Chapter 354: Exchanging Disciples
"How boring. I am not coming next time."
After leaving the shrine, Obito decided he would not waste any more time attending Uchiha clan meetings.
In his mind, those meetings were just a place for a bunch of self important adults to entertain themselves. The moment you said something they did not like, they would immediately brush it aside.
"You can still come, but you do not have to use your real body. You can send a Shadow Clone to listen," Shisui suggested.
"Most Uchiha ninja attend the clan meetings. Just by listening to the discussions, you can understand the clan's situation better."
Even though he had just been rejected by many Uchiha, Shisui would still attend any clan meeting he was allowed to join.
History was, after all, already written. To truly solve the Uchiha clan's current problems, he first had to understand the present Uchiha clearly.
However, this meeting had taught Shisui one harsh truth. Within the Uchiha clan, the weak had no right to speak, even if they were geniuses.
Geniuses did enjoy certain privileges, but those privileges did not include deciding major clan matters.
That was why he had told Obito simply to send a Shadow Clone. Unless they became strong enough, whatever they said would not be recognized anyway.
"If I send a Shadow Clone, I bet it will argue with me. They are not going to sit there just to listen to useless information," Obito muttered. He had plenty of self awareness when it came to his own Shadow Clones.
He had long since figured it out: if there was something he did not want to do, his Shadow Clones usually did not want to do it either.
"Your Shadow Clones really have personality," Shisui commented, trying to put it in a nicer way.
Obito scratched his head and chuckled. Fortunately, his clones did not mess up at critical moments. Otherwise, he really might go look for a different clone technique to practice.
After chatting for a while longer, the two split up at the intersection.
Back home, Shisui immediately began to train. He needed to increase his strength as quickly as possible. He was no longer the strongest among Mugetsu's disciples, and he had no voice at the clan meeting.
"Once the internship is over, I will graduate directly. Staying in the academy is too slow," Shisui decided.
He had already told Mugetsu before that he wanted to participate in an internship during his second year, but back then he had not yet decided whether he would graduate early.
Now, seeing how fast Kakashi and Might Guy were growing, and feeling the urgent need for greater power to solve the clan's issues, Shisui realized he could not stay in school any longer.
After separating from Shisui, Obito did not go home right away. Since he had left the meeting early, it was still far from his bedtime, and training at home would disturb his grandmother's sleep. So he headed to a quiet grove and began cultivating there.
Obito did not feel much about the clan meeting itself. Although he was a member of the Uchiha clan, the only people he was close to, apart from his grandmother, were Shisui. He was not familiar with the others at all.
He only felt that their attitude had been a little too much, shooting down Shisui's suggestion without even listening properly.
The next day, Obito arrived at the South Border Forest as usual for training. This time, instead of starting his exercises right away, he first explained his grandmother's condition.
"How can I get Grandma to agree to go to the hospital?" Obito asked, looking at Mugetsu with pleading eyes.
"Tell her the hospital is holding a special event. Free medical checkups, no need to spend any money," Mugetsu said after thinking it over.
Elderly people usually refused to go to the hospital for a few simple reasons. Either they believed nothing was wrong with their bodies, or they did not want to spend money. But if it was free, they were often happy to go.
"You can also say that the first fifty people get eggs," Mugetsu added.
"Will Grandma really go if I say that?" Obito scratched his head. He did not quite understand the logic. In his eyes, a checkup did not cost much, and eggs were cheap.
"Try it first. If that still does not work, I will help you think of another way," Mugetsu nodded.
If even free benefits could not move her, Mugetsu would have to ask Tsunade to help check her condition directly. When you had resources right beside you, you were supposed to use them.
"Got it." Obito firmly memorized Mugetsu's words, then ran back home to test the idea.
On his way, he happened to run past Shizune. Since they were not very familiar and Obito was in a hurry, he did not greet her.
"So fast… was that Obito?" Shizune only barely recognized him by his features.
"Why is Obito here? Mugetsu sensei's training location is so remote…" she muttered, glancing at the tall trees surrounding her.
Shizune wandered around for a while before she was finally spotted by a Shadow Clone and guided to Mugetsu's main body.
She had originally thought there would only be Mugetsu here, but what she saw were several Mugetsus, as well as Kakashi and Shisui.
Shizune knew Kakashi and Shisui reasonably well. Kakashi had entered the academy at the same time as her, but he had graduated before completing his first year, while she had studied until the fourth grade before graduating.
