Chapter 568: Training Team

In the north of the Land of Fields, a large group of Kumogakure ninjas gathered, with the Fourth Raikage standing before them as commander.

"No matter what problems arise, you must reach the border of the Land of Fire within the planned time!" the Fourth Raikage said sternly.

This time, the ninja force sent by Kumogakure consisted of a total of twelve hundred ninjas.

A large ninja force like this, moving rapidly through a small country like the Land of Fields, would easily attract attention.

To avoid exposing their movements, they split into twelve squads acting in sequence.

The Land of Fields bordered the Land of Hot Water. If they were discovered too early, Orochimaru's forces would quickly arrive, making all the previous preparations useless.

"We will complete the mission!" the captains of each squad replied in unison.

"Move out!" The Fourth Raikage nodded with satisfaction and gave the order.

With the Fourth Raikage's command, the leading squads quickly headed off in different directions.

On the other side, the Kumogakure ninja squad in the Land of Hot Water also began their operations.

Not only did they not hide their movements, but they actively appeared near towns in the Land of Hot Water, carrying out aggressive assassinations against Konoha ninjas, as if intent on eliminating all Konoha ninjas in the Land of Hot Water.

The Konoha ninjas in the Land of Hot Water quickly made various battle preparations, because this was not the first time Kumogakure had acted this way—every time they were about to launch a large-scale offensive, it looked like this.

"Increase patrol squads and focus surveillance on the border between the Land of Hot Water and the Land of Fields." That was Orochimaru's response to Kumogakure's actions.

It wasn't just ninja-to-ninja combat that relied heavily on intelligence; intelligence was equally important in ninja unit warfare.

Until he gathered intelligence on the Kumogakure ninja forces, he could not act rashly.

Land of Fire, Konoha.

To make up for the strength lost from Root, Hiruzen Sarutobi assigned Muyue a task, requiring him to quickly build an ANBU squad capable of functioning in wartime.

Without a doubt, this was an extremely difficult task, harder than any previous teaching assignment.

Fortunately, Hiruzen Sarutobi didn't just give orders and leave Muyue to struggle on his own.

Hiruzen Sarutobi gathered former ninjas who had retired from ANBU, and among them, those willing to return to ANBU joined the training team as Muyue's subordinates.

These ninjas basically didn't require much worry from Muyue; after a period of rehabilitation, they would become qualified ANBU operatives.

Then, for a batch of promising members, Hiruzen Sarutobi personally approached the major ninja clans and selected some ninjas from their families to enter the training team.

Although ordinary ninjas weren't necessarily inferior to clan ninjas, due to the established training systems, most clan ninjas were still superior to ordinary ones.

When all preparations for the training team were complete, Shisui also received a notice from Muyue.

To make a good impression on his new colleagues, Shisui carefully checked his appearance before leaving, making sure nothing was amiss.

Probably because he was too young, as Shisui walked all the way to the equipment department to pick up his gear, almost every ANBU he passed gave him a look.

Fortunately, Muyue had already informed some ANBU in advance, so no ninja complained with "whose kid is this" and kicked Shisui out of the base.

"This is your full set of gear. If it's damaged, you can come here to get new equipment," said the ANBU member at the equipment department, handing a long box to Shisui.

"Thank you." Shisui took the box with both hands and nodded in thanks.

Then, following his memory, Shisui went to the room designated for changing clothes.

When Muyue notified him, he had shown Shisui a map of the Root base. Shisui memorized the entire map—what each room was for and where it was located—he remembered it all clearly.

Shisui opened the box in the changing room and found only three items inside: a fox mask, a long sword, and at the bottom, a standard ANBU combat uniform.

The training team was a specially organized branch of ANBU; in essence, they were still ANBU, so their equipment was identical to that of regular ANBU.

Shisui quickly changed into the ANBU combat uniform and put on the mask, then locked his old clothes in a locker.

After changing into the uniform, Shisui went to the training team's captain's office.

Knock, knock.

Shisui lightly tapped on the wooden door of the office.

"Come in."

A voice extremely familiar to Shisui reached his ears.

Shisui pushed open the wooden door and entered the office.

"Teacher Muyue." Zhishui blurted out looking at Muyue sitting in the office chair, then quickly corrected himself: "Captain Muyue."

He was reporting to the training team, and Zhishui thought it would be better to be more serious at this moment.

