[Futago Kumori]

SPOILER: Click to show

building renovations
MISSION RANK: D
NPC REQUIRED: No
RANDOM MISSION SCENARIO: Disabled
DESCRIPTION:
Everything needs repairs on occasion, but recently a call went out for mass renovations! Touching on all of the locations in Nohara no Kuni as a whole, this inwardly domestic renovation is an all hands on deck mission! Noth just for the shinobi, but all of the Ashigaru as well. Go out to a location and renovate the structures of the town with the materials you are provided.

[This mission is repeatable for each of Kusa's major locations. There is no order, but the locations are as follows: Kusa no Umi [Fort], Hisui no Heiya [Fort], Semi no Rakuen [Fort], Otama [City], Korogi Inaka [Fort], Daimyo no Kakato [Fort], Noraneko Bokujo [Fort], Kawauchi [City], Midori Oka [Fort], Ten'ei [City], Mogura Oka [Fort], Nokoribi [Fort], Kusagakure no Sato [City]]

[Note: Allies can join this mission]

Kumori is no longer wielding her wooden training sword, since it's served its usefulness, she's still wearing her old cheongsam outfit, though the pristine white color of it and the soft pink-orange color of the outfit's edges might seem a poor choice for a mission that mostly revolves around manual labor such as this one. She also still wears her armor, despite the fact that combat was not likely to occur at all in this mission. In place of her previous wooden training sword, she's now wielding the sword she'd had for a long time, though she hadn't had the strength to wield it effectively, along with an additional greatsword that she might use if she needed to, in a pinch. Both are simply strapped across her back; Nohara no Kuni was a mostly safe country, what with its very large Ashigaru population as well as a high number of shinobi, it would be exceedingly rare to run into trouble between villages or forts. Of course, it wouldn't do to be caught without her swords if a problem should arise.

She was also with Kojirou, who seemingly had a lot on his plate lately. Kumori mostly didn't pay him much attention, focused as she was on the job of watching as heavy stone is brought to the fort of Daimyo no Kakato, the Daimyo's Heel, in order to replace what remains of the wooden buildings with stone ones, as well as improvements to the surrounding walls. The day was warm, but not oppressively hot, but Kumori wanted to work in the morning or late in the afternoon, not around midday. There wasn't much she could do about it, though. The ravenette was just lucky that she'd been training to increase her strength, and now she should be able to assist quite readily with the job of renovating the fort. She turns back towards Kojirou, wanting to ask if he thought Saya would be all right by herself at the gate after the exams, then deciding against it. Although Saya had suffered quite badly in the combat rounds of the exams, she'd done quite well otherwise, so her return to Kusagakure was a celebratory one. She felt certain that Saya would likely rank up to Chuunin sometime soon, and so she wasn't too terribly worried; her friend had proven her combat effectiveness, so the gate was likely safe in her hands.

[Honō Kojirou]

To think that they were going to exchange all of the housing materials in the Daimyo’s Heel with stone… Kojirou felt that it was a bit overdoing it. Yeah, sure, it’d provide extra durability to things around, and you could never be too secured, but he hadn’t mastered any… Earth Release Jutsus yet. It was all lava, for now – and remember, he wasn’t the meathead in his gate team! At least… not physically.

That title would go to Kumori and her serious gains, and she made the job look easy! Kojirou put all of his focus and effort into aiding the lifting of heavy stones and keeping an eye out for potential troublemakers who didn’t appreciate the stone reconstructions. "Heave ho… heeeaaaaave ho!” he repeated to hype himself up, indirectly motivating the rest of the crew as only he could.

Kojirou… wasn’t wearing his red haori today. As a matter of fact, his outfit had changed drastically from before – instead of the very eye-catching, recognizable maroon haori, he was now clad a black, skin-tight turtleneck with a green cloth covering his leggings, on such cloth the kanji for ‘nine’ was woven. Not wearing a haori was meant to help him with the weather for the most part, especially when exerting hard labor, but it also revealed his bandolier of shinobi tools. It gave Kumori a glimpse into the swordsman musculature he usually kept hidden away under layers of threads.

"I-I think my muscles are growing as we speak, Kumori! I can feel it… I think- I mean, I hope!” he proclaimed with tears of joy, "I'm catching up to you!"

[Futago Kumori]

Kumori gives Kojirou a small smile when he repeats the orders to heave ho, finding it strange that he was no longer wearing his typical haori, and was now wearing a much tighter fitting outfit that did actually show that he was really quite strong. It was a wonder that she'd been able to disarm him even the first time during their spar, but she could assume that he'd been going easy on her. After all, although she had graduated with him, he'd been really going at it with his training, despite also working as only a gate guard for the better part of his Genin years. When he proclaims that he's catching up to her and growing stronger, she nods and smiles at him, and then playfully punches his shoulder, though she holds back quite a lot of her own natural strength to ensure she doesn't wound him.

