Chapter 432: Ten Thousand Years of Genin? Elite Jonin!
This time, Orochimaru did not summon every jonin in the Land of Fire eastern theater. Instead, he gathered only a handful of jonin who held key positions on the current battlefield.
Small matters called for big meetings. Big matters called for small meetings. Since what they decided here would influence the overall direction of the entire front, the meeting itself had to remain confidential.
Aside from Mugetsu, Orochimaru invited only five Konoha jonin into the tent.
Hyuga Hizashi, the head of the Perception Squad.
And the full Ino Shika Cho formation, with Nara Shikaku serving as deputy commander of the forces.
The final jonin was the head of the Medical Squad, responsible for logistics and medical ninjutsu.
"Earlier today, Mugetsu, Might Duy, Mugetsu's disciples' squad, Reiki, and the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist were involved in an encounter," Orochimaru said.
Then he continued without suspense.
"Reiki, Munashi Jinpachi, Jinin Akebino, Raiga Kurosuki, Mangetsu, Fuguki, and other Mist jonin were killed on the spot. Fuguki was killed by Mugetsu's disciple. The rest were killed by Mugetsu."
Orochimaru did not exaggerate. He used no dramatic phrasing, no embellished rhetoric. He simply stated the results.
And that was exactly why the shock hit harder.
Inside the tent, every ninja besides Orochimaru and Mugetsu stiffened. Pupils tightened. Expressions turned openly stunned.
It was only because Orochimaru, the battlefield commander, was the one saying it. If the same words came from anyone else, they would have questioned whether it was even true.
The content was too terrifying.
A war was still raging outside, and yet they had just been told that their side had wiped out the enemy's elite, producing a strange, dreamlike sense of happiness that did not feel real.
For a strategist like Shikaku, that feeling was especially sharp.
Because he had not made any arrangements to produce such a result, and yet Mugetsu had done it anyway.
War was not just about being strong. If raw strength alone decided everything, then villages would not deploy thousands of ninja. They would send a few top tier powerhouses and call it finished.
Even if you were strong, you still had to find the enemy. If you could not find them, then no matter how strong you were, you could not kill them. That alone involved intelligence, movement, timing, and countless other factors tied to war.
"This really was a battle that combined both strength and luck," Shikaku thought.
The luck was that Mugetsu ran into the Seven Ninja Swordsmen and Reiki at a moment when they had not brought large numbers.
The strength was that Mugetsu won.
Both were necessary. Without either, such a result could not exist. In fact, if even one piece was missing, Konoha could have suffered a loss instead.
Shikaku's mind immediately shifted toward battlefield structure.
"I need to reassess Hayate Mugetsu's strength," he thought. "He might not be much worse than Orochimaru sama. Maybe he can hold Yagura on the field."
There had been some intelligence on Mugetsu, but uncertainty among ninja was always high. Earlier, Shikaku had not even been sure whether Mugetsu could defeat someone like Reiki or Mangetsu.
Now, those doubts no longer made sense.
To fight Reiki while also taking down four members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, Mugetsu's strength had to be far beyond them.
So Shikaku placed Mugetsu's combat power just below the very top tier, slightly under monsters like Orochimaru and Yagura.
Inoichi studied Mugetsu with a complicated kind of surprise.
"What a terrifying achievement," Inoichi thought.
In age, Mugetsu was his junior. But in terms of accomplishments, Inoichi doubted he could ever reach this height in his entire life.
The Yamanaka secret techniques leaned toward support, not solo combat. It was rare for their clan to produce a warrior who could dominate alone.
Even if it was not just him, Inoichi believed that even their generation of Ino Shika Cho combined could not replicate this.
He knew their own limits.
If the three of them attacked together, they could stall someone like Reiki or Mangetsu for a short time.
Winning was wishful thinking.
And if even a few more Seven Ninja Swordsmen were added to the equation, they would die horribly.
Even Orochimaru would find it difficult to achieve this kind of encounter result, not because he lacked strength, but because situations like this were rare.
Choza, meanwhile, reacted in the simplest way possible. He gave Mugetsu a thumbs up.
"Amazing."
He was not calculating battlefield impact. He was only thinking one thing.
