A week had passed since Reiji’s conversation with Mito.

  When he returned home that evening, his hands and feet had been torn open from the cliff descent. The cuts across his palms had split wide where the rock had scraped them raw, and the soles of his feet were no better—thin lines of blood drying in the dust that clung to his skin. By the time he reached the small house he shared with his father, the dull ache in his limbs had settled into something deeper, a steady pulse that flared whenever he shifted his weight.

  He had simply told Homura it was the result of training.

  His father had said nothing at first. Homura’s sharp eyes had moved slowly over the injuries, taking in the torn skin, the grit lodged in the cuts, the faint tremor in Reiji’s fingers from the strain of the fall. The silence had stretched for several seconds, then Homura had given a single short nod and reached for the medical supplies without asking another question.

  They worked quietly at the table.

  Reiji sat while his father cleaned the wounds ,the cloth stinging sharply whenever it pressed against exposed skin. The smell of antiseptic herbs filled the room as Homura wrapped his palms and soles in fresh bandages.

  Neither of them spoke.

  When the last knot was tied, Homura simply pushed the medical kit aside and returned to whatever work he had been doing earlier.

  ---

  After that, life resumed as if nothing unusual had happened.

  Reiji still attended the Academy each morning. He still trained every afternoon until his muscles burned and his breath came rough in his chest. And he still spent most of his time thinking about the same problem that had occupied his mind for days.

  Friendship.

  The word itself remained strangely distant to him.

  He did not understand how other children formed bonds so easily. In the classroom and the training yard, conversations seemed to flow between them without effort.

  Reiji watched it happen every day.

  And he could not replicate it.

  For him, none of that came naturally. If he wanted something like that—if he truly intended to follow the advice Mito had forced on him—then he would have to approach it the same way he approached every other obstacle in his life.

  As a problem to solve.

  Adapt and overcome.

  That did not mean the solution would appear quickly.

  Part of his determination came from simple stubbornness. Mito’s words still lingered at the edge of his thoughts, and the idea of proving the old woman wrong held its own quiet appeal. But there was another reason as well—one he found more difficult to dismiss.

  He wanted his father to be proud of him.

  Even with that motivation, however, he remained stuck.

  After the ambush incident in the forest, Kushina and Nawaki had returned almost immediately to their usual behavior and ignored him again. Reiji had expected that outcome. Helping someone once—or being helped once in return—was not enough to erase months of irritation or suspicion.

  The opportunity he had been given inside the Senju house had slipped away as well. Nawaki’s mother had unsettled him more than he expected, and the encounter with Mito had ended any chance he might have had to turn that moment into something useful.

  Still, the experience had clarified something important.

  Human relationships revolved around value.

  People grew close to others because those people offered something they wanted. The exact reason depended entirely on the individual involved.

  By that logic, Reiji’s situation was simple.

  He had nothing to offer anyone.

  And no one had anything he wanted badly enough to pursue.

  Earlier, he had tried imitation. He had attempted to observe the way other students spoke and behaved, then replicate those patterns himself. The results had been predictable. Even when he intended no harm, conversations often ended with someone irritated by something he said.

  He still remembered the confused expressions. The sudden tension in the air.

  It was exhausting.

  So imitation was no longer an option.

  He needed a different approach.

  If he could not attract people with warmth the way Minato did—effortlessly, almost irritatingly—then he would have to attract them with something else.

  ---

  Reiji sat quietly at his desk while the classroom gradually filled with students.

  From the corner of his vision, he watched.

  Kushina arrived as she always did, walking beside Nawaki. Her steps were quick and energetic, her long red hair shifting behind her with every movement. As soon as she entered the room, she drifted naturally toward the same group she always joined.

  The pattern repeated itself.

  Conversation began almost immediately—small complaints about assignments, bursts of laughter when someone said something amusing...

  She was closest to Mikoto Uchiha.

  The two spoke more often than anyone else in the room, their conversations flowing easily between serious discussion and amusement. After Mikoto came the others who orbited loosely around Kushina’s attention: Aya Shirakawa, Tsume Inuzuka, and Kasumi Nara, who possessed what appeared to be a supernatural ability to remain half-asleep regardless of the situation.

