Shinra and i were fast to go home, our day was long and we were both tired and worn out. We had met our last teammate, had a wild goose hunt all over Konoha and, lucky for us, found our Sensei at the last possible minute. In a small pub, in one district near the red-light district.
My nose nearly killed me, it would take me weeks to get the disgusting smells out of my sensible nose. The way my faithful fury friend sneezed over time, told me that I was not the only one with that problem.
The sun was almost set as I dragged my tired feet into the compound. Several dogs, young and old ran around, barking, sniffing and yipping. Shinra, who would join the merry band at any other time, yawned and his eyes were dim. His ears twitched as he dismissed the dog pile, that had formed at my feet. The pups and the youngling dogs stared at him, their eyes wide with disbelief and shock. I had to stop, as more and more dogs sat in front of me, unblinking and staring at me and Shinra. My red furred friend yawned again and closed his eyes, nuzzling in my arms. He seemed to be tired beyond reason and I couldn't really say something against it, because even my eyes were slowly fluttering shut.
The pups were still siting in front of me, blocking my path to home. I could feel Shinra tense and my body reacted of his own. My lips drew back, my teeth showing and a deep growl left my throat. As if that was a cue the small dogs sped away, yipping and barking.
Shinra chuckled in my arms and one of his eyes opened slightly to look at me.
::You are a little angry, huh? Never saw you act like this. But, mate, I am grateful. The day was long and all I want is to sleep in our den.::
"Our den? I remember that this was my room, till you showed up, you small furry fluffball!"
Shinra dismissed my ranting and sighed in content, his eye closing again.
"Home again!" I yelled as I opened the front door with one hand, wincing as the small cuts in my skin burned on contact with the old wood. Shuffling of feet and a loud bark answered me and not a second later Akamaru rounded the corner, followed closely by my dear brother. His hair was sticking wildly in all directions and he looked as he had slept the last few years without waking. And he smelled...like he hadn`t showered in that time, either. I could feel the scowl on my face and quickly hid my nose in my scarf, inhaling Shino`s scent to calm me down again.
"Brother dearest... I am really happy to see you too, but..." he wrapped his arms around me and Shinra, his nose buried in my hair. His arms tightened as he drew me against his chest. To say that I was stunned, was an understanding! His warm breath tickled my ear.
He smelled happy and proud but there was an undercurrent of angst and fear to him. Loss maybe? He reeked of it and it made the hairs in my neck rise. And he stank of mud, sweat and rotten meals.
"...Please let go off me. You stink. I hope you have a good reason for that." I growled lowly, meaning both his smell and his unusual behavior towards me. His grip tightened again.
"I need a dose of sanity right now. I passed my test with my team, but it was hell. At least I have Shino and Hinata in my team. My Sensei is a crazy female! A total horror, I can tell you that! She threw Genjutsu after Genjutsu at us and told us to break through them. She... She showed us this horrible, horrible scenes. And you..." his grip on me tightened just another bit, his chest pressing firmly against mine as Shinra had shuffled himself out of the danger zone that was my brothers hug.
Kiba growled deep inside his throat, a warning and a demand for something. I felt a small smile tug on my lips as I wrapped my own arms around my brother and nuzzled his neck with my head. I could feel the small shivers running down my brothers body, but I didn`t comment on it, something must have happened in this training of his. At least he passed the test from his Sensei, but I had to admit, I was just a little bit jealous. He had Shino, one of my own pack, now as his own pack. That thought alone let my hackles rise again.
Akamaru and Shinra pressed against our legs, whining and yipping, sending comfort over the bonds we had with them.
But nonetheless, my brother continued to hold me for five more minutes, his smell getting better and better with each passing moment.
This had to be a fucking misunderstanding!
A friggin` joke!
Surely I was just dreaming or something hard had hit my head in a bad angle so that I was in a sort of delirium. My breath hitched slightly as I tried to think about all the possible explanations for this situation my pa- team found itself in. A quick glance to both sides and a silent sniff with my sensible nose told me that both of my teammates were in a similar state as I, Shinra was snoozing in my arms and Sensei stood behind me, causing me to tense up because of his still unknown presence.
After a few intakes of fresh air, Emiko cleared her throat, her smell getting an edge of desperation to it, before she spoke up in a small but high pitched voice.
"Could… Could you repeat that again, please? I think I misheard something." The man behind the desk shuffled the papers in his hands again as he fixed Emiko with a stern gaze.
"You can choose between baby-sitting, house chores, Tora hunting and garbage disposal. Could you please hurry up a bit? There are other teams that would like to receive a mission."
