Removing the Paint

Mission Details:

A few days after he met the Uchiha boy known as Akihiro at the second training grounds, it constantly rained upon him about his interaction with the young Uchiha, as a force of habit, the Senju tried to replicate this feeling onto a painting as per his hobby and tried his best to let the feeling of it guide his hand in the painting and weirdly enough... it resulted in a clear, peaceful background and in the actual art itself, represented a branch of Senju wood seemingly shaking hands with a controlled shape of fire. He knew that if his father saw this, he'd be very questionable about it so in the case of his father ever going into his room, he'd hide the painting away from plain sight at least.

He didn't know why, but the Senju had crave for more interaction of sorts with Akihiro, he wanted to explore this feeling of his fully and wondered if that's what it felt like to really have a friend. He still kept his goals in mind and at the back of his head, will remember that he's a Uchiha but from what he's seen so far, he isn't as bad as what his father makes them out to be.

After that little scenario, Hiroji felt like he was done with thinking and decided to go for a walk, just to see from a fair distance that the Hokage rock has been covered in graffiti with inappropriate images and crude wordings. He usually wouldn't of minded it because of the Hokage himself being an Uchiha, but the art of it is what really insulted him. "Hmph! children who have artistic talents and they waste it on something so stupid... what a shame." with how missions go, he'd imagine that a mission just opened up for Genin, most likely to clean the mess up. Hiroji didn't have much to do and he wouldn't some extra money on the side, so he'd gladly do the deed. He made his way to the mission board and to his surprise, it's there, clear as day. He'd take a copy of the mission with him and stopped alongside the Senju clan district once more to grab washing supplies, a bucket of water, a large sponge etc. 

He'd start to make his way to the Hokage's rock, the more he looked at the damn graffiti, the more it just disgusted him and he would gladly just wipe it off so the village didn't have to bear it's distasteful visual anymore.

By the time the Senju arrived near the Hokage's rock, Akihiro was already there with his own bucket of water and sponge. Due to his small size, it had been kind of difficult carrying all that stuff over here. It would be, Akihiro imagined, even more difficult to climb all the way up there and scrub all that crap out of Kazuya Uchiha's face. Truth to be told, while Akihiro's body was trained in the arts of walking around on cliffs and water, the bucket simply wasn't prepared for that. Indeed, unlike the ninjas of this world, both the bucket and all of the water inside it had a tremendous respect for gravity. Akihiro sighed. If he'd known he'd have to deal with this kind of logistic issues he would have probably picked up a different mission. But he was here now and there was no going back!

But now that he finally found himself staring at the art painted on the Hokage's face, Akihiro couldn't help but mutter a few words. "Wow, that's terrible vandalism." he would comment, confident that no one would be listening. "You have a whole face to vandalize and the best you can do is write crude words all over it? That's disappointing." He kept on talking to himself, unaware that there was a certain boy approaching him from behind. "Seriously what's wrong with the creativity of vandals these days?" He was supposed to be cleaning, but so far all he had done was criticize the poor job they'd done at vandalizing the statue.

Hiroji was surprised that Akihiro is there, at the front of the Hokage's rock. He did want to meet with the Uchiha boy once more, but he didn't expect it so soon. Ah well, that's that, the Senju wasn't planning to run away just because of a coincidence that he wasn't ready for. He'd butt into what the Uchiha was saying, as the Senju got close enough to hear what the Uchiha said last. "I know right?" the Senju had said. "I'm an artist myself, believe it or not... if you're going to vandalise something, at least give it passion... this is completely devoid of it." it was very clear that the graffiti and crude wordings were there for a poor childs joke. "I'll give those kids a piece of my mind once I find them... but for now, we have a job to do, assuming that's what you're here for as well."

