Chapter 255: Minato Wants to Become a Teacher

Because he gained some inspiration from chatting with Muyue, Minato decided not to accept any missions for the time being and to focus on developing ninjutsu.

But just as Minato was thinking about how to imitate the Tailed Beast Ball, a ninja came to inform him that the Hokage summoned him, so Minato quickly headed to the Hokage's office.

Knock knock!

Minato knocked on the door of the Hokage's office.

"Come in." Sarutobi Hiruzen's voice came from inside.

Only then did Minato push open the wooden door and enter the Hokage's office.

"Lord Third, is there a mission you want to assign to me?" Minato got straight to the point and asked.

A direct summons like this either meant someone had requested him for a mission, or the Hokage had a special task for him.

"Not exactly a mission." Sarutobi Hiruzen took his pipe out, exhaled white smoke, and said with a chuckle.

"You've been a jonin for a while now, Minato. Have you ever thought about becoming a team leader?"

Sarutobi Hiruzen greatly admired Minato, because not only did Minato have outstanding ninja talent, but his personality was also very good.

Thinking of this, Hiruzen got a bit of a headache—his three students were all strong in terms of ability, but each had personality flaws.

Tsunade was addicted to gambling and had started to slack off, and because of her hemophobia, she could only handle medical treatment now, unable to fight on the battlefield.

Orochimaru had a cold disposition, caring little about comrades except for a few special people, and would stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

Compared to the other two, Jiraiya was almost normal—just a bit of a pervert, but Sarutobi Hiruzen didn't think that was a big problem.

If he had to choose one of his three students to become Hokage right now, Sarutobi Hiruzen would choose Jiraiya.

Hearing Hiruzen's words, Minato fell into thought.

Minato's team leader was Jiraiya. Although Jiraiya often acted lecherous and unreliable, Minato genuinely believed Jiraiya was an excellent teacher.

Jiraiya rarely put on airs as a teacher; except during training, their interactions were more like friends.

Moreover, when it came to carrying out missions and teaching training, Jiraiya was always very dependable. His unreliability was mostly in daily life. Whenever Minato saw Jiraiya show a serious or focused expression, he felt a strong sense of security.

Minato believed that Jiraiya had played an indispensable role in his current strength.

Then Minato thought of Muyue, recalling the warm scenes of Muyue interacting with his students at the camp.

That child named Uchiha Obito even dared to argue with Jiraiya, yet he always obeyed Muyue.

"I do." Minato looked at Sarutobi Hiruzen and replied with a smile.

He also wanted to become a teacher, to nurture excellent ninja like his teacher Jiraiya had done, and to have outstanding and adorable students like Muyue did.

Sarutobi Hiruzen nodded with a satisfied smile.

As Jiraiya's disciple and so outstanding, Sarutobi Hiruzen believed Minato had a chance to become the Fifth Hokage.

And to become Hokage, training successors was a necessary skill. The Second trained him, Danzo, and the others, while Sarutobi Hiruzen had trained the Legendary Sannin.

"The ninja academy's graduation exam is about to start. Soon there will be a new batch of genin. You'll be in charge of these three students." Sarutobi Hiruzen handed three files to Minato.

Although the exam hadn't started yet, the three students he prepared for Minato were all guaranteed to pass, and since it was wartime, to increase the capability to handle war, the academy's graduation standards were lowered—basically no one would fail.

Minato nodded and took the files. When he saw the photos and names on them, he froze.

"Hatake Kakashi, chunin..." Looking at the white-haired boy wearing a mask, Minato was a bit surprised.

He remembered that this was a member of Muyue's team, and he had even gone to the battlefield with Muyue last time. For his current age, his strength was exceptionally excellent.

"Muyue was just leading a training team. The team disbanded after the trainees graduated, so they're reassigned to me?" Minato guessed the reason.

Muyue's main role was still an academy teacher. Unless Kakashi followed Muyue to the academy as an assistant, he would have to switch to another team.

"What an outstanding kid. What a pity about White Fang..." After reading Kakashi's file, Minato sighed inwardly.

When Minato looked at the second file, he was a bit stunned. It read Uchiha Obito, with a photo of a black-haired boy grinning under goggles.

He knew this person too, because he was also Muyue's student. Minato remembered that when he was eating at Muyue's place, Obito teased him and Muyue for looking like twin brothers, and had even taken a photo for him.

When Minato saw Obito's mission record, he was shocked. As an academy student, Obito had records of two A-rank missions and one S-rank mission. Many chunin didn't even have a completed S-rank mission on record.

"Even if Muyue led the team, there's no way he'd let trainees take on missions of that level, right?" Minato was puzzled.

The S-rank one he could guess was because of the sudden large battle, allowing him to scrape an S-rank alongside Mu Yue, but he had no idea about the two A-ranks, and there was also a B-rank, while there wasn't a single C-rank mission yet.

After reading Obito's record, he had to admit this was an unprecedented student of the Ninja Academy, and there might never be another; this record was too heaven-defying.

When he saw the third student's information, Minato breathed a sigh of relief, because it said Nohara Rin, not Might Guy.

If the third student had been Might Guy, Minato would have probably been unable to resist asking Sarutobi Hiruzen what the point was of deliberately arranging it that way.

With two of the three students being Mu Yue's disciples, Minato was already planning to have a good talk with Mu Yue when he crashed dinner.

"Minato, you need to pay special attention to that disciple named Hatake Kakashi." Sarutobi Hiruzen put his pipe into his mouth, blowing out clouds of smoke as he spoke.

"You should know Hatake Sakumo, right?"

