Akira's peaceful days continued in a steady, unbroken rhythm.
Over the past week of tireless effort, he had placed a staggering total of seventy-four Chakra Sealing Bowls across Konoha. Utilizing shadow clones paired with simple Transformation Techniques, he deposited them discreetly under the cover of night or within the bustling lull of daily foot traffic.
He placed the vast majority of them near garbage dumpster sites, shadowed back alleys, and high-traffic zones in the market district.
Even if Anbu operatives or the Uchiha Police Force stumbled across one, they wouldn't find a single trace linking the bowls back to him. The underlying matrix was designed to remain entirely inert until an abnormally dense chakra signature flooded the surrounding area.
The core principle behind the design was passive, continuous filtration. The bowl continuously pulled in surrounding air or ambient liquid, extracted the raw chakra, compressed it into the internal storage seal, and locked it tight to prevent leakage. Once the storage matrix reached full capacity, the seal automatically shut down and sealed itself, leaving the container looking like nothing more than an ordinary piece of discarded porcelain.
He had also upgraded their capacity. While standard bowls could hold a Chunin's worth of energy—roughly equivalent to ten Genin-level units—he had also engineered ten specialized Jonin-level bowls. They cost ten times as much to produce, burning through more than two million ryo in high-grade conductive ink and pure jade powder, but Akira considered it money well spent.
The more safety nets he laid, the better his odds.
With the deployment phase complete, Akira refocused his attention on personal cultivation.
In a secluded corner of his courtyard, he struck a heavy wooden training pole in a fluid, rhythmic sequence. Tap. Tap. Tap. Each strike was precise, light, and perfectly controlled.
By his calculations, his current total chakra capacity sat at roughly nine times that of a standard Academy graduate—effectively three times a normal Chunin's reserve. Rather than focusing on raw volume, he spent his time refining his chakra shaping. Having mastered the three basic Academy jutsu long ago, he was now quietly analyzing and practicing Anbu-level stealth techniques, using shadow clones to rapidly map out and expand his sensory perception range.
When the sun began to dip below the horizon, Akira paused his training and wiped the light sweat from his brow.
Hyūga Ren had not arrived to prepare dinner.
A subtle frown touched his lips. He had previously asked Grandpa Yu to quietly run a background check on Hyūga Ren's family situation, and everything had checked out as legitimate. If she was late, something had gone wrong.
Did the Main Family step in? Akira wondered silently.
Deciding to check on her directly, Akira left his courtyard. Since Hyūga Ren's family were civilians, they resided in the far eastern corner of the Hyūga clan grounds, where the non-shinobi relatives lived in modest, closely packed houses.
When Akira turned the corner toward her family's street, he immediately noticed a commotion.
A crowd of neighbors had gathered outside a small, traditional sweet shop—the primary source of income for Hyūga Ren's sick mother. In front of the shop, two teenage Genin were causing a massive scene.
One of them was shouting at the top of his lungs, demanding payment for an alleged debt left behind by Ren's missing sister, Ree. The second Genin was deliberately kicking over tables and smashing wooden chairs onto the cobblestones.
Behind the counter, Hyūga Ren and her mother stood trembling. Her mother held her daughter tightly in her arms, refusing to let go, while Hyūga Ren grit her teeth in helpless anger at the shameless display.
Akira watched from the edge of the crowd, his face completely unreadable.
Under Konoha law and clan regulations, shinobi were strictly forbidden from using force or intimidation against non-shinobi civilians. These two were clearly acting as hired muscle to push Ren's family into a corner.
Akira didn't say a word. He quietly bent down, picked up two smooth pebbles from the roadside, and coated them in a dense layer of refined chakra.
Flick!
With a sharp snap of his wrist, the first pebble cut through the air like a bullet, striking the shouting Genin directly in the temple. The boy's eyes rolled back instantly, and he collapsed onto the dirt like a sack of bricks.
The second Genin, a scar-lipped teenager with slightly sharper instincts, barely managed to tilt his head in time. The second pebble grazed his cheek, embedding itself deep into the thick wooden beam behind him with a heavy thud.
"Who's there?!" the scar-lipped teenager roared, drawing a kunai as blood trickled down his cheek. "Show yourself!"
Tap.
Before the teenager could even process where the attack had come from, Akira appeared directly at his side, his movement so silent it defied belief. Without hesitation, Akira's fingers flicked out, striking the major nerve cluster at the base of the teenager's neck.
The scar-lipped Genin froze, his eyes widening in complete shock before he keeled over unconscious beside his partner.
Akira calmly activated his Byakugan, the veins around his temples bulging slightly. The cold, pale glare of the dōjutsu instantly caused the surrounding civilian crowd to step back in nervous silence.
"Are you all right, Sister Ren?" Akira asked, deactivating his dōjutsu as he turned to the shop.
Hyūga Ren blinked back tears of shock, clutching her mother. "L-Lord Akira!"
"Do you know who these two are?" Akira asked, looking down at the unconscious Genin.
Hyūga Ren shook her head bitterly, wiping her eyes. "No, Lord Akira... They came out of nowhere, claiming their names are Hyūga BiKan and Hyūga YanKan. They said my sister Ree owed them a massive sum of money before she went missing, but... but Ree never borrowed money from anyone!"
Akira looked at the broken furniture scattered across the path. Someone is using these two thugs to squeeze her family into giving up their land or submitting to the Main Family.
"Shinobi abusing civilians violates both village law and clan decree," Akira said calmly. "I will handle this matter directly with Lord Hizashi."
He reached into his pouch, pulled out a thick strand of high-tensile ninja wire, and swiftly bound both unconscious Genin back-to-back against a nearby wooden support pole.
"Sister Ren," Akira said, turning back to the sweet shop. "Accompany me to Lord Hizashi's estate."
Ren's mother quickly pushed her daughter forward, bowing repeatedly to Akira with tearful gratitude. "Go, Ren! Go with Young Lord Akira!"
"Yes, Mother!" Hyūga Ren wiped her face, stepped over the broken wood, and quickly fell into step behind Akira as they headed toward the branch leader's compound.