That May Work [M]

[¤ SFS ¤]

Wake Up !
Rank: D
Ninja needed: 1-3
Mission info: There’s an old drunkard sleeping on the front doorstep of the tsuchikage’s tower. Someone, anyone, wake him up and move him along !
Special Info: Can be repeated indefinitely.

There was just no arguing with logic. With every mission he took and completed he became stronger. His name became more known in Iwagakure and eventually beyond Iwagakure. His jutsu became more diverse. The manor remained filled with food and with working lights and heat. His siblings could really eat and he was no one to enjoy a lack of electronics. Point was, he had to sharpen his skills and pay the bills and doing missions for the village was a perfect way to kill all the birds with one stone. Plus, for every mission he did, Iwagakure got a nice little cut of Ryo from the clients that went towards the village vault. Today in general seemed like overkill even to him but there was a method to his madness. All of the missions he was on task for for the next 24 hours were completely do-able in that time frame, most of them were missions he'd already done before and ones he could do in his sleep. Even something as trivial as getting a cat out of a tree could be helpful to one's training. At the very least he would get a decent amount of pay out it and even some time to craft a pill or two. These missions were perfect to go about accomplishing so many things at once; he always got to mingle with civilians, earn money and add more and more missions to his record. As of now there were twenty six missions completed successfully on his record another fifteen or so sure as hell wouldn't hurt because beyond today, beyond this week, beyond this month the next Chuunin Exams were on the way. He needed work in all areas to feel comfortable in what was ahead of him. There would be time for more challenging missions as well but for now it would be time to hit the grindstone with the simple tasks. Those simple tasks had done well to bring him to his current level after all.

Feeling not in the least bit overwhelmed the genin proceeded down the steps of the Tsuchikage's Tower already fully aware of how the next hours of his life was going to go. He didn't know how much time he had before it was time to leave the village and join Kei to venture to where ever it was they had to go to for that special mission. He still hadn't taken in the details of that mission but skimming over it gave him a solid idea of what to expect. Shinobi from other lands, possible forces to oppose them and what Sen was guessing was a billionaire at the center of it all. For now he had to focus on what was in front of him and knuckle down for some good old fashioned grinding.

A snoring sack of a man awaited the genin at the bottom of the Sandaime's Tower. The same old man that was always there. The more Sen was being forced to deal with this guy the more he was becoming convinced that the man was someone of importance. He never listened to reason about not sleeping on the grounds of the Tower and yet, someone always had the Ryo to make sure he was properly removed from the area and handled delicately. Whoever he was he wasn't pulling this shit seven years ago but then again whoever he was and why he kept doing what he wasn't supposed to do didn't matter. Taking him somewhere safe was a simple and straightforward mission and quite frankly it was the easiest and most quiet two-hundred and fifty Ryo he'd make all day. If the man ever did get the picture and start sleeping else where that would be one less of an easy mission for him. It wasn't exactly the most physically challenging but still carrying a man several hundreds of meters away from the tower was a slight workout as well. Leaning down the genin hoisted the older man over his shoulder and began to move to that same area he'd taken the man to twice to before. From there he would start the process of crafting more Hyourougan, something the old man was likely to bitch about when he woke up, that and the fact that he was waking up in a place he clearly stated he hated being woken up in.

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[¤ SFS ¤]

There was right way and a wrong way to go about doing just about everything and the difference between hard workers and geniuses was the amount of times it took for them to do something before they figured out not just the right way to do something, but the best way to do something. A genius might grow up seeing something dome the right way and get it on the first try while a hard worker might simply need to physically repeat what they've seen a few times before they can do it as well as the genius could do it. In the end though every one learns right from wrong and everyone learns how to do something the best way possible some just got it faster than others. Like he'd done twice before the genin sat the old man down in the secluded area he always brought him to and propped him up against a tree waiting for the old coot to wake up complain about where he was and wander off to get some more alcohol before leaving said alcohol dispensing establishment and wandering back onto the grounds of the Tsuchikage's Tower to catch his daily supply of Z's. He wasn't exactly a bad man or rather, he wasn't an evil man from what Sen could tell. The guy was just a bit repetitive and had a vice that seemingly controlled his life. It wasn't exactly the best situation for anyone involved but at the end of the day they both knew full well that the older man could have been much much worse off and much much more disruptive and problematic for the village. Sen imagine the possible details of C or B-ranked missions involving this man that happened daily and in that he was glad the old man was just doing too much boozing and then passing out in improper places.

The genin removed his beloved and renowned backpack, unpacking all it's contents and repacking them for accessibility; all the items he wouldn't need until the end of the crafting job were packed at the bottom and the things he would have to check on frequently were placed at the top. It had been days since the last time he'd made the effort to create a new Hyourougan and in that time he'd come to notice something about his kind and the kind that one would find in stores and crafting shops and so on. The standard Hyourougan and his own design both had the same effects meaning once introduced to the body by ingestion they both performed the same way, which was probably the reason he was able to sell any of them at all. Differences were that his design lead to a larger, bulkier pill and the standard design was much smaller, probably about half the size of his own pills. Also while his Hyourougan were coated with a blue and sweet gel the standards were covered with a brown substance and from the taste it was chocolate. It wasn't such an intense taste that it was obvious as to what it was, it was just tasty enough to counter the bitterness of the unprocessed stimulants and the clashing tastes of all the vitamins, minerals and nutrients packed in it.

