Frozen

That night, Hyuuga Nen left the small town where he had lived for more than a decade and ran swiftly toward the highest mountain in the Land of Iron.

The Land of Iron wasn't very large. By the time it was nearly midnight, Hyuuga Nen had already reached the mountainside.

Standing in the snow, Hyuuga Nen breathed out a cloud of white mist. "The temperature here should be around thirty or forty degrees below zero. It should meet my requirements."

With that, Hyuuga Nen activated his Byakugan and looked into the distance, seemingly searching for something.

"There it is. There's a cave over there." He headed toward it.

When Hyuuga Nen spotted the cave, he noticed something living inside. "Just as I thought. It's a bear," he said softly.

"Sorry, but I'm taking over this place." As soon as he finished speaking, Hyuuga Nen appeared beside the hibernating bear. He gently raised his palm and tapped the bear on the head. In its dreamless sleep, free of pain, the bear lost its life.

Hyuuga Nen used Wind Style to clear away the clutter and foul smells in the cave, then took out a Storage Scroll and activated its formula.

As the formula took effect, Rika's body appeared on the cave floor. Hyuuga Nen had prepared her body beforehand, and there was no air inside the Storage Scroll, so she still looked lifelike.

Hyuuga Nen then began inscribing the formulas for the Four Symbols Seal and the Seal of Resilience on Rika's body.

In less than half an hour, he finished inscribing the formulas. Then Hyuuga Nen infused Rika's cells with enough Yang Release Chakra. The combination of the Four Symbols Seal and the Seal of Resilience would allow the Yang Release Chakra to remain inside her body for a long time.

Hyuuga Nen planned to freeze Rika's body temporarily. The Yang Release Chakra would keep her cells from being damaged while she was frozen.

After preparing Rika's body, Hyuuga Nen picked her up and prepared to place her in a corner of the cave.

As he walked, Hyuuga Nen murmured, "The Yin Seal's core formula must include the Four Symbols Seal." He had reached this conclusion while preparing Rika's body.

"I wonder if this Sealing Technique works on men, too. If it does, I could try to get my hands on it." He added this as he set Rika's body down.

Hyuuga Nen returned to the middle of the cave and used the Shadow Clone Technique. "One, two, three, four, five. Five clones should be enough."

Hyuuga Nen sent one clone outside to gather snow and ice, while another used Earth Style. The other three clones would wait for now.

As the Earth Style took effect, a set of equipment gradually appeared in front of Hyuuga Nen. It consisted of two distillers and a container, with two pipes connecting the three components.

While using Earth Style, Hyuuga Nen applied not only shape transformation but also nature transformation, making the equipment's material more like quartz to facilitate distillation.

Soon, his other clone returned with the snow and ice. He put it into one of the distillers, then immediately went back out to collect more.

Once the snow and ice had been gathered, one of Hyuuga Nen's clones began heating the first distiller with Fire Style.

As the heating continued, the second distiller collected enough water, and Hyuuga Nen's clone began heating it as well.

After two rounds of distillation, relatively pure water collected in the final container. Hyuuga Nen's clone heated it a third time to keep it from freezing.

Seeing one clone using Earth Style, three using Fire Style, and another gathering snow and ice, Hyuuga Nen nodded in satisfaction. He sat down, took out a Military Ration Pill, and ate it before beginning to extract chakra.

The ninjutsu couldn't be interrupted while they were gathering pure water, and the process would take a while. So Hyuuga Nen's main body focused on extracting chakra, ready to replenish his clones whenever they needed it to use their ninjutsu.

After some time, Hyuuga Nen opened his eyes, feeling a little tired. He went to the final container, which held the pure water, and found that it was full.

Looking at the container, which was two people tall and two people wide, Hyuuga Nen dispelled four of his clones, leaving only one to continue using Earth Style. He also stopped maintaining the two distillers, leaving only the water container in place.

"Now I just have to wait for the water to cool to the same temperature as its surroundings. It might take several hours. I should rest for a bit."

Although Hyuuga Nen had a large chakra supply, constantly using ninjutsu had worn him out. He went to the corner of the cave, leaned against Taro, and closed his eyes to rest.

Several hours later, Hyuuga Nen woke up and went to the container. He felt the water inside and found that it had reached the same temperature as its surroundings.

Even though the water was below zero degrees, it still hadn't frozen.

"This is supercooled water. I've heard of it, but this is my first time seeing it." Hyuuga Nen spoke, then began forming Hand Seals.

"Water Release: Water Prison Technique!"

Hyuuga Nen didn't know how his father had obtained this Mist Ninja technique, but it was certainly a great help to him now.

Hyuuga Nen held out one hand and used the Water Prison Technique to control the supercooled water. By then, his clone had already stopped using Earth Style.

Even though Earth Style had been dispelled, the water still floated in midair in a spherical shape, held in place by Hyuuga Nen's Water Prison Technique.

Hyuuga Nen had designed the container as a sphere, so controlling the pure water was easy.

By then, his clone had brought Rika's body over. Using the Water Prison Technique, Hyuuga Nen slowly opened a gap in the middle of the sphere.

The clone placed Rika's body inside the sphere, along with some snow and ice.

Once the sphere had completely enclosed Rika's body, Hyuuga Nen slapped it hard with his other hand. With a series of cracking sounds, the water rapidly froze, and Rika's body was soon completely encased in ice.

"It's finally done. If only I knew Ice Release; then this wouldn't have been such a hassle." Hyuuga Nen let out a sigh of relief.

Looking at Rika, frozen in the ice, Hyuuga Nen remembered something she had said that night—a sentence that had left a deep impression on him.

"I'll make Hyuga Shun apologize to you in person." Hyuuga Nen spoke solemnly.

After burying the ice sphere underground, Hyuuga Nen turned to Taro, who had stayed in the corner of the cave, and said, "Taro, let's go."

At Hyuuga Nen's words, Taro looked reluctant, but followed him out of the cave.

Once they were outside, Hyuuga Nen used Earth Style to gently bury the cave, then headed down the mountain.