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With that troubling event finally behind me, I followed my younger companion to the room in which we had entered. It was there that I discovered the gathering of kindergarten children present- the other nowhere to be seen, most likely gone to the new orphanage in wait. Politely, I'd nod when the mistress acknowledged my presence and asked me to help, but my eyes didn't stop scanning the room for the one kid I had retrieved this starred ball for. And sure enough, there he was, standing beside the exit in anxious wait. He'd stayed behind to wait and see if I'd succeeded, and when he spotted me, he came running over.

"Thank you, mister!" He beamed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose before taking the ball from my grasp. "I have to go now, but thank you!" And with that done, he hurried out the door, to rejoin his group and make way to the new orphanage. Smiling, I turned my attention back to the group crowded in front of me. Yukiko had gone off to review the lists that had been given and schedule the stores we would need to visit in order to attain the gifts. And me? I was to calculate the height of each little one, to ensure that we bought the properly sized clothing for each. But for kindergarteners? This was going to be too easy; as my experience as a father in the past attested.

The thing with children's clothing was that it usually came in only a few specific sizes, normally categorized as one through to the number five, for kids of a particularly husky frame. Standing beside the mistress, as she too kept a visage over the anxious and restless children, I chuckled as I shook my head. "Quite a handful, I'd imagine. But I'm sure you've had enough experience with children of this nature to know that taking their measurements shouldn't take that long. We're not shopping for tuxes, after all." I added with a gleam in my eye.

"Hee, hee... I suppose not." She replied, somewhat affected by the charm I had intended to deliver. Handling children was only difficult if you made it so. With us two, the only adult figures in the current setting, I was almost certain we'd be able to handle them appropriately. Plus, we had one of them on our side, right? "You think you can make out how much sizes we'll need? I'll try to keep them in line for you."

"That'd be wonderful." I beamed, giving her a nod as I approached the group of kids. Scanning over them with my eyes, as my hand reached for the pen and paper on the desktop nearby, I started to gauge the sizes they would require. The thing with children their age, however, was that they were all primarily the same size. Only a handful of them seemed to require special sizes, such as a one or five. All I really had to do was right down the number of kids present, the sizes for each, and the quantity of clothing for all in total. That included t-shirts, jackets, shorts, pants, and other wear. When I was done, I handed the finished paper to the mistress with a blithe wink. "All done, m'lady."

Just then, Yukiko asked for help. Promptly, I'd strode towards her current position. "Sure, what's up? You ready to head out and buy those things?" I asked cheerfully, surveying the list she was currently working on. Money wasn't the problem, I could almost guarantee that.

A response. Finally. For a moment there, I thought the kid was a mute- but as it turned out, he had just been far too shy to speak. Now that I offered my help, it appeared he was more open to explaining his problem. "I-I... dropped my ball. It rolled down the basement, into a big stupid hole." He whimpered, seemingly on the verge of tears. Why this ball was so important to him, I had no idea. But it wasn't something I could just ignore. I supposed kids had a way of making mundane items and playthings their own. Recalling memories of my son, I knew how often that played in the lives of children. "Can you get it for me.... pleeeease, mister? I don't wanna leave it behind."

Simply, I nodded. "Of course, buddy. I'll hop down and fetch it for you. Just point me in the direction of the basement, okay?" Promptly, the child would push up the round glasses that were constantly, gradually sliding down the bridge of his nose. Then, he would open the old oak door behind me, and gesture me to follow in his footsteps as we both proceeded down a long and poorly decorated hallway. There were several doors on each side, every one of them cracked and weary with age. At the end of the hall, a cabinet. A vase decorated with jade and gold. Once we reached the end of the hallway, the passage took a sharp left. A set of stairs that led downwards. The hole the kid was speaking of must had been in one of the adjacent rooms we had just passed.

"It's down there." The boy said, pointing down the stairs to the double doors locked below. "But it's dark down there, and there're weird noises- so be careful, mister!" Noticing that the door's were locked, I saw that as my only real obstacle. The darkness and the "noises" posed little threat to me now, although the boy seemed to be pretty enthralled by it. But again, what else was I to expect from a child his age?

