Feline Grace [MISSION] (Nanashi Ecks)

It was a nice, cloudy day when Nanashi arrived at Peace Village. The scenery around him truly defines the village's name: a quiet, cool breeze was blowing from the mountains, and the villagers themselves greeted him with smiles. Even the stray dogs along the streets seems to be quite friendly.

"This sure is a great place to relax. Maybe I'll live here when I retire." Nanashi said to himself. He took a deep breath of the fresh air, then took out the job request form in his coat pocket. It reads:

"Good day. My name is Irene, and I need your help in retrieving my cat. I found out that somehow, she ended up atop a tall, old tree in the outskirts of our village. Since then, I've been visiting her just to make sure she's well fed. Please help me get her down. I'll provide more details upon your arrival."

"A peaceful village, and a cat to save from a tree. This is going to be great day." Nanashi thought, smiling. He really adores cats, which is the only reason he took the mission.

Nanashi turned the paper, where a simple map of the village is drawn, showing both the location of the tree and the owner's home. Following the map on hand, he arrived at the designated location: a small cottage in front of a large rice field, almost isolated from the village itself. A small bell was hanging above the door, so Nanashi rang it, then said, "Good day, ma'am. I'm here for the job request for your cat."

The door creaked open, and an old woman stepped out. "Oh? Good afternoon, sonny." she said cheerfully. "A job request, you say? That would be my granddaughter's request. She just left a while ago to tend to her dear pet." The old woman pointed towards a small cliff and said, "You'll find her up there."

"Thank you, ma'am. And good afternoon to you, too." Nanashi replied. He then bowed to the old woman before she went back into the house.

"A bit more further, then." Nanashi thought, looking at his map on hand, then at the cliff the old woman pointed at.

-----

It took Nanashi 15 minutes or so before he reached the cliff, where he saw a young woman looking up a large oak tree. Nanashi followed the her gaze, and saw a small, white cat sleeping on a thick branch.

"Umm... Excuse me, miss?" Nanashi said. "I'm here for your job request."

The young lady quickly turned around, startled at Nanashi's voice. But when she saw him holding her request form, she breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, you've startled me. It was so quiet here, your voice kind of scared me." She ushered Nanashi to come closer, and he followed.

"I'm Irene, and thank you for accepting my request. That's my pet cat, Kyuuri." she said, as she pointed up at her sleeping pet. Nanashi listened quietly as Irene explained her dilemma: "She tends leave our home to roam around the village. But I've never seen her climb a tree before, and I have no idea how or why she got up there. Yesterday, I've asked the villagers to help me get her down, but their ladders aren't high enough to reach her. Some tried to climb, but the tree is covered with some sap, making it slippery. We've even tried to convince her to jump down, but she won't. So, we've been trying to feed her bits of fish and bread by throwing it at her branch."

When Irene finished telling her story, Nanashi looked back up at the cat, still quiet. "Not sure if she's terrified of jumping down, or she has her reasons for not going down at all." he thought. His mind was processing a couple of scenarios and possible explanations, but none of them seems to fit why the cat's really up there.

Nanashi took a deep breath of fresh air, and said, "Well, looks like the only way to get her down is to get up there and grab her."