At the Hokage Building, Tsunade convened a meeting of the Elder Council she had established after taking office.
The Elder Council consisted of several major shinobi clans in Konoha, but Tsunade had not granted it much power, only the right to deliberate on policy. Membership also rotated. Once their terms expired, members would step down, and new representatives would be selected from other clans and the civilian population.
Still, the shinobi clans were already quite satisfied with this.
After all, they had never been qualified to participate in meetings at the Elder Council's level before.
In the conference room, Jiraiya presented the intelligence he had brought back from outside the village.
"Friction has begun breaking out between the various nations and shinobi villages, and the situation in the shinobi world has grown uncertain once again."
As they listened to Jiraiya, the members of the Elder Council began discussing the matter.
None of them had expected the situation in the shinobi world to change because of a single person's death.
But something like this had happened before. The last person whose death had brought about such a change was their First, Hashirama Senju.
Not long after Hashirama Senju's death, friction had broken out between the nations. It had escalated until it spiraled out of control, leading to the outbreak of a Shinobi World War.
And the current situation bore a certain resemblance to those days.
Was another Shinobi World War about to break out?
No one liked fighting wars, especially the people of Konoha. They understood one truth all too well: there were no winners in war.
Even though Konoha had emerged as the ultimate victor in the previous Shinobi World Wars, the village had paid a terrible price.
For those victories, even their own shinobi clans had lost countless people,