The summons arrived without urgency.
That was how I knew it mattered.
---
It wasn't stamped urgent or classified. No red ink. No seals that glowed or hissed.
Just a neat note requesting my presence at the administration building.
Specifically:
Records Subdivision B.
I reread that twice.
No ninja ever wanted to go there.
---
Morita-sensei didn't comment when I told him.
He just nodded once.
"Answer what they ask," he said. "Not what they don't."
I thanked him.
He didn't say good luck.
---
Records Subdivision B smelled like dust and ink.
Old missions. Old failures. Old truths compressed into paper.
A woman sat behind the desk.
Not old. Not young.
The kind of person who survived by becoming invisible to memory.
She didn't introduce herself.
---
"Team Nineteen," she said, flipping through a folder. "Consistent performance. Low incident rate. Minimal corrective notes."
She looked up.
"That's unusual."
I waited.
---
She slid two reports across the desk.
One was mine.
The other wasn't.
---
The second report described the same border patrol.
Same date. Same location.
Different conclusion.
Unconfirmed movement. Possible hostile presence. Recommend escalation.
The signature belonged to a team I vaguely recognized.
They were louder than us.
---
"Which report is wrong?" the woman asked.
Carefully neutral.
I considered my answer.
"Neither," I said finally.
Her pen paused.
---
"Explain."
"They noticed something," I said. "We didn't."
"Is that likely?"
I shrugged.
"They're more aggressive. They range wider. They attract attention."
I met her eyes.
"We don't."
---
Silence.
Then she smiled.
Just a little.
"That aligns with your performance history," she said.
She made a note.
I didn't breathe until she did.
---
"For the record," she added, "absence is not confirmation."
"I understand," I replied.
"Good," she said. "Then you understand why escalation will proceed."
I nodded.
I had just passed responsibility upward.
---
Outside, the air felt heavier.
Not worse.
Just more expensive.
---
Team Nineteen's missions changed after that.
Not in rank.
In placement.
We were assigned adjacent routes. Parallel patrols. Support positions.
We were the control group.
---
Hana noticed.
"We're being compared," she said quietly.
"Yes," I agreed.
"To who?"
I thought of the louder team.
"To the ones who break," I said.
---
Riku didn't like it.
"If something happens," he said, "we'll be blamed for not seeing it."
"No," Morita-sensei replied calmly. "We'll be blamed for seeing it and not acting."
That was worse.
---
Mika didn't visit.
I heard about her instead.
Long hours. Reassignments. Quiet arguments with superiors.
Patients marked delayed who didn't come back.
I stopped asking questions.
---
One evening, I found a copy of our latest report on my desk.
Not mine.
Edited.
A single line added at the bottom:
Area remains low-risk pending further confirmation.
The handwriting wasn't Morita-sensei's.
It was neat.
Official.
---
I took the line out.
Filed the corrected version.
No one said anything.
That scared me more than if they had.
---
That night, I added another rule.
Rule Seven: If you don't control the record, someone else will.
I slept lightly.
In my dreams, papers stacked themselves into walls.
Behind them, people screamed very politely.