ABOUT US

[kotori]

Date: June 1st, 3:33 P.M
Location: Iwagakure, Ishikabe's Hot Springs.

Kotori strolled to the appointed place, he walked in a normal fashion at a normal pace. Both his arms hanged above his arms as he stretched upwards. Sparkling green eyes looked at the clear blue sky, few could complain for a day like this one. The Sky was clear with no clouds in sight, it was mildly warm and there was a refreshing wind to cool people up if they were working up a sweat. Kotori wearing his regular attire save for his scarf was climbing up a row of stairs heading to the top of a hill, not exactly inside the village but very near. It was a thirty minute walk from the village to the hill and from the base of the hill to the top it was a little more than ten minutes, why was the effeminate boy climbing the hill? well it was to reach the famous inn and hot spring by the name of Ishikabe's Hot Springs.

The reason was not to have a very good afternoon relaxing and enjoying the very expensive food the restaurant inside the inn served. Today's reason for coming here was to fulfill a mission, now it wasn't the kind of mission to put one's life at risk or a memorable mission, enough to warrant that only two genin be assigned to it and have no Jounin to supervise them. Today's mission was to capture a gang of Japanese Macaque, those Red Butted monkeys. In particular this D rank mission was to target a nefarious pack of monkeys well known in the village, the Boku gang. The pack of monkeys consisted of seven macaques who every once in a while would stir mischief around the village, usually riding for food and doing vandalism. It always ended up with genin chasing them around the village and capturing them, taking them as far as possible and releasing them into the wild only to have them return a few years later and every time they returned they would be harder to catch almost as if they learnt from past mistakes.

Kotori's partner today was Kaera, whom was Chidare's Wan team mate. They had met a couple of times, gone in a couple of missions together and even ate lunch together with Shinshi and Wan. So Kotori wasn't as nervous as he normally was around girls, at least he was a little familiar with her and wouldn't turn into a mess of stuttering around her. Both Genin had agreed to meet outside of Ishikabe's place around three forty. The Gairon genin would have liked to arrive earlier but had been held back by his sister wanting attention, so now the bishounen was on time instead of early.

As Kotori reached the top of the stairs he came upon a huge building, the place was big enough to serve one hundred people and it was one of the fanciest hotels in town, also a highly touristic place, many travelers who could afford it would come here and others would just take pictures or relax in the saunas and natural hot springs.

"A-afternoon Kaera san!" Kotori said, waving his hand walking up to her talking in a friendly tone but ever delicate and timid voice. When he was near her there was a laud crash and the mix of a monkey's scream and laughing noise. Kotori smiled softly looking like he felt sorry for what ever the monkey had just broke or stolen "Ready for this?"

[Shiroyuki Kaera]

Kaera had been assigned a mission with Kotori who she knew throw Wan. They had been on a few missions together one either team needed another one to replace someone else. They had also met up a few time for meals throughout the city or trained together. She was not too thrilled about the mission at hand, but she was not going to worry about it now. It was payment in her pockets so she could help more at the house or spend it on herself.

She had gotten there before her teammate for the day and was looking around slightly with her hands in her pocket. She could hear the screaming monkeys and the people complaining that they were there. She shook her head slightly because she knew most of them had to be visitors to the village since more of the residences knew to avoid areas with these untamed creatures when they invaded the village.

She had take up the luxury of reading a few past missions that had been assigned the same mission in past years. It shocked her to find that her big brother had done the mission himself before he became a Chuunin. She tried to look back into her sister’s record for her doing this, but she came up empty on the spot. There was no way she could ask him how he had done the mission and the reports were lacking for the most part. She brushed it off as the village wanted to see how much they could do.

She sighed slightly and pushed the thought off the time of her mind as she heard her name being called from the distance. She turned to the voice and smiled slightly. ”Afternoon Kotori-kun.” It was a nice breather without Wan being there trying to grab either of them at the moment. She shook her head slightly at the thought of someone they knew being here.

She was about to comment about something else when she heard something crash onto the floor and a woman screaming like she had just lost a child or something. She reached up and scratched her head. [color=brown]”I don’t think there could be much of a prep for this Kotori-kun…troublesome monkeys that get away with breaking things…most places blame us Genin once we start to chase them if anything gets broken…which means that would cut our pay….”

She shrugged slightly at him and thought for a moment. ”Sooo any idea onto how to do this painless as possible?” She said with a smile.

