Asuma paused mid step, wondering if he had misheard.
It was not "I am proud of you" or "You are amazing," but for him, this was already a kind of praise he had never really received before.
Back when he first took first place in practical combat at the Ninja Academy, he had rushed ho excitedly to tell Hiruzen.
Hiruzen's reaction had been nothing more than a flat "hmm," as if it were nothing worth ntioning.
Asuma had wanted to hear "I am proud of you" from him.
At that ti, he still deeply admired his father, the Hokage. He was the Hokage everyone looked up to, the Hokage everyone respected.
No matter what grades Asuma achieved at the Academy, he never managed to get Hiruzen's approval.
His expectations shrank over ti.
At first, he had wanted Hiruzen's praise. Later, he would have been satisfied just to see Hiruzen nod at him even once.
But it never happened.
In his mories, Hiruzen had never once nodded at his achievents. He only lectured him, telling him to learn from his level headed older brother and to emulate Orochimaru's performance back in his own Academy days.
"You do not need to tell . That combination ninjutsu was sothing Mugetsu sensei taught ," Asuma muttered with a pout.
He still did not look particularly friendly toward Hiruzen, but the heavy atmosphere between them had clearly eased.
"If there is anything you do not understand, you can ask ," Hiruzen said, exhaling a puff of white smoke. "I have quite a bit of experience with combination ninjutsu."
"Can you actually teach it well?" Asuma asked bluntly, full of suspicion.
He was not doubting Hiruzen's understanding of combination ninjutsu or his strength. Being Hokage carried its own weight.
What he questioned was whether his father could teach effectively.
"Then I will teach Mugetsu first," Hiruzen replied, a little speechless at having his teaching ability questioned yet again, "and have him teach you afterward."
Asuma was probably the only person in all of Konoha who dared to question the Hokage's teaching skills to his face like this.
"I think that sounds very reliable," Asuma said, his eyes lighting up. The idea of Mugetsu re teaching the material sounded much better than being taught directly by Hiruzen.
"Go and practice already," Hiruzen sighed, rubbing his forehead as he waved Asuma toward the door. This child really was troubleso.
Asuma humd a little tune as he left the Hokage's office, in such a good mood that he even closed the door gently behind him.
Hiruzen exhaled and turned back to his paperwork.
Not long after, the door opened again and Danzo stepped inside.
"Hiruzen…" he began.
"Why did you not knock?" Hiruzen cut him off imdiately. "And during working hours, you should address by my title."
Danzo blinked.
He did this all the ti, and Hiruzen usually did not say anything. What had he eaten today, explosive tags?
"Hiruzen, you…"
"It is working hours," Hiruzen repeated, his gaze firm.
Danzo did not know what had possessed him today, but a higher rank was a higher rank.
In the end, he could only grit his teeth and address him as the Third.
Hiruzen's expression finally eased.
"What is it? Speak."
"I want Kakashi Hatake and Uchiha Obito to enter Root," Danzo said directly.
"Is Root actually short of two Chunin?" Hiruzen asked calmly, clearly without any intention of agreeing.
"They may only be Chunin now, but their potential is very high," Danzo insisted. "Root needs ninja like them."
"That is out of the question," Hiruzen replied. "Root is not allowed to expand any further. If I discover Root secretly recruiting illegal mbers again, I will cut your funding."
He knew Danzo was not an honest man.
Even if he refused now, there was a good chance Danzo would move in the shadows, so Hiruzen chose to warn him directly.
"Kakashi can be forgone," Danzo said at last, revealing his true goal, "but Uchiha Obito must enter Root. An Uchiha like him is too dangerous. We have to stay highly alert if we want to prevent another Uchiha Madara from appearing."
Bringing up Kakashi had only been laying groundwork. Obito was his real target.
Danzo still firmly rembered their teacher Senju Tobirama's words: the Uchiha were dangerous by nature, and one could never let down their guard when it ca to that clan.
If this were an ordinary Uchiha, it would be one thing.
But at only nine years old, Obito already had a two tomoe Sharingan and had mastered powerful Fire Release. That was enough to make Danzo uneasy.
He did have a secret Wood Release shinobi in training, but that boy was much younger than Obito.
If Obito were to betray the village like Madara had, before the Wood Release shinobi matured, it could beco a serious problem.
"Obito is an Uchiha who carries the will of fire," Hiruzen said, placing the pipe back into his mouth and taking a slow draw. "He is not dangerous. Under Minato's guidance, I believe he will beco the next Kagami."
Judging by Obito's current performance, Hiruzen did not see a threat.
