Ren had discovered that there were two kinds of questions.
The first kind had answers.
The second kind had adults.
The first kind was useful.
The second kind usually ended with:
“You’re too young to worry about that.”
Ren found this deeply unsatisfactory.
“Why?”
The caretaker looked at him.
“Because I said so.”
“That’s not an explanation.”
“It doesn’t need to be.”
Ren folded his arms.
“It absolutely does.”
She pointed toward the pile of laundry.
“Since you’re so interested in explanations, explain why that laundry isn’t folded.”
Ren looked at the pile.
Then at her.
“…Because you haven’t folded it?”
“Exactly.”
“That feels like a trap.”
“It is.”
Ren sighed and picked up the first shirt.
Yuki, sitting nearby, covered a laugh with her hand.
Ren glanced at her.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Very much.”
“Traitor.”
Ren had become like this gradually.
He asked questions about everything.
Why did the roof slope that way?
Why did the kitchen chimney smoke more on certain days?
Why did some doors stick during winter?
Why did Daichi place his feet differently when facing different opponents?
Why did Kenichi breathe differently before attacking?
Why did one piece of wood crack while another didn’t?
Why did some children learn faster than others?
Why did the adults keep answering his questions with other questions?
That last one remained unsolved.
His curiosity wasn’t limited to the dojo.
The orphanage became his first laboratory.
It wasn’t a particularly impressive laboratory.
There were no polished instruments.
No glass tubes.
No microscopes.
Mostly there were wooden buckets, rope, scraps of metal, broken tools, old furniture and whatever else Ren could convince someone not to throw away.
To Ren, it was treasure.
To the caretakers, it was clutter.
To Yuki, it was evidence that Ren should never be left alone with anything valuable.
One afternoon, Ren was helping carry firewood.
The younger children were struggling with the larger logs.
Ren watched them for a while.
Then he looked at the pile.
Then the wall.
Then the rope hanging from a beam.
An idea appeared.
“Wait.”
Yuki stopped.
“What?”
“I have an idea.”
She immediately looked suspicious.
“That’s usually when something breaks.”
“Not always.”
“Often.”
“Details.”
Ren dropped the piece of wood he was carrying.
He picked up a length of rope.
“What are you doing?”
“Making this easier.”
He tied the rope around a bundle of smaller logs.
Then he ran the other end over a wooden beam.
He pulled.
Nothing happened.
Ren frowned.
He changed the knot.
Pulled again.
The bundle moved.
His eyes widened.
“Yes.”
Yuki stared.
“What?”
“It works.”
“What works?”
Ren pointed.
“Physics.”
Yuki blinked.
“Is that a person?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t care.”
Ren ignored her.
He kept adjusting the rope.
The bundle of wood became easier to lift.
Not easy.
Just easier.
A younger child tried it.
The bundle rose.
His eyes widened.
“Again!”
Ren grinned.
“See?”
Yuki sighed.
“Now you’ve made chores fun.”
“Exactly.”
That afternoon, the children turned carrying firewood into a competition.
Ren organized teams.
He made rules.
He kept score.
He even invented a penalty for dropping a log.
“What happens if we lose?” one of the younger boys asked.
Ren thought about it.
“You have to listen to Yuki explain why you’re bad at this.”
Yuki looked at him.
“I can already do that.”
The boy immediately picked up his log.
Ren laughed.
For a little while, the orphanage didn’t feel like an orphanage.
It felt like a game.
Ren had always been good at turning things into games.
In his previous life, competition had been part of everything.
Games.
Streaming.
Challenges.
Even ordinary conversations sometimes became contests without anyone admitting it.
He had learned to read reactions.
A pause before someone answered.
A change in tone.
A glance toward the door.
The tiny smile someone tried to hide.
Those details had mattered when he was talking to an audience.
They mattered here too.
Ren could tell when a child was about to cheat.
He could tell when Yuki was pretending not to be angry.
He could tell when Daichi was amused despite his expression saying otherwise.
And, increasingly, he could tell when Kenichi was watching him.
That last one was different.
Ren didn’t understand why yet.
He simply noticed.
The dojo had become another part of Ren’s daily life.
Training in the morning.
Chores afterward.
Then more training when Daichi allowed it.
Ren still wasn’t the strongest student.
He wasn’t even close.
But he was becoming difficult to surprise.
He watched.
He remembered.
He tested.
