A healthy cow weighs 1400 pounds. Unless you knew what you were doing when transporting them, you'd either be dealing with a bunch of giant, black and white boulders that stood there and grazed without a care in the world or to your existence, or giant, angry, black and white murdermachines who'd flatten you like a pancake. Herding cows can be easy if they knew you and knew where what you were doing, or hard if they didn't care or hadn't become accustomed to your presence.
"Mnnnnhh…" Or in the case of Ushimaru, they were just part of her daily training. Being the most physically fit of the Tohno Tengu Shinobi Alliance, she could easily toss these cows like basketballs at her age, but that wasn't the point of this exercise. There were times when Shinobi would use their abilities to blend into the surroundings for various purposes, like reconnaissance, or in this case disguising themselves as someone. These rare, one in a million Shinobi that could change their entire physiology were the most dangerous type of all, basically playing Russian Roulette with their bodies to perform these near impossible feats of camouflage.
Like her pet cow spirit, for instance. For those chosen to be in the Tohno Tengu, your Shinobi Spirit was also a fully sentient nature spirit, like Na-chan's kappa for example. Her's was passed down from her family and belonged to the land Tohno village sat on, But these spirits could also be shaped by your will if your bond was unbreakable like how Ushimaru was with hers. And as a powerful nature spirit, Ushiwakamaru was adept at blending into his surroundings, or in this case, hiding as one of the livestock, and it was her job to find him.
Now normally, anyone from the village, like Ku-chan, or Mi-chan if Ku-chan was within eyesight, would go for the biggest source of nature chakra that the cow had: the udders. The idea was that the one who produced the most chakra, or the one that kicked you the farthest, was probably your target, as their chakra would be most focused there, and their kicks would be far stronger than a normal cow.
Or it could be that the cow was just really really strong, but a cow that could kick a Shinobi 7 feet away like a pro-footballer hitting the goal post from the other side of the field was a rarity. This is what most people Ushimaru's age would have had happened to them if they tried such a thing, but Ushimaru wasn't like most teenagers. Then again she wasn't like most people.
For one thing, have you ever seen a teenager with J-cups? That didn't cost a couple 10k USD? You probably wouldn't notice hers, since her clothes were baggy and she had a very strong bra, but she had them. From what she saw in the outside world during the banishment, breasts that big were usually reserved for really really fat people, or ladies that had a lot of money. Either way, it was a rare sight to see, and almost impossible for a civilian her age to achieve through natural means. Maybe her Shinobi genetics caused her mostly meat diet to go to her breasts? Who knows. It wasn't worth thinking about, and if you looked at her lackadaisical face and somewhat droopy, grey eyes, you'd think 'not worth thinking about' would be her modus operandi, but that was hardly the case.
There were a lot of contradictions about Ushimaru. You'd think she was slow, and her general disposition and combat style didn't help with that assumption, but she was very perceptive. She spent all day in the sun, tilling the land and milking cows, but her skin was incredibly resistant to sunlight, and as a result she was the palest of Tohno Village's elite shinobi. She also wasn't very muscular, then again what Shinobi was, but even the most hardened Shinobi would show some muscle given what she did all day. Ushimaru's lifestyle and choice of weapon, a thick, cowhide whip, should have given her the slightest bit of muscle, but she was surprisingly compact, and said compact body was very sweaty right now.
She knew she was going to be in the mud and sun all morning, so she dressed appropriately, with a thin white undershirt for better heat resistance with blue overalls above it, thick brown gloves, and her best waterproof boots in case she stepped in some cow poop. Her pale orange hair was kept undone instead of the usual pigtails she kept it in, and like the rest of her skin, it was slick with sweat. Thankfully Matter Wave clothing was made to be extra durable, so there wouldn't be any wardrobe malfunctions. Her shirt wasn't even the least bit translucent, so that was good.
With the amount of sweat she had accumulated, one would think she should have been an exhausted, panting mess, like any city Shinobi would be in her situation. But as said before, Ushimaru was built differently, and anyone could be sweating buckets, but feel perfectly fine.
Now, as for how she was doing in the exercise? Terribly. Her family didn't raise any weak livestock, and Ushiwakamaru instructed them to kick her as hard as he did if she stayed close to them for too long. And they did. A was why she was in the trees next to the cow enclosure, watching them graze. 'Aww, he's making this really hard…' Ushiwakamaru was smart for this exercise. Unlike last time, he made sure to evenly distribute his chakra between the other cows before disguising himself as one of them, which she couldn't sense for irregularities in them. She couldn't get close, because the last time she did they kicked her so far she landed in the bathhouse down the hill, and if she acted too suspicious, Ushiwakamaru might get paranoid and switch places with another cow.
Oh, but that wasn't going to work for long. Ushimaru knew Ushiwakamaru; they were two sides of the same coin after all, and she knew what got him going: gummy worms. All the cows and sheep just love that nasty, artificial outside candy, and while she was being punted all over the village, she used her air time to scatter as much of them in the enclosure as possible, as well as procure more from the various stalls on her way back to the farm. By now, the candy should be melting in the heat, and with how humid it is… 'There!' Some of the cows were going to where she planted the candy! "Come on Ushiwakamaru, Ushimaru believes in you." He was such a glutton for sweets, there was no way he'd resist eating those.
"Mooo."
"Yeah, they're eating it. "Ushimaru casually told Ushiwakamaru as the cow spirit sat next to her. "You really like gummi worms, so I figured it was the best way to get you out of hiding."
"Moooo!" The cow spirit yelled, offended.
"No you're a lot easier to trick than that."
"...Mooo?"
"Yeah, see, I can see you right there, you're really chewing on it."
"Mooo."
"Hm?" Why would she look next to her? Confused, Ushimaru did as asked and promptly screamed from surprise as she fell out of the tree and landed on the ground.
"Oooooowwww.." Breasts first. She got off the ground and wiped the mud off her face, and spat out the rest. She heard Ushiwakamaru's giggling behind her as he floated down, Ushimaru turning to face him with all the intensity of a bored teenager: "That wasn't very nice." Which meant she was very annoyed.
Ushiwakamaru giggled again, floating around in his bucket as he continued to moo at her. Ushimaru liked cute things, and since Tohno Tengu Shinobi Spirits were influenced by their wills, Ushiwakamaru took the appearance of a stuffed cow toy in a bucket, with a squeezable nose too!
Honk!
"MOO!" A very squeezable nose.
"Now we're even." Ushimaru told him. "I never really had a chance, did I?" The cow spirit shook his body to say no. "Figures."And it was almost time for the monthly meetup, too. 'I'm all sweaty and sticky now…' Oh well. Ku-chan had her perfume, so it shouldn't be a problem.
