Defend the Bath House (Mission)

Spoiler:

Mission Link



The afternoon was actually very pleasant today for most people, the sun was actually out behind the cloud layer, which usually was not the case, the birds were singing, and the warmth in the air was quite relaxing, causing many people in the mist village to subconsciously lounge around today, and be a bit lazier than usual. The various shops around town were having temporarily closed signs, or handing their closed signs early to enjoy such a warm and lazy day. Keita on the other hand, disliked days like this the most, although he still was not as jaded as to not enjoy the day at all, he simply preferred days where it was foggy and rainy, one could say that he was a true blue member of the mist village, and loved everything about it, even the murder. The mist and fog was great however, as Keita loved to simply snuggle under a warm blanket and sip some hot tea while musing about the world and all of its great mysteries and beauties, and it felt like too active of a day when the sun was shining and it was warm everywhere to be able to do something like that. Keita was musing to himself about this situation, when he noticed that he had finally meandered to his destination today, which was the mission center. He was here to get a mission, and seeing as how today's drowsy atmosphere made the normal up and attem shinobi of the village lazy and napping, it seemed that the mission area, which was usually bustling with people, was strangely empty today at this time, and so Keita calmly walked up to the receptionist, who greeted him with a warm, if a bit tired and sleepy, smile. It was not easy staying up when the warmth was attacking your energy and there was nothing to do, so Keita commended this girl silently in his heart, before making some small talk and commenting about the weather with the woman, before getting down to the current task at hand. Keita requested to see the high ranked missions that were available today, and the woman went into a drawer and found a couple of missions that were submitted, one of them with the stamp on it that said urgent. Keita inquired about that one as she was checking his jounin credentials, and soon it became abundantly clear that Keita was going to choose this mission for today, and promptly took it. As he read through the mission that involved a potential and looming assassination threat by close family members, Keita made his way towards the bath house that was marked on the mission statement, while thinking to himself that there was sometimes a problem with the mist village being a bit too blood thirsty for its own good, even if it did give him somethin g to do and put food on his table. Keita preferred it if people would stop murdering their family members all the time, and as he thought about before, he must be a true mist ninja to believe that this sort of thing was normal, as he was able to brush off the feeling of dread instantly, as this was certainly normal for his village, and one had to be a lot tougher than usual to survive here. Regardless, being quite quick on his feet, Keita made it to the mission location fairly quickly, and found the man in charge, quickly introducing himself to the man, before the man slightly broke down, yelling towards Keita to help him and save him from his brother, who was no doubt sending an assassin as he spoke to rid him of the family business, which was one of the most profitable bath houses in all of the mist village. Of course it had to do with money, Keita thought to himself, before he assured the person that he would keep him safe when the time came, and that he should relax, and wait for him in areas that were easy to get to, but not too close to him, lest he tip the assassin off about his presence. He needed the assassin to attack him, as there was no way Keita could simply protect this person for the rest of his days, and so they needed the assassin to act as soon as possible, so that they could catch him and rid him of the threat itself, rather than to keep him safe for a couple more days or weeks. So, Keita's plan was simple, he would go and take a bath and hang out in the bath house until the person attacked, disguising himself as a customer, and simply wandering around. He immediately got undressed and went into the mixed bathing area of the bath house, where he saw a small group of men staying quite a far bit away from a small group of women. It seems that the atmosphere in the air was a bit stifling, as the men had apparently hit on the woman, before getting chastised and retreating into their own little corner of the bath. Keita noted this down, and simply walked in with a towel around his waste. He was definitely a pretty boy, and did not have very well defined muscles, adding to the pretty boy aesthetic quite a bit, so he got stares, both good and bad from the patrons of the bath house. The female patrons were looking him up and down, and it seemed like they were lusting after him, which Keita did not mind, as he was not going to take such feeling and looks seriously, or do anything with them. As soon as the other men in the bath house saw this, however, Keita got clear, angry stares from them, as they wondered why someone such as him would get the amiable stares from the women that they wanted in the first place. Keita simply gave a wonderfully beautiful smile towards the ladies, and nodded towards the men, before  taking a dip and slowly washing himself off. He had not taken a shower that day, but even if he had, he would definitely still take one to keep up his cover.


