A Delicate Situation (Chunin Mission 1)

Spoiler:

Valen had begun his day as per usual. With a simple shower, breakfast and morning warm up of a few sword kata’s in the training ground near his home. The sun would be rising over the horizon as he finished his morning exercises, the brilliant orange life giver slowly inching higher and higher into the sky and giving it’s warmth and light to this part of the world. He would sheath his sword as he finished his last set and let out a deep breath, letting his body calm down from the series of intense movements. It was at this point that he would head into town toward the mission center. He decided he wanted to try to make some more money today. The other day he and Damon had rescued one ‘Lord Delvar’ from a group of bandits by the border and he had told the higher up’s everything that he had heard from the bandits about their mysterious ‘benefactor’ which wasn’t much. Just that it was a person operating inside the city of they seemed to never have an issue with paying them and that taking care of him would have been their biggest job yet. Valen knew they would find the person and take care of them. The unrest between the religious and shinobi was getting worse by the day and arguments, demonstrations, and protests were rampant. It was becoming safer to hide your status as a shinobi nowadays and that was getting ridiculous in Valen’s mind. They were their protectors, nothing more. Yet they ostracize them as if they did some horrible unspeakable act. Valen would shake these thoughts from his head as he moved down the road at a sedated pace. He wasn’t in a particular hurry after all, it’s not like the missions wouldn’t be there whether he got there in five minutes or ten.

As he turned the final corner he would see something, or someone in this case that immediately drew his eye. An absolutely stunning woman would be walking down the road, on her daily business. Now normally a simple cute or beautiful woman wouldn’t draw his eye like this. But this woman was in a league of her own. She had beautiful long brown hair, stony gray eyes that seemed to hold an immense wisdom. She stood at about 5’4 and carried herself in a subdued yet confident manner. As if she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. He couldn’t blame her, she was absolutely striking after all. Something else drew his eye however and he noticed a beautiful broach she was wearing. It was designed to look like a flame and from what he could tell it was made from garnet with the deep shade of red it was and it was inlaid with citrine to give it an orangeish look to truly make it look like fire. He couldn’t help but ingrain the piece of jewelry into his memory as she passed and he would blink a few times before he realized that he had been staring. He vaguely noted that she seemed to be heading toward the market. He would shake these thoughts from his head before turning and heading toward the mission center.

As he stepped in he saw the receptionist reading from a scroll, presumably a mission that had just come in that she needed to assign a rank to. Her eyes widened a bit before looking up at Valen and motioning him over. Confused our crimson eyed hero would walk up to the woman for her to say “You’re here for a mission right? I have a situation evolving in the Water Gardens right now. It’s a huge argument between religious and shinobi and I don’t have anyone else right now. I’ll label it as C. Would you be willing to take it now?” She would ask, a slightly frantic gleam in her eye. It was obvious why, any day one of these arguments could evolve into full blown riot and that needed to be avoided at all costs. He would nod his head and turn and run out of the door, moving toward the Garden’s as quickly as he could. Of course they weren’t far but with this situation evolving every moment counted.

WC: 711

Damon's Mission Log
 
Damon shot out of bed like a cannon. He darted down the flight of stairs, and looked towards the silent organ. It seemed he had beaten the priest to being awake. He had kept a log of missions completed, and realized that he was eligible for the first chuunin exam. Slipping on his sleeveless blue jacket over his shirt, Damon hurriedly jogged towards the mission center, eager to further his status as a shinobi. His headband was still strapped to his right bicep, a proud symbol of his duty to protect the rather ungrateful religious citizens of the City Blessed by the Stars. It would not take long for him to near the area, as he had taken a shortcut from the cathedral through the marketplace. The marketplace was a collection of stalls and booths, many of which simply sold vegetables, while others sold various odds and ends, from armor, weapons, to even some more taboo things, such as ninja scrolls, provided that one knew who to ask. Then the strapping young lad rounded a bend some distance away from where Valen had turned. In fact, the Uchiha was even able to manage to see his comrade in arms down the road. He considered calling out to him, but then noticed the girl. He was too far away to get a good look yet, but he could tell that Valen seemed rather interested. Time to check things out for himself. As he nonchalantly walked down the road, the girl seemed to be walking past him, most likely headed towards the very marketplace that he had just come from.
 
