While the Hidden Leaf Village was going to sleep, a mission room in a restricted facility sowhere in the village was coming to life.
The room was a claustrophobic hive with a constant hum of a low-frequency electric buzz. Rows of narrow, high-walled cubicles stretched across the floor, each station lit by a dark yellow light, casting long shadows against the acoustic-foam walls. Thick bundles of black cables were taped to the floor and dove into the floorboards—two cables each coming out from every cubicle, connected to the black telephone sitting on each desk.
"Hurry, people! We have much to do and not enough ti!"
The supervisor yelled across the room, handing a page of paper to each of the two dozen phone operators taking their place in their cubicles. There was the scratching noise of sharpening pencils, flaps of paper, and clicks of numbered buttons on the telephones as the operators looked at the na on the lists handed to them and dialled the corresponding landline numbers.
The voices on the phone were flat and with little emotion as they followed the keywords and phrases written on the script given to help them convey all the information they had as concisely as possible.
"You need to reach out to every single person on your lists. Give two full rings; if they don't pick up, add them to the back of the list and call them once you have completed the run! Keep repeating until you have crossed out every na!"
Out of the two hundred chūnin being deployed for the attack on the ROOT base, a hundred and fifty were stationed at the Hidden Leaf Village, while the remaining fifty would co from various cities or installations between the village and the base. There was a much larger number of genin, who, similar to others, had to be roused from their sleep and called to the marshalling areas and mobilisation centres.
It was going to be a sleepless night for many in the village.
———
.
The chanical ring of a telephone in a dark hallway of a house at the edge of the Uchiha Compound. A light and swift set of footsteps travelled through the ho and arrived at the telephone just in ti for the last ring.
"Hello?" said the half-dopey voice, repeating herself after clearing her throat. "Yes, this is her. Who am I speaking to?" There was a pause as she listened to the voice on the other side, her drowsiness evaporating with each word. By the end, she was standing straight and listening attentively.
"Understood. I'll report on ti."
As she put down the phone, the light in the hallway turned on.
"Izumi. Who is it?"
Uchiha Izumi, in pyjamas, hid a sigh as she turned to look at her mother, who was wearing matching pyjamas like hers and had a shawl draped around her shoulders.
"I've been called, mother."
"… The thing you talked about earlier?"
Izumi nodded. A week ago, she had been inford that she might be called for a mission. She wasn't given any information about where or what she was going to do, but she knew it was going to be serious when they told her to keep it to herself; they even cancelled the mission she was scheduled to go on next week.
"Is it a dangerous one?" Izumi's mother asked worriedly as they moved to the kitchen table.
"I can't say."
In honesty, she could guess that it was going to be dangerous, but telling her mother wasn't going to ease her anxiety whenever she went out on dangerous missions, which were all she was being sent to recently. However, there was a silver lining: she got to spend more ti at ho. The more dangerous the mission she was sent to, the longer her downti.
"Be careful out there," Izumi's mother said, gently placing her hand on her daughter's.
Izumi softly smiled as she held her mother's hand. A part of her was annoyed because she knew that when her mother was like this, she would continue to tell her to be safe until she left. She wished that her mother would treat her like a strong kunoichi who was capable of taking care of herself, but when she felt the coarse skin on her mother's palm, she always cald down, knowing that it was just her mother's worry for her daughter. After Izumi's father died, she was left to raise Izumi on her own. It was only natural that she didn't want to lose her daughter like she lost her husband.
"Of course, mother. Who's going to scold
for falling for scams if I don't return to you?" Izumi grinned.
There was nothing more powerful than her desire to give her mother the best life she could live.
———
.
"I'm going to ruin you," Nenro smirked while pushing his hair back, "and I'm going to enjoy it."
"Big words for soone on the backfoot," Ai returned with narrowed eyes.
Masaaki licked his lips while looking down at his hand.
Ai raised three shuriken while she watched Nenro draw a sword. The tension rose, and her eyes narrowed when he reached to a place she couldn't see and pulled out a paper tag. Her eyes widened for a mont before excitent rushed to her face as she all but scread in joy,
"Yes!"
