Ryusei returned to Renjiro's side, laid a hand on his chest, and healed him some more before they moved on.
The three continued through the forest, searching for the wolves again.
They didn't encounter the pack directly, but over time, Kanae's Byakugan picked out faint trails and claw marks all pointing to a single direction.
"They went this way for sure," she determined flatly, this time, lowering her hand.
Ryusei nodded. "Good. Then I'll focus my sensing only that way."
Ryusei closed his eyes again, but this time, he didn't spread his chakra evenly in every direction.
Instead, he narrowed it, forcing his sensory particles to scatter only along the path Kanae had identified.
Like a river channeled through a canyon, the reach extended much farther than his usual 360-degree sweep.
His concentration deepened, each pulse sent forward with meditative precision.
He shut out everything else, Renjiro's faint grumbling, the rustle of leaves, even Kanae's gaze on him.
The longer he focused, the farther those invisible threads stretched, crawling through valley after valley.
The minutes piled up, his face calm but his body taut with control.
Two hours later, his eyes snapped open. "Found them. They're resting."
Renjiro clicked his tongue. "Tch. Took long enough."
Kanae gave him a sharp look, then turned back toward Ryusei. "Where?"
"Three valleys east," Ryusei answered. "Too far for Byakugan, but clear enough for me."
He paused, then shifted his focus in another direction.
This time, he pushed his chakra outward in a different pattern, letting it flare deliberately instead of staying hidden.
His sensory net pulsed, reaching for a signal he already knew.
It took thirty minutes of steady focus before the feedback came.
His Shadow Clone, the one traveling with Okabe, had felt the signal instantly.
Clones were part of him, after all, and unlike most shinobi, his sensory clone understood the same signaling pattern perfectly.
It sent the message back without error.
Okabe would be led toward them now, guided by the clone.
Renjiro frowned. "You… signaled him?"
Ryusei nodded calmly. "Talented sensors don't just detect. They can also make their presence known. With a system, two sensors can communicate across long distances. Okabe isn't one, but my clone beside him is. That's enough."
Renjiro gave a low whistle, shaking his head. "You keep pulling out tricks."
Ryusei's expression didn't change.
Kanae's pale eyes flicked to him briefly, then away, her face unreadable.
Soon after, Okabe arrived.
Ryusei's clone had already dispersed on purpose, saving chakra instead of wasting it by also rushing here, after relaying everything to Okabe successfully.
Ryusei gave a quick explanation of the wolves' resting spot, then the four of them set off together.
As they leapt across the branches, the plan came together in short bursts of conversation.
The squad moved faster, branches whipping past them, the air heavy with the anticipation of the strike to come.
The four of them soon dropped into position around the den.
Kanae marked bodies with quick calls as her Byakugan swept the brush and burrows.
Okabe raised a palm. "Bastion Wall to seal the back. Spears to funnel. We hit from both sides."
The stone rose behind the den in layered slabs.
Earth Flow Spears sprouted to form a chute that drove the wolves toward Renjiro and Ryusei instead of into the trees.
Ryusei kept to taijutsu by choice. He wanted live reps.
He moved first, baiting the nearest wolf and smashing its snout aside with a shin check, the Flowing Willow Guard hardening bone on impact.
The beast flipped, chakra sputtering.
Renjiro slipped past him, blade short and bright with that white aura.
He cut tendons and hamstrings rather than bone, precise and clean, reading joints and nerves the way Hatake sword work was meant to.
Kanae did not waste time. Her Byakugan tracked every tenketsu under fur.
She throttled range to gain clarity, then throttled clarity to regain range, a smooth tradeoff in real time.
The curse seal limited her peak distance and X-ray sharpness compared to the main branch, and she lacked formal access to guarded forms like Rotation, but her precision was cruel.
She struck with Gentle Fist and closed points in pairs.
When two betas lunged together, she flowed through Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, a technique branch members were not supposed to know.
Ryusei watched her rhythm and thought, 'She learned it the hard way, probably.'
The famous blind spot at the upper spine existed for branch members like Kanae.
The main branch reportedly had none.
However, nowadays, even the Side Branch members used that weakness as bait anyway.
Okabe's role was control.
Bastion Wall absorbed a charging beta and redirected the force into the ground.
Earth Shore Return slapped aside another pounce.
When the two tried to burrow, he raised a low dome, then knifed spears through the soil to force them up into Renjiro's range.
He fought like a careful gatekeeper, buying time and shaping the field.
Ryusei logged the picture in his head. Solid, practiced, but nothing special for his age.
'He will plateau. I will surprise him soon.'
The alpha broke the den last.
Its eyes were red, chakra heavy, frame larger than any from Ryusei's past life.
It read his steps well, more intelligent than normal, but it was still slower than his execution.
Ryusei met a paw with Flowing Willow Guard, blurred up the forearm with Body Flicker, and ended the rush with a full Senju Heel-Drop that cratered the hollow and sent shards of stone and root out in a ring.
The shock stunned the last two betas.
