When the Anbu patrol handover sheet was brought into the Conference Room, Crow took it himself.
He did not spread the entire sheet out for everyone to see.
He selected only the section adjacent to the time slot associated with the old identification number.
That was protocol.
It was also a boundary.
The Uchiha did not need to know the Anbu's complete patrol routes.
They only needed to know whether there had been a handover corresponding to the old identification number around the second quarter of the Hour of the Rooster on the day before the Nine-Tails incident.
Crow read very slowly.
The more he read, the tighter his brow furrowed.
Hiruzen Sarutobi asked, "Is there a problem?"
Crow placed the selected page on the table.
"It appears complete."
Those words did not put anyone at ease.
Because Crow had not said there was no problem.
He continued, "But between the first and third quarters of the Hour of the Rooster, one section has a different layering of ink."
The head of the Archives Room immediately leaned closer.
The difference in the ink was faint.
Without a deliberate comparison, it could easily have been mistaken for writing done on the same day.
But the handover sheets used by the Anbu had strict requirements for handwriting, ink shade, and pen impressions.
Crow pointed to that section.
"This line looks more like a later addition."
The atmosphere in the Conference Room grew heavy again.
A later addition.
The day before the Nine-Tails incident.
The time slot associated with the old identification number.
Those three points together were enough to put everyone on alert.
Danzo said coldly, "Filling in omissions is common when organizing archives after a war."
Hearing that, Gen actually grew calmer.
Danzo was still hiding behind the chaos of archiving.