[Solo Missions- Taigakai] Thunderstruck Tasks

Mission Details:

“Lost a charm from her sister in a patch of wilted plants hmm… This is worse than when I lose my own earrings in my room.”, Taigakai said to himself while reading the notice over again. He stepped onto the elevator. “At least they were thorough with describing what this thing looks like.” Not only were there words, but the old man did his best to scribble out a little image in case the description itself wasn’t very clear.

Some kind of metal with a gold tint in filigree fashion encasing a jade orb connected to a tassel of white and a loop through the top. Either this charm was small or it just blended in too well with uhh… Wilted yellow grass. As soon as he reached the top, Taigakai immediately set off for the desert. The image was more or less fresh in his mind. It’s not like he could do much in an elevator but memorise the descriptions. What kind of charm was it? Probably for luck, since it had jade in it.

The desert seemed to be brimming with not-life. These plants were always here, even the newer sprouts immediately found themselves on the ground like some wig that wasn’t cared for properly. “Time to start searching, I guess.” Luckily, he had more than eyes. He had sand. Sand would help feel out the area. Glimmering particles of metal flowed out of his gourd and started to coat the ground around him. Now began the treasure hunt. The sand churned in soft and small rotations, shifting leaves and plucking up anything larger than a pebble. Of course, the search would have been too easy if he found it right where he started. Taigakai just strolled through the desert, taking into mind the extra details about where the couple have gone between the village and where they were coming from at the time. The sand in the desert was sifted through as he walked around. Best not leave anything unturned, you know? “Darn, maybe I should have asked if the charm was magnetic. This would make my life so much easier.” He’d learn at some point if it was or not regardless. Probably wasn’t though.

Smaller clouds of Taigakai’s own sand lifted closer so he could see if what he felt was the object in question. It hadn’t been so far. So far he’s found a weird rock with holes, a rusted knife, some nails and needles, someone’s shoe. People just lose the weirdest things out here. Unfortunately, he wasn’t on a mission to pick up trash or whoever actually owned these items. He was looking for something a little more pretty. A few more minutes stroll and he saw a glint from the ground that wasn’t silver in colour. No, this was golden and brighter. Taigakai looked at the object as his sand brought it closer. Gold filigree encasing a dull green orb anda  tassel. That seemed about right. He took out the note to compare. “Looks like this is the thing.”, he told himself, plucking the item out of the sand and shaking it a little to remove some of the particles from the desert. His own sand flew back into his gourd and he began to walk back, making sure that the couple would have their charm returned to them.


WC: 556/500

Approved

400 xel and 1 D-Rank technique

Mission Details:

Doing tasks for the village kept things fresh for Taiga. He would take some time off training, but he felt more like testing his skills today and took a ticket for an interesting case of some troubling triad in the canyons. Not much seemed to be said about them, but they seem to work well as a team together. That thought alone made Taiga sigh. An enemy had a better functioning team than the one he was in. Well, he’d just have to one up that.

As far as individual details went, the leader was called “Gu”. Any other information seemed to cross over each other. Some claimed they attacked at once. Others say it was one at a time. He figured it’d depend on how easy they thought their prey would be. Stronger looking ones would be hit at once and weaker ones just plucked off, if that was the case.

His breath was already misting by the time he reached the canyon. There wasn’t much of a sign of them in the open. Time to act. Taiga just placed his hands at the back of his head and walked down a path like he was just mindlessly strolling. He wasn’t looking around much, only to just keep a low profile.

“Hey Choki, Pa. Look at this. A lone ninkid wandering around? Maybe she’s lost. What do you guys think?” A tall and fairly muscled girl had a grin slice across her face that only seemed to radiate more of a thirst for cruel fun more than anything. “I wonder how far they could fly with that gaudy thing on their back.”, a thin and pale girl said before hissing out what was probably a laugh. “She needs a serious haircut. Maybe a little more.”, the last girl said, polishing a scissoring blade with a trigger on one of the handles. The three girls seemed to giggle quietly amongst themselves.

Taigakai paused for a moment to shiver. Not that he was cold, he couldn’t be. It was more that he was feeling something suddenly offsetting. A thirst for blood, a hungry danger. He’d understand why some merchants would be scared, especially without a shinobi escort or someone capable of fighting. But he wasn’t just someone who would put their tail between their legs and run away whimpering. Here they come.

