The Academy years were not a period of education for Ryota; they were an extended phase of industrial assembly. While the other students struggled with basic clone techniques and rote memorization of village history, Ryota was busy installing the cognitive architecture into his chosen subjects. He maintained his mask of the quiet, average student, sitting in the middle row and producing test scores that never deviated from the sixty-fifth percentile. To the teachers, he was forgettable. To the System, he was a sculptor working on the raw clay of the future.
[[ SYSTEM STATUS: ACADEMY PHASE - YEAR TWO ]]
[[ BIOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION: 38 PERCENT ]]
[[ CURRENT PROJECT: NEURAL CONDITIONING OF TARGETS 01 AND 02 ]]
Ryota sat on the training field, his sketchbook open on his lap. To any observer, he was drawing the clouds. In reality, he was mapping the kinetic energy expenditure of Naruto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyuga as they practiced their forms. He had identified the fundamental flaws in their current "programming." Naruto was a flood of Yang energy without a dam; Hinata was a masterpiece of Yin potential trapped behind a wall of psychological inhibition. They were both inefficient structures that required a master's touch to reach peak optimization.
"Naruto," Ryota said, his voice cutting through the boy's frustrated yelling. "You are trying to move the ocean with a spoon. Your chakra is leaking from every pore because your mind is a chaotic broadcast."
The blonde boy stomped over, sweating and breathing hard. "But Ryota! I'm giving it everything I've got! Why won't the stupid clone just stand up straight?"
"Because you are shouting at your own cells," Ryota replied. "Sit. We begin the Stillness Protocol."
This was the core of Ryota's design for Naruto. He had developed a series of meditative "Work" sessions disguised as games. He taught Naruto to find the "Zero Point"—a state of absolute mental silence where the boy could interface with the massive reservoir of the Nine-Tails' chakra without being drowned by its malice. Ryota sat across from him, utilizing his Architect's Link at a low-power setting to act as a stabilizer. He projected a calming, blue geometric lattice into Naruto's subconscious, a visual tether that helped the boy anchor his energy.
[[ ARCHITECT'S LINK: INITIALIZING STILLNESS OVERLAY ]]
[[ TARGET: NARUTO UZUMAKI ]]
[[ STATUS: STABILIZING CHAKRA TURBULENCE ]]
Slowly, the golden-orange aura around Naruto stopped flickering. The air around them grew still. Ryota watched through his Neural-Overlay as Naruto's chakra coils began to glow with a steady, disciplined light. This was the first brick in the foundation of the Heart. Ryota was teaching Naruto that power was not about the volume of the scream, but the precision of the whisper.
Hinata stood several meters away, watching them with her fingers intertwined. She had become a regular fixture in Ryota's private sessions. Ryota turned his gaze toward her, his silver eyes mapping the tension in her shoulders. She was the Observer, the one who would eventually see the world through his eyes.
"Hinata," Ryota said. "Your father tells you that you are weak because your Gentle Fist lacks 'spirit.' He is incorrect. It lacks 'intent.' You are afraid of the damage you might do, so your system is subconsciously bottlenecking your chakra flow. You are a circuit breaker that keeps tripping itself."
Hinata looked down at her feet, her face flushing. "I... I don't want to hurt anyone, Ryota-kun."
"An Architect does not hurt," Ryota said, standing up. "An Architect corrects. If a beam is out of alignment, you do not hate the beam; you apply the necessary pressure to straighten it. You are not striking people, Hinata. You are striking the structural flaws in their defense."
He led her to a training post. He didn't tell her to hit it. He told her to "perceive" it. He used the Link to share a fraction of his Hyper-Cognition, allowing her to see the post not as wood, but as a collection of molecular stress points.
[[ ARCHITECT'S LINK: SHARING SENSORY DATA ]]
[[ TARGET: HINATA HYUGA ]]
[[ STATUS: OVERRIDING PSYCHOLOGICAL BOTTLENECK ]]
"Hit the point of maximum entropy," Ryota commanded.
Hinata lunged. It wasn't the wide, hesitant strike of the Academy. It was a short, sharp jab that landed with a sound like a gunshot. The wooden post didn't just crack; it splintered from the inside out as her chakra bypassed the surface and detonated at the structural core. Her eyes widened, her lavender gaze reflecting the destruction she had just caused.
"That is the Design," Ryota said, his voice flat and approving. "Efficiency over effort."
