Careful, This Stuff is Explosive![Mission]

Mission Details:

Keita was deeply busy back at his small apartment building, drafting up various devices and other things for his puppets, when all of a sudden, he realized that he didn't really have any money. The small amount of funds the village gave him simply to live was gone, and he needed to start doing missions to make ends meat, and it seemed that he needed to make a bit of money to start construction on his puppets as well. So, he decided to kill two birds with one stone, and start a mission that was handed out in the village. He went to the administration office, and signed up for one, but definitely not the one he wanted, he wanted to go out and kill a whale or a shark, but those missions were for chuunin only, which made him a bit sad. He would partially skip towards the warehouse where a large amount of barrels filled with gunpowder were being stored, and he would need to transport them to a destination. It was a good thing that he had learned his chakra threads technique before hand, as that would make carrying them much easier, although he would only be able to carry five of them at a time, unless of course he did something that required thinking and logic. On that day, it of course had to be raining quite hard, and he wished that he had been a bit more lucky, because if the gunpowder became wet, then it would be considered a failed mission, as it would be rendered useless. Well, he might be on this mission with someone else, so he thought he would at least go there. In his head, he watched the water droplets drip like a faucet off the brim of his top hat, and he could have sworn that it appeared to be blood. Thick dark red liquid would pour down his hat, and he would look around and see a flash of death every so often. Under the creepy atmosphere and slight hallucinations, Keita grinned a bit, although how his clothing looked, one wouldn't really be able to see his mouth.

Keita would keep skipping through the blood puddles in his mind until he reached the warehouse he was supposed to be at, the sun completely blocked out by the rain made the old warehouse almost look haunted. Keita would simply sit down on a sopping wet bench to the right of the warehouse building, and wait for the men inside to finish unloading the barrels to the front, under an awning so they wouldn't get immediately drenched with water. He walked up and showed them his mission scroll, and they nodded, although giving him a skeptical look because as of this point, his pants were dripping wet as he sat on the soaked bench for a few minutes getting rained on. He didn't really mind their looks though, he had endured worse looks from the village due to his body, so he simply gave them a smile and sat back down on the bench, they told him it would be a few more minutes before all of the barrels were unpacked. He had gotten there a bit early, he supposed, and he was simply daydreaming, or day hallucinating, but these visions weren't really a hindrance, it was almost as if people were casting a constant genjutsu on him that simply changed the appearance of things that were already there. He took the time to look down, and saw that the worms were forced out of the dirt because of the heavy rain, and were crawling along their bellies, looking for a dry spot. Keita picked one up, and as it wriggled in his hand, he went over and placed it under a tree, the tree shielding the ground from the rain. He didn't know if worms were even capable of thought, but he hoped that the worm would find a good home, and perhaps become a baker or something. The strange thoughts that kept Keita from going insane were also the cause of his slight insanity, and for some strange and twisted reason, he enjoyed every second of life now because of them.

The window fogged over with the ease of a lovers soft pre-dawn touch as Akuharu breathed onto it, gazing out into the banks of mist rolling through Kirigakure as the sun begun to lazily make its way upwards into the sky. Sunset was generally better then sunrise, but it looked like this might be an exception for the month Kirigakure was in. The first rays of sun had begun to strike the airborne particles of liquid by the time Akuharu had left his apartment block, strolling with the casual ease of someone moving through familiar territory. As a new Genin, funds were far and few between and he needed to be able to begin bringing together some so that he could begin living on his own means. As he had no family to speak of to support him, the Village had paid for him to go through the Academy and stay in one of the mass product apartments they had in one side of town where the very poor and the homeless stayed. It wasn't ideal living by any stretch of the imagination. Corners had been cut in the building of them, and the bedroom had been fussed with bathroom/laundry, with the dining room having its own space set aside thankfully. It could house two people at a time, and three if someone was sharing a bed, but beyond that they would become unliveable.

