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        The roads along the outskirts of the village were blessedly clear, dotted with only a few folks here and there. The occasional tumbleweed drifted across the lanes, swept up on fluttering winds. A stooped old biddy in a frilly pink robe was sweeping dust from her doorstep - she saw Mamushi coming down the thoroughfare, spotted her headband, and waved.

        Mamushi smiled back, fangs glinting in the pale morning light. The old woman frowned, flipped her off, and went back to sweeping. Mamushi's smile only widened. The old bitch would probably die soon anyway. Hazards of being ancient and brittle.

        Takeshi and Shigeru were the most anxious to take to the streets. They constantly tugged at the leash, straining to go just that one step further. Noses glued to the ground, they sniffed out their preferred path, and Mamushi, in the spirit of cooperation, took them in the opposite direction. Wiley growled his displeasure but followed suit, lips bared in a silent snarl. Better watch yourself, dog, Mamushi thought. Fried dog doesn't taste so bad with a good marinade.

        The mangy little mutt must have been psychic, because he turned away with a whimper and didn't bother her none. Big Brutus was the calmest of the lot - his leash never once grew taut, and he never sniffed nor snarled nor growled. Mamushi rather thought he was quite the house dog. Huge, sure, but docile.

        "Well aren't you a good boy? Huh? Aren't you? Bru-bru is a good boy, yes he is!" Pretty soon Brutus was walking at her side, wet nose nudging her hand every other step. Even when her fingers melded into a snake's maw, the dog wasn't deterred. She scratched him behind the ears, for that.

        She took them down to the club district, where all the buildings were smashed tight together and wrought of stone and plaster. The alleys were so thin only rats and trash could fit between them. This early in the morning, all the buildings were locked tight, neon signs dead and dim. They passed the Hairy Harlot, Sekkusu Sekkusu, and the Soiled Dove. Duchess found what had to be an intriguing scent wafting from the west, because she strained like mad to pull Mamushi that way. The wolfhound turned to bark at her and met a face full of hissing snake and dripping fangs.

        Mamushi took them east, towards the park.

Floor 1 - Behest Board

        Mamushi had finished another mission. She took the necessary papers to the man at the desk, accepted her pay, and returned to the streets.

        "I saw this lettuce first! It's my lettuce, and I want it now!"

        "Well I grabbed it first. Can't be yours if it's mines!"

        Mamushi immediately turned around and left the grocery store, door chiming as she left.

     
        The market stores were the more convenient place to go, but all the ones she came across were packed to capacity, or the aisles had been picked dry. The Market Square, when she reached it, was busier than she had suspected it would be as well, but not as bad as the grocers had been. Satchel of fish slung over her shoulder, she pushed her way through the press of bodies to the ring of stalls where they were selling freshly slaughtered cows. She could smell the blood, hear the flies buzzing. A hand squeezed her ass - snakes erupted from her slaves and latched onto the offender, leaving him screaming in the middle of a teeming crowd. Nobody bothered to help him - grocery shopping was serious business. 

        She picked out a nice hunk of beef shoulder, a couple tongues, and three hearts, then moved on to the ring of pig stalls just across the lane. There were more flies here, but only because the vendor kept a few live pigs fenced in beside his stall. She took slab after slab of bacon, and ribs from high off the hog - expensive, certainly, but easily the tastiest meat on a pig. She bought pickled pig's feet too, and a jar of fresh-fried cracklings. The man selling the pigs looked particularly piggy himself, with his beady eyes and fat pug nose. If she poked him, would he oink?

        The chicken stalls were by far the most numerous, and the most crowded, and the loudest. The chicken hung naked from hooks, skin still pink from blood. There were plastic wrapped packages of gizzards and livers and already cut sections of chicken - legs, wings, breast. She bout a whole chicken and two packs of gizzards, wondering if she was shopping for a week, as the mission had said, or for a month. The fish alone would last a week, the beef another two, to say nothing of the pig and the chicken. Why, that Yuudai-san had duped her! And the village! Well, she'd show him.

