The duo's first hunt!

Mission Details:

Akihiro arrived at the training grounds after a good night's sleep and a lazy morning. Despite having slept well, he became rather grumpy when he learned about the mission he was supposed to be taking today. It was the second time this week the damned dog escaped, and he was pretty sure Sachiko wasn't going to be around to help him out this time, which was a shame because the girl really knew her way around animals despite her apparent awkwardness towards people.

Alas, not all news were bad. Akihiro's companion for tofay's mission was a person he already knew rather well, and with whom he'd worked before. Hiroji Senju was supposed to meet him here today, and together they would embark on a tiny journey to hunt a tiny dog. It wasn't the greatest of adventures, but it was something! And the dog wasn't all that easy to find, this Akihiro knew by experience. The damned creature was so tiny that it even crawled through the smallest holes, and beneath the smallest bushes as well. Maybe Hiroji's Doton would come in handy this time?

Hiroji's plans had been interrupted today when he got assigned to a mission today, though it mixed pretty well once he learned the nature of the mission. Hiroji wanted to do his daily training today at one of the training grounds, but realised that the mission is to go after a lost dog that's commonly spotted around the training grounds. He tried to see the more positive side of it and saw the goose chase against this animal as solid training, since if it got assigned as a genin mission that it won't be easy to just find the dog and pick it up willy nilly.

The Senju made it to the training grounds well enough, seeing that he got assigned with his Uchiha friend once more, luckily Hiroji had caught the letter of the mission before his father so he wouldn't of seen the Uchiha name planted upon the letter, his father did not trust the other great clans that much and by extension, Hiroji really didn't either but he knew enough of Akihiro to know he doesn't fit into that category, that he's different from how the Uchiha usually are from how his father describes them.

He quickly waved over to the Uchiha as soon as he saw him around the entrance to the training grounds, looking upon the big space that they'll have to cover in order to pursue and capture this dog. "So... do you know what type of breed were exactly looking for? is it big or small?" he sounded like he wanted to get this over with, but he's also hoping that it'll be a good workout to run around after this mutt as well.

Akihiro waved at Hiroji when he saw his friend arrive at the training grounds. He gave off his usual smile and waited for the Senju to approach. They needed to discuss a strategy before going after this thing, but he wasn't entirely sure what they should do. He found it curious that Hiroji made exactly the same type of question as Akihiro, when he first completed this mission. Back then (which sounds like a really long time but honestly it was just a couple of days ago), Sachiko hadn't really understood the nature of his questioning and Akihiro had been left wondering he had asked something obvious. He was now glad to know he wasn't the only one posing these sort of questions.

"Well.. I know it's a small dog. About this length." Akihiro made a gesture with his left hand, pointing first at his right elbow and then at his right hand. He was indicating the dog was about the size of his forearm. Now, Akihiro wasn't at all a big person, and his forearm was small. This should say a lot about the dog's size. "I don't know the type of breed, but I know it's white and very fast." Akihiro remembered chasing a white blur all around the training grounds.

"I'm not even sure how we're supposed to locate it. It runs off a lot apparently, and people here can easily get tired of answering the same questions several days a week. Most of them just ignore the dog by now..." The Sparrow tried to remember how they had located the dog last time. The answer was a bit....strange to say the least. He scratched the back of his head and showed a rather embarrassed look on his face when he said the next following words. "Last time I did this, my team mate just....barked. But hey, it worked!"

Hiroji could scarcely believe it when he explained the last part about attracting the dogs attention. "... Barking?" he was extremely hesitant to believe that, but if the details of how he explained the dog are true, he'll just have to go along with it since it won't be easy to catch this dog by normal means.  "Okay... I guess we can try, but I don't think I have the right lungs or voice for barking." but he'd give it a try, man... he couldn't believe he was about to attempt it.

He went forward into the training grounds, going into a nice, open space so that they would have a huge visual for when the dog may pop up. The Senju placed two hands around his mouth, in a way to amplify and echo the barking that he'll have to do. He did a half-assed, loud "WOOF!" across the training grounds, if anyone were to witness this, it would look extremely strange and perhaps freak out those who don't know the context behind it.

