Ryusei went back home, not feeling strange about having asked someone close to a civilian for guidance.
After all, what he wanted was theory, not fighting knowledge.
Once the theory was solid, the only difference between fuinjutsu users came down to simple chakra.
More chakra meant stronger seals, capable of binding greater power.
That was why the Uzumaki had once stood as kings of the craft, amongst other reasons.
For the next week, Ryusei buried himself in the introductory notes.
He split his time between reading, experimenting, and hammering the lessons into his body through shadow clones.
At first, he made as many as twenty at once, flooding his small courtyard with copies. When he recalled them, the rush of memories left him dizzy, but he pushed through, then turned to sparring with a few clones at a time.
Those spars grew harsher each day, chakra-enhanced taijutsu turning the quiet yard into a battlefield.
The noise carried, sometimes drawing complaints from neighbors, but Ryusei ignored them.
Bit by bit, he began to piece together things the original owner had missed from the Senju-style taijutsu scrolls left behind.
It wasn't perfect, but it was enough to realize he needed real opponents, not shadows of himself.
So one morning, he headed for the training grounds.
They sat on the village's edge, the only places where shinobi were permitted to use larger-scale ninjutsu without worrying about damaging homes or shops.
Vast stretches of land, shaped somewhere between the parks Ryusei once knew in his old world and the wild forests beyond the walls.
Some grounds even extended outside the walls entirely, though those were patrolled relentlessly by Uchiha police and Hyūga scouts.
No one slipped in or out without being noticed.
The Hyūga ran their own security division too, something Ryusei recalled being called the "Perimeter Watch," which oversaw the external defenses, and it was the first line of response in the case of village invasions.
Their range extended farther than Konoha's hidden sensory barrier of the village itself, managed by the Barrier Team, a separate division altogether.
Ryusei chose the more distant grounds, away from the crowds.
There, the trees and uneven terrain gave him the natural environment he needed for his nature release immersion training.
He could also move, strike, and push his body freely without worrying about being seen.
He wasn't paranoid about being spied on either; he was a shinobi, training was expected, but he wasn't stupid.
No advanced techniques, nothing that could give anyone the wrong idea. For now, there was nothing advanced to show anyway.
He flexed his hands, stepping onto the worn dirt path beneath the canopy.
The quiet hum of chakra users dotted his senses in the distance, but no one was close enough to interfere. Perfect.
"Time to see what this body can really handle," he muttered, narrowing his eyes as he strode deeper into the trees.
The Senju taijutsu system, known informally as the Strong Fist, was built on the clan's natural advantages: raw vitality, overwhelming physicality, and deep chakra reserves.
Its philosophy was simple: your body was the greatest weapon, so refine it until no other tool was needed.
Weapons were unnecessary, grappling was impractical in a world of kunai, jutsu, and multiple enemies.
Striking was king, and the Senju struck harder than anyone else.
The base of the style was explosive dominance.
Tsunade embodied it best: every step a controlled detonation, every strike an overwhelming burst that shattered defenses.
The style didn't rely on finesse or elaborate stances.
It relied on sudden acceleration, short, violent bursts of chakra reinforcement, and absolute confidence that one strike would be enough to break the enemy.
The original Ryusei inherited fragments of this. His moves weren't polished, but the foundation showed through.
His stance was upright, arms loose, as if ready to spring at a moment's notice.
When he attacked, his fists and elbows cracked forward with sudden bursts of chakra reinforcement.
His favored technique was a driving straight punch, chakra compressed in the knuckles, that could send an opponent staggering even if it didn't land clean.
He had a variation of the 'Senju heel-drop', where he leapt and slammed his foot down with a chakra burst, creating a shockwave in the ground to knock enemies off balance.
Another was a 'body-reinforcement surge', momentary chakra hardening of the forearms or shins so his blocks didn't just stop a strike, but rebounded force back into the attacker.
The difference between Might Guy and Rock Lee was philosophical.
The Senju style assumed the body was already overwhelming, so chakra was used in short, efficient bursts to magnify decisive strikes.
Guy and Lee, though also masters of chakra reinforcement, trained themselves like weapons forged from nothing.
Their baseline, before the Gates, was about ceaseless stamina, chaining fluid combinations, wearing opponents down with speed and pressure.
The Senju approach was the opposite: end it as quickly as possible with overwhelming explosions of force, then move on to the next enemy.
Where Guy and Lee turned every fight into a storm of motion, the Senju style made each strike a hammerfall meant to close the fight instantly.
Ryusei could do only some C-rank taijutsu techniques imperfectly, in a worse form, due to the predecessor's disregard.
His blows still landed heavy, but without the precision or crushing follow-through of a true master.
To anyone watching, he looked like someone carrying the memory of a lion's roar but only able to let out a growl.
The forest clearing changed after Ryusei began his practice.
Every strike left the ground a little more torn up.
The soil was kicked into uneven dents, small pits forming where his chakra-enhanced blows landed.
A few trees bore cracks up their trunks from missed strikes, and bark splintered as if hit by a hammer.
Branches shook loose whenever he clashed with his clones, scattering leaves across the clearing.
The smell of smoke lingered from earlier fire release drills, mixing with the faint static left behind by his lightning.
This patch of forest was already starting to look like a proper training ground.
Over the next few days, he split his time between the forest and home.
Out here, he could push his taijutsu without worrying about breaking anything, mixing it freely with ninjutsu.
With the help of shadow clones, he patched up the gaps the previous owner had left behind.
At the end of each session, he settled into immersion training, breathing in the feel of nature, practicing release adaptation, visualizing chakra coils, and sharpening his internal perception.
Back at home, he returned to his fuinjutsu studies, repeating the cycle without pause.
He kept his senses open the entire time, never letting them rest.
And then, one day, he finally caught the presence he had been waiting for.
Two distinct signatures, both familiar from the rumors he'd chased down, Might Guy and his father, Duy.
Ryusei had been looking for them all along, knowing they would show up sooner or later.
He'd asked around days ago about the strange duo in green, and people had pointed him here, saying it was one of their favorite training spots.
It had just taken longer than expected since they apparently liked to rotate between different grounds for variety.
Ryusei didn't mind. They were here now.
Only in places this secluded could anyone safely train the Eight Gates after all, in his opinion.