Root Had Already Disappeared, but It Could Not Bear Every Choice Made by Those Who Came After

Iwahashi's code name was not immediately circled as a new charge.

The investigator first broke that entry into four questions.

When had the assignment been issued?

Who had signed for it?

Had Iwahashi known what was in the bag?

Where had the list gone afterward?

The old catalog could answer only the first two.

On the third day after the attack on Kiriya, an outside liaison had collected a sealed bag under Iwahashi's code name.

Quantity: one.

Its destination was the Northern Post Station.

There was no name in the signature field.

Only an outer-tier Root stamp that had already been revoked.

Iwahashi admitted that he had delivered it.

"The bag wasn't open."

"I thought it contained population and supply records for the settlement."

"Why did you think that?"

"The liaison told me to send over all the people and supplies Kiriya could use."

That statement revealed more than "I didn't know."

Iwahashi had not known the specific names inside the bag.

But he had known that the documents concerned the settlement that had just been attacked, and that the recipient was not part of an official checkpoint.

The investigator did not combine those two facts on his behalf into knowing involvement in requisitioning minors.

Nor did the investigator treat the sealed bag as proof that no further questions were needed.

The old judgment was retrieved for review.

The interrogation back then had asked how much medicinal material had been stolen, who had carried weapons, and where the remaining accomplices had gone.

It had not asked about a bag containing a roster.

Nor had any related receipt been among the seized items.

Iwahashi had been penalized for concealing accomplices such as Kuriyama.

Whether transporting the list constituted a separate act first required proof of the extent of his knowledge, the