None of the main text was missing.
The seals had not been broken.
The cabinet doors had not been forced open.
But the dog-eared corners, marginal notes, and order of the index cards had been tampered with.
This was harder to deal with than outright destruction of evidence.
Because it was subtle.
If Itachi had not been so meticulous, most people would simply have assumed there was nothing wrong with the sealed cabinet.
Fugaku laid the clan's copies beside the copies sealed by the Hokage.
The same testimony from the Barrier Team.
The text matched.
The page count matched.
The signatures matched.
The only difference was that the clan's copy had a dog-eared corner, while the Hokage's sealed copy did not.
The same set of old-number index cards.
The contents matched.
The numbers matched.
But after the index cards had been reordered, the records from the eve of the Nine-Tails incident no longer sat beside the records of the old border informants. Instead, they had been slipped among ordinary wartime numbers.
Gen studied these details, his voice icy.
"They aren't destroying evidence."
Shisui finished the thought. "They're cutting off the trail."
The evidence was still there.
But anyone investigating would have a harder time connecting it.
A stranger opening the cabinet would see nothing but a stack of intact documents.
They would not immediately spot the most crucial page.
They would not immediately know which index card belonged beside another.
They would not immediately follow the trail the Uchiha had already uncovered and keep investigating.
That was what cutting off the trail meant.
After hearing the explanation Fugaku submitted, Crow's expression darkened as well.
Because the sealed cabinet belonging to the Hokage's Anbu had not been forced open.
That meant whoever had done this had not broken in by force.