Chapter 666: Orochimaru's Showdown
"Kamui is truly a powerful ability," Shisui said, revealing a look that confirmed his thoughts.
In his estimation, as long as Obito did not make any major mistakes, he would practically win.
Obito's Mangekyo Sharingan ability was simply too practical. Even just using Kamui's intangibility was enough to surpass many so called powerful secret Ninjutsu.
"That's amazing. You really became number one," Rin praised sincerely.
Although only four people had participated in the disciple ranking battle, each one of them was a super genius with a well known reputation.
In Rin's opinion, the difficulty of achieving first place in their internal team ranking battle was only slightly lower than winning the Shinobi World Youth Martial Arts Tournament.
One had to know that the Shinobi World Youth Martial Arts Tournament was a major competition involving the entire Ninja World, and Nagato, who won first place, had received the title of the strongest genius in the Ninja World. The value of first place in their ranking battle was evident.
"Haha, it's alright. After all, I put in a lot of effort."
After receiving Rin's praise, Obito's smile widened even further.
No matter how hard he had trained before, at this moment, Obito only wanted to say that it was worth it.
It was simply too satisfying.
He got to beat Kakashi and receive praise from Rin. It was truly a double blessing.
"But even if you won, you can't be careless. Kakashi and the others' efforts aren't inferior to yours," Rin reminded him.
In Rin's view, none of Mugetsu's disciples were not hardworking.
There were many reasons why Obito had won, and it was not because he was the most diligent.
"Of course. I won't easily give up the title of strongest. Now they're the challengers!" Obito said with high spirits.
He was no longer the inferior Fire Release ninja he had once been. As a noble Space Time Eye Technique user, Obito was confident that he could dominate the ranking battles for a long time.
"Now I have enough chakra, and if I learn the Flying Thunder God Technique next, who can stop me?" Obito seemed to already see his agile figure using Flying Thunder God and Kamui to toy with Kakashi.
Fire Release? He was not familiar with that. As everyone knew, he, Obito, was a Space Time Ninja.
"Although you didn't win, the battle was very exciting. Keep working hard." After congratulating Obito, Rin went to Kakashi's side to encourage him.
Kakashi patted the dust off himself.
"I really do need to work harder, especially since Obito became number one."
Obito immediately looked displeased when he heard that.
What did he mean, "even Obito became number one"?
However, seeing as Kakashi was the loser, Obito did not bother arguing with him.
Since Kakashi had lost, it was understandable for him to say a few angry words. He, Obito, was not a petty person. He would simply find another opportunity to get revenge later.
"Hehe, Teacher Mugetsu, I should have met the requirements to learn the Flying Thunder God Technique now, right?" Obito asked with a chuckle.
Although both were Space Time Ninjutsu, the Flying Thunder God Technique and Kamui each had their own strengths. Both were extremely powerful abilities.
Obito had trained with Minato many times and understood the power of the Flying Thunder God Technique.
In a sense, Flying Thunder God was also a Ninjutsu that combined offense and defense.
When retreating, it allowed instant teleportation to avoid damage. When advancing, it enabled close range flash kill attacks.
"Yes. If you don't mind the hard work, you can start learning today," Mugetsu said with a nod.
Even if Obito had not asked, Mugetsu would still have taught him the Flying Thunder God Technique.
However, Mugetsu had considered that Obito and the others had been training so intensely and had just experienced major battles, so he had not taught it immediately. He had planned to wait until their one month vacation ended.
The Flying Thunder God Technique was very difficult. If Obito started learning it, then a relaxed vacation life would definitely be impossible.
"There's no such word as difficult in my dictionary, Teacher Mugetsu. Please teach me. I want to learn today!" Obito said with an air of "who else but me?"
This was the Flying Thunder God Technique.
At present, only two people in the Ninja World knew the Flying Thunder God Technique. One was the invincible Sage Mugetsu, and the other was Minato, who would become the Fourth Hokage in the original history.
From this, it was clear that mastering the Flying Thunder God Technique would lead to great achievements.
Seeing Obito's desire to improve, Kakashi could not sit still either. After recovering his stamina, he began training.
Although Kakashi belittled Obito with his words, he knew that defeating Obito would be a very difficult task.
The other disciples also trained individually. Only Shisui was pulled aside by Mugetsu's Shadow Clone to discuss matters concerning the Uchiha Clan.
"I have a mission for you," Mugetsu said directly.
Shisui did not ask what the mission was. He simply nodded and adopted a listening expression.