He felt light tremors close by, movement of someone running. Two other pairs of lighter footprints would follow but only stop just before the first figure took a leap to close in on Taiga. Based on their… Oh wait why is the sky so da- Taiga looked up to see a large body directly overhead and immediately forced sand out of his gourd to catch him as he leapt out to the side over the ravine. The person landed with a loud thud, the earth below rippling out from under and around them. Actually that was an interesting ambush technique to offset an unsuspecting person, Taiga would need to figure out how to do that later.

“Hey! Kid! You’re in our territory! Ya lost or somethin’?”, Gu started. Her tone wasn’t really friendly when asking that question. It felt like regardless of his answer, he’d get the same answer. “You know what we do to lost brats like you right?”, she said, planting her hands on the ground and digging her fingers in to pull out a large chunk of earth in each hand. Taiga’s sand parted into two clouds, ready to toss himself onto the other to dodge these rocks about to get pelted at him. Taigakai reached into his pouch to pull out some needles to throw around the same time Gu did. “You must be Gu.”, Taigakai said. “Famous for being a BIG THOT.” Well, at least one of the well documented features was that she was big.

“EXCUSE ME?!”, Gu started only to be cut off by a whistling sound of a pair of crossing blades flying at him with B-rank speeds and a shriek of “YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW!” Found at least one of the two others. Taiga’s sand tossed him to the side quickly, the scissors glancing him and rocks both missing him and phasing through the other cloud of sand. There was a line attached and the sound of zipping meant that the blades of that weapon were being retracted quickly. He needed to act fast now that he probably pissed all three of them off.

Taigakai leapt off his cloud of sand and threw his needles, missing Gu entirely but at least surrounding her with them. “This kid isn’t even worth more than one of us! He can’t aim for anything!” That’s where Gu was wrong. Taiga landed and flicked through hand seals before slamming his hands on the ground and lighting it with a series of cracks made by lightning hunting for the needles and latching onto Gu. He lifted his hands and ran towards Gu at C-rank speeds, looking up to make sure those scissors weren’t flying towards him as he was closing in on their leader. He slipped out of his gourd and held it by the sash, over his head to throw the scissors off. Taigakai bounced off the ground and onto the wall while Gu was still recovering, bringing his gourd around in a full swing to whack Gu at her shoulder in attempts to throw her off balance and down the canyon.

Another shriek and a wail sounded, giving off the third girl’s location. Scissors flew at Taigakai again, but this time with the owner falling to get to his level and twisting the blades around to continuously return it in his direction. Not only that but there was a sound like firecrackers coming from some kunai knives in another direction lit up with what looked like paper bombs. Okay, they were blood sisters. Good to know. Taigakai slipped back into his gourd’s sash and used sand to deflect those scissors as best he could. He held on similar hand seals and catching onto the line of the weapon when it was close enough, and letting lightning course through the weapon. Mistakes of having something metallic, if it conducts, prepare to be fried. Choki let out a scream, seemingly he only form of communication thus far for Taigakai. The girl let go of her scissors momentarily, the trigger extension of the handle zipping back into its holster and Taiga batting her into the ravine with her own weapon. A couple more tagged kunai were deflected, one of which followed Choki and exploded, leaving a mess of her traces below. “Eugh.”

“Chokiiiiiiiiiii!” The last person sounded much more distressed now that her other sister was exploded by her own hands, technically. Big mistake on her part. Taigakai could clearly see her ghostly figure peeking out over a ledge. He ran up to her hiding spot, but she seemed to anticipate that by the time he got up there, since the entire mouth was hissing and sparking from a lining of paper tags. A quick glance showed this cave to be nothing more than a sheltered vantage point, now with no escape other than leaping out the entrance where Taiga was and before those bombs exploded. Poor girl was shaken over losing her sisters so quickly, but it seems like paper won this round. “Y-you killed them. But you won’t kill me!” She seemed like one of those who says they’d die on their own terms. “Gu, Choki, I’ll see you two soon after I take this brat down!” She excluded the ‘with me’ part, knowing full well that she was going to overdo it and had no escape. A wild look was in her eye, a storm of emotions ranging from anger, hate, sadness, and revenge. Taigakai’s face was shocked, but instead of doing anything, he just jumped back to land on a cloud of sand way below where Pa was, only to watch an explosion before bloodstained rock and viscera flew and fell below him.

