Finding the lost dog [Akihiro, Mission]

Spoiler:

Sachiko waited patiently for the other genin to show up, leaning against a wall near the Training Grounds. She'd been told that the dog, Chinatsu, had last been sighted somewhere around the training grounds, so she figured they could start at the First Training Ground, and move in from there, as this one was the smallest, and probably would be the easiest to find it.

She didn't expect that they would find the animal there though, as her time in the wilderness taught her that animals liked to hide where there were fewer people and more open space. Still, it couldn't hurt to try, as she didn't know as much about domesticated animals, and their tendencies.

She wore one of her usual outfits, her chest bound as per normal, with a short sleeved mesh undershirt over that, and a red tank top over that. Her pants were simply black, and she had chosen to forgo shoes and her usual wrist wraps, as gripping the ground and feeling around would be much more necessary than it was for training.

Her headband was tied to her belt, as she didn't like that it could slide down her face if on her head, and putting it around her neck was dangerous as even though it provided some protection there, if someone grabbed it, or it got caught on something, then she'd be in potential danger. Besides that, it reminded her of an animal with a collar on it when she wore them that way, and she didn't necessarily like collared animals. This mission was irritating to her in a slight way, but the animal they were trying to find was a tiny dog, not fit for being in the wilderness. It was a dependent creature that couldn't hunt and survive on its own.

Akihiro arrived at the training grounds wearing his usual work attire: Back...well, everything, really. He wore a black shirt with the Uchiha Clan symbol on his back, black pants, and black ninja sandals. It was a simple choice of outfit, probably the simplest the Uchiha clan district's tailor had to offer. But Akihiro wasn't one for picking fancy outfits or spending a long time choosing his clothes: he knew black went well with everything, so he wore a lot of black colored stuff. Additionally, his legs were covered with bandages from his knee down, over the pants. This was because the pants he was wearing were too long for his short body. His long hair fell behind his back, partially tied with bandages to form a ponytail. His arms were also covered in yet more bandages from his elbows to his wrists. Around his waist, Akihiro wore a white strip of clothing, again to keep his shirt in place.

"Hey." he smiled and waved at the girl who was already there waiting for him. Akihiro was pretty sure he wasn't late, so the girl must have arrived earlier. "I'm Akihiro." he introduced himself. Then, wondering about the mission they were going to do, a question popped up in his mind.

"So, do we even know what this dog looks like?"

Before long, a boy approached her, and Sachiko nodded at him, raising a hand awkwardly to wave before putting it down without even waving. "I'm Sachiko." she said in response.

"The dog, it's... um... small dog. We can look for small dog." she said, a little off put by the question. She wasn't sure what he meant, it looked like a dog. It was dog shaped, so of course it looked like a small dog. "Can't be too many dogs here." she motioned to the training grounds, giving the boy an odd stare. She wasn't the brightest around, but he wasn't even thinking about it at all.

"Start here, and make way through to second and third training grounds if it isn't here, until we find a dog." She nodded her head, as if to say it was a good plan.

Akihiro listened to the girl and was a bit surprised at her awkward waving if one could even call that a waving. Unsure of what to do about it, he moved on, curious to know whether or not they had more information about the dog. She seemed a bit put off by his question, but Akihiro couldn't really understand why. That it was a small dog, he could tell from the "tiny" adjective in the mission description.

"Well, yeah I suppose we could do that." he replied. "But do we, hum..know the color of its fur? A name the dogs answers to? Has he ran away and been found somewhere before?" Akihiro made these questions but he wasn't really waiting for an answer. There were plenty of people at the training grounds, scattered all around, throwing weapons and practicing jutsus. It wasn't exactly the safest environment for a tiny dog.

"Well, nothing we can do about it I suppose. Let's start searching." Akihiro stated this and moved forward to the east side of the training ground to begin his search for this lost pet.

