Coming & Going [M]

[¤ SFS ¤]

----Race, Genin

Client's Name: Jiso Senbo
Client's Occupation: Genin Shinobi
Mission Rank: D
Payment for completion: 500 Ryo + 25 EXP
Mission Subject: I need to race! I need to keep on my toes, keep running, winning. Gotta keep running, running. I need a good race! Gimme a good raaaaace!
Special Requests: Must be done solo, no teams here. Race is from the Gates to the other end of the village. Should take 2 hours if you're fast.
Notes: All has been explained.

It had taken a little while to follow the path back but here he was ready for his early morning workout. Not just any early morning workout, but a mad dash to the front gates of the village all the way from the back end. No stops, no breaks, no detours. A straight up race against time from one end of the village to the other. He thought about it for a while and wondered why he had never done it before. Going through his various stretches he came up with the logical reasoning that followed the most sense. He’d never tried it before because he’d never been paid to try it before.

Most D-ranked mission were bland and boring but once and while you got one that required you to do something that would have eventually done anyway. He wasn’t sure why the Tsuchikage would bother with assigning a mission where the only thing one did was more or less simple endurance and speed training but whatever the reason he found himself mentally thanking his leader. If only he could get an S-class mission to learn one of the villages Kinjutsu. Then he would have it made. The genin breathed in deep and focused on his objective. He had to get to the other end of the village within the self-imposed time limit. The mission ticket suggested it would take around two hours if you were “fast”. With no way to tell if he fit into that category of speed today would be a trial run that he would use to gauge his later improvements while running this mission.

Backing into the farthest corner he could find Sen pressed his right foot back against it, his left feet dug into the ground. He waited for his stopwatch to read “0800” hours. It was only seconds away. This whole thing seemed like it would have been way more efficient if he had those damned leg weights but he still couldn’t quite afford them. He was more than halfway there though another two or three C and D missions out of the way and all would be well. He needed a radio for the next time he worked with Jurei or anyone else for that matter. The only problem with the radio was that unless your partner had one too, it was sort of useless in the field. If Jurei signed his name in blood that he’d repay the debt Sen would gladly kick in with him to get him one too. But it was just as well, the weights had to come first and it was one accessory at a time for underpaid genin like himself.

[¤ SFS ¤]

Time struck 0759 hours and he got into the lowest stance he could manage stretching out his arms and legs just one more time before the clock started. He had one hundred and fifty minutes to get this thing done. five... four… three… two… one… Instead of him saying go the start of the race was marked with the sound of his feet thundering down on the paved road. One hundred and fifty minutes until it was time to start his next mission. Being too slow would throw a monkey wrench into all of that. He wouldn’t let anything get in the way of completing this mission on time. Anything that did was going to get knocked on its ass.

His watch struck 0800 hours and he got into high gear. Nothing but his fastest more forced speed would do. Aside from being a good reference point for his speed for future attempts of this mission, his would attempt would serve to show him how fast he could get around the village in a war time emergency situation. He moved faster than the flames of his strongest Katon jutsu, or so he made himself believe. In reality he had no Katon Jutsu just yet. He had Youton which was more powerful but not extraordinarily faster. He flew by pedestrians, ninja and civilian alike. The civilians all reacted the same for the most part. None of them heard or saw him coming but would jump back once they were aware of his presence the funny part was that their reactions were all so that by the time they had begun to react he was already past them. The other ninja mostly didn’t react at all. Most of the ones he saw were off duty and trying to enjoy that “Me time”. Half of them had probably already done the mission at some point before and didn’t care enough to monitor someone else’s results.

He couldn’t blame them recent memory called to mind images of other genin running back and forth to opposite ends of Iwagakure. He just sort of assumed they were off handling urgent none mission related business. He kept his arms moving, cutting through the wind as he ran, he hadn’t quite gained the sense of balance that would allow him to simply run forward and let his arms dangle at his sides, or rather be pushed to his sides horizontally while he ran. It made him feel awkward to run without doing anything with his hands.

