The clang of the final bell echoed through the training yard.
Manju didn't need to shout. He just stood there with arms folded and expression flat, letting silence do the heavy lifting.
"You've done enough damage for the day," he said, voice gravel-deep. "Food's waiting in the northern wing. That's my mercy quota spent."
He turned and went away. The children hung about for a while and then dispersed.
Kagerō remained motionless.
The wind pulled at his collar. He sat cross-legged beneath the shadow of an old cart, arms wrapped tightly, eyebrows relaxed in gentle furrows. A piece of parchment lay across his knee, and he wrote deliberately, with little precise strokes of his brush pen.
Ink flow was even across all extremities. The density of the chakra is visibly greater around the spine. Perhaps a node for storage? I should probe the node further.
He stopped, touching the side of the brush against his lip.
The experiments this day had taught him more than he anticipated. Not only in terms of performance, but about the behavior of chakras. How it responded to surfaces. How it changed in strength with fatigue. And how it leaked, bent, and stabilized outside the body's chakra coils.
His face was serene, but his eyes were keen. Contemplative.
He had the look of a child drawing charts of stars that other people couldn't see.
Kagerō settled back, eyes wandering upward.
If chakra weighs something, and it flows, and it has a beat. Then perhaps it also has a memory. Perhaps it can be taught where it wishes to travel. I remember there being techniques of all kinds in this world. Some for memories and souls too. I wonder how that is possible?
He hadn't seen the silhouette until it stood in the way of the light.
"Oi! Little genius!"
Yuni plopped down next to him in a heap of limbs and braids, tray held precariously in one hand.
"You plotting again? What is this, a private lunch club?"
Kagerō blinked. "Just resting."
"Lies!" she said. "You're plotting, I can tell. Your face gets all squinty when you're plotting something in that diary of yours"
He turned away, face smooth. "I don't squint."
Yuni leaned in a mischievous grin on her face. "Alright, well, now you're under Yuni-nee's care. You sit with me and have your food, or I'll feed you. Every. One. Of. Your. Rice. Cubes. One at a time. And I won't be nice."
Kagerō thought about that threat. Then nodded slowly.
She smiled as though she'd conquered a war.
They made their way to a half-shaded bench where others were already lounging. Kagerō moved carefully, tray steady in both hands. He deliberately stumbled a little on the step up.
Yuni gasped. "No! Baby genius down!"
"I'm fine," Kagerō said, awkwardly righting himself.
He sat, quietly chewing. Not too fast. Not too slow. Just a little clumsy. Like a toddler with big thoughts but messy fingers.
Yuni, naturally, had no such restraint.
She directed her chopsticks like daggers. "Okay, time for a lesson. Look at the brooding one over there? Rei. Thinks he's superior to everyone else because he can say 'chakra oscillation' without a stutter."
Rei, sitting straight and stern a few benches away, gave them a suspicious look. Then turned his nose back to his miso like it offended him.
"He's from an elite line," Yuni whispered. "Word is he's got connections to Hanzo."
Kagerō nodded slightly. That tracked with the glances some instructors gave Rei. Like they were watching for cracks.
Some kids ate quietly, barely looking up. Others grouped around tables, already forming little clusters based on who knew who, who shared dorm rooms, and who sparred beside each other. The older ones tried to sit higher, taller, louder.
Yuni pointed at one of the twins by the far wall, sharp-eyed and lean. "That one? From the Suma family. Throws knives even when no one tells him to. I think he sleeps with them."
Then she nodded toward a wiry girl with buzzed hair. "The one who talks in her sleep? That's Kana. Told me I'd die by a 'claw-shaped shadow' in my third week. Then asked for my pudding."
"And him?" Kagerō asked, glancing toward a boy who sat straight and stiff, arms folded neatly, eyes constantly tracking the room.
"Oh, that's Kuno," Yuni said. "Or Kuni? Something like that. He always sits near the exits. Never talks. Thinks nobody notices, but he's always watching the adults."
"Smart," Kagerō said.
"Creepy," Yuni corrected. "But kind of smart."
"Then there's Dazuro." She pointed a thumb over her shoulder.
