There was nothing as soothing as a warm shower in the morning, something Risu would certainly attest to. As the warm, steamy water caressed her skin, the girl looked at her pale white skin, discovering the few scars she had garnered over the past few months: a small dot just under her breasts, where that bloodelement-wielding Rippa had shot her with his icky jutsu, a thin, but long zigzag line on her left calve, from the bomtags she had triggered on her mission with that stuck up Uchiha woman going by the name Sayomi and a few small paralel lines on her elbow, which was simply from slipping in the shower last week and hitting the rack with all her tiny, aromatic soaps. However, the largest scar, a thick, ragged line diagonally over her back, was one she could not see, but very well knew where it came from, as it was a scar she had gotten when one of those mysterious shinobi attacking her and her former squad had cut her back with a jagged dagger while she tried to get away.

Thinking about the past made the young snakegirl gloomy, so she shook her head, slapped her cheeks and got out of the shower, grabbing a towel and getting herself and her already long again black hair dry, after which she would put on her usual purple jumpsuit, a leather belt with two pouches around her waist and a smaller spandex belt with a kunai-holder around her right leg and a sleeveless white shirt to top it off. Her hair, she just hung loose over her shoulders, though putting a clip in her left bang, so it wouldn't get in the way while running or doing other stuff.

Quickly grabbing herself a decent cup of coffee and a breakfast of some miso soup, a few beanpaste-filled onigiri and an apple, Risu prepared herself for another day on the job, which as she was running low on money, meant she had to go and partake in some missions again.

Running through the streets like some kind of agile greyhound, the snakegirl dashed from corner to corner, avoiding to bump into people, until she reached the administration building, hoping the best missions wouldn't be taken from the mission board yet, the freshly promoted special jounin squirmed through the crowd to take a look at anything interesting to do.

"Let's see...missing cat, missing dog, missing rat, sheesh I'm a special jounin now, no way I'm taking those lowsy, lowpaid jobs," She scoffed, only to realize a few young kids and even some people older than her were looking at her with a mixture of anger or rather resentment and shame. However, the Orochi lady simply tilted her head a bit, gave a short and swift nod from side to side and continued looking for some decent mission in between the lowsy little D rank missions and C rank missions, then it happened that solething cought her eye, as it appeared the military had yet again issued some orders, asking from help from the village's shinobi in a bunch of missions. Risu remembered that those priority missions paid a bit more than the normal missions and as such quickly grabbed the paper from the board, registered herself at the counter to request a fully detailed report on what she had to do and got out of the building again. "Ooh, this one's interesting indeed. A patrolling job, which almost always ends up in some good exercise for little old me. Let's see, I've got to patrol the outskirts of the wilderness and detain or defeat any unwanted infiltrants of konoha. Well that means beating a few bandits if they show up, always good to know."

With another quick dash, the young girl reached for the main gates, asking the men who were in the guard post if there's anyone who has the same report, or looking for her, that they just had to say zhe was patrolling the wilderness at the western border, so they could find her there if she was needed. With a smile, she ran through the gates and went into the direction she had given the guards earlier, just to make sure if anyone else would be willing to assist on that mission, they could just find her at the western border. A big place to meet or rather find someone, but she was certain that if anyone needed to find her, they'd know about the small camp near that border, which she had decided to use as resting place before going off to start the patrol itself. Waiting an hour or so wouldn't hurt anyway.

794/2500

Had it been five minutes or five days, with her short attentionspan on things it more or less seemed like the latter. Risu was bad with waiting, really punctual as a matter of fact, making it so that every minute passing, seemed like an eternity. Sure she had no idea how long it would take for any possible back up to arrive at the meeting point, not to mention the fact she could easily just take this task on her own accord, but still it was more interesting to see how other people managed to show there skill when the mission became to much to handle for a single shinobi.

So she simply sat there, waiting, prying some dirt from under her fingernails, trying to stare as long as she could directly into the sun, despite the common knowledge of the fact that doing so might result into permanent blindness.

She even went so far as to try and give an animal's name for each and every letter of the alphabet, though she got stuck at 'Q', quickly convincing herself a duck can simply be called a quacker, even if it wasn't an actual name, it satisfied her in her quest to relief herself from the inherent boredom that came along with the waiting she had to do, even if it was 'just' five minutes.

