Patrol Sounds in the New House

The night in the new house was quieter than in the old clan grounds.

Quiet did not mean soundless. Wind slipped through the cracks in the windows, letting out a faint whistle as it scraped past the wooden frames; someone was moving boxes in the distance, wooden wheels rolling over the freshly laid road with dull, intermittent thuds; patrol footsteps passed beyond the fence at regular intervals, soft-soled ninja sandals treading lightly over gravel. Yet because they were so regular, they were easier to remember.

Uchiha Che lay against the wall at East Row 2, No. 7, his eyes open.

Kiyo slept on the other side, his forehead protector cloth wrapped around his wrist, his hand clenched tight. Saori had been assigned to the neighboring room. Before bed, she had even come to the doorway hugging her doll, just to make sure the broken bell had not been left behind in the old clan grounds. Nao stayed in the outer room, leaving the door slightly ajar so that a sliver of shadow could be seen through it.

Che had thought he would fall asleep quickly.

They had spent the whole day moving. His legs ached, his shoulders ached, and the wrapping around his right palm had rubbed it red. But the more exhausted his body became, the more forcibly awake his mind seemed. The roads of the old clan grounds, the entrance to the new district, the looks in the Konoha ninja's eyes, Fugaku's words—"Don't be so quick to recognize boundaries"—all surfaced in turn through the darkness.

The patrol sounds came again.

One, two, three, four.

Four breaths later, the footsteps passed beyond the window, slightly to the right.

Two breaths after that, the wind swallowed the sound.

Che did not move. He only noted in his mind: from the eastern training grounds to the windows outside East Row 2, about six breaths.

As soon as he finished, he frowned.

Nao had said that roads could save people, but they could also harm them. Fugaku had also warned him not to be too quick to recognize boundaries. Yet it was as if his mind had been twisted once already by Nine-Tails Night. No matter what he heard, he immediately turned it into routes, timing, and risks.

This was not maturity.

It was more like a kind of anxiety that would not stop.

"You're not asleep?" Nao's voice came through the crack in the door.

Che closed his eyes, then opened them again after one breath. "I'm practicing pretending to sleep."

"You're bad at it."

"Then I still have room to improve."

Nao pushed the door open and entered with a small oil lamp in hand. She shielded the flame with her palm, not letting the light shine directly onto Kiyo's face. She crouched beside Che and looked into his eyes.

"Scared?"

Che wanted to say he was not.

The words reached his lips, then he swallowed them. The word was too stiff, too false. So he said, "I'm not used to it yet."

"What aren't you used to?"

"The wind sounds different. The wood smells different too. The patrol footsteps are closer than they were in the old clan grounds."

Nao looked toward the window.

Outside the paper window, the shadow of a patrolling ninja swept past in the distance and quickly vanished. That shadow might not have carried any malice, but its existence was too clear, as though reminding the people inside: you have been settled here, and you are being watched.

"This place was just built. The patrols will be denser for a while," Nao said.

Che asked softly, "Will there be fewer later?"

Nao did not answer right away.

That pause was more real than any answer.

"Maybe," she said. "Maybe not. What you need to do now is not memorize every set of footsteps."

"Then what should I do?"

"Sleep."

Che looked at her and could not help smiling. "That's very straightforward advice."

"Straightforward advice usually saves lives." Nao lowered the lamp. "Ninja do not survive on jutsu alone. If you do not sleep well, you will not even be able to stand steady tomorrow. If you cannot stand steady, your shuriken will fly off target. If your shuriken flies off target, it does not matter how clever your chakra is."

The logic was airtight.

Che wanted to argue, but could not find the right angle.

Nao placed a folded piece of cloth beside his pillow. "If your ears hurt, pad them a little. Do not block them completely. If you do, you will not hear real danger."

"Pad them a little, but don't block them completely," Che repeated under his breath. "Even sleeping in the ninja world requires moderation."

Nao reached out and lightly tapped his forehead. "When you talk this much, it means you really have not slept well."

Che fell quiet.

Kiyo turned over beside him and softly called out, "Dad," in his sleep. The room immediately seemed even quieter. Nao looked at Kiyo, her gaze softening for a moment before she quickly drew it back.

"He didn't cry today," Che said.

"Mm."

"He held it in really hard."

"So did you."

