A Sucker For Shellfish (Mission)

Mission Name: Raw Rowdy Rocktails
Mission Type: Chore
Mission Rank: C
Mission Goal: Help some fisherman to catch a bunch of Rocktails.
Description: One of the strongest and hardest to catch fish is the Rocktail, which earned its name due to its sturdy tail with which it can deliver some powerful slaps that could hurt people very badly and is rumoured to even break rocks and the shells of crustaceans with it. It also has a pair of powerful boney jaws that can bite through the hardest leather with a single bite. No matter how tough they are though, their meat's a delicacy...
Payment: 15,000 ryo
Requirements: Chuunin or genin team

Kye had grown quite fond of Kirigakure after being a temporary resident for about a month. The weather wasn't too volatile and acted like a much milder Kumogakure. Clouds meant overcast or rainfall versus thunderstorms. The property damage was far less and could be seen by the age of some infrastructure.

He was assigned a mission with two other Genin at random to complete a C-rank quest. He misunderstood the requirement for such a Genin-heavy team. For a mission as simple as fishing he would imagine it would be classified as D-rank. Even if the fish was considered hostile it was really only effective in water. If somebody was dumb enough to stick their hand where the mouth was they most likely needed to go back to the academy and learn common sense. But that threat aside he figured it would just be an ordinary day at the beach. The young man carried a handheld cooler in his left hand filled with goods to pass the time. The mission was risk-free by his standards so he figured he might as well make the best of it.

Kye himself was dressed in a pair of black dress shoes, pants, and blazer. A white collared shirt was worn in addition to a black tie being the completion of his outfit. He strung a katana around his waist on his left side. Anybody with an eye for weapon would be able to tell the katana was nothing of significance, but it was a functional blade. Kye's navy blue hair swept over his right hair concealing the black eye patch he wore underneath. It was his daily gear for the most part. Standing at 5'10 he was of average height and a lean build not showing any extreme definition, but visible muscle mainly on his chest and back. Upon reaching the pier he'd set the cooler down at his feet and observe the beach and path for his partners. He didn't have any expectations nor doubts. He'd let the clear skies provide him warmth while the breeze kept him cool and gave him a taste of the salty sea.

Fishing. It brought back memories. The last time Chigetsu had gone fishing was… Well. A long time ago. Back before she was like this. Seeing the mission listing brought back a flood of memories. It was a wholly uncomfortable experience. It took a bit of deliberation before Chigetsu decided on taking it. The mission seemed easy enough, and it would be nice to have some relaxation time before the next phase of the exams would begin. It was a nice day afterall, with clear skies and a natural warmth coming down from the sun. Going out and fishing with some other people her age would probably be a nice experience that would let her take it easy.

The only stick up would be the team aspect. Chigetsu already wasn’t the best with strangers, although she was getting better at that. Because of this whole Chunin Exams thing and the spirit of cooperation, or whatever, there was a good chance these people would be foreigners from different villages. It made it a little weird, but if worse came to worse Chigetsu would probably never have to see them again.

She would arrive at the pier where the mission was set to take place, who’s only occupant right now seemed to be a young man. Judging by the cooler he had, whoever this was probably was one of the people who was assigned to be on her team for this. Chigetsu would give a silent wave towards him, a small hello if he would notice it.

Chigetsu was a shorter 5’4”, although with the nervous slouch she usually had her height sometimes appeared even less than that. What stood out the most about her was her hair. A bright pink, having been freshly dyed that color as a part of her confidence building ritual for the Chunin Exams. Past her neck it was braided into a thick, ropey braid of hair that continued down to her hips. At the end would be a tightly wrapped black bow, matching with the other two would would be tied into each side of her head. A solitary locke of paper-white would run down to the left of her face in her bangs, being the one remnant of her natural hair color. Without a single spec of armor on her body, the young woman would instead be dressed in a light, airy purple and white striped crop top. Her headband, wrapped as a sort of necklace that hung loosely at her collarbone, would obscure a bit of the skin that the deeply cut neck of her shirt would have normally exposed. The shirt freely exposed her navel and belly-button as well, although on top of it would be a warm-looking fluffy purple hooded jacket that contained a variety of seemingly unused pockets. At her waist would be the only indication that she was a shinobi at all, with a hip pouch firmly attached to a blue belt. It was joined by three holsters that hung just above the ruffled black skirt that the girl wore. A similarly simple pair of black thigh-high stockings would run down her legs, only exposing a bit of her thighs between where the socks began and her skirt ended. On her feet Chigetsu would be wearing a slightly beaten up pair of purple laced sneakers. They were practical and comfortable, if perhaps not exactly what a shinobi would be expected to wear.

