Chapter Summaries

After verifying a plea for aid from the Land of Grass, Hiruzen Sarutobi sent a limited team led by Kakashi to rescue Liuchuan Town and investigate the attacks. A new report of deaths and missing children prompted the team to cross the border that night, officially beginning the real-conflict storyline.

• The Hokage Building checked the Land of Grass letter and its supporting records, while Danzo warned that the plea might be a trap and Shikaku argued that Konoha still had to help the victims.
• Hiruzen Sarutobi assigned Kakashi to lead rescue and escort duties and sent the Cross-Verification Squad to preserve evidence, with Shisui and Itachi accompanying them.
• Before departure, Itachi added the question of who was waiting for Konoha to act to the mission record, recognizing that fear of manipulation could not excuse refusing genuine aid.
• Kakashi's team traveled along the Eastern Trade Route and recorded accounts from caravans as fear and rumors spread ahead of them.
• A second messenger reported that the attackers had killed the Trade Route Guard Team captain and abducted two children, so Kakashi canceled the team's rest and led them across the border that night.

Kakashi’s team rescued survivors and investigated a deadly attack in Liuchuan Town, where evidence pointed both to Iwagakure-style Earth Release and a paralytic drug linked to the Land of Rain’s black market. The chapter left Itachi questioning whether the attackers and the people who wanted Konoha to identify them were the same, as the investigation shifted to separating perpetrators from their employers.

• Kakashi divided the team between treating the wounded, checking missing people and traps, and securing the attack site, insisting that saving the living came before preserving evidence.
• A grieving boy blamed Itachi for arriving too late, and Shisui helped Itachi record his guilt while reassigning him from questioning bereaved families.
• A Hyuga ninja found two missing children alive in an abandoned water channel, and Itachi helped rescue them.
• The Cross-Verification Squad found evidence of Earth Release and at least three attackers, but Kakashi kept their national affiliation unconfirmed.
• Kakashi’s team discovered paralytic drug residue linked to the Land of Rain’s black market, and Itachi recorded the question of whether the attackers were also those seeking to frame them.

Kakashi and the Cross-Verification Squad uncovered evidence that the attackers’ Earth Release identities had been borrowed and that a separate commander had planned the assault. When a suspected attacker fled toward the disputed border, Kakashi halted the pursuit to confirm Konoha’s authority before crossing.

• Itachi and Kakashi separated evidence of Earth Release from the drug and Black Market leads, and Shikaku stopped Danzo from turning the investigation into an accusation against Iwagakure.
• The Third Hokage ordered parallel inquiries into missing or dispatched Iwagakure ninja and the Black Market drug and payment network.
• A survivor recalled a whistle-blower directing the attack, and the Cross-Verification Squad found scuffs and wax-stained cloth where he had stood.
• A Hyuga jonin spotted an injured fugitive, and Kakashi’s team found a genuine Iwagakure shoulder guard bearing the number of a chunin registered dead three years earlier.
• The fugitive used Earth Release to block the ravine and fled toward the disputed border, so Kakashi ordered the team to stop and verify their authorization before pursuing him across it.

Kakashi’s team pursued a fugitive into the disputed mountains under limited authorization, rescued him from an attempt to silence him, and returned with evidence. The Hokage Building drafted emergency border-crossing rules, while Root proposed an unrecorded covert operation beyond those rules.

• Kakashi waited for authorization and received permission for four people to pursue the fugitive only as far as the Land of Earth watchtower’s field of view.
• Kakashi, Shisui, the Hyuga jonin, and an Anbu member found the fugitive in an old mine and detected an attacker waiting to kill him.
• Shisui rescued the wounded fugitive as Kakashi and the Hyuga jonin blocked the mine collapse, while the Anbu secured a medicine bottle and message strip.
• The attacker escaped through an underground waterway, and Kakashi stopped the pursuit at the authorized boundary.
• The Land of Grass official confirmed the mission’s scope, and the fugitive was placed under joint guard after his injuries and poison sac were treated.
• Shikaku answered Danzo’s question as the Hokage Building drafted emergency border rules, while Root submitted a proposal for an unrecorded operation to locate and deal with the fugitive’s contacts.

