30 Shockwave

Joint Training Ground Alpha – Earth Country (Kurenai's Point of View) (2 Hours Later)

Team 8 was wasted. Kurenai had put them through an extremely challenging training session over the past few hours. Truthfully, it was mostly reactions-based training. By putting the team under a genjutsu, she was able to help them train against incoming attacks without effort.

Even if they were fake, it still helped against the real thing. Even though Hinata's byakugan could see through the genjutsu, Kurenai just had her turn it off during the exercise. She can't have her genin be overly reliant on those eyes; what if she overuses them during a mission and has to go without for a long period of time. She's seen quite a few Hyuga that die that way. Most of them simply don't believe it's necessary to train for combat without their eyes.

"Sensei, are we done? We've been doing this for hours!" Kiba whined. He really wanted to go home. It's been way to long since they'd been at this training. He could feel the benefits, but that didn't mean it wasn't exhausting.

On another side of her, Shino was having trouble standing. He couldn't even catch his breath. It was expected though. The Aburame clan is known for their long-distance combat style. Simply put, they didn't train their reaction speed and close combat skills very much. They were some of the least physically fit ninjas in the leaf village.

Hinata, on the other hand, was probably in the best shape. This type of training was her bread and butter. While she wasn't really used to not using her byakugan, it still didn't change the fact that her body was in the best shape for this.

While you'd think Kiba would be in the best condition, that'd be wrong. Kiba had a solid amount of physical strength for his age, but he didn't train his speed and stamina all that much. He wasn't all that hard working when compared to his class mates. He simply didn't have a strong drive, a reason to get stronger aside from impressing Hinata, which he was currently failing at.

Through his labored breathing, Shino spoke, "Sensei, I think it would be practical if we shifted to another exercise. I think it's safe to assume that there are diminishing returns at this point." You could almost see the steam pouring out of his jacket. If it went on any longer, the insects in his hives might start reacting negatively.

"Oh, come on. This is a basic genin-level exercise." Kurenai shamelessly stated, causing the others to look at her in horror. Where did they remember that phrase?

"She got to you, didn't she!?" Kiba roared in raw indignation.

Shino too was looking at their corrupted sensei in suspicion. Hinata was a little different; her expression showed resignation.

"What? She's not the only one with high standards. These exercises are something all ninja need to practice to prevent easy deaths; in that sense, it is simple. The complex part is structuring the genjutsu, but that's a challenge for me specifically. Plus, you are clan heirs; your standards aren't the same as the other ninja. Like the fourth said, you're considered critical resources, so this really is basic for what you need to achieve." Kurenai stated, waving off the accusation.

Hearing this, Kiba responded in a rage, "Yeah, but this is ridiculous! We don't need to do this for hours! There are so many other training exercises we could do. You know what, why can't we just go on a mission already? We're already above the average chunin in general ability. Surely we could go on basic bandit exterminations. Seriou—"

Kurenai didn't even get a chance to respond before Hinata interrupted, "Kiba," She began silently, shutting him up. "Is this too hard for you?" She asked with an annoyed expression, her patience at his antics clearly wearing thin.

A chill went down his spine as Kiba felt his man card burning in the fires of shame. As for Hinata's comment, the two genin had reluctantly gotten used to it at this point.

This was something they had found out. When Naruto was in the area, she would get shy. When he wasn't, she was quiet and when she's training, her words and gaze cut like knives. Even if she was quiet, her tolerance for stalling and complaining was short. The only one who wasn't surprised was Kurenai. Hinata had already failed a family member due to her silence and hesitation; she would not fail again. It was two years ago when Kurenai noticed this radical change in her surrogate daughter.

"Alright Sensei! Let's go for the next round!" Kiba shouted, trying to scrape up whatever dignity he still had left and cover his wounded pride with sheer passion.

Hearing this, Kurenai burst into laughter. Although she would have to watch him during this genin period to make sure he didn't do anything dreadful to Hinata in sexual frustration, having the boy's crush on the team made it a lot easier to motivate him. Hopefully she could make him into a half decent ninja.

Once her laughter calmed down enough to catch her breath, she spoke, "I'm glad you're excited. That said, we're actually done with this exercise. We'll move onto the next one. It actually falls into the chakra control category. Now that you're exhausted, we can—"

Before she could finish, a powerful shockwave ripped through the rocky terrain as a mini-seismic event put all three genin on the ground. Kurenai was a bit better. While she had trouble standing, she still could. She was a jonin and this wasn't the first time she'd endured this kind of event. In fact, jonin-level missions deal with supernatural events where this level of shockwave happens pretty frequently. It's just that Konoha proper doesn't typically experience this type of event.

