By the time the squad returned to Konoha with the Old Directive Number, night had fully fallen.
No one said much along the way.
Morikawa Kai was escorted jointly by medical ninja and Anbu. He was neither taken into the Uchiha Clan Compound nor brought to Root.
He was placed in a medical station directly under the Hokage.
That alone was a victory.
It was not simply a matter of saving one person.
It meant keeping a key witness from falling into the sole custody of any one faction.
After the Hokage Building received the border records, Hiruzen Sarutobi summoned Crow that very night.
Crow added no emotion to his account.
He merely recounted what had been recorded at the scene.
No one had been at the official meeting location.
There had been bloodstains and spatial residue along the diversion route.
The token had been cleaned, and the residual chemical agent closely matched the methods Root's outer operatives used to erase traces.
A fragment of an old-style authorization had been found at the abandoned supply point.
With all three parties present as witnesses, Morikawa Kai had admitted that before the Night of the Nine-Tails, he had passed intelligence about border rotation schedules to a masked individual.
The person who had provided the Old Permission Entry had not been an Uchiha.
Morikawa Kai had left them the Old Directive Number.
Every sentence was like a stone dropping into water.
The silence in the conference room deepened, layer by layer.
Mitokado Homura looked grim.
Utatane Koharu did not speak immediately either.
Danzo stood in the shadows, his voice as cold as ever.
"The testimony of a former informant whose mind has been damaged by sealing is not necessarily reliable."
Crow lowered his head.
"That is why testimony was not the only thing