"WOOF! WOOF!" he kept doing it loud and as best as he could to impersonating a dog, and he heard a slight ruffle in one of the bushes but afterwards, the sound just disappeared and it didn't seem like Hiroji had much effect on doing it. "Well... I tried, your turn." Hiroji did not want to do that again, ever. It felt way too embarrassing as he did it, he was only lucky that no one was around to see or hear him do it.

When Akihiro narrated how they first managed to attract the dog the first time, he wasn't really expecting Hiroji to take up actio and beginning barking all around that area. But it seemed his teammate was a man of action, and took it upon himself to give it his best shot at...well, barking. Alas, let's not make fun of the situation, this is a very serious ninja mission!

Or at least Akihiro wanted to believe so, but it was hard not to laugh at Hiroji's figure. Despite the incredibly funny scenario, Akihiro managed to (barely) keep his composure and not laugh at his friend's actions. After all, this was a kind of sacrifice. In no way did Akihiro want to be the one doing that sort of stuff. "No no no, you're doing it all wrong." he said, as nicely as he could. "Sachiko used to do it in a much higher pitched tone. And there was a sort of ferocity beneath the sound, it's hard to explain..." Man did he wish Sachiko was there right now. With the girl around it would have been much easier to track down and find the dog, not to mention they wouldn't have to bark and Akihiro wouldn't have to be trying to explain his mate how to properly do such an action. He was still trying to find words to describe proper barking when Hiroji suggested the Uchiha gave it a try.

He froze for a moment. "I...should have seen that coming." Akihiro concluded, in his mind. Logically, there was no reason to deny Hiroji's request. On one hand, Akihiro was the only one there who actually witnesses Sachiko's barking. On the other hand, Hiroji had taken the initiative and gave it his best shot first. Akihiro had, unfortunately, no right to deny his request. The Uchiha advanced towards the center of the clearing, cleared his throat, and...well...barked.

"Woof..." it was weak at first, as if he was getting used to the idea. But then he finally realized he had no choice but give it its best just like Hiroji had. "WOOF WOOF WOOF!" he barked, loudly. And then again. And again. After this, a moment of silence and...

"Woof!" a reply from an area deeper into the training grounds. Akihiro looked at Hiroji with a surprised look on his face. "Wow I can't believe that worked."

Hiroji then signalled Akihiro to keep quiet as soon as they heard the woof from deeper into the training grounds, realising that it came from behind one of the bushes. "I have an idea..." Hiroji then suddenly went into the ground, opening up a hole as he started to dig through the ground with the Doton technique that he used that one time in the training. His coordination of where the dog's woof came from is a bit shaky, but they'd waste a lot more time if they tried to chase after it mindlessly.

Believing that he moved under the ground long enough and far enough to where he believed the dog is, he suddenly jumped out of the ground with both hands trying to grab the dog that's supposedly on the surface, just to see at the last split second that the dog is actually a few meters away from where he jumped, Hiroji got the coordination all wrong. "Crap!" the dog already started to leg it, running fast into the forest. Hiroji didn't bother yet and he'd wait for Akihiro to come along.

"It was worth a shot, but I don't think I'll be catching the dog with that jutsu anytime soon." it was quite a handy jutsu to have but the drawback of it is that he has no way of knowing what's on the surface above him, he has to go on the visual based on what he saw last before he went into the ground. "Any ideas?" Hiroji was fresh out of them after that attempt.

Used:
Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique

"That again?" Akihiro commented. It wasn't the first time he was seeing Hiroji's Doton in action, and he had seen this particular jutsu before. Alas, he had to admit it was quite a good idea if only he was able to emerge in the right place. Akihiro watched carefully, in silence, while the other Genin made his approach. He approached rather silently, a fact which pleased Akihiro. for a moment there it seemed like this time their mission would be a lot shorter. Too bad he was wrong.