As she walked by, the first thing that the polite boy noticed was her broach and not her rather busty, for lack of a better word, bosom. She was rather short but she had curves in all the right places. Anyways, back to the primary focus, the fire emblem seemed to resonate with actual flames due to the reflection through the princess cut garnet stone set within a golden frame. Only then did he manage to note her incredible features, including a set of eyes that seemed to match his own. He was not even aware that he was staring until the two made eye contact and she gave a flirtatious wink. The boy would turn around and gawk as she continued walking towards the direction that he had just came. She seemed to have added a slight burst of speed to her step, as she appeared to be walking faster than she just had, like she was in a hurry or something. Damon did not notice this yet, however, as he was too busy trying to not watch her walk away. After picking up his jaw from the floor, the boy shook his head and turned back to the direction of the mission center.
 
In fact, Damon entered the mission center shortly after Valen had. He bore witness to their conversation as he heard the mission details himself. The Akari seemed to be in a hurry, and for good reason, rushing so much as he did not seem to notice Damon at all. The Uchiha hurried to the receptionist and began speaking, “I’d like to take part in that mission as well. This is just a formality, as I plan to attend regardless of what you say. Have a nice day.” This seemed to catch her off guard as she was left at a loss for words. He turned around and sprinted, using his chakra sensory to keep track of Valen, who was hurrying through the streets as well. He had to hurry. The man who had raised Damon since the Uchiha had been a child was killed by a group of religious radicals. Gritting his teeth, Damon increased his speed. That can’t happen… Not again. Deeming it wise to rid himself of his shinobi guard, he yanked his headband off of his arm. He hated to do this but it was for the betterment of the mission. Activating the storage displacement technique with the two handseals Rat and Dog. The headband dispersed in a cloud of particles as he watched them disappear into the atmosphere, still running as he did so. He would follow Valen to the Water Gardens in order to see the situation unfold and respond accordingly.
 

WC: 719

Valen arrived at the gardens and could easily see the groups not far from him. Both of the groups seemed to congregate between one person each, a ‘leader’ if you would. For the shinobi it was simply a chunin  that he didn’t really recognize. He wasn’t surprised by this as he didn’t know very many shinobi himself considering they always tended to hide themselves when in public. The group of shinobi behind him however certainly seemed open enough with themselves. He couldn’t make out the conversation yet, but it was clear that the shinobi were being accused of something. Of course he didn’t think they were completely innocent until he could prove them wrong. But forming a group like the way the religious group did to try and make the hatred of the shinobi more ‘uniform’ wasn’t the way to go. Valen ran over to the groups, he came from behind the religious group so he couldn’t exactly see who their ‘leader’ was from his angle but he was intending to help either way so it mattered little.

When he arrived at ‘ground zero’ as it were he finally saw the religious groups leader. He felt his throat and heart stiffen up in small amounts of surprise and fear. He looked into the vibrant blue eyes of Lady Morgan herself. Long, dark red hair, blue eyes as stated before, smooth pale skin and a long red dress with the symbol for the Church of The Eternal Flame. This woman was the church's head priestess. Considering the church itself was one of the biggest ones in the village she had a fair amount of clout within the religious circles and he knew for a fact that many of the worshippers in her church followed the religion she stood for devoutly. If she was the one leveling accusations at the shinobi then it would be extremely difficult to prove to her and her followers that it wasn’t true. They seemed to follow her blindly, which drew Valen’s attention, but he didn’t press the issue. He was there to calm everyone down. “What’s going on?..” He asked with a raised brow as he looked between the two leaders. He had moved to stand between the groups to try and moderate the issue.

Spoiler:

The Chunin spoke first “Lady Morgan here has leveled claims that we have stolen one of the religious symbols from her church. She claims we have taken it and hidden it amongst ourselves but we did not do so. The relic was some item from the original founder of their church apparently.” He would explain without taking his eyes off of the red haired woman in front of him. He wouldn’t trust them enough to take his eyes of them, he couldn’t afford to. It was at this point that Lady Morgan herself spoke up. “What this man says it’s true to an extend, we have accused them of such a crime. But the brooch went missing this morning while some of your shinobi were patrolling the area as they tend to do. They stole the brooch from the church and will have all drawn the anger of the Lord of Light.” She would say, telling the shinobi that they would feel the wrath of the god they worshipped for their theft. The devotee's behind her all nodded and yelled in agreeance, some of them wanting to attack the shinobi for their theft. Valen contemplated for a moment, trying to figure out what could possibly have gone wrong. He looked toward the shinobi and stared at them for a minute. None of them seemed to guilty, hell a few of them looked downright afraid of what might be happening to their home. He looked back toward Lady Morgan with a raised brow. “Describe this Brooch..” He would say, he could possibly search the shinobi’s possessions in this case if she did.

