Shino was concerned, deeply concerned. Not for himself, he was certain he would be fine. He was worried that he may unintentionally bring harm to his team or his clan however, so he discussed such concerns with his father. It was a rather short discussion, but it was determined that as long as his hive remained healthy things would be fine.
The moment Shino's hive became infected, the Aburame heir would willingly quarantine himself in a section of the clan compound that Shibi ordered to be prepared. So far he contained no strange parasites beyond his kikaichu, and the odd mark on his body did not sink too deep into his hive-like body. If he already carried a disease it was completely asymptomatic, although that thought did little to comfort the young Aburame.
The fact that he would be inducted into a special terror unit of the black ops under the command of Kakashi Hatake was rather interesting, and he could not deny the power of the genin of cell seven. He idly wished he had been put on that cell instead of Sasuke, but discarded such an idea as pointless considering the present. Time would only go forwards, and Shino could only endure what happened as it happened.
So he learned iryo ninjutsu from Shizune, the woman was a decent enough teacher and his chakra control was acceptable for the basic jutsu. Mostly she drilled him on hygiene practices, how to stem the spread of infection, and emergency battlefield first aid. From her he also learned that the only real difference between poison and medicine was the dosage, anything that could kill bacteria could kill a person in a high enough dosage.
Still Shino couldn't help but feel slightly dejected, it seems that like Sakura Haruno his patron carried rather negative connotations. The Aburame genin resolved to use whatever dark powers he developed for the protection of Konoha, his clan, and his teammates.
Kiba approached the shrine Sakura had set up, it was a pretty basic affair all things considered. The Haruno weren't exactly a shinobi clan, or particularly rich, but serving well in the military for even a couple of generations tended to allow a family to afford a decent enough house. Outside of that house was now a basic wooden shrine, mostly unpainted, with a red torii and a brass symbol of the Kami who marked Sakura hanging from an iron chain under a tin roof. Not as fancy as the other two but it had an aura of warriors about it, Kiba liked that and thought it was fairly rustic.
The pink haired kunoichi was checking the offerings when he arrived, but she didn't seem surprised by what she found and closed the small box as he approached without taking anything, "Hey, Sakura-chan, heard you were working on this shrine thing." the Inuzuka greeted casually.
Sakura looked at him with eyes full of suspicion, "What of it?" she asked.
Kiba chuckled at the angry attitude of the young girl, "Just figured I'd check it out." he said honestly as he approached the offering box and shoved a hundred ryo note in there, "After all he's like a Budo no Kami or something right?" he asked and Sakura nodded hesitantly, "Might as well leave an offering before a mission then." he said with a cocky grin before leaving.
Sakura watched him go for a moment, "Skulls." she said and the Inuzuka turned with a confused expression, "Genkei told me there's a skull throne, if you find glory in battle you should clean them and bring them back here." she explained, knowing that such a morbid decoration would scare away most civilians but curious as to how shinobi would take to the idea.
Kiba grinned, "Thanks for the tip, I'll try to keep that in mind." he said before he turned to leave again, he found it a little odd, but war was supposed to be bloody after all.
Tenten was bored, she'd taken some D rank missions but mostly she was just working part time at the weapons store she liked to frequent. The merchant who owned the place was friends with the smith, both former shinobi, and the prices were decent for the quality. She trained too but she felt like she'd hit a wall.
The kunoichi wanted to become a legend like Tsunade, but found she lacked the chakra control for iryo ninjutsu. She knew some basic first aid since it was useful, but that and some tertiary reading was the extent of her abilities in that particular field. She trained in taijutsu like the rest of her team since the power of a weapon was reliant on the power of the body, but she also didn't have the natural talent for it like her Hyuga teammate or the fortitude to train herself into the ground to accomplish what Lee had.
Sometimes Tenten felt like it really wasn't fair, but she didn't let it get her down. Her shurikenjutsu was near perfect, and her study of fuinjutsu was netting some minor results. Turns out crafting your own kibaku fuda was much cheaper than buying them, still not free but cheaper and the same went for storage fuin.
After her shift ended Tenten decided to go see that shrine Neji had made, it seemed like he'd improved a lot since taking Naruto's teachings to heart and she had to admit they were rather inspiring. The shrine itself was quite nice too, and she remembered that all this odd Kami wanted was to pursue what made you happy and perfect your arts.
