Spring Cleaning

Mission Name: Spring Cleaning
Mission Type: Chore
Mission Rank: D
Mission Goal: Clean out the home
Description: Mr. Okimura is spring cleaning and needs some assistance. Help him clean out his home.
Payment: 10,000 Ryo
Requirements: N/A

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Akuma was waiting for the Genin she had been partnered with to arrive underneath a large tree near the center of the village. Today was another day of work, trying to rustle up enough money to really get her feet under her and make some progress towards her goals. This particular job was not a particularly well-paying one, but the truth of the matter was that every single Ryo helped, and she wasn’t going to be picky; she would do every single job on that board if she had to. Several times over. Without hesitation or remorse. Besides, it helped too that the more jobs she accomplished, the better her personal standings were in the village, and that was important because she was planning on basically making a power-grab and creating her own clan. Sure, she might ruffle some feather, but that was fine. Scales were stronger than feathers anyway.

But as she waited, she found herself, as usual when she sat still, almost completely covered in small birds. Sitting at the base of the tree in her normal outfit when she was doing missions and the like, even though cleaning someone’s house hardly required her more formal outfit. The silver plate on her belt-buckle proudly showed that she was a Ninja of the village, but the flock of small birds that nearly covered her were likely more eye-catching. They hopped here and there, some nuzzling into Akuma’s massive mane of blonde hair, others sitting on her shoulder tweeting happily, all the while her violet eyes would go from bird to bird, occasionally making facial gestures as if she was reacting to some silent conversation, which was honestly the truth of it. It wasn’t true communication like what humans did, but something more primal and instinctual, and it was one of the ways that Akuma had gathered a lot of information in a short period of time about the village itself and it’s inhabitants.

It was one of these birds that let her know that the person she was supposed to be partnered with would be arriving shortly, and her violet gaze shifted, the birds not startled at all and remaining where they were, as someone approached her.

Appearance:

Due to the easiness of this mission, Mari had no intention of wearing a practical outfit, instead wearing something more lady-like. She wore a white buttoned shirt that only covered the upper half of her top body, while the lower half of the apparel is a dark blue skirt. The rest of her legs were covered in black leggings and touched down to her heeled black ankle boots. She might've treated her outfit choice as a touch too casual, but to her, it was a nice balance between being formal and practical, an outfit that she's comfortable with while still having the easy feeling of walking around without the feeling of being hindered.

As she approached, her eyes looked at the flock of birds surrounding the blonde-haired girl, playing with her, chirping at her. Her first assumption was thinking that they were all her pets, but that type of bird was too wild and weren't really sold in Konohagakure's pet stores. The second assumption she made is some kind of ability. What she's doing clearly isn't ordinary, so she must have some natural connection to them. That was always Mari's line of thinking to anything that isn't "normal", that it's always something related to chakra.

"I'm looking for a Mr. Okimura, I'm meant to be cleaning out his home today." Mari knew she had a partner for this mission, but she wasn't given the details of who it is. One of her guesses is the blonde woman but for all she knew, she could just be here for the birds. Mari tried to focus on the job at hand, but the ability to make animals, even wild ones comfortable around oneself is oddly appealing to her. It almost made her think she was born with the wrong kekkei genkai, but she didn't come close to that thought.

Akuma looked up and took in the bluenette approaching her, noting the outfit and her overall appearance, to include beginning to take in her body language almost instantaneously. She spoke up, confirming that she was the one that was on the mission with her, to which Akuma smiled up at her for a moment before turning towards the bird on her right shoulder. “Alright ladies and gents, it’s time for me to get to work,” she said cheerfully, and without saying a word, she added a little bit extra through a bit of suggestion. The birds lifted simultaneously, sweeping low before spinning in a spiral around the blue-haired woman and making her hair dance before flying away. They were more than fast enough that if she reacted they would be able to adapt.

With that, Akuma got to her feet, taking a moment to dust off her leggings for a moment before standing up straight and bringing herself to her full, natural six-foot height and giving the woman a large smile. “I’m Akuma, and I’m on the same mission with ya. Pleased ta meetcha!” Her tone was energetic and friendly, and she extended a hand out towards her to shake her hand, an expression she learned was normal from what she had observed of human interactions with one another. If she decided to shake her hand, she would find Akuma’s handshake being both firm and not a contest of strength. She had practiced that skill with a shadow clone for upwards of a couple of hours to make sure she knew just the right amount of pressure.

“So, Mr. Okimura lives in that house over there.” She pointed to the side towards a two-story home that looked decent but not overly complicated. “I figure it’ll take us about two hours to take care of, top to bottom. Then maybe I could invite you to lunch? My treat…” She didn’t say it, but she was hunting as they spoke, getting lunch together as a generality, and as always, she was able to gather more than enough to feed two people. That being said, she was also more than capable of eating it all herself, but the offer was because she liked getting to know people and doing so over a meal was usually the easiest.

