Chapter Summaries

Shikaku reviewed four wartime death records and found that Obito Uchiha’s death had never been confirmed by a recovered body. Kakashi’s testimony and the evidence made Obito a key candidate for the Masked Man’s identity, but the review left alternative explanations open.

• Shikaku had the team compare the evidence behind four wartime death records and established that families could send witnesses to the reviews.
• Anbu ruled out Sosuke as a candidate after prisoner records and witnesses showed he had died in an Iwagakure camp months after his disappearance.
• Kakashi recounted the Kannabi Bridge mission and confirmed he had not checked Obito’s heartbeat, right eye, or death before leaving.
• The reviewers found that Kakashi’s request to search for Obito had been denied and that no later search or body recovery had occurred.
• Kakashi said someone else might have found Obito and taken his eye and memories, so the review retained alternative explanations.
• The reviewers named Obito Uchiha as a candidate for the Masked Man’s identity and completed the first phase of the death-record review.

Kakashi confronted evidence linking his left Sharingan to the Masked Man’s spatial ability while continuing to question whether the man was truly Obito. The connection pointed toward the Memorial Stone, and an unregistered bird delivered Kakashi a private message from the Masked Man.

• Kakashi reported his shock and inability to remain neutral, and Shikaku restricted his role while assigning Might Guy to monitor him outside missions.
• During a sealed test, Kakashi’s left eye reacted to the mask fragment’s spatial residue, briefly distorting his vision.
• The investigators concluded that the two eyes shared a special connection but could not prove that the Masked Man was Obito.
• Kakashi asked the team to keep investigating, seeking to understand either Obito’s change or whoever was using his eye.
• A final test made Kakashi’s left Sharingan point toward the Memorial Stone, as an unregistered messenger bird arrived with a private message from the Masked Man.

Konoha’s investigation found evidence linking the Masked Man’s right eye to Kakashi’s left and identified Obito as a plausible survivor of Kannabi Bridge, while keeping alternative explanations open. Soil on the private-code note pointed to the Memorial Stone, and Kakashi requested to join the site verification under supervision.

• Kakashi recalled that Obito had promised to apologize for knocking over the third marker during the Kannabi Bridge mission, and investigators confirmed the marker had been reset that day.
• The Medical Squad found matching reverse-flow structures in Kakashi’s left eye and residue from the Masked Man’s mask, suggesting the eyes had belonged to the same person.
• Evidence from the abnormal cells offered a possible way Obito could have survived his injuries, but Gen required the investigators to list evidence that could disprove the theory.
• Fugaku agreed to retain alternative explanations, while Danzo stayed silent as the investigation’s questions expanded beyond the Uchiha clan.
• Investigators found volcanic soil from near the Memorial Stone on the note, and Kakashi requested permission to take part in an on-site verification without acting alone.

Kakashi and Shisui investigated a space-time trap at the Memorial Stone that the Masked Man had designed around Kakashi’s habits and Sharingan. When the trap activated, Konoha’s layered operation was ready to respond, and the Masked Man’s hand reached for Kakashi’s Shadow Clone.

• Shikaku arranged a layered operation to protect Kakashi and find out how the Masked Man learned Konoha’s plans.
• Kakashi found footprints behind the Memorial Stone and learned that a space-time trap would activate specifically for him.
• An Anbu’s marked puppet lost an arm to the trap, confirming that it could pull targets into another space.
• Kakashi used a Shadow Clone at the stone while his real body watched from concealment with Shisui’s help.
• Before midnight, the spatial void expanded, the Masked Man reached for the clone, and hidden jutsu formulas appeared on the stone.

Kakashi and Shisui exposed and sealed a trap hidden behind the Memorial Stone, discovering that Kakashi’s Sharingan could trigger a prepared spatial formula. The Masked Man appeared in person to seize Kakashi’s left eye as the chapter ended.

