Ralph lend against the Government tower, waiting for his teammates. The sun just rose over the village walls. He yawned, widely. He wished he was able to sleep, decently last night. His mind reeled over what happened. Ralph returned home to find his apartment door ajar, even though he was sure he had locked it that morning. Inside, he sensed someone lurking and was soon ambushed by an intruder, leading to a fierce hand-to-hand battle that culminated in Ralph using a paper bomb to incapacitate his attacker. The commotion drew the Bark Police Force, led by Captain Kael Falconridge, who took the unconscious intruder into custody while Ralph braced for the repercussions of the destruction in his apartment.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the last time the Police Force visited the apartment complex during the night. There were several fights between gangs that had to be broken up.
Blinking, he studied his nails, thinking back what he did last night before going to bed. He threw out his destroyed coffee table and tried to clean up the best he could his living room. Hopefully, the downtime between missions next few weeks would allow him to clean up and make repairs to the apartment. He hoped his landlord didn’t kick him out for the damages. He didn’t know if there would be any other apartments available within his price range or be willingly to rent to a Bark bastard.
Getting up early, he managed to get started on the list of extra homework Raizen had order him to do while he was not on missions. He wrote three pages worth of lines already and planned on doing a few more before going to bed that night. He was really embarrassed by his handwriting skills. He knew he was to blame on it, but he did lay some of the blame on the people at the orphanage for not helping him more and favoring the merchant class and the police force.
He, also, had set up some nasty traps to protect his apartment while he was not there. He did see the same civilians thugs and other questionable people hanging around in the hours after the Police Force had left. He still didn’t know what they wanted. When he went to visit the store late last night to get himself a treat and some anti-pain cream, he did hear something about a break in, a couple streets down from his apartment building. He had been wondering how long it would take for something like that was going to happen. He hoped it wasn’t going to be a nasty trend, especially when there was a community day less then 11 days.
Ralph tilted his head back, feeling the back of his head touch the wall of the tower. He knew there was going to be up tick in local missions. Hopefully, he would be able to start saving up. He wanted to do many things since he was out of basic training. He had his whole life a head of him. He knew he had to save up enough to move out of the district before it got worst.
“Morning, Ralph,” Raizen’s voice brought Ralph out of his thoughts.
Ralph blinked, staring at his teacher before he replied, “Morning.” He went back to staring at the sky.
“I heard your neighborhood had some excitement,” Raizen started then he paused, “Some of the homeless folks from the Gray Distinct moving in.”
“Yeah, don’t remind me,” Ralph grumbled, “I spent most of my evening setting up traps in case one of them decided to try to break in my apartment.” He sighed, directing his gaze back down at his teacher, “We both know they will be eventually kicked out because they can’t pay rent and other utilities then my rent will increase as a result when the Landlord wants to make repairs or he will allow the apartment building to fall in disrepair.” Ralph kicked the ground, causing a rock to roll away from his foot, “Most of those folks are homeless because they got addicted to that Poppy plant that appear, 5 years ago now?”
“Yeah,” Raizen nodded, “Our Intelligence groups still haven’t figured out how that plant was brought in.”
Ralph looked Raizen, speculatively, and commented, “Or that’s what they have us believe.”
Raizen didn’t say anything for a long moment, “Don’t let anyone hear you say that.” He paused as Ralph glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “If you are caught doubting our intelligence groups, they can and will make your life a living hell - giving the worst missions we have, the kind you have to have ‘specialized’ training for and they won’t care for your age, either.” Raizen warned, “I have seen it done a few times to other similar mind thinkers like yourself and in the end, they were used as scrape goats for a much larger agenda. One of them even took the fall for killing a clan and disappeared.” Raizen’s eyes hazed over, “I’m sure the person is still alive, but they probably wished they weren’t.” His eyes cleared, “There is a reason why we have recent changes in our medicine and in our understanding of how the body works.”
Ralph looked down at his feet. His mind race. He knew there were folks around the village who questioned their way of life and disappeared. Sometimes, their bodies were turn up. Most of the time, they were written off as Killed in Action, if they were Ninja. If they were apart of the Merchant Class, the official story was told they moved to another part of the Kingdom and, rumor had it, had a seal placed on them in order to keep the village’s location a secret from their enemies. If they were working a part of the Police Force, there was a chance they might get framed for something and get arrested on some charge, have a mock trail, have the law book thrown at them, and they were locked away in a prison meant for enemy ninja. Their family would be denied the right to see them and would be informed if the former member of the Police Forced died while in prison.
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It made sense, in a way, to Ralph why there weren’t had been more social uprisings over the years. Especially when the Poppy plant was discovered after a series of people dying, foaming and what kind of uses the medical field start to find. It was a slippery slope the medical professionals started to go down.
