I Got Mah Mailman Hat On! (Mission)

[Kenchiro]

SPOILER: Click to show

Mail Courier
Rank: D.
Shinobi Required: 1-4.
Mission Information: The Great War has taken its toll on Sunagakure. Very few mailing houses remain, leaving the postal service lacking. They are requesting a few unoccupied shinobi come down to help them catch up with mail delivery. The shinobi would be required to travel Sunagakure carrying a mail satchel (must be returned) and a courier arm band (also must be returned) and deliver mail to specified citizens.
Special Information: Repeatable.
Reward: 25 EXP & 500 Ryo.

Another day, another shiny Ryo. Kenchiro put on his courier arm band with a hint of chagrin. One of these days, he was going to find a way to earn money without resorting to such drudgery. Seriously, assisting the postal service? What did he look like, an errand boy with an abundance of free time. Well, the latter was true, at least. And, he noted, this certainly beat sitting around the market place or thinking of new jutsu to study, neither of which kept him in fancy disposable cloaks and walking around clothes from exotic lands. Man, it sucked being responsible.

The first stop on his list was a lovely little village out in the desert somewhere. At least, he assumed it was lovely. It was not a village inhabited chiefly by ninjas and designed solely to prepare for war, at any rate. He set out on the road with all the haste and efficiency of a well-bred shinobi. The miles passed by uneventfully enough (Kenchiro could have sworn he saw a few scorpions around, but he did not have the time, inclination, or death wish to investigate further.), and by noon the small town was in sight.

He took a second to look it over as he drank from his water flask. According to the mission specifications, there were a few unsavory types hanging around this area. He was going to have to keep an eye out for them. In other words, it was just another day for a ninja. He adjusted his armband and nodded. "Right. Let's deliver some mail."

[Kenchiro]

Kenchiro opened his mail bag and looked at the little street, with its neat little row of houses wrapped in a circle around the communal well, which given the state of the desert, was probably just a place where they stored the water that was brought in from the nearby oasis. There were no mailboxes, per se; mail was such a rare occurrence in a town where everybody knew everybody and people rarely left, that the couriers usually just delivered any letters personally. Of course, life had been so hectic for the post office that what few letters there were had piled up a bit.

Fortunately, he was nothing if not a stickler for efficiency. He was knocking on a door with one hand, rifling through his bag with the other for letters addressed to this particular house. Thankfully, the post office was just as efficient as he was; the letters were all painstakingly arranged according to the order of houses he was visiting. Combined, he found that he could finish up a street in no time flat, with no shortage of professional sounding greetings and smiles.

Looking in his bag, he found a few boxes in the partition designed for this part of town (Again, he was struck by the incredible organization of the post office. Perhaps, he thought, there were a few shinobi on the payroll.). He smiled. At the rate he was going, he would be done and back in the village before he knew it.

[Kenchiro]

Miss Rukio woke up from her afternoon nap, the same one she had taken twice a week for the past thirty years. She poured herself a glass of lukewarm tea from her teapot (she preferred it to be cool, especially on warmer days in Kaze no Kuni) and picked up her book from the table. She was prepared to sit by the window, enjoying the light breeze and losing herself in the adventures of Pensuke of Tsuchi no Kuni, one of the greatest clandestine agents in all of fiction.

However, when she looked out the open window, she was aware of something on the horizon. Kenchiro tossed a pair of letters right into the house, with as much accuracy as if he was tossing kunai. Nodding to himself, the Genin thought that if he could only do that for all the houses, he could be done with this job in no time. Unfortunately, if he did that, half the people would not even be aware that the mail had come. Sometimes it was just a bummer being a ninja.

However, that was just about it for this particular leg of his run. Kenchiro looked over the map the post office provided for him. According to it, the next area he would have to visit was, to put it kindly, colorful. Between the poverty, the lack of infrastructure and the group of ne'er-do-wells who apparently had nothing better to do than harass delivery people, it was no wonder they felt compelled to hire ninja for it.

