On the third day after the extermination plan was devised, Shinichi finally received a crucial piece of intelligence.
He had not obtained it by staking out the area himself—it was brought back by White Paw. Early that morning, while he was studying the structural map of the Root base in his room, he suddenly heard a short whine beneath the kitchen's rear window. It was White Paw's signal. He climbed out through the window, and White Paw was crouched at the base of the wall with a small scrap of a scroll in its mouth, its tail wagging furiously. Its bean-like black eyes glittered in the moonlight, and its front paws excitedly scratched twice at the ground—its standard gesture for demanding praise after a major accomplishment.
Only a few incomplete words remained on the scroll fragment: "Three days later... base... main force... transfer..." The handwriting was Root's standard official script, the ink was Root's specialized anti-counterfeiting pine-soot ink, and an extremely faint chakra fluctuation still lingered on the paper. That meant the writer had been a sensory ninja and had been maintaining some kind of tracking technique while writing. Shinichi crouched and rubbed White Paw's head. "Good job." White Paw's tail wagged into a blur of white mist.
He returned to his room and examined the fragment carefully under the lamp. Root's main force was being transferred. This was not an ordinary personnel movement, but their "main force"—which meant at least three or four fully staffed action squads, including combat and tracking ninja, were leaving the old compound base at the same time. A mission requiring that scale of deployment had most likely been personally approved by Danzo. Yet Shinichi had heard no rumors in the village—no ANBU movements, no border alerts, no signs of anything that would require a