The Stance in the Wind

The wind at the new training ground always liked to come from the side.

When Uchiha Jian lined the children up, Che quickly noticed it. The wind in the old courtyard was blocked by the walls and locust trees, softened by the time it reached them. This place was different. The open ground on the eastern side lay near the fence, and beyond it was woodland that had yet to be cleared. The wind shot straight through the gaps in the trees, pushing at their hems and their centers of gravity alike.

The moment Kiyo had taken his position, the wind made him sway.

"It's pushing me," Kiyo said softly.

Che looked ahead. "You can push back."

"How?"

"Grip the ground with your toes. Don't lock your knees. Shift your weight a little toward where the wind is coming from. Not too much, or you'll look like you're wrestling the air."

Kiyo gave it a try, and his body did become a little steadier. His eyes lit up. "How did you know?"

"Because my hair got attacked too."

Saori sat at the edge of the field with her doll in her arms. Hearing that, she lowered her head to inspect the doll's hair, as though confirming whether it had been bullied by the wind.

Uchiha Jian walked over, his gaze sweeping over Che's feet. "Who taught you that?"

Che's heart tightened, but his reply came a beat too slowly. "The wind."

Jian looked at him.

Che added, "And the feeling right before you fall over."

Jian did not press further. He merely lifted his foot and gave a light tap beside Che's. "The outer edge of your left foot is too loose. You think you're borrowing the wind, but you're actually dodging it."

Che lowered his head and adjusted his stance.

Jian's words were about posture, but they also seemed to be about something else. Che planted his left foot firmly and immediately felt his calf muscles begin to ache. Proper posture was not comfortable. It was simply steadier.

There were no shuriken or bowls of water in today's training. Jian had them stand, walk, stop, and turn in the wind. Every movement had to remain stable when the wind pushed against them. Kiyo was always half a beat late at first. Saori moved slowly, but rarely made mistakes. Che kept his public performance in the middle, making only small, reasonable adjustments when the wind strengthened so he would not seem too practiced.

But hiding his abilities did not mean slacking off.

The soles of his feet soon began to hurt. The ground at the new training field was harder than the old courtyard, and gravel dug into him through his shoes. Every time he turned, the stones reminded him that this was not the old place.

"Stop," Jian suddenly said.

The children stopped.

"Close your eyes."

Kiyo immediately panicked. "If I close my eyes, I'll fall."

"That's why you need to learn not to fall first," Jian said.

Che closed his eyes.

Darkness descended, and the sound of the wind became clearer. Without sight, his body magnified every detail beneath his feet: there was a small stone under his right foot, the front of his left sole bore a little more weight, and his shoulders felt faintly heavy because he had not slept well last night. Chakra rose and fell quietly in his abdomen, like a bowl of hot soup that had not yet been lifted.

Jian's voice came from ahead. "A ninja cannot always fight where he can see clearly. Smoke, night, genjutsu, blood, and rain can all take your eyes away. Closing your eyes is not to make you show off. It is to let you know what you still have left."

Something stirred faintly in Che's heart.

The Sharingan was the Uchiha clan's pride, and also its future curse. But right now, he could not even rely completely on ordinary eyes. The system-like ability to analyze things was the same. Understanding did not mean his body could do it, and he could not become useless just because he could not see.

The wind pushed in from the left.

Che almost instinctively mobilized chakra to steady his footing. But he remembered Nao's words about "sleep," and Mine's warning to stop before five breaths had passed. He pressed the chakra back into his abdomen and adjusted with only his toes and knees.

His body swayed once, then steadied.

Jian walked up to him. "Why didn't you use chakra just now?"

Che opened his eyes. "Today we're training our stance."

"What if you had?"

"I might have stood steadier, but if I don't have chakra later, I'll fall more impressively."

Kiyo asked softly from the side, "Can falling look impressive?"

Che answered solemnly, "If your form is correct, it can."

The corner of Jian's mouth seemed to twitch, but he quickly returned to seriousness.

"Remember this," he said. "Fundamentals are not something only the weak practice. They are what keep you from tripping over yourself when you use more complex ninjutsu in the future."

