As they finished with everything more important regarding the aftermath, Choza was the first to arrive at Ryusei's position, towering over everyone, his frame still enormous though he had dispelled his giant mode.
His uniform was scorched, blood smeared across one sleeve, but his presence was steady and commanding, like a moving wall.
Yukino followed close behind, ink stains splattered across her arms and cheeks, her expression calm but visibly exhausted.
Her eyes flicked toward Shinku and Hisanori with the familiarity of old comrades. They were all in their mid-thirties and similar generation.
The last was the masked Inuzuka ANBU captain, his white hound mask cracked along the jaw, but he remained silent, a sharp presence radiating even through the stoicism of ANBU training.
Ryusei sat cross-legged on the rubble, eyes closed, Mystic Palm glowing faintly as it knitted at his ribs. Kanae and Renjiro stood nearby, one pretending indifference, the other restless as always.
Choza grunted heavily, his voice carrying weight. "Ryusei Nishida... You're still conscious? After taking a hit like that? Most jonin would be carried off the field."
Ryusei opened one eye, lips curling into that narrow-eyed smirk. "Conscious enough to finish the job. Broken ribs heal. Letting the commander live? That doesn't."
Yukino narrowed her eyes. "You talk like it was nothing, but I watched you break through a wall of enemies to get here. That wasn't luck. That was calculation."
Her tone was cold, but beneath it lingered something like reluctant respect. "You were calm enough to plan all that mid-battle. To drag others into it. At your age? That's not normal."
Renjiro scoffed, wiping blood from his cheek. "He's been hiding it. Playing smaller than he is. Figures. Even I didn't think you'd hold out against someone like that."
Kanae's gaze lingered, her voice clipped but unsteady. "Idiot doesn't even realize what he pulled off. Charging into an elite jonin with half your ribs shattered? Do you have a death wish, or are you just insane?" Her cheeks colored faintly despite her tone.
Shinku let out a dry chuckle. "Hiding your true strength until now, huh? That explains a lot. I thought you were reckless. Turns out you're just… dangerous."
The Inuzuka captain tilted his head slightly, his mask hiding his face, but the silence carried acknowledgment.
Choza exhaled slowly, his deep voice lowering. "Killing the enemy Commander like that will be remembered. You turned the tide here, boy. Konoha doesn't often see someone your age pull something like this. Don't think the Hokage won't hear about it."
Ryusei closed his narrowed eyes again, a smirk tugging faintly. "Good. But it won't be just the Hokage, I guess..."
But then he switched the topic, remembering that he hadn't seen that annoying face for a while, "Where's our captain, Okabe? Don't tell me he decided to vanish the moment things turned serious."
Yukino's expression shifted, sharper than before. "You didn't hear? He was injured in the earlier fighting. Badly. He's alive, but… he's in a coma. Taken to another wing of the stronghold to stabilize."
Ryusei's smile froze for a fraction of a second, then curved upward again, almost unreadable.
Shinku gave him a look. "He's still breathing. He'll recover if the medics say so."
"Until then," Choza rumbled, folding his massive arms, "we're to stay here and recover as well. Orders are already moving up the chain. We wait until the Hokage decides what to do with us."
Ryusei leaned back, his ribs still mending under green chakra glow, and let the words sink in.
Soon, after a few more minutes of casual talk about the aftermath, about what rewards the Hokage might issue, when they would return to Konoha, and what came next for the Land of Grass, and Kusagakrue, the senior jonin and Anbu drifted off one by one.
Yukino left first with Shinku, murmuring something about helping coordinate the reinforcements.
Choza lumbered away to check on the wounded. Even the masked Inuzuka captain slipped off without a word.
In the end, only three remained in the dimly lit barracks again: Ryusei, Kanae, and Renjiro.
Ryusei leaned back against the wall, letting his breathing even out, his mind already turning over what he had just witnessed.
He was somewhat impressed with all four of them, Choza, Yukino, Shinku, and Hisanori.
Each had shown why they were considered elites among elites, people who carried the village on their shoulders.
Yet he couldn't help but wonder why none of them, besides Choza, appeared in the "original timeline" he knew from his past life's memories.
Perhaps the answer was obvious. This war was the deadliest Konoha had ever faced. Even among elites, survival wasn't guaranteed.
Out of the four, Choza left the deepest impression. The man was barely in his early twenties, yet already a top contender among elite jōnin, standing tall even alongside veterans a decade older than him.
Ryusei privately admitted that in raw battlefield presence, Choza might one day brush the ceiling of what he had come to think of as the "Quasi-Kage" level.
Officially, there were no such titles, only genin, chūnin, jōnin, and the rare special jōnin rank. But those ranks were often misleading. Special jōnin were simply shinobi recognized for excelling in one narrow field, not necessarily overall strength.
"Elite jōnin," on the other hand, was an unofficial phrase, whispers passed in barracks and mission logs to mark those at the very peak of jōnin strength, shinobi who stood just below the true monsters who wore the hat of Kage.
In reality, there were hundreds of jōnin in each great shinobi village, but perhaps only a few dozen could be called "elite."
And curiously, Ryusei realized, the majority of those elites, from Konoha, came from two clans: the Uchiha and the Hyūga Main Branch.
The Uchiha's power was undeniable, their dōjutsu and affinity for genjutsu making them terrors on the field. But they were shackled to the Police Force, a cage that both separated them from Konoha and poisoned them against it.
