(A/N) D-ranks! This should be interesting… Same as last time. Taroko and Danromi with "" instead of '' are speaking in their own tongue. Except when Danromi decides to speak human. Then she's speaking human sometimes. Just...watch the tags, it'll say whether she spoke in human or not. Also, Gore warning! I'll place bold markings at the beginning and end of it.
"Here's your first mission!" Kakashi chirped, offering a scroll to them.
Naruto took it cautiously, opening it up. Taroko stuck her snout over his shoulder, tilting her head to see it better.
'Walking the dogs,' Taroko tapped. 'Fascinating.' She backed off slightly, shaking her head and body.
"It won't be hard, right?" Danromi chirped. She had picked up morse code quickly, although didn't use it much.
"Not really. We may want to assist them in herding the dogs, should they prove too difficult for them."
Danromi chirped wordlessly, amused.
'Naruto, those are too big for you,' Taroko noted. "If he tries those dogs, we'll have to save him probably."
Danromi snorted, then sneezed right after. Her tail whipped from side to side, and she adjusted her wings. "You'll just have to herd them then. I won't be much help, they're all bigger then I am."
Taroko shook herself. "We'll see."
"I'll manage," Naruto told her, after she was clearly finished chatting with Danromi. "I'm pretty strong!"
'It's how strong you are that is in debate,' Taroko tapped dryly. Naruto pouted at her.
When they received the dogs, Naruto's almost immediately tried to dislocate his arms.
Taroko chirped in laughter at him, and then growled at the dogs, thoroughly terrifying them, and halting all attempts to tear Naruto's arms out of his sockets.
With Taroko's assistance with the dogs, they were walked, and the mission was completed.
Grocery shopping for some old people was… an adventure. Taroko didn't see the problem they had with her, although Danromi was mostly cooed over and called cute, something that made the tiny dragon ruffle her feathers and prance like a peacock.
'Why aren't I called cute!' Taroko asked.
"You have too many teeth!" Danromi chirped. "Mine are just blunt and cute."
"You're too big to be called cute," Sakura informed her. "You're pretty."
Taroko preened. 'Thank you.'
"And this, is the Tora catching mission! The bane of every genin since the first Hokage!"
'What is this Tora?' Taroko asked cautiously.
"A cat! And no, Taroko, you can't eat it, it must be caught unscathed."
Taroko huffed. 'It's a mission, I wasn't going to eat it.'
"I can grab it! My teeth won't injure it!" Danromi chirped happily.
"Alright, I want a C-rank, I am so done with D-ranks!" Naruto declared.
Taroko bobbed her head. 'That last mission, the cat one was it, I am so done.'
"We can handle a C-rank, Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke insisted.
"Let's do it!" Danromi declared, in human tongue. Taroko was probably the least surprised, she had heard Danromi practicing human sounds for the last two months.
Naruto gaped. "Danromi! You can speak?"
Danromi preened. "Of course I can. Why can't Taroko?"
'I don't have the vocal chords for it.' Taroko tapped, wrinkling her nose.
"Maybe I can get Jiji to pair you up! Danromi does the speaking and stuff for you both!" Naruto said, grinning widely.
"I don't think the Hokage would agree to that," Kakashi said mildly.
Naruto pouted. "Aww, oh well. So, can we go get a C-rank!?"
Kakashi sighed. "I suppose I can be talked into it. Let's go."
Danromi chirped in victory, flapping up to bed in Kakashi's hair. Taroko snorted at his entirely uncaring expression, trotting off to lead the way to the mission desk.
"We're gonna get a C-rank!" Naruto chanted quietly on their way to the mission desk.
"Ah, Team 7, here to get a mission?"
"We'd like a C-rank, jiji!" Naruto shouted as soon as he entered the room.
The Hokage sent a raised eyebrow at Kakashi, clearly ignoring the dragon currently sleeping on his head amidst the mass of silver spikes. Kakashi nodded, but not too much so as not to disturb Danromi. Taroko made a purring noise when the Hokage selected a scroll from a different pile then the usual one.