So Tenten wondered why she limited herself to bukijutsu when being a ninja consisted of many arts.
Kakashi looked over the four marked champions of the Konton no Kami, shinobi who were officially under his command. Aside from the lack of masks, uniforms, and discipline he was oddly reminded of his days in Anbu. Then he realized that was probably Sakura's blood lust, the fact the young kunoichi had enough passive blood lust to remind him of an entire Anbu squad would have alarmed him just a few weeks ago.
"Alright, no missions for today, I'm actually curious about something considering I have a bunch of ninjutsu." Kakashi began as he pulled out some pieces of chakra paper, "Your teamwork still needs work, but at least two of you are already capable of learning ninjutsu and I think the other two should supplement their skill sets." he explained vaguely, "So one at a time, channel chakra into one of these and I'll figure out what to do from there." he finished.
Sasuke raised an eyebrow as Shino accepted the paper and it crumpled to dust, "So his chakra decays things." the Uchiha deduced.
"No." Kakashi denied flatly, "It means his chakra has a natural affinity towards Doton no Jutsu." he explained as he handed the paper to Sakura.
The pink haired girl wrinkled her nose at it but did as expected, her paper smoldered a bit but turned wet soon enough.
"That would be Suiton no Jutsu for Sakura-chan, but we could probably teach you-" he began, having noticed the paper almost catch fire.
"Just teach me how to make weapons and armor out of water." Sakura insisted, she didn't need anything fancy and she probably wouldn't even use that much. Kakashi shrugged and handed a piece of paper to Sasuke.
The Uchiha flowed his chakra into the paper and it caught fire, "Did you expect anything else?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I thought it might crumple a little first, but I guess you're just good at ninjutsu." Kakashi mused with a shrug as he handed a piece to Naruto.
"Finally!" The blonde declared, having been eager to see what he could learn from the start. However as soon as he poured his chakra into the paper it screamed as it crumbled and shredded to pieces, "Woah, what's that?" he asked.
Kakashi's ears were still ringing from whatever that had been, "Well, huh, I guess you have an untapped Kekkei Genkai." he deduced with a raised eyebrow, "I'm going to be honest I don't even know, from what happened to the paper I guess it must be a blend of Raiton and Futon chakra but I have no idea what that would even make." he explained.
"So I can learn Chidori?" Naruto asked eagerly.
"You have the Rasengan." Kakashi pointed out, hoping the boy would be more interested in a different jutsu due to the Sharingan requirement.
"I want both." Naruto insisted greedily.
Kakashi sighed, "Alright I'm going to be honest," he began, "no." he answered bluntly and the blonde pouted, "You actually need a Sharingan to use this jutsu, otherwise you get tunnel vision." he explained, "I almost died because I developed this jutsu and used it before I got this dojutsu." he added sternly.
Naruto continued to pout, "Fine," he grumbled, "what can I learn instead?" he asked, his mood and expression shifting fast enough to confuse Shino but the rest were used to the blonde.
"Futon: Toppa will suit you well for now as a learning ninjutsu for getting the hang of it." Kakashi answered, figuring that he could teach Naruto and Sasuke how cooperation ninjutsu worked, "Although I'm worried about what the hell your chakra is going to do to these jutsu considering I've never even heard of this blend of elements." he added with a sigh.
With that Kakashi started his attempts at training, giving Naruto, Sakura, and Shino hand signs with vague instructions. Sasuke was starting to see why Kakashi said he wasn't a great teacher, but at least he was trying more these days. The jonin got Sasuke to work on burning a hole through a leaf with his chakra to practice turning his chakra into fire.
The pink haired kunoichi was annoyed to find out she was learning Suiton: Suidan, but with her chakra control managed it easily enough before returning to physical training. Genkei figured it was technically not actually magic, so it was probably fine to use chakra to throw water at enemies who were too cowardly to face you in melee. He encouraged his master to focus on physical training anyway.
Shino decided the Moguragakure no Jutsu would be very useful when used with his kikaichu and figured he'd make the best use of it he could, he was having a little difficulty and probably wouldn't have it battle ready within a day like Sakura had somehow managed though.
