What came afterward was already a naked threat.
She felt as though she were standing at a crossroads in life.
Perhaps one wrong step would lead straight into a bottomless abyss.
Staying where she was would have been fine,
but behind her, a sea of flames stretched across the sky and bore down on her,
leaving her without even a chance to catch her breath.
She was helpless—truly helpless.
Since she had to make a choice, she needed to think everything through in the brief time before the sea of fire behind her arrived completely.
At the very least, preserving herself was the most important thing.
As long as she was still alive, everything else would naturally cease to be a problem.
So she did not answer immediately, instead falling into deliberation.
She did not choose to say that she needed time to think it over properly, or to set a date for giving her reply.
Because she knew that hesitation at a time like this was the deadliest thing of all.
There were only two choices before her: one was to agree without hesitation, while the other was to refuse outright and decisively.
There was much to gain and lose either way, but after thinking for a long time, she suddenly realized that she seemed to have only one choice.
Indeed, if her country had survived in the gap between the Land of Wind and the Land of Fire,
then although life might have been harder and they would have had to tread more carefully,
when faced with such a choice, remaining neutral would actually have been the safest option.
And the two great nations were both wary of each other, so they could not possibly continue to aggressively deadlock with small countries and small ninja villages.
Even harsher