Madara Uchiha, You Forced Me!

Outside the Hokage's Office window, the sound of repair hammers drifted in one blow at a time through the wind and snow.

Minato Namikaze's slender fingers pressed against a blue marker at the northern edge of the map, beyond which lay a strait frozen year-round.

"The Land of Snow is frozen all year long, and its hostility toward outsiders ranks among the highest outside the Five Great Nations."

Minato's voice echoed through the office. His finger traced the sea route toward the snowfields, then he spread out a smaller map marked with three black dots.

"The royal envoy is currently hiding in a covert post at North Harbor in the Land of Fire and doesn't dare show himself at all."

"Konoha's three border outposts have gone out of contact one after another within ten days. Not a single distress message was sent."

"You must not only guarantee the envoy's absolute safety at sea and in the extreme cold, but also secretly determine where the people at those outposts have gone."

His gaze swept over the four students before him, his expression grave to the extreme.

"The enemy may be Snow Ninja, or they may come from elsewhere."

"If they could take out the outposts before they even had time to sound the alarm, then their speed and ability to lock down an area cannot be weak."

A sea route, extreme cold, a politically sensitive envoy, and a dangerous enemy with no intelligence whatsoever.

This kind of cross-border operation weighed heavily on the air in the entire office.

Yet Ye, leaning against the edge of the table, showed no reaction on the surface, while enormous waves churned in his mind.

In his memories, this mission had once taken a completely different form.

In that version, Minato's Team had not been deployed