October 9, early morning.
Iruka walked into the classroom with a roster tucked under his arm and an extra scroll in his hand, its seal covered with a paper charm.
"You've been building up chakra for six months. That should be enough." He placed the scroll on the lectern. "Starting today, we'll learn ninjutsu. First up: the Clone Technique."
The classroom erupted into a buzz.
Naruto sprang out of his seat and tripped over a chair leg.
"What's the rush?" Iruka pressed his hands down. "The Clone Technique looks simple. Form the hand seals, channel chakra, and create a physical copy exactly like yourself. Without enough chakra, all you'll get is smoke. If your control's shaky, who knows what'll come out."
He formed the hand seals. As the white smoke cleared, a second Iruka stood beside the lectern, right down to the ink stain on his cuff.
"Produce one that can stay on its feet, and you've got the basics. Come on, pairs of two. Take turns."
The students up front went up one by one.
White smoke rose and fell. Most of what emerged was a crooked figure standing in a lingering puff: missing half a face, a size too fat, or collapsing the moment it appeared.
Iruka walked around with his hands behind his back, taking his time to inspect them and asking detailed questions. He didn't scold anyone.
Naruto went up, and his burst of white smoke was louder than anyone else's.
When it cleared, his clone did stay upright-except its head was tilted, its nose was running, and it kept winking at the class.
The whole class doubled over laughing.
Sasuke went up. The white smoke cleared neatly, and his clone stood upright, translucent, like a person seen through a layer of water. Iruka circled it. "It's taken shape, but it's still insubstantial. Keep practicing."
It was Kiyoshi's turn.
He rose slowly, pretending this was his first time seeing the technique. Halfway through raising his hands to form the seals, he paused for a beat.
He had used the Clone Technique scroll in his Skill Slot just yesterday morning. It had taken him straight from beginner to nearly proficient, with a consolidation period of ten practice sessions over three days.
The rest of yesterday had gone entirely to the Back Mountain and Izumi. He hadn't practiced once.
An instant download of knowledge, getting its first test run.
He stumbled his way through the six seals.
His expression was utterly grave.
The white smoke cleared. A clone stepped out.
Posture, clothes, expression-all correct, all deadpan.
It stood ramrod straight, shoulders squared, looking less like a six-year-old than a class monitor.
The entire class fell silent for a moment.
Iruka's eyes lit up. "Good. The first in the class."
The clone covered its face with one hand and shouted.
"Am I really supposed to leave a grudge from ten years ago unavenged?!"
Its voice rang out, thick with teeth-grinding hatred.
The classroom went silent for two seconds.
Then it exploded.
Naruto sprawled over his desk, pounding the floor. Nakajima slapped his thigh and stood up. "Bro Hao! What grudge? Who bullied you? Get revenge! We'll help!"
Someone in the front row joined in. "You weren't even born ten years ago! What grudge could you have?"
Kiyoshi kept his face expressionless, raised a hand, and dispersed the clone with a single seal.
Clean and decisive. He gave it no chance to add a second line.
That grudge was from his previous life.
Someone had snatched a deal from him back when he worked in sales. He'd forgotten about it himself, but his clone was still carrying it for him.
There was no explaining that, and he had no intention of trying.
[Awkwardness value +50: Clone shouted a Jiahao quote in public. Total: Awkwardness value 307.]
Iruka finally managed to stop laughing and cleared his throat, only to lose control again, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.
"What are you laughing at? Take a good look at him." He surveyed the class. "Six months into school, and he's the first to produce a complete clone. Hand seals, control, stability-all textbook examples. Just..." He glared at Kiyoshi. "Keep its mouth under control."
"Yes, sir."
Kiyoshi sat down. Nakajima was still quietly repeating "leave it unavenged" in the back row, laughing every time he said it.
The scroll drawn from the face value pool had lasted three seconds in its debut before turning into a class-wide spectacle.
The stuff from that pool really was incompatible with him.
[Face value +100: First in the class to produce a complete clone (publicly declared a model example by Iruka). Total: Face value 100.]
School had started teaching things that could fight in his place.
Things that could die in his place weren't sold at ninja tool shops.
There wasn't even a year left before that night.
Every extra thing he learned meant one more chance of surviving it.
As he left the school gates after class, the muscle at the back of his neck tightened again.
Something's wrong.
Over the past few days, that shadow had always been on the stationery shop's second floor. The one in the animal mask held a fixed position, their gaze following people as they moved. They had been watching him.
Today, the stationery shop's second floor was empty.
This new shadow stood beneath the eaves diagonally across the street.
Backlit, facing against the flow of students leaving school, hat pulled low.
Kiyoshi walked. The shadow didn't move.
Only when he stopped to tie his shoelace did the watcher raise their eyes slightly.