Most of their strongest stayed inside the clan, distrusted by the village and distrusting it in return. Only the dovish faction, once led by Kagami Uchiha, had ever blended deeply into Konoha's Anbu and higher missions.
But Kagami's death in the First Shinobi War had cut that line, and under Hiruzen's long reign of suppression, the doves had withered.
Now, only Fugaku's neutral faction, joined with those dovish remnants, and the true hawks remained, holding an uneasy balance.
The Hyūga Main Branch was little better. Their strongest remained cloistered in the clan compound, living decadently while their Side Branch acted as their servants and shields.
They rarely showed themselves, and when they did, it was often only to remind the village who really sat atop the Hyūga hierarchy.
That explained why you rarely saw many elite jōnin stand openly on Konoha's side. The village had them, but they were tied up in politics, clan grudges, or simply refusing to serve.
Which brought Ryusei back to his own idea, the "Quasi-Kage." It wasn't a real rank, just something he had created in his head to describe those who pushed past the limits of elite jōnin but didn't yet come close enough to really wear the title of Hokage, as they lacked a bit more strength.
People like Danzo, who thrived in the shadows, or Choza in the future, once he matured further. Perhaps even some faceless Anbu commander who never left the records.
Minato and the Sannin, of course, were already well past that line. They lived in a different spectrum entirely, the Kage spectrum.
Ryusei's eyes narrowed faintly as he thought. If even men and women like Choza and Yukino could be erased by the war, then he would need to climb even faster.
Ryusei had also grown considerably in strength on this mission alone.
In truth, he felt himself only a single step away from brushing against that so-called elite jōnin ceiling.
What he still lacked was clear: a little more time, the opening of his Second Gate, and mastery over a few more high-level releases—A-rank fire and lightning techniques, and solid B-rank jutsu in the other three elements.
After all, Ryusei was always super paranoid about revealing or training anything more of that sort inside the village.
He knew well that Konoha was already blanketed by a massive sensory barrier maintained by an entire division of specialists, and on top of that, there was that absurd crystal ball Hiruzen flaunted in the original series, the so-called tool that allowed him to spy on literally anyone, anywhere, both inside the village and beyond.
Ryusei knew that the old voyeur had already skimmed across his chakra signature, required for that more than once in the office.
And who said there was only one crystal ball, or that only Hiruzen himself could use it? For all Ryusei knew, the Hokage could have an entire squad of trusted ANBU running constant surveillance on people like him.
That was why he never once risked practicing even the simplest elemental ninjutsu with the three additional nature releases he had unlocked. Not inside the village, and not even at the official training grounds outside. Anything involving chakra left a signature, and signatures could be traced.
Taijutsu, however, was another matter. Shifts in his body, in muscle and bone, in the way he moved, were far harder to detect. Even the opening of the initial Gates was more internalized, less obvious to outside senses, and typically underestimated by those who couldn't use it themselves. That was what made it safe, and why he leaned into it so much while biding his time.
Although it was likely far harder to use such surveillance on an advanced sensory ninja like him without being noticed, unlike the Academy-era Naruto, and, hence, even if it couldn't be probably sustained at all times or without cost or effort, Ryusei still knew he couldn't risk it.
Nevertheless, now that he was about to finally get more freedom during the upcoming war, those new nature release techniques were the next milestones he could see in front of him.
But such progress would take months at the very least, unless battle itself gifted him new flashes of insight.
There was no shortcut. After all, in the whole of Konoha, there were only a few dozen who could be called elite jōnin, and almost all of them had only reached that level deep into their shinobi prime, well into their thirties.
And in truth, the higher one aimed, the steeper the climb became. It was the natural law of growth: reaching elite jōnin level was far harder than the step before it.
Advancing from high jōnin to elite was never as simple as the leap from chūnin to jōnin.
Ryusei knew the only reason his strength had grown so quickly, defying every precedent and logic of this world, was not the body's innate talent.
The original owner had crawled for years just to reach high-chūnin.
Comparing them now was like comparing a candle to a bonfire, the same flame but burning in entirely different skies.
The difference was mainly in mindset.
It wasn't only the bird's-eye perspective and meta-knowledge he carried as a transmigrator, but the way he thought, every day, every hour.
He sowed seeds in countless places, so breakthroughs sprouted almost constantly.
If one path stalled, he simply shifted to another, letting progress stack elsewhere until the bottleneck broke.
No time was wasted, no energy without leverage.
He sought the most gain for the least risk, and always kept his hands in more than one basket.
Then there was his contrarian edge, thinking outside the box when others stayed caged by tradition.
Many of his best techniques and methods weren't born from raw talent, but from breaking away from what was considered normal.
What everyone else dismissed as impossible or unworthy, he twisted into an advantage.
And finally, the long view. He never lost sight of the forest for the trees.
He could have rushed into learning a few flashy A-rank jutsu early, but then he would have crippled the deeper elemental attunement he was patiently building.
By slowing down now, he was preparing to reap much larger gains later, when those same A-rank techniques would fall into his hands naturally, reinforced by a stronger foundation.
It was all of these, seed planting, leverage, contrarian thought, and long-term patience, that made his growth unstoppable.
And if there was a lesson in it, it was simple.
Talent sets the ceiling, but mindset and hard work decide whether you ever touch it. Those who think narrowly climb only so far before stalling.
But those who see broadly, who move with patience and precision, who use every drop of time like it is blood, those people will eventually stand where no one thought possible.
Ryusei clenched his fist as his ribs ached faintly under his Mystic Palm.
'That's why I'll win. Not because I was born better, but because I'll never waste a single step.'