The door opened.
Sunlight spilled in.
It was not harsh. Not blinding. Just warm enough to sting faintly against skin that had not seen daylight in some time.
Hyūga Shinya narrowed his eyes instinctively.
Rain had fallen the night before. Not heavy. Enough to wash dust from stone and gutters. Konoha looked clean this morning.
Puddles reflected pieces of sky, blue broken into irregular shapes. The stagnant weight of weeks spent indoors seemed to drain away with the runoff.
"…Looks like it won't be a bad day," Shinya said quietly.
Beside him, Might Guy was already shouting about youth and momentum, his voice loud enough to startle birds from rooftops.
Shinya walked with him, posture relaxed, and called up the interface.
[IDENTIFICATION RECORD]Name: Hyūga ShinyaAge: 15
[BLOODLINE ANALYSIS]Ōtsutsuki-derived lineage: 6.8% (↑)
[CHAKRA CAPACITY]Upper Limit: S-rank
[CHAKRA NATURES CONFIRMED]Wind | Fire | Water | Earth | Lightning | Yin | Yang
[NINJUTSU REGISTERED]Substitution Technique (C)Wind Release: Cutting Current (B)Chakra Scalpel (A)Lightning Release: Armor (B)Lightning Release: Chidori (A)Lightning Release: Chidori Stream (B)Lightning Release: Chidori Spear (B)
[TAIJUTSU & BODY METHODS]Gentle Fist: Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms (C)Eight Gates: Gate of Injury (Restricted)Gentle Fist: Single-Strike Body (B)Vacuum Palm Impact (A)
[KEKKEI STATUS]Tenseigan – Phase TwoSynchronization: 20.1%Auxiliary Function: Mental Command Authority
[PSYCHOLOGICAL EVENT RECORDS – PARTIAL](Falsification, Social Induction, Direct Fabrication, Role Infiltration…)
[RESOURCE BALANCE]Units Remaining: 10651
"Good," Shinya said.
The smile that crossed his face was shallow, controlled.
Two months had been sufficient.
The Ōtsutsuki-derived physiology responded far above expectation. Lightning Release Armor had moved from instability to reliability. From that foundation, Chidori had followed.
Naturally.
Lightning Release Armor was rated B-class. A full-body chakra mode. Neural acceleration. Muscle activation. Short-range burst movement.
Refined to its limit, it rivaled techniques famous across the shinobi world.
The Fourth Raikage's speed.The Third's defense.
Different in mechanism, identical in outcome.
As for Chidori, it was not Raikiri.
Raikiri demanded extreme shape transformation. Near-perfect piercing focus. S-rank execution.
Chidori was flexible. Variants. Stream, blade, spear.
A toolset rather than a single strike.
Sasuke had learned it in days.
There was no reason Shinya could not.
Even so…
"This pace is still excessive," he thought.
Bloodline mattered.
This world had always been structured that way.
Shinya's gaze shifted to Guy, who was already yelling challenges at the air.
"Guy—"
"Shinya!"
Guy turned sharply, grin wide.
"Don't call me 'senpai' anymore. Just Guy."
Shinya paused.
Refusal would be cleaner. More politically sound. More distant.
But Guy was not posturing.
The shift in his gaze was subtle, but unmistakable.
Shinya exhaled once.
"…Guy."
The grin widened.
"Good!"
Shinya continued walking. "Something's happening in the village. Everyone's heading toward the gate."
Guy shrugged. "No idea. Why don't we find out ourselves?"
Before waiting for an answer, Guy launched into a sprint.
Shinya followed.
He already knew.
Kumogakure's delegation had arrived.
Negotiation. Submission framed as alliance.
And behind it, carefully arranged pressure.
Shinya's information chain had not gone dormant during his isolation. This meeting was not Hiruzen's achievement.
It was Shimura Danzō's.
An unpleasant man. Effective. Dangerous.
The one who applied force where diplomacy stalled.
History was clear on that.
This time, as always, it was Kumo pulling the threads.
And Konoha responding.
"This day was inevitable," Shinya murmured.
Ahead, the crowd thickened.
He smiled.