As for Shisui, she had been in Class A with him during their first special training course.
Their relationship was basically just knowing each other's names, so Shizune did not interrupt them. Instead, she focused on Mugetsu.
"What is your chakra nature?" Mugetsu asked.
With his current visible strength, there was not much he needed to hide anymore, so he directly brought Shizune into the group's training.
"Chakra nature? I do not think I have ever had it tested. Lady Tsunade said I would be learning Medical Ninjutsu from her anyway," Shizune answered after thinking back.
Because of Tsunade, her situation was a little special. Unlike ordinary graduates who were assigned to three man teams, Shizune had joined Tsunade directly with no teammates.
Although Tsunade knew many kinds of ninjutsu, none could compare to her Medical Ninjutsu. Naturally, she would teach her disciple the techniques she was most skilled in. Yang Release and Yin Release could not be tested with chakra paper, so Shizune had never used chakra paper at all.
"Then we will test it now." As if he had predicted that answer, Mugetsu took out a piece of chakra paper and handed it to her.
After all, Tsunade was currently in a lazy phase and could be unreliable. Mugetsu had already used Appraisal on Shizune and discovered that she had essentially only learned Medical Ninjutsu. This result did not surprise him.
"Thank you." Shizune accepted the paper, thanked Mugetsu, then gathered chakra and infused it into the sheet.
As soon as the chakra entered, the paper quickly wrinkled.
"Lightning Release…" Mugetsu murmured, a thoughtful look on his face.
For Shizune, learning Thunder Breathing might not be a good fit. While Thunder Breathing could enhance Lightning Release, that was only one of its functions, and it needed to reach the level of true mastery to fully bring out that effect. Before that, its amplification of Lightning Release was only average.
On top of that, training any Breathing Technique to full mastery was extremely difficult. Most people could not do it.
Thunder Breathing specialized in explosive bursts of power, but the original Shizune had never shown talent in that direction.
"Adjust your breathing by copying my posture," Mugetsu finally decided, choosing to teach Shizune Basic Breathing first.
Basic Breathing could also improve training efficiency. It simply lacked the special properties of the other Breathing Techniques. Once she mastered the basics, learning the more advanced styles would be much easier.
Even though this was content she had never heard of before, Shizune trusted Mugetsu deeply and learned with full concentration.
Mugetsu roughly arranged Shizune's upcoming curriculum: begin with Basic Breathing, then refine Mystical Palm Technique, and afterward learn Super Strength and Chakra Scalpel.
Because she had constantly studied under Tsunade, Shizune's Medical Ninjutsu knowledge was already very solid. Mugetsu only needed to teach her specific techniques.
When Shisui finished his training and took a short break, he sought Mugetsu out and told him everything that had happened at yesterday's clan meeting, as well as his plan to graduate early.
"Mugetsu sensei, do you think there is a problem with that?" Shisui asked.
He believed Mugetsu could make better and more accurate judgments. Even though he had already decided yesterday to graduate, he still wanted Mugetsu's opinion.
"Graduating early definitely carries risks. Life is full of unexpected accidents. But with your current strength, I do not think there is a problem with you graduating," Mugetsu said, approving of Shisui's idea.
Shisui's current ability already surpassed that of many Chunin. Even so, accidents could still happen after graduation, but comparatively speaking, the risk was not high.
As for absolute safety, even Mugetsu could not guarantee his own life completely, let alone those of his disciples.
Shisui smiled. Hearing Mugetsu's affirmation set his heart at ease.
"Oh, and Mugetsu sensei, my Armament Haki seems to have improved," Shisui added, talking about his recent training gains.
He gathered chakra into his fist and imagined a layer of invisible armor coating it, then punched the ground. After a few strikes, two of them were clearly stronger than the others.
"I still cannot use it steadily, but I have started to grasp the feeling," Shisui said, withdrawing his fist.
Mugetsu used Appraisal to check Shisui's status. His Armament Haki proficiency had already reached seventy points.
He did a quick calculation. Shisui had been learning Armament Haki for more than half a year. This rate of progress was about right.
"No need to rush. You are not far from mastering it. As long as nothing unexpected happens, you should fully grasp it after graduating," Mugetsu estimated.
Compared to Shisui, the others' progress was significantly slower. On one hand, Armament Haki itself was difficult to learn. On the other, the rest of his disciples did not have much time to practice it.
