Before the school council meeting had ended, Chengren requested to move out of the temporary dormitory.
After the list was leaked, the school had moved him into a safe house with absorption walls.
A care teacher checked the doors and windows every night, and anyone entering had to register.
These arrangements could reduce the risk of outsiders approaching him and his chakra going out of control.
Yet Chengren had slept poorly for three nights in a row.
The absorption walls gave off a faint hum whenever he turned over.
People moved about outside his door all night.
Whenever his chakra fluctuated even slightly, the recording light came on.
"I'm not staying there."
He wrote that on his application.
"I'll go to the cabin beside the Old Training Ground and live alone."
The school administrator refused.
"You're only nine, and your chakra can still go out of control."
An observing representative immediately challenged this: if Nao could refuse to return to the Soichi family, why couldn't Chengren choose where he lived?
If a child's refusal only counted when adults agreed with it, the child was not truly part of the decision.
But if every refusal had to be acted on immediately, adults could also leave children to bear all the dangerous consequences.
Gen asked Chengren to first explain what he was actually refusing.
It was not all care.
It was not Konoha.
Nor was it the absorption material itself.
He refused to be watched by the recording light all night, refused to have someone open his door to check on him every time he turned over, and especially did not want other students calling the safe house a room for imprisoning dangerous ninja.
The cabin at the Old Training Ground was simply the only alternative he could think of.
The school