"Scatter!"
Lin looked up quickly at the cry; something was up. She stood, stumbling to her feet as she turned towards the exit. The alleyway was dark but a bright light shone through its opening, and two looming shadows blocked the way.
"Lin- hurry!"
The girl's round face jerked back as another girl –near to her own age, which was 19- roughly took her shoulder and pulled.
"Alright!" Lin barked, snatching her arm back. "Geeze, I'm hurrying already!"
The other girl gave Lin a hard look and took off down the alley. Lin, the threat of being captured close at hand, kicked down a nearby door facing the alley.
As she scampered through the moist, dark rooms of the abandoned apartment complex she had entered, she favored her left knee, as it had recently been troubling her. Trying to ignore the pounding in her head, Lin slowed down to a jog. She turned around for a moment to look: no one was following her. She stopped, grinning.
Lin walked over to a moldy cardboard crate, flopping down on it with a sigh of relief. She had escaped once again. Thank goodness.
Her blonde hair fell straight around her face as she leaned forward, resting her elbows onto her knees. Her hair had fallen out from its usual low ponytail, and she reached back and removed the elastic from her hair, redoing it. She brushed her miniature bangs off to the side of her face and tucked whatever strands were leftover from her poor hairstyling behind her ears.
Finally she stood, deeming it safe, and walked away from her entrance. Lin reached the opposite end of the complex, walking through the deserted rooms, picking up anything that looked sellable or that she like and putting it in her messenger bag for later. She came to the actual entrance and looked through the dusty window of large doors. Finding the coast clear, Lin twisted the rusty lock on the door and swung the twin doors open.
The wooden planks that had once boarded the entrance to her escape route had rotted away long ago. They crunched soggily beneath her old sneakers as she stepped out into a more deserted part of the town she called home; Konohagakure.
--..---
"Took you long enough, Lin," was the reply she got when she went to regroup at the Secret Base.
"Whatever," Lin said, dumping some of the items from the messenger bag strapped across her chest. She let them fall on a table in front of the man who had spoken.
He picked up a dusty trinket in one hand and a bracelet of what looked like pearls in the other as she tried to get dust out of her bag. "Where did you get these?" he asked.
"Some old apartment complex," Lin looked around at the other members of the little haunt, "Why, Genma? You looking to scavenge the place?"
The man called Genma glared at her. "Just because you are a high-ranking member does not mean you can be so familiar with me, May-Lin."
Lin growled at her name, eyes narrowing. She didn't, however, apologize. Genma smiled, "I have a mission for you, May-Lin."
"Stop calling me that," she snapped, stepping forward. After a moment she added reluctantly, "What's the mission?"
--..—
"I always get stuck with the crappy jobs," Lin uttered beneath her breath. She was dressed in her favorite sneaking-around-at-night outfit.
Leaning back against a large tree with a thick trunk, Lin tugged on her black tank-top and then her shorts (also black) with the long tights (also-also black) beneath them. She pulled a mask over her face, its plaster formed to look like a dog of some kind. It was grey with markings similar to the Anbu's on it, with small eye holes so she could see.
Making sure her gloves reached up past her wrists and that her hair was up in a higher ponytail than usual, May-Lin felt ready. Tonight's mission was an assassination, and by 'crappy job' Lin meant the ones that took the most effort.
For instance; killing people takes a lot more effort than you'd think! Honestly, it does. Ugh, especially if they put up a fight.
With a sigh, Lin double checked her weapons and defense; a sheet of hard metal wrapped around her lower arm for blocking blades, and a metal covering over her palm to catch a blade, if needed. Expect the best, prepare for the worst, as Genma would always say.
She stopped moving as she heard something clicking in the wind. She slowly looked down and saw a man in traditional sandals, walking drunkenly along the pathway beneath her. Lin smiled beneath her mask; no bodyguards. This was gonna be easy.