After that little 'episode', from which Ryusei healed easily overnight, the next morning began as usual.
Crawling out of his cramped medical corps tent beside the other shinobi, he set out to drain the day in training before eventually reporting to the wounded.
This time, though, he had a second motive.
Tsunade hadn't forgotten what happened yesterday.
That much was obvious the moment their paths crossed.
She gave him a few sharp, strange glances while they worked side by side.
Ryusei swore that, for an instant, her flawless face carried the faintest pink hue before she quickly buried it under her usual sternness.
But as the hours of treatment piled on, the rhythm between them returned to normal.
Later, when a short window of rest finally arrived, Tsunade moved briskly toward her tent, almost too briskly, as if fleeing.
Ryusei followed without hesitation.
She sensed him trailing her, grit her teeth, and threw him several warning glares.
Her dilemma was plain.
Part of her wanted to snap at him again, bury the matter under anger.
The other part wanted to ignore it entirely, act as though it had never happened.
Ryusei noticed her discomfort.
Internally, he sneered, she was still shaken, but he kept his outward face composed.
Now wasn't the time to tease her too openly.
Instead, he let the subject pass smoothly and shifted the conversation.
"Rather than waste time," he said casually, "show me more of your Creation Rebirth technique. If I'm ever to reach it in the future, I'll need a clearer understanding now."
Tsunade met his calm, steady gaze. Something in her chest tightened unexpectedly.
'Hmph. You weren't so composed yesterday, brat. I saw through that mask of yours,' she thought to herself, as if proud of something, and very surprised at her own reaction.
What unsettled her even more was that she wasn't truly angry anymore.
Not at the time, truly either.
Anyone else who ended up on top of her like that would likely be dead already.
If it had been Jiraiya, she might have beaten him within an inch of his life and refused to speak to him for months. But Ryusei…
'Well, he's still a child. And it was all my fault…' she reasoned.
She flushed again at the memory.
His fall, the way his hands had landed, however briefly, she told herself it had been pure coincidence.
In her mind, Ryusei wasn't even the type to care about such things, even if he was around that age.
He wasn't supposed to be interested at all.
He was always focused, tireless, working himself like a machine.
That was why the moment had shaken her.
It wasn't him acting on desire; it was his body's instincts finally reacting when she forced him too far.
An unpredictable, freakish accident.
Yet if only she knew.
The guilt prickled deeper. After all, she had struck him with real force afterward. Unreasonably, too.
Yet here he was, still working diligently, approaching first without judgment, not holding it against her, not mocking or bringing it up.
He seemed to understand her pride, her thoughts, and had chosen silence.
That quiet restraint softened her anger into something else.
By the time they reached their training spot, her usual expression had returned, though something inside her felt… lighter.
As if there were fewer barriers left between them.
"Fine," she said at last in her typical tone.
"I'll show you. Let's see how far your progress has gone."
Her eyes flicked to the broken trees and torn earth from yesterday's punch.
For a heartbeat, she remembered the scene, and her cheeks warmed again. She shook it off.
Ryusei remained silent beside her, but inwardly, he was slightly beaming.
Let her edge closer, step by step.
So, another 'otherworldly' moment like yesterday might come again, and not once, but every day potentially.
But unlike yesterday, he wasn't confused by the sudden rushes of lust anymore.
The surprise had passed; reflection had settled it. He had accepted it as part of himself.
After all, what man who craved power so much like him didn't also crave the ultimate reward that power brought - women?
That was pure evolution.
And Ryusei was even more primal than the average man, only chained down by his iron discipline.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have acted so instinctively in the chaos yesterday, scrambling, pressing into that softness, making sure he didn't waste the chance once it fell into his lap.
Now, though, he accepted it all.
He understood himself more clearly.
And he placed it aside again, not as a distraction, but as a distant prize.
Something only worth reaching once he grew strong enough to claim it.
A motivator. Nothing more.
"Look here, brat. This is the initial form," Tsunade said flatly.
Her hand lifted, chakra flickering to life over her palm.
The glow was different from the green hue Ryusei knew.
This one burned warmer, a reddish-gold, almost like liquid sunlight pressed into her skin.
"This is the kind of Yang essence you'll need to learn to create inside yourself if you ever want to use Creation Rebirth."
Ryusei leaned in, watching carefully.
"Your 'Yang Palm' is crude by comparison," she continued. "It only freezes wounds in place once they've already happened. This technique is different."
"With precise chakra control and medical knowledge, you scatter this essence preemptively through your body. It hunts for damage the moment it appears and heals it instantly."
