Although this was garbage time spent conducting attrition warfare through batch, small-scale, and continuous investment of small units, Suna couldn't simply send their own people out to die.
Various equipment that Hii Kōri had overtime designed in the two years before the war were issued to participating Suna ninja in batches.
For example, scaled multi-layer armor placed under the tactical vests ninja commonly wore. While reducing thickness, it compensated for insufficient strength through multiple overlapping structures, and lowered costs enough to be distributed to more ninja.
Foot protection was similar. Although ninja from all nations chose sandals for reasons of lightness, agility, and ease of releasing chakra for tree-climbing and water-walking, in an environment like the Country of Rain where wounds healed with difficulty, it was indeed better to avoid such injuries altogether rather than trouble the already overworked medical ninja with tiny foot wounds.
But compared to armor, weapons were more likely to be enthusiastically received by the ninja.
Fake explosive tags—which didn't explode and only had a simple light-emitting function—were issued in even higher per-person quantities than real explosive tags.
When Hii Kōri first introduced these things, even Chiyo had been fooled by them. They were excellent props for creating openings to seize the initiative, or for distracting attention at critical moments.
Although some survivors had brought intelligence about these items back to Amegakure and Konoha, what good would that do?
After all, the person throwing them knew whether they were real or fake, but would the person having them shoved in their face dare to gamble?
Because they didn't need to have explosive techniques sealed into them, these things were far cheaper to produce than explosive tags. Even with an ignition function added to prevent enemy recycling, the average cost of fake explosive tags was only one-fifth that of high-quality explosive tags, and just over one-third that of ordinary explosive tags.
Good and cheap, good and cheap.
Shuriken launchers had been optimized and now came in many versions. The versions for mass-projecting poisoned senbon and projecting irregular shuriken were currently the most commonly used.
The former needed no elaboration—not pursuing lethality, instead opting for paralysis toxins with several hundred senbon per second for large-area coverage strikes. Targets could easily be hit and incapacitated, then finished off one by one with kunai to the throat.
The latter's ammunition was much more twisted than regular shuriken. While difficult to throw by hand, they could also create wounds that were hard to suture. Their main purpose was also not killing, but consuming the enemy's medical resources.
Earlier, on the Country of Rivers battlefield, projectile devices for kunai with explosive tags attached were quite commonly used. Rasa, who had inherited the Third Kazekage's Magnet Release, could use gold sand to form footholds, carrying multiple people airborne to conduct fire strikes with these devices.
But the reason they didn't do this in the Country of Rain was simple—considering the weather here, flying too high made one prone to lightning strikes.
Especially when their mount was something like "gold sand clouds."
Hii Kōri actually liked the climate here. Not only did his skin and eyes not feel dry, but the main factor was that he could use Water Release with greater ease.
As a practitioner of Yang Release, his environmental tolerance had always been much higher than ordinary ninja. Factors like temperature and humidity might at best be displeasing, but they rarely had particularly significant substantive effects on him.
But the broadening of tactical space was extremely important to him.
He hadn't expected the village to be willing to let him participate in this war at all, given that previously he hadn't even been allowed to leave the village for missions.
But when he went to ask Chiyo, his cheap foster mother's answer left him with nothing to say.
"Your evaluation actually ended long ago. The reason we didn't assign you missions wasn't because we were afraid you'd run away, but because the village felt that keeping you at ease researching was more valuable than sending you on missions."
"And when it comes down to it, didn't you want to go anyway?"
To be fair, that was true.
Compared to "catering to clients," staying in the village doing research was far more comfortable. Money? Plenty. Time? Plenty. No drawbacks except for being really short on manpower.
The reason Hii Kōri participated in this war was precisely because his mind was more important—it would have miraculous effects in tactical planning and countermeasures.
Or, as recently, when Chiyo suddenly withdrew from the battlefield with a group of jōnin and several teams of chūnin, he could replace her in command.
At the time, no matter how he asked, he only got perfunctory answers like "Special mission, you little brat, stop asking and just obediently take over command for a month or two."
What else could Hii Kōri say? Anyway, they were still
engaged in small-scale skirmishes, so fine command wasn't really needed.
Besides that, in the year since arriving on this battlefield, he had even used Transformation Technique and small disguise props to respectively disguise themselves as three familiar faces who didn't exist in this world—"Wind and Water Release master Gojō Satoru," "Puppet Technique master Yorozu Kōkichi," and "Taijutsu expert Fushiguro Tōji"—active on the battlefield.
After taking down six Amegakure and three Konoha jōnin, no one questioned his status as a "research jōnin" who padded his stats.
As for why he disguised himself as others... on one hand, it was to confuse the enemy with false intelligence; on the other, he didn't want to expose himself.
Fame? What use was fame?
Hii Kōri didn't rely on being a ninja taking missions to make money anyway. Those mission fees, tossed into the bottomless pit of research, couldn't even splash a ripple—not to mention the missions themselves were often long, tedious, and time-wasting.
Moreover, if he became particularly famous as a ninja, wouldn't that make it harder for him to go elsewhere for funding—ah, no, to solicit sponsorships?
Just then, an autonomous puppet disguised as a blackbird fluttered down and landed back at the entrance of Hii Kōri's tent. He reached out, retrieved the puppet, opened its belly, and reviewed the recorded footage.
"Taijutsu squad, prepare—"
After a moment, having drained the last mouthful of tea from his cup and feeling his state was sufficiently adjusted, Hii Kōri called out, then skillfully began his disguise.
The so-called taijutsu squad wasn't a action team specializing in taijutsu, but rather a team whose combat style was relatively compatible with him when operating as the "taijutsu expert."
A few minutes later, a strong man with short black hair, pupils as small as Rasa's, and a scar at the corner of his mouth walked out of the tent. Rolling his neck and rotating his arms, he took out a three-section staff from a scroll and tucked it at his waist.
"The Heavenly Tyrant, Fushiguro Tōji, entering battle—"
Borrowing the appearance of an old client who had died years before him, Hii Kōri returned to the battlefield.
***
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