Kanae arrived not long after one of his clones called her, her usual calm mask in place, though the faint quickness in her steps gave her away.
Ryusei greeted her with his slit-eyed grin, holding something wrapped in cloth.
"I called you for something special," he said, tone deliberately playful. "Want to guess?"
"Stop wasting my time." She pretended to frown slightly, but Ryusei could see through.
He unwrapped it just enough for her to glimpse the pale, veined sphere inside.
Her eyes widened, violet irises trembling. For once, she forgot to hide it, her voice slipping out in a sharp gasp. "That's—! Ryusei… how—?"
"Exactly." Ryusei's grin stretched. "A Byakugan. Surprised?"
For a moment, Kanae's composure broke entirely, her voice carrying disbelief. "Where did you—how—?"
He cut her off smoothly. "Doesn't matter. Think of it as training material. I need to test it. And you're the one who's going to replace my eye."
Kanae bit her lip, face twisting between disbelief and a heat she couldn't smother.
"You want me to…? With my precision and vision, with Yang Release, it's simple enough. Easily. I could change your eyes a hundred times if I had to. But what about your own? Idiot. Once it's out, where would you even store it?"
"That's the easy part," Ryusei said lightly. He bit his finger, drawing blood, then scrawled a small summoning mark on the ground.
With a puff of smoke, a small Katsuyu appeared, its body glistening in the dim light.
"Katsuyu," Ryusei said, patting its slimy form with amusement. "Do me a favor. Store this for me. And don't tell Tsunade, alright?" His grin widened.
The slug blinked slowly, then answered with a mild rebuke, but agreed. Its chakra body was perfect for this, after all.
Chakra-storing, nourishing, healing… There was no better place to keep an eye safe.
It was also Katsuyu who stored that Byakugan since that clone stole it in the first place, allowing it to stay "fresh" in her dimension until now. Though she didn't know the source.
Kanae, still stunned, asked quietly, "Is that… Lady Tsunade's legendary summon?"
"Yes," Ryusei replied, smirking.
Her tone soured, sharper than she meant, almost slipping into jealousy. "She really dotes on you too much…"
Ryusei chuckled low, leaning closer with his grin. "She dotes on me, sure. But I dote on you."
Kanae's lips pressed thin, her pale eyes averting briefly, though the tips of her ears betrayed her reaction.
Soon after, she prepared her tools, her chakra flowing with clinical precision. The operation began.
Kanae's hands glowed faintly with green light as she leaned in, her face unusually tense. "Hold still."
Ryusei sat calmly, a slit-eyed grin never fading. "I trust you won't stab me by accident."
"Idiot," she muttered, but her hands moved with perfect control.
With her special Byakugan vision guiding every motion and Yang Release sharpening her touch, she severed the first eye cleanly, then slipped the pale Byakugan into place.
Chakra threads knitted vessels and nerves seamlessly, almost too easily.
Within moments, it was done.
Ryusei blinked once. The world shifted.
Veins flared at his temple as the Byakugan opened for the first time under his control, sight piercing through walls and chakra systems around him.
Kanae stepped back, exhaling quietly. "It worked… on the first try."
Ryusei's grin widened as his new vision settled. "Of course it did. I had the best surgeon in the clan."
She turned her face away too fast. "Don't—say things like that!"
Ryusei's grin lingered as he pushed chakra into the new eye.
The veins around it bulged instantly, and the world sharpened.
He could see the flow of Kanae's chakra, every tenketsu mapped like points of light.
Beyond her, the forest opened to him, threads of life, even insects shifting in the dark.
"Not bad," he murmured, flexing the vision further. "So this is what it feels like to stare through everything."
Kanae crossed her arms, watching closely. "You'll need time to control it. Without training, you'll overload yourself."
He tilted his head, still smiling. "You sound worried. Don't tell me you're jealous I caught up to you this fast, even here."
Her eyes narrowed. "Idiot. It took me years of work. You put one eye in and think you've mastered it already?"
Ryusei chuckled, letting the veins fade as he shut the Byakugan down. "Relax. I'll let you keep the title of expert, for now."
Her lips twitched, but she turned away before he could catch it.
Kanae's pale eyes lingered on him. "How do you even plan to carry this around? You can't just walk around with veins bulging from one side of your face or even passively emitting chakra that screams that you stole a Byakugan."
Ryusei shrugged. "It's not like I personally go everywhere nowadays. And with my fuinjutsu at an intermediate level already, it's simple to create a makeshift seal eyepatch to mask it when I want. I already made one before this. And if anyone does ask, I'll just say I injured my eye during training. Not that anyone cares enough to press further."
Kanae studied him a moment longer, her expression unreadable.
"…You always make it sound so easy."
Ryusei grinned. "That's because, for me, it usually is."
For a while, they spoke quietly, Kanae patiently and softly explaining nuances of the Byakugan's use, Ryusei throwing in serious questions or teasing comments whenever he saw her composure slip.
Eventually, she left, her mask sliding back into place, but the faint color on her cheeks lingered, and her steps were lighter, almost reluctant to go.
Ryusei sat back down once alone, his slit-eyed grin fading into thought.
He activated the Byakugan again, veins spreading at his temple.
The world opened once more, but this time he turned it inward.
His chakra coils lit up in his sight, a vast network pulsing through his body.
Every line, every node, every pathway became visible.
"Perfect," he thought. "Exactly what I need."
With this, he could watch his own body in real time, link it to his elemental training, and push deeper into the Eight Gates.
No wasted motion, no guesswork.
He could see everything, every flaw, every strain, before it broke him.
Ryusei's lips curved again. "Now the real work finally begins."
***
For the next few weeks, Ryusei trained like a madman again.
The Byakugan's inner vision became his constant companion.
He pushed harder, faster, until the Third Gate tore open under his will.
Along the way, he began experimenting with advanced combination jutsu, shaping them to suit his style.
With his elemental mastery already reaching the standalone level, it wasn't difficult, just a matter of coordination.
Shadow Clones made the process smoother, and the Byakugan's vision helped refine every detail, letting him see exactly how the flows aligned.
But he knew where his real path lay.
From here on, the focus was on the Gates and on the two advanced releases he had only scratched in theory.
They were long shots, distant goals, but stepping stones nonetheless.
Even so, he didn't fool himself.
He couldn't yet call himself 'Mid-Kage'.
It was more so that he was only halfway there.
The higher one climbed, the more it demanded mastery, more weapons, more options.
And this eye… this single Byakugan… was a reminder of the limits.
It was decent enough for training, but far from what he truly needed.
If he wanted to chase the higher evolutions of this dojutsu, if he wanted to pry open its secrets and bend them toward his goals, one lone, diluted Byakugan wasn't enough.
He would need more. Pure ones. Main Branch eyes. And not just one. Many.
That was for the future.
For now, the present loomed.
The coordinated raid against Kirigakure was finally set to begin, coordinated with Kiyomi.
And Ryusei knew, with a faint grin, that a few "big fish" from Kirigakure, or from his own village, would be waiting there for him to catch.