"That name is already dead."
The Hokage Building did not record that sentence as a denial of identity.
If the Masked Man wanted to deny it, the most direct answer would have been, "I'm not Obito."
He had not written that.
What he denied was that the name still held meaning, not that the evidence had anything to do with him.
Itachi wrote his assessment beside the reply.
Semantic evasion.
This still could not be treated as an admission.
The Masked Man might have deliberately wanted Konoha to keep following the wrong lead, or he might simply have been unwilling to leave an explicit answer in writing.
But his wording at least proved that calling him Obito provoked a reaction.
Shikaku classified the reply as tier-three identity testimony and tier-one physical communication evidence.
The paper physically existed.
The meaning of its contents would require verification through subsequent behavior.
The rescue operation did not stop because of the reply.
After the Masked Man severed the sixth medium, two of the five dormant mediums simultaneously showed a backflow of chakra.
The Sealing Squad determined that he was not shutting down every passage, but changing the order of connections within the Other Dimension.
The Supplyman would be moved to a new destination.
If Konoha could lock onto the endpoint of the backflow in advance, they would have a chance to pull him out before his confinement location stabilized.
Kakashi could not keep using his left eye.
The search-and-rescue team therefore adopted the Space-Time Timing Model.
The Hyuga jonin observed the direction of chakra inside the five mediums.
Shisui was responsible for breaking the Masked Man's grip once a physical passage appeared.
The two Anbu protected the witness and the boundary of the authorized area, respectively.
Kakashi would use Resonance only in the final