Collecting The Drifting Goods [Mission]

[Insanity within the Falls]

Name: Dangerous Waters
Rank: C
IIC Length: 2 Days (48 Hours)
Difficulty: Moderate
Objective: Collect the goods and bring the ship to port.
Description: Several ships have been spotted out around Taki no Kuni. Each ship has its own assortment of goods that require salvaging and depositing to the Feudal Lord in Seisui. The last record of ships in the area was six. This particular ship is located just on the outskirts of the Bay of Budda and has a small crate consisting of seven argumentation scrolls, small projectile weaponry and two gadgets. These items belong to the Feudal Lord in Seisui and he wishes to have them returned to him. The Feudal Lord is willing to pay handsomely in order to get them.
Reward: 8,000 Ryo for a Non-Ninja; 10,500 Ryo for a Ninja


Leaping from tree to tree, Yamato kept an eye out for any enemies. Before he had left the village, he had received a C rank mission for him to do. The mission stated that he needed to collect some goods from a ship and bring it to port. Simple, right? Before he had left the village, he had read up on how to drive a ship. He still didn't know if he fully understood what he read, but he would soon found out once he got to the ship.

The clothing that he decided to wear for the mission consisted of a dark blue shirt and black pants. He wasn't actually doing this mission at night, so he didn't really need the dark clothing. Still he liked dark clothing, so he decided to wear it anyways. He would feel too weird if he wore anything else. Since this was a C rank mission, Yamato equipped himself with an assortment of weapons and his clay pouches. It never hurt to go on a mission prepared.

As he ran at a decent pace, Yamato wondered if he would run into any enemies when he got to the ship he needed to be at. All that he was told was that there might be enemies. This didn't help him at all because he wanted to know if there were going to be enemies, and if there were, how powerful? Still, it seemed that no one could answer his question. He wasn't mad though. It wasn't like they were supposed to know how many enemies he was supposed to encounter. Still, it would've been helpful.

This was most of the reason he kept his guard up as he ran. He had heard way too many stories of shinobi getting brutally killed by an ambush just because they let their guard down for less than a few seconds. Plus Yamato had already been in an ambush himself, which lead him to take a tumble off a cliff. That experience had not been pleasant at all, and he wasn't eager to have something like that happen to him again.

After about an hour of running, Yamato was forced to stop when he noticed a commotion below him. Climbing higher in the tree he was in, he took a couple steps forward and looked down. Below him in a small clearing was a group of six people sitting around a campfire. Based on their clothing and their weapons, they were no mere citizens. No, they were bandits that preyed on innocent travelers.

But although they looked like bandits, Yamato couldn't be sure. It only took him a few minutes of waiting for him to hear them talking about their plans for robbing a merchant coming in a few days. Yep, they were definitely bandits. Since he hadn't fought in a while, Yamato wanted to test out his skills on some opponents. The only problem was that he was currently on a mission.

Killing the bandits would save Taki no Kuni a lot of trouble in the future. The only problem with fighting them was that it wasn't part of the mission. When he received his mission he was told to retrieve the items as soon as possible. Staring at the bandits for a few more moments, Yamato let out a sigh before moving on. Maybe they would still be here when he came back. He had a mission to do, and he needed to complete it before doing anything else.

[Insanity within the Falls]

With the bandits behind him, Yamato continued his journey with no more interruptions. It seemed that the bandit spotting would be the only exciting point of the mission he was on. He didn't mind though since this wasn't an assassination mission or the like. Instead it was just a simple retrieval mission.

Stopping by the end of the treeline, Yamato looked around. He still had to walk some more before reaching the shore, but before he did that, he would have to be on the lookout for enemies. The reason for this was because there wasn't any place for him to hide once he left his current position. This meant that if there were any enemies waiting for someone to walk by, he would be the prey that was chosen.

