Mission Name: Festival Security: Cat Burglar
Rank:  EVENT
Objective: Hunt down the Nekomata who has been stealing Ryo from the festival goers.
Location: Namahage Festival.
Reward:  10 Tickets
Mission description: Nekomata are catlike yokai who can assume the forms of humans in order to better mingle with the populace. However they are intensely kleptomaniac and will attempt to make off with Ryo in order to spend it on fine fish and other delicacies. A group of particularly crafty local strays has been taking money from festival goers both human and yokai alike. Catch one and make sure to give it a good beating to dissuade it from doing it again.
Mission details:  The Nekomata thief if noticed will attempt to lead the security into an ambush comprised of its 18 siblings. While none of them are particularly good fighters they have sharp little claws and will bite and kick like crazy.

Hanbei had seen signs of the Nekomata he had dispersed some time ago here and there over the course of the event, it seemed most of them had gone back to their theiving ways, it was a sad sight, but at least now they weren't under the thumb of the boss that they were to begin with, now they were a fractured group, each developing their own bosses and territories and vying for control. It wasn't often that Hanbei felt like in doing a good deed he had only made the world around him a worse place. Plagued by guilt he would find the mission that had been hung up before on a message board to be the same as the one he had grabbed earlier, not being able to help himself he would rip it off the board and give the kami who ran the site a nod, silently telling him that he would handle it as he walked off into the crowd. The issue was not rangling up the small cat people, it was in doing it in a manner that they would stop once and for all... they needed a solution to their problem, food to eat and a place to be off the street and maybe even to live...

It wasn't going to be an easy task, but it was one that Hanbei had committed to, he had talked to the hitotsume nyudo before, but he thought it time to go to those hearty monks a second time and hope that they weren't in as bad a mood as they were before. Knocking on the door of their cafe, Hanbei was politely ushered in by a very nervous waitress. Looking to the monks they ushered the boy in and asked him to take a seat and a drink, which he did without so much as a second word or hesitation. After some merry making, the question was finally popped, one of them turned their one eye upon the boy and asked him in a booming voice why he was there...

[350]

Hanbei would look up to him and with a think about how best to answer the question he would say that he needed to ask them a rather serious question about their temple and whether or not they were the kind of monks that would allow entry to a group of troublemakers that were looking to repent somewhat. The group would begin to look among themselves and talk, there seemed to be some chatter about the matter, it seemed that not all of them were in agreement with the idea of letting in a group of neerdowells. Eventually Hanbei would come out with the specific details of the circumstance, that there was a group of nearly 80 nekomata in town causing all kinds of hell for everyone else, but he thought that they were doing so namely because they had no purpose, other than to look out for themselves and survive, if they had a spare room or two, they could cluster up together to sleep and be slowly put to work in the temple, shown the light as it were.

This pitch, some thought about and seemed to shakily agree on the premise, though it was a big deal, while others were more on the vehement absolutely not train. Hanbei could understand their hesitance, though felt as though, once and for all, he would hope to offer the group a deal that they would not be able to refuse... if he could do something to appease them, maybe they would consider. While not all of them took the bait, enough of them did to overturn the others, and it seemed they would deliberate on Hanbei's task.

[278]

Taking their words and allowing them to think about what they were going to do, Hanbei would look around and ask to have a meeting of the united Nekomata, being the person who had beat their former oppressive leader and split them up to begin with. Tentitively the word went out, and the group began to gather in a single place, most of them accounted for as Hanbei would look to address the group directly, it seemed that he had some sway with the cats now that he had freed them once already, perhaps he was going to do it again. Hanbei would begin to explain what he had likely set up for them, and as he did so several of them seemed more than skeptical about the whole thing, some had gotten used to the streets while a few others thought it was finally the payoff they had been looking for. It was their voices and their passion that roused the others.

"You're not going to have to split up there, and while you're there, they will go easy on you for the first little while, but in the end you'll probably have to work for your keep, but this is a good thing, there are a lot of you, and together the work will be easy and bring you even closer together. So, what do the lot of you say? if i can get this deal for you, will you promise to give it an honest go?" Words began to be whispered around before cats would begin to nod and agree... it seemed for now, he had called a ceasefire on the festival. All hanbei had to do now was pass the challenge of the phantom monks back home...

[294 - Fin.]