"Go," Iruka says.
Naruto vanishes a fraction before the word is finished. He reappears at Izayoi's left, hand open, fingers eager to be right. Izayoi chooses in the seam between sounds. He does not flee. He edits. A half-step that starts in his ribs, a shoulder that becomes a suggestion, and the grab closes on the space his outline has already returned to air.
"Words before will," Iruka says, mild as a blade in a sheath.
"Tiger," Izayoi answers, still palms-up.
"Tiger!" Naruto says, louder than learning needs, and then laughs because joy refuses to whisper.
"Again," Iruka says. "Slower."
They reset without moving their feet. Naruto's eyes try to decide between the shoulder he wants and the smile he can't help. Izayoi lets his attention go wide—floor grain, window glare, the way Hinata's pencil hovers rather than rests.
"One," Iruka says.
"Boar," Izayoi says.
"Boar!" Naruto echoes, and the chakra lifts under his skin like a kite that hasn't found the wind yet.
"Two."
"Ox," Izayoi says, and he moves the weight before he moves the meat. Naruto commits on three, appears where a shoulder used to be, and finds a sleeve instead. Izayoi lets him graze cloth—a kindness radioed through an inch.
Naruto whoops anyway. "I touched him!"
"You touched his sleeve," Iruka says, and the smile is in his voice, not his mouth. "Again. Both of you—hands visible. Your hands keep you honest."
Izayoi keeps his palms where Iruka can see them. He does not need them, but needing and using are different games. Naruto shakes out his fingers as if readiness lives in joints.
They go again. They miss cleaner. They hit softer. The room learns how to be quiet on purpose.
Iruka lets it run long enough to be boring, which is to say long enough to matter. Then he calls a halt with a small lift of his hand. "Good. Reverse the job. Izayoi, allow the touch on three. Choose how the touch lands."
Izayoi nods. Naruto tries to hide triumph and fails admirably.
"One," Iruka says.
"Tiger," Izayoi says.
"Two."
"Boar," Naruto says, breath too shallow.
"Three."
"Ox," Izayoi says, and he steps into Naruto's reach at the kind of angle that makes a touch into a tap, a tap into a conversation. Naruto's fingers land on Izayoi's shoulder like a polite knock. Everyone in the room hears what it is not: a victory over someone else.
"Thank you," Naruto says, breathless and honest.
"You're welcome," Izayoi says, because the right words file the moment in the right drawer.
Iruka collects the room with a look. "Notice the difference," he says. "When you reach, you make noise. When you receive, you can make quiet. Most fights are won by quiet." He reaches to the chalk, pinches a short piece, and holds it where everyone can see it. "Now—distraction."
He flicks the chalk toward Izayoi's chest without warning. It's not fast; it is sudden. Naruto flinches. Hinata's pencil taps once.
Izayoi doesn't swat. He reads the chalk's line and writes a better end for it. His left hand lifts the distance of a breath, fingers not even closing, and the chalk's arc edits into his palm as if the air had offered to catch it for him.
Iruka's eyebrow moves a millimeter. "Good," he says. "But words."
"Boar," Izayoi says belatedly, owning the tiny debt.
Iruka nods. "Again." Another chalk, another small line sent into the room. Izayoi names the seal before he takes the path. The chalk decides it wanted a soft landing all along.
"Now with Naruto moving," Iruka says. "Naruto, you count your seals. Izayoi, you keep your eyes on me."
Naruto gasps, delighted at a free license to exist. "Yes!"
Iruka begins to pace, measured, five right, five left. Naruto pops a substitution to Izayoi's far side, hand out, a touch queued up for the space where a shoulder allegedly lives. Izayoi does not look. He keeps Iruka's steps as his metronome and lets the chalk be a story that arrives in his palm when the story is ready.
Naruto's hand lands on the shoulder that is not there. His fingers close on air and close gently, as if they found the idea of a friend instead.
"Again," Iruka says, and he lets the practice do the talking. After six tries, Naruto's breathing steadies. After nine, his eyes learn to stop sprinting. After twelve, a tap turns into a deliberate touch.
The class takes notes the way they will remember later: not every word, just the words that hook on something they already believe. Hinata writes three lines and underlines nothing.
"Enough," Iruka says finally. He sets the chalk down like it is included in the lesson, not just a tool for it. "Foundation." He lets the empty word be the frame for what follows. "Transformation: notice before you wear. Clone: stand with yourself without tripping over your own breath. Substitution: decide the after before you begin."
He lets silence seat itself. Then: "Questions?"
A boy in back asks if you can substitute with a chair that has someone in it. "Not unless someone moves," Iruka says. A girl asks if clones sweat. "Only if you panic enough," he repeats, and the echo makes the room smile. Naruto asks if shouting makes chakra faster. "Only your neighbors louder," Iruka says, and the room laughs without meanness.
Hinata lifts her hand halfway, then lowers it and tries the stealthier path. "When you—receive," she says, "do you breathe in or out?"