• Kakashi’s Shadow Clone triggered the formula, and a voice imitating Rin tried to draw him toward the stone.
• Itachi and the Anbu identified inconsistencies in the voice, and Kakashi dispelled his clone instead of responding to it.
• Shisui and the Anbu captured White Zetsu, while the Sealing Squad recovered a pin containing a spatial chakra crystal.
• The crystal trembled when someone tried to reconnect, confirming that the Masked Man was monitoring the trap nearby.
• The Masked Man emerged from a spatial vortex and reached for Kakashi’s left eye.

Shisui and Kakashi coordinated to wound the Masked Man and disrupt his spatial techniques during their first pursuit together. He escaped, but left behind physical evidence that deepened Kakashi’s suspicion about his identity.

• Kakashi and Shisui studied the Masked Man’s phasing and absorption rhythms, while Itachi recorded the timing of his spatial techniques.
• Shisui’s clones pressured the Masked Man, and Kakashi used his left Sharingan to shift the transport vortex and expose the Masked Man’s shoulder.
• Shisui cut the Masked Man’s shoulder, and Kakashi struck his hand with Lightning Blade to break his grip before both retreated.
• The Masked Man escaped after his mask cracked, revealing old scars on his right cheek that matched the side crushed at Kannabi Bridge.
• Shisui supported Kakashi and halted the pursuit, while Konoha collected blood, mask fragments, black fabric, and a timeline of the battle.

Konoha analyzed the Masked Man’s intangibility, blood, and injuries, establishing ways to counter his ability while gathering evidence that he may be Obito. The chapter ended with a medical reconstruction linking the damage to the right side of his face to the falling rocks at Kannabi Bridge, though his identity remained unconfirmed.

• Shikaku devised and tested a coordinated strategy that tracked when the Masked Man became solid and blocked his teleportation destinations.
• The Medical Squad found that the Masked Man’s blood combined Uchiha traits with White Zetsu-like tissue, concentrated more heavily on the right side of his body.
• Medical ninjas examined skin from the mask and concluded that an enormous rock had crushed the injured person from the right, with abnormal plant cells helping preserve the damage.
• Kakashi accepted that the injury made Obito a closer candidate but refused to treat the identity as confirmed, while the team restricted use of his costly eye resonance.
• The Medical Squad reconstructed the injury and found that the damage to the right side of the Masked Man’s face matched the falling rocks recorded at Kannabi Bridge.

Kakashi examined an injury reconstruction that strongly matched Obito’s wounds and helped investigate whether the Masked Man was his former teammate. The only outside witness from the Kannabi Bridge scene vanished before Konoha could protect him, leaving a spatial distortion and a message challenging Kakashi to continue.

• Kakashi studied the reconstructed injuries and recognized that their direction and damage matched the boulder that crushed Obito at Kannabi Bridge.
• Itachi proposed testing the Masked Man’s identity through interconnected memories held by outside witnesses rather than relying on information Kakashi alone could provide.
• Anbu found a former frontline supply worker whose old inventory report recorded goggles and clasps near the collapsed bridge, and the Hokage Building arranged to move him secretly.
• The protection team reached the supply worker’s home and found that he had disappeared without a struggle, with faint spatial distortion by the back wall.
• Investigators found Kannabi Bridge rock dust on the table, indicating that the Masked Man had removed the witness and was challenging Kakashi to pursue the truth.

Konoha formally entered Obito Uchiha as an identity candidate for the Masked Man while preserving alternative explanations and strict limits on confirmation and access. New evidence from Obito’s family strengthened the match, but the investigation remained unresolved and the system recorded no mission completion.

