The stairs looked wrong.
An ancient spine of stone cut through the mountain, but the sequence refused to anchor in my head. Each step, worn concave by generations, smeared into continuity. I'd count ten, but my count slipped between blinks, the landing uncertainty forcing a micro-correction in my ankle. Distance stopped resolving against the repetition.
Thin firs rose in tight columns on either side, their branches starting too high to offer shade. Needles hissed overhead in a static drone. The recurring trunks dragged my vision into a sequence, a disorienting count that tried to steal the sensation of forward motion.
Humidity latched onto exposed sweat. Stagnant heat stuck to my skin like damp cloth, salt working into the gritty layers at my temples. Each inhale dragged like pulling through syrup—resin-sharp and medicinal—cut with the faint rot of kelp from the cliffs far below.
A dry, fibrous groan came from the wicker as Idate replanted his footing. Half an inch of slide—his sole sheared across the salt residue before a flat crack against the riser signaled the stop. The pull climbed his spine as the mass tried to peel him off the steps. Inside the container, a muffled grain-shift followed the tilt. Calves locked—he held it, forced upright by sheer tension, his rhythm breaking as he sucked air through his teeth.
Watching the basket tilt, the center point sat all wrong, pulling him backward at the hips with every step.
Naruto leaned against a railing stone, sweat darkening the netting of his mesh tank top. "Hey—why don't we just seal it?" he asked, as if he'd just solved gravity. "Stick the rice in a scroll, pop it out at the top. Easy."
Idate didn't turn. "Not allowed," he said, breath catching at the top of each inhale. "Tradition. The shrine race is about the burden of the civilian. If we use ninjutsu to cheat the weight, the delivery fails. It's an anti-shinobi bias, but it's the rule."
"That's—what? That's stupid," Naruto blinked.
"It's a test of the back, not a magic trick," Idate shot back.
I watched the basket. Weight. Friction. The angle of the straps warned of a total collapse if we didn't change the vector. "Divide the load," I said. "Three points."
A skeptical arc lifted Idate's eyebrow as he looked back. He threw a glance at the stairs, then down at his own unstable footing, testing the grit with a toe. He evaluated my height. "You sure about that, half-pint? This isn't a training exercise."
"Lower center," I countered, ignoring the heat in my face. "Less pull when we stumble. We'll move faster."
He studied me for a beat, then huffed a short laugh. "...You're smart for a kid."
"I'm going to be a teenager soon," I muttered, pushing my glasses up a nose slick with salt. "We need more baskets. Run back to Shinreijima, Naruto. Two—lightweight."
Naruto straightened. "Got it!" A quick drive forward and he was gone. Sandals slapped the stone thrice before the sound dissolved into the forest. Noise didn't carry past a few meters, replaced by a sucking silence that made the heat feel like a solid intrusion under my clothes.
A dense, padded impact echoed as Idate dropped the basket. Rolling his shoulders, the red indentations from the straps stayed deep in his skin, the flesh refusing to rebound. His right arm shook with a lingering tremor as he reset his grip on nothing, his shoulders rolling unevenly to shed the ghost of the weight. "Used to be worse," he muttered. "Couldn't even keep a steady pace on flat ground when I first started."
Metallic chatter followed Anko's yawn. She cracked her neck—sharp, wet pops—and stretched her arms, chainmail shifting with a faint whisper. "God," she groaned, "where do I get some dango? One of these towns has to have sugar."
Kakashi didn't look up from his book. "You should cut back, Anko-chan."
Anko froze. Slowly, she turned. "My butt isn't big."
"I—that was Naruto," Kakashi scratched his nose.
Anko's jaw set. She turned away with a sharp hmph, her forearm tension remaining high even as she—I started to parse the line of her shoulders, wondering if she was actually—
The wind cut in. A colder thread slipped through the stagnant heat, hitting the left side of my neck first. Above the distant torii gate, the shimenawa rope snapped—crack—its paper streamers fluttering with a sudden, agitated life. Pressure peaked. A hollow ache in the sinuses. Something...
"—I'M BAAAACK!"
Naruto exploded onto the steps, salt outlining the edges of his mesh. He was breathing too fast, face flushed, fingers white-knuckled and trembling where they gripped the handles of two new baskets.
BONK.
Anko's knuckles connected with his head. A blunt, bone-deep tap rang out, echoing against the silent pillars of fir and breaking the hollow stillness.
"OW! WHY!?"
"Kakashi reminded me you called my butt fat," Anko said, her face set in a mask of mock-seriousness.
"TRAITOR-SENSEI!" Naruto whipped around.
The end of his yell was swallowed. The air was thickening, the smell of wet wood and rope fiber rising to replace the ocean rot. I looked at the grey ceiling of clouds, adjusting my grip on an empty strap, then back to the grain.
We redistributed the rice. The sound changed immediately—one dense impact becoming three muffled shifts as the grain settled. I took my share. Wicker scraped my palms, and as I pulled the straps tight, they bit into my trapezius with a sharp, persistent friction.
I stood, my pulse hammering. The weight felt manageable, but the grain shifted against the wicker walls with every micro-instability.
"Climb," I said.
We moved. Step by step. The forest closed in. Quads burned through each lift, calves tightening into tremor as the altitude increased. Naruto's rhythm broke between steps; he was huffing, his movements losing the ease of the descent.
Dark timber of the torii loomed, slick with mist. As we crossed the threshold, the wind, which had been striking my flank, suddenly choked as the massive timbers funneled the air into a singular, pressurized draft. The world went quiet—the acoustic shift sharpening the sound of our own breathing. The temperature dropped—not a relief, but a physiological sting that turned my sweat cold.
Ahead, the Modoroki Shrine waited.
Visual distance meant nothing now; the last fifty meters converted into a raw burn that felt like stone turning to bone. Grey volcanic stone loomed, the scent of wet minerals and ancient moss thick enough to taste. The structure looked as though it had forgotten the world. The ocean roared somewhere far below, a constant reminder of the edge we were walking.
The stone was slick. The wind hissed.
"Don't slip," I murmured.
We kept climbing.