The entire time, Okabe was quietly calculating. Estimating distance. Measuring gaps.
His face was more serious than usual, drained of that hollow composure he usually wore.
He didn't feel excitement at the chance to finally deal with Ryusei.
Not even relief.
Only unease.
Even with Kanae and Renjiro beside him, even with the plan, he wasn't sure.
Ryusei had already shown too much on the last mission.
And Okabe himself was still half-injured, chest patched and bound tight under his flak jacket.
Most of all, he didn't know if the "thing" they had forced into his hands would even work.
The strange black pellet, no bigger than a thumb joint, given under the pretense of a reward but in reality a leash.
A weapon from Kusagakure's own leader, delivered to Konoha's higher-ups as a mark of obedience after their recent "reconciliation."
After all, that village's true secret specialty lay in its "shinobi alchemy", the crafting of various pills and medicines.
That was why it was also touted as the 'strongest minor ninja village'.
A tool meant to make a man stronger for a short time—at a cost.
He was still holding it, around fifteen meters from Ryusei.
His fingers brushed his chest out of habit, then pulled the pellet free.
His hand trembled. He was about to place it in his mouth when suddenly—
Buzz.
A violent hum, like his entire being was dragged out of his body.
His vision doubled, his throat seized, his limbs turned foreign.
He couldn't even shout a warning.
And in that exact instant, Ryusei moved.
The First Gate burst open inside his body, a flood of raw power igniting his veins.
Muscles tensed, tendons screamed, but his smirk widened.
He vanished with a Lightning Body Flicker, breaking from the rhythm of the formation.
Kanae and Renjiro blinked in shock as the boy who had been running beside them simply blurred out of existence.
Their eyes darted forward, then sideways, searching.
And then they saw it—
Ryusei wasn't running with them anymore.
He was already charging at Okabe.
Okabe's head jerked, half-conscious.
His body was still sinking in that awful numbness, but his mind, split in two, watched in horror as Ryusei closed the distance like a beast unleashed.
The boy's face was alight, narrow eyes curling with something terrifying.
For a heartbeat, Okabe swore Ryusei even looked happy.
Ryusei's voice cut through the air, sharp and mocking, carried by the rush of wind as he closed in.
"So this was their plan. Let me think you're weak and injured, then use you as the main pawn through that pill. Pathetic. Did they tell you you'd be the sacrifice, Tatsuya Okabe? Or did you really believe you'd be the one to finish me, before I fixate on you? To survive a clash with me with those injuries?"
Okabe's breath caught, dread spiking in his chest.
From behind, Kanae's voice rang out, sharp with instinct. "Captain!"
Renjiro's roar followed almost at the same time, his chakra flaring. "Ryusei—!"
Both had already sprung forward, branches cracking under their sudden burst of speed, but they were too far.
They were both close-range fighters, trained to corner an opponent with precision, not chase down a monster already breaking limits.
And Ryusei had been placed closest to Okabe for this exact moment.
Because Okabe was supposed to strike first.
But instead, he was the one frozen, and Ryusei was the one striking.
Ryusei's fist coiled like a viper and struck with all the force of the First Gate.
The Coiling Serpent Fist slammed straight through Okabe's torso, tearing out the other side.
For an instant, Okabe's eyes snapped back into focus.
The black pellet's effect began to surface, power stirring inside him, but it was too late.
His body was already broken.
Ryusei leaned close, grinning as he looked up into the man's much taller frame, savoring the unwilling, resentful glare staring down at him.
"Only a dog like you would swallow something you don't even understand. Judging by that little surge just now, maybe you could've dragged me down with the other two. But then what, hm? What would've happened to your body after?"
His words dripped with mockery as he spat directly into Okabe's face.
Then he wrenched his fist free from the man's chest.
The wet sound echoed as Okabe staggered, blood spilling, eyes wide with fury and regret before going blank.
His frame finally crumpled, collapsing lifelessly into the branches below.
Kanae and Renjiro both froze for the briefest heartbeat, their momentum disrupted by what they had just witnessed.
The plan they had been carrying—Okabe striking first, buying them the opening—was gone in an instant.
Kanae's pale eyes widened for only a second before narrowing again, her face tightening back into a mask of cold determination.
She pushed her chakra into her tenketsu, veins bulging around her eyes as she activated her Byakugan fully.
Her movements sharpened, no hesitation left—if she faltered now, she would be next.
Still, inside, something twisted violently.
Watching Okabe fall so quickly, so helplessly, confirmed a fear she hadn't admitted to herself: Ryusei had only grown sharper, deadlier.
Renjiro didn't shout again.
This time, there was no room for words.
Both hands tightened around his blade's hilt, and his chakra flared violently, his forced killing intent pouring out.