Emiko glanced to our male mate and me, before speaking up again, her voice still pitched but slightly wavering, if unsure what to do.
I turned around to look at my Sensei`s face, who just stared ahead of us, a really bored expression decorating his facial structures. With one of his hands he rubbed the back of his neck as his gaze travelled over all of us before settling on the papers on the table.
"Every Shinobi has to go through a decent amount of D-Ranks before getting higher ranked missions. And like all the other teams, we have to go through that as well, as boring and troublesome as it is. Just choose something and we hope we can get something better next time."
His free hand came up and he dropped it on my head, as I was closest to him. Instantly I tensed and backed away, or tried to, as his hand stayed firm on my wild and frizzled hair, tugging me back to him. He ignored the slight growl that escaped my clenched lips.
Emiko and our resident young male had conversed about our fate and turned to Sensei and I.
"Fate chosen, get ready."
Baby sitting 1
It could have been better than this, it could have been a really wonderful day. The sun was shining, a gentle breeze got caught on his face, the smells were mostly delicious and exciting for the pup. His bond-mate was with him, their pack with the new Alpha was just around a corner, getting to know each other. He could feel the excitement and angst his bond-mate possessed, dreading and at the same time happy to get to know their new Alpha, who reeked of deer and musk and herbs.
But his day was far from good or wonderful. The household had three little children, with varying ages between two and six. The children were all female and with a good eye for fluffiness and cuteness. And as soon as he and his bond-mates team entered the house he had all the attention centered on himself. The three little tykes had zeroed in on him like a pack of wolves would prowl to a singled out deer, separating it further from his herd. The male Alpha had given out commands, the blond female, Emiko, had to operate the food area, the young male was given the order to clean the clean area, that area where the two legged humans would let themselves sink down into water. His bond-mate was ordered to help the female Alpha of the household to hunt the meals and gather other foods like fruits.
He was on his own as his bond-mate left him with the others.
As soon as the wooden door closed behind the leaving females, the three children came to their hind pows and started grinning, showing their small teeth at him. He could feel his fur stand on his back, his tail tensed and his ears were twitching wildly. All of his instincts started screaming at him to run and hide because a catastrophe was bound to happen.
It was the calm before a storm.
It was a stare-off, three little children with lollipops in their mouths or hands against him, all his muscles tense and all his being trying to flee or attack in an instant.
The seconds dragged out like minutes but all the calm went to hell as the snapping off an opened door got their attention. With something akin to a battle cry the children lunged forward, their hands outstretched and their eyes only focused on him. He waited till the last moment before jumping straight over the children and running for the opened backdoor. He just had to follow the smell of fresh air. He could feel one of the children`s hand at the end of his bushy tail. With a struggled yelp he lunged out of the door and started an advanced game of hide and seek with a good amount of tag, but he couldn`t dodge every attempt, he still had to make sure none of the tykes would hurt themselves.
But after a good hour he really hoped to get a break, these children were masked demon-spawns!
"DOGGIE!"
Shinra sprinted ahead, his tongue lolling out of his muzzle as he desperately tried to force oxygen down his pumping throat while running from an energized child with sticky hands. With agile movements he pressed himself under a small tree with slightly outgrown roots which he could perfectly fit under. His tail was firmly pressed under his belly, his ears flat onto his head.
His head swiveled around, looking for any oncoming demon in a children`s body as he desperately took in breath after breath, his small sides pumping and shaking. His legs were struggling to keep his body uplifted, his muscles all but screamed at him to just lay down and give up, but his pride was against that.
Maybe he was too deep in thought or maybe it was the loud stream of his blood in his ears, or the old and earthy smell of the tree, he wouldn`t know who or what to blame but he missed a shadow that came from behind, slowly inching towards him, eyes glinting and hands grabbing the air ready to hold and feel the pure fluffiness that was the small pup.
"GOTCHA!"
He screamed like a frightened newborn! Not that he would ever admit it to anyone else.
Groceries shopping
Emiko stared in awe at the seemingly not ending walls with food and herbs, meat and fruits. Bottles filled with liquids in different colors stood in a pyramid form in front of the big entrance door. Huge signs with advertisements were hanging all around the place. The lights were bright and artificial; the existing windows were small and placed near under the roof of the two story building.
She could hear a soft exhale beside her and with a long known and hard earned experience she took a step to the side, coming to stand in front of her Inuzuka friend and shielding her from the other customers in the local supermarket. She could only imagine what her sensible nosed friend would have to endure today. The small dog puppy was securely hidden in her shirt, just his head poking over the rim of her T-shirt, his small nose twitching. She couldn`t really be mad at the dog as he was hiding, the events from yesterday were still fresh on her mind.