        She didn't get the same sort of deals she'd gotten from the fish vendor, for the sheer fact that with so many people clamoring to buy, the vendors could afford to turn down hagglers who haggled to hard. She kept her haggling to a minimum, and by virtue of being rather cute when she wasn't baring her fangs or smiling her smiles, she got decent enough discounts at most every stall she visited.

        Her wares were starting to get heavy. She tied the packs to her back and took to the rooftops, anxious now to be done with her mission. It had been so long since she was forced into a crowd that she had underestimated her hatred of them.
        

        In the morning gloom, mist hanging over the village like a blanket, Mamushi regarded Yuudai-san's home as if it had been raised from the lowest pits of hell. Why had she taken this mission? She hated grocery shopping. No, that wasn't true. She didn't mind shopping. She hated crowds, and around this time of day, on the weekend, every grocer - store, stand, and stall - would by packed like sardines in a can. Traffic on the roads would be bad too.

        But a mission was a mission, and ryo was ryo. So she swallowed her annoyance and disdain, pushed her way through the leaning fence, and ambled up to Yuudai-san's lovely abode. The home was small and neat, the yard was well kept, the grass cut short and orderly. A winding garden fringed with smooth grey stones curled around the house, bisected by a thin cobbled path. Hummingbirds flitted among the wildflowers, wings thrumming.
    
        She knocked on the door and received a wheezy, "It's open!" She twisted the knob. It was, in fact, not open, but it was hardly the work of a few seconds to pick the lock and step inside.

        Yuudai-san, a thin, beak-nosed man of considerable age, was sitting in a rocking chair, munching on rice balls with a steaming cup of sake clenched in his wrinkled hand. Light from a small television set made his tanned face seem wan. The furnishing was quaint, old but well kept, the wood-tiled floor covered in dozens upon dozens of rugs and tapestries. Some of the art was clearly foreign; just where was Yuudai-san from, exactly? She'd heard tale that he was an old reformed bandit, and an even taller tale that he was a retired shinobi.

        She knew both of those stories were just that. Stories. Yuudai-san was a serial killer.

      When he spoke, his voice was a raspy rumble.  "Ninja-san, good, you are here."

        "So I am, Yuudai-san." Mamushi smiled wickedly, mouth spread from ear to ear. "I'll just take the list and be on my way." She pulled her lips back over her teeth, letting her fangs show.

        Either Yuudai had seen worse, or that film over his eyes meant he was blind. "It's on the frig," the old man wheezed. "You... you aren't a girl, are you?"

        "Well of course I'm a girl." She parted the hanging beads that separated the sitting room from the kitchen and snatched the list off the frig. Yuudai-san liked his sake, she saw. The counter was covered in empty bottles. "That's not a problem is it?" She turned her head and extended her neck into the other room. Yuudai-san smelled like prunes and peanuts.

        "A problem? No, so long as you follow the list exactly. I had to suffer the corrections of a young kunoichi who decided that I shouuld eat healthy. a medic-nin, I think. I'm old. I'm dying. I want to eat fatty, greasy foods because they taste good. Health is not my concern. Do you understand, girl?"

        Mamushi frowned. "You're a sour old man. But have no fear - I'll get exactly what's on the list, nothing more, nothing less."

        "Good." Lips trembling, he took a long pull from his sake, then waved her off. "Now go on. The groceries certainly won't buy themselves!"

        Mamushi blew a raspberry and zipped out of the house before he could protest the spit peppering his face.

Floor 1 - Behest Board

        The castle was as impressive as it ever was, and the man at the mission desk was as bland as he ever was. She passed over the appropriate scroll. "Mission complete, Secretary-san. I'll have that ryo now. Fried-Cow-Pattie Palace is having a buy two get one special."

        The hours passed quicker than she expected. She flitted back and forth through the forest, collecting this and that from the marshes towards the east, and that and this from the caves athwart the lake that cradled the base of the shortest of the northwestern mountains. The sun had just settled beneath the horizon when everything on the list was crossed off. All the jars were full.
   