Numerous small containers housed the catalyst ingredients, or rather the creators of the catalyst ingredients. If they showed signs of being just a little bit smarter he would have sworn the bees were sentient and willingly allowing themselves to be captured for a free meal. They always seemed reluctant to let go of the root and fly away when he didn't need them anymore, the genin effectively ending their buffet when it got to the best part, but like he thought, they weren't quite smart enough to remember that much plus it wasn't like he was always capturing the same batch of them every time anyhow. From seven different containers groups of bees all went about pollinating the special root locked in the container with them. It would make the process of crafting run that much more smoothly if he could just separate out all the different amounts of each item he would need to get all the Hyourougan made. Tilting up his gaze he could see drool forming on the old man's mouth and then the man would fidget from the feeling of warm liquid running down his chin and neck, it wouldn't be long now before he woke up.

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[¤ SFS ¤]

While the busy little insects went about their business inside the containers the ninja using them for what he need sat patiently carefully examining the vitamins and stimulants he would have to add in later. Every occasional glace at the old man revealed nothing new and like always there wasn't an abundance of people around gawking. The old bastard would wake up when he felt like it, he was in no rush. This part of the crafting took time and as he full well knew once the creeping sun began to shed light on his body he would wake up within minutes. For the moment he took out a small box of the chocolate coating he would have to melt down and dip the baked dough balls in. He'd skipped breakfast in order to make it down to the Mission room to snatch up the ones he had today. He knew today would be one for the memory books since he stood to gain more than ever before. In one day he would nearly double the number of total D-rank missions he'd taken on. With a good portion of them being physically demanding and to be handled in a prompt fashion meant he would have to everything not just successfully but in faster intervals. His later missions were things that could be handled at all hours of the night but the first sixty percent or so were strictly daytime only and some of which were flagged to be taken care of A.S.A.P. He felt a pang of guilt about doing this mission first as the next one was one in which he would have to convince someone not to jump from a building. It was almost sad how many times he'd had to do that so far. Either way he was still a few pieces of meat short of a full stomach so the aroma of the chocolate was just an intoxicating way to pass the time. That was until he heard an annoying voice go off while he wasn't looking.

"YOU! WHY IS IT ALWAYS YOU THAT MOVES ME FROM THE TOWER AND WHY IS IT ALWAYS HERE THAT I WAKE UP?!"

The sound of his voice was like a never ending punch in the face, it was just something you wanted to stop, he hoped with age his own voice wouldn't follow such a pattern. "You might not know this but you aren't special. Plenty of people sleep under the Kage's Tower and I'm the shinobi assigned to you during certain days, this being one of them. So long as you sleep where you're not supposed to, this is where you'll wake up." He was making that up but it sounded good. Even though he had no desire for the man to start sleeping elsewhere and eliminating one of his less stressful missions he still couldn't quite tell him it was okay to sleep there now.

With more classic grumbling and mumbling the old man took off in the direct Sen suspected was the closest bar. With not much else to keep him there he once more removed a contain from the backpack and check and then double checking that the root, fruit and leaves had been coated with the needed enzyme. Leaving the top off he carefully shooed away the bees inside. The next part apart about boiling the root, fruit and leaves would have to wait until he reached a more stable location. There was no telling how it would turn out at his next mission or if he would even have the time to craft while adamantly trying to convince someone not to kill themselves. Still, where there was a will there was a way and where there was a way there was Sen. If needed be would hold back on crafting until he was sure he could trust the jumper not to make that ultimate plunge. It crossed him mind once the old man was out of sight that after three interaction neither of them knew the others name. Although it now be a thing he would wonder about he knew he would be seeing the old man sooner than later.

Putting the lid back on his container and the container back in the backpack he moved on to his next objective. Confident he would get them all done today and be that much stronger for it tomorrow. That's one.

[¤ SFS ¤]

Suicidal Thoughts
Rank: D
Ninja needed: 1-3
Mission info: There has been reports of a man attempting to jump off of a building in the heart of the city. Hurry and get there as soon as possible in order to persuade him otherwise.
Special Info: May be repeated indefinitely.

Traveling west of where he'd brought the old man he'd removed from the Kage's Tower he arrived at his destination. It didn't take very long for him to reach the building from in which the person was threatening the jump. With all his materials neatly packed into his backpack took a horizontal slant as he ran up the building. He was still impressed with how fast and how easy he could stick to the surfaces of things with very little effort at all. It seemed to be one of the wonders of possessing such a large chakra pool. He wasn't sure of an exact way to measure it and the only feasible way get an understanding of it's power was to test the limits of others and compare. It had been a long time since he'd had a good sparing partner and he wondered if Kei would might going a round or two with him sometime in the future. What he really looked forward to one day was meeting another Youton user who he could face off with in order to see how others use the element, it would no doubt provide a major learning experience for him and take his tactics if not his tactics and his jutsu to a new level.

