Tearing down the mission board (Mission Thread)

Lost and Cat:

It was not as if it was such a great slight against yourself, or even something you really particularly cared about. Regardless of the situation, you found yourself a little peeved at the single sheet mission dossier you had collected at the mission counter in the Sunagakure offices.

Indeed, you were peeved, but you were not even mad.

Sighing contemptuously, you took the near useless piece of paper and put it in your file, which you then put in your bag. It was not as if you were unaware of the house keeping that made up the bulk of a genin’s life, nor were you particularly annoyed of that fact when you were first told of this simple fact of life by the older shrine maidens of the Sunagakure temple. No, what had tickled your nerves was not the fact that Sunagakure needed its genin do engage in sweeping its interior.

151/150

So to speak, of course. Anyway, you understood intellectually that such drawl missions were quite sorely needed to keep the peace between the civilian populations of any hidden village and its force of ninjas. But enough of the pointless political socioeconomic drabble. Truly, you were not peeved about what you needed to and what you were perfectly fine with doing regardless.

No, you were peeved because you do not know what insane harlot put up a mission request to find her poor poor cat and then proceeded to give absolutely no description of her pet. Really, would it have inconvenienced her much to at least state the gender of the animal she was supposed to catch? It was as if she thought ninja were omnipotent godlings or something similar. Your thoughts paused right there and then, and you looked back at the tower that housed the Kage of the village.

150/150

…Yeah… upon recollection of your own very personal fantasies of the living breathing god that resided in the village of the sand, you found that you were not really in a position to speak ill of any, ah, ‘rumors’, shall we say, that civilians may or may not have of the greatest ninjas in the world. You were a wielder of chakra yourself, and even now you still felt dwarfed by the divine might of a deity in human form. You shook your head, ridding yourself of useless musings that may or may not be relevant in the future.

Eventually, you found yourself outside the address stated on the mission dossier, the only piece of information on it that kept the sheet from being completely useless. The clark that handed you the sheet was absolutely no help, too, and only seemed to be amused at the questions you had for him…

151/150

…In hindsight, you probably should have caught that the first time you had been there, seeing what is underneath the underneath and all that philosophical ninja bullshit. Well, at least you had an excuse for that. You were, as a shrine maiden, trained mainly to have the combat skills of a genin and had little experience in the subtler skills that ninja no doubt learnt in their specialized academy.

In any case, times a’ wasting, and without any more delays you knocked on the door of the woman that issued the mission. The woman readily provided you with the details you needed to keep the mission short and sweet, and with practiced monotony you scouted out Sunakagure for the horrible cat. Daylight passed tediously and you finally caught a glimpse of the feline, then immediately literally caught it.

Returning the cat to its owner, you brought back the signed mission dossier to the same clark at the mission desk. He gave you a knowing smirk.

Asshat.

166/150
(Complete)

Lost and Pup:

You mirthfully snatched the mission dossier from the grip of the mission counter clark, whom was quite obviously smirking at you in a way you did not really like. Well, it was not as if you cared enough to retaliate in some way or another. A dog catching mission this time presented to you this time, or more accurately, a puppy catching mission.

Yay. Puppies.

You once again relieved yourself of the sheet, skipping out to the front doors where the young girl that asked for genin assistance waited to ambush you with impatient worry.

"You have to be quick! Dibbles has been gone for a day now!" the little girl exclaimed, throwing her hands over her head as she related the story behind the dog, of how she was gifted it from a neighbor's unwanted litter some months back and how it must have ran off without its leash.

150/150

She continued on about how hungry and thirsty it must be and it was all her fault and you squatted and placed your finger over her little lips to silence her, allowing sweet silence to reign once again.

"It's okay, little girl. We'll find her." you did said, in an attempt to comfort the little one.

"He's a boy!"

"Yes, we'll find him." you added on smoothly, as if you never did make that mistake.

The girl had came prepared. The packaged dog chow and canteen water went into your bag, following the feeding bowl that you were frankly surprised to have been prepared by the little girl as well. At least, it would save you the trip to the pet store you had, just moments earlier, been prepared to take to get supplies for what sounded to be a starving dog. At least you didn't have to use your money.

150/150

You took a knee to the ground, motioning to the little girl to get on you back. After a few moments of uncertainty, she relented braced herself for the piggyback ride. You yourself was clearly amused at her hesitation, which the little girl did catch, huffing her displeasure. You hopped to the rooftops of Suna, and begun your search for a young bitch among its streets, and of course, let us not forget the most important part.

