The chamber was still ringing from Ryu's entrance, the enemy naming ceremony, and the promise of a machine that would make the Byakugan redundant in the diagnostic ward. No one had recovered from it yet.
Hiashi Hyuga did not let the threat touch him.
He had already heard the rumours of Ryu's new imaging device, and Ryu had just confirmed it before the council – yet he was not worried about it. The diagnostic trade was not the clan's only source of income. Even if the boy built a machine that saw through the body better than a Byakugan, it could not replicate the clan's combat reach, and it could not be trained into a bloodline.
The project to replicate the Byakugan biologically – if Hiashi had known this secret project, he would have killed Ryu for sure.
Hiashi watched and waited and let the others react first to his antics in the council meeting.
Natsurama Senju spoke before anyone else could. "I see you are still overdoing things."
Ryu looked at the old man and said, "Good to see you, Lord Natsurama."
Old Senju replied, "Ohh Please…Call me Grandpa."
Koharu Utatane cut in, her voice like a whip. "Boy, you have got some nerve trying to press on the members of this council and for holding a grudge against the council."
Ryu blinked, all innocence. "What? I did something like this? How? and when?"
Koharu's thought, "This kid"
She snapped as her temper rose. "And how dare you keep your chakra active in a council meeting?"
Across the table, two or three of the sharper sensors had already felt it — a chakra that was at once turbulent and utterly calm, a live current held in perfect stillness. It was likechakra, a flowing river with a perfectly calm, uniform surface.
"What are you talking about?" Ryu said. "My chakra is not fully active."
"You take us for fools, boy," Koharu said.
"I take most people for fools," Ryu said, and there was no heat in it, only fact. "That comes with being this smart. But no... I don't consider people in this room to be at the level of a fool."
Koharu shouted, "Oh, you think you are smarter than everyone here."
"Yes," Ryu said. "I would think that, because I am that smart." He let the word land. "And again — this is my normal chakra state right now after intense training to keep it active all the time. Now this can be my normal state for as long as I want it to be."
Then the room looked at him again, properly, and felt what they had been too angry to register: his chakra was active; no doubt about it. It was moving with perfect calmness, not generally found in active chakra and it was ready to deploy any jutsu in an instant.
Those with sharper senses dug past the surface. Those with sharper minds processed what Ryu had said before.
"This can be my normal state."- Everyone understood this statement now.
"If you really want to see how my active state looks now," Ryu said, "then I have to apologise in advance."
Ryu's chakra spiked. At his core, a miniature [Rasengan] flared to life—the attack jutsu was now a support jutsu—driving his chakra to the next threshold.
- [Chakra Engine: Gear Three] activated
The room went silent under a wave of crushing pressure. But it carried no killing intent — only weight, only a statement.
What the hell is this?, Hiashi thought, and Hiashi was not a man who thought in hell. He activated his bkyugan and saw it for himself.
Impossible, Hiashi thought. The chakra – how can it move so fast? And in his heart, what the hell is this? The chakra is being driven by that thing.
Those who could see inside Ryu also sensed his chakra and drew conclusions not as deep as Hiashi's but closer.
Danzo Shimura opened his eye; he looked at Ryu as if he were interested in him now or, more importantly, in what he was sensing in Ryu.
Every person in that room was an elite — each had won their seat by rank or blood. Hiruzen stood apart as Kage-class; Danzo and Fugaku Uchiha were S-class in their own right—Fugaku a hidden S-rank who gave nothing away. The rest fell a step below, Elite Jonin by rank, and the civilian-born representatives sat lowest of all, barely at the threshold of Elite Jonin. They all understood chakra circulation very deeply.
They all understood that every ninja carried their own active flow unique to them. What none of them had known was that the flow could be raised, controlled, and geared in phases like this. They all knew that keeping it active all the time was an impossible task. As one's concentration loosens, the chakra moves to a calmer, inactive state.
"I developed this recently," Ryu said, and let the chakra settle back down to his resting line. "Accidentally."
He sounded almost embarrassed. "Sorry. I had it set to Gear Two before coming here. That is my normal level now when training."
Inoichi Yamanaka found his voice first. "You manage to control your flow and super-activate it for increased power and intensity."
