Dan stepped closer, his voice catching. "Is that… a diamond?"
He had worked with jewellery before—crafting, setting stones, and assessing quality. The refractive pattern, the clarity, the way the light scattered through the stone — his hands knew what his mind was still refusing.
Ryu caught it in his palm and turned it under the lamp. "Yes. An artificial diamond — the first of its kind in this world."
Dan swallowed. "How?"
Ryu held the diamond out. Dan took it, turned it once more under the light, and said nothing for a moment.
"Beautiful," he said quietly.
"A Diamond Release ninjutsu…" Dan said, almost to himself.
"Diamonds are made of carbon," Ryu explained. "Under pressure, carbon's structure rearranges into a tetrahedral lattice. I used [Carbon Control] to gather raw material, then [Hamura-Style Chakra Control], which I developed—a more advanced, stronger, and more precise Yin-Yang control method, different from the standard approach entirely—applying pressure in a specific pattern, not uniformly, with a little [Senju-Style Chakra Impulse] for the final compression to force the atoms into the correct lattice formation."
Dan looked at the stone in his hand, then at the living diamond standing in front of him. The boy had created a diamond — the first artificial one in this world. He carefully placed it on the workbench, the diamond gleaming under the light.
The boy had also developed a new chakra control method — refined it from something far older, from the look of it, and made it his own. Dan said nothing for a moment, then: "You developed this method yourself?"
"Yes," Ryu said. "And there's another one in development. Not ready yet…. I call it the [Chakra Engine]."
Dan looked at him for a moment. Pride was not something he showed easily, and he did not show it now — but it was there. "How many do you have?"
"Three, if you count the Senju style," Ryu said. "Two of my own – one ready, one not yet."
His eyes narrowed – Senju-style from Tsunade. [Hamura-Style Chakra Control], just now, built on Yin-Yang logic he'd never encountered framed that way. And a third is still unfinished, apparently. Three disciplines, each built on a different foundation entirely, and the boy was still in the academy.
Dan nodded once, slowly. Then the thinking started about the [Diamond Release] and looked at the diamond on the workbench – properly this time, past the beauty of it.
Dan's expression tightened as the full weight of it settled. "Only the crime lords and nobles dealing in diamonds. You've just threatened their entire market. The diamond trade lords would place a bounty on your head….. "
"Yes, they would surely do that," Ryu said.
Dan nodded once, sharply, showing his firm agreement. "Then we hide it."
"We can't hide it forever." Ryu's tone stayed even, but his eyes moved to the scattered plans on the table like they were a calendar of disasters. "Our budget is for country-level projects — Ironheart City, the Leaf–River Road belt, and satellite infrastructure. We need immediate funds for long-term sustenance. We have to release artificial diamonds without making enemies."
"First," Ryu said, "we hide that it's a jutsu and minimise exposure from enemies in the shinobi world. We say they're machine-made. Artificial diamonds created through industrial processes."
"Yes, that is a good idea. Mist and Cloud Village are already out for our blood," Dan said. "Can you even build such a machine or we only faking it?"
Ryu replied, "No. I can build such a machine. The designs are theoretical right now, but with your help I can build working prototypes. Two months if we work efficiently."
Dan then asked, "And the merchant world?"
"That problem can't be erased completely," Ryu said. "But it can be managed if we make them partners instead of enemies."
Dan's gaze sharpened, and the old man's business sense activated as he understood the idea.
Ryu continued, "We sell through dealers directly to the big houses and noble merchants, not open markets to the general public. This way the regular supply chain and those diamond merchants can all profit from our work. That way we aren't threatening their control. And if we price them cheaper than natural diamonds, we can keep both markets separate."
Dan considered the proposal carefully, weighing the potential outcomes. "That could work — if the right dealers cooperate."
"They will," Ryu said. "The middle-income jewellery market is unexplored . They cannot buy natural diamonds, which are exclusive to the high-income sector. Status symbols don't die just because a cheaper version exists so rich and noble people will keep on buying the natural diamonds over artificial ones."
Dan stared at him, then at the diamond again, as if it might start speaking. "You're trying to reshape a market that kings and criminals have protected for generations. Everything might not go as you planned."
"Maybe…I'm trying to build a future," Ryu said. "Anyone standing in front of it will have to decide if that's worth the price."
Dan said nothing, but his jaw set in the particular way it did when he decided something was someone else's battle to lose.
"Grandpa — [Hamura-Style Chakra Control] carries our family name. I want you to learn it properly. I'll walk you through it in detail later tomorrow."
Dan paused at the doorway and turned back. "You want to teach it to me?"
"Yes," Ryu said.
Dan's eyes narrowed with interest. He nodded and said, "I was here to ask you what you would like for dinner."
Ryu replied, "No need… I am ordering from Ichiraku."
