Photo Op Mega-Montage

Mission Details

Page would turn from the prison he had just photographed as it began to get cold in the night, placing his camera back into its sling before pushing it to his back and facing the harsh winds and sand of the stretch of desert between him and the village. Dashing at his top speed and knowing exactly the pathing back to the village on account of both his frequency of returning to the place, his connection to the familiar he knew was inside the village still, and his scent tracking using both said familiar and his teacher, Raleth, as a basis. It wasn’t fifteen minutes before he had already reached the village gates, and keeping up his momentum, he quickly filled out all the information of his exit in the log, showed the gate guardians his shinobi ID and re-entered the village proper, making his way to the building that housed the studio in which his boss could be found, eager to turn in his pictures and intending to sleep the rest of the night away, before maybe working for Raleth a bit in the morning then starting some more work for the paper. Reaching the building he would open up the door, make his way up the stairs avoiding the other people using it as a bench that had arrived with the night, and this time knocking, shouting “It’s Page, I’m coming in,” before entering the studio of K. Kenta Kame-san.

“Jesus Page boy, you damn near gave me a heart attack, close that damned door,” the newspaper owner would state, before taking a break to again cough, this time much more heavy and for much longer before starting to speak again, “There are so many god damned hooligans out there, ruffians I say. Anyway, don’t just stand there all dumb,” eugh he would let out a deep pained noise before a similarly painful breath, “You got the pictures from the prison, bring em here already kid, I’ll take a look at em.”

And so the former farmer would approach cautiously, handing over the manilla envelope that contained all of the pictures, and asking, “Everything alright Kenta? That cough can’t be good, have you had it checked out by any medical ninja yet? I’m sure there are plenty of great doctors and ninjas that can be found, after all this is Suna, pretty sure any organ you have failing, a replacement can be found.”

The older of the two journalists would scoff, weakly raising his trembling hard as to push it aside stating, “Bah nothing to worry about, just a bit of a cold. Now if you are done worrying about nothing at all, let's take a look at these pictures.” He would, hands shaking, lift the flap on the envelope up and reach inside, slowly taking the photographs out and laying them all over the table, before coughing again, this time not being able to grab a handkerchief in time and spewing some of the blood and saliva over a few of the pictures. Attempting to laugh it off, he’d chuckle as he said, “Well I guess that's why we take backups ain’t it, now, looking at these they are really something special. I remember last year I had to go to that prison and let me tell you, I could not take this good of pictures so either they really cleaned up their act or you are some sort of jesus when it comes to framing your shots, the messiah of photography so to speak. Anyway, yeah, I think these can do for the story, anything else you have to report about the prison?”

Looking obviously concerned but still respectful of K Kenta Kame-san’s request, Page would answer, “Nope nothing else at all, and if that's it, I think I might go home and take a good night's rest, hopefully see my dog, had a very long and fulfilling day and according to my watch,” he would lake at his left wrist, which would be completely barren of any such watch, “it’s half past rest time and with that I shall see you tomorrow. Had a great time today and I’m hoping we can keep this working relationship going for a while. It really seems like this may be my way to make my mark, my calling.”

“Well here is the thing champ,” K. Kenta Kame-san would start, coughing a bit, then continue, “That’s short for champion, I’m going to need you for just one last mission today, just one.”

“Really? Can’t it wait till tomorrow I really need some rest man,” Page would respond.

“No can do compadre, the ultimatum is this, either you do this job for me that needs done right now, or you can call this little relationship over, you would be fired, or worse, forced to work with Ensin. If you do this for me though, I can guarantee that you never have to work directly with that clown again,” K Kenta Kame-san would retort

“Not having to work with Ensin, eh?” Page would balance the options between getting some rest but losing his job, or never having to face the worst part of his job so far, “On one hand, keep this amazing job I love so much and never have to see that guy I hate so much, but on the other hand I could go to sleep.” He would pause in contemplation for a while tapping his toe, the silence broken when K. Kenta Kame-san would cough up some more blood. “You know what, I’m sold, fuck it, I’ll do the mission, just tell me what it is and I’ll get it done, just warning though I am pretty tired so it may not be my best work, just know it will be work. Jesus fuck this better be at least interesting work, or god damned it Kenta I might just have to quit on you and start my own paper, I don’t know what I’d call it though.”

