That morning, Takuya finally put the words "hand seal" and "fire" together.
Not a complete technique.
The moment he opened his mouth, he extinguished the little flames in the children's hearts. "Today, we won't be learning Fire Release technique names or chaining full seals. We'll only identify the first key hand seal. If anyone hears 'fire' and wants to fill in the rest on their own, you can go stand in the hallway and cool off first."
The light in Kiyo's eyes immediately dimmed by half. "How does Teacher always manage to block me before I even start?"
"Because your face is easier to read than the blackboard," Morita Yu said.
The classroom laughed for a while, but the atmosphere soon settled. After so many previous lessons, they understood that the closer they came to a real technique, the less their teacher would allow excitement to come first. The things before a technique name were already so difficult; once the technique name truly drew near, they could not be left with nothing but the urge to prove themselves.
Takuya drew the structure of a hand seal on the blackboard. He did not write a technique name, only:
`First Gate Before Fire.`
It was not an official term, yet it quieted Che's heart at once.
The first gate.
Not a technique, not an outcome, but a gate. A gate meant seeing clearly before entering, and it also meant that seeing it did not necessarily mean entering immediately. All the previous lessons suddenly seemed to be connected by these four words: the heat on the back of the hand, the second half of the sentence, the Outside Hand, pulling back, and giving support. Now, all of it was finally going to be pressed into the fingers, knuckles, and the direction of chakra.