Invited Persons:

Missions:

It was time to earn some money. The budding swordsman had been recently initiated to Genin, and it was time to start working, to earn his keep so that he could continue to pay for his room and board at this inn until he could afford something more permanent. Early in the day, the male would report to the mission board to receive his first assignment; simple patrol duty. Fortunately, it was something very easy for him to do. Unfortunately, it was night patrol, third and fourth shift. He would, according to the briefing, due to the recent escalating tensions with Kirigakure and Kumogakure, be placed into patrols that would be increased in the village at night as a precaution against actions taken by Kirigakure no Sato and the Mizukage as well as Kumogakure no Sato and the Raikage.

While the finer details were above his pay grade and thus, he was not privy to the knowledge, he was informed that he, and those else working his shift would be patrolling from dusk until dawn. Each shinobi would patrol with a partner that would be selected based on skills and ability, and would be notified of whom they were working with when the shift began.

As the briefing was dismissed, the Toku Jo, or special jounin,  in charge of the mission advised them all to be well rested for their shift. Any one who was found to be slacking off would be sent home without pay for their time, and given corporal punishment for their actions.

It was still early in the morning, so Kensei decided to spend his time wisely; he had placed an order for some parts that were in need some repairs, so he decided to drop it off with a well known weaponsmith. Upon being informed by the smith that the repairs would take most of the day, Kensei decided to leave the pieces with the man until completed, and go about his errands. He figured it would be done by the time he had to report for duty at seven pm, so he could get some rest. After leaving the weapon smith, he ventured home where he ate breakfast, assisted the keepers with a few chores around the inn It was almost noon when the male settled himself down to get some rest so that he could be ready for the shift.

~~~Later in the day~~~

It was five pm when the male awoke. After a quick meal, the male took a shower and proceeded to grab some clothing he thought suitable for the mission; black T-Shirt over blue jeans and boots. Over the shirt was a sleeveless hoodie. Nothing special.  The young man still did not understand the wild fashions of this time village; the fishnets, and half nakedness that so many seemed so fond of wearing. When he was satisfied with his appearance, the male gathered up his kunai and shuriken, then ventured out of his room after letting the innkeeper know that he was going off for a mission, and made his way to the weapons smith's shop.

Upon arriving, he was greeted by the weapon smith's assistant, who informed him that the weapon smith had to leave early due to a family emergency. As such, all the orders that were placed that morning, were on hold until the man returned the next day.

Great. His first mission, and he was sans his weapon. Just wonderful. At least he still had his fists.

With this news, the male would make his way to the rendezvous point at the village's main gates, arriving a half hour early. As he would lean against the massive gates and wait as people filtered in, he would watch them carefully. The male was not the type to socialize with people, he tended to keep to himself, but would speak if spoken to. Arms folded across his chest, glowing gold eyes watched the world go by as the sun sank behind the trees.

Kensei remained quiet as people began to filter in behind him. He watched them as they came into view, wondering which of them he would be paired with, if any. It was a smorgasbord of strange folks; ninja who covered themselves into bandages from head to toe, even their eyes. Some carried strange weapons, like giant conch shells. Others carried more standard weaponry, like swords and kunai, and even a war hammer. There was even one guy with a pair of nunchucks.

Seeing all these people show up with their weapons caused a sigh to escape from the male. He still wished that his weapon parts had been ready when he had gone to pick them up, but he could not be angry at the weapon smith. Things happened, and to be honest, Kensei should have picked up the parts sooner than this morning. But, at the very least, he still had his Kunai and some shuriken. He was proficient enough with basic taijutsu to hold his own for a while, and his prowess with weapons was adept. He would be fine if something were to happen.

Hopefully.

With roughly ten minutes to spare, the Toku Jo from the morning briefing appeared in their midst, whistling to capture everyone's attention. Kensei would move from his leaning post, and fall into formation with the rest of the gathered crowed. He could not help but glance around one last time, wondering whom he might end up paired with.

