Hyūga Compound.
Deep within the main family's residence lay a room that looked utterly ordinary.
From far down the corridor, Hyūga Neji opened his Byakugan to scout ahead.
Today was a rest day. No Academy. He ant to use the chance to slip into the main family's restricted archive and morize a secret technique. Kono Taketori was still in her growth phase, which ant keeping her safe mattered most.
His target was clear.
Eight Trigrams Palms: Revolving Heaven.
One of the Hyūga clan's secret arts, fad as an absolute defense, it ford a hemispherical shell of chakra from the ground up around the body, blunting most ninjutsu and even rebounding physical strikes.
His pupils blood. The world turned crystal clear and transparent.
Only the vault ahead stood opaque, its surface awash with a film of chakra that blocked his sight.
Neji was not surprised. It had been the sa last ti. Thick walls and door, and a seal that specifically countered the Byakugan.
He had not activated his eyes for nothing. He wanted the guards hidden around the vault.
A noiseless pulse of ocular power swept outward like sonar, mapping every dark corner around the room into his mind.
Two in the open, four in the shadows.
Six guards in total.
All familiar faces. With the main family's restrictions on branch mbers, true experts were few, most having served his father Hyūga Hizashi.
After Father died, they still visited, even invited Neji to their hos. So treated him openly as the branch family's heir apparent.
He had once hated that title, feeling it made him complicit.
Now he was faintly grateful. Without it, the hope of breaking the Caged Bird would have been dimr still.
His gaze slid on, checking for any sign of main family presence. The uncles from the branch would ignore a little "studying," but he knew stealing a secret was no small matter.
Conspiracy or negligence. The difference in punishnt was vast. They turned a blind eye for his father's sake. He could not use that to make trouble for them.
"Brother Neji, I am a little scared."
"Be quiet."
Hinata wilted, head down, hiding behind Neji.
That morning's Gentle Fist sparring had ended with Neji threatening to accuse her of leaking clan secrets unless she brought him to the archive.
It was one of the clan's most important vaults. Everything on Gentle Fist from the Warring States era to now, besides the Caged Bird formula, was kept here.
So arts were incomplete, only half-developed. So were exceptionally dangerous and brutally hard to master.
Even main family mbers needed the head or elders' permission to enter.
If they were caught stealing, punishnt would be severe.
Hinata trembled. But compared to Kono's deadly hold over her and the evidence of leaked main family secrets, stealing from the archive felt like the lesser sin.
Given two harms, choose the lighter. With no real choice, Hinata could only help Neji.
After watching a while, Neji glanced back. "Did you morize the lines I taught you?"
"Um, I almost forgot them."
"…"
He rolled his eyes hard enough to hurt. It was two lines. He had just taught her and she had almost lost them already. This was the future heir to the main family, the clan's potential leader. Terrifying.
He forced down his frustration. So things you could not dwell on. The more you thought, the less fair it felt.
His only comfort was that Kono was nothing like Hinata.
If their places were swapped, he would sooner believe the main family would break the Caged Bird on its own than believe Hinata could help overthrow them.
Then again, Hinata being like this might be a blessing. With a successor like her, he and Kono would have a much easier ti.
The thought flipped and clicked into place. His expression softened when he looked at Hinata.
"I will say it once more. Rember to tell them the clan head sent us here."
"Okay."
Neji's gentle tone loosened her nerves. Listening to him, Hinata felt as if the Neji from three years ago had returned.
Is Brother Neji not angry with anymore?
Joy flickered through her.
"Did you rember all of it?"
"Ah? I did not hear." She flinched. Right now Neji looked too much like her father lecturing her, and her body rembered fear before her mind did.
Neji clenched his teeth until his fists went tight. He could not tell if he should laugh or cry.
Kono and Hinata were the sa age. One could kick a jōnin through a wall. The other could not even morize two lines.
He would adapt. Kono's technique could not be botched. No matter how many tries it took, he had to morize Eight Trigrams Palms: Revolving Heaven in full and get it to her fast.
He sighed. "It is fine, Hinata. We will do it again. This ti, rember. All right?"
"All right."
Hinata nodded obediently, her pretty face blank with confusion.
Neji looked ten years older in a breath.
One taught, one learned, and after a long while she finally rembered the lines.
The rest went smoothly. Or rather, the hardest part had been getting Hinata to speak the lie without shaking.
It made sense. One was the main family's future head. The other, the branch's. The idea that the two would collude to steal clan secrets to give to an outsider was laughable. Who would believe it?
As for "studying," let them study. It had nothing to do with the guards.
When Hinata and Neji reached the vault door and asked for entry, the guards did not even question them, only opened up and warned them not to bring in pen or paper, not to damage sealed scrolls. When the two nodded like pounding rice, they were waved through.
Inside, aside from the shelving that held scrolls, there were only two cushions.
The central rack had three tiers. The bottom held fundantals like Eight Trigrams Palms: Thirty-Two Palms. The middle held the main family's mid-tier secrets such as the Tenketsu arts, Revolving Heaven, and the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm. The top was a massive sealed scroll that, elders said, contained nurous advanced Gentle Fist secrets and was extrely dangerous.
The yang Eight Trigrams ultimate, Gentle Fist: Mountain-Crushing Blow, and the yin Eight Trigrams ultimate, Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists, were inside.
That scroll required a sealing key to open. Even taking it down demanded specific handling. Neither of them was new to the archive, so they kept their hands off.
Hinata, having served her purpose at the door, sat to the side, face taut with nerves.
Neji found the Revolving Heaven scroll and began morizing at speed.
If ti allowed, he intended to add the cultivation thod for the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm as well.
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