Quickie

Spoiler:

Now this, this was a mission which used his talents to their fullest. Plus, the pay was not half bad either. He actually found it quite strange that they specifically required a ninja for this, but he could not bring himself to complain when he had such a roll to complete, such a part to play, such drama to enact. He paged through the script as the forge lit, as the bellows… bellowed. He rehearsed his lines at all hours of the day and night, put them to melancholy sitar music. All of his newly forged senbon heard him rehearse his dire part.

When finally the day of the show came, he lurked backstage as the children ran too and fro, recounting the formation of their glorious village. The crowd clapped, they laughed, they cried, they were moved to such heights of emotion the likes of which they had never known! And then, his time to appear, the final, most vile obstacle, a shrewd and evil politician bent on grabbing power at all costs.

He pranced elegantly from backstage enshrouded in a deep violet cape before issuing a high pitched cackle. The crowd trembled in fear, though a few fans also cheered. He was, after all, a somewhat sympathetic character if for no other reason than the raw charisma he exuded. He challenged the newly formed hero to a final battle, casting off his cloak to reveal a host of armor on his body. The fight ran on and on in dangerous and death defying stunts, a jab here, a kick here, but finally in the end their hero, upon the brink of defeat, cast down Osho and the crowd exploded with joy. As far as missions went, what an absolute delight!

Spoiler:

The hour was, to be entirely honest, ungodly. His assigned mission forced him to report at 0800 to the governmental hospital for a remedial class in medicine. To be clear, he had no particular interest in the medical arts nor did he really see himself as a battlefield medic, but it did make quite a bit of sense to have would be ninja at least learn a bit about medicine. After all, most if not all of them would be  sent into dangerous battle conditions. Surely blood would spill on the field and it would make sense to educate all of the genin in how to treat basic wounds. He knew a very small amount regarding it, but certainly some additional information would not go wrong.

Still, far too early.

To his delight, the woman teaching the class and her male assistant were both very easy on the eyes and had pleasant enough voices, which pleased him in that it did not cause him too much ear pain so early in the day. He nursed his coffee he had brought throughout the course of the lecture portion, taking in perhaps much more information than one might expect from his general posture and body language. While he did not take notes nor appear to be paying much of any attention, he took in the information nonetheless, himself a rather auditory learner as it were. Even this theoretical knowledge helped, regardless of whether it was about very simple applications. Basic bandages, splints, some information about the body and respiration, CPR, disinfectants, and the like all were covered here.

Before too long they went on to some practical applications, using a variety of dummies to demonstrate common battle injuries and how to treat them. Apply pressure here, bandage here, press this hard, breaking ribs is ok if it saves their lives. He mused internally at this sort of damage caused in the name of safety, simultaneously coming to the realization as to why medics were so useful and assuming that nearly any non-lethal damage would be worth the life, as so many medical techniques could essentially regenerate entire anything so long as the person still clung to life. Perhaps he should take up medicine after all. And of course, there were always tales of what a medic could do when combined with puppetry, mere hints really, but things worth consideration. He thanked the instructional pair upon his departure, fairly confident in his ability to stabilize basic injuries. But was it worth it? Damage mitigation was a fairly unsafe method. Better, generally, to strike first.

Spoiler:

Having rather overbooked himself for the day, Osho awoke quite early for him and hit the town at roughly 0800. He had recently done a set of calculations regarding monthly expenses and such and determined that in the very near future he should find his fund significantly diminished. Assuming only the money he had earmarked for investments and a few crafting projects, he would fall short this month in fund to produce any puppets, let alone set up a shop or be able to produce anything beyond some more or less practice items. Though, to be fair, his practice items were becoming increasingly top tier quality and he was on the brink of a final breakthrough - he could feel it - of the ability to craft weaponry commensurate with all but the most legendary craftsman. Though a flippant and goofy person by nature, Gyo possessed a certain genius combined with an incredible tenacity for repetitive practice and iteration, which naturally lent itself to crafting. Even as he thought on his projects in regards to his budget, his mind exploded with all sorts of interesting but ultimately very expensive ideas. He really wished that he could secure some kind of contract with the village.

Regardless, the bottom line of his mental calculations reached one singular conclusion: he needed more money, and with some of the more unsavory methods available to him tapped for the time being, he would have to reduce himself to... village missions. Well, a few village missions and one quick drop off for a previous underground client, but still. He'd selected a host of them for the day, making sure to select only a few with any real time restrictions so that he could start a bunch of them and finish them all by the end of the day. Even so, this would hardly pay for... anything, and he had already spent his village salary for the month only a few days after receiving it. He wondered to himself about how other genin in the village managed, though he supposed without any particular business acumen they would require a great deal less cash flow. He sighed as he looked over the pages of missions once more to ensure that he didn't miss anything before officially beginning.