Over the next year, the three of them became a silent unit within the Academy. Ryota cultivated their loyalty not through friendship, but through the shared experience of evolution. He became the Architect of their growth, the one who explained the world in a way that made sense of their pain. He gave Naruto a purpose beyond "Hokage"—he gave him the role of the Guardian. He gave Hinata a purpose beyond "Heir"—he gave her the role of the Visionary.
However, Ryota's activities did not go entirely unnoticed. In the dark corners of the village, within the roots of the foundation, Danzo Shimura watched the data reports. He saw the "civilian" boy who was spending all his time with the Jinchuriki and the Hyuga Heiress. He saw the subtle shifts in their behavior. Danzo was a man who understood the value of a well-placed tool, and he began to suspect that Ryota was a tool that had designed itself.
Ryota was summoned to a nondescript office in the administrative building late one evening. He walked through the halls, his Kinetic Prediction already mapping the ANBU hidden in the rafters. He knew this meeting was coming. He had already prepared the "Logic Trap."
Danzo sat behind a desk, his bandaged eye a dead weight in the room. "You are a very industrious child, Ryota," the old man said, his voice like grinding gravel. "You have taken a sudden interest in the village's most valuable assets. Some might call that suspicious."
"I call it resource management, Hokage-advisor," Ryota replied. He did not bow. He stood with the cold posture of a man who was already looking at Danzo's blueprints and finding the errors. "Naruto Uzumaki was a wasted asset. Hinata Hyuga was a failing investment. I am simply improving the village's structural integrity."
Danzo leaned forward, his chakra a cold, crushing weight. "And what do you gain from this, Architect?"
"Stability," Ryota said. "A village that is poorly designed is a village that burns. I prefer my environment to be stable. I am willing to share the data of my training protocols with your 'Root' division in exchange for access to the forbidden scrolls regarding Yin-Yang release and biological seals."
Danzo's single eye narrowed. He recognized the cold pragmatism in Ryota. It was a mirror of his own, but without the baggage of nationalism. Ryota wasn't doing this for Konoha; he was doing it for the Design.
A pact was formed. Ryota became a "Consultant" for the shadows, a role that gave him the legal cover he needed to experiment with higher-level energy structures. He began to feed Danzo sanitized data—just enough to keep the old man interested, but never enough to reveal the true nature of the Sovereign System.
By the time the third year of the Academy arrived, the programming of the Pillars was nearing the end of Phase One. Naruto was capable of high-density chakra containment. Hinata was capable of microscopic structural analysis. And Sasuke Uchiha had begun to watch them from a distance.
Sasuke was the final piece of the initial assembly. He was the "Edge" that Ryota had harvested from the night of the massacre. The Uchiha boy was a fortress of trauma, his mind a jagged landscape of red and black. He didn't join Ryota's sessions at first; he watched with a hunger that Ryota recognized as the need for structure.
Ryota waited. He knew that the Uchiha could not be recruited through words. They had to be convinced by the beauty of the blueprint. He allowed Sasuke to witness the efficiency of the Link, to see how Naruto and Hinata were surpassing the other students without even breaking a sweat.
The day finally came when Sasuke approached Ryota behind the training grounds. The air was cold, the sun setting in a streak of bruised purple.
"What are you doing to them?" Sasuke asked, his voice low and dangerous. "How is the loser getting so fast?"
"I am not doing anything to them, Sasuke," Ryota replied, not looking up from his notes. "I am simply removing the noise. They are learning to move through the world without friction. You, however, are filled with it. Your rage is creating a heat that is melting your focus."
"Teach me," Sasuke commanded.
Ryota looked up, his silver eyes locking onto the last Uchiha. Phase One was complete. The Edge had presented itself for sharpening.
"You are a difficult structure to work with, Sasuke," Ryota said, standing up. "Your foundation is built on a ruin. To build something new, we must first finish the demolition. Are you prepared to let the 'Avenger' die so the 'Edge' can be born?"
Sasuke didn't hesitate. "I'll do whatever it takes."
[[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: PILLAR RECRUITMENT COMPLETE ]]
[[ TARGET 03: SASUKE UCHIHA (STATUS: ANCHORED) ]]
[[ INITIATING GRADUATION PROTOCOL ]]
The Academy years ended not with a graduation, but with a deployment. The Architect had his pillars. The foundation was set. Konoha had no idea that its three greatest weapons were now running on a foreign operating system. Ryota stood at the gates of the Academy on the final day, looking at Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata.
"Let us go," he said through the Link, the command echoing in their minds as a single, undeniable truth. "The world is out of alignment. It is time we corrected it."