On the afternoon of the third day, Yamashiro Takuma did not keep them in their original classroom.
"Line up. We're going to the small demonstration room at the end of the hallway."
The children immediately grew restless. The demonstration room was rarely opened, its door always shut. Every so often, they could catch the faint scent of chemicals, sawdust, or an even fainter smell of scorching. As he took his place in line, Kiyo lowered his voice. "Are we going to see real ninjutsu?"
Morita Yu said, "More likely, we'll see how not to set yourself on fire."
"That still counts as real."
Che followed the line forward, sweeping his gaze over the floor before checking the windowpanes on either side. He had grown accustomed to finding reference points while moving: doorframes, corners, white lines, steps. But the deeper they went down the hallway today, the clearer that faint, hot scorched smell became. It was not the smell of cooking fires from the cafeteria, nor the scent of wooden boards baked too long in the sun. It was the dry, brittle, ash-dusted smell left behind after a Fire Release demonstration.
His steps paused slightly.
That smell tore open a gap in his memories.
Not the fireballs from anime, nor the exaggeratedly elegant hand seals of some jonin, but the scorched corner of a wall at the edge of the Uchiha compound after Nine-Tails Night. The darkness had not yet lifted. The air was hot, cries muffled hoarse by smoke, and not even the medicinal scent of medical cloth could cover the smell of charred wood.
"Che?" Kiyo turned to call him.
Che came back to himself and caught up. "I heard you."
Yamashiro Takuma led them into a long, narrow room. An open square had been cleared at the front,