Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning

Stat Page

Ah, spring cleaning. It was unfortunate that all of the flowers fell, but all the same it was required.

Asami surveyed the main street of the Yaezakura district, thinking about the best way to take care of this. It always made her sad, the falling of the blossoms during fall. She loved this village, and nothing was more symbolic of it than the many cherry blossom trees scattered throughout the village. They were beautiful even when scattered along the ground like they were now. She sighed and picked up her bag and the rake she had gotten from one of the farms around the village and got to work raking all of the flowers into a pile. It was boring work, but she had been doing this for years, and she wasn't about to stop now. It was simple enough work. She raked the flowers into a pile, and then grabbed them and stuffed them into a bag. Then she moved onto to the next one down the path, continuing to rake. Humming a small tune to herself,  she continued forward, absorbed in her task. Some trees still had loose flowers on them, which she would shake to send loose and proceed to pick up afterwards. Always better to do today what you could put off til tomorrow.

WC: 220

It had been about 2 hours of hardwork, and Asami wasn't any closer to finishing than she had been. She looked over at the sight of...what, roughly 10 bags of flowers? Maybe more, and sighed. She had been working hard, but it did indeed seem like this was going to be quite the monumental task to undertake alone. The sun beat down, the wind chilling her through her robes and she shuddered with cold. Despite it being a nice sunny day, the wind was brutal. Otherwise she was working up enough of a sweat to not mind the cold. She sighed again. It was going to be a long day. Perhaps she should enlist help from some of the villagers? No, maybe later in the day she would, but not right now. She sighed once more and got back to work. With the number of bags there were now, she could go carry them out to be disposed of at the village depot. She'd have to either take multiple trips, or go find someone to help or some wagon to use.

She looked around while she considered her options. Mr Kanzaki had a wooden cart she knew, being a retired merchant he also let others use it, sometimes for free. She figured that was probably her best bet, so she started to trek off in that direction. Fortunately he lived in this district, so it wasn't long before she arrived at a fairly spacious traditional house. She opened the gate and strolled up to the house and knocked on the door once, twice, three quick raps of her fist, and then stood back to wait.

It wasn't long before she was tapping her foot with impatience. She knew it hadn't been that long, but she wanted nothing more than to get this job done and over with. Mr Kanzaki did eventually appear before her, opening the door. "Ah, Asami-chan, what can I help you with on this fine sunny day? Please, come in, come in.". Mr Kanzaki shuffled his way back into the house, disappearing before Asami could even get a word out. So it was going to be that kind of visit, huh? Well, she really wanted the cart, so she would humor him. Sighing, she followed him back inside, shutting the door behind her as she viewed the place. It was sad, how such a big house was so empty. She knew Mr Kanzaki had lost his wife a few years back, and though she had tried to visit him since then, she knew it was lonely as well. It looked like he was at least keeping up with chores though, since she couldn't find any huge amounts of dust. She kicked off her shoes and set them to the side as she followed Mr Kanzaki into the kitchen  "Would you like some tea? Or juice? Or coffee? Anything you'd like Asami-chan, it's such a pleasure to see you! It's been too long." She made her way over to the cupboard, grabbing a glass for herself and resigning herself to her fate. "Sure, I'll take some tea then thank you, I have a long day ahead of me. Would you like any help, Kanzaki-sama? Have you eaten?" Mr Kanzaki shuffled around the kitchen slowly, getting his kettle ready, and waving her away with a short statement that he wasn't infirm yet and didn't need her help. She sighed once more and walked away from the kitchen into the living room, preparing herself for a long conversation of catching up, tea, and humoring this old man.

About 40 minutes later, she had lost any semblance of patience she had left and had acquired a cart in return. She didn't hate the man, far from it, she greatly respected him, as she did most of her elders, but she didn't have patience for words very much in the first place. It was a bit of a trek back to where she had left her pile of bags, but it was starting to get warmer now that it was a getting closer to the afternoon, so she didn't mind it as much. It was a simple task now to load up the bags onto the cart, and she proceeded to take her first trip to the depot of the village and deposit the flowers, making her way back afterwards. The first trip of many, she was sure.