He decided that he was not going to take any side in this cold war that was happening in the bath, and simply found a corner that was not occupied off to the side, and simply sat there instead of near the people. Enduring the stares for a while, Keita simply relaxed, until a woman, egged on by the murmurs and giggling of her friends, approached Keita and started chatting with him about things, obviously flirting with him. Although Keita was willing to play around, he was on the job, and there was definitely a distraction if he did something like that here and now, as he had to wait for the assassin to show up before he decided to make any sort of move, and so he needed to not be distracted, and so he simply entertained her, with the intent to simply tell her that he was not interested in her advances, but the more that he talked, the more engrossed that she got with him and his words, and the closer that she got to him. Finally, Keita could not deal with her any more, because he was definitely bad at dealing with women, and so he excused himself, and headed out of the bath, he was done with cleaning himself any way, and he needed to watch for any changes in behavior. He checked on the owner of the bath house, and talked to him about the bath, and made sure to pay him for the services, and said that he would be back tomorrow. The owner was filled with cold sweat on his fore head at that sentence, but calmed down when Keita decided to give him a knowing wink, and told him secretly that this was all part of the act, and that he would be monitoring the situation closely. Keita got his normal clothing back on, before leaving the area, carefully watching his surroundings as he did so, and making sure that he was not being watched, tailed, or followed in any way. After he got far enough away from the bath house where he knew that he was not followed or under surveillance, he went back towards the bath house, this time transformed into someone else, and simply wandered around. He had chosen his disguise to be an old man, and as an old man, he took a random bench near the bath house, and simply watched out into the distance, taking a glance at people and looking towards the setting sun every once in a while. It was fairly late now, and the son was dropping towards the horizon, dying the sky a beautiful orange color as orange slowly but surely faded to a dark blue, notifying the world that the sun was also going to sleep for the night. Keita stood out there, watching the sunset, but in fact secretly monitoring who was going in and out of the bath house, so that he could respond at a moments notice, or take note of any suspicious individuals that made their way into it. The bath house most likely could not afford to hire a ninja, since the ninja around here could not be hired to assassinate people unless they directly went against the village, and the village would know about that any ways, and so he knew that the assassin that was going to show up would most likely be a trained individual, but one that could not use ninjutsu, as the ninjas of the village did. This meant that they had to work on their disguise and attitude alone, something that a veteran like Keita would see through, especially now that he was paying so much close attention to the situation, and so Keita simply waited. The night came to fruition, and just as the sun fully dropped below the horizon line, Keita sighed, looking like an old man, before getting up and head down the street to a path that led to some alleys. After he was there, it was a simply fact to drop the transformation, and then transform again into the form of a small squirrel, who liked to go out at night in this part of the village, and grab any sort of nut or berry they could get their hands on. Keita the squirrel headed back to the bath house, and into the wee hours of the morning, could not make heads or tails about any assassin, as it seemed that they had decided to not show up that day. Keita did not sleep that night, and it was often the case with ninja on missions, and it was fairly easy for them to not sleep for days at a time to get their missions accomplished, so this was of course, nothing to Keita in the first place. He waited a bit for the morning sun to rise, before staking out the area some more, as his plan was simply to come back in the afternoon. This was, of course, until he saw a suspicious looking person walk up to the front door of the bath house and knock on it. Keita noticed it was far too early in the morning for their to be a visitor, as there was no one even on the streets at this time, so Keita inched closer and closer to the person, and wondered if he was simply going to assassinate the owner of the bath house in broad day light like this. Keita made sure to get as close as possible in his animal form, until he was inside of a bush on the side of the road that led to the bath house.