He was about to ask why he hadn't gone up yet, but realised that gravity isn't very friendly with water. "Right, that's tricky." he decided to give it a go anyway, chucking the large sponge into the bucket and went to the wall, lifting one foot on it and activating the walking technique, attaching himself to the wall, he carefully lifted up the bucket on his stomach as he put his other foot on the wall, activating the same technique and balancing out the bucket on his stomach with both hands on the handle at the top as he's completely standing up on the wall, to the naked eye, it'll look like the gravity is supporting him as he's standing normally against the rock wall. "Okay... easy does it..."

Slowly but steadily, he takes very easy and slow steps up across the rock wall, considering the height of the Hokage Rock it would take a while for him to get up there but considering how easy the bucket could fall, he'd take patience over having to do everything all over again and running back to get a new water bucket. He didn't say much else to the Uchiha and just hoped for him to take the close, careful steps that Hiroji is doing.

The voice Akihiro heard behind him sent a chill down his spine. For a moment, he thought he'd been caught by a higher ranked ninja saying things he shouldn't have been saying. He was scared for a moment until he recognized whose voice that was. Then he released a sigh of relief. "You scared me there..." he commented, stating the truth. He was also a bit embarrassed since ninjas weren't supposed to be so easy to sneak up on. But Akihiro had been so focused on the poor vandalism that he paid barely any attention to the surrounding area...that was a mistake he didn't plan to make again.

Speaking of plans, the Uchiha was awfully curious to see how his fellow Genin would approach the water bucket problem. After seeing his solution however he was kind of surprised he hadn't thought of that. Following his friend and rival, Akihiro picked up his own water bucket and replicated the Senju's movements. Of course, since he had a smaller body, Akihiro needed to be much more careful in balancing the water bucket on his chest. But with care and patience, he eventually got the hang of it. It wasn't at all that difficult once he got used to it.

The next level of difficulty proved to be more troublesome. The young Uchiha eventually reached Kazuya's stone nose. There, a bunch of filthy phrases were written in poor calligraphy. He had a bit of difficulty climbing the man's face, since Akihiro approached from the base of the chin which meant he ended up upside down and had to do a bit of balancing work with the water bucket. But, by the time he reached the nose he was able to rest. He sat on it, held the water bucket on his left hand and the sponge on his right one. From then on, there was only one thing to do!

Scrub. Again. And again. And again. It was a bit repetitive, but the exhausting work would prove to be an important part of Akihiro's training. "Everything going okay over there?" he would ask, glancing over at Hiroji to check on him.

The Senju had managed to get up to the Hokage's nose well enough, keeping the water bucket well balanced which offered as a good standing point for the buckets to where they could place down while they kept their walking technique active to walk around the face and wash off the graffiti. Despite the repetitive way that Akihiro saw it as, the Senju treated it as a necessary chore and treated it as such, especially since he did seem to take some level of insult to it and thanks to his genes, he didn't tire out from the constant washing of it. "Yeah!" he had yelled over back to the Uchiha when being asked about his progress.

Hiroji took constant walks back and forth between the water bucket, squeezing the sponge's soaked up water into the bucket and dipping back into it to refresh it's wetness to wash off the paint. "I'm surprised to see you here though." he yelled over to Ahikiro, with what he heard of the Uchiha, maybe he has a soft spot for art as well similar to the Senju himself. It reminded him of the painting that he made back at him which slightly scared him, he didn't know what to make of it or what to interpret the true meaning out of it yet, but perhaps with time spent with the Uchiha, he'll know in due time..

As soon as he heard the Senju's reply that everything was okay, Akihiro went back to focusing on his work. He was scrubbing, scrubbing had. In fact he wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't scrub the nose off the Hokage's face. Ah! That would have been a sight to see! It would also probably mean a demotion back to the academy, but oh well. So far the nose was in its rightful place and with much less paint than it had when the duo first arrived.

