Chapter 32: Alive
"Want to move around a bit?"
With just a few words, Hiiro Rinko had pacified Karura, who wasn't really throwing a tantrum anyway. He cracked his neck and issued a duel invitation to Pakura.
He'd been writing on that scroll for two or three hours and was a bit sore. He had to get moving.
"Alright!"
Hearing this, Pakura perked up immediately.
This was her field of expertise. Sealing Jutsu, Medical Ninjutsu… all of it just sounded so troublesome.
"Oh, right! Rinko, can you not use 'Playful Cloud'?"
She excitedly ran to the door, then suddenly remembered something and turned her head to look at him.
She had seen him fight two-on-one without losing ground and thought that was the limit of his taijutsu. Who could have known that the moment he picked up his weapon, he was like some kind of monster entering its second form?
'Great Whirlwind' into 'Great Whirlwind' into 'Great Whirlwind'... It's terrifying, you know.
"Of course. It's just to pass the time. Why would I get that serious?"
The request was fine by Rinko. He shrugged, then turned to look at Karura, who had already run to the desk and sat down. "Hey, Karura, want to come?"
"No, no, I'll stay here and study my ninjutsu~"
After getting the promise of a 'reward' from Rinko, Karura was suddenly filled with the motivation to study.
Right now, she just wanted to write her report. She had no other worldly desires.
"Hmph, fine. We'll come get you when we head back."
Rinko raised an eyebrow, then dragged Pakura—who was protesting, "Why does everyone assume I'm the one who's going to get hurt!?"—out of the study room.
It's a good thing. Regardless of the motive, the act of learning itself was a wonderful thing.
He didn't need to force everyone around him to be immersed in research, but if a little encouragement could motivate others, Rinko felt he had no reason not to do it.
"Yo, Rinko, Pakura. Here to spar again?"
He walked with Pakura to the school's Third Training Ground. An upperclassman they passed on the way greeted them in a friendly manner.
For the past two months, he and Pakura had sparred here almost every day. The Academy students who had watched them, and then compared that to their own level, inevitably had a deep impression.
Moreover, if anyone asked Rinko questions about taijutsu, he would answer them one by one, which had given him a rather good reputation among the student body.
"Not really a spar, just a warm-up."
Rinko replied with a lazy-sounding vibe. "Speaking of which, your arm isn't fully healed, is it? I wouldn't recommend such strenuous exercise right now."
"Ahahaha, I've gotta do rehab, right? This much should be fine."
The boy, who had fluffy brown hair that was even longer than Rinko's—the kind that looked like it would collect half a pound of sand just by stepping outside, totally unsuited for the Land of Wind—was the loud-laughing "Ahahaha-kun." He waved his hand a bit unnaturally.
His arm had been injured in a sparring match a while ago, and Karura had conveniently used him as a 'teaching aid' to practice Medical Ninjutsu.
"In that case, I think throwing shuriken is better for rehab than practicing hand seals. At least with shuriken, if your arm feels wrong, you can stop. But once you start building up speed with hand seals, you might not be able to."
Rinko squinted and grumbled. The other boy just responded with his signature "Ahahaha."
This guy's name was Sakaki Tatsuma, and he was two years ahead of them. You could tell from the patches on his clothes that his family was not well off.
He was probably reluctant to add useless wear-and-tear to his shuriken when he couldn't even throw them straight. As consumables, shuriken weren't exactly cheap.
"Then let's just practice shuriken-throwing today. What do you think, Pakura?"
Knowing full well Pakura wouldn't refuse, Rinko asked her anyway. After getting an affirmative reply, he casually tossed a pack of shuriken to Ahahaha-kun. "Since we ran into you, why don't we practice together for a bit?"
"Ahahaha, well, don't mind if I do!"
Sakaki Tatsuma caught the pack and didn't refuse the invitation. Although he looked like a simpleton, from Rinko's observation, Ahahaha-kun was actually a very shrewd person.
It was precisely for this reason that Rinko offered him this small bit of goodwill. The prerequisite for being 'used' by someone is 'having value to be used.' If you had no strengths, people wouldn't even bother to look at you.
He wasn't expecting to get anything major out of this small connection, but isn't this how relationships are built, little by little?
In any case, it was a casual gesture.
Thinking this, Rinko had already walked to the edge of the shuriken range.
His hands blurred over his waist pouch. In an instant, ten shuriken, each a third the size of his palm, were fanned out and clamped between his fingers. With a flick of his wrists, the ten projectiles crossed the ten-meter distance and embedded themselves in the wooden post, the thwacks sounding almost simultaneous.
After confirming his wrist's condition with that basic throw, Rinko began his real practice.
Curved throws, time-lag attacks, ricocheting shots to change angles… he used various techniques with ease. For a time, the sound of shuriken colliding with each other and sinking into the posts echoed across the range.
In an instant, the sun vanished beneath the horizon. Riding the desert's evening breeze, Rinko, Pakura, and Karura walked side-by-side on the open-air road.
He preferred places where he could see the sky over the enclosed tunnels. So, as long as the weather permitted, he would choose this way home.
The desert night sky was almost always a brilliant tapestry of stars. That dazzling, magnificent sight was something Rinko, who was used to the insipid night skies of his old world, shielded by city lights, could never get used to, no matter how many times he saw it.
He'd heard someone say that vast distances make you realize your own insignificance. But beyond that, under this night sky, which bore no resemblance to the star charts he knew, Hiiro Rinko felt an intense impulse.
The kind of throb that made him truly feel his own life, that he, this hopeless guy, truly existed in this place.
"It's beautiful..."
"What's wrong?"
Hearing his sigh, Karura asked curiously.
"I'm wondering if, besides us, there's life on those other stars..."
"Ehh~ Rinko is spouting nonsense again~"
"I'm serious, you know. Right, Pakura?"
"I don't even know how to beat you. How would I know something like that?"
"..."
If there truly was a God, then that God had been far too merciful to him.
Hiiro Rinko sincerely believed this.