Her hair was nicely braided to the back, which was a little ruined when the birds started to fly in circles around her, she found it almost pleasant, if it weren't for her hands trying to keep her hair in place as the wind of the birds messed with her hair. As soon as the birds flew away, she quickly adjusted it to a respectable look. It wasn't that irritation was the furthest thing from her mind, but she was not too pleased with it either. After her fixing of it, she was met with the blonde woman's name and rather energetic introduction, with a half-smile which was slightly forced from Mari, she extended her own hand and gripped her own, shaking it weakly.

"Mari." she quietly said. She looked over to the pointed direction, seeing the house. It made her think back to her dream of a family, having a large enough house to support that is on her to-do list, but something she'll have to work towards over time. It wasn't easy getting the money together for that, but she'd figure something out. "Lunch? hmm... it depends on how long this takes, but I'd be up for it." she liked her own time being her own, and in that sense didn't like huge chunks of her day being gone, but if they were efficient enough for this cleaning job, she didn't mind having lunch with her.

"How do we want to do this? we clean together, or you cover the bottom and I cover the top?" she didn't mind either way as both sounded practical to her, unless she had some magical way of doing their job a lot faster. The idea of using a shadow clone was tempting, but she didn't want to be too reliant on her jutsu. She liked to be resourceful when she can, and there are times where she can't always rely on a technique like that to get her out of a situation, and she didn't want to start that habit on a cleaning job of all things.

Akuma listened carefully. Mari. She took a moment and said the name a few times over and over in her head while looking intently into her eyes and checking out her face. One who didn’t really know the sense of personal space, her actions could have been interpreted as Akuma looking a little too hard, but that wasn’t really her intent. It was when she agreed to lunch if they finished things quickly and effectively that a smile crossed Akuma’s face and she turned towards the house in question. “Actually, in that case, why don’t you tell me what you like to eat, and I’ll handle this little chore while you tell me a little more about you?” she asked, bringing her hands together.

“Masse vokun briinah,” she said quietly in a deep tone, the language spoken seeming to be less heard and more felt than anything else. All around them puffs of smoke would appear and after a couple of seconds of this they were surrounded by dozens of Shadow Clones. They all looked towards the pair in the center in a display of perfect harmony and chanted at the same time. “Leave it to us!” Without any further warning, they all turned towards the home in question and moved inside, and somehow fit within the home completely, and shut the door behind them. Knowing full well that the home would be spotless in short order, the original Akuma simply wondered for a moment what they were doing to explain the situation to poor Mr. Akimura, but that was a ‘them’ problem. Akuma wanted to focus on the woman directly in front of her.

She took a moment and gave her a smile, feeling like she had accomplished exactly what she needed to do in order to ensure that lunch was all but a given. “Hope that’s alright. I’m big about gettin’ things done as efficiently as possible. Just ain’t enough time in the day to bother with stuff bein’ done like normal when there’s a better way, ya know?” It was the truth too, as even now she was doing quite a few things at the same time using her shadow clones.

What she had done was rather suspicious to her. She had entertained the possibility of lunch depending on the time, and her sudden use of shadow clones to expedite that time just for a guaranteed lunch was a little intimidating to her. "I suppose I won't complain about your use of shadow clones, but..." she was nervous. She had just met this woman and she was coming on very strongly, to really have her lunch with Mari. "Karaage would be good." she didn't know how she'd be getting lunch, or if they were simply going to walk off to a nearby store to get lunch, but what she just suggested is how she felt at the moment.

She couldn't complain, if the job was getting done fast and a free lunch was coming, she couldn't complain. She would still be on the side of caution on how this lunch could go. "You must have a lot of chakra to have that many shadow clones." It was more of a curiosity question than an actual statement, and one that she hoped she would pick up on. "How do you control the animals? is it some skill that you learned?" if they were simply going to be waiting until their lunch came, Mari would have her curiosity satiated and hoped the woman would answer. She would understand that if it were related to her kekkei genkai, it's something she would keep quiet.

Akuma noted that for some reason the blunette seemed a little off-put by the sudden display of technique and the interest in getting things done quickly. The blonde was going to wait to ask about it though, maybe she would explain once she got a chance to speak, and so she waited patiently for her to get through whatever it was that she wanted to say. Once she was done speaking, however, the question was unanswered, so she would bring it up once she got through everything that she had spoken about already. “Ok, first? What is Karaage? I’ve only been in the Human Realm for a couple of months, so I’m still learning a buncha names and stuff.” That was likely going to bring up some questions on it’s own, but for the moment, she was going to continue answering what she had asked about.

“And this is nothin’... if I really try, I can get more than… 2500 hundred copies? Roughly? And my mana pool-- er, chakra pool is still growing. Not to mention I got Nature Chakra I’m working on techniques for and growing too. That’s also got to do with the animal thing; I’m a member of the Nature Clan. I can tell you a bit about’em if you want, but one of the side effects is I’m really connected with nature and the animals, and can even communicate with them.” She crossed her arms under her chest, making her bust seem even more pronounced, turning her gaze back towards the house for the moment, a smirk on her lips. “And I think we should give the place a once over once my clones are done, ya know? Trust, but verify. You might see somethin’ that the dozens of me’s in there mighta missed, and I don’t like leaving a job half done. Speakin’ of… you seemed like somethin’ bothered you when I made ‘em all… somethin’ I said or did?” she asked, about as subtle as a sledgehammer.