[kotori]

The Gairon genin crossed his arms, nodding in understanding with Keara thought process that the more mess the monkeys while they tried to capture them the less pay they would receive. For Kotori it wasn't so much as an issue but the more money he got into his pockets then that would mean he could have more money to buy candy for himself and his little sister, regardless most of it was going to be stolen by his mother or aunts...

"We, could try capturing the leader" He said, in all too soft and gentle voice "Maybe if we do that the other Monkeys will disperse... or that would cause the monkeys to fight each other making more off a mess..." Said realizing the flaws in that plan. "Or we could, lure one by one and capture them, it could take a while but it would be better than chasing the monkeys one by one"

Kotori uncrossed his arms and placed them in his hips. There was a soft breeze and another loud crash as something very heavy fell on the floor. It was laud enough that the red haired boy cringed a bit. "Either way we should do something fast, before the whole place is wrecked"

Brilliant green eyes watched Kaera for a while, then the boy shifted his vision to the ground, then back at her. The finally turned his head toward the large hotel, this was going to be a long afternoon...

[Shiroyuki Kaera]

Kaera looked back to Kotori when he spoke about capturing the leader or trying to lure them each out one by one with trying to avoid any more damage to the site. She sighed slightly and reached up and scratched her forehead for a moment. Both suggestions could go completely wrong for the two, but it was worth a chance to take with the s called monkeys. Luring them out would most likely be the best course of action among the monkeys and the people inside the area.

She nodded slowly some and grinned. ”Luring them out sounds better. But we are going to need something to either put them in or at least one of us is going to have to remain here and make sure the others stay here in case they get out.” She did not like the idea of leaving the monkeys to roam completely free or the chance of someone else trying to get rid of the monkeys.

She looked back towards the building for a moment and smiled slightly to herself. She glanced back at Kotori. She grabbed the bag off her shoulder that she had brought with her and bent down and opened it up and tossing him a bundle of bananas. ”Thought these could come in handy with dealing with these things. It is worth a shot at least.”

She grabbed a banana from the other bundle in her pack and slipped it onto her back again. She stood up and peeled the peel from the banana. She decided to walk into the door. Once she was inside of it she saw a monkey hanging down from a bar over someone’s head. It was howling at the person. Kaera’s eyes turned on the person to see a name tag on them. She winced some as she saw that it was someone that worked there.

The woman rounded on Kaera once she saw the headband. “YOU GET THESE THINGS OUT OF HERE NOW!!! YOU’RE LATE!! THERE NO EXCUSE FOR THIS!!”

Kaera narrowed her eyes on the person for a moment. ”If you learned how to deal with these creatures yourself than you will have no issue working here, now would you? Go help your customers and allow me and my friend to get to work. If you are going scream at me than you can deal with this thing…”

The monkey had drawn its attention to Kaera and smelt the banana in her hand. It pulled itself up onto the bar and walked over to be standing under Kaera and jumped onto her shoulder and reached for the banana in her hand. It was not howling anymore.

Kaera raised her eyebrow slightly at the creature and let go of the banana. She watched it take it and sit on her shoulder and ate it. ”See. One down. Point us in the direction of the others will you?”

The woman looked frustrated at Kaera and pointed down the left area. “Hurry up. I am running a business here.”

”And I would rather be doing something more useful than cleaning up your hell, but sadly I am stuck.” Kaera said calmly and walked towards where the woman was pointing. She left the monkey on her shoulder for now. It was calm.

[kotori]

"W-well if needed I could use one of my barriers or doton techniques to trap them... I heard they are pretty good at getting loose from ropes or getting out of cages, anyway first lets just see how bad things are" Kotori said, as he watched Kaera dig around her backpack, he smirked when he watched and awkwardly caught bundle of bananas "Great minds think alike eh?" he said, chuckling softly as he handed back the bundle he wasn't about to throw something at Kaera, although he was careful not to let his fingers touch Kaera's if that happened he would furiously turn red, next Kotori revealed that in his backpack he had a slightly smaller bundle of bananas. Kotori followed Kaera inside. He consciously stayed three steps behind Kaera he being too embarrassed by the notion of walking side by side next to a girl. The place was fancy, real fancy this was only the third Kotori had come to the place so he was still impressed by the luxury of the building. As they reached the lobby and a source of hellish screeching "Oh-ho" Kotori said, when the woman noticed the pair he winced as she yell at them. However, Kaera did not and calmly replied back telling the woman to shut it because they weren't unable to deal with the monkeys. Kotori thought both that Kaera was a bit too harsh but at the same time strong and gutsy to say that so naturally. Kotori was never able to say something like that to anyone, not even in his imagination.

