Outsiders Alike Take Delight In Spite [Job]

“Did papa send a letter today?” Oliver excitedly asked his mother as Dahlia walked out.

“No baby. B’t I’m sure he’ll send one soon.” His mother assured him looking over to Dahlia from the pouting boy who had gotten used to his father sending letters daily so the boy would never feel forgotten… even if it was obvious some were written in bulk in case he didn’t have time one day to write. “Headed out for training?”

She asked knowing that’s usually where Dahlia ran off to most days. Dahlia could swear her aunt knew her better than her own mother these days. She even knew her usual forest spots she lingered in.

“To my next mission actually. I got one lined up.” She said simply passing her a small pouch of ryo.

“Dahlia you don’t need to. We have plenty for now, you know.” Her aunt stated in an almost reassuring tone.

“I know but… Just in case I want them to know I can make up for the lost income if they need to take time off after they get home.” Dahlia said simply looking off a bit.

“Yeah and when I become a ninja I can make some money too!” Oliver proudly declared getting his hair ruffled by his aunt.

“Oliver you actually have to study and train to do that you know. At this rate you’ll be held back long before you graduate.” His mother lectured him in the world's chillest tone.

“Yeah but nothing makes sense! Everythigns written like math problems! Its so boring and dumb!” He groaned out before being shooed off.

“Yeah yeah yeah. Complain and make excuses later you're gonna be late if you keep drullng on here.” As she watched Oliver leave in a huff she sighed. “It can’t be that hard if you learned how to do it… you basically taught yourself righ-.....”

Her aunt looked to see Dahlia missing from her side.

“That brat ditched me…” She sighed, itching the back of her head. “Whatever…”

Dahlia meanwhile shifted through her things grabbing a few of her old note books before racing off. It took a minute but she managed to catch up with Oliver as he was nearing the academy. He was pretty fast for his age; she’ll happily give him that.

“Oi!” Dahlia shouted out to him as she took a long leap from the roof landing with a tuck and roll.

Oliver looked back beaming a smile at her seeing her arrival. The two didn’t talk much due to Dahlia’s active avoidance of many places the young boy usually frequented but they were still family, and that boy somehow managed to come out super friendly… he probably got it from his grandfather or something cause she doubted either of his parents were the cause of that personality trait passing onto him.

“Here…” Dahlia panted out as she passed him the small stack of notebooks. “I didn’t learn well in school either… those are my self made notes… I don’t know how good they’ll be for you but-”

“Cool!” The boy exclaimed excitedly looking at them. “There’s even test answers in here!”

Dahlia’s eyes then went wide remembering how sometimes she had to use muscle memory mixed with memorising each answer each test when she retook them to both answer questions while also not looking at the paper except for the occasional glance. Oliver started to walk away with them only for her to snatch them back scribbling out the test answers that would surely get him in trouble if he was caught with them.

“Hey! Not cool!” He shouted out reaching for them as she held him back with her foot that was firmly planted on his chest.

“Ninja don’t cheat!” She shouted back.

“They’re your books! So that means you cheated too!” He protested.

“I did not! It was a strategic plan to avoid failure that I’m not explaining so get over it!” She roared back scriblign otu the last bits before letting him take the books. “Look… those shouldn’t be your only source of learning Oliver...ask for help… from teachers or other students…. Those will help you with solo training… but they can’t replace the help of others okay…?”

Oliver’s face softened a bit looking curiously at her.

“....Okay…? But… you never used that stuff so it can’t be that import-”

“It is!” She shouted angrily before catching herself noticing staring from the parents passing by who clearly was judging her for her actions… and for who they knew her to be given their older children benign in her class.

She tensed up for a moment before shoving down her anger for their starting to look at Oliver with serious but soft eyes.

“I never used them for help with my training because I was unable to do so because of issues I was having with Oliver… Issues that you don’t have.” She slowly reached over, gently placing her hand on his head. “I think that with these notes, the help of others, and your own determination you could become even stronger than me by the time you're my age… but you can’t make excuses, and you have to work as hard as possible every chance you get. Ninja don’t make excuses… they work hard every chance they get. And they never give up. Because in a mission if they give up it could mean the difference between saving or losing someone's life..”

