[ml1201]

Every time he does that thing with the fire it always amazes her, "You know, maybe if we beat the snot out of those bandits and make them make up for what they've done, or turn them over to the local authorities, they might not be so scared of us." Going over to their gear she grabs her rod for fishing, when a thought occurs to her.

"Hey! I just remembered, some towns and villages will have boards where they post jobs. Maybe in the next town we'll find a warrant for a job to get rid of them. We'll have to read what it says for the conditions, but maybe we can still help those people out and make some quick money doing so.

[CycloneKira]

Akira is just about to say something about the bulletin boards, when suddenly, Yusa starts speaking about them, in an evidently excited voice. He chuckles a little and looks at her. "Is mind-reading another power your clan members have?" he asks.

"But you're right," he says, straightening up to get the kettle to heat up the water in. "We should go and look for jobs like that. Doing good things for people while making sure we have enough to keep moving." It was like killing two birds with one stone.

[ml1201]

She just looks at him with a raised brow, she had heard some had those skills, but no one she knew of in her village. When he agrees she can't help but smile. "Alright then, first thing we'll do is look for the next town's bulletin board and see if there's something we can do." With that she enthusiastically goes about getting some fish, though she has to calm herself down since she wasn't get anything because of how excited she's been.

She sits next to Akira, happily eating her meal, thinking about how well the two of them get along and wondering if he feels the same towards her. He had said something before, back at the inn when he was drunk, wondering is she should try to get him drunk again to try and found out more. That was if she didn't herself drunk in the process. Though she'd have to figure out a way to do so, but once they have some money to spare she might be able to come up with something. As they go to bed, Yusa senses someone watching, but they do not have any bad intentions, just observing.

[CycloneKira]

Akira enjoys his meal, sitting next to Yusa in a peaceful silence, occasionally stealing glances at her to see hoe she's doing. The thought of doing something good seems to have changed her mood drastically. He finishes up with the cleaning up after eating and heads for bed.

That's when he notices. Someone watching them. He looks over at Yusa and he can see that she can sense it too. "What do you think?" he asks, without looking at her. "Threat or not?"

[ml1201]

"Hm...no, probably just a scout sent to find out about us, what with the scene we made at that town back there. But either way, if they attack we can easily take them. They are more speed based from what I sensed than strength, so it would be easy for us." Closing her eyes she goes into a trance, one where she can feel rested but in a light enough slumber that anything that would normally alert her still would.

As dawn approaches the observer leaves, probably to inform whoever they take orders from about them. Yusa gets the feeling they will think no one noticed them, which would be completely wrong if so. Getting up she stretches, then picks up her stuff to pack and make room for her exercises.

"Do you want to have another match or just drill each other? I can understand if you want a rematch after last time." She gives him a bit of a smirk, though still not sure why he relented to her so quickly.

[CycloneKira]

Satisfied with her analysis of the situation, Akira nods and goes to bed. The next morning, he wakes up early and notices that the watcher is gone. So he calms down a bit and goes about packing his bags, when Yusa suddenly speaks up. He looks at her, knowing exactly what she's wondering. She's rather innocent for a ninja sometimes.

"I suppose we could just stick to drills this morning," he says, remembering yesterday. He doesn't need a repeat of that, especially given his developing feelings for her. "Then we should be on our way."

[ml1201]

"Alright then, ready when you are." She gets into her stance, going through the drills with him to warm up, smiling happily as they exchange flows back and forth. When they are done she quickly cleans up, gets changed and gets her stuff packed up, helping Akira clean up the camp that they made.

As they make their way to town she hums merrily, smiling more when they enter the town. Looking around with excitement she soon spots the board, motioning for Akira to follow her to it. Searching it she finds a notice up there about the bandits, pointing it out to Akira.

"This looks like it, we should grab it and take it to the office to let them know we're taking it on."

[CycloneKira]

After finishing the drills, Akira set about cleaning up their campsite with Yusa, before changing into something more fitting for travel and going to the next town. On reaching, he looks around for a notice board, until Yusa finds one. He follows her to it and looks at the notice, nodding.

"Right," he says, taking the paper and folding it twice. "I've got it right here. Let's find that office now." He starts walking around.

[ml1201]

It takes them a while but they finally find the office, Yusa smiling as she goes in. "We're here to take on a job that we saw on the board, Akira, can you show them the paper?" The staff at the office take the paper, reading it then looking at the two of them before cracking up laughing.