“Gemstones touched by the fires of our first leader, whom was blessed by our Lord of Light. The fiercest red and orange gems you will see in the symbol of our Church.” She would describe, gesturing toward the symbol stitched into her clothes. His eyes would look toward the symbol and his memory would instantly shoot back to the brown haired woman he saw earlier. Gemstones of fierce red and orange would certainly be true as there wasn’t much of a darker red than Garnet and Citrine was the fiercest orange gemstone he could think of. “The shinobi didn’t take the Brooch Lady Morgan. Because I saw the woman who took it walking down the road toward the market not twenty minutes ago. I’ll be right back.” He would say before turning and heading toward the market as fast as he could move. It of course wouldn’t take him long as he ran the entire way but it had been long enough the woman may have left already.


He would activate his dojutsu at this point, increasing how much information he took in automatically as his eyes darted through the crowd trying to locate the woman and brooch in question. At some point throughout it all he’d notice Damon had been following him, presumably on the same mission as well. He’d nod his head toward the fellow shinobi before continuing his frantic search. Now there would be two of them searching, meaning this woman couldn’t hide for long. Granted she probably wasn’t actually hiding, but still. He searched around for the woman for a few minutes, knowing he’d recognize her in a heartbeat, after all he couldn’t forget how beautiful she was but more importantly the brooch stood out on her attire. It drew the eye of those around. It was at this point that Valen would notice a few people looking down the way and he’d follow their gazes, moving his head to look past the crowd in the market for their morning shopping before laying eyes on her. Brooch displayed prominently as he moved throughout the market. “Found her…” He’d say to himself.

WC: 1005
TWC: 1716

Oh this seems natural. The oppressed group is automatically being accused of something the moment things go awry. Once an event does not go the way someone had planned, it is quite incredible how quickly they will turn on each other. Like how all trust seems to disappear whenever someone is looking for the TV remote. ‘Where’s the remote?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Stand up.’ But regardless, there were certain principles to maintain, such as the concept of innocent until proven guilty. In a society where two primary groups hated each other, it would be easy to throw false accusations left and right in an attempt to deteriorate the others. Damon would have been following semi closely to Valen, but maintaining an appropriate distance away so as to not breathe down his neck. When Valen went to stand in between the group, Damon would stand nearby with his arms crossed, observing the situation but on his guard in the event that he needed to step in to intervene. The other shinobi seemed to be even more on guard than the Uchiha was; they refused to take their eyes off of the religious group who were accusing them.
 
Who was this ‘Lord of Light’ that she spoke of? Must have been some deity at the very least, for someone with as much of a reputation as she to speak so highly of in front of others. Trouble began to brew in the religious crowd as they seemed that they were going to attack the shinobi at the very moment. A burning building. No. A broken, bloodied man.  Never. The man dying in the arms of Damon. Again. It was at this point that Damon, still with his arms crossed, took a few steps forwards so that his back was to the shinobi and he was coming face to face with the would be zealots. He scanned their faces, analyzing them to see who would be the most likely to attack. The followers of the Church of the Eternal Flame were almost sheep like in the manner that they supported the really hot head priestess, Lady Morgan. That would be calling the head priestess hot, not hot headed. She was pretty beautiful is the main idea here.
 
“Aw, dangit.” Damon looked wistfully towards his shinobi friend before he turned and gave the religious, albeit borderline cult-like, folk one last look that he hoped would send the message that they should not assault these shinobi. If what Lady Morgan described as the brooch is true, then they were in fact, innocent. He sighed and then took off after Valen, who he was slightly faster than which meant that he was able to catch up in no time. And then, oh hey! Valen finally acknowledged the presence of the Uchiha. Not that he had really made himself all that known, instead sticking to the silent muscle archetype instead of the mediator. Frustrated by the lack of results from their searching, the boy would activate his two tomoe sharingan, enhancing his visual prowess significantly. He was now able to predict where people were moving here and there, and he could even predict their movements. Wow, he thought to himself, I feel as though I can see clearly now the rain is gone. Damon then became aware of the unconscious chakra flow to his eyes that seemed to come completely naturally to him. Am I… doing that? He stopped in his tracks and looked around further. He was able to pinpoint several men turning their heads in a singular direction. My eyes… What was it that his father had said? He had apologized to an unknown entity for his own misfortune before passing away. But he had placed an emphasis on the eyes of the boy whom he had raised since Damon was but an infant. He looked down at his hands, analyzing them entirely, tracing the lines in his palm. Some people believe that these lines can tell one’s future, but to Damon it was just fascinating. The longer you focused, the more lines seemed to appear. He then looked up and was able to see his comrade moving in the direction of the turned heads, so he quickly followed suit, eager to see if they could solve this conflict together.

