"It's that unlucky kid again."
"Heh, even with Uchiha blood, he's still just a stray mutt."
"Quiet, you'll get yourself locked up if someone hears you."
"The child of traitors will grow up to betray us too. Lord Hokage is too kind to let him live here."
Whispers trailed behind him like poisoned arrows.
Chiba walked through the crowded streets of Konoha with his head lowered, his expression dark and unreadable.
It had been nine years since he came to this world, five since he arrived in the Leaf.
Once, he'd felt excitement—hope even. Now, only bitterness remained.
Just as the villagers said, Chiba carried the blood of the Uchiha. But the clan refused to acknowledge him.
For generations, the Uchiha had guarded the purity of their bloodline. They only married within the clan.
But Chiba's mother had broken that law.
She was Uchiha. His father—a descendant of the Senju, the Uchiha's eternal rivals.
If his father had been an ordinary man, perhaps the clan would've looked the other way. But a Senju? That was unforgivable.
When the Uchiha elders discovered her pregnancy, they confined Chiba's mother, planning to erase the child before he could be born.
His father infiltrated the compound under the cover of night, rescued her, and the two fled Konoha together.
The Uchiha immediately reported the matter to the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen.
Hiruzen declared both parents traitors and dispatched the Anbu to pursue them.
But they escaped, finding refuge in a small, remote village without ninja. For four years, they lived quietly, raising their son.
Those four years were the happiest of Chiba's life.
Until the beasts came.
A pack of wild creatures descended upon the village. With no ninja to defend them, chaos erupted.
To protect her family, Chiba's mother awakened her Sharingan and, alongside her husband, fought back the beasts.
They survived—but their use of chakra had not gone unnoticed.
Rogue shinobi, drawn by greed for the Sharingan, soon tracked them down.
In the ensuing battle, Chiba's father died shielding his wife and son. Gravely wounded, his mother carried him to Konoha's gates, pleading for the Hokage to take him in.
Moved—or perhaps calculating—Hiruzen agreed. Though her parents were branded traitors, they had committed no crime against the village. And a child of both Uchiha and Senju heritage was too valuable to abandon.
Thus, Chiba was brought into Konoha.
Hiruzen personally asked the Uchiha clan to take the boy in and recognize him as one of their own.
Their answer was cold and absolute: no.
The village assigned him a tiny, worn-down house on the outskirts and promptly forgot about him.
At first, Chiba didn't mind. He understood the hatred between the Uchiha and Senju. His mixed blood made him an outsider to both. Still, he thought—naively—that life in Konoha might be peaceful.
He was wrong.
From the moment he stepped foot in the village, eyes followed him—filled with disdain, fear, and disgust.
In time, he learned why.
First, his parents had been labeled rebels.
Second, the villagers' resentment toward the Uchiha had reached its peak.
By now, the Uchiha clan held power through the Konoha Police Force, enforcing the village's laws with an iron fist.
Their reputation for arrogance and brutality had turned public opinion against them.
And Chiba—half Uchiha, half Senju, with no surname—became the perfect target for that resentment.
He wasn't like Naruto, full of warmth and forgiveness.
Years of cold stares and whispered curses had hardened him.
What baffled him most was how Naruto, in the same situation, had chosen to forgive everyone.
Chiba could not.
Even Sarutobi Hiruzen, whom he once admired, revealed his hypocrisy.
More than once, the old Hokage had seen Chiba being bullied in the streets—and simply walked away, eyes soft but empty, as if he hadn't seen a thing.
That was when Chiba understood: the Hokage's kindness was only a mask.
To him, Konoha had become a cage.
But no matter how much he hated it, he couldn't leave.
Konoha wouldn't allow it, and even if he escaped, he was too weak to survive on his own.
For now, this cursed village was both his prison and his only protection.
Still, deep down, Chiba believed he could change his fate someday.
His confidence didn't come from his Uchiha eyes or Senju blood. Those meant nothing to him. He might never awaken the Sharingan or wield the Wood Release.
What he relied on was something else entirely—the Witness System.
Whenever he experienced or observed an important event, he earned Witness Points.
With one hundred points, the system would finally awaken.
After five years, he had gathered only fifty. Halfway there.
Most of those came from one event—three years ago, when he witnessed the admission of Minato Namikaze to the Ninja Academy.
But since then, Konoha had been too peaceful. No wars, no disasters, no events significant enough to earn more points. His cursed reputation only made things worse; people avoided him, leaving him cut off from the world.
Until now.
A new opportunity was approaching.
The village was preparing to receive a new transfer student—Uzumaki Kushina.
If he could witness her arrival, that event alone might be enough to reach one hundred points.
And then, finally… the Witness System would awaken.
When it did, Chiba swore, the world would never again look down on him.