  Until recently, Reiji had not known most of their names.

  He had known Mikoto’s.

  The rest had simply existed somewhere within her orbit before he started paying attention of them.

  Another detail he had noticed involved Kushina’s attitude toward training.

  She was not weak. In fact, during physical exercises she was stronger than most of the class.

  But she lacked the relentless focus Reiji associated with serious ambition.

  For someone who loudly claimed she intended to become the first female Hokage, Kushina approached most tasks with surprising casualness. She preferred encouraging her friends or joking with them over pushing herself beyond what was required.

  More importantly, she struggled during theoretical lessons.

  Reiji had noticed something else as well.

  After his conversation with Mito, Reiji had briefly wondered whether the old woman might warn her grandchildren about him. If that had happened, the curiosity would have vanished immediately.

  But it hadn’t.

  Kushina and Nawaki still ignored him most of the time, yet they did not behave as if they feared him or suspected something darker.

  So Mito had remained silent.

  And according to Mito’s own words, Kushina had once been interested in befriending him.

  That made her an opportunity.

  The only real obstacle was Reiji himself.

  Still, obstacles existed to be worked around.

  He simply needed to introduce something new into the relationship.

  Something she wanted.

  Something she needed.

  ---

  The opportunity appeared during a theory exercise.

  Reiji sat near the back as usual.

  From there he could see most of the room without appearing to watch anyone directly. His posture remained relaxed, shoulders slightly forward over his paper, one hand resting loosely beside the page while the other moved steadily with his pencil.

  Two rows ahead of him, Kushina sat hunched over her own sheet.

  She had not written anything for several minutes.

  Her pencil hovered above the page while her eyes scanned the same line again and again, as though staring hard enough might force the answer to appear.

  Reiji lowered his gaze briefly to his own sheet.

  The question Kushina had been staring at dealt with basic chakra theory—one of the subjects the Academy instructors insisted every student memorize before they were ever allowed to practice real techniques. The exercise asked them to explain the purpose of hand seals in ninjutsu and why molding chakra without proper control could cause a technique to fail.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  It was the kind of question that required more explanation than memorization. Most of the class approached it by trying to repeat the instructor’s words exactly as they had heard them during lectures.

  Reiji had never understood why.

  The logic behind it was simple.

  It was basic theory.

  But theory was exactly where Kushina struggled.

  ‘Theory’.

  ‘Of course.’

  His eyes moved back toward Kushina for a moment.

  Reiji tore a narrow strip from the edge of his paper.

  The quiet rip of the page was barely audible beneath the scratching of pencils around the room. He wrote a few quick words on the scrap before folding it once between his fingers. Then, with a small flick of his wrist, he sent it sliding forward across the floor.

  The paper skidded lightly over the wood and bumped against the leg of Kushina’s desk.

  She blinked in surprise when it appeared beside her hand.

  For a moment she simply stared at it, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion. Then, with a quick glance toward the instructor at the front of the room, she bent slightly and retrieved it from the floor.

  Reiji returned his attention to his paper as if nothing had happened.

  Out of the corner of his vision he saw her unfold the note beneath the edge of her desk.

  Having trouble?

  Her head turned almost immediately.

  Suspicion appeared on her face at once—sharp, immediate, and unmistakable.

  Reiji did not look at her.

  He kept his eyes on the front of the room, pencil moving slowly across his own paper as though he were entirely focused on his work.

  A few seconds later something soft slid onto his desk.

  He glanced down.

  Another scrap of paper.

  He unfolded it without hurry.

  What do you want?

  His lips twitched slightly at the corners.

  Reiji wrote his reply carefully, keeping his movements slow enough not to attract attention.

  Give me the numbers of the questions. I’ll give you the answers.

  He folded the paper again and flicked it forward with the same casual motion as before.

  This time the response did not come immediately.

  Even without looking directly at her, Reiji could almost feel the hesitation radiating from her desk. Kushina was thinking through the situation, weighing possibilities the way someone did when they suspected a trap.

  For several seconds nothing happened.

  Then another scrap slid across his desk.

  Reiji unfolded it.

  Three numbers had been written quickly across the paper.

  He glanced at them once before reaching for his pencil again.

