The compound felt different without Father.
Not quieter, exactly—never quiet with twenty-six children, ten mothers, and the constant crash of distant waves against the cliffs below. But the air carried a subtle absence: no thunderous footsteps shaking the stone corridors at dawn, no low growl of corrections echoing across the training yard, no sudden appearance of that colossal silhouette blocking the light like an eclipse. The mist still clung to everything, thick and cold, but it seemed to settle heavier in the spaces he used to fill.
One full month had passed since he left for another long-term mission.
And in that month, the rhythm of my days became something close to ritual.
Every morning began the same way.
I woke before the first thin gray light seeped through the narrow window slits. The dormitory air was heavy with the mingled smells of sleeping bodies—sweat, herbal salve, the faint salt that never quite left our skin, and the sweet-sour undertone of small children who still wet the bed sometimes. Kenta always kicked his blanket off in the night; I could hear the soft thump as it hit the floor even before I opened my eyes. Haruto muttered curses in his sleep, little-boy profanity he'd picked up from Rokuta. Toma breathed slow and even, almost meditative. Rokuta snored like a wounded animal, deep and irregular, the sound rattling the wooden beams overhead.
I dressed in the dark. The rough training tunic rasped against the fresh scabs on my knuckles and the bruises along my ribs. The new calluses on my palms were still tender, pink and shiny, protesting every time I flexed my fingers. My sandals were damp from yesterday's dew; they squelched faintly against the cold stone as I slipped out.
The corridor smelled of wet rock, old smoke from the kitchen hearths, and the ever-present brine that rode the mist. Lanterns had burned low during the night; their dying flames threw long, trembling shadows that danced along the walls like ghosts keeping watch. Somewhere deeper in the compound a baby—probably Taro—let out a single sharp cry before being soothed back to sleep. The sound barely traveled.
Outside, the training yard waited under a blanket of fog so dense it felt like walking through wet silk. The air tasted metallic, cold enough that each inhale stung the back of my throat. My breath plumed white in front of my face and refused to dissipate, hanging like smoke. The ground was slick with condensation; every step made a soft sucking sound as my sandals pulled free of the mud.
Nao was already there.
He never said good morning. Neither did I.
We simply nodded once, the gesture small and sharp, then turned toward the dead tree trunk we had claimed as our permanent target. Someone—probably one of the older brothers—had driven fresh charcoal lines into the wood during the night: throat, heart, liver, kidneys, spine. The marks glistened wetly in the half-light.
We started with Mizudeppō.
Again.
My throat still remembered yesterday's abuse—raw, scraped, tasting faintly of iron. But pain was just data now. I ignored it.
Seals: Tiger → Ox → Rabbit.
Chakra spiraled up from my core, familiar as breathing. I no longer had to think about the path; the tenketsu opened on instinct, the energy coiling, mixing with saliva, shifting nature, compressing. I opened my mouth.
The jet screamed out—sharper than yesterday, more focused. It struck the trunk dead-center on the charcoal heart. Wood cracked with a sound like breaking bone. Splinters flew, peppering my shins. A thin stream of water ran down the bark, dark and glistening.
Nao's next attempt was almost as good—eight meters, grazing the liver mark, leaving a shallow gouge.
We didn't smile. We didn't speak. We just reset our stances and did it again.
By mid-morning my tongue felt swollen, my lips cracked, the inside of my cheeks scraped raw. Every swallow tasted like blood and seawater. But the jet was cleaner. Straighter. More vicious.
Lunch was quick—cold rice balls wrapped in nori, strips of dried mackerel that tasted like salt and smoke, a few pickled radishes that burned pleasantly on the way down. The mothers didn't comment on how fast I ate, or how I kept flexing my jaw to ease the soreness. They just slid extra portions onto my plate without asking.
Afternoons belonged to weapons.
Father's gift had arrived three weeks ago in a plain cedar box. No ceremony. Just the box placed silently beside my bedding one evening. Inside:Six kunai, black steel with that faint blue temper line I'd come to recognize as Kirigakure craftsmanship.Twelve shuriken, four-pointed, edges so fine they seemed to drink the light.Twenty senbon—long, silver needles thinner than toothpicks, each one wrapped individually in oiled paper.
