Tsunade & Shikamaru: "..."
Kakashi's shift in stance was both expected and unexpected.
Basically, once Sasuke brought up his father, Hatake Sakumo, the outcome had become clear.
Of course, it was not just Kakashi. Tsunade's attitude had also softened slightly.
After all, she held Hatake Sakumo in immense respect as well.
Now that she knew Soji had saved Hatake Sakumo, she no longer felt that he seemed like a bad person.
And when Kakashi also chose to side with Soji, Naruto became even happier!
Seeing Tsunade and Kakashi still hesitating, Sasuke continued.
"Fifth Hokage, in that past timeline, not only was Kakashi's father alive, but Jiraiya and the Third Hokage were alive too."
Although Sasuke had not found Soji's involvement behind the fact that those two were alive, bringing it up specifically at this moment was clearly somewhat misleading.
"What? Jiraiya and the old man both..."
Sure enough, after Kakashi, Tsunade was shocked as well.
The two people Sasuke had mentioned had both had a profound influence on Tsunade.
The Third Hokage had been Tsunade's teacher.
Although Tsunade had been deeply dissatisfied with some of her teacher's policies in his later years, believing him to be too weak.
Once she had truly become Hokage herself, however, Tsunade had come to understand his helplessness.
When a village was not strong enough, the decisions made by its Kage would naturally become cautious and restrained.
After all, one wrong decision could bring enormous trouble upon the village!
When her teacher had governed in his later years, Orochimaru had defected from the village, Jiraiya had gone after Orochimaru, she had developed hemophobia and left the village, Minato and his wife had died, the Uchiha had harbored rebellious intentions, and Danzo had been dragging everyone down.
Faced with such circumstances, there truly had been many