Naruto made one attempt that left their ears ringing and a tree he was targeting seemingly unharmed until a section in the middle splintered under the weight of the rest of it indicating heavy internal damage, and Kakashi was assured that he had accurately assessed his team. That reminded him, "Oh yeah, I should tell you guys some official designations I had to do paperwork for." he realized, "Better get that out of the way before Naru-chan makes us all deaf." he mused, he was pretty sure the blonde was not performing the jutsu correctly but results were results.
"Designations?" Sasuke asked, wondering when his ears would stop ringing.
Kakashi nodded in response, "Shino-san, you're a Zetsubo no Shibo Ninso." he began, "Sasuke-kun, Maho no Ninso. Sakura-chan, Budo no Ninso." he continued, having decided on the best designations he could, "Naru-chan, Kajo no Koki Ninso." he finished, deciding not to go into threat rankings for now.
Naruto was visibly smug, Sakura looked annoyed that she'd stopped push ups to listen, and Sasuke gave no reaction as he returned to attempting to burn a hole through a leaf with his chakra. Shino supposed he was late to the whole being a marked champion, so he decided he'd simply keep training to catch up.
Kin stared at Hinata and Karin, the other two girls having cornered her while she was picking up milk for Naruto, "What the fuck is wrong with this village?" the former Oto nin sighed to herself before answering the question, "No I haven't taken the virginity of your precious whatever he is." she said louder than strictly necessary and adding a hint of indignation to publicly embarrass the two.
Shockingly Hinata only blushed a little bit and Karin looked thoughtful, "Damn, Naruto-nii is just a natural then." she mused.
Kin raised an eyebrow, "Referring to him in a brotherly term while doing that is kind of weird." she pointed out.
"Mind your business." Karin snapped, not taking kindly to being kink shamed by the slave girl, "Bad enough Hinata of all people made a move before I could." she grumbled.
Kin took a step back, "Did you two lose all your shame all of a sudden?" she asked, Karin shrugged in response.
Hinata nodded vigorously, "Naruto-kun gives me incredible confidence." she said passionately.
"Okay well I'm pretty much just here because I'm relatively safe in this village, I'll let you know if I decide I want to join in but don't wait up." Kin said as she turned and left, waving as she went.
Shikamaru sighed in content, training done for the day, missions done for the day, had some barbecue with his genin cell. Today was a good day for Shikamaru Nara, until one of his teammates showed up to ruin it. Choji was there too but he knew Ino was dragging him along, his friend wouldn't try to ruin his relaxation time.
"Shikamaru, come on, up you lazy bum!" The blonde kunoichi insisted, "I heard Otoutou say Kakashi opened up a new division of black ops, with his students as part of it!" she informed heatedly, "Shino has been training in iryo ninjutsu of all things, Hinata has seemed way more confident lately, and Kiba went on a B rank with some chunin recently!" she ranted, "We're getting left behind." she grumbled.
Shikamaru blinked a few times before he answered, "So what? Cell seven are insane, Hinata got her crush to notice her, and more iryonin are a good thing for our forces." he pointed out with more words than he'd said all day so far, "We're a capture and interrogation cell, I'll work on my combat skills another time, just let me rest." he insisted, intending on resting a bit more since she interrupted.
Danzo looked over his new recruits as he considered the newest division of black op, despite obvious flaws and issues the Konton no Ninso were undeniably powerful. The issue was how to use that power, he'd looked into what they knew about all of them and decided on the safest one. As luck would have it, one recruit who had yet to fully throw away their emotions seemed to enjoy drawing.
The man feared as the Shinobi no Yami had one distinct issue, he had absolutely no idea how to go about getting a prototype Konton no Ninso going. Ne utilized shinobi who had been trained to completely suppress emotions, so Danzo had no idea how he was supposed to safely turn one of his agents into a Ninso while keeping quiet about it.
He supposed he could send the boy out to Nami no Kuni with a group of Ne operatives acting as guards, to report on his progress and nudge the boy towards the teachings of the Kajo no Kami in a land that had the only other shrine to said Kami outside of Konoha and a populace that genuinely regarded the deity highly.
