Konoha, the Hokage's Office.
Hiruzen Sarutobi received three letters almost simultaneously.
The first letter came from Richuan Taiban, an Outstanding Teacher at the Ninja Academy:
Lord Hokage, something terrible has happened. Those three morons, Bieshu Feifan, Might Duy, and Might Guy, have disappeared...
The very first sentence of Richuan Taiban's letter left Hiruzen Sarutobi baffled.
An Outstanding Teacher had lost three morons?
After reading Richuan Taiban's letter, Hiruzen Sarutobi smoked as he digested its contents.
What Richuan Taiban meant was that he had accepted a mission at the front to protect a noble.
But Bieshu Feifan and the other two had driven the noble away, and then all three of them had vanished too.
Richuan Taiban suspected that the three had become rogue ninja.
Hiruzen Sarutobi had absolutely no idea what Richuan Taiban was talking about.
After turning the letter over and reading it several times, Hiruzen Sarutobi confirmed that it contained no coded message.
That only left him even more confused.
Why would an Outstanding Teacher write to complain about three morons?
Wasn't he the captain?
And why hadn't he gone directly to the commander at the front?
Hiruzen Sarutobi thought for a long time but still couldn't make sense of Richuan Taiban's actions.
So Hiruzen Sarutobi picked up the second letter.
This one was from Bieshu Feifan:
Brother Hokage, we're all doing well. We've escorted Daquan Noble back to the Capital;
The mission isn't over yet, but we've discovered that Richuan has gone missing;
We couldn't find him, but the three of us have been protecting Daquan Noble very well;
Normally, we should have reported this to the front,
But we don't know the commander, and our captain, who handles communications, happens to have gotten lost too,
Plus, we missed you, so we thought we'd tell you about