Chapter 4
WATANABE HYUGA
"You are a disgrace." The words stung like salt on open wounds, each syllable a lash across Watanabe's pride. Watanabe sat in front of his father with his head lowered and his fist balled up as his father tore into him for his humiliating defeat at the hands of that branch line scum.
"To be defeated by that boy! Do you have no shame!" and his father's screams tore at his pride as he tried to defend himself.
"But father, he has been training with every...."
"Silence!" and the fires in the room all shifted at his words, as he lowered his gaze further, and he bit into his lip.
"You are a disgrace to me and the Hyuga name," and the words cut deep as his father turned away from him.
"Go! Leave me!" and with that, he left the room, head hung low, heart aflame in rage and anger as he came outside the room.
And as the door slid closed behind him, Watanabe Hyuga screamed into the air.
"Damn you! Damn you!" he cursed that boy. Cursed his very existence and how he had caused so much pain for him.
Born to Hiroshi Hyuga, cousin to the clan head, Watanabe was destined for greatness. It was determined that he would be one of the elders, and perhaps one day he would even wed the clan head's daughter and inherit his position.
He was a blessed child, ahead of his peers, yet all that had been made irrelevant by only one person.
Neji Hyuga, and just thinking of that branch line scum made his blood boil.
In the clan, your fate was decided at the time of your birth. If you were born into the main line, then you were born a leader, influential and immaculate, destined for greatness, incomparable even to the branch line scum whose entire purpose in life was to be the tool of those born above them.
Yet that damned boy refused to accept his fate and resisted. Neji Hyuga, the young prodigy they called him, continued to progress even without access to the library and the teachings of their ancestors, surpassing even those destined to be above him.
"Damn it," he cursed as he kicked at the flower pot set there on the porch and saw it smash on the ground, as his fists balled up in rage and frustration.
"Watanabe," he heard his name being called, and turned around to see Shinji, another distant cousin, standing there with an apparent bruise on his face.
"Is that?" he asked, as Shinji nodded in frustration.
"Yeah, it's all because of that one bastard," Shinji cursed, and unlike him, he had been spared.
"Yeah," and they were both victims of that bastard's ambition.
"And we cannot even teach him a lesson now," for he was gone, having left the clan compound, for he was not a full-fledged genin, pushing him out of their grasp for the time being.
And he had thought his hopes of revenge dashed until Shinji suddenly made a suggestion.
"But there is one way we can get back at him," Shinji added as his head snapped towards him.
"How?" he asked, his heart yearning for retribution.
"His brother," and he had forgotten about that. Neji Hyuga was not the first one to threaten them and their superiority. Years ago, there had been another one, an even younger and greater prodigy who had threatened to unravel the entire clan's hierarchy even as a babe, and that person was his younger brother.
Hikari Hyuga.
Even as a babe, he had awakened the Byakugan a few months after his birth, a sign of a true prodigy. But a tragedy had robbed him of both his kekkei genkai and his future.
"But the clan head," he mentioned, for the clan head had given rather strict instructions about not engaging with that boy, and so mostly they ignored him, both because of the head and because of his brother.
For everyone knew that targeting him would draw the ire of his elder brother.
"His brother's gone, so we cannot touch him. But we can hurt that bastard through his little brother," and it was a sound plan, and why would the clan head care if they roughed up a branch line scum like that?
After all that, the boy was a disgrace to their clan, having lost the gift of the Byakugan.
"We will find him in the morning...." and Shinji shook his head.
"Why wait for morning when we can do it tonight?" he suggested with a smile.
"What do you mean?"
"I have heard that the boy often trains late into the night in the forest beside the compounds," and Shinji scoffed.
"They say he wants to be a ninja," and that was absurd, for the boy had lost his eyes and had never even trained in the dojo ever since that incident.
"I am sure he will be there today as well," and so he nodded, as they headed towards the forest, and as they had expected, the boy sat there, holding a burning leaf in his hand as Watanabe stepped forward.
"Now what do we have here...." he taunted, as the boy looked up from the leaf and frowned. A flicker of anger and something else passed through those eyes, sending a shiver down his spine.
