Summer.
Seemingly certain that the Fourth Hokage and his wife were dead, attackers struck the Land of Fire's borders from time to time. Several outposts came under ninja attack, some from the direction of the Land of Earth and others from the Land of Lightning.
Such raids had never stopped, and they had only grown more intense recently after Iwagakure and Kumogakure agreed to a ceasefire.
Having just endured a brutal Ninja War, however, neither side wanted to launch another war. Instead, they opted for gradual encroachment, slowly infiltrating and even annexing the small countries between the great nations.
Those small countries caught between them were weaker than even ninja clans like the Uchiha and Uzumaki.
The intelligence seemed to age the Third several more years. Konoha could no longer withstand a large-scale war. Fortunately, the other shinobi villages were equally reluctant to sink into the mire of war, limiting themselves to small-scale clashes to prevent the situation from escalating.
This was where the ANBU came in. The ANBU had been created to handle small-scale combat.
They had no names, only code names, and could even disguise themselves as enemy ninja to operate when necessary.
As members of the village's ANBU, Zou Hyuga and Oto could not refuse the Hokage's orders. They left the village on an A-rank mission that could rise to S-rank at any moment.
Zou Hyuga knew what an A-rank mission entailed. At the very least, they would encounter enemies at the elite jonin level.
After receiving their mission details, the three-person squad immediately set off for the Land of Fire's border to carry out their demanding ANBU assignment. Before they left, the Third had made them a promise.
If the mission went smoothly, they could be promoted to jonin without needing votes or support from other