Jin didn't sleep.
He trained in the courtyard until the stars started to fade, and then he kept going until the sky went grey over the east wall and the first birds woke up in the forest. By the time the sun was properly up, his arms were heavy, his shirt was soaked through, and both swords felt a little more like they belonged in his hands.
He went inside, washed his face in cold water, changed his shirt, and went to wake the others.
He didn't wake everyone. Just three of them.
Twenty minutes later, they were sitting around a low table in the old teachers' lounge, the way they used to back in the very first weeks, when there had only been four of them and a school full of nothing. Morning light came in sideways through the vines over the windows. Someone had put a pot of barley tea on the table. Nobody had touched it yet.