However in between missions Akuharu typically tried to make sure that he picked up some jobs on the side around his general area. They kept his metaphorical head above water while he looked for other forms of income. Arranging productive team based missions were often harder then solo-ing them due to the paperwork and diplomacy that needed to be employed to allow the shinobi to get to the needed area/industry. There were many legal regulations that allowed high ranking ninja to dictate certain laws as needed. Interpretations could be handed out instantly by jounin on the ground. In war-time in particular, emergency powers were extremely strong. License to kill was granted almost freely, access to provision and so on. The works. In the majority of cases, the system worked flawlessly, the Academies seeking to instill judgement, cold dispassionate analysis and rationality into its graduates. But in every batch, there will be bad eggs. The next few phases of a Shinobi's career tended to weed these out, those who meant harm to the village could either be turned into useful assets or they were placed into suicide missions. Of course, these were all details of the overly active imagination of Akuharu, who had no idea whatsoever about the inner workings of the Village. But he liked to pretend he did. Sometimes.

Arriving at the administration centre, he found a mission slot open. It had been taken out very recently by a fellow Genin. It seemed to be a fairly standard cargo guarding assignment, and if he left promptly he would be able to assist in the transfer. Placing his signature on the missions card, he left post haste, moving through the rain without terribly much notice. He did make sure to keep his centre of gravity high as he jogged towards the warehouses. Advancing with all due haste, Akuharu looked on as he identified as small figure he assumed to be the fellow Genin he would be working with bending under a tree- planting onto the ground. Making his way closer, Akuharu made a slight coughing noise in the back of his throat- alerting the Genin to his approach. It was probably the polite thing to do he reflected as he paused to introduce himself. "Hello, I'm Akuharu Sabyuki. I'll be working with you on this mission. Lets do our best?" The last was said almost cautiously, as if unsure of himself. Which he was, but it could also be interpreted as a question.

As Keita finished saying his goodbyes to the worm, there were footsteps in the rain, and it provoked a slight head tilt from Keita, looking towards the oncoming noise. There was another genin, like himself, or perhaps a really young chuunin, it was hard to judge people based on appearances alone, that had gotten next to him and then cleared his throat to get Keita's attention. Keita would keep his head tilted, as the small and sparse drops of rain that got through the web of leaves from the tree he was standing under tapped continuously on the side of his hat, the side with the metal on it, making a distinct metal tapping sound. With his head still tilted, the other young man introduced himself, rather properly, before Keita would look him up and down. He looked fairly normal, which was strange to Keita, because when he looked at people, his mind liked to paint them a different color, but he always knew who he was talking to. Still, this young man was apparently on the mission with him, which was nice, because there were a lot of barrels, and he needed someone to hold an umbrella while he was holding some of the other things with his chakra threads and his normal threads. Keita contemplated his first name, Akuharu.

"Akuharu... Akuharu... Aku.. hmm. I know!"

Keita seemed to be trying to make a nick name for this person, and any normal person would have thought that Aku would have been a good substitution, but Keita's mind didn't work like that, so the young man was going to get a personalized nickname for his first impression that he made onto Keita.

"I'll call you Abusutorakushon!"

The tongue twister type name meant abstraction, which was sort of what this person was not, and was really further than most things that he could have named him, but Keita liked the way it sounded, and enjoyed how long and convoluted it was to say, so it was the perfect nick name for his new friend. He would then introduce himself.

"I am Keita! Nice to meet you Abusutorakushon."

Keita put on a nice and content face, as if he had endured days of labor and thought to craft that name, and that he had saved this man's life by giving him a proper name that would live on for generations. The look said that he was looking up into the sky, admiring his work as though it belonged somewhere higher, and this young man would obviously think that he was a bit crazy. Just then, the men from the warehouse called to them, saying that the gunpowder barrels were ready to go, and Keita walked over to them without even glancing back at the young man he had just met.

Only an idiot would come out to do a job like this without a large umbrella or a jutsu to prevent the barrels from getting wet, and considering Keita's genius status, he simply brought a large plastic sheet and arranged for a cart to be there as well. He started loading the barrels into the cart with his chakra threads, manipulating them as though they were puppets, and he stacked them at strange angles, but it seemed they were wedged together snug enough to where they wouldn't fall out should they hit a bump.

He then got on top of the barrels, and it was shown that he had built a small throne to himself out of the barrels, and then proceeded to open the large plastic sheet that he had in his pouch, and manipulate it with his chakra threads, so that he essentially had a very large umbrella for the cart and himself. Sadly, there were no oxen or anything of the sort to push the cart, and so Keita just sort of stared at the other genin, and kept glancing at the handles of the cart, hinting for him to pull it. He looked fit enough.

The introduction was hardly the most common place Akuharu had ever had the pleasure of receiving which suited his purposes fine. It made a most memorable way of starting off the mission anyway, which Akuharu found was perfectly suitable for his own standards. Rolling his shoulders, Akuharu listened to the small flowing amount of speech the younger male presented him with. Abusutorakushon was hardly the worst nickname ever, although he knew that he would forget it by the time he had parted company with the slightly more youthful Genin. It was simply far too long for him to properly recall the particular nuances of it. It also broke several grammatical rules of his native language, so it was already signalling it as a nonsense word and to ignore it. Keita seemed like such a small name for such a big personality, but perhaps that was the way of things.

Rolling his shoulders idly, Akuharu replied in a bemused tone of voice a few seconds later. "Its a pleasure to meet you Keita." His voice maintained a wry quality to it as he stood next to the little one until their cargo was declared ready to move. Akuharu watched amusedly as he watched the barrels of gunpower stacked onto the back of the trailer with a set of chakra threads working in beautiful co-ordination to stack the cargo onto the trailer. He chuckled at the covert glances for him to pull the cart while he checked around the yard briefly to see if there were any stables or anything of that nature. However it looked like he was going to be doomed to pull the cart along. Mentally sighing, he hitched himself up to the front of the cart and wiggled the tracks a little, clearing any intial debries around the wheels so that he could have an easier start. Running chakra down to his feet, Akuharu clammed his feet down onto the ground so that the wet surface wouldn't cause him to slip or slide by activating both the Walking on Water Techniques and Walking on Wood he transitioned between the two as needed. Starting off was the worst bit by far, as it took him some time to get a good head of steam up and going, however the chakra latching him to the ground tremendously helped him make his way a good deal faster then one might have normally expected. He tried to ignore some of the occasional bits of laughter and stifled giggles, but to the majority of the onlookers, he was a boy pulling the cart while a shinobi walked alongside. His village headband insignia stealthily embossed on his shoes, out of sight.

Eventually however, the going evened out, as they began to work their way down to one of the ports at the Sea. It wasn't a section of Kirigakure Akuharu had been too before, so he allowed himself a slightly slower pace to enjoy the scenery. As it was a mostly downhill tread from the inland of Kirigakure to the ocean, it became a much easier task then he had anticipated. Sooner rather then later, they arrived at their location. Port Frostmouth welcomed the additional supplies with open arms, and Akuharu managed to convince the guards to fetch a plough horse to pull the delivery the rest of the way as opposed to himself. Stretching his back in the aftermarth, he nodded to his fellow Genin before he left. "Good working with you Keita-san, next time then." And then, there was one.

[Exit]

Once the man got the gist of what Keita was implying, it was a swell ride, although Keita felt sort of badly for the young man that had to pull the cart. He looked like he could do it, and after a bit of a hurdle in the beginning of starting the rolling of the damned thing, he got it moving, and he was going through town showcasing all that stuff. There were a few muffled laughs, and Keita simply gave them a slightly puzzled look every time, as if they had never done anything difficult in their lives. Still, the chakra that he was using was minuscule, and so he was basically keeping the water from destroying the cargo, and even then he felt like he wasn't quite doing enough for the other person that was essentially doing all the work. He then had a wonderful idea, as chakra threads broke out of his other hand as well, and he used those to turn the cart wheels a little easier. The other person wouldn't know this of course unless he turned around, but Keita didn't care. This guy had been nice to him, and that's all that mattered to Keita, is that he wasn't an enemy and he wasn't a jerk.

So, with the goal in reach, the cart was put under an awning, and he folded up the plastic sheet with incredible grace, and stuffed it back into his pocket. This seemed to be a rather easy mission, and he hoped that the ninja he had dragged along with him wasn't too exhausted or bitter that Keita had him to basically all of the heavy work. In fact, it surprised Keita even more that he said it was good working with the weirdo, and that he would see him next time. Keita simply tilted his head at the man, before giving a wide green and a wave, and then walked to the people who received their gunpowder, and made them sign a form saying that it came intact and not wet in the slightest, before he walked back to the administration office to turn in the mission form. Some people might forget about these little details, but Keita never really forgot about anything, even though he wished for some of his memories to be gone forever.

[exit]