On Patrol - The Color of Crime

Mission Docket:

Konohagakure’s administrative annex rose from the center of the village like a multitiered crown, with each tier home to a different division of the village’s administrative apparatus. From atop the building it was said that one could see the village in its entirety. In that way, the building stood as a functional symbol of the Leaf Village’s authority, both an omnipresent reminder of the Hokage’s authority and the village’s enduring prosperity.

And yet, as Natsumi Nara stood before the building, she felt neither awe nor pride, but rather a certain resignation to her place in the world. Despite its imposing construction and implied authority, the building looked like many others around it: in need of a fresh coat of paint and new trim. Thought, perhaps, she had also grown numb to the grandeur of the building itself and what it represented. After all, for the teen, visiting the annex meant it was Monday, and Monday meant that behind the structure’s closed doors awaited a familiar folder with her quota of missions for the week.

While she had never seen the upper tiers of the building, she knew the ground-floor lobby well. The large front desk, the plain wallpaper, and the grouchy attendants. Then, of course, there were the lines; it seemed every other genin in the village made the same pilgrimage as her on Mondays. This meant that not only did she have a new set of missions awaiting her, but she also had to wait in line to receive them—the joys of being a kunoichi never ceased.

Today was no different

The lobby was unchanged, the attendants just as grouchy, and the line stretched out the door. Finding a spot at the end of the line, Natsumi tried her best not to lose her mind listening to the inane conversation around her. The pair of chuunin in front of her chattered about the night before, while the trio of genin behind her in line went on about their next mission, something to do with escorting a merchant to a foreign land under the watchful eye of a jounin overseer. Truthfully, Natsumi wanted nothing more than to be home, ideally at home in bed asleep.

“Good morning,” the administrative attendant’s flat tone greeted Natsumi when she finally arrived at the front of the line.  “Name and rank, please.”

“Natsumi, genin,” the teen replied.

“Surname,” the attendant didn’t bother looking up.

“Nara”

“Natsumi Nara, genin,” the attendant repeated as if to confirm it to themselves. “Please wait just a moment.”

The attendant got up, leaving Natsumi alone at the front of the line. The teen was used to this song and dance at this point. Typically, the attendant would be gone for several minutes as they located the correct file folder. Thankfully, however, this particular morning the attendant was back in just about a minute, though the size of the folder did not bode well for the tasks that lay before her.

“Genin Nara,” the attendant pushed the folder across the desk. “Today you’re assigned to patrol duty, specifically for the administrative headquarters. You’re to report to Senzuku Noshimara for further instructions and supervision…”

As the attendant droned on, Natsumi read through the contents of the folder.

“…Additionally, you’re to keep a particular eye out for a delinquent known to be tagging the headquarters building recently. If they are apprehended, please turn them over to Noshimara for appropriate discipline. Do you have any questions?

Natsumi slid the folder back across the desk and shook her head.

“Very well,” the attendant’s gaze moved over Natsumi’s shoulder to the line behind her. “Next, please.”

Stepping out of the lobby, the teen was met with gray skies. For the first time in quite a while, the summer heat relented and the evening before even saw a bit of rain. On the bright side, this meant her patrol likely wouldn’t result in a sunburn, something she couldn’t have said on the summer’s previous missions.

The checkpoint leading into the administrative district was a short walk from the annex. The checkpoint was rarely used unless the village went on lockdown or during times of war. In more peaceful times, however, it served mostly as an office for shinobi and kunoichi on patrol to take a break in or get out of the weather. In this case, the mission dossier provided by the administrative attendant indicated that Natsumi was to meet Senzuku at the checkpoint.

Little more than a shack, the checkpoint could likely only hold up to three people comfortably. Despite its size, however, the building was in better shape than those around it. New shingles adorned the roof, the receiving window lacked a single smudge, and the façade sported a fresh coat of paint. Knocking on the door at the back, Natsumi got the sense that the nicer exterior was likely the result of a genin assigned to spruce up the building—she certainly didn’t envy that particular assignment.

“Hello,” she knocked again when no response came. “Mr. Noshimara?”

Silence.

“Hello?”

This time someone stirred within the checkpoint. The door opened outwards to reveal a tall, black-haired man rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Mr. Noshimara?” Natsumi ventured again.

“That’s my father’s name,” the man replied, his voice gruff and deep from sleep. “Please, call me Senzuku, everyone else does. You must be the Nara who’s supposed to help me out, right?”

“Yes,” she gave a half bow. “Natsumi Nara.”

“Great,” Senzuku stepped aside to allow the genin into the checkpoint. “Well, it shouldn’t be too difficult to keep an eye on things here. The ANBU already patrol here heavily, so you’ll likely see a whole lot of nothing.”

The black-haired man took a seat and gestured to the one across from him.

“Yeah,” Natsumi said, taking a seat. “The mission dossier mentioned someone tagging the place though?”

“Ah, yeah,” the man flashed an amused smile. “I’m not sure vandalism rises to the attention of the ANBU. There’s a little runt running around the district tagging buildings. They hit this one about a month back, which is why we had to repaint this piece of crap. Yeah, if you happen to see them causing trouble, do me a favor and bring him back here—I’d like to have a chat with them about how they should be treating their village.”

He paused.

“You Nara are good at that kind of thing, yeah?”

