Once she was sure Boruto had left, the gentle expression on Sumire Kakei's face vanished. She took a deep breath, her gaze sharpening with focus and a barely suppressed urgency.
She stopped leafing through the files carefully and began racing through one top-secret document after another.
Time ticked by. In the silent Archives Room, the only sound was the faint rustle of pages turning.
Before long, Sumire had skimmed roughly a quarter of the relevant core files.
She snapped the last volume shut, closed her eyes, and rubbed her throbbing temples. Fatigue showed on her face.
She swiftly returned every file she had touched to its original place on the shelves, erasing all traces that she had read them.
Then she steadied her breathing, arranged her expression into one of sober discovery, and headed for the entrance.
"Class Representative! How did it go?" Boruto, who had been waiting anxiously, rushed up to her the moment she emerged.
Sumire put a finger to her lips and gestured for him to lock the door first.
Boruto hurried to comply. Once he had carefully locked it, they left the Archives Room building and walked quickly to a relatively secluded corner.
"I found an important lead," Sumire whispered, her expression grave. "According to records that weren't completely destroyed, the person who actually controlled Root back then was a ninja named Shimura Danzō."
"He oversaw many extreme Human Experimentation projects and the development of Forbidden Techniques. One of them was a secret project involving a monster code-named Nue."
"Nue?" Boruto repeated the unfamiliar name.
"Yes. The files described Nue as neither a Summoning Beast nor a modified creature in the usual sense. It was more like a semi-physical being formed from special Chakra and negative mental energy."
"One of its most frightening abilities was to