Kakashi, for example, was currently refining his Breathing Technique and getting used to Transparent World. Obito was perfecting his Flame Breathing Chakra Mode. Might Guy was simultaneously improving his Eight Gates and Breathing Technique. Rin had not even started learning Armament Haki.
It was not that Armament Haki was unimportant, but at their present level, it was not as helpful to Obito and the others as what they were already focusing on. Their chakra reserves were still somewhat lacking.
Of course, learning it would still be beneficial and give them more options in battle, but at this stage it was not worth pouring too much time into Haki.
"As expected of Mugetsu sensei."
When the morning training ended and Obito returned to the South Border Forest, he gave Mugetsu a big thumbs up.
Mugetsu could already guess the outcome from Obito's expression.
"Grandma really was sick. It is a good thing we went early, and it turned out not to be anything serious," Obito said with visible relief.
"Elderly people have weaker resistance. You need to pay more attention to her health from now on," Mugetsu reminded him, then fell into thought.
He was wondering whether Madara Uchiha might try to use Obito's grandmother to push Obito toward darkness.
If Obito's feelings toward others could be displayed as visible trust levels, Mugetsu believed that his grandmother and Rin would definitely be at level four. Kakashi was harder to judge. It was possible, but not certain.
If Obito's grandmother were deliberately killed in front of him, Mugetsu was sure Obito would awaken his Mangekyo Sharingan on the spot. But as long as Mugetsu and Rin remained safe, he felt Obito would probably not fall completely into darkness, though his personality might change.
If Rin and Obito's grandmother both died tragic deaths, however, Mugetsu could not say for sure what would happen.
"I will arrange a Shadow Clone to watch over her."
Mugetsu decided to station a Shadow Clone to guard Obito's grandmother.
"Right. As soon as Grandma's condition gets worse, I will use your method again to take her to the hospital, Mugetsu sensei."
After saying that, Obito rushed off to continue his training.
Just thinking about how Kakashi had been training one full morning longer than him already made him uncomfortable. He had trained half a day less, Kakashi had trained half a day more. That meant there was a full day's difference between them.
Watching his disciples train so hard, Mugetsu also focused on his own studies and started researching Flying Thunder God.
Flying Thunder God would not give him a qualitative leap in strength, but in terms of convenience, it was an incredible technique.
In order to learn it, Mugetsu even used the Shadow Clone learning method, giving it everything he had.
Yet the results were still poor. After two days, his proficiency in Flying Thunder God was still at zero.
"Everyone is working so hard. No wonder they are all so strong."
Exhausted from practicing Breathing Technique, Shizune took a deep breath and looked around. Obito and the others were all training at a high intensity, hardly stopping at all.
This kind of training environment was very new to her. Normally she had trained alone with Tsunade, without any peers to compare herself to.
Now, seeing people her age or even younger working that hard, Shizune felt guilty whenever she thought about resting.
She practiced Breathing Technique and taijutsu for most of the day, leaving the remaining time for Medical Ninjutsu study.
At first she had worried that, after so much physical training, she would be too tired to absorb anything in her medical lessons. To her surprise, the effect was actually very good, and she felt she was learning a lot.
"Mugetsu sensei really teaches better than Lady Tsunade," Shizune thought as she unconsciously compared them.
Although she deeply respected and liked Tsunade, she had to admit that Mugetsu was indeed stronger when it came to teaching, even in Medical Ninjutsu.
She even felt as if she had become smarter. When learning from Mugetsu, she seemed to understand the content more quickly and could focus more easily than usual.
"Lady Tsunade is definitely going to be shocked in half a year," Shizune thought, already looking forward to Tsunade's reaction when she checked her progress.
After all, Tsunade often bullied her a little. It should be fine if Shizune returned the favor just this once.
Meanwhile, Rin, who was studying under Tsunade, also experienced firsthand what it meant to be the strongest Medical Ninja.
It felt as if there was no medical knowledge Tsunade did not know. No matter what question Rin asked, Tsunade could answer it instantly with a relaxed expression.
At the same time, Rin also discovered another side of Tsunade.
"Lady Tsunade, it is time to wake up."
Rin looked helplessly at Tsunade, who was sprawled out like a corpse from a hangover.
As one of the Sannin famed throughout the ninja world, Tsunade actually did not get up in the morning.
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