"You are to list the Uchiha Clan ninja with good personalities and strong abilities. If possible, try to keep them younger in age," Mugetsu continued.
"Recently, there have been many high quality mission requests in the Village, and the war caused the Village to lose some ninja. Because of that, Konoha needs more capable ninja to carry out mission requests.
"I plan to propose a suggestion at the high level meeting. The Uchiha jonin should be released from the Police Force and form new teams with squads that suffered casualties in the war to carry out missions."
In Mugetsu's opinion, the Uchiha problem had become increasingly serious due to various reasons, and one very important reason was that the Uchiha Clan was too set in its ways, with a group of people clinging tightly to the Police Force.
The most interaction an Uchiha ninja had with non Uchiha ninja was probably during their time at the Ninja Academy.
Undoubtedly, this was very unhealthy. It was almost like a village within a village, isolating itself.
What Mugetsu wanted to do now was gradually break this situation and bring Uchiha ninja together with regular Konoha ninja.
Shisui quickly understood Mugetsu's intention, and his eyes lit up.
Clearly, Mugetsu wanted to expand the effect of the Police Force reform, further severing the connection between the Uchiha Clan and the Police Force.
"Understood. I will investigate and select carefully," Shisui nodded seriously.
"Additionally, when you and Obito attend Uchiha Clan gatherings, you can share some of your experiences of going through life and death situations with your teammates during missions."
The Uchiha Clan had ultimately reached the point of extermination due to many internal factors.
Some Uchiha were extremely exclusive, as if their minds were still stuck in the Warring States Period. Some Uchiha were not exclusive, but they were indifferent to matters outside the clan.
Now, Shisui and Obito had considerable popularity within the Uchiha Clan and were representatives of the new era of Uchiha. Mugetsu hoped that the two of them could set an example and encourage other Uchiha to become more normal.
After discussing the Uchiha matters with Shisui, Mugetsu's Shadow Clone went to the Hokage Assistant's office in the Hokage Building.
As one of the four high level officials, he naturally had his own office in the Hokage Building.
Theoretically, the Hokage Assistant was also required to be in the office.
However, Mugetsu's situation as Hokage Assistant was somewhat similar to the previous Hokage Assistant. Danzo had held a concurrent position as Root leader, while Mugetsu held a concurrent position as the training squad captain.
Due to the special nature of their work, they did not need to be in the office every day.
Of course, being absent was only acceptable for a small portion of the time. They could not be unreachable every time. Most of the time, they still had to be in the office, or at least leave a Shadow Clone there.
Not long after Mugetsu sat down in his office, there was a knock on the door.
"Enter," Mugetsu said.
After receiving Mugetsu's permission, Orochimaru pushed the door open and entered his office.
"Orochimaru, why are you here?" Mugetsu asked.
Although Orochimaru was not a high level official, his rank in Konoha was very high. Generally, matters he needed to handle required Hiruzen's signature, so he had no need to look for Mugetsu.
"Lord Mugetsu, you are currently the captain of the training squad, are you not?" Orochimaru said.
Mugetsu nodded.
"Before Root was disbanded, I held a position there and left some personal belongings in the Root base. Now that it has become the training squad's base, I would like to enter the training squad base and retrieve my personal belongings," Orochimaru explained.
The training squad had the same level of secrecy as Anbu. Even Orochimaru could not freely enter such a top secret location.
"However, I'm not in a hurry. Whenever Lord Mugetsu has time, you can take me to retrieve them," Orochimaru continued.
He did indeed have items in the Root base, but retrieving them was only a pretense. His main goal was to test Mugetsu.
Otherwise, he could have simply gone directly to Hiruzen, which would have made the matter much easier.
"Then let's go now. I have plenty of time at the moment," Mugetsu said after thinking for a moment.
He roughly guessed Orochimaru's intentions.
"Then I'll trouble you, Lord Mugetsu."
After that, the two walked out of the Hokage Building together and headed toward the training squad base.
"If not for Lord Mugetsu, the Hidden Mist's night raid would have caused us heavy losses."
Along the way, Orochimaru spoke of their time together on the Eastern Battlefield, fighting against Hidden Mist. Then he lamented their different fates after parting ways on the Eastern Battlefield.
"Looking back now, it truly feels incredible. Lord Mugetsu, in just a few short years, you have become one of Konoha's high level officials, while I seem to have made no substantial progress."
This sigh was not some pre planned line from Orochimaru. It was a genuine, heartfelt remark.