Danzo sought an unrecorded Root operation, but Hiruzen approved a limited mission with sealed internal records and safeguards. Kakashi received conflicting versions of the orders in the Land of Grass, revealing that the classified transmission had been tampered with.

• Danzo proposed sending a Root squad into the Land of Grass without recording its members, route, or authorization, and Fugaku and Shikaku challenged the lack of accountability.
• Shikaku divided the proposal into secrecy from outsiders and internal recordkeeping, and Hiruzen approved a covert operation with a mission number, defined targets and boundaries, and a return deadline.
• Danzo volunteered Root for the mission, while Shikaku required Kakashi to receive the squad's mission number and stopping boundary.
• Shikaku arranged independent delivery routes and required Kakashi to compare the summary with the classified orders after confirming their objective and limits.
• Kakashi received two sets of orders with matching seals and authorization but conflicting instructions, as the classified version added permission to silence targets who might expose Konoha's operation.

Kakashi halted a covert mission after discovering that someone had altered genuine orders to authorize killing a prisoner, then traced the tampering to a hidden contact node. The prisoner offered a map of transport routes across three lands, leaving Kakashi with evidence of a wider operation to investigate.

• Kakashi suspended the squad's advance and took responsibility for delaying the mission while the orders were examined.
• Itachi identified chemical washing and rewritten ink beneath the clause authorizing the target's death, and the Hokage Building confirmed that live capture was the only valid order.
• Anbu found tampering supplies and an old contact token at the Old Beacon Tower, linking the hidden node to a former contact officer who had supposedly been transferred away.
• Kakashi resumed the operation with a rule requiring him and an unaffiliated Witness to jointly confirm any orders about the target's treatment.
• The recovered prisoner agreed to provide a map if Kakashi guaranteed his safety during transfer, then revealed routes into the Lands of Grass, Rain, and Rivers.

Kakashi’s team verified parts of Iwahashi’s account and used his half-map to uncover routes designed to provoke conflict between major nations. A witness’s description of a black cloak with a red cloud on its cuff gave Gen the first corroborated trace of the unknown organization.

• Iwahashi told Kakashi that intermediaries had hired his squad through a chain of anonymous orders and promised new identities, while three recorders independently documented his testimony.
• The Nara intelligence analyst matched the half-map’s transit points to routes that could draw multiple nations’ patrols into disputed areas, and Itachi recognized that the plan aimed to make each side misread the others’ actions.
• Iwahashi revealed that the other half of the map was at Gray Bell Relay Station, and Kakashi corroborated the map against freight records and missing merchants before deciding to investigate the relay station.
• Shisui, the Hyuga Jonin, and the Anbu prepared to investigate on-site while Itachi, Akito, and the Nara intelligence analyst continued checking evidence from the perimeter.
• Iwahashi reported that a medicine courier wore a black cloak with a red cloud on the cuff, and Gen recognized the detail as a trace of the unknown organization.

Konoha recorded Akatsuki as a provisional threat after finding evidence of a transfer point and hearing conflicting accounts of the organization’s history. The Masked Man then sent partial evidence to Konoha and Iwagakure, escalating tensions between them.

• Shisui’s team found medicine crates, burned manifests, and an underground passage at Gray Bell Relay Station, while Akito discovered the name Akatsuki engraved on a bell.
• Nagasawa told the investigators that the old Akatsuki had helped civilians in the Land of Rain, and Shikaku preserved his testimony alongside a merchant’s lack of knowledge.
• Gen recommended treating Akatsuki as an unverified organization, and the Hokage Building opened a file that classified it as a threat pending verification.
• Investigators found two empty message tubes at another passage exit, one intended for the Land of Fire and one for the Land of Earth.
• The Masked Man sent separate letters accusing Iwagakure and Konoha of hostile actions, and both nations received partial evidence.

