Chapter 366: Powerful Flying Thunder God

"In the end, I still have to fight against Minato-sensei." Obito sighed inwardly as he looked at the smiling Minato before him.

Obito eyed Minato warily. After today's training, Rin would return to Tsunade's side again to study, and they wouldn't see each other for a while. He wanted to look cool in Rin's memories.

Kakashi also concentrated all his attention, staring intently at Minato.

As Minato's student, he had gone on many missions with Minato and knew well how terrifying Minato's strength was.

Even when facing a fearsome enemy like the candidate Raikage, Minato could still lead them to escape unscathed.

"Begin!"

The moment Minato finished speaking, a large number of shuriken and a giant fireball hurtled toward him.

Minato calmly threw out five Flying Thunder God kunai around him.

Seeing this, Kakashi frowned. This was the unsolvable nature of the Flying Thunder God—even with his own speed, he couldn't simultaneously cover all five positions.

Kakashi's mind raced. He guessed that Minato would attack Rin, a medical ninja, first, so he immediately burst into top speed and charged toward the kunai near Rin.

Both Obito and Rin already understood the ability of the Flying Thunder God, so as soon as Minato threw out the kunai, they immediately retreated some distance.

Swoosh!

Minato predicted Kakashi's prediction, moved to the Flying Thunder God kunai near Obito, then at incredible speed threw out three more Flying Thunder God kunai, each aimed at the three of them.

While the Flying Thunder God kunai were still in flight, Minato directly activated the Flying Thunder God and approached Rin and Kakashi.

"Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!"

Worried about Rin, Obito spat out a large number of small fireballs directly at Minato's location.

But what Obito didn't expect was that Minato disappeared the instant he appeared, and then instantly reappeared next to the Flying Thunder God kunai that was flying toward Obito.

Obito's pupils constricted sharply. He dared not be careless against Minato. From the very start, he had entered Flame Breathing Chakra Mode and activated his Sharingan. With the Sharingan's support, he could see it, but his body couldn't react to the oncoming Minato.

Bang!

Obito took Minato's palm strike squarely, flew three meters, and slammed heavily into the ground.

Only then did Kakashi realize just how much Minato had held back during the bell-snatching exercise. Minato could use the Flying Thunder God to move continuously in such a short time.

If he didn't open the Transparent World, he wouldn't even register that Minato had arrived until after Minato had left. This showed how terrifying Minato's speed was.

"Water Style: Water Dragon Bullet Technique!"

Rin rapidly formed hand seals,凝聚出一条水龙 and charged it toward Minato.

Swoosh!

Minato's figure flickered and vanished, reappearing next to the Flying Thunder God kunai he had thrown at the start, easily dodging the Water Dragon Bullet.

Kakashi's eyes flickered, and a bold tactic came to mind.

He looked at Obito, who had stood up with a koi carp flip, signaled with his eyes, and pointed one finger at the ground and then at Minato.

Although he didn't know exactly what Kakashi was planning, Obito roughly understood what Kakashi wanted him to do.

"Fire Style: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet!"

Since he had entered Flame Breathing Chakra Mode from the very start of the battle, Obito smoothly converted most of his chakra into fire-nature chakra and expelled it.

Obito's chakra drained rapidly, and more and more flames were expelled until eventually they formed a sea of fire burning with terrifying temperatures.

The sea of fire covered all the Flying Thunder God kunai, and under Obito's control, it split into three streams of flame that surged toward Minato.

This was Obito's all-out fire release; after this technique, he would have only ten percent of his chakra left.

Obito knew this fire release wouldn't defeat Minato. If he ended up losing badly, he would unhesitatingly shift the blame onto Kakashi, since it was Kakashi who made him do it.

The towering flames surged toward Minato, even covering his body.

Kakashi didn't focus on Minato. He held his breath and concentrated all his attention on Obito, slowly closing the distance between himself and Obito.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!!

Brilliant yellow lightning manifested on Kakashi's body. Against the surrounding sea of red flames, this flash of yellow was particularly dazzling.

Kakashi simultaneously controlled lightning-nature chakra to activate his body and enhance his strength, while focusing his breathing to the extreme. Then, using the Transparent World, he integrated all his power and swung that one blade, fusing all his strength into it.

Swoosh!

Just as Obito was using his Sharingan to watch whether the flames could hit Minato, a figure silently appeared behind Obito.

"Lightning Flash!"

Kakashi exploded with all his strength, the White Fang Short Blade turning into a long lightning-edged blade in that instant, and Kakashi himself shot toward the figure behind Obito like a bolt of lightning.

Boom!

A thunderous roar erupted, the dazzling electric light seeming to tear everything apart, and the air itself grew murderous under this terrifying pressure.

Minato’s arrival and Kakashi’s attack all happened in an instant. Even though it wasn’t aimed at him, because the distance was so close, alarm bells rang loudly in Obito’s mind.

