[Warai Ameko]

When she'd accepted her first mission, Ameko had expected something a fair sight grander than undertaking the sort of task a child could do. And not a particularly bright child at that. Being a shinobi was supposed to be about battles, it was supposed to be about taking her fists to the enemy and making them bleed and beg. What was this nonsense about searching for a lost mutt? Thrice now, she had read over the scroll, and thrice now she had let out a growl of discontent. The first time had been when she had first received it, and more than a few passers by had witnessed her outburst in the middle of Sunagakure. The second time had been on the road to the farm, where the only sidelong looks she got were from her erstwhile companions. The third time was when she had arrived at the farm, its shabby exterior breaking the horizon and the harsh clime of its surrounds. 

Fig trees were arranged in neat rows, evidently well tended and cared for. In contrast to the part of country from which she hailed, the north-west was surprisingly hospitable. And the sight of greenery around the farm was a welcome one, even if she considered the reasons for her attendance to be utterly arbitrary and beneath her. Yes, she was a genin. Yes, she had yet to find any teammates. But, dammit all, she was a shinobi! She had trained for battle!

She growled again, and Yuki answered with a chittering call of his own. Ameko quirked her head to look at the hyena, and it stared back with its own deep-brown eyes. Was there judgement in there? Perhaps. But Yuki was happy enough with any sort of expedition if it meant he got to meet new friends.

At least her familiars would help to make the mission a swift one, she had little desire to spend any longer on the fool's errand than she needed to.

"Come on, you louts," She mumbled to the hyenas, the animals falling lockstep behind her as she approached the door to the farmhouse, "Let's get a scent from the ol' bastard who sent for us and see about getting his pooch back, yeah?"

372 Words

[Warai Ameko]

Ameko rapped her knuckles on the olive-wood door. For a moment afterward, an awkward silence filled the space, but it was soon ended by the same door's opening. The man who looked down at her was tall, but willowy and thin, with dark skin and crisp white hair. His skin and features were gnarled, as if he'd been carved out of a particularly old tree. In silence, he stared at the genin, blinking but not speaking. Grey eyes seemed to scan every part of her, lingering only on the Sunagakure headband that she'd tied around her waist.

"Where's the rest of your team?" He asked, his voice as weathered as his appearance, all gravel and grout.

"There's no rest of my team. You asked for someone to get a bloody dog back, not protect your home from bandits," Ameko responded, the words leaving her mouth rapidly and breathlessly.

He blinked, snorted and shrugged, "Well I can see why you don't have a team."

"You bloody what-?" Ameko's hackles raised, her lips drawing back into the beginnings of a snarl.

As if sensing the reaction from the teenager before him, the farmer swiftly cut her off, "Well, whatever, whatever. You've agreed to find my little Wanwan, so I suppose I shouldn't be too rude."

He stepped back, and allowed her entrance to the farmhouse. Ameko was temporarily taken aback, and forced her aggression to subside. Glancing at her hyenas, she stepped into the building, the familiars following her footsteps.

"So, uh, you got something that I can get a scent from or something?" Ameko asked, trying to pivot the conversation back to the mission as quickly as possible.

The farmer looked at the hyenas, raised an eyebrow, nodded then disappeared into a different room. In doing so, he left the young genin and the two animals standing awkwardly in the hallway. Yuki yawned loudly, whilst Kōri merely continued to stare at the door, as if longing to be out of the house. Not for the first time, she found herself relating to the second of the hyenas. Evidently, she'd not made a good impression with the farmer, and the sooner she could be out on the road, the sooner she would not have to deal with any potential fallout arising from her inability to properly temper her words when speaking to people. She didn't particularly care what he thought of her, but she was in no mood to get into an argument with a client.

What felt like a decade later, the old man returned. In reality, it was probably closer to two minutes, but Ameko hardly cared for that unfortunate factoid. In his hands was a torn collar, the black leather ripped and frayed. He brought it toward her, and she merely shook her head, gesturing to the giggling Yuki.

"Let him have a whiff first, we'll see if he can't grab somethin'. If not, might take it with us and get to searching."

The farmer held the collar out to Yuki, his posture making it clear that he was worried the hyena would snap and attempt to take his hand off at any moment. But no such action happened, the cackling beast sniffed, sniffed again, then stared at his master. Taking that as a sign, she turned her attention back toward the farmer.

"Well them, boss man, that'll do us. See you arou-"

"Do you not want to know where he last was?"

Ameko stared at the man for a moment, eyes glaring hatred, before she sighed and nodded. Yes, she really did need to know that.