Itachi proposed exchanging operational timelines to investigate the evidence implicating Konoha and Iwagakure, and Ōnoki agreed to a time-limited verification with patrols barred from crossing their observation lines. The Masked Man then staged fresh clues in the buffer zone, bringing the two patrols face to face before verification ended.

• Itachi rejected the forced choice of accusing or excusing Iwagakure and proposed jointly checking both nations’ operational timelines.
• Shikaku drafted a verification plan, and Konoha sent it to Iwagakure in three separate parts through official channels.
• Ōnoki agreed to the time-limited verification and required both sides’ patrols to remain behind their current observation lines.
• The Masked Man ordered two hired ninja to plant false armor, footprints, and contact markers in the buffer zone.
• Konoha and Iwagakure patrols followed separate planted clues and came into sight of each other in a valley.

Kakashi and Iwagaki uncovered a third party that had provoked their teams into fighting, then established a limited verification channel between Konoha and Iwagakure. The Masked Man shifted his attention to Itachi, Shisui, and the Cross-Verification Squad as Gen received a warning that the Akatsuki fate line had connected.

• An unmarked explosive kunai triggered a clash between Konoha and Iwagakure, and Kakashi exposed a disguised third party on the ridge.
• Kakashi and Iwagaki ordered both teams to withdraw, and witnesses from both sides jointly documented the evidence.
• Kakashi and Iwagaki compared their missions and discovered that half-true intelligence had exploited both sides' secret operations to provoke conflict.
• Konoha and Iwagakure established a temporary verification channel for operations in the Disputed Mountains and recorded the clash without treating it as an ambush.
• The Masked Man targeted Itachi, Shisui, and the Cross-Verification Squad, while Gen received a high-risk system warning about Akatsuki's direct intervention.

Konoha established a tiered system to assess conflicting Akatsuki intelligence and avoided acting on unverified rumors and a suspicious membership list. When Itachi found that the list copied details from Konoha's Old Archives, the investigation shifted toward whoever had used those records to make it appear credible.

• Shikaku created four evidence tiers and tested them by tracing a recruitment rumor back to one unverified source.
• Gen realized that conflicting beliefs about Akatsuki could distract people while its members continued operating.
• An unsigned list naming eleven supposed Akatsuki members reached the Hokage Building, and Danzo urged Konoha to arrest the six it could locate.
• Shikaku checked each identity separately and found the list mixed real people with a dead ninja, people whose whereabouts were unknown, and suspicious but unverified suspects.
• Itachi noticed the dead ninja's detailed entry matched Konoha's Old Archives, including an old mistake, and redirected the investigation toward whoever had accessed those records.

Gen connected Danzo’s report on the Akatsuki to gaps in Konoha’s old records, leading investigators to a deliberately removed page about a Rain contact. The discovery tied Root’s old codes to the enemy’s drug network, leaving the investigation focused on who had access to the erased history.

• Danzo classified the Akatsuki as a mercenary network from the Land of Rain and assigned Root control over screening suspects and judging their testimony.
• Gen noticed Danzo’s report omitted Konoha’s operations in the Land of Rain and gave Shikaku the matching Root code and false-list error to investigate.
• The Third Hokage ordered old Rain operation files retrieved, and the Recorder found that a page about a temporary contact had been carefully removed from a mission volume.
• The archive records linked two Root archives personnel to the box’s relocation, prompting the Third Hokage to expand the investigation across the Old Beacon Tower, the false list, and the missing page.
• Iwahashi told Kakashi that a drug courier had used a knock adapted from Konoha’s old contact method, matching the codes in the missing records.

Iwahashi described the handlers’ segmented contact chain and revealed a fallback code phrase, while an attack on his decoy transfer route exposed a leak in public records. The attackers were stopped, and investigators found a ring engraved with “Void,” whose significance remained unknown.