Much to Akihiro's dismay, his friend missed the target by a good couple of meters and the dog immediately turned tail and ran. damn he'd forgotten just how fast that thing was. Akihiro ran towards Hiroji and helped him out of the hole while he spoke. Honestly Akihiro didn't have any great ideas either. "Well, we could try Genjutsu but..." he made a pause, mentally going through his techniques. "The only Genjutsu I'm comfortable enough to use on a dog's brain would most likely scare the living crap out of it." Akihiro sighed, glancing at the path the dog took. The creature was nowhere in sight for now. "I guess we'll just have to keep chasing it for now, and hopefully we'll be able to corner the sneaky bastard somewhere." Akihiro was really starting to hate this dog. With his friend out of the hole, they started giving chase.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire! That's what the young Hyuuga girl was thinking anyway. It seemed just yesterday that she had been given her hitai-ate and promoted to full-fledged Genin and already she had been assigned to a team! She wondered what kind of people her teammates would be. The little bit of information she had been given was that one was an Uchiha and the other a Senju, how neat! That meant three of the biggest clans in the village would have a team together. They could be the next Ino-Shika-Cho even! A plethora of new dreams danced in her head as she approached the training grounds to capture a dog that had managed to run away from it's owner. Now that she thought of it, that kind of thing happened quite often. Maybe the pet owners in Konoha were just bad at being owners? Oh well, it gave the Genin something to do so that was nice.

Smiling, she skipped into the grounds, her hair bouncing softly with each step. As she came into view of the situation she stopped and raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle. Both of the males on her team had decided to run around and woof at the small, white dog to try to garner it's trust but they had only ended up looking like a bunch of silly-heads. The white sleeve of her half-kimono fell away, revealing a pale hand for a moment before she dropped it back to her side and walked over to the pair.

"You're never going to get him like that." She said with a lilting tone and a soft smile. Once the two turned their attention to her she tilted her head to the side and smiled wider, "I'm Ningyo Hyuuga and I'm the last member of your team. It's nice to meet you!"

After being helped out of the hole, Akihiro went through the options of what he could do in order to catch the dog and it was either they could do very little and just barely catch the mutt, or aim too high and potential risking hurting the dog. There was no balance that could let them effectively catch the dog and they would just have to do it the good old fashioned way. Before they would officially start running and give chase however, another voice joined into the fray which resulted in the Senju turning around, seeing the Hyuuga girl, already knowing that she's one of the Hyuuga by the eyes alone.

He didn't have too much approval for females like these ones, this Hyuuga reminded Hiroji of his current clan leader for the Senju Clan, in his eyes, a weak-willed woman who infected the clan with "peace" which will ultimately lead the clan towards destruction. That may have nothing to with her, but he didn't plan for her out-going attitude to infect Hiroji. "Mhm, Hiroji Senju." he briefly said, clearly not expressing much interest or excitement at the new team member for the squad.

Hiroji laid back against a tree and looked at the Hyuuga seriously, not taking kindly to heart about her little comment. "How do you propose we catch the mutt then?" compared to his casual, easy-going tone that he had going on before with Akihiro, it seems to have suddenly changed when the Hyuuga girl came along.

Akihiro heard a female voice speaking towards the duo, and turned his head to face this person who would be his new teammate. He was rather curious to see who was going to join them, but above that, he worried about whether or not this person was going to disrupt the balance the team had. So far, Akihiro and Hiroji had been doing fine by themsel-well. Looking at the way this dog escaped, maybe they weren't doing so well. Regardless! He was a bit worried. Focusing his eyes on the girl, Akihiro smiled. It was one of his usual warm smiles, welcoming and honest.

"Hey there. I'm Akihiro Uchiha and this here is-" he was interrupted by Hiroji's presentation. There was a sudden mood change. Hiroji had rapidly turned from the friendly guy he was around Akihiro to the distant person he was when the Uchiha first found him staring at him right here in these training grounds. He was about to ask what was wrong when Hiroji went on asking the Hyuuga for a better idea to catch the "mutt".

"Well, there's three of us now." Akihiro commented, stating the obvious. "We could probably surround it if we work together." He placed his hand under his chin. There was one problem with this plan, however. "But we'll have to find a way to lure it back to us. Last time, barking worked but this dog has ran away many times and it isn't dumb. I doubt he's going to be attracted to the same voice again. " His gaze suddenly focused upon the Hyuuga's, as he looked her in the eyes and smiled again.

"You could try to bark yourself!" He cheerfully suggested. Truthfully, it was the best idea he'd had. None of them were fast enough to keep up with the little bastard on a chase.

Two very different introductions awaited the Hyuuga after she had said her part. While the Uchiha, Akihiro, had been relatively warm in his reply the Senju, Hiroji, was anything but. Leaned against a tree she couldn't help but notice the serious look he gave her as if she had personally insulted him. Had she turned him down at the Academy? She couldn't really remember meeting him before but if he had asked her out she definitely would've said no. Yeah, that was probably it. She gave him a smile and a polite nod. No reason to hurt his feelings twice!