"Yeah well it seemed like an easy mission for a bit cash." Akihiro sighed, stretching his back before getting back to work on scrubbing. "Turns out it's a lot more troublesome than I first suspected." he would admit. Akihiro hadn't considered the whole bucket of water thing, not the many objects he needed to carry up there. He had also not considered how hard it was to remove the damn paint. The duo had no idea, but they were actually quite lucky. There was only one Hokage of the Hidden Leaf so far, which meant there were no other faces to clean but Kazuya's. If this story had happened a few generations after theirs, perhaps the two of them would have taken days to clean the whole thing.

"Alright, I'm done with the nose!" Akihiro would say, after a while. It made for quite a curious picture, Kazuya's face scribbled all over except on the nose. Akihiro moved on to the man's forehead, where he began scrubbing yet again. "Why did you pick this mission? I figured you'd go for something more exciting."

Hiroji didn't really pick up the mission for it's cash, rather he's pretty invested in art as a whole as he mentioned before and it felt like an artistic obligation to wipe off the disgusting visual off the Hokage's rock, something that's easily seen by the entire village. Hiroji himself wasn't having that much trouble with constantly washing against the Hokage's face, the Senju boy was currently dealing with the left side of the face, with what he's done so far he's nearly done and would move onto the right side of the face.

"Like I said, I just find this visual distasteful as a fellow artist." that'd give a hint as to why he picked the mission. "But... the money isn't so bad too, I do need the money to get supplies." he'd finally finish with the left side of the Hokage's stone faced and started his repetitive work on the right side now. Compared to Akihiro, Hiroji wasn't quite feeling that exhaustion.

"Done with the left side of the face." Hiroji had said back to the Uchiha. He assumed from when he crept up on the Uchiha earlier that he found the art distasteful as well, and assumed that might be why he also took this mission. "Do you have much love for arts?" he'd asked, since Hiroji made it obvious that he liked being an artist and a painter, and wondered if the Uchiha might share similar passions.

Akihiro was listening to the boy, but quite frankly he was running far too short on breathe to be able to give a better response than the occasional "Mhm..." and "Oh, yeah." It wasn't like he wasn't paying attention, but the young Uchiha was getting really tired. Luckily, the Senju was almost done with the left side of Kazuya's face while Akihiro (despite having his difficulties) was making smooth progress on the Hokage's right side.

"Well, not really." Akihiro admitted. "The only Arts I've taken an interest in are the Ninja Arts. Shurikenjutsu, Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, Genjutsu... And even there I have a long way to go." It was true, the Uchiha clan was more than ready to always support its youth in the pursuit of Ninja Arts. There were many training grounds at the district and many small schools to help struggling academy students. On the other hand, Akihiro honestly couldn't remember seeing a musical school, or a painting school. The Uchiha had their priorities, it seemed. It didn't really matter to him because his own goals aligned with the Clan's, but the Sparrow wondered whether Hiroji would have been able to pursue his artistic passions had he been born an Uchiha.

"Alright, I'm done on this side too!" Akihiro would proudly state. The Hokage rock seemed a lot cleaner now. Glancing back at the base of the cliff, Akihiro's eyes spotted a couple of kids looking at them from behind the bushes, laughing at something. "Hey do you see that?" he asked, indicating the place where the two kids were doing a terrible job hiding.

Hiroji is led to believe that the Uchiha had completely misinterpreted what he meant by "arts" but he didn't mind it, if he didn't know what the Senju meant then that most likely meant he wasn't one who dabbled into such things, which he didn't mind. It's not that the Senju clan promote art or anything, it's a hobby that Hiroji picked up of his own time and free will, he believed in keeping the mind stable in creative imagination since it's helpful to have that, despite being so closed in other topics because of his father's teachings.

When Akihiro had mentioned finishing the right side, the Senju boy was a bit surprised since he was about to move on that side but he guessed that meant he just didn't have to do it anymore, carefully walking over to the Hokage's nose which is gently carrying the Senju's bucket of water, he quickly the sponge back into it and tried to move back a bit to get a good visual of the Rock as a whole. "Yeah... I think were nearly done, a few spots here and there but otherwise, most of it is finished."