On the contrary, he had high expectations for him.
Letting Minato guide Obito was, in his view, far more reliable than handing him to Danzo.
"Hiruzen, have you forgotten what our teacher taught us?" Danzo snapped, displeased.
"The Uchiha are all too dangerous. The village has treated them so well, yet they still only think about rebellion."
He tried to bring up the hawkish Uchiha coup attempt during Tobirama's era to remind Hiruzen of how dangerous the clan was.
"Teacher also said that the Uchiha need proper guidance," Hiruzen replied, shaking his head.
"Instead of this, you should focus more on gathering intelligence on our enemies."
He completely rejected Danzo's proposal.
Seeing no sign that Hiruzen would back down, and rembering how he had been reprimanded the mont he walked in, Danzo's anger only grew.
"Hiruzen, you will regret this," he snarled, leaving those words behind as he slamd the office door on his way out.
Hiruzen, however, remained calm as he returned to his docunts, feeling much more relaxed.
He might not be able to do anything about his son's temperant, but Danzo was another matter entirely.
There was no way he would allow Root to keep expanding.
If Root grew any stronger, it would beco too powerful to control.
Root had originally been founded by Danzo in the na of training Anbu, just a small subordinate unit.
But under his constant maneuvering, its influence had steadily expanded, and now it had the faint air of being an Anbu within Anbu.
Hiruzen would never let that continue unchecked.
If Root's strength truly surpassed Anbu, it would be a disaster for Konoha.
While Hiruzen worked in relative comfort, the Danzo who had just walked out of the office grew angrier with each step.
In his youth, he had never felt inferior to Hiruzen. Yet now, he was completely suppressed by him.
"If sensei had chosen back then, Konoha would definitely be stronger than it is now," Danzo thought bitterly.
Hiruzen might be slightly stronger in pure combat, but in Danzo's mind, Hiruzen's hesitation and indecision in handling affairs could not compare to his own thods.
Danzo's ambition burned fiercely.
He still wanted, one day, to stand where Hiruzen stood and say, "I am the Hokage."
At that mont, he suddenly thought of the subordinate who was no longer in Root.
It seed that Mugetsu had once been Obito's intern instructor, and Obito respected Mugetsu greatly.
That ant Mugetsu should have a very detailed understanding of Obito.
Danzo imdiately returned to Root, wrote a letter, and ordered a ninja to deliver it to Mugetsu.
He wanted Mugetsu's personal assessnt of Obito to judge how dangerous the boy truly was.
At the sa ti, Danzo told Mugetsu in that letter to pay close attention to Obito.
If Obito ever showed any thoughts harmful to Konoha, Mugetsu was to report it imdiately, giving Danzo an excuse to force Obito into Root.
As for why he wanted Mugetsu to do it rather than sending Root operatives to shadow Obito directly, there were two reasons.
First, Minato had sensory abilities. Root operatives would be discovered sooner or later.
Second, Mugetsu was Obito's teacher. Obito had no defenses raised against him.
With Obito's current level, he had not yet grown to the point where he warranted dedicated surveillance.
Even the Uchiha clan as a whole only had a handful of Anbu watching them.
And this was warti, when every man counted.
…
[Disciple Kakashi Hatake has diligently trained under your guidance and achieved a perfect score in the Chunin Exams, earning promotion to Chunin. Reward: Chakra 1800, Random Bloodline Limit Extraction Scroll]
[Disciple Might Guy has diligently trained under your guidance and achieved an excellent score in the Chunin Exams, earning promotion to Chunin. Reward: Chakra 1500, Taijutsu Extraction Scroll · S (Mastery Level)]
[Disciple Uchiha Obito has diligently trained under your guidance and achieved an excellent score in the Chunin Exams, earning promotion to Chunin. Reward: Chakra 1200, Ninjutsu Extraction Scroll · A (Mastery Level)]
[Extraction Scroll: The higher the rank, the easier it is to obtain excellent rewards]
This ti, the rewards were so generous that even Mugetsu was a little stunned.
Just in terms of chakra, his three disciples had given him a total of 4500 points, pushing his own chakra past the seventy thousand mark.
As for the extraction scrolls, Mugetsu could not say for sure whether they were good or not at first glance.
Gacha was gacha.
If he drew trash or duplicates, even mastery level would be aningless.
However, the system description did say that high level extraction scrolls would not produce complete garbage.
Mugetsu thought for a mont, then went to the washroom to wash his hands thoroughly.
