"Earlier today, a large number of Kumogakure ninja launched an assault on our border from the Land of Hot Water," Hiruzen said, his expression grave.
So of the younger Jonin imdiately turned solemn. Kumogakure had been at war with Konoha for a long ti, but the two sides had not clashed in a major battle for quite a while.
Most of the Jonin, however, stayed calm. They knew that if things were truly desperate, there would be no ti for a eting. Troops would be dispatched on the spot. Since they were still gathering to discuss it, the situation was serious but controllable.
"Fortunately, our frontline forces held firm and successfully repelled the enemy offensive, stopping the Kumogakure unit outside the Land of Fire," Hiruzen continued after a short pause.
Reconnaissance teams had spotted the abnormal movent early, and Minato had encountered the new A B combo, so Hiruzen had reinforced the border in advance. That preparation prevented the situation from spiraling into a disaster.
"Even so, the outlook remains grim. We must send more ninja to the border to crush Kumogakure's sche."
Choosing a commander to lead reinforcents was one of the key points of this eting.
Before this gathering, Hiruzen had already held a smaller discussion with Danzo and the other two senior figures. Hiruzen wanted Jiraiya to continue as commander, while Danzo argued that Orochimaru was the better option. In the end, they decided to settle it here in front of the Jonin.
Hiruzen's gaze drifted toward Jiraiya, clearly expecting him to volunteer.
The fastest way to beco Hokage was to build rit that outshone everyone else. Jiraiya had already crushed an Iwagakure force once. If he led another victory against Kumogakure, his prestige in Konoha would soar to a new height.
"Minato, what does it feel like to teach disciples?" Jiraiya suddenly asked with a grin, turning to Minato and neatly avoiding Hiruzen's eyes. "Watching them grow under your hands day by day is pretty great, right?"
"Mhm." Minato nodded, smiling gently.
Sigh. Hiruzen could only lant inwardly as Jiraiya slipped away at the perfect mont.
The room fell silent for about twenty seconds. Then Orochimaru spoke.
"Third Hokage, I am willing to go to the border and provide support."
Since this was a formal eting, Orochimaru did not call him "Teacher."
Danzo imdiately voiced his approval, praising Orochimaru's Will of Fire with a tone that was far too enthusiastic to be sincere.
Jiraiya showed no intention of competing. With that, Hiruzen finally appointed Orochimaru as commander, assigning him a thousand ninja to reinforce the border.
Jiraiya did not want the position, and Hiruzen had also just rejected one of Danzo's requests earlier. Under the circumstances, this was the cleanest choice.
After the decision on frontline support, the eting did not end. A Jonin eting would never be called for only one issue.
"The Ninja World is in chaos, and multiple countries are fighting on every front," Hiruzen said, scanning the room. "Under these circumstances, what actions should Konoha take?"
Compared to picking a commander, this was the true purpose of the gathering. The commander candidates were few, and the leadership already had a rough idea before the eting even started.
"Of course we should actively participate in the war, and make the daimyo and our clients recognize our strength," Danzo said imdiately. "Only then can Konoha's prestige reach new heights."
Commissions did not appear out of nowhere, especially foreign ones. They were tied directly to a village's demonstrated power. The stronger a village looked during the war, the more missions it would receive after the war ended, and the reverse was also true.
Danzo's hawkish stance was quickly echoed by other hawk faction Jonin.
"We should counterattack into the Land of Lightning and the Land of Earth. Let them see how formidable Konoha truly is."
"We can also send spies into the Land of Wind. Sunagakure just lost the Third Kazekage and is fighting Kumogakure fiercely. They are more vulnerable than ever."
Tsunade, who had been silent until now, finally spoke.
"Instead of that, since the war is intensifying, shouldn't we be training more dical ninja? If every squad had one, casualties would drop sharply."
She had not wanted to talk at all. She only wanted the eting to end so she could go ho, lie down, and wait for Mugetsu to cook. But the hawks' eagerness to stir up more wars was too much for her to ignore.
Tsunade believed it was perfectly fine to fight back when invaded. But attacking the Land of Wind, when there was no current conflict, was pure madness.
"We do need more dical ninja," Hiruzen said, giving her a asured nod. "But achieving one dical ninja per squad is still unrealistic."
It was also a polite way to save her face. He could not approve the proposal. It demanded too much manpower and resources, and it would never gain broad support.
A standard Konoha squad had four people, one captain and three mbers. If one of those four had to be a dical ninja, then out of four thousand ninja, Konoha would need a thousand dical ninja.
The number of ninja Konoha could sustain was limited. It could not expand forever. Increasing dical ninja would an decreasing standard frontline ninja, which would weaken overall combat power.
On top of that, training dical ninja was far more difficult and expensive than training regular ninja. Hiruzen would not spend resources to reduce Konoha's strength during warti.
Mugetsu spoke after a brief pause, choosing his words carefully.
"If we want to train dical talent, I do have a suggestion. People with strong chakra control usually have more aptitude for dical ninjutsu. If we begin training that path while they are still in the Ninja School, we can screen for talent early and shorten later training."
He continued, steady and clear.
"Establish a dical specialist class. Students who want to beco dical ninja can enter that track early and receive focused training."
System rewards were sotis random and sotis fixed. The gains from teaching were fixed: taijutsu lessons boosted taijutsu, ninjutsu lessons boosted ninjutsu. Mugetsu wanted to narrow the scope further and see whether teaching only dical ninjutsu would produce strictly dical related rewards.
If it worked, his reform plans for the Ninja School would have real potential. In the future, if he ever wanted to specialize in a certain field, he could teach that exact field and receive targeted rewards.
And if his timing happened to raise Tsunade's opinion of him a little more, that was a welco bonus.
"dical specialists…" Hiruzen murmured, thoughtful.
Compared to Tsunade's proposal, Mugetsu's idea was far more realistic and achievable.
Tsunade herself was surprised. She stared at Mugetsu for a mont, then quietly admitted to herself that the idea was excellent, and genuinely supportive of dical ninja.
Mugetsu did not press the point. This was not the kind of issue to dominate an ergency Jonin eting. It did not require a full scale debate here. The Education Ministry and the Ninja School could handle it in their own sessions later.
The discussion soon returned to Konoha's broader strategy in the war.
After the eting ended, Mugetsu talked briefly with Teacher Chen about taijutsu, then went to Tsunade's house to cook dinner and continue studying dical knowledge.
Since the Basic Breathing Technique had been tested sufficiently, Mugetsu began teaching it to Rin.
But his main body was too busy. Aside from weekends, it was usually a shadow clone doing most of the teaching. There was no helping it. Shisui was in the sa situation.
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