More than that, Grass Country and Kusagakure were among Fire's oldest and closest allies.
Letting them fall into Iwagakure's hands under his watch would shred Hiruzen's prestige.
Of course, Grass wasn't as enthusiastic as in the beginning.
They were still nominally allied to Konoha, but, like Takigakure, they had slowly begun leaving the door open for Iwa.
Ryusei knew the fate of small countries in this world wasn't any better than in his last.
In the end, it was always about the strongest fist, might makes right, and whoever wins writes the rules.
During the First Shinobi World War, the great villages targeted small countries first, subjugating them and forcing them to pick sides rather than clashing directly most of the time, although it still happened.
In the Second War, they were used again as pawns and battlegrounds until the minor nations learned their lesson.
By the war's end, they stopped throwing themselves behind a single banner and began hedging their bets, playing neutral while letting whichever great power had more strength force them into action.
That's why, when the Second Shinobi World War ended less than five years ago, the smaller countries weren't as drained as the big villages.
They immediately pursued neutrality, allowing constant proxy fights and hidden skirmishes to play out on their soil.
Ryusei knew the ambush he barely survived five months ago was just one such game.
And in truth, the strategy was smart.
The smaller nations didn't have the power to threaten the great villages, but by refusing to be used as weapons, they shifted the burden back onto the big players.
Shinobi wars raged on their land, but the hidden villages behind them stayed small and intact.
Civilians in those countries barely felt the difference; shinobi made up a fraction of a fraction of the world's population, less than one-tenth of one percent in Ryusei's own mental math.
And among them, only a handful in any generation, monsters like Madara, could change the fates and landscapes of nations by themselves.
So in the end, neutrality worked.
Risky, yes, but smarter than bleeding themselves dry for the sake of larger powers.
As for why wars happened in the first place, Ryusei found it laughably simple.
It was the same as in his last world: human nature.
The hunger to expand power, and the paranoia that if you didn't move first, the other side would.
Escalation by escalation, step by step, until the ladder ended in all-out war.
The last war proved it clearly enough. Konoha had "won," but it was a pyrrhic victory.
They came out scarred, weakened, and with a target painted on their back.
And yet they had no choice; central power only survived by projecting strength outward.
The more influence Konoha wielded over the world, the less likely enemies were to strike at its heart. That was the logic.
But in practice, it only pushed the other great villages to put aside their grievances and unite against the fertile equatorial giant.
The Land of Fire had the best farmland, the strongest economy, and the richest heartland.
Of course, everyone wanted to chip away at it. To counter, Konoha built up buffers, created Root to run divide-and-conquer games in the shadows.
It had worked well enough in the Second War. But the Third? The strategy broke down.
Ryusei already knew how this one would end. Konoha wouldn't come out ahead.
They would spit out every gain they made in the Second War just to survive.
Even Hiruzen would later have to suffer humiliation from Kumo, especially with the Hyūga incident.
But in Ryusei's dry estimation, Hiruzen probably didn't even care.
After all, the Hyūga already lived in humiliation under his reign, so why not let Kumo add to it and save the village's face in the process?
It wasn't that Kumo had become much stronger; it was that Konoha couldn't risk another desperate war against everyone at once.
Not the village, and not Hiruzen's chair.
Kumo, as the second-strongest village and the only one not dogpiled by the rest, suddenly had leverage. Of course, they pressed it.
Then the Nine-Tails attack happened.
Kumo likely judged the moment perfectly: Konoha was weak, bleeding, missing many of its founding pillars, and forced into redistribution.
After all, hadn't Konoha itself played the same game in the past, letting their jinchūriki run loose, causing mass casualties, crimes against humanity/civilians wrapped in strategy?
***
A few days later, during their rotation of patrol and lookout duties, Ryusei found himself paired with Renjiro.
Kanae's Byakugan was too useful to be wasted on routine scouting; she was shifted between different groups where her sight could cover the most ground, not tied exclusively to him.
It was a different setup compared to the Land of Hot Springs.
Back then, the patrol schedule had been deliberately twisted against him, giving Okabe the chance to place him in danger.
Here, that wasn't possible.
The garrison was too small, too tightly designed by Root.
