After Obito was entered into the files as a candidate, the scattered evidence was placed on a single timeline for the first time.
Kannabi Bridge.
The boy's right side had been crushed by a boulder, his left eye had been transplanted into Kakashi, and his remains had never been confirmed.
The Night of the Nine-Tails.
An Unregistered Sharingan Holder had crossed Konoha's defenses, controlled the Nine-Tails, and tried to shift the blame onto the Uchiha.
The conflict in the Land of Grass.
Akatsuki's peripheral operatives had used Black Market drugs, the Old Contact Node, and a White Double to mislead several nations.
The Sealed Records Room and the Memorial Stone.
The Masked Man had directly altered the evidence, then used a paired space-time ocular technique to try to take Kakashi's left eye.
These events were no longer merely similar.
They repeatedly revolved around the same right eye, the same ability to move without traversing a path, and the same type of abnormal cells.
Two enormous gaps still remained in the timeline.
No one knew what had happened between Obito's disappearance at Kannabi Bridge and his appearance on the Night of the Nine-Tails.
Nor were there any continuous records showing how the Masked Man had contacted the Old Akatsuki in the Land of Rain after the Night of the Nine-Tails and established links with White Zetsu and the Black Market.
The existing evidence could connect the starting point to the outcome, but it could not automatically fill in every step within those gaps.
Shikaku deliberately left empty boxes over both gaps, reminding everyone that they must not use the names "Madara" or "Akatsuki" to stand in for the entire process.
When the Medical Squad conducted a deeper comparison of the pale tissue, they discovered a new reaction.
Konoha preserved a tiny