It was a short walk, and an even shorter trip by air (like many ninja, Kenchiro simply found it easier to hop from the roofs) to the neighborhood. When he landed on the street, he took a moment to look over his surroundings. "Jeez. I give some of these houses awards for effort, but..." He shook his head. There would be time to critique the village's collective design sense later. For now, he had letters to deliver and a gang to keep an eye out for.

[Kenchiro]

SPOILER: Click to show

Mail Courier v2
Rank: C.
Shinobi Required: 1-4.
Mission Information: The Postal Service of Sunagakure is requesting that a few shinobi deliver some letters to the ghetto districts of the village. Apparently, some sort of small gang calling themselves terrorists have targeted the postal service and have been stealing mail and beating couriers. There have been no reports of death yet, but tensions are rising and the couriers refuse to deliver to this section of the village anymore.. Something must be done. The shinobi will receive a mail satchel (must be returned) and a courier armband (also must be returned) and will be instructed to deliver items to the ghetto districts of the village. If the shinobi encounters the gang, they are instructed not to kill, but merely “teach them a lesson.” The gang itself is small and poses little threat to a trained shinobi, but be on your guard.
Special Information: Repeatable.
Reward: 50 EXP & 1000 Ryo.

The job continued on as normal. Really, the only significant difference was the constant threat of being jumped. Or cornered. Or pick-pocketed. Now that he thought about it, he had gotten very little in the way of clues as to how these so-called "terrorists" worked. Then again, maybe if he did his job well enough, he could be in and out before he even had to encounter these unsavory characters.

So, he did his job like he was called in to do. Moving from house to house, he handed off letters to the assigned people. Again, he was struck with the efficiency to which his bag was organized; after a few houses, he did not even need to think about it. Every time he looked down, the first few letters were unerringly for the next recipient. It was enough to give Kenchiro a serious case of jealousy. He could hardly even organize his room so he could find what he was looking for, let alone something as complex as a mail route.

He was so engrossed in his job, he almost did not notice that he was being watched at first. There was a man on the corner who was apparently very interested in Kenchiro's movements. The Genin glossed over his recognition with his usual vacant smile. If that man was part of this group, things were about to get a little bit... inconvenient.

[Kenchiro]

He found that it was getting harder to concentrate. The more letters he delivered, the more he was aware of those eyes on the back of his head. Something was going to come of this scrutiny, he knew, but he could not even begin to guess when or how. That ticked him off. If there was one thing Kenchiro Nagakin should be at all times, it would be "in control of the situation." Every ninja instinct in his body told him he needed to do something. Perhaps it was time to get a little wily.

Giving off the least possible warning he could manage, he suddenly ducked into an alley between two buildings and walked briskly along it. Emerging at the back of the buildings, he turned left and sat against the back wall of one of the stores, putting his hands together.

Just as he suspected, his watcher pursued, emerging from the alley and looking around for him. He had, unfortunately for his pursuer, used Henge to turn into an old man in a patchy coat. In his new disguise, Kenchiro grabbed the spy's shirt sleeve. "Alms, sir?" he croaked, "Please, take pity on an old grandfather, will you?"

The young man jerked his arm free and glared down at the "homeless man," and the latter, in turn, stared up at him hopefully. At least, on the surface. Underneath, Kenchiro was plotting. Well, I certainly wouldn't want to be backed in a corner with a guy like this, he thought, but he doesn't look like ANBU material. I should be able to give him a wide berth. While he was thinking this, the young man turned around and continued down the street, looking for the mail courier he had lost sight of. Kenchiro stood, disengaging the jutsu and returning to his normal form once the coast was clear. Now that that was out of the way, he thought, he could get some real work done.

[Kenchiro]

And get some work done, he did. There was, throughout most of the town, a collective look of relief. It seemed that people had been waiting for their letters to arrive for a long time. All the chaos around the country, as well as in the town itself, had wreaked havoc on the infrastructure in many ways. Despite himself, Kenchiro could not help feeling a hint of enjoyment from this job. He was, in his own little way, being the big hero of the day, bringing people letters from loved ones when they had all but given up on them ever coming. Sure, it was extremely light on the actual ninja stuff, or even anything remotely difficult. However, on a more positive note, it was also light on things that could potentially kill him. Really, if he could coast through life on missions like this, he could retire a happy ninja.