After looking around for a few minutes, Yamato nodded his head and began walking towards the shore. He hadn't seen any enemies, but that didn't mean there weren't any there. Because of this, he made sure his ears were listening for any strange sounds. The moment he heard some, he would be prepared to deal with whatever was making that noise. One way or another.

There was a small town a decent distance away that Yamato kept note off. It would look bad if he accidentally killed a civilian by being spooked. Still, the town was pretty far away and the odds of a civilian being near his location was slim to none. But it was still possible. This meant he would have to ask questions first and shoot later. Not vice versa. 

Taking some clay out of his pouch, Yamato popped it in his mouth and began chewing. As he chewed, he infused some chakra inside of it so that he could use his clan techniques. Once enough was infused, he spat it out into the palm of his hand and began shaping the piece of clay into the shape of a bird. The reason he was doing this was so he didn't have to water walk all the way to the ship. Based on what he could see, the ships in the distance were quite a ways away from the shore. He didn't know if he had enough chakra to walk that distance, and he really didn't want to find out. 

Once the bird was shaped, Yamato tossed it in the air and performed the handseal for Katsu. The clay bird he had created soon emerged from the smoke flapping its wings as hard as it could. Although this was nice and all, the bird was still too small for him to ride. He fixed this by performing the Katsu handseal again and making the bird expand to the size of eight feet.

Jumping onto its back, Yamato directed it to where the ship was in the water. He had some loot he needed to recover.

[Insanity within the Falls]

Directing his clay bird to fly higher into the air, Yamato looked down below towards the water and the ships. Due to all the running he did, it was now a couple hours past afternoon. The sun wasn't low enough in the sky to be close to sunset but neither was it in the middle. Instead it was in between these two positions. This meant that he would need to pick up the pace if he wanted the ship to be back at its port before sundown.

As he flew towards the ships, Yamato soon realized his problem. There was more than one of them. All of the ships seemed to be abandoned so the items he was looking for could be in any of them. Tilting his head forwards, he scanned the deck for any clues. Sadly he didn't find any. It seemed that he was going to have to visit each and every ship until he found what he was looking for. He didn't really want to do that, but he didn't have a choice.

Ordering his clay bird to fly near the closest ship, Yamato hopped off its back and onto the deck of the ship. He then had his bird dive bomb into the ocean and disappear from view. He still hadn't learned the technique to reuse his used clay so all of his clay creations had to be destroyed after he was done using them. He didn't mind though since he had quite a few clay pouches on him. Plus he could use the money he would get from this mission to buy more.

Walking slowly across the deck, Yamato looked for the small crate he was ordered to retrieve. After searching for about a minute, he headed deeper into the ship. He hadn't expected the crate to be on the deck, but it never hurt to look. The next half hour involved him opening doors and cabinets in hopes that he would find the crate. Sadly after looking for a while, he came up empty handed. It seemed that his crate wasn't on this ship. One down, five more to go.

Climbing up onto the deck of the ship, Yamato created another clay bird and used it to fly to the next ship. He was glad he could do this since it saved him quite a bit of time. It would've taken him way long if he had to water walk to all of the ships. Plus his chakra would be almost empty after doing all of that. Once he arrived at the ship, the young Taki ninja examined the deck before heading deeper inside. He had a crate to find.

But alas, like the previous ship, this one too was empty. Yamato wondered what had happened to these six ships, seeing as how all of them were empty. Several ideas sprung up in his head, but none of them good. Still, it wasn't his mission to figure out what happened. His mission was to retrieve a crate. One that he couldn't seem to find.

It was on the fourth ship that he finally found the items he was looking for. Yamato had found the augmentation scrolls and the gadgets in a small crate in the Captain's Cabin. Once he made sure everything was there, he directed the ship to port. It wasn't as hard as he thought it would be since there were instructions by the controls. Whoever had put them there had his thanks.

Once the ship was in port, Yamato got off and created a clay bird similar to the ones he had created before. Jumping on its back with the crate in his hands, he directed it to fly towards the village. He had a mission to turn in.