It was a headache. Two days of silencing seals later, the Haruno's visited the training field with their daughter. Shino, being the sealmaster he was, put a silencing seal on Sakura right away, but didn't activate it.
"Why is our daughter coming home with silencing seals on her clothing?" Mebuki demanded.
Asuma laughed slightly, mostly to relieve some tension. "Uhm, it's a training exercise. No better time to learn Shinobi Sign Language right away, right? And what better way to do it then force them to use it during practice? Your daughter is doing very well." She was actually doing very well, bringing a book for her and Kiba to share when they needed to talk, and she was getting less and less reliant on it by the day, and he'd only had her for two days.
"Shino isn't silenced!" Sakura screeched.
Shino silenced her as his bugs buzzed, irritated at the sudden loud noise. "Because I already know SSL. And I do not screech and upset my own Kikachu. I have asked you repeatedly to not screech because it disturbs my insects."
Mr. Haruno raised an eyebrow at Shino. "You say you already know SSL?"
Shino nodded, and started signing. 'Two of my best friends are mute, I learned it when I was younger.'
Mebuki raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment.
Shino glanced at his teammates, who were squabbling silently by playing a game of charades. Briefly he wondered if he could get Sasuke or Shisui to come in and teach them expletives. It would certainly entertain them for a while. Then they could cuss at each other all they wanted. Then, Shino's brain wouldn't interpret their charades for him. Most of which, he really wished he hadn't seen. They were… very creative.
"Well, please take the tag off after practice, if we don't remember to remove it, the dress goes through the wash, and the tag is on there permanently, all smudged and stuff," Mebuki said finally.
Shino wondered if he could draw the seal in that invisible ink the Uzumaki had. He didn't own any himself, but he knew Kakashi would be sending a letter to Semari soon, and he could always ask him to ask Semari for some. If he drew it on the backs of their necks, then he could activate or deactivate it at any time. No more tags, and if Hana, Kiba's older sister, requested how to activate them, which was highly likely, given that she was his older sister, he could show her how to activate it, and maybe, Kiba would come to practice muted. A win-win for everyone except Kiba.
He decided to bring it up with Naruto after practice.
"Well," Kakashi said, brushing soot out of his silver hair. "It actually hit me this time."
Sasuke nodded, giving a thumbs up.
"That's not supposed to be good," Kakashi deadpanned.
Sasuke shrugged.
"We have got to figure out how to manage your jutsu without saying anything," Kakashi said, sighing. "That's the fifteenth time that's blown up in one of our faces."
Sasuke shrugged helplessly. 'I can't sign its name while I'm trying to do jutsu hand signs, it just isn't possible.'
"Yes, I am aware of that Sasuke."
'I can do the Kage bunshin technique without saying it!' Naruto offered.
"That jutsu was basically made for Uzumaki," Kakashi deadpanned. "Loads of chakra, and basically just shoving chakra outside of your body."
'You're duplicating yourself with chakra, it's a bit more complicated than that,' Shikamaru drawled.
Naruto and Kakashi shrugged.
"These are Uzumaki, what did you expect?" Kakashi asked.
Shikamaru rolled his eyes, and Kakashi was forced to sit down with a slouch, signaling Shikamaru had caught him in his jutsu. "Shadow possession complete."
Kakashi sighed heavily, but didn't fight the jutsu.
Shikamaru pulled out a kunai, forcing Kakashi to do the same, and slashed across his wrist, Kakashi imitating his every move. Shikamaru dropped the kunai, hand glowing green as he healed his cut. The shadow became tinted green, and Kakashi's cut glowed slightly, closing.
"Shadow healing, success," Shikamaru said, looking almost triumphant, in his lazy way. He released the jutsu, releasing Kakashi, who went back to trying to get Sasuke's jutsu to not blow up in their faces.
Shino walked up a few minutes after his own practice ended, to find Team 7 still training. Well, Naruto was drawing a seal, and Shikamaru was trying to fight Sasuke off while healing Kakashi at the same time. It was not going well, so Shino just jumped in, taking Sasuke as his opponent and leaving Shikamaru to heal the jagged cut across Kakashi's arm, most likely given by Kakashi himself.
