Fifty Billion Bait and the Hyuga Sky Net's Order to Close the Net

The air in the Hokage's Office seemed to be drained away the instant Baishi's mad order was issued, growing thin and cold.

The heat that had just risen from Kushina's fury was completely extinguished by those casually spoken words, leaving behind only suffocating silence.

"What... did you say?"

Kushina was the first to break the silence. Her voice was filled with disbelief, her violet eyes shrinking violently as she stared fixedly at Baishi, as though trying to find a trace of a joke on his calm, expressionless face.

Withdraw the Barrier?

Let those desperadoes in?

Had he gone mad?!

That was a five-billion-ryo bounty! Enough to send the entire dark side of the Shinobi World into a frenzy! This order was no different from throwing a blood-dripping piece of fat into a school of sharks that had gone hungry for centuries, then voluntarily opening the iron cage protecting themselves!

"Baishi! Do you know what you're doing?!" Kushina's reason teetered on the brink of collapse. She grabbed Baishi's arm, her fingertips turning faintly white from the force. "This isn't child's play! Those people are lunatics! They'll destroy Konoha!"

Baishi merely glanced at her indifferently.

That gaze held no reassurance or explanation, only the condescending indifference one might show toward a child throwing a tantrum.

"Let go."

He uttered two words. His voice was not loud, but it carried an icy chill that brooked no argument.

Kushina's body abruptly stiffened.

From those deep eyes, she read an absolute will that could not be challenged. Her berserk determination to protect her husband, and the power capable of overturning the entire Hokage Building, seemed so pale and laughable at that moment.

Her hand slowly loosened against her will.

An unprecedented sense of powerlessness and estrangement swept over her like a tide. She suddenly realized