“I suppose so,” Natsumi agreed with a shrug.

“Well, you should get out there. Try not to get lost, some of the alleyways go on for quite a while. Report back here by sundown, best of luck!”

Saying her farewell, Natsumi returned to the streets of the administrative district. Senzuku’s warning about the alleyways quickly proved prescient as some seemed to go on forever. Unlike the more commercial streets, however, the streets of the administrative district were free of trash and merchants hawking their wares. From time to time, she met a few passersby, but most people kept to themselves as they shuffled from building to building on what the genin presumed to be official business judging by their serious expressions.

Interestingly, a couple of times, the teen could have sworn there was someone behind her. However, when she turned around, she was met with nothing save for an empty street and the sound of distant footsteps on the roofs of nearby buildings. Perhaps Konohagakure’s ANBU were keeping an eye on the stranger in their district or, more likely, the Nara teen was imagining things.

Time passed by at a snail’s pace. Unlike a few of her previous missions, patrolling the streets didn’t exactly get her heart rate up. Soon, however, lunchtime came, and the genin returned to the security checkpoint, where she ate a quick lunch with Senzuku. The pair chatted about nothing particularly important, and Natsumi was mostly happy that she could take a break from being on her feet. Surprisingly, walking around for much of the day did not do her feet any favors.

With lunch behind her, Natsumi returned to patrolling the streets of the administrative district. For the first two hours, the afternoon was similar to the morning. Natsumi saw a whole lot of empty alleyways, a few administrative staff, and no less than exactly two stray cats—or at least they seemed stray based on the state of their muddied fur. It seemed as if today was destined to be another mission where nothing eventful happened.

Or, at least, nothing eventful happened until the Nara teen turned a corner she’d turned at least three times that same afternoon. The feeling crept up her spine like it had earlier in the day, the feeling of a pair of distant eyes on her. Unlike before, however, when she whipped around in a blur of motion, the flash of red hair that caught her eyes was certainly not her imagination—and an actual ANBU wouldn’t be so sloppy as to be seen, someone was running from her.

The chase that followed was, well, anticlimactic. Natsumi was far from the fastest kunoichi in the village but, as it turned out, it didn’t much matter, because the fleeing redhead wasn’t much faster. The pair raced through the streets in a relatively slow-motion pursuit. More than a few times the genin lost sight of her quarry, leaving her to navigate by following the sound of hurried footsteps in front of her. However, soon, the whole thing came to an end, a dead end to be exact.

The redhead took a wrong turn and now Natsumi had cornered him. In his right hand, the boy gripped a can of spray paint; it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. This was, in all likelihood, the delinquent that Senzuku was looking for. How odd that the boy wasn’t all that much younger than the teen herself.

“Alright,” Natsumi tried to make her voice ring with authority she didn’t have. “Enough running, if you come back with me now I’ll tell them you turned yourself in.”

“Yeah right,” the red-haired boy smirked. “No shot you’d do that, you’re just telling me what I want to hear.”

The boy started to run at her; the only way out of the dead end was past Natsumi.

“And no shot I’m letting you catch me either.”

Instead of bothering with a response, the teen flew through a familiar string of hand seals. Upon the completion of the final hand seal, her shadow sprang to life and rushed forward to meet the trailing shadow of the red-headed boy. The boy stopped several feet from the Natsumi, unable to move despite his best efforts—an untrained civilian had little hope of competing with the chakra reserves of even a lowly genin.

With a bit of effort and at the cost of much of her chakra reserves, the teen retraced her steps back through the administrative district and back to Senzuku’s checkpoint. The sensation of possessing another’s shadow was always a strange one. Each limb felt heavy as if being dragged through water, and every once in a while, the strength of the possessed shadow pulled back at her movements.

Fortunately, once the boy found himself unable to break free of his shadowy shackles, he resigned himself to his fate and stopped pulling at the shadow. And so, the two wound their way through what had become a familiar grid of streets and alleyways. They ran into no stray cats, no administrative assistants, and no dead ends; soon the checkpoint came back into view.

The hour that followed was a strange mix of cathartic and uncomfortable. On one hand, it was hard not to be a little proud of the praise Senzuku gave her. On the other hand, she couldn’t help feeling bad for the red-haired boy—whose name turned out to be Haru—as he got dressed down by the kindly guard. In the end, she left Haru’s punishment to Senzuku, and she returned to the streets to finish her scheduled patrol.

The remainder of the day passed by without incident. At the end of her shift, she paid her respects to Senzuku on her way out of the administrative district. He didn’t seem to have the worst job in the world, perhaps there was a place in the village for a shinobi or kunoichi that didn’t involve fighting on the front lines. The thought was comforting to the teen, and one that followed her home that evening as she went through her typical routine of dinner, shower, and a book. There were, in fact, other ways to support her home than through outright bloodshed and assassination that she had come to expect from her future as a kunoichi. All she had to do was find the right position, but that would be for another day.

- - -
Exit/Thread Closed.

TWC: 2130

Thread Claims

+21 Vigor
2000/2000 to learn Chakra Infusion
+130 words toward learning Chakra Sensory
+ 4000 ryo & +20 AP for completing the two D-rank missions indicated at the top of the post, both with a 1k WC req

WC Math: 2000 words toward Chakra Infusion + 130 words toward Chakra Sensory = 2130/2130