[¤ SFS ¤]

He was more or less traveling in a straight line the gusts of the wind he made made trouble for the shop owners of flimsy things like papers and hay and straw. Although wrong he was he couldn’t bring himself to feel guilt for the latter shops. What the hell would a ninja village do with straw? If he ever found out and the reasoning was solid enough, he would be sure to come back and apologize. He might possibly even help the owner, who was most likely an old man, find a new location that didn’t have his product gone with the wind every time some rookie shinobi needed to make a quick five hundred Ryo.

He passed the major landmarks like the hospital and the unused plots where the older villagers said the last Iwa Smithy was located. The war was over but all five nations still carried its scars. He dashed through the major shop district were food and everyday clothing was sold, he was even coming up on the place that had become his favorite building as it was the place that kept his little ninja world turning, the place where he got paid. It was the Tsuchikage’s Tower which held the Tsuchikage’s Offices and it was, as Sen imagined most Kage buildings were, right in the heart and center of the village, making it the halfway point of the race. He wouldn’t risk looking down to check his time he needed to move on, keep steady, he was closer to the end than he was to the beginning and that alone allowed him to push on blindly to end. He would make it in time… he could feel it.

His heart was beating as if someone had been drowning him for the last… probably hour or so, he wouldn’t look down at his stopwatch to verify. He was perspiring pretty hard and it getting harder to pull in enough with each breath, his heart was simply beating too fast. He wasn’t on the verge or vomiting or passing out but he he wasn’t used to full speed runs for this extended amount of time. Normally no matter how fast or far he was travelling he could pace himself and make decent time without burning himself out. But here and now, he reaching a state of fatigue, not pass out where he stood fatigue just head between his knees for air fatigue, needed to take a rest fatigue. Even a shinobi needed breaks when they hit their limit. It was quite possible that this was the point of this mission, for each ninja to see where they stood in terms of not just speed to finish the race in time, but also the endurance to go without taking a break and the discipline to really push through to the end even if you didn’t beat the time frame given.

[¤ SFS ¤]

It seemed that Sen had begun to slow down a small bit, he wasn’t making the speeds that he seemed to have been making when the race started. But he recognized the area he was in much more intimately than the back half of the village. The side closer to the gate was the side he dwelled on the most as it was the side that lead to the outside of Iwagakure. In his heart of hearts he yearned to be free back then, but he was just a kid who couldn’t cope with all the things happening around him at the time. In some regards his adult mind saw the Great War as a blessing, it was allowing cooler heads to lead the village and though Iwa had since fallen from grace and was now distinctly the weakest of the five Great Hidden Villages he wasn’t ashamed of it for that fact. He was more ashamed of what Iwagakure was and how some on its inhabitant refused to let that go. He was slowly beginning to let go of the bullies and oppressors that Stone once was. He was starting to feel hope for his home village, hope that the genin and academy seeds being planted and tilled now would grow to become the sturdy and reasonable branches of a stronger Iwagkure of tomorrow. His goal of becoming self-sufficient and leaving the village was becoming more and more of a fleeting phase but if things didn’t get worse he was still prepared to cut the cord and sever ties to his village the only difference was that it would hurt a lot more now than it would have back then.

With the village gate in sight he ignored the burn in his watering eyes from his sweaty face and heat. A Suiton jutsu would have been useful to douse him in something cooling so he could finish the end of his race with a refreshed stride but it was of no use the only things he had would make him hotter. Using Youton on himself might have worked to make him move faster and finish strong as well as Suiton but he was no fan of negative reinforcement. With no shirt and sweat dripping from every inch of him, puddles forming on the waist of his pants the Chuunin in their guard tower open the gates for him knowing he would crash into it otherwise, he was also cleared to take the new shipment of scrolls back to the old man whose name he hadn’t bothered to learn last time. Once he cleared the gates he came to sliding stop that lasted about ten solid seconds. He legs and back were on fire he could only image how sore he would be tomorrow. He went through some proper stretches and movements to keep his muscles from locking up and made his way back towards the gate itself a slightly larger order of blank scrolls waiting for him. He hoisted them all up like before, three on his back and one in each hand, jogging briskly back to the scroll shop, giving his muscles a proper warm down.

[Icarus]

+35