After Dan nodded and left, Ryu picked up the diamond and put it away like it was a tool, not a treasure. He couldn't afford to admire it.
Night had nearly fallen by the time he set the last blueprint for his Diamond Pressing Machine in order. He ordered food.
The smell hit the corridor first, and then the house filled with the loud voices of hungry children. Bowls lined the table. Chopsticks clicked. Rina and Kaia were arguing across the table about who had the better training session, neither waiting for the other to finish. Everyone ate like they were on a timed mission. Akihiro tapped the table twice, signalling seconds without looking up.
Naruto had forgotten the exhaustion from the brutal training entirely somewhere between his first bowl and his request for a second one. Toshiro ate without comment, which for him passed as contentment.
The sleepover happened without anyone formally announcing it. Toshiro and Naruto ended up in Ryu's room.
Ryu waited until the breathing in the room became even; he sat cross-legged on the bed and began circulating chakra, practising his [Chakra Engine].
Ryu had been keeping the active state for longer periods now. Not during fights for safety purposes, but during days and during ordinary work. The strain had faded from conscious effort into habit, and that shift mattered more than any single burst of power.
His chakra moved at twice the passive baseline — controlled and deliberate, like a wheel that refused to stop turning.
"Capacity is increasing," he noted. "Active state duration too has increased."
[Chakra Engine] was no longer a far-fetched, unstable idea. It was slowly becoming a jutsu and a chakra control method.
"The prerequisite work is the bottleneck," he thought. "Without physical conditioning first, it will be difficult , especially for others..."
Their extended circulation drills were already underway, and the pathway conditioning was progressing – but the body adapted at its own pace regardless of how many chakra control exercises he stacked into their schedule. He would continue testing higher configurations on himself in the meantime. There was still a ceiling to find, and he intended to find it before he put anyone else anywhere near it.
"Ryu," Toshiro said, voice thick with sleep.
Ryu didn't stop circulating. "Yes?"
"What are you doing?"
"Practising a different chakra control method," Ryu said.
Toshiro shifted on the bedroll, turning towards him. "Different from what you showed me earlier, is it?"
Ryu nodded.
There was a brief pause. Even half-asleep, Toshiro's instincts were sharp. He wasn't a sensor, but he was a Senju, trained to feel fine changes in chakra through practice and bruises.
"I can feel it," Toshiro said, more awake now. "It's faint, but it's there. Teach me this instead of what you showed me earlier." Toshiro pushed himself upright as he said it.
Ryu looked at him without expression. "No."
The micro-Rasengan had worked. The proof of concept was there, backed by three subsequent tests on himself—each one pushing the rotation density higher, each one extracting a proportionally worse toll. Pain he could barely manage.
His [Super Healing] handled the microtears in his pathways fast enough. Without it, Gear One's current configuration would chew through an underdeveloped chakra network before the user had time to realise the damage was happening.
Ryu was seeking a method to control the technique and gradually adapt the body without harm, but he acknowledged that his methods were not yet suitable for teaching others.
Toshiro blinked. "Why not?"
"Because I'm still testing it on myself," Ryu said. "I don't know what it does to a pathway that hasn't been conditioned for it. You could end up with damage I can't predict or fix."
Toshiro was quiet. "Damage you can't fix," he repeated, more to himself than to Ryu.
"Yes. And there's something else." Ryu held the circulation steady, his voice even. "The conditioning process requires a seal placed directly on the practitioner. A permanent prerequisite seal. You might not think of it as much but others might think of it as branding. No clan would see it in a good light… ask any Hyuga from the bracing family."
Many Kinds of Chakra Control- Carbon control, Senju impulse, Hamura style, and the chakra engine are each a different language for the same force. Some of them he could teach freely. [Chakra Engine] came with a seal, as without it others would not be able to micromanage the chakra in the precise way needed so as to not damage the body…. Unless you are a Hyuga with precise chakra control.
Ryu managed it through his superior perception and his exceptional chakra control that rivals Hyuga's and his healing prowess.
But the seal part comes with its own complication – the privacy of the body. Individuals would be hesitant to subject themselves to an unfamiliar seal placed by another person. Which was why [InstinctGPT] had never been offered to Kohinata or Kaori.
Toshiro said nothing for a moment. His expression had sharpened — not suspicion, but the particular clarity of someone running through what they'd just heard and finding nothing false in it, as he knows about the Hyuga's [Bird Cage Seal].
"Yes…The clan wouldn't accept it," Toshiro said.
Toshiro lay back down. "Fine."
A pause. Then: "Goodnight, Ryu."
"Goodnight."
Ryu kept the [Chakra Engine] running for a long while after that, even in sleep — the slow, deliberate wheel turning and turning — until deep sleep finally took him.
A/N:
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