Chapter 644: Challenging the Strong

After a brief exchange, the Mist ninjas quickly led the Leaf exchange team into the Hidden Mist Village.

Once inside the village, Obito couldn't help looking around with curious eyes. This wasn't his first time visiting another ninja village, but it was his first time at one of the major ones.

Seemingly for concealment, the Hidden Mist Village was built deep in the mountains, surrounded by towering peaks, making the terrain extremely complex.

"The residents of the Mist Village probably rarely leave; otherwise, this would be too exhausting," Obito thought to himself with a mental complaint.

Even as a ninja, he found it a bit winding, let alone ordinary people.

Still, even if the terrain weren't so complex, the Mist Village's residents probably wouldn't leave much anyway—after all, a ninja village has the nature of a military base.

Perhaps because they arrived at night, Obito felt the Mist Village was far less prosperous than Konoha.

"It's probably also related to the difficult terrain here. Teacher Muyue said that for economic development, transportation conditions can't be poor," Obito analyzed inwardly.

He figured that if he were a merchant caravan leader, he wouldn't want to do business in the Mist either—aside from just finding the village, trekking through all those mountains would be exhausting.

"Then we won't disturb your rest." The Mist ninjas left after leading the Leaf exchange team to the reception area.

Considering the Leaf exchange team's travel fatigue, the exchange meeting wouldn't start for two more days, leaving ample time to rest.

"Rest well here tonight, and don't run around the Mist Village," Yuuhi Shinku instructed after assigning the rooms.

The Mist Village certainly wouldn't resort to underhanded tactics. At this point, backstabbing Konoha would leave no place for the Mist in the ninja world.

He worried that individual Mist ninjas whose family or friends had died fighting Konoha might not control their hatred and attack members of the Leaf exchange team.

After all, just a few months ago, the Mist and Leaf were still sending ninja squads to fight each other. Such an incident was entirely possible.

Although Konoha's strength could force the Mist to give a satisfactory response afterward, being attacked would still be a terrible experience for the Leaf ninjas involved, so it was best to avoid it if possible.

The Leaf ninjas all responded in unison.

In truth, most of them had no desire to go out exploring either; they just wanted a good, solid sleep.

The room assignment rule was that two chunin shared one room, jonin got their own, and except for married ninjas, no mixed-gender rooming was allowed.

Since there was still some time before sleep, Obito called Kakashi, Rin Nohara, and Anko to his room to chat.

"It's too early to sleep now. Let's talk about something," Obito suggested.

Hearing Obito's words, Gōzu Tetsu's weary expression faded a bit, and he asked, "Captain Obito, can you tell us about your mission experiences?"

After hearing Obito briefly recount the Snow Country mission on the boat, Gōzu Tetsu had become curious about Obito's mission history.

"Mission experiences? What kind of mission do you want to hear?" Obito scratched his head and asked.

Thinking back carefully, they really had done a lot of missions over the past few years—all kinds.

"Tell us something that sounds amazing, like the kind of plot you'd see in a story about ninjas," Gōzu Tetsu replied excitedly.

"Something like that..." Obito wore a thoughtful expression.

If we're talking amazing, the Loulan mission was definitely the most amazing—a future ninja traveling through time to the present. That kind of plot is rare even in ninja stories.

But time travel was still inconvenient to talk about and sounded ridiculous. If Obito hadn't experienced it himself, he'd find it hard to believe such a thing really happened.

Obito thought for a moment, then said, "I don't know why, but Kakashi tends to jinx us during missions. His words have caused unexpected trouble several times."

Kakashi:...

He wanted to refute Obito, but that period really had been like that. He firmly believed nothing would go wrong, and every time he said that, something happened.

"When you're on a mission, never say stuff like 'nothing will go wrong.' Who knows—you might run into the Raikage or something," Obito said solemnly.

"That can't be, right? Running into the Raikage just because of a few words?"

Shizuka Izumo felt that was even more far-fetched than the lies adults use to scare kids from going out at night.

"We didn't actually meet the Raikage, but we did run into the Third Raikage's son—the substitute Raikage—along with some Cloud jonin and chunin. And that time we were only passing through on a C-rank mission," Obito recalled.

Shizuka Izumo's eyes widened. A substitute Raikage plus multiple jonin—that would be top-tier difficulty even for an S-rank mission.

A C-rank mission just casually ran into that?

"Oh, right, I think I wasn't even a full ninja yet back then—I was still a trainee."

Shizuka Izumo:...

Isn't an internship supposed to be about weeding and picking up trash? Why is Obito's internship different from his?

Shingetsu Izumo showed a hint of unwillingness. He suddenly realized that compared to Obito, he was as ordinary as a background character among ninjas.

"That time was indeed very dangerous. Luckily, Muyue-sensei was there," Might Guy nodded.

At that time, they were facing a strong enemy like the candidate Raikage, and they could only be instantly killed.

"Since Muyue-sensei was by our side, there wouldn't have been any danger at all," Kongo Shibuki said.

The new AB Combination was very famous in the ninja world, but they were not on the same level as Muyue.

"Muyue-sensei at that time wasn't as strong as now, but still very strong. Muyue-sensei alone held off the AB Combination and most of the Kumogakure ninjas," Obito explained.

