Chapter 3: First Simulation Complete
Morning mist still clung to the edges of the training hall as Hyuga Hinata's practice clothes became soaked through with sweat.
Each breath released thick clouds of white vapor, scattered by the desperate force of her palm strikes. Though her nose and cheeks burned red from the cold, her eyes remained focused on the acupoint markers on the wooden training dummy.
"Stop."
Hyuga Hiashi's voice cut through the silence. Hinata immediately froze, sweat-dampened bangs plastered to her forehead, unable to hide the trace of expectation in her eyes.
"Go bathe and change. Rest for a while. This afternoon, Hizashi will bring Neji over. You saw him yesterday—don't embarrass yourself."
His tone carried not a ripple of emotion. His face revealed nothing.
But Hinata understood that sometimes, no answer was an answer in itself.
Only after Hyuga Hiashi's figure disappeared down the corridor did the light in Hinata's eyes gradually fade. "I still can't satisfy Father..."
After a moment, she patted her cheeks and took a deep breath to encourage herself. "This afternoon—I have to do better this afternoon!"
When afternoon arrived, Hyuga Neji and Hyuga Hinata sparred in the training hall.
Though he hadn't yet activated his Byakugan, Neji could precisely predict Hinata's every move through his understanding of the Gentle Fist alone, positioning himself several steps ahead.
He deliberately slowed his own speed, giving her room to react. Even so, the pressure Neji exerted caused fine beads of sweat to form across Hinata's forehead.
"Lady Hinata, please focus more," Neji reminded her gently.
He felt he'd already broken the Gentle Fist down to its simplest components. Hinata's slow progress could only be because she wasn't taking it seriously enough. How could anyone be so inept they couldn't learn the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms?
"Right."
Hinata bit her lower lip and agreed, trying to make her movements faster. But simply increasing speed without control only disrupted her rhythm further. Under Neji's restrained strikes, she stumbled backward, falling completely into a disadvantage.
At the edge of the training area, Hyuga Hizashi watched the two of them quietly.
He observed Neji controlling the battle's tempo with ease, every move displaying the natural confidence of a genius. Meanwhile, Hinata—the main family heir—continued making mistakes despite how much Neji was holding back for her sake.
Hizashi's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. His gaze drifted to Neji's forehead more than once as emotions he thought he'd buried began fermenting in his heart once more.
When Hinata nearly fell again due to confused footwork, a thread of killing intent leaked from him.
A bird with such talent, unable to fly free!
And the only reason was that he'd been born a few moments later than his brother.
Almost the instant that killing intent manifested, Hyuga Hiashi had already moved in front of Hinata.
Without question or warning, he formed a hand seal.
"Ahhh!"
Hizashi clutched his head and collapsed to his knees with a scream. The searing pain of the cursed seal made his body curl in on itself as he rolled across the training hall floor in agony.
"Father!"
Panic flooded Neji's voice for the first time ever. He rushed to Hizashi's side, but froze the moment he knelt down.
He didn't dare touch his struggling father, didn't know what to do to help. All he could do was watch helplessly as his father's face twisted in pain.
Hiashi relented, lowering his hand from the seal. "Hizashi, I thought you'd let this go."
Hizashi lay in Neji's arms, breathing raggedly, managing an ugly smile. "Yes. I thought I had too."
You're doing this for your son. I'm doing this for my daughter.
Only cold ice remained in Hiashi's eyes. "Hizashi, don't forget your place. This pain is the price of your transgression."
After leaving the training hall, Hinata sat alone in her room, that scene still playing endlessly in her mind. Even now, she couldn't understand what had actually happened.
She hurried to her desk and pulled the black notebook from the drawer. Opening to the first page, she found that beneath the original [Begin Simulation], two new options had appeared:
[Continue Simulation]
[Designated Simulation]
The first one made sense, but the second... As she wondered about it, a line of small text slowly materialized on the page.
"I see."
[Designated Simulation] allowed manual input, changing the simulator's plot direction to obtain a specific ending. However, using this function would increase the simulator's cooldown time.
Hinata bit her lower lip, picked up a pen, and carefully wrote in the blank space:
[This afternoon, Father suddenly used the Caged Bird seal on Uncle Hizashi. Father always said that seal was meant to protect branch family members' eyes. Why did it turn out like this?]
[I want to know the reason. What can I do?]
Soon, new text appeared in the notebook.
[Konoha Year 54. The Cloud Village delegation arrives, and Father becomes extremely busy. I find an opportunity to slip out of the estate again. Because of the doubts in my heart, I decide to look for Neji.]
[However, just outside the compound wall, I notice a suspicious figure. The person has dark skin, very similar to someone from the Land of Lightning.]
[I have two choices.]
[1. Shout loudly that there's an enemy village spy here.]
[2. Ignore it and continue searching for Neji.]
Without hesitation, Hinata immediately tapped the second option.
[Because I don't want to be discovered, I decide to pretend I saw nothing and quietly slip away.]
[When I arrive at Uncle Hizashi's residence, I don't know what to say when we meet. While I'm hesitating, two figures suddenly appear from around a distant street corner—Neji and Kiyonari.]
[I'm about to raise my hand in greeting when sharp pain suddenly shoots through the back of my neck. In the last moment before losing consciousness, I see a hand with dark skin.]
["It's the Cloud Village..."]
[When I wake up, the Cloud Village jonin who attacked me is already dead. According to Father, he was killed by Neji and Kiyonari. They saved me.]
[I instinctively doubt this, but when Father sees my expression, his own shows something like inevitability, even tinged with... relief.]
[Soon, the Cloud Village accuses Konoha and the Hyuga clan of harboring the true culprits. They claim Father killed their messenger to Konoha and demand that both Konoha and the Hyuga clan hand him over.]
[No one would believe that two children who aren't even ninja yet could kill a Cloud Village jonin. They only think Father shifted the blame for murder onto two children. In the end, Father leaves behind a suicide note, destroys his own eyes, and has the village hand over his corpse.]
[But Father's death isn't the end. This incident pushes the entire Hyuga clan toward extremes.]
[The main family believes the branch family conspired with outsiders to force the clan head's death, and moves to strengthen control through the Caged Bird seal. This further enrages the branch family, who believe the main family sees them only as tools, not as fellow members of the Hyuga clan.]
[Only two outcomes seem to remain for the Hyuga clan—fracture or civil war.]
[Simulation complete.]
[Evaluation: What truly killed Hyuga Hiashi?]