Getting back into the matter at hand he came to a stop at the top only to find a young lady who was already waiting for him.

"I knew they were just staling for time until one of you showed up."

Her voice was filled with anger and disappointment. "Take it easy... I'm not here to make you do anything, I just want to help you off this roof, even if it means having to convince you getting down is the right thing to do." She looked a bit more angry at the thought of someone trying to talk her out of something but Sen continued on not backing down. "I mean you can jump if you want but I won't let you die and I'd rather skip whole thing if we can avoid it." His fingers went through the motions associated with the twelve animals and with only the passing of a few seconds the girl was surrounded. Ten Sen stood at all sides of her which only seemed to make her even more furious. Still she came and sat down in the middle of the roof pouting slightly the whole way there. She sat down as the numerous clones of himself each tended to their assigned duties. Four were ordered to stand at each corner of the roof, two were put on watch duty for their rooftop guest and the remaining two were tasked with tending the crafting of the Hyorougan under Sen's watchful eyes. So help himself if the assholes for some reason dissipated and melted all his materials and tools, the worse part of that would be the realization that he couldn't really kick their asses for it, they didn't really exist as he did.

"You.." He pointed at one of his lava-filled stunt-doubles. "set up the coil burner and the small pot, fill the pot thirty percent to the top with water and dump the contents of the container marked "one" into pot with the water. Once it comes to a hard boil cover it with the stone bowl. Check on it ever couple of minutes to make sure it doesn't burn. You've done this before so you'll know when it's finished." He turned to look at the other clone who was already waiting for his specified instructions regarding the Hyourougan. "...Take all the seed and vitamin tablets well need and grind them up well, then mix them in with the stimulants and wait for the root to finish boiling. If they do so before this mission is over, let me know."

[¤ SFS ¤]

He turned his attention back to the young lady whom he need to have a serious discussion with, but when he turned back to her he noticed something was wrong. She was sitting with her hands to her face. From the way her shoulders rhythmically heaved he had no trouble making out that while he gave his clones orders the girl had begun to cry. He returned to sit opposite of her careful not to intrude on her personal space. With a motion of his fingers the two clones he made to watch over her were ordered to give them some space, and in that space he was able to start working her down and convincing her that jumping wasn't the way no matter what it was she was facing or what it was she was trying to achieve. "I know you're confused and unsure of what's what but I know that you know I'm being genuine when I say I only want to help." He scooted closer to her and leaned in to speak just a above a whisper. When he did so the first thing that came to his mind was how easy it would be for her to reach out and slash his throat. That in turn reminded him of how long it had been since he'd been this close to anyone in a one on one setting where one of the ones was emotionally unstable. He put all those thoughts out of his as he came to speak to the girl once more. "Now, I can't help until you tell me what's going on. What happened to you? How'd you get here... to this?" She had probably suffered loss or just felt at a loss from the state of the village, no matter what it was though he wouldn't let her continue to suffer from it.

"My brother... my brother was killed last night while on a mission. He was a ninja like you. My parents were killed during an attack at the gates when I was still in the academy... my brother was all I had."

He could practically hear the sound of her heartbreaking as her voice cracked. "I'm sorry to hear that, I have siblings myself and our parents have been dead and gone for years now. My father left the village when I was a boy and my mother was pronounced dead on a foreign mission about eight or nine years ago. It was their absence that made me join the academy at such a late age so that I could become Genin and support myself and my siblings. Some of them even followed in my footsteps." The girl raised her head a bit, a small bit relaxed that someone who could relate to her feelings was there, even if he didn't understand them perfectly.

"How old were you when you joined the academy?"

---

Meanwhile the clones working on the Hyourougan moved diligently keep up with the pacing of making the pill. They had the original's memories of making them before and no jutsu was required to get it right, it was just a simple means of follow the steps he'd laid out for them. One of the black haired doppelgangers removed the wet root which had absorbed all the water it was boiled in, that liquid inside it was squeezed out of the root and fruit and into a bowl and then handed off to the second clone carefully for the next process. While number two mixed the liquid with the stimulants and the vitamins and powders needed number one went about sorting through the tools and setting up the heating coil for when number two was done mixing the materials into a dough and then kneading that dough and rolling it into a ball to be baked. He sat the melt-able chocolate in a small metal dish after removing it from it's wrapping and placed it over the fire to melt. It would be a stretch it but seemed likely that the pill would come out fine if it were only baked once with the dough dipped into the melted chocolate, then baked.

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[¤ SFS ¤]

"How old were you when you joined the academy?"

