After he had tucked that patch of lamplight in the corner of the courtyard into the paper, the words "hold back" did not immediately quiet down.
For a day or two afterward, Che kept thinking about those words: "hold back."
Thinking too much about it made it easy to narrow its meaning. As if not blurting out answers, not rushing for the door, not calling out that step for someone else, and not writing the second half of a sentence before they could were enough to count as doing it right. But the ninja academy would not let a rule lie peacefully for long. Yamashiro Takuma was good at pushing the other side into view just as they had begun to grasp one side.
That morning, the teacher told them to move practice boards from the equipment room.
The practice boards were not heavy, but there were many of them, and their edges were hard. The corridor was narrower than the training ground, and once the line grew long, the footsteps in front and behind easily crowded each other. Yamashiro Takuma did not personally direct every step. He merely stood at the end of the corridor, as though watching to see whether they would put what they had learned over the past few days into their movements on their own.
Kiyo carried two boards and kept muttering, "Don't rush first. Watch your feet first. Call out your position first."
Morita Yu followed behind him. "Don't turn it into a spell. Hold your boards straight first."
Che carried an oversized practice board and walked behind Rina's left side. Saori was half a step ahead, the bell in her sleeve pressed silent by the edge of a wooden board. Keisuke, Zhen Shu, and the other Uchiha children were in another line. Zhen