I had chosen senbon without hesitation.
They were surgical. Quiet. Surgical.
I started with kunai—big, forgiving, easier to feel the weight distribution. I stood ten meters from the straw dummies, breathed out slowly, and threw.
Thwack.
The first one embedded itself in the outer ring of the heart mark. Not center, but close.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
Three more followed. Two in the heart zone. One in the throat. The last one glanced off the shoulder and stuck quivering in the dirt.
Shuriken next.
Smaller. Lighter. Required spin.
The first three sailed wide, clattering against the wooden backboard. The fourth stuck—barely—on the edge of the liver mark. The fifth and sixth hit true, one in the neck, one grazing the spine line.
Then the senbon.
Nightmare.
The first one I threw tumbled end over end and bounced off the dummy's cheek with a pathetic ping. The second embedded in the straw—but sideways, useless. The third flew straight… and missed the dummy completely, disappearing into the mist behind the wall.
I cursed under my breath, the word tasting foreign in my raw throat.
In my past life weapons were firearms: supersonic, pinpoint-accurate, death at 900 meters with the press of a trigger. Here everything was muscle memory, breath control, wrist flick, spin, wind, humidity, distance. No scope. No laser. No margin for error.
But I kept throwing.
Until my fingertips were red and swollen. Until the sun dipped low enough that the mist turned gold, then gray, then black.
Only then did I stop.
Nights were for control.
After everyone had gone to bed—after the laughter around the fire pits died, after the last baby was soothed, after the mothers' soft footsteps faded down the corridors—I slipped out again.
I carried a single lantern, its paper shade painted with faded waves. The yard was silent except for the distant crash of waves and the soft drip of condensation from the eaves.
I sat cross-legged in front of the dead tree.
First, leaves on forehead, chest, back of neck, palms, soles of feet—all at once.
The chakra adhesion burned like acid at every point of contact. My skin prickled. Sweat beaded instantly despite the cold. I stood slowly, feeling the leaves tug against gravity, tiny points of fire where they clung.
I walked.
Around the yard. Past the water trough. Along the eastern wall. Back again.
Every step was a negotiation: too much chakra and the leaves tore free in a flutter; too little and they slipped, one by one, spiraling to the wet stone.
I kept walking until the lantern burned low and my legs trembled.
Then I climbed the tree—blindfolded.
The bark was rough, studded with lichen and moss. I felt for handholds with palms, toes, even the edges of my forearms when necessary. Chakra pulsed in steady waves through my soles. Up. Higher. Until I reached the first major fork, maybe fifteen meters up, where the trunk split.
I sat there in the dark, blindfold still on, breathing hard.
The compound was tiny beneath me—lanterns like dying fireflies, mist swallowing rooftops, the sea a low roar in the distance.
I stayed until the cold seeped deep enough that my teeth chattered.
Only then did I descend.
Slowly.
Carefully.
When my sandals finally touched wet stone again, I peeled the blindfold away.
The lantern had almost gone out.
I blew it dead.
And walked back to the dormitory in perfect darkness, guided only by memory and the faint silver of moon-mist on the walls.
The mothers saw.
They always saw.
Hanae watched from the kitchen doorway while she cleaned the last of the rice pots, her expression unreadable.
Miyu smiled softly when I passed her in the corridor, but her eyes were worried, shadowed.
My own mother—Maluso—never spoke about it directly.
She just started leaving things:An extra rice ball wrapped in seaweed beside my bedding every night.Thin strips of dried mackerel that tasted like smoke and ocean.A small clay jar of healing salve for the blisters that never quite healed.Once, a single fresh persimmon—rare, expensive, bright orange against the gray of everything else.
She placed them silently.
I ate them silently.
And kept training.
Because weapons don't play.
And I was becoming one.
Advance chapters: https://www.patreon.com/cw/pararaio