Not watching the crowd. Only him.
The previous watcher had been looking at a suspicious child. This one was looking at a storage location.
The level had changed.
At the school gates, Uchiha Fugaku waited under a tree for Sasuke.
Kiyoshi passed him with his eyes lowered.
He intended to hate the clan head's face until next September.
He straightened up and took his usual route home.
No alleys today, no detours. He stopped when he should and gave way when he should.
Let the watcher get their fill.
At the Three-Way Junction, a crow landed on the roof opposite him and tilted its head.
The one from the Back Mountain. Every time Shisui finished teaching him shuriken throwing, it perched in the same spot and watched the two of them wrap up.
The crow cawed twice toward the eaves diagonally across the street, then flew away.
Kiyoshi continued forward with a blank face, his pace unchanged.
Shisui had seen it too.
Home. Shoes off. Hands washed.
The insulated food container was still on the table. Aunt Mikoto had left him a meal-grilled fish and taro today.
He sat down and ate slowly. Halfway through, his chopsticks stopped.
Outside the window, that hat was still beneath the eaves diagonally across the street.
More than two hours, without moving a step.
He finished his meal, washed the dishes, and sat by the window with a volume of the Clan Studies Primer open before him. He didn't turn a single page.
He couldn't practice hand seals tonight.
Practicing clones within view of this window would mean laying out his hand-seal frequency and chakra habits for someone to inspect, one by one.
The previous watcher had been watching him as a person. This one was measuring what he had under the hood.
But there was one thing he could do indoors.
He'd had the Embarrassment Wall for six months and tested it privately a few times. It had fizzled every time, with "unstable effect" hanging there for half a year. He'd figured it out long ago: this thing needed volume, and back then he hadn't had enough chakra to feed it.
Things were different lately.
He'd been using the Chakra Refinement Acceleration Card for almost half a month. Now he had enough.
A few days ago, those words on the skill panel had quietly vanished, replaced with: ready to cast.
But he couldn't test this thing in public.
Once the Shadow Screen activated, whoever it targeted would have their most shameful moment displayed.
A public humiliation in the middle of the street. Nobody could clean up that mess.
If he wanted to test it, he had to target himself behind closed doors.
He'd embarrass himself only in front of himself-and, at most, one bird.
He rose, drew the curtains tight, then checked the gap around the door again.
He formed the hand seals.
The Bracelet warmed briefly, as if a chunk of something had been drawn out of him. It didn't hurt, but it left him hollow.
The air before him grew heavy, and a half-person-high Shadow Screen floated into view, gray and hazy, like dusty glass. The screen lit up.
Target locked: Uchiha Kiyoshi.
The scene appeared, in color, with a soundtrack.
His previous life. The office. He was slumped over his desk, browsing his social feed, when the girl he'd had a crush on for six months posted an update: "Jiahao's kind of interesting."
He stared at that line for ten minutes, his heart pounding in his throat. That very evening, he bought flowers and waited downstairs to confess his feelings.
The girl held the flowers, looking at him as though he were a nice guy. "Huh? I meant Jiahao. Haven't you seen him in your feed? That Jiahao, the guy online. The kind-of-interesting one."
He was Li Jiahao.
If there weren't a million people in the country with Jiahao in their names, there were at least eight hundred thousand.
She'd meant the real Jiahao.
He was merely named Jiahao.
The Shadow Screen had even helpfully edited the footage.
The rejection played on a loop, set to cheerful music, while a line drifted through the corner: Jiahao by name, not the true Jiahao.
When the scene ended, the Shadow Screen dimmed and dispersed.
The room was quiet.
Outside the window, the crow had returned to the roof ridge at some point. Watching through the glass, its head tilted almost horizontal, it had seen the whole thing.
Kiyoshi stood where he was, his ears slowly reddening.
His deadpan face remained frozen for half a minute before he finally swallowed that breath.
[Awkwardness value +15: Iconic scene replayed before the court. Total: Awkwardness value 322.]
The Shadow Screen worked.
He decided whom it targeted. The system decided what it played.
The chakra cost was substantial. One use took that much.
And one rule mattered most: in this life, nobody was ever seeing that a second time.
Before bed, he went to close the rear window.
In the back alley stood a stretch of low wall. Over the past two months, he'd worn a small patch of moss off its top.
Every time he climbed over it to reach the Back Mountain, he braced his hand there.
A shadow stood at the foot of the wall.
Not watching his window. Just watching that stretch of wall.
Someone had retraced his routes from the past two months, from beginning to end.
Kiyoshi shut the window tight and blew out the light.
Four rounds of hand seals tomorrow morning. Not one less.
Starting tomorrow, he couldn't go to the Back Mountain anymore.
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