WC: 959

Wiping sweat from her brow, Asami surveyed her work once more. It had gone a lot faster now that she had a cart to help her transport her loads back and forth between the village depot and the district she was cleaning. Gathering the flowers was as slow as ever, and she wished that she was able to use proper clones, but she had made do with what she had. She was never one to shy away from a task anyways. Her arms and legs were starting to ache, and the sun was getting lower and lower. She had spent most of the day doing this, starting early, and it was now mid afternoon. She sighed, but knew that she didn't have much left to do. At this point she was nearly done. She had gathered up all of the flowers in their various places, and now the only thing left was to package and bag them and then bring them to the depot. She estimated she probably had 3 more trips left. Sitting down on a bench nearby, she took a moment to uncap her waterskin and take a deep drink from it, the water cool and refreshing on her tongue. Looking out across the road, the village seemed serene, calm, and peaceful. Even when it was busy, she still enjoyed taking a walk through the village. It was small, yes, but each person here she considered to be her family. After her parents were gone, in many cases they were. Children who would make lemonade and sell them to the merchants coming through, restaurant owners who had passed the family business down through generations, and of course her own parents, who had helped set up the village in the first place, who she was trying to make proud even now. She greatly appreciated all of them, and was doing her best to help them. And the people of the village all knew her and had been cheering her on for some time. She had been offered cookies no less than 3 times today from nearby passerby as she had cleaned up, free lemonade from a stand setup in the district by children and their parents, and even some go-getter children had offered to help her clean up. She had refused them, of course, but it still warmed her heart to know that so many people cheered her on and appreciated her. It made her want to succeed even more, to make them all proud. This village meant so much to her, and she always felt like she had to repay them back.

Swinging her feet and hopping up, her eyes burning with passion once more, she took one last sip of her waterskin and resolved once more to finish this job. Striding over to her pile of flowers she began to grab handfuls, stuffing them into bags, tying them, and tossing them into the cart before moving on to the next one. By the time she was done the cart was nearly overflowing, but she wanted to finish this quickly. She was so close, she could practically taste it, and she wouldn't let some extra weight stand in her way now. It was harder, much harder, to move the cart now, but she gritted her teeth and hoisted the cart up onto its wheels, slowly pulling it behind her as she made her way to the village depot, a relatively long trip. Finally, she arrived and began unloading the flower bags into the pile she had previously made. She wondered what was done with these flowers anyways? She supposed they were probably used as compost or something like that by the farmers in the area. At this point she didn't know, and while she was curious, she didn't care. After a quick stretch and another short break for more water (after all, she thought, it wouldn't be good to get dehydrated at the end and be unable to continue after she was so close to finishing) she hoisted the much lighter cart back up and began her way back, repeating the same process as before.

It didn't take her much longer to finish loading up the cart once more, though she was heavily looking forward to finishing this. It was definitely getting close to dinner time for her. After that, she thought she'd enjoy a nice soak in the hot springs. Nothing beat hot springs after a long day of work. It was unfortunate that she hadn't had the chance to train much today, but on the other hand this was a kind of training as well. And either way, she had to do this. It was not only necessary for the village, but necessary for her to do it, to take over the same duties her parents had. She wondered if she'd be able to train with the Hanakage some day. She would never admit this to anyone, but he hadn't seemed all that impressive the one time she had met him. Not that they had talked much, or at all for that matter, but she was nearly as big as he was and he didn't look like a child like she was. She supposed if the former chief had allowed him to buy the village that there must have been something to him, though. The chief wouldn't allow just anyone to buy the village, even if he was still mostly in charge of it. Or at least, she didn't think he would. She was even more excited for the future now that a ninja was in charge. She hoped there would be more people, and hopefully more ninja, coming to the village now.

A spring in her steps, she finally made it to the end of the road and wheeled the cart into the village depot. She excitedly unloaded the last of her loads of flowers, grateful to finally be done with the task that she had accepted and set for herself. Finally, she was done. She took a moment to admire the near mountain of flower bags she had left, sticking her chest out proudly. Now the only thing left to do was to return this cart to Mr. Kanzaki. Practically glowing with happiness, she wheeled the cart back to his house, leaving it in the backyard and entering the house once more to inform him that she had returned the cart. She allowed Mr. Kanzaki to prattle on in response, simply glad to be done with her work. It seemed he had already started grilling some pork, and her stomach was getting the best of her, so she begrudgingly stayed and ate with him, grateful for the food all the same. She thanked him for allowing her to use the cart and the dinner, and swiftly made her exit soon afterwards, already dreaming of the hot springs.

It had been a good day.

WC: 2129

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