Mugetsu had beaten that many monsters, so Mugetsu was a monster.
Hizashi looked at Mugetsu with genuine admiration.
He had almost no impression of Mugetsu before today. But that did not matter anymore.
The ninja world respected the strong. Mugetsu had shown overwhelming strength, and he had delivered an enormous victory for Konoha. It was hard not to admire him.
And somewhere deeper, another thought flickered.
If the Hyuga had strength like this, perhaps the clan could force changes that had always been impossible.
Orochimaru was not surprised by their expressions. This was intelligence that even he had found difficult to fully digest.
"Before we discuss the next combat plan," Orochimaru said, "I want to ask you something, Mugetsu."
"How many of your disciples can still fight at full strength, and to what extent can Might Duy unleash his power in another battle?"
It was not only Mugetsu who had been astonishing in that encounter. Mugetsu's disciples, and Might Duy as well, had displayed something terrifying.
They were all chunin, and yet they had repelled the Seven Ninja Swordsmen head on, even killing one of them, without being crushed by numbers.
If Mugetsu's disciples were not severely injured, that meant Orochimaru effectively possessed a squad with the potential to contend with the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.
Shikaku's expression turned thoughtful.
Until now, he had not focused much on the details of the disciples' squad or Might Duy.
As deputy commander, he had long memorized the squads with strong combat power. Kakashi's team had never been among them.
And if Shikaku remembered correctly, Might Duy had once been a perennial genin with a poor reputation inside Konoha.
But if Orochimaru was asking this question, then maybe Kakashi, Might Duy, and the others had not simply been dragged along. Maybe they had played a major role.
The other jonin also looked at Orochimaru, confused.
Those who did not know Might Duy only felt puzzled.
Those who did know him were even more stunned.
A perennial genin, mastering a forbidden technique like the Eight Gates?
They did not interrupt. When you did not understand, you listened.
Mugetsu considered for a moment before answering.
"Shisui, Obito, and Rin should recover their combat strength after around ten days of rest," he said. "Kakashi's condition is worse. He will need at least three weeks."
"And Guy's is the most serious. He will not be able to participate in combat for at least a month and a half. I plan to send Guy back to Konoha to recover."
Obito, Rin, and Shisui looked miserable, but most of their injuries were external. With medical ninjutsu, those healed quickly.
Kakashi was different.
He did not look heavily injured, but when he used Thunderclap Flash Godspeed at the end, he forced power out of his body the way a Demon Slayer Mark squeezed the user's limits. The strain was enormous. Recovery would take longer.
And Guy was in the worst state of all.
The Eight Gates was a forbidden technique for a reason. Guy had forcibly opened the Sixth Gate, something his body could not properly bear, and he had stacked Rock Breathing Chakra Mode on top of it, pushing his physical pressure to the absolute limit.
If it were not for Rock Breathing's training effect and Guy's relentless discipline, any ordinary chunin physique would have shattered under that pressure. In combat, they would have broken bones with every strike.
"Their ability to repel the Seven Ninja Swordsmen this time was an extraordinary burst," Mugetsu added. "They do not normally possess that level of strength."
This time, Guy had been the core of their performance. But converting a life and death breakthrough into stable strength required time.
"As for Might Duy," Mugetsu continued, "when he goes all out, he can hold two opponents at Seven Ninja Swordsmen level at the same time, but his burst cannot last long."
If Might Duy opened the Gate of Death, he could beat the entire Seven Ninja Swordsmen alone.
But that extreme could never be treated as normal combat capability.
Shikaku's shock deepened.
The encounter was nothing like what he had imagined.
Based on the results Orochimaru had stated, Shikaku's first deduction had been this.
Mugetsu, with no assigned combat mission, went out with his disciples and happened to run into Reiki and the Seven Ninja Swordsmen. A battle erupted. Mugetsu killed Reiki and the Mist jonin. Mugetsu's disciples finished off Fuguki after Mugetsu injured him. In the chaos, Juzō and Kushimaru escaped.
That had been the most reasonable explanation Shikaku could build.
But Mugetsu's words painted a completely different chain of events.