"Don't worry," I assured him, patting his petite shoulder before advancing down the stairs. "Go back to the head mistress, I should have your ball back up in no time." Waving him off, and making sure he did go back, I moved on to those double locked doors. The orphans were moving out, so there was no point in keeping it locked down anymore, right? Or at least, no reason to keep them locked, which would otherwise prove to be harmful to the children in question.

The door. Thank the heavens that it wasn't padlocked. With no other viable option in mind, I prepared my shoulder and crashed into those doors, tackling away. The entirety of my brute strength went into the effort of breaking the lock. Then, finally, they gave in. The doors flew open, a wave of light flooding only a small portion of the large and wide basement below. The rest covered in darkness. The gleam of petite yellow eyes made themselves known in the distance beyond. Then they moved. Rats. And in the corner, a dim orange glow- what I assumed was a furnace of some sort. And the ball the kid had mentioned? Nowhere in visible sight. But the hole in which it had fallen was smack above the middle of the basement floor, the weak light from the room above shining down on dust, rubble and abandoned toys of a past era.

As the children began to enter the ramshackle establishment, making their presence known and introducing themselves to my little sister, I would notice a shadowy figure out of the corner of my eye. The figure of a thin and lanky child- a boy. Round and taped-together glasses rested on the child's small button nose, a face no older than seven framed under a head of short, wild brown hair. Despite the clear age difference, he reminded me of a librarian I knew back in Kumogakure. Blue eyes peered at me from behind the dirty glasses, observing me as the boy stood idly behind the doorway leading to the next room.

"Hi there, little guy." I said with a warm smile, all while the other children wrote down their toys of choice, prepared to hand over the slips to Yukiko. While she was preoccupied with this part of the mission, I would subtly make my way towards the kid peering at us from the doorway.He seemed shy, reclusive, a loner from the group. I felt it was only right to invite him in personally and encourage him to put in his desired present. Dropping down to one knee, only but a meter away from the kid, I continued. "Everyone else is writing down the toy that they want- don't you wanna pitch in, too?" When the boy remained silent, simply staring with a quiver of his lip, I slightly frowned. How strange. Maybe he'd gone through something horrible?

I looked over my shoulder- saw Yukiko discussing with another child, taking their requests and doing so with a smile. She was a natural at this, no doubt about it. And my qualms about her ability to carry out this mission on her own grit were slowly diminishing. Turning back to the child I was knelt in front of, however, I- and then it struck me. The kid I had seen wasn't there anymore. Disappeared, when I had turned to see what Yukiko was up to. Struck with quiet surprise, I quickly glanced around the large living room. When that gained no visual result, I advanced into the doorway and the room beyond.

The fact that this room was adorned with old trophies, a variety of paintings and virtually untouched furniture ser it apart from all the others I had seen so far. A series of tall and fenced windows lined the northern wall, flooding the room's red carpet with light in rigid blank squares. The trophies glistened at times, as I walked through the abandoned room. Set up on cabinets and stands nailed to the walls, they seemed to commemorate the hunting prowess of the previous owner. There- on a desk, the picture of a man dressed in flowing green robes, holding up an archer's bow and a dead jackalope by its hind legs. Then suddenly, I took notice of the child I had seen before, standing across from me in the room, beside a closed wooden door. "You left something behind?" I asked, as friendly as before. "If you need help, I can provide it. That's what I'm here for, kiddo."

Sure that Yukiko would be fine on her own for a bit, I set my sights on helping this otherwise outcasted orphan out before leaving.

Standing idly nearby, I took a gander at the dead garden covering the mansion's front property as younger sister took a knock at the old wooden doors. Had I not known of this orphanage through the mission report, I would figured that this establishment had been abandoned. Visual appearance on the outside pointed to that scenario. Though I knew that such was not the case, I was still slightly surprised to find that someone had actually answered the door- a young woman, at that. The owner of the orphanage. Reiko Konishi was not the kind of person I expected to find running this place, I had to admit. But it was far better to see a lively and bright woman such as herself at the helm of this endeavor for these parentless children- rather than a tired old woman.

