1 WHAT IS UP WITH THIS PLACE AND ITS MONSTERS!? |MAIGO| NO KILL| A RANKED MISSION| (and caps) Mon Feb 06, 2017 6:16 pm
Lin
D-rank
Mission name: WHAT IS UP WITH THIS PLACE AND ITS MONSTERS?
Mission rank: A-rank
Objective: Kill the creature haunting the rice fields.
Location: Rice Fields
Reward: 500 ryo
Mission description: There have been a serious of reported attacks in the rice fields, and the body count is growing. go investigate, and if something is truly there. Kill it.
Mission details: the writer(s) will go investigate the rice fields, to find another body torn to shreds, as well as massive claw marks in not only the ground but the person's house as well, some of the claw marks reaching up to seven feet high. Follow the large canine tracks back to a den, and you will find 3 werewolf like creatures, who are nocturnal. If entering their den they will immediately wake up, and attack the writers, if they are not already awake. They have B-2 stats, and claws and teeth that can cut/ pierce 3 inches deep. Kill them to complete the mission.
Lin woke up and yawned, the new sun of the cold morning touching her lips first as she pouted and thought about what to do. The dew from the night clung to the window, casting a kaleidoscope of colors dazzlingly throughout the room. The caresses of the soft breeze that flew from the window in the kitchen danced across the blankets and played with her hair. Lin turned her neck from side to side, trying to alleviate the pain of the morning. She slept on her side, and her pillow was under stuffed, so she usually had to lay her head on her arm.
Gora was on top of her, as per her usual, her claws were half out of her paws, and her mouth was closed, which meant that she was having a tenuous dream. It would be unwise to wake her. Bah, why not? Lin wiggled her toes and Gora’s eyes shot open. She lunged at Lin, her claws daggers and her teeth swords in front of her. Now it was a game. Lin threw the sheets over the claws and teeth. She was flush with money, so she did not care for the blanket. It was not as if her mother had sewn it.
The claws hit the blanket, and Gora, the four hundred pounds of muscle and power moved with it. Lin used the force of Gora’s hitting the blanket to scoot under and 400 pounds of muscle hit the wall. Lin did not hear the shriek that came from Gora until she was safely out of the way, giggling in her devious way.
“It is time that I train with you. We have let you go, you are slow and your claws are dull!” Lin said, standing with her feet equidistance away from each other and squatting, waiting for Gora to strike again. It was true that Gora had gotten a bit…. Soft around the middle but it was harsh for Lin to say that she had grown dull.
Gora spun around, lightning flashed in her eyes, that lightning reflected in the playful flash of Lin’s own. Gora kicked off of the wall and bounded off of the bed. Lin got her tonfas from the desk and put them in front of her. The wood groaned against Gora’s weight as Lin caught her claws and spun, making the cat crash against the other wall. Lin spun her tonfas and they clacked against each other.
“Alright Gora, enough. Get yourself ready. We are going beyond the Rice Paddies. We are going to go train in the fields that have gone to fallow. The farmers there have given us permission. Gora. Stop!” Claws and Tonfas clattered together as Gora leapt upon Lin, pinning her this time. With a smug look, the large white panther sat upon Lin’s lap, engulfing it entirely. Lin looked to the cat, who purred. Had the audacity, the sheer audacity to purr. She sighed, ruffling the fur on Gora’s head and dropped her Tonfas, “Alright, alright you win, I give up. Now get off so that I can go do my morning routine and we can head out past the rice paddies as soon as we can. Otherwise, we will have to do chores all day.”
Gora hopped off of Lin and started to clean herself, a morning routine for the big cat. Gora had the ability to speak, but only rarely. Lin had found her as a cub, and had raised her as her own. Lin sloughed off her clothing, twirling into the bathroom. Adjusting the water in the shower via the two knobs, she thought of when she had found Gora.
Lin was summiting the mountain known as the highest in Kumogakure, as a personal test, and to prove her father wrong. That morning she had been told that she would never amount to anything. Her father had come to visit her, she had just taken a test with the Raikage at that time, and had made sure that she finished with victory in her grasp. It wasn’t enough. Her father had told her how reckless it was that she had addressed the Raikage with such informality. It wasn’t like she was doing something illegal, but apparently there was something to it. Her father had told her that she could have died.
