Tanning Leather Prime

Spoiler:

Kouma was wandering to the administration building today, as he was a bit bored and wondered what sort of missions were available today, so he headed in there a bit absent mindedly, as his thoughts were occupied with something else. He was thinking about a way to use certain materials for his puppets, and thinking of all of the complex mechanisms within them and how they could benefit from certain crafting materials. Before he knew it, it was his turn in line at the office for taking missions, and he was awoken from his idle thoughts by the woman at the counter asking him if he needed anything, as he had been standing there for a couple of seconds without actually addressing her. Kouma then snapped out of his funk, before looking at the woman and realizing that it was actually his turn. He was a bit embarrassed and apologized to the woman before asking about the lower ranked missions that a single genin could do, and he preferred the low rank ones, just because he was not quite in the mood to try anything that was potentially dangerous, but he just wanted to use some of his unused time as he was bored. The woman gently smiled, before looking through some paper work on her desk and shuffling through them, sorting them by their difficulty and number of participants necessary. After a couple of minutes, the list was all done, and it was a lot less than what Kouma had initially thought, but he did not mind. As this was something he was doing to kill some time and earn a bit of spending money, is all, so it did not matter to him whether or not he had gotten a wide selection from today’s submitted missions. He looked through the missions fairly carefully, although he was not really looking for anything in particular when he was looking through them, just something that would prevent him from being too bored.

Eventually he found what he was looking for in the form of a mission that would allow him to gain another bit of leather for his puppets, or perhaps he would sell the materials later if he could not find a place to use them for the puppets. It seemed that one of the local butchers had gotten a large amount of animals for some reason recently, and he wanted to provide some of the leather to the ninja that needed it, as there was quite a bit, and the textiles of the village would be fine with waiting for a couple of extra days, as there was actually quite a decent bit of leather there, they would not lose out on much. This was especially true when it came to off loading the work to the shinobi that wanted the job, as they were usually faster and more efficient than normal workers when it came to doing simple tasks like this, as they were faster and stronger than normal people. Kouma especially liked missions like this, where he got to work with his hands and actually make something for himself, even if it was only a bit of crafting material, it still felt good making things with his own two hands, and then using the thing that he had made in his every day shinobi life, by applying it to a puppet. Kouma only needed to think about it for a few moments before deciding that this was the mission that he was going to do, as this seemed like the most fun, and the most worth it to him because not only would he be paid the normal fee for a mission at this rank, he would also get to keep a bit of the material that he was working with, so it seemed head and shoulders above the rest of the missions in terms of efficiency, time, and the amount of gains he could get from them on average.

Kouma told the woman that he would be accepting the mission for the butcher, to help him tan the leather that he had gotten, because he also wanted a bit of it for himself. Kouma then looked at the mission, to see when it was going to take place, as he wanted to prepare and be fed, because working on an empty stomach seemed horrible, especially with Kouma’s bad habit of skipping meals when he was greatly enamored by a subject he was working on, and it seemed like this leather tanning would be one of them. He had done a similar mission before, tanning some leather after the hunters of the village had killed the animals for it, and it was fairly relaxing tanning the leather on the rack, even though it took quite a bit of concentration to do it right without damaging the skin of the animal before it even turned into leather. After writing something down and having Kouma sign it, the assistant at the front desk bid Kouma farewell, and good luck on the mission. Kouma smiled and nodded back to her, thanking her for the sentiment, before strolling out of the administration office and through the gardens that lay before it. Ko8uma saw that the mission started in the after noon, at six in the after noon to be precise, as this was when the butcher closed up shop and went out back to tan the leather that had been sitting there from the animals that were butchered that day. Kouma still had a few hours to kill, and did not expect to see the mission here that was scheduled so late, as he simply wanted to accept a mission that he could do tomorrow, which would normally have been an off day for him to relax, but his idea of relaxing was working on something that piqued his interest.

Kouma was delighted, however, as this would solve the issue with him having nothing to do this afternoon, but then he remembered that he needed to go back home and prepare food for him and his mother. He wanted to make sure he had eaten before the mission, and it seemed that he would get the chance to right now, although dinner would be served a bit earlier, his mother was very accommodating and understanding about his situation of being a shinobi. Kouma hurried home, as he already had ingredients in his home for the meal that he was planning on making today, he was simply going to make it earlier than usual so that he could still eat and head to this mission a bit early, as he usually did. After walking for a dozen or so minutes, Kouma was finally home, and immediately walked in, took his shoes off, and told his mother that he was home by raising his voice slightly. There was not much in his home, as they lived fairly simply, and so even a slightly louder than normal voice would still find its way to his mother in her bedroom, as the acoustics without the clutter of a large amount of furniture was fairly decent. His mother called back to him, wondering if he had done all the things that he had wanted to do today, which was nice, as Kouma made his way towards her bedroom to help her out of bed and into the kitchen. Kouma had been studying medical techniques that were passed down by his clan for his whole life, or at least as long as he could remember, and he was studying puppets because he loved them, and wanted to make some sort of prosthetic leg for his mother so that she would not have to limp around on a cane or a set of crutches, nor would she need his help simply to get around casually.