It was a beautiful day in Kirigakure and Shinsui was handed a mission scroll as he went into the Defense Coordination Building before even bothering to ask. He’d come in often over the course of the past few weeks and the staff had seemed to know him well enough to simply hand him a mission and let him be on his way. This one was different however in the fact that he wasn’t the only person on the mission this time. Not like finding someone on the way, like he had with that ignorant cat, but actually assigned teammates. He didn’t know who they were or where they were from, but it was a chance to socialize that he hadn’t had much opportunity to do since arriving. So focused had he been upon his training in order to make up the vast gap of distance between himself and others in the exams.

The tall, dark haired man would wear his normal suit and overcoat, it wasn’t particularly required due to how warm it was outside, but it was a part of his style, and he liked it alot. He’d forego the scarf though, that was a bit much even for him. His long black hair was let down, falling straight to his lower back. An unopened pack of cigars was in his break pocket and his shoes were casual formal, simply black leather shoes that didn't cost very much at all and were easily replaceable if required. Checking himself in the windows of stores as he passed he judged his appearance suitable before stepping into the local general store and bought a large number of snacks. Chips of all kinds, fruits, candies, enough for three people to munch on all day if necessary and took his purchases with him in a fairly large bag toward the beach.

Arriving, he’d see two people upon the pier, one with a large cooler to which Shinsui mentally slapped his forehead. ‘How could I forget to bring drinks? Well, at least this fellow seemed to have brought a good deal. If the cooler is any indication.' The man was on the taller side of average, about five or six inches shorter than Shinsui himself and wore a suit as well, a kindred spirit then? Perhaps, the other teammate seemed to be a young woman with pink hair and a casual outfit showing off her midriff. It was a bit too much pink and purple for his taste, but she was cute, just not to him specifically. He would stop down to the pier and call out. “Good morning!” He would say as he stepped onto the dock and walked toward the end of it. “I’m Shinsui, of Konoha. I take we make up the team for..fishing?” He would ask, the last word coming out mildly skeptical. It seemed odd to him to have fishing be a C rank mission but when in Kirigakure such things would probably be given more importance.

The attentive Genin would notice the bipedal wad of pink bubble gum. Well, maybe not that harsh, but compared to a lot of ordinary people the person's appearance stood out. Shifting his head to Chigetsu's direction he gave a quick once-over her appearance. That was until Kye gave a second up and down of Chigetsu and questioned if he was using the correct pronoun. At first glance he wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary aside from a petite, pink haired girl dressed in rather casual clothes. But he was not born yesterday. Even the most underdeveloped girls had at least some form of breasts and generally wore a bra or bindings to keep them out of the way. This naturally added more padding to the chest than usual, but as for Chigetsu there was no sign. Zip. Nadda. She was as flat as an ironic board, her chest perfectly leveled to serve as a foundation. He had heard of cross-dressings but never seen them in person. He was rather impressed.

Although he was not certain what Chigetsu's gender was, he didn't give it too much thought. What the girl did in her spare time was none of his business. The pinkette's wave would be greeted with a partial smile and casual nod of his head. Following shortly behind her was a male, tall in stature but lean in build. He held a small plastic bag filled with snacks, the like-minded individual having the same intentions as Kye. "Shinsui of Konoha? I am Kye Takamura from Kumogakure. As for hi- her, I don't think she's the talkative type. What's your time, Pinky?" Kye said teasingly despite his unintentional pronoun mashup. The person seemed very shy and would hate to be the one to shatter her self-esteem. Getting her to leave her home seemed like enough work as is. He couldn't imagine what demons she has to face on her own. Shinsui on the other hand seemed like an okay guy. First impressions were just that.

"I brought some sodas and waters to help pass the time. I figured we could take turns fishing and enjoy the beach. Bending over he'd pick up the cooler and bob his head to the side to motion towards the shores. "Lets set up." He'd travel around the pier and towards the sandy beach line, close, but not too close to the waters.

Chigetsu would twitch. It would be a visible, almost flinching sort of motion. Just for a second, and maybe it wouldn’t be something anyone would pick up on if they weren’t watching closely. It was because of what Kye said. That little mix up with the pronoun was something that was immediately noticeable to Chigetsu, as you would expect from somebody in Chigetsu’s position. Her heart would drop, sinking down heavy to the bottom of her stomach. Crossing her right arm over her midriff self-consciously, her eyes would immediately drop down to stare at the boards of the pier. Normally she was pretty confident about her own appearance. She wouldn’t dress like she did if she didn’t have at least a little bit of confidence in her own appearance, but it immediately collapsed like a house of cards at that moment with only half a word. All Chigetsu could think of now was how much she wanted to go home. She felt disgusting. She felt like she was going to throw up.

“Time…?” She would shift her eyes up to Kye for a moment and then turn her gaze back to the pier. “My name is Chigetsu, if that was what you were asking.” There wasn’t much in her voice to work with. Quiet and dull. The energy had already been drained from her.

She would resign herself to the mission, figuring it was too late to just go home and retreat to her bed. Without the initiative she would just stand there though, waiting for the other two to figure out their snack situation. Chigetsu didn’t have much interest in eating right now, on account of how sick she felt. Once the others left she would follow them, only a few steps behind. Not that she would drink a soda in the first place. Normally this might be something she would turn her nose up to and make some comment on how water was healthier, biased as she was from being a Hozuki, but she didn't have the energy for at it right now. There wasn't any point.

So Kye Takamura was the name of his fellow sharp dressed man? He'd remember it, the man's comment toward their pink haired teammate left him mildly confused however. 'Did he start to refer to her as a he?' He would ask as he looked toward the pinkette to see her reaction. It was...odd. She held a hand across her bare midriff self consciously, and avoided eye contact completely. It was as if she was embarrassed and, ashamed? 'Oh my god he's right..' The long haired man from Konoha thought as he looked closer. The lack of a strap of any kind, or even wrappings, would indeed give his teammate away. "I see.." He would say as he began to consider options for how to handle this situation. His eyes never left Chigetsu as he considered what to do before he decided that perhaps not addressing it would help her more than poking at it with a metaphorical stick. "Well Mr. Takamura, Miss Chigetsu, I've brought a variety of snacks for all of us and we can probably take turns fishing while the others relax a bit in the sun and sand. What do you think?" He would ask, putting emphasis on her prefix. It didn't matter what someone was, but what they wanted to be known as. If Chigetsu wanted to identify as a woman, more power to her.

With that, Shinsui would walk to the end of the pier, his bulging bags being set down. He'd gotten some disposable chopsticks for them too and were in one of the bags. Near the edge of the pier were fishing poles and bait, set out by one of the local pier vendors for their use for the mission. If he recalled correct, they were to bring them and any catches to the angler shop behind them on the pier, simple enough. "So what's life like in Kumogakure?" He'd ask Kye in curiosity, as he hadn't stepped out of voice distance by any means. He figured Chigetsu would rather not be harassed for questions at the moment so he'd hold off on asking her anything for now. That meant Kye got to take the brunt of his curiosities for the moment, of course he'd answer any question he could in return, he wasn't rude. He was simply curious, and had no issue with trying to sate the curiosity of others.

Time?

Kye was a bit confused as to what Chigetsu meant by saying 'time', overall harming his impression of the self-identified girl. He figured she was one of those socially inept, creepy people that spoke nonsense to themselves and had something more than notebooks in their backpack. But in reality Kye was just completely oblivious of his faux pas. Alas he wouldn't be the type to judge harshly. He had his own concerns and personal biases, but he wouldn't let those get in the way of his success or even making new friends, if he could. Kye wasn't too eager about being friends with foreign ninja. It just wasn't really compatible. Politics generally got in the way of healthy relationships between foreign ninja. But at the very least he could be on good terms as a comfortable compromise.

But in the end Kye did get the pinkette's name which was the overall objective. Introductions out of the way they could get on with the mission itself, which he dared called a mission. The taller male of the two intervened attempted to correct Kye's mistake by making it very clear and obvious he referred to Chigetsu as 'miss.' Bruh you're going to make it worse... He thought painstakingly to himself, his body language showing no clear signs of his internal pain. Kye was not clumsy, he just spoke what came to him mind. He was certainly smart enough to know not to pick at scabs, so to speak. The damage was done. No point in making it a bigger issue than it already was.

Shinsui seemed innocent, though. So he gave him a pass on that. But what he really couldn't let pass up was what followed his pronoun situation. 'we can probably take turns fishing while the others relax a bit in the sun and sand. What do you think?' Was he consciously unaware that Kye just said that? Or was this his attempt of trying to one-up him by being the latest one to share his plan? And here Kye thought he was the mastermind by finding the loophole in this mission. "Oh wow, fantastic idea, haha. Bastard." Kye said with as much sarcasm as he could. The tone in his voice suggested no malice or ill-intent towards the newly acquainted Konoha ninja.

Chigetsu stayed motionless, but Kye and Shinsui took initiative at the same time. And they both had zero coordination. Kye grabbed his ice chest and suggested he'd head down to the shore while Shinsui walked completely past to head deeper in the pier. A reflexive hand shot out and grabbed Shinsui by the bicep. "The sands are the other way, Shin." He'd give him a short tug to stop his momentum and try and steer Shinsui towards his direction. "Rocktail are known to eat shellfish. This means fishing from the shores are perfect as the tide comes in."

Chigetsu didn’t say anything. Her attention had been diverted away from the two dudebros, and instead she would be staring off to the shore. It had been a long time since she last went fishing. Years even. Thinking about it now brought back memories though. Even though she had spent the majority of her life in the Hozuki District that didn’t mean that she wasn’t able to do things like go fishing. The Hozuki District was huge, and with the wealth that existed within the clan even things like private lakes and artificial rivers that were stocked existed. She had plenty of memories of fishing when she was a child. Mainly during events right after the rivers were stocked, where only children were allowed to fish. There would be plenty of little Hozuki's spread about, fishing with their parents supervising.

She remembered now something specific. There was a photo she had, tucked away somewhere in one of her drawers in her apartment. It was of a little child, with messy white hair that was carrying a big river bass in each arm, their little fingers hooked under their gills. Behind them was an older man, with a similarly messy head of white hair and a light white stubble, who looked almost like a split image of the child, just older. The family resemblance was clear. The memories were fuzzy because of how long ago they were, but she could still remember that moment clearly. It was weird to think about, and Chigetsu didn’t know how to feel now.

She walked out into the shore. The water would lap at her ankles. She hadn’t bothered to take off her shoes or her thigh-highs, and so both would get quickly waterlogged. Not too long and she would be up to her mid-calves, and she would stop there. Her attention would focus out into the waves. Chigetsu would slowly raise her arm, pointing out into the sea.

It would take a moment, but her arm would liquefy and shoot out into the sea, appearing as a near translucent stream of water. The end of her arm had transformed into a wobbly blob. The sort of control that she had over the water almost made it look like there was some membrane around it, like water sloshing around inside an invisible balloon. Her liquified arm would stretch several meters out and flow into the depths of a small wave, and with what looked like a flick of her wrist it would return. There would be a fish captured inside the liquid of her arm as she raised it up from the sea, confusedly sloshing around in the levitating stream of water.

It would be deposited on the dock next to the boys, and after a moment the liquefied blob of Chigetsu’s arm would return back to her body and solidity into flesh. Having already caught one she would turn up to look at the two, watching for their reactions.

Shinsui winced as he realized he'd basically reiterated Kye's idea as if it were his own. He raised an apologetic hand "Sorry Kye, I didn't mean to spit your idea out as if it were mine." He'd say, when it came to being stopped from going to the end of the dock however Shinsui would..keep going. "Fair enough, I didn't know that. But the fishing pole is still over there." He'd say as he nodded his head toward it and moved over to pick it up and walk back down the dock to go toward the beach. Their pink haired teammate, Chigetsu would be at the water, staring off into it as if lost in thought before her arm extended, liquefying and firing off into the sea like a stream of water. Nearly see through, the appendage would appear as if it was some kind of water creature with a thin membrane around it. The 'arm' would extend into the sea and with a flick of her wrist it would return..with one of the fish that they were required to catch entrapped within the liquid.

Shinsui's eyes would widen in surprise as she turned toward him. "That..was impressive." He would say as he blinked at her owlishly. "Water manipulation? To such a level? How does that work?" He'd ask without thinking before shaking his head in startled self recrimination. "Crap, you don't have to answer that, I asked without thinking. A ninja shouldn't reveal their secrets." He would say before turning to Kye "I got here last, so I'll fish up a few with the pole first, If you want to Chigetsu, you could catch a couple more and we can catch three each. That should satisfy the mission demands. Sound good to you two?" He'd ask his fellow well dressed man and what was arguably the pinkest genin he'd ever seen. If he agreed he'd set his bags on a rock jutting out from the beach, allowing it to act as a makeshift table, before turning and casting out a line, after baiting it of course. If he disagreed, he'd pass him the pole and still set up the snacks on the rocks.

A nice afternoon at the beach was expedited by Chigetsu's water ability, pulling out the fish they needed right from the water without even touching a fishing rod. She displayed proficiency with Ninjutsu and the Water element. For having so much talent he was surprised she was so timid. But to each their own. Their job was complete and Kye had little reason to stick around much longer. "Would you look at that. Guess I'll turn these suckers in. Great work, Pinky." He said with sincerity before hurling the product back to the cleaners or whatever. He'd head back to the Mizukage Complex to cash out his prize.

[Exit]

Chigetsu would blink at the reactions. Did they really only need to catch a single fish? Maybe she had misunderstood the nature of this mission. With Kye scooping up the fish and leaving, Chigetsu would be left awkwardly half submerged in the water with just the tall black-haired boy as companionship. She would look at Kye, who had taken the fish, and then back at Shinsui. How strange.

“It’s just some basic water manipulation. Hozuki Clan and all that…” She would trail off, a bit nervous at explaining herself like that. He was right in that she shouldn’t give away her secrets, but this wasn’t really… It was just something the Hozuki could do. Anyone who knew the Hozuki Clan would know this. Maybe it was just her ignorance, but she didn’t see much of a reason to keep it a secret, especially through acting coy about it after showing it off like this.

“I’ll… Uh.” She would look back to watch Kye off in the distance, still walking away. “I guess if we’re done here…?” She would slowly shimmy out of the water, beginning her trip home. What an awkward and strange mission.

[Exit]