If a technique failed, he tried to understand why.
If something worked, he tried to reproduce it.
Daichi noticed.
One afternoon, Ren watched two older students spar.
He didn’t interrupt.
He waited until the match ended.
Then he approached Daichi.
“Can I ask something?”
“You will regardless.”
“Fair.”
Ren pointed toward the training yard.
“Why did Sato lose?”
Daichi looked at the two students.
“His opponent was better.”
“That’s not enough.”
Daichi raised an eyebrow.
Ren continued.
“Sato had better reach.
He was stronger.
His first two attacks were faster.”
“And?”
“But he kept stepping backward.”
Daichi said nothing.
“He was giving up space.”
“Yes.”
“And every time he stepped back, his shoulders got higher.”
Daichi glanced at Ren.
Ren pointed.
“He was getting tired.”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t he change his stance?”
“Because he didn’t notice.”
Ren nodded.
“That’s the problem.”
Daichi looked at him.
“You noticed.”
Ren shrugged.
“I was watching.”
“That’s your strength.”
Ren smiled.
“That sounded suspiciously like a compliment.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Too late.”
Daichi shook his head.
But there was a faint softness in his expression.
Ren noticed that too.
The experiments continued.
The pulley was only the beginning.
Ren tried making a simple lifting frame.
It collapsed.
He tried reinforcing it.
It collapsed differently.
He tried changing the angle.
It worked for almost a full minute before collapsing again.
Ren stared at the wreckage.
Yuki stared at him.
“How many times are you going to do this?”
“Until it works.”
“What if it never works?”
“Then I’ll learn why.”
Yuki considered that.
“You really don’t know when to stop.”
Ren smiled.
“That’s one of my better qualities.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Give it time.”
His next project was smaller.
A damaged lantern.
Ren took it apart carefully.
He laid each piece on the floor in order.
He examined the frame.
The wick.
The metal housing.
The small mechanism controlling the shutter.
He understood the general idea.
That was the problem.
He understood the general idea.
Not the exact construction.
Ren put it back together.
He lit it.
Nothing happened.
He adjusted the wick.
Nothing.
He tried again.
A tiny flame appeared.
Ren’s face lit up.
Then the lantern went out.
He frowned.
Again.
Nothing.
He took it apart.
Yuki watched from the doorway.
“Broken?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’ve been saying that for an hour.”
“Confidence is important.”
“You don’t have any idea what you’re doing.”
Ren looked at her.
“I have several ideas.”
“Are any of them correct?”
“…That’s under investigation.”
Yuki laughed.
Ren looked back at the lantern.
He had assumed knowing how something worked would make rebuilding it easy.
It didn’t.
That was useful.
Annoying.
But useful.
His old-world knowledge gave him concepts.
It didn’t give him the exact measurements, materials or craftsmanship needed to reproduce them.
That meant he would have to learn.
Properly.
A few days later, Ren brought the broken lantern to Daichi.
“Can you fix this?”
Daichi looked at it.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Experience.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Ren sighed.
“How did you learn?”
Daichi returned the lantern.
“By breaking things.”
Ren stared at him.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Enough.”
Ren smiled.
“Finally.
Someone who understands my educational method.”
Daichi gave him a long look.
“That is not what I said.”
Ren carried the lantern away.
“Still counts.”
The training dummy came next.
The orphanage already had one.
It was old, stiff and missing part of one arm.
Ren stared at it for several minutes.
Yuki knew that look.
“No.”
Ren looked at her.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I’m improving it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because last time you improved something, we had to replace the window.”
“That was an unrelated incident.”
“It involved your pulley.”
“The pulley was innocent.”
Yuki crossed her arms.
Ren sighed.
“Fine.
I’ll make it somewhere else.”
He found scraps of wood and rope.
He reinforced the frame.
He replaced the damaged joints.
Then he added a rotating torso.
A counterweight.
A weighted section.
The result was crude.
Very crude.
But it moved.
Ren stepped back.
He stared at his creation.
A wooden figure slowly turned toward him.
Ren smiled.
Yuki stared at it.
“Why does it look like that?”
“Like what?”
“Dead.”
“That’s because it’s realistic.”
“It has no face.”
“Efficient design.”
“It looks creepy.”
“You’re focusing on the wrong things.”
Yuki poked the dummy.
The torso rotated.
It swung around.
The wooden arm smacked Ren directly in the forehead.