With her seated at the small table near the kitchen, she moved her chair slightly so that she could look at Kouma while he cooked, and give him tips and pointers. Kouma was a great cook, and that was because his mother was a fantastic cook before she lost her leg, and he had spent many nights learning how to cook from her, although she could not do it anymore thanks to cooking needing a lot of moving around and standing for long periods of time. Kouma then made his way into the kitchen under the watchful eye of his mother, as she still had a large amount of constructive criticism to give to him when he cooked, so it was quite helpful to have her near the kitchen when he was cooking. Tonight, Kouma wanted to cook a simple dish that was some lamp with a bit of nan bread and some cucumber, along with a bit of spicy sauce. They would make something like a roll with these ingredients, and Kouma found it really good.
Kouma found these recipes in his mother’s cook book that she kept with her at all times, and it seemed to contain information from other clan members that were scattered throughout the world, as it had a lot of dishes that were not native to Hoshi such as this one that he wanted to make tonight. After cooking the lamb and making it into sandwich rolls for him and his mother, they sat down and talked while they ate about their lives. Kouma was off doing things that a ninja should do, such as training, researching new puppets, as well as continuing to work on his medical practices, as he was fairly close to becoming old enough and experienced enough to learn his clan’s sacred rites, which made Kouma a bit excited, and a bit hesitant, as his clan was greatly looked down upon in the world for its practices.

Kouma did not mind what the world thought about him, however, as he was far too busy with his life to worry about what others thought of him. As long as the practice of his clan was not illegal, he would learn it and use it on the battlefield. Considering the Kage knew about their clan and their practices, it seemed like they were welcome here and that it would not be a huge problem for them when it came to using the techniques. Kouma and his mother would have a sort of game every night, where Kouma would tell his mother about his day and what he was planning to do, and his mother would share a story of her youth, or her time in the clan as a healer. Kouma loved her stories, as they were usually full of interesting things and medical knowledge that he was eager to learn, and so he was  eager to finish his meal so that they could talk about this, although he still maintained his eating pace with his mother. After quietly eating and sharing some stories, Kouma finally told his mother that in about forty minutes from the current time, he would be going to the local butcher shop so that he could complete a mission that he had picked up today. His mother congratulated him on getting another mission, and told him that she knew he would be able to complete it with flying colors, which made Kouma’s heart feel warm, and so he told his mother he loved her. It was a cute and wonderful moment between mother and son, and they simply sat there quietly smiling at each other for a few moments, before Kouma got up from the table and started washing all of the dishes. It was not much to wash, as the plates only had a bit of crumbs and sauce on them from the type of food that he made, so clean up was very fast.

Kouma then asked if his mother needed help back to the bedroom, but his mother declined, saying she would move around on her own with the crutches, as she still needed the exercise. Kouma nodded in approval,m before going into her room and fetching her the crutches that she needed to move around. After handing it to her, his mother kissed him on the cheek and wished him luck, before Kouma finally left the apartment that they were staying at and heading towards the butchers. He was walking a bit quickly, because he had spent a bit more time with his mother than he initially planned, but he would still make it with time to spare, but Kouma always liked to be ten minutes early at the latest, as it seemed that this always showed a good attitude to those that had submitted the mission, and Kouma was usually greatly interested in the topics of the missions anyways, so he wanted to be able to get there a bit early and see if he could start early as well. As Kouma walked down the street to the shopping district where the butcher was located, he waved to some of the people that recognized him and chatted a bit, but he always said calmly and politely that he did not have time to chat, as he needed to get to a mission that he was currently on, and people were understanding about it and simply wished him luck. After a few minutes of walking, he had finally made it to the shopping district of the city, and found his way over to the butcher fairly quickly. He checked the time on the clocktower of the city, and noticed that he was just a bit over ten minutes early, and Kouma sighed in relief, before making his way into the store. There were no customers in here right now, and the butcher behind the counter said that they were closing really soon and that they would only be able to sell something that was really quick and easy or already cut, but Kouma eventually got in that he was the ninja that accepted the mission to help the butcher tan some leather.