The monkey smelt the banana and to a slight surprised it climbed to Kaera's shoulders and took it, cheerfully nibbling at it. At this point the rogue band of monkeys seemed less threatening than Kotori had anticipated. "Thats nice" Kotori said, following Kaera and the monkey further inside but not before bowing to the lady before keep moving on.

Next they reached a lounge, there was no one here save three monkeys plus the one in Kaera's shoulder. Two monkeys were banging at a fridge and the other was looking at itself with a mirror. Kotori knelt opening his backpack, as he was taking out two bananas the monkeys homed right in into his bundle, the genin felt the preassure in his back, he looked up at all four monkeys were in the air above him, a hungry look in their eyes as they threw themselves at Kotori and his bananas...

"EEEeeeek!" was all that Kotori stuttered as he watched the monkeys in the air, they were very fast for monkeys. Three went for the backpack and one went for Kotori.

It landed on his back and it pulled at Kotori's shirt dragging him to the floor. Kotori, got up but the monkey was still in attached to his back laughing, or at least making laughing noises Kotori began running around "Get it off, get it off!!" he squealed.

[Shiroyuki Kaera]

Kaera did not mind telling the woman off like she did. She had to deal with her older sister’s attitude all the time, but she was not about to deal with someone being ungrateful towards her for being a few minutes late to come up with a plan to deal with the chaos her business was going under. She felt she and Kotori needed to be on the same page in handling the monkeys before going off and attempting doing something that could potential cause more damage.

She decided not to mention on how Kotori remained silent and bow to the woman in charge of the place. It was not her place to scold someone or to try and change their ways. She knew some would show the respect for elders and she was usually the one, but with an attitude like that Kaera had not place for respect with how she was brought up with her sister and being assigned to her team.

Kaera reached up causual and petted the monkey behind the ear as it ate the banana. She walked into the room and scanned the area and saw the four monkeys going crazy. She dropped her hand and watched as the monkeys started to hover around Kotori because of the bundle of banana and then it happened a few attacked the bag and the other one jumped onto the boy’s back and bringing him down to the ground.

She herself had to pull her hand to cover her mouth as she started laugh at the boy’s reaction to the monkey on his back. She was not sure if she should help Kotori or not at the moment. She decided to wait for a moment and watch him get up and started to scream about getting it off him. She glanced to the other monkeys in the room as they looked up and tilted their heads for a moment and then went back to attacking the bag. They seemed busy for the moment and didn’t seem to be going to join their friend.

”You know you are squalling like a little girl that just had a bug flew on her….and that…is ten times bigger than a big….” Kaera said through laughter.

She walked towards Kotori has he ran passed her and grabbed the animal off his back. She had to tighten her grip on it to make it let go of Kotori, but she pulled it off him all the same. The monkey in her arm looked outrage for a moment, but then was handed a banana that she had pulled out of her bag.

”So they are responding well to bananas…and apparently to your girlish charm Kotori. Keep it up.” She giggled and looked back at three near the packs. ”This might be a good chance to use that doton trap you spoke of or something….I don’t think they are going to let you anywhere near that pack of yours for awhile…” The first monkey was calmly still chewing on his banana while the other one she had grabbed off Kotori’s back started on their own banana.

[kotori]

Kotori ran around, trying to grab the ape that was pulling on his shirt. It was true that the way the genin was acting it was pretty much like how a little girl would act when an insect flew into their hair. Except that Kotori had a small primate hanging from his back, which in a way was worse than a bug stuck in his hair. The Gairon boy was to busy with the macaque to hear Kaera's laughing.

When finally Kaera had her fill of the poor distressed Kotori, she effortly picked the monkey of the back of the femenine looking boy with one divisive jerk. The macaque complained, and Kotori who sat down to calm himself from the uproar gave the monkey a bitter look.

