When the black Technique lit up, Kakashi's Shadow Clone did not immediately dispel.
As planned, it pressed its right hand against the Memorial Stone.
The stone surface abruptly softened.
The rock was not melting. Rather, the space around its palm was stretching inward.
Half the Shadow Clone's arm vanished in an instant, and its chakra marker was dragged toward an untraceable, distant location.
Had his real body been standing there, he would have lost far more than a hand.
The Hyuga jonin reported the Technique's structure from the underground observation post.
Centered on the Memorial Stone, the black markings extended backward to connect three Metal Nails buried in cracks in the stone.
Each pin carried different chakra.
One handled positioning.
One amplified the weak point in space.
The last had yet to activate, as though it was specifically waiting for a living person to enter its range.
Shisui did not pull the pins out directly.
He first connected the three positions with wire, then had the Sealing Squad cut off the ground's chakra supply from the perimeter.
The Technique's glow rapidly dimmed.
Yet the pale hand behind the stone still gripped the Shadow Clone's shoulder.
A voice strikingly similar to Rin's came from within the stone wall.
"Kakashi, you left him all alone again."
The voice was quiet, yet it pierced straight through every combat assessment and struck the place Kakashi least wanted to touch.
The Shadow Clone's movements visibly slowed for a beat.
His real body, hidden in a blind spot, also tightened his grip on his kunai instinctively.
That sentence appeared in no record.
Yet it sounded like something Rin would say.
The Masked Man did not need to imitate Rin perfectly.
He only needed Kakashi to believe, for a single breath, that she might be waiting for