Chapter 258: Iwa's War Strategy

After the training of Iwa's war strategy ended, the five of them gathered again at the dango shop.

"Kakashi, where did you run into Minato-senpai this morning?" Obito asked impatiently.

"Did you ask Minato-senpai about Muyue-sensei's preferences? Don't tell me you forgot?"

Today was the last day they had agreed to think of a gift. No matter what, they had to decide on the gift today.

"Do you think I'm you? The reason I was a little later than usual is because of this." Kakashi nodded, with a slight edge in his voice from this morning.

Hearing this, the other three also looked at Kakashi, but what Kakashi said next disappointed them.

"I asked, but Minato-senpai didn't have the kind of information we wanted either." Kakashi replied.

"So even Minato-senpai doesn't know. Maybe Muyue-sensei only has two hobbies: calligraphy and teaching. He doesn't have any deeply hidden interests." Obito sighed, feeling his expectations were in vain.

He thought about it and had to agree. Even the students who spent every day with him didn't know. What could Minato Namikaze possibly know?

"But I think Minato-senpai said something very reasonable, just like what Rin said before: just convey your feelings." Kakashi said seriously.

"Think about it: does Muyue-sensei teach us so that we give him good gifts? No. As long as we train seriously, he's happy."

The several disciples all fell into thought. Muyue had said this to all of them.

"As long as your strength improves, that's the best reward for me." Might Guy's thoughts drifted back to the first time he placed first in the class in a practical exam; Muyue had said this to him then.

The longer he spent with Muyue, the more he felt that Muyue's words came from the heart, not just sweet talk.

"That's right. The most important thing is still to convey your feelings." Might Guy gave Kakashi a thumbs-up, nodding in approval.

"Indeed, Muyue-sensei probably wouldn't want us to waste time agonizing over this and delay our training." Shisui also nodded.

"Then let's quickly decide what to give him." Obito stopped obsessing.

Rin Nohara looked at the faces of the four, and suddenly a good idea came to her. She smiled and said:

"How about we make some small statues for Muyue-sensei? Each of us makes one of ourselves, and then we all work together to make one of Muyue-sensei. We'll do it based on our usual training poses, and when they're all finished, we put them together."

Kakashi thought about it. Whether from the division of labor or the meaning of the gift, it was quite good. So he said, "I think it works."

"That's perfect! Rin, are you a genius?" Obito chuckled in praise.

Might Guy and Shisui thought about it and also nodded in agreement, feeling this was a very good gift.

"I just suddenly felt this would be great. Even if we're not by Muyue-sensei's side, our statues will keep him company." Rin said with a smile.

It was unanimous. The joint gift for Muyue was decided. The first three days, each person would finish their own statue. The next two days, they would all work together on Muyue's statue.

The matter of what to give was settled, but Obito soon faced a new problem: this thing is not easy to make.

After buying materials and equipment and going home, Obito looked at the statue he had carved of himself. In the end, he sighed and threw it into the trash can.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Obito finally decided to use a jutsu to have multiple selves help him. This was to be left at Muyue's place. He didn't expect it to be perfect, but it at least had to look like him.

Keeping this in mind, Obito deliberately bought several extra sets of tools. The shadow clones didn't waste words either; as soon as they appeared, they started practicing.

Besides the group gift, Obito hadn't forgotten his personal gift. He finally finished the design before going to bed.

"Good thing Rin thought of a good idea, otherwise I'd really be too busy." Obito sighed inwardly.

Practicing sculpture also helped him make the inkstone; if he switched to something else, he definitely wouldn't be able to do one well.

"I wonder how the others are doing?" When Obito lay in bed, he couldn't help but think about the others' statues.

First was Rin Nohara, who had given him the rock likeness. Rin had experience, so hers probably wouldn't be bad.

As for Kakashi and Shisui, Obito felt they might be similar to him, since they also knew Shadow Clone.

As for Might Guy, Obito wasn't sure.

Three days passed quickly. On the fourth day, all five disciples gathered with their own finished statues, ready to make Muyue's statue.

Since they needed to make things, they chose not to gather at the dango shop but at Kakashi's house.

"Kakashi, you're amazing! How did you do it?" Rin immediately spotted the lifelike statue of Kakashi on the table.