She was going to mention either food or some kind of toy to lure the pupper out but Akihiro had other ideas. Ideas that made her blush a little. He wanted her to bark too?! That was likely below a person of her stature right? A member of the Main Branch would never stoop so low as to bark like a dog!

It was that thinking exactly that spurred her to want to do it though. An internal coin flip happened then and, as it did so many times, the coin came up on heads. Moving her hands up to cover her mouth again, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Okay fine, but this better work." She took another deep breath, "ARF ARF ARF!"

Even though Hiroji had maintained his serious attitude, he couldn't ignore the irony that all three of them, from three separate, yet great clans of the Leaf have stooped so low to barking out in order to catch the dog. It raised his face to a half-smile, but not a full one. It was quickly shut down when suddenly, the actual dog's woof came back in response to the Hyuuga's bark, as soon as Hiroji could hear it he suddenly used a half-tiger seal in the direction of where he heard the bark. "I'll get him this time!" he said, before suddenly his body had seemingly disappeared from the spot it was in and headed in a fast direction for where the dog supposedly is. He was actually catching up to the mutt as well when it saw Hiroji closing in fast and ran as a result.

However, the downside of the body flicker technique soon became Hiroji's downfall as the dog's direction slightly tilted to the left, as Hiroji could only use the body flicker technique in a linear forward line. After Hiroji turned it off and tried to readjust his body once more for the direction the dog ran into, he had already ran out of site and into the bushes, surprisingly, Hiroji ran about 50 metres away from where the rest of his team is.

Assuming that they'd run along to catch up with Hiroji, he would express his failure once more. "My Earth Release couldn't capture him, and my speed couldn't either... sorry to say, I have nothing in my arsenal that can solidly capture this dog." he know that he asked for a workout and hoped the dog would be challenging to catch, but he didn't think it'd be this hard. "Well, what were your ideas woman?" he'd bluntly said, since he doubt that Akihiro would have much else to offer in how to capture the dog.

Used:
Body Flicker Technique

Akihiro was glad the Hyuuga accepted his request. He really was running out of ideas and if this didn't work he wouldn't know what to do. He watched their surroundings carefully as she stepped a bit to the center and began doing her own barking. Unlike Akihiro, who had first hesitated and only then given his best, Ningyo had decided to go all out from the first bark. Akihiro listened. Naturally, with a girl's voice, she was unknowingly able to imitate Sachiko much better than the two boys could. Her bark was almost perfect, pretty close to Sachiko's.

This why Akihiro wasn't surprised that it had worked yet again. Akihiro was glad they were about to have one more chance! Perhaps this time they could lay an ambush and surp-"Or...you know...not do that at all."the boy muttered as Hiroji once again took the initiative to chase after the dog. This time, however, he was using a different technique. Instead of trying to surprise the animal with an underground attack, he decided to run at it using a technique Akihiro already knew pretty well. The Body Flicker. With this technique, it was theoretically possible to surpass the mutt's speed and catch, but there was a reason Akihiro didn't use it. A reason which became evident once the dog quickly changed directions and Hiroji wasn't able to keep up. The boy shrugged and sighed at the same time. "Well there goes Ningyo's bark to waste. I wanted to ambush it, buuut I guess it's not happening." he turned his gaze towards the Hyuuga girl. "Please tell me you can outrun that thing."

Feeling rather silly doing her best imitation of a bark that she could manage, Ningyo was relieved when she finally heard a bark in return. Face lighting up in superficial satisfaction she couldn't help but smile. The barks belonging to the target of their mission grew closer and surely the dog would be easy to surround once it got close. That is, if it ever had the chance to get close.

Impulsively Hiroji had decided to flicker toward it. That sudden movement was more than enough to scare Sachiko and sent the dog running full kilter away from the Senju. He had put some distance between himself and the two others but Ningyo was sure he would be able to hear her laughing at his failed attempt of subduing the dog. She turned her pale eyes toward the Uchiha, "Is he always like this or does he think sometimes? And me, outrunning that thing? No can do." She said jokingly. If Hiroji somehow managed to hear it then it would be obvious she didn't mean what she was saying. She shrugged along with Akihiro and began to jog over to the Senju's new location.

