Do Hornets even have Shadows? [Solo, Mission]

"It's urgent!" The chuunin slapped his hand down on a stack of papers. Her glasses shifted slightly, and she let loose strands of hair fall in front of her face.

Kokuei jumped, taken aback by the woman's sudden yell. The Nara boy had come to receive a mission to... well... earn his shinobi stripes, get some ryo, the works. Instead what he got was someone yelling at him! "Ah, sure sure. I'll get right on it, what is it?"

The woman took out a hastily written contract, the first on the stack, stamped with an official seal at the bottom. "There's a boy stuck up in a tree!" She exclaimed.

"What? Why doesn't someone just get him—" Kokuei stammered, interrupted by the chuunin.

"That's what you're here for! Listen, I'm here to hand on the missions. Citizens come to us with issues. And we do them as soon as we can!" She slammed her hand down again, Kokuei's eyes widening. "So just take the damn contract, and do the damn mission!" She blew away the strands of hair from her eyes.

Kokuei gulped. "Yes m'am. Thank you." He gave a slight respectful bow before turning heel and taking off.

"Freaking hell, man." She sighed, shaking her head as she sat back down, leafing through the stack of paperwork she had left to go through.

Gates of Konoha

The Nara boy's run came to a walk as his eyes began to scan the area. He was looking for, well, a boy stuck in a tree. It should've been fairly easy to find him. What with the screaming and all. It begged the question though, wouldn't just any shinobi be able to climb up and rescue him? How common were shinobi that one would happen upon the child in trouble and decide to rescue him? If the boy was already safe, would Kokuei's mission be complete?

Kokuei's eyes locked with someone else's, but a few paces beyond the village gates, out of view from the rest of the village. "Are you here to help my boy?" An older man asked, looking to be somewhere in his early 50's. His attire was a simple one, and his expression was worried.

"Yeah, yeah. Where's your son? Is he—" Kokuei's eyes wandered up, up, and up. Over 40 meters off the ground, a boy sat in one of the limbs of a tree littered with branches. It was easy to see how he could climb all the way up. "Oh." Kokuei hushed. A twinge of fear overcame him, he hadn't even gone that high yet with his Tree Climbing Technique.

"He's always been a climber." The father said, a bit of pride in his tone. "This ain't even the first time. But he never has gone up that high."

"Me either," thought the Nara boy. His eyes scanned up the mighty oak, looking for the path of least resistance up to the boy. He'd have to navigate all the way up, grab him, and head back down with the boy on his back. No, not on the back. The boy could maybe fall. He'd have to carry him in his arms. That was a lot of additional weight for being up so high.

"That and... well... the hornets." Kokuei looked to the father as he spoke.

"Come again?" The Nara boy asked.

"You know, bees, wasps, whatever. My boy said there was a lot 'em up there. Prolly' a nest or somethin'." The father placed a hand over his forehead, blocking out the sun as he looked up. "Ain't that right, Kensai?!" He yelled out to his son. "You got some hornets up there, huh?"

"Yup! I see 'em all buzzing around!" The boy was quick to respond, a sort of glee in his tone despite being a few sudden stings and a tumble from death.

"Wha—hey! Sshh! Don't make so much noise!" Kokuei put his hands up, in a loud whisper. "The bees might... I don't know... attack!"

The father looked as Kokuei like he was a moron. "Hornets aren't like avalanches, son." The father was having second thoughts about Kokuei. "You might get a couple stings, hell my son surely has, but jus' don't agitate the nest and you'll be jusss' fine."

Kokuei exhaled, looked away from the father and back to the tree. He had been stalling long enough. "Alright. Stay put, I'll be back in just a minute." Kokuei said, walking toward the base of the tree, tensing up his muscles as the size of the tree grew more and more apparent.

Glancing around, the father furrowed his brow. "Uuh... yeah, don't worry, I ain't goin' anywhere." As if he had anywhere else he could go until his son was safe.

Kokuei stopped, noting a few of the branches of the tree had snapped, likely due to the young boy's ascent up the tree. While this prohibited him a graceful return back down, it likely was also due to a fear of tumbling on the way back down. It was always easier going up a tree.

The Nara put together a hand seal for focus, feeling the chakra pooling into his feet, he began to ascend the tree. He went quickly, avoiding branches and knots in the tree as he moved up. The trees he had climbed prior to this were always much shorter, much easier to move up. This one was... well it was quite big. Kokuei normally wouldn't let the fear of a new challenge bother him, but this was an interesting one. Not only did he have to care for another living thing and bring it back down safely, but there was the additional threat of a hornet's nest that would likely only further deter his efforts to safe the boy. It wasn't Kokuei's life on the line, he could probably manage to grab a rogue branch on a fall down. The small child, however, would have a harder time should anything happen. The boy's life was actually on his shoulders. So naturally, Kokuei did his best to suppress those thoughts as he made his way toward the top of the tall tall oak tree.

"Hey...!" Kokuei greeted the boy, a touch out of breath from his 40 something meter climb. The soles of his feet still pulsing with chakra, keeping him firmly grounded to the tree.

"Whoa whoa whoa! You look funny!" The boy laughed, pointing to the shinobi's feet. For a civilian, it was probably quite odd to look at a shinobi standing horizontally on a tree.

"I get that a lot." Kokuei smirked, reaching a hand out to the boy. "Now come on. We gotta get you down from here before the hornets get too interested."

The boy looked at Kokuei funny. "The bees wouldn't hurt me. I like them."

Kokuei looked at the boy funny. "That may be so, but, I don't think they have much of an opinion on people. Also, technically, they're hornets."