(She and her Sensei had a hard time to rescue the poor puppy from the near death-grip of a little girl, who was screaming her head off, claiming the Inuzuka-dog was now hers and she wouldn`t let go. Her newly made male teammate had struggled to hold Makani back before she could maul the small child for treating her dog like a puppet.)
It was their second mission in their still fresh carrier as Shinobi and they were tasked with shopping for an elderly lady, who couldn`t carry all of the food and other items herself.
Maybe "Lady" stretched the term a little bit.
The "Lady" was a crossdresser with very feminine facial structures and made a very believable female, with help of a relatively small amount of make-up. And the poor man…- "Lady" had injured her leg at her job as an entertainer in a bar.
And now her team had a list of several pages of items to buy for the poor ma- woman.
"Team, we should split up to speed this whole ordeal up. Makani and Shinra, with me. We will cover the non-edible items." He tugged on Makanis hair to get her to move to his side, which she did after a few seconds of internal struggle.
"Hideaki, Emiko, you will gather all food related things on the list, thank Kami this papers are good organized. Would be just too troublesome to sort them now. We have a time limit, so we should get moving now. We will meet up again here in an hour. Scatter!"
Emiko and Hideaki stared as their Sensei placed a hand on Makani`s shoulder and then vanished into nonexistence, just a little bit lingering smoke to indicate a performed jutsu.
"Showoff." Emiko could only nod to that statement.
"He could just have used the stairs. We got ourselves a very lazy teacher. Hope Makani is doing fine."
"I can`t really argue with you there, beautiful. Let`s just get going, sweety." Hideaki`s grin got even bigger, no teeth showing, and he grabbed her hand to tug her along the way. Emiko stumbled behind him, her eyes scanning over the two pages of items they would have to purchase.
It was far more than both of them would be able to carry and bright as the two of them were, they hadn`t thought to bring a shopping cart with them.
Hideaki just grinned at her, his arms wide.
"Don`t worry, sweetheart, I would carry the weight of the world, just to make you happy. Just give me the things, load me up and then just give me a smile and I will be your humble servant."
Emiko was at a loss of words, just staring at him, she could feel her left eye twitch and she was unable to close her mouth.
"Sweetheart? Did I broke you? Ah, I know, you are speechless. Don`t worry honey, you are not the first." He winked at her!
Her brain rattled and she could almost feel the thing fall apart as she tried to understand what was happening to her. KAMI, that damned boy in front of her was only a teenager! And where did he learn this mushy stuff anyway?
In all her thoughts she didn`t notice that Hideaki lost his smile and was now directly beside her, his eyes alight with mirth.
"Still speechless honey? I know a way to get you back to normal and maybe to have a better day, now that we are alone. Just you, me… and the few people around us." He leaned nearer to her, his hands softly touching her arms, gliding higher to –
"PERVERT!"
Emiko had her eyes closed, her breathing hitched and on instinct she lashed out, her hands meeting a wall of flesh.
Several unexpecting customers stood by, watching as a small speck with fleshy colors flew by making a sound of physical agony. The flying object could resemble a human if you would look from the right position. Some of the customers winced as the speck landed right on top of a pyramid of canned beef, letting it explode in all ways. The tower collapsed on top of the young man, burying almost all of him. Just a foot was left outside, slightly twitching.
Emiko gasped.
"SORRY!"
Baby sitting 2
Misuteri was a nice man. He was lazy but intelligent, wasn`t overly strong but protective. His sense of humor was weird but it existed, unlike some other members of the Nara-clan. He liked to sleep in, loved to read and to just enjoy his free time.
There were few things that Misuteri didn`t like, D-Missions were just one of them.
All he could do was sit there and stare at the scene, which was developing in front of him.
It was the same family that requested his team as a few days ago, the mother was away to work in an apothecary, the father worked as a smith the whole day. And now his team, definitely not himself, had to take care of the three little children again.
Three children who loved animals, sparkly colors and anything fluffy in general.
Three little children with wide and sparkling eyes, focused on the four little pup`s on front of them.
One had the color of wheat, was a little fluffed out and definitely on the better side of weight, the legs were long and slightly unproportional to the rest of it`s body.
Another looked like a cow just in dogform, the tongue lolling out between grinning lips. The eyes were slightly closed and the ears were perked, the tail wagging furiously.
The last two pups were leaning against each other, growling and yipping silently to each other. One was Shinra, his frame tense and his muscles twitching under his fur. His ears were laid back, pressed against his head and his tail was straight.
The last pup stood in a protective manner in front of him. The spiky fur was a brown color with red streaks in it, the ears were red tipped and one of her frontlegs was black. It looked a lot like Shinra.