A soft thump broke through Ralph’s thoughts. He looked up to see Lilian raising up from a crunch. She glanced at them before she asked, “Where’s Enzo?”
“He hasn’t arrived, yet,” Raizen said, “He should be along shortly. I remember telling you guys to be here by 7.”
Lilian sighed as she stepped beside Ralph and lend against the tower. “I’m surprised to see you here, on time, Ralph.” Her tone held a teasing note in it.
“Well, yeah, you try to sleep when your new neighbors were thrashing about next door in the middle of the night,” Ralph grumbled, “or screaming about seeing hellish demons and creepy shadows at 5.”
“Oh, so the rumors are true about the Gray Distinct homeless and poppy addicts moving into the same district as you,” Lilian stated. She cocked her head to the side. “I wonder why they are doing that.”
“One of the Police Force members told me,” Ralph launched into the explanation he was given. Lilian nodded her head in understanding.
“It would make sense since we do have the Community Day coming up,” she said. She looked at Raizen, asking, “Do you think we get a trash related mission today?”
“There’s a good possibility, yeah,” Raizen looked up from his newspaper. Ralph wondered where and when his teacher had pulled that out. “Hopefully, we won’t have to do it over the Gray District, just yet. They are still finding people over there, strung out on the Poppy plant, and from what I hear, it’s not good.”
Ralph didn’t know what to say to that. He never seen the aftermath of a person strung out on Poppy. He had hoped he wouldn’t ever see it. Unfortunately, it seems there was a chance he could for his second mission. He glanced at Lilian who looked apprehensive about it.
Running footsteps caused him to redirection his attention elsewhere to Enzo running toward them, shirtless. Ralph blinked. He watched as his teammate started to slow down to a fast walk, heading toward them. The blacksmith son held in one hand his shirt while the other held his ninja supplies. He panted as he came to a stop in front of them. He set down the bag and threw on his shirt.
“Overslept?” Raizen asked.
“Yeah,” Enzo replied, “Pops had a large order of kunai come in and he asked for my help. We didn’t to get bed late and he was up before the sun was up, according to mom.” A hand twitched at his side.
Raizen frowned, but he moved on, “Come on, we have to get in line for the mission queue.” The three students nodded and went into the Government Tower. Ralph wanted to groan when he saw the line. It stretched down to the bottom of the spiral tower and he reached into his hip pouch, grabbing the list Raizen had gave him and started to read over it, trying to learn the correct spelling of the misspelled words, promising himself later he would practice writing them down.
It was a slow progress as they waited for their turn to meet with the mission desk. Eventually, Ralph exchanged the spelling list for one of his scrolls, wishing it would be easier to carry and read from a book instead of a scroll, but the council didn’t want to up grade the ninja scrolls for something more easier to handle. He sighed. Maybe he should start creating a list of things he thought needed to change for when he became the Leader of the Hidden Bark Village. It could turned out to be helpful when he couldn’t recall of the changes he would like to make, both big and small.
Ralph shook his head, slightly, to clear his head as they finally reached the Mission room door and walked in. He glanced at the Village Elders, and the Hidden Bark Leader sitting calmly behind the desk, waiting for them. He noticed it was the same Elders from the other day. Raizen took the lead and stopped several feet away from the mission table while Lilian stood directly behind him and in the middle between Ralph and Enzo. They waited for one of the Elders to speak as silence filled the room.
It was Lord of the Bark Village to break the silence, saying, “Congratulations for completing your first mission for the Hidden Bark Village. Mrs. Davis was very impressed when she gave her review of your team, Mr. Watanabe, and she informed us that your students were professional, and she went on to say she wouldn’t mind having them get her groceries again.” Ralph, Lilian, and Enzo glanced at each other, proud written brightly on their faces. “Despite the fact, you, Mr. Watanabe, left your team to take your wife to one of her doctor appointment. If you had informed us and your students, we would have found you a different mission or told you to come back the following day.” Raizen didn’t say anything. “I know you wanted to see how your students would do without you around, but it was their first mission and be glad it went the way it did.”
Ralph blinked as he realized they never did get the reason why Raizen ditched them on their first mission. Now, they know.
“Hopefully, Mr. Watanabe, you will stay with your students during this mission. They might have need of you. As you probably have seen or heard,” Lord Jackson started, changing the subject, “We have started our seasonal cleaning of the Grey District.” He grabbed a scroll laying in front of him and held it out for Raizen to take. The Leader of Team 17 stepped forward and took the mission scroll, holding it in his left hand as he fell back into the point position. Lord Jackson continued, “Be careful on this mission. The Grey District can be dangerous at times, despite the fact it is within our village walls. Good luck. You are dismissed.”