The second month.

Soma sat on the roof of the abandoned storage shed and looked down at the village in the early morning light.

From here he could see everything — the main dirt road running through the center, the communal well where women gathered each morning, the Fujiwara family compound to the north with its tiled roof instead of thatch. Further east, the thin stand of trees he now knew contained a fire pit, a warning cord, and the traces of someone who did not want to be found.

He had reached the storage shed roof in under a minute this morning. No slipping. No hesitation at each grip point.

Note. Continue.

The problem was not the wall anymore — the problem was the question he had been leaving on the list for three weeks without resolution. He looked toward the forest and let Kenji run the calculation one more time.

Known variables: there was a person hiding in those trees, the person had shinobi training or something equivalent, the person had been there long enough to establish concealment habits, and Soma had been observed watching from the tree line on his fourth visit — a second warning cord had been added, oriented precisely toward the position he had been standing.

The person was studying him in return.

This morning he would not stand at the tree line.

He would sit down.

---

He arrived at the edge of the forest when the morning was still early.

Instead of standing at the tree line and looking in, he walked to the nearest large tree at the very edge — the one closest to the forest interior — and sat down against its trunk with his back to the trees. Facing out toward the fields. Not advancing. Not retreating.

Kenji had calculated this: the least threatening posture to someone who had been monitoring an observer was to turn your back to their territory. It communicated no aggressive intent while also demonstrating awareness — you would not sit here unless you knew they were there.

He waited.

The first thirty minutes were quiet.

Soma practiced peripheral vision — looking straight out at the fields, expanding his awareness to both sides and behind. Not trying to see anything specific. Just letting the brain register whatever moved.

The birds in the forest behind him were still calling.

Good. If anyone was moving nearby, they would stop.

An hour passed.

He heard a branch break softly — perhaps fifteen steps behind him, slightly to his right. The sound was controlled — not accidental, not fully suppressed. Deliberate. Small enough that anyone not specifically waiting for it would miss it. Large enough for someone who was waiting.

Announcing presence without approaching.

Soma did not turn around. Did not stand. Just said — normal voice, not lowered: "I have come here five times. I did not enter the forest and I did not touch anything of yours."

Silence.

Then a hoarse and tired voice from behind: "You know what a warning cord is."

Not a question.

"I know," Soma said. "That is why I did not touch it."

Longer silence. He heard the sound of leaves shifting — the person was moving, but not coming closer.

"How old are you?"

"Eight."

"Whose child?"

"Tsuchiya Hiroshi. Farmer, western side of the village."

A long exhale — not the exhale of someone frustrated but of someone who had received information they were not expecting and was processing it.

"Go home."

Soma did not move. "I have a question I would like to ask first."

"I don't answer questions from the children of farmers."

"You set a second warning cord pointed at exactly the spot where I had been standing," Soma said. "You had already been observing me before I knew you were there. If you wanted me not to come back, you would have done something to make that clear before now. You haven't. That means you are deciding."

"You talk like you aren't eight years old."

"I know."

Another long silence — the longest yet. Soma heard movement, not the small controlled movements of before. Something more deliberate.

"What is your question?"

---

The man who stepped out of the trees was difficult to age — could have been fifty, could have been forty that had lived hard. Thin and short, nothing remarkable in appearance. Wearing dark plain clothing and moving in the way that Soma had spent two months learning to recognize.

He stopped about three steps away and looked at Soma with the evaluating look that Soma had seen on different faces over two months — but not quite the same as any of them.

"Ask."

Soma had prepared this question. Not a question about technique — not please teach me X. Kenji had calculated: this person was hiding in a forest, had been rejected by the system in some way, and had no reason to trust a stranger. The wrong question would end the conversation.

The right question was not a request but a demonstration that he was worth talking to.

"The system here runs through shinobi clans who control access to technique and assignments," Soma said. "People outside the clans cannot officially learn or work. You are outside a clan — which means you already know something about the edges of that system. I want to understand where those edges are."

It was not a request to be taught. It was acknowledgment of what the man already knew and a question about structure, not about personal information.

The man looked at him for a long time.

"You weren't born talking like that."

"No."

"Then where does it come from?"

Soma considered for one second. Then decided — not from complete trust, but because this was a calculated risk: the man was hiding and had no reason to share information about him with anyone.

"I have memories from a previous life," he said. "I do not expect you to believe that. But it is the true answer."

The man did not laugh. Did not show surprise or skepticism. Just looked at him for another long moment.

"Kage Ginjiro," the man said. "Former chunin. Expelled from my clan seven years ago."

No further explanation. No invitation to ask why.

Soma noted: this person answered the real question, not the surface question. He understood he was being evaluated and chose to respond with real information rather than evasion.

"Tsuchiya Soma," Soma said. "Son of a farmer. Nothing else worth mentioning."

Ginjiro stood for another moment.

"Go home," he said again. But this time the tone was different — not refusal but the close of today's meeting. "If you want to talk again, don't come in the morning."

He stepped back into the shadow of the trees.

Soma stood at the edge of the forest and looked at where Ginjiro had been standing.

Kage Ginjiro. Former chunin. Expelled.

Not a teacher. Not yet. Possibly never. But the first time since waking up in the paddy bank that he was standing at the entrance of a real possibility — not one he had imagined in his head, but one made of flesh and bone that had just introduced itself.

He turned back and walked toward the village.

---

That evening he lifted the floorboard and did not update the list.

The list on the underside of the board stayed as it was — the unanswered question about real combat practice still there, unresolved.

He did not cross it out tonight.

Because crossing it out meant the question had been answered — and tomorrow was when the answer would actually begin.

He lay down. Looked up at the thatched ceiling.

A stars-and-sky feeling would have been wrong. This was not that kind of moment. Ginjiro had agreed to nothing. The conversation had been two minutes and consisted mostly of silence. Soma had been told to go home twice.

But four months ago, even this did not exist.

A door that had not been closed was already more than a door that had been closed.

He closed his eyes.

Don't come in the morning.

He would come in the afternoon.

He slept.