Unfortunately, the sight of his pursuer on the fringe of his vision soured his good mood quickly. He groaned when he saw that the young man even had managed to scrounge up some friends. The Genin tested the weight of his bag. Almost empty, but not quite. That meant he could not just call the mission done and get out of town as fast as possible. Just peachy.

The pursuer and his friends fanned out, staggering themselves in what could only be described as the most amateur attempt at covert surveillance Kenchiro had seen since he left the Academy. Of course, if they were really as thuggish as the mission description painted them to be, it may have been that they were not trying to hide their motives too deeply. The Genin kept walking, pretending to be oblivious to their presence, still smiling that vague, empty smile. It was time to start getting wily again, it seemed.

[Kenchiro]

The Genin decided to take a "shortcut" through an alley between two stone buildings, putting his hands together as he did so. He turned town another alley, while a clone of him materialized, headed straight across for the opposite street. As the real Genin took cover behind a set of crates, his pursuers filed into the alley, following his doppelganger as it marched on, oblivious to the roughnecks behind it. Kenchiro could not help smiling to himself. Just as I thought, they are definitely not candidates for the upper-tier ninja ranks, he thought to himself. Maybe I can just go around them if I approach this right.

With a hop, Kenchiro was on one crate, then another, then flew up to the roof, where he got a better vantage of his clone and its pursuers. The clone decided to take another sudden "shortcut" into another alley and there, in the blind spot where the thugs could not see it, Kenchiro decided to disengage the jutsu, causing the clone to fade out of existence. The thugs followed, only to find an empty alleyway where their mailman used to be.

Kenchiro landed at street level, and resumed his deliveries, feeling a certain sense of schadenfreude at the thug's confusion. Unfortunately, his happiness was short lived. The thugs found him again shortly thereafter. Every time he turned, he saw an angry face or two looking in his direction, and every time he managed to slip through their vigil, there was another angry face or two watching his deliveries. He also managed to just barely slip through an obvious ambush or two; eventually, he was forced to stay on the main roads where, presumably, witnesses would prevent him from being attacked directly.

There were only a few letters left in his bag, but now he found himself changing his route so often, it was getting hard to remember where he was supposed to go next, much less find a roundabout way to get to it safely. And that, more than anything, was making Kenchiro very, very, annoyed. He was being stalemated. He, Kenchiro Nagakin, was being cowed about town by a bunch of know-nothing punks! It was around that point that he decided that he would stop getting wily, and start getting downright sadistic. In fact, he was even now hatching a plan.

[Kenchiro]

He stopped in his tracks, spun on his heel, and began to walk down the street the opposite way. He made a sharp turn onto a side street and followed it to the next corner. There, he stopped again, noting one of his pursuers was waiting for him. With clenched teeth and a poorly disguised attempt at maintaining his cool, he made another turn down another road, picking up his pace to a brisk walk. More followers materialized out of the alleys; Kenchiro took a moment to make eye contact with the burly one before rushing past. In no time, he had managed to grab the attention of all (or at least, most) of the would-be terrorists. It was around that time that his brisk walk had evolved to a full on run.

He had been running around town so much, he had found a likely spot to run to. Quiet, sheltered from the eyes of civilians, and, best of all, a total dead end. Just as he suspected, he was being followed by his "hunters." It was simplicity itself to find the small walled in area that, at one point, might have served a purpose other than an empty lot.