Danzo figured he might as well, he didn't usually take such risks but he figured at worst he lost one freshly trained operative. The potential gain outweighed that, and he'd picked the safest option as far as he could tell. The Hoho no Chenja rubbed him the wrong way, he wasn't sure why but Sasuke seemed to be up to something all the time lately. Ryuketsu no Kami would be a second choice if he needed a soldier that thrived only in open pitched combat, but he needed operatives who could fight and had other talents to protect the village from the shadows. He did not need a disease spreading through his ranks that only those marked by the Shikkan no Kami were immune to.
Kurenai heard Kiba left while she was out on an A rank mission, the village was spread thin since the invasion from Suna and Oto so a lot of their jonin needed to pull extra missions without their genin. The genin generally went as a team on missions determined to be within their skill level, joining a group of chunin Inuzuka on a B rank mission to deal with some nukenin turned bandit leader.
The woman wondered if her student had used his status as clan heir to make them take him on the mission, if that was the case he'd be getting an earful from his mother too. Tsume would have to hear about it later, she was out on a different A rank mission.
Kurenai was glad to hear Shino had been training well with Kakashi at least, the man had even been kind enough to teach him a ninjutsu. That bothered her a little, she was supposed to be his teacher. But Kakashi was his Buntaicho in a black ops division, and she supposed the man was known for copying over one thousand ninjutsu.
She wondered what had gotten into Hinata though, she was glad the girl had finally gained more confidence and started training, but she heard from Hiashi that the girl had been training herself to exhaustion. Apparently she got the idea from Naruto, she'd also been hanging out with Karin. Kurenai supposed Hinata just got along well with Uzumaki.
Choji mostly went to see it out of curiosity, he didn't even bring an offering box. But Sasuke Uchiha building a shrine of all things was worth checking out, he never figured the guy for the religious type. Choji wondered if it was okay for Sasuke to renovate a shrine to a new god, it seemed nice though. There was silver symbols, some mirrors next to windows, and there was no offering box.
The last bit confused the Akimichi, he wondered if Sasuke didn't put it out some days for some reason. He supposed that meant he didn't have to feel guilty. He looked in a mirror as he munched some chips, he'd lost some weight training that day. He'd have to ask for more dinner, his clan hijutsu cost a lot of calories just to practice with. Maybe he should ask for thirds.
Kakashi enlisted Asuma in helping explain Futon chakra manipulation to the blonde, they'd never tried to blend wind and electricity since Futon no Jutsu tended to cancel out Raiton no Jutsu by cutting the electricity up or disrupting the current. The Sarutobi didn't know what to make of the screaming chakra Naruto produced, and Kakashi was almost tempted to teach him the Chidori just to see how absurdly loud it would be.
Naruto apparently took to naming his variant of the Toppa as Toppa Hakai, neither jonin disagreed since it didn't push his target so much as rupture it with sonic vibrations. In hopes of getting the horned blonde capable of using actual Futon no Jutsu they got him working on cutting a leaf in half with his chakra, the idea being for him to do it as quietly as possible.
Asuma explained how the idea behind getting Futon chakra sharp was to grind it against itself, but he could see Naruto had no difficulty destroying the leaf with his new combined Seishitsu Henka. Hence why the two jonin wanted the blonde to focus on doing it without his chakra screaming, which seemed to be a difficulty.
Kakashi bought ear plugs for everyone so Naruto could train without damaging the eardrums of everyone else at the training ground.
"Hey, Sasuke," Naruto greeted, his voice surprisingly quiet and serious being the main thing to catch the attention of the Uchiha, "teach me the Chidori." the blonde asked with a grin.
Sasuke raised an eyebrow as he considered it, "Teach me the Rasengan and I will." he agreed, he knew Kakashi would be upset but the man hadn't technically forbid him from teaching the jutsu to others. Besides, he was curious about the Rasengan, as near as he could tell he couldn't copy it with the Sharingan and it seemed powerful.
The grin on Naruto's face widened as the two teammates came to an accord, Sasuke showed the blonde the hand signs and in turn was shown the first step of learning the Rasengan. The Uchiha felt a little ripped off, but he now understood why the jutsu required no hand signs and couldn't be easily copied.
