[D - Rank] Guard Duty

Mission:

Ningyo left mission headquarters and headed to the Main Gate. She passed a few village guards in green vests at the main gate and at the front guard tower. The Main gate consisted of two giant green doors and the mouth of Konoha's orange wall. Once she arrived Ningyo met with Hideki who was checking an arriving group of laborers papers.

Sitting at the Gate with Hideki was pretty relaxing. He explained that even in the case that there were operations by enemy ninja in Konoha, they usually didn't attack at the main gate, but ended up scaling somewhere more covert along the perimeter wall. The main gate was mostly used by laborers and merchants as the main conventional artery of traffic to the village.  

Ningyo wouldn't have minded if some enemy ninja did wind up attacking, since it would give her an opportunity to see how her training was coming along. HIdeki nodded at a Konoha ninja who ran through the village gate, his arms trailing behind him. Apparently a village headband was a free pass at gate check, and to certain shinobi who were known going out on missions, you could wave the formality of ID check.

"They tell us of course, enemy ninja can use a henge or disguise, so it doesn't hurt to check out their story" said Hideki. In the distance on the road they could see an old merchant with a cart. In this situation the carts had to be examined for contraband, or other regulated items. The thoroughness of the check was mostly at the discretion of the guard on duty.

Hideki looked around a little, checked the old man's papers and then waved the cart through. Things were pretty relaxed at the gate. The truth was that things like a village invasion or raid just didn't happen every day.

Ningyo showed Hideki a few card tricks to pass the time, as she had been working on her stage magic. She fingered two queens in the deck, changing the queen of hearts into the queen of spades. Hideki wasn't impressed by such a basic trick (he was after all a ninja) but Ningyo performed some of the more complex "guess your card" tricks which eventually elicited a "Wait... how did you do that one? Show me again.".

Hideki let another traveler pass through the gate after checking papers. He explained that putting Genin on gate assignment familiarized the guards with shinobi running missions, let the Genin learn about gate protocol and provided a little backup when they were short staffed or if there was going to be a shift change.

Hideki said he was glad he had become a village guard since he didn't have to do frontline missions everyday and risk his neck. He had a girlfriend who waited for him at home when he got off work, and she was relieved that he wasn't in combat all the time. Not only that, but he explained the pay and medical package was pretty competitive for guards if Ningyo was interested in guard division as a career path.

After a few more hours in the sun Hideki was shift changed for another Chuunin. Ningyo still had to stay and the second Gate Chuunin was less sociable then Hideki. When she was told she in the afternoon that she was free to go she stretched her arms and made her way back to the village.