"I was ten. Stepping up to be the financially stable member of the household came naturally to me as my dream back then was to become a master craftsman selling my wares for massive amounts of money." The girl laughed a real laugh, her eyes red and her cheeks wet from all the crying. "As you can see from the work of my handsome minions it's still an obsession of mine." Sniffling and wiping away her cheeks she cleared her throat and spoke back with confidence to Sen sharing her past as he shared his own with her.

"I once signed up for the academy, I really like ninjutsu I stuck around long enough to take the affinity test with the chakra paper too. It was so cool you know? My brother was a Doton user and so were my parents. They were really good people..."

He waited for the moment to clear itself out a little and then he continued on with his questioning not wanting to let her sulk on her loss and her misery. "What affinity were you?" She flashed a smile at the question moving her hair from blocking her view.

"Well when I touched the paper it started to rip cleanly down the middle but then out of no where it burst into embers. I think the instructor called it Shakuton."

His ears perked up at the sound of something new, he was hard pressed to let the girl know what she was, it seemed odd that she possessed a Kekkei Touta when everyone else in her immediate family had the same release, one that did not compromise the Kekkei Touta the girl had. "So what happened? You left the academy?"

"I just couldn't deal with being so much older than most the others. I did to follow my brother's footsteps but when I found out a had a Kekkei Touta he was so proud of me."

Her face sank a little as he eyes stuck themselves to the ground.

"I guess that had been enough for me at the time."

"...at the time? ... Not anymore?"

"No... not anymore. He's not here anymore so him being proud of me for what I could have been isn't enough anymore."

"Then you should go back." She seemed so startled at the notion that she sat up in surprise to his response. "It's never too late to finish what you started. If your heart still beats you should fight to live, even if fighting to live means fighting to find a reason to live. Tell me something... your brother... did he finish his mission? Did he die with the job done?" She nodded repeatedly more tears coming to her eyes as she started to see the truth in his words. "If was proud of you for simply being special imagine how he'll feel watching over you as work hard to perfect your gifts. If I died... when I die, I'd want nothing more for my siblings." With a new mentality in mind the girl willingly allowed herself to be removed from the roof and was escorted home by patrolling guards. She thanked him for his words and give him her name, swearing he would see her again once she was genin like him.

[¤ SFS ¤]

If the girl who get past the feelings of loss and focus on a goal she would be fine. In truth she would probably never recover from the loss of her family but that didn't mean she couldn't go on. With time maybe she could find someone to latch onto someone to help her grow and if she lucky maybe one day she could have a family of her own. Whatever her future held he wished her the best of luck and the most of hapiness until they met again. Returning to the roof he caught his clones in the middle of doing something stupid and a bit innovative. They had already dipped the dough ball into the chocolate and set up the heating coil to bake it but from what his eyes saw from the size of it as they covered it, it was still in soft dough form. He really had no idea of what would happen to it this way though he doubted it would ruin the pill and outside of all of that it was too late to do the way he'd been doing so far. He normally hoped for the best and prepared for the worst, so that's what made sense to do here. Every time he made one he figured out something that made the process a little faster over and over again. Sooner than later he could able to kick out these babies twice as fast. The market price had recently gone done so they cost just as much to make but unless you had someone who bought them from you directly they were worth less when selling them to stores. Although he couldn't understand why for the life of him. It wasn't as if the Hyourougan were used, they were all new since using one meant consumption of one and thus it couldn't be reused.

Going over his next mission ticket he waited carefully for the Hyourougan to emerge as he plotted his course to the area where said 'next mission' was taking place. Another mystery of a murder was going down not far from here and he was dead set of taking care of that mission ASAP. Before long the finished pill would emerge from the stone bowl and heating coil, looking more like a store bought Hyourougan than any he'd ever made before it. Proud of what he'd created he tucked it away with the others inside his packs and ordered his troop of youton clones to move out. Since he still had missions to do he figured there was no sense not useful them to get more done in a faster time. Plus being that they were made of lava the roof of a building hardly seemed like the right place dissipate them.

SPOILER: Click to show

Hyourougan (Soldier Provision Pills)
Rank: B
Type: Medical Item / Self
Special: Only one pill may be used per thread or else the user will die. Provides the user with an amount of chakra and stamina equal to their DOUBLE their natural maximum, allowing it to stack on top of whatever remaining amounts their Stamina and Chakra Pools possess.
Description: Military Rations Pills (兵糧丸, Hyōrōgan) are special pills that replenish one's stamina and chakra and nourish the body. It's made up of powerful stimulants and nutrients, said to allow the user to keep fighting for three days and three nights without rest. Although the former is a slighy exaggeration, the pill nonetheless provides extreme stimulative boosts. however, abuse of the pill, especially to an unprepared chakra system, can lead to death.
Cost: 20,000 Ryo per Pill
Hyourougan Crafting Mastery: 4 of 10

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[Iizuka]

+ 64 EXP

[¤ SFS ¤]

Murder Mystery [1]
Rank: D
Ninja needed: 1-3
Mission info: There has been a murder in the village. Mrs. Pearson’s son was murdered and she has hired a shinobi to find out exactly why. Your first task is to find out who killed the boy and why he was murdered.
Special Info: May be repeated indefinitely.

