Clearing a P/ath (Mission)

[Hirihi]

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name; blocked passage
rank; c
description; One unfortunate disadvantage that Kumogakure no Sato extends is sometimes the jagged peaks drop rocks amongst the Kumogakure no Sato passageways. Sometimes they’re simple small rugged rocks and other times they’re promontory boulders. Sadly when the immeasurable boulders land on Kumogakure no Sato’s passageways it falls upon the Kumogakure shinobi to clear the avenue. With the war ending there are a large amount of pathways that need clearing, unfortunately. So go clear those streets.
reward; 50 experience, 1,000 ryo
minimum shinobi; one
mission status; interminable

Similar to the mission that she had taken a while ago to help clear out the land mines scattered throughout the mountain-based village, Hirihi now found herself walking towards another mission to take care of things around the village. The most rewarding feeling for her came from the thought that she was actually making a lot of difference in the village by doing what she was. In this way, she could repay the village for her shortcomings, and give herself the proper boost she needed to start improving on her skills. It was for this reason that she had woken up as early as she had the autumn day.

Walking up the path towards her assigned area, Hirihi saw the familiar face of Johlin standing at a small junction where a large rock had been left to sit, only a small hole drilled in it for people to walk through. "Well, it seems that we have a capable person on this job after all." Johlin said, mostly to himself but within Hirihi's earsho as she approached. "Glad to see you back in the village. I heard you made a trip to earn the title of Chuunin. That true?" Johlin asked, Hirihi ignoring the statement as her eyes seemed to show h/er /need /to /change /the subject.

"It's a rough thing, those exams. They sometimes make them harder than I think they need to be. That's why I'm not the leader of the village, though. I'm never one to judge so impartially for the good of the village." Johlin said, realizing what he had said before he could take it back and Hirihi narrowing her eyes at the large rock that had been left in the path from the war that they had been in. "So, if you have any techniques you can use that might be useful in clearing this path I'd greatly appreciate it, Hirihi." He said, diverting his attention away from the foul up he had made in his statement before. Maybe she just wasn't ready for the promotion yet.

Walking up to the rock, Hirihi began to charge her arm with chakra, going silent as her arm would glow very distinctly with the chakra that was filling her appendage. Without a warning, Hirihi let out a shout and threw her fist forward into the boulder, sending her chakra through it in shockwaves and destroying it from the inside out, the small network of cracks going through it causing the rock to begin deteriorating right before both of their eyes, the red eyes of the kunoichi turning back to Johlin, as if asking him what they were to do with the debris that was left behind.

[Hirihi]

As Johlin walked up /to investigate the damage done to the rock, he would place his hand on the side of it and make a faint whistling sound. "Quite a punch. Hard to imagine anyone surviving something that destructive, in my opinion." He said, Hirihi shrugging off the compliment and looking to him. "What do we do with the rubble." Hirihi asked, unsure of this particular detail since this was a detail he would have to figure out. Destroying the rock completely was an option, but it would be a waste of energy if they had an actual plan on what to do with the debris.

"We'll be sealing the rocks into scrolls, to be stored away for when we need them at a later time." Johlin said, Hirihi raising a brow. "So, wait... You are having me destroy the rocks into sections so that you can seal the entire rock into a scroll. Tell me something. Why am I destroying it if it is to be sealed away inside of a scroll? Couldn't you place the seal on the rock and call it a day?" Hirihi asked, obviously a little leery of what this was all about.

"To be honest, it is something that I have little details on. Thinking into depth on certain things is not something that we do as shinobi. We are expected to do as we are told and only think whenever things seem to create a scenario that would approve of individual thought. Remember, we listen to our kage and those under him. Questioning that is questioning the very life that we pledged ourselves to." Johlin said, sounding a lot like those academy teachers that believed in blindly following orders.

Hirihi could understand that, though, as she was definitely thankful there was an actual plan in motion. Watching quietly as Johlin wandered up and p/laced a scroll on the ground, Hirihi didn't bother watching as the rock fragments were being sealed away inside of a scroll and tucked away into a rather large pack. For the size of the rocks that they were having to put away, she was surprised that the scroll handle to hold something so large inside of it.

[Hirihi]

Once the two had setup a small system of how to do things, Hirihi being asked to use her chakra to destroy rocks and Johlin gathering up the remains that were left behind in the wake of her punch, Hirihi felt that the time would begin to move much faster. With a constant focus on the rock destruction, Hirihi found herself feeling much more pleasant in conversation. Anytime the conversation would steer towards the exams, Chuunin, or anything at all, she would immediately freeze up, her thoughts completely closed off and her eyes reflecting that she was not going to talk about it. Johlin had to wonder what had made this very capable kunoichi into such a quiet person. When they had been clearing mines together, she had been a very different person.

Putting it aside, the two would wander up the p/aths along the village, the mountain paths containing small bits of debris here and there. Some of the rocks Hirihi would just smash into dust and call it good. Others, they would be forced to seal them away and hand them to a random AnBu that was passing. The farther they went, the more progress they would make along the trail that they were set to walk. Stopping a moment, Johlin pulled out a large map and showed it to her, tracing the tip of his finger along the red line indicating the path that they were to be clearing that day. "So, what's that blue line that trails up back part of the mountain" Hirihi asked, crossing her arms and twirling a kunai on the tip of her finger.

"That is the second path that we are going to be clearing. This is a two day venture to clear as much of the mountain as we can. There was a lot of debris left behind in the wake of the rockslides that the war caused. Some of them had been planned, actually, in an attempt to protect the village from attacking shinboi. It had worked, too, but these are the consequences of such actions." Johlin said, shrugging his shoulders. "Just think of it as doing a service to the village."

