Starring:
Mokoto, Rorika, Isamu, Shinobu
Date: July 21, 2015
Summary:
A team gets sent out on a simple, if smelly, D-rank mission
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"The Sewer Stockade"
Konohagakure
Mid-winter in Konoha is cold. Like, seriously cold. Its snowing outside, overcast and dreary. A D-rank mission had
come in late in the afternoon, and a group of Genin were assembled to take care of it. Even a young student was invited to
come and participate, since the chances of the mission being dangerous were quite unlikely.
Aburame Mokoto arrived in the Hokage's office shortly after being called. He stands on a great mat and bows to the
Konohagakure Council, waiting for the mission to be officially assigned to him. Sitting behind the great desk are several
shinobi, including a few he'd never met before.
Rorika …was not used to being specifically picked out for a mission. She had to take a second to remember all
the procedures and protocals, but soon enough, she's in the Hokage's office. She knew that her taking off when she did
left her at the bottom of the list of possible genin…and once she steps into the office and seeing just who she's
working with…well…it was pretty obvious.
She swallows her pride and steps inside, passing a polite bow towards the authority figures in the room and taking
her place in the middle of it, waiting on the others to show up.
Isamu was surprised that he'd been invited to go on a mission - without his sensei! It was sort of exciting when
he thought about it, and it looked like Shinobu got to be with him too. He didn't recognize the other two genin, though,
and he peered at them a bit curiously. "What are we doin?" he whispers to SHinobu once inside, hoping that she had the
answer. He was pretty much clueless.
Shinobu wasn't ever eager for missions. Hopefully this one wouldn't be too bad. She's about to enter the room when
a Nin-pup appears, bounding in and sniffing at the two already there. Her nose wrinkles a bit, the black lab peeking up at
both before going to sit down. Shinobu makes her way on and stands next to Isamu, Kame on her right, and she shrugs
quietly when Isamu asks what they're doing. She didn't even know the other Genin.
Now that the whole team has arrived, the briefing begins. A rather boring looking Chuunin stands up and says, "You
have a D-rank mission. The citizens of Konoha, along the southern wall, have been complaining about a bad smell rising up
from under one of the streets. We suspect its a blockage in the sewage system. You will find the blockage and remove it,
and report back your success when its done," he explains, folding his arms over his chest seriously, "I will supervise you
on this mission."
Mokoto frowns at the idea of exploring into the sewers, but a job is a job. "Yes, Chuunin-sensei," he responds,
realising he didn't even know the name of the bored older man who would accompany them on the mission.
Rorika hides her disappointment in the assignment very well, but her posture does deflate…slightly. She keeps
her tone even while speaking though. "Sounds good. We'll go see what we can find. Do you have any other details about the
smell? Like, are we talking like..rotten eggs? It might help us to narrow down the source."
Isamu's nose wrinkles when he hears what the mission would be. "Hey, that sucks!" he grumbles, crossing his arms
over his chest indignantly. "I've been in /battle/ before, and now I have to go trudge around in some sewers? Come on,
where's the real mission!" He wasn't even really sure what had gotten into him. Probably some subconscious desire to prove
something of himself. He had a lot of emotions he didn't understand, these days. But his eyes were shadowed and a bit
angry, making him want to fight something.
Shinobu glances uncertainly at Isamu and her teammates. None of them seemed happy to be on this mission. And
frankly, she wasn't too stoked herself. Her sensitive nose might end up being her doom if the sewers are involved. Kame
paws a bit at Isamu, trying to get him to cheer up a bit. Yip! ~It's okay! They probably just want us to remember we're
still young!~ Of course, probably no one can understand the pup since she's speaking in the Inuzuka tongue.
The Chuunin first looks at Rorika and replies, "The mission request doesn't state it particularly, but I suspect
it'll be evident when you arrive." Then he turns to Isamu and sniffs loudly, looking a little disdainful. "Isamu-kun,
you're lucky to be coming along on a real ninja mission at all. Most D-rank missions end up being jobs similar to this,"
he replies, and then leads the team out of the room.