Che froze.

Nao seemed to have said it only in passing as she pulled his thin blanket a little higher. But those words landed in his heart more clearly than the patrol sounds. These past few days, he had been busy memorizing routes, pretending to be ordinary, and looking after Kiyo and Saori's feelings. He had nearly forgotten that he, too, had moved out of the old clan grounds.

He was not native to this world, but this body's parents had died during Nine-Tails Night, and his father's family records were still pressed beneath the bottom of his bag. When the old house burned down, what he had lost was not merely background knowledge.

"Aunt Nao," Che suddenly said.

"Mm?"

"If I keep remembering all this random stuff in the future, will you think I'm a lot of trouble?"

Nao looked at him. "Yes."

Che's mouth twitched. "That answer could have been a little gentler."

"Being trouble doesn't mean no one should take care of you," Nao said. "Children are troublesome by nature. Children from ninja families just become troublesome earlier."

Che buried his face a little deeper into the blanket, his voice muffled. "Then I'll try to be troublesome in a useful way."

"First, be troublesome enough to fall asleep."

Nao rose and left, once again leaving a crack in the door. The oil lamp's light retreated into the outer room, and the room went dark again.

The patrol sounds passed by once more.

Che heard them, but did not keep counting. He placed the folded cloth beside his ear, letting it only make the sounds more distant. The wind was still there. The scent of wood was still there. Kiyo's breathing was still there. The footsteps beyond the fence had not disappeared, but they no longer occupied the entire room.

He closed his eyes. His mind did not become quiet at once.

But this time, he did not force himself to keep analyzing.

On his first night in the new house, what he learned was neither a new route nor a new surveillance pattern.

It was that sleeping also required training.

And for now, he was not very good at it.

In the latter half of the night, Kiyo woke up once.

He did not cry immediately. He only sat up and stared blankly at the unfamiliar window frame. Patrol footsteps passed outside again, and a shadow flashed across the paper window. Kiyo's shoulders shrank, and he clutched the forehead protector cloth around his wrist even tighter.

"Che," he called softly.

"Mm." Che opened his eyes.

"Is this our home now?"

That question was harder to answer than, "Will Dad come back?" A home was not a house number, a room number, or a location written on paper by registered ninja. But what Kiyo needed right now was not a philosophical answer.

Che turned onto his side. "The temporary version."

"What does temporary mean?"

"It means we live here for now, then slowly upgrade it."

Kiyo seemed to understand and not understand. "Can it upgrade into a home?"

"If we can eat, sleep, not lose our things, and someone wakes you up for training in the morning, then it will probably feel more and more like one."

Kiyo looked down at the forehead protector cloth. "Then what about when Dad comes back?"

Che was silent for one breath. "People who come back look for the people who are alive. If we stay alive, there's a chance we'll be found."

There was still room in those words, but they were steadier than simple comfort. Kiyo sat hugging his knees for a while, then slowly lay back down.

"Then tomorrow I'll memorize the water point."

"Very good. Building a home starts with the water point."

Kiyo was too sleepy to understand, only giving a vague reply.

Che waited until his breathing steadied again before turning his gaze toward the window. The patrol sounds had already faded away, while the wind still circled around the window cracks. The first night in the new house had not made him fully at ease, but it had made him understand that he could not live only for himself. Kiyo's question, Saori's bell, and the door Nao had left unclosed were all pulling him out of simple survival calculations.

He did not like the feeling of being tied down.

But perhaps these ties were exactly what kept him from becoming someone who only recorded risks.

Near dawn, the patrol sounds shifted to a different rhythm.

The earlier group's steps had been light and quick. This later group was heavier, even pausing briefly as they passed the window. Che did not open his eyes. He only steadied his breathing. The pause was short, probably just a patrol ninja checking the house number or observing the intersection. But in that instant, he clearly felt his back tighten.

Only after the footsteps faded did he slowly relax his shoulders.

This was not courage, nor was it maturity.

It was simply that he had begun to get used to pretending to sleep in places where he was being watched. The thought made him uncomfortable. A four-year-old should have been worried about the new house letting in wind, rice balls being too hard, or training being too exhausting—not distinguishing patrol shifts in the dark.

But complaining was useless.

What he could do was at least not let that habit wear him down until nothing remained but vigilance.