"In," Izayoi says. "Out is for returning."
She nods like a leaf deciding which side is sunward.
Iruka looks at the clock that isn't there and judges time by the weight of the morning. "One last drill," he says. "All of you—out of seats." He draws a six-foot circle on the floor with chalk. "We'll do circle tag. No running. No collisions. Naruto in the circle first. Izayoi, you're the anchor. Everyone else watches feet and shoulders and writes what they see."
Naruto hops into the chalk ring with the solemnity of a child stepping onto stage and the joy of one allowed to be seen there. Izayoi steps in like a man visiting a room he already knows.
"The rule is small," Iruka says. "If you leave the circle with anything but a heel, you pay with five push-ups."
"Five?" Naruto says, hopeful.
"Per foot," Iruka says.
Naruto grins. "Ten is fine."
"Words first," Iruka reminds both. "And—" he looks around the room to see if anyone is ready to be clever "—no one else leaves their bench."
He raises his hand. "One."
"Tiger," Izayoi says.
"Tiger!" Naruto says, and makes it a vow.
"Two."
"Boar," they both say.
"Three."
"Ox," says Izayoi.
Naruto vanishes into the smallest legal movement of his life and appears a palm's width left of where his plan thought it would be. Izayoi meets him with the right kind of absence. Naruto's fingers brush fabric, then air, then land on his own shirt because momentum bargains with pride.
A dusty heel kisses chalk. Iruka lifts two fingers. "Five."
Naruto drops and pays without complaint, grin still on. "Worth it," he says into the floor.
"Again," Iruka says. "Longer count. Words first."
They run it. They learn. Izayoi stays the size of the circle and no larger. Naruto learns how not to argue with geometry. The chalk line stays mostly round.
Iruka calls halt when boredom has done its work. "Switch," he says. "Izayoi in, Naruto anchors."
Naruto's eyes widen at the promotion. He becomes serious, which looks good on him in small doses.
Izayoi rolls his shoulders once and lets them settle. "Tiger," he says, naming the quiet before the move. He vanishes no farther than kindness allows. Naruto meets him with a palm that says I'm here rather than I win. They trade places with the air without asking the air to notice.
In the fourth pass, Iruka flicks another chalk at Izayoi mid-step. It's not a trick. It's homework. Izayoi names the seal before he catches it. "Boar." The chalk obeys. Naruto's eyes catch the lesson and put it on a shelf for later.
"Good," Iruka says. "Circle stands. Pencils up."
He turns to the board and writes three short phrases: Choose after first.Breathe before.Hands tell. He underlines none of them. He doesn't need to.
He faces the room again. "Pair work this afternoon," he says. "We'll schedule by desk. No one leaves without knowing whose feet they'll stand with." He taps the chalk against his palm once. "For now—"
The door clicks.
Every head turns like a flock. A chunin in a flak vest stands in the doorway, sheet of paper tucked under his thumb. He has the posture of someone who ran here and pretended he didn't.
"Iruka," he says, and stops when twenty young faces fall on him like weather. "Apologies. Message from the staff office."
Iruka takes the paper. He reads while the room performs being patient. His eyes do not change. His tone does. "We will pause," he says. "Remain seated."
He reads the paper again, shorter. The circle of chalk waits on the floor like a door that hasn't decided what it opens to.
"Izayoi," Iruka says finally, without looking up.
"Yes, sensei."
"Staff office requests a brief evaluation." He folds the paper once, neat. "Now."
Naruto half-stands. "Can I go—"
"No," Iruka says, gently but completely. "Class remains." He looks at Izayoi. "Collect your things."
Izayoi stands. He does not look at the orb above Iruka's shoulder, or the one not above Naruto's. He does not look at Hinata's hands. He picks up his pencil and his calm and the piece of chalk he forgot to put down.
Iruka opens the door and nods the chunin toward the hall. The corridor breathes in a way rooms do not. The class breathes out because they are not chosen and because chosen is a word that likes to be heavy.
Hinata's pencil finally makes a sound and stops. Naruto says nothing at all.
Izayoi steps to the door. He stops long enough for courtesy. "Should I return after?"
"Yes," Iruka says. "We will be here." The words mean I will be here.
Izayoi nods. He steps over the chalk line on his way out and feels it roll under his heel like a promise keeping itself.
The corridor is light and long. The chunin sets a pace that is not quite fast. Izayoi keeps a half-step back and to the side, where shadows walk when they choose not to be read.
"Evaluation?" he asks, as if the word were a spoon he was tasting with.
The chunin glances at him and then away, professional kindness drawing a curtain. "You'll see."
They pass windows that throw rectangles on the floor like someone measuring the day. Two turns, a stair, another turn. The staff office door is open a finger's width.
The chunin taps once and pushes it with two knuckles. "For you," he says, and steps aside.
Izayoi crosses the threshold and decides, again, whether to be a door or a wall.