A Wooden Post Won't Lie for You

Later, Kiyo seriously began to suspect that the wooden posts in the training yard were harder to deal with than people.

At least people could talk. Wooden posts could not. They simply stood there, battered by wind and rain, splattered with mud kicked up by the children, silent as a row of examiners unwilling to give answers.

After that day, the Substitution Technique still had not officially begun. Mine said, "We haven't covered it yet." Jian said, "Get your footing first." Sosuke said, "Don't overthink it." Together, those three sentences weighed like three stones on every image in Che's mind of wood, smoke, and sudden displacement.

But the more they were told not to think about it, the more the children thought about it.

Early that morning, Kiyo sat at the doorway hugging a scrap of wood, his face carrying an alarmingly earnest expression.

Che came out carrying a bowl of water. Seeing Kiyo place the scrap wood beside himself, he held back for a moment before asking, "Are you trying to bond with it?"

"I'm picking my future substitute partner," Kiyo said. "If it doesn't want to, I should know in advance."

Saori came out of the house holding her stuffed doll, its bell giving a soft jingle. "Wood can't say whether it wants to or not."

Kiyo lowered his head to look at the wood. "Then it agrees by default."

Nao heard that from inside, her voice quiet. "If you skip morning lessons again by hiding behind a piece of wood, both you and the wood will get extra training."

Kiyo immediately shoved the scrap wood away, as if it had already betrayed him.

Che laughed, then stopped halfway through. He knew Kiyo's joke was not entirely a joke. To the children, the Substitution Technique seemed like something that could push danger away, something that could trade pain, exams, getting up early, patrols, and the stern gazes of adults for a piece of wood that could not cry out. But the real Substitution Technique could not possibly be so merciful. It might let a body leave its original position, but it could not make decisions for someone.

During morning training, Jian moved that row of old wooden posts to the center of the field.

He was not making them strike the posts, nor was he making them evade them.

He had the children walk around them first.

"What are we looking at?" Kiyo asked.

"Look at how they don't move," Jian said.

Kiyo clearly felt that answer had wasted his ears.

Jian did not explain much. He merely had them walk three laps around the outer edge of the posts. The first lap was normal. For the second, they closed one eye. For the third, they walked when the wind rose. The wind in the northeast corner of the training yard remained as unreasonable as ever, sometimes strong, sometimes weak, making a low scraping sound as it passed the posts. When the children reached the sheltered side, the sound suddenly softened; when they reached the windward side, their clothes were lifted by the gusts again.

Che walked slowly.

He did not look into the distance. He watched only the shadows between the posts and the ground. The posts did not move, but their shadows did. As the wind shifted the clouds and the light tilted slightly, the edges of the shadows seemed shaved thinner. If he used the Substitution Technique in the future, the substitute itself might remain still, but the surrounding environment would not cooperate. Smoke, wind, light, footprints, wood chips—everything could speak for the enemy.

Halfway through the third lap, Kiyo walked into a post.

The sound was not loud, but it was solid.

Kiyo covered his forehead. "Did it move closer to me just now?"

"No," Jian said.

"But I definitely felt like it got closer."

"That's because your eyes were only looking ahead. You weren't watching your feet."

Hearing that, Che's steps paused slightly.

A wooden post would not lie for someone. It did not move, dodge, or explain itself. The person who ran into it could not blame it. The principle was simple enough to be a little cold, yet ninja training was filled with such cold, simple truths.

Jian had Kiyo walk again, then told Che to stand before another post.

"Your turn."

Che looked up.

"Close your eyes. Walk forward and stop three steps before it," Jian said.

It did not sound difficult. Che had already walked around the posts three times and memorized their positions, the direction of the wind, and the scattered stones on the ground. He closed his eyes, and the world immediately narrowed. The wind came from the right. The post stood slightly to the left ahead of him. The earth beneath his feet was drier than yesterday, and his second step would land on a flat stone.

He took two and a half steps, instinctively preparing to stop.

Jian's bamboo rod lightly tapped the ground.

That sound disrupted his judgment.

Che's foot did not stop where he had expected. Instead, he pressed forward another half inch. The fringe over his forehead brushed the rough surface of the wooden post, and wood chips scraped his skin, leaving a faint numbness.

"Open your eyes," Jian said.

Che opened them and found the post right before him.

Kiyo sucked in a breath beside him. "You almost kissed it."

Che did not retort.

Jian asked, "Why did you walk farther?"

"The sound of the bamboo rod made me think you had changed its position," Che said.

"I didn't move the post."

"I know."

"You realized that too late."