Kakashi's squad was on a mission and had the bad luck to run into the Seven Ninja Swordsmen first. A battle began. Kakashi's squad and Might Duy burst and gained an advantage, killing Fuguki and driving the Seven Ninja Swordsmen back.
Only after that did Mugetsu and Reiki arrive, followed by the later slaughter that produced the final astonishing results.
Shikaku finally could not hold it in.
He had so many strong pieces on this battlefield, and he had not even known.
This was the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. A squad that could repel them head on, even with extraordinary burst factors involved, was powerful enough to be called a true force.
"Might Duy…" Shikaku repeated the name silently.
After this meeting, he planned to find time to meet that man.
He truly had not expected that the so called perpetual genin had strength that could rival two members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen.
The other jonin wore the same mix of shock and disbelief.
Inoichi sighed inwardly. The younger generation was terrifying. Even Mugetsu's disciples had reached a level like this.
Mugetsu himself was only twenty. How old could his disciples even be?
The head of the Medical Squad was stunned beyond words.
Even though Might Duy had been promoted to chunin for some time, those who knew him still carried the old impression of a man who spent his life as a genin.
But the Medical Squad head was certain that impression would shatter once this encounter spread.
In the future, when people spoke of Might Duy, they would remember him as a chunin who had fought two Seven Ninja Swordsmen level opponents in a real battle.
"I see," Orochimaru said, nodding.
He abandoned his earlier thought of reshaping Kakashi's team into an elite assassination squad.
According to Mugetsu, the main combat power of that squad was Guy first, then Kakashi, and then the others.
Since Guy and Kakashi both required such long recovery, they would be difficult to use in the upcoming phase of the war.
Orochimaru's original plan had been to use Konoha's earlier weakness on the eastern front as bait.
He would deliberately expose the camp's location, lure the Hidden Mist into a large scale attack, and then crush them in one brutal exchange.
But the Hidden Mist were not fools.
After losing multiple elite ninja in one blow, they would not fall for a lure like that.
The premise of Orochimaru's plan had been that the Hidden Mist believed Konoha's forces on the eastern coast were weak, making them confident enough to gather troops, wipe out a large portion of active Konoha forces, and reduce Konoha's overall strength.
Now, Mugetsu had eliminated Reiki, the famous head of the Yuki clan, and had also devastated the Hidden Mist's signature assassination force, the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, reducing them to something closer to the Two Ninja Swordsmen.
Under those circumstances, the Hidden Mist would never again believe Konoha was weak.
So Orochimaru's new plan became extreme provocation.
He would send out large numbers to hunt Mist ninja relentlessly, search for the Hidden Mist main base, and force them into a large scale war against Konoha.
If Orochimaru truly possessed a squad that could rival the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, he would have sent them out without hesitation.
Unfortunately, they needed time.
"It is inevitable to be injured after a battle like that," Orochimaru said, with no regret in his voice. "I will report your merits to the higher ups."
He was not at a point where he could send unrecovered ninja back into combat.
If they could not be used, then it was better to offer comfort and secure goodwill.
Orochimaru's cold exterior did not mean he was ignorant of manipulation.
It was simply that, most of the time, very few ninja were worth the effort.
Mugetsu was worth it.
Strong enough. Reliable. Efficient. And from Root, which made him a near perfect subordinate in Orochimaru's eyes.
Orochimaru had already begun considering how to pull Mugetsu to his side.
If he wanted to become Hokage, excellent confidantes were indispensable.
And Mugetsu was not yet his man. At best, he was temporary assistance loaned by Danzo.
Even with deep cooperation between Orochimaru and Danzo, Orochimaru understood the boundary clearly.
He did not want to be constrained by Danzo after becoming Hokage.
Cooperation was fine.
But if Danzo still wanted to stand as an equal after Orochimaru became Hokage, that was a fantasy.
Orochimaru was confident in his ability to poach.
He understood Root's methods too well. After all, Orochimaru himself could be considered a high ranking figure within Root.
He believed he only needed to help Mugetsu see Danzo's so called devotion to Konoha for what it truly was, then display his own value and charisma.
After that, Mugetsu would likely turn.
Next, Orochimaru and Shikaku formally discussed the specifics of the new combat plan.
Most of the conversation stayed between the two of them, while the others contributed details where needed.
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