"Do you two honestly think you can do this job? First of all, you're a woman, you should be at home with your husband taking care of the family needs, unless this is your husband. In which case sure that is very foolhardy of you to let your wife go out on such an escapade and let her thing she can actually do a man's work. I won't be able to approve this job unless you honestly believe that this woman will be out of harms way. Either way, I'll be needing your names to put in the registry."

Furious, Yusa glares daggers at the man as she hisses out her name, "Akiyama, Yasu." The man's eyes go wide in shock as he hears the Akiyama, now sweating nervously as he realizes that he just insulted a member of a powerful ninja clan.

[CycloneKira]

Akira's eyebrow twitches ever so slightly when the man addresses Yusa as his wife. Seriously, what is with these people? First the innkeeper at the first town they visited, then the bandits in the previous town, now these guys. But he can only shake his head and give his name after Yusa has given hers. "Koga, Akira," he says, watching the man's expression look even more fearful. Looks like he's a little more famous than he thought.

"Listen, we are more than capable of taking on this job," he says. "And the lady is probably even more able than I am." He tries to put the man at ease by giving him a smile. "Please let us take this on. It's my humble request to you." He bows to show some respect.

[ml1201]

Yasu can hear hushed murmurs coming from the other people in the office as the man shakes nervously, just glad Akira didn't try to kill him for the insult he had unknowingly said to the two of them.

"Y-y-yes, I'll get everything settled right now." The man fills out all the paper work in astonishing time, almost like a demon was chasing him in hell. Very respectfully he hands the parchments to Yasu in a scroll case, sighing as she takes it from the man's shaking hands.

"Just don't jump to conclusions next time, luckily I don't normally have a temper and Akira is pretty mellow compared to the rest of his clan from what I've heard." Giving him a slight bow she turns to leave, taking the parchment out of the case to read the job. "Well, they would prefer to have the leader killed, but we can capture the grunts among the bandits instead of killing them." Turning she hands the parchment to Akira for him to read.

[CycloneKira]

Akira leaves with Yusa and looks at her as she reads what's written on the parchment. Then he takes it from her and gives it a once over himself. He doesn't like the idea of killing, since the reason he'd left his clan was to get away from all the killing.

He gives the parchment back to Yusa wordlessly. "Does it say anything about where to find them?" he asks.

[ml1201]

"Sadly no, we're going to have to try and gather information from the people around town or else go looking for them. Though asking around seems like the best idea, but where to start?" Yasu becomes nervous, she'd never had to gather information before, or at least not in a normal manner. It was usually seducing information from men, which she didn't think would work to well. Taking a lock of hair she twirls it in her fingers as she thinks, not sure how to go about getting the information. She could easily just ask someone on the streets, but how would she be able to convince people she could actually take on the bandits? They'd probably act like that official did in the beginning before he found out who she was. Out of a nervous habit she begins pacing very quickly, going from twirling her hair to twirling a knife in her hand. Oblivious to the fact that she's unsettling the people around her with how she's behaving.

[CycloneKira]

Akira considers her question, looking thoughtful. Where to start? "We could just pretend to be regular townspeople and start a casual conversation with some people, and steer the conversation to the job at hand," he said, after thinking for a bit. "If we're lucky, someone will let us in on some rumor they might have heard. What do you say? Yasu?"

He sees her twirling the knife, which is scaring the people around them. He gently wraps his fingers around hers and the knife, stopping her from twirling it. "What do you think?" he asks again.

[ml1201]

Looking down at her hand that he's holding, she realizes she was twirling the knife and quickly puts it away. She thinks for a moment before responding, "That might work, this place is big enough that they might get new people moving in once in a while. Or else we could pretend to be having a look around the town, either one would work for pretending to be townspeople. Our traveling clothes are not that different from what everyone else is wearing." Nodding her head she smiles, a bit excited to be able to look around town for something either than a target.

"Maybe browsing around the stalls and listen to what people have to say is a good start. Someone might let something slip in regards to the bandits that we can use to question them about, or we might find a conversation we can slip into in order to ask questions. Woman tend to talk a lot, they spread gossip quickly during the day, while men do so at night when drinking."

[CycloneKira]

Akira smiled a little hearing her. "So, for now, we should probably head to some stores or something," he said, and after a bit of thought, added, "Maybe we should split up. I have a feeling a ladies' salon would be a gold mine at this time. I'll try gathering what I can from the streets."

He was aware that most women would discuss anything and everything under the sun with their hairdressers. His mother had that habit, even now. She wouldn't talk about her husband's work or anything related to the clan, though.