~An Uncharacteristically Dull Day [Solo Mission]~

”Mission Info - Watch the Store”:

Aria skipped down the street with a soft smile across her face and her eyes shined. She was gleaming with joy at the thought of her very first mission as a Genin, and it was supposed to be a rather short endeavor too. The mission report she had read about a hundred times had mentioned she was to work at the shop for the three hours that the shopkeeper intended to be away for. She wasn’t too sure what kind of things he sold in his general shop or the duties required to work it properly, but she was confident in her ability with people and winging it.

The address listed on the report wasn’t too far from the humble abode she lived in with her parents, although it was a path less traveled by her family and herself. After today if she found anything worthwhile at the shop she might just end up becoming a regular for it. The aforementioned business was quaint with a lovely flute melody softly echoing out of its open door, the bright pink windows that the mission letter spoke of, and a pale blue sign, with various musical instruments outlining the sign frame, hung up above the door frame read “Guter Centa”.

“Welcome miss! I am Guter and this is my instrument shop! I also sell general goods but who cares about that… Ahem, may I help you find something?” A chirpy voice greeted her upon entering the store, causing the song to cease as the tall older owner was tending to his customer, and upon entering Aria was taken aback by the endless shelves of instruments and goods lined the three walls of the room. Many of the objects displayed were foreign to the young woman, yet even still they fascinated her. Instruments with various numbers of strings, brass colored and oddly shaped instruments, and sparkling silver objects reflected back at her.

Drawing her attention back to the shop owner she smiled brightly at him as she replied, “My name is Aria Uzumaki and I’m the shinobi who is assigned to take care of your shop while you are away.”

“Ah yes, I almost forgot about that meeting, too lost in the song to recall. Thank you for looking after my beauty here, please be gentle with everything while I’m away, these instruments are delicate like babies.” He gestured for her to follow him as he led her to behind the counter where the till and what she could only guess were super special items being housed in the display case. “This here is where you’ll take and give money back, this case has the hardest to find items in all of Konoha so if someone wants to buy one, see if they’ll wait until I get back. If it’s a slow day try to make yourself useful somehow. With that, I must head out or I’ll end up missing the whole thing!”

In the blink of an eye the older gentleman vanished from the premises, leaving Aria standing there dumbstruck. She never expected a man of that age to be able to move as nimbly as someone in their youth, and she was slowly beginning to learn the shinobi world was a mysterious place full of many wonders. It was no wonder her parents held her back from the academy for a few years, there’s no way she could’ve been prepared for all a ninja can and has to do when she was a mere child. She’d have to thank them later for the decision they made so many moons ago.

Seconds passed before she regained her composure and began milling about the shop once more, seeing if there was anything out of place she could fix and to also give herself a rough idea of how much general items cost. It was an odd pairing, having mystical musical instruments with rather mundane ordinary items.

Soap, makeup, basic shoes, canes, hair products...he has a little bit of everything, I guess that would be how he can afford to have all those rare instruments in the case he was talking about. As she walked down the small paths she could occasionally find an item that was turned side or had fallen over that needed to be placed correctly facing forward, but those kinds of simple fixes were few and far between. Thus making her first hour of shopsitting monotonous, which ended with her grabbing a broom to sweep the tile flooring.

“At least the floor is dirty so I have something to keep busy with! I don't want to touch the instruments and accidentally drop one, since knowing myself that is VERY likely to happen haha.” She spoke aloud to the vacant room while she swept, knowing there was no one there to find it strange, albeit even a little cuckoo, for her to talk to herself.

“Am I interrupting something?” A deep voice echoed throughout the once serene space, as a look of horror flashed on the ashen haired woman’s face for a brief moment before it was replaced with a smile, one that was far more forced.

Aria put the broom off to the side and bowed to the customer, feeling it was the right thing to do to welcome them to her temporary shop since it was how her father had taught her to greet their own patrons at his fuin shop. “No not at all! Welcome to Guter Centa! Are you looking for anything in particular, sir?”