        She ran atop the trees, skipping from branch to branch. Moonlight splashed down over her skin from a great black sky, turning her pale complexion chalk white. White as snow and death and fog. Stars dappled the black, winking in the distance. As she had predicted, the air was thick and humid, remnants left of the rain. Her cloak clung to her skin, damp and sweaty, turning a muggy night even warmer. Mid stride, she yanked the cloak free and tied the sleeves about her waist.

        She glanced down at her tattoos. They seemed impossibly dark beneath the night sky.

        Konoha loomed ahead. The lights lit the sky in motes of orange and yellow. She had never paid attention to how tall the walls were, each as high as a mountain it seemed. In the wake of the rain and her bloody battle the forest denizens had started up their din, night birds calling, fat frogs croaking, cicadas clattering, crickets chattering. Here and there she heard a rustle in the leaves, saw a shadow flutter down below, but nothing came at her, and when she tasted the air, she found nothing amiss.

        She imagined that she could heear the trees whispering secrets in the night, but most likely it was just the wind tickling the leaves. But if they could speak, she wondered, what would they say? What great battles had they seen? What songs had they heard? Did they care if the living perished? How would they feel if she set fire to the lot of them, just to smell the smoke?

        Soon enough she was standing before the gates, basket hanging from her shoulder, cloak twisted about her waist. She flashed the guards a wide, gleaming grin, showed the proper documentation, and scampered off back into the village to take the hag her herbs. She'd manage to collect herself a nice bit of akajiso and boufo.

finite.

        The rain had finally reached her. It sounded like a million fluttering wings. The canopy was so thick that only a few drops fell every now and again, each droplet colder than the last. The bear carcass cooled behind her, brown fur matted read, massive head a mess of torn flesh and splintered bone. The birds had stopped their singing, but the cicadas and crickets still clamored on, and she still toiled. She had six jars of different worts, another four jars of various roots. There were only a few herbs left, and if memory served correct, she'd find what she needed towards the rocky northwestern borders where the hills grew into craggy mountains of sand and limestone.

        "Kosuuuurooooooo, to, satsuuuuuujin..."

        She was humming her favorites song and plucking  milkwort when a queer sound reached her ears, a low growl like rumbling stone. She paused mid-snip and tasted the air, tongue-snake slithering back and forth. There. She couldn't see them, but she could feel them. The hair on her neck bristled, and her heart started beating faster. A bear pelt, even one with a whole through the head, was worth a pretty penny - a few wolves and she'd be able to eat gourmet for two weeks! Quietly, she tucked away the last of the wort and sent her tongue snake slinking through the grass to circle around the approaching wolves.

        They hadn't noticed her, she realized. She was downwind, and quieter than a mouse, and the smell of bear dominated the clearing, completely overpowering her snakey scent. The first wolf that loped into view was huge, as big as a pony, with yellow eyes much like her own, and bristling dark grey fur. It shuffled closer to the bear, nudged it first with a paw, then its nose, and then, when the bear didn't budge, opened its maw wide to sink its fangs into the flesh. Ripping and tearing sounds filled the clearing. The other wolves took that to mean it was time to eat; no less than six of the massive beasts dived on the cooling carcass, ripping into the still warm flesh.

        Grinning, Mamushi yanked her ninjato free of its sheathe. The metal screamed, and the yellow eyes all snapped to her. Stupid wolves. The alpha was the first to die. Her tongue snake struck him with nary a sound, once, twice, thrice, the wound leaking endlessly. The quick chorus of mewls and whimpers made the other wolves pause. One glanced back to chance a look at the alpha - Mamushi capitalized on its negligence, sending a kunai sailing into its skull. The massive body gave a dull thump as it struck the ground.

        Rain pattered overhead, thunder rumbled, and finally, the cicadas and crickets ceased their racket. The wolves pounced.