No one knew what Chiba and the Third Hokage discussed next.
By the time Utatane Koharu, who had rushed over later, arrived, only the Third Hokage remained in the main command tent. Chiba had vanished without a trace.
With the emergency meeting imminent, Utatane Koharu had no time to ask anything. As the meeting was about to begin, she had no choice but to hurry back to the village.
As for this emergency meeting, if Chiba had been there, he would probably have been stunned. When the Third Hokage proposed continuing to serve as Hokage, several high-ranking officials, in their shock, inadvertently suggested that Chiba should succeed him as Hokage.
Aside from Utatane Koharu and Danzo, who remained silent, the rest of the higher-ups—including the other advisor, Mitokado Homura—more or less expressed their desire for Chiba to take the position.
Some even argued that his age should not matter, listing one achievement after another that proved Chiba possessed the qualities and abilities needed to become Hokage.
Clearly, even the Third Hokage had not expected this development. For a while, the situation became rather chaotic.
In the end, it was Utatane Koharu who spoke up and suppressed all the opposing voices.
Having recovered from his surprise, the Third Hokage ultimately quelled every objection by revealing that Chiba had personally volunteered for an ultra-classified mission concerning the entire Shinobi World.
However, the Third Hokage was quite pleased by those objections. After suppressing them, not only was he not displeased that so many higher-ups had opposed his return to power, he even agreed with them considerably. On the spot, he praised the several officials who had first proposed Chiba as his successor.
That also allowed the opposing officials, who had realized their loss of composure and recognized how provocative their words had been