As she invited us inside, I would give a polite and gracious nod, trailing behind Yukiko. The interior was as I had expected- the typical grand staircase, intricately decorated drapes and carpets, aptly placed wooden furniture and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling above. All of it, of course, with a tinge of age and dust. But at the very least, nothing- at first sight, that is- appeared to be a dangerous hazard or health risk. A nice touch-up wouldn't hurt, however. Right when I began to contemplate the eerie silence of the establishment- and why I wasn't hearing the typical chatter and laughter one would assume to hear at an orphanage or school- Reiko explained their whereabouts.

I listened as my younger companion quite effectively held an informative conversation with Reiko, the head mistress of the orphanage. There were facts that I had already discovered from the mission report alone, a few tid bits of information I had yet to absorb. But all in all, I knew the jist of what had happened before, what we were here to do, and what tasks we would have to carry out. It was clear to me, now all I had in mind was carrying out what stirred in my thoughts. It was funny, the concern over the cost of the repairs and everything else we would need. Funny that I had been thinking about such a thing before. But as Raikage, at the very least, I would make sure everything the orphanage needed and had was adequate and well.

Reiko, surely, did not know of my title- and why would she? The citizens in Kami no Shima tended to keep their minds on other things, things that did not concern Kumogakuran politics. They were their own city, one that supported itself and all of its unique people. When the mistress handed me the check signed over by the daimyo, I gently took it from her grasp and folded it in two. "Much obliged." I replied with a smile, placing the check away within one of my front coat pockets. "I'll make sure every cent goes to the well-being of the children and your establishment. Just as soon as Yukiko here is ready to leave." I turned to my younger companion with an expectant gleam in my eye, paired beside that customary, cheerful simper. "All set, kiddo?"

After having retrieved directions from a passerby we had happened across, Yukiko would lead me to a cinema nearby within Kami no Shima. We were to follow a street there that would eventually- should the directions be of value- take us on the right path towards the orphanage we were meant to find. In this maze-like myriad of streets and apartment complexes, I was hard-pressed to think that this endeavor would not be as easy as it looked. Despite the fact that I had been to Kami no Shima on several different occasions, that did not mean that I knew the streets by heart- yet. But I assured myself that within the next few years, I would. This was part of my home, after all- a favorite of mine, one that I was gradually growing in love with.

Squinting my eyes as I took a deep lion's yawn, I continued to follow my little sister in stride- hands dug deep into my pockets, a clearly relaxed posture. It was still early morning, so we had the entire day to carry this mission out. I only hoped we didn't come across any potential threats to building itself- or worse. The inhabitants. Should the mansion that housed the orphans be located somewhere on the outskirts of Kami no Shima, which was becoming a more and more plausible situation, I knew that creaky floorboards and leaking pipes could very well be the least of our problems there. Aside from the occasional bandit, Kami no Shima was also home to vagabonds, homeless and addicts. Spontaneous and aggressive circumstances were common here.

We reached the cinema, and from then on, continued down to the street we were meant to tread on next. The orphanage was yet to be spotted from our vantage point, but I had a feeling it would come to our line of vision soon enough. Following the few directions we were given, I supposed we were to wing it after that. Which was, of course, fine by me. I led Yukiko down the street, temporarily taking the lead from then on, walking a few paces ahead in order to get a lay of the land. The streets, parallel and even, seemed to sway with the fumes of steam rising from the manholes and the curbs. Small groups of people walked past us, starting their daily routines, nursing hot paper cups filled with coffee. And before we knew it, we had finally reached our destination.

The mansion was three stories tall, a near-perfect example of Victorian architecture and design, but old and worn down with age. It was protected by black gates on each side, but those too faltered. Literally anyone could find an open space between the bent over and rusted gates, enough space to slink inside and breach the mansion property's perimeter. Due to such conditions, it seemed that the orphanage owner had simply left the front gate unlocked. After all, what was the point in locking it closed if there were other places unwanted visitors could enter through? I approached said gates with a smile, acknowledged the fact that they were just about twice my height. Ahead, the wooden doors to the orphanage lay, at the end of a stone-cobbled path that crossed through an untended garden. I nodded to little sister.

"Go ahead and knock on the door- I'm right behind ya."