When school let out, Kiyoshi left through the gates but didn't take his usual route.
He turned into the alley on the west side and used a shop's reflective window to glance behind him out of the corner of his eye.
Someone was on the rooftop. A fresh shift. The mask design hadn't changed, and the crouching posture was different, but someone was still there.
A change of shifts wasn't strange. What was strange was that he'd recognized it at a glance-the previous watcher had crouched there for three months without changing positions once.
Before his last ten-pull, he'd noticed a gap in the surveillance. Today, that tension had returned: the back of his neck hadn't relaxed since he'd left the school gates.
The pinnacle of a poker face was having even the back of your head remain expressionless.
He withdrew his gaze and kept walking.
The alley wasn't long, and it ended at a three-way junction. Just as he was about to turn toward home, he spotted someone standing at the intersection ahead.
A low ponytail. Black hair. Uchiha clan clothes.
She carried a training bag, its strap wound around her wrist, as though she'd just run back from a mission.
It was dear Izumi.
She spotted him first, her eyes lighting up as she smiled and waved. "Kiyoshi."
Kiyoshi remained expressionless and nodded. "Mm."
"What a coincidence. You take this route too?" Izumi walked over to him and switched the training bag to her other hand. "I just got back from a mission. Thought I'd see if any younger kids from the clan came by on my way home. Do you live around here?"
"Nearby."
"That explains it. I asked you where the Back Mountain was before, but you wouldn't tell me." Izumi smiled. "Turns out you live around here too."
Kiyoshi didn't respond to that. He remembered her asking where the Back Mountain was after the first time she'd split them into groups for sparring. He'd said, "No need. I can train by myself." She had enough tact not to push.
"A mission?" he asked.
"Just a little one. Delivering a letter." Izumi swung the bag behind her. "I spent all afternoon running around. My legs are sore. What about you? Why'd you leave school so late?"
"Trained a little longer."
"At the Back Mountain?" Izumi stepped half a pace closer and lowered her voice. "Bro Hao's training ground?"
Kiyoshi: "..."
What jerk spread that around?
[Awkwardness Value +12]
He weathered that wave with an expressionless face.
Something else on his mind wasn't laughing along: he had to hurry up and find a way to save Izumi.
I pulled a Body Flicker Technique Talisman this time. Next time, I'd better get something that can take a death in her place.
Izumi laughed at his expression. "Don't be like that. It's a pretty nice name. I heard you practice Taijutsu in that clearing, and you also practice a... very unusual opening stance?"
"No."
"That pose you used when we sparred last time." Izumi tilted her head and mimicked an odd movement, turning her feet outward and swinging her arms. "I watched for ages and couldn't figure out what style it was. Later, I asked a few people in my year, but none of them recognized it. Did you invent it?"
Kiyoshi remained expressionless. "Might've been a cramp."
Izumi laughed even harder. "A six-year-old who can cramp up with that much rhythm. You really are amazing."
Kiyoshi said nothing and looked at the trees beside the road. The wind blew in from the hills west of the village, carrying a hint of early autumn chill and sending a few fallen leaves tumbling past their feet.
Izumi suddenly reached out, lightly pinching a stray hair off the collar at his shoulder, and glanced at his face as she did.
"You've lost weight," she said. "Has Aunt Misa not been feeding you?"
"I've eaten."
"And you're still this skinny." Izumi shook her head. "I'll bring you some dango next time, so you can have a snack after training at the Back Mountain."
Kiyoshi: "...No need."
"I said I'll bring some, so I will." Izumi wasn't really being pushy. She simply started walking as soon as she'd finished, leaving him no room to refuse. The big-sister routine.
Kiyoshi didn't refuse again. He lowered his head and looked at the tips of his shoes. The stray hair she held between her fingers was so light it might as well not have existed.
She could even tell he'd lost weight, yet she had no idea where she would be this time next year.
They walked along the road together for a while. Izumi didn't say much, but every question was about something that mattered.
She asked whether school was going well, whether Sasuke still challenged him to fights, and whether Aunt Mikoto still often invited him over for meals.