"Oh. Dog's name is Chinatsu." she replied, having not thought to tell him. To be fair, she'd assumed he had known what the dog was called, but she shouldn't do that. "Don't really know anything else. Small, Chinatsu. Dogs like meat. Shade and grass usually too. Water for drinking."

She gave a little information about animals that she'd picked up on while growing up with a wolf pack, as that's what they tended to do. It wasn't just them, of course, other animals did so too, but dogs were domesticated from wolves, so still had some of the basic instincts of their ancestors, as those were ingrained survival tools. They'd lost some, but those ones would exist as long as they were still capable of dying.

She followed along with Akihiro, keeping a wide sweeping gaze over the crowd, not looking for anything in particular, but looking for small movements of anything small in the corners of her eyes. When looking for something hiding, it was the peripherals that would help the most, as they caught even the smallest of movements. Of course, with all the people training, it would make it a little more difficult, but eventually she would get used to their movements and find a deviation from them to pick up on.

The search went on for a couple of hours while the duo walked around the training grounds looking for clues and other possible indications of the dog's presence. Truth to be told, they were looking for the dog itself, but since it was nowhere to be found they were left with no options other than look for proof of its presence.

Unfortunately, it seemed like not even that they were able to find. It seemed like the dog had never been there at all, or at least that Akihiro didn't possess the skills required for tracking down this small animal. He sighed, growing tired of looking around with every passing minute. He glanced back at his companion. "Hey, you see anyth-"

But before he could finish his phrase, his eyes noticed movement behind a small bush. Hoping to end this quickly, Akihiro jumped right at it, intent on catching his prey. And he did, the only problem was that this wasn't the prey they were hunting. Akihiro would rise up from the bush, holding a small white animal by the back of its neck.

"It's just a rabbit...Don't suppose we could make it pass for a dog, huh?"

Even though it wasn't the dog Chinatsu, Sachiko was quite impressed. To be honest, she hadn't expected him to be able to catch a rabbit at all. They were fairly fast, and weren't necessarily the easiest to catch. "Don't think it would, no." she agreed. Dogs and rabbits didn't look the same, and though it was small, it was clearly no dog. Frowning, she walked up to a few people asking the same question until she found an answer that she wanted.

"Seen a small dog here?" she asked over and over again. For quite a bit of the answers, she was ignored, or given answers in the negative. One of the people was moderately helpful in pointing her in a direction, but didn't provide much more of an answer than she already suspected. At least it was verification that the dog was still in the Training Grounds.

She moved back towards the Uchiha boy, and nodded deeper into the grounds. "Dog's deeper in I think." she conveyed her information to him, short as it was. She wasn't the most talkative, but it wasn't that she didn't want to be, she just wasn't all that good with words, and so she kept her conversations rather short more often than not.

Akihiro was a bit surprised at the lack of words coming from his teammate's lips. He knew they were on the job and not having a coffee, so they weren't there exactly to talk. But it's not like they couldn't talk at all, so Akihiro couldn't help but wonder why she was so quiet and only spoke enough to pass on the essential information for the mission.

The boy wondered if he'd done anything wrong to offend her, but after repeating the scenario about five times in his head he concluded he'd done nothing he could think of and so decided to assume the girl was simply shy. He watched her go to a girl who was practicing a kunai throw, and after a few moments and a short exchange of words his teammate returned with information. Akihiro had been hoping the girl had found some information on the dog's location but the only thing they managed to deduce until now was where the dog was not.

"Well, it's something I guess..." Akihiro replied. They were left with no choice other than move deeper into the training grounds, and so the duo proceeded to the second training ground. Once there, the process was pretty much the same. Walk around, ask questions, bother people, look for the damn dog. Some people pitied them, noting it wasn't the first time this animal had escaped and many of the older ninjas on the training grounds had looked for it themselves. Here at least, they found some more information.

"From what I've gathered it looks like the dog was here a few moments ago, trying to get people to play with them. Those guys over there say they saw him chase something in that direction." Akihiro pointed to the edge of a small forest that led deeper into the second training grounds.

