With a great enemy looming, none of the shinobi villages would stir up trouble.
The next day.
The Five Kage Summit began as scheduled.
That day, all reconstruction work in Konoha stopped. People gathered together and quietly waited for the outcome.
Everyone knew that, although this was the Third Five Kage Summit, it was ultimately just a continuation of the Second Five Kage Summit.
Last time, Konoha had warned the Shinobi World, but the other villages had refused to believe it. Now they could only swallow the bitter consequences.
"Will it succeed this time?"
"It definitely will."
"But if it does..."
"The Fourth Shinobi World War will break out, and its scale will probably far exceed the previous three."
Sasuke, Naruto, Hinata, Sakura Haruno, Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi, Ino Yamanaka, and the others had gathered together as well.
The younger generation of ninja would almost certainly be unable to take part in this war.
With Kazan and Hashirama around, they would never let newly graduated Genin set foot on the battlefield.
Neither Sasuke nor Naruto could accept that. They thought back to the recent battle, when they could only watch the fighting erupt in their village from behind their elders' protection.
"Isn't that better? We won't have to go to war!" Sakura Haruno feared war deep down.
Perhaps when she first graduated from the Ninja Academy, she had dreamed of becoming a female ninja like Tsunade.
But after witnessing the brutality of war, she had changed her mind. Whenever she thought of that blood-soaked battlefield, Sakura Haruno couldn't sleep.
"That's why you're third-rate ninja," Sasuke said coldly. "Being a ninja isn't a game of playing house."
His older brother had entered the battlefield at five, while Kazan had swept through the Third Shinobi World War at just eleven.
And him?