Before rereading the tablet, the Records Team first dealt with the two kinds of handwriting already in their possession.
The surface text on the black stone fragment was legible.
The shallow impressions inside the fragment, however, could not be recovered through ordinary rubbings.
Cutting it open directly would destroy both the chakra Madara had left behind and the black covering layer.
The Sealing Squad switched to a three-layer Mirror Array.
The first layer reflected only the contours of the stone's surface.
The second recorded the direction of the chakra within the ink.
The third layer used extremely weak Sharingan Eye Power to reveal the covered strokes without touching the stone fragment itself.
The three images were stored separately, then overlaid by a Recorder who had not participated in the technique.
The result showed that this was not one person revising their own writing.
The underlying handwriting was heavy and broken, with clear signs that the writer's right hand had trembled.
It matched the Underground Old Man's writing habits when he recorded Obito's injuries and confirmed candidates.
The black lettering on the surface showed none of the lateral friction produced by holding a pen.
The force rose evenly from the cracks in the stone, as though a finger capable of changing shape had pressed directly into the old lettering.
At least several months separated the two layers of writing.
That estimate came from the mineral deposits in the stone's cracks.
After Madara's old lettering had been inscribed, traces of moisture had formed a transparent crystalline layer in the grooves.
By the time the black lettering pressed in, the crystals had hardened and were forced upward from below, breaking into irregular fragments.
Had both layers of writing formed at the same time, the crystals would have covered only the topmost layer. They