"I can see it, you lunk! You'll have the ladies all over you soon enough, Koji-chan."

Despite the fact that they were both still only gate guards, Kumori was the type to still call her friend by a more diminutive honorific, although she would really only do it if she and her friend were in similar company. For now, she watches the workers bringing in stone, and she takes a deep breath before getting to work on some of the first few buildings, which had started the process of tearing down the previous wooden structure when necessary, though most were only having pieces removed, letting some of the wood framework remain and allowing stone to replace the external walls to provide additional protection from a potential siege. Kumori did the mental equivalent of rolling up her sleeves before she lifts some of that old lumber, carrying it from the fort and setting it aside. It could still come in handy, and if it didn't, at least it was out of the way and ready for transport to other places that might have need of more lumber.

[Honō Kojirou]

Kojirou still stumbled a bit to the side when punched on his shoulder, but he felt the jest nature of Kumori’s retort. He also couldn’t help but blush and close his eyes, imagining the amount of female attention he’d soon get – some thoughts ran here and there, not so pure-hearted thoughts popped in after a bit, and then that damn thief of all people made her way into his psyche, demanding all the attention for herself.

And then, all the silhouettes of admirers suddenly carried the face of a certain Hyūga girl he once met.

And then, he grew self-conscious and opened his eyes once more. "I’m not daydreaming about being popular with the girls!” he sternly proclaimed at no one’s request, only pulled back towards a real situation once a buzz rose concerning an elderly lady standing in front of her house.

"I’ve lived in this house for over 60 years! It hasn’t failed me yet! The noise from you workers might kill me before any siege will!”

Understandably, she was a very elderly lady who only reached to most people’s waists in height. "I’ll renovate it myself, if anything! Go help the others, I’m perfectly fine… *cough*” Yeah, textbook example of stubborn, but some other workers revealed that she was apparently an ex-kunoichi – and a pretty stupidly strong one at that. Her small stature betrayed her feats, such as having once trained by carrying a boulder on each arm…

…

Woah.

"A boulder on each arm?! Then why isn’t she helping?!” Kojirou asked a question born from sheer confusion, only to have another worker shut him down immediately: "She’s not what she used to be, sir… listen, somebody’s got to convince her, or she’ll get herself hurt.”

"I tried arm-wrestling her, but apparently, everything in her shrunk BUT her strength. Nearly tore my arm off, that day…”

[Futago Kumori]

Kumori can't help but to giggle a little at Kojirou's sudden outburst, knowing that if someone protests without a direct accusation, that it likely means that the protestation is untrue. Poor Koji-chan. Just as Kojirou's own attention is pulled in the direction of the scene, so too is Kumori's focus as well. As they move closer, they see an elderly woman insisting that she would do the changes to her own home herself, or there would be no renovation. This did not bode well for the success of the mission, but the ravenette listens to the description of how she'd once been a shinobi with quite a lot of strength when she'd been younger. She smiles a little again at Kojirou's inquiry about why she's not helping if she was so strong.

This sounds like there are two options here, but Kumori isn't sure if meeting strength with strength would be entirely necessary, and perhaps words could do all the heavy lifting for her. The swordswoman reaches over and pats Kojirou on the shoulder before lightly turning him aside and giving him a gentle push towards one of the other buildings.

"I'll see what I can do here, Koji-chan. This isn't an objective that needs both of us."

Her face takes on a grim countenance as she approaches the old woman, each step measured towards the older woman, but she takes a knee once she's reached a distance for normal conversation, refusing to speak over her as many might have, and instead looking her directly in the eyes in a show of mutual respect.

"I am Futago Kumori, from Kusagakure. Lady, your house has not aged nearly as gracefully as you have, despite all the hard work you've done to maintain its construction. With this house being made of wood, it is susceptible to fire should it be targeted with the siege weapons of our enemies, and even with your strength, the fire would eat you and then your neighbors. I ask that you use your strength to help us protect the citizens, one last time, for the successful completion of one more mission."

[Honō Kojirou]

Oh… Kojirou wasn’t afraid, he could at least try to arm-wrestle the elderly… but Kumori had other plans in mind, and she sounded pretty confident in her thoughts, so he wouldn’t object when being shoved towards another building. "Oki-dokey! I’ll go help over here then,” he reassured her before skipping on his jolly way towards what looked like a tavern that was in great need of new walls.

A round tavern wasn’t uncommon, but it was also wide and spacious. Upon a glance, he saw that the other workers used ropes with hooks to tear down the old walls, so he contributed with a couple handseals and manifested a bouncy, adhesive rubber rope which he lasso’d at an available wall to pull off. "HEEEEEAAAAAAAAAVE HO!!!” Kojirou repeated full of vigor in the distance of Kumori’s deal with the elder lady.