  The answers themselves were simple enough, but he did not write them alone. Instead he added the method beside each one—short explanations broken into clear steps, simple enough to copy quickly but structured well enough that she could understand the reasoning behind them.

  It took less than half a minute.

  When he finished, he folded the note and flicked it forward once more.

  Kushina caught it before it could fall to the floor.

  Another brief pause followed.

  Then her pencil began moving.

  Reiji allowed his attention to return fully to his own work. The scratching of graphite against paper resumed its quiet rhythm as he continued answering the remaining questions.

  A minute passed.

  Then something landed lightly on his desk.

  Another note.

  He opened it.

  You explain better than sensei.

  Reiji stared at the sentence for a moment, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly before he picked up his pencil again.

  That isn’t difficult.

  He folded the paper and slid it forward once more.

  A second later he heard a small choking sound from two rows ahead of him—something suspiciously close to a laugh that someone was trying very hard not to make.

  Reiji did not turn his head, but he felt the change all the same.

  For now, that was sufficient.

  Reiji kept his gaze directed toward the front of the room while quietly evaluating the result of the exchange.

  His assumption had been correct.

  If he could not draw people in the way Minato did—with effortless warmth and easy smiles—then he would simply offer something else.

  Something practical.

  Something useful.

  And usefulness, unlike charm, was a language Reiji understood perfectly.

  ---

  Later that afternoon, the class was brought outside for weapons practice.

  Along the far fence, rows of wooden targets had been set into the ground. Each one carried a series of faded rings painted long ago, the wood around their centers darkened and scarred from countless strikes.

  Kunai thudded into wood.

  Students muttered under their breath as throws went wide. A few cursed quietly when their weapons bounced uselessly off the boards.

  Every so often the instructor’s voice cut sharply across the yard.

  “Your stance is wrong.”

  “Stop throwing with your shoulder.”

  “Again.”

  Reiji stepped up to the throwing line when his turn came.

  The metal of the kunai felt familiar in his hand—balanced, slightly worn from years of use. He rolled the handle once between his fingers, letting his weight settle evenly through his feet before beginning.

  The motion was simple.

  His rear foot pressed lightly into the ground, the push transferring through his legs and hips before flowing into his torso. His shoulder remained relaxed, his arm following the motion rather than forcing it. The final flick of his wrist guided the weapon.

  The kunai left his hand cleanly.

  It flew through the air before striking the center of the target with a dull, solid thunk.

  Reiji drew another from the table and repeated the motion.

  Again.

  And again.

  One after another the blades buried themselves near the center of the target, their handles vibrating faintly after impact.

  When he finished the assigned number of throws, he stepped aside.

  The instructor glanced briefly in his direction, eyes moving from Reiji to the target board. After a short pause, he simply gave a small nod and turned his attention toward the rest of the class.

  Reiji didn’t mind.

  Standing idle meant he could observe.

  He watched quietly as the next group stepped forward. Some students struggled immediately, their kunai drifting wide or striking the boards sideways. Others improved gradually after a few attempts.

  Eventually his attention settled on Kushina.

  She stood several places down the line with Mikoto beside her, the two of them sharing the same target board.

  Kushina’s throws were not terrible.

  Better than most, actually.

  Her arm was strong, and her instincts were good enough that the kunai rarely missed the board entirely. The problem lay elsewhere.

  Reiji watched the motion of her arm carefully.

  Her wrist remained too stiff during release. Her shoulder carried too much tension. Instead of allowing the movement to travel naturally through her body—from her feet through her hips and into her arm—she forced the throw with brute strength.

  It was inefficient.

  The result appeared exactly as expected.

  One kunai drifted left, embedding itself just outside the painted circle.

  The next flew slightly high.

  Another dropped low, the blade striking the board with a dull sideways crack.

  By the fourth attempt her frustration was obvious. Her shoulders tightened, and the next throw came harder than the previous ones.

  Reiji watched one more throw before stepping forward.

  He had barely taken two steps when Mikoto moved.

  The motion was small but deliberate—a single shift of her stance that placed her directly between him and Kushina.

  Her eyes narrowed slightly.

  “What do you want now?” she asked.

  Reiji stopped a short distance away.

  “Mind your own business.”

