World's End

With the Five Kage Summit over, the shocking news that the Five Great Ninja Villages would join forces to form the Ninja Allied Forces swept through every corner of the Ninja World like a raging storm.

Because the summit's contents were confidential, most people in the Ninja World still did not know why the villages of the Five Great Nations were forming an allied army. But they knew something earth-shattering must have happened.

After their initial shock, some of the smaller ninja villages quickly came to their senses.

Villages that could not even scrape together ten ninja were surely not worth such a massive mobilization from the Five Great Ninja Villages. A single order sent their way could shut them down on the spot. "Hey, hey, do you think the Five Great Nations want to unify the Ninja World this time and wipe the small ninja villages off the map completely?"

"Probably not. If they just wanted to swallow up the small ninja villages, there would be no need to make such a huge show of it."

"Exactly. Those small ninja villages exist partly because the Five Great Nations tacitly treat them as buffer zones. If they swallowed them up, the Five Great Nations would directly border one another, and conflicts could easily break out."

"Then what do you think the Five Great Nations are joining forces for?"

"War. Other than war, I can't think of anything that could make the Five Great Ninja Villages unite."

People could be seen discussing the matter everywhere on the streets.

Everyone was deeply anxious over the unprecedented joint action by the Five Great Nations, yet apart from those who had attended the summit, not a scrap of information had leaked out.

Even merchants who normally did business had no mind for it now.