"Iruka-sensei, take me out for a drink?" Naruto asked as he leaned against the desk of the man after his students were dismissed, the Konohamaru Gundan stayed behind a little out of curiosity for why the blonde was there.
"No." Iruka responded bluntly, it was bad enough the blonde considered being treated to ramen as a date, the chunin would never live it down if he went to a bar with his former student.
"Come on, I'll pay for your drinks." Naruto insisted, assuming money was the issue.
"Still no." Iruka answered, not letting up even when the blonde pouted and fluttered his eyelashes.
Naruto grumbled about stick in the mud sensei as he wandered around, then he saw a familiar head of purple hair at a dango place and sat across from her with a grin, "Hey, Anko-chan, want to go for a drink with me? I'll pay." he offered eagerly.
Anko raised an eyebrow at the blonde, "Yeah sure." she decided with a shrug, the prospect of free alcohol enough for her to disregard what people would think of it.
The woman finished her plate of dango and let the genin escort her to a shinobi bar, there she was surprised not so much by the tolerance of the blonde, he was young after all, but by his choice of drinks. For a young genin he had expensive taste, and seemed to like the harsher or sweet flavors.
The tokujonin wouldn't complain, as he was sharing the drinks with her. Naruto drank like he was celebrating something, Anko wasn't sure what but she found herself having fun. Well she had fun until she had to drag the genin back to his own apartment, she just knew there were going to be even worse rumors about her after this but she'd had fun and gotten some free drinks out of it, nice drinks too.
She'd almost forgotten about Kin, who was startled by her appearance, "I should warn you now that Hinata Hyuga and Karin Uzumaki are going to assume you did something indecent if they find out about this." the former Oto kunoichi said.
Anko narrowed her eyes, she didn't like Kin too much but she felt at least a little bad for the girl for being manipulated by Orochimaru, "So what?" she asked, "I'm not actually gonna sleep with him, I doubt I could even get him up right now." she added with an amused giggle as she handed the blonde to his slave.
Kin rolled her eyes and helped the passed out drunk genin into his bed as the woman left. Once he was in the comfort of his bed Naruto gave a content purr in his sleep, "Damn, for such a freak he is cute." the slave muttered to herself.
Kiba was grinning as he returned with his clan members, considering they were all older and had experience on him he'd kept up well. He was surprised to see Kurenai was there to greet them at the gate, "What's up, Kurenai-sensei? Did I miss a team meeting?" he asked, assuming that from the expression on the face of his jonin commander.
Kurenai had her arms crossed but was a little taken aback by the fact Kiba's sister was on the chunin team as well, "I was just wondering why you went off on a B rank mission." she said carefully, figuring she better gauge what had happened.
Hana, Kiba's older sister, decided to speak up, "He asked if I could take him on a mission since you and his teammates were busy with other matters, Okaasan approved of him going on a proper whetting mission." she informed.
Kurenai was a bit startled by that, whetting missions was a term for a mission where a genin got their first kill. They weren't usually planned in advance, "Did it go okay?" she asked with some concern.
Kiba just grinned, "Yeah, I took out a bandit. Felt kind of crummy to get the guy while he wasn't looking, but Hana-nee got the nukenin in a similar way." he explained, seeming oddly disappointed, "I was hoping for some combat action, but we got the drop on them." he said with a sigh.
Hana rustled his hair affectionately, "He did fine, still a bit brash, but he handled it well." she said, deciding not to mention that he'd collected the skull of his kill. The Inuzuka kunoichi didn't know the details about the Konton no Kami, and seeing her little brother messing with a skull was uncomfortable, but he didn't seem as unstable as Sakura Haruno.
Kurenai wasn't sure how to take that news, she was starting to feel like she wasn't performing her role as jonin sensei very well. Then again she was a genjutsu specialist, Aburame and Hyuga were practically immune and Inuzuka tended towards mixing their clan hijutsu with taijutsu.
Tsunade frowned in concern, according to reports Iwagakure was testing their border patrols. She hoped Orochimaru hadn't somehow gotten them involved in his vendetta against Konoha, it was bad enough Naruto Uzumaki still had an active bounty from the Daimyo of Mizu no Kuni for killing one of their biggest business mandates Gato.
