"Riddles?" Katsuro asked as he elegantly picked up the cup of tea and downed it.
'Typical clan kid.' Murakami thought in appreciation seeing the way Katsuro carried himself. That was a sign that despite his lazy exterior, he was still someone with etiquette.
"I didn't take you to be one for riddles." Katsuro said.
"What makes you say that?" Murakami asked as he placed his now empty cup of tea down on the table.
"Well…riddles are…c'mon… you just don't strike me as one who's into riddles."
"True, I'm not." Murakami nodded. "I just need to hear your opinion on an issue that's been gnawing at me for a while."
"You?" Katsuro asked disbelievingly.
"Of course." Murakami turned over the cup of tea and placed it down. "This is how it goes."
"Three great men sit in a room. A King, a priest and a rich man. Between them stands a Shinobi. Each great man bids the Shinobi kill the other two. Who lives? And who does?"
Katsuro set his cup down slowly, the faint clink of the cup against the table was the only sound in the quiet room for a moment.
He studied Murakami with half-lidded eyes that suddenly seemed much sharper than they had been all day.
"That's a new one," he said at last. "And the answer depends on who's telling it."
Murakami tilted his head slightly, patiently waiting.
Katsuro leaned back on his hands, staring at the ceiling as though the answer was written there.
"The King bids the shinobi kill the priest and the rich man because he holds the crown; power of life and death. The priest bids him kill the King and the rich man because he speaks for the divine; power over souls. The rich man bids him kill the King and the priest because he holds the coin; power over everything else."
He paused, letting the silence stretch.
"But the shinobi stands between them. He has the blade. He has the skill. He has no crown, no god, no gold. Only the will to act."
Murakami's expression did not change, but something flickered behind his eyes, appreciation, perhaps.
"And so?" he asked softly.
Katsuro met his gaze again, lazy smile gone.
"The shinobi lives. The three great men die. Because in the end, the one who holds the knife decides who lives and who dies. Not titles. Not prayers. Not money. Just the blade and the hand that wields it."
He shrugged, almost apologetically.
Murakami was silent for several heartbeats.
Then he reached for the kettle and poured fresh tea into both cups.
"Power is not the blade," he said softly. "The blade is only the tool. Power is the choice to use it, or not."
He slid Katsuro's cup toward him.
"The three men bid because they believe their power compels obedience. The shinobi obeys none of them. He chooses. And in that choice lies everything."
Katsuro picked up the cup again, cradling it between his palms.
"You're not asking about the riddle, are you?"
Murakami's eyes did not waver.
"I'm asking if you understand what it means to stand between kings, priests, and rich men… and still choose your own path."
Katsuro took a slow sip. The tea was hot, bitter, grounding.
"I'm a Nara," he said simply. "We've been choosing our own paths since before the village was built. We just prefer to do it lying down."
A ghost of a smile touched Murakami's lips—small, fleeting, gone in an instant.
"Then you'll understand why I need someone who can think clearly when the room is full of voices demanding obedience."
He leaned forward slightly, voice dropping to a near-whisper.
"We will graduate soon. After that, missions. After that… choices. The kind that don't come with a scroll telling you who to kill."
Katsuro held his gaze.
"You want to know if I'll stand between the three great men… and still choose correctly."
Murakami said nothing.
The silence stretched.
Then Katsuro set his cup down carefully.
"Depends," he said. "Who's the shinobi in this room right now?"
Murakami's answer was quiet, almost gentle.
"I think we both know."
Katsuro exhaled through his nose, a sound that might have been a laugh or a sigh.
"Fine. I'm listening. But if this is about dragging me into some grand conspiracy before I've even graduated… you owe me more tea."
Murakami poured again, the kettle steady in his hand.
"Tea is the least of what I'll owe you," he said. "But first, how about a spar?"
"Eh?"
"Come with me." Without waiting for Katsuro to answer, Murakami was already walking away.
"Oi! We just finished drinking tea. It still needs time to digest."
Murakami didn't stop walking. "All the more reason to move our body. It'll help."
He slid open the back door of the house and stepped into the yard behind it.
Katsuro followed more slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Seriously? Right now?" he muttered. "You're not even wearing proper training clothes."
Murakami stopped in the middle of the yard and turned. He slipped off his outer robe, folding it neatly over one arm and setting it on a post.
Underneath was a simple black undershirt and loose pants, nothing fancy. He rolled his sleeves up to the elbows.
"I don't need special clothes to move," he said. "And neither do you."
Katsuro stared at him for a long second, then sighed theatrically and shrugged off his own robe, letting it drop onto the ground without ceremony.
"Fine. But if I pull something because my stomach's full of tea, I'm blaming you."