"Of course. White Fang-sama is so outstanding; there's not a single ninja in Konoha who doesn't know his name." Minato replied. Seeing Kakashi's surname, the first thing he thought of was White Fang.

"Kakashi is his son. After that incident, Kakashi's entire person changed, shifting in a bad direction…" Sarutobi Hiruzen spoke ruefully about Kakashi's experience, from a Ninja Academy prodigy to a cold-blooded teammate nobody liked.

"With Mu Yue's efforts, Kakashi seems to have returned to his former self, but I don't know if this is temporary or permanent, so I'll trouble you, Minato, to keep an extra eye on him."

Great changes in a person can be seen with the naked eye. When he saw Kakashi at the mission hall earlier, Sarutobi Hiruzen knew he had changed; the whole atmosphere around him was different.

To avoid wasting Mu Yue's efforts, Sarutobi Hiruzen arranged for Nohara Rin and Uchiha Obito, who had good relationships with Kakashi, to be Kakashi's teammates.

"I will." Minato said solemnly. Even if Sarutobi Hiruzen hadn't specifically reminded him, as long as he noticed a problem with his students, he would solve it; otherwise, he wouldn't deserve to be called a teacher.

……

In the evening, Minato went to Mu Yue's house, planning to talk with Mu Yue about Obito and the others, and to crash a meal while he was at it.

It wasn't that his obsession with crashing meals was too strong, but because if he went too early, Mu Yue wouldn't be home.

Except for mealtimes and evenings, Mu Yue was almost always teaching students.

Minato skillfully helped Mu Yue wash vegetables, then smiled and said:

"Mu Yue, from now on I'm also a teacher. Although I won't be teaching at the Ninja Academy, a guidance teacher should still be considered a teacher."

"A guidance teacher is certainly a teacher. And haven't you already been my Sealing Technique teacher for a while?" Mu Yue said with a chuckle.

"It was more Kushina doing the heavy lifting." Minato said modestly.

Although Minato's Sealing Technique skill wasn't as good as Kushina's, he was still an expert in sealing arts, which was a great help to Mu Yue, who had just started learning Sealing Techniques.

"The Third Hokage showed me the assigned student data in advance. Two of them are your disciples: Hatake Kakashi and Uchiha Obito." When he said this, Minato's expression was somewhat subtle.

"That means you have a deep connection with them." Mu Yue showed a somewhat surprised smile.

"It's also their good luck to have a guidance teacher like you, Minato. I know your strength; among Konoha's jonin, only the Sannin are stronger than you."

Mu Yue glanced at Minato's status panel. After several months of training on the battlefield, Minato's strength had increased considerably. His chakra had reached 55,000, his proficiency with the Flying Thunder God had grown quite a bit, and his proficiency with other skills had also improved significantly; overall, his strength had gone up a notch.

Mu Yue felt that Minato had now surpassed a bunch of Konoha jonin and could be considered half of Konoha's top combat power.

"There are still some senior jonin whose strength is not below mine." When Minato heard Mu Yue say he was second only to the Sannin, he quickly waved his hand and said.

"Everyone has their own strengths. Mu Yue, the power of your ninjutsu is actually stronger than mine."

"But if you can't hit the target, great power is meaningless. Minato, your Flying Thunder God is too fast." Mu Yue engaged in a round of mutual praise.

"Usually it's three students per team, right? Who is the remaining person?" Out of caution, Mu Yue asked.

Although in the original story it was Nohara Rin, Obito, and Kakashi as a team, now that he existed, for all he knew, if Sarutobi Hiruzen saw that Kakashi, Obito, and Might Guy got along well, he might have arranged them together.

If Nohara Rin and Obito weren't together, then Mu Yue would have to urgently develop Water Breathing. If his teammates weren't up to standard, he would need to improve his own strength more.

"It's a girl named Nohara Rin." Minato handed the washed vegetables to Mu Yue and replied.

This wasn't some classified mission information, so there was no need to conceal it.

"What a coincidence. Actually, Nohara Rin is also my disciple." Mu Yue said with a surprised expression.

In the past, he had kept it hidden because his strength wasn't great, and on the surface he still had his Root identity, making it inconvenient.

Now, his apparent strength was that of a powerful jonin who could defeat Explosion Release Hunter, and the person he was talking to was Minato, so there was no need to hide too much.

"Mu Yue, isn't your other disciple named Might Guy?" Minato asked with a puzzled expression.

"Earlier, I conducted a special training session for the fourth-year Ninja Academy students. During the training, I discovered Nohara Rin's potential, so I took her on as a disciple to train." Mu Yue explained.

Minato looked as if he suddenly understood, and then felt a strange curiosity—if that was the case, his three disciples were all disciples of Muyue.

"Muyue, why don't you just become a lead instructor? That way you can keep teaching them," Minato asked.

He felt that given Muyue's strength, becoming an instructor would be better, more flexible, and would also allow Muyue to train himself.

"I prefer teaching at the Ninja Academy a bit more, and after they graduate, I can still guide them during extracurricular time," Muyue smiled and replied.

With his current strength, teaching at the Ninja Academy would yield greater benefits.

According to previous mission rewards, the disciples would also receive rewards when they went on missions with Minato, but without the additional bonus, it would probably be about a third less.

"Then, Muyue, when you have time, please come and teach me how to guide students—you're stronger in this area," Minato said with a smile. Muyue's educational ability had been personally praised by Hiruzen Sarutobi.

3.4k, today it's actually less than 7k, I'm furious. Tomorrow I'll aim for 10k words a day; I can't stay slack.