"Mhm… well, finally someone who grants me my due respect ‘round here,” the lady sighed with a slightly pointy nose up in the air, "As powerful as I am – especially compared to these pushover snobs – I never quite got good at handling Ninjutsu. Some sore loser could think to burn down my precious home… I-I mean, if he showed his face in front of me, he’d be dead or worse! I’d bend his spine like this… tie it up like a snare, then rip it in half with my bare hands…”

Oh… okay, she went into quite some… graphic detail about some of her past endeavors – what a violent kunoichi, she used to be. "… Nah, unlike these guys, I sense something very familiar within you. You don’t smell like a pushover… and you’re quite gorgeous, if I say so myself~! You remind me of myself in my days of yore, Miss Kumori.”

Further thinking from the elder lady followed before she’d decide: "For the sake of my past self – who would’ve probably scolded my current self – I’ll let them renovate my delicate house. But it got to look exactly the same as before! Or… almost exactly the same! Nearly exactly the same… yes, mhm, that’s what I mea-"

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-" Kojirou’s careless yell echoed through the air as he underestimated the weight of one of the walls that ended up slingshooting him across the air. Don’t worry, he survived the fall, but a few workers glared at the distant shinobi crossing the horizon only to dart back to continue the work.

"… Is… is he alright?”

[Futago Kumori]

Kumori at least acts like she's listening intently, although she allows her mind to wander only slightly whenever the elderly woman starts to carry on with some of her explanations. She's at least paying more attention than she's likely to have received for quite some time, if her speaking now was any indication of how little time others had given her to speak about herself before this point. She's also not the type to interrupt, especially when the woman was apparently really quite strong, or had been even stronger when she had been younger. Kumori stays aware enough of the conversation to at least understand the meaning behind her words, as well as her final decision to allow them to rebuild her home in stone, although she wants it all done the same as previous, or near enough.

She smiles brightly and is starting to thank her in gratitude for her permission to get the mission complete sooner rather than never when even the elderly woman gets interrupted, not by her, but by her own fellow gate guard flying through the air, having apparently not understanding the gravity of his work, as it were. Her eyes glaze over with the intensity of her forbearance when she's asked if Koji-kun is all right.

"No, he's not. But he won't be hurt, he's very quick to use his rubber jutsu to protect himself."

With that road block now cleared from their work, Kumori gets to work on some of the manual labor herself, overseeing where she needs to in order to make sure the work goes smoothly, but more often than not working herself with bringing down the wooden battlements to replace them with the much heavier stonework. She's focused intently on her work, giving Koji-kun a quick smile and a wave before she gets back to helping with the reconstruction efforts.

[Honō Kojirou]

Kojirou knew that landing from this height would spell his doom, so he weaved the necessary handseals to cast the Rubber Ball Technique. However, that was when he realized that his handseals would only barely make it in time, thus turning the glob of rubber erupting from his mouth into a trampoline that just launched him straight back up again. "W-Woaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” he howled excitingly, almost trying to control his flight as if he had any opportunity to, "W-Wait, lemme land over there! I got it!”

He should’ve been faster with his handseals, really. He remembered being faster than this… or was he too used to one-handed handseals?

Either way, the Rubber Ball containing the jolly swordsman managed to crash into a nearby stack used for firewood. And out, he strolled as if nothing had happened… continuing his job, but with much more caution than before.

That was when Kumori returned with a smile, and thus his own grew wider. "Yay, you did it! Now, her house will be just as safe as the others,” he reassured. Their continuous work and efforts escalated, however, as did any labour. At one point, an obstacle too large for just one of them would appear and show its ugly face…

A well was planned to be renovated. It was already made of stone, but its foundation was so mossy and muggy that it would poison the water, anyway. Kojirou was tasked with retrieving the fallen buckets and other lost items that were thrown to the bottom of the well, making sure that no important artifacts were lost before the well was ultimately pulled by its roots.

"S-So all I have to do is… climb down there… sure, I can do that,” Kojirou replied dutifully, unbeknownst to him that the worker who gave him the order… wasn’t actually a real employee. Yup. The group had already been sabotaged by one, discreet entity who wanted to delay the renovations if only a little bit, and someone as gullible as Kojirou was to be their first victim.

Kojirou climbed down the well, using his hands and feet to stick to the round wall. A few seconds passed before he reached the bottom, from which his echoing voice called up to Kumori: "Why are there so many snakes down here? There’s not even any sun for them to bathe in! Everyone, I’m climbing back up – stand clear, I got slithery friends with me!”

The other workers heard what he said and panicked, running clear off the well while the one ‘worker’ sweated and thought that his plan had already failed. That boy was meant to be bitten and hospitalized by the venomous snakes – instead, he climbed back up the well with half a dozen vipers coiled around his Hot-Blooded arms. People panicked a bit, while others thought that this was one more of those Ninjutsu skills that these shinobi possessed, and Kojirou eagerly explained: "They like heat, but the dark down there made them so sloppy and sleepy, so I heated up my arms with Nekketsukan! I think they like it. I’ll just take them over to the woods far away and come back, okay?”

