It had taken some convincing that he could go at this alone, though people rarely dared to question him at council meetings, Daichi was a little different. He protested fiercely when Toru dared to put himself in harm's way. But Toru had felt a calling, no matter what it was to protect his nation just as fiercely as Daichi insisted on protecting Toru.
But here he stood on the precipice of a cliff, the smell of rain filling his lungs in a familiar and almost comforting way. There was more to this place, many other scents filtered through his nose in the immediate vicinity about thirty that he could tell it made for a difficult situation.
There were multiple paths laid out clearly before him, well trodden that divided the smells further into sections. There were supposed to be hundreds of enemies here, which meant for the best results he needed a quiet approach that would not alert anyone to his presence.
It was unfortunate that he would have to take so many lives today, especially one's of civilians that had chosen the wrong path. But forgiveness was given to those who wished to repent and they had most likely were too far gone and so for the safety of the nation their extermination was necessary.
Silent as some of the most skilled shinobi he summoned two clones creating effectively thirty separate explosive tags, plus the clones themselves with darkness below he knew he could move unnoticed with the variability in the skill of those below if he paced himself and remained silent he could do what needed to be done and leave quickly.
His goal was to minimize the need for combat as much as possible.
A clone went to the left, foot steps silent, keeping himself concealed within the brush of the water laden trees towards the shrine.
Then Toru and the other clone went towards the right down into the slippery and decaying passageway, silent as before, using just the slightest bit of chakra to keep themselves from sliding and thus their footsteps concealed.
Even the trios breathing seemed to come to a halt as they moved. Each cave opening that they came across - presuming there were no adversaries - an exploding tag would be placed at the top of its entrance and on and on they went, with the hope that there were not over twenty cave entrances... However if the path was heavy with movement Toru and the clone would not choose to walk it so simply.
Explosive Tags being used across empty cave openings if this path is available and unhindered. Toru would not go into the "hive" if he can see or smell adversaries so this plan only works if the path is clear, which the initial post implies that it is.
NAME: Katon Kage Bunshin no Jutsu [Fire Release Shadow Clone Technique]
CHAKRA USAGE: High
CLASSIFICATION: Ninjutsu
ELEMENT: Katon
DESCRIPTION:
A mix of the elemental cloning techniques and the standard Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, the user creates a clone out of flames, which takes on the exact appearance of the one casting the technique. Because these clones are Shadow Clones, they retain the ability to think, react and perform techniques on their own, with independent chakra systems. When struck however, these clones explode in a large inferno, presumably burning all around it and setting alight anything in the area.
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『Silent Killing』
Toru through quite rigorous training has learned how to blend in with his environment and passing by his targets undetected. His movement and breathing is unnaturally silent, and when focused on a task at hand he is able to appear as a ghost, unheard and unseen, as a result he is able to take out his targets or opponents without alarming those around him with a discomforting amount of ease.
『Scent Hound』
Taking inspiration from his wolf familiar, Toru has developed a keen sense of smell. This sense allows him to easily determine where someone is due to a unique scent profile, and he is able to perform tracking duties by only needing to pick up a trail. This ability allows him to continue 'seeing' when he cannot actually see or hear - 400m passively. Focusing chakra to his nose he can enhance the radius of scent picking up to a formidable 2km, though the scent locations are less precise at this distance. The one downfall to this ability is overly intense foul smells that are closer to Toru may become overwhelming to a generally debilitating degree where only plugging the nose will help alleviate the incoming need to vomit.