Cold sharpened everything. The boards stung barefoot. Fingers took longer to open fully around the hilt in the first few minutes. Yukihiro was back from somewhere, dust still on the hem, and they started without a word. Taijutsu first. Roen's foot hit the packed earth and stayed under him through the first collision. His elbow found the inside lane. Yukihiro turned it aside and Roen was still there for the next beat. Knee. Shoulder. Hand fighting at the wrist. Yukihiro's answer came fast and exact, but not early enough to make the exchange one-sided. When the kodachi came out, the tightness in the cold air made the first clash sharper than usual, the ring of wood and metal carrying farther across the yard. Roen lasted through four clean changes before the fifth read came a fraction late and Yukihiro cut his structure apart. Blade at the throat. Breath visible between them.
Itachi kept getting harder to place inside ordinary life. That was how the village showed it. Children still looked at him, but their parents did more of the pulling now. One instructor's voice changed almost too slightly to notice when an Uchiha name came up in class, the pause before it longer than the name itself. Roen passed through one stretch of market and saw a conversation die in the exact second Itachi stepped into it from the opposite end. No one said anything to him. No one needed to. The space did it first. Then the yard returned and Yukihiro's hand was on Roen's shoulder, turning him off the line where he thought the opening lived.
By the time the air warmed again, the losses didn't end the same way.
Roen got in and didn't get shut out. He stayed there. The places he used to reach late, he was hitting on time now.
Yukihiro still took it in the end. Still ahead. Still enough to close it.
But it didn't drop away on first contact anymore.
Ryūga's eyes stayed on their feet more than their hands. Shigure didn't bother looking away once the kodachi came out.
One fragment held only the sound of blade on blade, three quick strikes, and Yukihiro giving half a step back as the line in front of him turned sharp enough to respect.
The academy grounding kept the rest of it from turning hollow. Aoi walked the corridor with her lunch, taking a bite as she passed. Daigo started talking like he'd almost won a spar until Kagehiro said, "You hit the ground twice." Daigo snorted. "That wasn't the point."
Roen walked with them and heard more than he gave back. Same walls. Same desks. Chalk on the board. His place among them stopped shifting day to day.
The world kept moving.
Roen turned into an empty path and felt it above him before anything dropped.
He looked up.
Black cloth shifted along the edge of the roof, then pulled back out of sight.
Nothing came down.
Roen paused with one hand near the wall, evening light cutting across the mouth of the alley.
Then he kept walking.
When the line with Yukihiro finally broke, it did it in broad daylight with nothing around it trying to make it important. Morning yard. Shigure stood. Ryūga leaned by the post without shifting. Genryū sat off to the side. Yukihiro was already set. Roen asked and got the same small nod. Roen stepped in first.
His foot hit the dirt and he closed the space straight away, hand coming up as he moved. It met Yukihiro's arm with a dull knock. Roen didn't pull back. His shoulder drove in right after, pushing into Yukihiro's chest. Yukihiro turned off to the side, trying to slip past him like he always did
Roen stepped across with him.
Their shoulders hit. Close. No space between them.
Yukihiro tried to turn him again, hand coming in toward Roen's throat to force him off. Roen caught the wrist and shoved it aside, stepping in again instead of backing out. His forearm pressed into Yukihiro's collarbone. Their feet scraped against the dirt as they shifted.
Yukihiro gave half a step to clear it.
Roen followed.
Didn't let him go.
That was the difference.
The space opened only for a moment. Yukihiro's hand went to the rack. Roen's moved at the same time, fingers closing around the wooden hilt. The blade came free with a short scrape.
They stepped back in immediately.
The first clash cracked loud, wood striking wood near the middle. The impact ran up Roen's arm. The blades didn't bounce away. They stuck and dragged against each other.
Yukihiro tried to slide his blade off and turn out.
Roen stepped in again.
Closer.
Their forearms pressed. Wood ground against wood. Roen turned his wrist with the contact, pushing Yukihiro's blade off line while stepping deeper. His shoulder drove forward at the same time, forcing Yukihiro to shift his footing.
Too late.
Yukihiro's balance dipped for a split second.
Roen took it.
He knocked the blade aside and stepped through, his body already in front of Yukihiro before the space could come back.
When it stopped,
the wooden blade was pressed against Yukihiro's neck.
Neither of them moved for a second. Shigure's blade had gone still near the rack. Ryūga did not speak.
Yukihiro's eyes shifted once to the point at his neck, then back to Roen's face. He straightened carefully, not fast enough to break the line, and Roen lowered the kodachi with him.
The yard stayed as it was.
Yukihiro rolled his wrist once. "Alright."
Then he stepped back into place like the set had ended and something else would follow.
The system cut in before the next thing could begin.
[Target Surpassed]
[Milestone Complete]
[Reward Issued: Observation Haki]
The words stayed only long enough to be read. The yard did not dim. The wall did not fall away. A fly crossed in front of the post and vanished into the sunlight. Roen stood with the kodachi still in his hand, breath level, and the world in front of him sharpened by a layer so slight it would have been easy to miss if it were anyone else inside it. Yukihiro shifted his weight to the back foot before the heel moved. Shigure's fingers touched the hilt at the exact instant before they tightened. Ryūga's gaze settled first and the rest of him followed after.
The text thinned and disappeared.
Roen lowered the blade, turned it once in his hand, and slid it back onto the rack.
The yard didn't shift. The damp mark by the wall was still there. The split in the post hadn't moved. Dust still clung to Yukihiro's hem.
He stepped back onto the boards.
The space in front of him came early.