'You weren't supposed to intervene,' Sasuke signed, before leaping back into fighting him, using a different style than the one he'd been using to fight Shikamaru.
Shino shrugged minutely. "I was here, I figured I might as well help and get a spar out of it. Why? Because Asuma spends most of his time allowing Sakura and Kiba to fight, and excuse me if I do not want to get in the way of that."
Sasuke nodded, seeming to understand as he switched styles yet again. What made Sasuke so freaking hard to fight? Uzumaki styles could be based on almost anything, from speed, strength, flexibility, to knowing where to hit people with poisoned things. One of the many reasons Uzumaki were so feared, all of them had a different taijutsu style, but could often use several within their specific specialty. Used in conjunction with their seals, they would switch taijutsu styles just to confuse their opponent, then slap a couple of seals on them and be done with it all.
The first one Sasuke had learned, and the one he was using now, was Mantis Strike. It was based on speed and precision. Shikamaru had helped Sasuke memorize where to hit to make his strikes effective.
Salmon style, the one he'd been using while fighting Shikamaru before, was based on flexibility and strength, with just a touch of speed. It allowed someone to bend and weave around attacks that most people wouldn't have been able to dodge. The hits weren't as precise as Mantis Strike, but had far more strength behind them, not unlike the Taijutsu style Hard Fist that Maito Gai and Rock Lee used.
And there he went changing his style yet again. This time it was Bone Crusher style, a very intimidating style, at least to watch. It was very similar to the punching style Tsunade Senju used, but a bit more refined, and more prone to hitting the opponent. It was, as the name suggested, rather prone to breaking bones.
Shino was thrown back, his fall only softened by a pillowing seal he had long since written on his back, and on his jacket. Just in case.
Sasuke came over, offering the seal on concolliation. Shino made the same seal, accepting Sasuke's hand to pull him up. His arm had to be at least fractured from that last hit, so he went over to see their resident medic, Shikamaru.
Shikamaru healed it without complaint, but Shino could see the beginnings of chakra exhaustion forming on his face.
"You're dismissed for the day," Kakashi said, nodding to Shino.
Shino nodded to the others as they began walking off, and walked up to Kakashi. "I wish for you to request the invisible ink that sinks into skin and doesn't come out from Semari. Why? Because Sakura's parents have requested I stop with the tags, and I feel this is the best option."
Kakashi nodded. "Alright, I'll do that. Have a good day Shino."
"You too Kakashi-sensei."
With that, Shino turned and followed his friends off of the training ground and into the village.
Shino did end up drawing the seal on the back of their necks, or rather, his kikaichu did. It worked wonderfully, and there were no more complaining parents. Hana did come up and ask about how to activate the seal, and so did Tsume, but Shino figured it was so Kiba could talk at all. He was merciful though, once he, or the person who had activated the seal was a certain amount away, the seal automatically deactivated.
D-ranks were interesting affairs, Tora was quickly equipped with a paralyzing and tracking seal, courtesy of Naruto and Shino. Their teams had Tora catching duty whenever possible.
Team 8 had problems with D-ranks, and were usually accompanied by either Kiba or Sakura, who pretty much spoke for the entire team. When the genin needed to speak, anyway.
Team 7 also had problems with D-ranks, especially the more social ones, as while Shikamaru could translate, and so could Kakashi, it was always very awkward to explain that Naruto had gotten a throat injury as a child, and no you can't see the scar because it was healed really well, and Sasuke was traumatized into not speaking by his evil older brother. Yeah, awkward.
Team 10 had the least problems with D-ranks, as Shino usually didn't mute his teammates on them, so they didn't have any problems with talking. Although they were usually a person short, as Kiba or Sakura would be helping Team 8 get stuff done.
Personally, Shino was pretty sure that most of Konoha was under the impression there was something seriously wrong with their graduation class. They weren't wrong, but still. They were all quiet for various reasons.
(A/N) I will not be doing the Wave mission, as Uzushio would've taken care of that, and probably fairly easily. There will be a joint Uzushio/Konoha C-ranked mission, however. So you'll get to see some Uzu genin in action.