The work came and went quickly now. Xiahou had been helping so much around the village that his reputation had really begun to precede him and people were submitting these fix-ups to the administrative staff, specifically requesting Xiahou. Every morning he woke up to a stack of papers with things to fix, or dogs to walk, or cargo to help unload. It wasn't tiresome at all though. He was finally carving out his own niche, in a place of his choosing.

Of course he used the term choosing lightly. In truth, he had been captured by Konoha's ANBU and was more so being held prisoner here than anything else.

Stepping out of the shower, Xiahou sighed and grabbed the towel from the table. It was a shared shower in the boarding house, but it got the job done despite the lousy amount of time he had to properly relax every day before he left. It was six in the morning and he had a fence to paint for an elderly couple who were away for the weekend with their grand children and it was actually their children who had organized some jobs to be done around their house by the time they got back, as a surprise. Yesterday, Xiahou had fixed up the garden, painted the western wall, retiled the roof and installed some irrigation in the back yard. It was shaping up nicely, the only thing left to do was to paint the fence.

As he made his way down the streets, the morning sun was inviting and a few people were already out enjoying their weekend. As he neared the house, he spied a group of academy boys playing a game with green capes. Xiahou chuckled, his little game had been fairly successful around Konoha. A few of the kids had seen him performing tasks, and some of the vandals he caught from time to time had spread the word of the Hidden Avenger and it had become something of a joke among the citizens. Just a Genin making the work a little more fun, and perhaps, preventing the younger citizens from turning to pranks and petty vandalism in fear that they would be caught by the masked vigilante.

"Hey, hey!" Came a shrill cry from behind him, a young boy's voice. Xiahou turned as the boy stopped, he and two friends, a couple of feet from him. He smiled warmly.

"Hi there boys,"

"You're fixing up the Karikaga place aren't you? We saw you yesterday,"

"I am, I'm actually almost done, I have to paint the fence this morning and then this place is all finished," Xiahou said, and to his confusion the boys seemed to look a little disappointed "Is there something you needed?" He followed up.

"We were hoping we could help, we want to go to the market and buy some of the new sweets from Kumo before the rich kids get there and buy it all and we were sort of wondering, you know, if we helped you, maybe we could have some Ryo too?" The middle boy said, smiling ear to ear with the other boys trying their best to look professional as they explained their business proposition.

"Yanno," Xiahou said, leaning down to bring himself face to face with the middle boy "I think we can work something out, I could use some sweets after this myself,"

And so the work began. Four pairs of hands dipping into the paint can, giving the fence a new shade of baby blue which was finished and neat in no time. Xiahou, truthfully, was glad for the company this morning, and the boys were fun to joke around with. He had gotten a little paint on his work clothes from when they had attacked him after he threatened to buy all the candy for himself, but other than that, everything went off without a hitch.

The rest of the morning passed in a hail of laughter and candy. The scowls on the faces of the rich boys as Xiahou and his new entourage purchased all the new candy from Kumo were priceless and served as their entertainment as they sat in the square, played some tag, and Xiahou even displayed a little bit of advanced jutsu for the academy boys.

Stuffed with candy, Xiahou returned home to prepare for his afternoon, a much more serious endeavour.