Canary Two [P]

Spoiler:

It was a wonderfully sunny day in the village of Hoshi, and a young man was quickly walking down the street with a smile on his face, as he was heading towards an area of the village that normal people did not go to often, and it was the mining district. At the mining district, there were a great many caverns dug out of the mountains and into the earth, where miners would go to acquire their ores, after which it was a simple thing to walk back up into the district, where they also had industrial sized smelting platforms and furnaces designed to handle a large quantity of metal at a time, and there were always aspiring black smiths there making sure that everything ran as smooth as possible, and that there would be something fairly menial for the apprentices to do while they were learning, and it was sort of a rite of passage there. Kouma was heading this way because he had applied to do the mission again that allowed him to go and mine out the ore and work the forges to turn normal iron into the high grade steel he needed for his puppetry endeavors. He was really excited about the prospect of doing this again, as last time he had done this task he did not really get to do much other than operate the bellows, which, while important, was simply not as interesting as getting to mix the metal yourself, or control the amount of carbon and powdered coal going in, or any of the other processes that made up this work. There was nothing wrong with it, and Kouma also knew tat he was still brand new to all of this, generally speaking, and that he would get to do the more fun stuff after he had done the least fun thing multiple times and had gotten used to it.

Kouma was still excited, as he was fairly easily pleased, and so he was casually strolling through the streets towards the mining district, greeting people as he did so. He was going to be early even at a relaxed pace, but he was subconsciously moving faster than a normal walk because he was so excited to do the work again, he simply upped his pace. As he got closer to the mining district, the people started to thin out considerably, and Kouma had finally gotten onto the old dirt road that led over to the actual caves and mines. It was a quiet, peaceful walk through the wooded area around the dirt road, which was serene and relaxing for Kouma, and helped ease his mind for the tasks he was about to do. He did not want to be nervous or anything, as making a mistake would make him have another burn scar, or perhaps he would become crippled. The long and calm walk over made him think about what he was doing and how he was going to do it, so he was not so excited anymore, but was still filled with anticipation about what he was going to do today. As he got closer and closer to the mines that were off in the distance, there were more and more people moving about. This place was its own little community, and Kouma even saw a cart pass by him from the main part of the village, and the cart was carrying a bunch of prepared food for the miners, as it was almost lunch time.

The ninja of the village that were going to do this mission usually came at around noon, when the workers and miners there would take a break, or at least most of them would. Due to the scheduling and the work ethic of some people, there were still plenty of people at around noon, but most of the workers were off at this time for lunch, which was when Kouma would work in the mines, and after that he would most likely be done at the same time as the main work force came back from lunch, and he would head to the forge to dump his haul of the day. Kouma showed up there, and he was still a bit early, so he just waited for a while after he made his presence known to the chief or foreman of the mining camp. As he was sitting there, a bunch of the miners seemed to remember when he was there last time, and so they gave him several nods, waves, and some idle chit chat for a bit, before he was suddenly called over by the foreman of the mining area. Kouma quickly made his way towards him, and bowed to him slightly as a respect to his elders, before listening to the man. The foreman was fairly straight forward, and so he simply told Kouma to go grab a pickaxe and head into the mines to go and collect some ores. Getting the permission that he needed, Kouma nodded and excitedly walked over to the tool shed that was off to the side, grabbing a helmet and a pickaxe, along with some gloves. He was wearing an outfit that seemed a bit simple, as he had learned last time that the clothing he was wearing was going to get dirty, and scuffed quite a bit. He spent quite a long time stitching and sewing his clothing back in proper order, as he was not quite skilled in that area, and needed his mother to help a bit.

