The scroll had been sealed into the stone for less than a day before Shikamaru returned.
Gensei had not intended to meet him so soon. He had left the seal beneath the overhang with the plan of waiting—letting time wear at the boy's curiosity like water shaping stone. But Shikamaru, it seemed, had his own tides.
The boy arrived just after sunrise, shadows long and slow-moving. He bore the fatigue of someone who hadn't slept well, his eyes faintly red-rimmed, but alert.
He didn't speak. He just sat down in front of the stone and stared.
From his vantage point in the high trees, Gensei observed.
Shikamaru reached out once, then hesitated. His fingers hovered over the scroll's outer seal, clearly marked with a looping recursive pattern.
He withdrew.
Minutes passed.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he began to speak.
"You're not a trap. Not in the conventional sense. If you were, you'd have triggered already. So that means you're looking for something... a condition."
His eyes scanned the spiral. The center glyph read 'Evaluate'. The outer ring bore fragmented commands. 'Observe' and 'Bind'.
He placed his palm near the seal and whispered, "Observe."
The seal shimmered. A faint hum. A pause.
Then the glyphs shifted.
Gensei leaned forward.
"Recursive response," the boy murmured. "You're responding to the call, not the chakra... Testing for input? No, testing for intent."
He frowned, then tried, "Bind."
The seal flared—briefly. A band of light snapped toward his wrist.
He jerked back just in time. The light struck the stone and fizzled.
Shikamaru sat in stunned silence.
From the canopy, Gensei allowed himself a breath.
The boy was on the edge of understanding. Not just the seal—but the thinking behind it.
Gensei remained still, but inside something shifted. A slow realization, wordless at first, coalesced like mist taking form.
He watched as Shikamaru touched the edge of the seal again and began sketching something in the dirt nearby.
You're not passing down weapons, Gensei thought. You're passing down thought.
He lowered his head slightly, eyes narrowing.
Students aren't algorithms. And legacies... legacies aren't clean.
For so long, he had approached instruction the same way he approached design: input, process, result. But people were not clean systems. And he was not a detached observer.
A new line formed in his mind, unspoken but insistent:
Legacy without connection is curation, not teaching.
Below, Shikamaru stood.
He turned and called out, "Who left this here?"
Neither man answered.
Gensei stepped forward, just enough to be seen.
"My name is Gensei Shimoishi," he said quietly. "And I think it's time we spoke properly."
Shikamaru blinked up at him.
Far in the distance, hidden from view, another observer watched silently from the trees. Shikaku narrowed his eyes as he saw his son and the stranger speak.
He turned and walked away.
There would be a conversation soon.