She huffed and walked even further up the mountain, and fell into a hole at that moment. Her foot had come across a paw print of what seemed to be a giant cat. She looked around her, and the wind whipped the snow that was falling into a flurry. She thought she saw two giant blue orbs, eyes as big as she was tall, and she thought she could see a shape almost 80 feet long, from nose to tail in the blizzard. It was feline-esque. Lin froze in place, those eyes fixing her in the giant paw print. She looked for what seemed forever, the wind biting at her cheeks, those eyes holding her in an icy countenance. They measured her, from her physical and frail form to her soul. The orbs then disappeared behind huge eyelids as the feline vanished into the blizzard, leaving Lin with the feeling of a storm passing.
She looked down to see what kind of animal could leave a paw print roughly 2 meters deep and 1 meter across. Around her ankle she found a cub, she was not even furred yet, her eyes and ears closed, yipping for someone to help her. She was 20 cm long at most. Lin took the cub into her arms, opening her jacket and placing the cub there, only her face staying outside of the coat. Lin looked around, thinking that, perhaps, this was the giant cat’s offspring. The cat was gone though, a ghost of something that she would never see again. No one would believe her, so she might as well just tell them that she found the cub down the mountain in the forest.
That was the day that she stumbled upon Gora. Lin wrapped her towel around herself, and even though she had just stepped out of a shower that was probably a bit too hot, she shivered. Those eyes still haunted her in her dreams. She wiped off the mirror, and a look of terror showed itself in Lin’s own eyes. She shook her head. Those eyes were not predatory, just… they seemed to stare right through her. Megafauna were extinct, so it made no sense. The inuzuka were the only ones with giant animals, but those were wolves that were bred for that purpose.
As if she were called, Gora popped her head into the bathroom, “Everything alright?” Was all that she said, as her tail twitched tentatively behind her. Lin nodded and sighed, nodding once more before she said, “Yeah, just was… thinking about the last mission.” She lied, but the panic could indeed be taken as some sort of post traumatic experience.
Gora gave a suspicious look before shrugging and heading towards the kitchen. Lin would give her breakfast at the same time as she would eat it. It was a good thing that Gora was by her side, she could, surely, protect her from whatever that was. Her mother, her father, whatever that giant cat was. Lin washed her face with a washcloth, wiping away not only the sweat that had accumulated on her face, but the fear of that cat as well. It was an irrational fear. Perhaps she had just dreamed it all. Perhaps. Memory was funny that way. She shook her head to clear it, there was no sense in dwelling in the past. But She had felt like she was there again, she couldn’t help it.
She applied lotion to her body before putting on her clothes, a set of Kumogakure gear, and strapped her tonfa to her side. A weapon that she was curious about. She had them appear on her doorstep about 6 months ago. All they had were her address on them, that was it, Nothing to denote who had given them to her, nothing to say what they were meant for, or why she even received them. They had the Guanyin clan’s crest emblazoned on them, and had a symbol for Kumogakure that she had put there herself.
Lin tied the forehead guard, also known as a hitae ate around her neck. It was a symbol of her village. A symbol of her family. A symbol of… Her vision grew blurry as she felt faint all of the sudden. A blade in the night, sinking slowly into her neck, a figure standing over her in triumph as she spat on him and fell from the tree. She jettisoned back to the present and panted, looking at her hands, which were shaking. That was the first time she died. She didn’t know how she got there, how she got back, if it was all a bad dream like her father told her again and again it was, but it felt real. Her hands tenderly probed her neck for a wound that wasn’t there.
Maigo was in the village now. He was proof that she wasn’t crazy. Proof that she wasn’t going insane like the medical ninja did when she went into the hospital to see why she was feeling the way that she did. They all didn’t believe her, and told her that if it felt real she had either been under a genjutsu or had a temporary psychosis episode. They wanted to poke and prod her, but after they were done they simply scratched their heads and shrugged.
It was weird, being the center of attention when people thought that you were losing your mind. Her mother was completely supportive, her father became inward, wondering what he had done wrong in raising her. He had held his head in his hands and shaken it. Something that she hadn’t seen done in a while.
