The order for the all-out assault would take effect in one incense stick's time.
Each of the five verification nodes controlled a different means of aborting it.
As long as any three maintained their approval, the sealing technique at sea and Konoha's outer barrier would activate simultaneously.
The original design had been intended to prevent any one nation from launching the attack alone.
But Black Zetsu had forged five seals, turning a multilateral safeguard into a multilateral misjudgment.
Every node believed the other four parties had already confirmed.
Whoever withdrew first risked being accused of opening a breach for the Otsutsuki Projection.
When Shisui reached the first node, the guards had already formed hand seals.
"The order is fake," he said.
"Proof?"
A judgment from the Uchiha alone was not enough to make them cancel their nation's defenses.
Shisui took out the blank Verification Paper preserved by the Land of Rivers.
When genuine seals were applied, they left different tide marks along the paper's edge according to their sequence.
The five forged seals were completely identical.
Even the pauses in chakra occurred in the same places.
That only proved the order might have been copied.
It did not yet prove that this node's own representative had not agreed.
The guards demanded to inspect the original seal themselves.
Shisui did not contest that.
He placed the Voice Transmission Mirror on the table and let the representative open the Sealed Layer himself.
Inside was only a blank sheet of paper that had yet to be stamped.
The first node withdrew on the spot.
The countdown did not stop.
Of the remaining four nodes, three still maintained their approval, meeting the conditions for activation.
Shisui's Mangekyo burned in his eyes.
With Kotoamatsukami, he could make the representative before him immediately believe the all-out