Thunk.
Silence.
Ren froze.
Yuki froze.
The dummy slowly settled back into place.
Ren rubbed his forehead.
“…The prototype has identified a design flaw.”
Yuki burst out laughing.
Ren pointed at her.
“Not one word.”
She laughed harder.
The dummy became popular.
That was unexpected.
The younger children liked it because it moved.
The older children liked it because they could practice striking it.
Someone asked Ren to repair another one.
Then another.
Ren initially refused.
Then he realized something.
People wanted things he could make.
He didn’t have money.
But he had skills.
And skills could be traded.
The first trade was simple.
One repaired practice dummy for a better pair of gloves.
The second was for scrap wood.
Then metal pieces.
Then extra food.
Then access to tools he normally couldn’t use.
Ren started keeping track.
Yuki watched him make a list.
“What’s that?”
“Inventory.”
“You have an inventory?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“Because I keep running out of things.”
She looked at the list.
“Wood.
Rope.
Nails.
Scrap metal.
Food.”
Ren nodded.
“And favors.”
Yuki frowned.
“You wrote down favors?”
“They’re valuable.”
“That’s weird.”
“That’s economics.”
“That’s weird economics.”
Ren smiled.
“Still economics.”
Daichi noticed the changes.
Not just the inventions.
Ren was becoming more confident around people.
He explained things to younger children.
He organized games.
He negotiated trades.
He joked with the older students.
He had started treating the dojo less like a place he visited and more like a place where he belonged.
One evening, Daichi found Ren repairing a wooden practice sword.
“You broke it.”
“Technically, someone else broke it.”
“You are repairing it.”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
Ren looked up.
“Because it’s broken.”
Daichi waited.
Ren sighed.
“And because replacing it would take too long.”
“Good.”
Ren smiled.
“That’s a compliment.”
“It is.”
Ren looked at the sword.
“I think I like fixing things.”
“Why?”
Ren considered the question.
“Because when something breaks, you can usually find the reason.”
Daichi’s eyes remained on him.
“And people?”
Ren looked up.
That question hadn’t been expected.
Daichi continued.
“Can people be fixed when they break?”
Ren was quiet for a moment.
“I don’t know.”
“Good.”
Ren frowned.
“Why is that good?”
“Because you know you don’t know.”
Ren looked at the old samurai.
Daichi picked up another practice sword.
“Keep learning.”
Ren nodded.
“Always.”
Across the yard, Kenichi had been watching.
He saw Ren surrounded by younger children.
He saw them laughing.
He saw Daichi talking to him.
He saw Ren’s strange little inventions being passed around.
None of it was particularly impressive by itself.
That was the problem.
It was becoming a pattern.
Ren wasn’t just the little orphan who trained at the dojo anymore.
People knew him.
Children sought him out.
Older students asked his opinion.
Daichi spent time correcting him.
Even the caretakers had started asking Ren to repair things.
The boy was becoming part of the center of things.
Kenichi looked away.
He told himself it didn’t matter.
Ren was still a child.
Still an orphan.
Still inexperienced.
Still younger than everyone around him.
So why did it feel like he was taking up more space every week?
Kenichi tightened his grip around his wooden sword.
He didn’t have an answer.
Not yet.
Ren didn’t notice.
He was too busy trying to make his pulley work without killing anyone.
He pulled the rope.
The mechanism moved.
He grinned.
“Yes.”
Yuki stood beside him.
“Did you fix it?”
Ren pulled again.
The frame creaked ominously.
“…Define fix.”
Yuki stepped backward.
“Ren.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
The frame leaned.
Ren looked at it.
Yuki looked at him.
Ren slowly released the rope.
The frame returned to its original position.
Both stared at it.
Ren nodded solemnly.
“Perfect.”
Yuki shook her head.
“You’re going to get us killed.”
“Probably not.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
“Statistically—”
“Don’t.”
Ren laughed.
The sound carried across the yard.
Daichi heard it.
Kenichi heard it too.
One heard a child enjoying himself.
The other heard a boy who seemed to be getting harder and harder to ignore.
And Ren?
Ren simply looked at the crooked pulley, the pile of scrap beside him, and the growing list of things he wanted to learn.
He had spent years thinking knowledge was something you collected.
Now he was discovering that knowledge was something you built.
Piece by piece.
Mistake by mistake.
Question by question.
And Ren had a lot of questions.