Oliver blinked a bit at her words. He clearly had something to say, but knew well then to bring up the subject matter he wanted to speak about… which likely meant it was about her father. Her own face sank a bit realizing where she had taken her small words of advice to him. She instead of talking about it decided to gently grip his head to turn him to face the entrance of the school.

“Now go learn or whatever... “ She said with a dismissive tone only to get a peppy smile back.

“Okie dokie!” He happily started racing off much to her surprise.

“Man he really is a weird one... “ She muttered watching him run to the school where he passed her old class teacher who was watching her carefully from a distance.

She could feel her eye twitch a bit before turning to leave. She didn’t need to deal with this. She gave the little weirdo the books and that’s all she needed to worry about… okay well maybe she'd feed into a silent harmless protest of her feelings. She looked back to see him still staring disapprovingly at her. So she did something she saw her father do a few times to some town guards when they got rough with him back in the day. She curled all her fingers down on one hand except for her middle finger. Said finger she used to pull down her bottom lid of her eye, flared her nostrils, and stuck out her tongue.

Much to her surprise despite not shouting, nor throwing a single fist the act was super reliving of her stress. And pissed off the teacher just as much as she hoped. Her father really was a wise man. Dove, the imaginary friend of Dahlia, and most recently created alternative identity agreed. She was busy standing a few feet from the teacher mimicking Dahlia towards the unknowing teacher. Dahlia let out a small laugh before she turned to leave with Dove who appeared next to her walking in her usual care free manner.

As the two walked Dahlia bit her bottom lip a little. She had time before the mission shop would close up right? Dove was quick to nod to confirm happily before motionign her to follow her down an alleyway. Yeah she could definitely let Dove out to have some fun, and have some fun herself that way too. Dahlia snuck into the alley where she stood next to Dove who held her hands at the ready in the position needed to make the Transformation technique. Dahlia walked over to her spot and placed her hands in the same place before shifting into her friend… into Dove.

She stretched a bit as she could almost feel herself a bit more free. Thanks to her practice with Yasu with benign buildings for longer periods of time, and Dove’s encouragement of making her feel more free, just being outside in the village was far easier… when she was one of the girls that is. Mostly due to no one knowing them, and no one muttering or staring at her as them. She could feel a pep in her step as she made her way through the alley and out to the other side just in time to hear someone ‘psssst’ at her.

She rose a brow turning to see a scrawny man who was more than clearly an outsider to the village. If it wasn’t for Dove’s own odd attire he likely wouldn’t have talked to her. He likely thought she was an outsider too, and no doubt an orphan or something. Aka fresh meat to do a job for someone, with possible past experience.

‘Job 'means Ryo. We can take him if he attacks us.’ She could hear Dove insist in her head.

She then with the practice she had been getting on Yasu of different personalities managed a decent smile to pair with her curious look as she made her way over to look up to the man with innocent eyes. Ones that seemed to please the man and how he likely though she may be an easy target of manipulation. Not her intent with the look, but underestimating someone meant less likely hood of them believing they could cause you trouble and thus lead to further trust. Right?

‘Right’

‘Totally’

Yasu and Dove agreed in her head.

“Hey kid, so I need to get something from one of those stalls. I need a bit of a distraction though, but if you help me out I’ll slip you some Ryo” He happily offered to her in a welcoming tone. He no doubt thought she’d be an easy manipulation target. “Come on little buddy. We outsiders should stick together, you know?”

‘Could he be any more obvious?’ Yasu groaned out as she and Dove rolled their eyes behind him making Dahlia laugh a bit only confusing the man.

‘Just say yes. Yeah he’s probably gonna steal but who cares? Besides we should get some experience now before we go hunt down your mom you know what i mean? Yeaaah you know what i mean’ Dove playfully said with a shrug in her head to Dahlia.

“Sure!” Dahlia finally replied as Dove, trying to be jolly with her reply; which was far easier then she had expected given her goofy antics of her friends behind the man.

