„Library Assistant needed,“ Misoka read out loud, “Take care of the library. The woman who operates the Suna library is bed ridden… blah blah…. putting books back on shelves, finding certain books… blah blah… This really sounds easy.”
“Hah, didn’t I tell you?” Her father replied, a proud smile flashing over his face. “I figured since you like reading and stuff, I’d sign you up for it. And you’ll earn your own money.”
He deliberately lowered his voice for the last part. Misoka still heard it and shot him an angry look. Despite being so protective of her in like everything else, her father believed that a Genin should do missions in order to buy his or her own weapons. Part of her understood his reasoning; the other part, however, considered it plain stupid that he wouldn’t even let her use one of his hundreds of kunais.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” Misoka announced, watching her father rummaging through his ninja stuff. After not doing much the past month, he had been assigned to a B-rank mission for the next two weeks or so. And of course, he was already concerned about leaving her alone. This library mission granted her a welcome change from his constant worries (“Don’t ever stay out after 10 pm!” – “Don’t let any boy bother you, I swear, I’ll beat him up!” etc). “When does it start? The mission, I mean?”
“Now,” was all her father replied whilst trying on his jo-nin jacket (yes, it still fit ;D).
“Now?! Well, you could’ve said so sooner!” In an instant, she rushed to her bedroom, changed into one of her favorite shirt-skirt combos and then hurried out of the door. “Bye!”

--

The library where her mission took place was a rather small building, nothing compared to the huge library in the center of Suna. Well, after all, this place was usually run by a single person – as the mission profile suggested – so Misoka wasn’t too surprised.
She got in and was right away greeted by a small corpulent woman, “Finally! After waiting for,” – she threw a glance at her watch – “half an hour (!), I thought the Kazekage forgot to send one of her Genins.”
“Umm, I’m really sorry!” Misoka said, scratching the back of her head.
“Don’t apologize, but do your job! I’m going now.” And with that, the woman went out, obviously happy that her own job was done.
What a grumpy person. But Misoka had other things to worry about. Two girls sat at a table behind one of the book shelves and giggled hysterically.
As Misoka came closer, she recognized that the two didn’t even read a book. They were just chatting away about all kinds of stuff: school, boys, pets etc. What did they come to the library for?
“Hey girls, please be quiet! Others want to read in peace.”
“Really?” The taller one of the girls countered. “I don’t see anyone else here.”
“Well,” Misoka looked around to see if the girl was telling the truth. She was. Wow, the library was so popular. “Why did you come here anyway? You don’t seem like you’re looking for a book or something.” She examined them further: Both of them must be around her age, but they didn’t look like ninjas.
“Actually, we do need a book,” the other girl said in a much nicer tone than her friend. “But we can’t find it.”
“What is it? I can give you a hand.” Misoka let out a light chuckle. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“It is….umm…” The girl mumbled shyly before they exchanged a glance and the taller one went on, “It’s a novel called Once in a lifetime. But we can’t remember the author so we kinda gave up searching for it.”
“I see… I’ll have a look at the book list then. Be good in the meantime.” The young kunoichi went back to the library counter. She pulled several drawers open, but the book list was nowhere to be found. Oh dear, where could it possibly be?

At that instant, a very old man – judging from his looks, around 70 – came in.
“Good afternoon, Sir. May I help you with anything?” Misoka stopped looking for the book list and greeted the man politely. He had a walking stick with him, as well as a water canteen.
“Hello, young lady.” He laughed hoarsely and took a swig of his water before staggering up to her.
It seemed that he could lose his balance at any moment. Hesitantly, Misoka reached out for him to keep him from falling when the man suddenly coughed as if he was going to choke on something.

“Ah, oh my God, Sir.. are you all right?!” His coughing didn’t stop and sure enough, Misoka started panicking. She patted his back carefully, but nothing helped. The man’s face had turned red by now. “Please, please hold on! I’m getting you a medic!!” Then again, she couldn’t leave him alone in this state!
So she called for the girls and told them to get the ambulance.
“Don’t stop breathing, Sir!” Misoka cried out, still patting his back. What else could she do? What was the reason for his coughing, anyway? “The ambulance will come soon!”
But as the moments passed by and there was still no sight of the medics, Misoka grew more and more anxious. She had a feeling that the man would die if she didn’t do the right thing at this very instant.

Then she caught sight of the water canteen lying on the floor. Of course! The water went down the wrong pipe! The man was so old and fragile that he could actually die from that.
“I’m sorry, Sir, but this is going to hurt! It’s for your best!” Having said that, Misoka hit the man so hard on the back that he was knocked over. ‘Ahh I hope I didn’t make matters worse!’ she thought, kneeling before him.

The coughing stopped. ‘Please, don’t let him be dead! Dx ‘ Her heart hammered in her chest as she turned the man over.
“Thank you,” he said weakly, but with an honest smile. He must’ve spit out the water at last. And most of all: He was alive! What a relief...

After he was taken away by the medics for a further check-up, Misoka continued her job. She finally found the book list and could give the girls what they wanted; she cleaned the book shelves; she told another customer to be quiet and so on. The rest of the day flew by since the work was easy and interesting.
The incidence with the old man, however, had been absolutely terrifying.
She guessed that was just her luck being library assistant on a day when something like that happened.

WC 1127/600