Ren found him three days later at the edge of the village — standing at the fork where the northern path diverged from the eastern one, in the way of someone who had arrived at a meeting point at the correct time and was standing there without looking like they were waiting.

"The relay system," Ren said when Soma reached him. They walked north together, unhurried, two people going in the same direction. "Six points in Kamino, two in Shiro to the east. I'll describe each one."

Soma listened while they walked.

Ren described each contact point in the way Ginjiro had once described the northern forest terrain: location, identifying feature, method of use, method of receiving a reply. Each description was three to four sentences — enough to reconstruct the place and the procedure precisely, nothing extraneous.

Soma repeated them back in reverse order when Ren finished. Not to demonstrate — to confirm the information had arrived correctly.

Ren listened without interrupting. When Soma finished, he nodded once.

"Good."

They walked in silence for a moment.

"My father's question for you," Ren said. "Not an assignment yet — a question. He wants to know what you can do that Hayashi's trained people can't."

Soma thought about the honest answer rather than the impressive one.

"I can operate in contexts where a trained person from a known clan would be recognized as that thing," he said. "I have no affiliation to trace. I'm ten years old and look like a farmer's child — which is what I am — and that combination places me in the category that trained people don't pay attention to because trained people have learned to look for other trained people." He paused. "I can also think about why a technique works rather than only whether it works. Which means I can adapt when the situation is different from what training prepared for."

"That's honest," Ren said. "My father will appreciate that you didn't start with the second part."

"The second part sounds more impressive. The first part is more immediately useful."

"Yes." Ren looked at the road ahead. "The second part — the adapting. I want to understand it better. Not for my father. For myself."

"What do you want to understand?"

"How you do it." Ren paused. "I've been trained to do specific things in specific ways. When something I haven't been trained for appears — I can use what I have, but the use is approximate. You seem to build the method from the situation rather than applying stored methods to situations."

"Because I understand the underlying principle rather than the stored method," Soma said. "If you know why footwork on a bridge works, you can derive the footwork for any surface. If you only know the footwork for the bridge, you have to learn each new surface separately."

Ren was quiet for a moment.

"How do you learn the underlying principle?"

"By asking why before asking how." Soma looked at him. "Before I practice anything — I ask what problem this technique is solving. When I know the problem, the technique makes sense in a way that makes it generalize."

Ren absorbed this in the way he absorbed things — fully and without performance.

"My training started before I could formulate that kind of question," he said. "The techniques became automatic before I understood them."

"That's also useful," Soma said. "Faster reflexes. More capacity under pressure when conscious thought is limited." He paused. "Different costs and benefits. Not better or worse."

"Honest again," Ren said. The faint change at the corner of his mouth that Soma had learned to read as the nearest Ren came to visible amusement.

---

At the point where the paths diverged back toward their separate destinations, Ren stopped.

"The private contact point," he said. "I'm going to tell you about one that isn't part of my father's system."

Soma waited.

"Between you and me only. If you need to reach me without it going through the clan system — use this." He described it: a specific gap between two tree trunks on the western road out of Kamino. Narrow, invisible from the road unless you knew where to look. He checked it every three days.

"Why a separate point?" Soma asked.

"Because there will be things you need to tell me that aren't for the clan system. And things I need to tell you that aren't for the clan system." Ren met his eyes. "My father doesn't need to know everything I do. A person who only ever acts within approved parameters is a tool, not an ally."

Soma heard the distinction and the weight behind it.

"The same principle from different starting points," he said.

"Yes." Ren turned to go. "And Soma—"

He stopped with his back to Soma, the way Ginjiro had sometimes spoken while walking away.

"The people you've been observing in Shiro. Hana and the young one — Itsuki. My father knows about them. I know about them." He paused. "We're not going to move against them as long as they continue to operate the way they've been operating. But Mori Takeshi — the senior chunin who oversees internal operations — he doesn't share my father's patience."

"I'll remember that," Soma said.

Ren walked in the direction of Kamino.

Soma stood at the fork for a moment, reading what he had just received.

Mori Takeshi. Senior chunin, internal operations, less patient than the jonin.

A name he didn't have before today.

He filed it and walked home.