He would be in short supply of Hyourougan of he ever forgot the location where the bees he needed nested. His whole process, though it did not come from them, started with them. Their enzymes helped keep the stimulants peaked when consumed in the body. There was more than one way to craft Hyourougan and though he had become accustomed to this way of doing it, there was no denying that it was an inconvenience to have to gather these insects before every Hyourougan job. It wasn't a big enough deal for him to mind doing it now but later when he attempted to craft outside the village, things could get a little more complicated. Luckily enough he wouldn't need anything more than a few minutes to get what he needed, effectively putting the tops back on the containers with the insects, roots, fruits and leaves and storing them in his backpack. His crafting process was getting a little better and better each time he made one. It seemed his old friend of Konoha fame and heritage had to reason wish for money back from the transaction. He wanted goods, the goods his Ryo would have most likely went towards to begin with, that was what he wanted. Sen had been able to convince him to accept pills instead of all goods since Hyourougan were a hot commodity and also disposable. He had a mission to do in the meantime but he couldn't let up on his crafting duties, he still had a debt to repay.

To save a bit of time late on down the load for his one pill in particular he would skip a head a little bit and breakdown all the stimulants and vitamins and powders that would have to go into it later. Kinda sucks that I'm doing this now. Cramming in some time to work on the Hyourougan while a mother waits to find out how her son was killed. Although I guess to be technical it's not like him on the investigation will go anywhere without me. The whites, browns, tans and oranges of the many things he was mixing came together nicely in container small enough to conserve space but still large enough for the liquid to be poured into and mixed together later. Putting the top back on container and the container back in the backpack he moved on carefully to what he knew to be the general area of his next mission. The order he'd placed them in was allowed him to get the life-threatening ones out of the way first followed by the urgent ones and then the ones that just matters of convenience and manual labor. It was still very early in the morning as he was already on his way to mission number three. It was still darkness in the sky, the dawn hadn't even begun to show yet. He'd taken on a lot of missions to do in one day and he wasn't backing out of that responsibility, he just needed to figure out when he would take a break and go get his pay. He normally waited until the end of the work day to pick up his rewards but he figured with all he would be doing in total it would be a good idea to check in after every handful of missions.

As it would turn out to be an eerie mission ticket for Sen to read that Mrs. Peterson's son had been murdered. It was only odd because he'd had a mission weeks back with the same circumstances and same name. He wasn't quick to jump to conclusions over the similar name but the prior mission was one in which he'd failed to perform up to par and for a moment he'd slowed his Chuunin partner down from completing the mission. Even though in the end it was him who righted the wrong and disposed of the killer, the memory reminded him that he was was capable of failure. Arriving on scene he spotted an attractive younger woman alongside a middle aged, but still also attractive woman he assumed to be Mrs. Peterson. He was relieved to discover that Mrs. Peterson was not the same woman whose son he solved the murder of the month before last. There was no telling how many Mrs. Petersons there actually were in Iwagakure no but if there was any ray of hope in this sad and gloomy situation, it probably lied in the fact that this young peterson boy might not have been killed by a deranged killer with ninja training.

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[¤ SFS ¤]

He introduced himself to both women and fought off urges to ask the younger of the two if she cared to join him tonight for comfort and some hot coffee. They were both very shaken one though one seemed to not be direct family of the deceased.

The younger woman Identified herself as Maye the older sister of the peterson boy's girlfriend. She had only recently gotten to the crime scene and before she could speak on what she knew she'd been escorted to the body where she began to cry and subsequently got caught up in emotion and couldn't speak through all the sobs. The officials on the job doing the baseline work until he arrived said that the younger woman, "Gina" had important information regarding the murder but she was only just now recovering enough to say what that was, so they turned her over to Sen for further questioning. "Gina... I am the genin headed with solving this murder, Tokomaru Sen. I was told you have some very important information regarding what happened here tonight with this young man?" He hated to have to be the one to pry the information out of her while she was busy grieving but there was no other way. He did his best to make out her words between the blowing, the sobs and the sniffles.

Far be it from him to rush a woman in such emotional pain. He could only guess at what it was that she knew. Was she crying because she was the emotional type or was it because what she knew of what happened to his man just that painful to think about?

"Yes, that's right and his name was Fuuma."

He made a mental note of the way she stood up for him not settling to allow the genin investigating his death to refer to him as 'this young man'. He waited calmly for here to continue on. The silence stretched out before them like a vast darkness in the night. It felt like a giant weight was holding him in place making him act as he should in this case. It didn't bother him much that he had to hang on every word she said to get an answer because in the end she would answer no matter what, he just thought the sooner the better.

"I know what happened to him, I know who killed Fuuma."