Murakami's lips curved, just the faintest hint of a smile.
"Then don't hold back."
Katsuro cracked his neck once, left, then right. His posture shifted almost lazily, hands loose at his sides.
"Rules?" he asked.
"No blows that could lead to permanent damage. First to yield or be pinned loses."
Katsuro snorted. "Generous of you. Most people add 'no shadow possession' when they spar with a Nara."
Murakami's eyes flicked to the shadow underneath Katsuro. "I'm not most people. Besides, your shadow is your sword."
Katsuro's lazy grin returned, sharper this time. "Alright then."
Murakami stretched his hands to the side and flicked his finger, and a pebble shot into his hand.
"Well then…" Murakami flicked the pebble upwards, "shall we?"
…
…
As soon as the pebble touched the ground, Murakami dashed forward in a burst of speed that caught Katsuro off guard.
He threw a punch to Katsuro's right cheek before pivoting sharply and bringing his left elbow arcing down toward the collarbone in a seamless follow-through.
Katsuro twisted at the last instant, the elbow whistling past his neck as he leaned back into a low stance.
His right hand snapped up, catching Murakami's extended wrist in a firm grip while his left palm shot forward in an open-handed strike aimed at the solar plexus.
Murakami twisted his captured arm to break the hold and his shoulder into the incoming palm to deflect the force.
The impact still drove the breath from his lungs in a soft grunt but he used the momentum to spin low, sweeping a leg in an arc toward Katsuro's ankles.
Katsuro hopped the sweep, planting one foot on Murakami's rising shoulder for leverage and launching himself backward in a controlled flip.
He landed light, his movement was fluid and controlled, exactly what Murakami had expected from a Nara.
"Oi, oi," Katsuro muttered, "you don't fight like this in the academy."
"I have my reasons."
"No kidding." Katsuro.
They closed the distance again in the same heartbeat.
Katsuro struck first this time, a low feint with his left hand drawing Murakami's guard down, then a snapping front kick aimed at the ribs.
Murakami didn't block, but he moved to the side, just enough to lessen the force to his side, while his right palm shot upward in a short, vicious arc targeted at Katsuro's exposed ribs.
Katsuro twisted his torso at the last second, letting the palm skim past instead of connecting fully and retaliated with a descending elbow meant to crack the collarbone; the same move Murakami had tried earlier.
Murakami didn't retreat but moved into the attack and caught the descending arm on his forearm, stepped in deeper, and drove a tight uppercut toward Katsuro's chin.
Katsuro jerked his head back as the punch clipped his jawline, he tasted copper but didn't stagger. Instead he hooked his left arm around Murakami's extended right, trapping it against his chest, and yanked hard while driving his knee up toward the solar plexus.
Murakami exhaled through clenched teeth as the knee grazed his abdomen.
The weight of weighted seals dragging at each arm made his movement slower than it should have been, yet he still twisted his hips and turned the pull into forward momentum.
He rammed his forehead toward Katsuro's nose in a brutal headbutt that forced Katsuro to release the arm and leap back.
They separates by two meters. Breathing harder now. Katsuro wiped the blood dripping from his nose with the back of his hand.
"You fight like someone who's had to kill with his bare hands more than once."
Murakami ignored him and flexed his fingers once, feeling the weight of the seals on his forearms.
The extra weight made every block and strike feel like moving through water.
'This is definitely different from sparring with kids with no foundation whatsoever.' He thought to himself.
Despite the weight, his stance remained perfectly balanced, weight distributed exactly where it needed to be, and his senses…
They were already in a heightened state as he was finally able to get a read on Katsuro's energy.
'So that was it…his control over his body is good enough to remain unchanged to my perception. He was never seriously focused on doing something.' Murakami concluded.
"I fight like someone who can't afford to lose," he finally replied.
Katsuro gave a short, humorless laugh. "Then let's see how long you keep up."
He lunged again and Murakami met him head-on. Palm met fist and deflected it, followed by a snapping roundhouse kick.
Katsuro ducked under the kick, came up inside, and hammered a short elbow into Murakami's ribs. Murakami absorbed it, rolled with the force, and countered with a spinning backfist that forced Katsuro to dodge, afraid of getting injured again.
'Those fists are too heavy. Gotta avoid them at all cost.' Katsuro thought to himself as they exchanged blurred, palm strikes whistling past temples, knees glancing off thighs, elbows and forearms clashing in tight parries.
Neither landed anything clean enough to end it, but the rhythm was unmistakable.
This was a clash of two taijutsu specialists, one carrying invisible chains of weight, the other carrying the foundation and techniques of a Shinobi clan.