Chapter 666: Orochimaru’s Showdown

“Kamui is truly a powerful ability,” Shisui said, revealing a look that confirmed his thoughts.

In his estimation, if Obito didn’t make any major mistakes, he would practically win.

Obito’s Mangekyo Sharingan effect was simply too practical; even just using his intangibility Kamui was enough to surpass many so-called powerful secret Ninjutsu.

“That’s amazing, you really became number one,” Rin Nohara praised sincerely.

Although only four people participated in the disciple ranking, each of them was a super genius with a well-known reputation.

In Rin Nohara’s opinion, the difficulty of achieving first place in their internal team ranking battle was only slightly easier than the Shinobi World Youth Martial Arts Tournament.

One must know that the Shinobi World Youth Martial Arts Tournament was a major competition for the entire Ninja World, and Nagato, who won first place, had the title of the strongest genius in the Ninja World. The value of their first place in the ranking battle was evident.

“Haha, it’s alright, after all, I put in a lot of effort.”

Upon receiving Rin Nohara’s praise, Obito’s smile widened even more.

No matter how hard he had trained before, at this moment, Obito only wanted to say it was worth it.

It was simply too satisfying! He got to beat Kakashi and be praised by Rin Nohara—it was truly a double blessing.

“But even if you won, you can’t be careless. Kakashi and the others’ efforts are not inferior to yours,” Rin Nohara reminded him.

In Rin Nohara’s view, none of Muzuki’s disciples were not hardworking.

There were many factors as to why Obito won, and it wasn’t because Obito was the most diligent.

“Of course, I won’t easily give up the title of strongest. Now, they are the challengers!” Obito said with high spirits.

He was no longer the inferior Fire Release Ninja he once was. As a noble Space-Time Eye Technique user, Obito was confident 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 the Flying Thunder God and Kamui to toy with Kakashi.

Fire Release? He wasn’t familiar with it. As everyone knew, he, Obito, was a Space-Time Ninja.

“Although you didn’t win, the battle was very exciting. Keep up the good work.” After congratulating Obito, Rin Nohara went to Kakashi’s side to encourage him.

Kakashi patted the dust off himself. “I really need to work harder, especially since Obito became number one.”

Obito looked displeased upon hearing that. What did he mean, ‘even he became number one’?

However, seeing as Kakashi was the loser, Obito didn’t bother arguing with him.

Since he lost, it was understandable for him to say a few angry words. He, Obito, was not a petty person; he would just find another opportunity to get revenge later.

“Hehe, Lord Mu Yue, 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 strengths and were both very powerful abilities.

Obito had trained with Minato Namikaze many times and understood the power of the Flying Thunder God Technique.

In a sense, the Flying Thunder God Technique was also a Ninjutsu that combined offense and defense.

It allowed for instant teleportation to evade damage when retreating and flash-kill attacks up close when advancing.

“Yes, if you don’t mind the hard work, you can start learning today,” Muzuki said, nodding.

Even if Obito didn’t ask, Muzuki would still teach him the Flying Thunder God Technique.

However, Muzuki considered that Obito and the others had been training so intensely and had just experienced major battles, so he didn’t teach it immediately. He planned to wait until the one-month vacation was over.

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, Lord Mu Yue. 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.

Currently, only two people in the Ninja World knew the Flying Thunder God Technique: one was the invincible Sage Muzuki, and the other was Minato Namikaze, 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 couldn’t sit still either. After recovering his stamina, he began training.

Although he belittled Obito with his words, Kakashi knew that defeating Obito was a very difficult task.

The other disciples also trained individually, while only Shisui was pulled aside by Muzuki’s Shadow Clone to discuss matters concerning the Uchiha Clan.

“I have a mission for you,” Muzuki said directly.

Shisui didn’t ask what the mission was; he just nodded and adopted a listening expression.

“You are to list the Uchiha Clan Ninja with good personalities and strong abilities, and if possible, try to keep them younger in age,” Muzuki continued.

“Recently, there have been many high-quality mission requests in the Village, and the war has caused the Village to lose some Ninja, so Konoha needs more capable Ninja to perform mission requests.

I plan to propose a suggestion at the high-level meeting: to release the Uchiha Jonin from the Police Force and have them form new teams with squads that suffered casualties in the war to carry out missions.”

In Muzuki’s opinion, the Uchiha problem was becoming increasingly serious due to various reasons, and a very important one was that the Uchiha Clan was too set in its ways, with a group of people clinging to a Police Force.

The most interaction an Uchiha Ninja had with non-Uchiha Ninja was probably during Ninja Academy.

Undoubtedly, this was very unhealthy, almost like a Village within a Village, isolating themselves.

What Muzuki wanted to do now was to gradually break this situation and bring Uchiha Ninja and regular Konoha Ninja together.

Shisui quickly understood Muzuki’s intention, and his eyes lit up.

Clearly, Muzuki 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 ultimately reached the point of extermination due to many internal factors.

Some Uchiha were very exclusive, as if their minds were still stuck in the Warring States Period, while some Uchiha were not exclusive but 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. Muzuki 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, Muzuki’s Shadow Clone went to the Hokage Assistant 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, Muzuki’s situation as Hokage Assistant was somewhat similar to the previous Hokage Assistant. Danzo Shimura held a concurrent position as Root leader, and Muzuki 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, it was only acceptable to be absent for a small portion of the time; they couldn’t be unreachable every time. For most of the time, they still had to be in the office, or at least leave a Shadow Clone or something.