  Mikoto’s gaze hardened.

  “You should do the same,” she replied evenly. “Why are you coming over here?”

  Behind her, Kushina glanced between them.

  Reiji kept his eyes on Mikoto.

  “Because watching the same mistake five times in a row is irritating,” he said. “I’m helping her.”

  Mikoto let out a quiet breath that carried no amusement whatsoever.

  “How generous of you,” she said dryly. “But I can help her.”

  “I can do it better than you,” Reiji replied flatly.

  Mikoto rolled her eyes.

  “Yes, genius. Thank you for telling me. But why would you?”

  Reiji felt the conversation beginning to rot.

  “Because I know how.”

  Mikoto crossed her arms, her expression sharpening slightly.

  “Funny,” she said. “Arata disappears for days, and suddenly you’re trying to help people.”

  There it was.

  Reiji went still.

  Arata had not returned to the Academy since the day of their confrontation in the forest. No explanation had been given to the class. The absence had become a quiet topic of speculation among the students.

  More than once Reiji had noticed someone glance in his direction when the subject came up.

  “What do you mean by that?” he asked calmly.

  Mikoto met his gaze without hesitation.

  “I mean it’s strange.”

  “No,” Reiji said quietly. “Say what you mean.”

  For a moment neither of them moved.

  Around them the yard continued as before—kunai striking wood, students talking, the instructor correcting someone’s grip—but the sounds felt strangely distant, as though the air between them had thickened.

  Mikoto lifted her chin slightly.

  “You humiliated him,” she said. “We all saw how badly it affected him. And now he’s gone.”

  Reiji felt the familiar flare of anger rise slowly in his chest.

  Not because she accused him.

  He was used to that.

  But because of how quickly people always seemed ready to assume the worst when it came to him.

  “That’s a convenient accusation,” he said calmly. “Do you have proof, or is that simply the conclusion you prefer?”

  Before Mikoto could answer, Kushina stepped forward.

  “Stop it, Mikoto. Reiji has nothing to do with that.”

  Mikoto turned toward her in surprise.

  “Huh? And how do you know?”

  Kushina opened her mouth.

  Then hesitated.

  Before the silence could deepen, another voice joined the conversation.

  “It’s none of your business, Mikoto.”

  Nawaki approached with his hands shoved casually into his pockets, his expression relaxed in a way that didn’t quite hide the tension in his shoulders.

  “If you’re that curious,” he continued, “why don’t you ask your clan? He’s one of yours.”

  Mikoto frowned.

  “I tried,” she said. “Every time I ask they just tell me not to worry and that he’ll be back soon.”

  Nawaki shrugged.

  “Then there you go.”

  “That tells me nothing.”

  “It tells you enough,” Nawaki replied. “We can’t say why he’s absent because it’s not our place. When the time comes, you’ll know.”

  Mikoto muttered something under her breath, clearly dissatisfied, but after a moment she stepped aside.

  The space between Reiji and Kushina finally cleared.

  Reiji exhaled softly.

  “So,” he said, looking at Kushina, “can I show you now?”

  Kushina blinked.

  “It’s genuinely painful to watch.”

  For a moment she simply stared at him.

  Then, despite herself, she snorted.

  Kushina rolled her eyes.

  “Fine,” she said. “Show me.”

  Mikoto made an outraged noise beside her.

  Reiji stepped forward beside her without responding. The table of practice weapons stood between them , its surface scattered with dull-edged kunai that had already seen years of student abuse. He picked one up, turning it slowly between his fingers.

  “You’re forcing it,” he said calmly.

  Kushina blinked at him. “What?”

  “You’re trying to throw too hard.”

  Her frown deepened instantly, red brows pulling together. “I’m not—”

  “You are.”

  The answer came flat and immediate. She looked personally offended by it.

  Reiji didn’t bother reacting to that. Instead, his gaze dropped briefly to her stance.

  “Your feet first,” he said, gesturing toward the ground with the kunai in his hand. “They’re wrong.”

  And the lesson began.

  “My feet are fine.”

  “They aren’t.”

  “They are.”

  Reiji turned his head slowly and looked at her, his expression perfectly blank. “Do you want help or not?”

