A New Day [P][w/Keina]

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Tonight was supposed to be a special night: a meteor shower. It was expected to be incredibly beautiful, and was expected to last much longer than you would normally expect. There were also some big ones that should shatter, according to the newspaper. And those were expected to create images almost like fireworks streaking across the skies at break neck pace.

Keina had climbed up to the roof of her building, carrying two blankets and a small pillow. One blanket was to lay on. Her roof was rather gravel-y and not fit for just being on. The other blanket was to help against the chilly nights that were the norm inside of the village. The pillow was... for the obvious reason, honestly. To elevate her head just a little.

The shower was supposed to be coming in over the western sky. At least, for the most part. It was probably going to be a little bit of everywhere, but that was where the majority of the celestial objects would be falling through.

Keina's mind was drifting when the first streak appeared across the sky. She focused back in on reality and realized there were some other people on the roof, one of her neighbors, and the neighbor's girlfriend. They were a pretty long distance away, but Keina could just barely catch the giggling. And while if she had really paid attention to them, she probably could have understood the whispered conversation, she did not want to pry, and instead let them be.

No, it was back to watching the stars fall from the sky.

Ok Keina new they were not actually stars. But at times, they really did seem like stars. They had a unique beauty to them unlike so many other things in the world, and this was tied with a strange fascination.

There was a particularly large one, and Keina watched it until it shattered and pieces branched off of it like a stream of confetti.

For the next hours, the process went on, and Keina's mind would drift, thinking about any number of things.

Sometimes she thought about how she was jealous of the other two women on the roof, how she wished someone was here with her. Even just a friend to share the time with and chat would have been nice.

But hey, she was able to watch the shower. And look! There is another big one!

And... it is not breaking. It still has not broken.

Holy shit it hit the ground.

There was... well not really a massive explosion. But it was obvious SOMETHING got damaged pretty bad (probably just the ground), and a few seconds later Keina heard a very low rumbling sound. Probably the carried sound of the crash.

At first Keina thought nothing of it and returned to watching the shower.

The next morning, however, Keina was being assigned a mission to go collect the damn thing. This sort of mission was of the utmost importance because apparently other people would also be hunting it down!

Because they wanted to send more than one person and apparently nobody in the village checked with the office as regularly as Keina did, preferring instead to just get their missions by mail in most cases. Keina waited at the gates for Genevieve Oasis.

[550 words]

Genevieve was having a hard time getting back into the swing of things, if we were being entirely honest, she was struggling here and there on even the smallest of things. Despite being on top of things at the home and a task master of everything revolving her husband and her children, she now seemed to have very little effort for even the mundane things in shinobi life.

For example, she had gotten her mission through a bird and she just expected to find her new temporary partner wandering around; she had been completely almost intellect-questioningly oblivious to the fact that she could have checked into the office.

When she did go and do so they offered that yes, her new partner had been by and she had already left for the gates for the mission of retrieving part of what could have been a star that had fallen from a shower the night before, and Geni was late. This was probably one of the few times she had been so and she rushed off from the office towards the gates, feeling pretty dumb and useless.

What good was a kunoichi who had terrible time-management? She liked to be logical about it but facts were facts; She had gotten mixed up and she was late. How did she expect to be able to raise her children well if she was such a hot mess of a parent? What if Sumire and Shinichi grew up to have her terrible time-keeping skills?

Of course, with how their personalities were beginning to shine,  the only one with any real negatives would be her daughter rather than her son who would most likely just apply for missions for the both of them and nudge his sister along like a bull on a rope.

That left a quite a lot less room for her to fret and keep working on showing how they could recover and recuperate from their mistakes, how to learn from them rather than focusing on them. Though with no real book on how to raise them and her doing it mostly by instinct and judgement alone, she wondered oftentimes if she was doing the right things and showing them the right things, if they would take them positively or negatively. There was no guidebook to raising shinobi children but thankfully her husband was there to offer a second opinion. Geni stopped her inner thoughts immediately as she saw a long woman with striking blonde hair standing at the gates, and she walked up to her,

“Hello, my name is Genevieve Oasis; are you Keina Schwachling?” Geni inquired with a gentle smile.  

[ WC: 440 (2x Wc event = 880 ) ]

"Yep, that would be me," Keina said, waving at the approaching woman. She stood next to an old wooden cart. It was the sort that... at first glance, it looked about to fall apart. That is not to say there were any large holes, it just looked simply put together. As if it was not put together but rather put back together. However, someone who inspected it closer would realize that the joins were actually meticulously crafted, rather than simple angles glued and nailed together. Sadly, Keina could not identify the joins. She only knew one type of join by name: hako aikaki shachi sen shikuchi, and she was... fairly positive that this cart had no such joins.

But she could TELL there was some serious effort put into the cart. There were exceedingly few nails, and what nails there were were driven in at such odd angles and positions that she was simply certain that there was a high level of craftsmanship put into the wood.

That is why, despite her initial misgivings about what the "scientist" had provided, she was OK with the outcome.

She was less okay with the cargo inside the cart.

"Hello there! I'm Dr. Hideshio! Keina dear was just telling me about how she thinks she saw the star we are going to go find! Did you see it?"

"Ok seriously, IT IS NOT A STAR!"['/color]

"Oh boo you, are you the scientist here? They are called falling stars, are they not? By my powers of deduction that must therefore mean: they are stars!"