With that, the two would go back to clearing out various trails through the mountains. Hirihi had not realized the overall size of the village until that very moment. This village had a lot of people just living in small corners of the mountain, the village utilizing the terrain to its advantage to help with the planning of homes and placement of streets. It seemed chaotic from the outside looking in, but she felt that there was a plan in all of it.

[Hirihi]

As the two found that a few of the paths had already been cleared by previous shinobi, they were breezing through the first path easily. There were still scattered rocks here in there, some large enough to warrant a punch from Hirihi's chakra charged fist, but most were small enough to smash and let blow away in the wind as dust. Hours passing with silence, Johlin would eventually find the two at the end of their trail for the first day, Hirihi crossing her arms as she waited for Johlin to say something relevant to their mission. "as far as for today, we are done. You are welcome to leave, but, before you go, I'd like to know what happened. Either you can tell me, or I can go pull it up from someone who witnessed your match." Johlin said, acting far more concerned than he needed to.

Hirihi glared at Johlin, her eyes seeming to stare through him and into his soul. "You can look it up yourself. I'm in no mood to share such information with you." Hirihi said, turning around and walking back towards the route they had come, finding that Johlin had shunshined to stand in front of her, his eyes staring a hole through her in response. "I'd rather hear it from you. Most would rather read hard facts, but I'd like to know what changed." He said, arms crossed and waiting for a response.

Hirihi was fast to evade around him with a shunshin of her own, sliding over the side of the mountain and down onto a lower path. She didn't want to talk about it, and she would have much rather just gouge out her eyes. She knew where the two were supposed to meet the next day, so she didn't bother going back for Johlin. He had no reason to be concerned. It wasn't his shortcomings, it was her own.

The next day, Johlin would arrive at the beginning of their second path and find Hirihi already waiting for him on the path, thick dark lines under her eyes as if she had not slept. "Good morning." He said, Hirihi shrugging her shoulders at him and turning away. "Guess you are still pissed. That's fine, we'll just focus on working." He said. Hirihi was thankful for this. She was still store about yesterday, his forcefulness to get an answer driving her away.

[Hirihi]

Hirihi felt that the next trail they were going down was definitely once less traveled. There were few people on it, and the ones that were there didn't have far to go. Once they had passed many of the small homes built along the path, carved into the side of the mountain, she knew that the trail was going to be a lot more difficult. Thankfully, for her, Johlin wasn't trying to discuss anything more about the exams. The path was packed with larger obstacles, forcing Hirihi to administer several tactically placed punches into rocks to shatter them to smaller pieces. As they worked along the trail, the sun bearing down through the clouds above, Johlin would pass the time with idle chit chat about various things he felt were necessary to say aloud.

"I remember how brutal the war was. I was a freshly pronounced genin at the time, and I didn't know what to think about what was going on. War looks different when you examine it in a textbook. It seems to have a purpose, but being in the middle of it changes how you feel about the necessity of death and power." He said, Hirihi letting him continue to talk. "I was lucky enough to only see some of the battles near the village, making it simpler for me to analyze. Lost people in some of the battles, though." He said.

His talking continued, droning on and on about things that were becoming less and less relevant to her. She hadn't endured what he had. Why did he feel the need to share this information with her? It was pointless, and he could see it in the way that she was working quickly to clear the paths. On the previous day, she had been more than welcome to taking breaks along the path to help keep her chakra under a safe usage. Today, she was burning through her chakra as fast as possible to get away from him.

"You have no comment about anything I've said?" He asked, sealing away some of the rocks they had come upon and closing the scroll up inside of his pack, Hirihi shrugging her shoulders. "If I had an opinion, I'm certain I would have told you by now." Hirihi said, kicking a few of the rocks that had been left behind down the side of the cliff and watching them tumble downwards. It almost felt like she was in a similar tumble, slowly being pulled towards the bottom of a canyon taht she felt she could never climb out of.

[Hirihi]

With the two moving briskly along the trail, Hirihi's exhaustion was slowly eating away at her. She didn't want to stop, though, at the risk of Johlin wanting to force the conversation back to the exams. She could sense it in his tone that he was building to something important in his mindless ramblings about war and the past. Johlin was a strange man, and she wondered why he was trying to reach out to her. It obviously wasn't something that she could explain, and she merely kept her standard thoughts blank and empty, attempting to hold him at bay as long as she could until the job was done and the two could go their separate ways.

"Failing at the Chuunins is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that you aren't ready." She knew this was going to come up. She just KNEW it! "You're a good medic. You're very talented at what you do at the hospital. Why do you have to advance towards a leadership spot? Chuunin is not about power, but about leadership. Do you honestly believe you could handle a group of young genin, such as yourself? Could you take responsibility for them when the mission goes wrong and bear the weight of such a thing?" He asked, Hirihi charging a fist of chakra and slamming it into the rock, doing in one punch what had normally taken three on previous rocks of smaller size in comparison.

"Stick with what you know. If you honestly want to advance, I'll work with you." He said, setting forth and doing his part to clean up the remaining rubble from her ferocious assault against the oversized boulder. "I know you are smart. Your only shortcomings come from battle, and that is what we would work on." He said, the face of Drago filling her mind as she remembered some of his various words he would say to her. She remembered, with perfect recall, how cruel of a teacher he had been.

The fact that he had only fought with her once, leaving such an impact, told her that she needed to improve. Become less of what she was, the weaker medic who had little to no combat abilities, to something else. That was the dark, downward spiral she was falling towards. Losing who she was to become something destructive and dangerous. "I'll let you know." She said, the two finishing out the remainder of the trail in silence. They had finished ahead of schedule, leaving the remainder of their day open as they walked back down the path towards the main part of the village. She said nothing more as the two parted way, still feeling that she was free-falling towards the darkness.

.:Exit:.

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