The walk to the mission location doesn't take long, and the team arrives within 15 minutes. In the minutes before
the team arrives, the stench starts to become obvious. That's definitely the smell of untreated sewage. Mokoto wrinkles
his nose under his mask. The Chuunin looks at the team, then points to a nearby grate. "That's the sewer entrance. Good
luck. If there's anything really dangerous just… umm… I guess I should handle it," he says, then shrugs and lets the
team work it out.
Rorika follows along with the rest of the team and…yep. That's a bad smell alright. Probably more so to her than
to any of the other human team members. She passes a small wave when the Chuunin departs..meaning that she's left with a
pre-teens much shorter than she is. She shrugs a little bit and turns down to look towards them. "Right…well. First
thing's first guys, we'll need something to either clean it or move it when we find it. And secondly…I have a pretty
good nose, but I'm wagering that your pup there can sniff it out alot faster than I can."
She casually points towards Shinobu. "Do you think they can track down the smell for us?"
As soon as the smell hit Isamu's nose, he felt doubly bad for Shinobu and Kame. Especially when the oldest Genin
suggested that Kame be the one to track the smell. "Er," he starts, looking at the dog apologetically. "Kame has a really
sensitive nose.. The bad smell might actually hurt her. I mean, it's up to her and Shinobu, but…" he trails off, not
wanting to butt heads with the older girl. "Um, maybe we could take buckets of clean water with us..? To help wash the
smell away.."
The smell suddenly overcoming the pair, both Shinobu and Kame pass out cold on the ground.
Mokoto says, "Never mind Shinobu. Let's get down into the sewers and see what we can find." And with that he
hoists the grate out of the ground and climbs inside. The inside of the sewer is quite dark, with the manhole being the
only source of light. "Thankfully I brought one of these along," the young Aburame says as he pulls a flare out of his
coat, ignites it and throws it into the darkness. It reveals a pathway next to a shallow, man-made ravine. The muck in the
ravine is slowly moving in one direction along the sewers, and Mokoto says, "Well, we might as well check out downstream
first, and starts moving off in that direction.
Rorika blinks when the kid with the dog fails to answer her, which just prompts another sigh. Before she could say
anything more, the other one takes off and straight up leaps down into the sewers without much provocation…or warning.
She takes a step towards the manhole and then stoops down next to it with an irritated expression. She quickly gestures
for Isamu to follow befor she drops down into the sewer as well, wincing due to the smell.
"Or, we could just dart off and try to fix the problem by ourselves. You can listen right? It's a skill they still
teach at the school I'm going to presume. I said I have a good nose, and if you can give me a split second, we can go the
right way and fix this rather than wander around in the darkness, flare be flushed. So will you relax for a minute?"
The older girl also thinks for a moment. "Speaking of the flare, I'd suggest you douse it immediately."
Isamu rolls his eyes a bit and begrudgingly shifts down into the manhole towards the sewers. This was definitely
not his idea of a good time. Once he gets down to the underground pathway, Isamu squints at the bright light of the flare,
though he was grateful for the illumination. Which made him all the more confused when the older girl wanted him to put it
out. "Why?" he asks, frowning at her slightly. They needed to see, right?
Looking back over his shoulder, Mokoto says, "Put it out? Is being able to see not that important to you?" He
shrugs and continues to move downstream, "You can put it out yourself, if you'd like." It doesn't take long before they
come upon a strange sight. Several wooden boards and detritus have been cobbled together with nails to block the passage
of the sewage. A large build-up of gunk is gathering around the stockade, creating an utterly awful smell. "Who the heck
built that?" Mokoto asks, bewildered.
Rorika facepalms pretty hard at the two of them. "Because bringing a heat source into a sewer is a bad idea,
unless you like the headline of 'Three Genin found splattered at the ends of a sewer due to poop explosion." I don't know
about you two, but I'd prefer to have my gravestone read something a little more poetic. Jeez."
