Three hours after order returned to the Resettlement Zone, Uchiha Gen returned to the Supply Tent.
This time, he wasn't wearing his Konoha Military Police Force cloak.
Dressed only in ordinary clan attire, he stood beside the missing-person registration desk, seemingly helping Uchiha Makoto check the roster.
But his attention wasn't on the paper.
His two-tomoe Sharingan remained subdued in his eyes as his gaze swept across every line.
The food line.
The medicine line.
The hot water line.
And those people who never queued, collected supplies, or searched for relatives, yet always appeared wherever the crowds were thickest.
"That man in gray on the left was here yesterday, too."
Shisui's voice came softly from the shadows beneath the eaves.
He didn't reveal himself.
He merely conveyed his assessment in an extremely low voice.
Uchiha Gen didn't look up.
"And the one behind the hot water line."
Shisui said, "He shouted beside the medicine crates yesterday. He's changed clothes today."
Uchiha Gen made a tiny dot in the corner of the paper with his charcoal pencil.
Not a name.
Just a mark.
He wasn't in a hurry to arrest anyone.
Catching one agitator meant nothing.
The man could claim to be an ordinary villager, say he'd simply gotten emotional, or accuse the Uchiha of suppressing dissent again.
Scapegoats were far too easy to prepare.
Gen wanted the hand.
The hand reaching out from behind the Resettlement Zone's crowds, passing along messages, signals, and orders.
"Don't watch them too long."
Uchiha Gen spoke quietly.
"They're looking for watchers, too."
Shisui didn't answer.
But the next instant, his presence vanished from the eaves.
Uchiha Gen continued writing with his head lowered.
Before long, the man in gray stepped away from the food line, pretending to get a drink.
As he passed a Logistics Ninja carrying supplies, he lightly tapped the rim of a water bucket twice with his right index finger.
The movement was subtle.
An ordinary person would have thought he'd brushed it by accident.
But Uchiha Gen's two-tomoe Sharingan caught it clearly.
Two taps.
A pause of one breath.
Then another tap.
The Logistics Ninja didn't look up. He merely slipped an old rolled-up ledger into a wooden crate filled with empty medicine bottles.
Then another man, dressed in brown, lifted the crate and headed toward the rear of the Resettlement Zone.
Uchiha Gen wrote three words on the paper.
Empty medicine bottles.
Then he folded the paper and handed it to Uchiha Ryo as he passed.
"Give this to the clan head."
Uchiha Ryo asked quietly, "Do we move now?"
"No."
Uchiha Gen looked in the direction the man in brown had gone.
"Let Shisui follow him."
Uchiha Ryo frowned. "You're not going?"
"If I go, they'll know Uchiha Gen is investigating."
Uchiha Gen said, "If Shisui goes, they might never see him."
That wasn't modesty.
It was an assessment.
In tracking, concealment, the Body Flicker Technique, and judging distances, he was still far inferior to Shisui.
He could spot the signals.
But tracing the route behind those signals had to be left to someone truly skilled at it.
Behind the Resettlement Zone lay a temporary storage yard.
After the Nine-Tails' attack, many unsorted supplies, damaged ledgers, empty medicine bottles, and broken tools had been piled there temporarily.
Carrying the wooden crate, the man in brown passed through two torn cloth curtains and entered a half-collapsed storehouse.
He had barely set the crate down when a dark figure appeared in a corner.
A Root mask.
Shisui stopped above a hole in the roof without descending.
His body hugged the shadows, his breathing almost imperceptible.
Inside the storehouse, the Root ninja opened the crate and took out the old rolled-up ledger.
Its cover was soaked with medicine and smeared with dust.
But several sheets tucked inside hadn't been completely ruined.
They were the original records of the Resettlement Zone's first supply distribution.
They listed the medicine quantities, distribution order, and signatures of several temporary porters before the unrest began.
Two of those names belonged to the men in gray and brown who had been moving through the crowds today.
The Root ninja said coldly, "Burn it."
The man in brown startled. "Now? They're still investigating over at the Resettlement Zone."
"That's why we burn it now."
The Root ninja took out a fire striker.
"Leave only the copy compiled by the Konoha Military Police Force. Once the original records are gone, we can say the Uchiha changed the procedures without authorization."
Shisui's gaze chilled slightly.
He finally understood why Uchiha Gen hadn't let him arrest anyone.
Catching the man in gray would give them nothing but his word.
But the scene before him was evidence of Root reaching in to alter the facts.
