Mission name: Apples to Oranges.
Mission rank: D.
Objective: Sort Doppelganger Fruits.
Location: Small South Forest.
Reward: 150 Ryo +1 EP.
Mission Description: The exams fell right during reaping season, and a great many autumnal Konoha delicacies require ripe, juicy fruit! Amaguriama is handing out open gigs for those that will help pick and sort the Burning Sky Harvest.
Mission Details: There's nothing out of the ordinary here at first, but it turns out not only the foliage is the varied colors of fire. Every single one of the fruits can be orange, yellow, crimson, or any color in-between! This is a tedious task that either takes a Konoha palate and nose, a Perception stat of D-3 to tell between the different types of fruit, or a sensory technique that lets one discern their interiors without damaging them.

Ah, the joyous downside of being a genin. D-rank missions. Because getting bored to death is a skill high rank shinobi are great at and measly mosquitoes-in-training requiring to toughen up their talents until they have proven to be capable of handling a heavier load. It was at moments like this that the rogue truly felt like taking a nap under the tree, hat pulled over her head and not give a *hack-cough* about such mind-numbing mission. Frying one's brain until it was a grey mass of death-droned mush was not quite the way one grew stronger with, but there were people who lived this sort of jobs. Alexa didn't. Mostly because she was not allowed to bring along alcohol out of fear she'd see double and mess up the doppelganger fruits - would that make her see four fruits if she saw the doppelgangers double?

No matter. She had been picked out for this job because she could 'discern interiors'. A choice of words that the Hyuga wasn't all too sure what to make off. It sounded lewd in her ears but her mind couldn't quite understand why even though her 'x-ray vision' was probably a great tool for perverts to spy upon more interesting... points of interest. Activating the byakugan and allowing her eyes to drift around the doppelgangers would not fool her with their tricks. The ripe insides were ready for discovery, the fruits plucked in earnest.

Passing around with a basket, the blonde would point out those that were ripe for the picking and present her basket to let the fruits of labour fall in neatly. Hard work was easy this way, when three others were doing the chores in her stead, her work restricted to simply watching, pointing and carrying a basket around. Frankly, it was quite boring. Nothing like a good tavern brawl, a chase through the streets or smuggling a couple of small things here and there or emptying pockets or flasks. Just a simple day under Konoha's warm sun where one shuffled from one point to another and mostly fought against boredom and sleep.

Shuffling about at slow pace, tree after tree, bush after bush ended up getting plucked. The best fruits with the best quality straight into the basket. Then a second one. And a third one. At the pace they were going, they could as well have taken a cart with them to make carrying easier. Naturally, genin weren't entitled to have this so they'd train their endurance and muscles. "This is good for you.", they said. "Got to train those muscles", they said. "It's a great way to discern genjutsu", they said. The others were full of fire, all revved up and ready as the nonsense of sensei fuelled their motivation. Had he deliberately not looked at the ill-reputed Hyuga to avoid seeing her expertly trained unimpressed expression? Maybe. Not like she could blame him for it. Sensei was probably found the mission as dull as she did. Only... He couldn't complain about it since he was such a dutiful asset to Konoha's forces.

But long chores would eventually come to an end. A cart full baskets, every colour neatly sorted. Yellow with yellow, orange with orange, red with red. Then there were baskets of varying degrees in which 'mostly yellow' was thrown together and 'yellow but not quite' was found in another basket. Reddish-orange, for a lack of better colour terms was thrown together with the 'I'm not sure if it's red or orange' since those matched - no one that could tell the difference anyway, and the discussion with the sensei didn't amount to much more than him making a the statement 'reddish-orange' was technically not a colour. There was also purple and 'bruised blue', which was also a sort of purple by the claims of one of the other assigned genin. With the exception of such trivial discussions in an attempt to get somewhere with this chore, all went actually well.

By the end of the day Amaguriama was a happy customer that saw their shop well filled with fresh fruits ready to be used in the various dishes. Being handed a fruit salad as thanks for the effort, and seeing as how the job was officially done, the rogue would pour some 'syrup' over it, the smell and flavour of said syrup remarkably similar to rum, before she happily chewed on the sweet taste of a well-prepared dessert.

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[EXIT]

766
-750 mission