Gora pushed her towards the kitchen with her large forehead. That was right, it was today, no sense in dwelling in the past. She reached up into the second cabinet from the top, and drew out two bowls of equal size. Opening the fridge, she took out some fruit and meat. She tossed it into the air and twirled the knife around in her fingers deftly before slicing up the fruit and letting it drop into the bowl. It was something that she did to train her speed and reaction time. It helped her hone her perception as well, and no fruit was safe from her knife. There were strawberries, blackberries, kiwi that had the skins removed, grapes, everything felt the knife.
Next she tossed up a sizeable steak. Gora’s eyes watched as the piece of meat was diced in front of her. Her eyes never left the meat as it sank into the bowl in cubes. The bone twirling around the knife as Lin opened the cabinet below the sink and twirled it into the can. She ran the water, cleaning the knife and drying it before putting it away. Gora apparently couldn’t wait, as she inched closer to Lin, low to the ground, a predatory stance. She was going to pounce on the bowl if Lin didn’t give her breakfast soon. Lin laughed and balanced both on her pointer finger. She went to sit down at the table, and set down her bowl and a pair of chopsticks. In the same breath she set down Gora’s bowl next to her chair.
The panther pounced on the bowl with vigor and took a bite. “Now, we should probably find something for you to eat in the forest, since it’s not illegal to hunt there, especially if you’re an animal.” She pat Gora in between her ears and played with the soft fur that resided there. A grunt was an acknowledgement of what she had said. Gora had been hunting in the woods on her own, but she was getting to the point where there was really no quarry that she couldn’t hunt with ease. It showed, as the big cat’s muscles were less defined than they were in the past. It was a wonder that Gora and she had come this far together.
It seemed like only yesterday that she had achieved Chuunin after being a genin for five or six years. She picked up a strawberry and scrutinized it. Her mother called it the thousand mile stare. A lot had happened since then. She had met a Jounin by the name of Tsuneo, who was now an accomplished ninja, had ascended to Special Jounin status within the village, had grown to be a strong woman. She had died, and befriended a comrade named Satoshi, had trained with the Raikage and a previous Kage in her own right, Gin. She had a lover named Dameon who was a Jounin at least, from the village hidden in the mist. She had met Maigo again, and confirmed that she had really died, and had met someone named the centipede. She had saved a village from multiple attacks, and had gone on dangerous missions. It was a wonder that she had this much culmination for her ninja story.
Lin didn’t have a cool ninja story, one about betrayal, a friend that she was chasing after or a family to avenge like Sasuke or Naruto, both legends in their own right, but she had worked hard. She would surely be remembered by someone… perhaps… should she die. She gulped down the strawberry, it stuck in her throat as she still remembered the blade neatly cutting the tendons and piercing her carotid artery.
She swallowed hard, and the fruit and the thoughts of death disappeared as Gora yawned loudly and smacked her lips. She had fangs the size of Lin’s hand, but they were harmless to Lin. Or at least they were usually. Lin patted her once more and shoveled the rest of her fruit into her mouth. Throwing her chair back with her legs, she left the bowl on the table, swallowed the too-big mouthful of fruit down and made her way toward the coat rack. Now… what coat to wear… She picked out a light one since she would be moving and only in the rice paddies.
She looked at Gora who stretched, her butt wiggling in the air and her eyes closing in satisfaction of the meal. Her claws extended and Lin watched closely as they just barely tapped the floor. There were pockmarks from when Lin was gone, but at least Gora didn’t put holes in the wood floor while she was there. Breathing a sigh of relief, she took her key and put it into her pocket, making a sweep of the apartment before going out in the chill.
People were bustling in the city of Kumogakure, and Lin’s apartment was near enough to the market that she could get there within a minute if she went via crowd, or about 10 seconds if she went across the rooftops. There was no hurry today, and so she stretched in the cool morning air and waited for Gora to saunter out of the house. Locking the door, she turned back around and caught a lot of people staring at her. There weren’t many people who had pets, and even fewer that had pets like hers. Smiling sheepishly, she waved to a couple of them, including Dango-obaachan who must be going to market to pick up some supplies for her dango shop.
