It's Raining Dogs and Cats and... Posters?

Dracoso awoke bright and early to the sound of his father already sharpening tools out back. The sun was pouring in through the window and each breath he took reminded him that he still had sunburn from the beach. He had hoped that having a cooler body temperature and all the sunscreen he had used would protect him from the sun's rays. That, and all the times he had doused himself in cool water and surrounded himself with ice to stay cool. He at least had burn ointment left over from when he had treated the man on the raft. Otherwise, he would probably have just hidden at home for a few days until he no longer looked like a frozen lobster.

After a quick shower with Sutsui, he was on his way down to the front door when his mother caught him. The three boarlings, aka his mother's 'children', followed close behind her. One was wearing what appeared to be a flower over her ear to designate her out from the boys. Something caught his eye and he had to look a bit closer to realize that his mother had painted angry eyebrows onto Flame. This must have helped her to keep track between the two boys so that she would not upset them as often. Dracoso stifled a chuckle as his mother spoke to him. "Keep an eye out huney. Your teacher sent you a letter letting you know that there has been a higher demand for jobs lately with everyone heading off to the beach. It might be a good time for you to get out and meet more people. you could get a bit more well-known in the area," she suggested.

Dracoso shook his head, "if I get any more 'well-known' then people might just block the streets to ask me how to clear them," he said sarcastically. The last few times he had gone through town, parents asked him for advice dealing with their kids, Painters from the Painter Guild would request that he join them and do more artwork together, and even his old friends who wanted to get pets would bother him for tips on how to train and raise animals. He was happy that people were interested in learning from him, he just wished it was on topics that were not as simple or repetitive. He had taken to traveling by way of rooftop just to avoid the majority of individuals. Even then, it sometimes took diversions or camouflage just to successfully avoid being spotted.

He thanked his mother and gave her a kiss on the cheek before heading out. Sutsui silently watched the boarlings from his should and made her eyes shimmer to make them uncomfortable. Dracoso sent a sensation for her to behave and all he felt was a sensation that seemed like Sutsui was chuckling at the boarlings. With the sky clear and the village busy, he headed down towards the mission center, keeping a key eye out for any signs of danger. As he walked, he noticed a poster that was set up on top of a shop. It was very visible, but the handwriting was extremely difficult to read. He moved on and noticed multiple copies of the poster plastered up on light posts and over windows along the street. He tried to read each, finding the handwriting improving the further he went towards the center.

He was halfway to the center when the clearing of a throat behind him made him made it clear that he had not been vigilant enough. "Dracoso! Hey, my son is sick with a fever. What would be the best thing for me to feed him and not cause issues with his chakra-thingies?" a middle-aged wife shouted after him. He stopped, realizing that several individuals had turned and recognized him, and he realized that he was doomed. Doomed to dealing with common day issues.

It took almost an hour to answer the questions of the small crowd that had come to talk to him. From soups high in protein and easily digested, to how to clip an ingrown toenail, even to why not to use a chicken as a guard dog. Some of the questions did require medical knowledge, like what kinds of salves or ointments to use when dealing with blisters or calluses. Others just seemed to require some basic knowledge, such as to not use ice to cool off an electrical device. One strange question ended with the answer, "no, if your gecko is afraid of eagles, do not try to have them become friends for the first time in an open area." He already felt tired as he excused himself and leapt to the rooftops for the rest of the travel.

As he arrived at the center, a small flood of mission posters flowed out the front door. Picking one up, Dracoso saw that it looked similar to a mission poster, but it was crudely written on with general details about a dog center needing help. Several nearby posters had the same information and were mixed in with another grouping of posters describing help needed for a cat. He picked up one of each and made his way to the mission desk where the assistant was resting her forehead on said desk. Dracoso tapped the desk softly, to which the woman groaned softly before looking up at him. As she recognized him, she smiled tiredly and said, "oh, thank goodness. We could use another pair of hands right now." Dracoso asked her what she meant, and she described the events leading up to this flood.

It turns out that late in the evening, or early in the morning as it was close to midnight, two individuals had stopped by the center for help. Both were at their wit's end and demanded that their mission take priority over whatever the village was dealing with. The assistant had told them both that they were welcome to put in a request and that anyone who volunteered or took up the mission would be sent to them as soon as possible. The two argued that their requests were time sensitive and wanted to put their request up immediately. She had pulled out a small stack of forms and told them each to take one and to fill it out and then repeat it on a few additional forms to put up around town so that people could see it and bring it in. The stack had only been ten sheets tall. The two had argued with one another over importance as they filled out their forms and seemed to get quite heated by the time each had filled out four. The tried to fight over the last two, each wanting more than the other, before one had begun to make handseals.

