Yukiko's First Mission: Meals on Wheels

Yukiko was walking around the village, pushing a cart filled with food. Yup, that's right. Yukiko was on her very first mission as a genin. Her team has split to cover 1/3 of the village each, so that the work gets over quickly. Sure it was a regular D rank mission of delivering food to the elder people of the village, but for some reason, it didn't fit right. Yukiko had a nagging feeling that something would wrong.

She wore her complete mission outfit, including all her weapons, her exploding arm band and her backpack, filled with things that would be helpful for lasting an entire week in a lonely forest. Sure it was a lot, but who knows, maybe Omoichidou might get invaded again, but by aliens this time and they would kidnap her and she would have to escape her way through.  Or maybe not, but it was better to be safe than sorry. So she was taking enough caution, i.e., being paranoid.

Yukiko had already delivered food to the elders in central area. Some of them were grumpy, but most were really kind and Yukiko enjoyed making small talk with them. As time passed, Yukiko got more relaxed, yet she was jumpy at every unexpected action. 20 minutes in and Yukiko had delivered food to the elders in the major clan compounds and surrounding areas.  She was currently going towards the extreme west of Omoichidou and was passing through training ground 5, which was usually abandoned, when she heard a rustle on her right. She wasted no time and took out a kunai from her pouch on her thigh and flicked her wrist, throwing the kunai in that direction.

The kunai landed a centimeter next to the offender's ear. And the offender was none other than a fluffy brown bunny. Yukiko felt quite stupid and shook her head. "Oh, it was just a cute little bunny" she said to herself out loud "I always over react in su-AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Another bunny had jumped on the cart unexpectedly and Yukiko was too shocked to stop her reflexes from kicking in. She accidently released her exploding armband, that attached itself to the cart and exploded. The blast wasn't big enough to injure, but it did destroy most of the food.  The food splattered everywhere and Yukiko was too shocked to dodge. Yukiko just stood there for a minute, gathering what had just happened and when it finally hit, she started panicking.

"Oh no, no, no, no, no, no NO. WHAT DID I DO??? I AM IN SO MUCH TROUBLE. HOW AM I GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS TO WOLFFIE SENSEI. Wait, calm down, you can do this Yukiko, you can get out of this. Just think." She closed her eyes and started thinking of a plan. Other than genjutsu, intelligence was Yukiko's strong point. She always did well in her intelligence course and it had the highest stat on the stats wheel. She believed that if force cannot solve a problem, intelligence will. She opened her eyes, finally coming up with a plan.

Yukiko looked around and tried identifying the food and ingredients, writing them down on two separate pieces of papers. Yukiko then created a clone. She was usually bad at them, but her determination made the clone look at least passable. Her clone was paler than her and a little bit shorter too.  She gave one list to the clone and said, "You know what to do".
Her clone nodded and took off.  Yukiko took off too; towards the place she could find her answers.

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"KAA-SAAAAAAAAAN" Yukiko yelled, entering the library "I need your help" She spotted her mother, looking at her disapprovingly and ran towards her.

"Yukiko, what are you doing" yelled Akane Fujihara, whispering "This is a library, not your house"

"Sorry Kaa-san" Yukiko said "I need your help, where are the cooking books"

"E 5" replied Akane, looking suspicious "Why are you searching for cooking books, I thought you didn't like cooking?"

"Thanks Kaa-san" said Yukiko, running to the section her mother told her, paying no heed to the second part of the sentence.

"Wait, Yukiko" Akane yelled after her "Aren't you supposed to be completing your mission?"

"I'll explain everything to you later Kaa-san" Yukiko yelled, without looking back.

"Kids nowadays" mumbled Akane, getting back behind her desk.

Yukiko reached the area where the cooking books were kept and created another clone. It looked a bit weaker than the first one, but it would do. They both started searching for recipes of the food that was found in the cart.

Finally three minutes later, Yukiko found one book that had the appropriate recipe and released the clone. Getting excited, she ran towards the exit. Yukiko took one step out of the library when…

"Ahem" And Yukiko stopped in her tracks. She looked around to see her mother standing behind her with her arms folded and realized something important.

"Sorry" Said Yukiko, pulling out her wallet from her backpack. She took out her library card and handed it over to her mother. Even the Fujihara's couldn't escape the check out procedure. Once the formalities were completed, Yukiko took off running again.

