The atmosphere in the Ninja World council chamber remained taut for nearly half an hour after Momoshiki delivered his final analysis.
Shikamaru spread a scroll across the long table. It already bore a preliminary sketch of the defensive deployments within a five-mile radius around Konoha. Gaara sat on the left side of the table, the Gold Dust gourd on his back gleaming a muted yellowish-brown beneath the night lights. His fingers tapped unconsciously against the table's edge, their rhythm maintaining an irregular sync with the wind outside. Chojuro stood half a step behind Gaara, his twin swords laid flat across his knees. His left hand rested on the sheath fastener, his thumb repeatedly brushing its edge. Kurotsuchi leaned against one of the chamber pillars, her legs crossed as though relaxed, yet her eyes never left the three high-altitude invasion routes marked on Shikamaru's scroll—the routes her Iwagakure reconnaissance squad had identified three days ago as the most likely entry corridors. Darui sat in the outermost chair, leaning back slightly as Lightning Style Chakra continued to flicker between his fingers at extremely low intensity, like a spring compressed to its limit and awaiting the command to release.
Tobirama stood apart from everyone else. He was positioned at the end of the long table with his back to the wall, his arms hanging at his sides, silver hair reflecting a frigid gleam beneath the lights. His sensory field remained continuously spread over a radius of roughly one mile, incorporating every Chakra fluctuation around Konoha into the three-dimensional map in his mind.
"If Urashiki participates in the frontal assault, his most likely approach won't be direct taijutsu contact." Tobirama spoke without haste, but the gaps between each sentence were compressed to almost nothing. "Judging by how Toneri and Hanabi had their Chakra extracted,