By the time Team Kakashi reached the border, the unusual activity had already dispersed.
The town had not been attacked.
No one in the merchant caravans had died.
The ninja tool depot had not been robbed.
It looked like a false alarm.
But Kakashi did not see it that way.
The truly troublesome probes often did not begin with killing.
They only needed to let you glimpse a shadow, then leave you to fill in the fear yourself.
At an inn in the border town, the Anbu had left the first batch of interview records.
Several hired ninja had appeared in three groups.
The first group had asked about trade routes in the Land of Fire at a tavern.
The second had bought medicine to stop bleeding at a pharmacy.
The third had only appeared at the town entrance. One of them wore a tattered black cloak patterned with red clouds.
There had been no obvious contact between the three groups.
Yet they had all appeared on the same day.
After reading the records, Kakashi said, "This isn't an advance party for a war."
An Anbu accompanying him asked, "On what grounds?"
"If they intended to attack, they were too scattered. If they intended to hide their identities, they were too deliberate."
Kakashi pointed to the description of the red-cloud cloak.
"That cloak was meant for us to see."
After the news reached Konoha, the assessment at the Hokage Building began to shift as well.
The Border Anomaly was not a full-scale offensive.
It looked more like a probe.
But what they were probing remained unclear.
Danzo wanted to focus on the Land of Rain.
"Amegakure has long been in turmoil, and the movements of hired ninja are complex. Investigating Amegakure's forces should take priority."
Fugaku did not oppose investigating