Shaking his head, the boy held a clasped hand out to Kokuei, and then opened it. "No, see! The bee likes me!" Kokuei ignored the boy's incorrect identification of the species, and instead took a step back as the boy revealed a hornet in his palm.

"Hey! Careful, the thing might—" Kokuei's voice was drowned out as his worst fear came true.

"Ooooow ow!" The boy screamed, shaking his hand and thus rocking the branch he sat on. The hornet had stung him, and was flung off, and suddenly dozens and dozens of hornets began to buzz and swarm the area. "The bee stung me!"

Kokuei quickly snatched the boy, leaping away from the current branch he sat on before landing on another one. He quickly positioned the boy to hoist him over his shoulder. "You holding onto me tight, kid?"

The boy was laughing, glee back to his tone. "Whoa, that was fast! Can you go faster?" He asked, as the cloud of hornets grew more dense and encroached upon Kokuei's position.

"Yeah, I don't have much of a choice." Kokuei sighed, taking a quick glance down toward the forest floor. He was very high up. The father currently had his hands on his head, and seemed to be mouthing or even yelling something. The incredible buzzing sound was too much to hear anything else. "Hold on!"

Kokuei began his descent, relying on his chakra to hold himself tight to the side of the tree rather than the branches, some which had already snapped. The Nara could only move so quick however, as he had his hands gripped tight on the boy, and he did his best to avoid branches and knots in the tree as he moved down. Going too quick in this situation might result in both of them hurling down the mighty drop. However, the cloud of hornets flew down with mighty persistence. They were closing the gap very quickly.

About halfway down, Kokuei felt the tickle of hornets on his leg, and a sting on his upper arm. "Ow! Ow!" The boy cried. He was getting stung. Kokuei had to do something about the hornets or else the boy would be riddled with stings.

"Kid, this is as fast as I can get you!" Kokuei suddenly drew the boy over his shoulder and dropped him. A clear path, free of branches, allowed the boy to fall freely without interference.

At the same time, the boy screamed in what Kokuei could only hope was joy—the father's screams were likely one of horror.

Kokuei spun on his heel, pointed out his hand, and summoned forth a pressurized gust of wind in the form of an arrow through the Wind Release: Wind Arrow technique. Over half a meter in length, Kokuei pulled a kunai with his free hand, and quickly begun to cut apart the hornet's before him with blinding speed. A massive chunk of the cloud was ripped apart, leaving behind a much angrier back half. Kokuei didn't have time to deal with the whole swarm quite yet, as he had a falling to child to tend with.

Turning around yet again, Kokuei formed the Ram hand seal, stabbing his kunai into the side of the tree along with the Wind Arrow. Shadow Imitation Technique in full swing, Kokuei's silhouette quivered and then shot down the tree with intense speed. Five, ten, then twenty meters it traveled before making contact with the boy's shadow—just a couple meters above the floor. A connection made, Kokuei placed a hand on the side of the tree, as the boy's fall as seemingly magically halted. He was suspended in the air, mimicking Kokuei's pose. Holding up his unnatural position was quite difficult, and the now-swarming mass of hornets certainly did not make it any easier.

"Come grab your boy... quickly!" Kokuei shouted, coughing as a rogue bug flew into his mouth.

"Hey! I gotcha' son!" The older man stopped beneath the tree, reaching slightly upward to grab the boy. Kokuei then dropped his jutsu, and shielded his face as the hornets enveloped him.

Kokuei could no longer hear whatever the father-son pair were saying, as the buzzing had again grown terribly loud. He snatched up his kunai, leaving the Wind Arrow to dissipate. Kokuei lowered his stance against the tree, and then sprung off of it. He left a hole in the cloud of hornets as he easily cleared an additional twenty meters before falling toward the earth, doing a hard tuck and roll as he barely stopped himself and bounced back up onto two feet.

His vision was a touch blurry, as he looked up to the cloud of hornets that still clung close to the tree. Kokuei had moved a bit too quick for them—hell he had moved too quick for himself. It was then a pain surged up his leg, and he began to feel the burning of stings up his body. Kokuei kneeled, clutching ankle. "Aaah... damn it." He hissed. Likely, he had sprained something with his awful landing.

"You alright?" The father asked, his son by his side already, walking around without letting the few stings on his face bother him. "Whoa. You got a few..." The older man sort of gestured to all of Kokuei.

"Oh no." Kokuei began to look at his arms, and then feel his face. Every few centimeters he felt a bump... followed by pain. "They really gave it to me." He sighed. Recovery from this would take a while.

"Nothin' you can't bounce back from." He came over to the Nara, offering him a hand to which Kokuei accepted. He pulled the Nara boy up. "Thank you. I don't know how I would've gotten my son down otherwise."

"Hey I coulda' climbed down. I was jus' tired, dad." The boy claimed, arms folded over his chest.

The dad looked down and chuckled, patting his head before looking back to Kokuei. "Really, thank you."

"Of course." Kokuei said, an honest look of compassion from the father had meant a lot to him. More than he thought it would. Kokuei had accepted the mission for some money and experience, but this felt a lot better than he thought it would. It also felt worse in a lot of physical ways. But still.

Kokuei waved the father and son off as they moved back through the gates and into the village. Kokuei, on the other hand, wandered around a bit. Letting the heat of the hornet stings and the nasty fall wear off before returning home.

[Done]

[Word Count = 2,261]

[Claiming: D-Rank Tree Climbing Gone Wrong, 1,000 ryo, 3 AP, a Tanto (375/375), two Explosive Tags (500/500), two Kunai (500/500), a Flak Jacket (500/500), and 3 Shuriken (375/375).

Rewards: 5 Kunai: Complete 1 E or D-Rank Mission
1 Exploding Tag: Complete 1 D-Rank Mission]

Approved.