After the Fire Release trap on the Eastern Trade Route failed, the disturbances across multiple locations suddenly went quiet for two days.
There were no new warning letters.
No altered road signs.
The border outposts spotted no strangers either.
The silence did not put Shikaku at ease.
"They already know small-scale probes have little chance of breaking through our procedures."
He marked every previous disturbance on the map in the Hokage Building.
"Next time, they'll either stop or escalate."
Late on the third night, the escalation came.
Distress flares went up simultaneously at three locations in the northern Land of Fire.
The Eastern Trade Route reported that a Konoha transport team had gone missing.
A southern waystation sent word that Iwagakure Ninja had crossed the buffer zone.
At almost the same moment, an explosion struck a reserve Medicinal Herb Warehouse inside Konoha.
Four reports, four directions.
Every one looked more like a genuine crisis than the minor disturbances before them.
The Anbu on duty instinctively wanted to send out every available operative.
Danzo immediately proposed that Root take sole control of security within the village.
"A multipronged assault has already begun. Keeping our responses separate will only delay action."
This was precisely the moment the enemy had been waiting for.
The aim was not to fool everyone with false leads.
It was to create enough real dangers at once to force Konoha to abandon the rules it had only just established.
Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at Shikaku.
Shikaku asked only, "Do we still have the classification chart?"
The Anbu Recorder immediately spread out the latest log.
The three northern flares carried no identification codes; their origins remained unverified.
The missing transport team in the east had a complete mission number and qualified as high risk.
The report of a border crossing