Inoichi Yamanaka had his hands full. Working for the Analysis Team of Konoha's Torture and Investigation unit was rarely a demanding job. His main task was to extract information from captive nin and deliver that information to Ibiki so the head of T&I could catalog it with everything that the other teams in T&I found. The main reason Inoichi was rarely busy was due to the fact that Konoha rarely had an opportunity to take large quantities of nin alive.
Ninja combat was extremely deadly. More often than not, fights were decided in moments. Either you killed your opponent, or he killed you. Such combat rarely facilitated surrenders.
When the Hokage announced that the Land of Lightning had declared war on the Land of Fire, Inoichi had wanted to be sent to the front line with his old teammates. While he, Shikaku and Chozo were now the heads of their respective clans and therefore carried many responsibilities, Inoichi wanted to be useful to the war effort, and doubted Kumo nin would allow themselves to be taken for interrogation without a fight.
Within a week of the fighting starting, Inoichi was given a trio of Kumo nin to interrogate. He was surprised Konoha had already managed to capture so many, and took to the task of learning their secrets with ferocity. Unfortunately, the three chunin knew nothing outside of outdated troop movements that wouldn't have mattered by the time that Inoichi distributed the information.
Once more, Inoichi desired to take to the field himself. Unfortunately, he could not leave his position. He was needed in T&I.
Fortune befell him again as duos and trios of Kumo nin trickled into the village at regular intervals. Then a large batch of prisoners Inoichi would never have expected. It was practically unheard of to receive six prisoners from a single battle. Many of those Inoichi interrogated knew nothing that would help the war effort, just details regarding a Kumogakure post in Kusa that had already been raided, but the two Kumo ANBU that had been captured offered a wealth of information.
From the ANBU, Inoichi learned Kumo's attack strategy and goals. The Land of Lightning did not intend to draw this war out. They were fighting to hurt Konoha as much as they could in as small a timeframe as possible while suffering as few losses as they could. They had fortified the borders of the Land of Lightning and would hold against any counterattacks arranged by Konoha, but would likely seek peace if Konoha gained a foothold in their territory from which they could organize a campaign through the Land of Lightning. The ANBU had been told they would fight this war alone. Iwa had been petitioned for aid in the conflict, but had rebuffed an alliance with Kumo for reasons Inoichi was unable to determine.
Even without that piece of the puzzle, the information was valuable. Inoichi sent it off to Ibiki and the Hokage so they could plan around it. If Kumo was only seeking to damage the Land of Fire, they would likely fall back if their own borders were breached. To end the war swiftly, Konoha needed to go on the offensive.
Inoichi had done his part, and was once more left with no direction. He could not continue his work in T&I without additional prisoners to interrogate, and he doubted he would receive any in the near future.
Inoichi had never considered himself the most intelligent man in Konoha – no, that title belonged to Shikaku – but he was not an idiot. When he delved through the minds of the Kumo captives that were retrieved, he glimpsed the methods through which they were captured. While he would never say so out loud, Inoichi knew each individual responsible for bringing him his captives, and all of them were currently on leave. While each member of the Konoha ANBU team wore masks, there were details about them that were poorly concealed to one who knew what to look for.
A scar on the back of a blond woman's hand she received as a result of a training injury. A cloak of shadows formed into a suit of armor. A young woman using a lightning technique that cut through flesh as easily as if it were paper which only two individuals in the village knew, and only one of those individuals was a young woman. Inoichi was still curious about the circumstances that led to the young woman in question learning that technique. No one he talked to seemed to have the same answer, and even then, they were all just guessing.
Inoichi wasn't stupid. He could put a puzzle together when he had all of the pieces, and his job for the past several years had been finding all of the pieces to a puzzle, even if he had to pull them straight from a man's mind.
"Inoichi!" Chozo greeted him as he opened the door. He stepped forward and pulled Inoichi into a bone-crushing hug.
Inoichi weakly patted Chozo's back, "Lungs." he croaked.
Chozo let him go, wincing. "Sorry about that. Come on in!"
Inoichi followed Chozo into the Akimichi Clan Head's home. He snorted as he saw another man already sitting at the dining table. "Here already?"
Shikaku shrugged, sipping away at the tea in his hands. "I didn't have anything to do this evening, so I got here early. How was work?"
Inoichi sat down across from Shikaku and sighed, letting the stress of the day out of his body as he exhaled. "Demanding, but also rewarding. With luck, Konoha won't be at war for much longer." Inoichi smirked as he looked up at Shikaku, casting a simple genjutsu on former teammates.
'That troublesome brat of yours is as good as you said he was, Shikaku.' Inoichi had been fascinated by Telepathy when Shikaku taught it to him. As a man who was able to use true telepathy, 'Telepathy' the jutsu was far from the real thing, but it was revolutionary. Konoha's nin could now communicate in a way they never could before without fear of the message being intercepted. Had the technique actually allowed two shinobi to connect their minds, Inoichi would have been concerned that the Hokage somehow accessed his Clan's secrets. As it was, he was simply glad the Third had created the jutsu. It would save lives.
Shikaku grunted, looking unamused. 'Chiaki isn't half bad either from what I've heard. Something about carrying her own unconscious body from Kusa's border to Konoha itself?'
Chozo chuckled as he sat down with them. 'Ko told me something similar. Allegedly, of course.'
Shikaku and Inoichi both smirked at him. "Of course." they said in tandem.
All three friends broke out into chuckles. Shikaku was the first to recover. He picked up the teapot in front of him and filled two more cups, passing them to Inoichi and Chozo.
Inoichi took a sip, staring down at the cup in surprise.
"This is really good." Chozo said, upending his cup to drink it all in one go. He held his cup out to Shikaku for more and said, "Where did you say you got it?"
As he refilled Chozo's cup, Shikaku said, "Shinto has been giving me his extra tea leaves for a while now. Yoshino said I was being too greedy by hoarding them and made me bring some over tonight."
Chozo raised an eyebrow. "He grows tea leaves?"
Shikaku shrugged. "It's one of the things he does to relax."
"Fair enough." Chozo took another drink.
"So, not that it isn't great to see you both, but would you mind telling me why we're here, Shikaku?" Inoichi broke into the conversation. Inoichi, Chozo and Shikaku had a tradition where they and their families got together once every few weeks to have dinner. Sometimes circumstances prevented them from seeing each other, but they got together as often as they could. As a general rule of thumb, if one of them called the others for a meeting outside of that gathering, it was business related.
Shikaku took a long drag of his tea before setting his cup down. "I'm sure you both know by now that I've been meeting regularly with Hiashi Hyuga."
Chozo sighed. "Clan politics, huh? Did we piss him off?"
"The opposite." Shikaku said. "How would the two of you feel about sitting down with Hiashi and I semi-regularly?"
Inoichi shared a look with Chozo. They were both working through the implications of Shikaku inviting them to discussions with Hiashi in their heads. Inoichi couldn't find a reason to dismiss the idea. If nothing came of it, all he would lose would be a few hours of his time. If something did come of it…
"When do you meet?" Inoichi asked.