Lin wondered, absent-mindedly as she strolled out into the street with Gora sticking to her leg like she had applied adhesive to her side, whether the old woman would ever teach Lin her delicious recipe. There would be no reason to go back, Lin supposed, and perhaps it was for the better, because Dango as a treat was more than enough. Lin could grow fat and happy eating those dango balls, and as much as she would like to, that was not the path that she had set for herself.
“My ninja way…” She mumbled to herself, remembering the stories of Naruto Uzumaki, “My nindo is to become the world’s foremost medical ninja… Strongest isn’t the right word for it, right Gora?” Gora nodded slowly, and cast a glance at a man who shrank away from her. It was not uncommon for people to do that, so Gora mostly snuck out and through back alleys to get out of town. It was strange for people to see her, and for her to see people. She watched them as they walked by the window, sure, but never really got that close to this many of them.
Lin sensed Gora’s nervousness and headed down an alley. Whistling, she continued on and only just heard the whistling of air through a kunai’s eye. Kunai, as everyone knew, had rings on the handle where a pommel would be on a sword, and when they flew through the air they made a particular whistling noise depending on how fast they were going. So the speed at which this one was travelling was… roughly genin speed. She took out one of her senbon and put it through the eye of the kunai, twirling it before sending it backwards without looking. Whoever it was, they were going to have to do better than that to take her out. It was probably one of the bandits that she had been taking care of in Kumogakure’s outskirts. With a thud and a cry, the kunai hit… somewhere on the individual and she heard him limp away. Perhaps his leg.
Shrugging, he got what he deserved. Gora was no longer by her side though, as she had turned around and had bared her fangs and claws in a terrifying display. Lin clicked her tongue, a signal for Gora to return to her side. Reluctantly the growl died in Gora’s throat as Lin continued to walk down the alleyway. It was quite dirty, used for mainly refuse and laundry, but Lin knew this and three more alleys would bring them to a gate. The gatekeepers knew Gora from her hunting exploits so when Lin approached again, all they did was nod from their gate house and went back to talking amongst themselves.
Lin was excited for Maigo to meet Gora, her giant cat, and was even more excited for Gora to meet him. She expected that she would like him at first sight. And if Gora didn’t… well… that would be something she would come to later.
WC: 3144 (so far)
((Need 14500, a note for myself))
Mission rank: A-rank
Objective: Kill the creature haunting the rice fields.
Location: Rice Fields
Reward: 500 ryo
Mission description: There have been a serious of reported attacks in the rice fields, and the body count is growing. go investigate, and if something is truly there. Kill it.
Mission details: the writer(s) will go investigate the rice fields, to find another body torn to shreds, as well as massive claw marks in not only the ground but the person's house as well, some of the claw marks reaching up to seven feet high. Follow the large canine tracks back to a den, and you will find 3 werewolf like creatures, who are nocturnal. If entering their den they will immediately wake up, and attack the writers, if they are not already awake. They have B-2 stats, and claws and teeth that can cut/ pierce 3 inches deep. Kill them to complete the mission.
Lin woke up and yawned, the new sun of the cold morning touching her lips first as she pouted and thought about what to do. The dew from the night clung to the window, casting a kaleidoscope of colors dazzlingly throughout the room. The caresses of the soft breeze that flew from the window in the kitchen danced across the blankets and played with her hair. Lin turned her neck from side to side, trying to alleviate the pain of the morning. She slept on her side, and her pillow was under stuffed, so she usually had to lay her head on her arm.
Gora was on top of her, as per her usual, her claws were half out of her paws, and her mouth was closed, which meant that she was having a tenuous dream. It would be unwise to wake her. Bah, why not? Lin wiggled her toes and Gora’s eyes shot open. She lunged at Lin, her claws daggers and her teeth swords in front of her. Now it was a game. Lin threw the sheets over the claws and teeth. She was flush with money, so she did not care for the blanket. It was not as if her mother had sewn it.
The claws hit the blanket, and Gora, the four hundred pounds of muscle and power moved with it. Lin used the force of Gora’s hitting the blanket to scoot under and 400 pounds of muscle hit the wall. Lin did not hear the shriek that came from Gora until she was safely out of the way, giggling in her devious way.