"Seriously, five minutes is way to long, I'm leaving right this instant if..." It was just at the very moment that she wanted to leave and get on with the mission by herself, that she heard a voice, not far away from the long wooden bench at which she had been shifting her position from sitting, to laying down and after hearing the voice...back to sitting.


Some guy, with rather obvious red hair, was calling out at her, well she thought he was, but could not be sure, since she didn't understand a single word he had been saying.


"I'm not sure what you're saying, but if you're here for the mission," The snakegirl abrubtly stopped her talk again, trying to take a closer look at the person, who when taking a closer look didn't look that bad, though had no clothing unlike she had ever seen for a shinobi, maybe more in the style of those people running around in the daimyos palace, but less flashy and certainly less expensive from the looks of it. "Eh...ok, if you're here for the mission, could you state me your name and rank, since I dont think anyone else will be getting here pretty soon, it'll be just the two of us...that is, if you understood what I just said now?"

1269/2500

"Pfft," The girl sighed, holding her hand slightly above her head, trying to ward off the sun's rays which shone straight into her golden-colored, inhuman looking snake-eyes, while she tried to take another good look at the man who has started talking to her. Certainly, he was not from Konoha, for she had never seen nor heard of him, which verified his statement that he was indeed a ronin, a wandering ninja, which meant she had to proceed with caution, not telling things that should never leave the village in the mind of someone who did not belong to the village, luckily for the snakegirl though, she was not yet high ranked enough to actually have any secrets that contained information that could hurt the village of Konoha, the only secret she had...was that she had found those reports when she had snucked into her uncle's office a few days earlier, thus for a ronin like him, absolutely not worth anything, useless as a matter of fact, at least she hoped.

Apparently this Nietzsche figure was at the same rank as her, which meant he'd have to be at special Jounin level if he had been affiliated to any village. However, she did learn something new, as he called himself B rank in stead of Special Jounin.

"Orochi, Orohi Risu is my name," The young girl smiled, albeit with a feint smile and eyes that certainly did not fit with the overall expression itself, cautious and rather cold eyes.

"I wonder how bad someone must be at reading if they can't read my handwriting," The snakeprincess sighed, nodding her head from side to side with her eyes closed, giving her a more neutral look than earlier. "It IS possible someone wrote over it, given the fact that it was a mission report that I got at the Administration office, but if someone would write over my name and application, it can only be you yourself, as you're the one standing here to partake in this mission."

It confused the girl that the man had been asking her something about someone having written over her application. That would've been strange and certainly an incredible nuiscance, because it could result in her not getting paid when they had cleared the mission's request.

"I'll need to have a talk with those guys at the Administration building when this job is done, who in their right mind lets someone else overwrite another person's application for a mission?" Again that nod, followed by a feint smile, with Risu's eyes now looking straight into those of the red-haired man. It was as if she noticed the slight tension that had been between them, probably caused by the man's status as a wandering shinobi, which the young spec; jounin reckoned to be a reason to have issues with trusting people. "Really, lighten up will you. If I wanted to hurt you, I could've done that already, same goes for you, since you didn't sneak up on me, I dont see any ill intentions coming from you."

Her hand rose up, as if she was giving the man a signal to not go on further on that topic, so that they could start clearing out the forest and get their payment, since in the end the payment was all that mattered.

"Let's just head straight in, you can choose ground or trees, I'll take the other way through," The Orochi lady suggested, saying that it was best to have one person travel on a higher altitude than the other, so they could spread their forces in time of need. "Let's hope there's at least someone interesting in there."

1900/2500

It seemed as if the man was staring at Risu for a moment, which certainly did make her uncomfortable. Not only how he was looking at her, but also his expressions, his weird manners and his weird language spoken earlier, made it harder for the young snake girl to grasp the man's intentions properly. It was ofcourse easily ignored under the pretence of him being a Ronin after all and wandering ninjas always had some quirky manners that set them apart from the rest, especially compared to the village-nin who always have a part of their village's tradition in both their actions and language.

when he put away the paper he had been looking at for a few moments, his awefully cheerful smile made Risu cringe for just a second. This simply made it more than obvious, this guy was yet again one of those making his face into a mask to bely his true expressions.