WC: 1434

Valen would move through the crowd like a trained shinobi after his mark. This of course would be because he WAS a trained shinobi going after his target, not to kill her though of course. The woman wearing the brooch seemed almost serene as she picked up produce to check its freshness and placing some in her bag after handing the stall keeper some money. Every male eye in the market damn near was on the woman as she went about her business. He could certainly understand the attraction through. He’d walk up to the woman at this point before tapping her shoulder politely. She would turn around and smile at him as he looked at the brooch much closer and note that it had to be the correct one. There could be no mistake “Ma’am, I need to talk to you about the brooch..” He would begin as he looked up toward her eyes and felt his breath catch. He suddenly felt as if his mind was pushed away from the topic of discussion all of a sudden and they hadn’t even really begun talking. ‘Genjutsu of some kind?’ He’d think for a moment before blinking and forcing his mind onward. “I believe that brooch might have been stolen this morning. Did anyone give it to you at some point?” He’d ask, beginning to force chakra through his body and mind to combat the genjutsu. All of a sudden his mind would clear up and he would obviously have no trouble thinking as he looked at her anymore.

At this point he would notice her own eyes widening for a moment before she smiled politely at him. He wanted to accuse her of trying to use genjutsu on him. But sadly he simply had no proof of the matter. He’d have to ignore this small slight. Besides the brooch was far more important in this case. “Y-yes Shinobi-san...A suitor gave it to me this morning as a gift. You say it was stolen? Of course you may have it back. I was simply wearing it because I thought it looked quite lovely.” She would say, setting her bag down for a moment before taking off the brooch and handing it to him. The garnet and citrine glistening beautifully in the sunlight. Valen would nod his head politely as he took the brooch. “Thank you for your cooperation ma’am. Could you describe your suitor to me? He might be the thief.” He would continue as he placed the brooch in his pouch and held his hand on the small pack. Making sure it wasn’t going anywhere. “Well, he was kind of tall, brown hair, had a cloak on, I couldn’t really see his face I’m afraid. I tend to get gifts from a lot of men who want my attention for obvious reasons..” She would say and our crimson garbed shinobi’s eyes would widen considerably for a moment as he remembered directing someone like that toward the church the brooch was stolen from just a couple of days prior. He would wince internally at this as it meant he probably directed the thief straight there.

“Thank you ma’am, I’ll get this back to where it belongs.” He would say with a small bow before turning toward wherever Damon might be at the moment and giving him a nod before he body flickered back toward Lady Morgan. He would appear between the two groups again that seemed to be arguing again with her standing at the forefront of her churches group. He’d land in front of her and bow his head to her politely as he pulled out the brooch. “I believe this is the brooch you were looking for Lady Morgan?” He would ask as he presented it to her. Her eyes would widen for a moment as she reached out for the brooch. It was as if she wasn’t expecting him to come back. He instinctively channeled chakra through his body again to make complete and utter sure that he wasn’t still under any kind of lingering effects of any genjutsu. “You have done found the brooch and have made the Lord of Light pleased!” She would say as she showed the brooch to her followers. They would cheer, as she put it on, the gems reflecting the light beautifully as she did. He found it odd that she put it on, but decided not to question it. The point was that the groups would stop arguing now. Sure enough she turned around and bowed to him. “We shall leave now, and please, should any of you shinobi wish to renounce your heathen ways you may come to us in The Church Of Eternal Flame. She would say before leading her group off. Valen would of course breathe in a sigh of relief before turning to the shinobi group and nodding at them. The chunin leading them obviously not pleased about not getting an apology for the accusations. But at least she left. He would nod back at Valen and probably Damon if he had caught up which he figured he would have before turning and breaking up his own group. At this point Valen would turn toward Damon and nod his head again. “Fun times..” He would say simply before heading toward the mission center to get his reward for the mission.


WC: 894
TWC: 2610

Claiming mission rewards obviously including 2000 ryo, 5 ap and the ability to move onto the next chunin rank up mission.

Approved at Both, Good luck with your Chuunin exams