Thankfully Kirigakure seemed too busy with internal matters to bother with Konoha, but after Orochimaru's failed invasion Iwa shinobi had been spotted near their borders more and more. Thankfully it seemed they weren't intruding through Taki no Kuni, so Takigakure was likely not assisting them, but it seemed they were using Tenchi-kyo.
That implied Kusagakure was letting Iwa shinobi move through their territory, a concerning prospect. It made sense though, nobody really wanted to mess with Sanshouo no Hanzo even in his old age.
Regardless of who was aiding them, they'd likely back off after losing a number of genin in a recent skirmish. Although the Iwa jonin leading the skirmish apparently escaped, having wounded the oldest genin in Konohagakure no Sato before back up arrived to drive her off. Thankfully Kosuke Maruboshi was not too badly hurt, and had done an excellent job.
Tsunade idly wondered why the man was still a genin, he seemed to have no interest whatsoever in advancing in rank. He was getting on in years too, he was roughly the same age as Hiruzen's team and his mission record showed it. Kosuke had even worked with the likes of the Nidaime Hokage in the past.
Regardless of his record or reasons for remaining a genin, he was getting old. He may not have been injured too badly but his body would take time to recover, which was a shame because he was very useful on patrol missions.
So the Godaime Hokage figured now was a good time to test the Konton Gundan, patrols were becoming more dangerous missions lately so Sakura would get the action she needed to remain calm. It would also provide good opportunity for Shino to get some glory and boons, although she was concerned about that.
The issue was putting Kakashi on a patrol mission, his talents were needed elsewhere. Tsunade considered her available shinobi and decided that since Shino wasn't quite ready to be considered an iryonin that Shizune would make a good acting leader of the patrol. A team of four genin and one jonin for a single patrol was probably a bit much, but with Iwa and Oto testing their borders the show of force would be useful.
Shizune wasn't sure what to make of being put in charge of the patrol, she knew her iryojutsu would be useful and Shino was a polite boy. However referring to genin cell seven as dysfunctional was an understatement, Maemi kept making faces at Genkei too which was a cause for minor concern.
Despite their personality quirks they seemed able to take the mission seriously at least, although Sakura seemed a little too eager for a fight. Naruto was surprisingly adept in the wild, his bone spurs were barely a hindrance for moving through the woods around Konohagakure no Sato.
The first of them to notice anything was Naruto, his head suddenly snapping in the direction he heard something, "I hear something way off that way." he warned with a gesture, his call outs needed a lot of work when it came to precision.
"Any idea how many?" Shizune asked, she knew well enough his senses were arguably on par with the likes of the Inuzuka even without his combat stimulants.
The horned ninso cocked his head to the side and frowned, "I think eight, but they're not very stealthy, I can hear them a ways off but they're heading for Konoha with some decent speed." he explained, which was confusing in itself.
Sasuke frowned as he considered the report, "Are you sure you aren't hearing people running away from something?" he asked.
Naruto shook his head, "Nothing is chasing them." he pointed out simply.
"They might not be one group," Sasuke retorted, "some of them could be chasing the others closely enough to be mistaken for a single group." he argued reasonably.
"Regardless," Shizune interrupted, "if they're heading for Konohagakure no Sato we should check it out." she pointed out, leading the four ninso to intercept the unknown group of eight.
The Konoha shinobi didn't get too close, just close enough to see the group of eight. This was close enough to determine something was wrong, they were dressed like Oto shinobi but they had frothing mouths and sprinted full speed without any hint of the usual agility that ninja were known for.
It was a concerning sight, as it lead Shizune to wonder what their purpose was. Sakura was already reaching for her axe, "So we cut them down, right?" she asked, clearly wanting to charge.
"Not yet, they look sick." Shizune pointed out with concern, "Knowing Orochimaru that's not just rabies." she pointed out, the symptoms weren't quite right for that either, "Shino-kun could your kikaichu determine what's wrong with them?" she suggested.
Shino nodded, "Yes, however I suggest we take them down from a distance. Because I do not think it would be wise to allow them to get closer to Konoha depending on the infectiousness." he suggested as he sent some bugs ahead.
