"What the hell is going on?!" Hiruzen Sarutobi's voice cracked through the chamber like a whip of lightning cleaving the air.
The stone walls of the strategy hall shook not from the echo but from the energy surging in the room. Inside the circular chamber of the High Command, tension pulsed like a living thing. The air was heavy with incense smoke and urgency. In the centre sat six Yamanaka clan shinobi, all kneeling in perfect formation, eyes closed and hands in the unique seal of mental transmission. Their brows twitched, lips moved in faint murmurs as they relayed thoughts across distances no one else in the room could comprehend.
Each had sweat slicking their foreheads, some dripping into the ceremonial circle drawn beneath them in chalk and ash. The relay of catastrophic news was a weight that none of them had expected to bear before sunrise.
Hiruzen stood stiff, his knuckles white as they gripped the pipe he'd forgotten to light. His Hokage cloak was half-fastened—he hadn't had time to finish donning it when the alerts started pouring in. Behind him stood the Hyuga clan head, his pale eyes shimmering with concern. Next to him was his Senju Counterpart, an ageing veteran of the Second Shinobi War whose broad chest rose and fell with restrained fury.
It was chaos layered in silence.
"—Another supply camp. Southeast sector," came a soft voice. It was Yamanaka Nae, a young kunoichi with flushed cheeks and rapid breaths. Her eyes remained closed, and her voice was toneless, distant. "Status: destroyed. Ninety per cent of stationed shinobi presumed dead. No survivors reported yet."
Even before the weight of her words could settle in the room, another Yamanaka's voice—Yamanaka Dorei, an older, more seasoned operative—cut through. "Report from the civilian sector, border of Okiyama forest. Village fires confirmed. Screams…children…mothers…evacuation impossible. The attackers—"
"Enough!" Hiruzen barked, slamming his palm against the table, rattling scrolls and ink bottles. "Get me Uchiha Daichi and Nara Shiba. Now!"
Nae nodded once and placed two fingers on her temple, her chakra flaring faintly as she initiated the psychic tether. Within seconds, a pulse shimmered through the room—a telltale sign of multi-linked communication.
A moment later, two ethereal links flickered into place in Hiruzen and the two heads of the sixth division's heads.
"You're the first line of defence for Konoha and the Land of Fire," Hiruzen hissed, his voice cold steel under immense pressure. Though the words were spoken within the minds of those linked to him via Yamanaka transmission, they cut just as sharply.
His clenched jaw, hidden beneath his battle-scarred visage, trembled from the barely restrained fury surging through him. "Your divisions—your very purpose—is to prevent the enemy from crossing into our homeland. And yet, here we are... attacked on two fronts. Civilians slaughtered in their homes. Vital supply camps reduced to ash. Patrol routes compromised. So I ask you again—where were your eyes? Your scouts? Your sensory units?!"
Across the invisible network, Uchiha Daichi's presence wavered faintly, like a man exhaling before a blade fell. His reply came a breath too slow.
"Lord Third… you're right."
His tone was subdued, laced with the weight of personal failure.
"I take full responsibility for the breach. The fault is mine. I will arrange for some team as a response to—"
"No."
The interruption came fast and firm, with a mental sharpness that sliced through the tension like a kunai through cloth.
"That would be a mistake," came Nara Shiba's voice, clear and dispassionate.
There was a brief pause in the psychic channel. Even telepathically, the silence hummed like the eye of a hurricane.
Hiruzen's mental voice returned, colder now. "Explain."
"If we redirect forces from the front lines to deal with these interior attacks, we fall into their trap," Shiba said, calm and calculating. "This is coordinated provocation. If we respond with overwhelming force, we weaken our border defences—and that's precisely what Kumo and Suna want."
"Bait?!" Hiruzen's voice thundered across the mental plane. His mental tone alone caused Naomasa to visibly flinch, despite the man's mastery over his emotions.
The image of charred ruins flickered through their minds unbidden—vivid memories relayed by Yamanaka scouts moments earlier. A farmhouse, split in half by a kunai explosion. A weeping child clutched the limp form of his older sister beneath the ash-choked sky. Medical tents sliced apart by wind blades. Wagons still burning, their wheels glowing red.
