The Chase

Under cover of night, Koji Kashin slips into a Konoha archive and makes off with its data. By morning, Team 5 and Team 10 are debating the theft, with Inojin noting that the Barrier Team picked up no foreign chakra, which pushes Shikadai to suspect an inside job. Eager to catch the culprit, Chōchō rallies her teammates, and they trace Koji's former hideout to a tower holding a computer with blueprints of the archive. Nearby they run into Kakashi, who claims to be strolling but is clearly hunting the same target on his own to avoid drawing notice.

Kakashi hands out earpieces and has the group stake out the tower. They spot Koji, but he changes course, and when Inojin tracks him from the air on one of his ink drawings, he loses him in the crowd.

Reading the intruder as dangerous, Kakashi deduces he ducked into the sewers to fake a vanishing act and will try to slip out of the village. Shikadai works out that Koji will emerge not at the outskirts but at a Thunder Rail station. With Kakashi too far to intercept, Chōchō enlarges her arms and hurls Shikadai and Inojin onto a departing train; Shikadai paralyzes Koji, but the figure dissolves into a shadow clone just as Inojin reaches to unmask him. Kakashi realizes the whole flight was a lure to draw off the extra guards so Koji could steal physical scrolls not yet digitized, and confronts him with Lightning Release, only to strike another clone before Koji escapes behind a smokescreen.

Alone afterward, Koji reflects that the data meant nothing to his true goal and wonders if he is growing sentimental, puzzled that Jigen has not moved to reclaim Kawaki. Comparing notes at Senju Park, Shikadai suggests the thief may be a shinobi of the past, since only old records were targeted, and Kakashi adds that such a person's chakra could already be registered, explaining the silent barrier. Koji returns to Kara's headquarters, where Amado reports Jigen's condition and the absence of the other Inners, setting up their intent for Koji to kill Jigen.