"So, how does Dibbles look like?"

The little girl begun her simple yet exaggerated, no doubt borne of her vocabulary limited by her youth, description of the little puppy. Your eyes darted around while listening to her account, and after a considerable time you realized that there were not many dogs around that were the size of a puppy after all. In fact, there were next to none puppy sized doggies that you could see.

152/150

You did eventually find the puppy, which really only took time, which you guess you had plenty of anyway. Stopped your rooftop hops and dropped down to the ground at the far end of the bend were the little puppy seen. After letting the little girl down, you ceded possession of the water, dog food and eating bowl over and back to the little.

She hurriedly collected the items in her arms, and baited her Dibbles with the sustenance it was no doubt craving after a day and more without regular access to nutrition. You watched as Dibbles eagerly slopped down its food and drink, as the little girl petted and rubbed her dog all around.

You walked with the girl back to her home, the girl carrying Dibbles all the way. That elicited a series of mournful whines from Dibbles, which you noted that, yes, was a male puppy after all.

After getting the name of the little girl, you summited the signed mission dossier.

166/150
(Complete)

Piggy Wrangling:

You hacked when you read the mission dossier that was put in your hands.

"... Training?" you managed to croak out.

"Yeah, kiddo." there it was again, the mission counter clark and that philistine smirk that seems to be actively seducing you into punching his face. "Have fun with that."

You growled as you kept the mission dossier in its proper place within your bag. "So, any information for me this time, mission counter guy?"

"Yeah, actually." he said as he motioned you to lean in closer.

You were kind of startled at that pronouncement, in all honestly, and so didn't really think twice before leaning in.

"Closer." he whispered conspiratorially.

You leaned in closer.

He leaned in close. You could feel his warm breath caressing your right ear. The moment stretched, and finally did he whisper into your ear, dragging each and every word that came out of his mouth.

150/150

"The pig is a piglet." was the words that you heard.

A smile was plastered on your face.

"Thank you, clark-kun. Would you like to know something too?"

The mission counter clark appeared bemused, and took the bait. "Sure."

In the same draggy style he used to enlighten you, you said:
"I have a dic-"

You did not really get to finish before his face paled a little and he backed way the hell up and appeared to really start evaluating your physical appearance. It was not as if you were wearing the shrine maiden outfit, but the temple combat robes that did not really distinguish between male and female. Worse still, at your age it was not completely out of the ordinary to be a slightly effeminate guy or a slightly masculine girl.

You certainly fell neatly in one of those categories.

Creepy frozen smile still on your face, you turned and left.

154/150

You first headed back to the temple and changed into the one piece swimsuit which was part of the luxuries the temple provided when it could when they sent emissaries to the temples in the other major villages.

Master had asked when some of the monks and shrine maidens were headed for Konoha a few years back. You would have never guessed that getting one then would help you out now, because really, who buys swimsuits in Suna of all places? You were looked at pretty funny when you made your desire known that day.

Admittedly, it was weird rooftop hopping in a swimsuit, but you did not care that much. Not really, anyway. You never really did care that much. You reckoned to that there should be a considerable lack of piglets in Suna, and so sacrificed the not so significant accuracy for an increacsed patrolling pace for efficiency.

150/150

Due to your increased speed, you found your beast of burden much faster this time than your previous two missions. You looked slightly smugly at the piglet as you lunged at the animal with the secret weapon you had taken from the temple grounds while you were there.

Used paper. To absorb the grease.

You engaged the piglet in a completely onesided wrestling match, the paper in your hands effective enough in absirbing the grease for you to get a grip on it. People watched as you barrelled down the street, rolling with the pig, clearly amused. You could not really find fault with that.

You found it plenty amusing yourself.

You eventually got a strong enough grip on the infernal animal to stop it from running. Hugging it tight in front of your chest, you brought the pig back to the mission counter, where the mission counter clark turned to look at who entered this time and immediately inhaled sharply.

You may or may not have put a bulging something at the crotch of your swimsuit.

177/150
(Complete)

Soup Kitchen:

You looked at the mission counter clark.

The mission counter clark looked at you.

"So... Next mission?" you inquired, letting the greasy piglet go on the counter in front of the clark.

