Chapter 64 — Terumi Mei's Shock
Su Li's words died on the air. The room held its breath.
Kakashi scanned the assembled Jōnin, then stepped forward. "Sasuke is my student. No matter what happens, I will not hand him over."
He remembered the times he wasn't there for his father, the guilt and the lessons of loyalty. Now the same choice stood before him, and Kakashi swore he would protect Sasuke — otherwise what had all his training been for?
Might Guy leapt to his feet, shouting, "Kakashi's right! Anyone who abandons their comrades isn't fit to call themselves strong!" His voice lit a spark through the hall.
One by one the other Jōnin rose. Faces set, resolve hardening. "When did Konoha start backing down?" someone growled. "If the Cloud wants war, we'll stand and fight."
Perhaps it was Su Li's words; perhaps the village's new strength; whatever it was, no one volunteered to surrender without a fight.
Kakashi turned to Su Li. "Agent Su Li — then I'll issue the orders to mobilize and prepare to strike the Cloud."
"No." Su Li smiled and shook his head.
Kakashi's brows knit in confusion. "I didn't say there had to be a full-scale war right now," Su Li replied. "The Cloud were fools who poked the hornet's nest — but we don't need to waste our resources on every provocation. Use this time to grow stronger."
He looked at the room with a hard calm. "Compared to the Cloud, what threatens us later will be far worse: Akatsuki, Madara Uchiha, Obito — and beyond them, otherworldly threats like Ōtsutsuki. Even with our improvements, we are not yet ready for those enemies. We shouldn't fritter away our strength on petty raids."
A murmur rose. The idea that only a small force needed to handle the Cloud surprised some — but with Konoha's present power, it didn't seem impossible.
"So who will we send?" Kakashi asked.
Su Li's eyes settled on Hiashi Hyūga. "This incident started with Sasuke, and Sasuke wants to resolve it. But his current strength isn't enough to deal with the Cloud on his own. Hiashi — would you be willing to go?"
Hiashi's face tightened. The Cloud's past betrayal — the kidnapping of Hinata that cost Neji his father — had never left him. He'd long carried that wound. Now, with the chance for payback and with greater power behind him, he felt something like resolve bloom.
"Leave it to me, Agent," Hiashi said, clenching his fists. "I won't let that grudge go unaddressed."
Su Li nodded. "Then it's decided."
Hiashi and Sasuke, bolstered by the authority Su Li wielded and the backing their reputations afforded, could operate within Cloud territory and withdraw without provoking full-scale retaliation — at least that was the plan.
At that moment a masked figure slipped into the room. "Agent Su Li, a delegation from the Kirigakure (Mist) has arrived," came the quiet report. The newcomer had concealed his identity; the voice was familiar only to a few.
Outside Konoha's gates, the Mist delegation had indeed arrived in force. The gate guards — Gang Zitie and Izumo Shenyū — halted them immediately.
"Konoha is closed to the public. Stand back," Izumo warned.
An elderly man wearing the Mist's regalia stepped forward with courtesy. "I represent Kirigakure. Please inform your leadership — we request an audience." He spoke with the weight of someone who had stood in the Mizukage's place before.
Gang Zitie and Izumo exchanged looks. They weren't inclined to be rude to an envoy, but they also had questions: how had so many countries suddenly converged on Konoha? First the Sand, and now the Mist. Had word of Konoha's collapse spread so fast?
A young woman from the Mist delegation strode forward, curious eyes assessing the gate guard. Her green eyes and red-brown curls marked her: Terumi Mei, a rising contender for Mizukage.
"What's your name?" she asked, playful.
Gang Zitie answered bluntly: "Gang Zitie."
"Gang Zitie — what a rugged name. I like it. So — is the Third really dead?" Terumi asked, leaning forward with teasing interest.
Gang Zitie shut his mouth. He wasn't about to spill Konoha's secrets. His silence, however, read as assent to Terumi's worried speculation — which only made her more alarmed.
"And who is your current Hokage? Male or female? How strong are they?" she fired the questions one after another.
Gang Zitie remained tight-lipped. Terumi rolled her eyes. "Ugh — straight men are so boring." She shrugged and prepared to move on.
Gang Zitie — who had spent years training as a gatekeeper and had more strength than he showed at first glance — snapped back with a rude retort about Terumi's unmarried status. The insult struck a nerve: mentioning a woman's age and marriage prospects was taboo to her after a long, stinging humiliation she still recalled. Heat flared in Terumi's cheeks.
She moved to strike — not with ninjutsu, but with raw, furious strength to shame him.
Gang Zitie didn't flinch. He raised a single finger.
Terumi's punch collided with something metallic with a loud clang. She staggered from the impact, stunned. The finger she'd met wasn't flesh at all but an iron-covered appendage — an indestructible, steel-like prosthetic that made her knuckles ring and sent a shock of pain through her arm.
The Mist shinobi around her gaped. "Did he just block that with a steel finger?"
Terumi went flying when he flicked his hand, knocked off balance and hard enough to sting.
This wasn't a typical Konoha gate guard. Gang Zitie's training — and the mysterious steel augmentation — left even the veterans of Kirigakure astonished.
"What bloodline is that? Steel Release?" Terumi demanded as she scrambled back to her feet.
Gang Zitie smirked. "Bloodline? It's nothing special. You could call it a 'steel trait.' In Konoha, it's common enough on the streets," he said with a half-joke and half-pride. "There are countless people in our village who could fell you in seconds."
Terumi's eyes flashed. The Mist delegation stiffened, reassessing the gate and the village they'd come to question. The casual confidence and unexpected strength of Konoha's guardians revealed that this was a village not so easily bullied or written off.
Inside, Su Li and the council returned their attention to the problem at hand. Konoha would not be bullied; the decision to act — and how to act — had been made. But the arrival of other nations' envoys showed that whatever ripples Konoha's turmoil had made were spreading across the shinobi world, and the true storm had only just begun.