
Unfortunately, that line of thought reminded Ruby that she would have to live past this tea party before anything of the sort could happen. Attempting to be courteous, she poured herself a cup of tea and the woman’s, to refill their already emptied cups, despite her wanting nothing more of it. It was just a method to be polite, as she had been taught almost endlessly by her father when she had still been at home, something that had already been several months – or was it years? She couldn’t really recall, with her horrible sense of time while she was on the road, as days became weeks while hours of waiting could’ve been mere seconds, and her impatience with maps and calendars and the sort didn’t lend to her ability to keep herself up to track with the day and night cycles and the rise and fall of the sun and the subsequent and following rise and fall of the moon – ago. Similarly, as she’d just thought just momentarily several moments ago, the same applied to her sister Yang. She idly wondered if her sister was able to keep track of the time better than she was, and then realised that her sister, as ditzy as she could be at times, likely suffered from the same conditions that she herself suffered from. It wasn’t clinical, nor was it actually official or formally written on any white and black document meant to state that they were officially or formally sick or afflicted with a disease, but the two of them – and probably her father, now that she thought about it – were more than aware that the two girls could easily and almost painfully so easily lose track of the time, even with the sky in the sun telling them exactly what time it roughly was, with it falling and rising at regular intervals. Needless to say, Ruby and Yang, when they weren’t paying attention to their surroundings, or when they weren’t concentrating,
Regardless, all that was left to do right now was to power through this one small session of tea, although Ruby admitted that it was likely harder than she would have ever thought it would initially be before having gone through this small order, which was actually quite a big ordeal now that she thought of it. She’d also have to delay catching the other guy – the thief – but she didn’t think that in itself would be such a big issue since she now planned to do it the other day, and he’d stolen some jewellery the week before. A day more wouldn’t exactly make a difference, and the person at the mission reception hadn’t been too adamant that she complete it immediately, so she figured she would be good if she waited a day or two – for the record, she was waiting a day – before she actually attempted it, since she didn’t think she would have the right stomach for chasing down someone who was apparently more cunning than Iwagakure’s administrative section, to have been able to slip past their noses several times, even when ninja had been stationed to chase him down. Well, regardless, her plan for the day was clear: find the boy after this tea session was over, then get some sleep, and wake up the next day ready to hunt down the thief.
WC: 3046 + 3323 = 6369
C-ranked mission: 1000 words
Strength from E-0 to D-0: 750 words and 0 ryo
Speed from E-0 to D-0: 750 words and 0 ryo
Endurance from E-0 to D-0: 750 words and 0 ryo
Perception from E-0 to D-0: 750 words and 0 ryo
Reaction Time from E-0 to D-0: 750 words and 0 ryo
Wind Pulse Jutsu: 1500 words and 200 ryo
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Settle the Dispute! [C-rank] Thu Jul 14, 2016 2:50 am
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Hokage: 
Kazekage: 
Raikage: 
Tsuchikage: 
Mizukage: 