Book Brawl [Hunter]

Mission wrote:Mission Name: This Is Going Right On To Ebay
Rank: D
Type: Recovery
Character Requirements: Be Murata
Mission Location: Hoshigakure
Word Count Requirements: --
Challenges: Hunter
Repeatable? N
NPC? D-Rank NPC
Reward: 4,000 ryo, 10AP, 1x Giant Beasts Anniversary Edition with limited edition cover, signed by author

Task: Chaos! A ne'er-do-well has run off with Murata's signed copy of Giant Beasts, just after she'd waited in line for it for hours - will she be able to retrieve it?

This is the worst thing that has ever happened to Murata, or possibly to anyone.

It was such an innocent day - she spent her morning in line to pick up a signed copy of her fifth-favorite book, politely waiting among the rowdy Hoshigakure crowds. Once she had braved the crowded bookstore and retrieved her prize, she had gone down the street to pick up some takeout for her team. How unfortunate for her that she had ordered so much food that she had to carry it with both hands, necessitating that she put her book down on the bench outside to go pick it up, leaving it alone for just a moment... and when she returns, hands occupied by bountiful bags of shawarma, her book is nowhere to be found.

Murata blinks, staring momentarily through the eye slits of her helmet at the blank space where the Giant Beasts Anniversary Edition (signed) should be, before casting her gaze out over the crowded City Square of Hoshigakure. She is fully armored and dangerous, of course, and a little bit tired and overheated from that fact. Since that assassination attempt, she's been sure to be careful. This sprawing plaza is 100 meters by 100 meters, marked by a fountain in the center, shops along the sides (including the shawarma place Murata has just exited, situated in the center of the eastern side of the square), and various side streets stretching from the edges. People mill about, and the noise of a pleasant day fills the air. Murata scans her surroundings, looking for signs of the thief as she sets her shawarma down on the bench.

What villain could have done this?

Spoiler:

Suzume had scored big time just now! She was walking around the village in her usual disguise, which made her look like an effeminate man instead of a woman, and her outfit she used for her fire dancing performance. She was actually a missing ninja from Konoha, but after a large debacle with aall of that, she came over to this village to do her usual gig, which was to perform and then use some pickpocketing skills or her ninja training to steal some things from the wealthy civilians that would always attend her shows. This time, she had noticed a book signing, which was of a very famous writer, and someone was careless enough to wait in line for a while, get it signed, and then did not keep it with them the whole time. This thing was actually a collector's item, and she knew that it would sell for quite a bit after she left the village with it and sold it. 

She thought that whoever was careless enough to leave their book probably was not a ninja, and also was not around at the time of course, so she was just non-chalantly walking on the outside, but on the inside she was fairly tense. She could not be imprisoned here or they would figure out she was a missing ninja and most likely send her back to what was left of Konoha, and she did not want to spend the rest of her life in prison, so she was looking around as casually as she could, seeing if anyone was eying her suspiciously or coming towards her. If Murata was thinking about it, she would notice that Suzume was not anywhere near the line that she was in all day, and so if she spotted the book, it was most likely a dead giveaway. Suzume was walking through the plaza near the center, ten meters to the south of the fountain, and twenty meters to the east of it. She would look to the east and west, surveying her surroundings and looking at all the shops, pretending to be an ordinary person.

NPC Stats:

The thief being nowhere to be found, Murata takes the L and moves on to bring her team their lunch.

[conceding mission and exiting]