"So you're going to be the scout, fine by me," The snake princess almost scoffed, though holding her thoughts to herself. Sure, she could've been the scout as well, but all tactics she knew explained that anyone who was able to hide properly would take hiding in trees over hiding in the bushes, simply because of the merrits of a higher vantage point and better all round view. "Allright, let's go."

She wondered why he had proposed two and three whistles and not just simply one and two, but rather than asking it to the man, she kept silent. Risu knew well enough not to bother with certain idiotic stuff.

While the red-haired ronin climbed the tree, the young Orochi lady checked her pouch with medical equipment, her kunai-holder and her waterflask, just to make sure she had not forgotten a single thing and everything she needed with her, because in troublesome situations, a mistake in your own equipment could very well cost you your life. That was something the young special jounin had remembered very well from her lessons at the academy long ago and would never forget in a million years.

When the ronin set off, racing through the trees at a relatively good pace, Risu had to scour through the bushes, avoid the thorns of some pricley rosebushes, jump over a small stream and almost break her neck when tripping over a sharpedged stone that jutted out of the ground, but in all fairnedd, the few first moments seemed to go pretty well, with the occasional animal sounds, the rustling of leaves above her, probably the only noise telling her that she wasn't alone.

But then it happened, as she stopped running, realizing that there was no longer any sound, which depicted that nature had silenced for its biggest and most threatening enemy: Man.

She was right to think in that direction, as she could hear the feint sounds of two, no three whistles; Nick's sign of company. In the seconds that followed, she could hear metal burrying in wood, flames bursting and forcing leaves to be scorched and drop on the path underneath. However, just while Risu wanted to go up to aid the red haired man, she saw a flicker in a bush, followed by the distinct 'woosh' of a kunai flying by.

Yet as she thought to have dodged it properly, she heard a sizzling sound, quickly forcing her to jump back, when an explosion followed suite, scarring the forest below as well. Multiple attackers it seemed, yet she couldn't see them, but given the earlier location of the flicker of light, Risu quickly grabbed a kunai from the small pouch on her right leg, deflecting two particulary well-aimed shuriken, followed by herself taking steps by throwing two kunai's into the direction of the origin of those shurikens.

Only the sound of her kunais striking wood and a rustle in the bushes made it clear she had missed and a second later, she had to cross both her arms in front of her head to block an incoming dropkick, forcing her to jump back and formulate a strategy, because at first glance it was already obvious: these guys were pros and not so easily dispatched as those bandits from a few weeks ago.

The guy suddenly pulled a blade from behind his back and ran towards the snake girl, who was almost cut down by a second man's sword who had skillfully hidden behind a tree in her vicinity. However, Risu had already been up against swordsman before and knew that she could best try to avoid getting cut and used her flexibility to make a bridge with her body, avoiding the two simultanious strikes that came towards her, noly to jump right up again and form the seals necessary for one of her clan's best jutsu: The hardening mud snake.

When she had created the last seal, she got herself some support on a crooked tree, while one of the two swordsmen jumped towards her already, the second one was too slow though and had been battered by the full brunt of two massive snakes made out of mud slamming him against the ground again, knocking him unconscious.

At the time the second swordsman reached Risu, she simply smiled when he made a cut, her own body replaced by a large branch of the tree, while the girl had made herself scarce into the canopy, trying to find her partner, while trying to imititate Nick's three whistles, so he would know she had encountered enemies as well.

2500/2500 mission complete
336 unused

Finishing off the second swordsman from her new position seemed easy, as she simply moved right behind him, slipping her scalpel into her left hand and making a quick and precise cut through his throat, making it so that his air would be cut off and that his lungs would drown in the red liquid that started spurting out rather quickly after Risu hand launched herself away from him by placing her feet against the man's lower back and forcing him to crash against the nearest tree with a sickening sound.

