"Abandon the plan to replace the nations and Shinobi Village? Did I hear that right?"
"What do you mean, the Tailed Beasts will oversee the Shinobi World? What do they have to do with any of this?"
"Wait, before we get to that, when did the Shinobi World become unified?"
The crowd erupted. Jiraiya's words had caught them completely off guard, and quite a few wondered whether they had missed something just now.
Some even turned to their companions in utter bewilderment, their expressions practically saying, "No way. Where the hell have we ended up? Is this still Konoha?"
Had they skipped several steps somewhere? How had the meeting suddenly jumped to discussing how things would be managed after unification?
Seriously, is Shinobi World Unification something you can achieve just by saying so?
Still, quite a few people caught on.
"Interesting..."
"Most of those attending this meeting probably reached agreements with Konoha long ago. The fact that Konoha is announcing it so directly also means there are no forces left in the Shinobi World that oppose them."
"So Konoha sending Naruto Uzumaki out to collect the Tailed Beasts was part of their strategy after all. It makes sense. Letting Konoha take away their Tailed Beasts and Jinchūriki was itself a sign of submission. I just never expected the Five Great Nations and the other four Shinobi Villages, with all their strength, to tacitly accept things to this extent."
"Not all of them. Didn't that envoy from the Land of Earth cause trouble just now? I suspect only the Shinobi Villages reached an agreement..."
"Thinking about it now, that earlier intelligence was probably true. Naruto Uzumaki was just the public face drawing everyone's attention. Someone noticed that wherever Naruto Uzumaki went, the Fourth Hokage would arrive shortly afterward... It was just