Surrounded

As Qi Shuang and the others hurried toward Konoha's main camp, the Konoha ninja left behind had already engaged a small group of Mist ninja.

At first, the Konoha ninja guarding the camp had not taken the few invading Mist ninja seriously. They had assumed they were merely a routine harassment unit. But when more and more Mist ninja began appearing around them, they realized something was wrong.

"Byakugan!"

One of the Hyuga clan members on guard activated his Byakugan, expanding his search range to investigate the situation.

"This is..."

After searching the area within a one-kilometer radius of Konoha's main camp, he immediately broke into a cold sweat and was so frightened that he could not speak.

"What is it?" a companion shouted while throwing explosive Kunai outward.

Boom!

The sound of the explosion came quickly, but was immediately drowned out by the other explosions ringing out around them.

More and more Mist ninja were joining the battle, and some of the companions guarding the camp could no longer hold them back.

"I... we're... surrounded!" the Hyuga man responded in an almost trembling voice.

"How is that possible?"

His companion immediately expressed his disbelief, wildly swinging his weapon to block the ninja tools raining down upon them.

"I'm not making this up. Countless Mist squads are pouring in from all directions without end! They've already formed a huge encirclement and completely surrounded our camp!" the Hyuga man answered in a mournful voice.

"Then what are you standing around here for?"

His companion angrily kicked him to the ground and shouted, "Hurry to the command headquarters and report the situation! Tell them to send reinforcements immediately!"

"Huh? Oh! Oh, right!"

Only after being kicked hard did the Hyuga man come to his senses. It was not yet the moment of complete despair. He immediately crawled and rolled toward the command headquarters.

When he hurriedly reached the entrance to the command headquarters, he happened to run into another clansman.

"You noticed it too?" the other man asked him in terror.

"Yes!"

He nodded without saying anything more, immediately lifted the door curtain, and led the way into the command tent.

Seeing the two Hyuga clan members enter the tent, someone inside frowned and asked, "Weren't you assigned to monitor the situation around the camp at all times? What are you both doing here?"

The two Hyuga clan members exchanged glances, and neither spoke first.

The main camp had been surrounded, and as sensory ninja, they bore an inescapable responsibility.

Seeming to understand that they could not avoid it after all, the one who had entered first spoke after a brief silence. "Report, sir. Our... our camp has been surrounded by Mist ninja!"

"What?"

The others in the tent were also stunned upon hearing this. Only after quite some time did they recover.

One of them immediately swept all the documents off the table and cursed the two men furiously. "What are you two good for? Were those eyes of yours grown for nothing?"

"You only noticed something was wrong after we were surrounded! Damn it!"

If they had not come to report the news, he would have thought that the Mist was merely carrying out its usual probing harassment outside.

"All right, all right! Things have already come to this. Getting angry won't help!"

Behind the desk, another person patted his shoulder before looking at the two Hyuga clan members. "Aren't you constantly monitoring the area around us? How did we end up surrounded before you realized something was wrong?"

One of the Hyuga clan members lowered his head and said, "Earlier, we didn't notice any signs of a large Mist force moving this way. We only sporadically discovered several squads bypassing our defensive line."

"I suspect they used this method of dispersing and circling around us to evade our surveillance, then formed a large encirclement and tightened it around us. By the time we discovered it, it was already too late!"

The man asked again, "How many of them are there?"

The Hyuga clan member answered in a low voice, "Not that many, but there are still nearly five hundred."

"I understand. You two may leave." The man waved at them.

Hearing this, the two Hyuga clan members acted as if they had been pardoned and fled the command tent like rabbits.

Listening to the thunderous explosions outside, one man frowned and said, "Five hundred enemies. Though they aren't enough to wipe us out completely, the forces in our camp definitely can't hold them back!"

"Moreover, there are many wounded in the camp. If they break in and wreak havoc, our losses will be extremely heavy!"

"I propose sending part of our forces back to reinforce the camp!"

The other person beside him shook his head repeatedly and sighed. "If you miss one step, you'll keep missing every step!"

"The Mist went to such lengths to draw our main force away, then sent troops around us for a surprise attack. They must have anticipated that we would send troops back to reinforce the camp!"

"So now the question isn't whether we should send troops back, but whether our forces can even return!"

"Are you saying we shouldn't send troops back, then?" The man in front raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't say that!"

He rolled his eyes at his companion and continued, "What I mean is that we can't place all our hopes on sending troops back and focus only on resisting the Mist's surprise attack."

"We should instead consider the purpose behind the Mist making this move. Preventing them from achieving their objective this time is our top priority!"

The other person thought for a moment, then stroked his chin and ventured, "Could they... be planning some sort of decapitation tactic?"

It was fundamentally impossible for the Mist to completely destroy their main camp with five hundred troops. If they wanted to achieve some result with such limited forces, the only thing he could think of was decapitation!

The other two nodded slightly upon hearing this.

One of them said, "A decapitation strike isn't impossible!"

"If they use these five hundred troops to kill the three of us commanders, destroy our command system, create chaos on the battlefield, and break through our defensive line in one stroke, that would also count as a successful tactic!"

At this, the other two fell silent.

After three breaths, one of them said in a low voice, "Although sending troops back will certainly be difficult, we should still send out the orders as soon as possible!"

"The sooner the reinforcements return, the sooner the Mist's surprise-attack force will withdraw, and the safer we'll be!"

With that, he snapped his fingers, and three Konoha ninja wearing white-based tanuki masks appeared inside the command tent.

They were members of the Anbu assigned to protect the three commanders-in-chief.

"You three, hurry to the Uchiha camp and bring a thousand troops back from the main force to provide support!" he instructed them solemnly, quickly writing out three transfer orders and handing them over.

The outside was already surrounded by Mist ninja. Even with the Anbu's skills, breaking through the encirclement would likely be very difficult.

Three transfer orders and three people were meant to increase the odds of breaking out.

If all three of them died while breaking through, there would be nothing they could do about it. However, the odds of that happening were probably not high.

Taking one step back, even if all three of them died,

the reinforcements would still return. It would simply be that without their direct request for aid, the main force would have to discover the abnormality and turn back on its own, causing a longer delay.

The likelihood of something going wrong would also be higher.

No one wanted to entrust their fate to the unknown.