“Atta girl!” He said happily ruffling her hair then sneaking off.

‘This should be easy!” Yasu disappeared as the imaginary Dove walked over resting her elbow on Dahlia’s shoulder. “You and I are great at drawing attention to ourselves. Only this time we don’t gotta worry about anything besides having fun, then bailing when he gets the goods!’

Dove spoke happily in her head holding up a fist to Dahlia who permitted herself to fist bump her back. Now… a peaceful method, oooor…. Dahlia followed Dove with her eyes who pulled out a kunai spinning it by one of her fingers before stopping right next to a larger man. She smirked pointing her thumb at him with a grin wiggling her eyebrows. Dahlia then looked to see a fruit stand right next to him.

Man it was scary how well everything lined up when you were actively trying to be a nuisance rather than avoiding doing so. Dahlia ran forward with a giggle leaping onto the fruit stand's lip that held back the fruit; then leapt off it and onto the man's shoulders. The lip broke sending all the fruit rolling off and onto the street while the man stumbled about due to the sudden girl perching on his shoulders.

The man stumbled then just right, slipping on an apple backwards just as Dahlia lept again towards another person. Her foot landed straight onto his face just in time for all the eyes to turn towards the sudden chaos. Dahlia noticed the outsider moving in to loot from a jewelry stall, as well as Dove cheering her on. She wobbled back and forth leaping from person to person as some tried to grab at her.

She took a deep inhale before beginning to shout-sing while leaping.

“Run, leap, bounce, creep! Oh man, now were in deep! Look at us, we're making more than a tiny little peep!” She watched as the man stantched up a few armfulls of the jewelry before darting off. “Fight your own way, fight every single day, cause now all yall bitches are about to pay; so sing horay!”

She leapt off the last person as the crowd was now screaming at her. She just barely leapt onto a stalls roof then up onto a main building's roof. She turned around to see the screaming people as they threw rocks up at her. It was odd… rather than feeling stressed out, all she felt in this moment was like they were cheering for her. Each rock turned into a flower head in her imagination. She felt Dove’s hand interlock with hers before both smiled brightly and bowed.

They smiled at each other before running off laughing together. The wind blows through their hair as they run without a care in the world. Knowing that despite things going so perfectly filled Dahlia with joy and excitement. Despite the results being ones that normally would bother her, it was as though the fact that this was just a plan gone right killed off any chance of her feeling down at this moment. Not to mention she was getting paid to do this, as well as not getting any repercussions from this personally? Yeah this was kinda great.

All the fun, the carefree feeling? She hadn’t felt anything like this since her father died. After a while she finally went back down to the ground giggling with Dove as the man made his way over to her panting. He seemed pleased, and clearly warned out from no doubt trying to catch up with her while carrying so much. He stuffed some in his pocket before pulling out a ryo pouch, tossing it to her. Dahlia caught it with both hands and a happy smile.

“Nice work kid… see yah around.” He said with a nod.

“Totally.” She gave back with a slight smile watching him leave.

‘Man if this is what your mom does all the time for money i could totally see why. This is not only a hoot… but also… Dove striked a silly pose. Of hollering to the sky. ‘A holla!’

‘You’re benign obnoxious again…’ Yasu said, giving Dove a light punch to the shoulder. ‘Nice work Dahlia. That pouch looks like it may actually be the same amount we normally get from our other job. We could actually start doing stuff like this more instead of those other pesky jobs. Get more practice and training in, rather than dealing with sneering jerks and petty chores.’

Dahlia looked down to the ryo tossing it up and catching it a few times before nodding.

‘Only issue is if we get hit hard enough our cover is blown yah know?’ Dove recalled as the three started to walk home.

‘I forgot about that… maybe we could make a more firm version of the transformation. It’d take more of a wear to our chakra but may sustain better in a fight.’ Dahlia thought back to the others.

‘Only one way to find out’ Yasu said with a shrug.

‘I’ll look into it later then. It could be a good investment.’ Dahlia thought with a shrug.


OOC:

Transformation Technique Used for 1 CP

109 / 110 CP

Job Details:

[Link To Job]

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