“Settle down, everyone, we are gonna make this quick! If you do not know, or missed this morning's briefing, my name is Satomi Takashi, and I will be in charge of everyone and leading this mission. I ask that you take this mission serious, even though this is simply a patrol mission. Since we have roughly twenty one people present, we're gonna be splitting you guys up into nine teams of two, with one team of three. As I said earlier today, each team has been selected based upon your strengths and weaknesses, so that you can easily cover each others faults should a situation arise. For those who do not have one already, you will be issued wireless radios so that everyone can keep in touch. They are already set to the appropriate frequency. For those who do have their own radios, the frequency for this mission is 347.34. Mind you, this frequency will be used for the mission only. Unless there is an emergency, this channel is to be kept clear for those who need it.” The Toku Jo would pause for a moment, allowing an assistant to pass out wireless radios to those who did not possess one and allow those who already had one time to adjust their frequency to the mission appropriate one. As the assistant chuunin came to him, Kensei would remove one from the sets and attach it to his person, securing and hiding the earpiece beneath his hair.

Once the wireless radios were distributed to those who needed them, the Toku Jo would clear his throat, and then begin speaking once more. “All right, so. When I call your name, please step forward. I am going to announce to everyone where the patrol rounds will be. Each Route will overlap with at least two others so that no area is left unchecked – if you are forced to deviate from your route, please call it in. We need to be aware of whats going on out there in the event of an invasion, as unlikely as it is.” Reaching into one of the pockets of his flack jacket, the Toku Jo would pull out a scroll and unravel it.

“Kome, Sayuri!” Heads would turn about, attempting to locate the owner of the name, hoping to spot the persona as they stepped forward. However, Takashi would not wait. “Yusuke, Kensei!” Once more, eyes would begin searching for the owner of the name. Kensei himself said nothing, but simply stepped forward.

“You guys are Alpha Squad. Get to know your teammate; your life is in their hands for for the next twelve hours.” Kensei frowned a bit; he was supposed to trust someone he did not know with his life? Ehh.. This was starting to look like something that would be troublesome, but that name.. something about that name seemed familiar.

They were a ninja of the village potentially; they were skilled in their job, and depending on their ranking, perhaps it would not be so bad. He might even learn a few things from them in the meantime, or gain some valuable insight on how to be a better ninja.

Or maybe, he was fucking kidding himself, and was doomed.

1451 wc

Today was the day that Sayuri got to go on her first official mission. She was more than a little bit excited, and nervous. Very, very nervous. But mostly excited. She had seen shinobi going about their duties during her time in Konoha and had been in awe of how seriously they took their jobs, how smoothly the village ran. She had been delighted to learn that she could sign up for patrol duty herself, and had done so immediately, with the help of kind passerby of course. It had been a mildly embarrassing procedure, due to her not being able to read, but she had muddled through. Occasionally it helped that few people took her seriously, it at least meant she saved face when it came to issues like that. If no one expected much of you in the first place, at least you couldn’t let them down. She giggled aloud at that as she settled reluctantly into bed. It was the middle of the morning and her body was not the least bit interested in sleeping, but she had to stay awake and alert all night she was told, so she had to sleep now. She lay there on her back for what felt like hours, first counting all the finishing nails she could see throughout the cabin, and then going through various ‘what if’ scenarios in her mind of her upcoming mission. I suppose I should bring my weapon, just in case I need to use it. What if I need to use it! I hope that’s not a usual thing, bandits attacking or what have you. It’s probably not, probably I’m just going to have to walk around and check for shady people, like thieves or cat burglars. She had just started dozing off when her eyes shot open as she suddenly thought, What if I fall asleep! That brought a loud laugh from her lips and she rolled over content with the humour of the situation and dropped off to sleep at last.


