The Boundary of the Old Clan Grounds

Konoha outside the gates was still tending to its wounds, but the hammering within the clan grounds woke Che from his light sleep first.

Uchiha Che woke to the sound of hammering.

The sound came from the south, one strike after another—not hurried, but hard. With every blow, the faint scent of wood chips drifted on the wind toward the temporary residences in the north. The morning breeze gently puffed up the window paper, thin light filtering into the room and falling across the edge of a wooden chest, as well as several records he had pressed flat the night before.

He lay there with his eyes open and did not rise immediately.

Over the past few days, he had gradually grown used to the sounds of the clan grounds after the disaster: footsteps clearing rubble, the clatter of medicine chests being moved at the medical station, the hushed voices of adults comforting children who woke crying in the middle of the night, and the faint scrape of clothing against roof tiles as patrolling shinobi passed overhead. Konoha was rebuilding, and so were the Uchiha. But rebuilding did not mean returning things to how they had been. It only meant temporarily covering the cracks torn open by fire.

Kiyo called softly to him from outside.

"Che, Aunt Nao said we're going to the south side today."

Uchiha Che sat up. His shoulder barely hurt anymore, though the bandages had not yet been removed. He fastened his father's forehead protector back onto the wooden chest before going to open the door.

Kiyo stood at the entrance, one tuft of hair sticking up from sleep, half a rice ball in his hand. When he saw Che, he offered the rice ball first.

"For you."

"Are you trying to bribe me?"

Kiyo blinked. "What's a bribe?"

"It's when you give me a rice ball and then hope I'll help you with something really troublesome."

Kiyo thought about it, then said softly, "Then can you come to the south side with me? I'm a little scared."

Uchiha Che looked at the rice ball in his hand, then at his eyes.

"Deal."

After saying that, he took the rice ball and bit into it.

The rice ball was a little cold, the grains packed too tightly, with only a bit of pickled vegetables inside. But when Kiyo watched him eat it, his whole body seemed to relax. Uchiha Che did not say that he had already planned to go. Sometimes, a child's bribe had to be accepted seriously, or they would feel as though their courage had been returned to them.

The south side had been cleared much more noticeably than it had a few days ago.

Burned beams were piled by the roadside, black edges exposed around house foundations, and several clansmen were tearing down walls on the verge of collapse. The air smelled of damp ash because someone had just splashed water over the area, and shallow footprints remained wherever people stepped. Uchiha Nao stood at the street entrance with several children, keeping them away from the dangerous area.

"Look only. No running around," Nao said. "If anyone steps onto an uncleared foundation, you'll spend the afternoon copying clan rules for Teacher Mine."

Kiyo immediately ducked behind Che.

Uchiha Che murmured, "Clan rules have a very high attack power. You're right to hide."

Nao shot him a look.

Che shut up.

They had come to the south side today to claim whatever belongings could still be recovered. The clansmen had sorted each household's remnants onto temporary wooden racks: cracked bowls, half-burned scrolls, warped kunai, door plaques, clothing buttons, and metal fragments whose original purpose could no longer be identified. A slip of paper bearing a surname was weighed down beside every item.

Kiyo found his father's forehead protector cloth.

It was not a complete forehead protector. The metal plate was gone, leaving only a length of dark blue cloth singed by fire. Kiyo reached out to take it, but pulled his hand back the moment he touched it, as if it might burn him.

Uchiha Che did not urge him.

After a long while, Kiyo finally gathered the cloth into his arms.

"Will he come back?" Kiyo asked.

This was not the first time someone had asked a similar question. But every time it was asked, it was no easier to answer than the last.

Uchiha Che looked at the strip of cloth and spoke slowly. "If he comes back, then when you hold this, he'll know you kept it safe for him. If he can't come back, then when you hold this, you'll still remember that he was once part of your life."

Kiyo seemed to understand only part of it, but tears still fell from his eyes.

Che reached out and patted his back. The gesture was clumsy, but Kiyo did not dodge.

Elsewhere, Saori found a small bell blackened by fire. She shook it beside her ear, but it made no sound. She lowered her head and stared at it for a long time before tying it around the neck of her doll.

Nao watched the children. The exhaustion in her eyes deepened, but she did not interrupt them.

Uchiha Che found a small cracked wooden plaque in the corner of a rack. Half of the character for "Ha" remained on it. It had likely come from the small chest where his mother, Hazuki, had kept her medical tools. He tucked the plaque into his clothes, and when his fingertips brushed the crack, a dull, faint ache stirred in his heart.