His three students had decided to help the poor Inuzuka-ninken and had transformed into dogs. Now the children didn`t knew which dog to hunt down to cuddle to death. And Misuteri had to admit, they all looked adorable in this forms.
After the disaster from the last time, they had agreed to play with the children in this forms, or better, Makani had forced the other two to do that after Shinra had protested to even set a paw in this house.
A loud battle cry drew him out of his musings and his eyes snapped back to the children, which were now running after his team, scattering around, screeching and yelling like gargoyels in pursuit of unsuspecting victims.
Shinra and Makani jumped on the near fence, sprinting ahead to the backyard; Emiko summersaulted and squished herself through a gap in a nearby wall, whining as she stuck there for a few seconds before she could press through.
He couldn`t help it though, he laughed as Hideaki barreled against him, his little paws scratching his arms as he tried to hide behind him, the youngest tyke had a hard grip on his sensitive tail and dragging him back into her tiny chest.
"1 down, 3 to go. And we still have 6 hours. Hideaki, remember me to work on your evasive skills."
A lowly, gurgled whine answered him as the tyke smothered the `pups` head in kisses and slobber.
Hunting
The trail was faint, the smell shallow and the weather wasn`t really helpful either. It was raining like someone in heaven just emptied a whole sea over our heads. Nobody else was out of their doors or shops, hiding in the warmth and light. Us, Emiko, Hideaki, Sensei and I, were outside, getting pelted with thick rain drops, hunting down prey.
Or we would be, if Hideaki didn`t twist his ankle as he tried to jump the cursed prey.
Now Emiko, Shinra and I were cowering on a fence under a tree as our dear Sensei carried Hideaki to the hospital.
Shinra and I had lost the smell here under the tree and now all of us were looking around, searching for any kind of trail or a sign that our prey would be near.
Just as I was bending down to look under some uprooted parts of the tree, Emiko screamed and her hands flew in front of her face as a dark scheme jumped on her, claws out, drawing blood.
The new smell entered Shinra`s and i`s noses, letting our vision get tinted by a red hue.
The prey had hurt our pack-mate!
It had to pay for that! Pack-law dictated that!
With a loud howl Shinra and I pounced on the blasted feline, trying to wrestle it down into submission. Mud splattered everywhere around us, dripping from the tree bark and Emiko`s clothing as she tried to come near to us, I could see it out of the corner of my eyes. Her claws and teeth draw blood from both Shinra and me in an instant, trying to divert our attention elsewhere. I could feel my hands grip on fur that didn`t belong to my bond-mate and pushed down hard, at the same time Shinra signaled with a loud groan that he had bit down in the scruff of the cat.
The whole ordeal just took the time of a few breaths and then the mud, in which we had landed, settled down again. My back was in the mud, on my stomach lay a huge cat, her claws deep in my clothes and my skin. Shinra hovered over it, his teeth holding onto it`s scruff, his eyes nearly closed to show his annoyance.
The cat whined but didn`t dare to move, in case that Shinra would bite down for real and not just holding onto it. Our breaths were ragged and the whole place smelled like anger and defeat, it was a sharp smell, disgusting.
"FINALLY! This blasted feline! I am just happy that it`s raining today! Just think about it: The sun and wind would divert your smell everywhere! And we never would get to this cat, just because she would smell you and Shinra three miles against the wind! We would sit here forever! Thank Kami, it is finally over… Maybe… Maybe we should go to the hospital. Treat our scratches before we catch the rabies, right Makani? Makani?" Emiko turned to me, her eyes nearly falling out of her head.
"MAKANI! NOT BITING THE CAT! It`s not that EVIL!"
Resume
It was not a whole week of D-Rank Missions but I could really tell something from it.
My team and I were really beginning to hate D-Ranks!
And from what my brother was trying to mumble through clenched teeth as Emiko and I entered the hospital, his new pack was hating it, too. As soon as Emiko and I came through the doors, Kiba, Hinata and Shino, stood and looked over at us. I could smell something like comfort drifting our way, but I was not sure from whom it came.
Emiko embraced a surprised Hinata as Shinra and I gravitated towards the two males. I brushed Shino`s arm with my hand and nuzzled my head to Kiba.
"You look like shit, sister." Shino nodded and I could feel his hand touch my bare arm in comfort.
All I could was growl an affirmative.
Emiko lifted her head again and all but whined.
"TORA!"
The three others winced in sympathy.
Sorry that this chapter took so long, but I had a hard time with university, but now I have more time to write. And have to say, this isn`t my favorit chapter, but we are slowly getting to the better part, just bear with me a little longer^^