Faced with Kakashi’s charge, a look of approving praise appeared on Minato’s face.

But just as the lightning-edged blade in Kakashi’s hand was about to close in on Minato, a kunai broke through the flames and flew toward him.

Swoosh!

Boom!!

The loud sound of lightning striking the ground rang out, and a long, narrow, scorched slash mark appeared behind Obito. Under Kakashi’s excellent control, Obito’s clothes weren’t even singed by the electricity.

Thump!

A tremendous force struck Kakashi’s back, sending him crashing to the ground.

Obito used his remaining chakra to throw a Fire Fist at Minato.

Swoosh!

Minato’s form flickered and appeared behind Obito again. He threw a punch that sent Obito sprawling to the ground as well.

At that moment, Rin Nohara arrived just in time. She pushed her Water Breathing to the limit and launched an attack at Minato.

Next, Minato made Rin understand that even without the Flying Thunder God, his strength was still formidable.

In less than three minutes, all three of them were lying neatly on the ground.

"The Sharingan’s copying ability is so useless. It’s supposed to copy techniques, but the moment you run into something powerful, it can’t copy it," Obito couldn’t help complaining.

He had once tried to use the Sharingan to copy Muyue’s other Breathing Chakra Modes, but unsurprisingly failed; he also failed to copy Armament Haki, and when he tried to copy Minato’s Flying Thunder God, he failed again.

Obito didn’t know what good the Sharingan’s copying ability was. For easy techniques, couldn’t he just practice them himself?

"Actually, most techniques can be copied, but my Flying Thunder God Technique just happens not to be one of them," Minato said with a smile to comfort him.

"Obito, you need to pay more attention to details in battle." Then Minato began his debriefing.

"The moment I hit you, I had already placed the Flying Thunder God technique mark on your body, but you didn’t notice it. Kakashi, however, did. This is something you need to learn from Kakashi."

"But your cooperation was pretty good, and Obito, you acted very decisively and are very skilled with Fire Release — that’s quite good." After pointing out Obito’s shortcomings, Minato immediately praised him.

That Fire Release just now was indeed very impressive, even stronger than during the Chunin Exams. It was clear he had put in a lot of effort in training.

"Hehe." Obito gave a sly grin.

"Kakashi, you performed very well. When you noticed that Obito had my technique mark on him, you immediately came up with a response and executed it. But are you perhaps ignoring Rin’s strength a bit? You lack cooperation with her." Minato pointed out Kakashi’s problem.

In Minato’s view, even though Kakashi had a few minor issues at the moment, his overall performance was good enough to serve as a Konoha jonin.

Kakashi was excellent in his own raw strength, his handling of problems, and his tactics.

The reason he lost was not his fault; it was simply because the gap in strength between them was too large. For Minato, killing an ordinary jonin was not much different from killing a genin.

Kakashi nodded, admitting his mistake. He really hadn’t paid attention to Rin Nohara’s strength.

It wasn’t that Kakashi had any negative feelings toward Rin Nohara; rather, her strength subconsciously made him think she couldn’t be of use in such a fight.

Even if he were to let Rin join his strength and fight again right now, he felt the result wouldn’t change.

As a medical-nin and part-time support, Rin could only be effective when the gap in strength wasn’t particularly large, and the gap between them and Minato happened to be enormous.

If his teammate were Might Guy, Kakashi would have adopted an entirely different strategy, because Might Guy’s strength was no less than his or Obito’s, and he could provide considerable assistance.

"Rin, you have done very well in your medical ninjutsu training. Keep it up, and maybe one day you’ll become a great medical-nin like Lady Tsunade," Minato encouraged Rin Nohara, who was treating Kakashi and Obito.

Rin’s expression was a little odd. Before, she would have definitely thanked Minato, but after spending some time with Tsunade, the idol’s halo had pretty much shattered.

Although Rin Nohara still thought Tsunade was a great medical-nin, becoming Tsunade was out of the question; she didn't want her future self to be someone who woke up at noon with a hangover.

"I will train hard," Rin Nohara replied with a determined look.

She knew she had been a burden in this battle, and after returning, she would study medical ninjutsu more seriously.

Minato looked pleased, then reminded Obito and Kakashi of some issues.

Although Obito could use a very powerful Fire Release and Kakashi could use a very powerful slash attack, Minato noticed that these consumed a lot of chakra and physical strength, so they should be used carefully in battle.

Actually, Obito knew this too—after all, he had trained for so long, and Muyue had told him countless times.

Because it was training and he wanted to look cool, he directly activated the Flame Breathing Chakra Mode; in a real battle, he would definitely only activate it at critical moments.

The Flame Breathing Chakra Mode consumed too much chakra; even standing still, it continuously drains the body's chakra, and using ninjutsu consumes even more.

PS: I overestimated myself; I only wrote 7.2k words. It's already past 2 a.m. now, and I can't hold on any longer because it's too late.