WC: 1346/1000

Approved

800 Xel

1 C-Rank or 2 D-Rank techniques

Mission Details:

Taigakai was actually surprised that this wasn’t posted by Chandra. He guessed she kept her cats in check. Chandra seemed like the kind of person who would have many cats but also know to keep them in check. There were quite a few cats everywhere. Taigakai named the strays with dumb little nicknames based on look or personality. Like there was this one old grey cat that he swore had this bushy mustache that blended with this whiskers. Back on topic! The cat he was looking for was marked and had a stubby tail. Maybe he would nickname the cat Stubbs or Stubby.

The bell collar would help find the little guy. Uh, girl. Whatever gender it was. Bells jingled when moved, and there was likely to be a light ringing if the cat was walking or running. He started with an alleyway where strays liked to gather. It was behind a butcher shop, strips of scrap and leftover chops of bone were given to these cats to feed on at the end of the day, so a lot of the strays just hung around waiting for mealtime.

"Let's see here. White shorthair... stubby tail... bell collar...", Taigakai recited to himself as he scanned over the cats. An orange tabby was lazing on a box. Definitely not white. Near it were three white and black cats, but that was the catch. They had patches of black. A mewling disrupted his train of thought, a little kitten padding its way and squeaking at his feet. “Hey there little guy.” Taigakai crouched down to give the kitten a little rub behind its ears. “You seen a white cat with a docked tail anywhere?” Of course, he couldn’t speak cat and could only smile as the little fluffy jellybean but squeaked another mighty mew at him. “Guess not.” Another glance and there were several tabbies just lazing.

Taigakai got back up, the kitten still trying to keep his attention. “I’ll be back again some other time, little guy. I gotta find Stubby.” While that may not be the official name, it at least kept in mind some detail about this cat. He wandered down the street to look around. A couple cats on top of tent tarps lounging about, one chasing a mouse, a couple with hackles raised and staring each other down about to fight. None of these cats looked like the one he was looking for. He saw a pure white cat on a table, but there was a patch of black along its rump and lacked a collar. Amber eyes squinted up at Taigakai and he gave the cat a little boop on its nose. “You seen a cat with a stubby tail anywhere?” It just blinked at him and yawned. “I should probably start asking people and not cats.”

An elderly woman walked out of her shop with a bit of a chuckle. “A white cat with a stubby tail you say?” Taigakai nodded. “Oh! And they have a bell collar!” He held up the note for the woman to look at. She adjusted her glasses and read the description. “Oh yes, I’ve seen this cat. They’ve been helping around by catching mice around my shop unlike Tonbo here.”, she said, gesturing at the other white cat the seemed like it could care less. “Tonbo is getting old, like me, so it was nice to have a younger cat help out. I didn’t see a collar on them though but it could have been snagged off by one of the strays.”

Taigakai folded the paper back up and took the elderly woman’s hand. “May I take that cat off your hands? Apparently it ran off and I’ll let the family know that the cat needs a new collar and I know just the kitten that could help out with your mice problem!”

The woman blinked and smiled. “Of course you may! I would like to send that cat’s owners something as a thank you for letting me borrow them for a little while.”

WC: 674/500

Approved

400 xel and 1 D-Rank technique

Spoiler:

It seemed to be that there were always bandits to smash face with. Taigakai walked around the desert savannah. Weird place, really. It was a savannah but also a desert? Plants seemed dead and wilted, and the dirt was more sand. Finding the bandit hideout wasn’t hard. He had gotten the coordinates from the information posted. But what was the interesting thing about it was that it was a base under a trapdoor that was hidden under a thin layer of rock and sand. Anyone else passing by could easily be ambushed and not even notice the hideout’s entrance. Admittedly, that was pretty clever. But then Taigakai remembered his home village is also underground, beneath a giant glassy crystal window overhead that you couldn’t find on the surface.

