"Commander Daichi!" Inoshi gasped again, his breath coming in ragged pulls. "A message from the Hokage! He demands your presence immediately! It's urgent!"
Daichi's head snapped up. "What is the matter, Inoshi? Report."
"I… I am not sure, Commander," Inoshi admitted, shaking his head. "The message was fragmented, pushed through the network with maximum priority. All I received was the summons and the code for 'utmost urgency.' The content is for your ears only."
Daichi's sharp eyes flicked to Fugaku, who had gone very still. A silent communication passed between father and son—a shared recognition that 'utmost urgency' from the Hokage in the midst of a full-scale war never heralded good news.
"Very well," Daichi said, his voice returning to its controlled rasp. "Set up the link. Here. Now."
Inoshi nodded, moving to the centre of the tent. Fugaku began to rise, assuming he was dismissed from what was clearly a classified communication.
"Stay," Daichi commanded, not looking at him. Fugaku froze mid-motion. Daichi turned his gaze back to Inoshi. "Add my son to it. He is to listen, not to speak. Is that possible?"
Inoshi hesitated, a conflict between protocol and obedience on his face. "The Yamanaka network can accommodate the connection, Commander," he said carefully. "But maintaining a silent third party in a secure channel with the Hokage is… unprecedented. The best I can do is add him. It will be up to Fugaku-san's discretion to remain silent. Any transmission from his end will be immediately detected."
"That will suffice," Daichi stated, leaving no room for argument.
Inoshi nodded, accepting the order. He closed his eyes, his hands coming together in a familiar seal. A faint, barely perceptible hum of chakra filled the air around him.
Daichi and Fugaku both stiffened slightly as a foreign, yet smooth, psychic presence brushed against their minds. It was Inoshi's voice, but it was inside their heads, a bizarre and intimate sensation.
"Lord Hokage, Commander Nara, Commander Daichi and Fugaku are here."
There was a moment of silence, filled only by the psychic static of the connection. Then, a familiar, weary but authoritative voice resonated within their consciousness. It was Hiruzen Sarutobi, but stripped of its usual warmth, rendered into pure, commanding data.
"Daichi. Fugaku. Thank you for responding swiftly."
"Hokage-sama," Daichi's thought-voice responded. It felt crisp and focused in the mental space. "How may I serve? Do you require a full situational report or a brief overview of the current situation? I am aware time is a luxury we do not possess."
"A brief overview will suffice for now,"* Hiruzen's voice replied. "The broader strategic picture."
"The main body of the First Division remains with me, holding the central defensive line," Daichi reported, his mental tone every bit the professional shinobi.
"I have deployed multiple teams across the border. Reconnaissance, harassment, and forward defence operations are underway at seven key points to blunt the enemy's advance and probe their lines."
Another voice joined the conference, dry and analytical. It was Nara Shiba. "What about the team distribution, Commander Daichi? What are the numbers and locations?"
"For most forward positions, two teams of twenty shinobi each," Daichi answered without hesitation. "For the Valley of the End, due to its strategic nature and the volume of attacks it attracts, I deployed three teams of around thirty shinobi each."
"Which teams were assigned to the valley?" Hiruzen's voice asked, a new, subtle tension threading through the thought.
"Uchiha Hoshi's team, Senju Hirano's team, and Uzumaki Renjiro's team," Daichi listed.
There was a palpable pause in the psychic channel, a silence that felt heavier than any noise.
"Why only three?" Hiruzen's voice came again, calm but pointed. "That location is a known invasion route. A single battalion would not be excessive."
"To commit more would have stretched the entire division critically thin elsewhere, Lord Third." Daichi countered, his mental voice firm. "And given Uzumaki Renjiro's recent… exploits… I assessed that the combined strength of three teams, with him present, was a sufficient deterrent and defensive force. The risk seemed calculated and acceptable."
The logic was sound. Neither Hiruzen nor Shiba could immediately refute it. The silence stretched again, charged with unspoken concerns.
Daichi's patience, worn thin by days without sleep, began to fray. "With respect, Hokage-sama, Commander Shiba, I was informed this meeting was of utmost urgency. Thus far, we are discussing standard deployment protocols. What is the nature of the emergency?"
Hiruzen's sigh was a wave of static and weary emotion in their minds. "Before I answer, Daichi, confirm this for me. Have any of the three teams you sent to the Valley of the End made contact since their departure?"
A cold knot began to form in Daichi's stomach. "They have not," he admitted. "I dispatched them a few hours ago. They should have reported their arrival and status by now. I have been awaiting their communications all night."
"We have received intel," Hiruzen's voice said, each word heavy with grim finality, "that a significant enemy force was mobilizing for an ambush. The location was the Valley of the End."
Daichi's mind raced. "Then that explains the communications delay. The ambush is likely underway. We must dispatch reinforcements immediately—"
"The intelligence was more specific than that, Daichi," Shiba's voice interjected, cutting him off. "The target of the ambush was not just any Konoha unit. It was specifically targeted at Uzumaki Renjiro."
In the tent, Daichi's eyes snapped to Fugaku's. His son's face was a mask of shock, the same chilling realisation dawning in his own eyes. The precision of the ambush, the knowledge of Renjiro's deployment… it spoke of a leak. High-level intelligence.
"I see," Daichi's thought-voice was like ice. "You are implying a security breach. That the enemy knew of his movements. If you are suspecting my clan members of leaking information or being compromised, I can assure you—"
"No one is making accusations, Daichi," Shiba's voice replied, though it lacked its usual calming effect.
"Every division is facing this issue. Spies are a fact of war. We merely need you to be extra vigilant with your command structure, knowing that your specific deployments may be under exceptional scrutiny."
"I am not being defensive, Shiba" Daichi's mental voice crackled with a cold, proud anger. "I am being factual. I can vouch for the loyalty of every Uchiha in my command. There has been no leak from my clan."
In the mental channel, Shiba seemed to withdraw, deciding a political argument was pointless at this juncture. Hiruzen's voice filled the void, pragmatic and weary.
"Understood, Commander. How did you relay the deployment orders to the teams? Was it through written scroll, direct verbal command, or the Yamanaka network?"
Daichi opened his mouth to respond, to detail the secure courier system he had used.
He never got the chance.
The tent flap was thrown aside once more with a violence that ripped the psychic connection to shreds. The mental voices of the Hokage and Nara Shiba vanished from their heads, replaced by the gasping, horrified reality of another messenger—one of Daichi's own aides, his face ashen.
"Commander!" the aide blurted out, ignoring all protocol, his eyes wide with panic. "We… we just received a field report! From the Valley of the End!"
Daichi took a step forward, his entire body tensed. "Report!"
The aide swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "It's… it's from a sensor that was on perimeter duty miles away. He felt the… the chakra signatures vanish. Sir… Uchiha Hoshi's team and Senju Hirano's team… they're gone. All of them. Wiped out."
The air left the tent. Fugaku took an involuntary step back.
"And Renjiro?" Daichi asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
The aide trembled. "His signature… it didn't vanish. It… it flared. Brighter than anything the sensor had ever felt. And then it… it collapsed. It's still there, but it's faint. Flickering. The report says… Uzumaki Renjiro is alive. But he's critically injured. He's not responding to hails."