• Iwahashi described three separate contacts, the Rain-style paper-flower code, and how the hiring chain kept each operative from knowing the full operation.
• Nagasawa identified the paper flower as an old Akatsuki entry-permitted marker but warned that it could not identify who had used it.
• Attackers struck Iwahashi’s false transfer route, and Shisui’s teams captured one attacker while another died after an explosive seal activated.
• The Anbu found that the dead attacker’s seal had been set to kill them if they moved too far from their companion, and they secured a second seal on the survivor.
• Iwahashi revealed a fallback point in the northern Land of Rivers and the phrase, “The bell won't ring before the rain stops.”
• The Anbu found a black ring sewn inside the dead attacker’s glove, engraved with the character “Void,” which the survivor could not explain.

Konoha investigated the black ring without accepting that it proved Akatsuki had a unified hierarchy, and tests linked it to materials from Gray Bell Relay Station. After the evidence was carefully secured, an intruder altered the working rubbing to show the Uchiha Clan Crest, marking the first direct infiltration of Konoha’s evidence system.

• Itachi argued that the ring proved only that the attacker had possessed it, and Shikaku ruled that its supposed organizational seat could not justify wider arrests without further evidence.
• The Cross-Verification Squad found that the ring was an old, specially made alloy with a new engraving and resin matching materials from Gray Bell Relay Station.
• Konoha recorded and duplicated the ring’s evidence, then sealed the original in a double-locked cabinet with separate custodians.
• After three guarded shifts, the recorder found that the working rubbing had been precisely altered from the character for "void" into the Uchiha Clan Crest.
• The original ring remained unchanged, and a system warning reported that an enemy had directly infiltrated Konoha’s evidence system.

Konoha investigated how someone altered evidence in the Sealed Records Room without opening its locks or breaking its barrier, and Gen proposed treating the incident as a pathless infiltration. The inquiry revealed that the intruder had also stolen a compiled summary from Land of Rain Operation, Volume Five, leaving Konoha with a clue that its investigation had been directly targeted.

• Konoha questioned guards from all three watch rotations and established that their attention to the entrance had been diverted for eleven breaths.
• Fugaku argued that the altered Uchiha crest impression did not prove an Uchiha had entered, and Itachi noted that its design had been traced from a public source.
• Gen suspected Kamui but withheld the technique's name, proposing instead a pathless infiltration hypothesis based on the intact locks, intact barrier, and altered evidence.
• Shikaku accepted Gen's hypothesis, and Konoha revised its storage and watch procedures to keep evidence copies separate and record guards' positions and conditions.
• A recorder discovered that the intruder had taken a compiled summary from Land of Rain Operation, Volume Five, while leaving the impression paper and analysis booklet behind.

Itachi traced the missing summary to a possible link between Old Akatsuki, Root, and a classified contact, then set a decoy to identify how the intruder learned about Konoha’s investigation. The decoy drew an unregistered Sharingan wielder to the eastern corridor, where Konoha recorded the first instant of his appearance from three observation posts.

• Itachi compared the archive entries with supply and patrol records and concluded that the missing summary connected Old Akatsuki, Root personnel, and a supposedly canceled meeting.
• Shikaku fed different false information through the Old Contact Node, internal personnel, and a route to the Anbu Analysis Team to distinguish the possible leak paths.
• Itachi and Shikaku treated the altered Uchiha Clan Crest as an attempt to provoke conflict between Root and the Uchiha and separated the investigation into three tracks.
• The Cross-Verification Squad staged a fake ring transfer with different details given to the Anbu, the Konoha Military Police Force, and the Nara recorder.
• Shisui signaled a lockdown when the Sealing Lamp warped, and Itachi, the Anbu, and a Hyuga jonin recorded the intruder’s chakra from separate positions.
• A black-gloved hand emerged from the intact wall, and the system warned that an unregistered Sharingan wielder had appeared.