The butcher put on a face of understanding before laughing, as Kouma was a bit awkward telling the man that he was just there for the mission, and the butcher realized he had bombarded the kid with a bunch of information and needless speech. The butcher told him to wait for the official closing time, but he was also welcome to simply sit inside the building for a bit and wait for the shift to actually be over. Kouma nodded, before looking around, seeing some of the hanging sausages and other meats behind glass that was the counter, and noticing that there were only a few cuts left. It seemed that business was good, as there were very few things left that the customers could actually buy, but Kouma wondered what he would do with the leftovers. The butcher explained that the meat was constantly kept on ice, and so it would last for a month or two before it needed to be eaten or tossed out, so he would usually take home some of the meat for his rather large family, so there was never any waste on his part. Even if there was quite a bit of meat left when it needed to be eaten or thrown out, he could always donate it to people who wanted it, or give it to some animals, as he really hated wasting food. Kouma agreed, although he was not as stringent on this rule as the butcher. They seemed to chat for a bit, and once noticing it was six o’clock, the butcher closed the shop, and told Kouma to follow him out back, before leading him to a small backyard that was attached to the building the butcher was in. It was slightly enclosed by a small gate that was made of wood, and Kouma could see a few racks that one would tan the hide on, as well as a couple of poles that were hung horizontally, with some of them having some leather on them already. There were also some buckets filled with a liquid that looked like water, but Kouma could not be sure. Kouma looked at the butcher to see if he was okay with letting Kouma ask questions, or if he was going to explain a bunch of stuff, and the butcher was proactive and started explaining.

The racks were for trimming off the excess leather, and making sure that the hide did not have any large holes, or spots that were weaker that would become holes. If there were holes, you could always trim that part off and make some leather strips for fastening things, so there was always a use for the leather, other than the scraps of course, which were put into a compost pile to decompose and become fertilizer. Next were the barrels of brackish solution, which were used to actually cure the leather. You would dunk them in the brackish solution before wringing them out and hanging them on the long horizontal poles. This process would repeat multiple times until the hide became cured leather. The butcher disappeared for a moment, going to a store house off to the side, where he kept all of the extra hides of the elk that were hunted. The hides were in a large crate, which was brought out by him and placed on the ground in the center of all of the tools that they would need to tan the hides. The butcher then asked Kouma if he knew how to tan the hides, and if he needed any tips or pointers. The butcher hired him to tan the hides, meaning he was not going to do it for him, but he could at least teach him how to not ruin the hides while he was at it. Kouma said that he could tan the hides, he had learned it when he had done this mission before, but he was not the greatest at it. The blacksmith nodded, but still wanted to supervise until he knew that Kouma was okay to go on ahead by himself, so he took one of the elk hides and handed it to Kouma, and simply seeing what he was going to do with it. He had all of the tools that he would need right here in the back of the butcher, so the butcher wanted to see how easily he could get on. It would be nice if he could leave this little genin alone for a while, during which time he would clean up and properly close down his shop, and by the time he was ready to return home, the kid would be done and he would have some nice hide to sell to the shops, and of course give away some to the kid.

Thinking of this, the butcher simply waited and watched while Kouma dragged the elk hide to a table and started running his hand along it, attempting to find any obvious hole. After a bit, he was a large cut near the stomach of the elk, probably where the arrow went through, and so he simply trimmed that part off. After that, he looked through once again, and started to take it over to the scraping beam, but the butcher stopped him. Kouma wondered what he was doing wrong for the butcher to stop him right now, and the butcher simply grabbed the elk hide from him, and pointed to the part of the hide that had the neck skin, and told him that this part was really hard to work, and it turned out to be bad leather any ways when it was finished, so that he should just take it off. Then the butcher slowly took off the part of the neck, showing how far down that Kouma would need to trim for this to be complete, before handing the hide back to him. Kouma thanks him for the advice, as he had yet to work with this particular crafting material, so this was something that he did not know would be a big problem in the future. Kouma continued on with his initial plan of taking it to the scraping beam, and secured it to it. Then, Kouma glanced around and quickly spotted a scraping tool that could be used, and so he grabbed it and started to scrape off the little bits of flesh that were still attached to the hide. This needed to come off, as it would simply rot, and that would not be very good for the leather, as mold could easily destroy it, so this part had to be done carefully. Luckily, Kouam was one that trained in high precision his entire life, so there was nothing to be worried about on this front.

