Chapter 57: Another Meeting
The next day, in the Hokage's office.
Tsunade's slender fingers gripped the battle report tightly, her knuckles turning slightly white.
Those exaggerated battle results seemed so glaring—
Defeating the Raikage with a single strike, splitting an entire desert with one finger, battle traces spanning hundreds of miles...
"This guy..." she murmured to herself, her eyes flickering with complex emotions.
Although she had witnessed Yu's strength before—that afternoon when he single-handedly subdued the entire Konoha leadership, executed Danzo, and forced the Sarutobi and Shimura clans to retreat.
But compared to this battle report, that previous upheaval seemed like... he had been holding back?
Tsunade unconsciously touched her neck, where a chill still lingered.
She suddenly recalled the strongly worded reply she had sent to the Hidden Cloud just days ago, and a layer of cold sweat formed on her back.
She had unknowingly been dancing on a knife's edge.
"Lady Hokage?" Shizune's worried voice pulled her back to reality. "Should we call a jounin meeting?"
Tsunade took a deep breath and slammed the battle report heavily on the desk: "Gather all the leadership immediately!" Her voice carried barely concealed trembling. "We may need to... completely reassess Konoha's entire strategic positioning."
...
Nara Shikaku pushed open the meeting room door while yawning, his forehead protector sitting slightly askew: "What's the emergency? The defensive fortifications on the front lines are only half complete..."
He hadn't slept a wink since yesterday.
Before he could finish speaking, the heavy atmosphere in the room struck him silent.
All the assembled leadership sat with grave expressions, even Akimichi Choza, who usually loved joking around, had his face drawn tight.
"Lady Hokage, what exactly has happened?" Hyuga Hiashi was first to ask. "We were organizing the Hyuga clan to set up defensive barriers when we suddenly received the emergency summons."
Tsunade crossed her hands in front of her chin, the battle report casting a long shadow across the table: "Everyone, please sit first." Her voice was three shades deeper than usual. "Regarding the war with the Hidden Cloud... we may need to reconsider everything."
Koharu Utatane and Homura Mitokado exchanged glances, both seeing confusion in the other's eyes.
Just yesterday, they had been allocating supplies for the coming war. How had everything changed overnight?
The meeting room door closed gently, and everyone realized this meeting's content would likely be anything but simple.
Tsunade stood at the head position, her hands planted on the meeting table, her gaze slowly sweeping over each leadership member present.
"Everyone," her voice was low and powerful as she slowly pushed the battle report toward the center of the table, "the war... is already over."
This quickly?
Those words exploded like thunder in everyone's ears.
Hyuga Hiashi's teacup froze halfway to his lips, Nara Shikaku's brow furrowed deeply, and even the usually composed Koharu Utatane couldn't help but sit up straight.
Tsunade took a deep breath, her eyes flickering with unprecedented gravity: "But we've encountered an even more serious problem."
Her fingertip lightly tapped the battle report. "If we handle this poorly, Konoha... could be destroyed because of it."
The meeting room instantly erupted.
"Lady Tsunade!" Koharu Utatane shot to her feet, her aged voice trembling. "What do you mean by 'the war is over but yet...'?"
"Please explain clearly!" Hyuga Hiashi's temple veins bulged. "The Cloud army clearly appeared at the Land of Fire's borders yesterday..."
Chaotic questioning voices rose one after another.
Nara Shikaku raised his hand to signal for quiet, but even his own voice carried a hint of instability: "Lady Hokage, could you elaborate on what you mean by this 'greater problem'?"
Tsunade pressed both hands heavily on the table surface, speaking gravely: "Just yesterday, Uchiha Yu single-handedly defeated over a thousand Cloud elite, including the Raikage." She paused. "More accurately... completely crushed them."
In the meeting room, the Akimichi clan head scratched his head in confusion: "Lady Tsunade, we're all aware of Uchiha Yu's strength. If not for that, we wouldn't have bowed to him in compromise back then. While this battle record is shocking, it's not completely unexpected... Why are you so tense?"
"That's not the issue." She slowly exhaled a turbid breath, her voice heavy as if bearing a thousand-pound burden: "This time... he split the entire desert with one finger."
"What?!" Hyuga Hiashi's Byakugan eyes widened suddenly.
"The battle's aftereffects stretched for hundreds of miles," Tsunade continued, each word falling like a heavy hammer on everyone's hearts. "It directly changed the terrain and landscape of that entire region."
She raised her eyes, her pupils reflecting everyone's horrified faces: "Do you all understand now? What we witnessed before... probably didn't even count as the tip of the iceberg of his true strength."
The entire meeting room fell into deathly silence, as if even the air had solidified. Everyone could clearly hear their own rapid heartbeats—the instinctive trembling when faced with absolute power.
"What kind of existence... are we even dealing with..." the Yamanaka clan head unconsciously murmured aloud.
In the corner, that young clan leader who had privately complained about Yu's domineering behavior turned pale, cold sweat soaking through his back garments.
He gripped the fabric on his knees tightly. He had actually dared to think he could "reason" with such an existence? Looking back now, it was like dancing at death's door.
Tsunade heavily closed her eyelids.
Without need for words, everyone present understood: if that young man wished it, he probably wouldn't even need to form hand seals to reduce Konoha to ash in an instant.
The sunlight outside remained bright, yet couldn't illuminate this meeting room shrouded in fear.
The silence in the meeting room was broken by Nara Shikaku's hoarse voice: "This has exceeded our understanding of what 'powerful' means..."
"Just like people can dance around a campfire, but would never dream of approaching the sun—they're completely different dimensional existences."
His analogy struck everyone's hearts like a shock.
Indeed, even the First Hokage Senju Hashirama, praised as the "God of Shinobi," possessed power still within the realm of human understanding. But the strength Uchiha Yu displayed had completely shattered the ninja world's power system, as absurd as trying to measure the cosmos with mortal scales.
"Exactly so." Tsunade reopened her eyes. "We're no longer facing a 'strong person' in the traditional sense, but rather... an existence approaching a natural disaster."
Koharu Utatane's fan clattered to the floor as her aged voice trembled: "Then what should we... do now?"
This question voiced everyone's thoughts—
Faced with such an existence, any ninja village's schemes and strategies seemed so pale and powerless.
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