Snow began as a rumor. Then it arrived in white pages.
Sogetsu held a palm out. A flake landed there and dissolved. "Snow," he murmured. "Didn't expect the season's first to greet me in the Water Country."
The world softened beneath the storm. Forests huddled under white quilts; sound withdrew until only the crisp creak of branches and the sigh of wind remained.
…help… help…
The whisper rode the cold from the northwest, no more than a thread of sound. Sogetsu cocked his head, then moved, snow puffing from the boughs as he leapt.
He found the voice in a drift: a child, half-buried, one leg snagged in a rusted bear trap. The blood fanned in fragile pink halos under the ice. The coat was no coat at all—just a patched summer shirt with more stitches than cloth. A scatter of dead branches said firewood run gone wrong.
"He… lp… ninja… sir…"
He stood on a limb above, looking down. The plea rose, thin and bravely steady, and something inside him did not move.
His pulse slowed to a lake.
Out at the skin, a film of minute dragon-scales rippled into being—Dragon-Scale Overlay—dim grey light threading them with sigils and strange motifs, like a language the world had forgotten how to read. His perspective lifted, loosened, separated—
—an audience watching a story, not a person inside it.
This is wrong.
The child's voice cracked again, a lightning-bolt across the dark. "I don't… want to die… Grandma's waiting…"
Sogetsu's pupils tightened; the sigils receded. The scales sank. The Rank VI Hypnotist's self-check snapped awake and dragged him back into weight and breath and warmth.
He pressed thumb and middle finger to his brow and exhaled long. You nearly missed it. You've been tilting toward the balcony seats—observer over participant. The Spectator Path guards the mind… and hides its own fractures well.
Lesson learned.
He dropped from the tree, knelt, and sprang the trap's jaws with one clean wrench.
Green light pulsed in his palm—Mystic Palm—soft as moss, strong as spring. Flesh knit, arteries sealed, shock retreated.
The child's eyes fluttered open—clear sea-green irises in a grime-smudged face. "Ninja… sir… thank you."
"Where's home?" Sogetsu ruffled her hair, voice easy. "It's too cold to limp alone. I'll carry you."
Fear tried to protest; pride tried to help it. Both lost to honest relief. "I-I can—"
"You helped me first," he said, hoisting her with practiced gentleness. "So I'll help you. Point the way."
A small hand lifted, trembling, to the east.
They moved. Snow creaked under sandal and branch. Her breath warmed his collar.
"I forgot to ask," he said after a time. "What's your name?"
"…Mei. Terumi Mei."
He stopped mid-branch. "…Again?" He glanced back. "Say it once more."
"Grandma named me. I like it. Terumi Mei." A beat. "What's your name, ninja big brother?"
Sogetsu smiled into the snowfall. "Sogetsu." He leapt on, lighter somehow. "Let's get you home, Mei."
The village was less a place than a surrender—boards on boards, gaps stuffed with rags, smoke that smelled of salt and damp roots. Kirigakure's policy had leeched color from faces here, left hunger and quiet where laughter should live.
An old woman with hands like driftwood opened a door and swallowed a sob when she saw them—then swallowed Sogetsu whole with gratitude.
He set Mei inside, checked the leg one more time, and left a roll of rations on the threshold. "Boil the water first," he advised, already stepping away.
From the lane's end, he looked back once. Snow webbed the air between them. The old woman bowed so low he feared she'd fall. Mei waved, the small flicker of her hand bright as a lantern.
From a certain angle, he thought, I suppose I did 'find' a Mizukage today.
He turned into the weather and the work waiting in it. Isobu would need a rumor, then a trail, then a net only the guilty would see coming. Kirigakure would rage, and in that rage they would expose their throat.
He touched his chest—human warmth, human beat. Not a spectator's.
Keep it that way.
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