| Girls Girls Girls [closed to Genma and Kaito] |
[Apr. 29th, 2009|02:10 pm] |
[Takes place March 20th, two days after Hit the Mark and the day after No Explanation Necessary.]
Kaito slept for twenty-four hours after he and Natsumi got home, woke long enough to take a piss and drink some water and then went back to sleep for another twelve. Another piss, more water, feeling his raw, over-used pathways finally starting to ease off, and more sleep. Eight hours that time, and when he woke the sun had set.
Kaito staggered down to the cafeteria, ate, and staggered back up the stairs to bed. He really hated soldier pills. They made his pathways sore--and he wasn't used to using his bloodline limit pathways for any length of time. They'd have been sore anyway, but add to that artificial chakra and... ugh.
At least they'd gotten Osamu home. He wondered what had happened to the guy afterward. ( Poor miserable bastard. ) |
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| Hit the Mark [Natsumi and Kaito] |
[Jan. 10th, 2009|10:35 pm] |
[[Takes place March 16, seven days after The Dogs Ate My Homework]]
The messenger hawk found Shiota Natsumi in the third ranged weapons training field, prying her arrows out of a wooden target already badly abused by the team of genin who'd used the range earlier that morning. She glanced up at its sharp cry, narrowing her eyes against the sun, and grinned in sudden delight. "A mission already?" Her father had warned her that in his day, rookie ANBU agents often waited weeks before they got their first assignments--but apparently things had changed in the last twenty years. The tattoo on Natsumi's right biceps had barely stopped stinging, and the abused skin still pulled a bit as she tugged the last arrow free and held up her hand to the hawk.
It swept in, dropped a sealed scroll in her hand, and surged up into the sky again. Natsumi tilted her head back to admire its flight, but her hands kept moving, slitting the seal with a thumbnail and unrolling the message it had brought.
A mission, as she'd guessed. B-ranked, which wasn't surprising; extraction, not assassination, which was. Natsumi skimmed the mission assignment quickly, then reread, with extra attention to detail. A Konoha Intel field operative stationed in southern Fire Country had missed a planned rendezvous with his pick-up, who'd somehow managed to relay the information back to the village. If the agent was still alive, Konoha wanted him back--quietly. And the Mission Desk had assigned a two-man team to do it.
They were supposed to meet at 1350. That left barely enough time for Natsumi to race back to her apartment, collect her newly issued gear, and make it to the meeting point at Konoha's north gates, and certainly not enough time to get any more information about what they were heading into. Her father had said newly minted rookies usually took their first few missions with an experienced veteran. Hopefully, this Morioka Kaito would know exactly what they were doing. |
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| The Dogs Ate My Homework [closed to Genma and Kaito] |
[Dec. 29th, 2008|10:42 pm] |
[Takes place two days after Hit the Bell Curve, three days after Ew, What's That Smell?, and five days after Empathy Is a Good Thing, Right?]
Genma's Sunday was proceeding along fairly typical lines for one without a mission. There had been getting up earlier than he would have liked, to go for a jog with Aoba. Actually before that there had been fumbling for clothes in the dark in an unfamiliar apartment, a hasty thank you and kiss goodbye, and tumbling into his own bed still smelling of--what was her name?--at a little after 0300. Getting up to run at 0730 had been, Aoba had informed him, his friend letting him sleep in.
Then there had been breakfast with a few of the guys. No Raidou, who had passed up this morning's activities because he was busy training with Kaito. Kaito, whom he'd rescued out of the civilian psych hospital two days before, he'd said. Which was not Genma's place to pass judgment on. There were as many ways to cope with stress as there were different ANBU masks, if not more. But he and Raidou had agreed that as coping mechanisms went, it was one of the odder ones.
(
It also reminded him that he'd given Kaito a homework assignment ) |
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| Hit The Bell Curve [Closed to Kaito and Raidou] |
[Nov. 6th, 2008|07:44 pm] |
[Takes place four days after Expletives Don't Cover It, the day after Dog of War Meets Puppy of Emo and Ew, What's That Smell?.]
