Another one or two days passed in the palace without incident.
The delegation held talks, banquets were staged, and everything appeared normal on the surface.
But one night, well before dawn, the shinobi from Konoha were woken abruptly.
The three Jōnin captains called their teams into a side hall, their expressions serious.
Okabe's face was as serious as stone when he addressed Ryusei, Renjiro, and Kanae alone.
"We just received new information from Konoha's spy network inside the Land of Hot Water. It ca on a ssenger bird overnight. They detected suspicious movents from Yugakure shinobi, but the details are unclear."
"From now on, you will rest only during the day. The nights will be spent patrolling and monitoring the palace. Rember, the Daimyō's guard may be five or six hundred strong, but very few of them have any shinobi training. Let's make sure we protect our delegation well; this is our main mission."
His tone was commanding as he began assigning posts around the palace compound.
Each Jōnin split their squad to cover different sections.
Okabe pointed deliberately to where Ryusei was to take watch, one of the thinner stretches of the wall where the stonework t the river, and the angle was difficult to reinforce.
Ryusei's face was calm as he nodded in acknowledgnt, but inside, he read the move imdiately. 'So this is the ga. Put exactly where a breach would co. Convenient. Predictable.'
His sensory threads caught a flicker in Okabe's aura, a flash of excitent he couldn't fully hide. That also told Ryusei everything.
Renjiro, standing beside him, was oblivious. His face lit up with anticipation, fingers twitching toward his blade. "About ti we get so action," he muttered, itching for a fight, not realizing the deeper play.
Kanae, however, was sharper. The mont Okabe's orders left his lips, her Byakugan opened briefly, sweeping the walls.
Her pale eyes narrowed as she noted Ryusei's assigned position.
Her lips pressed thin, and her hand clenched unconsciously at her side.
She didn't look at him directly.
Instead, her gaze dropped to the floor.
After a short silence, she said in a voice slightly different from her usual tone, "I'll head to my post," before turning away. She didn't look back.
Ryusei caught the small shift in her voice and body language. 'So she noticed. But she won't won't say it out loud.'
The squads broke apart, each moving to their positions. Okabe left with a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
'Finally, ti for this Senju brat to die,' he thought darkly as he walked away.
'Not even half my age, yet already climbing too fast. If left alone, he'd pass within a year, by this rate, perhaps. What a joke. Bloodline privilege, talent without struggle… disgusting. Better he rots here before that happens.'
Okabe already knew from the beginning that Konoha's higher-ups were fully aware of Yugakure's decision.
The Land of Hot Water's only hidden village had already chosen to side with Kumogakure.
The spy network reported that they were preparing a military coup, planning to secretly replace their Daimyo with a double and eliminate any other obstacles inside the palace and the capital. And the ti for that plan was now.
Yet the Fire Daimyo had still been allowed, even encouraged, to send his envoy right at this mont. Why?
Because Okabe and the other two Jōnin captains on this mission carried another, hidden order as part of ANBU.
The real task was this: when the Yugakure shinobi stord the palace, they were to "convince" the Hot Water Daimyo to write a short confession.
In it, he would acknowledge being attacked by Yugakure, forced to death by a coup, and denounce any further decrees coming out of his palace.
The letter would bear both his signature and his secret official seal.
Once that was secured, the Konoha teams would escort the Fire Daimyo's envoy out of the country, bringing back the docunt and seal as proof.
With these, Konoha could present the case to the central lords of the Land of Hot Water, telling them their Daimyo had been replaced and the capital compromised.
That way, those central nobles could claim more autonomy, shift toward Fire's protection, and break away from Yugakure's northern grip.
It was a calculated move. The Land of Hot Water was long and narrow.
By drawing the central regions into their orbit, Konoha would shorten the future battle line with Kumogakure and Yugakure, instead of being exposed to the full northern front.
Kumo already controlled the Land of Frost and Shimogakure; now they had Yugakure too.
Losing the north was inevitable, but keeping the center leaning on Fire was still a win.
As for stopping Yugakure's coup outright? Konoha knew it was impossible.
Yugakure's capital was right there; the palace was their backyard.
Even if Konoha sent shinobi strong enough to blunt the first strike, could they repeat that forever, against an entire hidden village in its own territory?
No. In these pre-war tis, Konoha didn't have the resources to burn like that.
However, that was also the perfect opportunity to send Ryusei on his way.
This mission was tailored for that, and the ANBU Commander, with his Captain, had been waiting for such a setup to appear for so ti.
That was why it took longer for the next B-rank mission for Okabe's team to be issued.
Since they knew only roughly when the Yugakure attack would happen, and the exact day could shift at the last minute, they had also been thoughtful enough to extend the envoy's visit from one day into a full week.
Okabe himself was the one who had reported Ryusei's advanced sensing and how far it had already progressed.
That made it clear this was the only loophole in the plan.
After all, Okabe knew exactly which direction the enemy attack would co from, and as captain, he had absolute authority to station Ryusei there to "guard" that approach.
If Ryusei refused, then the other Jōnin and Chūnin would imdiately have grounds to accuse him of being suspicious, even of working with the enemy.
They would have proof to justify taking him down themselves.
But the real risk was that Ryusei's sensing could still ruin everything.
For example, if he sensed an entire Yugakure force approaching, then obviously it wouldn't make sense for him to just sit there and die a certain, pointless death.
In that situation, he would return and report, rejoin the others, and not be isolated.
With all the shinobi and the Daimyo's guards around, he would have at least so cover and then escape with them after extracting the Daimyo's confession. That couldn't be allowed.
This was why his sensing had to be nullified sohow first.
If he couldn't sense when the enemies were coming, then he wouldn't have ti to react.
He would be surprised, overwheld by numbers and strength, of the full Yugakure force, and killed quickly.
The rest of Konoha's shinobi didn't need the warning anyway.
They were already prepared for this outco.
They weren't strong enough to win against an entire Yugakure assault, but they were strong enough to escape in the chaos with their envoy, once the Daimyo's confession and seal were secured.
The chaos and the hundreds of palace guards, five hundred, six hundred n, would serve as temporary decoys, tying up the attackers.
And Yugakure's first target would be the Daimyo himself, not the Konoha shinobi, so the eleven of them could slip out.
That was why, even before the Konoha group had arrived, Lord Shinsuke had already coordinated with Lord Danzo of Root.
Together, they dispatched a mixed team of ANBU and Root specialists to erect a massive sensory disruption barrier around the entire Daimyo palace.
It was one of the most advanced projects either faction had ever attempted, a fusion of barrier ninjutsu, sealing formulas, sensory inversion tricks, and even experintal tech.
It took days and more than a dozen specialists to complete, but for a target like Ryusei, it was worth the effort.
Okabe was certain the boy would die this ti. He even grinned at the thought.
The satisfaction of sending such a young, talented bloodline brat to the underworld with his own hands was second only to the joy of climbing higher in the Hokage's faction, gaining those advanced techniques, and one day standing latched onto a real power in the village.
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