After signs of retroactive additions appeared on the patrol handover sheet, Shisui submitted a comparison of spatial residue.
This comparison should not have been brought out so soon.
It was not direct enough.
Space-time traces were not like signatures.
They could not prove someone's identity at a glance.
But once the gap at the second quarter of the Hour of the Rooster on the day before the Nine-Tails Incident was confirmed, Shisui's comparison had found its place.
He laid three records side by side.
Residue from the Border Teahouse.
Distortion traces near the Former Informant's contact site.
A brief anomaly at the barrier's edge on the day before the Nine-Tails Incident.
The traces at the three locations were not completely identical.
But they all had one thing in common.
The chakra fluctuations looked as though they had been unfolded from within space, rather than caused by forcibly breaking through from outside.
After hearing this, the head of the Barrier Team's first reaction was denial.
"The barrier was not damaged on the day before the Nine-Tails Incident."
Shisui nodded.
"I never said it was damaged."
The team head frowned.
Gen added on Shisui's behalf, "Only that someone approached the barrier's edge and left an abnormal disturbance."
That made the issue more precise.
Not damage.
Not an intrusion.
An approach.
The barrier had not been breached, so the main record from that year had not classified it as a major anomaly.
It had only been entered in the Peripheral Anomaly Record.
And the Peripheral Anomaly Record had never been included in the main record of the Nine-Tails Incident.
Looking at that supplementary record, Gen could almost see the movements of the hand behind it all those years ago.
A crucial clue did not necessarily have to be destroyed.
Putting it somewhere no