The news didn't come as much of a shock she seemed to be just as much at a loss as the mother, maybe what she knew of his death and killer made her more sympathetic to the circumstances where as the mother was just filled with the unnatural grief of outliving here own child.

"It was Renni. His girlfriend, my sister.... Renni killed Fuuma."

With a hard look and a harder sigh the genin just took it all in. The boy had been murdered by his girlfriend and the sister somehow knew it.. but what else did the sister know? "Did you see this happen yourself?"

"Yes... she came up to him from the front and confronted him about something and when he rejected her, she killed him."

The admission of what she'd seen seemed genuinely painful for her and he himself couldn't image what he would feel if he was forced to choose between his family and what's right. He was curious to know the details but it was obvious it was going to take her some time to get it all out so he asked for a moment and allowed her to get herself together before making a statement in detail. In that time the genin would nonchalantly sneak around the corner and handseal two clones into existence, having gotten rid of the ones with him earlier as walking around with them proved to be too awkward. The new clones were tasked with removing the lids from the containers and making the bees fly away, the leftovers inside the containers with the bees would be dumped into a pot and brought to a hard boil over the heating coil which would all be covered with a stone bowl. As they went to work carefully doing as instructed the original returned to Maye's side and took down what she said in great detail so that the Sandaime had all the information she needed to authorize another mission for the killer's capture.

[¤ SFS ¤]

"I know what happened to him, I know who killed Fuuma.""It was Renni. His fiance, my sister.... Renni killed Fuuma." "... she came up to him from the front and confronted him about something and when he rejected her, she killed him."

The sister would go on to inform them that Renni, as her name went, was ANBU and made quick of the boy, even going as far as literally, ripping out his heart. Apparently she thought the wasn't seen but with another ninja being dispatched to inform her team of what she's done and pulling her from her mission it was clear she had in fact miscalculated her chances of getting away. It was just as likely though that she wasn't a cold-blooded killer and she simply used her skills to kill in a moment of silent passion and simply went on mission out of sense of wanting to pretend for a little longer than everything in her life was still fine. Now that the job had shifted into the hands of a different department there was nothing more for him to do than move on to the next mission. Mrs. Peterson would have to have to live with her loss but both her and Renni would know that he really was good guy. Circumstances caused his demise and Sen sympathized with the man for a small while because it was all over for him.

Leaving the crime scene he genin took a moment between houses to the location where the clones had set up shop. The root sat in the pot and was almost done boiling. The water it took in would be vital to extracting the enzymes the bees left on it, and all the chemical properties inside it later. Even now as it was worked on in front of his very eyes he scanned the process for errors of ways to increase efficiency. He'd found many so far but when he found a solution two more problems arose. Even still, he found solutions for those problems too and sometime in the not so distant future he would reach the end of the line where the answers yielded no more new questions and when that time came he would be able to cut crafting time down on his Hyourougan specifically by one half. Of course they would still cost the same to make and generate the same upon sellback. Still, it was nice advantage to have to be able to make one so rapidly.

The Sens removed the pot from the heating coil once it reach a hard boil for a long enough time and then they set it on the ground allowing it some time to cool. The heating coil cooled much faster and would be ready to be slipped back into the backpack in seconds. The pot's contents would be dumped back in a container and also put inside the backpack. His next mission involved parents suspecting a wolf of doing something to or with their kids and as might turn out, like the missions like it in the past, he would have time to work on the Hyourougan a little more.

[¤ SFS ¤]

Big Bad Wolf
Rank: D
Ninja needed: 1-3
Mission info: Across the mountains of iwa a giant grey wolf lurks on bypassers but there have no been no problems with it. . until recently. A few children have become missing from the playground. Investigate the mountainous plains in search for the missing kids.
Special Info: Can be repeated five times.

It was a bit unprofessional to stall for a side project when you should have been focusing on the main event. But, with a schedule as constricting as the one he was forced to endure today it made sense that he'd crammed in some time between missions to get little extra work done. Fifteen missions in one day was sure to leave him sore until tomorrow but there was a method to his madness still and there wasn't a single cell in his body that didn't think he could handle the work load. Even now as he rested before mission number four he was wrestling with guilt due to not working on his next Hyorougan at that very moment. The water absorbed root and other parts would just have to sit in the container until it was time to drain and mix it to make the dough then knead the dough and coat it before baking the final product. Once this one was finished the grand total would be five of them. He'd just recently repaid a loan to an old friend and all that was left was whatever interests he decided to pay. He was sure that he would at least be handing over another two Hyourougan as payment but beyond that he as sure he wouldn't be giving up any more pills for free unless it was an emergency situation or one in which giving away a pill helped solved some other problem he had.

