After Root's survey reference numbers reached Konoha, Danzo did not deny them.
"During the war, Root assessed the mine tunnels beneath Kannabi Bridge."
At the Hokage's meeting, he presented an old mission summary.
The tunnels might have bypassed Iwagakure's defensive lines and had once been listed as an alternative route for infiltration and retreat.
The assessment team had entered only the first-level transfer chamber before discovering structural instability and aborting the mission.
The second-level tunnels were marked in the report as "suspected to exist, unconfirmed."
Danzo's explanation accounted for some of the reference numbers.
But it could not explain the complete set of coordinates on the back of the wooden beam.
Only someone who had actually entered the second level could have measured the distance between the junction and the underground cavern.
Shikaku overlaid the new map from the site onto Root's old map.
The first sections of the two maps matched perfectly.
An examination of the paper fibers showed that the damage along the right side of Root's old map was not natural wear.
A cutting tool had sliced through it from the back in a single stroke, leaving no signs of repeated tearing.
Half an ink dot from a coordinate remained beside the map's binding holes, matching up precisely with the mine tunnel junction's reference number.
What had been removed was not a blank corner, but a fully mapped route into the deeper levels.
The words "unconfirmed" in the archive summary had very likely been written after the complete map was cut away.
Root's map stopped abruptly at the transfer chamber.
Yet the paper's right edge bore severed fibers left by a cut.
It might originally have had another section.
"Where are the missing map pages?" Shikaku asked.
"The wartime archives were damaged," Danzo answered.
"Damaged again?" Fugaku