Kouma scraped off the flesh a little bit at a time, before moving on to the next area, as he needed to make sure that there was no flesh left. Luckily, this task was fairly easy, it was simply a bit time consuming and did not need much mental energy to do, just repetition. After Kouma had finished scraping, sure that there was not any flesh left on it, it was time to move on to the next time soaking it. Kouma looked and wondered how they would do this step, as it usually took a few days to a week, but the butcher had that covered. He would simply have Kouma scrape the current hides, and there were hides that had been soaking already for Kouma to continue tanning. Kouma grabbed the pre soaked hides out of the bucket that was given to him, and started working with one of them. Putting it on the scraping beam, he now needed to scrape off a layer of grain on one side of the hide, which was the side that the hair was on. After soaking for that long, the hair was easily pulled out with some tugs and some more scraping, and what was left was a hide that still had a strange squishy membrane on it in between the hair and the actual hide, which Kouma was now meticulously scraping off. This was the difficult part and the part that most new people doing this job for the first time would mess up, because it was hard to scrape it off, and even harder to see the membrane. Kouma had to look really hard for this membrane, but when he saw it in spots, he would scrape a bit of it off and move on to the next. He asked the butcher if there were any tips or tricks that he could tell or show him that would make this easier, and the butcher did have one.

The butcher was surprised and thankful that the genin that was brought to him was willing to ask for assistance and was also willing to learn, and did not want to just do this job haphazardly and leave with the money and some mediocre leather, but wanted to try his best. This was one of the best qualities Kouma had, and that he would try his best no matter what, and always ask for advice when there was a more experienced person there, thanks to the Yamaguchi clan’s teaching of always respecting and venerating your seniors. The butcher told him a couple of tricks, including one where he told Kouma that it was easier to remove the membrane if he went from a spot that did not have it, and then scraped towards the membrane, as it was easier for the scraping tool to pick up the membrane from a spot that was without it. Kouma did this, and it was much easier than before, although there were a few spots that were finicky and not wanting to cooperate with him, and had to be removed after a couple of back and forth motions, as there was nothing that could be done about it at this moment. After this was complete, Kouma asked the butcher if there were any spots that he had missed, as he could not feel any more, but then again he was not an expert tanner, so it was good to get a second opinion. The butcher grabbed it and felt around, and smiled at Kouma, telling him that he did a good job ands that there was no more membrane on this side of the hide, and so he could start the other. At this point, the hide started to resemble something like leather, but it was still a bit pale and weird looking, and that was because the membrane on the other side also needed to be scraped off, but he could simply brute force this one and just repeat the scraping motion a large number of times.

After this laborious work, it was almost time to take a small break, but Kouma felt fine as it was, plus there were still a couple of hides that were soaking that he wanted to get to before he took such a break. The butcher admired hjis work ethic, but told him to not push himself too hard, as that would always be a bad thing, and Kouma thanked him for the advice and agreed to it, before he walked over and put his now completely scraped hide into the tanning solution. Kouma knew what the tanning solution was, and he was completely fine with it, which was strange, but all according to his clan. His mother would often take him to the morgue and other places, so Kouma was completely fine with being around dead things, and also okay with what others would find disgusting, such as the tanning solution. The tanning solution used an entire elk brain, probably from one of the elks that perished so that they could get this hide, and then blended into a slurry of water and rendered bear fat. It was a bit horrific to think about for normal people, an animal's brains used to soften its own hide for use as things such as shoes, but it was fine to Kouma, and he simply dunked the scraped hide into the solution and went back to the bucket to grab another one and start this process over again. This time he was more comfortable and knew a new trick to get through the process a bit faster, he finished the hides in about thirty minutes, which was just enough time to soak the hide in the nutrient solution. After this was complete, he then had to go through a round robin process of taking the hide out, wringing it out as best as he could, before putting it back in the solution. This would make sure that there was tanning solution running through the entire hide, so that it would become leather evenly. Kouma had done this enough time, and was now working a couple of other things at once, essentially tanning three hides at once, which was all that he was given.

After a while, the butcher left, as there was nothing much else to do or see with the process, as the rest of it was simply pulling and stretching the hides to keep them soft, and then smoking them, which were both things that were very easy, unless Kouma had the body of a small child, but even then the butcher’s children liked to play tug of war with the hides, which would help him out with his job and be fun for them at the same time, so unless he had some sort of muscle disease, he was fine on his own, until the smoking came out. The butcher left and told him that he would come back in a couple hours when the leather was done, and Kouma nodded, telling him that he would not let him down. After this, Kouma made sure to stretch, squeeze, and hi the leather to beat the solution through, because hide was a bit tough for liquide to penetrate through the whole thing, even with the multiple hour long soaks in the tanning solution, and so they needed to stretch it to keep it from being hard and unworkable when it finally dried. After doing this for all three hides, Kouma was quite exhausted, which was fine because all he needed to do now was start the small camp fire off to the side with some wood chips that were conveniently left out for him, and then make sure that the hides were in the proper spot on the beam above the fire to get the maximum amount of smoke on them without actually burning. Kouma just needed to keep an eye on them and move them around every hour or so for three hours, and then there would be three large pieces of leather that were put into the world. This was actually very simply as well, so Kouma simply looked around at the other hide, and started to clean up and put the tools away, sweeping the floor of the excess pieces of flesh and hair, and throwing them into a large compost bin off to the side, all the while agitating and refueling the fire, as necessary.