Sayuri awoke several hours later, just before dinner time, feeling quite groggy and out of sorts. Sleeping during the day was not something she enjoyed. She had done it before, but only when she’d been too sick or underfed to do otherwise. She dragged herself out of bed an uncharacteristic scowl marring her pretty face, and heaved a sigh as she ran a shower. The warm water was invigorating and elevated her mood, as did the singing she indulged in while cleaning herself. Feeling refreshed, she dried her hair off as best she could before braiding it so the braid hung over her left shoulder. She was grateful for Tsuyo’s earlier generosity as she dressed in her beautiful blue trousers and white linen tunic. She laced up her dark grey leather boots and tied the sash on her blue and white kimono style coat, making certain that her tanto was secured to her belt. She gulped down some juice and grabbed an apple before hastily racing out the door, remembering this time to lock it behind her. Locked doors, that were her responsibility, were such a strange concept to her still. With a quick tug on the door to ensure it was actually closed properly she turned on her heel and dashed up the road and towards the village of Konoha proper.

The sun was just starting to set as she saw the main gate of Konohagakure come into view, Almost late again, I’ve got to get better at telling the time. There were many different people milling about. Though milling was probably not the right word. Everyone looked a bit more organized than that. Sayuri looked around at the gathered shinobi and suddenly felt very small, both literally and figuratively, and ill prepared. These were trained shinobi, and she’d barely had any training at all. She took a deep breath and walked into the group of them, hoping that at least if she looked like she belonged there that no one would bother her. Most people had weapons she was used to seeing, swords and the like, but a few had stranger ones that she didn’t know the names for. One had a very large hammer that she couldn’t fathom being particularly helpful in a combat situation. But you’ve never even been in a real fight, so what do you know silly? She giggled to herself quietly, only stopping when one of the closest shinobi raised an eyebrow in her direction.

Just when she was really beginning to wonder what was going on a sharp whistle sounded from somewhere up near the front of the group, and everyone around her fell into some sort of formation that she couldn’t fathom the pattern of. She felt out of place, the only dancer on the floor that didn’t know the dance.

“Settle down, everyone, we are gonna make this quick! If you do not know, or missed this morning's briefing, my name is Satomi Takashi, and I will be in charge of everyone and leading this mission. I ask that you take this mission serious, even though this is simply a patrol mission. Since we have roughly twenty one people present, we're gonna be splitting you guys up into nine teams of two, with one team of three. As I said earlier today, each team has been selected based upon your strengths and weaknesses, so that you can easily cover each others faults should a situation arise. For those who do not have one already, you will be issued wireless radios so that everyone can keep in touch. They are already set to the appropriate frequency. For those who do have their own radios, the frequency for this mission is 347.34. Mind you, this frequency will be used for the mission only. Unless there is an emergency, this channel is to be kept clear for those who need it.”

The man speaking to everyone had a no nonsense air about him. He also spoke very quickly and efficiently. Which was probably a very good thing if you were trying to save time, it was not so good for Sayuri, who had never heard anything like this before. She scrunched her face up as she concentrated on remembering everything that Takashi was saying, and for the most part was successful. She was however utterly lost when it came to the part about the radios and was grateful when she was handed one and patiently shown how to put it in her ear and turn it on. She let out a small yelp of surprise when she heard a crackle of noise in her ear, and then followed that up with a quiet giggle of embarrassment.

She listened intently as Takashi explained the details of their mission, and was taken aback at the mention of an invasion. The thought had never occurred to her until now, but now that it had she was more than a little bit worried about it. This wasn’t even her village but she had grown quite fond of it in the short time that she had stayed here and the idea that anyone would want to come here and hurt the people in Konoha bothered her greatly. Her thoughts were swept aside suddenly when she heard “Kome, Sayuri!” shouted from the front. She paused for a second, not quite recognizing the name Kome, it still sounded wrong to her after all these years. Shaking her head, she would leap into action, moving forward and tentatively lifting her right hand while saying “That’s me.” She realized too late that Takashi had not been expecting a reply when he carried on with another name, “Yusuke, Kensei!” She paused moving forward, unsure now in what to do and started looking around for this other person, who apparently she was supposed to trust with her life. That’s a new one. I guess that’s what shinobi do for each other? That’s kind of sweet actually. She would start weaving her way through the crowd looking for her squad mate, a trusting happy smile on her face.

This was going to be wonderful.

