The second code was carved into the back of an old tree.
If Itachi hadn't pointed it out, most people would have taken it for an old informant's mark intended for Shisui.
At the very top of the code was indeed the Audience Sign commonly used along the Border Trade Route.
Its meaning was simple.
An acquaintance.
Danger.
Meet only the designated person.
Taken together, those three meanings still appeared to point to Shisui.
But what Itachi had noticed was the additional stroke at the very bottom, so faint it was almost invisible.
That stroke conveyed no meeting location.
Nor did it ask for help.
It looked more like a mark used by those who managed the Old Archives to indicate "additional attachments."
Gen crouched down and studied it for a long time.
"It wasn't written for Shisui."
Crow frowned.
"Then who was it written for?"
Itachi answered, "Someone who understands the Konoha Military Police Force's Old Records format."
Those words silenced everyone there.
As a Border Former Informant, Morikawa Kai could certainly have known the trade route's codes.
But he shouldn't have been familiar with the marks used to manage the Konoha Military Police Force's Old Archives.
Unless he had come into contact with that system back then.
Or someone had taught him to hide clues in that format.
Shisui didn't approach just because the code appeared to point to him.
He stood beside the main team, waiting for the Recorder to finish making a rubbing.
This time, he knew better than anyone that the enemy wanted to see him act alone.
Gen had Itachi record the code in two layers.
The first layer: a meeting code used by Border Former Informants.
The second layer: a suspected annotation mark from the Konoha Military Police Force's Old Archives.
After reading