It wasn't like the Daimyo's 'vast' palace by this world's standards.
So, no "weak spot" existed where he could conveniently be sent off to die.
And yet, Ryusei couldn't relax. If anything, the heavy Root presence made him more uneasy.
The patrol paths circled the ridges and trenches of the outpost, but always, in the center, loomed that one building, the hidden command post where the Root commander stayed.
Every time Ryusei's gaze drifted to it, an unpleasant chill gnawed at him. His senses told him nothing, no chakra, no life, just a blank void.
But in that silence, something darker pressed back. Ominous, heavy, like the building itself was watching him instead of the other way around.
He kept his face fixed in the narrow-eyed smile the world mistook for warmth, but inside his thoughts churned.
'Too quiet. Too controlled. Root didn't build this place to defend Grass; they built it to kill anyone they wanted inside it. I just can't see the angle yet.'
Ryusei didn't interact with anyone outside his own team much.
Okabe was the only one who spoke with the ANBU captain and even made a visit to the Root's secret chamber once.
When he came back, Ryusei tried to read his chakra and expression, but there was nothing concrete, only a faint impression that Okabe seemed more excited than before.
The four senior reinforcements from Konoha were all jōnin and naturally had little reason to speak with a newly promoted chūnin like them.
They had introduced themselves politely when they arrived, and that was it.
Ryusei didn't mind. He didn't see them as the real players against him anyway.
No, if danger was coming, it would come from Root, Iwa, or Kusa, or through all of them in some capacity.
Still, he wasn't unsettled.
By now, he also had a clear measure of the camp's strength.
Root had 5 squads, 25 chūnin of various kinds, drilled to obedience, each squad led by 1 jōnin captain.
The ANBU detachment was smaller but sharper, 1 high-jōnin commander and 5 operatives in the high-chūnin to mid-jōnin range.
Among the reinforcements from Konoha, the weight was obvious.
Chōza Akimichi stood at the top, an elite jōnin whose chakra alone dwarfed most.
Sumi Yukino was his equal, her presence just as heavy.
Shinku Yūhi and Gekkō Hisanori were both around high-jōnin.
Ryusei walked side by side with Renjiro along the ridge, the patrol path cutting through scrub and stone.
The Hatake boy's hand rested lazily on his sword hilt, but his eyes were sharp, scanning the treeline like he wanted something to jump out at him.
Silence stretched between them. Renjiro wasn't much for talking unless it was about fighting, and Ryusei had no interest in opening the door.
Their footsteps crunched in rhythm, the wind carrying only the faint creak of wood from the watchtowers behind them.
The camp loomed in the distance, Root operatives shifting in and out like ants, faceless under their masks.
At the center sat that hidden building, the commander's den.
Ryusei's gaze lingered on it for a heartbeat, his senses probing the void and finding nothing.
That absence was what unsettled him most.
Renjiro finally broke the silence, his tone casual but with that sharp undertone. "You're staring again. Expecting something to crawl out and bite you?"
Ryusei smiled faintly, the narrow-eyed expression he wore everywhere. "Just thinking how boring it would be if nothing did."
Renjiro snorted, half amusement, half challenge. "Heh. Careful what you wish for."
Ryusei smirked back. "Please. If something did crawl out, you'd just end up complaining that I stole your kill."
That earned him a sharp grin from Renjiro.
For a Hatake, that was practically laughter.
Ryusei let the moment hang for a beat, then shifted the topic as if it were casual.
"So. How's your lightning release coming along since last time?"
Renjiro's expression brightened at once.
"Finally nailed it. Lightning chakra flow on my tanto. Took longer than I'd like, but it's clean now." He drew the blade slightly, a faint crackle sparking along the edge.
Then he tilted his head at Ryusei. "Want to try it?"
Ryusei's smirk widened. "Always."
They moved without another word, sliding into combat atop the ridge.
Nothing flashy, no techniques that would draw attention from the sentries, but close combat, shadows clashing against shadows.
Steel hissed against air as Renjiro pressed, while Ryusei slipped through the strikes with effortless footwork.
Renjiro pushed harder, sparks trailing from his tanto. "Come on, block it with your arm again, if you dare."