"You want to do the next mission in a swimsuit?" the clark heaved. He was trying and succeeding at not glancing down to your crotch, his eyes darting and staring in several directions except for down, which was par on course for a ninja, really. No, what satisfied you was that you could tell he needed to try. That was good enough for you to have warm feelings blossom in your heart.

You noted that the piglet just dropped inside the mission counter.

"Maybe. Could always go back to change." is what you said, but you really did not feel like doing so. No point in that, when you were going to sweat in your miko attire anyway.

153/150

As you left the mission counter, you took a mental note that you never saw the piglet after if disappeapered under the table. Not that you feared the worse or anything as mundane as that, no. Shaking your head, you went back to the temple.

It was, after all, where the soup kitchens were most often held, as it was the temple that organized them. It was the same soup kitchen you participated in for most of your young life, and was now a ritual of your life. Back then, you had little reason not to be in your miko attire, not when nearly everything you did in the temple had you in traditional wear of some sort.

This time however, you came back to help as a Suna troop, and you were not technically under any rules to present yourself in a shrine maiden dress, though it was what was commonly done.

153/150

Of course, the temple being its own source of labour, the problem was never one of the lack of manpower. It was not even a problem of the lack of water; even if Suna resided inside a desert, water was a logistical resource that was mandatory for any major sized village to have ready access to. Even if you never did personally see it (it was after all a major weak point of Suna that could be exploited easily in the hands of a competent poisons maker, or even merely a payload deliverer, and thus required some major clearance to even know where it is, much less gain access to it), you knew for a fact that Suna much have one.

You once were a child of a traditional farming family, and your experience then taught you a good number of things. Things that you have not had the chance to use in a good while.

155/150

You laughed bitterly.

"You okay there, Dede?" Someone spoke to you. It actually took you a while to realize you were being spoken to, despite the nickname.

You knew her, too.

You waved her concerns away, and the girl shrugged blithely, taking it all in stride. It was not as if it was not something everyone in the temple already knew.

You worked seamlessly with most, intergrating the odd mission taker or a few that had taken the same mission as yourself into the cogs of the system that was the soup kitchen, the routine you have become accustomed to over the years living at the temple. Prepare food for a bit. Cook a bit. Talk a bit, know the lives of the poor and destitute.

... This was how those in poverty lived. Off the charity of the shrine maidens and monks that came under the forces of ninja of Sunagakure.

152/150
(Completed)

Janitor Duty:

The night cleaning up after the soup kitchen had taken its own toll upon yourself. You approached the mission counter with a tired yawn, where that man stared at you with a wounded expression on his face.

"It isn't good to lie you know, De-chan?" the mission counter clark spoke, chastising you.

Your smirking huff was really all you needed to do to convey how much you care about his opinion.

"So, you get to be a sweeper today." he continued, passing you the mission dossier as you nodded in assent. You knew, of course; you did planned the order you were going to do these missions, though it really was not efficient at times, given the amount of time you spent thinking about it.

"Maybe you didn't lie to me. Maybe you lied to the profile makers. Perhaps I should conduct a check to ascertain the truth for the paperwork."

151/150

It took you a moment to realize he jumped right back to his previous topic. Seamlessly, even. You made a show of quickly considering his proposal, nodded quickly and spoke:

"Okay. There's a nice love hotel back at the 61st street. I'll be back just before your shift is over."

He paused for a short while, which was enough time for you to get the hell out of there before he articulated a response.

"Why do I even try." you heard the lamenting voice behind you.

Warm feelings blossomed in your heart, and you found yourself skipping towards the location of today's mission.

Finally reaching the area you were to clean (you were restricted to some sections of the building, as you did not have the clearance as a Genin to enter some of the more sensitive locations of the Kage building), you opened the janitorial closet and got to work.

151/150

At least, that was what you would have done if the equipment did not try to drown you to death.

You pushed the brooms and mops and pails off your body prone on the floor. Moaning in exasperation, you picked out the tools you needed for the job, stuffing everything else back into the closet and...

... Nope. No. What the hell.

You emptied the closet again, and started to organize the contents within. Chairs here and there, buckets under them, poles together, hardware tools in the equipment box beside the ladder...

You thought about it for a moment, and removed the ladder from the inventory. You were going to need to clean the lights and fans, clearly dirty as it should be. Of course, you would have to turn off the fans for that. Turn off those artificial breeze making machines, in a building under the full power of the Suna sun.

152/150

It would be sweltering. Not the best idea you did ever had, nope.

