The ash at the west end of the Training Ground had yet to be swept away.
It stretched from the seating planks to the wall, layer upon layer, piled thicker around the edges by the night wind.
Several footprints from the night before marked the ash, mostly worn smooth by the wind. Not one still showed which way it led.
A broom leaned beside the duty-room door, ash coating its bristles. No one had touched it.
The sound of shops taking down their shutters came from the street, later than usual.
After that, someone passed the street entrance carrying a shoulder pole, its hooks clacking all the way into the depths of the alley.
When the clacking stopped, the street fell quiet again.
Kiyoshi sat beneath the duty-room eaves, a ledger open on his knees.
The open page listed the seats. Its corners had frayed, and fingertips had rubbed its border pale.
He had turned to this page more than once the night before.
Each time he reached the end, he stopped at that box.
That box was still empty.
Someone pushed the duty-room door halfway open from outside.
The door stopped there. Shisui stood outside, the seal beside the door still in place, half its edge curled back.
He did not come in. One hand remained on the edge of the door.
"The person in that box on the seating list didn't make it out."
Once he finished speaking, there was no sound from inside.
Shisui added nothing and did not cross the threshold.
Having delivered the message, he withdrew his hand from the door.
Kiyoshi took in those words.
He took them in and asked nothing further.
How the person had gone missing, where the news had come from, how it should be entered in the ledger-he asked