599 Words

[Warai Ameko]

On the outskirts of the farm, the southern reaches where the ground had not yet been tilled and nature still maintained its grip. That was what the farmer had explained to Ameko before she'd hastily made her leave. She had little desire to speak further with the man, his company was not the sort that she sought, nor did she imagine she was his. No, the genin would be happy to get the misison truly underway and be done with it sooner rather than later. The story that had been relayed to her had been simple and understandable, the farmer and his dog had been scouting the property lines, trying to locate places to expand the crop in the coming planting season. At some point, he had lost track of the animal, and after hours of fruitless searching, had returned home. The next two days had also uncovered nothing. As it was, the dog had been missing for half a week, and exposed to the harsh elements of Kaze no Kuni, the farmer had serious worries about his companion's health. Of course, the two day separation meant that the trail was hardly fresh. Time was not on her side.

Yuki's nose was fierce at tracking, but the beast was not infallible. Were she unable to get close to the dog, then even his expanded sense of smell would be useless. There was every chance that it had wandered, or been taken, further from the property. In which case, she would be forced to rely on her own tracking skills.

It was as she was considering her strategy that she and her familiars came upon the end of the property. Hastily dropped stones denoting where the farmer's land ended and that of his neighbour began. At least, Ameko assumed it was his neighbour's. Whether or not it was public land, she did not know. Nor did she particularly care to ask. If she had to trespass, she had to trespass. The complaints of civilian farmers were hardly matters for her concern. What were they going to do?

Staring over the horizon, part of Ameko hoped that the dog would come bounding over, panting and slobbering. She'd be able to call the mission complete and see it done. There was no such luck. All she was met with was the light of the sun, and the medley of greens, browns and yellows that made up the landscape.

Drawing the old collar from her pocket, she held it to Yuki, muttering words to the hyena about finding the scent. He inhaled deeply, before turning his nose to the air, his mouth opening so that he could taste the scents. His head turned, and his ears flicked, before he let out a snort. No cackle. No scent.

Fantastic. That meant finding some sort of trail to follow, before hopefully the predator's nose would pick up on something further into their journey. Her eyes turning toward the ground, Ameko grumbled and muttered. She had been hoping to hit something, she really had.

507 Words

[Warai Ameko]

Ameko knelt, examining the ground before her, looking for any kind of sign as to where the errant dog had gone. The young shinobi's eyes flicked from side to side, looking over the ground and whatever lay upon it. At first, nothing stood out, the mix of sand and grass lacking anything in the way of abnormalities. She cursed under her breath, biting her lip as she did so. Failing at the first hurdle was not exactly how she saw her inaugural mission going. For a few moments longer she stared at naught but dust and dirt, trying to find something, anything, that would provide her with proof of where her target had gone.

Fortuitously, after what felt like an eternity of searching, she found something. A outcropping of dirt that showed signs of a struggle. The wind had swept away much of it, but the tell-tale markings of claws were evident. Whatever had happened, there had been violence. All Ameko had to hope was that whatever the end result had been, the dog she had been tasked to find was still safe and sound.

Blue eyes scanned from the markings to the horizon, the intervening parts of the ground scanned. Where she had once seen nothing, subtle intricacies now made themselves known. A displacing of grass beyond what the wind could manage, an obviously displaced part of the farm's boundary. No doubt she had missed more than she had seen, but there was enough to get a vague idea of where to go. If she just travelled south, then eventually she could rely on the senses of her companions to make up for her lack of skills.

"Hunting time," She smiled to the hyenas.

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[Warai Ameko]

Kōri padded forward, sniffed at an outcrop of shrubs, snorted and turned away. Evidently, he didn't find anything of use in that particular patch. The predator lazily strolled further forward, taking whiffs of other parts of interest as he did so. Ahead of him, his brother continued to sniff at the air, an occasional cackle unleashed from his maw. On more than one occasion, Ameko had to hiss at the hyena, causing the familiar to lower his ears and pointedly turn his attention back to the horizon. He could sulk all he wanted, but calls that did not help them to locate the missing dog were worse than useless. She needed the hyena to only alert her when it caught scent, not when it felt that it was being ignored by its partners.

Part of her felt guilty for leaving a bulk of the work to her animal companions, but there was little her less-developed senses could do in comparison to those of the hyenas. Her eyes may have been better than that of the caniforms, but they did little against the endless blue horizon of sky.

Instead, she found her attention turning back to Yuki and Kōri, the two hyenas tracking in their own way. Inevitably, she would turn her eyes back to her surrounds, looking for some sign of life. But nothing came to her. The breakthrough, naturally, came from Yuki.

The hyena cackled, and Ameko turned her attention back toward it, her intention to hiss again. But this time, his posture had stiffened. His eyes stared straight ahead, there was no intent to draw attention or sympathy from his master. He had scented something, and that meant, more than likely, that the dog was near.

Their seemingly endless wandering, following the few tracks that they could find, had finally paid off. No longer would they need to search, for scent would guide them.

