Mission name: Deliver Forged Pardons
Mission rank: C
Objective: Deliver forged documents to Land of Earth’s dungeons.
Location: Konoha to Tsuchi no Kuni
Reward: 100 ryo
Mission description: Some of our allies have landed themselves in Land of Earth’s dungeons. We plan to liberate them. Travel into the Land of Earth, find the Capital’s dungeons and deliver the pardons.
Mission details: There are two men that are trying to be freed in this mission that have committed fraud while taking inventory of the Land of Earth’s military supplies. The forged pardons will look legit to all head staff of the dungeon, except the Warden as it requires his signature, which has been forged. Things will go smoothly until the moment butt and the two men start to leave the Capital’s dungeons, for the Warden will finally grow wise to the situation and have three guards try to stop butt at the gates. The guards will all be D ranked soldiers, with D rank Yari spears, and D rank stats. Your two friends cannot help in combat nor can they die. The death of the Warden, dungeon staff, or the two men being liberated result in mission failure.

Was… was she ready for this?

Harue turned back over her shoulder, spotting the walls of Konoha disappearing slowly in the horizon as her legs took her on the beaten path away from the village, with nothing but a small backpack that had two changes of clothes, some food and water, and whatever finances that she had managed to save up.

Three months.

She hadn’t been in Konohagakure for longer than three, short but plentiful months, and she had already been galvanised into leaving the village. Maybe it was that meeting with the boy, Susumu Uchiha, outside Matsushima Dumplings. Maybe she had it within her all along that she didn’t belong in the village, and was just trying to fit in, believing it was what her foster father would have wanted for her future, and trying to hold onto the one thing he had left behind before his disease had wrenched what little family she had found away from her, leaving her all but alone in this world, with only Nikko to console her during her loneliest of nights, when those haunting memories and pouring rain reminded her of how better times in her life had an adult who was willing to comfort her, to rest their arm on her shoulder and slowly stroke her arm while whispering promises of warmth and love in her ear.

Takara had been one. Her mother had been one. Her father had been one. They had all been taken away from her by cruel twists of fate, each time carving a hole in her heart that would never heal. If she looked inside herself, she could still see the wound, dripping with the blood of her mother as she lay dying on the floor, her face and body mutilated beyond recognition by whatever psychotic hunter had attacked her. Every night it rained, she was reminded of how one of the first few storms in her life had taken her father away from her, with the man never returning from sea. If she looked at any parent and their child, she would see Takara’s face plastered onto theirs, and hers onto their child’s, as the two shared a bond that Harue herself would never be able to explore again.

It had been Takara who had directed her here. He had been steadfast in his belief that she could achieve her dream here, in Konohagakure, of all the five villages. Despite it being the place he had defected from, despite the hate he must have held for this place, and despite the many people he must have lost to the hunter ninja who made this place their home, he had ultimately still believed that her dream of being a ninja could be pursued here. He had ultimately believed that her dream of developing the most advanced set of chakra theory the entire world had seen could be achieved here. He knew that here, she could pursue an uneventful life with Nikko if she wanted, but she was spitting on even that memory when she had left Nikko behind, unwilling to risk his life as she left on an adventure that could very well claim her life.

She had left Nikko with the Arakakis, the closest thing she had to a family ever since Takara breathed his last breath. The father and mother and the twins, they had all been willing to accept the unfamiliar task of raising Nikko in her place as she left on an extended mission. Nikko was familiar enough with them that he would heel when the command came, and the Arakakis were the only family she could trust with the well-being of someone she had come to view as much more than just her best friend.

“I’ll see you again, Nikko,” she had said, holding her white and black husky close to her, burying her face in his coat and drenching his fur with her tears.

Nikko must’ve sensed her apprehension, her fear, and her imminent absence, for he too howled in pain, the agony in his voice evident for any passer-by.

“I love you, Nikko,” she whispered in his ear. “And thank you for being there for me. But I have to go now.”

She made to leave, and Nikko lapped after her, nudging her calf with his nose.

“I can’t take you with me, Nikko,” she answered, kneeling down to meet him once more. “You’ll be safe here. I promise I’ll see you again.”

And this time, she didn’t let him catch up.

It was a promise she was going to have to break.

She didn’t want to do this, did she? She didn’t want to leave the village, did she?

But she was going to, either way.

There was no alternative. Her mother’s killer was still out there; the person who had ruined her life so utterly and completely, forcing her to meet loved ones whom fate would just strip her of time and time again. The slavers who had painted a target on her village were still out there, terrorising people’s lives even as she trudged slowly away from her home, struggling with her own emotional ties when they were breaking so many more. There was so much outside of Konoha’s walls that she had to do, and she knew a Genin such as herself going on an extended sabbatical would have never been permissible, not without a mission scroll in hand.

It was that same mission scroll tucked in her right pouch.

To Yachi, the girl who had registered Harue into Konoha’s forces and been the girl to sign her up for almost all her missions, it had been another ordinary day when Harue had asked to take this mission. There was a hint of sorrow irony that the girl who helped her enter would be the key for her to defect.

Now, all Harue had to do was count on the fact that no one would find her. As much as she trusted Yachi, she couldn’t be sure that the Asahara wouldn’t report something like this, even if she had absolutely no reason to. Harue had always been accustomed to requesting her own missions, and these official papers had been enough to slip past the gate guards on duty as well.

She shelved all of her misery, promising herself some time to wallow in regret, to wonder about all the ‘what if’s, when she was finally safe. But right now, she had to pretend that she was fully committed to this mission that Konoha had given to her.

Otherwise, she had her own to perform.

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