Ryusei had been carrying the ideas for "Shatter Palm" and "Wolf Fang Style" in his head for a long time, soon after he made that initial decision to tap more into taijutsu unlike the original owner.
He just hadn't been qualified to actually implement them until recently.
Both demanded more raw force and speed than his body could provide before, the kind of strength that only opening the First Gate gave him.
After all, just because he couldn't pull something off right now didn't mean Ryusei couldn't plan for it.
That was how he had grown so much in the first place, always charting routes ahead of time, always thinking of ways forward.
He had long since mastered the art of wringing value out of every single drop of time.
Wolf Fang Style in particular required explosive legs, and now that his Lightning Body Flicker was perfected, he finally had them.
Legs built for running could be repurposed into weapons, driving feral kicks into guards and transmitting lightning through contact.
He had picked up the emphasis on lower-body offense from Might Duy, whose taijutsu style leaned heavily on kicks in the early Gates.
Still, the legs were just the opening act in Ryusei's design, a way to break defenses and force openings.
The true strikes came from his arms, chakra condensed into claw-like projections, faint blue and sharp, ripping at joints and flesh.
The inspiration there had come from Renjiro's chakra flow on his tanto.
Ryusei couldn't reach Renjiro's precision, but he could apply the principle crudely, weaponizing his own hands into tearing claws aimed at larger targets like shoulders, elbows, and knees.
Shatter Palm was different. That one had been born from watching Kanae's Gentle Fist for so long.
He couldn't replicate her ability to seal tenketsu or disrupt internal organs of course, but he could merge raw physical force with chakra aftershocks to brutal effect.
A single strike could overload and collapse joints entirely, immobilizing an opponent on the spot. It was less finesse, more grappling, but no less effective.
Between the two, Ryusei finally had his own taijutsu toolkit, fast, brutal, and uniquely his.
But even as he used them now, he recognized his creative well for new moves was probably running dry.
Until he reached the Sixth Gate at least, there would be no added benefits to invent more.
The first five would simply sharpen what he already had.
New real exponential growth wouldn't begin until the Sixth, Seventh, and finally the Eighth Gate.
Once you truly reached mastery in taijutsu, it stopped making sense to label every move and treat them as separate techniques.
At that level, everything flowed naturally, one strike blending into the next, the arsenal shifting and reshaping itself as your body evolved and your strength grew.
That was why Ryusei no longer bothered "ranking" or mentally separating his techniques.
He wasn't a beginner anymore. In truth, he was probably already the third strongest taijutsu practitioner in the village, behind only Might Duy and Tsunade.
And you didn't see either of them shouting the name of every strike they threw. They simply fought in their styles, fluently, like it was second nature.
The only exceptions might be a few of the elite jōnin from the Hyūga Main Branch, or Hiashi and his father, the clan's current patriarch.
But even then, Ryusei thought of them differently. Their power came from the Gentle Fist, a style that relied on the Byakugan, precision, and finesse.
They never trained their bodies to the same brutal extremes.
His own philosophy was Strong Fist, and his Shatter Palm was just that, a Strong Fist technique, even if its concept had been inspired by the Hyūga. It belonged to a completely different landscape.
Moves like Shatter Palm or Wolf Fang Style weren't inherently stronger than his other taijutsu, like First Gate–enhanced Shock Step, Senju Heel Drop, Coiling Serpent Fist, or Flowing Willow Guard.
The only difference was timing. The conditions needed to create them, stronger legs, faster speed, more force, only came once he had opened the First Gate and fully mastered Lightning Body Flicker. The rest he could already use beforehand.
Ryusei's personal essence of Strong Fist was also distinct from Duy's and Tsunade's.
Tsunade embodied overwhelming, relentless power, the fusion of taijutsu and medical chakra that made her body something monstrous once combined with her seal.
Duy, with fewer qualifications, honed a kicking game and specialized in lotuses—deception, gravity, momentum, turning an enemy's strength against them.
Ryusei's path was somewhere between the two. He had better natural qualifications than Duy when he started, but nowhere near Tsunade's sheer advantage.
That gap forced him to innovate. And in the long run, he didn't see it as a weakness.
Because if he did gain those monstrous medical enhancements later, or the seal, it would only stack atop his innovations and make him even more dangerous.
Relying on taijutsu at his age was a double-edged sword. On one hand, it made sense, he could seize the low-hanging fruits quickly.
But taijutsu was ultimately tied to the body, and his body was still only thirteen.
Against grown shinobi, there was a biological gap that no amount of training could completely bridge in the short term.
He knew the returns would start to diminish if he forced too much here and now.
That was why his plan was to shift his focus toward other domains next, building strength more broadly while letting his taijutsu growth continue naturally with age.
That didn't mean he would slack on it, he still intended to force open the Eight Gates as quickly as possible, but he wouldn't throw everything into a field where time itself was as much a factor as effort.
***
Kanae's lungs burned, her Byakugan straining as sweat dampened her bangs.
Cuts marked her uniform, the official Konoha attire she had chosen over the more Hyūga-styled one, now torn and dirty.
She held her ground with the handful of shinobi beside her, but the tide was against them.
Enemy after enemy kept pressing, and her body was slowing down.
"If this keeps up… I won't last. None of us will," she thought, her jaw tightening.
She had never stood in a battle this vast before, hundreds of enemy shinobi clashing against a much smaller Konoha force.
The scale was crushing.
'And this is actullly only a prelude to the real worldwar that will start soon...'
She had trained for years to resist her cage, but this?
This was different. If nothing changed, she would perish here, side branch seal intact, another faceless casualty.
She never doubted herself like this before.
Her focus wavered just a second too long, and that's when she saw two figures cutting through the chaos like shadows.
Ryusei and Renjiro.
They came straight for her position, crashing into the Kusa squad from opposite angles.
Renjiro's tanto carved an opening, his lightning chakra flow dazzling and sharp.
Ryusei moved even faster, shock steps, fists, and palms breaking through like a storm, clones scattering to widen the push.
In seconds, the suffocating pressure around her eased, enemies staggered back.
Kanae blinked once, chest rising sharply, as she caught her breath. Her eyes narrowed, suspicious even as relief warmed her.
"Why are you here?" she demanded, voice cold, almost trying to mask the tremor under it.
Ryusei, narrow-eyed and still smirking, answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Because you were about to get buried. And we've got better things to do than let you die here."
Renjiro barked a laugh while parrying a strike. "He's not wrong. Besides, he promised me a big fish if I followed."
Kanae's eyes flicked between them, her brow furrowing. "A… big fish?"
Ryusei ducked under a blade, heel crashing into an enemy's chest before glancing her way again. "The commander. We're going after him. I told Renjiro, and now I'm telling you. You in?"
The words hit differently than she expected.
It wasn't just the mission—they carried that same tone he used earlier, when he cornered her and pressed his chakra into her eyes, when he spoke with sincerity that cut through her coldness.
She hesitated, lips parting, almost retorting, but Ryusei's smirk lingered, as if he already knew she would follow.