Iruka lowers the finger the last half inch.
"Eligibility," he says, and the word belongs to the room first. "Slot one - Izayoi. Slot two - Naruto. Assistants for the parent safety demonstration. Doors, rail, crowd. We instruct. We do not perform."
A small breath leaves twenty bodies at once. Naruto's hands want to throw victory in the air and do not. He keeps them where a room can see them. He nods once and swallows a grin because grins spend breath.
Hinata bows a degree without shrinking. "Understood," she says. She means it and the word does not cost her.
Mizuki's clipboard tips a fraction and rights itself. "Logged," he says. He writes a short line with a single stop. Paper likes sentences that pay their own bills.
Iruka looks at Hinata. "You shadow the rehearsal as safety. No activation unless ordered. One word if the word is cheaper than a mistake."
"Yes, sensei."
Iruka gestures at the floor by the board. "Reset the chalk doors. Two rectangles only. Then mark a rail line along the center aisle - tape or chalk." He glances at the janitor closet key on a hook, takes it, and returns with a broom. He sets the broom head down in the front lane so the stick reads as rail without being one.
"We rehearse the story parents will see," he says. "Move now. Quietly."
Chairs graze the floor by inches and then decide not to. Two boys re draw the chalk doors with hands that want to be precise. Izayoi lays a thin chalk line down the aisle for the rail. Naruto fetches tape and learns the price of straight lines. The broom becomes a post because imagination is free and useful.
Iruka points once to correct a corner and once to shorten a line. "Good," he says when the space reads the way procedures like. "Roles. I will narrate for civilians. Izayoi anchors the action so it stays boring. Naruto demonstrates door and rail behavior on my count. Hinata watches angles and saves money with one word if she must. Class keeps aisles clear and eyes on shoulders."
He faces the chalk door by the back aisle and takes the position a guide takes when he owes people safety and not a show. His voice turns friendly the way rope can be friendly.
"Parents will hear this," he says. "They will see this. Hands where I can see them. Ankles honest. Ribs before shoulders. If you cannot fix a thing, you stop and let space remember its manners. Begin on three. One."
Izayoi takes the near lane and becomes uninteresting in a way doors respect. Naruto sets his palms where they read as promise and not as pose.
"Two," Iruka says.
Hinata stands just behind the chalk door where someone else might stand in a crowd - present, quiet, useful. Her eyes remain ordinary and awake.
"Three."
Naruto walks. He narrows two heartbeats early and does not sell the choice. The chalk door behaves like wood because he treats it like law. Izayoi crosses the opposite flow with absence that reads as courtesy rather than magic. The aisles take both without argument.
"Stop," Iruka says at the far door, to show stopping is cheap. Naruto pauses in a way that does not write apology on his face, then continues when Iruka twitches two fingers forward. The class sees how a pause buys order for almost nothing.
Iruka turns to the rail. "Rail approach," he says as if speaking to people who have not met rails since their own first days. "One palm on rail. Ankles honest. Edits at ribs only. If your palm leaves the line, pay with five. Parents need to see that children and edges can share air."
He takes the broom stick with two fingers and sets it along the chalk line. Naruto places his palm, not heavy, not loose. Izayoi mirrors on the opposite side so the room can see both directions at once.
"One," Iruka says.
They walk the rail without rushing. Naruto meets the broom at the point where narrow wants to make someone loud. He refuses to be loud. He lets ribs be hinges. The broom never complains. Izayoi touches the stick twice the way ritual touches shrines. Rituals train breath.
"Now parents will see a mistake and a fix," Iruka says. He nudges a chair foot a finger into the lane. "Naruto - near bump. Solution is stop. Show it cheap."
Naruto meets the bad geometry and stops smaller than his own blink. Then goes. The chair learns nothing. The broom is still a rail. The rail is still a rule.
"Again," Iruka says. "This time a near stumble to your rear. You do not spend your eyes. You keep your palms honest and your attention forward. If your partner needs help, your partner will receive. Izayoi, plant the stumble where it buys the lesson and not the drama."
A boy two desks back lets his heel slip a half inch on purpose. The sound tries to buy attention. Izayoi does the softest thing - a wrist meets a sleeve and returns a shoulder to vertical with the amount of force you use to turn a page. Naruto does not look because not looking is part of the price of no drama. The aisle pays nothing.
"Parents will see that and keep breathing," Iruka says. "Good. Again. With fragile."
He mimes a bowl in front of his chest and the entire class mimes one with him because mimicry is a tool. "This is porcelain and it cost too much. If the door does not fit the bowl, the body shrinks, not the bowl. Naruto, bowl. Door. Rail. On my count."
Naruto takes the invisible weight seriously and it fixes his posture without shouts. He meets the first door and lets the ribs make room. He meets the rail and pays the price in the torso instead of the ankles. Izayoi anchors with exactly the kind of attention that fails to collect praise and that is the point.
"Hinata," Iruka says, "one word if your word saves money."
Hinata watches hands and shoulders. "Choose," she says when Naruto arrives half a heartbeat late at the second door. He pays early instead of late and the scene does not become new.
Iruka gestures a small thanks without taking breath from the room. He sets the broom against the desk and the broom becomes wood again instead of law.
Mizuki steps in no steps, only a lean that indicates process. "Reminder," he says to Iruka, to the air, to the clipboard which owns the responsibility of being exact. "Tomorrow last block - Kenta will observe a five minute no seal repetition to finalize the proficiency note. Location - staff office. Izayoi will report by the bell."
"Logged," Iruka says. He looks at Izayoi. "You will not change anything to be interesting. You will be boring at the highest level you can manage."
"Yes, sensei," Izayoi says.
Mizuki looks at Naruto with administrative kindness. "And you will remain a student during that session. Observers are not required."
Naruto salutes and then remembers his hands. "Palms," he says to himself and puts them at his chest instead. Mizuki's smile is the size of compliance and no larger. He steps back to the frame.
Iruka touches the chalk rail with two fingers, then the nearest door rectangle with two more, as if closing a small book. "Water," he says to the class. "One minute. Return to aisle one. We will take the stairs in the corridor. Rail constraint. Seven minute cap. Byakugan remains off unless I ask. If you gossip, pay with five. Move."
The room becomes a soft engine. Cups appear. Water is swallowed. Chairs sit politely in their own lanes. Students who used to trip over straps remember where straps live. Naruto shakes out his hands without making it look like a show. Hinata smooths her sleeve one time and then stops touching it. Izayoi watches the air between people for places it might try to lie.
Iruka takes the broom because symbolism can walk. He nods to Mizuki and to the class and moves to the door. No one pushes. The class arrives at the corridor with a shape that looks practiced and still human.
"Stair rail," Iruka says at the landing. The rail waits with its own memory of hands, some polite, some proud. "Same rules. One palm on. Ankles honest. Edits at ribs only. If your hand leaves, you pay with five at the water alcove."
He sets the broom aside as if the rail is ready to be the only rail in the scene. He places his own hand where he asks theirs to be. He looks at Hinata. "Shadow from second tread. Watch feet - not faces."
"Yes, sensei," she says.
He looks at Naruto. "Mime porcelain. If the stair insists, you pay with shoulders nowhere. Izayoi - anchor behind the second pair. If the world buys an accident, you sell it back at a profit."
"Understood," Izayoi says.
Mizuki finds his pillar and becomes furniture again. The clipboard is patient. The air is ready.
Iruka raises his hand to count.
"On my word," he says. "Palms where I can see them. Ankles honest. We take the stair and keep it boring for seven minutes. Begin on three."
One.
Two.
Three.