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Meanwhile….

The clone was running towards the nearest grocery store. She found it after 5 minutes of nonstop running. She entered the store and handed the list over to the cashier behind the counter.

"Please send these ingredients over to the Fujihara compound's at Akane Fujihara's house." Said the clone in a voice higher than Yukiko's "I'll pay you on delivery" And it dispersed, leaving the person behind the counter befuddled.

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The real Yukiko and the delivery boy reached the Fujihara compound at around the same time. She snatched the bag out of the delivery boy's hand (pushing away the cart that she picked up on the way), leaving him confused and ran inside her house. Before he could say anything, Yukiko came back running, handed him the money and shoved him out the compound.

"Crazy ninja's" Said the delivery boy while counting the money.

Now that Yukiko was in the kitchen of her house, she removed all the ingredients out and arranged them in order. She took out a big vessel and put it on the stove and started the process. It wouldn't take much time, she knew it. But she still had to finish this in under an hour.

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Yukiko was done. She finished the cooking; now all that had to be done was pack them in containers and deliver them to the people. And this is exactly when Yukiko realized that there were no containers to put the food in…… She didn't have time for this. She picked up the vessel and ran out of the house, keeping it on the cart that she had pushed before.  Now, pushing the cart again, she started running towards another store where she would find containers.

She reached the store and ran in; carrying all the containers she could and ran back out again in a flash, keeping the money on the counter. She went to the cart and saw the time on a pocket watch she removed from her bag. Forty five minutes since she started, it means that she still had 15 minutes more. She created a clone, again a bad copy, but as long as it was doing the job, Yukiko did not care. The clone climbed on the cart and sat down cross-legged. This was Yukiko's genius plan. She would push the cart towards the destination, while her clone filled the containers with food.

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Some random civilian was walking back home with her groceries when she saw the most bizarre thing ever.  A ninja-a girl from the looks of her-pushing a cart with her paler twin sitting on it, filling some containers. The civilian stared for a moment, then shrugged and continued walking. "I really should be used to this by now" She said out loud "This village is filled with crazy people".

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By the time all the containers were filled, Yukiko had reached the extreme west, the place she should have been if the bunny hadn't scared her. She stopped, closing her eyes and catching her breath. When she opened her eyes, she saw a bunch of abandoned carts further down the street. She went there and pulled out other two carts. She created another clone-who again looked weak-and together the three of them distributed the containers among them.

"You" Yukiko pointed at the first clone "Go to the south west end of the village, covering the areas surrounding training ground 7 to training ground 10"

"You" Yukiko now pointed at the second clone "Cover from training ground 8, right up to the village gates, I'll cover this area"

"Hai, chief" said the clones in a high pitched voice.

"And you know what to do if anyone points out you're late"

"Hai chief" They replied again, pushing the carts and running towards their designated areas.

"I do not sound like that, do I?" she asked herself, then shrugged and walked towards the first house of this area.

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"Man, that was tiring" Yukiko said out loud, to no one in particular while walking towards the Kage office. The walking consisted more of leaning on the cart while her legs pushed forward. The clones dispersed themselves once they were done with their areas, and Yukiko saw from their memories that everything was under control. A few grumpy old people demanded why she was late, but she just shrugged, cast a simple genjutsu on them and told them that she was on time. They looked at the clock to see that she was indeed on time. They just humf-ed, took their containers and slammed the door on her face. But other than that, everything else went fine. Most of the elder people were kind and welcoming and Yukiko wouldn't mind meeting them for the rest of the week.

Chakra mostly drained, she spotted her team waiting for her outside the office. Yukiko waved at them and continued walking at the same pace, wondering about the rest of the week.

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The rest of the week went on smoothly. She was on time for all the deliveries, not a minute late. No bunnies were involved here, no runs to the library and definitely no cooking. And to be on the safer side, Yukiko did not wear her arm band for the rest of the mission.

Wolffie-sensei supervised Yukiko on days 2 and 5. She was really impressed by Yukiko's social skills and the kindness she showed towards the senior citizens, even the rude ones. They engaged in small conversations, discussion about their past, strengths and weaknesses, Yukiko's future career path and Yukiko told Wolffie-sensei all about her adventures from the academy. But of course, Yukiko's first-day-of-mission mini adventure did not make an appearance among the other stories.