[Inside the Kumogakure Counterintelligence Squad's underground base, as the names on the list dwindled, the kneeling people steadily diminished as well.]
[The shadowed area on the stone floor was occupied by an increasing number of motionless corpses.]
[Finally, as Makima walked up to the last death-row prisoner and slowly spoke, "Yamanaka..."]
The Canopy Screen's playback ended here.
In Konoha, Inoichi Yamanaka stared fixedly at the images on the Canopy Screen, watching his daughter's future comrades explode one after another in the bloody mist.
When Makima's footsteps paused in front of the final death-row prisoner and she uttered that fatal name, "Yamanaka...", he could no longer control himself.
"Stop! Someone stop her right now!"
Inoichi Yamanaka abruptly stood up from his seat, slamming his hands heavily onto the console as his knuckles turned white from the force.
Ibiki Morino hurried forward to press a hand on his shoulder. "Inoichi, calm down!"
"How do you expect me to calm down!" Inoichi Yamanaka turned his head, his eyes bloodshot.
"How old will Ino be in the future? Are you telling me to let her die silently like this in a foreign land, without even a proper identity to her name?!"
Ibiki fell silent.
As the head of the Interrogation Department, he understood the cruelty of this profession all too well; the spies who fell in enemy nations ultimately became mere serial numbers on a dissection table, lacking even a decent gravestone.
He had long lost count of the nameless corpses of this sort he had handled with his own hands.
With a loud bang, Inoichi Yamanaka's fist slammed fiercely against the wall. "No, I have to go find Kakashi Hatake. No matter what the future holds, I must never let Ino walk down this path!"
Meanwhile, the Yamanaka Flower Shop inside Konoha.
Ino