Slowing down as she came close to him, he explained how he had failed twice to capture the dog. She shook her head, hair jostling playfully as she did so. "You can't just run at it or try to attack it. It's probably scared and having a bunch of strangers barreling down on it can't help with that. It'd be better if we set up a perimeter and moved in on it slowly. If either of you have some kind of jerky or toy or something on you to put in the middle of that perimeter it would work out even better!"

Hiroji still kept his ice personality in check when around the woman, though he was open to her suggestions to get this job done sooner. When she asked about either of them having a jerky or toy of some kind, he shook his head in response. "My pockets are completely empty. I don't have anything that'd get the dogs attention." he briefly said, assuming that since the Hyuuga girl asked the question, she wouldn't have anything like that on her and instead focused his attention towards Akihiro. "What about you? got anything?"

He was doubtful of that as well, which resulted in Hiroji circulating back to a proper plan of possibly catching the dog. "My Doton technique is perfect for catching the dog from underground, but I really need some sort of way to know what's on the surface." that was the major and only drawback of the technique, since he nearly caught the dog the first time but he was off by a few meters.

"Well we've been doing okay up until now." Akihiro shrugged and replied to Ningyo's comment on Hiroji's attitude while jogged behind the girl to reach his current position as well. Akihito checked his pockets after his suggestion, but truth to be said he hadn't even packed lunch for this mission. He'd been confident that, after having caught the dog once, he would catch it today much more easily. But oh boy, he was wrong. The Sparrow shook his head at Hiroji's question. "Nope, all I got is basic ninja tools. Doubt it's going to be attracted to a kunai blade." he bluntly stated. Akihiro really wouldn't have minded sacrificing his lunch for catching the thing, but he simply didn't have anything on him.

He made a pause, thinking while Hiroji explained the problem with using his Doton technique to catch the dog. Akihiro looked at Ningyo, then at Hiroji, and finally at Ningyo again. He felt bad always asking her to do stuff, but he couldn't really think of anything else. "I know your bloodline grants you a special Dõjutsu." Akihiro stated. "I can't use mine for this....but by any chance, could your Dõjutsu detect the dog if you were underground beneath it? If so, you could crawl into the hole with Hiroji and alert him when you're in the right position." Ah, there he was again, unknowingly and innocently making indecent proposals that oddly made a lot of sense.

The idea had suddenly been turned on her as Hiroji asked if she had anything to get the dog's attention. Patting her pockets and then showing empty hands and shrugging shoulders was her response but she was more than certain that her pantomime would get her point across. Again the Senju complained about his techniques failing in this way or that. Between his whining and cold way of talking he really came off as a toxic person to be around. Just her luck to be paired up with someone like that!

"Hmm?" She mused with a tilting of her head as Akihiro brought up her eyes; more specifically the eyes of her clan not just her own set. Once he had set his idea out there though, she raised a finger to her chin and tapped it lightly once or twice. "That might work, yeah. Admittedly my eyes aren't very well developed yet so it might not be perfect but!" she hopped and clapped her hands together, "Nothing ventured nothing gained as they say!"

Attention turned to Hiroji now. They would need to work as a team to complete this mission and he would have to allow her to be his eyes. She wasn't exactly sure why but she felt that would be quite a hurdle for the young man to climb over.

The woman hadn't even been there for five minutes, and he'd have to share his prowess with her in order to capture this dog? he would love to get this mission over and done with, but Akihiro was way too trusting of her. Honestly though, as long as she did what he asked or what he wanted her to do, he's fine with it. "Sure thing, but I'll capture the dog when were underneath, alright? it's my jutsu and I can get out of the hole quicker." doing as Akihiro suggested, he moved a bit away from them and already launched his body through the earth, creating a hole of where he dugged down into, Hiroji slightly moved forward to give enough space for the Hyuuga female to go down into. What he wouldn't mention is that since he's the caster of the jutsu, the earth will "ignore" him so to speak, not getting him dirty with dirt meanwhile it's a completely different case for the Hyuuga who most likely will.

As soon as she would get in and grip onto him, Hiroji would start to move inside the earth underground, considering his taller height compared to hers, most of the earth will just pass straight through her from the side but bits and pieces of it will find it's way to her, believing that essential detail wasn't worth noting in the first place, he'd ask her at last. "Where's the dog at?" since she's the one with the ability that apparently lets her sense the dog, after all.