Sachiko frowned as they went further in, people having expressed that this was a mission that they'd taken, and it was a frequent thing. "She needs to stop losing Chinatsu. Can't hold onto your pet, don't deserve it. Animals are living beings." She was absolutely angry about that sort of thing, knowing that this woman who posted the mission lost her dog a lot. Sure, she sent people out after the dog, but she didn't take more measures not to lose it, and that meant she probably didn't deserve the responsibility of it.

She started to walk off towards the path that led to the second training grounds, as she wanted to find the dog fast so she could see if it was okay. As she walked, she howled and barked in what some would consider uncannily similar to a wolf or large dog barking and howling, waiting and listening for a response.

When she or one of the other pups got separated from the pack and got lost, they would howl and bark until they got a response and use that to help locate their pack. It was a simple thing, really, but she was getting some odd looks. After all, she was the Wolf Girl of the village, the weird one. She stopped and listened to hear for any return sounds, and was pleasantly surprised to hear a sound of barking a little deeper in. "I don't think he's far away."

Akihiro couldn't help but agree with his mission mate on this one. Counting the amount of people who said they'd already been on missions to rescue the dog, Akihiro could quickly reach thirty. Assuming everyone had performed the mission in squads of three (which wasn't necessarily or even probably true), then the pet must have run away at least ten times before this one. This had to be kind of embarrassing for its owner, and yet the woman kept on requesting ninja help for retrieving the dog, and the dog kept on running. What sort of treatment did he get in that house, to be encouraged to run away so many times? Akihiro could only guess, but he figured that if the dog showed any signs of ill-treatment, Sachiko would have quite the conversation with this woman. He didn't say anything but silently agreed with her on this point.

Then Sachiko did something Akihiro found incredibly weird. She...barked? "What's she doing?" Truly Akihiro had no idea what his teammate was up to. But she seemed determined and so the young Uchiha followed her as she kept walking towards the second training grounds. The howling and barking didn't stop and when it was just about to become unbearable Akihiro spoke. "Erm, what are you doing? I'm not sure that's gonna wo-" he interrupted himself as he heard a bark-ish reply from another dog coming from somewhere deeper inside the training fields.

"Woah, I can't believe that worked." He admitted, kind of embarrassed. "Alright, lead the way then!" he asked. Clearly this girl knew much more about animals than he did.

She spared a glance at Akihiro, who had just been proven wrong, obviously thinking she was crazy or something, and grinned her wolfish grin. "Learn a lot growing up with a pack." she said, trotting down the path in the direction of the responding bark. As she approached the second training grounds, she spotted the dog, at least, as far as she was able to tell. It was looking her way, tail wagging and tongue out, panting.

As soon as it spotted her, the dog dropped into a playful stance, almost jumping around, and Sachiko grinned. " Chinatsu wants to play." she said. It wasn't like they needed to catch it super fast, and there was no reason she needed to ignore its obvious plight of boundless energy. "We can play for a bit. Has too much energy, probably doesn't go on hunts often enough."

Whistling at Chinatsu to let it know that she was focused on it, she bolted forward towards the dog, who took off at an impressive speed as well, running around the training grounds. It was possible they'd end up chasing it further in, but there was only so much energy a dog could have.

"Oh hey, wait up!" Akihiro shouted, having been left with no choice other than running after the dog and this girl. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about this...they had been hired to capture a dog, not play with it and tire the heck out of the creature. They were ninjas, more than capable enough of capturing the dog once they'd found it. In fact, Akihiro figured the capture of the little sneaky bastard was but one hand-seal away. One of his simplest Genjutsu techniques and the dog would be asleep in no time.