Walking into the ANBU HQ was a bit like walking into the loony bin. Except that Kadan worked in the loony bin, and that wasn't nearly as stressful as this. This is where the functional loonies stayed.
The ninja at the desk stopped him before he even got through the lobby, asking what his business was. He held up the medical scroll like a shield.
When the ninja went to take it, Kadan yanked it back, appalled. "This is sensitive client-patient privileged information. Not for you." Sure, the shinobi could kill him, but he had ethics! Even if he was still only an orderly. "I'm here to see Namiashi Raidou, and no one else. So either let me through, or bring him down here."
Steel glinted. Oh Buddha, he'd forgotten about the crazy-killers part. He swallowed. "Please."
A moment later the ninja had sent a clone--freaky, that--and Kadan waited in the lobby hoping his intended target was a little more friendly. Damn Kaito, anyway. |
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| Empathy Is a Good Thing, Right? [closed to Genma, Arisa, and Kaito] |
[Oct. 24th, 2008|07:35 pm] |
[Set the morning after Expletives Don't Cover It, one and a half days after Better Than It Was]
Raidou was still recovering from his back injury, so he wasn't up for a morning spar. That was fine, Genma decided. After an invigorating but abbreviated run, since he was still getting over his cold, and a quick check that he didn't have any missions assigned, he opted to use his morning on mental pursuits for a change. After all, training was a continual process. You trained the body for combat. You trained the mind for analysis, intelligence gathering, seeing beneath the underneath.
It was totally a mental exercise, and not nosy curiosity, that sent him down to Intel at a quarter past ten.
In fact, it was a testament to his knowledge of the workings of ANBU's spooks and analysts, that he knew that there would be fresh coffee and donuts now, and that his inside source, Haga Arisa, would be taking a break from her duties as Mission Coordinator Level Two. Which was a fancy way of saying she was one of the powerful few who determined whether you got sent to Mud Country in the rainy season, or a cushy gig guarding a princess at the seashore.
This was just routine information gathering. After all, Raidou had said he'd been assigned to look out after this rookie Kaito as a specific mission. After he got his back sliced up rescuing the kid from some kind of capture on a seduction run turned bad. And he'd mentioned a genjutsu bloodline the kid couldn't control. These were all important things to know more about, since Raidou was his best friend, and Raidou had been saddled with this kid. It would undoubtedly fall to Genma to pick up the pieces at some point or another. Better to know what those pieces were going to be.
He slipped into the Intel lounge and sauntered up to Arisa, leaning over her shoulder to peer at the magazine she was perusing. "So what's gonna be the hot color for summer? Should I do my nails in teal?" |
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| Expletives Don't Cover It. [Closed to Raidou and Kaito] |
[Oct. 19th, 2008|04:34 am] |
[Takes place a month after Winner Picks Dinner, and the day after Other Such Expletives and Better Than It Was. Also four days after Give the Other Fella Hell and the same day as Tearing at the Seams ]
Raidou had to forgo his shower the next morning; it was far too much hassle with his bandages and stitches. Instead he washed up carefully at his sink, shaved by touch, and dug out one of his looser, softer t-shirts to wear.
His morning exercises he didn't skimp on, but he did take it slow. Kaito's rescue mission hadn't exactly been a bloody one, but it had left a few bruises. He dropped himself into a stance at one point, felt his back crack, and resigned himself to being an old man at twenty-four. With any luck someone would take him out before arthritis eventually caught up and bit him.
Roughly before nine, with the sun backlighting his apartment, he got to work making the promised pancakes with an absent eye on the door. It was anyone's guess if the kid would actually show up.
Half an hour later, he had a decent stack made and a half-formed idea about tracking Kaito down and dragging him out of bed...
( A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. ) |
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