1378

Kenei scanned the crowd, missing for a moment his partner weaving their way through and making their way toward him. For but a moment he allowed his mind to wander. There had been a fairly disturbing dream he had had the previous night, one that was still lingering with him: one that reminded him of this exact task he and his unknown partner would be given. He had been wandering along the forests with a faceless individual next to him; in fact, their entire being had been nothing but a giant block of darkness with a head and various limbs. They had made it a fair bit along their patrol route when they had been over-taken by a bunch of bandits - only, these bandits had not had faces either. The fight that had ensued had been epic, and thankfully his shadow blob of a partner had known what they were doing. The bandits were taken down one after the other until only the leader had remained. However, just as they had been about to dispatch the faceless bastard his minions had risen from the ground - despite having been inflicted with deadly and grevious wounds - and had started fighting with a renewed strength: in fact, it seemed like each time they cut the group down the group came back with double: twice its size each time than it had been previously. This had continued on for quite some time until Kensei and his tired shadow blob of a partner had been to exhausted to fight or even flee. It was at that point that the true horror of it all had started: these shadowy faceless bandits had begun to spread their darkness over he and his partner, consuming them, making them exactly like them - mindless puppets for their bandit leader to use for his bidding.

With a shake of his head Kensei snapped out of the mind fuck he had been remembering as his partner was finally spotted making her way toward him. "What the shit...?" Smiling, his partner was smiling. It was the kind of smile that spoke of trust; trust of someone she didn't even know? A groan escaped the male as he reached up, rubbing at his face and silently cursing himself. It seemed that, unless he was reading the signals wrong, he and this female were on opposite ends of the spectrum. He had a rather great deal of trouble entrusting his life with a perfect and complete stranger, where as this female was giving off the vibe as if that was no issue at all.

Forcing himself to move beyond her smile he finally took in the rest of her attire: a kimono style coat, blue trousers, and boots. But it was not her clothing he focused long on, it was the weapon with her; something which gave him a bit of hope that he'd been lacking up unto that moment. Maybe he would not be as doomed as he thought he would be. "Kome, Sayuri?", he would inquire politely, realizing that despite his concerns with the person before him he did not want to come across as rude: it would be much fairer for him to allow this person to prove themselves rather than to make horrid and rash judgements about them without knowing for sure. "I am Kensei.", he would tack on, deciding to introduce himself properly; they would be working together after all, even if it was only this one time - or hell, perhaps a hundred more after this. Who knew?

As the rest of the people present would be paired off with their partners, the Toku Jo in charge, Satomi Takashi, would speak again, addressing everyone present. “Now that everyone has had a change to meet their teammates, lets get this underway. Alpha team, you are taking the market district. You will be a bit closer to the command post than the rest on account of your ranks. If something happens, you will be runners for me. You will head straight to the Jounin stand by station, and alert the attendant.”

Kensei would nod them, showing that he understood his role in the hierarchy. It seemed that this man knew what he was doing; Kensei himself was only a genin [not even properly trained and freshly minted at that], and he came to the conclusion that Nana herself was one as well, given what Satomi Takashi said about 'Given your ranks'. It would make sense to send the most skilled in tracking and patrols out to the front lines, and leave those who were a bit newer a bit closer to home for the easier tasks.

He was not about to argue with this decision.

When the Toku Jo was done assigning the squads their patrol routes, Kensei would turn in the direction of thiers and set off, walking at a decent pace. He had all night, and there was a coffee shop in the district that he wanted to stop it. He had forgotten to prepare some kind of snack or drink for the night, and figured it would be easiest to stop somewhere early in the shift to grab something. It would take about ten minutes to reach the district from their current location.

"Shall we start, then?", he would say after a moments pause; he did not want to be the last pair standing around as everyone else had already begun to disperse to their various sectors and duties, plus he had a general dislike for wasting time - he was getting paid to perform a job so that is what he intended to do. Were his partner to show no issue with this he would head off at a decent pace toward where they'd be patrolling, taking note of the darkness around them more out of habit then any type of worry of the things that went bump in the night. He had never been afraid of the dark, and he was not about to start being so now.