Neither dared charge recklessly at Ryusei's front; both instinctively tried to converge on him together, circling like wolves around a beast.
And Ryusei, standing above Okabe's corpse, still wore that same infuriatingly calm, narrow-eyed smile.
Ryusei let his bloody fist hang loose at his side, his grin faint but cutting.
He tilted his head slightly as his gaze slid from Renjiro to Kanae.
"So this is what it's come to, hm? My whole squad is deciding to gang up on me. You'd think I was some plague loose in the village, the way you're all looking at me."
The words were light, almost playful, but the weight behind them pressed heavily in the air.
Kanae's throat tightened, a tremor flickering across her lips before she forced her jaw still.
Her pale eyes locked on him, veins straining around them, but her chest heaved too quickly, chakra control slipping despite herself.
The sweat on her palms made her grip on her stance uncertain.
She wanted to tell herself this was just another mission, another order, but her heart hammered like she was standing at the edge of a cliff.
Facing Ryusei like this, stripped of pretense, made it painfully clear, her hands would not obey her will.
To drive them through him, to collapse his chakra points and watch his body fail, felt impossible.
For the smallest instant, her thoughts twisted shamefully. 'If he strikes me down here… then, at least, I won't have to do it. I won't have to kill him myself instead.'
The glimpse she had caught of his feral expression a moment earlier, blood-smeared, teeth bared with savage excitement, only made the thought more certain.
There would be no mercy if he turned to her next.
That was his true nature all along, probably.
Renjiro, by contrast, steadied himself more quickly.
His gut told him the odds had shifted sharply; two against one was already worse than the plan allowed, and this wasn't an opponent who left openings casually.
But surrender meant death all the same.
His grip on his blade tightened, his breath slowing, his eyes never leaving Ryusei's form.
The Hatake blood in him screamed to fight head-on, but his mind cooled it down, reminding him of the razor-thin space between living and dying.
If he wanted to survive, he had to force himself to be sharper than his instincts; perhaps there was still room for maneuver.
So he waited, blade low but ready, eyes narrowing as if demanding Ryusei's next move or what he might say or propose next.
Kanae stood rigidly opposite, her stance still up but faltering, her aura quivering like it might snap any time.
Ryusei studied their faces.
Apprehension, hesitation, confusion - everything but resolve.
There was also no true hatred, no burning anger for him, having just killed their nominal sensei and captain for half a year.
He exhaled quietly inside.
'Half the battle is already won. All that's left is convincing them.'
The truth was, he had been laying the groundwork even before they left camp.
While Okabe explained their "assignment," Ryusei had slipped his own jutsu into play.
A technique born from what he had observed of the Root Yamanaka elite who once tried to seize his mind - Ryusei's version was cruder, weaker, but functional.
He had cut off a sliver of his own soul, wrapped it in Yin chakra, and even 'programmed' it a bit with some of the foundational jutsu-shiki principles and modules he'd recently been grinding into his head.
Then he camouflaged it with his sensory mastery, burying it in Okabe without anyone noticing.
The mark served several purposes at once.
It made sensing Okabe far easier, not just externally, his body, but also internally, tracking his emotions, chakra shifts, and even his intent.
And, more importantly, it doubled as a kind of trigger, a timed charge Ryusei could detonate from afar with his sensory particles.
That was why, the moment Okabe reached for that strange black pill, Ryusei was already well aware and ready.
The sliver of soul pulsed, Okabe faltered, and Ryusei struck like lightning.
This was the closest thing to a genjutsu Ryusei had acquired and created in this world.
Though by now, after living and experimenting here for half a year, he hated using such rigid terms.
He had come to see that most shinobi mechanics weren't binary at all; they bled into one another, fluid and overlapping.
This technique itself was proof of that, impossible to pin down into a single category.
If not for that, if Okabe had swallowed it and risen even a step stronger, the fight could have been way more brutal for him.
Instead, he was nothing but a corpse now.
It meant the first step of Ryusei's war plan was complete.
The leash was cut.
The most suffocating face in his path had been erased.
Now came the second step.
Convincing the other two.
If he succeeded, at least on the smallest level, he could carve out some space to breathe.
He'd still be stuck in this same squad, under the same chain of command, but with Kanae and Renjiro pulled closer, the constant threat of a knife in the back would loosen.
He'd have more room to train, more freedom of movement, and fewer eyes pressing down on him every second.
And more than that, he could try to formally 'recruit' them.
Better to bend them into his corner than waste them as enemies.
Killing them outright?
That would be stupid.
He couldn't explain away three corpses without painting a target on his forehead the size of the Hokage Monument.
No, keeping them alive was the only logical play.
They needed to be used somehow as a cover for the explanation of Okabe's death instead.
Ryusei let a small, almost comical cough escape, straightening up as he prepared his next act.
Time for the 'sales pitch' then.