Ryusei strolled through Konoha’s busy streets with his usual narrow-eyed smile.

To strangers, it looked warm, harmless, almost sunny.

Few would guess it was the face of a boy constantly measuring every shadow.

It had been five months since he woke up in this body. Five long months.

Time didn’t fly; it dragged, heavy, day by day.

He had forced himself into a rhythm like Might Duy and Guy, only 6 hours of sleep, the rest poured into a relentless grind.

He wanted time to be his ally, not his executioner.

With each passing week, he had to become stronger, not closer to death. And it paid off.

Compared to two months ago, he felt like he had climbed another tier.

The First Gate now opened under his control.

His arsenal of jutsu had expanded too, D and C-rank techniques from three natures the original owner never touched, sharpened in secret during missions when his teammates weren’t watching.

Progress was steady, even ahead of schedule.

Team Okabe’s B-rank missions hadn’t been overly dangerous, so he maintained the illusion of “low jōnin” level strength, keeping his true growth hidden.

Two months had also passed since his duel with Kiyomi.

At first, he expected her to show up again from then on, pestering him even more than usual.

Instead, she disappeared completely.

Ryusei’s lips twitched into a bitter smile.

‘So it really turned into one of those clichés? The girl’s powerful clan looking down on the poor boy and dragging her away… Even here, in this so-called Japanese-style world, I still get shoved into a xianxia plot.’

He chuckled to himself, half amused, half unnerved.

‘Am I actually the ‘son of destiny’ or what?’

The laugh escaped him louder than intended.

Passersby turned their heads, eyes soft with admiration.

To them, the sight was heartwarming: a young shinobi in a green flak vest, only chunin and jonin could wear, smiling as if the world ahead was bright.

“What a gentle, sunny boy,” they thought.

A promising child of Konoha, cheerful, carrying the Will of Fire.

If only they knew.

Ryusei still walked toward the Hokage Building, but the closer he came, the tighter his mood wound itself.

Today was the day, Team Okabe’s first A-rank mission.

And he knew why it had taken this long. Hiruzen was waiting, biding his time, looking for another “special opportunity.”

His senses picked up the whispers drifting among the shinobi and clerks around the building. Many were already unsettled.

The great villages were sliding toward war again, the same spiral that had preceded the Second Shinobi World War.

But unlike last time, which came twenty years after the First, barely five years had passed since the last one. The air reeked of unease.

Ryusei could already imagine the discontent rising against Hiruzen.

People hadn’t even been given time to breathe between wars.

In his old world, a leader who dragged the people into back-to-back wars like this would never survive politically.

Not to mention, in this village, almost everyone had a relative who would eventually die on some battlefield in every shinobi war. 

“Hiruzen, oh Hiruzen… Already setting up another shadow Hokage to hold your place, hiding in the background until the people forget, just like in the original story. But this time, I won’t let it happen. Not in this life.”

In Ryusei’s mind, Hiruzen wasn’t just another obstacle. He was the source, the central spring from which every other enemy flowed downstream. Cut that spring, and the whole river of enemies would dry.

Ryusei then mused about his own current progress and age, and whether he gave it his best, and if it was enough.

Ryusei’s 13th birthday had passed just a few days ago, unnoticed while he was out on a mission.

No celebrations, no congratulations.

He didn’t even know if his teammates had already turned 13 themselves, but they should be around that, too, as they were the same generation, but none of them would ever mention their birthdays to him anyway. That was fine.

He didn’t see his growth as something unbelievable.

Kakashi, after all, had already reached jōnin at 12.

If he could climb from low to high jōnin in that window of one year, then Ryusei’s own progress wasn’t absurd.

And Itachi, by 13, was already beyond, brushing Kage-level after awakening the Mangekyō.

He never wasted thought on how strong Hashirama or Madara had been at thirteen.

The story logic made it obvious: as reincarnations of Ashura and Indra, they were probably even more monstrous than Kakashi or Itachi at that age.

What mattered wasn’t the raw level itself, but the speed of his climb. In less than half a year, he had gone from high chūnin to high jōnin.

That kind of compressed growth was unheard of.

Yes, much of it wasn’t purely his own work; the soul fusion, the boost to his spiritual energy, and other advantages brought as the result of transmigration all pushed him forward, but even so, it was still one of the fastest rises in history.

And yet… even that pace might not match Obito’s soon.

The boy had gone from a forgotten chūnin to fighting Minato and nearly toppling Konoha during the Nine-Tails attack in what felt like the blink of an eye, a few months basically.

Duy was getting busier with real missions now, even B-ranks, and probably A-ranks too soon, where he had to open several Gates to complete them.

Because of that, Ryusei saw him less than before.

Both of them were often sent out of the village for days at a time, and when their schedules overlapped, the windows were short.

That was why Ryusei mostly trained with Guy these days.

He saved his deeper questions about taijutsu, body conditioning, and the Eight Gates for Duy’s return, always preparing them in advance.

It wasn’t a problem; there weren’t many things he couldn’t figure out on his own anyway.

As for Guy, he couldn’t teach like his father, but training with him was still better than training alone.

Guy was basically a motivational speech wrapped in human skin.

He didn’t even need to say anything; just standing there, sweating and grinning, turned training into progress.

As he arrived in front of the building, only Okabe was waiting at their usual spot.

No surprise there. Kanae and Renjiro were always the last to show.

Kanae, probably because she was still dodging him as usual.

She was the type to bury awkwardness under silence, even if it meant arriving right on the dot just to minimize the chance of conversation.

Renjiro, on the other hand, likely had better things to do, like swinging his swords at dummies in the Hatake compound until his arms gave out, grinding his muscle memory into perfection.

A man of simple pleasures: sharpen blade, swing blade, repeat.

Okabe glanced over when Ryusei stopped beside him, the faintest smile crossing his face.

“You’re early,” the jōnin said, voice calm as always. “Nervous?”

Ryusei kept his own expression fixed in that narrow-eyed smile the village mistook for warmth. “Excited. First A-rank, after all.”

Okabe chuckled, though there was no warmth in it. “Good. You’ll need that optimism.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep