Noon.
Kumokawa walked back to the Hyūga compound from the hospital, looking down at his bandaged hand.
Thanks to his body's enhanced regeneration, the wound had actually healed on the way to the hospital. He had to secretly cut it open again to avoid suspicion. Even then, the medics were amazed at his recovery speed.
Of course, there was another reason he bandaged it so visibly.
"..."
Lost in thought, Kumokawa stopped outside a training ground. He saw a figure surrounded by respectful attendants.
Hyūga Aoi. The daughter of a Main House Elder.
Her long black hair flowed in the sunlight. Her sixteen-year-old face was rosy and healthy, retaining a bit of baby fat, but her white eyes were as cold as ice shards.
"Get lost!"
She kicked a kneeling Branch member without mercy. The man grunted in pain but didn't dare show even a hint of resentment.
"Trash."
Aoi glared at him with disgust. She swept her gaze over the other attendants. "All of you are trash! Not one of you dares to fight back? Father sent you lot to protect me?"
The Branch members kept their heads low, humble and subservient.
Aoi was the only daughter of a powerful Elder. She had been spoiled rotten since birth. Arrogant, willful, and violent.
If that were all, it would be tolerable. Many Main House kids were like that.
But Aoi was obsessed with proving herself. She wanted to go to the battlefield. To the Branch members, this was delusion. To the Main House, it was asking for trouble.
Denied permission to leave the village again, she was venting her frustration by demanding her guards fight her "for real."
But how could they? If they accidentally hurt her, her father would torture them with the Caged Bird. Compared to the soul-crushing pain of the seal, a few kicks and insults were nothing. They would bark like dogs if she asked them to.
"Wait." Aoi frowned. "Isn't someone missing?"
The Branch members looked up, realizing who was absent.
"Lady Aoi," the guard who had stopped Kumokawa earlier spoke up, still clutching his bruised abdomen. "It is..."
"Lady Aoi. I am here."
A familiar voice interrupted him. The guard flinched, his stomach throbbing in phantom pain.
Aoi turned and saw Kumokawa approaching. She sneered. "I was wondering who it was. The biggest waste of them all."
Kumokawa ignored the insult. He held up his bandaged hand and bowed slightly. "Apologies, Lady Aoi. My hand is injured. I may not be able to..."
WHOOSH!
A fist flew at his face. Instinctively, he tilted his head. The punch grazed his earlobe, the wind lifting his hair.
Kumokawa raised his eyes calmly, meeting Aoi's emotionless white gaze.
"Spare me the excuses," Aoi said coldly. "Let's see if you've improved at all, trash."
She pulled back her fist and thrust her palm toward his chest.
But in the next instant, Kumokawa moved. His footwork was ethereal, drifting back like a leaf in the wind to dodge the strike.
Aoi's eyes widened in surprise. Veins bulged around her eyes as she activated her Byakugan, shifting into the true Gentle Fist stance.
Her right hand became a blur, three fingers aiming for the tenketsu point on his left shoulder.
'...' Kumokawa sighed internally. 'So troublesome.'
He didn't want to stand out yet. But he refused to kneel and be a dog.
He had endured for three years to change his fate. If he kept kneeling now, those three years would be wasted.
So, did he want to stand tall? Or did he want to earn "money" (Realization Points)?
"I want to stand tall AND earn the money."
Fine.
Kumokawa slowly closed his eyes.
Once again, he entered that state of total concentration. Visuals, audio, smell, taste, touch—all physical senses were locked away. Only spiritual perception remained.
Whiff!
He spun his body back. Aoi's fingertips grazed the tip of his nose, leaving a palm print an inch deep in the wooden post behind him. Woodchips fell onto his eyelashes, smelling of bitter resin.
Aoi's attacks came in a torrent of palms and fists. To anyone else, they were swift. To Kumokawa, sensing through spirit and moving with boiling, magma-like blood, they were agonizingly slow.
He was the only entity moving at normal speed in a slowed-down film.
"What is happening?"
Seeing Kumokawa dodge every single strike with his eyes closed, Aoi's pupils constricted. Her expression shifted from annoyance to excitement, but her movements grew hasty.
Kumokawa could "see" it. Her attacks looked fierce, but every rotation exposed the empty space under her ribs.
In the next second, seizing the gap in her flawed defense, Kumokawa's raised palm snaked around her guard like a fish swimming upstream. He caught Aoi's wrist with one hand and locked her forearm with the other.
He applied torque, twisting the bones and tendons.
Crack! Pop!
In a split second, two distinct sounds echoed from Aoi's arm.
One was the bone dislocating. The other was the bone being reset.
The movement was so fluid and practiced that Aoi didn't even have time to scream. There was only a flash of blinding pain.
Before she could recover from the shock, Kumokawa moved again.