With a certain spring in his step the genin made his way to the familiar cave in the Iwagakure mountains. It was the best place to begin his search for the missing children. He would do his best to resist the urge to punch them all in the head for doing something as stupid as having their parents call for another ninja to come looking for them in association of that damn wolf. They were hurting themselves by perpetuating the notion that the wolf was dangerous. If every ninja in the village was constantly seeing mission postings regarding dangerous wolves and missing children the whole village could end up after the wolf they want to protect. He wasn't sure if scolding them was even worth it but as their senpai he felt guilty about leaving their questions unanswered. Most of the had applied to the academy and couple of them were already enrolled with their friend they all missed. The rest of them were were remaining in normal school but trying to be better students and studying much harder so as not to fall behind their friends who chose the shinobi way of life. Much to his pleasure each of them was enjoying varying levels of success in their endeavors.

Murphy was an asshole and Murphy's Law was an even bigger one. It seemed it would figure to the genin that the one time that he would go straight to the cave in search of the kids, where he'd found them twice before, he wouldn't find them now. With a sigh he took a look around to check the surroundings and law the chewed bones of something and nothing else that would signify that there was life nearby. Headseals and Kagura Shingan would reveal that humans with a chakra presence he could detect were within a twenty-five meter radius. Though the bones did look recently chewed he doubted it was done by human teeth and didn't doubt himself enough to look to double check. But with no hint or no leads as to the whereabouts of the missing children he was back to square one. It was a traditional good news bad news situation; the good news was that mission was still perfectly solvable he just had to start the search from square one, the bad news was that he had to start the search from square one. With a groan he leaned forward slightly and once his weight caused him to nearly fall he darted forward racing back to the kid's school, hopefully he could find some leads there.

[¤ SFS ¤]

His feet came to a sliding halt on the stone surface of the front area of the school where the kids were last seen. If this instances turned out like anyone of the others here before it the ultimate punchline would be here, like the last place, would yield no leads for him. That's how it had been twice before for him dealing with missions about missing kids and a wolf. The playground would have no yields so the he would always go to the cave next. Since the cave had no results first it only sense to come here next. A quick run around to the back however would prove that no one was there. With a moment to collect his surroundings he started to go about looking for clues and once more he found no missing items and no signs of a struggle. No bitten kids no lost limbs he couldn't guess for the life of him what happened to the kids. His hands went into making handseals with the passing of a few seconds the genin had once again activated Kagura Shingan and once he'd done so he came to notice something quite interesting. Little snickering bodies hiding behind trees and inside bushes. From their sizes he knew that they were too small to be the kids that he'd been seeing on these missions up to now. In, fact he could clearly see one of those older kids in class at that very moment through an open window. He gritted his teeth and rubbed his temples and almost burst a vein when those aforementioned motions made two the kids snicker even louder.

To calm himself he removed his back pack and sifted through it carefully not willing to keep going on with the mission if he was going to only grow frustrated. Sitting down he removed two containers and took the lids off of each one. From the one on the right he pulled out a fist full of small fruit chunks, a large soggy root and some swollen leaves. Holding it over the container on the left he compressed the contents of his fist between his two hands, the juice made from the pressure dropped into the container below. Once all liquid was pressed from it he dropped the part he was holding on the ground and began to mix the liquid with the powder in the container. It didn't take long for him get it to the consistency he needed it to be and in his hands he held a dough ball that only needed be dunked in coating of a certain brown color and flavor and then heated for a small while. Abruptly tossing the dough ball in the air however, he took fire through a cloud of handseals making clone after clone, each of them going after one of the three kids.

With quick use of Shunshin a clone was on the first one in no time, the little bastard squealed like a pig and wet his pants from the sudden appearance of of an adult who could now see was ninja and much bigger up close. The other two children shot off in the same direction upon seeing their friend so quickly captured, it seemed they had no qualms leaving him behind to get away. There kids followed the code of the schoolyard. Iffy as it was to use clones for this kind of thing, Sen thought as he caught the dough ball falling from the sky, they knew well enough to get away from a civilian if they were about to dissipate. Picking up the first boy by the back of his collar the clones took him to the edge of the playground were the other two would soon be joining them. More clones who would easily flank the boy and girl who tried to get away and cut them off picking them up by the back their collars as well.

Once all three of them were together he made them face backs to one another and surrounded them on all sides. He wouldn't say he was enjoying playing 'bad cop' on the kids just letting them feel and witness his genuine frustration with their prodding. His voice wasn't threatening but appropriately firm, the jig was up and they knew they were busted. With Kagura Shingan still activated Kagura Uso would tell him how honest they were being with him and if they insisted on lying, then he would have to deal with them in another way. What were you doing hiding in the bushes. Are you the kids claimed to have been missing for two days? Talk... now.

[¤ SFS ¤]

With the kids surrounded and one of them having pissed themselves the genin didn't suspect it would take long to get to the bottom of what happened and why these kid's were hiding and why their parents reported them missing and labeled the wolves as responsible. As it would turn out, he would be totally right in his suspicions.

"WE MADE IT ALL UP!"
"Will you shut your trap Kaza!?!"
"NO WAY IT'S TOO LATE THIS GUY IS A NINJA WE'RE BUSTED FOREVER NOW!"

