Several young jonin went pale.
Hyuga Hiashi rested his palm on his knee, his knuckles faintly whitening.
The two elders darkened their expressions at the same time.
They had not seen Hiruzen Sarutobi like this in a long time.
The man who had once suppressed enemy forces with Fire Release on the battlefield in his youth, earning the title of Ninja Hero, had finally awakened briefly from the twilight and weariness of old age.
"What Konoha needs now is to solve the problem."
Hiruzen Sarutobi swept his gaze over the crowd.
"Not tear each other apart in the conference room."
No one spoke again.
The major ninja clans had come with different goals, yet in the end, not one of them was willing to truly fall out at this moment.
They could all see that Hiruzen Sarutobi had admitted defeat, but had not surrendered his power.
This meeting ultimately ended in strange silence.
On the surface, no one gained anything more.
In truth, the conflicts Konoha had concealed for years had been completely split open by Lie Yang's blade.
Far beyond the borders of the Land of Fire.
Lie Yang sat beneath the eaves in the courtyard, watching the setting sun slowly sink beyond the horizon.
He had not heard the news of Konoha's meeting firsthand.
But the crushing defeat of the pursuit force was enough for him to infer the changes that would follow.
Danzo had long drained the clans of their fighting strength, forcibly sending geniuses into Root and maintaining the so-called wartime order through oppressive methods.
The major ninja clans had accumulated resentment long ago.
This time, Kakashi and Shisui's disastrous defeat had merely ignited all those conflicts ahead of schedule.
Konoha had lost two pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan.
It had lost sixty-eight elite ninja.
And it