... Meh, you can take it.

You took off the top of your outfit, leaving the cloth that bound your chest in the absence of a bra and your miko skirt. No sense getting your clothes wet.

Perhaps you should have considered wearing your swimsuit to work again. Oh well, to late now.

You first swept the floor, getting rid of the sand and dust particles that were easier to remove. After that was done, you wiped the floor with the shrine maiden's standard operating procedure for floor wiping.

Going on all fours, bucket filled with water on either end of the hallways, you pushed the wet cloth in front of you across the empty corridors, wiping the protruding minimalistic sculptures of sand dunes at the base of either walls. Taking the procured ladder, you wiped the lights, the still fans and the fanciful engravings you couldn't reach with your natural height.

... You never had to do this kind of thing alone before, so it took you a lot of time. The sun was setting when you finally reported mission complete.

193/150
(Complete)

Book Worm:

"By yourself?" You were asked. You gave the mission counter clark an incredulous look.

"Yeah by myself...?" You answered a little uncertainly.

"Girl, the library is huge."

"And the corridors of the kage building were huge too." In tedium, that is.

"No, I mean seriously, it's huge. We only have one library in Suna, and it has everything. Well, everything that has no clearance, anyway."

"I don't have anyone to do this with."

"Wha? Where's your team?"

You sighed. "Temple warriors aren't required to be put in teams."

"Oh." He said.

"Oh." You allowed.

It was his turn to sigh. "You know what? Just go. Won't be hard. Just... boring."

"Heh." That was fine. You could handle boring. You have been handling boring for years.

It felt so depressing just thinking about it, even though it did not really mean anything to you.

155/150

The library was a place you visited with regular frequency. Though not exactly a book nut, nor were you a truly avid reader in any sense of the word, you nevertheless found more reason than most to return to this place of learning. Not for a study session, nor to research something you needed or wanted to know, not usually, anyway, even if the situation did occur at times. You had found yourself some adequate teachers in the temple (everyone living there did) that could normally address questions with answers found in books.

And if they could not, looking for answers in books was going to be a hard find anyway, if they even existed.

No. For most part the reason you patronized the quite fortunately environmentally shielded library of Suna was peace.

And the occassional discovery or two, but those really depended on the whims of fate and personal ignorance.

151/150

It was, after all, within the ink in books that you rekindled your desire to live.

The librarian welcomed you on your arrival, your presence a familiar even if a slightly uncommon occurance (in your humble opinion, anyway. Still more common than most). You showed the librarian the mission slip, and the librarian nodded with quick understanding confirmation.

Well, it wasn't as if you expected the mission to be a rare occurance. Quite on the contrary in fact, given that you had been around to witness a mission in progress in the library. More than once, even.

It was about when the librarian started explaining what you needed to know about librarianing that you figured out what was bloody wrong with a situation like this. Even your foreknowledge of the library's layout, bits and pieces of scattered memories of which type of book went on which side of the library did not really help you.

155/150

You were introduced to a catalog system. You were looking at the librarian, smiling even, then after a while you realized that the deluge of information was not going to stop and your smile quickly faded and you desperately told him to "Stop! Stop!" and you were so embarrassed because seriously come on.

And here you thought all those holy texts you learnt to memorize would help you with memorizing things. Evidently not by much.

You produced some paper and a pencil. In response, the librarian bemusedly produced a small stack of paper labelled "The (whatever that name is) system".

... You ended up making a copy of your own anyway. Not that you had anything better to do.

It seemed to please the librarian, having someone that actually tried to learn it.

Having the list made the rest of the job so much easier. You don't know how you would have been fumbling about without it

Come to think of it... you could. You have seen it happen after all.

171/150
(Complete)
(Exit)

Water Wizard:

You didn't realize it until then, but apparently just by doing a few D rank missions, you already became rather rich. You don't know why or how could D ranks possibly pay out so much, but you managed to purchase a mass produced sword for merely a fraction of your mission pay, which you expected to be a rather luxurious purchase in and of itself, merely as an aid for your interest in swords, given the nature of weapons production.

Of course, the basic stuff was only what you were going to start with, and not really what you wanted, so you asked what the more expensive things cost.

You merely sighed.

So you gotta do what a genin gotta do.

More D ranks.

Which was why you were right now standing in front of a camel herd, looking for the oasis that exist for the express purpose of this D rank.

152/150