The village exhaled. Lanterns came on one by one, like stars someone could actually touch. Students drifted home in small knots that broke apart at doorways—handshakes that turned to waves, cheers that turned to silence.
Mizue set her new books on the table and didn't open them. She just rested her palm on the covers, feeling the weight of answers she hadn't asked yet.
Reina washed the blood from her knuckles and, for exactly three seconds, watched her reflection ripple in the basin. Then she dried her hands. The blade wasn't here yet. Good. She wanted to earn it twice.
Samui ran a fingertip over a forming bruise, measuring pain like distance. Discipline was a road; she could already see where it bent next.
Omoi lay on his back and replayed the finals in his head frame by frame until the ceiling became a chalkboard. When he finally blinked, the angles lined up clean.
Karui shadowboxed in her room until the shadows hit back. Rage had carried her far. Control would carry her farther.
Tetsuo pressed a cold cloth to his jaw and stared at the door. If it opened, he'd go looking for another fight. It didn't. He slept badly.
And Daichi? Daichi ate, laughed with his mother, and then—very quietly—did three extra sets of push-ups with aching arms. Stone doesn't talk about getting heavier. It just does.
He didn't go home first. He went high.
The roof tiles were slick with a thin skin of mist. From here, Kumo looked like a mountain trying to remember it was a village. Raizen sat on the ridge and held his face in both hands until his fingers hurt more than his cheeks.
It came in pieces at first—little cracks of breath. Then the whole thing gave way.
"I'm tired," he whispered to nobody. "I'm so… tired."
The thoughts he never let out in daylight crawled up and sat beside him:
—The blind side. The way fists find it like it's painted on his skull.
—Losing again. Footsteps to the nurse's tent he could walk blindfolded.
—Dying once already. Waking up inside a story he didn't pick, without the endings he'd memorized.
—What if I'm not cut for this? Not a prodigy. Not a chosen. Just a boy who gets hit and gets up because he doesn't know what else to do.
—Madara. Kaguya. Names like natural disasters. How does a single eye stare down a storm?
His breath hitched. He let himself cry: ugly, quiet, the kind that shakes your bones and leaves your throat raw. Pride didn't live up here. Only air and the truth.
"I don't want to die again," he said, small as a child and large as a prayer. "I don't want to be a burden. I don't want to be a joke."
When it was done, the village was still there. The mountain was still there. His eye burned. His chest felt hollowed out, but in the hollow there was room—for something. He didn't call it hope. He just breathed into it until the breath didn't hurt.
"Tomorrow," he said, because tomorrow was the only word he could lift.
He climbed down.
⸻
The Raikage's office was a quiet anvil. Paperwork stacked like walls. Lightning muttered somewhere inside the clouds over the mountain.
Takuma stood with his hands in his pockets and the smell of smoke clinging politely to his clothes. The Raikage leaned back, studying him over steepled fingers.
"Your class," the Raikage said.
Takuma's eyes half-closed, then sharpened. "Reina is a scalpel that learned how to walk. Cold control. Cruel when necessary. She engineers choices until the opponent has none. Give her a blade and the village will whisper her name in two months."
A nod. "Samui?"
"Ice that doesn't crack. She bleeds you by inches. Makes one decision and lives in it for an entire fight. If Reina removes options, Samui removes impatience. She'll be a perfect team spine."
"Tetsuo."
"Pride forward. His strength is real. So is the ceiling unless he respects timing. Today was a good lesson carved into bone."
"Omoi."
"Calculates like a sensor. Needs to trust the math faster. When he does, he cuts clean."
"Karui."
"Power without brakes. If she bolts discipline to that engine, she'll scare people who should know better."
The Raikage's eyes narrowed, amused. "And Raizen Tsukihana?"
Takuma was quiet a beat longer—long enough to mean it. "I doubted him," he said simply. "Family name, one eye, too much talk around him and not enough inside him. I didn't think he should be a shinobi."
"And now?"
"Now I think he's a hidden genius." The word didn't come easy. He forced it through anyway. "He learns at a mean rate. Every time the world finds a hole in him, he returns with it stitched shut. That's not normal. That's not talent either. That's… compulsion married to courage."
"The outburst?"
"Unacceptable," Takuma said, voice flat. "Also a flare that shows how deep the well goes. If he controls it, he'll be the kind of storm you want on your side. If he doesn't, he won't live long enough to matter."
The Raikage's mouth tugged. "You talk like a man who's met storms."
"I buried one," Takuma answered, eyes on a spot that wasn't the room. "Team of four. I pushed tempo. We were good enough to be arrogant until we weren't. Three didn't come back. I resigned from the field the next morning." He blinked, slow. "If I can sand recklessness out of a dozen kids a year, that ledger will never balance, but I'll die closer to even."
Silence. Paper. Distant thunder.
"Then congratulations," the Raikage said. "You're a better teacher than you were a shinobi."
Takuma's laugh was nearly soundless. "That's the only promotion I ever wanted."
"Keep the blade sharp," the Raikage said, meaning the class. "Especially the storm."
Takuma dipped his head. "Yes, Lord Raikage."
⸻
The Tsukihana hall was made for echoes. Elders in stone-colored robes sat under a ceiling carved with waves that had never seen water.
"The boy is weak," an elder said, voice smooth as a polished knife. "He cannot carry Getsurai's name with one eye and a spine that trembles."
Another clicked his tongue. "We have humored Jairo's sentiment long enough."
Jairo stood, fists tight at his sides. "You watched one day and decided a legacy?" His voice climbed, then leveled—iron forced into a line. "He's alive. He gets up. He learns. That is Tsukihana."
"Getting up is not enough," the knife-voice said. "Kumo does not need a boy who survives. It needs an heir who dominates."
A third elder folded her hands. "We propose an alternative: select and train a second heir from the branch families. Parallel grooming." A pause. "Insurance."
Jairo's jaw worked. "Say it clean."
"If your son fails," she said pleasantly, "we will already have the heir the clan requires."
The hall chilled.
Jairo took a step forward. "He will not fail."
The eldest—eyes like old winter—spoke for the first time. "Then prove it. Three months. In that time the boy will present himself to this council and pass our internal trial—blind-side elimination, seal discipline under stress, and a live-blade evaluation under oversight."
"And if he refuses?" someone asked, too soft to be innocent.
"Then the title of heir moves," winter said. "And the branch boy steps in."
The wave-carved ceiling watched them like a god that didn't care.
Jairo bowed because protocol demanded a bow when you wanted to break furniture. "You'll have your proof," he said, each word wrapped around a promise and a threat. "And when he stands, you will say his name with your heads lowered."
He turned on his heel, breath shaking only after the doors closed and the hall's cold leaked off his shoulders.
Outside, Kumo's night air hit his face. He looked up at the mountain and, for a moment, saw a boy on a rooftop, small against a city big enough to swallow him.
"Three months," Jairo said to the dark. "I'll buy you more if you need it, son. But three is what they gave us."
He started down the steps, jaw set, eyes hot.
The storm had its clock.