The words were not harsh, but they pressed against Che's chest like an unsharpened blade. It was not that he did not know the post would not move, but the external sound had made him overturn a judgment that had originally been correct. Worse, he had overturned it too quickly. To respond to change, he would rather believe there was a trap in the sound of the bamboo rod than first confirm where his feet had already brought him.

That was his flaw.

He was too good at anticipating things, too willing to find meaning in every change.

Jian had him try again. This time, the bamboo rod did not sound, but Kiyo deliberately coughed nearby. Che's shoulders moved, but his feet did not. He suppressed the urge in his body to adjust, counted half a breath, then stopped. When he opened his eyes, he was still three and a half steps from the post.

"Too far," Kiyo said.

"But I didn't run into it," Che replied.

Jian nodded. "Better to be a little farther away than let a sound lead you into a collision."

That afternoon, Mine incorporated the wooden-post training into class. She did not mention the Substitution Technique. She only wrote four words on the board: position, line of sight, sound, judgment.

"We'll cover the Substitution Technique later," she said. "But before that, you need to understand that no technique exists alone. You think you're deceiving your enemy, but your enemy is also using the environment to deceive you."

Kiyo raised his hand. "So did the wooden post deceive me?"

Mine looked at him. "No. Your forehead deceived you."

The classroom erupted in laughter.

Che laughed too, but not easily. He wrote on his paper: The post does not move. Sound does. Don't let sound carry your feet away.

Mine told them to put that into their own words.

Kiyo wrote slowly. In the end, he left these words on the paper: Look at the road, not the road you imagined. After writing it, he stared at it for a long time, as if uncertain whether he had truly written it himself.

Saori wrote: Even if the bell rings, first know where you are standing.

Seeing that, Che's fingertips lightly touched the edge of his paper. Saori rarely placed herself into questions about ninja techniques, but her sentence was more precise than many answers. Sound could pull people along. Fear could pull people along. The things one wanted to protect could pull people along too. If her bell rang in danger, would she look at the bell first? If Kiyo fell, would he rush over first? These were questions beyond the Substitution Technique, yet all of them were hidden within the words, "Confirm what is beneath your feet first."

When Mine collected their papers, she paused at Saori's. "Remember this one too."

Saori lowered her head. "Mm."

After class, Kohei walked around Che's desk and spoke quietly. "You nearly ran into it today. Did you really fail to judge the distance?"

Che looked at him.

Kohei's tone was not quite mocking. It was more as if he wanted to confirm that even someone stronger could make mistakes. Since that day, a trace of awkwardness had remained between him and Che, like a crease left in a sleeve after someone had looked it over. Che could have covered it with a joke, saying the wooden post had suddenly displayed profound ninja arts. But he remembered Mine saying that observation could hurt to be seen, and he remembered that he could not always polish his mistakes into something easy.

"I did," Che said. "I heard the bamboo rod and thought something had changed, so I took an extra step."

Kohei frowned. "You do that too?"

"Especially me," Che said. "I like thinking ahead too much."

Che himself was a little surprised when he said it. It was not the kind of joke he would usually make, nor was it particularly graceful, but Kohei's shoulders relaxed a little.

Kohei lowered his head to look at his sleeve cuff. "Then does it count that I kept looking at the posts while I was walking just now?"

"It counts," Che said. "But it was cheaper than running into one."

Kohei smiled, then quickly held it back. "You still have some wood chips on your forehead."

"Don't remind me. The post has already won thoroughly."

This time, Kohei truly laughed.

The laugh was small, but it loosened something inside Che. Admitting a mistake had not made him more dangerous, at least not at this moment. Perhaps some flaws, when spoken aloud, could instead let others come a little closer.

That night, Sosuke saw the faint mark of wood chips on Che's forehead and snorted. "Ran into a post?"

"It was just a distance negotiation," Che said.

"And you lost the negotiation?"

"The post had a very firm attitude."

Sosuke set his pipe beside the threshold without lighting it. "Posts are good. They don't deceive you. People deceive you. The wind deceives you. Shadows deceive you too. If you learn the Substitution Technique someday, don't only think about how you can run. Think about how someone else might make you run exactly where they want you to go."

Che looked up at him.

Sosuke's words sounded casual, yet they lifted a corner of the most dangerous side of the Substitution Technique.

Even escape could be arranged by someone else.

After returning to his room, Che added one line to his record sheet:

"Don't treat every change as a new answer. Confirm what is beneath your feet first."

After writing it, he folded the paper and placed it in his wooden booklet.

The row of posts outside the window could not be seen, but he could still remember the feeling of wood chips grazing his forehead. It had been light and painless, yet enough to clear his mind.

A wooden post would not lie for someone.

When you ran into one, the one at fault was usually yourself.