Arai's personnel record was clean.
So clean there was almost nothing to investigate.
Ordinary parents.
No ninja service history.
No Root training records.
No records of contact with the Anbu.
After the war, he had entered the Hokage Building as a temporary clerk, responsible for organizing catalogs and transcribing old forms.
Someone like him would go unnoticed on any Investigation Team.
And that was precisely what made him dangerous.
Gen looked at Arai's employment history and understood it all too well.
The old-shell system did not need every operative to be a Root ninja.
Often, a temporary clerk was more useful than a Root ninja.
A ninja approaching a sealed cabinet would be watched.
An Anbu member approaching the index cards would be recorded.
But a clerk organizing catalogs, sorting cards, and transcribing page numbers all looked perfectly normal.
Arai had not destroyed any evidence.
He had merely rearranged the index.
It seemed like a small matter.
Yet it could send anyone conducting a later review down a long detour.
Fugaku asked, "Why did you follow the instructions?"
Arai said quietly, "The note said the original order was wrong and would affect the Investigation Team's judgment. I thought I was just organizing things."
Crow said coldly, "You didn't confirm it with a Witness?"
Arai shook his head.
"The note had a wax seal."
Those words made the head of the Archives Room look even worse.
Under the old system, a wax seal represented a form of low-level attestation.
It was not an order from the highest authority.
But it was enough to convince an ordinary clerk that the instruction came through an authorized chain of command.
The problem was that this old style of wax seal should have been discontinued long ago.
Gen looked at the head of the Archives