But for some reason he just couldn't find the courage to do it. Chinatsu and Sachiko seemed to be having so much fun together, and ending the chase with such a cheap trick would certainly ruin that. Akihiro sighed, as he kept running after the two. Sachiko was faster and he was having trouble keeping up. Eventually, he ended up accepting his fate and looked at the situation as an opportunity to train his physical abilities. Unfortunately, chasing after the two of them was the best he could do, as he didn't have the speed required to catch the little dog. A dog which, despite its size, seemed to have an endless amount of energy. "Just how much energy can this dog have? It's so tiny, won't the batteries ever run out?" Akihiro questioned Sachiko, as he kept on chasing the two.

Sachiko laughed as Akirhiro was running out of steam himself. "Humans can go on much longer. More stamina. He'll tire out at once, and then we get him." she managed to say through her huffing of breath. She herself wasn't exactly good on the stamina front, as she wasn't a distance runner, but was more of a burst of speed type. Still, she was right. When it came to speed, animals tended to be faster than the average human, stronger, more durable, depending on the animal, but the one thing that humans had over almost anything, was stamina.

Long after other animals would have dropped, humans would keep going on low speed, walking, but still moving. Sachiko noticed the dog starting to slow down a little and she put on a burst of speed, leaping to try and capture the dog, arms stretching forward, and she was met with... nothing. The dog had made a sudden turn to the side and she crashed into the ground as the pup bolted away playfully.

Akihiro could do little more than looking silly running after Sachiko and a dog. The girl said humans could outclass dogs in terms of stamina and ability to run long distances but looking at himself chasing after this dog, he wasn't so sure she was right. "What if...ah...ah...the dog is...ah...a trained runner?" Maybe it wasn0t by chance that the dog kept running away. Maybe its dream was to be a marathon runner! Or a speed runner! And no one ever thought of asking it! Maybe they were all just being selfish ninjas and thinking too much about themselves and pet's owner to be able to see what the dog really wanted!

He didn't know about the dog, but what Akihiro truly wanted was to catch him and be done with this chase. People were beginning to laugh at them, they were clearly not the first ones to go after this creature and apparently not the fastest ones either. Akihiro could swear he heard some people cheering for the dog! And then, all of his hopes rose high up in the air when he noticed Sachiko was about to make a move on the pesky little creature. It seemed to be losing energy and speed, and so both she and Akihiro were able to gain a few meters. In Sachiko's case, enough meters to make a jump on it. And she did, while Akihiro watched very carefully. And carefully he also watched the dog make a quick turn and Sachiko landing on the ground. "Hey he did that on purpose!"

Akihiro leaped over Sachiko and kept on chasing the creature. He would chase it a bit further, until the dog jumped through a few bushed. Akihiro leaped over the bushes and kept on chasing but the terrain here was much, much wilder. He could barely see what he was stepping, much less what he was chasing. And yet the dog kept barking so he knew he was on the right track. Then the puppet made an unusually large leap, going over a few weird looking plants. Akihiro was too busy paying attention to the dog to notice where he was stepping so when he reached those plants...he sank. Underwater. It was one of the many small streams of water that ran across the training fields so he was dragged by the current to roughly where Sachiko was, and that's where he emerged from the river all wet.

He waved at Sachiko, who by now would have recovered from her fall. "I...erm... you know what, nevermind." Akihiro simply decided to ignore the fact that he was wet and had just emerged from the small river stream opposite to the side towards which he chased the dog. On the other side of the margin, there it was, barking and wiggling its tail as if calling them to step up to the challenge.

Sachiko got up, dusting herself off a little, a smile on her face. The dog was a fast one, and fairly cunning. It was a worthy opponent right now. She heard a splash, and looked over towards the little boy she had been paired with. Bursting out into laughter, she doubled over for a few moments, unable to control herself. The dog was smarter than she'd given it credit for. After she was able to stop laughing, she got back up, and a new look appeared in her eyes.

She was ready to accept the challenge. Taking a running start, Sachiko took a leap, and covered the distance of the stream easily, hitting the ground with a roll, and getting to her feet in the same movement. The pup bolted once again, ready to be chased, and it was on.

Some of the other people who were in the training fields were now starting to take notice of the two, and began to laugh and cheer. Some of them rooted for the two genin, and some of them were rooting for the dog. It seemed that these people had all experienced this dog's shenanigans at least once before.

