The Agenda Suspended Amid Sudden Military Intelligence, and Responsibility Passed Along with the Current

Nara Shikaku read out the final word on the scroll.

The words "mutiny" were like two stones thrown into a stagnant pool, stirring invisible ripples through the frozen air.

The meeting room was so quiet that a pin could be heard dropping.

The wrinkled face of Sunagakure's adviser, Chiyo, lost all color in an instant. Her withered fingers clutched the armrests so tightly that her knuckles bulged, turning a lifeless gray-white. She opened and closed her mouth, her throat producing a dry rasp, but she could not utter a single word.

Shock, followed by bone-deep cold.

Konan, the Amegakure emissary seated beside her, slowly raised her eyelids. A flash of astonishment flickered through her amber eyes. She looked toward Baishi at the head of the table, then quickly glanced at the flustered Chiyo before finally returning her gaze to the "Draft Framework for a Joint Security and Tariff Alliance" before her, as if she intended to dismantle and analyze every word on it all over again.

Namikaze Minato's hand remained frozen in midair.

His fingertips were less than an inch from the black fountain pen.

That pen had once been an unbearable burden weighing a thousand jun, the nail that had pinned his heroic reputation to the wall in disgrace. Now, this sudden military intelligence was like an invisible hand that forcibly cut off his movement, leaving him suspended in this awkward dilemma with no way forward or back.

He had been saved.

Yet it was as if he had fallen into another, even deeper quagmire.

The eyes of everyone present, intentionally or otherwise, converged on the head of the table.

Baishi's face held no unnecessary expression. He seemed unsurprised by the S-Rank military intelligence that could overturn the situation in the Southern Border. He merely moved his gaze away