During the Eastern Battlefield, Orochimaru had been the commander, leading thousands of Konoha ninja in the war against Hidden Mist.
Mugetsu's reputation had not been very significant at that time. Even his appointment as deputy commander had been a special promotion from Orochimaru after Mugetsu performed meritorious service.
And now, Mugetsu was the expected next Hokage. He held the position of Hokage Assistant while also managing a special department like the training squad.
Orochimaru, on the other hand, had no hope of becoming Hokage and still had to worry about his own experiments.
"With your abilities, Orochimaru, as long as you don't get into trouble with fundamental principles, progress is only a matter of time," Mugetsu replied with a faint smile.
Orochimaru's expression did not change, but he repeatedly pondered Mugetsu's words.
"Fundamental principles… Does he know?"
Orochimaru probed a few more times, but Mugetsu's answers were not what he expected, making him somewhat uncertain again.
After arriving at the training squad base, Mugetsu led Orochimaru to the laboratory inside the base.
"These should be your personal belongings, Orochimaru. You can check them. If anything is missing, I will arrange for ninja to investigate and search for it."
Orochimaru looked around and said, "No problem. They're more or less as I remember them."
"Since the matter of your personal belongings is settled, shall we discuss something else? For example, your illegal human experiments with Danzo," Mugetsu said calmly, as if he were asking Orochimaru whether he wanted water.
If it were the previous Mugetsu, he might have put on a show and argued with Orochimaru. But with his current strength, there was no need for such trouble.
Orochimaru's pupils constricted slightly upon hearing this, but they quickly returned to normal.
"Lord Mugetsu, you did know. So, what do you intend to do? Report me to Lord Hiruzen? Imprison me forever?" Orochimaru asked calmly.
Once he knew that Mugetsu truly knew, he actually felt somewhat relieved.
Because this precisely indicated the possibility of cooperation between him and Mugetsu. Otherwise, Mugetsu would have already brought him to justice.
"There is no need for such pointless talk. You know that if I had that intention, you would not be standing here and speaking to me like this," Mugetsu replied.
"So, Lord Mugetsu, you wish to cooperate with me, like Danzo did?"
At this moment, Orochimaru truly wished that Mugetsu were not so outstanding.
Mugetsu was so outstanding that Orochimaru was not even sure whether his research could attract him.
The ultimate goal of the Hashirama cell research was merely to reproduce Senju Hashirama's vitality and Wood Release power. But Mugetsu could grow into another Senju Hashirama on his own, so he might not necessarily be interested in Hashirama cells.
"Cooperation can be discussed, but I have some conditions," Mugetsu said.
Mugetsu was somewhat wary of Orochimaru. This man was simply too troublesome, and his vitality was extremely tenacious.
Orochimaru played a major role in the Fourth Shinobi World War.
If Orochimaru had not brought Edo Tensei out of Konoha, Kabuto would not have been able to become the dream weaver.
If Mugetsu wanted to kill Orochimaru now, he certainly had the ability to do so, but there was no need.
Orochimaru was not yet as extreme and cold blooded as he would be in later years, and they had no actual conflict of interest. Because of that, Mugetsu was more inclined toward cooperation and reforming him.
To put it simply, Orochimaru only wanted immortality.
So Mugetsu would give him some help and let him take fewer detours.
During the Fourth Shinobi World War, Orochimaru had managed to turn over a new leaf without anyone using talk no Jutsu on him. Mugetsu did not believe he could not suppress Orochimaru.
"What are your conditions?" Orochimaru asked curiously.
As long as it did not affect his grand plan for immortality, Orochimaru did not care. He could even support Mugetsu in becoming Hokage.
"Your experiments must be known to me, and you cannot capture civilians as test subjects."
Resources could not be wasted. Before Obito and Shisui completed their training, research on Hashirama cells was very important.
"Only these two?"
Orochimaru was a bit surprised. He had expected Mugetsu to have some strict conditions, but it turned out to be only these.
In that case, Mugetsu was simply a better cooperation partner than Danzo. Not only did he have a promising future, but he also caused less trouble.
"For now, only these two," Mugetsu nodded.
He did not want to interfere too much in Orochimaru's affairs. He only had one request for Orochimaru.
Do not cause trouble, and focus on research.
If Orochimaru could quietly conduct research, his future contributions to Konoha might even surpass Jiraiya's.
It was not difficult for Mugetsu to kill a ninja of the Sannin level, but finding a brilliant scientific genius was truly not an easy task.
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