Ryusei's smile never wavered. "No need. I'm already faster than you."
Their blades and limbs blurred, but neither raised their chakra enough to make a scene.
To the Root operatives in the distance, it was just two boys sparring.
It hadn't always been like this.
After the mission in the Land of Hot Water, something had shifted between them.
Both wanted strength, and both found it in lightning release.
For Renjiro, it was his only affinity, inherited from his clan and refined through manuals, especially their mastery of chakra flow on weapons.
For Ryusei, it was one of several, but one that could save his life if used differently.
Ryusei also knew lightning was best suited for body chakra enhancement and external chakra flow, thanks to its natural properties, so it could be developed fastest.
He didn't care about sharpening a blade; he didn't even carry one.
What he wanted was speed. More speed meant more chances to escape death.
Lightning's cutting edge didn't mesh well with his Senju taijutsu style anyway.
He had other ways to gain even more potency with less amount of effort.
As for developing a true, complete Lightning Chakra Mode, Ryusei knew it was impossible. He wasn't delusional.
Covering the entire body would take years to that extent, decades even, without the guidance of the Raikage line in Kumo.
That kind of investment wasn't realistic, even if he had a more capable body. Instead, he focused on where his edge already lay.
Defense through speed, through lightning, was the priority instead.
The idea came from Renjiro himself, offhand, during one of their B-rank missions.
A casual comment about a clan technique, fusing body flicker with lightning release to make the muscles burn hotter, moving faster than before. A B-rank technique reserved for Hatake.
Ryusei's mind lit up instantly. He asked for help. And Renjiro, surprisingly, hadn't hesitated.
His clan was nearly extinct anyway, and the Hokage's faction had long since absorbed Hatake techniques through Kakashi.
More importantly, Ryusei had already given him something greater: the intuitive training method he used for nature immersion to understand his lightning nature better and other direct insights about it.
That had let Renjiro cut corners on his own development, far beyond what any manual could teach. So they traded.
In return, Ryusei's insights into lightning release immersion helped Renjiro finally awaken lightning flow on his tanto. A clean exchange.
Ryusei still didn't dare let that tanto touch him.
With lightning chakra flow sharpening its edge, he estimated it might even pierce through his Flowing Willow Guard.
He wasn't about to risk an injury now, not when the stakes around him were this high.
By his measure, Renjiro's strength had already broken through the Low-Jōnin threshold.
A year later than Kakashi, maybe, but still impressive for someone who had just turned thirteen.
Renjiro had once mentioned he was a few months older than Ryusei, and it made sense now; his growth lined up perfectly.
The reason Ryusei asked for that Hatake technique was simple: he had given Renjiro plenty in the past, from sensory camouflage tricks to practical insights, so he expected the boy to reciprocate.
The idea itself came after he'd racked his brain for new ways to accelerate his growth following the Land of Hot Water mission.
He remembered Renjiro hinting that Sakumo had used lightning release, in the back of his mind.
Renjiro framed it as blade-sharpening, but Ryusei remembered something else, from his old world.
The Raikage, molding lightning for everything, but most importantly for speed.
That had sparked the thought: if Sakumo had perhaps left a manual for lightning-enhanced movement technique, it would be tailor-made for a Hatake.
Ryusei nudged Renjiro into the topic, and sure enough, the boy eventually brought up the clan's Lightning Body Flicker technique.
It was there even before Sakumo.
A B-rank move, combining lightning release with body flicker to drive the muscles hotter, faster.
Renjiro had admitted he couldn't master it. His body wasn't strong enough yet.
But the moment Ryusei heard that, he knew the technique was perfect for him.
With Senju vitality backing him alongside his monstrous taijutsu training, it was as if the jutsu had been designed for his frame.
So he asked directly, and Renjiro gave it up easily.
Now, with his affinity for lightning, his long-standing experience and knowledge of the seals required for it, and his immersion training, Ryusei had already pushed the technique close to completion.
Not perfect yet, but nearly.
Maybe it was precisely because the technique was still imperfect, for the first time, in a long time, Renjiro finally found a real opening on Ryusei.
His tanto slipped past Ryusei's guard, the blade a breath away from his neck.