A few days later, Ryusei was once again drenched in sweat at the training grounds.

He and Might Duy were hammering through another round of madman circuits while Guy kept pace with the same loud enthusiasm as always.

They ran laps across the dusty clearing with weighted packs strapped to their backs, leapt tree to tree until their arms screamed, and finished with endless pushups and squats that turned the dirt beneath them into uneven pits.

Unlike his first time with them, Ryusei no longer felt awkward about the stares from other shinobi passing by.

Duy’s voice carried like a war drum, Guy shouted back even louder, and together they drew attention whether they wanted to or not.

But Ryusei had insisted on one rule, and Duy respected it: they stayed inside the training grounds. At least here, Ryusei’s name and face weren’t paraded around the streets like some circus act.

“Yosh! Ryusei-kun!” Guy bellowed as he finished his fiftieth squat in one burst of energy. “Your sweat burns as brightly as the flames of youth!”

Ryusei’s narrow-eyed look stayed calm as ever, expression as if he were politely humoring a child. “If youth is just endless sweat, I’d rather grow old quickly,” he said, voice dry, before dropping down for another hundred pushups without breaking his rhythm.

Duy roared with laughter, pounding his chest like he’d been complimented. “Magnificent spirit! That is exactly the heart needed to open the gates one day! Youth or age doesn’t matter—only resolve!”

Ryusei didn’t argue. He had grown used to Duy’s strange wisdoms, and more than once, he found himself remembering them while pushing past his limits.

Even if the man wrapped everything in the language of “youth,” Ryusei could tell he understood the harsh edge of reality better than most shinobi who looked down on him.

Guy kept sneaking looks at Ryusei as they trained, as if measuring himself against him. Ryusei noticed, but said nothing. If Guy wanted to compete, he’d let him. Rivalry was useful.

By now, just as Ryusei had predicted, Might Duy had finally been summoned for a few C-rank missions over the past month already for the first time.

Bandits, beasts, petty criminals, he crushed them all with nothing but raw taijutsu, not even touching the Gates, and finished without breaking a sweat.

It was inevitable that the higher-ups would start suspecting something, and sure enough, tomorrow, he would be assigned to his first B-rank mission. Ryusei figured they would place him in some team where a hidden set of eyes could monitor him.

Still, all higher-ranked missions tended to drag on longer, and unless Duy openly admitted he could open seven or eight of the Eight Gates himself, which Ryusei knew he would if asked by someone he trusted or someone from authority, his secret would remain safe for now.

After all, since Konoha’s founding, no shinobi had ever confessed to such a thing. It wasn’t even in the imagination of most. Ryusei doubted the higher-ups would suspect it at first.

He also felt the war was only months away, and once it started, the true weight of Duy’s strength would be revealed more easily to them, but by then, Ryusei had other plans to protect himself, even if they went full beast mode trying to remove him eventually.

Ryusei’s rapid gains in taijutsu had finally started to slow down.

He still hadn’t opened even the first Gate, which frustrated him a little, but he reminded himself that the early progress had only been the low-hanging fruit.

From here on, each step would be harder, but not impossible. And even if the pace felt slower to him, it was still a speed that would leave most other shinobi stunned.

Chakra control and chakra enhancement were linked, rooted in the same parts of the brain.

His recent mental growth only sharpened that connection, raising his baseline taijutsu even without any Gates.

Out of that came a new move of his own making, a C-rank technique he named Shock Step.

Unlike his Senju Heel Drop, it didn’t need a leap.

He could crush his foot straight into the ground from standing still, pushing the terrain in a sudden, sharp burst that shot toward an enemy like a trap springing.

It was way faster, but also a sneakier attack, which was its main essence.

The idea came to him just a while ago, during that fight with the Yugakure jōnin. Inspiration born from danger, refined into another weapon.

Ryusei had already recovered from the injury he took on his last mission. He hadn’t overdone it afterward and applied the right treatment, so it healed cleanly this time. It hadn’t been as bad as some of his earlier wounds anyway.

He was scheduled for another B-rank mission a week from now, but he wasn’t concerned.

B-rank setups that could actually threaten him were rare. It had taken the Hokage’s faction three months to find the last one, so he doubted they would have another lined up so soon.

So he could do then with a peace of mind in the short term, just like the C ranks previously, back when he was a genin. 

A-rank missions, though, were a different matter. Ryusei was certain his very first one would come with hidden fangs, danger buried in the fine print the moment he accepted it.

This was why he pushed for strength so urgently, even finding ways to train around his injury in the previous days.

He avoided stressing the damaged areas, slowed his pace overall, but never stopped.

Still, Ryusei knew the first inner gate was not within reach yet.

The closest upgrade he could realistically aim for was in nature release ninjutsu, but that path carried its own problems.

He couldn’t risk practicing advanced B or A-rank techniques inside the village, not without drawing suspicion.

That left him with only D and C-rank jutsu to work on, especially in wind, lightning, and earth, the affinities his predecessor lacked but which he himself now possessed.

It would take time to learn them, and Ryusei would deliberately stop short of mastering them outright, so it would look like he was merely experimenting rather than awakening new affinities and being seen as a ‘monster’.

The idea was to polish them properly only in real combat.

Whether he succeeded in pulling it off was uncertain, but even uncertain progress was better than none.

Meanwhile, the sound of rhythmic stomps and Guy’s loud counting filled the training ground.

Ryusei was halfway through a weighted sprint, shirt clinging with sweat, when a ripple of chakra brushed the edge of his perception.

He slowed, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, and glanced toward the treeline.

Soon, between the branches, six figures emerged in perfect formation.

Five Uchiha officers in Konoha flak jackets on top of the dark blue police force uniforms, their steps steady and their eyes watchful, and at their head a girl whose presence outshone all of them.

Kiyomi Uchiha.

Her hair gleamed black under the light. Her chin was lifted, her eyes sharp, and she walked with the same domineering stride he remembered from the Academy, only heavier now, reinforced by the weight of the five men at her back who trailed like shadows.

Ryusei narrowed his eyes faintly, the corner of his lips curving in that same “gentle” smile.

“Well,” he thought, “so the ‘tigress’ finally comes walking.”

For a split second, he almost laughed.

Her expression was fierce, brows drawn, lips pressed tight, like she had marched here not just to patrol, but to personally prosecute him for a crime.

He didn’t need to read her mind to guess what sort of story she had told herself to come all the way here.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep