Litter Pickin' (Mission)

[Saburo]

Clean the Village!
Rank: D
Ninja needed: 1-3
Mission info: The village is in shambles. Trash litters the streets, buildings lay broken, and the bodies of fallen warriors decay openly in the roads. A team of shinobi is needed to clear the debris and gather the dead.
Special Info: Can be repeated five times.

Saburo was a Genin already, but still relatively new to the world of being a full-fledged shinobi. As he understood it, one of the main parts of being a ninja was doing missions. They were apparently the main source of income, as well as an opportunity to gain all sorts of experience. So, that was what Saburo was going to do today. He was going to do some missions. He was near the mission compound already, and if he hurried, he could be there in only a few minutes. Picking up his pace, Saburo traversed across rooftops, it was faster this way. Once he arrived at his destination, he jumped down from the roof and swiftly landed in front of the entrance of the mission compound.

With excitement clearly present in every step, Saburo entered the mission compound. Boy was it confusing, he had no idea where to go! To the right of him, he saw several flights of stairs leading upwards. To the left were various doors leading god knows where. That's when he noticed that in front of him was a desk, with a big sign above it. The sign read 'Main Reception'. Figuring this was the best place to go, Saburo made his way towards the reception. As he approached, he could see that there was a woman sitting behind the desk. She had medium length blond hair, and a pair of glasses. A huge smile filled his face, thank god it wasn't a girl his age. That would've been awkward. Walking up to the reception, Saburo prepared to speak.

"Excuse me, but would you mind pointing me to the place where I can take on missions?" He would ask, a curious tone naturally filled his voice. "Oh, you must be a new Genin. You children are always so cute. It's right over there, sweety." The woman said as she pointed at the flight of stairs that led upwards. "Second floor." The woman finished. Saburo nodded and turned to face the stairs. Of course, he hadn't even thought about going upstairs. "Thanks lady." He said as he and his voice both trailed off towards the stairs. Making his way to the marble staircase, Saburo admired its beauty.

However, he didn't really feel like walking up a bunch of stairs, that's what jumping was for! Slightly bending his knees, Saburo pushed off and jumped a couple of meters up in the air. As he did so, he shifted his weight so that he was jumping up the stairs. He then repeated this a couple of times until he was all the way up. Looking around, Saburo saw a big sign that read ''Mission Desk''. The sign pointed to the left, and naturally, Saburo followed the simple instructions. As he turned the corner, Saburo saw the desk. It was there, and a male about his age was sitting behind it. To the left of the desk, Saburo scanned through a bunch of leaflets that were all pinned down on a bulletin board. Grabbing one out of interest, he dropped it onto the mission desk and said nothing as the man stamped the mission leaflet. 'Approved'.

1ST POST OUT OF 5

[Saburo]

Right now, Saburo was feeling pretty damn good. He had just set out on his very first mission, and he was looking forward to it. Sure, the mission was nothing more than a simple clean-up of Kirigakure, but Saburo would do anything to help his village. Considering his possible plans of action Saburo decided it would be best if he began with a simple litter patrol. At this time of the year, you could find all sorts of weird rubbish laying around. The war had left it's scar on the Mist Village, but Saburo was going to erase it. Making his way out of the mission compound, Saburo was instantly overwhelmed with a bunch of streets, intertwining throughout the village. Where was he to start?

That's when it hit him, he knew the best way to go about this. Relaxing his knees, Saburo would let a bit of chakra flow into his feet. As a tiny amount of chakra rushed to his legs, he sprung up, and made his way up to the rooftop in a couple of jumps. Now he had a good viewpoint. He could see a lot of the streets. His tactic wasn't a complicated one. He was to pick the biggest, longest street he saw and make his way down it, cleaning up all the litter that was around. For the first round of his clean up, Saburo wasn't going to clean anything that wasn't litter. Taking a few seconds to look around, Saburo finally saw that the biggest street he could see was straight in front of him, around 50 meters away. He traversed from rooftop to rooftop until he reached the beginning of the street. Jumping down to street-level, he crackled his knuckles.

There was litter everywhere. Literally. Just scanning over the area, Saburo could tell that there was no area without litter. The street was full of it. Taking out the black bin bag that was given to him earlier, Saburo began collecting all sorts of rubbish. From cans, to paper bags, to smashed plates, the street had it all. Saburo was pretty sure that if a homeless person was to spend an hour or so on this street, they could surely find something useful. It was a good thing that Saburo was still young, if he was 40 or so years old, his back would be in so much pain right now. However, he had the power of youth. Not losing any of his trademark cheerfulness, Saburo gradually made his way down the street and eradicated any litter he saw.

Once the street was relatively litter-free, Saburo noted that his black bag was full. It was time to make a trip to the skip. Hopping back onto the rooftops was surprisingly more difficult, he had a heavy bag to drag around with him. However, Saburo jumped up without much difficulty, and traversed across the rooftops once again. Arriving at the skip, he jumped down to the entrance, and made his way in. There were citizens working there, to make sure that people who unloaded litter in this place did so in an organised manner. They didn't seem to glad to be working there, but money was still money. Saburo simply ignored the gloomy bastards as he made his way to one of the metal litter crushers. He threw the whole bag into the machine, and watched as giant metal teeth crunched down on the litter. That was really cool.

2ND POST OUT OF 5

[Saburo]

Saburo was now back at the end of the big street, which was looking a lot cleaner now that the litter was gone. He stood there scanning over the area. While the expression on his face was blank, thoughts were actually racing through his head. He had to decide on what to do next. It was a grim job, the stuff that was left. During the war, Kirigakure had understandably suffered casualties. There were bodies of fallen warriors left on the street, and Saburo would have to give them burials at some point. However, he decided that he would clean the whole street before he started on the touchy-feely stuff. There were bits of buildings lying around everywhere, it was a mess to look at.

Springing forward, Saburo ran over to a pile of debris that was actually a part of a destroyed building. Looking at it, he could tell that there was no way he would be able to carry it himself. It would be better if he broke them down into smaller pieces. Raising his leg upwards, Saburo brought it down with full force, targeting the debris. As his leg made contact, the bits of ex-buildings broke into tiny pieces. That's right, he was a Genin, yet he had some strength. Now that the debris pile was more manageable size-wise, Saburo picked some up. He carried them to one side of the street, and placed them down on the pavement. This would be the point where he was going to bring all the debris, and once he was done with the clean-up, he would ask some guys from the skip to come and collect them.

However, it would be a while before the crumbled building clean up was actually finished. Getting back to the street, Saburo made his way down it. He would take his time, after all, he had the whole day to do this. Most of the time, the chunks of debris were too large, so Saburo had to break them down himself. Naturally, this got a bit tiring after a couple of hours, but he wasn't a shinobi for the hell of it and decided to continue. He didn't focus on carrying all the stuff to the 'collection spot' yet. Instead, Saburo went round and broke the debris into more manageable chunks. After Saburo had finished doing so, it was time to bring all the rocks into the collection spot down the street.

He did so without problems, but now Saburo had a lot of rocks in one pile, and not enough manpower to take it to the skip. Making his way over there empty handed, he requested some help. He hated to do this, they were probably busy enough as it was. However, the task couldn't be done by himself, and he ended up convincing some men from the skip to help him out. Finding themselves back on the main street, each person, including Saburo, took their fair share of rocks, and started to make their way back to the skip. It was much harder than travelling empty-handed, but Saburo was a tough little nut.

3RD POST OUT OF 5

[Saburo]

The clean-up was starting to look really good. However, the grimmest part was still the one left to do. What Saburo was thinking about was of course all of the fallen mist warriors who's bodies laid on the streets. Someone had to collect them and give them a burial, as every warrior deserves. Saburo made his way back to the street that he was cleaning up, it was nearly done after all. Taking a good look around, he counted a total of bodies. This meant that he would need a total of 5 graves. There was no such thing as a 'grave-digger' in the mist village, so Saburo had to do it himself. Taking a shovel from the local supply store, he made his way to the graveyard.

At the graveyard, the atmosphere was incredibly grim. It was silent, and a cold wind blew through it. A shiver ran down Saburo's spine, it would be better if he did what he came here to do, and got out. Scanning the area with his golden eyes, he picked out an empty spot where there were no graves. Making sure his shovel was sturdy, Saburo struck the ground. The soil was soft and muddy. This would be a pain in the ass to dig, but Saburo was determined that he could do it. An hour or so had passed, and Saburo was still only half-way into the first grave. It seemed as if every time he took some dirt out of the grave, a bunch fell back in. Perseverance was key in this mission, as Saburo had come to learn.

With enough hard work, and a lot of time, Saburo had dug the graves. Five of them in total. It was about time to do the saddest thing on this mission, and that was collecting the bodies of the fallen shinobi. Going back to the street he was working on, Saburo went round to the first fallen warrior. It was a kunoichi, aged 25 or so. She was still young, but died fighting for her country. Picking her body up, Saburo went to the next one. He could carry a total of two. The second fallen warrior was a male shinobi, much older than the kunoichi. If Saburo had to guess, he would've placed him at around 40. Dropping the two bodies off at the graveyard, Saburo went back once again.

There was three left. The third body was what hit Saburo the hardest. It was a male. However, he couldn't have been older than Saburo himself, maybe 13. The boy hadn't even known the joys of life before it was taken from him, what a shame. Picking him up, Saburo continued his sweep. Next, he came to the fourth shinobi that was killed in action. It was another kunoichi, about the same age as the first one. Dropping those two off at the graveyard, Saburo went back for the final time. Picking the last fallen shinobi up, he dropped him off at the graveyard.

4TH POST OUT OF 5

[Saburo]

The mission was nearly finished. All that was left now was to bury the shinobi, and have a minute of silence for them. Taking the shovel, Saburo would go around the graveyard and bury any open graves that he had made. These shinobi had served their country, and paid the ultimate price. He was happy to be doing at least this much for them. There was no better honour than dying for you country, but that doesn't mean that anyone wants to. As he finished off the graves, Saburo planted a marker on each grave and marked it with the details he knew. No one had claimed these bodies by now, that probably meant that they didn't have anyone close.

After the minute of silence, Saburo started to make his way back to the mission compound, in order to get his mission approved. He traversed across the rooftops, but his mind was on an entirely different matter. What if he had died during the war? Maybe the only reason he was still alive was because he was an academy student at the time. That sucked. He wasn't sure what to think, and tried to forget the whole thing. All this time, he was nearing the mission compound. His facial expression hadn't changed much for about an hour now. Saburo was looking gloomy. That wasn't like him, he was supposed to be a happy kid.

Arriving at the mission compound, Saburo entered. He ignored the main reception completely and slowly made his way up the stairs. Not to mention being exhausted, he was also incredibly frustrated. In the academy, they don't teach you anything about dying in the academy. They make it out as if no one ever dies. The truth is, people die, and someone has to end up dealing with their loss. That sucked in Saburo's opinion, but who was he to change the world? He was nothing more than a Genin fresh off the academy. He probably lacked the skill to do a harder mission. Shaking all of these horrible thoughts from his head, Saburo took a smile to his face as he neared the mission desk.

5TH POST OUT OF 5

[Messatsu!]

+45!