She slapped the three shuriken cards in the centre of the circle they sat in and then flipped the upside-down card on her side to reveal a stylised portrait of the Uchiha clan head. Nenro's eyes widened when he saw the stern face and the picture of a three-tomoe sharingan frad in a hexagon at the upper corner of the card.
"No…"
"Uchiha Fugaku, shurikenjutsu: double the value of all shuriken cards. I win, you sucker!" Ai clapped and then got up to do a little dance, all the while showing her tongue to a vexed Nenro, who threw down his sword and paper tag card in front of his lap, where his Hyūga Hiashi card was sitting.
"It was dumb luck," he said.
"Stra-ter-gy, baby," she replied with a grin.
"Might Gai… I win, right?"
Both of them quarrelling with each other turned to look at Masaaki, who had two fist cards and a kick card—the two weakest point cards in the ga, and sitting in front of them was the Might Gai card—strangely not dressed in his green jumpsuit—that converted the point cards into augnted fist and augnted kick, and because he had both augnted fist and augnted kick in his hand, the special Might Gai bonus, The Hidden Leaf Kata, got activated, giving plus-two to all of them, raising him from a very low third to a close first, thus putting him over both of them in their late night session of the ULTIMATE NINJA STORM board ga.
"You're kidding…"
Ai stood there with a gaping mouth at her loss and the set of cards in Masaaki's hand. Nenro, who had slumped against the couch behind, began howling in laughter. He wasn't even mad that he was now in last place and had to do all the dishes.
In the background of that ho filled with laughter, the ho phone began to ring.
———
.
Anko, dressed only in her panties, walked through her ho, utterly annoyed by the loud phone ring that broke her sleep. She had ignored the first call, not wanting to get off her bed, but the second call forced her to get up.
She stopped halfway in front of a door and opened it to peek into Kurenai's room to find her missing. Maybe her roommate had gone to see the Hokage's son for a late-night visit; Kurenai had been hanging out with the prodigal son since his return to the village. She smirked because she knew that two of them were tiptoeing around each other, still trying to rebuild their previous friendship, but she could tell that two of them could take it further.
She finally reached the phone illuminated by a dim lamp sitting next to it and clicked her tongue because she hoped that the ring would end by the ti she got there, and she would have an excuse not to care.
"Yeah, what?" she snapped at the phone. "Huh, that's today? Ah, I forgot… Uh-huh, yeah, got it… I'll be there quickly… Wait, wait! Tell
the address again, will ya? I didn't write it; lem put it down."
Anko listened to the dial tone for a second, then put the receiver down and walked through the apartnt suite she shared with Kurenai to a sliding door that had once been a simple wooden fra, replaced with a heavy tal panel when Kurenai moved in.
She pulled the door aside to reveal a small armoury with weapons—katana, staffs, whips, and daggers—mounted on the walls with a heavy oak maintenance station, scarred by years of sharpening and modifications. The drawers to the right were filled with sealed stacks of explosive tags, powder and paper for smoke bombs, and open-faced bins containing hundreds of kunai, shuriken, and senbon. A wall to the left was taken by supplies that could be used to create field kits, like bags, first-aid supplies, ready-to-eat als, and sleeping bags, and a rack full of sealing scrolls to pack everything inside.
She took in the sll of cloves and cold steel, mixed with the faint dry scent of aged parchnt and then walked to the corner with her battle gear and started pulling things out.
The full-length mirror to her side caught her sight, and she turned to look at it before shifting her body to get the cursed mark in the reflection. The ugly mark that ruined her life. The three black tomoe represent the vile juinjutsu and a thin outline around the mark reflects the Lord Third's seal, keeping it at bay.
As her anger flared, the tomoe glowed red for only a second as Anko forced herself to wrangle her emotions before the outline-seal could wake to counter the curse. She breathed out and stood still for a mont to gather herself before turning away from the mirror.
One day, she thought while clenching her fists.
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