[Suzuki Tsubasa]

Whoever this Fuchizaki Kaze person was sure seemed to cause the village a lot of stress. This wasn’t the first time Tsubasa had seen this mission on offer but it certainly was the first time she’d picked it up personally. Realistically she should have organised to do this with a team member or some other member of the village to make the job easier but recent events had got it in her head that getting out and doing something on her own might not be the worst idea. Considering the point of the mission was to catch, not kill, the chicken, the girl had left most of her weapons back at home bringing only her easy to run in outfit and headband.

Hopefully it would be simple enough mission though she was prepared to put in a little extra effort. The first port of call was the most logical one at least. Tsubasa had arrived at the requestor’s house, spoken to them about how the chicken had escaped, then followed the little chicken scratches along form the exit and into the village proper. How this ‘Ikuko’ chicken had escaped was anyone’s guess, but to Tsubasa it sort of looked like it had snipped some wire holding the pen together and squeezed through a hole that a normal chicken just wouldn’t try to squeeze through. This certainly was going to be an interesting mission.

[Suzuki Tsubasa]

Following along the light chicken scratches was a little tricky. Tsubasa wasn’t exactly the most perceptive of genin, so it really took a lot of effort to keep on track the path the chicken wandered through the streets before her. From time to time it was obvious the little escape artist had jumped up onto raised platforms and stalls, causing the trail to suddenly disappear and making the girl search around it desperately for the continuation. A few times she even though the Ikuko-chicken might be hiding atop a cart and climbed up awkwardly, only to spy the scratchy footprints wandering off in some other direction which sent her scurrying off again.

It was honestly good luck that her target’s path was just easy enough to follow that despite the constant near-losses along the way, Tsubasa was still on the trail of the creature. After a while she got used to the fact that the chicken didn’t end up being on top of the different carts and houses that the scratches ended next to, so she’d just pace around the block until she found more scratches and continue following along the path. And follow she did, around and around the village for a while until she passed a familiar looking cart for a third time and finally registered that something was up.

[Suzuki Tsubasa]

Considering she was there already, and had no idea where to go next in her hunt, Tsubasa decided to pause at the store and purchase an apple. Such fruits weren’t always readily available in the village so the girl jumped on a chance to try something sweet while she figured out her next move. This chicken was good. She had no idea where it had possibly disappeared to and couldn’t tell if it was intentionally running in circles or had just sent her on a wild chicken chase for the fun of it and was now sitting somewhere to watch her. Heck, she didn’t even know if it was aware she was out here looking for it, so maybe just climbing something tall herself was the answer to figuring out this question?

Getting up on top of something was an arduous task for someone who hadn’t had a chance to even train in the basics that were expected of other genin of her experience level. She actually had to manually climb walls, seek out ladders, and flail around the place looking like an idiot until she could finally hoist herself up onto something high enough to actually see from. Surely the chicken had to be out there somewhere, and if it was running in circles, surely it’d end up passing her soon. Tsubasa sat down on her rooftop perch, apple in hand, and started an impromptu lunch break as she stared out across the nearby streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of this elusive Ikuko.

[Suzuki Tsubasa]

Once the apple was gone, and the core was placed carefully to one side so she wouldn’t end up knocking it off the roof, Tsubasa got back to her feet and started trying to look around at the stress more seriously. She didn’t exactly have any good recognisance gear or anything like that on her so the best she could do was shade her eyes as she gazed out intently at the roads beneath her. Surely there’d be some sort of movement. The chicken running, something out of place that got knocked down by the chicken… running, or even just some sort of person-based disturbance where someone was shooing away the chicken from something it wasn’t supposed to be accessing.

None of these things seemed to be the case however and Tsubasa ended up playing silly with her hands, pretending they were advanced binoculars or something that let her zoom in and see/understand what was going on around her. She started making up stories in her head about the people on the streets, these ones were star crossed lovers, those ones were haggling over secret information, that one there was a chicken stealing from the cart of the nice person she’d just purchased fruit from. A very distracted mind that should have been better focused on what was right there in front of her.

[Suzuki Tsubasa]

She only registered that the fugitive poultry was there when it had made off with its ill gotten goods. She was in no real position to charge after it however as she had to carefully climb down from her perch, after picking up and storing her apple core of course. No one wanted a dirty village. By the time she’d finally, and overly carefully for a ninja of her experience, removed herself from the rooftops and made it back down to the street level the fowl beast was long gone and she had to try and retrace the steps she saw it taking before climbing down.

First things first she put her litter away before approaching the apple seller and seeing if they’d even noticed the tiny thief. After a short discussion confirming they had noticed a few pieces of fruit disappearing, but hadn’t seen what exactly had stolen it, Tsubasa set off on the trail of the chicken once again, greatly inspired by her desire to bring the little shoplifter to justice. This time she wasn’t only relying on the scratches it’d left behind, but the rolling groove of a stolen apple in the dust and dirt that lined the street.

