Starring:
Tsugumi (emitter), Rinoko, Nonon, Aru, Saori
Date: September 30, 2016
Summary:
Team 13B is called upon to do a hopefully simple task: Translate some disputed documents that define the border between two villages.
"Lost In Translation"
Land of Fire
APOCRYPHAL FILLER MISSION TIME.
This Team 13 mission should hopefully be pretty simple, though the threat of danger exists, mainly due to the fact that they are going to settle a dispute between two clans. Their small villages (with a small 'v' not 'Hidden Villages') are having a rather volatile disagreement over the borders between their Clans, as established in very old documentation. It seems that the elders of each clan are too old, with vision too poor, and too prone to falling asleep to translate the documents, leading to massive arguments and conflict between the clans of Oboe and Furuuto.
While they have settled these disputes thus far through music competitions, even those have fallen prey to anger over so and so trespassing upon X place at X time, and so on and so forth. Unable to peacefully resolve things themselves, they have requested a knowledgeable scholar to translate for them. And wouldn't you know it, the Hidden Leaf has an amazing scholar, by the name of Rankoro Rinoko. The rest of Team 13B going along with is primarily to keep the peace between the villagers incase things boil over while their team leader is working.
The trip to the neutral meeting ground selected for the two villages to wait for Team 13B to arrive is not necessarily a short one, but is completed within a day and a half. They arrive in the evening, to the sound of yelling, and when they emerge from the forest while following the road to the traditional meeting grounds of Oboe and Furuuto, they witness the two clans about to come to blows. Farmers and artisans alike are wielding tools and instruments and fists and sticks while facing off on either side of a stone altar. It looks like they arrived just in time…
A rather interesting mission to be sure, and one Rinoko would be quite interested in. Pursuit of knowledge is her passion, after all. Helping translate the documents will be right up her ally. Thus, she would grab her team and be on the way for this mission.
As they arrive, the Rankoro woman blinks a few times at the yelling people and lets out a sigh. "… I should have expected this really," she says and then steps inward toward the crowd and the altar. "Excuse me," she calls out, trying to pierce through the yelling without yelling herself. "I am Rankoro Rinoko, Chuunin of Konohagakure. We received your request and are here to help."
Ah, yes. A peaceful, straightforward, short-term mission to translate some documents. Surely this will be boring and over quickly without incident. Not even Nonon believes that. If it was as simple as that, they probably wouldn't have sent an entire team of kunoichi to resolve it, and it probably wouldn't have come down to needing a ninja to translate them. They'd just go find a literate monke or historian for hire. Though Nonon isn't familiar with the translator market. Maybe hiring a ninja is actually the cheaper option.
And of course, right upon arrival, they find… People arguing and about to fight. Nonon is walking along with her arms behind her head as she comes across this sight, just taking a breather after the trip here by pacing herself. So she is not looking forward to if she has to break this up with force or something. Nah, she'll let Rinoko handle this. She trusts her captain~.
Aru isn't sure why she's along except in regard to disabling non-ninja villagers as non-lethally and painlessly as possible. Though she supposes if the documents are THAT old maybe her eyes would be useful for picking out the details or something… "Rinoko-sensei," Aru says so quietly it can barely be heard, and the fact she's looking away when she says it doesn't help either. She is taking the fact they're approaching the meeting place as a sign they might be getting to stop for rest soon. She walks a bit closer to Rinoko and says hesitantly, "When we get to the village, do you want to—" but she stops when she picks up the sound of yelling.
She sighs and starts molding Chakra just incase. No rest for the suppressors of the wicked, it seems.
The sight they come across really is a very volatile one. She does not relish having to make their presence here known through violence. They are here to END the possibility of fighting after all. Seeming to be conquerors or tyrants would reflect poorly both on them and upon the Hidden Leaf in future dealings.
Saori is carrying around a rather large backpack as part of her physical training to help her catch up to the others. She's the smallest one on the team (in every way one can be small), and her diminished size has long plagued her in terms of being a physical match to other ninja her age. Carting around a backpack bigger than she is, filled with all kinds of heavy stuff, thus seemed like a great idea setting out.
Now she is sweating and huffing and puffing after a day and a half hike out to Dance Off Village or wherever they are now. Huff. Puff. Huff. Puff. When they come across a fight, and Rinoko steps in to try to get some peace going on, Saori just stands in the background. She hopes this doesn't turn violent. She doesn't have the energy to do much about it if it does. Except maybe to heal people afterwards.
