Shinji woke before the cockerel's first croak, the house still plugged with hush. Silver dawn crept under the shutters, painting lines across the reed floor. He eased from his mat, sidestepped Hana's quilt-bundle, and slipped outside into air that smelled of damp earth and distant cedar smoke.
The well bucket greeted him with a hollow thunk. Two pulls later he was carting sloshing water toward the herb beds, mind still half in dreams. A ladle over the face cleared the fog; a second one cooled the bruise blooming on his forearm. By the time he finished, Sada came through the doorway tucking stray hair behind her ear, a basket of laundry under one arm.
"Up early again," she said, quiet so as not to wake Hana.
Shinji shrugged and set the bucket down. "the sunlight waits for no one."
She raised an eyebrow at his half-joke but said nothing about the new scratch on his shin. Instead she handed him a heel of barley bread and went to the wash-board, humming low.
Inside, Hana stretched awake, braid already trailing down her back by the time she emerged. She joined Shinji and their mother in folding sheets clean from rinse water, yet her gaze slipped often toward the forest line.
Breakfast was a quick affair, rice, pickled daikon, and a slice of persimmon. When the first finch trilled from the rooftop, Sada waved the siblings off with the usual warning about slick roots, and they trotted down the hard-packed lane.
Ren waited at the bend where the lane met the cedar track, balancing a basket of duck eggs on one hip and a grin on his face. "Morning, commanders," he announced, though a yawn cracked the title in two. "No new sighting of the monster, and not a single egg cracked on the walk. That's good fortune if I've ever seen it."
Shinji rolled his eyes but returned the grin. Together they slipped under the cedar canopy, feet crunching last year's needles. Sunlight speared through gaps overhead, setting motes alive like drifting sparks.
Their training clearing looked smaller in the pale light than it had yesterday: one bamboo beam still slick with dew, five stepping stones half buried in loam, a rope strung ankle-high over a shallow pit. Dew-pearls clung to everything, shining like watchful eyes.
Ren set the egg basket under a leaning pine and slapped his palms together. "Warm-ups! Five laps, winner gets the biggest egg, loser scrubs the pit clean."
Hana snorted. "Try not to eat dirt this time."
They set off. The loop wound around a mossy stump, skirted the beam, and skirted the pit before returning to the stump, a circuit not long, but uneven enough to tug breath from lungs. Ren bolted ahead, arms pumping like a scarecrow in a storm, and promptly skidded on wet mulch, nearly wiping out. Hana followed at a measured pace, while Shinji kept a steady middle speed, testing sore calves rather than burning them. Laps blurred to three, then four; on the fifth all three finished within a stride, panting steam into cool air.
Ren bent double, grinning between gulps. "We'll call it a three-way draw before anyone pukes."
Shinji nodded and motioned toward the stepping stones. Ren hopped first, wobbling like a drunk crane yet somehow staying upright. Hana watched his rhythm, then stepped with deliberate grace, landing heel-ball-toe to silence. Shinji went last, knees bent, absorbing each shift until he stepped off the final stone without a wobble. It wasn't victory that warmed him so much as the surprise of his own improvement.
They moved to the rope crawl. All three dropped flat and pushed forward on elbows and toes beneath the sagging hemp. Ren's toes caught once, jerking the rope enough to clap dust from it. Hana slid under almost fluidly, chin barely brushing sand. Shinji found the space tighter than yesterday, either the rope had dropped or his shoulders had swollen with pride, but he scraped through, breathing quick.
When they regrouped by the beam, Shinji called the day's main work. "Ren and I will sit for chakra control. Hana, beam practice for balance and stamina. " He settled cross-legged, Ren mirroring him, and the clearing fell to quiet but for birds deeper in the wood.
Shinji drew slow air, counted three beats in, held two, released three. Somewhere in his gut chakra stirred, warm as dawn tea. He imagined it flowing like water up hollow reeds, spine, shoulders, arms and out to skin. A faint shimmer answered, silver-blue, clinging for five heartbeats before fluttering away.
Ren scrunched his nose, a flicker pulsing along both forearms before sputtering. "Ant bites," he muttered, starting again.
Hana mounted the bamboo beam. Yesterday's falls showed in the green bruises on her shins, yet determination kept her back straight. She took a step, then another, arms out, breathing like she meant each inhale to steady the world. The beam wobbled under dew, but Hana bent her knees, absorbed the sway, and continued. Shinji cracked an eye to watch, ten steps down, turn, ten steps back. She paused mid-span, knees shaking, then knelt, stood again, and finished without falling. No glow edged her skin, no prickling warmth, just balance born of effort.
Shinji closed his eyes, pulled breath, tried again. The shimmer returned, faint but broader this time, a feather-light tingling across his collarbone. It vanished when Ren's frustrated hiss split the air. The younger boy's light had burst into a spark that arced between his fingers, only to zap out, leaving a puff of startled laughter.
"Better than nothing," Shinji said, hiding his own grin.
Ren flopped onto his back. "Better than nothing is still almost nothing."
Hana hopped off the beam, wiping sweat, chest heaving. "But it's a start." Her voice carried conviction, though inside a knot of doubt tightened: she still felt no tingle, nothing but muscle ache.
They cycled through leaf-focus next. Ren's leaf clung for four shaky seconds, Hana's slipped instantly, Shinji's lasted perhaps two counts longer than yesterday. Low crawls followed, then short sprints to the narrow creek and back, splashing icy water on overheated faces. By mid-morning shirts clung, breaths rasped, and the dew had burned away.
Shinji called it. "Enough for today."
Ren retrieved the egg basket, now minus the largest egg, his claimed prize for "most spectacular chakra spark," a title no one contested. They trudged home under strengthening sun. Halfway down the lane, Masato passed with a yoke of timber across his shoulders. Sweat darkened his collar, but he paused, taking in their battered state. "Chasing foxes or running from them?"
"Neither," Shinji answered . Masato's grunted before he moved on.
Back at the house, Sada greeted them with bowls of millet porridge sweetened with thin slices of peach. She dabbed at scrapes with cool cloths, offered no questions, only a soft "Eat." Ren demolished his in moments; Hana slower, lost in thought.
Later, standing at the back well rinsing bowls, Hana paused. For the briefest breath, a whisper of warmth fluttered beneath her sternum, so faint she could have imagined it. She held still, waiting, but it faded, leaving only the steady drum of her pulse and the cicadas beginning their noon cry. She set the bowl aside, staring at the cedar line. Tomorrow would come soon enough.
Inside, Shinji lay on his mat, arms folded beneath his head. No tally sheets, no marks. Just the memory of a steadier stone, a longer glow, and Hana pausing mid-beam under newborn sunlight. Slow steps, but steps all the same. Outside, cicadas buzzed a patient hymn to whatever summer took its time to grow.
And just like this mornings blurred into weeks, and weeks into months, until the plum leaves that once glowed emerald above the beam had turned the burnished gold of old coins, crisped to a brittle brown, and at last surrendered to the ground, a quiet proclamation that an entire season had passed while they labored, step by step, toward futures still just beyond their reach.