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[Warai Ameko]

The trio moved with renewed purpose, paws and sandals alike striking at the earth, each step deliberate and rapid. Yuki was silent as he lead them, his mouth agape as he breathed in that same scent that had coated the collar. Behind him, his brother and master moved abreast of one another. A curious interpretation of a migratory 'v', but one that had been drilled into Ameko during her youth with her clan. Three bodies, one purpose. The lead could focus his attention on tracking, it fell to his compatriots to watch his flanks. Not that they expected to come across anything particularly dangerous. This was a D-ranked mission that concerned the retrieval of a lost pet, not an ambush in foreign lands. Of course, Ameko had no idea what such a mission would entail. She'd never left her homeland and certainly had not come close to engaging in anything resembling a proper combat mission.

In any case, her training was solid enough that she was confident to rely on it for her first real mission. Overconfident, perhaps, she expected no harm to befall her. It was fortune that saved her as she moved onward to their target. Her gaze was hardly up to snuff, and no doubt a particularly skilled opponent would have been able to take out her clumsy form, and that of her hyenas. But no such fate was in store for her on that day.

In short time, the 100 metres was closed, barely a sprint. Albeit one over somewhat awkward terrain. The location which they finally came to, Yuki chortling to denote their arrival, was an odd outcrop of wild-growing trees. Their roots were gnarled and vicious, bursting from the ground and entangling one another in an odd sculpture of still-living wood. It was a peculiar sight against a landscape that seemed mostly to consist of shrubbery. Sure, there had been an odd tree here and there, but the outgrowth was something different.

The dog itself was not difficult to find, not even to Ameko's comparatively dull senses. A black shape had curled itself up in the roots of the trees, a mix of red-brown staining visible even as the trio approached. Yet, even as they did so, they could see it struggle to its feet. Their pace had slowed as they approached, not seeing the need for urgency now that their quarry was so close. But that only gave the wounded animal time to get to its feet, take one look at the oncoming genin, and bolt. Away from the outcrop, and yet further away from the farm.

[Warai Ameko]

"Son of a-" Ameko snarled, taking the briefest of moments to express her disgust before unleashing a harsh whistle, "Fetch."

Yuki picked up the pace, widening the distance between himself and his master, whilst Kōri broke away from his position next to Ameko, joining his littermate in pursuit. Behind them, Ameko herself dropped into a sprint, legs pumping a she raised to chase the fleeing animal. The pursuit itself was not a long one, the two hyenas closing in on the already wounded dog with a pace that it simply could not hope to outrun. But even as the two felinids kept their fangs at bay, their canid opposite did not. The dog snarled and turned to fight.

Only now did Ameko get a good look at it. A medium sized thing, no doubt a mutt, a mix of working breeds, black with what would have been a white muzzle and paws, had they not been stained red. With surprising furiosity its jaws snapped at the encroaching Yuki, causing the hyena to vocalise as he retreated. Kōri snarled, his posture immediately shifting from one of indifference to one of savage intent.

Ameko whistled again, "Heel."

Reacting instinctively, his body loosened somewhat. Where had been moving to strike at the embattled pooch, instead, he too pulled away, taking a circling approach with his brother. The dog's head whipped around at the two animals, fierceness in its eyes as it struggled valiantly against its own wounds. Had the predators been going in for the kill, then there would have been little it could have done, but it certainly had intended to go down with a fight.

So it was for the next few seconds, until the human in the retrieval party could make her way to the scene. There was no outward hostility directed toward her from the animal, Ameko noted, its wariness and obvious fear responses directed solely toward the hyenas. She supposed it made sense, after all, it was wounded and had no reason not to perceive the beasts as threats. No doubt a wild hyena would not hesitate to make an injured dog a meal. In any case, it was exhausted, panting and snarling, and was in no condition to put up a front, let alone a fight. Ameko let out a low whistle, and both of her familiars backed off. The dog continued to stare at them as it did so, hackles raised, the snarl that left its throat was vicious and undaunting.

But that focus allowed Ameko to approach, and approach she did. The dog turned its attention toward her, curious at first, then suddenly panicked. It made to flee again, but this time Ameko was quicker. Be it that she was expecting the move, be it that it was exhausted, she closed the gap between them quicker than it could flee, and grabbed its scruff with meaning. It whined, and twisted, but she refused to let go. For the next few minutes, she struggled with the dog, trying to keep it under control without further wounding it. She dared not risk bringing Yuki or Kōri in closer, lest she set off more of a panic, and the two animals were left to watch from some distance.

A chortle sounded, the telltale sign of the hyena, and she looked away from the fearful mutt to tell of Yuki once again. But both her hyenas were silent, silent and staring as if through her. It was then that it registered, the sound had come from behind her, not from either flank.