The stack of ten had doubled to twenty and the first individual had grabbed the new stack of ten. The second individual grabbed him and yanked him back, slipping and throwing the stack into the air. The first became angry and used the jutsu again and caused the stack to double again into forty. This fighting had continued, with one or the other using a simple doubling jutsu to cause the numbers to rapidly increase until they almost flooded themselves out the door. The two had grabbed up armfuls of the posters and run off at that point in either direction, leaving the assistant with a mess of papers and a mess of a story.

Dracoso sympathized with the woman and asked what he could do to help. She informed him that he would need be taking on three missions to handle this mess. The first two would be helping out with the cat and dog situations before coming back to clean up the posters across the village. As it had already been several hours, she was unsure exactly how far they had gotten, but if he could somehow collect the posters either dispose of them or return them, the center would cover his reward. He decided a trio of tasks might keep him busy enough for the time being before he came back for a more difficult quest. 

She explained to him that the two missions were rather simple. The first was for a cat that was hiding somewhere on the mansion grounds of their owner. They needed to be taken to the vet to get some shots due to recent strains of viruses that infect only felines. Once she was subdued and presented to her owner, the mission would be successful. The second request came from the dog shelter not too far off from the adoption center he had helped out in the past. The shelter needed someone to take the dogs out for a walk while those working the shelter cleaned up a bit to make it better for the dogs. Dracoso would just need to take a group of the dogs out so that the cages and exercise areas would be clear to deal with.

Seems simple enough. Knowing animals though, I feel like at least one of them is going to try to follow me home... he thought to himself as he signed off on the mission forms. The two for the animal requests seemed quite legible, compared to the other copies and he asked, "why are these two forms so clear compared to all the rest?" The woman grinned and said, "well, each time you copy documents with the jutsu they used, it degrades the quality of the item. I grabbed up the first two they wrote while they were fighting to avoid any other issues." Dracoso chuckled and thanked her before pausing. "I know you have given me plenty of missions in the past, but I never got your name," he said as he turned to her. She grinned again and pointed at a small nameplate on her chest with small writing that read Akihon. 

Dracoso wiped his hand down his face and laughed at himself while shaking his head. "Thank you Akihon," he said to her with an embarrassed smile. "Aki works just fine. Or Hon," she said with a mischievous grin. He waved goodbye, trying to hide his blush as he fought his way back out the front door. He figured that it would be easier to handle some of the posters on his way to his destination, so he quickly called up his water beast and had it trail him. As they ran, it would move from side to side behind him, washing over the posters and pulling off the paper as they went. He mixed a bit of the solvent he still had from his cinnabar trip into the beast so that it could dissolve the adhesive on the papers. He wasn't able to get each and every one, but the majority was cleaned off by the time he arrived at the mansion.

The word mansion was definitely an accurate one. As he approached the gates, a man scanning the metal bar fence from one side of his yard to the other. He appeared to be on lookout as Dracoso came into sight. "What are you doing here?!" the man yelled at him. "I was given a mission to help with finding a cat here. Is this the right... mansion?" Dracoso asked, unsure how best to put it. The man looked very relieved as he said, "stay right there! I will get the master!" The man disappeared through the front doors he had been standing in front of and left Dracoso alone behind the gate. Several minutes later, the doors were thrown open as the man ran out and bowed towards the open doors.

A much younger man, just out of his teen years, walked out up to the gates and looked Dracoso over. "I am Ikoto and this is my estate. I hear that you are here to find my cat. She is quite the clever devil. Do you think you are up to the task?" Ikoto asked. Dracoso nodded and said, "I have plenty of practice finding what is needed and helping those who need it." The man looked questioningly at Dracoso, then gave a short nod before turning and waving his hand dismissively at the air. "Let him in. The sooner he brings me Slink, the sooner we can be off to the vet." The older man jogged over and undid the latch on the gate, letting Dracoso in. As soon as Ikoto was back inside, the man began to describe the grounds and the possible hiding places the cat could be found in.

Dracoso looked to the man and asked, "if you know so much about these hiding places, couldn't you have just gone to get her?" The man shook his head and said, "Slink likes to shift from one hiding place to another, especially if she knows you are coming." He lowered his voice as he continued, "she hates the vet and anything to do with it. Just be silent and stay up wind from her." He smiled to the man and patted his shoulder before giving a wink. Dracoso put up one hand in a seal and his footsteps became silent. With another gesture, his scent was reduced heavily. Finally, he gently petted Sutsui and sent sensations along their bond. He sent images of her catching a cat after a hunt and Sutsui seemed pleased with the idea.