Not long after Muzuki sat down in his office, there was a knock on the door.

“Enter,” Muzuki said.

Having received Muzuki’s permission, Orochimaru pushed the door open and entered Muzuki’s office.

“Orochimaru, why are you here?” Muzuki asked.

Although Orochimaru was not a high-level official, his rank in Konoha was very high. Generally, matters he needed to handle required Hiruzen Sarutobi’s signature, so he didn’t need to find Muzuki.

“Lord Mu Yue, you are currently the captain of the training squad, aren’t you?” Orochimaru said.

Muzuki nodded affirmatively.

“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 to 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 Mu Yue has time, you can take me to retrieve the items,” Orochimaru continued.

He did indeed have items in the Root Base, but retrieving them was a pretense; his main goal was to test Muzuki.

Otherwise, he could have just gone directly to Hiruzen Sarutobi, which would have been a simple matter.

“Then let’s go now. I have plenty of time at the moment,” Muzuki said after thinking for a moment.

He roughly guessed Orochimaru’s intentions.

“Then I’ll trouble Lord Mu Yue.”

Then, the two walked out of the Hokage Building together and headed towards the training squad base.

“If it weren’t for Lord Mu Yue, the Hidden Mist’s night raid would have caused us heavy losses.”

Along the way, Orochimaru spoke of their time together on the East Bank Battlefield, fighting against the Hidden Mist, and then lamented their different fates after parting ways on the East Bank Battlefield.

“Looking back now, it’s truly incredible. Lord Mu Yue, in just a few short years, you’ve become a high-level Konoha official, while I seem to have made no substantial progress.”

This sigh was not a pre-planned line from Orochimaru; it was a genuine heartfelt remark.

During the East Bank Battlefield, Orochimaru was the commander, leading thousands of Konoha Ninja in the war against the Hidden Mist.

Muzuki’s reputation wasn’t very significant at that time; even his appointment as deputy commander was a special promotion by Orochimaru after Muzuki’s meritorious service.

And now, Muzuki was the next Hokage, as expected, holding 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,” Muzuki replied with a faint smile.

Orochimaru showed no change in expression, but he repeatedly pondered Muzuki’s words.

“Fundamental principles… Does he know?”

Orochimaru probed a few more times, but Muzuki’s answers were not what Orochimaru expected, and he became somewhat uncertain again.

Upon arriving at the training squad’s base, Muzuki led Orochimaru to the laboratory within 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 pretty much 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 Shimura,” Muzuki said calmly, as if asking Orochimaru if he wanted water.

If it were the previous Muzuki, 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 quickly returned to normal.

“Lord Mu Yue, 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 Muzuki knew, he felt somewhat relieved.

Because this precisely indicated the possibility of cooperation between him and Muzuki; otherwise, Muzuki would have already brought him to justice.

“There’s no need for such pointless talk. You know that if I had that intention, you wouldn’t be able to stand here and speak to me like this,” Muzuki replied.

“So, Lord Mu Yue, you wish to cooperate with me, like Danzo did?”

Orochimaru truly wished at this moment that Muzuki wasn’t so outstanding. Muzuki was so outstanding that he wasn’t sure if his research could even attract Muzuki.

The ultimate goal of the Hashirama cells research was merely to reproduce Senju Hashirama’s vitality and Wood Release power, but Muzuki 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,” Muzuki said.

Muzuki was a little wary of Orochimaru; he was simply too troublesome and had tenacious vitality.

Orochimaru played a major role in the Fourth Shinobi World War.

If Orochimaru hadn’t brought Edo Tensei out of Konoha, Kabuto wouldn’t have been able to become the ‘dream weaver’.

If Muzuki wanted to kill Orochimaru now, he certainly had the ability to do so, but there was no need.

Orochimaru was not as extreme and cold-blooded as he would be in later years, and they had no actual conflicts of interest, so Muzuki was more inclined towards cooperation and transformation.

Orochimaru, to put it simply, just wanted immortality. So Muzuki would give him some help and let him take fewer detours.

During the Fourth Shinobi World War, Orochimaru was able to turn over a new leaf without anyone’s talk-no-Jutsu. Muzuki didn’t believe he couldn’t suppress Orochimaru.

“What are your conditions?” Orochimaru asked curiously.

As long as it didn’t affect his grand plan for immortality, Orochimaru didn’t care. He could even support Muzuki in becoming Hokage.

“Your experiments must be known to me, and you cannot capture civilians as test subjects.”

Resources couldn’t be wasted. Before Obito and Shisui completed their training, the research on Hashirama cells was very important.

“Only these two?”

Orochimaru was a bit surprised. He had expected Muzuki to have some strict conditions, but it turned out to be just these.

In that case, Muzuki was simply a better cooperation partner than Danzo Shimura; not only did he have a promising future, but he also caused less trouble.

“For now, only these two,” Muzuki nodded.

He didn’t want to interfere too much with Orochimaru’s affairs. He only had one request for Orochimaru: don’t cause trouble, and focus on research.

If Orochimaru could quietly conduct research, his future contributions to Konoha might even surpass Jiraiya’s.

It wasn’t difficult for Muzuki to kill a Ninja of the Sannin level, but finding a brilliant scientific genius was truly not an easy task.