• Shikaku reviewed six independent pieces of evidence and entered Obito Uchiha as an identity candidate, retaining three explanations for the Masked Man’s identity.
• Kakashi agreed to Shikaku’s conditions for remaining on the investigation, and Danzo objected to how widely the candidate file would be shared.
• The Third Hokage limited access to the candidate’s name and designated “Unregistered Sharingan Holder” as the mission designation for operations outside the village.
• Fugaku told Obito’s surviving relatives that his battlefield death was under review, and an elderly clan member gave him Obito’s repaired goggles and asked Konoha to learn whether he had survived and who had taught him to hurt others.
• The goggles’ repair mark matched the supply clerk’s list, and Gen’s system reported that the Masked Man’s identity match had exceeded fifty percent without marking the mission complete.

Konoha linked the Masked Man’s abnormal tissue to Hashirama cells and began investigating who had rescued, modified, and guided Obito after Kannabi Bridge. The Masked Man ordered old inventories destroyed, while Gen received a new mission to rescue a witness and investigate the cells’ source.

• Shikaku assembled the evidence into a timeline, marked the gaps in Obito’s history, and warned against treating Madara or Akatsuki as explanations for every missing step.
• The Medical Squad’s controlled tests showed that the pale tissue fused with genuine Hashirama cells, and the Third Hokage preserved that finding under joint review safeguards.
• Shikaku pushed the investigation toward wartime cell requisitions and the separate roles of Obito’s rescuer, modifier, and guide.
• White Zetsu told the Masked Man that Konoha had entered Obito into its files, and the Masked Man ordered old inventories found and destroyed while keeping a supply officer alive for questioning.
• Gen’s system unlocked Obito’s direct fate-changing route and assigned him to rescue the witness from the past and investigate the abnormal cells’ source.

Kakashi and Shikaku’s team reconstructed the old supply worker’s tea-cup and knocking codes, which pointed them toward an underground transport passage near Kannabi Bridge and suggested the missing man was probably alive. Konoha prepared a cautious advance search as the system confirmed the passage as the next objective.

• The Anbu and a logistics archivist decoded the untouched tea cup as a message meaning northwest and downward, and determined the supply worker had deliberately left it for whoever came after him.
• The Anbu corroborated the neighbor’s and the firewood boy’s accounts of two short knocks and one long one, identifying it as a wartime Supply Team code used for private handovers.
• Kakashi concluded the supply worker was probably alive because the room showed no struggle and the Masked Man would need his eyewitness account, while Shikaku recorded survival as highly probable.
• The investigators narrowed the message to an underground transport passage after ruling out nearby water channels and shelters, and Kakashi’s left eye sensed a faint spatial pull there.
• Konoha sent Hyuga, the Sealing Squad, and the Cross-Verification Squad to search the passage, while Shisui guarded the outer perimeter and Kakashi stayed back to provide remote perception.
• The system confirmed the objective of entering the underground transport passage at Kannabi Bridge.

The Supplyman misled the Masked Man about the route used to rescue him, while Konoha’s advance team found active White Zetsu tissue beneath the Underground Transport Route. Their discoveries revealed a hidden evacuation path and showed that the rescue window remained open.

• The Supplyman told the Masked Man that drag marks led northeast, concealing that they had gone northwest and underground.
• The Konoha Advance Team entered the Underground Transport Route cautiously and found signs that White Zetsu had recently passed through it.
• Kakashi’s left eye reacted as the team advanced, and the Sealing Squad identified a descending area that matched the Supplyman’s coded message.
• The team detected living white roots beneath the floor, tracked them with powder, and found an unmapped underground hollow watched by White Zetsu.
• Gen realized Konoha was nearing the correct route while the Masked Man still held the living Supplyman and White Zetsu had not evacuated all its nodes.

The Cross-Verification Squad found an old underground route beneath Kannabi Bridge, where evidence linked Obito’s goggles to a possible rescue after the bridge mission. Root survey markings showed that someone from Konoha had explored the tunnels, but the route had been omitted from official records.

