Someone at the edge of the training ground turned a sheet over.
Mizuki did it naturally, as though he was only checking whether the training sheet had been printed on the wrong side. But Che saw the instant his fingers paused on the back and knew what he was looking for.
Iruka said nothing. He simply turned over the training sheet in his own hands as well.
"Today, we're not looking at who runs fastest," he said from the edge of the training ground. "We're looking at who can stop along the way and reassess."
Kiyo raised his hand first. "Can I stop before I even start?"
"You do that every day," Morita Yu said.
The training had three stages: moving a short distance, assessing an observation point, and returning to the starting position. Everyone received a sheet with only a few temporary targets written on it, such as "the sign beneath the tree," "the toolbox by the wall," or "the person at the end of the track." The point was not to run, but to establish what had happened along the way.
Naruto received "the toolbox by the wall."
He took it seriously at first, stopping after two running steps to look back at his sheet before moving forward again. But Mizuki was standing beside the toolbox. He did not block the way. He merely picked up a piece of chalk from the ground and casually put it back on the lid.
"Naruto, run a little faster," he said.
Naruto's steps faltered.
Che saw it clearly from the sidelines. Mizuki had not directly told Naruto to stay, nor had he given him some flattering label. He had only said "a little faster" very lightly, like a plank laid across a step.
"Look at the target first," Iruka reminded him.