She gently shivered her scales, soft flashing coming from his clothing. A moment later, the two seemed to disappear from sight. She followed up by spreading out her mind's eye into the surrounding areas. The two fed images back and forth from Sutsui finding living beings and Dracoso determining if they were the right target. After crossing out the humans, birds, and other large animals on the property, which seemed to include several dogs, they located a small target moving along the rooftop of the building. Dracoso quietly applied his feet to the side of the building surface walked slowly up to the roof, peeking over the lip to try to get sight on the animal. The cat was a small black tabby with white along the backs of its ears. its tail was slowly curling back and forth as it walked along the edge of the rooftops and seemed to be somewhat on guard. 

He moved as quietly as possible, inching along the rooftop towards the cat, only making half the headway as the cat walked away from him. As he was only a few meters away, the cat stopped and seemed to listen very carefully. Dracoso felt he may have been noticed, so he quickly threw up three handseals and tried to toss an invisible wave of paralysis at the cat. The cat, moving on what seemed like sheer instinct, tossed itself down off the roof and towards the ground below. Dracoso launched himself off after the cat, taking a deep breath after the needed handseals. He touched his hand to his scabbard and drew the paralytic poison as he breathed it out over the cat from above. The cat seemed to flail in midair to get its feet pointed downwards, landing safely on the ground. It was coated in the smoke and took a deep breath as it tried to scamper away, only to fall stiff several meters away.

Dracoso collided with a bush next to the building and felt pain and soreness spread from the side he had fallen on. He slowly climbed up out of the bushes to find the man from earlier to also be laying stunned on the ground. Dracoso just shook his head and quickly picked up the cat. He quietly tossed her into his large weapon pouch and sealed the top, just in case the cat recovered before she could be properly caged. As if in response to that thought, Ikoto came out with the cat's cage and placed it on the ground before stepping back. Dracoso unzipped the pouch and gently moved the cat into her cage before sealing it and locking the top. Ikoto nodded and said, "yes, yes. Thank you and all that. Your job is done, and I will send word over to the center when we return." He turned to the man on the ground and crossed his arms before saying, "Come now Stu, we must be off and your being paralyzed will not get us anywhere, anytime soon."

Dracoso left the two with their cat to deal with whatever came next for them. He stretched and applied some of his basic healing to his bruises as he jogged down the street. He had water clones retrieving the posters for this length of the trip. He had the clones pile the posters up nearby as he arrived at what appeared to be a dusted over wooden building. The sign out front read "Kirigakure Dog Shelter. Come see the pups and take some love home!" Dracoso made his way to the front door, curious as to just how bad a dog shelter could get.

The smell hit him first and the follow up immediate sensation from Sutsui to leave hit him second. He sent a strong sensation back to be calm and that he could handle this. The woman up front was leaning against the wall behind her with her eyes closed. Her haggard appearance only made Dracoso more nervous. "Hi there, I heard you were looking for a dog walker to help-" was all he got out before her eyes popped open and she said, "yes! Yes! Please come in." She shot to her feet and walked around the table, taking his hand in hers before leading him towards the back. He felt rather rushed in as they went through the door into the back as the smell became even stronger. Dracoso felt a gentle shift from Sutsui and he realized that she had deprived herself the smell of scent. He wished that he could have done the same thing.

The woman guided Dracoso past several large cages which each held dogs of many different sizes. He was responsible for managing a dozen dogs in the first holding area so that the cages could be cleaned. From there, if needed, they could shift the dogs around so that each area could be cleaned in order. Dracoso was to manage the dogs and take them out for at least two hours to allow for a full cleaning. The dogs were rather eager and seemed to want to get out as much as the owner wanted them out. He shrugged and went with the woman to get the leashes. One by one, the doors to each cage was opened, the dog was carefully leashed, and then added to the pack. After 10 minutes, Dracoso was barely holding back the strength of twelve dogs all trying to run free.

"Make sure they get plenty of exercise and do not lose any of them!" the woman yelled after him as he made slow measured steps away from the building. People walking nearby glanced as Dracoso struggled for each step to keep the dogs in check. He had wrapped the leashes carefully around either wrist and was holding on with sheer willpower at this point. Dracoso felt like he was reaching his limit, so he quietly made the needed handseals and created a pair of shadow clones to split the pack into three. With his strain reduced, he took the dogs for a quick walk around town. When able to, he summoned up his water beast to repeat the efforts from earlier and to dispose of as many of the remaining posters as possible. The trip felt like it went rather quick, what with his focus split between the dogs, the posters, and people still trying to ask him for help as he was half-dragged down the street.