She leaned in to look, and saw that Kakashi had completed every detail: his face with a mask, his right hand holding the White Light Short Blade, posed as if charging forward to slash.

"Let me see." Obito, who had just entered, heard Rin Nohara praising Kakashi like this, and immediately sped over.

After seeing Kakashi's sculpture, Obito swallowed the words he had prepared in his mind; this level truly couldn't be criticized.

"Obito, what do you think? I really feel it looks just like Kakashi." Rin Nohara looked at Obito and asked with a smile.

"It's actually not bad, quite similar, but I feel there's still plenty of room for improvement," Obito commented in reply.

If it were Rin Nohara's work, he would say it was simply unbeatable, so amazing it couldn't be more amazing, exactly like the real person. But since it was Kakashi's work, Obito could only say it was okay and needed more practice.

"Obito, your standards are too high. Compared to mine, I think this is already impressive," Rin Nohara said as she placed her own sculpture on the table.

Obito looked at Rin Nohara's sculpture. Compared to Kakashi's, Rin's was indeed slightly rough; the facial carving was okay, but the clothes and other details were far from Kakashi's.

"I think you did a great job, Rin. It's not much worse than Kakashi's, just a different style," Obito praised.

Kakashi:...

"After all that talk, Obito, why don't you take yours out and let us see?" Kakashi asked calmly.

He had spent time carefully carving his sculpture with Earth Release; he didn't believe Obito could do better than him.

"Ahem, mine is quite different in style from both of yours—it's a bit more rugged." Feeling Rin Nohara's curious gaze, Obito placed his sculpture on the table as well.

Kakashi looked at Obito's sculpture. Obito had carved himself using Fire Release, with his palms together, little finger and ring finger crossed, and the remaining fingers raised—this was the Ram seal, typically the last hand seal for Fire Release.

But Obito had only managed to carve the fingers properly; the face was handled very roughly, and the goggles Obito usually wore were not present.

"It feels pretty good too. The hand seal gesture is very standard," Rin Nohara praised with a smile.

"It can't compare to yours, Rin. After all, I haven't really done this before," Obito chuckled.

"Only the hand seal pose is passable; the other parts are way too rough. And did you forget the goggles on your head?" Kakashi commented sharply.

Since he only rated Obito's as "just okay," he would use Obito's own standard to evaluate Obito's sculpture.

"I carved a day when I didn't want to wear goggles," Obito insisted stubbornly. In truth, it was because he couldn't handle that detail, so he simply omitted it, and he had spent a long time getting the hand seal fingers right.

"Really? I was thinking that if you really couldn't do it, I could help you with it. Since that's the case, then forget it," Kakashi said with a look of regret.

Although he had been harshly criticizing, Kakashi still wanted to make this gift for Muyue better; at least everyone should look like themselves.

"Uh... I..."

Obito wanted to see how Kakashi would do it, but he found it hard to say. Having to beg Kakashi was truly a pain.

"Actually, that day I must have forgotten to wear them—it wasn't that I didn't want to. Could you help me with it, Kakashi?" Obito finally spoke up.

Although saving face was important, the gift for Muyue was even more important.

"My rival, long time no see!" Might Guy walked in at that moment and greeted them.

Kakashi responded to Might Guy, then turned to Obito and asked, "What did you just say? I didn't hear you."

Obito thought to himself that Might Guy had really come at a bad time. Saying it once had already made him very uncomfortable, and now he had to say it a second time.

"I said, please help me—the sculpture forgot the goggles. Thank you." Obito mustered all his strength to say these words. After saying them, he felt as if ants were crawling all over his body.

A smile crept onto Kakashi's lips, and his face showed a thick amusement. Actually, he had heard; he had said that on purpose.

Seeing the amusement in Kakashi's eyes, Obito instantly felt he had been tricked, but there was nothing he could do. In the end, he could only shoot a "you'll pay for this" look and watch how Kakashi did it.

Kakashi took out a lump of earth, then formed hand seals and used Earth Release ninjutsu. Soon a pair of goggles was completed. Then Kakashi placed the goggles on Obito's sculpture, adjusted the size with Earth Release, and finally fused them together.

"So you used ninjutsu to finish it!" Obito was shocked, as if he had worked hard on his homework only to see someone cheat and copy it in a few minutes.