WC: 1,000 TWC: 11,146

“My boy, I’m glad you made a sensible decision for once in your life, now the mission is simple, I recently had an informant telling me that one member of the Wind Country council has been sleeping with a woman in a nearby town. That wouldn’t be a problem if he didn’t already have a wife. I think you can see where I am going with this. An informant of mine has recently told me through a message sent by nin-pidgeon that said statesman would be meeting his mistress tonight in her hometown, but keeping a low profile, I need you to go to this village and take pictures of the two together. You don’t need to catch them mid-coitus or anything, just catching them doing the kind of things that say that, holding hands, kissing each other, that kind of stuff, the more damning the better. Now listen to me, this is important, your pictures will be on the front page of the paper, so get excited, and use that excitement to fuel you to abandon all limits and take the best, most damning photograph of your life,” the editor, K Kenta Kamesan, would state to the genin from the village hidden in the sand, excited that he would actually be able to run this story and knowing it would be quite the profitable one.

“Oh,” Page would reply, “I didn’t think we ran those kinds of stories, I thought we were mostly just, you know, the kind of serious events and procedural stuff, just kind of straight forward journalism, not that I’m saying I personally have a problem with this, just a point of concern for our image is all,” the former farmer would resort to his signature way of dealing with awkward situations like this, his borderline patented scratching at the back of his head.

“Well I don’t typically like to run these kinds of stories,” K Kenta Kame-san would admit, “But if I’m being honest, the paper isn’t doing too great financially and we could really use one killer story to inspire people to pick it up,  and although front paging a story like this may be perceived as trashy by some newspaper, we here are willing to dig through the trash to find the truth god damnit, and the truth we will find. Now you are going to get me pictures of these two adulterers and we are going to make some money so that maybe one day we won’t have to run stories on things like this, or we won’t have to run stories depicting people that keep us afloat as the good guys, maybe one day we’ll even have enough money so that I can fire Ensin without having to worry about all the funding his father funnels into this business. That sounds like one hell of a day to me, and I know it sounds even more pleasant to you, given that you’ve had to work with Ensin the most recent out of the two of us.”

“Music to my ears sir, music to my ears. Just thinking about a future without that person in it brings a deep joy to my soul, goddamn I’ll be so glad to see him gone. Anyway, back to the mission at hand, can you tell me both the name and address of the mistress, as well as the location of this town? I want to make sure I can find them in time and have no desire to in anyway fuck up this mission, I am now personally incredibly invested in making sure all goes smoothly solely fueled off hatred for fucking Ensin, that guy is such a pretentious, self-entitled dick,” the now pumped up genin would say, ready to get going with the mission and catch some cheating council man with his mistress so that he could report it to the whole world.

“Good to hear you’re excited, had me worried for a second but now I know you are into this, the woman’s name is Rin Hiyu, and she lives off of the market street in the town of Kyochan, that is Kyochan and it is along the western path from the village, four miles this time, a bit further, but I’m sure not a thing to someone with speed like you. Now,” he would pause for a second, coughing again, before continuing on with his speech, “get the hell out there and go grab that scoop. Grab it by the balls and never let go.” Page would turn around and start to walk out the door to the studio back into the sea of people only for K. Kenta Kamesan to add on, “By the way Page boy, that is entirely figurative, don’t actually grab the council man’s balls, don’t interact with him at all, just take pictures from afar. Want to make sure that is absolutely clear, don’t grab his bal-” again he would be interrupted by a cough, but Page wouldn’t wait for the clarification as he was eager to leave. Laughing, the young former farmer, current journalist, would snidely interject “Got it, won’t grab the man by his balls, see you when I have the pictures Kenta, and by the way, never change.”

With all that said, Page started his way through the crowd of people that clogged up the stairs, entering the oddly open street and starting his way to the gates again. The guard would look at him oddly as he approached the same one for the third time in the night, checking out for very similar reasons, important journalist business and all that fun stuff, before he would show his shinobi ID, get checked off, turn around to the west path previously told by K Kenta Kame-san would lead to the promised town where the precious story would lay. He would think before he started his journey, he knew that within fulfilling this mission there would be a turning point, this would likely save the paper and pave the path to a better future for himself and K Kenta Kamesan.