“It is time that I train with you. We have let you go, you are slow and your claws are dull!” Lin said, standing with her feet equidistance away from each other and squatting, waiting for Gora to strike again. It was true that Gora had gotten a bit…. Soft around the middle but it was harsh for Lin to say that she had grown dull.
Gora spun around, lightning flashed in her eyes, that lightning reflected in the playful flash of Lin’s own. Gora kicked off of the wall and bounded off of the bed. Lin got her tonfas from the desk and put them in front of her. The wood groaned against Gora’s weight as Lin caught her claws and spun, making the cat crash against the other wall. Lin spun her tonfas and they clacked against each other.
“Alright Gora, enough. Get yourself ready. We are going beyond the Rice Paddies. We are going to go train in the fields that have gone to fallow. The farmers there have given us permission. Gora. Stop!” Claws and Tonfas clattered together as Gora leapt upon Lin, pinning her this time. With a smug look, the large white panther sat upon Lin’s lap, engulfing it entirely. Lin looked to the cat, who purred. Had the audacity, the sheer audacity to purr. She sighed, ruffling the fur on Gora’s head and dropped her Tonfas, “Alright, alright you win, I give up. Now get off so that I can go do my morning routine and we can head out past the rice paddies as soon as we can. Otherwise, we will have to do chores all day.”
Gora hopped off of Lin and started to clean herself, a morning routine for the big cat. Gora had the ability to speak, but only rarely. Lin had found her as a cub, and had raised her as her own. Lin sloughed off her clothing, twirling into the bathroom. Adjusting the water in the shower via the two knobs, she thought of when she had found Gora.
Lin was summiting the mountain known as the highest in Kumogakure, as a personal test, and to prove her father wrong. That morning she had been told that she would never amount to anything. Her father had come to visit her, she had just taken a test with the Raikage at that time, and had made sure that she finished with victory in her grasp. It wasn’t enough. Her father had told her how reckless it was that she had addressed the Raikage with such informality. It wasn’t like she was doing something illegal, but apparently there was something to it. Her father had told her that she could have died.
She huffed and walked even further up the mountain, and fell into a hole at that moment. Her foot had come across a paw print of what seemed to be a giant cat. She looked around her, and the wind whipped the snow that was falling into a flurry. She thought she saw two giant blue orbs, eyes as big as she was tall, and she thought she could see a shape almost 80 feet long, from nose to tail in the blizzard. It was feline-esque. Lin froze in place, those eyes fixing her in the giant paw print. She looked for what seemed forever, the wind biting at her cheeks, those eyes holding her in an icy countenance. They measured her, from her physical and frail form to her soul. The orbs then disappeared behind huge eyelids as the feline vanished into the blizzard, leaving Lin with the feeling of a storm passing.
She looked down to see what kind of animal could leave a paw print roughly 2 meters deep and 1 meter across. Around her ankle she found a cub, she was not even furred yet, her eyes and ears closed, yipping for someone to help her. She was 20 cm long at most. Lin took the cub into her arms, opening her jacket and placing the cub there, only her face staying outside of the coat. Lin looked around, thinking that, perhaps, this was the giant cat’s offspring. The cat was gone though, a ghost of something that she would never see again. No one would believe her, so she might as well just tell them that she found the cub down the mountain in the forest.
That was the day that she stumbled upon Gora. Lin wrapped her towel around herself, and even though she had just stepped out of a shower that was probably a bit too hot, she shivered. Those eyes still haunted her in her dreams. She wiped off the mirror, and a look of terror showed itself in Lin’s own eyes. She shook her head. Those eyes were not predatory, just… they seemed to stare right through her. Megafauna were extinct, so it made no sense. The inuzuka were the only ones with giant animals, but those were wolves that were bred for that purpose.
As if she were called, Gora popped her head into the bathroom, “Everything alright?” Was all that she said, as her tail twitched tentatively behind her. Lin nodded and sighed, nodding once more before she said, “Yeah, just was… thinking about the last mission.” She lied, but the panic could indeed be taken as some sort of post traumatic experience.