Akihiro nodded at Hiroji's request. It made sense that he'd be the one capturing the dog if he could get out of the hole faster. Akihiro's plan had been to use Ningyo's Byakugan as a scouting tool and that was it. The young Uchiha walked up to Hiroji's hole and looked down, finding the older Senju down below inside of it. "I think it's ready!" Akihiro would say, glancing at Ningyo and smiling. The Uchiha had no idea she was going to get dirty from all that...dirt. Looking back now, he probably should have guessed it. But Akihiro was way too excited about his plan being put into motion to notice those smaller details.

More than that, Akihiro was excited to find about what the Byakugan could really do. He had spent years listening to his elders talk about the wars with the Hyuuga, the difficulties of facing the Byakugan in combat, and the many war heroes who managed to do so. They made the Byakugan and its wielders sound like terrifying people and yet here was Ningyo a perfectly normal girl, who seemed to be anything but menacing. Patiently, Akihiro waited for the duo to put their plan in motion.

Rolling her eyes at Hiroji's obstinate stance on being the one to capture the dog, she waved a hand and nodded in agreement. "By all means." She said dryly. Pride was a really impressive emotion and Hiroji was an impressive example of a prideful person. It wasn't a good kind of impressive though, at least not to Ningyo. It was the kind of impressive that made you want to gag. An impressive stench. An impressive mound of trash. That kind of impressiveness.

Once the hole had been formed Akihiro reassured her that it was ready for her to jump into. Eyeing the sudden scar in the ground she couldn't help but look down at her white clothing. A few seconds of fidgeting uncertainty accompanied the steeling of her resolve. At least it was just dirt and dirt could be washed out. A confirmatory nod and the Hyuuga took a step forward and hopped into the tunnel.

Once inside said tunnel things were expectedly dark. It took her a moment to adjust herself but after that her hands moved through a series of handseals. Her eyes, the pupil-less stark white intensified, the area around her sockets growing vascular from the exertion. She was by no means an expert of her bloodline but she wasn't inept either. A sudden field of vision expanded from her, a nearly perfect circle of sight.

Hiroji's voice cut through her concentration and she put a finger to her mouth and with a "shh" hoped he would let her get back to trying to find the dog. After a few moments of scanning the area she noticed an out-of-place figure under a nearby grouping of bushes.

"Eighteen meters to the Northwest, hiding under the bushes." She placed a hand on his shoulder should he allow it and gently nudged him in the right direction after that. If he didn't allow her to do so she would correct his course as he moved forward. Once they grew close to the dog she would tell him to slow down and finally stop once under it.

"Directly above us. It doesn't seem to suspect anything." She whispered, unsure of the acoustics that came along with this kind of thing.

Hiroji was a bit reluctant with this plan honestly, but he had to swallow his pride for now, if he didn't then the entire team would just be there for the entire day honestly, and he's sick of chasing this dog around as it is so he's pretty eager to end the mission on that note. He kept it together and kept his cool even when she planted his hand on his shoulder, listening to her direction as he started to get used to the idea of it, if their team really needed a sensory, she wouldn't be so bad for it, as much as he may not wanted to admit it, she's pretty useful for her eyes. He did as she instructed throughout the entire underground and made his way under the dog who's apparently right above them on the surface.

Assuming that she remained completely quiet and he could launch up to grab the dog without much trouble, he instantly launched out of the ground with both of his arms forward, instantly feeling his hands grab away at the dog, one hand on the side which gripped tightly and the other one gripping tightly against his... pee spot... the dog was peeing while Hiroji had grabbed for the dog, letting one hand go but using the other hand to wrap around the underbelly of the dog, locking him in tightly so he wouldn't be able to run off or kick away at his grip or chest.

"Got it!" Hiroji had exclaimed to both of his teammates, Akihiro's plan had worked and with the combined effort of Hiroji and Ningyo, the dog had been successfully captured at the cost of wetting one of his own hands from the dogs piss. "Yeah... I'll clean that once I get home, but good work for a woman." he'd say towards the Hyuuga down in the hole, or outside of it if she climbed out with him.

