Before the captured attacker had even spoken, three contact points in the northern Land of Grass were evacuated simultaneously.
When the news reached Konoha, Danzo spread a map across the Hokage's desk.
"The public authorization has already alerted them."
On the map, Liuchuan Town, the Disputed Mountains, and three Abandoned Waystations were connected by a winding line.
"If we keep issuing routine notifications, everyone who can prove they were hired will disappear."
He proposed dispatching a Root Squad immediately.
The members' names would not be recorded.
The route would not be registered.
The Land of Grass Local Government would not be notified of the operation.
Any contact involved in silencing witnesses would be brought straight back to Konoha once found.
Any fighting that occurred would be recorded only as border self-defense.
Hiruzen Sarutobi read the proposal and remained silent for a long time.
Covert operations were not unusual in themselves.
A ninja village could not make all its personnel, routes, and objectives public.
But what this proposal concealed was not intelligence from outsiders. It was accountability within the village.
Without a mission number, there would be no way to confirm who had authorized the operation.
Without defined limits on the targets, there would be no way to determine whether the wrong people had been captured.
Without a record of their return, even someone dying beyond the border would become a blank that no one would ever explain.
More dangerously, if a squad that did not exist in the records were captured, Konoha could only deny its members' identities.
The Land of Grass would regard it as covert infiltration by Konoha.
The Land of Earth would treat them as scouts who had crossed the border.
The operatives could receive no overt rescue, and the Hokage Building could produce no orders proving