"Alright, your mission is to escort Tazuna-san to his home country of Wave, and protect him from bandits while he finishes his bridge. Bring in Tazuna-san."
Taroko wrinkled her nose as an old drunk came in. He reeked. Of alcohol, of the sea, of way to many things to name, or even want to name. He kinda smelled like something had crawled in his clothes and died.
"He reeks," Danromi chirped to Taroko.
"You don't say," the raptor replied sarcastically. "I'm totally not standing just four feet away from him, and can't at all smell it for myself."
"WHAT'RE THOSE!" Tazuna shouted, the fact there was a living, breathing, dragon and dinosaur just four feet away, apparently finally breaking through the haze of alcohol.
"Taroko is a dinosaur," Kakashi said patiently, pointing to Taroko. "And Danromi is the one on my head. She's a dragon."
Tazuna looked horrified.
"Don't worry!" Naruto said, grinning at him. "We'll keep you real safe!"
"You're just kids!" Tazuna sounded as horrified as he looked, and Taroko felt no remorse in laughing at him.
'We are far from merely kids,' Taroko tapped.
"She said that we're far from merely kids," Naruto translated for Tazuna. "She speaks in morse code!"
Tazuna looked rather faint, but nodded.
The Hokage smiled. "You leave tomorrow morning. Dismissed."
Team 7 nodded, and left.
Tazuna met them at the gate the next morning, his pack on his back, the others with their bags as well. Taroko carried much of Naruto and her stuff, as she was best suited to it, able to carry it and not be hindered in combat. Not much, at least.
"Shall we leave?" Kakashi asked, sounding almost amused as he took in Naruto's minimal backpack, and Taroko's covered sides.
(A/N) I would suggest skipping this bit, if you're at all squeamish.
Taroko spotted the puddle first, and sniffed at it. It smelled like human, so she bared her teeth at it, causing two people to jump out of it.
"Look at that, one of 'em even got a dumb little animal!" One of them cheered, even as Taroko bared very sharp teeth at them.
Taroko narrowed her eyes, tapping out a pattern quickly. 'I'll show you dumb little animal.' With that, she growled, sending Tazuna diving behind Kakashi, and lunged at the one that had spoken.
Kakashi covered Sakura's eyes quickly, reaching for Sasuke's, but was batted away absently as Sasuke watched Taroko tear out the man's throat with morbid curiosity. Naruto just watched with a lack of caring that came from years of watching Taroko kill and eat live creatures. Danromi cheerfully joined the bloody melee, stripping off smaller sections of flesh from the dead demon brother.
With the person taken care of, and very much dead, Taroko proceed to do the same thing to the other guy in a spray of blood.
Kakashi turned Sakura around and started ushering her and Tazuna down the road. "Why don't you two go ahead a little bit, and don't look back, hm?"
Sakura, having heard the assorted noises that came with ripping throats out, nodded quickly, not looking back once.
Taroko, with both enemies dead, began eating her fill of the rest of the meat on a human body, taking the care to completely sever the head, and roll that out of the way. She knew they could probably turn the two heads in for bounties.
As it was nearing midday, Taroko did end up eating a good portion of the two Demon Brother's bodies. Easier than hunting down enough small animals to feed herself, and while she was carrying the meat they'd had in their fridge in a storage scroll, it was better to preserve it for when it was needed. Not like it would go bad in a storage seal anyway.
Kakashi, keeping his eyes averted from the rather bloody scene that Taroko was making of the Demon Brother's bodies, picked up the brother's heads, sealing them away.
Taroko finished, and Kakashi quickly buried the bodies with a quick earth jutsu. Then a water jutsu to spray Taroko's bloody snout and get the blood off.
(A/N) This also ends it. For those of you that skipped, Taroko killed the Demon Brothers with much blood, and Danromi and her ate them. Well, ate some of them. Meat is meat, right? SDC ends tomorrow! FYI.