Tatsuo's First Mission (Sort Of)

Mission Name: The Mizukage Monument
Rank: E
Type: Labor
Character Requirements: Genin or higher
Mission Location: Mizukage Monument
Word Count Requirements: 1000
Repeatable? Yes
NPC? No
Reward: 500

Task: Statues don't clean them selves kiddies, and that's why you get to do it. If it isn't spotless, the mission can be considered a failure. (Honestly if you fail at this, maybe you should take a break on the whole ninja thing.)

The sun was rising up over Kirigakure as Tatsuo walked through across one of the bridges connecting the various islands that made up the village. The mist surrounding the islands was exceptionally thick today, which put him slightly on edge. He wouldn’t normally have ventured into the village on a day like today, but he needed to check on some administrative issues. Being a genin for as long as he had been without receiving any missions was almost unheard of, which meant there was more than likely an issue with his records.
 
 
 
 


 
 
 
 

WC: 602

Tatsuo stood with his eyes raised toward the monument of the Mizukage, Xyxer Gyojin. It towered above the surrounding area of the village, much like the power of the Mizukage towered over his counterpart Kage. One day people will look up to me like that, he thought to himself. Only with me they’ll be looking up with hope rather than fear.
 
It was still early enough that there wasn’t much foot traffic, which he was thankful for. Cleaning a statue wasn’t exactly the most dignified work for a shinobi, even a brand new Genin. He walked over to a small building nearby, which he had correctly assumed to be the maintenance shed. Various cleaning tools lined the walls and empty buckets lined the floor. He sighed as he looked over them. He had plenty of menial labor experience at home, he didn’t need it in his ninja career as well. Still, a job was a job, so he started by grabbing a large hand brush and walking back outside.
 
The statue had accumulated a good amount of dirt and salt from the sea air. He had learned from helping his parents clean their own house that there were generally three steps to cleaning something like this. First, the large, loose particles needed to be dislodged. He’d have to go from the top down so that he didn’t cause dirt from the higher parts to fall onto the lower parts again. At least that gave him the opportunity to practice his chakra control some more. He focused his chakra onto his feet and then stepped onto the statue, sticking to it at a perpendicular angle. Starting with the head of the statue, Tatsuo began to scrub off each part. He was surprised that the statue had fallen into such poor condition. It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months. As he scrubbed the statue, a thin cloud of dirt and dust began to sink toward the ground. Once he’d made it all the way down to the feet, he grimaced. Each step in the cleaning process was more difficult than the last, which meant he had just finished the easiest part of this task.

Next up came the deep cleaning. He placed the brush he’d been using on one of the statue’s feet and returned to the maintenance shed. In order to do a more thorough cleaning, he’d need water, which meant he needed to grab a couple of buckets. As he carried them to the waters edge to fill them up, he couldn’t help but wonder if the Mizukage himself had ever been subjected to menial labor like this. It was easy to imagine him as being the strongest, but even the strongest had to start at the bottom and climb to the top.
 
With the buckets filled, he made his way back up to the statue. He tossed the water from the first bucket onto the head of the statue and let it run down the entirety of it. Then he grabbed his brush and started to scrub it more intensely from the top down yet again. This time, however, he would dip the brush in the bucket from time to time in order to clean it. The water had caused the dirt still on the statue to turn to mud, so there was quite a bit of noticeably brown muck on the statue. On the plus side, it was very obvious when there was still stuff to be cleaned and Tatsuo was thorough.
 
It took a few hours before he had finally finished with the deep cleaning of the statue, at which point there were crowds of people on the streets. He couldn’t help feeling a little embarrassed that he was seen doing something so menial, especially when he had built up this false image around himself of someone sophisticated and refined. If any of the villagers noticed, however, they didn’t give any sign of it. At any rate, now came the final part of the cleaning: polishing.
 
The statue itself was thankfully mostly made of stone, but there were a few parts of it that were steel. The humid air was a nightmare for metallic materials if they weren’t properly taken care of and so a layer of rust had formed over these places. While his previous cleaning had managed to remove most of that rust, the metal didn’t quite have the same luster that it had originally possessed. He aimed to change that.
 
With a polishing rag and a some sandpaper, he went to work. The main things he wanted to polish were the Kirigakure headband and the sword that was in the hands of the Mizukage. It didn’t take too long for him to accomplish that, sanding it down and then buffing out the scratches and applying the polish. Most people probably wouldn’t have bothered to polish the statue at all, but he wanted to make a good first impression on whoever evaluated his mission. He sighed in relief as he hopped down off the statue and admired his handiwork. The statue looked better than ever, truly representative of the bright times ahead for his village.
 
A small smile broke out on his face as he placed the brush and buckets back in the maintenance shed. It wasn’t much, but he’d completed his first mission as a Hidden Mist shinobi. Only time would tell where he would go from here.
 
[exit]

WC: 907
TWC: 1,509
Claiming:
-500 ryo for E-ranked Mission
- 5 Kunai for completing first E-ranked mission
 -Rope Escape Technique (500/500)
-Genjutsu Release (500/500)
-Inside to Outside Block (500/500)

Approved.