"Maybe they are responding too well to them" Kotori replied, a bit out of breath as yelling "Get it off, Get it off" and the wailing around took its toll, Kotori wasn't tired just working his poor little heart out of the shock of being bullied by a monkey. "Ah, I would feel better if they were scared of me" Kotori, complained a bit sadly. He stood up and gave another bitter look at the group of monkeys that had destroyed his backpack. "This mission would be a cakewalk if Shinshi was around" Kotori said, rather softly and turned his attention to the monkeys

Kotori cracked his fingers and began to work through a set of handseals "I got something better for these troublemakers" Kotori said finishing his handseals, and pointing his right hand at the group of monkeys. Chakra gathered in his hands and it shot a blue circle made of chakra. Before the monkeys could react the circle made a soundless impact and it turned into strings of chakra that grabbed all four monkeys at the same time. Kotori clapped twice in excitement as he watched the monkeys struggle trying to get free.

"Ha! that should teach you a lesson" Kotori exclaimed excited. Before grabbing one end of the strings and began dragging the four monkeys "I'll take them outside and prepare the trap... I think its best if you lure them out" Kotori stopped and looked at Kaera, he hoped that she agreed to that idea he wasn't looking forward to being assaulted by the macaques again

[Shiroyuki Kaera]

Kaera watched Kotori catch his breath from screaming at the top of his lungs. She was a bit surprise that the lady in charge did not rush in here and start screaming at the two of them about the noise. She was thankful for her not doing that because there was no telling what that would make the monkeys that they had at least gather do to her or them at that point. The less noise the better she thought.

The two monkeys on her shoulder continued to eat their bananas as Kotori made the comment about his teammate Shinshi. ”Yea sucks that he not here to help with this mess or Wan for that matter. It would be funny if the monkey charged at Wan for doing something stupid or something.” She shrugged carefully and watched Kotori make the chakra ball and strings come out and grabbed a hold of the monkeys around the neck. She giggled mainly at Kotori’s reaction when they were captured. She shook her head some. ”Calm down there kid there still a number of monkeys to go before this job is done.”

She watched Kotori when he went to walk past her and then paused when he suggested that she lured them out while he worked on the trap. He looked pathetic at the thought of coming back in the hot springs and dealing with the monkeys. She couldn’t help but giggle and threw her arm around his shoulders. ”Actually I think I am going to let you deal with all the little monkeys alone. Listening to you scream your little head off like a little girl was funny.”

She laughed slightly and shook her head some. ”Actually if I did that I think I would be working here for the rest of my life cleaning up your mess. You deal with the traps. I will lure these things out so you can capture them.” She withdrew her arm. The first monkey had not been captured by the chakra string so he stayed on Kaera’s shoulder as she left the room looking for more of the monkeys.

Kaera reached and held out another banana to him to keep him calm and happy on her shoulder as she pulled another door open and saw two more monkeys in this room. She glanced around for a moment to see one hanging by its tail and swinging with a vase in his paws. The other one was under the desk and was trying to eat a fake banana from a fruit basket. ”Now wonder why they are all upset…there no real fruit here for them to eat.”

She sighed and watched to two monkeys. One the one hanging caught sight of her it threw the vase at her. She caught it without much trouble and glared slightly at the monkey. ”Naughty monkey you better be glad that this is just a cheap vase they brought to lighten up this room…” She had recognized the pattern on the vase from one of the venders from the market.

[kotori]

"Heh, if Wan was here I bet they catch some of his groper nature" Kotori giggled "Or things would get worse" He said, a bit more seriously but still in a joking tone. Making fun out of Wan was an easy thing to do around Kaera, even though they had been surpassed by Wan during the exams and out of the four was the only one to be promoted for Chuunin, they were still the same age group and in good enough terms that such joking could take place. It also helped that Wan hadn't changed that much, sure he looked a little smarter and more mature now thanks to his training with the chickens but he was the same guy inside.

Kotori dug his hands into his pockets and retrieved four blank tags showing them to Kaera "Just get all the monkeys to come out the main door and I'll do the rest" Kotori was planning on using his Minor Style Barrier to catch each of them in one swoop. With his free hand Kotori waved a temporary goodbye and wished Kaera good luck, not that she really needed it if anything she had plenty of it to spare. The bishonen then proceeded to drag the four monkeys by the end of his chakra rope and outside. Passing through the reception Kotori found that the screeching woman was still there, she still didn't looked pleased.

"Mmph!Well at least you are THAT useless"

"A-Ah... Don't worry madam w-we'll get them in a second"

"You better, I'm still considering if I should even pay you"

"Oh no..." Kotori gulped down a bunch of saliva and instantly regretted leaving Kaera's side, he was no good dealing with angry people, or people looking for a fight or women, specially angry women. "Please don't do that madam" Kotori said, quickly closing his eyes and bowing his head "We will deal all of the monkeys soon, if not then feel free to not pay me but don't cut my friends share!"