• The Cross-Verification Squad found a collapsed spatial passage and tunnels repaired with White Zetsu tissue, suggesting someone had waited underground for a wounded target.
• The squad mapped an underground escape route that bypassed Konoha and Iwagakure patrols, and found drag marks leading from the collapsed area into the tunnels.
• The squad discovered a corroded clasp matching Obito’s goggle fittings and preserved it with surrounding soil for further analysis.
• Kakashi saw the clasp through remote images, but the evidence did not prove that Obito had survived.
• The squad found Root’s wartime survey code at a tunnel fork, showing someone from Konoha had traversed the route despite its absence from official maps.

Danzo acknowledged Root had surveyed Kannabi Bridge’s mine tunnels, but Shikaku’s map comparison and a retired surveyor’s testimony showed that an unknown masked person had taken the complete map. Meanwhile, Konoha’s advance team captured a living White Zetsu, who claimed that whoever had rescued Obito from the rocks was much older than they imagined.

• Danzo presented Root’s wartime report, while Shikaku found evidence that a mapped route into the deeper tunnels had been cut from the archive map.
• Fugaku called for investigation rather than assuming Danzo’s guilt, and the Third Hokage ordered a review of high-level access passes and unnumbered masks.
• A retired Root surveyor confirmed that the team had entered the second level and that a masked person had taken the complete map.
• The advance team encountered a White Zetsu that mimicked the Hyuga jonin and issued false orders, but the team tracked its chakra core using their verification procedures.
• The Sealing Squad captured the White Zetsu alive, and it claimed that the person who picked Obito up from beneath the rocks was much older than they imagined.

Konoha contained and examined the living White Zetsu, whose attempted recall signal revealed a route toward the Northern Land of Rivers. During questioning, White Zetsu finally named Madara as the person who took the gravely wounded figure from beneath Kannabi Bridge.

• The Cross-Verification Squad secured White Zetsu in a four-layer sealing net and identified him by his chakra core rather than his shifting appearances.
• The Sealing Squad repelled White Zetsu's rootlets with low-intensity Fire Release heat while Medical Ninja confirmed his unusual chakra-based biology.
• Konoha transported White Zetsu through a compartmentalized route, and his core's failed response to a distant recall signal pointed toward the Northern Land of Rivers.
• Konoha placed White Zetsu in one of three indistinguishable Isolation Zones and began questioning him with Shikaku.
• White Zetsu reacted to the Root Fragment Map, imitated Danzo and the First Hokage, and named Madara when Shikaku asked who took the wounded person from beneath Kannabi Bridge.

Shikaku’s team used false information and White Zetsu’s reactions to establish limits on its intelligence-sharing and link the Masked Man to Obito without getting a direct admission. White Zetsu’s reaction pointed Konoha toward underground Old Ritual Grounds in the Land of Rivers, where the Third Hokage prepared a limited rescue operation for Konoha’s Old Witness.

• Gen alerted the Third Hokage after White Zetsu named Madara, and Shikaku recorded only that it had identified Madara as the source of its orders.
• Shikaku tested White Zetsu with false accounts and a decoy transfer, establishing that it knew the Supplyman had been moved and could pass some information to its own kind.
• White Zetsu evaded questions about Obito while insisting he was dead, and Itachi concluded that it refused to treat Obito as a living person.
• Shikaku presented five possible sites in the Land of Rivers, and White Zetsu’s roots recoiled at the underground Old Ritual Grounds.
• The Third Hokage requested local help locating the abducted civilian and prepared a tightly limited advance operation, while Danzo argued that Konoha should cross the border without notice.
• White Zetsu told a guard that whoever Konoha found would not be Obito.

Konoha treated Madara Uchiha as one of several possible masterminds while investigating gaps in his death records and the links between White Zetsu, Hashirama cells, and the Masked Man. A restricted search team entered the Land of Rivers after Kakashi sensed repeated spatial fluctuations near the old ritual grounds.