It does not appear the villagers are listening to Rinoko's polite and responsible method of trying to call attention, it's just this jabber of voices on both sides, as people point and yell and accuse and argue and wave garden hoes and an old man struggles to get a beaten up katana out of its sheathe though he barely looks fit to even hold it let alone wield it. Words are not getting through to them right now. Or at least not at the volume they're being spoken at. There's that altar between them, a large stone table. They seem to be keeping that as their sole defining barrier, preventing this from breaking out into fighting.
Though if enough anger builds up, maybe that will stop being the case.
As she is ignored, Rinoko furrows her brows. She peers back at her team for a moment in thought then gives them a look of 'Be ready in case this goes badly'. The Rankoro then reaches into his coat and withdraws a piece of paper that she tosses between the group. It flies forward directly into the center, likely due to her ability to manipulate paper, and then flares up and bursts into a pillar of flame that goes upward without doing harm to anyone.
That should get their attention. Once the flame dies down, Rinoko steps more directly between them where the flame went up, just as calm as ever, though a bit more stern. "As I was saying, I am Rankoro Rinoko of Konohagakure. My team and I are here to assist you. If you will all please calm yourselves so we can be told where the documents are that we need to be reviewing, we will get right to work."
…Well, Nonon's solution wouldn't have been any better. She would have just shot off a lightning bolt. Great minds think a like. Or maybe just impatient ones. Nonon follows along after Rinoko, snapping her fingers and pointing at her, and says, "And I'm Namikaze Nonon, her second-in-command, also from Konohagakure!" Wait, since when is Nonon the second in command of anything?
Or they could go with a display of force, sure. Aru waits for things to settle down, hopefully, and follows along after Rinoko and Nonon. "Hyuga Aru," she introduces herself. The Hyuga name is well-known as one of the noble families of Konohagakure. That might lend some additional weight if they're still thinking of causing trouble, though hopefully Rinoko being a Chuunin who can fix their problems should be sufficient alone. She bows respectfully despite all the foolish mob behavior. "Pleased to meet you."
Ah, so that's how one resolves a conflict between two people. Fire and explosions. She'll have to remember that. "Hatake Saori." Saori says, and attempts to bow as well, but can't due to all the weight. "Y-yoroshiku." She tries to get out as she struggles to bow, barely managing to get her head forward a little bit. Hands clutching fiercely at her shoulder straps, she finally manages to lean forwards enough…
And immediately falls on her face as the weight shifts and the backpack pins her to the ground. Except for a pair of short legs sticking out from underneath the backpack, it appears Saori has been consumed by her own backpack. What a terrible fate.
The pillar of fire does indeed draw everyone's attention admist shocked gasps and recoiling in surprise. At first they seem to think that the other side threw a fire bomb or something, but then Rinoko speaks up, and all eyes are on her and her team. Before any documents can be brought forth or representatives of the two clans emerge, Saori gets buried under her own luggage. There are some looks between the various assembled individuals. The combination of comical mishaps from the little girl (who is actually 13, but she looks, like, 10 at the most), and the authoritative display from the Rankoro Chuunin, and all the name-dropping, leads to people settling down.
One man asks, "O-oi… Is she going to be all right?" as he indicates Saori. But two leader-looking types, a woman on one side and a man on the other, choose to deal with the matter at hand.
"I am Furuuto Noriko." the female leader introduces herself.
"And I am Oboe Norito!" the male leader introduces himself forcefully.
Wait, they seriously have almost the exact same names?
"Thank you for coming on such short notice, Rankoro Rinoko, Namikaze Nonon, Hyuga Aru, and Hatake Saori. The documents are too fragile to transport, so we'll need you to come to Furuuto village to examine them—" Noriko begins.
Norito butts in though to say, "Naaaaniiiiiii?" incredulously. "Why would she be examining your filthy scraps at YOUR dirty village when the LEGITIMATE legal papers are at OBOE village?"
"EEHHHH?" Noriko says with a disgusted face as she turns her head to look over her shoulder. "What legal papers are these you speak of? All you have is forged nonsense copied and altered from the ORIGINAL documents in Furuuto village! She should be coming with US!"
"Haaaaaaah!?" Norito says as he drives a pinky into his ear as though to clear it out. "It sounded to me like you just said the Oboe Clan documents were copied from your scribblings. Why would the documents PROVING where the borders lie be based upon the ramblings of a delusional bunch of wandering hobos?"
