The Unescapable Hinata

With Uchiha Itachi's graduation, Fujiwara Chiya's life returned to tranquility.

Outside of his training, he often went shopping with Uchiha Izumi, and they would frequently exchange gifts.

Of course, in the vast majority of these cases, it was Uchiha Izumi giving gifts to Chiya; for instance, all of his clothes were gifts from her.

It couldn't be helped—our classmate Chiya was poor, living day-to-day on the meager subsidy provided by Konoha that was just enough to keep him from starving but never enough to fill his stomach. If not for the support of Izumi, his little rich girl, his household would have been unable to put food on the table.

As time passed, the relationship between the two grew increasingly close.

Chiya clearly sensed that Izumi was gradually developing strange feelings for him, and he himself did not dislike it. Adopting a "let nature take its course" attitude, he thought that perhaps living like this in the future wouldn't be so bad, and he lived his life in peace.

Before he knew it, Fujiwara Chiya was already 11 years old.

He had reached the age where he would soon graduate from the Ninja Academy.

He had grown much taller, and his cultivation technique had advanced to the fourth level.

The Heavenly Steel Art could be considered mastered, and he was now able to store an extremely vast amount of senjutsu chakra within his body.

In other aspects, he had also made significant progress.

During his five years at the Ninja Academy, he used the Clone Technique to fully integrate and master the various martial arts moves recorded in the Heavenly Steel Art.

He also went to a ninja tool shop to purchase chakra testing paper, discovering that he possessed both fire and lightning chakra attributes.

Through persistent pestering, he managed to obtain various ninjutsu collections from Uchiha Izumi's home.

In his own words: "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine. At worst, I just won't use the Uchiha clan's exclusive ninjutsu until I reach the legal age."

This statement gave Uchiha Izumi quite a fright, and she ran off with a blushing face.

But the very next day, she carried a small bag and delivered the ninjutsu scrolls into Chiya's hands.

The only pity was that her family's collection only contained a few Fire Style ninjutsu, notes on cultivating fire-attribute chakra nature transformation, and some genjutsu and summoning techniques that required the Sharingan to use; there was no Lightning Style.

Helpless, Chiya had no choice but to follow the notes provided by Uchiha Izumi and first practice fire-attribute chakra nature transformation.

Along the way, he also perfected the Body Flicker Technique, combining it with the flash skill inherent to the Heavenly Steel Art to create an entirely new form of movement.

But fortunately, heaven never closes all doors.

When he was nine, Chiya encountered a little girl, and the system issued a mission, allowing him to master perfect lightning-attribute chakra nature transformation.

It was a silver-clad winter day; the freezing weather, accompanied by wind and snow, left the streets completely deserted.

At that time, Chiya had just finished celebrating the New Year at home with Izumi. After seeing her home, on his way back, he passed a snow-covered corner of Konoha and encountered a beautiful girl with pure white eyes.

She was wearing black clothes, running stumbling through the snow with a sobbing voice. She fell to the ground, her face full of fear and bewilderment, and finally sat huddled in the snow, shivering and weeping into her hands.

At the time, Chiya didn't think much of it; he simply carried her on his back and took her home.

It wasn't until he saw the two large characters "Hyuga" on the gate that he realized this little girl was Hyuga Hinata.

At the same time, he also realized that this day was the funeral of his uncle, Hizashi Hyuga, and the anniversary of Hyuga Neji's father's death.

In a daze, Chiya recalled the peace treaty signed between Konoha and the Cloud Ninja some time ago.

Sarutobi Hiruzen, as the person who facilitated this contract, had even specifically ordered a grand welcoming ceremony.

The entire village was bustling with excitement, but unfortunately, his actions were viewed by the Cloud Ninja as an act of weakness.

That very night, they ran to the Hyuga clan and kidnapped the three-year-old Hinata, attempting to seize the Hyuga clan's kekkei genkai, the Byakugan.