“Ahaha man, what are the odds that Guter got such an adorable shinobi replacement to act just like him. I only dropped by to see the old fart, but if you’re here it means he’s out on some kind of business venture. Do you know when he’ll be back?” He leaned against the doorframe to the shop and crossed his arms, a friendly aura radiating from the smile he gave off.

“I believe he’ll be back in about two hours, sir! Should I inform him you stopped by?”

He nodded his head in response to her question, gave her his name, and thanked her before leaving, having been unable to accomplish the task he had set out to do. Having finished sweeping and cleaning the shop as best she could, the Genin tried to rack her brain with thoughts on what to do around the shop. Polishing the instruments was an idea, but she felt the risk was far too high for such a simple mission, and if she messed up it would cost her the entire paycheck. Then she got the brilliant idea to train some of the jutsu she had read about with her parents, and ones they had briefly mentioned during her academy days.

The first was called Genjutsu Kai and it revolved around the premise of helping someone get out of a Genjutsu as long as they knew they were in one by focusing their own chakra to expel the genjutsu casters foreign chakra from their mind. Of course she couldn’t fully test out this jutsu without being under a genjutsu, yet she felt she could at least practice trying to expel foreign chakra to get a feel for how it would work when in a real life situation. Thus she closed her eyes, put her hands in the tiger shape, and envisioned her chakra heading towards her head, which was an easier task for the young woman due to her training with her chakra when utilizing her clan’s gentle fist techniques, since they also focused on using her chakra to block other’s chakra points. It was a similar principle to the jutsu she was attempting, at least in her mind it was anyways, and that is how she justified being able to feel some of her chakra pool on her head before she imagined flicking it away, as if she were swatting away a fly, if the fly were another person’s imaginary chakra that is.

Feeling satisfied with the way she imagined that technique working out, she decided to move on to the next jutsu on her mind to learn. This one was called the Temporary Paralysis technique and as the name suggests, it allows the user to paralyze someone for a short amount of time. Sadly she didn’t have someone to test this jutsu on so much like the previous one, Aria had to rely on both guessing and feeling to see if she figured it out. The best way to practice this skill, in her eyes, was to see how her chakra moved while she performed said jutsu, and as such she put her right hand index and middle fingers to her forehead while her left hand was in the tiger hand seal. She was utilizing her unique ability to perform jutsu with only one hand, something that she figured could eventually come in handy during difficult situations or apparently in this kind of one as well. Aria then flowed her chakra through her fingers and let it envelope the rest of her body, although since it was her own chakra it just became one with her again instead of refraining her movement like it most likely would’ve done had she tried this on another person. Not yet feeling fully satisfied with this technique, she copied the same movements two more times to see if there was any change to the flow, yet there was no difference and so she had to accept that when she performed this on another person it wouldn’t feel like the Genjutsu Kai would, moving in a less exciting or vivid manner.

---

Unique Ability used: One-handed Seals

Genjutsu Kai (C-Rank):

Temporary Paralysis (D-Rank):

Once she was satisfied with her results for the day she put away her supplies and patiently waited for any customers, having about half an hour before Guter was to return. Aria wasn’t the biggest fan of all this idle time she was given, but thankfully a small group of people walked into the shop just then. She had just finished checking out the last person from the group, an elderly woman, when Guter appeared at the doorway after the group had just walked out, with two bags in his hands.

“Welcome back, sir! While you were away a man named Jean stopped by and wanted to see you. Do you need help with those bags?" As she asked this she would move from her perch behind the counter towards him as he himself was further into the store.

Guter shook his head, and lifted his arms as if to prove this old man still had it in him to lift heavy things, “No no, I’m perfectly fine. Thank you for relaying that information and watching my shop, you may go now. Have a great day, Miss Uzumaki!”

“Thank you very much, have an amazing day as well, Mr. Guter!” With that she would bow and head on her way to grab some lunch with her parents, skipping with a smile as she exited the shop.

(Exit)
(TWC: 1,830)