"No need for that. When there's no one else around, you can be as usual." Muyue said with a smile.

Hearing Muyue's words, Zhishui relaxed a bit.

Due to the lack of time, the training team's base was basically the same as the former Root base, giving an overall feeling of darkness and oppression. Coupled with the dark side of ANBU that Zhishui had never understood, it was inevitable that he would be somewhat nervous.

"Generally, ANBU members have their own codenames, and they use them to address each other during missions. You can first give yourself a codename." Muyue said as he took out a small notebook.

"For example, my codename is Night."

Night was Muyue's codename in Root. He didn't plan to change it; after all, codenames meant nothing to him.

Ordinary ANBU use codenames to hide information, but Muyue's reputation was too great. Once he took action, no codename or mask was of any use.

"Then I'll go with Fire." Zhishui said after thinking.

He wanted to become the fire that lights the way for the Uchiha, hoping his actions would burn away the Uchiha's predicament like a fire burning weeds.

"Are you sure about Fire? Although it's not impossible to change, it will cause some minor trouble." Muyue asked again.

After getting Zhishui's confirmation, Muyue filled in the information for Zhishui.

"Let's go meet your colleagues." Muyue glanced at the time and said as he stood up.

Zhishui nodded and followed Muyue to the training team's meeting room.

Since it was still early before the scheduled meeting time, there were no ninjas in the meeting room when Muyue and Zhishui arrived. It was only after they had been sitting for a while that the ninjas began to arrive one after another.

"Captain Muyue." The incoming ANBU members greeted Muyue one after another.

This meeting was only for squad leaders and above in the ANBU.

And in the current training team, besides Zhishui, the squad leaders and platoon leaders were all rehired veteran ANBU. Although it was also their first day with the training team, they had long received information about the training team from Hiruzen Sarutobi and knew that Muyue was the training team's captain.

Muyue responded to each with a smile.

When the tenth ANBU ninja walked into the meeting room and sat down, Muyue coughed softly twice and quickly swept his gaze over all the ANBU ninjas.

A normal ANBU squad consists of four platoons, each platoon with 17 people, led by one platoon leader, and further divided into four squads.

However, considering the actual situation, the training team currently only had two platoons and eight squads, with a total of thirty-five ninjas in the entire training team.

"In the first month, regular training team members will focus on intensive training in abilities such as intelligence gathering and combat proficiency. Meanwhile, squad leaders and above will focus on learning the Darkness Calling Method." Muyue explained his teaching plan.

Because they were all rehired veteran ANBU, they had not mastered the Darkness Calling Method, a secret technique that current ANBU must learn.

Fortunately, the new ANBU had many courses to learn, so Muyue could let the veteran ANBU master part of the Darkness Calling Method first, and then let the new ANBU learn from the veteran ANBU.

"Becoming an ANBU captain at such a young age, a promising future." An ANBU squad leader thought with admiration as he looked at Muyue's youthful face.

He had experienced several ANBU captains, but had never seen one as young as Muyue. Even Hiruzen Sarutobi's son was inferior to Muyue.

Zhishui listened seriously to what Muyue was saying, occasionally taking notes in a small notebook he carried with him.

His memory was good, but he couldn't remember everything after hearing it once.

The meeting lasted about an hour. When Muyue said the meeting was adjourned, Zhishui closed his notebook.

Because the Uchiha clan liked to hold clan meetings, Zhishui was no stranger to meetings.

However, the training team's meeting still gave Zhishui a lot of novelty.

Because in Uchiha clan meetings, the clan head usually sat above and spoke little, while the opposite was true for the training team—most of the speaking was done by Muyue.

After the meeting, Zhishui packed up and started looking for his subordinates.

"Squad Seven..." Zhishui silently recited the number of his squad, recalling the floor plan of the training team base in his mind.

When Zhishui found the location of his squad, he discovered that all the members of his squad had already arrived.

Although everyone was wearing masks, Zhishui still recognized them through the data he had seen before.

The male ninja with a ponytail was a ninja from the Nara clan, named Nara Shiomizu.

The female ninja beside him, who had a white canine ninja beast, was a ninja from the Inuzuka clan, named Inuzuka Green.

After identifying these two, the remaining one didn't need to be recognized — it was Aburame Naoya, a ninja of the Aburame clan.