Keina was actually about ready to pull her hair out, but... she took a deep breath.

And another.

And another.

And another.

This last one sounded noticeably less violent.

"Anyways,-"

"We should leave now, make haste. Yip yip, I say, yip yip!"

If Keina could breath fire, the sky would be alight with the orange of her wrath. Grumbling, she moved to the handles at the front of the cart. Then, turning around to face Genevieve, she would say, in a voice that seethed with discomfort and distaste, and maybe a bit of a desire for vengeance, "Do you want to ride, or can you keep up?"

It was a simple question, but no simple answer. Genevieve would have to piece together a number of clues to even try and guess at Keina's speed. Perhaps the most obvious one was the question itself. Keina obviously thought of herself as rather fast. The next hint would be most easily noticed if Genevieve tried to sense the chakra signatures around her. If she did, she would notice that Keina's was... absurdly low. The doctor actually had a higher chakra level, and he was a civilian. However, it was not so low as to be obviously suppressed. With that knowledge, Genevieve may be able to deduce that Keina would likely be very fast. In the end though, the truth was up to her.

Keina wouldn't be able to go full speed, anyways.

[500]

THIS POST MARKS THE LAST POST OF MONTH TWO OF KEINA'S ACTIVITY CHECK! DO NOT COUNT POSTS BEFORE THIS ONE FOR ANY NEW MONTHS!



It was a simple question, where are they going? Unfortunately, from Keina's previous conversations with the man, his directions were literally worse than what Keina could navigate by herself. Based exclusively on the memory of where she saw the thing fall.

After Genevieve got into the cart, Keina took up position.

She had recommended the "doctor" (she was convinced this was a rich nobody with an interest and little more) get blankets. Or pillows. Or SOMETHING to sit on in the cart.

He had said he was fine.

He had no idea what was about to happen.

Keina grabbed the poles of the cart and raised it up. Normally you would need a horse or a camel or something to pull a part like this, because the strength was just not there in people.

Keina was one of many exceptions. She was strong enough to lift it, certainly. But in addition to that? She could outrun a horse any day, and she could run for longer than most horses. So, despite the "doctor's" claim that it would likely take the team two days to get out there.... Keina expected to make it within a few hours.

That being said, she would have to go fast. Why did she have to go fast? Well, aside from wanting to get there quickly... running fast would be... How to put it simply? Well.

Bumpy.

It would be extremely bumpy.

Uncomfortably bumpy, if she could manage it.

Though considering the other ninja, Genevieve, was in the cart... well, Keina was likely never going to be purposely hitting bad bumps but... now she would be careful to NOT hit it, rather than only being a little, tiny bit careful to hit bumps.

A simple enough story, honestly. Him ending up with a bruised tailbone was entirely an accident.

Ok. Bruised tailbones were fucking horrible. She would have been nice enough to avoid that. But no nicer! Not one bit! Now though... it was time for her to be friendly to the people, at least for the sake of the ninja she had just met for the first time.

Such was how Keina started picking up speed. She was NOT going to risk the doctor falling out of the cart on the very first movements. That was a bit much. Even his annoying ass did not deserve that shit. Just like he did not deserve a bruised tailbone.

A bruised butt though? That was fair play.

Starting off slowly, Keina reached speed as fast as she could. She fucking HATED sand, though. So loose under her feet, it was hard to get a grip. MOST ninja used just the tiniest bit of chakra to get a better grip.

That wasn't a fucking option for Keina though! Fucking yay!

Either way, it would be a few hours before they arrived at the "starfall site" as the "doctor" liked to call it. Unless perhaps they ran into resistance? Only time, and the tale of another writer, could tell.

[500]

Keina had expected danger. Thrills. ADVENTURE!

At least something resembling a fight, But arriving at the location, there was... really nothing.

Well, there was a crater, which had obviously been the crash site of the "star", and Keina thought she could maybe see the thing down at the bottom of the crater, but truthfully it was hard to tell for sure. It could have been the meteor (meteorite? Keina was not sure which was the proper term, though she was leaning towards 'meteorite'), or just a rock, or frankly just a shadow. It was getting later in the day, after all.

Turning around to the cart, Keina would acknowledge Geni's statement. "Glad you enjoyed it," she would say, perhaps a bit monotone. Then, at the next statement, Keina would give her a look over, moving her head and eyes up and down across the woman.

"No offense but I think I could bench press five of you," she would say.

She knew there... were not many ways to take offense to that, but it was kind of fun to phrase it that way.

Maybe Geni would be confused, trying to figure out how that was supposed to be offensive.

Maybe she would recognize it was moreso a joke than anything else right away.

Or maybe that was, in some way, offensive to Geni. Perhaps the woman would take that to mean that Keina was calling her weak.

Hopefully the light, trilling tone of Keina's voice would prevent the latter situation.

(Skipping Keina with OOC permission)

** I am not able to claim mission rewards, as it was forgotten that an NPC was needed for this mission **

[ Exiting unless stopped ]
TWC: 3542

Claiming: 70 AP (2 AP per 100 WC),
Putting 924 WC towards claiming Space-Time as 3rd spec, other WC from Here 
Putting 2000 Wc towards claiming Nature Chakra Proficiency
Putting 250 towards Mark Seal
Putting remaining 368 towards Mark Tracking to bring it to (368 / 1000)