Gora gave a suspicious look before shrugging and heading towards the kitchen. Lin would give her breakfast at the same time as she would eat it. It was a good thing that Gora was by her side, she could, surely, protect her from whatever that was. Her mother, her father, whatever that giant cat was. Lin washed her face with a washcloth, wiping away not only the sweat that had accumulated on her face, but the fear of that cat as well. It was an irrational fear. Perhaps she had just dreamed it all. Perhaps. Memory was funny that way. She shook her head to clear it, there was no sense in dwelling in the past. But She had felt like she was there again, she couldn’t help it.
She applied lotion to her body before putting on her clothes, a set of Kumogakure gear, and strapped her tonfa to her side. A weapon that she was curious about. She had them appear on her doorstep about 6 months ago. All they had were her address on them, that was it, Nothing to denote who had given them to her, nothing to say what they were meant for, or why she even received them. They had the Guanyin clan’s crest emblazoned on them, and had a symbol for Kumogakure that she had put there herself.
Lin tied the forehead guard, also known as a hitae ate around her neck. It was a symbol of her village. A symbol of her family. A symbol of… Her vision grew blurry as she felt faint all of the sudden. A blade in the night, sinking slowly into her neck, a figure standing over her in triumph as she spat on him and fell from the tree. She jettisoned back to the present and panted, looking at her hands, which were shaking. That was the first time she died. She didn’t know how she got there, how she got back, if it was all a bad dream like her father told her again and again it was, but it felt real. Her hands tenderly probed her neck for a wound that wasn’t there.
Maigo was in the village now. He was proof that she wasn’t crazy. Proof that she wasn’t going insane like the medical ninja did when she went into the hospital to see why she was feeling the way that she did. They all didn’t believe her, and told her that if it felt real she had either been under a genjutsu or had a temporary psychosis episode. They wanted to poke and prod her, but after they were done they simply scratched their heads and shrugged.
It was weird, being the center of attention when people thought that you were losing your mind. Her mother was completely supportive, her father became inward, wondering what he had done wrong in raising her. He had held his head in his hands and shaken it. Something that she hadn’t seen done in a while.
Gora pushed her towards the kitchen with her large forehead. That was right, it was today, no sense in dwelling in the past. She reached up into the second cabinet from the top, and drew out two bowls of equal size. Opening the fridge, she took out some fruit and meat. She tossed it into the air and twirled the knife around in her fingers deftly before slicing up the fruit and letting it drop into the bowl. It was something that she did to train her speed and reaction time. It helped her hone her perception as well, and no fruit was safe from her knife. There were strawberries, blackberries, kiwi that had the skins removed, grapes, everything felt the knife.
Next she tossed up a sizeable steak. Gora’s eyes watched as the piece of meat was diced in front of her. Her eyes never left the meat as it sank into the bowl in cubes. The bone twirling around the knife as Lin opened the cabinet below the sink and twirled it into the can. She ran the water, cleaning the knife and drying it before putting it away. Gora apparently couldn’t wait, as she inched closer to Lin, low to the ground, a predatory stance. She was going to pounce on the bowl if Lin didn’t give her breakfast soon. Lin laughed and balanced both on her pointer finger. She went to sit down at the table, and set down her bowl and a pair of chopsticks. In the same breath she set down Gora’s bowl next to her chair.
The panther pounced on the bowl with vigor and took a bite. “Now, we should probably find something for you to eat in the forest, since it’s not illegal to hunt there, especially if you’re an animal.” She pat Gora in between her ears and played with the soft fur that resided there. A grunt was an acknowledgement of what she had said. Gora had been hunting in the woods on her own, but she was getting to the point where there was really no quarry that she couldn’t hunt with ease. It showed, as the big cat’s muscles were less defined than they were in the past. It was a wonder that Gora and she had come this far together.
It seemed like only yesterday that she had achieved Chuunin after being a genin for five or six years. She picked up a strawberry and scrutinized it. Her mother called it the thousand mile stare. A lot had happened since then. She had met a Jounin by the name of Tsuneo, who was now an accomplished ninja, had ascended to Special Jounin status within the village, had grown to be a strong woman. She had died, and befriended a comrade named Satoshi, had trained with the Raikage and a previous Kage in her own right, Gin. She had a lover named Dameon who was a Jounin at least, from the village hidden in the mist. She had met Maigo again, and confirmed that she had really died, and had met someone named the centipede. She had saved a village from multiple attacks, and had gone on dangerous missions. It was a wonder that she had this much culmination for her ninja story.