In practically no time at all though, they seem to run into the problem and she shrugs. "…How
does..that..even..work? Why?" She takes a few more steps up to the wooden wall and after determining that the boards were
nailed, she brings out a kunai and starts to pry off the nails on the corners in particular. "Alright, grab onto a side
and start pulling…or if one of you has some sort of jutsu that will help that DOES NOT INVOLVE HEAT, be my guest."
"I'm on it!" Isamu yells enthusiastically, a bit brighter than he had been so far that day. Flexing his muscles he
grins and takes an offensive stance, shooing Rorika to the side and cracking his neck. "Alright! Time to show you the
power of Konoha's Strong Fist! Dynamic Action!" In no time at all, the young boy was launching off wood-splintering
punches and kicks in the boards' direction, striking through them as if they were little more than paper. Maybe card
stock. The splinters flew around him, probably hitting the others who were with him as he attacked the blockage with a
flurry of fast-paced strikes and loud yells, stepping back and scratching his nose when it was all finally reduced to
harmless bits of wood. The student grinned a bit sheepishly. "Er… It worked, didn't it?" As if anyone could deny it!
With debris now scattered around the sewer system, the large mass of excrement begins to slide slowly off down the
man-made canal. Mokoto laughs and says, "Well that was surprisingly easy." Maybe he's spoken too soon, and a crazy looking
old man seems to come out of nowhere. "Now what are you kids doing!? You're going to flood my house with poop! I oughta
put you all over my knee and belt you!" he says in a geezerly voice. Mokoto shrinks back from the man, holding his hands
up in front of him placatingly, and then glances back at the other two shinobi who are still with him.
Rorika steps out of the way when the kid decides that the blockage would see it's last day as sort-of-functioning
peice of wood. Before she could say anything though, he starts his assault, shattering the poor blockade and forcing her
to shield her eyes. When it's all said and done though, he did break the entire thing…to which the old man's appearance
was a bit unexpected. When Mokoto looks towards her, she throws her hands up, clearly growing irritated.
"Oh, sewage explosions are no problem, but one old guy in a sewer and you look towards me? Fine." She turns
towards the old man and her voice turns curt. "Listen up Pops. Here's how this is going down. First off, if you touch me
or my friends here, I am going to show you just what exactly Vicious Beast Taijutsu looks like. Secondly, what in the drain
are you even doing in a sewer? It smells awful down here and it's no way to live. If you need a job or something, I'll
help you find it, but you cannot be blocking stuff like this. So you've got two options. Either get out of here right the
plug now, or I'm dragging you up to explain to the hokage just why you thought this was a good idea. And I'll give you a
warning. They're alot meaner than I am."
Isamu had just opened his mouth to protest the old man, but Rorika had beaten him to the tongue lashing, and he
closed his mouth again with a somewhat indignant look at her. Way to steal his fun… Huffing, Isamu just nods with a
defiant glare in his eyes, pumping up his fist at the geezer. "Yeah, yeah! And that poop was making a huge stink above
ground, so we had to get rid of it! It was fun, too! Er - the smashing part. The stink is really bad, I'm gonna need…
uh… 1100 baths after this!" The boy crossed his arms with another hot huff and a curt nod. Just let him try and punish
the kids!
The man looks at Rorika and his lips flap open and closed several times, seeming to completely ignore Isamu as he
tries to formulate a response to the older Genin's demands. "Ahh, oh. Okay," he says, sounding suddenly deflated, "I just
needed somewhere to live. But I guess you're right. I'll move back above ground. But I'll have you know, the smell really
isn't that bad once you get used to it!" The man sags in defeat, and starts walking back up stream with his head hanging
low.
Mokoto looks at Rorika and gives her a thumbs up. "That was pretty cool," he says to her as he follows the old man
back out of the sewer. Upon reaching the surface he explains the whole event to the Chuunin supervisor, who spent the
whole time reading a book and sipping tea. The lazy supervisor says, "Well then, mission successful. Come on, back to the
Hokage to finish your report, and then I can move on to something more important."