Kiyoshi answered with "Mm" and "It's fine."
Then Izumi suddenly said, "Oh, right. That thing you said on the school grounds last time."
Kiyoshi's steps faltered.
"You said, 'You won't die this time.'" Izumi looked at him. "I thought about it for a long time afterward. What did you mean by 'this time'?"
Kiyoshi stared at the road, his face expressionless.
He couldn't explain. He couldn't very well say that in the original story, Obito had killed her with a single slash, that she hadn't even been named, that there had only been a flash of white, without even a scream.
Nor could he tell her that he'd transmigrated here, remembering that flash of a blade, remembering the low ponytail, the black hair, the Uchiha clan clothes, and how one such figure had vanished from the clan compound after the night of the massacre.
He remembered that scene more clearly than he remembered his own face from his previous life.
All he could say was, "I just said it without thinking."
Izumi watched him for two seconds without pressing. She was too smart for that. Smart people didn't force answers.
But she didn't call him out. Instead, she said, "Then I'll take it as you cheering me on."
Kiyoshi: "...Mm."
Izumi walked a couple of steps forward, then turned back. "Kiyoshi."
"Mm?"
"Your expression was a little off when you spaced out just now." She pointed at her own face. "It wasn't your usual poker face. It was... like you were thinking about something really heavy. You're not usually like that. You didn't even look that way when you got hit during our last spar."
Kiyoshi touched his face.
"No."
"You touched it." Izumi smiled. "Never mind. I won't try to fish anything out of you. See you next time."
She waved and headed off in another direction. Her low ponytail swayed in the wind, and the strap of her training bag swung behind her.
Kiyoshi stood where he was, watching her retreating figure grow more distant.
He lowered his head, took the vial of fake Sharingan potion from the innermost compartment of his backpack, glanced at it, and put it away again.
A fake couldn't save anyone.
Izumi didn't know. To her, he was just a strange younger kid from school who was good at Taijutsu. She couldn't make sense of much of what he said, and her concern amounted to picking off a stray hair and saying, "You've lost weight."
But he remembered.
"I just said it without thinking" was a lie.
He had to get something that could take her death in her place, or an ability that could simply transport her away.
Not for any other reason. Just for that retreating figure ahead of him.
Where he would get it and when he could obtain it were still complete unknowns. But he'd put it on his list first.
He turned toward home. As he passed the mouth of the alley, he glanced up at the rooftop again.
Still there. A new shift, the same position.
He withdrew his gaze and returned to his usual walking pace.
Some things had to be done before the night of the massacre. He would either have to watch for a substitute doll in the next ten-pull's prize pool, or... ask Shisui. He had more connections than Kiyoshi did. Whichever route he took, he had to get one first.
The wind grew a little colder. He slipped his hands into his sleeves and quickened his pace.
Kiyoshi got home, opened the door, changed his shoes, and washed his hands.
The insulated food container was still on the table. Aunt Mikoto had cooked for him again today.
His own mom wasn't home, but Aunt Mikoto was still feeding him. Not bad.
He sat down and ate slowly. The miso soup was warm, and the grilled fish was a little salty, so he drank a couple of extra mouthfuls of water.
He ate two mouthfuls of rice, then stopped.
Save up first. The next ten-pull has to give me something. If I really run out of time, I can try single pulls too.
He brought up the panel.
[Awkwardness Value: 257 / 1000] [Face Value: 0 / 1600] [Total pulls: 40]
Sixty more pulls. A hundred should guarantee an SSR, right? I wonder if the pity threshold is eighty. This system won't even explain it properly.
He closed the panel, washed his bowl, and sat on the edge of the bed.
The crack in the ceiling was still the same one.
He lay down and closed his eyes. Outside the window, the shadow on the rooftop shifted position, then went still again.
Before the night of the massacre came, she had to stay alive.
[System notification: Awkwardness Value +12 (teased to his face about Bro Hao's training ground). Totals: Awkwardness Value 257, Face Value 0.]
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