  That stopped her. Not entirely—her mouth still twitched with the urge to argue—but the words themselves stalled in her throat.

  With visible reluctance, Kushina shifted her footing where he had indicated. Reiji crouched slightly beside her,, and tapped the front of her sandal twice with two fingers.

  “There,” he said. “Wider.”

  She moved it another inch.

  “More.”

  Her shoulders tensed as she shifted again. Under her breath she muttered something that sounded distinctly unflattering.

  “Good,” Reiji said anyway, straightening. “Now stop locking your shoulder.”

  Kushina lifted the kunai again. From where he stood, Reiji could see the tension gathering through the line of her arm before the throw had even begun. She was already fighting the motion.

  “You’re doing it again.”

  “I haven’t even thrown it yet.”

  “You were about to.”

  She shot him a glare, but the tightness in her shoulder loosened anyway, if only slightly. Reiji lifted his own kunai in response.

  “Watch.”

  The kunai left his hand cleanly before burying itself in the inner ring of the target with a sharp, satisfying thunk.

  Reiji lowered his arm.

  Kushina’s gaze moved from the vibrating handle of the kunai to his face.

  “Again,” he said. “But don’t fight the throw this time.”

  She inhaled slowly, clearly resisting the urge to say something argumentative. Then she set her feet the way he had shown her, her sandals shifting across the dirt until her stance was closer to what he had demonstrated.

  Her arm came up.

  Reiji watched the line of her movement carefully. The stiffness was still there, though less severe now that she was paying attention to it.

  She threw.

  The difference was immediate.

  The kunai didn’t fly straight, and the rotation wobbled slightly, but it struck the wooden board instead of slipping past it entirely. The dull impact echoed against the fence, the blade biting shallowly into the grain.

  Kushina stared at the target.

  Reiji watched her posture instead.

  Still not good.

  But better.

  “Again,” he said.

  She threw a second time.

  “Your release is late,” Reiji said, folding his arms loosely. “Let go earlier.”

  Kushina clicked her tongue. “You say that like it’s simple.”

  “It is simple for me,” he replied. “That doesn’t mean it’s easy for you.”

  For some reason that made Nawaki bark out a laugh a few steps away.

  Reiji glanced briefly in that direction. Nawaki had been half-watching the entire time, leaning against the weapon table with a grin he clearly wasn’t trying to hide. Kushina turned her head just enough to glare at him.

  Then she grabbed another kunai.

  This time she adjusted before throwing.

  The kunai spun cleanly.

  It struck within the painted circle with a solid crack.

  Kushina froze.

  For a moment she simply stared at the weapon embedded in the board as if it had appeared there on its own.

  Then she turned to Reiji so quickly that her long red hair swung with the motion, strands flashing briefly in the afternoon light.

  “You could’ve said that earlier.”

  He met her glare without difficulty. “You never asked.”

  Behind them Nawaki laughed again, louder this time, and even Mikoto—standing a short distance away with her own kunai in hand—looked suspiciously close to smiling.

  Kushina made a face at Reiji before she turned back toward the target.

  And threw again.

  And again.

  Her attention had narrowed completely to the target ahead and the motion of her own arm.

  Reiji stepped back half a pace, watching.

  She learned quickly once something clicked in her head. That much was obvious. Her first instinct had been brute force—throw harder, push the weapon toward the target—but once she understood where the mistake was, she adjusted without much hesitation. Not elegantly, not yet, but honestly. Each throw improved slightly.

  The target stopped punishing her for every attempt.

  ‘Maybe she can be useful after all.’

  After a while the instructor called for the class to rotate stations. The moment dissolved almost immediately. Students stepped away from the throwing line, collecting their weapons, talking over one another as they compared results or complained about missed throws.

  Maybe, to everyone else, nothing important had happened.

  But as Reiji turned to leave, Kushina’s voice called after him.

  “Hey.”

  He stopped and glanced back.

  “Thanks.”

  Reiji studied her for a second.

  The irritation still clinging to her expression. The curiosity in her eyes. The fact that, for once, neither came with mockery or open hostility.

  He gave a small nod.

  Then he turned and walked away.

  It was not friendship.

  Not yet.

  But it was something.

  And for now, something was enough.