[Suzuki Tsubasa]

This time there was no escaping her. Tsubasa followed the rolling apple shape along a familiar track of chicken scratches, no longer getting distracted by anything else and listening out for the telltale sound of a chicken eating something. Assuming that was actually some sound that they made, she wasn’t really familiar with chickens after all. Eventually the scratches continued on, but the obvious change in path of the apple made her realise the fugitive had run into a suspiciously dust-free alley that she hadn’t noticed earlier. The little fruit wrangler had to be further in, she couldn’t see it from here, but there was a bend further up that she slowly approached and carefully peeked around before letting out a very soft gasp.

There, sitting in front of the stolen fruit was the goofiest looking chicken she’d ever seen, which wasn’t saying anything considering the very limited sample size she had access to. It seemed to be eyeing up the apple at multiple angles as though it were trying to figure something out before letting out a startling ‘bwak’ and charging at it with its beak, chopping the fruit into multiple little pieces with its beak. Tsubasa’s mind immediately flashed back to the broken fence as she realised how exactly Ikuko had escaped its yard. Not only had it squeezed through the hole, but it had used its awkwardly sharp beak to make it!

[Suzuki Tsubasa]

While the chicken was distracted with its now easily peck-able and tasty treat Tsubasa slowly crept back from the corner and started thinking carefully about how she should approach the situation. She didn’t exactly have a sack or anything to stick the thing in, not that she thought she could after seeing that beak in action, but maybe if she was extra careful she might be able to use something? The genin slowly and, as quietly as she could muster, removed her jacket. It wasn’t nearly as padded and defensive as the kind of gear a chuunin or other shinobi might consider wearing, but it was better than nothing in a situation where nothing was her only other option.

Tsubasa cautiously approached the corner again, holding her jacket up so that the neck was facing upwards in hopes that she could wrap the chicken up in the main bulk of the jacket and then just hold its head away from her. The idea was that the head would be unable to rip the jacket apart or peck at her soft, delicate hands. When she saw that Ikuko was indeed face down in the cut up apple pieces still the girl slowly slipped around the corner and moved carefully so as not to cast a shadow. Slowly but surely she approached the chicken before finally jumping forward and half throwing her jacket onto it in a desperate attempt to suddenly cover more distance.

[Suzuki Tsubasa]

The surprise attack worked, at first. Tsubasa was able to get the jacket over the top of the chicken, pin its head down in just the right angle so it couldn’t peck at the cloak, then she felt something shifting under her weight. Luckily for the chicken she wasn’t trying to harm it, so it was able to slip its head out pretty easily before she could try and bundle the rest of the jacket up to hold it in place. As such it very quickly struggled it’s way out from under her, backing away from the genin as she was still trying to pin down the jacket before she could even figure it out.

If the creature weren’t so chuffed with itself that it let out a self-satisfied bwak, she probably would have lost it then and there. Thankfully, this alerted the girl to her failure and she was able to jump to her feat and spin on the chicken once again. Tsubasa lunged after it as it started to run, but now Ikuko was alert to her actions it escaped her grasp without much effort and started running off down the alley and back onto the main street. After jumping back onto her feet from that failed pounce the girl steadied herself and started running after the villain, putting her jacket back on as she ran.

[Suzuki Tsubasa]

The chase was finally on. With the spry chicken in her sights Tsubasa was quick on her feet, but not nearly as quick as the chicken. It took advantage of its tiny form, ducking under things to evade the genin’s grasp and slipping around corners with great agility. At first all she could really do was try to keep up, scampering and lunging at inopportune times while Ikuko ducked, weaved, and caused her to slam face first into the side of a cart that it ducked beneath. One impromptu bandage to her own face later and she was on the creature’s tailfeathers again.

While the chicken was smart enough to duck and weave and rung around the place like crazy, it was still a chicken. The one advantage Tsubasa had over the thing was that she had a large, human sized level of energy, while the chick was indeed a simple chicken, and she’d interrupted its snack time. Slowly but surely she would be catching up on the critter, forcing it to put on extra bursts of energy as it continued to play keep away, burning through all the energy it had as quickly as possible. Admittedly, it had taken her most of the day to get to this point but at least she almost had it in her grasps.

[Suzuki Tsubasa]

The final nail in the coffin that shut down Ikuko’s escape was something that never should have occurred in relation to a chicken: Humans were persistence predators. And when it came to persistence, Tsubasa had a lot of it. It didn’t matter how much the little chicken dodged, weaved, or escaped her grasp, eventually it was going to run out of energy. Even as the genin started to slow down she was still keeping pace, and it was finally getting dark as she finally caught up with the chicken as it stood there, breathing hard and trying to take even another step away from her.

Tsubasa gently scooped the little thing up into her arms and softly fended off the weak little pecks attempts it made. Then it was simply a matter of carrying the poor little thing in her arms as it tried to recover its energy as she walked it home. Considering how far their chase had taken it actually was dark by the time she knocked on Fuchizaki Kaze's door and handed over the fugitive. She noted the hole in the fence she’d found, made suer to help them clean things up and make it more difficult for the chicken to escape via that particular method in the future. Then she bid the two farewell, making sure to wave to the tired little chicken as it sat in the yard again, looking half dead for exhaustion after their little adventure. Sure it took her way too long to get a really basic task done, but at least it was done.