Find My ____ (Private, Mission)

Mission:

On what should have been a very typical Tuesday, a certain purple-haired girl was traipsing through Konohagakure laden with strange securing containers, and surrounded with a plethora of loud cries from various animals. Under her left arm, she was carrying a large cage which contained a chameleon (the worst one to find), on top of which was a smaller cage-like box where six hamsters made their home (and it sounded like they were making more). Her right arm was clutching four leashes, each one attached to an even more bizarre pet. One belonged to an iguana, the other to a Siamese cat, another kept a very small yet very irritating dog at bay, and the last leash subdued a huge female pig which had been cowed by the almost constant supply of rotting turnips it was snuffling from a feeding bag over its face. On one shoulder, a terrified pet falcon was clinging with its talons surely puncturing her soft flesh. And clinging to one of her legs was a baby boa constrictor. Thankfully, it was only a baby otherwise her leg would have been crushed long ago, along with the rest of her. As a baby, the worst it could do was make pins and needles spread throughout her leg from the lack of oxygenated blood reaching her foot.

"How... how on earth did this happen?" She asked aloud, seemingly to herself or her many animal companions at that moment. But while people would stare at her, they may or may not pay much notice to her human companion whom she had debarked on this task with. Thinking back to this morning (which seemed so very far away by comparison to the here and now), she started to recall from her frazzled brain near enough exactly what had happened...

She received a letter early that Tuesday morning, requesting her presence at the Administration Building for briefing on her first mission, to be completed with an un-named partner. In her mind, she thought that it made sense that she would be partaking in the mission with one of her team mates, or her sensei at least. It assured her that she would be in good hands, no matter who she ended up with. Although, she would easily prefer Takeshi or Makoto. Doing a mission alone with her sensei seemed a little intense, after all. She made her way to Administration and waited patiently to meet with whoever it might be that would be accompanying her on the mission. As luck would have it, it was her childhood friend Takeshi that would be helping her out today, which made her much happier. The mission was explained to the both of them, and what they had to do in order to accomplish it. There was a total of twenty five pets, which seemed a lot, but the people in Administration stressed that they were mostly small pets and wouldn't be much work to handle, but tricky to find instead. What else could they do? They accepted the task and set to it, busily finding all of the creatures on a long check-list of bizarre creatures.

Most were found using common sense, and figuring out where they would like to run away to in the village. The rest were found either by accident, or scouring every inch of the village for them. Luckily, none had escaped the village walls, which was a huge bonus for them. But it didn't make it any less of a horrible, rather traumatic experience. Chikami had been bitten, scratched, squeezed, pecked and licked more times than she cared to count, and her usual Buddha-like patience was very close to snapping at any small thing. Her left eyebrow twitched like a mad grasshopper while she tried to keep her temper under wraps, especially since she could see the red-roofed Administration building already in sight. 'Oh thank goodness...' She thought with a heavy sigh of relief, her body shuddering with the effort. The pets clinging to her body or close-by would squirm, or squeeze tighter, depending on whether they were attached to her or in a cage. She made her way up to the building's wide double doors and used her free foot to kick both open in order to allow her access to the place. After all, her hands were full.

A lot of heads turned to face her, her childhood friend and their animal companions. She moved up to the front desk and dumped the cages onto it, before prying the falcon loose from her shoulder and the boa constrictor away from her leg. Then, she let go of the animals she had been holding on the respective leashes and pulled the crumpled checklist out of her dress pocket. "Here... all twenty five..." She claimed, pushing the paper over to the clerk currently on duty. The man blinked rapidly behind his thick-rimmed glasses before pulling out a scroll and putting a stamp of completion it, before muttering his apologies and handing out the respective rewards for each Genin. "Have fun with them." She said quietly before leaving, nodding her head to the animals that weren't contained by cages. Simultaneously, the workers in Administration widened their eyes and seemed to start panicking in their own ways about the problem now on their hands. "We found and retrieved them. They can handle it from here." She muttered quiet enough for only her companion to hear, turning and heading out of the building with a small innocent giggle before the screams of terror and disgust started to fill the air in the office.

Mission accomplished.

Everything today from the moment of waking till now had been unusual for the young boy who was currently struggling with a pack of seven dogs, all growling and nipping at one another as they seemed to fight over which way the group should be pulled. A small, angry grunt escaped the boy's throat as his arm tensed, tugging hard on all the leashes simultaneously, causing the small pack to pause only momentarily before they resumed fighting against the young blonde. Their audible pants soon became strained as the leashes pulled at their collars, narrowing their trachea, choking the canines ever so slightly yet seemingly not enough to dissuade any of the beasts from trying to fight against Takeshi's will. As if the seven dogs weren't enough, the large carrying case held firmly in the other hand housed a seemingly ridiculous amount of small kittens and cats that all squeeled in protest to being crammed into such a small place. What was more amazing was the fact that the two genin had managed to get the cats in their and keep them in there in spite of the creatures' collective tenacity. This whole mission had been a giant chore and one that the young man didn't appreciate.

"Why did we get stuck with this crap job?!"

Takeshi's voice cut through the air in a whining manner as he competed with the creatures around him to be heard by his female companion. The small monkey that sat on his head chimed in with a hardy screech before raking its dirty fingers through his air in an attempt to comb the child for any bugs that might have managed to find a home in the blonde mess. To this Takeshi shook his head just a bit, but this seemed to have little effect on the creature who's tail now moved to wrap affectionately around the youth's neck.

Had anyone told Takeshi this morning that the letter he had received that requested his presence at the administration building would have lead to an afternoon full of searching and chasing animals, he'd have laughed. Surely no one would send a ninja on such a stupid task, yet here he was with his childhood friend, transferring the miniature zoo they had managed to gather back to the administration building so their stupid and careless owners could reclaim what had been lost. How in the hell did all these animals manage to get lost in the first place?

Each one had been a struggle in their own way. The dogs who had ran from the two Genin. The cats that had seemed to hide in both trash cans and trees as well as stalk the local butchers and restaurants. The monkey that had been harassing various villagers. Chasing them all had taken a great deal of patience and persistence on both the Genins' part. It was over now though. While Takeshi had no idea just how many animals they had, Chikami had been sure that they had caught them all. As much as he hated to admit it, he left such detail oriented tasks to his female companion, knowing her brain to be much keener than his own. At times like this it was far better to listen to the girl. Things ran so much smoother when he did. The boy had learned that lesson quite some time ago and was not soon to forget now or in the future. Despite his seemingly unwavering trust and confidence in the girl, he could see that usually calm demeanor of hers starting to shatter. Obviously the animals had more than worked over her nerves and though she was doing her best to keep her cool, it was blatantly obvious to Takeshi that if the two of them had to endure the cacophony of animal noises for much longer that she'd lose it.

It was because of that thought that a small sigh of relief escaped the male's lips as the distant red of the administration building came into view. They were almost there, they just had to make sure the creatures didn't get loose or stray away. Thankfully that was not the case. While the trek to the administration building couldn't have been any longer, the two shinobi had made it and with all the pets seemingly retrieved intact. Takeshi, despite the overwhelming urge to express his unadulterated rage toward the one who had given them the mission briefing at the start of this whole ordeal, he allowed Chikami to do the talking as he handed over the various animals, struggling just a bit with the monkey whom seemed to have grown attached to the blonde youth in the short time that they had been together. Once the two were out of the building an exasperated sigh would escape the child's throat as his greenish blue hues shifted in his friend's direction.

"I'm never doing a mission like that again...Next time we better get a real mission."