"Everyone at the Metropolitan Police Department, I trust you've been well. Isn't it time the Buddha's Stone Bowl I left in your care was returned to its rightful owner? On the eve of this month's full moon, I'll come to collect it myself."
In the conference room of the special investigation headquarters temporarily established at the Metropolitan Police Department, the large screen displayed the original notice sent by Tobi of the Akatsuki.
The notice was handwritten, and beside the signature were three black tomoe drawn with a black marker, just like those of the Sharingan.
"What were the Forensic Identification Division's findings?"
"It's... the handwriting of the deceased Former Prime Minister Abe..."
The officer giving the report opened the document envelope and took out the findings, then paused for a long while before mumbling his answer.
"He's gone too far!"
"A provocation! This is a blatant act of provocation!"
The officers attending the meeting looked grim and were seething with indignation.
No one believed that the former prime minister, who had been shot dead, could suddenly come back to life, put on a mask, and transform into a member of the Akatsuki. The only possibility was that Tobi had deliberately imitated the former prime minister's handwriting to write this notice.
By sending advance notice of his crime like a phantom thief in an anime, Tobi had already shown how little he thought of the Metropolitan Police Department.
And deliberately using the handwriting of this country's former supreme leader was nothing short of mocking them to their faces.
With considerably more silver at his temples, the Superintendent General looked increasingly aged. His haggard face creased into a frown.
Sending a notice written in the former prime minister's handwriting was a nasty joke, but it certainly fit Tobi's style.
In his two