WC: 1014, TWC: 12,160

Page made his way down the path to Kyochan to find a woman named Rin Hiyu and report on her affair with a sitting country council member. The path was pretty long, but given he was actually going on a path the travel felt like it took longer, not having to worry about the camera or falling down as much when there were no errant rocks or cacti to threaten any existence, either of Page’s dignity or his camera. He would travel along this path the four miles required, but seeing the small town in the distance with a royal looking carriage rolling up. Page would dive for the bushes and circumnavigate around the village until he found the obvious sign of a market place, then looked out for where the carriage was. The carriage had parked out in front of an inn, and just Page’s luck the place didn’t have any open windows. So, with his entrepreneuring spirit in tact, unbroken by this blow, took his clothes, bundled them all up and tried to cover his body entirely as to avoid most of the whole having a definable form business, and entered the inn, entering the tavern part and seeing the two targets of the photos in a corner, being all close and intimate, Page would take his camera, shove it under his coat and maintaining his incognito mode, snap a picture of the two. They looked close, and it was suspicious, but it wasn’t guaranteed, and people could write it off as them simply being close friends, so after ordering some tea, Page left without interacting with the couple, and went to hide in the bushes again, now growing a keener sense of both of their smell and waiting for them to leave the tavern so that he could more convincingly catch them in the act.

Page would wait for quite some time before the two would stumble out, holding onto each other deeply, hugging each other drunkenly outside the bar. Page readied his camera and snapped a picture of the two of them embracing, again, incriminating, but room in the friend zone for this to be written off, so he followed the couple as they stumbled and bumped into each other, walking into the woman’s house. Snap. Another picture was taken showing them walking in together, another suspicion, but again, not the confirmation they needed for the big times. So Page kept up his following routine, this time assisted with the power of windows, which allowed him to peak into the two sitting on a couch together, snap, another picture, all of these adding up in order to forge quite the case against the two, but he still would need something strictly romantic to fully seal the deal. Just as he was thinking about what it is he would have to do to get some kind of juicy image, he shot would line up, center view finder, right at the perfect time and right in the perfect location, the man that worked for the country and the girl that was born in raised in a town in said country would embrace for a second before crossing lips, snap, and the flash would go off, but he would have his perfect image. As the flash went off, the woman would see it, shriek and Page would run out and dive back to the bushes, using transformation jutsu to make himself look like a bush within it. He watched as the concerned council member and his mistress would rush outside, searching for the mysterious man who had taken the picture, one looking to avoid a political nightmare, the other looking to avoid any potential shame or unwanted infamy, the publicity was not what she had in mind.

Seeing the two throw a fit and a tizzy as they searched every hiding spot in their back yard, and this time turning the flash off, Page would take one final picture of the two frantic before he left, making sure to have a picture showing that this was clearly there was at the very least the attempt of a coverup of this relationship, providing a bow on top of the already massively nailed down coffin, one that he was ready to bury six feet under when he handed the pictures to K Kenta Kame-san and had them published in the papers, their faces shown to the world and the paper gaining a whole bunch of credibility and more importantly, money, fat stacks of money. Grabbing his pictures, he put the safely into his pack, followed by his camera, then activating his taijutsu cloak, he boosted his speed to an incredible rate in order to get back to his village and flashing his way along the path, making the path in a quicker than a mile a minute pace and checking in as fast as he possibly could, more than eager to go through all of the information, writing in for the details of mission excursion as an astounding success. Again he would rush to the building of K Kenta Kame-san, and again it would prove quite crowded, so crowded in fact to avoid any sort of enhancer would have been likely to be a signal to start fighting. Peacefully making his way through the pack of people, Page parted the path to his boss’s office, entered gently and said to him, “I did it, I got the pictures and I’ll be damned if they aren’t the most damning pictures that could ever have been pictured, now I’m going to go home, I’m going to go to my bed, I’m going to get some sleep and meet you in the morning.” And that he did, placing the pictures and the camera on his table, receiving a nod from his boss and going back home to sleep with his dog, Sheffield. He would great his dog and quickly move to bed, finally getting some well deserved rest. Waking up with a licking from his dog, Sheffield would nuzzle him, give him a shake, and walk away from Page. Page acknowledged he probably had business and similarly felt the drive to go to Kenta's office


