A Konoha Auditor

The Konoha auditor sat in the back row of the classroom.

He wore an ordinary chunin vest, his forehead protector polished clean, and held a thin booklet in his hand. His name was Yamashiro Takuma, a teacher sent by the Ninja Academy to inspect the progress of post-disaster preparatory classes. When Mine introduced him, her tone was steady, but the children noticeably sat a little straighter.

Kiyo asked quietly, "Will he give us a test?"

Che looked at the thin booklet in the back row. "He'll take notes."

Kiyo's expression worsened. "Is that scarier than a test?"

"Depends on what he writes."

Saori placed her doll by her feet, and its bell did not ring. She had deliberately wrapped the bell in cloth today, as though she did not want the teacher from Konoha to notice it.

Yamashiro Takuma smiled. "No need to be nervous. I'm just auditing."

Just auditing.

Like "just a follow-up visit" and "just registration," those words sounded very light. But Che had learned that light things were sometimes harder to keep steady.

After Yamashiro Takuma sat down, he did not immediately open his booklet. First, he shifted his kunai pouch to the side of his chair so it would not bump the knees of the children behind him. Then he laid his pen across the booklet and waited for Mine to begin roll call. That small gesture made Che look at him again. People truly accustomed to being in a ninja academy knew what children feared, and they also knew that weapons placed too close could make a classroom feel tense.

But he could not relax because of that.

Che moved his gaze from Yamashiro Takuma's hands to the edge of his own wooden desk. A faint scorch mark ran across its surface, like a tiny tail left behind by Nine-Tails Night. A Konoha forehead protector sat in the back row, an Uchiha child sat in the front, and Mine stood between them. The arrangement itself looked like a picture that would eventually be taken away and explained.

Kiyo secretly straightened his back, so hard that his chair made a soft sound.

Yamashiro Takuma looked at him and said with a smile, "You can sit comfortably. Ninjas do not graduate by keeping their backs straight."

Kiyo did not know whether he should relax. In the end, he relaxed only halfway, looking like a wooden stick bent and then sprung back.

Che nearly laughed, but swallowed it in time.

He needed to remember: every joke today could be written down as "active classroom response," and every silence as "high alertness." Once words fell under someone else's pen, they no longer belonged only to him.

Today's lesson was a review of basic knowledge. Mine had the children explain the differences between the Three Basic Techniques. The older children answered that the Clone Technique had no physical substance, the Transformation Technique changed one's appearance, and the Substitution Technique had not yet been taught. Kiyo tried hard to add, "The Clone Technique makes the enemy look one more time."

Mine looked at him. "Who taught you that?"

Kiyo pointed at Che.

Che sighed inwardly.

This child was getting increasingly practiced at betraying his companions.

Yamashiro Takuma lowered his head and made a note.

Che did not look at the booklet. He looked at the blackboard, at Mine, at the light outside the window. The more he wanted to know what someone had written, the more concerned he would appear. He needed to place himself in the classroom, not beside the records.

Mine asked, "Uchiha Che, tell us the biggest difference between the Clone Technique and the Transformation Technique."

Che stood.

The answer could be very complicated. He could talk about chakra projection, visual outlines, physical pressure, behavioral disguise. But someone in the back was taking notes, so his answer had to stay at a level a child could give.

"The Clone Technique makes an extra fake beside you," he said. "The Transformation Technique makes you look like something else."

Mine nodded. "Anything else?"

"The Clone Technique makes people look one more time. The Transformation Technique makes them look and still mistake you for something else."

Yamashiro Takuma looked up at him.

Che kept his expression unchanged.

Mine continued, "If someone already knows you might have used the Transformation Technique, can they still be fooled?"

The question felt like a pit deliberately dug for him.

Che paused. "Whether they're fooled depends on whether I look convincing, and whether they're in a hurry."

"Why would being in a hurry make them easier to fool?"

"When people are in a hurry, they look first at what they most want to see."

The classroom fell quiet.

That was a little too far over the line again.

Che immediately added, "For example, when Kiyo looks for rice balls, he checks the bowl first."

Kiyo protested, "Rice balls are supposed to be in the bowl!"

Yamashiro Takuma chuckled, and his pen touched the page again.

Mine did not press further and told him to sit down.

Then Yamashiro Takuma asked a question as well.

He did not call on Che directly. Instead, he looked around the classroom. "If you saw an injured person on the road and suspected they had used the Transformation Technique to deceive you, what would you do?"

The air in the classroom shifted slightly. Post-disaster children were too sensitive to the words "injured person." Some lowered their heads, while others looked toward the door. Saori pressed her fingers against her doll, and the bell beneath the cloth gave a muffled chime.

