Back on their slower journey toward Konoha, Ryusei first turned inward. He wanted to integrate the closest memories of this body more completely, to prepare himself for the return.
He already knew many of them in fragments, but those had only been glimpses from a detached perspective.
Now he let them sink in as if they were truly his own.
Three months earlier, this body had graduated from the Academy and been placed on Okabe's team.
The three of them had cleared their jōnin-sensei's traditional graduation test with little difficulty.
All of them were considered geniuses of some sort, and Okabe himself had neither the guts nor the freedom to fail them.
The higher-ups clearly wanted Ryusei out in the field as soon as possible, wanted him sent on dangerous assignments quickly so they could "send him on his way" faster.
Whether their team had real cohesion or not was irrelevant.
Even if their synchronization was poor, they were sharp enough to fake it well enough to pass.
For the first month, they were assigned only D-rank missions.
Those jobs were menial on the surface, tracking down runaway cats, cleaning out storage cellars, pulling weeds for nobles' gardens, repainting fences, even hauling firewood for old villagers.
Petty tasks, yes, but they served a purpose.
They built obedience, forced a rhythm of listening to orders, and created opportunities for Okabe to observe and quietly shape them under the banner of the Will of Fire.
If he felt generous, he might drop a lesson or two along the way, but he wasn't truly required to teach them anything beyond the standard chakra-control drills like tree-walking and water-walking, which all three of them already knew well enough.
And if that was how it was for them, considered geniuses and lucky enough to be paired with a jōnin, Ryusei could only imagine how miserable it was for the ordinary civilian fodder.
Most of those fresh graduates were, in all likelihood, handed off to no-name chūnin as their captains.
After all, jōnin didn't grow on trees.
There were only about five hundred officially registered in the whole village, and not nearly enough to "babysit" every team of children.
Those scarce resources were reserved for the handful of teams branded as gifted. The same logic applied to the Academy itself, where they went.
The central Academy he had attended, located right in the village center beside the Hokage building, was reserved for the so-called elite, mostly children from the various shinobi clans of Konoha.
Civilian kids with enough talent and promise did exist, but most were still filtered out and sent to the lesser training halls scattered across the village at best.
They were still judged as not qualified to stand on the same level as mostly the clan heirs in the Central Academy.
A few exceptions slipped through, but they were rare.
Those places were little more than shabby training halls, far less protected and far less prestigious.
Most shinobi of civilian origin never reached the rank of jōnin.
Okabe was one of the rare exceptions, part of that extremely small breed of lucky and gifted civilians who managed to climb so high.
Still, without a bloodline or inherited techniques, the gap would always haunt him. He was an ordinary jōnin in strength.
Ryusei's body, at full capacity, stood at a high chūnin level, though outwardly he only displayed the ability of a low chūnin.
Renjiro was mid-chūnin, and Kanae at the moment was low chūnin.
Renjiro's lineage could barely be called a clan anymore.
The Hatake had always been few, their kenjutsu style demanding a steep price for mastery.
They were a special case in the village, the only clan devoted entirely to swordsmanship, and one of the oldest bloodlines of the Land of Fire, tracing their ancestral origin back to outside of what was the Land of Fire today and closer to what the Land of Iron was.
Their small numbers were structural, but after joining the village, they had become easy prey for the Hokage faction to absorb, trim down, and dilute through buyouts and indoctrination.
Nearly extinct now, the clan's identity had been whittled to almost nothing.
Yet those rare few who mastered the Hatake kenjutsu were still renowned across the world.
That Renjiro possessed notable strength and talent was no surprise.
Kanae, on the other hand, came from one of Konoha's three great clans.
With the Senju gone, the Hyūga were now arguably second only to the Uchiha, and in some rights, their influence was just as strong or even stronger.
Even as a side branch member, with her bloodline suppressed and her teachings limited, she was still far ahead of most ordinary shinobi.
The Hyūga, mostly their Side Branch more precisely, were efficient at quickly filling the village's ranks with reliable chūnin, specialized jōnin, and auxiliary support.
Kanae herself was unusually talented for a side branch, and above all, motivated. Her strength was no surprise either.
After a 1 full month of D-rank missions only, the team advanced far more quickly than most.
