All Hokage in The Chat Group

Honestly, you couldn't blame them for how the lottery turned out.

Today's mall event, well, the lottery system specifically, was just abnormal enough to make people second-guess their sanity.

Once the drawing reached the so-called "third prize," which might as well have been the last place consolation, the atmosphere completely soured.

Let's be honest. With odds like that? Most of the group members would've rather kept their points to exchange for something practical down the line. Who wants to cough up 50,000 points just to win some glorified participation badge?

Naturally, the crowd thinned out. One by one, people backed off, quietly disappearing like mist under morning sun.

That's when Ryan finally broke the silence. "…You can't really blame them," he said, his voice calm, almost sympathetic. "Even I wouldn't stick around for that."

He folded his arms as he spoke, his tone steady but grounded in reality. "Everyone's here aiming for the jackpot. At worst, they'll settle for second place. But if you shell out fifty thousand points and walk away with third prize..."

He paused, shaking his head. "No one's smiling after that."

The others who had already drawn the lottery fell silent, glancing at each other awkwardly. It was hard to argue with him. He'd said exactly what everyone else was thinking but didn't want to admit.

Even Hashirama, normally the most upbeat of them all, looked uncharacteristically glum. He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Well, in that case... let's just call it what it is. We all lost. That makes us equals, right?" He chuckled half-heartedly, though the energy wasn't really there.

Standing up, he turned and stretched. "Alright then, back to training. Let's get stronger while we still can. Let's compete for the first place in the next world ranking's next time!"

With that, Hashirama stepped away, choosing to leave the chat group's meeting space. One after another, the others followed, offering quick farewells before vanishing.

Ryan did the same. As the meeting space dissolved around him, he felt the shift, a gentle pull back into his home dimension.

The Hokage's office materialized around him, warm and familiar. Even though it hadn't been that long since he left, the sensation of being back stirred something nostalgic in him. After all, he'd just returned from visiting multiple worlds. His perception of time had stretched and thinned.

He took in the familiar layout: the scrolls on the shelves, the faint smell of old paper and polished wood.

Ryan exhaled slowly. Peace.

Well, it lasted about five minutes.

The office door opened without ceremony. Minato stepped in briskly, golden hair catching the light.

"Lord Hokage!" he greeted with a nod.

Ryan blinked, slightly surprised. "Minato? Something wrong?"

Lately, the Fourth Hokage had been occupied with tasks that rarely brought him here in person, so his sudden appearance meant this wasn't routine.

Without a word, Minato stepped forward and held out an envelope.

Ryan accepted it, inspecting the plain exterior with a puzzled frown. "A letter? For me?" he muttered. "That's odd. I wasn't even on this world recently... who'd be sending me mail?"

Before he could ask further, Minato answered calmly. "It's from the Science Division. They're submitting a travel request, for a mission to the Land of Lightning."

Ryan raised a brow, slowly sitting back into his chair. "Volunteering for travel? To former enemy territory?"

Minato gave a nod. "Apparently, one of their ongoing projects hit a bottleneck. Something to do with compatibility models. They claim the ideal specimen was previously recorded in the Land of Lightning."

Ryan narrowed his eyes slightly, then leaned back in his chair. "So they want to go body-hunting. In the Land of Thunder. For science."

He tapped the envelope thoughtfully. "Well… that's definitely not in the standard mission catalog."

Ryan glanced at the envelope in his hand, tapping it lightly with his index finger. "This is their official request?" he asked.

Minato nodded. "Yes, it's their formal application."

Ryan gave a small hum of acknowledgment, then handed the envelope back to him without even opening it. "Alright. Consider it approved. You'll oversee this one."

He spoke with the quiet authority of someone who had seen enough to trust his instincts. Minato gave a nod and turned to leave, but before he could take more than a step, Ryan straightened up.

"Wait," he said. "I'll go with you."

Minato blinked, caught off guard. "Of course."

Though uncertain about the reason, he didn't question it. The two walked in tandem, their pace steady and purposeful, until they arrived at the Tech Development Division.

Once there, Ryan called in Minato again along with a few of the lead researchers. Together, they headed for an empty warehouse, spacious and unused, the kind of place where classified things quietly took shape.

Ryan stood before them with calm clarity. "I brought back a few... samples. Things that might accelerate your current projects."

The group exchanged confused looks. One of the older scientists raised a brow. "Lord Hokage, forgive me, but... did you forget something?"

"Yeah," another chimed in, pointing toward Ryan's unencumbered figure. "Aren't the items sealed in scrolls? You didn't bring them with you?"

Minato frowned thoughtfully. "Are they still in the office? I can retrieve them."

He was already moving toward the door when Ryan raised a hand. "No need," he said with a faint smile.

In the next instant, Ryan's gaze sharpened. Kokugan ignited with a silent pulse. A low hum vibrated through the air, and a ripple spread across space as if reality itself had been peeled back.

Sukunahikona engaged.

From the glimmering rift behind him, a massive cache materialized. Scrolls encoded with ancient formulas, chakra-reactive devices, crystallized ores of unknown density, and sleek foreign tech stacked themselves into orderly, categorized formations. Nothing about it was illusory. The samples were material, measurable, and comprehensive enough to consume the department's research bandwidth for several fiscal quarters.

There was a brief silence. Then, quiet astonishment gave way to whispered analysis.

"Incredible… no chakra distortion during transfer. Dimensional phase-shift, perhaps?"

"These readings, some of this material isn't native to our known chakra system."

"This level of storage efficiency defies conventional sealing techniques. There's no precedent for this scale."

"Assuming even a 60 percent integration rate, this could catalyze a multi-decade leap in our technological framework."

The researchers clustered around the materials, not with fanaticism, but with the intense focus of those on the cusp of discovery. One adjusted his glasses, squinting at a crystalline construct with embedded runes.

"Lord Hokage," he said finally, with a tone more reverent than effusive, "this is a logistical and scientific anomaly. We're going to need to recalibrate half our instrumentation just to begin cataloging this."

Even Minato, composed as ever, narrowed his eyes at the golden light of Ryan's Kokugan, his voice low and curious. "That ocular ability… it's beyond the scope of traditional dōjutsu," he said. "You've developed something new, haven't you?"

Ryan offered a quiet smile, folding his hands behind his back with deliberate restraint."You could call it an upgrade. Makes hauling things a bit easier."

He left it at that. The less said, the fewer the questions. Spatial manipulation at this level wasn't something he intended to turn into a thesis.

"I'll leave the rest in your hands," he said, giving the team a final nod.

"Understood, Lord Hokage," they answered in unison, already deep in preliminary sorting and analysis, their minds sprinting ahead into equations and possibilities.

With their hands full of new materials and minds brimming with ideas, they quickly dispersed to their stations. Ryan and Minato quietly left them to it.

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