A Request

The class was dispersed and Rayzen walked out with the rest of the students, accompanying him was Dōto Akimichi, Derei and his new friend Tasu.

Derei introduced Tasu to him. He was also not from any clans. The boy was very shy and mostly kept to himself. He learnt from Derei that he lives with his mother, while his father died on a mission.

Sora was also walking by the side with a tired Shiroka leaning on her for support.

On reaching the street closest to the Akimichi's Dōto left, soon followed by Shiroka. And when they were about to reach the Uchiha region, Rayzen stopped and looked at Derei and said:

" Seems like you have something to ask of me! What is it?"

Both Derei and Tasu had a look of suprise. When Derei wanted to speak, he looked at Sora and then looked back at Rayzen.

Rayzen understood as he said:

" Sora, you can leave, I'll be at your house in a few minutes."

Sora nodded and left while saying: " Don't be long!"

Rayzen looked at Derei and said again: " Now! Tell me what's on your mind."

Derei nodded his head and recollected everything he wanted to say and then started:

" Do you know why I approached you at first?"

' You needed a connection with a not-so-hostile Uchiha.' thought Rayzen.

But he said: "Oh! Was there a reason?"

Derei nodded and said: " Yes! I needed a connection with a not-so-hostile Uchiha."

Rayzen asked acting a bit suprised : " Why?"

' To make a request.' thought Rayzen.

Derei replied: " I need your help!"

Rayzen said: " Sure! "

Derei and Tasu were surprised that Rayzen agreed just like that instead of getting angry. In fact, it was true that Rayzen was not angry, but he was a bit disappointed. No one would like to be in such a position of being befriended just for other's motives.

But he regained his cheerful mood on hearing Derei's words:

" Actually, it's not for me, but Tasu! And only an Uchiha can help him."

Rayzen looked at Tasu who nodded and nervously and said in a low voice while stuttering a bit: " It's okay... if you ... don't want... to. I...I understand. I am... sorry for... asking."

Rayzen was happy that they came out with the reason for being his friend, instead of pretending like one and manipulating him for their use. He also noted the cleverness of Derei in his approach to rope him in.

' Seems like Derei is intelligent for his age. I wonder what his potential be like. '

" Like I said, I am fine with helping. But, remember this I don't like the reason why you approached me was for your own motives. I am helping, because inspite of that, you guys still have been good friends with me over this week and now, didn't keep me in the dark about this incident. Let's continue to be good friends in the future and if you need any help, you can approach me."

Derei and Tasu felt guilty about 'tricking' Rayzen initially, now that they confessed and hearing Rayzen's response, they felt relieved and forgiven. They vowed to cherish the bonds of friendship between them and Rayzen.

Both of them explained the whole incident to Rayzen and left when Rayzen asked for some time to investigate.

Apparently, Tasu's mother was being harrased by an Uchiha Police by the name of Ryobu. He asked his mother to complaint to the authorities, but she never did. Tasu figured that she was afraid of offending someone and harming her only son.

...

It was night and Rayzen was sitting on the veranda in the backyard as he went over the information he received when he was at Takeshi's house.

He learnt from Takeshi that Ryobu was apparently someone on the extremist faction. But the guy did not have a high enough position. He had unlocked upto two tomoe Sharingan. Interestingly, Ryobu was married, but he didn't have any children to his name yet.

' Why would a married man go about harrassing a single mother? And why would the victim not complaint? Something else is going on. I may need to talk to both parties without alerting them to solve this issue, without revealing my powers. '

Finished with his thought process, Rayzen started cultivating.

Rayzen felt that he was approaching closer and closer to the limit of the potential of his genes. He also made an interesting observation. Unlike most of his clansmen, including Asami, his Sharingan was a bit dull in appearance, in the sense that it was like a berserk beast slowly calming down. His Sharingan seemed a bit dull, compared to the previous year, but the change was minute and gradual and hence went unnoticed for such a long time.

Rayzen figured that this might be related to him having never relied on emotions like pain, anger, sadness and despair to evolve his Sharingan or the Byakugan in his other eye. Nonetheless, he felt that it was almost impossible to rely on his genes alone to evolve his Sharingan to three tomoe. He might need a catalyst like emotions. Either that or the accumulation of power with time.

He could feel that his Byakugan his getting stronger too, but a measure of its abilities was mostly unknown to the owner himself, due to his sensitive identity.

Nonetheless he knew that his Byakugan alone had near 360⁰ field vision, with just one small blind spot at the back of the neck above the first thoracic vertebrae. Using both his eyes, did nothing to this blind spot.

His body and soul strength were steadily increasing and so was his chakra, a proper estimate of which he had long lost. He felt that he was more and more closer to reaching the threshold of the first stage of Strength Training.

Done with meditation, Rayzen went back to recharge by cuddling with Asami to sleep.