Lin didn’t have a cool ninja story, one about betrayal, a friend that she was chasing after or a family to avenge like Sasuke or Naruto, both legends in their own right, but she had worked hard. She would surely be remembered by someone… perhaps… should she die. She gulped down the strawberry, it stuck in her throat as she still remembered the blade neatly cutting the tendons and piercing her carotid artery.
She swallowed hard, and the fruit and the thoughts of death disappeared as Gora yawned loudly and smacked her lips. She had fangs the size of Lin’s hand, but they were harmless to Lin. Or at least they were usually. Lin patted her once more and shoveled the rest of her fruit into her mouth. Throwing her chair back with her legs, she left the bowl on the table, swallowed the too-big mouthful of fruit down and made her way toward the coat rack. Now… what coat to wear… She picked out a light one since she would be moving and only in the rice paddies.
She looked at Gora who stretched, her butt wiggling in the air and her eyes closing in satisfaction of the meal. Her claws extended and Lin watched closely as they just barely tapped the floor. There were pockmarks from when Lin was gone, but at least Gora didn’t put holes in the wood floor while she was there. Breathing a sigh of relief, she took her key and put it into her pocket, making a sweep of the apartment before going out in the chill.
People were bustling in the city of Kumogakure, and Lin’s apartment was near enough to the market that she could get there within a minute if she went via crowd, or about 10 seconds if she went across the rooftops. There was no hurry today, and so she stretched in the cool morning air and waited for Gora to saunter out of the house. Locking the door, she turned back around and caught a lot of people staring at her. There weren’t many people who had pets, and even fewer that had pets like hers. Smiling sheepishly, she waved to a couple of them, including Dango-obaachan who must be going to market to pick up some supplies for her dango shop.
Lin wondered, absent-mindedly as she strolled out into the street with Gora sticking to her leg like she had applied adhesive to her side, whether the old woman would ever teach Lin her delicious recipe. There would be no reason to go back, Lin supposed, and perhaps it was for the better, because Dango as a treat was more than enough. Lin could grow fat and happy eating those dango balls, and as much as she would like to, that was not the path that she had set for herself.
“My ninja way…” She mumbled to herself, remembering the stories of Naruto Uzumaki, “My nindo is to become the world’s foremost medical ninja… Strongest isn’t the right word for it, right Gora?” Gora nodded slowly, and cast a glance at a man who shrank away from her. It was not uncommon for people to do that, so Gora mostly snuck out and through back alleys to get out of town. It was strange for people to see her, and for her to see people. She watched them as they walked by the window, sure, but never really got that close to this many of them.
Lin sensed Gora’s nervousness and headed down an alley. Whistling, she continued on and only just heard the whistling of air through a kunai’s eye. Kunai, as everyone knew, had rings on the handle where a pommel would be on a sword, and when they flew through the air they made a particular whistling noise depending on how fast they were going. So the speed at which this one was travelling was… roughly genin speed. She took out one of her senbon and put it through the eye of the kunai, twirling it before sending it backwards without looking. Whoever it was, they were going to have to do better than that to take her out. It was probably one of the bandits that she had been taking care of in Kumogakure’s outskirts. With a thud and a cry, the kunai hit… somewhere on the individual and she heard him limp away. Perhaps his leg.
Shrugging, he got what he deserved. Gora was no longer by her side though, as she had turned around and had bared her fangs and claws in a terrifying display. Lin clicked her tongue, a signal for Gora to return to her side. Reluctantly the growl died in Gora’s throat as Lin continued to walk down the alleyway. It was quite dirty, used for mainly refuse and laundry, but Lin knew this and three more alleys would bring them to a gate. The gatekeepers knew Gora from her hunting exploits so when Lin approached again, all they did was nod from their gate house and went back to talking amongst themselves.
Lin was excited for Maigo to meet Gora, her giant cat, and was even more excited for Gora to meet him. She expected that she would like him at first sight. And if Gora didn’t… well… that would be something she would come to later.
WC: 3144 (so far)
((Need 14500, a note for myself))