Shisui and Konoha confronted the Masked Man, who used his phasing ability to evade capture while trying to lure Shisui into pursuing him alone. The Masked Man escaped, but Konoha recovered a fragment of his mask and abnormal cellular tissue, and Shisui avoided the trap.

• Shisui used a trapped bait box and coordinated observations to test the Masked Man’s ability to pass through walls and attacks.
• Shisui burned revealing powder onto the Masked Man and Itachi identified moments when his body became solid as he handled the box.
• A White Figure attacked Itachi’s observation point, but the relief squad captured it and forced it back into the containment zone.
• Shisui struck at the Masked Man’s mask while his arm solidified, breaking off an orange fragment, but the Masked Man escaped through a space-time vortex.
• Konoha secured the mask fragment and divided the White Figure’s abnormal tissue among three isolation containers.

After investigating the Masked Man’s Sharingan and the evidence he left behind, Konoha classified him as an Unregistered Sharingan Holder instead of assuming he was an Uchiha traitor. Fugaku agreed to a jointly witnessed review of active Uchiha holders, and the system marked the review mission complete.

• Danzo demanded that the Uchiha Clan Compound be sealed off, but Fugaku challenged his assumption that a Sharingan user had to be an active Uchiha.
• Shisui and the other witnesses’ reports showed that the Masked Man’s Sharingan was stable and his fighting patterns did not match any serving Uchiha.
• The laboratories found that the mask bore no workshop mark and that the White Double’s tissue was a regenerative, plant-like mimetic life-form rather than proof of a second Uchiha.
• Gen and Shikaku connected the intrusion’s unexplained spatial traces to anomalies from the Night of the Nine-Tails and designated the unknown enemy an Unregistered Sharingan Holder.
• Fugaku offered a limited review of active Uchiha Sharingan holders, jointly witnessed by the Hyuga, Nara, and Hokage’s Anbu.

Fugaku secured approval for a tightly limited review that ruled out the Uchiha active-duty personnel within its scope. The inquiry uncovered that the Masked Man knew an old wartime retreat route, and the chapter ended with the route linked to a clan member marked killed in action.

• Fugaku presented strict limits for the review, and Shisui, Itachi, and Akito submitted their records before the Clan Meeting approved it despite seven active-duty ninja's objections.
• A Hyuga jonin, a Nara ninja, Anbu, and clan Recorders conducted the review at the Konoha Military Police Force's Training Ground, and all sixteen chakra samples differed from the Masked Man's fluctuations.
• The review ruled out the active-duty personnel within its registered scope, while Fugaku required a separate basis for investigating retired and missing clan members.
• The inquiry found an old Uchiha emergency retreat marker near the East Corridor and determined that the Masked Man had avoided observation posts using knowledge of wartime routes.
• Fugaku sealed the Old Codebook, and a route chart linked the Masked Man's path to a mission record stamped killed in action.

Konoha combined the Masked Man’s abilities and knowledge with an old wartime route chart, narrowing the investigation toward former Konoha connections and people whose deaths had not been fully confirmed. The chapter left his identity unknown but marked the official start of the investigation as the system’s Identity Exposure Progress crossed a critical threshold.

• Shikaku listed the Masked Man’s known abilities, knowledge, and habits, then estimated his age at twenty to forty years old.
• Kakashi recognized a route near Kannabi Bridge from a mission where a man he had seen buried beneath rocks had been declared dead, and he requested the mission’s rescue and identification records.
• Fugaku reviewed the four deceased Uchiha records and found two lacked recovered bodies, including one death report supported by only a single witness.
• Shikaku reclassified the death records by confirmation level, while Fugaku protected the deceased men’s families from harassment during the review.
• Gen watched the Identity Exposure Progress cross a critical threshold as the system announced the investigation’s official start and narrowed the target range.