His body seemed to vibrate with a frequency the naked eye couldn't track. A transparent force traveled instantly from his spine, through his muscles, and into his arm, whipping it sideways into Aoi's body like a lash.
THWACK!
It sounded like a stalk of bamboo being bent to its limit and then released. A visible cone of white mist exploded in the air from the impact.
The blow struck Aoi's guarding arm. It felt like being hit by a sledgehammer. She staggered backward uncontrollably, her balance destroyed. She was about to fall ungracefully onto the dirt...
Too much humiliation might make things troublesome.
Kumokawa sighed internally. He reached out, grabbed Aoi by the collar, and yanked her back up with zero elegance.
"Had enough fun, Lady Aoi?"
Kumokawa opened his eyes. He stared into her trembling pupils. His tone was laced with sarcasm, his voice lowered to a dangerous whisper.
"If you really want to go to the battlefield, you should at least understand one thing..."
"On this blood-soaked earth, within this cruel clan... you are alive because many others have sacrificed themselves."
"Those who live must be worthy of that sacrifice."
"Unfortunately... in my eyes, you are not worthy."
With that, he straightened up, released her collar, and pushed her away.
Ignoring the surrounding gazes—some shocked, some terrified, some awed—Kumokawa offered a polite, formal bow to Aoi, then turned and walked away.
With his back to Aoi's staring eyes, his expression returned to calm indifference. His steps were steady as he exited the training ground.
But the moment he stepped out, the notification he had been waiting for chimed in his mind.
[Ding!][Your lie has been judged as "False Affection" and "Attracting Bees and Butterflies".][Hyūga Aoi has generated intense emotional fluctuations, reaching the level of "Self-Doubt".][You have obtained 300 Realization Points...]
"...Tsk. That is slander."
The smile on Kumokawa's face vanished instantly. He muttered, "Deceiving women is something I simply cannot do."
Jokes aside, his peripheral vision caught a familiar figure running out of another courtyard. The small face was filled with childish resentment and anger.
That was... Hyūga Neji.
"Oh, look." Kumokawa narrowed his eyes and smiled. "My protagonist has arrived."
Chapter 11: So Dark
Evening.
Konoha was peaceful at twilight. Night draped over the buildings like a gray coat. The four stone faces on the Hokage Rock watched over the land like silent giants.
In his courtyard, Kumokawa stood motionless, wearing his white training Gi. His eyes were closed.
The yard was a wreck. Wood chips littered the ground. Every single wooden training post had been shattered. The manicured lawn was pitted and scarred. Some of the splintered wood was stained with drying blood—his own, from pushing his body to the limit.
"Done."
Kumokawa opened his eyes and checked his System Panel. A smile touched his lips. "Finally, I have ranged and heavy-impact Nintaijutsu."
[Taijutsu: Gentle Fist · Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms (C-Rank), Eight Gates · Gate of Healing (Forbidden), Gentle Fist · One Blow Body (B-Rank), Vacuum Palm (A-Rank)]
"It mimics Kaguya's 'Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack', but with her physique, that technique was probably just a casual wave of her hand. For me, it requires technique."
Kumokawa gathered his thoughts and glanced at the messy yard.
He hesitated, then decided not to clean it up. He turned and walked into the house.
After a morning of high-intensity training with Guy and an afternoon of developing Nintaijutsu, he was exhausted.
But shortly after he entered, a figure appeared outside his gate.
The visitor looked at the devastation in the yard, stunned. 'What happened here?'
Frowning, the visitor walked silently to the door. After a few seconds of hesitation, he reached for the handle.
But the moment his hand touched it.
BANG!
The door was slammed open from the inside. A massive force, enough to generate a sonic boom, traveled through the handle. It felt like it wanted to crush the visitor and scatter him as fertilizer.
"Hm?"
The visitor reacted instantly. He pressed his palm forward against the door, unleashing a burst of Gentle Fist chakra to neutralize the incoming force.
The forces collided and dissolved like mud into the sea.
Inside the room, Kumokawa stopped. He realized who it was.
Click.
The door opened fully.
Seeing the face of the visitor, Kumokawa paused, feigning surprise.
"Lord Hizashi?"
Kumokawa blinked, then bowed apologetically. "I'm sorry, Lord Hizashi. I thought it was..."
"No need to apologize. I am the uninvited guest."
Hyūga Hizashi, dressed in a black kimono, waved his hand dismissively. He hid his trembling hand behind his back. Looking at Kumokawa with a hint of appreciation, he smiled. "May I come in?"
"Please." Kumokawa stepped aside.
"Excuse the intrusion." Hizashi entered the genkan. His gaze swept over the sparse, simple interior, lingering briefly on the open door of the training room filled with equipment.
"I heard about what happened this morning. You were right to be cautious when sensing an intruder."
