On the second day after the Black Will appeared, Kakashi submitted a request for a mission review.
The subject of the request was not Kannabi Bridge.
It was the mission in which Rin Nohara had died.
That file had not been reopened in years.
Its surface-level conclusion contained only three lines.
Kirigakure had forcibly sealed the Three-Tails inside Rin.
To prevent the Three-Tails from entering Konoha, she had deliberately thrown herself into Kakashi's Lightning Blade.
Kakashi had lost consciousness under an assault by pursuers and from overusing his Sharingan.
None of those three lines was entirely wrong.
Yet they compressed days of abduction, sealing, and pursuit into a single final moment.
"I want to review my own account," Kakashi said.
Shikaku asked, "Are you sure you can withstand it?"
"I can't be sure."
Kakashi did not pretend to be strong.
"That's why I'm requesting a medical ninja's presence, with Shisui responsible for stopping the session. All questions must follow chronological order, and I must not be left to reconstruct the entire memory on my own."
This was not an interview meant to prove his courage.
Traumatic memories could fill their gaps with explanations heard afterward.
The more desperately someone sought a complete answer, the more likely they were to produce a false account that merely seemed coherent.
The Hokage Building approved the review and informed the Nohara family of its scope.
Rin's belongings and medical records could not be used without limit by the mission department simply because she was dead.
Her family consented to an investigation into the Three-Tails' seal and the pursuers' route, but not to the disclosure of her private letters.
The Nohara family also made one request.
The review's findings could not merely state that Rin had "chosen to sacrifice herself."
If she had tried to