The autumn wind howled, making the windows of the Hokage's office creak.
Several days had already passed.
Hiruzen Sarutobi stared at the stack of Anbu disappearance reports piling ever higher on his desk. His temples throbbed painfully, as if his head were about to split apart.
"Still... still no contact?"
The old monkey's voice was hoarse, his eye sockets sunken, a ring of grizzled stubble covering his chin.
He had barely slept these past few days, looking as haggard as a decrepit old man with one foot in the grave.
"Reporting... reporting to Lord Hokage."
The Anbu squad captain kneeling below kept his head bowed, his voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz.
"Jonin Aoba Yamashiro's team... has been out of contact for more than seventy-two hours."
"According to our final signal tracking, they... they likely met with trouble at No-Return Gorge, near the Land of Earth's border."
"No-Return Gorge..."
Hiruzen Sarutobi muttered the name, a flicker of fear passing through his clouded old eyes.
Of course he knew that place.
During the Third Shinobi World War, two elite Leaf Village reconnaissance units had vanished without a trace in that cursed gorge.
Every intelligence team sent in had been wiped out.
Not a single survivor had returned.
They had not even managed to send back the slightest bit of useful intelligence.
The current Leaf Village was like a blind man, a deaf man.
It was tightly shrouded in endless darkness and the unknown, unable to even grasp the enemy's shadow.
"Lord Hokage, the rumors in the village... can't be suppressed anymore."
The Anbu squad captain forced himself to continue reporting the even worse news.
"Now, people throughout the streets are saying... saying Iwagakure doesn't just have Uchiha Yoru and the Fourth Hokage. Even their technology... their technology is decades ahead