As Hatake Satoru walked toward the hallway outside the door, he casually pushed the sunglasses on top of his head down, letting his silver hair fall over his forehead.
Even through the sunglasses, he could see eyes glinting in the shadows.
Everyone was watching him intently, but no one dared to attack him directly.
If you don't have the power, don't act like you do.
Hatake Satoru pursed his lips slightly, a hint of mockery in his smile.
He turned his head and glanced at them, and the eyes quickly looked down. He chuckled with disdain, skipping into the room next door.
If all else fails, he'll just kill them all. Those old conservatives are basically useless except for being a nuisance.
Hatake Satoru yawned, rattling the keys in his hand. He rummaged around for a bit and pulled out a key he had almost forgotten.
Even though there were a bunch of wary eyes staring at him, Hatake Satoru didn't care at all and opened the door with his back to them.
His back was completely exposed, a perfect opportunity for a sneak attack, but none of the fourteen or so people outside moved.
Hatake Satoru clicked his tongue with some disappointment, then walked into the room in a drowsy manner, reaching for the light switch beside him.
The bright light came on with a "click." Hatake Satoru closed the door behind him.
"Phew..."
The people outside in the hallway who were responsible for monitoring him all breathed a deep sigh of relief at the same time.
The weight that had been on their minds had finally lifted. Now that Hatake Satoru was inside, he shouldn't come out and attack them.
Then they all heard the soft sounds of people exhaling around them, and they couldn't help but glance at each other with a strange look.
"Why is it that even though there are so many of us watching him, it feels like he's the one who has us surrounded?!"
It should be Hatake Satoru who is afraid of them ambushing him, so why do they feel like a weight has been lifted off their shoulders?
Going up against Hatake Satoru before they have absolute power just doesn't make sense.
Even though it was a complaint, it was enough to show how afraid they were of Hatake.
Hatake Satoru didn't care about what those people thought.
It's great that he doesn't need to take action, which saves him trouble. He feels like dealing with small fries is just a waste of his chakra.
The curtains inside the house were tightly drawn, so you couldn't see what was going on outside.
The furniture hadn't changed at all, it was still the way Hatake Satoru left it.
Hatake Satoru casually checked the barely visible traps he had set up inside. Some of them had been touched, while others hadn't.
Someone must have come in and searched the room when he left, but Hatake Satoru didn't have anything illegal. Even if he did, he would have taken it to the research lab.
He definitely wouldn't have left it here as leverage.
For a long time afterward, until now, no one had come in again.
After all, later on, Hatake Satoru basically moved into the research lab in plain sight. They must have realized this after searching it a few times.
Even if Hatake Satoru had something, he wouldn't put it in this place.
Because it wasn't of any use, a thick layer of dust had accumulated in many places. Hatake Satoru raised his eyebrows with a helpless expression.
"Well, I haven't been to this place in a long time."
Before the research lab was built, he had lived in this place for a while.
Their living quarters were relatively close, in a more isolated location within Sunagakure Village.
Hatake Satoru didn't care where he lived, since he had already planned to do research underground.
But now it seems that one reason was to keep them away from Sunagakure Village, and another was to house them all together for easier monitoring.
Well, it's not very pleasant to be secretly targeted like this all the time.
He'll use this opportunity to figure things out.
Hatake Satoru couldn't be unaware of the increasingly obvious rift between them and the higher-ups in Sunagakure. However, Hatake Satoru didn't expect these guys to actually attack the former Mizukage.
Wow, even though the Kazekage of Sunagakure Village isn't worth much, constantly being robbed and killed.
But to directly attack the former Mizukage of another village like that, you'd have to be really out of your mind to do something like that.
Sunagakure and Konoha are official allies, so Yamato and Hatake Satoru are essentially not under any threat.
Those higher-ups in Sunagakure have probably been frustrated countless times because of this.
No matter what Hatake Satoru wants to do, they can't stop him. The most they can do is complain to Tsunade in Konoha.
Tsunade is quite happy with Hatake Satoru's activities. After all, everyone from gambling to medical research is, roughly speaking, in the same line of work.
As for Sunagakure's reaction, she turns a blind eye and tries to brush it off whenever possible.
The chair was completely covered in dust, so there was no way to sit on it.
Hatake Satoru simply found a place by the door to lean against and picked up the scroll in his hand.
Under the bright light in the room, he could see the scroll clearly.
He felt like he had seen this scroll before, and now that the light was brighter, he could see it even more clearly.
This seems to be the thing Kakashi gave him to store weapons in when he was still being a sulky kid a few years ago before he went traveling.
"I didn't expect to see this at this time..."
"I thought it had been thrown away a long time ago."
Hatake Satoru doesn't remember these ninja encryption things very well, but usually when you want to send a secret message, you use chakra to unlock it.
In an emergency, it would be quite troublesome to create a scroll that Hatake Satoru could open with his blood.
After all, Hatake Satoru himself isn't in Kirigakure right now, and many of the things he needs can't be done.
So, he doesn't know where he found this thing, but it has been slightly modified.
That way, either Hozuki Mangetsu or Hatake Satoru can decode it.
Hatake Satoru bit his thumb and smeared the blood on the scroll.
The deep blue wavy patterns on the scroll faintly glowed, and even made a sound like a smoke bomb in Hatake Satoru's hand, a "poof."
Hatake Satoru waved his hand slightly, clearing away the faint smoke in front of him. There was a huge red seal on the scroll.
It was used to mark messages for emergency situations.
Hatake Satoru's eyes landed on it, and then suddenly contracted.
Hozuki Mangetsu's voice rang out at the door.
"I'm coming in - Teacher."
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