Mission Taken - Find the Shoe (D-Rank):

The mission board, like most days, was quite busy even with her father out of town. Temaki, like everyone else, seemed to be looking for something to do to pass the time away. However, the people in front of her as she and Blast stood there patiently (or rather impatiently) waiting to be handed a job were likely to be given a better and more exciting task than whatever Temaki and Blast were likely to receive. Temaki was wise enough to know it had little to do with playing favorites or keeping the more exciting tasks to the higher-ups and in fact had more to do with safety concerns. That was why missions were ranked as it were. Temaki and Blast, given their lack of experience, were likely to get little more than a D rank to start out with - or C rank if they were lucky.

Temaki glanced down at her ninken who was refraining herself from running in circles as Temaki was sure she wanted to do - it was simply something she did whenever her excitement got to be too much to handle - and whispered softly, ”Looks like we’re next, Blast.” Blast barked in response which caused several still lingering about to look over and chuckle; Blast’s excitement always did tend to put a smile on the faces of those around.

Sure enough, it came to be their turn and Temaki and Blast waited in anticipation as they waited to be handed their first assignment. Sure enough, just like Temaki thought, it was nothing more than a simple D rank. To make matters worse this one, as she read over the briefing while stepping to the side so that others could be handed their own tasks, was to do nothing more than find some ratty old shoe. It was silly really: why spend so much money paying the village to find a lost shoe when a pair of shoes cost even less than that?

”Well… we get to find a shoe, Blast. Not the best of tasks to start out with but at least it’s something. If anything maybe we can use it as some kind of training…”, she said softly to Blast who barked in response. The pair headed out then, out of the building and then down the street to begin their search. There wasn’t a lot of information given, and it was honestly beginning to seem like any ratty old shoe would do so long as it wasn’t too badly worn and torn. Unfortunately for Temaki and Blast though what they thought would be a simple and easy task wasn’t so - the streets of Konohagakure were a lot cleaner than most places, so there wasn’t a lot of random junk laying around to pick from: at least not random shoes anyway.

”Blast, how do you think someone loses a single shoe? I mean… wouldn’t you notice if you were walking around with only one shoe on? I dunno, maybe it fell out when they were going to take their laundry to the cleaners or something, you think?” Blast, in typical fashion, backed in response as the pair continued to make their way down one road and then the next. After nearly a half an hour of keeping to the main streets Temaki and Blast turned down between two buildings and entered into an alleyway behind them: their hope being that something would be left behind, or rather a shoe to be more precise. ”I swear, when I’m not looking for stuff I see it a hundred times a day in random places, but now that I’m actually bothering to look and try and find it I can’t. Go figure, huh?” Temaki complained to Blast after a while, beginning to feel annoyed. The dog whined back in response, clearly feeling the same way that Temaki was. This task just didn’t seem to be going as well as they thought it was going to in the beginning.

But, all was not lost as finally the duo came across a shoe lying off to the side of one of the alleyways they had been walking down. It looked to be in decent condition, outside of a few stray crumpled leaves laying on it, and a water strain from the days previous rain. Picking it up with two fingers and holding it far away from her - the thing didn’t smell all that great since the person who had been wearing it had had some seriously stinky feet - Temaki and Blast slowly made their way back through the streets of Konoha and toward the mission board to hand over the shoe and get paid for their services.

Wordcount: 797 / 600