Sasuke was sporting a pair of black eyes, so while it wasn't as bad as it had been the previous night - it was still quite noticeable. He also had a few other bruises which showed themselves in how he moved and the occasional wince.
Sakura was actually in somewhat worse shape. It looked as if her entire body had muscle strains from how stiffly she was moving. She had the discoloration of a massive bruise along her chin.
Naruto seemed the least affected, but even he seemed to be moving a bit tenderly this morning.
No, Kakashi didn't say a word.
"Is there a 'heal wounds' card?" asked Sasuke in a whisper to Sakura.
"On my 'to research' list already," whispered back Sakura.
"So, what kind of mission do we have today, Kakashi-sensei?" asked Naruto, quite obviously trying to distract their sensei from the whispered conversation.
Kakashi smiled underneath his mask. Teamwork. It was a beautiful thing. A group that had been so mismatched just a few weeks ago was coming together quite well. "It doesn't involve chasing a cat through the shrubbery or painting fences. You may actually enjoy this one."
"Oh?" asked Naruto.
"Goldberg's Pie Factory?" asked Naruto, reading the sign. "'Best place to get a pie, square or round?' What's that mean?"
"Our client is the owner, a Rube-san, who needs some dishwashers," said Kakashi.
"Washing dishes?" asked Naruto. "How is this a 'ninja mission'?"
"So was painting fences, catching cats, cleaning a riverbank, and repairing roofs," noted Kakashi, not mentioning the chindogu that the inventor had created prior to developing his current enterprise. "Work is whatever you can find that pays the bills."
"Yo, Kakashi!" yelled a somewhat portly balding man on the roof, waving briefly before hurrying to a stairwell and making his way down.
"You know this guy, Kakashi-sensei?" asked Naruto.
"Yes, in a manner of speaking," said Kakashi. "Our client, Rube, was a client of my own team many years ago."
"Whew," said Rube, huffing and puffing as he approached. "You know you're getting up there in the years when you can remember when your breakfast went 'snap crackle pop' and now it's you."
"Be that as it may, this time you came up with some gadget that doesn't explode?" asked Kakashi.
"My pie factory has been running for two years without exploding," protested Rube.
"Or declaring war on humanity?" asked Kakashi.
"It was only the one invention," protested Rube, "and really how could anyone reasonably expect a diaper-changing device to do such a thing?"
"Or drawing flocks of pigeons?" asked Kakashi. "Or bending the laws of physics in unnatural directions?"
"No, not recently," admitted Rube. "Though you have to admit the Leaf Finite Improbability Generator was an intriguing idea."
"Uhm, I take it your team had several missions for this guy, cleaning up problems?" asked Sakura.
"You could certainly say that," agreed Kakashi. "I wondered why I hadn't heard about you lately."
"Well, wonder no more!" said Rube, gesturing grandly at the building behind him. "I got out of the chindogu style devices, went into wildly improbable and overly complex devices for a bit, then came up with this! The mostly automated pie factory! Come on, come on. I'll show you!"
Following the portly older man into the building, Naruto gave an appreciative sniff. "Is that?"
"Cheesecake?" asked Rube, pointing to the display with a covered dish. "Try a sample. One of my new recent inventions!"
"It's better than the 'hay fever hat' at least," noted Kakashi.
"It said right on the label not to wear it when it is raining," protested Rube.
Sakura took one of the little squares, frowning at it, then took a bite. Her expression went from distrustful to surprised to near-blissful in a few seconds. "What... is this again?"
"Chocolate cheesecake," said Rube with a shrug. "One of my better sellers actually. No idea why. In any case, this way to the actual factory."
The ninja filed out the door after the client. A moment later Naruto came back and started pushing Sakura through the door. "C'mon Sakura."
"Mff?"
"Put the cheesecake down, Sakura."
"Mff iff guuf!"
"Ne ne, Sakura-chan," said Naruto. "Mission first."
"-so the waterwheel turns the axle, the axle turns the gears which cause the whole thing to operate," Rube was saying as they rejoined the group.
"So... 'dishwashing'?" asked Sasuke, glancing at the two tardy teammates.
"Yes, we ran into a little problem with that," admitted Rube. "These are the dishes over here."
Sasuke stopped as he realized what the large stack of round objects were. "Pie pans."
"Akkk!" remarked Sakura, quickly calculating that there was twenty per stack and the number of stacks. "It's over nine thousand!"
"Well, your work is cut out for you," said Kakashi, just before the large tub of sudsy water shot a jet out that drenched him.
"That's the problem," said Rube, unfolding an umbrella and blocking a spray that targeted him. Then a much larger blast knocked him off into the machinery.
"Ah," said Sasuke.
"Hah," said Naruto.
"Ah HAH," summed up Sakura, pointing. "Water card!"
At which point tendrils of water shot out, grabbed up nearby pies, and the fight was on.
SPLURCH!
There was a brief moment of silence as the pie was covering Sasuke's face, before it slowly fell away. That still left a fair amount of blueberry pie covering Sasuke's face.
"Of course you know," said Sasuke, "this means war."
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(Posted Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:53)
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