Tsunade watched us both like a hawk perched on invisible, high-tension wires.
Her praise was measured, clipped, and precise. It didn't feel like pride. It felt like preparation. I could feel the weight of it as I adjusted my glasses, pressing my pen to the page and trying to get the damp paper to hold the ink without it bleeding into a messy, dark smudge.
"Your control," she said flatly, her voice hitting a steady, metronome rhythm, "is precise. Your creativity… is worth noting."
I noted the shift in her tone immediately. It wasn't approval. It wasn't even the kind of hollow encouragement Iruka-sensei used to give. It was an assessment. It was a ledger being kept by a woman who knew exactly how much blood everything cost.
A flicker of vibration against my perception—a subtle, rhythmic thrum in the air—hinted at unseen hands counting the same ledger. My chest tightened. It wasn't fear, exactly, just the subtle pressure of the atmosphere changing before a storm.
"Persistence," she continued, her eyes flicking toward Naruto. "He doesn't know when to stop. He'll hit a wall, and then he'll hit it again. Again. And again. He will not quit."
Naruto looked like he wanted to argue, his mouth opening to shout something he couldn't quite put into words. Tsunade didn't blink. She let the silence hang, heavy and pressurized, until he felt the full weight of being measured.
She was preparing him for a river that refused to teach mercy.
"We're going on a tour," Tsunade said. The words were flat and rehearsed, lacking any rise or fall in pitch. "Tanzaku Castle."
I blinked. "School?"
Naruto barked immediately, his knees bending as if he were ready to sprint for the horizon. "No way! NO SCHOOL!"
I envied him for a second. I envied his ability to reduce a tactical infiltration of a historical stronghold down to "homework." It was a much simpler way to live. I wanted to laugh, but the sound caught in my throat, tasting like dust and dry wood-ash.
The castle loomed in the distance. To me, it didn't look like a landmark. It looked like a memory machine. Each cold stone, each tall window, and each carved relief kept receipts. Every timber and carved doorframe recorded what had been done and exactly who had paid the price.
Tsunade's chakra pressed against my senses then. It was tight. Compressed. Knotted.
It felt like a coiled spring dipped in liquid nitrogen—cold, tense, and ready to snap with enough force to shatter bone. I could feel her decision lingering there, taut as a drawn string. It wasn't anger. It was a calculation made, executed, and unarguable.
Naruto's whining slid past me, unheard. My curiosity took the forefront as I traced my fingers along the edge of the entry tickets. They smelled of lacquer and ancient dust, like history distilled into paper.
Anko lit a cigarette behind me. The scent of burnt sugar and tobacco drifted past. I caught the faint curl of her smirk. She didn't need to say a word; she already knew that the adults walking into this place willingly were the most dangerous ones in the world.
I clipped my notebook shut with a sharp click-snap. Notes could wait. Observation couldn't.
The road ahead stretched like a grey ribbon, the trees on either side whispering in a wind that felt sharp against my skin. A faint vibration, too regular to be wind, passed through the stones under my tabi boots. I recorded it, filed it, and kept moving.
Tanzaku Castle loomed over us. Its shadow fell across the path, long and rigid like a sundial.
Naruto ran ahead, his fists pumping as he continued his loud, futile protest. I fell in behind him, slower and more careful. My eyes were open. My mind was working. My pen was still tucked into my belt—a tether to the rhythm of what was about to unfold.
Stone. Dust. Echoes. A machine disguised as history. I knew, even then, that it would teach us something we couldn't unlearn.
We walked toward the gate, the low sun casting our shadows across the road like bars. I tilted my head up at the relief of a crowned daimyo carved above the entrance. The expression was serene, but the architecture whispered of discipline and consequence.
This is what power looks like before it learns how to apologize.
I exhaled. Not a sigh. A calculation.
And then I stepped forward.