Ryu looked at him directly. "Yes, Lord Inoichi. I was trying to find a way to save a new friend from the Iburi clan – a stabilisation method that could safely activate their overactive bloodline ability, making it stable and safe. At the same time, I was reading up on a new advanced chakra-sensing method for my blind ward, so he could see the world through chakra senses and a few other senses, like sound. I got lucky and accidentally killed two birds with one stone."
The chamber went very still. A new chakra-control method was not invented on an ordinary Tuesday. Neither was a chakra-sensing method for the blind. That Ryu called it accidental convinced no one. Such a feat did not happen by chance. Ryu was being modest; everyone understood that.
"The Senju method is all power — to be exact, precision of power," Ryu went on. "The Hyuga way is precision of accuracy and release. Mine is the all-rounder: a control method that bends to the person, their nature, and their need. It allows combination jutsu tailored to the individual — something neither old way could claim."
Inoichi sat back. "So the rumours are real. You really are training blind ninjas."
"I am," Ryu said. "The rumours are true — I am training blind ninjas. And for me personally, this method is better than anything else in the combined ninja world. It is almost as good as the Senju method and even better when it comes to application and combination with ninjutsu. No offence, Grandpa."
Natsurama waved a hand. "None taken. Is this the same chakra control method my grandson is learning from you?"
"Yes," Ryu said. "The same. I only taught him the basics — but even that will add chakra optimisation to his existing capabilities, his ninjutsu included."
For all Koharu's suspicion, the thought had taken root and would not leave: a child had built a chakra-control method that rivalled the Senju's hereditary art. That was not chance. It was a mind she could not measure — and that, more than his wealth, was what sank its hook into her curiosity.
Koharu's patience broke. "How did you do it, boy?"
Ryu's expression did not change. "Are you stupid?"
The chamber inhaled. No one has ever insulted her like that in public, especially at a setting where she has all the power. like this council chamber.
"Asking me how I did it," Ryu said. "Do you want me to reveal my secrets? Don't you know a ninja's job is to keep secrets?"
Koharu's tone went stiff. "I thought since you shared it with the Senju clan."
Ryu pointed at his pendant and said, "The Senju clan shared two of their most prized possessions with me — their chakra-control method and the unique taijustu built upon it... What did you do, other than try to snatch a family member away from me? There are limits to being greedy."
Ryu knew she could not win against Danzo's bloc, the elders who had silently sanctioned every ugly scheme and opposed none of them. So he stopped trying to please them. He badmouthed his enemies outright — Danzo's Root, the elders' convenient silences, and the civilian reps who had voted from fear rather than conviction — the way he badmouthed anyone who had earned it.
"Ahem," Hiruzen said, into the quiet.
Homura Mitokado took the opening. "We should keep to the topic at hand. And you, boy — respect your elders and keep your chakra in check."
Ryu smiled. "All right, I will keep my chakra in check. But don't demand respect like that — I shouldn't have to teach that respect is earned. As for my harsh words, there was no disrespect in them. Just a response to her unreasonable demand. 'No disrespect' is the best I can offer the elders of this village — the same elders under whose watch the Hamura clan was reduced to a single person."
Koharu's hands tightened on the arm of her chair. "This boy—"
She rose, her voice cutting through the room. "Who do you think you are? Just because you have become rich and are friends with the daimyo's son, you think you are something?"
Ryu met her glare without flinching. "Oh. Yes. I am something. Now, can we get back to the topic at hand and correct the mistake made by the esteemed council of the Leaf Village?"
It was an open offence. Someone near the far table nearly said the word – damn.
"What mistake?" a councillor asked.
"What else?" Ryu said it plainly, without sugarcoating. "I am talking about you people not minding your own business and telling a four-year-old child who he can be friends with and who he cannot."
He said it plainly. The way he said it made the few reasonable ones in the room deeply uncomfortable.
"Boy," Homura said, "you don't know why we did it. That boy is special. There are things you don't understand."
"Things like there is a tenant in his body who does not pay rent," Ryu said.
Every head in the chamber turned to Dan, standing a few feet behind Ryu.
"You told him," Koharu asked.
Dan Hamura's face was perfectly calm. "I told him nothing."
"Oh, please," Ryu said. "They call me the smartest person in the country for a reason. Besides, do you think I wouldn't know after how everyone treats him? You did a bang-up job keeping it secret from the village. What made you think the children wouldn't be privy to it? I know everything you managed to hide from the village."
He let it hang.
"Like his lineage."
Everyone was shocked.
A/N:
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