And for some reason, it reminded him of looking into his brother's eyes, and how he would look down on him as if gazing at vermin.
"What do you think you are doing here?" Shinji screamed as the boy rose from the ground.
"Nothing," and he did not bow or give them any respect that they were due, as Watanabe finally added in with a cruel smile.
"You see, your brother is no longer here to protect you," and yet he saw no fear in those eyes as he stared at both him and Shinji eyeing him down.
There was not even a flinch, and while they both may not be a match for his elder brother. Both he and Shinji were full-fledged genin working in the Barrier Corps and were slated to be promoted to Chunin soon.
"You really don't want to do this," the boy whispered, as he backed.
"Not today," and he laughed at those words.
"You think you can threaten us?" Shinji almost screamed, as the boy.
"I am not threatening you, I am simply warning you that with Neji gone, I no longer have a reason to hold back," and they both laughed, as Shinji jumped towards the boy, aiming a strike straight at his face.
"Hold back! Hold back what, you branch line scum!" and Watanabe felt the air shift, as his body grew cold and his instincts screamed at him to run, as suddenly he heard the boy whisper as he vanished from his eyes and appeared at Shinji's side and punched him in the face.
"You could have let me have at least one day..."
"CHAAA!"
BOOOOM!
And he watched as Shinji's body was flung into the forest, as he smashed against a tree, and Watanabe found himself stilled in awe as those eyes turned towards him.
And the hate and rage in them went beyond anything that even his brother had shown him, and for a second, he feared that he would die at his hands.
"Do you want to have a go as well?", but he was a boy. A branch line scum, and he activated his Byakugan as he raced forward.
"Eight Trigrams: Two Palms," and he aimed two strikes at his tenketsu, yet instead of dodging, the boy did not stop and aimed a strike straight at his hand.
"AGHHH!" and he heard his bones crack as his arm was crushed into bits as he was pushed back.
"You should have listened to the clan head's orders..." and he looked down at him, as if he would kill him as he screamed into the air.
"HELP! HELP!" and as he pulled back the fist, aiming it squarely at his face, a sharp voice suddenly cut through the air.
"Hikari! Stop!" and relief filled him as he saw that hand stop inched from his face, as the clan head appeared beside the boy and held his hand.
"He! He!" Watanabe eeked out, as his tongue trembled in fear.
"He was about to kill me!" and others began to arrive as well, as Shinji heard his father's voice.
"What is going on here...."
0000
HIASHI HYUGA
For years now, Hiashi had feared that the past would one day return to haunt him. That, for all his gruelling efforts, the demons of the past would one day come to haunt him.
Years ago, Hiashi had made a promise to his second half before his twin had walked out of the gates of Konoha to his inevitable death, that he would protect his son—the very child who had been robbed of his gift and his future by his weakness.
The elders, in their short-sightedness, had taken from that young child his very kekkei genkai, hence robbing him of both power and promise.. But the boy had proven himself to be just as stubborn as his father, and had tried to pursue the way of the shinobi even without the Byakugan.
It was a valued effort, and he would have succeeded in it, but Hiashi had promised his brother that he would protect his child. He could not fulfill that promise if the boy was to become a shinobi, especially one whose very potential had been stifled by his own mistake.
So, Hiashi had decided to halt the boy in his steps, offering him an impossible choice between himself and his elder brother, and the young child had chosen his brother's freedom over his own, allowing him to keep his promise.
But even he had known that the shackles that he had used to bind him were weak, and that they would fail one day. He had just not expected such a day to come so soon.
"This is preposterous," the Watanabe patriarch screamed at him, as Hiashi sat there contemplating over his failure.
"The boy needs to be punished," he screamed, and he would have already activated the shield had his father not rendered it ineffective by activating it to its full extent all those years ago, and decimating the boy's ocular chakra networks.
"That branch line scum nearly killed both my son and Shinji," the older man continued, and he was not wrong, for if he had not intervened when he had, it was a very likely possibility that both of these young men would have lost their lives.
"We cannot let a boy trample on thousands upon thousands of years of tradition!" the other elder added as Hiashi listened in silence, and he wanted to laugh at that.