The result was self-evident: the people sent were killed by the Hyuga clan head, Hyuga Hiashi.

Despite the failure, the facts were exactly as the Cloud Ninja had anticipated: Sarutobi Hiruzen was indeed a weak man.

Facing the Cloud Ninja, who not only refused to admit to the attempted theft of the Byakugan but also refused to give up, instead accusing Konoha of killing their people and using the threat of war to demand that Konoha hand over the "culprit" Hyuga Hiashi, they continued to try and get their hands on the Byakugan.

The Third Hokage, who had always been weak externally but heavy-handed internally, compromised once again.

In the end, this led to the tragedy of Hizashi Hyuga dying in his brother's stead.

Today was also a cold, snowy winter day. The vast, falling snow drifted and scattered, and in his daze, it seemed to flash with a biting chill.

It draped Konoha in a thick, cotton-like coat.

At this moment, it was almost dark.

Chiya, having just finished a full day of training, took a bath and changed into clean, neat clothes.

He prepared to go find Uchiha Izumi to celebrate the New Year, just as he had in previous years.

However, while passing a snow-covered corner of Konoha, a sudden situation caused Chiya to stop in his tracks.

Not far ahead, two boys and one girl—three bratty kids—were bullying a little girl of about five or six years old.

"I heard you're the daughter of the Hyuga family, why don't you show us your Byakugan?"

"If you don't want to, then stop looking this way."

"What eerie eyes; you're actually a monster, aren't you? You Byakugan monster."

The girl had short, pale lavender hair and pure white eyes, and her appearance was beautiful.

The three brats spoke one after another, their mockery and sarcasm causing the girl's large eyes to involuntarily well up with tears as she covered her face and wept.

"Hinata?" Chiya murmured as he looked at the little girl's familiar face.

Just then, a long-absent system notification rang out in Chiya's mind:

[Ding! As the ultimate lolicon, how could the host sit idly by while a little girl is being harmed? Go and help her.]

[1. Step in to help, ensuring the little girl is no longer bullied by her peers. Reward: Earth Style Chakra Nature Transformation.]

[2. Ignore it. Reward: Danzo's underwear.]

Again with the underwear, and it's Danzo's again? Just how obsessed are you with Danzo's underwear?

Chiya felt speechless, but he chose option one without hesitation. As the saying goes, one can never have too many skills; even if he didn't have any Earth Style ninjutsu to learn yet, he would eventually.

However, if he wanted to solve the bullying problem, simply walking up there wouldn't be enough.

The reason was simple: Chiya was much older than them. If he stepped in today, they might run away out of fear, but they would just continue the bullying next time.

Furthermore, that would only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. The key was to teach Hinata how to fight back.

With that thought, Chiya formed a hand seal with his right hand.

He cast the Transformation Technique.

With a poof, the smoke cleared.

Chiya had transformed into the appearance of a six-year-old child.

"Hey, you lot, is bullying people fun?"

Hearing Chiya's words, the three brats, accustomed to acting recklessly, felt deeply annoyed.

Seeing Chiya walk over, his stature unimpressive, they all burst into laughter.

"Where did this bean sprout come from? Trying to play the hero?"

"Haha, a bean sprout monster actually wants to save the Byakugan monster."

"Well, they're both monsters, so it's only natural for a bean sprout monster to want to save a Byakugan monster."

As they finished speaking, the ringleader stepped forward, intending to land a punch on Chiya. The other two brats watched with wicked, playful grins. They weren't children of ordinary families; their parents were ninjas, and although they hadn't enrolled in the academy yet, they had already begun ninja training.

Naturally, they were far better at fighting than children from commoner families.

But soon, they couldn't laugh anymore.

Facing the ringleader's attack, Chiya slowly raised his right hand, blocked it with ease, and countered with a straight punch that struck the boy square in the face.

Before the other two brats could react, he lunged forward, throwing punches with both hands simultaneously.

The three brats slowly crouched down, clutching their bleeding noses and wailing in tears.

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