WC: 1,031 TWC: 13,191
Mission Complete

Final Mission

Page would prepare for the day before he left for work, brushing his teeth and taking a shower before getting dressed. He would  complete his morning routine one step noticeably absent. As he would tie his own headband around his left arm, followed by the tying and tightening of his forearm protector, something he did damn near every morning, he would, however, look to the place where the larger headband was usually stored and find it empty. Figuring Sheffield had picked it up and found some way to tie it himself, or most likely found someone downstairs willing to tie it for him, and headed out to whatever business he had to attend to. Preparing himself for his departure and the day, the former farmer would check in with Raleth, make himself some breakfast out of the fruits and oats, some tea, and ate up quickly, eager and pressed to start up another day of work for the paper. Even though the shinobi of the Village Hidden in the Sand had a proper occupation as a ninja, and even though he just started his current assignment, he knew that it was one he would want to hold onto for as long as he possibly could, it was really something, it had finally ignited Page’s passion and the former farmer’s ambition as he wanted to improve his position among the paper as well as improve the paper itself, as was seen in his last mission the night before. Stretching after finishing his food, cracking his back, he would bid Raleth a good rest of his day to which Sarutobi Sensei would reciprocate, wishing him well and asking the younger man, well, still old for a genin, and asking him when he planned on being back, after all he would probably need him at the tea shop the next day and would want him to get a good night's rest in case of any opportunity for training. Taking this into account, Page would inform his teacher and fellow Kono turned Suna nin that he should be there shortly after sunset if all went according to plan. Sadly, he would be proven quite wrong in this estimate as the events of the day would unfold, 

Walking outside, Page would feel something wrong about the air, it felt stale. Not in the way that an air filter may be out of shape, or there may be some sort of gas in his immediate area that had been released, but instead in the tone that hung in the air. He would slow down his pace as all the sudden a heavy weight wore down on all of the newly minted journalists, somehow losing the energy and enthusiasm as a dark cloud raised over his head. As Page went through the streets, shifting from one leg to the other as he meandered hugging from one side to the other as he for some reason felt the urge to delay his arrival to the building that housed K Kenta Kame-san’s office for his newspaper. Eventually, he made it to the building to a shocking discovery, he saw several medical ninja and a cart outside the building, with a couple of shinobi that Page recognized as those who often times could be caught working a patrol shift, this mixed with the negative feeling and the scent of death in the air practically sealed the former farmer’s knowledge of what happened. As he got closer to the building he could see the ninja pull out a gurney from the cart, fumbled around with the wheels, then brought it up stairs, Page counting each step it bumped against to, and upon the 22nd, the same stair that would get you to the floor of Kenta’s office. He would hear a familiar creaking of a door, a load added to the stretcher, then the gurney being brought back down. Page would see the familiar corpse, blood decorating his lips, the life completely gone from his blank eyes and the hair somehow even more white within the less than ten hours since the young man had seen him. Page was shocked, he knew that his boss’s health was failing, but he had no idea it was this far gone, he thought he had more time to learn more, but here this eventuality was, it just was so confusing to him. Why didn’t he say anything before he left? Why didn’t he say goodbye?

Page would sit down on the curb outside until the ninja would clear. They easily wrote it off as natural causes, but this just didn’t feel real, why didn’t he go to any sort of doctor? It’s not like there was any shortage of those in the medical profession around the shinobi village of Wind Country, he could easily find someone to fix his illness, but alas he did not, he, for whatever reason, didn’t cure his illness and he paid for it. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it was incurable, maybe it was just sheer fucking hubris, whatever the reason was, Page did not like it, he really felt like it was unfair. Finally mustering up enough courage and grit, Page would walk up the stairs to his now deceased boss’s office, wanting to at least see the place, see if he left any last message, any will for Page to help execute, after all, K Kenta Kame-san did not seem the type to have a lot of reliable people to help with that kind of thing. Going up and into his office, he would find the place surprisingly sparse, the man had managed to clean his desk before his death, and at the top of the desk there was a dossier, a sticky note hanging from it that merely said, “Last mission for Page, make it count.”


WC:970 TWC: 14,161

Claims: First off Mission Claims
1 E rank: Photo Op Protege
2 D Rank: Sell the Shop, Birthday Party
3 C rank: Collage Collaboration, Student Photos, Camera Cleaning 
2 B Rank: Prison Photos, Sneaky Sleuth (stealth)

Bonus Rewards: (+12 smoke bombs, +3 Shuriken, +1000 Extra Ryo, and 5 Senbon)

29,900 Ryo final calculation on ryo claimed
+145 AP

Finishing Earth Shaker to B rank from here 1750/1750, -248 from WC
+74 Stats, 25% stat discount to all WC claims after this, 14,976 WC is remaining
562/562 to upgrade Earth Shaker to A rank
1,875/1,875 Mystical Palm
3,750/3,750 Mastering Mystical Palm twice for completely handsealless    
2,063/2,063 Damage Reduction Shield B and A Rank 
750/750 Breath of the All Father
150 from here getting tank from B rank to A rank, 750/750 to complete
1125/1125 Block Rank C and B
1500/1500 Chakra Suppression
1500/1500 One-Handed Seals
1125/1125 Delicate Illness Extraction
127/375 to upgrade Hiding Like A Mole from C to B

Approved