Shisui formed hand seals.
A Shadow Clone appeared silently behind a roof beam on the opposite side of the storehouse.
His real body still didn't move.
He had promised Uchiha Gen he wouldn't seize anything by force.
He would only witness it.
Just as the fire striker flared, footsteps suddenly sounded outside the storehouse door.
"Routine inspection of discarded supplies by the Konoha Military Police Force."
Uchiha Ryo's voice came from outside.
Behind him were two adult Uchiha and an Anbu who answered directly to the Hokage.
That Anbu had been sent by the Third Hokage to cross-check the records.
Uchiha Gen hadn't let the Konoha Military Police Force intervene alone.
He had brought the Third Hokage's eyes along, too.
The Root ninja's movement stopped.
The flame hadn't yet touched the ledger.
Uchiha Ryo had already pushed open the door and entered.
His first glance caught the fire striker, his second the ledger.
His third caught the masked Root ninja in the corner.
"What are you doing?"
The Root ninja said coldly, "Root is conducting a classified mission. Stand down."
Uchiha Ryo didn't back away.
He stepped aside.
The Hokage's Anbu entered, his gaze settling on the fire striker and ledger.
The atmosphere froze instantly.
The Root ninja could intimidate the Uchiha.
But in front of the Hokage's Anbu, he couldn't claim that destroying the Resettlement Zone's original records was a routine classified operation.
"Explain the mission."
The Hokage's Anbu spoke.
The Root ninja fell silent for a breath.
"Disposing of discarded supplies to prevent contamination in the Resettlement Zone."
Uchiha Ryo said coldly, "Do discarded supplies include the original distribution ledger?"
The Root ninja looked at him. "The Konoha Military Police Force has no authority to question Root's missions."
"Then do I have that authority?"
The Hokage's Anbu spoke without inflection.
At last, the Root ninja turned his gaze toward him.
This was exactly the situation Uchiha Gen wanted.
Not an argument between the Uchiha and Root.
Instead, the Hokage's Anbu and Root would establish the same fact: Root personnel were removing the original records of the Resettlement Zone conflict and preparing to burn them.
Uchiha Ryo didn't touch the ledger.
He merely stepped back half a pace and raised a hand, signaling the clansmen behind him to stop.
"The Konoha Military Police Force will not touch the evidence."
Following Uchiha Gen's instructions beforehand, he said, "Please have the Hokage's Anbu secure it and a logistics Chunin confirm the ledger's source."
At those words, the Root ninja's gaze grew colder.
If the Uchiha seized the ledger, he could accuse them of stealing the supply records.
If the Uchiha interrogated Root, he could accuse them of interfering with a classified mission.
But the Uchiha weren't touching anything.
They were only asking the Hokage's Anbu to secure it.
That made it difficult for Root to divert attention elsewhere.
Soon, the logistics Chunin was brought to the storehouse entrance.
The sight of the old rolled-up ledger made his expression change sharply.
"These are the original records of the first medicine and food distribution. They were still in the cabinet at the back of the Supply Tent during this afternoon's inventory. How did they get here?"
His words left the air inside the storehouse utterly heavy.
On the roof beam, Shisui's Shadow Clone silently dispersed.
His real body remained hidden in the shadows.
He didn't reveal himself.
Because the moment he did, Root could shift the focus from "destroying records" to "Shisui Uchiha infiltrating without authorization."
Standing at a street corner outside the storehouse, Uchiha Gen slowly unclenched his fingers only after he saw the Hokage's Anbu enter.
The first step had worked.
No seizing, no fighting, no killing.
Put Root in front of the original records with a fire striker in hand.
Let the people who needed to see it see it.
But he didn't relax.
Because Root wouldn't have prepared only one fallback.
Sure enough, in the shadows behind the storehouse, a Root member raised his head toward the roof.
He didn't seem to have seen Shisui.
But he had spotted a faint mark in the dust on the roof beam where the Shadow Clone had just stepped.
It was faint.
So faint that an ordinary person would never have noticed.
But the Root ninja noticed.
He raised a hand to his ear, his voice almost inaudible.
"Traces of Shisui Uchiha's activity detected."
"We can frame this as unauthorized entry into the supply storehouse."
"Prepare the second plan."
On the other side of the rooftop, Shisui's gaze darkened for the first time.
He hadn't revealed himself.
But the other side was already preparing to pin the blame on him.
This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment reaction.
It was a trap that had long been waiting for the young Uchiha prodigy to walk into it.
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