And it just goes on and on and on like that until everyone starts getting riled up again.
Rinoko peers back at Saori as she fumbles with her bags, lifting an eyebrow at her before looking back to the mob and specifically a man that speaks. "She'll be fine." She then looks to the people that introduce themselves and start to argue again. A comical sweatdrop would drip down her forehead, and she almost literally facepalms. Are these people children?
"We will inspect /all/ of the documents," she announces, trying to get back control of the situation before it can get out of hand again. "Nonon and I will collect the documents from the Furuuto, and Aru and Saori will collect the documents from the Oboe. We will then each bring our papers back to this place to inspect them and determine what they say and if they agree or not and if there an any discrepencies." She then looks to each leader sternly and says, "Lead the way."
Nonon attempts to help Saori up, not wanting to risk a team member suffocating. And Rinoko seems not to be bothered by the possibility, so SOMEONE has to do something. "Ah, Rinoko-SAN." she makes sure to emphasize a respectful honorific in front of the plebes in this case, rather than 'chan' to make sure she isn't making Rinoko look less like an authority figure or something. "If the documents are really too old and damaged to transport, maybe transcribing their contents and bringing the transcriptions back here would be best. Since we are a neutral party, we have no reason to falsify anything. Further, by translating the transcriptions here in front of witnesses, we can also lay to rest any concerns about accuracy that way as well."
The lady DID say the documents were too fragile to relocate after all. "With Aru's san's Byakugan, she can read text even the most practiced scholar can't decypher. Just a suggestion, Captain-leader-san~."
Aru just stares at Saori. She decides not to say anything. She just listens to the plan of action, and reluctantly nods to Nonon. "I can transcribe what I see exactly. Even if all ink is gone from the papers, I'll be able to read the pressure lines where the pen once touched. Rinoko-sensei is skilled enough to translate the rest." She does wait around to make sure Saori is up and on her feet, and helps out with such if it is needed, before heading off and following whichever leader leads half the time in one direction while the other leader leads to the other. No point wasting time here and giving them time to start another fight.
Saori is trapped until rescued. She huffs and puffs as she is helped up, only dimly aware of what the plan is now. "I will guard the transcription with my life," Saori pronounces grimly. The same Genin who just almost died to her own backpack. She will not doubt inspire much confidence as a result.
Then she staggers after Aru when the team goes two different directions.
She has little else to contribute in this situation, both due to tiredness and not having magic eyes. But whatever she is called up to do, she will do the best of her ability.
Rinoko and Nonon are led to Oboe Village and Aru and Saori are led to Furuuto Village. The documents they find there can barely be called such. There are huge chunks of them missing, eaten away by age. It's required to basically play jigsaw puzzle and piece them together from the fragments stored in separate containers. Eventually, they'll be assembled, after hours and hours of exhaustive work, and then transcribed, and then brought back to the meeting place to be translated. And then, both Clans waits anxiously as Rinoko is on the spot, being expected to translate some extremely archaic and obscure writings.
And what she determines is… Well, perhaps not as bad as expected if the legal-binding agreement were different between the two villages or something. But it's not very informative.
The writings basically say that the border between Oboe and Furuuto shall forever be defined by the stone altar at their ancestral meeting place, a table representing that both sides are unified in the same brotherhood as the founders of each village once possessed before their descendants proliferated into different clans.
'The Earthen Table Aligned With The Setting Sun'.
It's getting dark by the time all this is finished. The setting sun mentioned is actually visible on the horizon, as they sit around the table.
"There, you see? It's just as we've said! You have been encroaching upon Furuuto territory all this time! The altar is the answer!" Furuuto Noriko announces.
"HAAAAAAAH?" Oboe Norito exclaims. "You've been trying to claim Oboe territory all this time! Our border is the same as it's always been! Aligned with the sun via this altar!"
Noriko and Norito go back and forth like that, Noriko pounding on the altar with her hands, and and Norito pounding back to emphasize his own arguments with his fists. And from the perspective of Team 13B, caught inbetween, they may notice that the altar is being jostled back and forth as a result of their violent disagreement. It's… Not aligned with the sun, and seems to be a bit further to the west, Furuuto territory, essentially making Oboe territory 'larger' by a difference of many miles due to the inches and feet the altar keeps being moved back and forth across here at this meeting point.
Oi…
