Morning slipped through the paper windows in pale bands, dust motes drifting lazily in its wake. The house had already accepted the explosion as a fact rather than a fear. We knew why it had happened, and knowledge, however thin, had a way of dulling panic. So we went on. No alarms. No running. Just the quiet defiance of routine.
I sat once more in the tea room.
The same tatami. The same faint scent of old leaves and polished wood. This was where Miss Li Hua had corrected my posture for over a month, tapped my wrist when I rushed, sighed when I thought instead of felt. Back then, I had been the student. Now—
Now there was nothing in front of me.
No tea set. No whisk. No kettle.
"You may begin," Miss Li Hua said.
She sat at the foot of the room with Mr. Mumei-shi and Heiwa, all three watching without judgment, which somehow made it worse.
Begin what? I thought.
I stayed silent. Silence, at least, was safe.
"A tea set," I reminded myself. "A tea set."
The lessons resurfaced not as instructions but as sensations. Texture before form. Weight before shape. Tea was not assembled—it was invited.
Not all at once.
"I need the bowl," I thought.
Not its appearance. Its presence.
Smooth ceramic. Cool at first touch. The faint resistance of glaze under the thumb. I didn't know enough about aesthetics to risk decoration, so I chose honesty: white. Plain.
I imagined it empty.
Then I filled in the rest.
"It's smooth," I murmured, half unconsciously. "Cool."
The sensation answered.
When I opened my eyes, six identical tea bowls rested on the tatami, arranged in a quiet circle like something that had always been there.
"It seems your mind knows what you like," Miss Li Hua said lightly.
I didn't react. If I acknowledged it, I might lose it.
"Next," I decided, emboldened, "the whisk."
Warmth lingered on my cheek from the imagined bowl. That warmth felt… grounding. Therapeutic. I leaned into that sensation and thought of bamboo—flexible, patient, shaped by repetition.
"A whisk. A chasen."
It dropped to the floor with a soft clatter.
I bit back a smile.
Heiwa watched me closely, her expression calm but alert, like someone standing near deep water.
The scoop followed easily. The tea caddy even more so—after the bowl, everything else felt like a footnote. The kettle came last, heavy and patient, humming faintly with implied heat, much like the one in the forest.
At some point, I realized I had stopped *thinking*.
The room became a still-life painted inside my skull. Each object occupied its place because it wanted to, not because I told it to. When the tea was finally prepared, I drank.
Bitter.
I grimaced and added milk and sugar without apology.
"Not bad," Mr. Mumei-shi said after a sip.
"Could be better," Miss Li Hua agreed, "but a job well done."
Heiwa met my eyes and smiled, small and genuine.
That felt better than praise.
"As you should know," Miss Li Hua continued, setting her cup onto the tray I had made, "it is illegal to walk openly armed. Even cultivators are bound by this."
"Information," Mr. Mumei-shi added, sipping thoughtfully, "becomes essential."
"Victoria," Miss Li Hua said, turning to me, "what achieves such a purpose?"
"An intelligence agency?" I answered, uncertain.
"Correct. And the best option?"
I hesitated. Then chose honesty again.
"Something proven."
"A myth," Mr. Mumei-shi said.
At my glance, he elaborated, brush still moving across paper. "A myth is a memory reality keeps after its creators are gone."
"That," Miss Li Hua added, "is a job done so well the world still bends afterward."
Heiwa shifted uncomfortably.
But something had already clicked in my mind.
"So," Miss Li Hua asked, "what do you think did this?"
"A shinobi."
The word landed cleanly.
She smiled.
I didn't summon with force. I remembered. Every half-heard story, every contradiction, every exaggeration. Black clothes. Smoke. Silence. Vanishing acts. Lies layered until truth didn't matter anymore.
The shadow behind me deepened.
Heiwa moved instantly—then stopped.
A figure knelt in seiza, dressed not in black but deep green, a wide hat obscuring their face.
"Hm," Miss Li Hua murmured. "Smart."
"I expected black," Mr. Mumei-shi said approvingly, "but this is better."
Heiwa slowly sat back down, easing her qi. Confused. Alert and a little annoyed.
"Show me something nice," I said, exhaustion creeping in.
They vanished.
Gasps followed.
"Onshinjutsu," Mr. Mumei-shi breathed, delighted.
"They didn't vanish," Miss Li Hua corrected calmly. "They embodied the myth."
"I can't sense any qi," Heiwa said, troubled.
"Show yourself," I said.
Something dropped.
We looked up.
They stood on the ceiling.
"Nice," Mr. Mumei-shi said.
"The misconception," he mused, "was always the point."
Smoke. Flame. Then they were behind me.
Still no qi.
Zinnia burst in moments later, announcing lunch.
And just like that, the shinobi was gone.
"I should give them a name," I murmured.
No one asked where they went. Not even Heiwa who was rubbing her palms on her cheeks.
We simply left the room—Zinnia in Mr. Mumei-shi's arms, sunlight still drifting across the tatami as if nothing impossible had occurred.
Which, somehow, felt exactly right.