{Hokage's Office, Administrative building, Konohagakure}
{11:49 PM, 18th Mar 13 Yrs ANB}
{3rd Person POV}
Hiruzen was back in his office reading Hayate's report with Shikaku and the ANBU commander were standing in front of him. He read through the whole report and then leaned back in his chair. Shikaku and the ANBU commander then took turns reading through the mission report one after the other. The room maintained radio silence for the 3 minutes it took Shikaku and Dragon to go through the whole report.
"This doesn't make any sense, according to the latest reports that I have got from the Hamasaki Village they all indicate that we are not having any troubles from our neighbors. We are even getting the normal amount of rice that we get each month from the Land of Waves through our long-established trade agreement." Dragon responded.
"So Hayate's suspicions are right, the final trade checkpoint we have in the Hamasaki Village is compromised, not only are we getting bad intel from that area but someone is hijacking our trade route, and the money we are sending is being kept by the hijacker while they have control over the Land of Waves," Shikaku concluded, the situation was quite serious but since the Land of Waves was a small country it wasn't that bad.
"True it's not as serious as having a compromised transit point to any major or minor shinobi village," Hiruzen sat back up and reread the scroll once again, "but we still need to get the checkpoint back," Hiruzen spoke and both Shikaku and Dragon nodded.
'Not to mention that Ren and Hayate are stuck there without backup, and if I'm remembering right 'the Rainbow' is a codeword that we used in the last war for the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the mist...' Shikaku thought as Tora appeared in the room.
"Get ANBU Team San and Team Ichi here," Dragon ordered and Tora flickered away, both Shikaku and Hiruzen gave Dragon a look but didn't say anything.
"Who would have the resources and motive to do something like this though," Shikaku asked, although he didn't actually ask, his question was more pointy and sarcastic.
'Danzo...' All three of them had the same thought, this whole scheme reeked of Danzo's manipulation especially since nothing in this whole conspiracy would actually harm Konoha, more than likely Danzo would be reaping a huge amount of profits from Gato's share.
'Dammit is he starting to get restless again,' Hiruzen thought as they waited for the two ANBU squads to arrive. After the Uchiha incident, Hiruzen stripped Danzo from his official positions in Konoha, since then Danzo used his Root to fight battles across borders and infiltrate enemy lands so that they don't even think about trying to take advantage of Konoha's weakness.
'It's been 6 years, his funds must have started running out and Gato became the perfect messiah that he needed to operate for who knows how long now...' Hiruzen frowned, he wanted Root to go through more casualties while fighting against other villages and that should reduce Danzo's forces since he didn't have backup funds to raise new soldiers to replace the ones who fall.
Yūgao Uzuki was the first to arrive in front of the Hokage, seeing that both Shikaku and the ANBU commander were here her first thought was a prayer to Kami asking to make sure Hayate was okay.
The ANBUs had a unique tattoo engraved on one of their shoulders, the tattoo is a seal that burns softly when its mirror seal in the ANBU headquarters is triggered. Only short messages are normally conveyed through the seals and the only one she got today was to report immediately to Hokage-sama's office.
She sighed in relief as another ANBU appeared in the room, the Dog mask was quite common in ANBU but seeing his huge size Yugao was sure that the other one was someone from team Ichi.
'Did something major happen, two ANBU squads were summoned for the same mission.' Yugao thought as she straightened her back a little more and waited, it didn't take long, and within a couple of minutes, 8 ANBU were standing beside her. Their team was a little larger as they were overseeing the training of another new recruit.
The ANBU commander addressed them seeing both the teams were present, Yugao once again felt the feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach return as Dragon started speaking, "Squad #21 consisting of a two-man cell, Ren under the leadership of Gekko Hayate left for a C-Rank mission 4 days ago. It was an assignment to protect a bridge builder named Tazuna and was a standard mission. During the mission Team #21 reported to the final patrol checkpoint at Hamasaki Village, during their brief stay there Hayate noticed several abnormalities in the intelligence that he received from Konoha and his client and the situation of the Village itself."