Taigakai tapped on the lid and darted off, hiding behind a dead tree trunk, peeking from around to watch for activity. There seemed to be movement, a head poking out to see if there was anyone around. Seeing no one, the enemy grunt crawled out into the open and walked about to look for signs of anyone. Taigakai took the time to strike then, throwing needles and pulling them back with threads of chakra to shred the person’s skin. The person started to call in alarm, still unable to find Taigakai. Sand seeped out of Taiga’s gourd, flying around the ground and springing at the person as a volley of needles from all directions. There was a loud scream, telling the boy that he got the person and for good measure, would channel lightning through the chakra threads to connect to the needles in the person and fry them completely.

Now Taigakai knew that he wasn’t being too sneaky. The person he killed was obviously a grunt, not lasting very long. Two more appeared to inspect the person’s alarm, one screaming in shock and the other calling out that there was an intruder. Taigakai was ready for them though, finally showing himself and smacking one in the face with a hard-packed snowball with a needle connected to a chakra thread inside. The snowball exploded, and the needle itself became electric from another surge of lightning chakra to fry them in the face. Taigakai ran at them and delivered a swift kick to the head at b-rank speeds, snapping their neck and using the momentum to drive a kick upwards to the other person standing there. The second person took the hit square in the jaw, flying back down into the hideout. Not exactly what Taigakai wanted, but at least that means he would just hop in after and do a superhero landing just to be a badass.

Okay the hideout was much smaller than he thought. It was only a few rooms in a short underground complex and it was crowded with junk. Two more of these grunt bandits ran at him screaming, probably a battlecry but they’d need to do better. Taigakai crouched low, quietly going through handseals. They didn’t seem to notice what he was doing other than crouch since it was so dim. Spikes began to sprout from the ground, getting one of the two and impaling them in the ceiling. The other was just thrown off balance, but now his view was obstructed. Taigakai ran at them, leaping overhead and tagging them on the face and just kept going without doing anything more with them. They’d look at Taigakai in confusion and start to shout some nonsense, and pause. There was a weird metallic noise. They turned back to find a volley of iron needles flying at his face, turning it into a bloodied pincushion.

The rest of the area seemed to just be living quarters, if you could even call it that, and a hallway that led to what was probably where they did pretty much everything else in gathering. Needless to say the area was empty until Taigakai entered the main room of the hideout. There stood who was probably the head, and they weren’t happy. Which was fair, I mean, I wouldn’t be happy if my team just died so fast. There wasn’t even a greeting or any line of ‘congratulations for getting this far’. Tomo just went straight into fighting, running at Taigakai. He seemed to use gauntlets with spikes around the knuckles and arms, fingertips sharpened like claws. A punch from these things might be pretty nasty, and those clawtips probably cut more than a steak.

Taigakai was barely able to dodge some attacks, keeping to par with Tomo’s speed. Sand spilled out of Taigakai’s gourd as he moved, taking the gourd off and using it to block Tomo’s strikes. It seemed like Tomo was trying to get Taigakai cornered, since he was going on a full offense, leaving Taigakai no time to set traps. Taigakai would swing his gourd if there was an opening, and try to bat Tomo away or pin him. But Tomo would punch at the gourd to stop its movement or drive it away. Tomo found an opening with Taigakai and landed a punch into his gut. At first it seemed like a solid hit, but Taigakai’s body exploded into a quick puff of smoke and then a little snowman that splattered onto the ground with the gourd clunking on top of it. A substitution jutsu. Tomo looked around to find the brat, only to see Taigakai crouched on the ground with hands beginning to spark with electricity. The moment his hands made contact with the ground, it was almost like a wave of electricity rushing towards Tomo. The ground was laced with sand, making it easier to channel electricity straight to the target, especially because they didn’t move fast enough. Taigakai was sure that wasn’t enough to kill the guy or knock him out, just stun him for a little bit. So just for added measure, Taigakai rushed over and grabbed the sash of his gourd and brought it around in a full swing and smashing it into Tomo’s face. He was pretty sure the guy was dead now. Unless he had some weird jutsu that made him like a zombie or something. That’d be freaky. And that would also make Taigakai wish Mei was around so she could like set the guy on fire or something. Tomo didn’t move, so that was enough for Taigakai to call it a day and go back to the village so the area can get looted and stuff returned to people that still want the stuff later.

WC: 1087/1000

Approved

Either 800 Xel and 1 C-Rank technique or 2 D-Rank techniques

Or

100 Xel, 1 C-Rank Technique or 2 D-Rank techniques, and a roll of 5 C-Rank explosive tags.