A couple of loud bang later, and finally the door was opened, and a cranky old man that had not slept very well opened it and started yelling at the person, asking what he wanted. Keita was calm, although he was a bit tense as he looked at the altercation, as the person that was at the door was definitely in a position to take out a concealed weapon and stab the man to death, pushing his body through the door of the bath house, and would have enough time to actually clean up the body before the workers of the bath house showed up for their morning routines. It seemed like this was exactly what was about to happen, as Keita saw the young man reaching for something in his belt, almost in slow motion, as Keita was quite a bit faster than the man by an order of magnitude. Keita immediately sprung into action, lunging at the man that was pulling a weapon out, and managed to deftly throw a shuriken towards the man, hitting him accurately in the wrist as his hand went up with the weapon he had pulled. The man was very surprised, and saw that the squirrel that was sitting there a moment ago turned out to be a ninja, and the assassin wondered how in the hell the man owning the bath house could afford a ninja, especially a jounin at that, to protect him for a number of days. He had thought that waiting a day or two to tire the man out, since he had known about the assassination attempt before hand, was a good strategy, because whoever showed up would not have the foresight or know how to stop him from pulling off such a strange blitz tactic of simply killing the man when he came to the door in the early morning, after the man had checked his surroundings and made sure that no one was watching him. He had not really thought and calculated one thing, and that was a shinobi sticking their nose in the area. Normally it would be fine, as even if a genin was disguised at the squirrel, he was too fast and the genin would not be able to react in time, even if he was right there, but a jounin was different. There was no way that the man's tactic would escape an experienced ninjas senses, and so he was up a creek without a paddle it seemed, as he immediately booked it towards the opposite end of the street. No matter how much he was getting paid for this job, it did not matter if he could not spend the money because he was a corpse. Still, the man was a bit smart, but that was it. Running away immediately was the smartest plan, and Keita did not seem to have any intent on chasing him for now, and so the man let out a sigh of relief when he had gotten a few blocks down from winding path ways and alleys before finally slowing down. His breathing was rapid from all of the sprinting, but he seemed relatively safe for now. On the other end, back with Keita and the owner of the bath house, Keita gave the owner a once over, even though he did not seem hurt initially, there could be any number of fowl play here, before dashing through the streets, using some hand seals, and then rapidly sinking underground. Keita decided that his tried and true favorite jutsu, Hiding Like a Mole Technique, would come in handy here. It was great, and all he needed to know was that he was not facing another person that could utilize earth jutsu, as this was something that he was fully aware of and made sure he had contingency plans against it. The man did not even seem like a shinobi, as a real shinobi would have tried to kill the person no matter what, like a true skilled professional, but this person saw that he was at a disadvantage and ran away immediately. Smart, but not smart enough, as shinobi had numerous ways to track him and keep on him, as there was no way that he was going to outrun a shinobi in the first place, as the body flicker technique was something that could be used even if you were fresh out of the academy, and that would be able to catch up to the man. However, Keita was a bit more merciful than chasing him and letting him know a massive amount of fear before death, and Keita simply flew through the eart at quite a bit of speed, before showing up behind the man and instantly decapitating him with a kunai knife. Keita thought that it was a pity that the man chose a life of assassination, and wondered what hardships the man could have been through to make him have to choose this life, especially in the bloody mist where people like him died every day. Still, Keita held no remorse for those that tried to murder innocents. As Keita was done, he headed back towards the bath house, while simultaneously sending a coded message in the form of a short bird call to a nearby anbu, as they were always stealthily watching out and listening for these calls. although they were not always watching all parts of the village for man power reasons, soon one of them would show up if you knew the proper pass word, or in this case, proper bird call. The Anbu showed up and greeted Keita, and Keita showed him the body and briefly explained the information, before the Anbu took the body and body flickered out of sight, while Keita made his way back to the bath house, where he then informed the man that the assassin was gone, and that he was safe, for now. After sitting through the man's profuse amount of thank yous, Keita finally left the scene, satisfied with today's mission. Keita then wandered off, towards a nearby shop so that he could get some caffeinated tea and a small pastry, so that he could stay awake for a bit longer and not mess up his sleep schedule. 
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WC: 3033
EXIT
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Claiming 67 AP (60 from word count and maxed stats, 7 from mission)
Claiming 3500 ryo (3000 from mission, 500 from jounin)
Claiming 3000 words towards Fuuinjutsu Breaking V7 4500/5000, A rank version earned

Approved for exit and mission claims!