• Itachi challenged Danzo’s claim that White Zetsu’s testimony proved Madara was the mastermind, and Shikaku reviewed Madara’s death and transfer records.
• Two teams found that Madara’s samples had been transferred after the First Hokage’s death and that others had used Madara’s name, but neither discovery proved he had survived.
• The Third Hokage established four Madara-related hypotheses and kept the Hashirama cell connection and Root’s access to relevant samples under investigation.
• Fugaku refused to use Madara’s name to absolve the present-day Uchiha, while the Land of Rivers authorized a six-person search-and-rescue team for twenty-four hours.
• Kakashi, Shisui, and the other team members approached the old ritual grounds as Kakashi sensed repeated spatial fluctuations, while Itachi stayed at the border recording station.

The Supplyman’s evidence linked the Masked Man to Obito, while Konoha confirmed a spatial conduit at the old ritual site in the Land of Rivers. Kakashi prepared a witnessed message and a bounded rescue plan, leaving the Masked Man to decide whether to respond.

• The Supplyman told the Masked Man that Obito’s goggles, Metal Fasteners, and blood had been found along the underground drag marks, and the Masked Man stopped himself from erasing the witness’s memories.
• White Zetsu reported that Konoha had entered the Land of Rivers and created candidate files for Madara and for the possibility that the Masked Man was using Madara’s name.
• Kakashi’s search-and-rescue team found spatial conduits beneath the old ritual site, and a fresh bloodstained piece of Supply Team uniform emerged from the active conduit.
• Kakashi, Shisui, and the Anbu prepared matching copies of a message asking the Masked Man to explain why he would stop Konoha from verifying Obito’s death, but Kakashi did not send it through yet.
• The Masked Man sensed Kakashi’s left eye drawing nearer as Obito’s name reached his dimension, and he remained silent when White Zetsu asked whether to close the entrance.

Kakashi sent the Masked Man a carefully verified message acknowledging Konoha’s failures while holding him responsible for his own actions. The Masked Man proved the Supplyman was alive, then replied, “That name is already dead,” leaving the identity question unresolved as Konoha continued planning a rescue.

• Kakashi revised the message to separate confirmed facts, uncertainties, and responsibility, then sent it through the sixth spatial medium after Shisui, Itachi, and an Anbu recorder verified it.
• The Masked Man read the message alone, kept it inside his cloak, and sent out the Supplyman’s secret supply numbers and bloodied cloth as proof that the old man was alive.
• At the old ritual grounds in the Land of Rivers, Shisui and the Sealing Squad verified the evidence and confirmed that the Supplyman was alive.
• The Masked Man moved the Supplyman to a new location, and Kakashi refused to pursue him through the shrinking passage.
• The Masked Man sent back a reply saying, “That name is already dead,” and the recorder verified its origin before Kakashi logged its meaning as unconfirmed.

Kakashi and the rescue team rescued the Supplyman from the Masked Man, who let go of him rather than risk being pulled into Konoha’s sealing circle. The operation preserved evidence that the Masked Man might be Obito, and the System Screen recorded the rescue as the first meaningful breakthrough in changing Obito’s fate.

• Itachi assessed the Masked Man’s reply, “That name is already dead,” as semantic evasion rather than an admission, while Shikaku classified it as identity testimony and physical communication evidence.
• The search-and-rescue team tracked chakra backflow through five mediums and identified the fourth as the Supplyman’s location.
• Kakashi used his left eye to draw the Supplyman closer to the fourth medium as Shisui’s wire caught him, forcing the Masked Man to choose between holding on and being pulled into Konoha’s sealing circle.
• The Masked Man loosened his grip, and Shisui pulled the Supplyman through the medium; the team confirmed the old man was alive and his memories remained intact.
• Konoha recorded the Masked Man’s decision to let go as evidence, and Kakashi told Shisui that the things Obito had done were still there.
• The System Screen reported that the rescue had achieved the first meaningful breakthrough in changing Obito’s fate and established an identity communication chain.