"We are not talking about mere logistical losses here, Shiba!" Hiruzen spat mentally. "Children burned in their sleep! Entire supply camps wiped off the map! Families—slaughtered! And you dare call that bait?!"
"No, Hokage-sama," Shiba answered, his voice low and deliberate. "I'm not downplaying the losses. I feel the same rage you do. But we must be disciplined. If we falter in the border, we risk a cascade collapse. The enemy knows our nature. They counted on our compassion—our instinct to protect—and weaponized it."
"You're suggesting we ignore these attacks?" Hiruzen growled.
"I'm suggesting we don't let them dictate our movements. That we answer their deception with a smarter counterstroke."
The chakra in the room thickened, heavy and oppressive, pressing down on the assembled like a gathering thunderhead. Even the candle flames bent toward the floor as if cowed by the gravity of the moment.
"Lord Hokage," The Hyuga Clanhead said across the link, his voice finally entering the fray, refined and resolute. "With respect, I believe Commander Shiba is correct. If you personally take the field this early, the enemy will know. They will adjust. Worse, it may provoke their higher assets into action—possibly even the Raikage himself."
"Or the Suna council," added the Senju Clan head, his voice hoarse and grim. "They could be preparing for a deeper thrust, using these incursions to measure our thresholds. You've said it yourself before: the true war isn't just what happens with kunai and chakra. It's in the positioning. And right now, we can't afford to blink first."
"So what then?" Hiruzen's voice was bitter, heavy with the weight of decades of leadership. "We watch and wait while our enemies bleed our people? While they turn our homeland into a chessboard?"
"No," Shiba said. "We strike back. But precisely. Not with battalions—with blades in the dark."
"Go on," Hiruzen murmured.
"The Sixth Division remains stationed within the village. We select a team from their best trackers—sensor-type shinobi, high-speed interceptors. A mobile unit. Silent and untraceable. They don't hold ground; they identify enemy paths, intercept them, extract intelligence, and vanish. If possible… they leave no survivors."
"You think a handful of elite shinobi can counter coordinated strikes from Suna and Kumo?" Hiruzen asked.
"I think they can slow the bleeding until we understand the wound. And I think if we catch even one of these infiltration squads alive, we'll learn how they got in, who they're working with, and—most importantly—what they're really after."
For a moment, there was no reply. Then came Daichi's voice once more—quieter now, thoughtful.
"I agree. Their movements aren't chaotic. They're synchronized. Even the destruction seems… calculated. They're targeting supply lines, relay posts, and family settlements near fallback roads. Not military ones. That's not just terror. That's message-sending. And positioning."
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed behind his brow wrinkled with age and fatigue. He moved away from the table, pacing slowly past the map of the Land of Fire. His fingers traced the borders lightly, stopping near the pins representing the First and Second Divisions.
Then his gaze lingered on the inner heartland of Konoha, where a growing cluster of red markers had been placed—each one representing a lost caravan, an ambushed messenger, a ruined village.
"And still," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else, "we lose our people."
The mental link quieted. Even the breath of the telepathic network seemed to fall still.
Finally, Shiba's voice returned. But this time it was sharper. Urgent.
"Because there's more to it."
The chakra in the room stirred again. Hiruzen's spine straightened as he turned back toward the others.
"Speak."
"Just now. We received another update. Kumo forces have launched a direct offensive against the Second Division."
"What?!"
"Northern flank. Heavy pressure. Not a probing attack—an engagement. They're committing numbers. And it's not just them. Suna forces are moving too. Flanking maneuvers from the west, possibly seeking to sever our communications net."
A hush fell over the war room. Even the flickering torches seemed to stop moving.
"Coordinated… simultaneous… multiple fronts…" Hiruzen murmured.
His voice cracked slightly—not from fear, but from the cold weight of recognition. He had seen this tactic before. Long ago. In the First Shinobi War. And in those bloody days, many villages fell before they even realized they were under siege.
This wasn't a series of bold raids.
It was the opening movement of a full-scale disruption campaign.
And it was only the beginning.
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