The Sparrow couldn't help but smile at Sachiko's laughter. They were failing miserably at their job but hey at least they were having fun! Well, sorta. The girl dusted herself off while Akihiro stood there unsure of what to do about his wet clothes. But then something changed! There was a new look in Sachiko's eyes and Akihiro felt like their chances of catching this creature were about to improve rather significantly. He had never seen Sachiko look this determined before and her looks were reflected on her behavior when she quickly jumped across the stream to catch that damned dog. Truth to be told, Akihiro knew he couldn't keep up with either of them so instead of trying to endlessly chase after the two he decided to try to play it smart this time. People were cheering for them but Akihiro couldn't hear them. He was too focused on observing the path the dog was taking. At first, it seemed to be random but Akihiro quickly noticed a pattern.

"It's coming..." the boy thought as the pup took yet another turn towards the stream and his position. Patiently, Akihiro waited for the right moment and just as the pup was about to leap over the water he signalled Sachiko so she wouldn't do the same. "Wait!" he yelled out.

As the dog moved over the surface of the water Akihiro made a set of hand-seals and released a jutsu:
Wind Release: Breakthrough!

He would then release a small but violent gust of wind from his lips which would collide against the dog and send it flying towards Sachiko. The jutsu wasn't at all that powerful and Akihiro was confident that Sachiko would be fast and agile enough to catch the dog before it got hurt in the fall.

OOC: Sorry, kinda want to end it this post, I want the exp and stuff finished up.

She was about to leap after the dog, who had began to leap over the stream again, when she halted, Akihiro telling her to wait. She was good at team work, and listening to her mates, as she had been trained to do so her entire life. Without missing a beat, Sachiko had stopped, waiting for what he wanted, and she didn't have to wait long.

The wind jutsu launched the dog backwards through the air, the pull too strong for the light animal to beat, and she easily caught him. Chinatsu was a little worn out as well, and so their chase came to a stop.

Placing her forehead on the top of the dog, she nuzzled the pup, and looked back to Akihiro. "Good job. Let's go collect." She would carry the dog back to the old lady, letting Akihiro do the talking, and from then, wave off the dog. Before she did so, she looked at the owner, and her face went more serious. "Don't lose him again. He needs walking and fun."

The lady laughed and winked at the two of them. "I'm old, and can't. Konoha and I have an understanding. I let out Chinatsu, he has some fun, and they train their shinobi. He's quite a handful, and it's good for everyone. Then I pay you all for your time, and I don't need to pay for a dog walker. Chinatsu has more fun, and comes back with little energy."

Sachiko frowned, and then nodded, as she seemed to understand it. Waving at Akihiro, she said her goodbyes. "Mission was nice. Maybe we'll work together again."

-Exit-

Akihiro nodded at Sachiko's suggestion to collect their pay. He was kind of tired of chasing this dog around for so long, and now that they finally had it in their hands he wasn't really willing to give it an opportunity to escape. They needed to deliver it as soon as possible and that is why Akihiro simply followed the girl to their destination.

The old lady was already waiting at the door by the time the two of them arrived there. Sachiko put on a serious face Akihiro had never seen before and began scolding the lady. Akihiro got a little uncomfortable. It's not that Sachiko wasn't entirely right, it was just that scolding the lady for her terrible behavior as a pet owner was not really their job. In fact, Akihiro didn't quite think it was professional of them to do so. The duo had been hired to do a job and they had done it. Anything beyond that made Akihiro uncomfortable especially if the old lady took it the wrong way and made a formal complaint about the two.

Luckily the old lady seemed to get complaints like these all the time. She basically laughed it off and spoke about an arrangement Konoha made with her. Akihiro shrugged. These sort of weird mission details happened all the time with lower ranked missions... "Yeah that was fun. See ya!" Akihiro waved back to Sachiko when the two of them parted ways.

[Exit]