Whether it was due to their talent, the pressure of higher-ups, or simply the increasingly tense geopolitical climate that left Konoha critically short of manpower, they were moved straight to C-rank missions.
For 2 months, they handled nothing else, and then, just yesterday, came their first B-rank assignment.
They had been sent so soon for the same reasons: all three "genin" on the team already had chūnin-level strength at minimum, and they were guided by a jōnin who could provide support and battlefield experience.
The mission ranks were stretched thin for this large-scale Northwest operation.
Also, don't underestimate 12-year-olds in this world of historically short lifespans, different biologies, superhuman training, ruthless specialization, and child soldiers bred and raised for war since ancient times.
Ryusei also knew that other, even weaker teams were being thrown into B-rank assignments in the nearby outposts as part of the same cleanup.
That was why he believed their deployment wasn't solely about targeting him.
It was simply that this operation presented a perfect opportunity to eliminate him, and Root took advantage of it.
During their C-rank missions, they had already faced armed opponents, bandits, and rogue fighters, and each of them had claimed their first kills. But yesterday had been different.
For the first time, they went against true shinobi opponents, although they were unofficial underworld mercenaries, they were still defectors with real training, not just any rabble.
That was what made the mission a perfect test.
Ryusei understood it clearly. This B-rank had been designed as both an operation and an observation.
A chance for Root to see him in a real combat scenario against other shinobi, to measure his responses, and plan further strategies.
Even if this first initial borrowed knife attack had failed, the mission itself had still yielded them plenty of information to use during the other windows of opportunity against him.
Now that he connected everything, it made sense. He finally understood why the first real assassination came now, and under these exact conditions.
Ryusei was the last remnant of the Senju hardliner faction, the ones who refused quiet assimilation for benefits or peace of mind and the brothers' clout.
Hashirama's wish, Tobirama's orders, Hiruzen's persecution.
One by one, they died out or were eliminated in the shadows, especially during the Second Shinobi World War.
Root did most of the dirty work. None of it was public. The village at large knew nothing.
He was twelve now. During the last war, he had been a small child. They could not package him with the adults when the knives went out.
Now that he had graduated and entered the field, this was the clean window to remove him.
Why not kill him back in the Academy? They were not idiots. A child dying by sudden illness or neat little suicide draws eyes, and he had not yet been enough of a threat to justify that risk.
The same logic covered the last three months. D and C ranks gave them almost no chance to use a borrowed knife. The enemies were not qualified.
When people care about reputation, they kill with a borrowed knife first. Only when that fails do they move directly.
Hiruzen ran a specialized city-state built for war, inside the strongest nation on the continent.
That did not make him reckless. It made him more likely to use the systems he controlled to erase someone without leaving fingerprints or witnesses.
Ryusei was not narcissistic enough to think the Hokage obsessed over him. He was probably not even one percent of Hiruzen's thoughts.
More likely, a high ANBU official handled the removal plan day to day, while Danzo acted in parallel. Root existed precisely so Hiruzen never had to be seen caring about work like this.
Why not have his team kill him earlier, somewhere quiet? He had an answer for that, too.
It would have been stupid to ask it of them.
Their loyalty had not been tested. They were not full ANBU operatives, only prospects assigned to watch him.
You do not order trainees to murder a teammate, because they might refuse. And if they refuse, you have exposed yourself.
Okabe was different. He was likely a regular ANBU hand. Even so, he could not act if the other two were present.
His role was to lead the mission and keep the watch, not to execute the asset.
Root would handle the kill with another borrowed knife, or a direct strike later, or some mixture when the board allowed it.
This B-rank with real shinobi opponents was the first clean chance. So they took it.
As for why Root hadn't simply killed him outright back there, the answer was obvious: Root was not supposed to exist.
The less their hand could be seen, the better. It was always cleaner to let him die at the enemy's hands.
They probably wouldn't attack directly unless all the other options failed.
That was why, during the chaos, he had been careful not to even glance at the hare that carried the genjutsu the wrong way.
He went so far as to make it look like he had only killed it by accident.
To acknowledge it directly would mean admitting he had noticed something unusual, that he had drawn closer to Root's existence, and to their intentions toward him.
And that, more than anything, would have painted an even larger target on his back now.