He went first to the market, slipped into an alleyway, and picked up a small package, which he stored in an inner pocket of his jacket. This could be delivered at basically any time and, while he probably ought not have whatever contraband this was on his person, he felt confident that he could avoid detection. In fact, he was rather well known amongst the criminal underbelly at this point, so he had no doubt that gaining the correct ear within the village could get him off the hook for most things. For now, he needed to make his way back into the heart of the market, but not before instructing someone to come along with him, a lower ranking criminal operative with currently nothing to do. He needed him and his two friends to help him purchase and transport all the fanciful ingredients that the crown had requested.

The market place, at the open of the only stand selling the exotic uni, was an absolute mad house. However, armed with extremely deep pockets and 4 separate people to place orders and rotate through the line, Gyo's hodge podge group managed to secure the lion's share of product. And then they simply needed to make their way on over to the royal kitchens, though not before taking a small sample of the delectable product. Truly worth the price. Gyo instructed that the seafood was to be wrapped up and packaged tightly such that the four men could easily carry it and away they went. Luckily, a quick stop to a small clothing shop met his mark for the drop off of the small package he'd been giving, allowing him to tick that off of his list of to do items as well. Two down, just a few more to go.

He next made his way to the kitchen proper, where he had volunteered to help out with the meal prep. Were he to speak honestly, he thought that a pork dish served with the otherwise rather delicate and vaguely sweet uni was a bit tasteless, but he also had not asked significantly about the course order or whether these would be served to separate people. In fact, all of this may have been served at a large gathering ala carte or in some other take as you please fashion, which would mean that people could select their own. He bristled slightly at the lack of invitation for himself; he had been a part of the upper crust of society long before joining the military, and now that he was in the military he had quickly moved to being one of the single richest ninja in the village, as well a burgeoning businessman and rather infamous member of the secret underground ring of illicit substance procurement.

But no matter, he quickly settled into a routine as the freshly slaughtered pigs were brought into the kitchen, at which point Gyo served to break them down further. Gyo thought the idea of freshly slaughtered was a bit unnecessarily garish, especially since this basically did not affect the flavor or texture in any way at all. But alas, it payed, so he worked to break down the ribs and hand them off to the chefs to begin the marinade. The work was, to be honest, rather relaxing, and Gyo did have a bit of a culinary bone so he did enjoy the activities. However, his mind wandered off to the rest of his plans as he mentally calculated his use of time. Washing up, he headed swiftly down and out of the administrative park and to a local home of an ex puppet master. He was rather exited for this particular 'mission' as he got to be a model for some new clothing. But in this case, rather than distract himself with the remainder of his day or various ideas and blueprints, he plied the woman with endless questions about puppetry and what she knew of battle. To be honest, he greatly enjoyed the time and learned quite a bit of the more practical side of puppet based combat, though he was pleased at how much her experience mapped onto his mental models and general tactics.

To round out his day, he stopped by the academy for a quick class on toxicology. As far as he knew, he was at this point of one, if not the single, foremost expert on poisons in the village, though he assumed that the instructor was quite well versed too. Still, he used this less of an actual learning event regarding poisons than an expose in the village's generalized knowledge of poisons and medicines. All in all, he found the knowledge lacking, regardless of whether the course was meant for lower ranking ninja, but of course in this he saw a grand opportunity: if he was one of the best, he could easily corner that market. And so he left with an additional foundation of knowledge as well as some new prospects. He would need some kind of marketing strategy though to boost the awareness of how effective poisons could be. He knew they had some swordsmen in the village, but why didn't they envenom their weapons?

And finally, he headed down to a shop near where he lived to help with some organization. He and another young boy were tasked with organizing the wares, which they promptly went about, but Gyo also offered to help with an additional organizational system and a bit of book balancing to streamline the sales process. The whole thing took about an hour and a half or so, and Gyo certainly didn't need to help with the store operations, but considering that he had nothing else to do and had finished his chores for the day, he had a bit of time to spare. Plus, a general arms store had essentially nothing in the way of competition to prospective business ventures of the pop star, so it really cost him nothing at all to help out. And then, after a long day, he went back to the administrative building to turn in his missions for the day and receive a decent lump sum.

Exit