After that, he silently prayed to every deity he could think of, from Gods to Buddhas to the divine of distant lands, and only then did he begin drawing.
It was not like it cost him money.
There was no harm in believing a little.
If it worked, he would earn big.
If it did not, he lost nothing.
He used the lowest ranked scroll first, the Ninjutsu Extraction Scroll · A.
A large roulette wheel appeared in front of his eyes.
Mugetsu glanced over it and saw skills from all manner of worlds marked across its segnts.
"So it is not only Naruto ninjutsu," he realized. "There are also techniques from other worlds that get localized."
Because his ninjutsu proficiency scrolls and mastery scrolls could not raise general skills like Nature Transformation, Mugetsu had taken for granted that the extraction scrolls would all be Naruto ninjutsu.
He pressed the center of the wheel.
The roulette spun at a dizzying speed, then slowly ca to a halt.
The chosen segnt began to expand, and detailed information about the skill flowed into Mugetsu's mind.
[Ninjutsu Extraction Scroll · A consud. Skill obtained: Fire Release, Orochi Nagi (Mastery Level)]
Fire Release, Orochi Nagi was a deadly technique from the Kusanagi style ancient martial arts.
Mugetsu did not know its exact performance in the King of Fighters world, but after localization here, it had indeed beco a powerful Fire Release ninjutsu, perfectly suited for soone who used Fla Breathing.
Next, he used the Taijutsu Extraction Scroll · S.
[Taijutsu Extraction Scroll · S consud. Skill obtained: Mirong Legend · Blade Intercepting Sword · Golden Skyline (Mastery Level)]
Mugetsu's brows rose slightly.
He quickly went through the mories tied to the na and confird that this was indeed the extrely lethal taijutsu he rembered.
Golden Skyline was sowhat similar to the Third Raikage's Hell Stab in that both used the fingers as the main weapon.
But that was as far as the similarity went.
Golden Skyline did not grow stronger as you reduced the number of fingers, nor did it rely on Nature Transformation.
The localized version was an extrely pure form of taijutsu. Once trained to a certain level, it could unleash terrifying power even without the aid of chakra.
That also made sense to Mugetsu.
Golden Skyline had originally been created in a world where its founder was an ordinary human with no special abilities. It was a taijutsu that pushed the physical body itself to its limit.
Mugetsu was more than satisfied with this reward.
Not only was it powerful, it was also extrely suited to Might Guy.
As for his other disciples, he suspected it would be too difficult for them to learn.
Lastly, he focused on the Bloodline Limit Extraction Scroll.
This one had no rank at all and depended entirely on luck.
The Rinnegan and Tenseigan both fell under bloodline limits, and they could appear in theory.
But so could ordinary Byakugan, ordinary Sharingan, or kekkei genkai like Explosion Release and Lava Release.
Mugetsu did not hesitate.
He activated the scroll.
[Random Bloodline Limit Extraction Scroll consud. Reward obtained: Ice Release]
Mugetsu let out a quiet sigh.
It seed his luck was not particularly amazing this ti.
Then again, even if he had drawn the Rinnegan or Tenseigan, he could not have used them right away.
He simply did not have enough chakra.
Without enormous reserves to sustain them, those eye techniques would not live up to their potential.
In fact, at this stage, drawing a Mangekyo Sharingan might have been worse.
Unless it ca with an exceptionally broken ability like Kamui, the side effects of an ordinary Mangekyo would outweigh its benefits.
Compared to that, Ice Release was actually quite good.
At the very least, he could make himself so ice cubes in sumr.
Mugetsu checked his updated status.
[Na: Hayate Mugetsu]
[Chakra: 72800]
[Skills: Golden Skyline (Mastery), Fire Release, Orochi Nagi (Mastery), Ice Release (Beginner)…]
He decided that once special training ended and his Earth Release and Lightning Release Nature Transformations both reached mastery, he would adjust his reward focus again and prioritize chakra.
At this point, he had multiple ninjutsu at proficient level for each chakra nature, and even more below that.
He also had a decent selection of mastery level techniques that could cover most combat situations.
So his next goal was clear.
He wanted to push his chakra past one hundred thousand, then decide on his next reward directions based on the circumstances.
If there was a clear, powerful enemy on the horizon, he would either farm chakra or target rewards that directly countered that enemy.
Otherwise, he would continue to gather everything bit by bit, gradually turning himself into a true all rounder.
That evening, Mugetsu opened the letter Danzo had sent.
After reading the contents, he smiled faintly.
Danzo's idea of having him "watch Obito for flaws" did not sound bad at all.
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