There, he backed himself against a corner and waited for the others to show. True to form, they entered the lot and spread out, looking for all the world like they were going to do nasty, horrible things to the Genin. Kenchiro, for his part, dropped the "scared little postman" act and dusted himself off. "Gentlemen! So nice of you all to join us in this little corner of nowhere." The Genin tried to hold back a smile. His sudden personality change had the intended effect; now, it was important to build a convincing lie while he had their silence. "You know, I heard a funny riddle on the way here." He put his hands together, focusing on a jutsu as he spoke. "Takeda and Sora are brothers." A clone of him leapt the wall and took his spot at Kenchiro's left. The thugs took a step back as the Genin continued. "They are exactly alike in every way, especially appearance-wise. They were born on the same day, of the same year, in the same month, to the exact same parents. And yet, they are not twins. How, exactly, could this be?" A second clone jumped the wall, taking his place to Kenchiro's right. "If you guessed 'because they're triplets,' that's a good guess, but it's wrong." A third clone leapt the wall, standing to the first clones left. "If you guessed 'because they're quadruplets,' as unlikely as that is, I'm afraid you're also wrong." A fourth and final clone leapt over the wall, landing to the second clone's right. "The correct answer, crazy as it sounds, is that Takeda and Sora are actually two members of a family of quintuplets."

Bull's eye. The terrorists were confused, and more importantly hesitant. Kenchiro liked hesitant. He could work with hesitant, turn that to his advantage. He took a step forward, motioning to his team of doppelgangers. "Congratulations, gentlemen! Your meddlesome assaults on members of the postal service has disrupted the infrastructure so severely, the powers that be have sent ninjas here to deal with you personally. And not just any ninja. You stand before none other than the Tanukimaru Brothers, the most ruthless five-man assassin squad ever conceived. However, we're nothing if not sporting." As he spoke, his "brothers" formed a circle around him, each one putting their hands together in a fake hand-seal. "Anybody who runs away now and renounces their treasonous ways will be spared. Otherwise..."

He put his hands together, rattling off a series of hand seals that signified nothing in particular. Then, clapping his hands together in the sign for Henge, he released his clones all at once creating, along with the illusion cast around himself, five puffs of smoke that combined into a sizable plume. When it cleared, the thugs got a sight of Kenchiro. He had transformed into a feral looking beast man, with razor sharp claws at the end of gnarled, fur-covered fingers. Hair sprouted from his face and arms in jagged tufts, and a striped, spiky furred tail swished back and forth from his tailbone. He raised his face, showing a set of razor sharp fangs and eyes sunken behind deep black circles, and spoke with a raspy chuckle. "...otherwise, I'm going to be having your innards in a nice helping of human stew tonight! Bwaaah... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

The group's combined courage faltered under the threat of a ninja attack, particularly one so apparently possessed by demons. To a man, they all turned and fled out the entrance as fast as their legs could carry them, stumbling over one another in their haste and screaming bloody murder. Kenchiro scratched the back of his neck absently. "Huh. A part of me wonders if I overdid it." With a puff of smoke, he was back to his old self, his vacant smile back in full force. "Well, maybe now I can get some work done and go home."

[Kenchiro]

And get some work done, he did. With the thugs thinking he was a well trained quintuplet of clandestine assassins, he could deliver the last couple of letters without having to worry about being jumped in a dark alley somewhere. Needless to say, the rest of the afternoon went by more or less uneventfully. He received his fair share of thanks for bringing people their mail, and more than his fair share of people annoyed that their letters took so long to get to their hands at all (apparently, the backup was worse than he had figured, not that it excused some of the nasty comments he had to endure).

But, what made Kenchiro happiest was the fact that it was, eventually, over. He shook his mail bag with a look of triumph. Take that, assorted missives and personal correspondence, he seemed to say, for I, Kenchiro Nagakin, have finally triumphed over your numerous, but impeccably organized ranks. And now, with his work done, he could begin the arduous journey home, a feat which, given his trip to this place, would likely not allow him to see his bed until morning tomorrow. With a sigh, he told himself that he was better off getting started now, while the thrill of victory was still fresh in his mind.

On his way to the town's exit, he noticed the burly man giving him a sideways glance. Kenchiro flashed his most winning smile, then made a discreet motion somewhat similar to one sliding a blade across a throat. With that, he was off into the desert afternoon, headed back for his hometown and a nice, soft bed.