It was quite a lifesaver to have her medical background, knowing more about anatomy than the normal human and therefor not really in the need of any sort of bukijutsu as long as she could get close enough to make precise incisions, yet still her heart raced like crazy when she noticed the red haired man who was supposed to be her partner on this mission to clear the woods. Even her medical background would not be enough when coming up against a greater number of experienced swordsmen and even though she managed to get away and beat those two earlier, Risu had to agree in thought that they were of a rather high level of skill.

Nearing Nick, after noticing his gesture to come closer, she listened to what he said, explaining that there were at least five more men to deal with, which also made it apparent that a probable danger for the both of them would lie in that group, someone with a lot more skill than the usual crooks they had seen up till now.

"Need me to patch you up before we go and engage those others?" The snake girl said calmly, pointing at the small cut at Nick's leg, which was basically a scrape, but they couldn't be cautious enough after all. Waiting for the answer, Risu already started healing the bruises that had formed on her left arm and the shallow cut on her left upper leg. "If you think it doesn't need any healing, let me at least clean it and put a bandage on it, just to prevent infection, ok?"

She had already opened her pouch filled with her medical instruments and utensils, waiting for the man to either agree with her or ignore the offer. He seemed stronger than he acted, as she could see that he had been attacked by multiple men as well, yet his wounds were perhaps even less shallow than her own, with a few singed hairs, probably from his own jutsu, some shallow scrapes and some dirt on his clothes, hardly any wounds worth mentioning.

2500/2500 A rank mission complete
781 unused

It was probably because Nick was a ronin; a wandering shinobi, that he had no loyalty or bounds to a village, which would perfectly explain his hesitation on trying to find and take down those other five bandits he had seen not so far away. Risu however, was part of the hidden village of the leaf, a proud kunoichi of Konoha and wasn't planning on just letting those five get away while she had the perfect opportunity to finish her mission completely. There were rules and even when she was not willing to follow them, they were what had made Konoha to the current powerhouse that it was in the world of the shinobis.

When the ronin seemed to have taken his time to decide what he would do, he simply proposed to continue like they had done before, with him taking the high ground, while she would do the groundwork.

"Dont overwork yourself," The orochi Lady said, while having a slightly gleeful expression on her face, topping it off with quite a teasing grin on her face. "We dont want you to drop dead somewhere in the forest."

In an instant, the ronin had taken upward, vanishing yet again in the upper echelons of the trees, silently coarsing through them, while Risu followed at an evenly fast pace on the ground, carefully avoiding ditches, bushes and other stuff that could slow her down or make unnecessary noise. It took quite some time to reach the group, but when Risu heard the familiar sound of Nick's whistle, the snake princess simply halted, jumping up into a tree nearby, though in the process making the the leafs in the tree rustle a bit, which alarmed the three bandits down below.

Two of them seemed to get orders from a masked and cloaked person, who with his arms made obvious gestures to the two others to search the tree Risu had been hiding in.

"Not good," Risu thought to herself, looking at the two men closing in on them. This meant she had to react properly and act quickly, so without waiting for the bandits to act or find her, she grabbed two kunai and threw them down simultaniously towards the two men, forcing them to jump back for a moment, after which they unsheathed their swords, now fully aware someone was hiding inside the tree. "Just a bit closer, a tiny bit."

When the two men came closer, Risu quickly opened her waterflask and made a few handseals, ending with her standing on a strong branch, her left arm straight upward, while her right hand was placed with her index and middle finger stretched out, against her lips. Just an instant later, a thick mist seemed to slowly drop out of the tree, covering quite a large area and reducing the visibility to virtually nihil.

Silently, Risu dropped down from the tree and as a shudder went through her body, her eyes went from golden to gray, the eyewhite turning black. She had turned herself blind with her Snake Senses technique, to highten her other senses. Another set of handseals was quickly formed, after which the girl's cheeks puffed up momentarily and she suddenly spewed out a wave of some kind of sticky and glue-like substance, which was followed by the screams and roars in frustration by the two men that had been caught by her Starch Syrup Capturing Field technique.

She loved that sound, especially with her new keen senses, locating them instantly and while forcing some chakra to her feet, she prevented herself from getting stuck like the bandits.