Renjiro finished one with a single throat cut.
Kanae stepped through the other and shut its center with four quick palms. Silence held.
Ryusei kept his analysis rolling while he wiped blood from his heel.
He already knew Renjiro's level from their spar.
Precision style, reads rhythm, hunts weak points, deadly once the fight drags. Today confirmed it.
Against beasts, he targeted joints, nerves, and even chakra pathways when the white edge flared.
His body enhancement matched Ryusei's in speed and strength, tailored for cuts rather than crashes.
Kanae's profile became clear. Byakugan is three knobs that never max together.
Clarity, range, and x-ray can be tuned up or down, and 360 sight in practice narrows when she pushes the other two.
The curse seal pulls her caps lower than the main branch and blocks guarded forms, yet she compensates with exact chakra control and field sense.
She is not just the basic Gentle Fist and Thirty-Two Palms. She has Sixty-Four and uses it cleanly. She is a threat who hides it well.
Okabe looked exactly like a defensive Earth specialist should.
Earth Wall, Dome, Spears, Shore Return, and the denser Bastion variant as his anchor. Control, delay, punish.
The wolves themselves fought like a trained unit.
Pack spacing, triangle flanks, smart retreats.
Chakra made their claws bite and their bodies soak blows that would break normal bone.
Kanae's internal strikes ruined them anyway because chakra circulation is life.
Closing points collapsed muscle and organs from the inside.
Renjiro's cuts bled them out fast.
Okabe kept the board tilted so none could escape.
Ryusei stayed with taijutsu on purpose.
He wanted the forms to live in his bones.
Flowing Willow Guard for hard checks and parries.
Coiling Serpent Fist for fast kills when a throat or chest opened.
Senju Heel-Drop as area control or a ground blast to throw rock at a cluster.
By the time they cleaned the den, he had what he wanted.
Real data on the rest of his team as well.
The pack was down, the alpha broken, and the mission was soon wrapped with no wasted chakra.
Okabe was nothing special for his age, in Ryusei's eyes, just a slightly more talented civilian.
At Ryusei's current pace, he would reach that level in a few months and surpass it within half a year at the latest.
In Ryusei's opinion, the smarter path for Okabe would have been obvious: put more effort into taijutsu, instead of just Earth Release.
The man had a naturally solid build, and he already padded it out with a handful of Earth Release tricks.
With enough stubbornness, even a civilian could climb absurdly high.
Guy and Duy had already proven it, Guy reaching even 'Six Paths–level' heights, temporarily in the original series, against Madara, without a bloodline, just through hard work and taijutsu.
But Okabe? He was like every other short-sighted civilian Ryusei saw in this world firsthand.
Instead of grinding his body into steel, he wasted his life currying favor, licking Hiruzen's boots for a chance at some flashy B- or A-rank jutsu.
It was comical to Ryusei.
These people whined endlessly about being trapped by their civilian background, but when given the option of brute-forcing their way up, they rejected it.
Too unglamorous. Too "uncool."
Better to suck up to another clan head, as Hiruzen still technically was, and call it 'ambition'.
Once the war began, Okabe would no longer be able to control him.
Depending on how and where they were deployed, Ryusei even considered whether eliminating him outright might be necessary.
But, he had to be careful regarding that, after all, he had no desire to end up with an even stronger Elite Jonin "sensei" replacement from ANBU watching his every move.
Kanae and Renjiro, on the other hand, needed to be drawn closer to his side before the war.
Not only so Ryusei could move more freely without their constant reports shadowing him, and use them as a convenient mask when needed, but also because both carried real potential as useful allies.
He already learned everything he needed to know about Renjiro's potential firsthand. But regarding Kanae, too, for someone from the Hyūga branch family and for her age, she was also very strong and talented.
She had mastered the Byakugan and Gentle Fist basics thoroughly and even pushed herself into techniques normally reserved for the main branch. Ryusei had seen her unleash Sixty-Four Palms just now, something that should not have been possible for her position.
He reasoned it out. Once a Hyuga mastered Thirty-Two Palms, the step to Sixty-Four was more about talent and precision than secret teachings. It was arithmetic. The same jutsu.
Side Branch members were trained in the basics, even helped along to Thirty-Two. So why did most stop there? It couldn't be only the lack of further follow-up spoon-fed instructions.
Ryusei's conclusion was simple. The gap between the Main and Side Branch was not only about suppressed instruction. The curse mark suppressed the bloodline and dojutsu itself.
That was the real barrier. Only the truly gifted, like Neji, could push past it. Kanae, too, to some extent, seemed to be one of those exceptions, judging from her pace of improvement.
Even techniques like Vacuum Palm and Rotation, which are even more advanced and derived, were still rooted in the basic Gentle Fist at the base that everyone in the clan had acess to. Therefore, with enough talent and refinement, they could be figured out.
The problem was that most Side Branch members lacked the capacity to overcome the curse seal's restraint. Neji proved it could be done. Kanae showed hints of the same.