Her fingers then blurred into the required joint seal for the full technique.
Concentration rolled off her, the reddish chakra intensifying.
The markings of the Yin Seal spread across her forehead like a crown from the violet blinding diamond dot.
In that moment, her usual beauty sharpened into something dazzling, almost otherworldly.
To demonstrate, she didn't hesitate. She drew a slender blade across her bare upper arm.
Blood welled immediately and then vanished just as quickly, knitted shut before it had the chance to drip.
"This version," she explained, tapping the mark on her brow, "is the advanced form. I only mastered it recently. It's more than just a medical technique. It's a seal, a kind of 'Yang Seal' additionally."
Ryusei's brows lifted slightly.
"Unlike the Yin Seal the Uzumaki invented, which only stores raw chakra, mine also stores refined, fitting Yang essence itself. Due to that addition, making the Creation Rebirth even easier to perform. It's the specialized addition and what makes my Creation Rebirth so strong overall now, even without tapping fully into the Yin Seal and using all that chakra."
"I also let it build passively during my downtime, then release it when I need Creation Rebirth at full force. That's what lets me activate it faster and more completely in battle."
Her tone hardened again. "But don't concern yourself with that now. What matters for you is learning how to refine your body control, to create and spread this essence in the first place. Without that, the rest doesn't matter."
Ryusei stayed silent, his eyes fixed on her glowing, sleeveless form, his face unreadable but his gaze sharp.
The truth was, he was impressed.
More than he expected to be.
Tsunade wasn't just a brute who healed herself on instinct.
She had built a system, weaving together medical ninjutsu, fuinjutsu, and even a new kind of physical seal logic to create something unique.
It was almost jarring. To Ryusei, she was an idiot in some areas, reckless, indulgent, careless.
Yet here, she was a genius. And not just any genius, but one who had carved her own path out of nothing.
Of course, he didn't say it. He only watched, smirking faintly, storing away every detail.
As the night fell, Ryusei stayed with Tsunade at their usual training spot, full of "motivation" in more ways than one.
He sat cross-legged, focused, trying to shape his chakra into the reddish-gold glow she had shown him earlier.
"Not like that. Loosen the flow here," she corrected once, tapping her palm lightly.
Sometimes she even released a faint thread of her own essence, letting it drift toward him.
He caught it carefully, letting it brush across his coils, memorizing the warmth, the rhythm, the living texture of it.
It was different from any chakra he had ever felt, not just raw healing power, but a preemptive current, searching and waiting.
All the while, they conversed in their usual fashion.
Her tone was blunt, sometimes mocking.
His responses were cool, almost indifferent.
To an outsider, it would have sounded ordinary.
But both of them knew something had shifted since yesterday.
Ryusei concentrated harder, sweat gathering on his brow.
With his sharp memory, his practiced control, and his long foundation in Yang Release exercises, he could tell: he would be able to reproduce this essence himself in time.
That much wasn't the obstacle.
The real challenge was circulation.
Tsunade could weave it flawlessly through her body, scattering it like a living net that patrolled for injury.
That wasn't just control.
That was years of instinct and experience.
He narrowed his eyes slightly, watching her demonstration again, memorizing every detail.
'Experience,' he thought. 'That's the real gap between us right now.'
Eventually, Tsunade called it for the night.
She gave him a curt nod, pride hidden under her stern face, then walked back toward her tent.
Ryusei stayed behind, silent, the night breeze cooling his skin.
His grin crept back as he mulled it over.
He exhaled slowly, his thoughts sharpening.
"If only I had the Byakugan," he mused. "All three of her branches of techniques would come to me in half the time. With those eyes, I could trace the chakra in real time, see where it slips, where it spreads, correct every flow instantly, which is the key for her inheritance."
His grin deepened. "Not just that. The Eight Gates. Advanced elemental fusion. Even my larger plans… all of it could be expedited with those eyes. I need to get them sooner than I anticipated, it seems."
The more he lived in this world, the clearer it became.
The Byakugan was criminally underutilized, wasted on its own clan, treated as a simple scouting tool.
In truth, it was priceless.
And Ryusei had already decided.
"No matter how tightly it is guarded, after a few months of training with Tsunade, I will need to put myself in action again. This is just a calm before another storm. After all, my enemies are also probably not staying static."
"But, it's worth the risk," he thought. "And when the time comes very soon, I'll finally take it."
The night closed in around him, quiet but heavy. His resolve only hardened as he fell asleep.