The arrival of Hyūga Ren made Akira's life significantly easier. With her handling the cooking, cleaning, and laundry, he suddenly had hours of free time.
He spent almost every spare minute on advanced chakra control and Fūinjutsu, having already secretly perfected the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms.
Right now, Akira sat at his desk, staring at a white porcelain bowl covered in intricate, dense ink lines. He put his brush down, formed a hand sign, and pressed his fingers against the rim.
Bzzzt.
The ink marks glowed faint blue, converged like a swarm of tiny ants, and settled at the very bottom into a solid black mark. The rest of the bowl looked completely normal.
Akira smiled faintly. Four months of studying sealing fundamentals, two basic techniques, and paper bombs... and I actually made this work.
He picked up the bowl. It was a custom creation—a Chakra Sealing Bowl. He had combined chakra detection, absorption, binding, and a small storage array based on scrolls, along with a hiding seal he found in the vault archives.
He walked over to a corner cabinet and placed it next to a dozen identical bowls he'd made over the last four days.
Each bowl could absorb and store a Chunin's worth of chakra. They were disposable, though—the seals would degrade and expire after a year.
His reason for making them was simple: a massive gamble.
Two days ago, Uchiha Fugaku had celebrated the birth of his second son, Sasuke. That meant Uzumaki Kushina's delivery was near, and the Nine-Tails' rampage was right around the corner. Akira knew that in the chaos of that night, people would try to gather the scattered Kyūbi chakra left behind on the destruction site.
He couldn't fight the Nine-Tails, but he could prepare. If the gamble paid off, he'd get a sample of the Nine-Tails' raw chakra for research. If it failed, he only lost a few porcelain bowls and some ink.
He packed three bowls into his backpack and headed for the front door.
"Sister Hyūga Ren, I'm heading to school," Akira called out. "Please don't give Po any sugarcane today."
Hyūga Ren looked up from her folding with a warm smile and bowed. "I won't, Lord Akira. Have a safe walk!"
When Akira arrived at Classroom 3A and took his seat, Yuki slumped into the desk next to him, groaning loudly.
"I hate Daichi-sensei," Yuki whined, resting her forehead on the wood. "Three full pages of history homework! My brain is completely fried."
Akira gave a small smile. "I finished my notes early. Do you want to see them?"
Yuki lifted her head, gave him a competitive smirk, and shook her head. "Nope! If I copy yours, I'll fail the mid-terms anyway. I'm doing it myself."
"Suit yourself," Akira said softly.
Before she could complain any further, the door slid open, and Daichi-sensei walked in with a heavy stack of papers, instantly shutting the class up.
Daichi-sensei's lecture dragged on for another two hours before the bell finally rang for the noon break.
While the rest of Class 3A scrambled to eat their lunches, Akira waited until the classroom emptied out. Acting with quick, invisible efficiency, he unzipped his canvas bag and slid the first porcelain bowl beneath the back corner of the wooden storage cabinet at the rear of the classroom. The hidden containment seal immediately activated, blending into the ambient energy of the room.
During the afternoon training session, Daichi-sensei led the class out to the outdoor grounds. While the other students were busy fetching wooden practice kunai, Akira casually walked past the weapon storage shed. He dropped the second bowl behind a heavy stack of wooden crates, nudging it out of sight with the toe of his sandal.
A few minutes later, while practicing standard footwork drills near the perimeter fence, Akira took a wide turn, smoothly flicking the third bowl into the thick brush near the edge of the forest line.
To anyone watching, he was just an average student clumsily missing a step during drills. He fell right back into line, his face a flawless, unreadable mask.
The moment the final bell rang, Akira didn't head straight home. Instead, he made a detour to the village's commercial district, stopping in front of a large, well-stocked civilian supply warehouse.
He walked up to the main counter, where the store's main manager, Grandpa Yu, was tallying up receipts with an abacus.
"Welcome, Young Lord Akira," Grandpa Yu said, quickly setting down his abacus and offering a polite, respectful bow. "It is always an honor. How may I assist you today?"
"I need to place a bulk dispatch order, Grandpa Yu," Akira said calmly, pulling a pre-written list and a thick pouch of money from his coat. "I want all the non-perishable rations, medical supplies, and raw sealing ink I've purchased over the past month packed securely."
Grandpa Yu adjusted his reading glasses, reviewing the extensive list before bowing again. "Of course, Young Lord. We usually keep your reserved inventory safely stored in our cellar, but your orders are always paramount."
"Transfer everything to the secondary storage warehouse outside the eastern village perimeter," Akira instructed, his voice dropping slightly. "I want the entire shipment moved within the next week."
Grandpa Yu accepted the heavy pouch with both hands, lowering his head. "Consider it done, Young Lord Akira. I will personally oversee our transport team to ensure every item is securely packed and transferred to the outer boundary facility by Tuesday."
"Thank you, Grandpa Yu," Akira said, offering a polite nod.
"Safe travels back to the compound, Young Lord," Grandpa Yu called out warmly, bowing once more as Akira departed.
With his preparations quietly set in motion, Akira turned and walked out of the store, blending back into the evening crowd as the sun began to dip behind the Hokage Monument.