Mokuren

Team Temari: Missions

Arc One, Team Temari; Chapter Three, Missions

"Sweeping is good for the soul!" The old lady informed the twelve year-old boy. "Besides, a stupid boy like you would not be able to handle a more difficult task as you are now."

Kentsu opened his mouth to argue further, but Mokuren cut him off, hissing, "She's a client!" Hopefully, he could still remember what that meant.

Kentsu's temper had been a definite problem over the last two weeks as Team Temari - with the obvious exception of Temari herself - struggled to complete D-Rank missions. Of course, Mokuren had been almost as much troubleas he had... but that was beside the point. And definitely no fault of hers.

... Alright, so she probably should have guessed that the people she'd begged into giving her volunteer work a few years back as part of her training might be upset to see her, since she had suddenly disappeared only a month ago. She could have guessed that they might be a bit irked to find her perfectly okay and part of a genin team they'd hired to temporarily replace her... but she hadn't.

Once she'd heard about this mess, Reiko made a point to hire their team for a day at Gyo Shokudou and chew her out, pretending that Mokuren hadn't explained herself to her father's old friend. Mokuren didn't appreciate the sadism... or the fact that whenever a client complained about her, Temari refused payment on her team's behalf. Just about any time that Temari wasn't looking, Mokuren's teammates did their best to make her pay for this.

Not in money, of course, because she didn't have any either... but anyway. Whoops.

The two boys were still rather weak, but they had improved greatly under Temari. Mokuren was generally asked to work by herself on a chakra control exercise - either attempting to walk up a wall or trying to manipulate the chakra of her father's sword (which she had finally been able to show her teacher after two sessions almost entirely focused on her teammates) because they needed all the attention they could get. She understood the need to bring them up to scratch before Team Temari was qualified for a C-Rank, in case something happened, but she still felt a little left out.

On this particular 'mission', they were cleaning up a mess caused by a sandstorm the day before. The protective walls around the village usually kept such storms from affecting anyone - but their client, Ran, lived in the small part of Sunagakure with less protection from such things. As a result, her floors and possessions were covered in a thick layer of sand.

Mokuren had delegated tasks to try and make this mission a success, but Kentsu - as usual - had a problem with his assignment. She didn't know whether he believed he was more graceful than he honestly was or if he was just arguing for the sake of arguing, but the client had been quick to tell him off. Luckily, Kentsu did remember what 'client' meant, and sullenly stuck to his assigned job - getting the sand off the floor.

Mokuren used a small brush to remove sand from odd knicknacks and valuables, while Tetsuko set to work uncovering the kitchen. When the latter two were done, they set to work on the old lady's books. Ran practically owned a library, and she was very concerned about possible damage to her precious pages... and although Mokuren was fairly certain that sand couldn't harm them, she kept that to herself.

The mission took only a few hours to complete, although Ran spent almost a half hour scolding Kentsu for leaving streaks of sand along the floor. Temari laughed for quite a while about it, before leading her team back to the Kazekage Tower to see about taking a second mission for the day. Generally they'd all be gone by now, but apparently, Temari got a kick out of watching the bumbling respect the boys showed her brothers.

They were lucky, however - or unlucky, depending on who you asked. There was still one D-Rank left for today.

"You don't know this Karusuke person, right?" Tetsuko double-checked with Mokuren. He was quite frustrated with the lack of payment lately, but he was more forgiving.

"I don't think so." She shrugged. She'd never been very good with names, so she couldn't say for sure, but Mokuren hoped he wasn't someone she'd worked for.

As it turned out, he was. However, instead of being angry, Karuru - as he had introduced himself when they first met, when he was just fourteen years old and she was seven - apologized himself. Apparently, he had closed down his pottery business the same day she'd quit working for everyone, and had worried a little about where she'd get money. He was pleased to hear she'd become a genin.

Karuru was pretty strange, for a civilian. He'd inherited quite a lot of money from his great uncle and used it to pay for his strange and often-changing hobbies, which generally led to him buying out a business only to give it back a month later when he lost interest.

A lot of people viewed him as a spoiled brat, and he kind of was, but Mokuren liked the enthusiasm he put into whatever he did and couldn't help but imagine that her father would have gotten along well with Karuru. As far as this mission went, he had bought a greenhouse because of a sudden interest in gardening, but the workers quit after a disagreement about something Karuru wouldn't explain. Athough he'd been trying to maintain it by himself since then, things were beginning to die.

It only took an hour to remove all of the weeds Karuru hadn't noticed, and adjust the humidity and temperature to better suit the plants. He was delighted enough at the speed to pay extra. This was highly unnecessary, considering that he'd already been paying too much for a D-Rank mission, but Team Temari wasn't going to tell him that. Their sensei normally took them out to eat at some cheap diner for dinner if they'd gotten two missions in a day, but this time she agreed to go to Gyo Shokudou.

Mokuren was especially pleased by this treat. She'd made time to go in and visit Reiko every few days, of course, but she hadn't had enough money to buy something in ages.

However... sitting at the same table she and her father had always sat at, ordering the same food she always did... Mokuren couldn't help but tear up a little.

"What are you crying about?" Kentsu asked with a snort.

She blinked, and then stared at him with her eyes as wide as they would go. "What am I crying about? What do you think I'm crying about? Have you even tasted this food? It's heaven-sent!"

"I'll make sure to tell the cook." One of the waitresses, Anrei, chuckled as she walked by.

"Make sure you do!" Mokuren yelled after her. She took another bite, sighed deeply, and allowed a dreamy expression to form on her face. When she saw Kentsu and Tetsuko's incredulous looks, she tilted her head and frowned at them. "You two are so weird."

"You're the weird one!"

End Note: I still like this chapter in its original form... how many edits has it survived, now? Three?