This time he had chosen to go with an outfit that was fairly old and cheap, so that when it got ruined, and Kouma believed it would be, it would not matter too much, as he was going to put in a lot more effort today than he did last week, as he was still getting used to all of the different things he had to do, such as how to actually swing the pickaxe for maximum efficiency, or the rhythm of pumping the bellows for optimal heat. He had learned all of those skills last time he had come here, and now he was going to attempt to put them into practice. Kouma hurried to what was essentially a queue that was forming with the people that were essentially not going to lunch, and made his way down the winding cave entrance into the depths of the mines. Luckily, the oil lanterns that were spaced out evenly throughout the tunnels provided some pretty easy vision around the area. There were quite a few rocky outcrops and things to stub your toes on or trip over in the tunnels, so it was great that the lighting was completely taken care of. As he went deeper, he made sure to be aware of where his pickaxe was, and how far it was sticking out, because he had dragged and scraped it across a bunch of surfaces the first time he had gone into these mines, and it was not only embarrassing, but it hurt his arms and sometimes made him trip, so this time he was prepared and making sure he was conscious about his spatial awareness sso something like that did not happen again. Kouma made his way to the spot that his handler told him to be, and started picking at the wall. Unlike a lot of media and stories, you did not really need to carve out a large amount of dirt and rock only to suddenly hit a large clump of the metal you wanted, like some sort of item in a game. Instead, it was more of a vein of the iron, so it was spread throughout the rock walls and floor, and you simply needed to break the stone that had it in there.

Kouma was pointed to a vein that was already found and exposed, and all he needed to do was use his pickaxe to break out a couple of large chunks every so often, and put them into a cart that was in the center of a large opening that they were in. They had some way to keep count of who got what materials, but the cart in the middle would be filled and then dragged out, which would usually take a couple of hours. The people before the lunch break had already been here, so the cart was already sixty percent full, so they would be done in a little under an hour. Kouma was whacking away at the walls of the cave, and tried really hard to remember what the other miners had said, and all he needed to do to refresh his memory on the topic was to periodically glance over towards them and watch how and where they swung the pickaxe, and Kouma would mimic them to the best of his abilities, which worked fairly well. This time, the miners did not poke too much fun at the way he was wielding the pickaxe, and so they were simply chatting. The miners seemed interested about his life as a ninja, and although Kouma did not do anything exciting during his time as a ninja, he still had some stories about a thief and some graffiti artists that were chased away. Overall, his life as a ninja was pretty normal and fine, and this village was pretty relaxed in the grand scheme of things, which made Kouma both happy and nervous, as he needed to learn the clan rites and be prepared to actually go to war, and get targeted on the battlefield, as his ancestors did. He put those thoughts in the back of his mind, and simply focussed on getting the most ore that he could, considering he was going to be here for only a couple of hours and it was not his job, he did not need to conserve much of his energy, and so he could simply whack away at the wall for a personal high score. As Kouma was mining out the veins, it seemed that the time was almost up, and someone patted him on the shoulder to stop him. He had gotten into a weird concentrated state that he sometimes got into when he was doing something interesting to him, which was mostly tinkering with his puppets, and he quickly got out of it and came back to reality, and saw that the cart was basically full.

Kouma finished putting his last ore on top of the others in the cart, before helping wheel the cart out of the mine while some of the other miners stayed in there and kept collecting, waiting for the cart to return. Kouma however, bid them all farewell for the time being and headed out of the mine and towards the smelting area. This was the place where they would actually dump all of the ores into a large furnace to melt, and then a lot of powdered coal would be added to increase the carbon count and make it into steel. This time, Kouma would be partially responsible for the pouring of the powdered coal, and he was excited about it, but also really nervous, because if he messed up, an entire batch might go to waste and he would have to pay for it. As he walked up to the platform where the funnel was, the foreman gave him a bag of powdered coal and told him that he would need to be responsive to his call outs for when to pour, how much to pour, and so on. It was fairly nerve wracking listening to the foreman as Kouma poured the bag in, really slowly at first, but this ramped up and sometimes had to stop completely, and eventually, the bag which was pre-measured was empty, and Kouma’s job was done. All they had to do was wait for a couple of minutes to see if the steal was created, or if the inept pouring caused the iron to split from the coal, which would mean this was all a waste. Eventually it seemed like everything was a success, and Kouma breathed a sigh of relief, as he was glad that he had completed it. Kouma packed up his stuff, realizing that he was really tired and hungry, before heading out.

EXIT
WC: 2054
Claiming 4100 ryo from mission and genin
Claiming 20 ap from mission
Claiming High Grade Steel
Claiming 40 ap from words
Using 750 words to claim Genjutsu Release and master it for no hand seals
Using 1000 words for Chakra Absorption
Putting 250 words towards Mystical Palm

Approved