Dazuro was slumped against a tree, chewing slowly, eyes half-closed.
"He might be napping. Might be meditating. Might be dead. Who knows?"
Kagerō smiled faintly. "He caught a rice ball mid-fall without looking. He's fine."
"Scary," Yuni said, nodding. "Like a lazy tiger."
She leaned against Kagerō softly. "You? You're the baby genius. No offense. But you don't behave like a normal two-year-old."
Kagerō continued to stare at his tray. "Too serious?"
"Too everything," Yuni replied, though not cruelly. "But I understand. This institution grows you up quickly."
He paused for a beat before slowly, deliberately knocking over his water cup.
Yuni blinked. Then laughed out loud. "See? You're learning! Clumsy genius is real!"
Behind them, Dazuro grumbled, "He'll be fine."
Rei, having drifted closer to his tray, raised an eyebrow. "What is happening here?"
"Lunch revolution," Yuni told him. "Join us or die alone with your 'chakra oscillation'."
Rei sat rigidly on the edge of the bench.
Kagerō tossed one of his spare rice balls to Dazuro without comment.
The older boy blinked. Took it and smiled tiredly. Like a woman just out of labour.
Kagerō smiled. His smile was normal too, if a little forced
This world was strange.
But people? People were still people.
He could handle this.
The sun dangled low in the sky as if it didn't know how to fall.
Its light slanted over the roofs of the factory-turned-dorms, creating long shadows that seemed older than they should be. Even the air was thin-stretched. Warm, heavy, hanging on the day as if it had forgotten how to let go.
Kagerō stood quietly in the middle of the open corridor, one hand on the rusted railing as he observed the golden light smear across the weathered walls. The others had dispersed after lunch, some still around the mess hall, others drifting back to the training yard or their bunks.
He'd stolen away without a word.
His room was on the second floor, sandwiched between two buzzing overhead lights. The corridor always had a faint smell of oil and wet fabric. It wasn't home, not really. But it was a place that was his, and in a world constructed upon orders and drills and metal edges, that was enough.
He left the door ajar and stepped outside again, his feet now bare, standing on the edge of the walkway with his back to the room. The wind teased the bottom of his shirt and mussed his hair.
And still… the sun.
It just… stayed.
Too long.
He squinted, his eyes tightening against the sear of orange light. Something about the way time passed here pulled at him, not hurtfully, but like an itch beneath the skin. A feeling he couldn't define.
The days were longer.
Not just busier or more difficult. Just longer.
Even now, the afternoon crept like the final note of a song that wouldn't end at all. He'd been up since before the break of day. He'd crawled through metal traps, walked on chakra tiles, observed ink move across his skin and still, the sun had refused to set.
Something about it seemed. Off.
Or perhaps only different.
He couldn't recall much of his life before this one. The memories were hazy at the edges, like a dream he'd awakened from too soon. But what he did recall; if he could even call it that, was that time never seemed so dense.
In the other life, the days passed in a blur. Childhood was a blur. A flurry of hours slipped through my fingers.
But here?
He had been alive for only two years, and already the world was treating him like a trainee soldier. His body had become stronger, yes. But slower than the others. He wasn't underdeveloped. They were over-developed. Built like children shaped by years, not months. Their muscles recalled things. Their eyes had witnessed things.
He laid his hand on his chest.
His heartbeat was normal.
His breathing, peaceful.
But in his mind, he kept asking himself: What was time here?
He had no response.
Only a silent assurance that the rules were other.
Minutes drew out longer. Years spread wider. And even his chakra seemed to beat a different rhythm than anything he once knew.
Kagerō leaned forward, elbows on the railing, chin on folded hands. The sun's warmth touched his cheek. Somewhere beneath, a door creaked. Voices floated faintly on the wind, Rei complaining about dirty dorms again, Yuni laughing like a summer storm, and Dazuro humming low under his breath.
The world continued to turn.
And he watched silently, keeping time not by clocks but by the way the shadows crept across the steel.
He could buy this moment.
Brief breath between skirmishes.
There would be weaponry tomorrow.
He had a feeling that the day would be different tomorrow.
And somehow, it made all the difference.