Shisui lowered the foot he had held suspended in the breach.
It came down half a beat slower than usual, as though he were merely shifting his stance. His sole touched the ground without a sound.
He pressed his hand downward twice behind his back at Kiyoshi: stay low, don't move. He had already left the breach, sliding along the foot of the wall toward its northern side, his body lower than the broken bricks atop it.
Kiyoshi retreated into the shadow beside the breach and crouched with his back against the outer wall. His palms were a little sweaty. He wiped them on his trousers and silently told himself, Hold your breath.
Up on the collapsed roof, that half beat passed. The new sentry's footsteps sounded again, tracing the patrol route after the change of guard, section by section. They veered toward neither the breach nor the north wall.
The sentry hadn't noticed.
Outside the north wall, beneath a gap in the bricks, Shisui crouched, turned his face sideways, and put his lips against the wall. His voice dropped to a breath, slipping inward through the crack:
"It's me. Don't speak."
Inside the wall, silence held for a beat. The scraping of rope against the ground stopped where it was, an inch into its movement.
"Go to sleep," Shisui said. "I'll come rescue you."
No more sound came from inside. After a while, the rope moved back half a foot to its original position, so gently it seemed afraid of breaking something.
Shisui stayed against the wall and listened for another two breaths. All that remained inside was steady breathing, heavy with suppressed drowsiness. Only then did he stand and tilt his head toward the breach.
They left the way they had come. The bricks in the breach were cold. They passed through one at a time, their steps falling into the gaps between the sentry's footsteps on the collapsed roof.
When Kiyoshi's turn came, he first pressed his palm against the brick edge to test how much weight it could take, then squeezed through sideways, brushing a little loose dust off with his shoulder. Neither spoke on the way down the slope. The wild grass at its foot swallowed their silhouettes.
Only after they had walked some distance did Shisui speak, his voice level:
"The one at the crack was the oldest of the seven children. Twelve years old. He knows me."
Kiyoshi nodded.
"I answered him from outside the crack. Told him to sleep, said I'd come back." Shisui looked down the path ahead. "Put that on my account."
In his mind, Kiyoshi took that brief moment apart and checked it again. There had been only one crack. The eyes inside had looked out close against the wall, and the only person they could see was the one pressed against it.
He himself had been crouched in the shadow beside the breach. Moonlight leaked down from the collapsed roof, pinning his shadow beneath him.
As long as I wasn't among the people who saw him.
He noted that entry. A new debt went into Shisui's column-there was a child inside that wall who knew his name.
Before Shisui left, Kiyoshi added, "You could look into Danzo..."
Watching Shisui's retreating back, Kiyoshi sighed. Shisui still had too many reservations. If only Kiyoshi had that kind of strength, he could have settled it right there.
The next evening, the crow came. It wasn't Wednesday.
It landed atop the stone lantern and waited until he approached before taking off, flying downstream along the Naka River. Kiyoshi followed.
They had stopped using the space beneath the bridge long ago. The new meeting spot was farther downstream, at the old ferry landing. Half a rotting bridge pier stood in the shallows, where the water drowned out voices.
A thin layer of mist floated over the water, slow to disperse. Shisui had arrived first and was crouching atop the bridge pier.
"I found quite a few leads," he said without preamble. "They have nothing to do with Danzo."
Kiyoshi stood still.
"You seem to have something against Danzo," Shisui said. "Why?"
Kiyoshi considered for a moment.
"My master said Danzo's left eye is a Sharingan."
"What?" Shisui froze. Rubbing his brow, he pondered for a moment. "Let's discuss that after we've dealt with Eagle Spring's case."
Kiyoshi acknowledged him.
"What's happening in that warehouse is serious. The hardliners are behind it. They're trying to create more Mangekyo Sharingan to prepare for a coup."
Shisui's voice turned solemn at once. "Not one of them will escape paying for this."
He paused again.
"About the crows-I only told you half of it last time. Today, I'll tell you the rest. They carry messages between us, and they watch the clan grounds. From now on, those two tasks will share a single channel. Spoken messages go by crow, letters through the gap beneath the lantern. We'll shut down the other channels for now."
The crow hadn't followed them to the ferry landing. It perched on another broken bridge pier downstream, wings folded, utterly still.
Kiyoshi's gaze lingered on the crow for a moment before he looked away.
Shisui took a neatly flattened oil-paper packet from inside his clothes, set it on the bridge pier, and pushed it toward him.
"The information I found is in here."
Inside the oil-paper packet were several neatly transcribed sheets. The sealing wax had been peeled away and then reapplied with great care.
By the light reflected off the water, Kiyoshi read the pages from beginning to end. Once finished, he folded them along their original creases, without misaligning a single fold.
The source had risked lives for this. This delivery couldn't go wrong.
"I'd like you to have the clan leader's wife help show it to him," Shisui said. "How and when you deliver it is up to you."
Kiyoshi tucked the oil-paper packet inside his clothes, close to his body. The two parted at the ferry landing.
The following afternoon, the sun shone pleasantly. Mikoto was turning beans in the courtyard to dry them, and Kiyoshi stood at the gate.
"Kiyoshi, you're here." Mikoto straightened and dusted off her hands. "Why are you standing at the gate? Come in."
Kiyoshi didn't enter the courtyard. He glanced at the book spread open on the kitchen windowsill. It was a cookbook, its corners softened by use. He had seen it several times; whenever Mikoto aired her books, it was there on the sill.
Mikoto followed his gaze and smiled. "Want to read? The one by the stove? Take it. Come ask me if there's anything you don't understand."
Kiyoshi accepted it with both hands. A few pieces of dried scallion were tucked between the pages as bookmarks.
That night, he bolted his door and opened the oil-paper packet. What Shisui had given him was a copy, folded to the size of the book's pages, its edges trimmed even.
There was another book in his schoolbag, with something always tucked into its spine. That was an account someone else had handed him. He couldn't tamper with it, nor could it see the light of day.
This time, it was the reverse: the book was borrowed, and its contents were going out, to be delivered into the hands of someone standing in the brightest light.
He slipped the copy into the middle of the thickest chapter and closed the book. Its edges were even. No one could tell whether it had gained or lost a page.
The next evening, he went to the clan leader's house to return the book. Mikoto was taking down laundry beneath the veranda. When she saw him, she first removed the clothespin from a sleeve.
"Auntie, there's information about some of the hardliners' crimes in this book. Remember to show it to the clan leader."
Kiyoshi handed her the book.
[Face Value +200, current total: 700]
"Really?" Mikoto wiped her hands on her apron and accepted it with a smile. "A little boy like you understands all this scheming?"
She hefted the book, set it squarely on the windowsill beneath the veranda, then seemed to remember something. "Oh, right, we're stewing radishes tomorrow. Sasuke doesn't like radishes. Want to stay for dinner?"
Kiyoshi waved a hand. "Shisui asked me to deliver this."
Then he turned and left.
The veranda lamp cast the book's shadow onto the window paper. It lay flat, just as it had when nothing was tucked inside.
What he had handed over was a bomb-and the only thing that could shake them awake.
Once outside the courtyard gate, Kiyoshi settled back into his usual pace on the walk home from school. The breeze came from the clan leader's house, carrying the smell of cooking smoke, just as it did every other day.
Receipt confirmed. The inspection date wasn't his to decide.
That night, Kiyoshi woke once. While getting up for water, he glanced toward the clan leader's house.
The row of rooms was dark except for one window, a yellow square of light. The desk lamp in the study.
The ledger on his desk lay open to a blank page. He added nothing.
The lamp stayed lit. Lit until dawn.
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