Hiroji hadn't noticed the kids at all, and only did when Akihiro had noted them out. "Oh hey... good job, now I can really vent out my artistic thoughts about their work." deciding to leave the Hokage's face temporarily, he ran straight down towards the bottom of the cliff towards the ground, to chase where the kids were hiding and giggling. When they saw the Senju incoming though, they were about to leg it until Hiroji touched upon the ground, activating a half-tiger handseal and suddenly, his body moved a lot faster in a linear path towards where the kids were running to, intercepting them as they stood still from noticing the recently appeared Senju right in-front of them.

"Going somewhere?" he had arrogantly said, considering the kids much younger age to the Senju's, it'd be obvious to not try anything to mess around with Akihiro or Hiroji at this point.  "Just why? I'll be honest, your skill with utilising the paint isn't bad but you waste it in such a trivial way! If you're going to do vandalism on a big scale like that, at least do it right." now that he really thought back on it, their skill with applying the paint isn't bad, what they used it for in terms of imagination was extremely poor in Hiroji's eyes.

Used:
Body Flicker Technique

Akihiro did nothing more than nod at Hiroji's evaluation of their work. Truth to be told they had both done quite well despite the heavy physical effort required for the task. After signalling his friend towards the two children that were hiding, Akihiro waited to see what he would do. On one hand, he knew they should go down there and scold them. But on the other hand the Uchiha was so tired that he felt like maybe they could give them a free pass this time...

Unfortunately (or quite fortunately, depending on perspective) Hiroji wasn't quite as tired as Akihiro and decided to go after them. "Ah man..." Akihiro thought, knowing he was morally obliged to go down there and accompany the Senju on his scolding. Unlike the Senju however, Akihiro didn't choose to run all the way down the cliff. Instead he took advantage of his position, which was sat on top of the Hokage's nose, and let his body fall forward, taking a dive. This was much faster than running down the cliff, but also a bit more dangerous. Alas, the only important factor for Akihiro was that it took him less effort. He kept on diving, feeling the wind breeze past his face, it was quite a nice feeling. Just a few centimeters in front of him, as he fell, he could see the rocks of the cliff passing by at incredible speed.

It was time to slow down. From his pouch, Akihiro took a kunai and stabbed the cliff as hard as he could. This caused him to rip open a "wound" on the rock, a large cut that went downwards to the base of the cliff and that served the purpose of causing the Genin to lose speed and avoid a deadly fall. He would stop a few meters from the ground. Then he'd jump from his position and land next to Hiroji who was already giving his scolding.

Unfortunately, Hiroji already seemed to have said everything Akihiro thought needed be said. So the Genin wasn't really sure what else he could tell these kids. Instead of speaking, the short twelve year old boy decided to stand there next to Hiroji, trying to look intimidating as he spoke.

There wasn't much else that the Senju felt like he had to say, he really wanted them to feel punishment but the Senju didn't really revel in the idea of being known for beating on little kids over a very small crime. "I think that's it really, I'll give you a free pass as one artist to another... but do it again and I'll tell your parents and the bigger ninja men, you wouldn't want that, would you?" he spoke in a childish, threatening matter to well... children, it would help them understand the threat well enough and they ran away. Hopefully that'll be the end of that and next time, there won't be a graffiti on the Hokage's face, at least for a long while.

He looked back up to the Hokage's face, and the spots that the Senju mentioned earlier were starting to fade away, as a result of the constant water on the Rock's face dripping down from the higher up parts of the stone, they also left their water buckets back up there and the Senju sighed, the exhausting mentality of the work finally reaching to him. "I hate to say this, but we gotta get back up there... just to double check the face is clean and to pick up our water buckets as well... now how are we going to get back down with them..." that's the tricky part the Senju hasn't thought far ahead yet.