The one called Kaza, who also wet his pants began to cry and even Sen couldn't help but feel bad for the kid. He was in trouble for lying he'd pissed his pants which never helped one look any cooler, and above all else his friends were now pissed off at him. Sometimes it was hard to even be a kid. "Save the bullying tough guy. In case you didn't notice you two are just as much trouble as Kaza here."

"You're bluffing we haven't done anything wrong."

"Oh yeah? How about pretending to be missing so that your parents have to spend their hard earned money hiring a ninja to look for you guys only to discover that it's just been on sub-par prank. You guys aren't just in trouble with your parents, your in trouble with your school and the village as a whole" He went on musing for the right words to use. He was really just guessing at blanks but the chances were in his favor that he was right the whole wolf abduction thing had become news to this school in particular and it made sense some younger kids would want to recreate the glory of their peers. Unfortunately these kids simply settled for lying to their parents about their whereabouts and skipping school. He just needed one of them to fess up before he could move on with his next step of the mission. Each of the boys was seized by two clones and Kaza, fearful from all that Sen had told them began to spill his guts much to the disgust of his partners in crime.

"The older kids said they saved a wolf and beat up poachers when we had all heard that they were abducted by the wolves in the mountains. When we found out the truth we thought it would be funny for us all to pretend to have been taken by the wolf for real, but when we did it we wanted to see how long we could get away with it!"

The kid didn't sound truly remorseful, only somewhat upset that he'd been caught and was about to get in serious trouble. The genin would have like to have let them off the hook but truthfully what they did was dangerous so he and his clones escorted each of them home where they were all promptly spanked by their parents. In the end they got what they deserved but there was always hope that they actually learned something from the whole ordeal as well.

[¤ SFS ¤]

When it was all said and done Sen came to rest on the grounds of the Tsuchikage's Tower. It wasn't quite time to call it quits but with dawn breaking into the sky is was time to check in and receive payment for the missions he'd completed so far. He didn't want to be caught guilty holding this many mission tickets so the sooner he unloaded them the sooner he would show that he was capable of handling such a volume of missions and also the sooner he would have that few of them on his person. Before heading up however he broke out the containers holding the close to finished version of his next Hyourougan pill. The heating coil, the baking tray, the chocolate coating and the pan in which to melt the chocolate coating, along with the rock bowl all found their way to the ground from his backpack. Spreading them all out he came to hold the dough ball in his hands, kneading it once of twice to get the last bits of air out before rolling it into a ball again. The pan which was supposed to melt the chocolate was already sitting on the heating coil and before long it was hot enough to dunk the tiny ball of dough in.

Honestly Sen found it harder to remove the pills from the chocolate now that they were so much smaller. It was a minor inconvenience however when weighed against the pros of having such smaller pills in all other instances. Smaller pills could be stored easily and in more numerous numbers without taking up all the space. They were easier to hide and even put in one's mouth and eat discreetly. Indeed they were much more effective small and once he found it in the pan of melted and warm chocolate the genin removed it using chop sticks and sat it down on the baking tray to cook carefully replacing the chocolate pan with it and then covering it with the stone bowl.

This moment like all the others before it was a little hard to bare. Inside the stone bowl his next Hyourougan was being superheated to a puffy and chocolate coated state. It would only take minutes before it was done but those minutes always seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Shifting through his pockets the young man began to separate finished missions of the day with those still left to be taken care of. His next mission involved locating a boy who had run away recently followed by a shift working as an assistant to an academy teacher and then as an apprentice to a swordsman. By the time he finished those two it would still only be the morning time maybe even earlier than 10:00 hundred hours. If he managed to take care of all his missions before 22:00 hundred hours he would probably spend the night soaking in the Firefly House maybe he would even indulge in some herbal to smoke.

Uncovering the baking tray by turning over the stone bowl revealed the shiny brown consumable gem inside it. The pill small, shiny and smooth to the touch, it's scent hinted at a divine taste though the genin had yet to taste one of his own pills for lack of a situation in which he needed to do so. The newest pill found a home in the small case where the other three he had on his person yesterday were. They were gone in order to pay off a debt but this one was all for him and with it he was that much closer cracking the mystery of speeding up the crafting process behind the Hyourougan.

SPOILER: Click to show

Hyourougan (Soldier Provision Pills)
Rank: B
Type: Medical Item / Self
Special: Only one pill may be used per thread or else the user will die. Provides the user with an amount of chakra and stamina equal to their DOUBLE their natural maximum, allowing it to stack on top of whatever remaining amounts their Stamina and Chakra Pools possess.
Description: Military Rations Pills (兵糧丸, Hyōrōgan) are special pills that replenish one's stamina and chakra and nourish the body. It's made up of powerful stimulants and nutrients, said to allow the user to keep fighting for three days and three nights without rest. Although the former is a slighy exaggeration, the pill nonetheless provides extreme stimulative boosts. however, abuse of the pill, especially to an unprepared chakra system, can lead to death.
Cost: 20,000 Ryo per Pill
Hyourougan Crafting Mastery: 5 of 10