[Warai Ameko]

The hyena was emaciated, its fur matted and filthy. But even in its state, it continued to chuckle, animalistic eyes staring at the wounded dog that Ameko held close to her. For its part, the hound struggled, attempting desperately to break from her grip and flee further into the green canyons that made up the north-west of the country. The girl was forced to take a knee just to keep the animal still, her strength was sufficient enough to keep it restrained, but it writhed and slid in and out of awkward positions. She couldn't do much of anything to fight on her own, but she didn't particularly need to. 

Yuki answered the wild hyena's call of one his own, whilst Kōri remained utterly silent, his lips pulled back into a soundless snarl. The beast seemed to look between its counterparts, before its gaze returned to the wounded canine held by the teenage shinobi. It was desperate, starving and alone. Without a pack, it had little hope of survival, no doubt attacking a pet had been its only hope for a meal. Even then, it had not managed to finish the job. It was a dangerous creature, still, but one that did not pose a serious threat. Not to someone who had their own, bigger, animals to protect them.

The rogue stepped forward, before halting, a growl from Kōri causing it to freeze. It had no intention of fighting, not when its meal was so well-protected. But, Ameko knew the score, it would continue to follow them, from afar, yes, and without engaging. But once it knew where the farm was, it would almost certainly linger, awaiting another moment to strike at the dog or its master in the not too distant future. It may starve to death, first, or find another meal to scavenge, but it would be a risk.

The creature was no threat to her, nor was it likely to interrupt her immediate mission. But would she not be leaving the job half-done to allow it to return a few days from now and attack the weakened dog again? Or by allowing it to strike at a flock of sheep or another errant working dog?

Ameko gripped her charge tight, steeling herself and thinking back to the hunting trips her parents had taken her on. Death was part and parcel of life in the desert. And whilst this part of the country was hardly a desert, she imagined the rule continued to apply all the same.

She whistled, and gave the order, "Kill."

[Warai Ameko]

Fur, fang and claw collided. The wild hyena had turned to run, but he was slower than either of the shinobi compatriots. His obvious undernutrition compared to the ease at which human companionship allowed a familiar access to regular meals proved a major difference, but so too did the Warai clan hijutsu. Ameko's chakra flowed through the brothers, their blood bond strengthening their physical attributes. In a one-on-one fight, either Yuki or Kōri would have been the odds on favourite. But this was not a one-on-one fight. Yuki struck first, charging at the rogue. With no other option, the beast elected to meet his opponent in combat. Their bodies collided, jaws attempting to lock on to each other's necks whilst claws struck at underbellies. But Yuki did not need to win the fight, for Kōri struck from the flank, attacking the other animal's legs and removing his ability to fight. It was not a long battle, nor was it tinged with malice. Nature merely did as it was wont to do, and the threat to the farm was removed. 

Ameko, for her own part, focused on calming the still struggling pup. The sight of battle did little to calm his already frayed nerves, and it was all that she could do to keep him from running. In time, exhaustion would come not only to the hyenas, but to the dog as well. Yuki and Kōri earned their victory, a few scratches and bites covered their maws and flanks, but such wounds would heal swiftly. Whilst the purpose of their mission had tired itself out trying to escape. 

For better or for worse, Ameko had recovered the lost pet. Albeit likely with more bloodshed than was entirely necessary.

[Warai Ameko]

The return journey to the farm was about as uneventful as one may expect. Given time and requisite tiredness, the dog had ceased its struggles against being carried, and was content enough to rest in Ameko's arms as they trekked back. Each of her familiars padded idly ahead of her, tongues lolling and panting, evidently they too wished to rest and be done with their little adventure. 

Without the need to track, and even with an extra wounded body to carry with them, the walk back was decidedly quicker than their departure had been. In what felt like no time at all, they were back at the farm's outskirts, and then back before the old house. A quick knock on the door, and the farmer was there, evidently having rushed to get any sort of news about his beloved pet. Relief and fear washed over his face in waves, the former at seeing his companion alive, the latter at the evident wounding he had faced. Wordlessly he directed Ameko to return the animal to him, his face awash with tears and cooing noises. Weakly, the dog lapped at his cheeks, tasting the salt of his tears and offering some solace that he was safe.

Before he could speak to the shinobi, Ameko gave a prompt bow, a quick motion that had all the dignity and formality of a rather perturbed heron.

"Right, mission done, no need for thanks."

She didn't wish to speak to the man, she didn't wish to spend any longer in the little hamlet than she had had any need to. The mission was complete, she'd gotten the dog, and the risk of a lecture about how she had possibly allowed the animal to be injured was the least of her desires. Particularly when it was very evident, from appearance alone, that her own animal companions had been involved in a fight.

Without even allowing the farmer to speak, she pivoted on her feet and walked away with such speed, she may as well have been running. Rude? Perhaps. She wasn't the type to care. 

End