The fake worker took this as an opportunity to run. His one plan had failed this miserably, and if anyone else saw him, they’d not recognize him and thus oust him as an intruder.

SPOILER: Click to show

NAME: Yōton: Gomudama [Lava Release: Rubber Ball]
RANK: C
CHAKRA USAGE: Low
CLASSIFICATION: Ninjutsu
ELEMENT: Yōton
DESCRIPTION:
The user expels a large glob of lava from their mouth, which quickly solidifies into a hollow ball as big as the user, that can be used to protect an object by surrounding it with the durable rubber-like material. The properties of this substance mean that it can both absorb and dissipate the force behind a blow when struck, resulting in it either deforming or bouncing upon impact.


NAME: Yōton: Nekketsukan [Lava Release: Hot-Blooded Man]
RANK: B
CHAKRA COST: High - Very High
CLASSIFICATION: Ninjutsu, Kekkei Genkai
ELEMENT: Yōton
DESCRIPTION:
With the channeling of chakra through out the user's body their affinity for lava release circulates through the user. The user's skin begins to harden and fragment in scattered places lightly resembling molten rock with small red surface veins of lava separating the fragments Ref. With this activated the excellerated body heat causes the user's heart to pump faster, circulating blood faster. The result is that the user's natural quickness and agility is three times better than what is originally was, this helps the body move at a faster pace. Due to unaccustomed body conditions this technique taxes the user's stamina greatly, and draws deeply on their chakra pool. Overexertion and overuse can cause the technique to fail and the user to pass out from exhaustion.

[Futago Kumori]

Kumori doesn't seem to find it too odd for Koji to have to go down into the well to find out if there's anything down there that might need saved before the well is reconstructed in order to ensure that the water it produces is clean and healthy for the people. What she does find odd is the fact that there are apparently a whole lot of snakes down at the bottom of a wet, cold, stone well, rather than to be someplace warm where they could sunbathe freely, and she turns her face towards the man that had originally insisted that Kojirou come down to the well in order to take care of the potential artefacts that might be down there, only to catch him trying to run away.

Kumori herself doesn't bother drawing her greatsword, and instead chases him down, picking up her pace in order to not only catch up with him, but to easily lift him up by the collar of his shirt, and then slam him face-down into the ground, instantly stopping him and causing his legs to curl over him so far that his own heel taps the top of his head before his body returns to a full horizontal position. Leaving him prone and crying on the ground, Kumori gets back to her feet in time to see Kojirou coming back out with his arms covered in snakes. Although the Futago shinobi was a girl, she'd been a resident of Kusagakure long enough to know that snakes tended to be harmless if one handles them with respect and care, and she's not so squeamish of them, although she recognizes that they're venomous. Still, it seems like Kojirou knows enough about snakes to not end up bitten, so she lets her fellow gate guard get to releasing the snakes back into the woodlands they'd probably come from.

Meanwhile, she's got a saboteur to interrogate, but when she uses her foot to kick him over and make him lay on his back, he's clearly been knocked out by the rough smash to his head on the packed earth. She sighs at the annoyance of having to wait for him to wake up, and decides that the local small jail can hold him until he can be officially questioned, instead. She easily lifts him with one arm and carries him off to the small jail of the fort.

At least when she returns, Kojirou is also on a return journey from the woods, and it seems that the replacement of wood with stone has been completed.

"Good work with the snakes, Koji-kun. I think our job here is close to done. Let's give it a quick look around to see if there's anything else that has to be repaired or reconstructed."

[Honō Kojirou]

”Okay, snake-kun – if you go this way, you’ll be far away from the others… that way, you won’t terrify kids or hurt anyone who steps on you,” Kojirou tried to warn snakes that didn’t even understand his language. He was optimistic – leave him be. "Just live your lives out in the woods and under the sun, just like you’re used to. Okay, I’ll take my leave… live well, everyone!”

The snakes were safe now – flora and fauna was maintained, in a way. These vipers would soon slither into the dark, rest on boulders when needing energy, catching prey with the venom that they were gifted, and reproduce as they had every right to. The Land of Fields was rich with wildlife, after all.

Upon his return, it seemed that every possible distraction had been taken care of – even the worker that he didn’t think about was gone. Huh, wonder where he went…

"Roger that! Hey, thanks for tagging along, I was a little bit nervous that I’d run into… or get myself into trouble again,” Kojirou admitted bashfully, scratching his temple in embarrassment, "But surprisingly, nothing too bad happened… o-okay, I flew for a second there- I had everything under control, though! I got plenty of skills to keep myself safe, you’ll see!”