Against her better judgement, Kurenai created a shadow clone to take care of her team and started scaling one of the larger rock pillars; she needed to see if she could find clues on what just happened. Once she reached the top, she started weaving through hand signs. She would use one of the newer jutsu she had created for herself in the last couple of years.

"Light Release: Transparent Vision." She muttered. With that, a transparent orb shaped like an eyeball manifested in her hand. Then it shot into the air at a rapid pace in response to its mistress's command. Once it reached far enough into the sky, it began looking around.

On the ground Kurenai had one eye closed and the other open. Truthfully, this jutsu was heavily inspired by a similar scouting jutsu the Kazekage clan that leads Suna was recorded using. The difference, her eye was composed of light and was much easier to conceal and employ. Unlike sand, which doesn't naturally contain the properties to facilitate such a jutsu, light does. It made it much easier to develop. She'd honestly debated sharing it with the fourth's daughter on the condition that she work with her to create new light jutsu. That was still just a thought though.

Looking through the eye, Kurenai noticed the shockwave they just experienced had expanded outward from a central point deeper into the grounds. When Kurenai focused on that point, she sighed. Sitting there in the center of the crater was the fourth's daughter, Kamui. She was sitting in a meditative position sending small shockwaves through the earth every couple of seconds. From her expression, Kamui seemed to be having a hard time with something.

'Looks like we'll need to go see what she's doing.' Kurenai thought to herself.

Deciding to keep her eye in the sky for the duration of this situation, Kurenai opened her eye and ran down the pillar. That was another great facet of the jutsu, she could keep it in the sky indefinitely. It took a lot of effort to keep the clans off her back when prompted for the jutsu.

Actually, they wanted all of her light release jutsu along with their training methods. According to them, it was for the good of Konoha and that may be true; but, if they wanted her jutsu, then they had to publicize theirs. With that, Asuma taught her how to register as a clan and even supported her registering the Yuhi family as one. Basically, Konoha law is built around seeing combination nature transformations as bloodline limits; it doesn't matter if it actually is one, especially with clans like the Inoichi clan who merely had a greater disposition for their hidden techniques rather than a full bloodline. Basically, she used her light release to register and classified all the jutsu in that category as hidden clan techniques.

It was lucky that her father had already started making new daughters to populate the clan; it would help keep her out of the reach of the clan restoration act, even if the council was barely interest in her current participation.

Focusing back on the task at hand, Kurenai reached her three genin.

"Did you find the source of the disturbance sensei?" Shino asked in his standard stoic tone.

"I have. Kamui Uchiha is performing some kind of training over that way" she replied, pointing toward the direction she saw the girl in. She continued, "I don't know what she was trying to accomplish, but if I had to guess, it'd be related to her control over earth. Why don't we see how she's doing?" she asked her team, knowing they'd accept if only to escape their current training regimen.

Kiba's eyes flashed with interest.

'What kind of training would create something like that?' he thought in anticipation. This would be great. He'd get to see his teammate's progress and escape this hell.

"Works for me" he declared, his face showing his excitement to pause their training.

"I'm of a similar opinion" Shino voiced.

"I am as well." Hinata's quiet voice uttered.

"Alright then, let's go see your former classmate." Kurenai stated

"Right!" the three genin stated before all four took off in Kamui's direction.

The four shinobi rushed toward Kamui's location. Kurenai had a constant aerial view, so going in the wrong direction wasn't even a consideration. That's actually one of the main reasons why Kurenai's application for a reconnaissance and assassination team was approved. At any given time, Hinata and Kurenai would have full situational awareness of an area. Kiba's enhanced nose would cover the sense of smell and Shino's insects were sensitive to both sound and chakra. In addition, they were small enough to infiltrate enemy ranks without difficulty. Finally, either Shino would poison the target or Hinata would snipe them with her bow. That was the plan they were working toward. When the fourth told the graduates that these teams would be preferences following their promotion to chunin, he was actually understating that fact. In the vast majority of situations, these three would be a team for their assignments.

After about five minutes of running, Kurenai gave them a hand signal to slow down and hide their approach. She wanted the team to conceal their presence and see how long they could remain undetected. It would count as an exercise for both the trio and the girl. The question they were wondering was, how long could they remain undetected in this type of terrain.

The four of them decided to play it slow. They took ten minutes moving from cover to cover before finally reaching a point 100 yards from her position. Peeking out from behind the pillars they were hiding behind, they were finally close enough for all four of them to see her. Kamui was sitting in place with small shockwaves emitting from her periodically, shaking the earth as they passed. Once they saw her, she peacefully opened her eyes and turned in their direction.