Just then, muffled voices arguing came from the alley at the south side.

"The outskirts? Is this really the right time to talk about that?"

"It's not that we're talking about it now. The village is already discussing it."

"So after so many people just died, they want us to move?"

Uchiha Che's fingers stilled.

Nao heard it too. Her expression changed slightly, and she turned to take the children away. But the wind had already carried the voices over.

"They say it's to unify the reconstruction of the disaster area and make deployment of the Military Police Force easier."

"Make deployment easier? Or make it easier to put us farther away?"

"Don't say that here."

"Why can't I say it? Last night, they wouldn't let us get close to the Nine-Tails, and today they want to move the clan grounds to the outskirts. In a few more years, will there be no place for the Uchiha in central Konoha at all?"

Nao said quietly, "Go back."

She led the children toward the north side. Kiyo still clutched the forehead protector cloth, while Saori's bell remained silent. Uchiha Che followed at the very end, but he fixed every one of those words firmly in his mind.

The outskirts.

Relocation.

Easier deployment.

He knew that, in his old memories, the Uchiha would be moved to the village's edge, further deepening their isolation. But hearing the matter brought up so soon after the night of the Nine-Tails felt different. When major events took shape, they were never as clean as "the Uchiha relocated in such-and-such year." First, they became a rumor, an argument, a voice adults suddenly lowered.

After returning to the north-side courtyard, Nao told the children to rest on their own.

Uchiha Che did not return to his room. He sat beneath the locust tree and watched Kiyo fold the forehead protector cloth. Kiyo was bad at it, and the strip kept coming undone. Che reached out and held down one end for him.

"Did you hear that just now?" Kiyo asked.

"I heard a little."

"Are we moving?"

Uchiha Che looked at the strip of cloth.

"Maybe it's just the adults arguing."

Kiyo looked up. "But will we really move?"

Che fell silent for a moment.

"If we really do move, then we'll take our things with us."

"But what about our home?"

The question was so small, and so enormous.

Uchiha Che thought of the house that had already burned down, of his mother's note and his father's records, of all the sorted remnants on the wooden racks in the south.

"Some homes become things," he said. "Some homes become names. And some may have to be carried away by the people who survive."

Kiyo lowered his head, not knowing whether he understood.

That evening, Uchiha Che wrote down what he had heard today.

"Heard an argument about relocation on the south side."

"Reasons: reconstruction of the disaster area, Military Police Force deployment."

"Possible true meaning: isolation."

When he wrote the word "isolation," he paused for a long time.

The timeline in his memories had not deviated.

At least, this fold had not.

The Uchiha would be suspected. The Uchiha would be pushed to the margins. The location of the clan grounds would become a thorn lodged in the hearts of the clansmen. Over the coming years, that thorn would slowly grow deeper, until some people could no longer resist drawing their blades.

He was still too young. He could not change the relocation, nor could he change the thinking of Konoha's higher-ups.

But he could record it in advance.

Recording was not changing the world.

But recording could keep the world from deceiving him so easily.

That night, Nao came to deliver medicine and saw the papers on his desk.

"Writing again?"

"Mm."

"What are you writing today?"

Uchiha Che looked up. "That I shouldn't go near the foundations on the south side, or I'll have to copy clan rules."

Nao looked at him.

Che sighed and turned the paper over, revealing the blank back.

"Fine. I also wrote about Kiyo's father's forehead protector cloth."

Nao did not ask further. She only set down the medicine.

"It's fine to write some things down. But don't go talking about them everywhere."

"I know."

"Knowing isn't enough. You have to do it."

"Then I'll work on upgrading from knowing to doing."

Nao's gaze softened a little. "Che, whether we move or not isn't something you can control right now."

"I'm not trying to control it," Che said softly. "I just want to know where I'm standing."

Nao fell silent.

After a long while, she said, "Then remember it clearly. Don't remember only hatred, and don't remember only fear."

After the door closed, Uchiha Che looked at his records and slowly added another line.

"Remember clearly. Not only hatred, not only fear."

Those words were neither a ninjutsu nor a system prompt.

Yet they might have been more important than any training he had done today.

Outside the window, the clan grounds gradually fell quiet.

Far away amid the ruins on the south side, there was still the sound of wooden beams being moved. It was soft, like someone shifting the bones of an old life in the darkness.

Uchiha Che closed his eyes and placed the words "the outskirts" in his heart.

This was not the end.

It was only that the line between Konoha and the Uchiha had been drawn another inch farther outward.