Konoha Year 58, late November.
At dusk, Kiyoshi came up from the foot of the slope. The wind swept uphill, bending a swath of grass before it sprang upright again.
Several wooden posts stood in front of the flat stone, shuriken embedded in them. Izumi was pulling the shuriken out one by one. When she saw him, she straightened.
"I want to learn from you." She put the last shuriken into her pouch and patted the opening.
She stood very straight as she said it, both hands against the seams of her trousers-the first half of a formal bow.
Kiyoshi waited for the second half.
It never came. The relationship she acknowledged went no further than learning. Nothing more.
"Learn what?" he asked.
"Characters," Izumi said. "Clan history, clan rules. I want to learn all the boundaries of the Clan Grounds, too."
She spoke evenly. Four things, always in the same order.
"Why me?"
"There's no place for me in the clan school," she said. "There is up here."
Kiyoshi asked no more. Even if he did, she would answer the same way, leaving nothing loose in her words.
He had never once prepared himself to be someone's teacher. People had asked him about copying books, and others had asked him about reading characters, but standing on the other side of the classroom to teach was a first.
"Tomorrow, at this time," he said. "Right here."
"What should I bring?"
"Just bring yourself."
He took two steps downhill, then stopped.
"I'll bring paper and a brush."
There was a moment of silence behind him, then she said, "Thank you, teacher."
Kiyoshi waved a hand without looking back.
Only afterward did it occur to him that she was behind him. Who was he waving at?
He lowered his hand and slipped