Shisui was quite satisfied with these subordinates of his.

Nara Enshui mastered the Shadow Imitation Technique with strong control capabilities; Inuzuka Midori had excellent taijutsu and could lead her ninja dog at the front to hold off enemies; the Aburame with his insect manipulation technique was a versatile little expert—in intelligence, he could use insects to gather information, and in combat, he could use insects to absorb chakra.

When the three combined, their combat could produce an effect of one plus one plus one greater than three.

"Whose kid is this?" Inuzuka Midori looked at the short figure approaching, showing a stunned expression, and blurted out without thinking.

Shisui:...

He seemed not so satisfied after all.

"Ahem, ahem." Nara Enshui coughed twice to remind her.

At this time, the one coming over was usually their superior.

Moreover, although Shisui was short in stature, he was neatly dressed in an Anbu uniform—how could he be mistaken for a child leader who had wandered into an important place?

"Hehe, I meant it's amazing to become an Anbu member at such a young age." Inuzuka Midori laughed sheepishly to salvage the situation.

When her family notified her, Inuzuka Midori was quite bewildered—she hadn't done anything special, so how had she, a piece of gold that hadn't yet shone, been discovered?

"He's a Training Team member." Nara Enshui corrected.

The Training Team was a special unit, still somewhat different from ordinary Anbu members.

"Alright, then it's amazing to become a Training Team member at such a young age." Repeating herself made Inuzuka Midori lose enthusiasm, and she read it flatly.

Shisui gave Inuzuka Midori a suspicious glance; he always had a feeling that under the mask it might be Obito.

"I am Uchiha Shisui, my codename in the Training Team is Fire, and I am your squad leader." Shisui took off his mask and introduced himself.

Wearing a mask was to prevent being recognized by others, not to prevent teammates from knowing who he was.

"So it's him, that's not surprising." Nara Enshui was surprised inwardly.

Of course he couldn't not know Uchiha Shisui—after all, he was the youngest genius in Konoha's history and had achieved a top-four finish in the previous Youth Martial Arts Tournament, which was packed with geniuses.

With Shisui's strength, becoming the squad leader of the Training Team was more than enough.

"Now you can think about the codenames you will use when performing missions in the Training Team. This will likely accompany your entire Training Team career, so try to be thoughtful." Shisui continued.

The documents said that Nara Enshui and Inuzuka Midori had previously been members of the same squad, so Shisui directly skipped the round of self-introductions for everyone.

He only needed to let Nara Enshui and the others understand him.

"Codename, yeah, it's really important." Inuzuka Midori nodded in agreement.

The codename was the name used on missions, and names are certainly important; otherwise communication during missions would be embarrassing.

"In that case, my codename will be Super Raging Dog Warrior!" Inuzuka Midori said with a flash of inspiration.

Shisui studied Inuzuka Midori — was she really not related to Obito?

"That won't do, it's too long. One or two characters is better." Shisui ruthlessly rejected it.

Actually, he didn't know if the Training Team had such a rule for codenames, but whenever Shisui imagined himself communicating with Inuzuka Midori in the future and she might reply with "Super Raging Dog Warrior, roger," he could barely keep a straight face.

"Eh, then just call me Dog." Inuzuka Midori said with a disappointed look.

With only one or two characters allowed, Inuzuka Midori couldn't think of any cool codename, so she simply took a word from the codename she had thought up.

"Then my codename will be Deer." Nara Enshui said after thinking for a moment.

He couldn't think of a good codename and felt it wasn't worth wasting that many brain cells on it, so he directly used his clan's symbol as his codename.

"Bug." Aburame Naoya said concisely.

Shisui nodded, didn't dwell on the codename step, and began the second part of his planned schedule.

"Follow me." Shisui said to his three subordinates.

Having said that, Shisui walked toward the Training Team's training ground.

Shisui knew the information on Nara Enshui and the others, but they still didn't know Shisui's information.

Although at this stage Nara Enshui and the others would not receive combat missions, Shisui felt it was still necessary to become familiar with each other's abilities.

Moreover, combat training is also an important part of training.

Today I was too tired; while writing, I lay down on the bed for a short while, and unexpectedly fell asleep...

So the update was two hours late.

As long as I haven't posted a leave notice, there is usually an update, just the time is uncertain: mhtxs

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