Kensei's pace was kept decent, fast but not too fast - keeping a good pace for the patrol without being too slow to where it was taking forever or so fast that he would miss something important. After several minutes at this pace he would come to a stop, a noise off to the left - something touching one of the metal garbage cans along the street - causing him to pause. However, before he could even head over to investigate a fairly filthy and stench ridden cat jumped out from one of the half closed cans with a loud and ferocious sounding meow before darting off into the darkness of the nearby alley, closely pursued by another feline whom had clearly been in the can with it.

Shaking his head and muttering "Cats..." beneath his breath, Kensei moved onward; the cats were not his problem or concern. Strays were the lowest thing on his list of priorities to be dealing with. Outside of making a racket the cats would not exactly cause any problems, so he pushed them out of his mind and focused on finding any sort of law breakers or anyone else up to mischief that would need taught a lesson - or that would need at least a good scare. As he kept walking he found himself lingering back to the strange dream he had had: glad that his partner for this at least had a face, and limbs that weren't shadowy blobs. He toyed with the idea of what he would have done had that been the case: would he have still gone on the mission with such a creature knowing what awaited them, or would he had just turned right back around and headed back to the inn where he would have then locked himself in his room and probably not come back out for a while?

Realizing he was bordering the line on insanity he shook his head once more, hoping to clear it of the thoughts of the dream and the fact that he was now trying to dictate what he would have done if the situation were real. "God, I'm losing it...", Kensei thought to himself, glad that his partner would not be able to know was going on in his head at that moment. "She would probably run screaming in terror...", he added on mentally.

For the moment, he pushed these thoughts aside; he wanted something hot to drink, something to keep him awake for the rest of this patrol. To his partner, he would toss back a glance, offering a small smile. As the duo would make their way into the Market District, he would motion for Sayuri to follow him down a side street. Provided that she did, he would begin speaking once more. “There is a small cafe down here... I did not grab a coffee or anything before I left the inn for the patrol, so I could really use something right now to keep me awake. I will pay for you if you would like something.” True to his word, in the distance flickering neon sign could be seen, advertising the Cafe. It was a small establishment, barely noticeable save for the sign out front. As the male came upon it, he would order a plain coffee with milk, then step aside and allow Sayuri to order if she wished for something.

With this done, he would patiently wait for the order(s) to be made and delivered – and being the quiet person he was, he did not have much to say, but felt that something needed to be said, or else this was going to be a very long night. Perhaps this drink would help out alot.

1630 | 3081

~Thread Exit~

TWC:3081

3081/1000 = C Rank Mission Completed = One C rank Jutsu [Two Tailed Sage Mode]

2081/1200  = Ninjutsu D to C

881/700 = Dragon Fists Trained [C rank Jutsu]

181/60 x 3 = REA | PER | STR to E-1

1 Word left over

As Sayuri walked up to who she finally recognized as what must be her partner, through process of elimination, she was very relieved. He looked fairly competent, not overly friendly or anything but at least not especially scary which is something she could handle. He was dressed more plainly than most of the people assembled, black everything, pants and t-shirt, sleeveless hoodie and boots. She couldn’t spy any large weapons but she supposed that didn’t necessarily mean that there weren’t any, she’d seen stranger things on her travel to Konoha. Tsuyo had managed to pull an entire tent out of pretty well nothing, how hard could it possibly be to hide one tiny weapon compared to that? Though now that she thought of it, she didn’t remember seeing Tsuyo carry any larger weapons either, so she mentally shrugged and pushed the thought aside. When the man spoke her name she was surprised, it was still such a strange sounding thing, Kome. Just a made up name she used because she had nothing better and people sometimes asked her for a family name. It came up very rarely but when it did it was still very off putting to her, she thought that perhaps she should have come up with something better, maybe not just the word for rice? Not much you can do about it now silly duck, too many people here know it. And anyway what does it matter, it’s as a good a name as any other. She was pleased when Kensei introduced himself and did not hold out his hand to her. She had held her breath for a second, expecting the nearly inevitable obligatory social awkward moment presented in the form of an outstretched palm, and let it out slowly when that moment passed without incident. She had not been looking forward to having to explain, again, that she didn’t shake hands. Or look away uncomfortably or any other number of the miserable things that occurred as a result of that one ridiculous tradition.