They sat in the living room. Hizashi sighed, speaking first. "I just didn't expect someone to dare attack you inside the village. How is your injury?"
Noticing Hizashi looking at his hand, Kumokawa smiled. "Lucky. It's nothing serious."
"It's just us two here. No need to be so formal," Hizashi nodded. "Your father and I had a good relationship. I have neglected you. Seeing you safe is a relief."
As the leader of the Branch House, Hizashi was well-liked. He acted more like an elder uncle than a clan leader.
Hizashi asked about Kumokawa's recent life. He hesitated, intending to scold Kumokawa for his disrespect toward Aoi earlier (as the Elders had demanded), but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Looking at Kumokawa's young face, thinking of his dead father, and thinking of Neji's growing resentment... Hizashi sighed internally.
With the Main House's atrocious behavior, how could resentment not breed? All he could do was try to soothe the wounds.
"You broke those stakes outside, didn't you?" Hizashi changed the subject. "I didn't expect your progress to be so rapid. Awakening the Byakugan through trauma... a blessing in disguise. But be careful not to overtrain."
"You flatter me, Lord Hizashi," Kumokawa replied politely but distantly. "After all... I am alone now. I have only myself to rely on."
Hizashi froze. A wave of guilt and pity washed over him.
Looking at Kumokawa's calm exterior masking deep sorrow, Hizashi couldn't ask the question he wanted to ask.
What question?
Why a 'waste' suddenly became so strong?
Is there a need to ask?
The death of a father, the only family... that is enough to change a cowardly child.
"..."
Hizashi licked his dry lips. He realized the boy hadn't even served tea.
He still holds a grudge.
I can only try to make amends.
"Alright. If you have any difficulties in the future, come to me." Hizashi stood up. "I should head back. You must be tired. Rest early."
He didn't leave immediately. Instead, he pulled two scrolls from his robe and placed them on the coffee table.
"Since you've awakened the Byakugan and mastered the Thirty-Two Palms... this is the advanced Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms."
Kumokawa's eyes flickered. He knew Hizashi, driven by guilt and impulse, was taking a massive risk.
The Main House wanted Branch members strong enough to serve, but not strong enough to rebel. Techniques like Rotation and Sixty-Four Palms were restricted. Only the most loyal dogs were allowed to learn them.
If the Main House found out Hizashi had taught this to Kumokawa without permission, Hizashi would face severe punishment—likely the torture of the Caged Bird.
The moment he put the scrolls down, Hizashi felt a twinge of regret. But before he could speak, Kumokawa had already picked them up.
"Thank you." Kumokawa bowed his head, his face hidden in shadow. His shoulders trembled. "Father's scrolls and notes were all taken away... If not for you, I truly wouldn't know how to proceed."
"..."
Hizashi closed his mouth. He was silent for a moment, then sighed. "Do not hate the Clan. This is our fate as the Branch House. Your father would not want to see you in such pain."
With that, afraid he might regret it and ask for the scrolls back, Hizashi left quickly.
Kumokawa sat alone in the living room, head bowed.
Slowly, the "grief" on his face smoothed into calm indifference. He looked out the window at the deepening night.
[Ding! Your lie has been judged as "Crocodile Tears".][Hyūga Hizashi has generated strong emotional fluctuations, reaching the level of "Self-Doubt".][You have obtained 1,500 Realization Points.][Remaining Realization Points: 12,293]
"A bountiful harvest today," Kumokawa mused. "If only there were more good people like Lord Hizashi and Senior Guy."
With points in hand, his heart began to itch.
Keeping 10,000 as a reserve, he had over a thousand points to play with. Enough to cause some chaos.
His first thought, naturally, went to his beloved Orochimaru.
"The scroll in Orochimaru's hands... it's time to make a move."
To him, Orochimaru was a lab rat. A very useful one.
Kumokawa had a bold idea.
He focused his mind: 'Manifestation: Add subsequent content to the scroll held by Orochimaru. Set condition: "Living Corpse Reincarnation" mastery required to unseal. Content: "When a ninja harboring deep resentment dies, their soul can materialize..."'
[Cost: 100 Realization Points. Confirm?]
"Manifest."
After confirming the update, his eyes drifted back to the thought of Neji.
Orochimaru was far away. Results would take time.
He couldn't just wait. He needed to start working on someone closer. Neji was a prime candidate.
After a moment of thought, Kumokawa commanded: 'Manifestation: A suit that conceals identity, blocks Byakugan and sensory perception, and is indestructible.'
[Cost: 2,000 Realization Points. Confirm?]
"So expensive." He frowned, but agreed. "Yes."
[Deducted 2,000 Points. Remaining: 10,193]
As the System responded, Kumokawa waited for a physical object to drop. instead, he saw his shadow begin to writhe.