"Only one chunin and one jonin got around Muyue-sensei and caught up to us."

Hearing this, Kakashi felt something was off.

"At that time, a certain 'official' ninja in our team, still a chunin, insisted on showing off by covering our retreat alone, letting Guy and me, the two interns, escape."

"But when the fighting started, that certain chunin was finished in just a few moves."

"Then when the enemy was about to be defeated, he suddenly got up and snatched the kill, saying something like 'genius'... mmmph."

Unable to hold back, Kakashi stepped forward and covered Obito's mouth.

He had blurted it out in the heat of the moment; looking back now, it was really embarrassing.

"So who was that chunin?" Anko asked.

"Haha, who could it be? So hard to guess," Shingetsu Izumo said evasively, his eyes drifting to the ceiling.

"Yeah, it feels like even a lifetime wouldn't be enough to guess if Obito-taicho didn't tell us," Kongo Shibuki said with mock seriousness.

In the end, the topic was skipped on Kakashi's strong suggestion, and they moved on to other subjects.

For example, whether they sold red bean dumplings in the Land of Water, famous scenic spots in Kirigakure, and the most serious discussion about Kirigakure's genius ninjas.

"If no new ninjas appear, the strongest genius in Kirigakure should be that Terumi Mei or Hoshigaki Kisame, right?" Obito said.

In the second exam of the Chunin Exams, Terumi Mei's powerful Water Release had made Obito suffer a considerable loss, which is why he remembered it vividly.

But that was in the past; in fact, Obito had won back in the third exam.

By the time they met again at the Youth Martial Arts Tournament, their strength was no longer on the same level.

"Hoshigaki Kisame? Obito, you misremembered. I recall Kirigakure has a ninja named Hoshigaki Kamon," Might Guy said with certainty, rubbing his chin.

Obito was speechless. Is the world turned upside down? Might Guy, the guy who never remembers names, was correcting him.

"Anyway, I'm not interested in their young jonin. If I'm going to fight, I'll fight those jonin with real strength," Obito said.

Fighting a jonin like Terumi Mei now would be pure bullying, and Obito wasn't interested in that.

He wanted to fight the strong, the famous strong ninjas of Kirigakure!

Let those old fogies in Kirigakure see what a Konoha genius really is!

"Consult with Captain Shinju before doing anything. Don't suddenly bring it up at the exchange meet," Kakashi reminded.

The rule of the exchange meet was that ninjas of similar age and rank would interact. There would be no battles like a chunin vs a jonin, or a thirteen-year-old jonin vs a thirty-year-old jonin.

Obito clearly wanted to bypass this rule and challenge someone stronger.

If Obito, without telling anyone, suddenly did this during the exchange meet, from Kirigakure's perspective, it would look like Konoha was provoking and testing.

And on Konoha's side, Obito would be acting on his own, damaging diplomatic relations, pleasing neither side.

If Obito wanted to become Hokage, this would be a significant stain.

"I know that. I'll report it tomorrow," Obito nodded.

If Yuhi Shinju disagreed, Obito wouldn't insist; he'd just treat it as a trip.

After all, it wasn't that important.

"This is youth! I'll also challenge a powerful Kirigakure ninja!"

Might Guy gave Obito a thumbs up, ready to join in.

He joined the exchange meet just to challenge the strong; only later did he learn the rules.

Gangzi Tie and Shenyue Chuyun watched the two with envy; this was the ninja life they dreamed of.

Protect the princess, crush conspiracies, and become a national hero.

Possessing strength far beyond his peers, he never worried about opponents being too strong, only about them being too weak.

Even ordinary missions could unexpectedly become extraordinary.

Shenyue Chuyun thought it over and decided against the last one; Obito and the others' method of creating accidents could easily lead to deaths.

If it weren't for Mu Yue being there, and Obito and the others themselves being strong enough, anyone else would have had grass growing on their graves by now.

The next morning.

After breakfast, Obito, Might Guy, and Kakashi went together to find Xiri Zhenhong.

Although Kakashi hadn't mentioned it during yesterday's chat, he too had come with the intention of training his swordsmanship; given the choice, he certainly wanted to challenge stronger opponents.

"I'll contact the Kirigakure side and see what they think." Xiri Zhenhong did not give a direct agreement.

As a Konoha ninja, he certainly wanted to see Konoha ninjas shine brilliantly at the exchange meet.

But since it involved diplomacy between the two villages, he couldn't let Obito and the others act rashly.

Konoha was very strong now, but casually abandoning an ally of a major ninja village level was still not a wise move.

Having earned one million ryō, you wouldn't just throw one hundred thousand ryō on the ground, and besides, Xiri Zhenhong didn't have the authority to discard that one hundred thousand ryō either.

Over in Kirigakure, after receiving the news, the Third Mizukage summoned Genji and Yagura to ask for their opinions.

PS:

First update of the day, there's another chapter coming; it should be before 3 o'clock.

If it's not updated by 3 o'clock, you might have to wait until tomorrow.

Because my condition was already not very good while writing this chapter toward the end, I'm not sure if I can finish it. But if I don't finish, I can't stay up either; the holiday is over, and I have to go to work.