When Sayuri heard the instructions directed at her and Kensei, apparently ‘Alpha Team’, she wasn’t entirely sure what was meant by ‘your ranks’. She wasn’t aware that she had a rank, but upon seeing Kensei nod in understanding she at least felt comfortable with the idea that he knew what was going on and didn’t much feel like holding up the entire group with her questions. She could always ask him later if it was necessary, or Tsuyo or Mitsuo later if she remembered. There were an awful lot of things that she just simply didn’t understand about being in a village, this was just one more to add to the list. Nodding her agreement to Kensei and seeing her partner begin to head off she fell into step beside him, having to move a bit quickly to keep up with his quick stride. She found it quite amusing that the vast majority of people that she had met were exceedingly tall, it was less amusing when she had to match pace with them, but it brought a tiny smile to her face at the idea that she could probably walk amongst them completely unnoticed if she so chose, just under their field of vision.

She was relieved that he slowed his pace somewhat as they made their rounds, it was quite dark and while she wasn’t afraid of the dark by any means it was definitely eerie walking around a quiet and seemingly empty Konoha at night. She heard the noise off to the left at about the same time as Kensei and swung around only to see a small cat, making an awful noise, probably the poor thing was just as startled as they both were. It was dirty and looked as though it could use some tender care and probably a good bath, but it at least appeared as though he wasn’t underfed, the garbage cans were probably the reason for that. Her heart broke a little looking at the poor creature, she understood what it was like to not have a home and have to fend for yourself, taking what food you could find or steal. She’d done it for most of her life and truth be told probably didn’t look much different from that cat when she first met Mitsuo and Tsuyo so many months ago. She let out a small and sad sigh as the cat bounded away followed closely by yet another ball of fur in a similar state of distress. “Poor things. . . “ She shook her head as she turned and followed after Kensei, who seemed less than impressed with the clatter that the racing felines had made.

The night wore on uneventfully, and as she walked Sayuri grew more and more tired. This was not the first time she had walked all through the night, but it was the first time in a very long while. She thought back to her time spent wandering about along the border of the land of fire and the land of lightning. There had been many a night where it was too dangerous to settle down in one spot, either there was a storm or there were too many people about that might discover her newest hiding spot. Walking through a blizzard or a thunderstorm, while a truly terrible idea, had honestly seemed like the better alternative. And in retrospect it had turned out to actually be the better option in the end. Now though, after spending so long living comfortably, with a warm bed every night, and hot food whenever she wished it she had grown accustomed to luxurious living and a yawn crept from deep within her belly and overtook her. She had reached the point of tiredness where the packed earth that they were walking on was beginning to look like a very comfortable place to sleep and she could feel her eyes starting to droop just as Kensei mentioned getting a coffee. She was not entirely sure that she would like coffee, she had only smelled it before but at least a change of scenery would help wake her up. So she nodded sleepily before replying, “Sure that sounds great, I’ll probably just get some tea, I’ve never tried coffee. Thank you very much though, I was definitely falling asleep.” She would laugh quietly as she spoke and followed after Kensei to the coffee shop, at least she assumed that was what it was. There was as brightly lit sign with some writing on it that for all she knew said ‘Monster Dentist’, but Kensei seemed to perk up upon seeing it and went inside. She ordered a Genmaicha tea and held it carefully in the paper cup she was handed, trying not to burn her fingers. She sipped carefully on the tea, enjoying the delicate flavour of the brown rice that always brought back happy memories of her childhood, and walked with Kensei out to finish their patrol duty. The night now less cold and her less sleepy, it didn’t seem so very long at all.

{Exit Thread}

1202/2554

1000/1000 = C-Rank Mission Complete

REA C-0 > C-2: 1175 words + 225 Ryo

379 words left over