smurfin[M]

[aramlyis]

SHOP DEFENSE
RANK: C
DESCRIPTION: The owners of a corner store in Kusagakure have for the past week been the victims of anti-social behaviour in the workplace by some of the village’s citizens. Usually it occurs late at night before closing time, and they’ve been threatened with violence too many times to count on both hands. In order to try and ward them off, they’ve instructed for shinobi to come and act as security guards for the store and try to ward off any rowdy customers if they choose to be disruptive in the shop- Just be sure not to cause any large fights, as the owner doesn’t want his shop being trashed!
OBJECTIVE: Try to curb the anti-social thugs who are targeting a corner shop in Kusagakure!
PAY: 1,000 Ryo and 200 EXP.

The paper containing the assignment's general readout have been very nearly destroyed.
I happened to go to that shop quite regularly for groceries. And now some punk-ass kids wanted to screw up the nice little regime I had going?
Normally missions didn't manifest with a personal side, but this just hit far too close to home for my liking.
Frowning as I strode down the street, I pondered my best course of action, reading the page again, I allowed my orbs to skip to the end, perspiring over the last section I had no fully read and understood.
There we go, security detail. For one guy. This'd be a roaring success.
Sarcasm wasn't one of my best traits, as I typically preferred to ridicule and litter some more controversial points into the conversation when I needed something accomplished. Standing in front of the shop as I was now, I took stock of the simple sliding door, the generic materials the shop itself was constructed from, and have a worried sigh.
Warp take me, this would be a unusual assignment, as the place itself looked pretty fragile, I wouldn't be worried about the goods themselves as much as the structure they were housed in.

[aramlyis]

The meeting with the owners of the shop seemed to have begun well enough, but attempting to formulate their shop into a more easily observable area was proving...difficult.
"Is there any precise reason that we cannot shift the more easily damaged goods to another isle?" I asked for what seemed like the hundredth time, which was promptly corrected by the Farseer as the measly sixth, but was remedied by the side note that it could indeed become that number given enough time and the continued stubbornness of the Owner.
A middle aged man who's face was far too lined for his chronological placement. He was someone who had either suffered far to much, or took a daily two gallon dose of pure lemon juice before he went to bed. Every single day.
That was the only explination I could really see to comprehend the sheer amount of beetled flesh he exposed with every facial expression, not that there were many, but they were there.
His rebuttle was different again, as I had used slightly different terminology the past couple of times, to try and explore a more flexible train of thought, we still seemed to be stuck on the basic premise of someone coming into his shop and telling him what to do, which caused a natural sense of indignation and offence.
Okay, that was fine. But he took it to unnatural lengths. "The suppliers PAY me to place these things on the shelves," he replied, the resident expression clearly showing his distaste for dictating his reasons.
He also was placing an obscene amount of emphasis on the word 'pay', was he offended that he had to pay for such a task to be done? Or did he think I didn't earn a suitable wage by performing these tasks?
I blinked at that mental proposition. It was a definite possibility wasn't it?
Pondering the thought, I took the time to mull it over.
"Perhaps," I replied, both speaking my own thoughts and continuing the conversation in a strange level of duality.
"but I would say then that we move the shelves themselves?" It was a stupid thing to say, but right now I was all about poking my employer for more information, and presuming I didn't rile him up too far, I'd retain the contract and his feather's would be momentarily ruffled.
Of course he could put down a record of bad behaviour when he signed, but generally my own account was also weighed in, if it came to a Tribunal, there would be witnesses to back my alibi of his personal temperament. He'd been in the area for a while now.
Still, these were awfully pessimistic thoughts for the situation, and I needed to foster a better temporary relationship, a Tribunal could upset my chances to go to the Chunin Exams, which were approaching, and not without a small portion of trepidation had been settling within my emotional state as the dates drew ever closer.
Shaking my head I focused on the response of my Employee, who apparently went by the name of Jin.

[aramlyis]

I gave a terse sigh as he pushed the last crate back into storage, the food supply that was nearing it's expiry date would be shipped off to a surpluss food management center, where it would either be distrubted to those in need, or cooked into something that was more easily preserved, spreads for example. Or confectioneries, strange how people liked to simply slam sugar into a product to render it slightly more resistant to the inevitable passage of time. While I didn't mind the fact that it was being reused, there was still the fact that it seemed to be one of those systems where people didn't really think about what they were doing, more concerned with higher or lower minded business then to ponder the ramifications of their actions.

Not that I could really spare the time to dissect them right now either, this job didn't care so much for the idle minded, instead preferring to send those who could not and work back home with little or no pay. Actually, it was the later. If you messed up at all, you weren't going to be paid in the slightest.
I growled at that, as this particular assignment was fairly delicate in how it had to be handled, as I'd been less then diplomatic with Jin in my attempts to reconcile our viewpoints for a more integrated policy.

Apparently that seemed to surmount to being roped in to help with the general labour that he seemed to think paying the village included. While I was never one to shy away from work, it seemed like pushing the established boundaries just a fraction.
I had come here to accomplish a deliberate goal, one that would require careful planning and delicate execution to retrieve the desired result. Not becoming part of his work force. However I felt no real desire to push the point, by my own reckoning and reading between the lines, there was no need for me to be within the Consumer Area yet, as there was a specific time when the troublemakers bowed onto the stage, evidently they had their own activities that kept them busy until the appropriate time.
School, work, who knew?
Some of the people who caused these disturbances were bound to be young, having only recently joined the work force and drunk on the newly found passion of making a living for themselves. I snorted in remembrance at my own tangible results to my position. It had felt -enjoyable to earn something that could truly be called my own without any infliction of ownership to any other. Of course, all the funds that I produced from this work went into the maintenance of my Mother's health.
Father was long gone.
I blinked, the pressure I exerted over the perceiving orbs manifesting several lurid shapes across my vision, congruent squares, a whole horde of shapes in differing colours flashed past.
And like I did for every other unattractive emotion I had, I threw it to The Warboss, who ate it seemingly unthinkingly, ignoring the reproachful glare coming from the Farseer. She alone among the persona was hesitant to continue my practice of containing my emotions in this fashion. Truthfully it was a relatively new habit, but one that I felt was necessary to maintain.
Emotional control is a important aspect to Shinobi life.