Che stored those words in his heart.

After training ended, he sat beside a wooden post and took off his shoes, pouring out two small stones. The soles of his feet were a little red, but the skin was not broken. Kiyo leaned in to look, as if those two stones were some kind of trophy.

"Did they move here too?" Kiyo asked.

"They successfully infiltrated my shoes."

Saori hugged her doll closer. "Should we interrogate them?"

Che looked at her and nodded solemnly. "Detain them first. We'll talk after dinner."

The children laughed.

The wind scattered their laughter across the new training ground, where it sounded a little more natural than it had a few days ago.

That afternoon, Che washed the two stones clean and tucked them into a blank page behind the family record. The stones were tiny, one gray-white and the other almost black. Pressed against the paper, they made only two inconspicuous bumps.

Beside them, he wrote several short lines: The wooden markers in the old clan grounds taught him to stop; the wind in the second row on the east side taught him to stand firm. Kiyo feared being slow, Saori feared loud sounds, and Nao did not like it when he made things sound too certain. Routes could be remembered, but not only routes.

At the end, he crossed out the sentence, "Don't rush to let the great events of the future crush today's little stones," and replaced it with something more like what a child would write: There are stones in my shoes, but I still have to stand firm first.

After writing it, he tucked the page behind the family record. When the pages closed, the two stones pressed gently from within, as if reminding him that the road was still long, and that his feet truly hurt.

That evening, Nao saw him baring his teeth while washing his feet and asked, "Did training hurt?"

"Two enemy stones were lying in wait inside my shoes."

"Did you deal with them?"

"They've been disarmed."

Nao set a jar of ointment beside him. "Then deal with your feet while you're at it."

As Che applied the ointment, the sound of a patrol passed outside the window again.

This time, he heard it, and merely heard it.

The wind still came from the side.

And he was learning to plant his feet firmly.

During the second round of training that afternoon, Jian had each child weave between wooden posts, then stop at a designated point.

The wind darted unpredictably between the posts. One moment it pushed from the left, and the next, half blocked by a post, it gave them a lift from behind. Kiyo was thrown into a fluster by these changes and nearly bumped into a post when he stopped. Saori walked slowly, but every step looked as though she had discussed it with the ground first. When she stopped, the bell on her doll gave a soft chime.

When it was Che's turn, he deliberately made his first two steps look slightly unfamiliar. Beyond the third post, the wind came from behind and to the right. He instinctively wanted to turn his shoulder with it and shift his weight onto his left foot. That reaction was too quick; it was not suitable to show openly. So he let the sole of his shoe slide lightly over the gravel, creating a tiny pause.

Jian saw it.

"You were yielding just now."

Che's heart sank, but his face showed confusion. "Yielding to who?"

"To the wind, and to everyone else, so they can see you yielding to the wind," Jian said.

Those words struck with the precision of a shuriken.

Kiyo did not understand. He only asked softly, "Does the wind need to be yielded to?"

Jian did not answer Kiyo. He only looked at Che. "It's fine to hide your abilities. But if you pretend to be clumsy too much, you'll teach your body the wrong things. Your body does not know you're acting. It will only remember the movements you deliberately got wrong."

A faint chill ran down Che's back.

This was more troublesome than having his improvement discovered. In order to make others think he was ordinary, he might be planting bad habits in his future self. Mine had said that bad habits were more troublesome than pain from a single injury. Jian had turned that warning into a lesson about posture today.

Che lowered his head. "I'll do it again."

Jian stepped aside.

This time, Che did not suppress his movements until they looked overly polished, nor did he deliberately slide his feet. He simply made himself look like a child who had understood the reminder: slower, but on the right path. As the wind blew between the posts, he adjusted with his knees and ankles, stopping at the designated point. His body swayed once, but did not lose control.

Jian nodded. "That will do."

Che let out a breath.

That night, beside the two stones from the day, he added another sentence: Hiding my abilities must not make me stand crooked.

After writing it, he stared at those words for a while, then added a small line beneath them: In the future, I may lose not to an enemy, but to the bad habits I deliberately leave behind today.

The two stones weighed down the corner of the page, light yet solid.