Tradition, they said. But these traditions had long become nothing but a shield for their cruelty, and he wanted nothing more than to see them torn apart.
"The boy needs to be punished. I would suggest you cut off his hands and make an example out of him for the rest of the servant lin..."
"ENOUGH!" and that was more than enough.
Wrong and at fault as he was, Hikari was his blood. Hiashi had already failed him once, but a decade had passed since that day, and he was no longer the newly appointed clan head who held little power.
"You speak of the boy's crimes, but you forget to mention how it was your two sons who provoked the boy," Hiashi cut in, and the Hyuga Shinji scoffed.
"They did no such thing. They were trying to stop him from destroying the forest," and this whole ordeal had revealed another secret, about the Hyuga clan forest and how nearly a dozen and a half trees there had been destroyed by someone.
And upon first glance, the trees all looked fine, yet if one were to gaze at them using the Byakugan, they would see that while the outer bark remained untouched, the tree had been burnt to a char from the inside.
The technique demonstrated a mastery of Fire nature transformation, and he knew but one person who frequented that forest.
"And what proof do you have of this?" he asked, as he looked at the bald elder.
"Because, by Hikari's accounts, it was Watanabe and Shinji who provoked him first," and the older man frowned.
"And you would dare trust the word of a Branch line scum over the words of our sons," and he wanted to scoff in disgust, but, as powerful as he was, the traditions and the laws were sacred, and even he could not challenge them.
"The trees are inconsequential...."
"I did it," and suddenly the door to the room was flung open, and he was stilled as he saw his daughter standing there, with a rather pale face.
"I was the one who burned the trees," she claimed, probably after eavesdropping on their conversation using her eyes.
"Princess," the elder groaned.
"You need not lie to protect that boy," elder Watanabe added, as his comrade scoffed.
"Look what the influence of that lowly boy has done to her. She now lies openly to her own father....."
"No, I am not lyi..." but the matter was already too complicated.
"Enough!" he spoke sharply, looking at his daughter.
"Leave us!" he thundered, as she stilled, and for the first time, he saw a hint of defiance in that gaze.
"I said leave!" he spoke again, and with a lowered head, she walked out of the room, leaving him alone with the two heads.
"This is why we cannot let this continue!" the bald elder grunted out as he glared at him.
"It is why we have traditions against this! Why we cannot let the lesser line corrupt those of us from the main line!" and he had never felt more of a failure than in that moment, and he was reminded of his other failure from decade ago.
"If you do not have the heart to punish the boy, then let us do it," the Shinji family head added, as Hiashi raised a brow.
"After all, it is well known that you and that boy have a shared history..."
"Are you trying to usurp my authority!" he asked, his chakra roaring forth as he put the two men in their place.
"No," the Shinji family head shook his head as Hiashi's chakra laced the air.
"But he is your..."
"Do not take me for a fool, Elder Shinji, Elder Watanabe!" he thundered as his patience ran thin.
"All of us know exactly what your sons were doing there in the forest, so let us not pretend otherwise!" and they both bit their lip at that, and though he could not prove it was obvious that they had gone after Hikari to get back at Neji for the defeats that they had suffered earlier in the dojo.
"I believe my instructions were rather clear to everyone to avoid my nephew, yet your son still chose to provoke him," and that was a clear defiance of his orders. Orders that he had given to prevent such a thing from happening.
"Can you prove that it was our sons who provoked that boy!" and that was the whole point, for he had no proof of that, and his silence was answer enough.
"You will punish the boy," and both of the men rose, as Hiashi ground his teeth.
"Or we will have to take action ourselves..." and with those words, they left the room.
Hiashi remained, aged and weary, sighing deeply, he whispered to the air an apology.
"Forgive me, brother. I have failed you...."
0000
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A/N: Mc is strong, but he is not Itachi-level strong, because while Itachi was allowed freedom to hone his skills and was supported, all that MC has learned he has learned on his own, and in secret.
He may boast the same potential as Itachi, but he has lost his Byakugan, and is not allowed the freedom to hone his skills, which makes him around peak genin, or low chunin level as of right now.