One of the older children spoke first. "Call the patrol."

Yamashiro Takuma nodded. "Very good."

Kiyo said, "Call from far away."

"That's good too."

Che did not rush to answer. He knew the answer could not be only about tactics, nor could it make him seem cold. He waited until Mine looked at him before speaking slowly. "Do not approach, and do not attack right away. Find an adult and remember what they look like. If they are truly injured, they can be helped. If it is a trick, you do not give them a chance to get close."

Yamashiro Takuma asked, "What if there are no adults nearby?"

Many answers flashed through Che's mind: make noise, find cover, circle to higher ground, test their reaction with pebbles, confirm the direction of footprints and bloodstains. But that was too much for a child. He compressed the answer into a short piece. "First, make sure you can run. Stand somewhere you can see the road and shout loudly. Do not give them your back just because they look pitiful."

The look in Yamashiro Takuma's eyes changed slightly. It was not suspicion, but more like he was seriously taking note of it.

Che felt uncomfortable.

He knew he had reached the boundary again. A post-disaster child could be sensitive, but should not naturally say, "Do not give them your back." That was something adults, ninjas, or people who had lived through worse situations said often. He kept his face calm, but inwardly made a note for himself: the answer was reasonable, but sharp; tone it down.

So he added, "Kiyo runs fast. We can have him shout."

Kiyo blinked. "Me?"

"You held your back so straight earlier. You have the air of a communications ninja."

The tension in the classroom eased a little. Kiyo was dissatisfied but also somewhat proud. "Do communications ninjas not have to take tests?"

Yamashiro Takuma smiled. "They do, and they have to run more accurately."

Kiyo wilted again.

After class, Yamashiro Takuma did not leave right away. He spoke with Mine by the door, their voices low. Che took Kiyo and Saori to put away the boards, but he inevitably caught a few words.

"The Uchiha children have a good foundation," Yamashiro Takuma said.

"These are temporary post-disaster classes. I would not call it good; we just have not let it lapse," Mine replied.

"That child named Che is very observant."

The board in Che's hands nearly tilted.

Observant again.

That assessment was like a label that moved on its own, passing from Takuya to Sae, and now into the mouth of a Konoha Ninja Academy teacher.

Mine said, "His parents taught him some observation habits before. Post-disaster children tend to be sensitive. It is not unusual."

She was cooling things down for him.

Yamashiro Takuma nodded. "Sensitivity needs guidance too. The academy is not afraid of children being clever. It is afraid of children learning only how to guard against others."

That made Che stop.

A Konoha teacher saying that did not mean Konoha had no problems. But neither could he treat every word the man said as a disguise simply because he came from Konoha.

He could not judge people too quickly.

He had written that himself recently.

The conversation at the door continued.

Yamashiro Takuma said, "The academy is also adjusting post-disaster enrollment arrangements. Some children will audit early, while others will first undergo psychological and physical assessments. If the Uchiha are willing, you can submit a copy of the preparatory class records. It is not to find fault, but to connect the curriculum."

Mine's voice remained calm. "We can submit the records, but the children's private circumstances cannot be written down carelessly."

"Of course," Yamashiro Takuma said. "I only need the curriculum progress."

When Che heard that, he did not immediately believe it. There was not always a clear boundary between curriculum progress and private circumstances. If a child answered questions too quickly, was that curriculum progress or private information? If a child was too sensitive to danger, was that a post-disaster reaction or a label worth watching?

Mine seemed to have thought of that as well. "I will organize them. I will not submit the children's original records directly."

The board in Che's hands finally settled steadily.

With that one sentence, Mine had shielded him again. He did not like always being protected, because protection meant he was still weak, and it also meant he owed someone a favor. But he could not deny that the gaps left by these adults were where he could breathe for now.

After returning to East Row Two, Kiyo asked, "Will that teacher make us take tests?"

"Sooner or later," Che said.

Kiyo let out a wail.

Saori asked instead, "Did he write about you?"

Che looked at her.

Saori lowered her head and stroked her doll. "He looked at you."

"He probably did," Che said. "But Mine said something too."

"What did she say?"

"That I am not too strange."

Kiyo immediately said, "You are."

Che looked at him. "Thank you for your consistent assessment."

That night, Che wrote in his records:

"Yamashiro Takuma, Ninja Academy auditor. Said the foundation was good and called me observant."

He paused, then added:

"Mine explained it as post-disaster sensitivity and family habits."

Finally, he wrote:

"Not everyone from Konoha is the same. I cannot decide what they are in advance just because of a forehead protector."

After writing that, he did not feel relieved.

Because refusing to decide in advance was harder than simply being hostile.

Hostility could be simple.

Judgment required constant watching.