Nevertheless, he did the walking technique once more and infused his feet with chakra, moving up along the rock wall and back up towards the Hokage's face, assuming Akihiro would come along, he would say "Just leave the rest of the face to me, it'll take a minute or two to get the remaining spots off and then were free to go home." assuming that Akihiro would take a break to catch his breath, the Senju would already pick back up the sponge off his bucket and get the little spots of paint off the Hokage's rock face.

Akihiro was definitely surprised at how well Hiroji handled those kids. Had it been him, the Uchiha wasn't entirely sure he would have known what to say. He guessed they had a way to speak to each other, an "artist's language" so to say. He was glad the Senju came along on this mission.

Of course, this feeling wavered when the Senju reminded him they still had to pick up the buckets they left on top of the Hokage's face. Had it not been for Hiroji, Akihiro would have smoothly comppletely forgot about it and gone home instead of having to climb the whole thing up again. "Ah...I guess you're right. We shouldn't leave those buckets up there." It was a drag, but they had a duty. Accompanying Hiroji, Akihiro focused chakra on his feet and ran up the cliff, keeping up with the Senju's speed until they both reached the Hokage's face onde again. This time was much faster since they didn't have to carry buckets up. There was also much less water on their buckets now so the trip down would be a lot easier.

Akihiro gladly took the Senju's offer to take a break but he wouldn't go home until the job was done. He sat on the Hokage's nose once again while Hiroji cleaned up the few remaining spots.
"You're pretty good at handling kids. Have any younger brothers?" Akihiro would ask.

When the Uchiha asked about Hiroji having brothers or something because of how he handled those kids, the Senju gave a light shake of his head "Nah, no siblings. I guess it's something my father taught me which he nicknamed the "Knuckle Ramen"" the Senju was starting to feel a bit of exhaustion himself when he was cleaning up the remaining spots, but he continued in what he meant. "My father said that if you think someone is failing or falling behind, give them the knuckle ramen and I think that's what I essentially did with the kids, sort of."

He thought about the one time that Senju was stressed about the exams back in the academy and he received it from his father to motivate him. "You see, sometimes people might fall behind because of incompetence or otherwise, the knuckle ramen is when you say something like "Hey, you still have to do this, but you've done a good job of doing that." so they know that you know they're falling behind a bit, but you give it to them easy enough so their heads are still high." it's something that his father had taught Hiroji, in leadership for later on that morale is a very powerful thing. His father probably nicknamed it the knuckle ramen because of how bitter and sweet it can be.

The Senju finally finished cleaning off the Hokage face and during which, had figured out how they can get the water buckets down. "Okay... I think we should do what we did before to walk up here, but backwards." the Senju repeated the same steps from earlier and placed one foot on the rock and gently balancing the bucket on his stomach before placing the other foot on the rock, starting to walk backwards towards the ground.

(Exit)

Akihiro listened carefully to what Hiroji said. The young Uchiha wasn't entirely sure he understood all of it, but at least a good portion of the Senju's words seemed to make sense. "Hmmm..." Akihiro muttered a bit, pondering the Senju's words. "Your father seems to be a wise man." He would finally say, oblivious to what kind of relationship the Senju and his father had. "I don't think there's such thing as a Knuckle Ramen within the Uchiha. But it seems to be a good method, I suppose." Akihiro wondered whether he would have learned Ninjutsu of his natural element faster if he'd eaten a taste of that ramen.

Akihiro raised an eyebrow when he saw the Senju beginning to walk downwards with the bucket tho. Glancing down at the base of the cliff again, where he'd seen the kids for the first time, Akihiro realized there was nothing but bushes, small trees and earth down there. There was no way he was going to carry that bucket full of water!

Suspiciously whistling, the Uchiha took his bucket and turned it over, releasing a small stream of water which would end up landing on the earth below. Then, he would jump yet again from the Hokage's nose, with a much lighter bucket of water. The Uchiha laughed as he passed by Hiroji who was walking down, and using the same "Stab-wall-with-kunai" method he used before, he would safely land on the ground much faster than the Senju. From there, both of them would go to their homes and have a rest. Mission accomplished!

[Exit]