"Hmm" The landlady's voice sounded confident, assured and secure. "You got ten minutes or I'm not paying either of you" The woman was probably smugging a smile. "Y-you don't want to do that madam!" Kotori said, shooting his head up and his vibrant green eyes locking with that of the lady. "I-if you do that, then you not only hurt our pride as Shinobi but you also hurt any potential of further employment and you will look bad, you will not only look unreliable and like a cheater in the village but to outsiders! this is a place that thrives on travelers but what happens when they hear that you cheat even your employees!" Kotori spoke, there lay one of his redeeming qualities. Kotori wasn't the type of person that argued, he was the type of person who quickly thought up solutions or potential and sensible solutions to any problem, rather than complain he acted... at least when things were bad.

"BAH, do what ever you want" The woman said, obviously angry and insulted that now she had been scolded twice by children. "Don't worry madam, this will be over soon" Kotori bowed again and then dragged the monkeys out as quickly as he could.

Kotori took a mouthful of air, and breathed a couple of time to relax. "Well then, time to set up the barrier" Kotori drew from his pocket the four blank tags. He put his middle finger inside his mouth and bit as hard as he could. He winced a little from the pain but continued until his teeth went through the skin, he sucked a little to get the blood flowing and began drawing a circle in each sheet of paper.

He checked the sky, looking for the north and each cardinal point. When he found them, the Genin quickly arranged each tag to face at each point. He dragged the monkeys in the middle of the perimeter of the barrier and sat on the floor looking at the door. When the monkeys got out they would get a nasty surprise...

[Shiroyuki Kaera]

Kaera had to shake her head some and laugh at Kotori’s remark about Wan and his need to grope everything that had an ass. Wan was suppose to be the mature one now since he unlike her had made it to the next level. Did she regret her choice in the exam? No, because it just went against her morals as a shinobi to start with. She knew for sure anyone of her loved ones would never do something like that. Not after the war especially when the countries was still trying to get on about their lives. She was proud of Wan for all that he had done so far, but was not going to tell him that. She did not need him to be feeling her up.

She nodded at Kotori when he had showed her the barrier seals and told her the plan once she had gotten the monkeys outside. She had walked off and ran across two more monkeys. Kotori had four fight now and she had three here. That meant they had seven monkeys all together so far. She walked out of that room and reached into her pouch and closed the door and placed a seal on it so if it was forced open it would explode. It would require her chakra, but this was supposed to tell her what rooms had monkeys left inside of it. A number two appeared on the seal as well.

She moved to the next room down the hall and spotted one monkey. She sealed that room and did the rest of the room. In total there were five rooms with monkey left in it. First room had two, second room one, third room four, fourth room two, and the fifth room had six monkeys. It was going to be the sixth and third room that was going to be the most trouble with that many creatures lurking in there. It would be better if she rounded up the ones with the fewer numbers and lure them outside first.

She bent down and stared down the hall for a moment think of a way to succeed in a mission like this. Jutsu was out even her genjutsu because she could casted it on a paying customer and the owner would start to yell at her for it. Moving fast was out as well considering a monkey was perched on her shoulder and she did not want to mess with it. It seemed happy enough to be there and there was no point in removing it just yet if she did not have too.

”You know I have seen the banana trees that grow in your home…why do you guys come here every here for these things…” She muttered to herself and closed her eyes for a moment. She got up and walked back towards the entranced and saw the lady glaring at her for carrying the creature on her shoulder like it was a pet.

She said nothing and stopped for a moment. She knew Kotori was expecting monkeys to come out and it would be dangerous for her to move outside without knowing if his jutsu would affect her. She turned around and looked at the woman slightly and raised her eyebrow slightly. ”You would rather keep the monkeys out of here forever correct?”

“Yes, but that would be a dream wont it?”

Kaera shrugged slightly. ”Might and might not. I have placed chakra seals on the five remaining rooms with them. I gave them reach a handful of banana and it should calm them down for about an hour or so. I am going to find out what is causing these monkeys to come here every year. Give me and my teammate about an hour please.”

The woman looked annoyed at her, but in the end she agreed. When Kaera asked to used the backdoor to the building she took her there.

Kaera walked outside and out front of the building and stopped Kaera. She walked over and grabbed his hand for a moment. ”Come on change of plans. We are going to grab my dad and he going to come with us to see what is up in the woods that they dwell in. Something is bothering them.”