Akihiro smiled when he saw Horoji finally grabbing that damn dog. It was about time the three of them found a way to catch the creature and bring it back to its rightful owners! In the end, it was their teamwork that got them through that mission. Although Akihiro hadn't directly participated in the grabbing he liked to think that his idea was important to get the job done. He also concluded he needed more training if he wanted to go around helping his friends in a more direct way. Perhaps next time he wouldn't be the one standing around and waiting hopefully for others to do their part of the job? Who knows. The only thing Akihiro knew for sure was that he needed to improve in all aspects of being a ninja.

"Heck yeah!" He would exclaim, his fist up in the air and a confident look on his face. The dog seemed to have completely given up on escaping Hiroji's grasp and was now in a pitiful state, resigned to the fact that it was going back home. For an instant, Akihiro felt sorry for the dog but then he remembered all the things it had put them through and that feeling went away rather quickly. "Good job! Where are we supposed to deliver it again?" he would ask, admittedly not knowing this particular detail of their task.

Following closely behind the form of her teammate, Ningyo pulled herself out of the hole with a distinct lack of grace. As it turned out a person without Doton was not very adept at moving around underground. As an added disadvantage to not having that particular talent she couldn't help but look down at her once white clothing. Now smudged and caked in dirt a pout played on her lips. A futile attempt to pat the dirt off came after but once it was obvious that there was nothing to be done short of washing her clothes the Hyuuga stopped and accepted her filthy situation. "I did not think that through."

Feeling rather low the only bright side was that the dog had been captured. The veins around her eyes began to regress until the skin was smooth and pale once more as her need for the Byakugan had ended. She didn't need them activated to see that Hiroji's grip on the dog was a bit harsher than probably necessary but the mission did say that Chinatsu was stronger than it looked. She walked over to the Senju and their prize and leaned forward, doing her best to maintain eye contact with the canine.

"Awh, you're cute when you're not running." She cooed, bringing up a dirt-covered hand and running it through the dog's hair. "I bet it was scary, being away from home like that? Why don't we make sure you get back safe, okay?" With that the Hyuuga straightened out her posture and turned to Akihiro.

"Uhm, the mission said that Chinatsu belonged to Ms. Fukimoto. She probably resides in the residential area?"

Hiroji had kept a steady grip on the dog as he didn't want him to jump out of Hiroji's lap. The more the dog tried to loosen himself free, the more harder Hiroji had to just simply harden the grip and it might not be a good thing to be doing, but it's better then dropping the dog and chasing him all over the training grounds again. "Alright, I'll pass the dog to Ms. Fukimoto. I'll head over to the district and hand off the dog back to her, you two can just head on home if you'd like." he suggested this as a leader more so then doing a solid, as he'd imagine that the two would be winded from the experience and Hiroji tends to have more stamina for these type of activities, so a walk like that isn't any problem for him.

Regardless of their answers though, Hiroji would head off to the residential district and while there were a few last struggles from the dog here and there, it didn't really stop Hiroji or help the dog too much in it's case until it finally accepted it's defeat. The transcation between Ms. Fukimoto went smoothly enough as he managed to hand over the dog to her without much trouble, and on that note Hiroji had left. There wasn't really much reason to keep him around, he felt a bit weirded out by the fact that there's a Hyuuga on the team now, a female one at that. He'd need time to think this through.

(Exit)

When Hiroji announced that he would be the one to return Chinatsu to Ms. Fukimoto she couldn't help but feel a bit sad for the dog. She had wanted to be the one to spend time with it before returning it to it's owner but alas, fate had not smiled upon her this day. Abruptly the Senju left with their objective and left Ningyo alone with Akihiro. As this was their first meeting she had hoped to get to know her new teammates a little better than this. With Hiroji already having left though that plan was ruined before it began. She sighed quickly, moving her hand to her forehead. Absently she left a smudge of dirt in her wake, forgetting for the smallest second that she was covered in the stuff. Blushing quickly she tried to laugh it off.

"Haha, I'm not very used to Doton techniques you see, and, and I also don't spend a lot of time playing in the dirt you see, and, and...uhhh." Shoulders slumping, her voice trailed off in defeat. She wasn't sure what kind of first impression she left on the two but it probably wasn't as good of one as she had hoped.

"I think I'm going to go home now. It was nice meeting you two and I look forward to working with you both in the future!" She folded her hands over each other and bowed toward the Uchiha before rightly turning on the spot and nearly power walking out of the training grounds.

A shower never sounded so heavenly.

[Exit]