Another shudder went through her body, when her entire skin seemed to turn into hard, white scales. In an instant she had reached the first of the two bandits, who had the bad luck of getting his blade stuck to the goo as well and as such was left defenseless. A straight punch towards his face made him fly out of the mist, bashing against a tree with his head and losing consciousness quite easily. The other bandit however, had not gotten stuck with his sword and despite having been immobilized, he was best not to approach too close.

"White snake style-Bloody teeth," Risu whispered, when performing yet another set of handseals, after which two snakes made out of rock and mud, surrounded and protected with a layer of constantly flowing water, protruded from the ground and quickly launched towards the second bandit, snapping their mauls around his arms, fracturing the bones and tearing the flesh, forcing him to drop his blade, which just an instant later was used to cut through his neck artery, a spray of red blood filling the air, while Risu ran past him, with the snakes vanishing again.

Her eyesight had returned, while the mist was losing its density, nearing the end of the jutsu.

With her scales vanishing as well, the young kunoichi made her way to the masked and cloaked person, throwing the other bandit's sword towards the mysterious person, only to see it being sliced in half by an obviously more suitable blade. It appeared this person was way stronger than those two bandits and probably more on her own level of expertise, so she had to be quite carefull and make no mistakes.

Realising this, the masked person came at her, blade ready to strike and a cold look in the eyes that were visible from close by. The blade made an arc through the air, missing the snake girl's neck by a hair's length, yet this was exactly good enough for Risu to retaliate, as she quickly formed some handseals, with a snake made out of water crashing against the masked person, throwing him back a few feet, after which Risu simply followed up by suddenly lashing out at the cloaked person with two whiplike appendages that had formed at her arms, lacerating the arms of the swordsman and forcing him to drop his blade and fall back, yet behind him there was only a big old tree, which meant he was pinned down and as Risu noticed that Nick had already gotten back, she knew they were in an advantage.

A final set of handseals was her final act, making sure that this guy wouldn't survive and if he did, he could not have noticed Nick yet, so in any case, the ronin could finish the job if her final jutsu did not complete the job. In a single second, Risu started throwing a whole dozen of sharp, sickle formed projectiles made out of water towards the guy, ripping up his cloak, cutting deep in his arms and flesh and even breaking apart the mask, yet somehow he had survived, though obviously bleeding to death if left alone.

"He doesn't have to be killed," Risu spoke calmly, looking at the very spot where she had seen Nick. "But if you deem it necessary, go ahead and kill him."

2500/2500 A rank mission complete
1950 unused

Risu simply waited for Nick's reaction, only to realize that perhaps she was asking a bit to much, asking him to decide on the man's life, wether the man would survive or not was made into his personal choice, yet at the same time, the Orochi girl had to restrain the urge of killing the bandit in one swift motion, so she could get on with her missions rather than getting stuck with this one.

"I don't patch up criminals," The girl said, with a rather suspicious glare at Nick. After all, she still had not figured out how she had to look at the redhaired man nor could she decide on the fact if she was able to look at him as an ally or a foe. "Interrogations should be done by the Central Intelligence Division or by the ANBU. For so far I know, none of us are either of those."

When she saw the ronin put on a pair of latex gloves, the snake girl only grinned softly, turning towards the criminal, bending through her knees and only administring basic tending to his wounds, to stop the bleeding, but not the pain. Only his left arm had been bandaged, where one of the projectiles from earlier had cut through the man's tendons at the wrist and incidentally sliced open a vein as well.

"Interrogate him as much as you want," The kunoichi hissed after Nick whispered to her that he could die within ten minutes. "I'm heading back to the village to claim our rewards, well mine at least."

Having said that, Risu jumped off towards a tree and waited for just a few seconds, trying to see what Nick would choose, before setting off to the village.

[exiting thread to claim rewards and getting set for the next mission]

2500/2500 A rank mission complete
75/75 Strength E-0->E-1 complete
150/150 Strength E-1->E-2 complete
225/225 Strength E-2->E-3 complete
300/300 Strength E-3->D-0 Complete
75/75 Endurance E-0->E-1 Complete
150/150 Endurance E-1->E-2 Complete
225/225 Endurance E-2->E-3 Complete
300/300 Endurance E-3->D-0 Complete
325/325 Endurance D-0->D-1 Complete
400/400 Endurance D-1->D-2 Complete
21 unused