He was just returning back to the shelter when he heard his father calling out from behind him. He stopped the dogs they tried eagerly to run inside. "Dracoso, are you dealing with more animals?" His father asked as he caught up. Dracoso nodded, still struggling with the pack, "yes, and they are just about home. Can we talk once they are inside?" Some of the dogs had stopped pulling towards the door and were surrounding his father, trying to smell and acquaint themselves with the man. His father rubbed the back of his neck, showing where Dracoso may have picked up the habit, and said, "Well, your mother has her... 'children', and you have Sutsui. I thought, maybe I could find an animal for myself." Dracoso raised an eyebrow, wondering what his father could be up to as he realized he felt no more resistance on the leashes.

The dogs had quietly made a circle around his father and were looking up at him expectantly. Some were nudging their noses into the man's hips and smelling at his pockets. Dracoso crossed his arms with a sigh and asked, "you want a dog. Am I right?" His father nodded and pulled out a piece of jerky he had brought from home as he said, "I can't really be comfortable with a snake and boars are just a bit too wild for me. I thought a dog might be nice." Dracoso nodded and told his father that they should bring the dogs in and have him meet them one by one to find which one suited him best. The pack had other ideas as they started to compete to try to get to the jerky, to which Dracoso made two more clones and pulled them all inside. 

The exhausted woman, along with two tired looking assistants, thanked Dracoso for all his hard work and told him that he would get his reward upon his return to the center. Dracoso asked if his father could have a look around to consider a dog for a pet and the three looked just as thankful to his father for this as they had been to him. Dracoso took a seat at the front while one of the assistants took his father into the back. It made sense that his father met the dog alone so as to avoid influence from Dracoso and to have the meeting be as natural as possible. It took about an hour of switching between dogs, and many excited noises coming from both animal and father alike, before his father came out with what appeared to be a medium-sized orangish husky.

"They called it a malamute husky and the coloring it has is not that uncommon," his father explained as they walked. They had given his father a leash, but the dog was walking alongside him as if it was its proper place. Dracoso listened to his father talk on and on about Kinou, the name he gave the dog, as they walked home. The posters seemed far less numerous, but Dracoso still had his clones collect the remainder as they went. The water clones and water beast helped collect those close at hand and ended up with a few hundred in stacks that Dracoso handed into the center. The remainder, he had shadow clones travel out to tear down and destroy with a mixture of Jutsu.

"I expect him to be quite the companion while I am working. I hope he is comfortable being around all the noise. I am sure he can handle it thought, can't you Kinou?" his father went on. He seemed to have more energy and drive now that he had a pet of his own, so Dracoso was happy. Maybe a pet gives people a new sense of value in life. He shrugged himself and smiled as the dog would glance up at his father and pant happily before looking back towards the direction they were going. At least Sutsui seemed calm with this specific dog. He could only imagine how the boarlings would take it once they returned...

{Exit}
Missions:
E-Rank: The Sneaky Cat
E-Rank: Dog Walker
E-Rank: Poster Problem
Total Rewards: 3000 Ryo + 15 AP (given to Sutsui)
Total Event Rewards: 15 Beachside Tickets

WC: 4006 (rounded to 4000)
Stats Maxed, AP Maxed: 25% Discount on Jutsu

Jutsu Learned:
C-Rank - Iryojutsu Amplifier - 750 (originally 1000)
E-rank - Water Release: Fish Spit - 187.5 (originally 250)
D-Rank - Water Release: Mouth Shot - 375 (originally 500)
E-Rank - Mind Read - 187.5 (originally 250) (total 1500)
D-Rank - Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing - 375 (originally 500)
E-Rank - Discipline - 187.5 (originally 250)
D-Rank - Leaf Gale - 750 (originally 1000)
E-Rank - Sensory Deprivation - 187.5 (originally 250) (total 2625)
E-Rank - Mark seal - 187.5 (originally 250)
D-Rank - Taijutsu Amplifier - 375 (Originally 500) (total 3937.5)
D-Rank - Bull Rush - 375 (originally 500) 
D-Rank - Leaf Whirlwind - 50/375 (originally 500) (12.5 WC fall off)

Approved (with a side of headache on my part)