"Oh, I got this!" Naruto declared, weaving hand signs. Sasuke quickly put ear plugs in and Shino covered his ears with his hands before a sound that could barely be heard from its frequency came from the blonde. It was loud though, even with the odd frequency Shizune's ears were ringing.
Two of the eight stopped and crumpled suddenly, blood pouring out of their face orifices as they collapsed to the ground like their bones had suddenly become jelly. Shizune had heard a little bit about Naruto's odd new Kekkei Genkai, if that's what it was, but seeing it used on a living target was disconcerting.
"You only got two of them." Sasuke pointed out dryly as he cut open his left thumb on his tanto, he wiped the blood on the rune array under his right sleeve and began the hand signs, "I'll provide us some ranged in case they are infectious." he declared as his Juin flared across his visible skin, using Kuchiyose to summon a group of ten Horrors, their pink flesh undulating as they charged forth with mischievous cackles and tossed bolts of red flame ahead of themselves.
However it seemed the crazed Otonin were not as defenseless as the attack from Naruto made them seem, the fire bolts barely slowing them down before they clashed with Sasuke's Horrors. Naruto narrowed his eyes as he watched, "Those guys have scales?" he asked, confused by that.
Sasuke activated his Sharingan, using the ocular enhancements of his dojutsu to check for himself, "Seems like it, must be more of Orochimaru's body modifications." he assumed. Shizune noticed that the strange pink creatures, as chaotic as they were, fought in formation. Two ranks of five, although the second rank seemed to be gathering chakra.
As one of the front rank Horrors burst into two smaller blue toned Horrors, the back rank unleashed a coruscating whirlwind of chakra into the remaining six Otonin. Shino adjusted his sunglasses, "I lost a few kikaichu," he grumbled, a slight buzz of annoyance coming from the hive within him, "but I've confirmed they are not infected with anything my kikaichu have been trained to recognize." he reported.
Shizune was relieved they weren't dealing with biological weapons, but the fact these modified shinobi were capable of withstanding bolts of fire without slowing down and seemed only taken aback by, "What was that jutsu the Hora used?" she asked, having some difficulty pronouncing the word correctly.
Sasuke listened to Aoki for a moment before answering, "Chakra no Bato." he informed after the Fearling figured out how to translate it into terms natives of the land would understand. Despite how flashy it was the enemy shinobi kept fighting and managed to dispel the Horrors with only two more casualties.
"Should we just cut these guys down then?" Sakura asked, taking her axe from her shoulder where it was slung. Genkei nodded in agreement, eager to spill blood finally.
Shizune frowned, she could tell the opponents were sturdy, fast, and strong enough to be a threat to a standard patrol, "Yeah, kill them." she ordered, she recalled that the current squad she was with were not normal.
Shino moved his kikaichu to swarm one enemy, pulling away from his team just in case he got a boon that was infectious. Sakura leaped towards another, tossing her axe into his shoulder before landing and using wires to tug the weapon and her opponent towards her. Sasuke decided to simply use Chidori, charging in and plunging the attack into his chosen targets heart. Naruto leaped with enough force to break the branch he was standing on, cutting open the throat of the final one with an iaijutsu strike from his wakizashi.
Sakura yanked her axe from the shoulder of her frenzied target by planting her foot on his chest and tugging, then followed up by swinging it into his neck. The final Otonin collapsed as the kikaichu drained his chakra, "It seems our opponents didn't have much chakra, perhaps because they were low on stamina from sprinting all the way here from wherever they came from." the Aburame mused as he checked himself for any changes, "Shizune-sensei, I detect no changes but I would like a second opinion before we return to the village, because I trust your expertise and would not like to unduly harm my home." Shino added politely.
Shizune nodded, although she was a little concerned by how quickly four genin could take down such monsters she realized that they were all well suited to this kind of opponent for their own reasons. Cell seven noted no changes either, although they all just assumed these opponents were simply too weak to be considered worthy.
With that out of the way, Shizune gathered the corpses in a storage scroll. Her fuinjutsu wasn't great but she was capable of that much as a jonin, and patrols were being given scrolls for such occasions in case of such a situation. And with the corpses gathered up they continued their patrol.
Translations: Shibo - Aspiring
Koki - Exalted
Chakra no Bato - Coruscating Chakra/Chakra of Coruscation