This took a little over three hours for the butcher to come back, and Kouma was looking at the now browned and cured leather that he had on the pole with a sense of satisfaction. He had made those with his own two hands, the only thing he did not do was actually go out and hunt the elk that was killed for the leather, but this was far easier than doing all of this, especially with his puppets. Kouma then noticed the butcher and bowed to him, telling him that the leather was just about done he thought, but he wanted to confirm with the butcher any ways, as it was his leather at the end of the day, and Kouma would most likely get the piece that was the worst of the three, but he did not mind at all. This finely cured leather was fantastic, and he was already brewing things that he could use it for in his mind with his puppets, so there was something else he wanted to look forward to as well. The butcher thanked him for his fine work, before patting him on the shoulder. Now it was around nine at night, and Kouma wanted nothing more than to go home and see his mother, who had to eat left overs, which made Kouma feel a bit bitter, but he was slowly realizing that he was going to spend less and less time with his mother as he became more of a ninja, and so he was determined to study medical jutsu harder so that eventually he could get her a new leg, there was definitely a jutsu for that somewhere, and Kouma was going to learn it and get her walking again, which was the immediate short term goal. Kouma thanked the butcher for the opportunity to work with and for him, and thanked him for the tips and tricks on how to tan leather so that he would easily finish it in the future when he took similar missions. The butcher gave him a very good piece of leather and sent him on his way back to the administration office to collect his payment in ryo.

Kouma bowed once again to the butcher before starting his simple and relaxing walk home. He was not in a hurry to go and collect his ryo payment from the administration office, as he simply wanted to go home, talk to his mother, and then pass out in his bed. He could easily collect the payment tomorrow morning, and usually he would never put something related to missions off, but he would bend his own rules slightly for his mother, as she was much more important to him than a mission. As he was walking home, there were still quite a few people on the streets at this time, as it was a big city, so there was always plenty of stuff to do after dark here, most of them involved drinking and maybe a little gambling, but it was not something that Kouma was interested in, so he simply politely nodded and waved at the people that were passing him by, if they looked at him first, although a lot of people were too engrossed in whatever it was they were doing at the time, they could not spare a glance for a random kid that was simply walking home. Kouma finally made it towards the apartment building that he and his mother currently lived in, and slowly walked up the stairs. He was tired, but when he opened the door and saw his mother sitting gently on the couch waiting for him, he seemed to get a bit more energy, and ran over to her to give her a big hug. She hugged him back, and they shared a tender moment before they released each other and his mother started asking about the mission.Koukma then started sharing with her the fairly grotesque process of tanning hide, but his mother was of the same clan as he was, so there was no look of disgust on her face, simply fascination. She knew how to tan leather as well, as she had done it when she was younger, before learning how to embalm and mummify people as part of her clan’s sacred rites, but she would refrain from telling Kouma that for now, as it was nice seeing him so enthusiastic about something even though he was tired.

His mother simply let him talk and ramble on, while she was very invested in his story, and of course she wanted to thank the butcher for taking such good care of her son and showing him the ropes, but she could do that some other time, as it was very late. Kouma almost forgot, but he had a fairly small amount of food with which you could call dinner, and so he was quite hungry. He seemed more tired before, wanting to go straight to bed, but right now, he got quite energetic talking to his mother about the mission, so now it was time for him to eat. His mother said that she had eaten earlier, but would still want a little bit of his food to snack on while they talked over a small meal. His mother also scolded him for eating so late, and that he would have to exercise extra hard to work off the small flab that he would gain on his stomach, as she pinched his stomach a little bit. It was these small tender moments that made Kouma feel great about the world, and he was also happy that he had met a few other people that seemed to share his enthusiasm in the genin group, and he could not wait to meet up with them and potentially be put on a genin team.

EXIT
WC 5855
Claiming 2100 ryo for mission and genin
Claiming 10 ap for mission
Claiming 116 ap from wc
Claiming Leather
Using 4000 words to train Lightning Release
Using 1855 words to finish training Shogunate rest of words trained HERE

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