After breakfast, Hii Kōri didn't continue his research.
With such a major incident occurring in the ninja world, the village was bound to react. Even if he tried to research, it wouldn't be peaceful.
Sure enough, not long after, an Anbu pushed open the workshop door to notify him of a meeting.
Taking the dedicated channel, using Body Flicker Technique a few times, he arrived at the Kazekage Building's conference room. Pushing open the door and entering, quite a few people were somewhat surprised by his arrival.
Hii Kōri had been promoted to jōnin two years ago. As the youngest jōnin in Sunagakure's history—and indeed in the entire ninja world's history—Hii Kōri rarely participated in jōnin squad meetings.
He didn't participate in any of the bickering matters like decision voting or policy discussions; his votes were directly counted under Chiyo's name.
When it came down to it, the broad framework of those policy resolutions had probably been worked out directly with Chiyo—who had become an elder—and the Third Kazekage at the dinner table or when he went to the office to feed the Super Magnetic Escape Man.
The vast majority of occasions when Hii Kōri showed up at jōnin squad meetings were to "snatch people, snatch money, snatch resources"—usually, at times like this, the jōnin from the Sealing Team and Puppeteer Team would also stand behind him.
In the end, the situation would generally evolve into him and Chiyo, representing the Medical Corps, slamming tables and yelling at each other, making people exclaim at such a fine display of motherly kindness and filial piety.
The Barrier Team, having no consumables and not being particularly short of funding, would stay out of it.
Because of this, Hii Kōri had earned the playful nickname "Suna's Little Bandit Chief."
Of course, the other jōnin had no objections to this.
Although over ninety percent of his Mission resumes were village-issued internal missions, which smacked a bit of padding performance metrics, and some jōnin might have doubts about Hii Kōri's actual strength, no one would ever question his brain.
The trilogy of textbooks—Barrier Technique Basics That Even Boars Can Understand, Detailed Explanation of Barrier Technique Practical Application and Principles That Even Monkeys Can Learn, and Advanced Barrier Technique Skills That Humans Can Attempt, or the "Evolution of Barrier Techniques" trilogy—hadn't just been read by Barrier Team ninja.
After being educated by Barrier Team students that "not everyone can learn calculus before fourteen," Hii Kōri had practically crushed those general knowledge into pieces and recompiled this set of textbooks.
For ordinary ninja, even if they didn't plan to learn Barrier Techniques, they could still use these three textbooks to learn to distinguish barrier types and response methods.
Besides that, there were reinforced tattoos and cursed tools based on Sealing Techniques, a compendium of Wind Release techniques simplified and organized for genin, chūnin, and jōnin levels respectively, high-transparency reinforced glass for the outer layers of vegetable greenhouses...
Whether civilian or ninja, there was no doubt that everyone had benefited from Hii Kōri's research.
So what if he padded performance metrics? A research & development jōnin was still a jōnin!
So what if he grabbed funding? That money damn well should go to him!
Shut up and take my money!
But this time, with Kumogakure stirring up such a huge disturbance, even Hii Kōri couldn't ignore it.
"The Second Raikage was ambushed and killed by the Kinkaku and Ginkaku brothers at the alliance signing venue. Tobirama Senju, to cover his subordinates' retreat, fought the Kinkaku and Ginkaku brothers and their twenty-plus elite jōnin alone before perishing."
He took the distributed incident summary and flipped through it, his expression gradually became subtle.
Although the briefly summarized content was quite abstract, thinking carefully, it wasn't incomprehensible.
As veterans of Kumogakure, monsters bearing the Six Paths Tools and Nine-Tails chakra, the Kinkaku and Ginkaku brothers were undoubtedly also Kage-level powerhouses.
Similarly, their understanding of the Second Raikage must have been quite deep. With the prepared striking the unprepared, it was normal for two Kage-level sneak attack on the Second Raikage to succeed.
The situation at the time was probably that the Second Raikage was ambushed and severely wounded, killed on the spot without putting up much of a fight, while Tobirama Senju took the opportunity to retreat with his subordinates amidst the chaos.
If it were just him alone, with the Flying Thunder God Technique—the space–time ninjutsu that earned him the title of fastest shinobi in the world—Tobirama Senju could indeed have escaped.
But this alliance, he seemed to have brought six disciples serving as his guard. With their speed, it would probably have been difficult for them to escape from Kumogakure ninja specializing in Lightning Release. That must be why Tobirama Senju decided to hold the rear himself.
After all, Tobirama Senju was sixty years old. Judging by future value, his disciples were more important to Konoha.
And this was the part that most made Hii Kōri lose it.
Wait, those two brothers really only had twenty-some people under them?
A Kage whose physical condition had declined for years, whose strength was long past its peak, actually single-handedly held twenty-some elite jōnin and two "semi-Nine-Tails jinchūriki" in place, and even managed to take Kinkaku down with him in the end?
At first glance, this seemed somewhat outrageous—after all, even colors can't just go around soloing in one level—but applied to Tobirama Senju, it was understandable.
Everyone in the ninja world knew that Tobirama Senju was packed with forbidden techniques. With those bizarre forbidden techniques, even if not at peak condition, he was still the Kage-level strongest at fighting one against many in the current ninja world.
After all, among the forbidden techniques he invented, there were hardly any that could be used with allies around.
And this was also the best demonstration of how utterly crap the Kinkaku and Ginkaku brothers' tactical planning was.
Considering Tobirama Senju only brought six disciples, and the Raikage's people weren't numerous either, the alliance venue must have been small.
If the Kinkaku and Ginkaku brothers had brought more people—even just chūnin who would be cut down like cabbages by elite jōnin—at least they could have served to delay time.
If they could have surrounded the venue, with their numerical advantage in elite jōnin, they could have completely confined the battlefield to that location, preventing Tobirama Senju from fleeing with his disciples, and ultimately creating a battlefield where he wildly unleashed forbidden techniques to buy time.
And the result was that Kinkaku mutually destroyed with Tobirama Senju, while Ginkaku was immediately arrested by reinforcements from Kumogakure.
Judging by these two's performance, it was totally a case of slapping their foreheads on a whim and calling people out for a "coup." Thinking even more darkly, it was even possible they'd been instigated by someone into pulling this stunt.
"So, should we make a move on Konoha now?"
The conference room gradually grew noisy, with quite a few jōnin making similar proposals.
After the First Shinobi World War, economic disparities between nations had widened, and the influence of militarist factions had gradually expanded in each major village.
Sunagakure's local customs were inherently fierce, and with the natural geographical advantages and resource disadvantages that "no one wants to fight over," the number of militarists was particularly outstanding.
"I don't think now is a good time to start a war."
Thinking along these lines, Hii Kōri propped his cheek with one hand while tapping the other on the table, using a calm tone to pour cold water on the entire conference room's atmosphere.
"Rather, starting a war now would be a completely losing proposition..."
***
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