"Team #21 continued on the mission with the idea of getting more probable cause before accusing the client of being dishonest. Briefly, after they entered the Land of Waves they were ambushed by two chunin missing-nin from Kiri and Ren sensed another one lurking around. Seeing as traveling back would be disadvantageous they held their ground and sent a reinforcement request to the final patrol checkpoint at Hamasaki Village. According to Hayate's report, it has been 4 hours since his request went out and the response time he anticipated should be 2 hours."
Yugao was relieved a little since the situation seemed to be in control but before she could relax Dragon's next words caused the atmosphere to stiffen, "After that Team #21 got into another battle with the enemy stated with the keywords 'The Rainbow'..."
'No, No...' Yugao's thoughts spiraled instantly as even though none of the 8 ANBU moved a muscle Yugao could sense all of their attention was on her, "Hayate concluded that they managed to repel the 'The Rainbow' but the status of Team #21 is unknown as of right now..." Dragon finished with the primary mission intel they had.
Hiruzen looked at everyone and spoke, "Now that you know the seriousness of the situation we need a first response unit to reinforce Team #21 in The Land of Waves," he looked over at Yugao and then spoke, "Team San, you'll go straight to The Land of Waves, dismissed."
Yugao was the first to flicker away and her team vanished a second later, Hiruzen looked at the empty spot then turned to Team Ichi and spoke, "Secure the checkpoint at Hamasaki Village and find out what happened, according to Hayate's hunch the checkpoint is compromised so feel out the situation first then find out who is behind it. Dismissed..." Hiruzen ordered and the rest of ANBU flickered out of the office.
Shikaku looked at the vanished figures that should quickly be making their way to the Land of Waves, he sighed and then turned to the ANBU commander and asked, "Was it really necessary to hide the fact that Team #21 won the battle so the danger wasn't as huge as you made it out to be."
Dragon ignored his question and Hiruzen sighed, "What I want to know is how in the hell did they manage to come out on top against one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist..."
Shikaku nodded as both he and Dragon started walking out of the room, Hiruzen also stood up and left, his direction though was not his warm bed. Hiruzen walked through the village, looking at the sleeping streets as he arrived at the clan compound of the Shimura Clan, the clan wasn't the largest in Konoha but it was still decent in size.
Danzo got the report that Hiruzen was coming once he walked into the Shimura Clan compound. He was waiting as Hiruzen walked in and sat down on the table in front of him, the tea was already prepared with a slight application of Fire Release and Hiruzen took a small sip.
"What can I do for you Hiruzen," Danzo asked.
"Pull your shinobi from the Land of Waves," Hiruzen went straight to the crux of the situation, Danzo's expression didn't even budge but he cursed a little in his mind. Although he was about to get rid of that cancer Gato soon he didn't think that idiot would be stupid enough to get Hiruzen's attention.
"What shinobi," Danzo replied content at playing their little game but Hiruzen this time denied it, "Two teams of ANBU have just left Konoha and should arrive at Hamasaki Village within the day, clean up the operation leave no traces behind I don't want anyone to know Konoha was behind this..."
'What's up with Hiruzen, it's just a small country which just focuses on agriculture and fishing...' Danzo finally frowned as he nodded, the two teammates stared at each other for a minute before Hiruzen took one last sip from the cup.
"Team Ichi will do an audit of the damage that The Land of Waves suffered during Gato's reign, 10% of that amount will be donated back to Waves in an effort to rebuild their economy," Hiruzen spoke as he opened the door, he gave Danzo a friendly smile and left.
'Damn that monkey,' Danzo cursed, he was upset but he still flared his chakra and a root operative arrived in front of me.
"Get me, Sai..."
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{A Day Later}
{Hamasaki Village, Land of Fire}
{01:19 PM, 20th Mar 13 Yrs ANB}
{3rd Person POV}
Team Ichi arrived at the Hamasaki Village, they each dispersed mixing in the village and looking for any intel they could find but after searching around the checkpoint each of them arrived at a disturbing conclusion.
The Patrol checkpoint at the Hamasaki Village was empty.
...
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AN- Unedited chapter, will edit it in a couple of hours...
P.S- 12 extra chapters on Pàtreon at - P.atreon.com/Version_401
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