"What's wrong with using ninjutsu? Do you think it's easy to do such fine work with Earth Release?" Kakashi said calmly.

Obito couldn't argue; being able to use ninjutsu was also a skill.

In the end, all five of them brought out their sculptures. Obito found one that was even more rugged than his—it was Might Guy's.

Might Guy had carved himself using Leaf Whirlwind, with one leg kicking out.

"Guy, do you want to touch up the face? It looks a bit blurry," Obito suggested.

"No need, I feel it looks a lot like me," Might Guy waved his hand and said.

"Indeed, bushy brows and a bowl cut—you can recognize him at a glance," Kakashi acknowledged.

Might Guy's was indeed rough, but all the key features were there, making him even easier to recognize than Obito before he got his goggles.

Shisui's statue was in a short-blade training pose, his right hand thrusting the blade forward.

"Shisui, your weapon is so delicately made." Nohara Rin noticed the small short blade in Shisui's statue had quite a bit of detail.

"It took me a lot of time." Shisui nodded. The short blade on the statue was the one Mu Yue had given him as a birthday gift, and most of his time was spent on that.

"Kakashi handles the head, and Obito handles the hands…" Nohara Rin assigned tasks based on each person's strengths shown in their own statues.

Besides Mu Yue's body, there were other parts to make, like the statue's base and the scenery. For example, Nohara Rin wanted to add a broken tree next to her statue to make the training scene more authentic.

With everyone's efforts, Mu Yue's statue was completed, and the scene became richer.

Mu Yue stood at the very center of the entire work with a warm smile. Around Mu Yue were the five disciples: to the north, Shisui practicing with a short blade, beside him a wooden dummy cut in half.

To the south was Obito, in front of him the base showed explosion marks; to the west was Might Guy, kicking toward several large trees; to the east was Kakashi, with a chopped wooden stump before him; and to the southeast was Nohara Rin, beside a broken tree.

"Finally finished. But something this big would be a hassle to carry around." Obito wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Let's put it in the Southern Border Forest. We'll give Mu Yue-sensei his gift there." Kakashi suggested.

The other four agreed. If they carried something this big, Mu Yue would surely notice something, and the surprise wouldn't be as strong.

So the five of them went together to the Southern Border Forest at night, and Kakashi used Earth Release to bury the gift, which was packed in a large box.

…

Rock Shadow Village, Land of Earth, Tsuchikage Building Conference Room.

"Third Tsuchikage, will this action really make Cloud increase its forces to attack Leaf?" A long-bearded Rock elder expressed some confusion about Ōnoki's plan.

"Both jinchūriki have been sent out, and a large number of ninja are hidden inside the village."

"Don't worry. From my understanding of Cloud, they'll definitely think we don't have the strength to fight Leaf. To prevent us from withdrawing from the war, they'll send even stronger forces to attack Leaf." Ōnoki, sitting in a high chair, answered with a smile.

"By then, Cloud, Leaf, and Sand will all be deep in war. That will be the time for us to strike with full force."

"But relations between Cloud and us aren't good. They should be on guard against us, right?" Another elder pointed out a problem.

The ninja world was already in chaos, and Cloud and Rock were also at war.

"That's exactly why I want Cloud to underestimate us. Cloud is reckless; they definitely won't expect us to have an army of tens of thousands of ninja." Ōnoki elaborated on the benefits of feigning weakness.

Because of its terrain, the Land of Earth is hard to invade. Even if he showed weakness, the enemy would have to consider that. For a weak but tough‑to‑crack Land of Earth, Cloud would surely choose the Land of Fire and fight Leaf.

Once they figured out the foundations of the other major hidden villages, that would be the time for their Rock army to strike.

"Sand is weak, Cloud is reckless, and Leaf is showing signs of decline. The winner of this war will be us, Rock!" Ōnoki said confidently.

In the past, when their Rock delegation went to Leaf to form an alliance, they were humiliated, and Ōnoki and his teacher, the Second Tsuchikage Mū, were both seriously injured. This time he would make Leaf see Rock's power and force Leaf to sue for peace.

"Before that, we cannot withdraw from the war. We must keep sending ninja to fight." Ōnoki began arranging the next moves.

If he suddenly stopped fighting, the other villages would definitely become secretly suspicious of him.

4.2k, one more chapter to come.