Rotation

This was Baiye's fifth day with the Reconnaissance Squad.

Over those five days, he had used Reiatsu Detection to scan the mountain paths and dense forests for dozens of miles around Kikyo Castle. The Sand Ninja reconnaissance squads stood out to him like torches in the night, unable to hide their movements.

In less than two days, Hizashi Hyuga had gone from conducting reconnaissance alongside Baiye to entrusting him entirely with leading the task.

Early that morning, Baiye sensed the soul fluctuations of a group of Sand Ninja deep along the Western Ridge Line. He reported their location to Hizashi Hyuga, and the two led the Reconnaissance Squad stealthily along the ridge, where they discovered a hidden cave.

The entrance was concealed behind two overlapping boulders, half covered by withered vines and loose stones. Had Baiye's Reiatsu Detection not pinpointed the Sand Ninja inside, a sweep of the mountainside with the naked eye would never have revealed what lay hidden there.

Hizashi Hyuga signaled for the squad to stand by. The Reconnaissance Squad silently spread out and took up ambush positions among the rocks and bushes on either side of the entrance.

After about an hour, there was movement at the cave entrance.

Three Sand Ninja emerged from the cave in single file. The one in front carried a scroll on his back, while the two behind him each carried a bulging Ninja Tool Pouch. Hizashi Hyuga narrowed his pale eyes slightly and signaled the squad to surround them.

The battle was over in a few breaths. The Sand Ninja had never expected their hiding place to be pinpointed so precisely. The two Chunin guards were struck at their acupoints by Gentle Fist at the entrance and collapsed to the ground. The one carrying the Communication Scroll drew his sword and tried to resist, but Baiye came in from the side and held his blade to his neck. He wisely let go of the hilt.

Hizashi Hyuga ordered the squad to bind the captives and escort them back to Kikyo Castle. Then he nodded to Baiye and ducked into the cave first. Baiye followed, keeping one hand on his sword hilt.

The cave was not large. Its entrance was narrow, but the interior was unexpectedly spacious, with room for a dozen or so people. Bags of dried rations and several boxes of Shuriken were piled in a corner. Crude wooden shelves were nailed to the stone walls, with several oil lamps resting on them.

The Sand Ninja had probably been hiding here for at least several days. Half-written intelligence scrolls and several sketches of the terrain around Kikyo Castle lay scattered on the ground. But the most eye-catching thing was a device standing in the center of the cave: two sharpened wooden stakes had been driven into the ground, and a fist-sized crystal was tied to a crossbeam. Its surface was densely engraved with Jutsu Patterns, and a faint wisp of Chakra flowed slowly at its center.

Hizashi Hyuga approached the Chakra Crystal and activated his Byakugan to examine it closely.

"Such a complicated jutsu. It seems to be part of some kind of Combination Device, but I don't know what it does. We need to take it back and have someone analyze it."

He reached out and moved aside the vines wound around the bottom of the stakes, trying to see whether any other jutsu were hidden beneath the device.

Click. An almost imperceptible metallic snap came from the base of the stakes.

A thin steel cable hidden by the vines sprang loose under the pressure, and the Mechanism connected to it instantly set off a chain of movements.

This was a purely mechanical trap. The Byakugan could see the flow of Chakra, but it could not detect a mechanical device with no Chakra reaction in advance.

Hidden compartments at the top of the cave walls sprang open at once, spraying a dense barrage of Kunai and Shuriken from the front, back, left, and right.

There were too many. There was no time to knock down all the Hidden Weapons.

At the critical moment, Hizashi Hyuga's eyes flew wide open. He brought his feet together, Chakra burst from the acupoints all over his body at once, and he began to spin rapidly.

Baiye slowed his steps. He could tell what Hizashi was about to use.

Rotation.

Chakra surged from the acupoints all over the body. This was a secret technique that only members of the Hyuga Clan who possessed the Byakugan could use. As the body spun rapidly, the Chakra joined together, gradually forming a flowing, hemispherical shield.

But for some reason, the Chakra did not join together perfectly, and the rotation was not fast enough. Tiny gaps remained between the streams of Chakra.

A Shuriken pierced the incomplete barrier and grazed Hizashi Hyuga's right arm, leaving a bloody cut.

A second volley of Hidden Weapons followed close behind, but without the element of surprise, they were no longer a threat. Baiye had already drawn his Tachi. His flashing blade precisely struck down the remaining Kunai in the confined space, pinning them one by one to the stone walls.

Silence settled over the cave, broken only by the faint echoes left by the released Mechanism and Hizashi Hyuga's slightly hurried breathing. He looked down at the wound on his right arm, which was still seeping blood, and fell silent for a moment before speaking softly.

"So it still doesn't work."

Baiye walked over to him and held his palm above the wound. The green light of Medical Ninjutsu lit up.

"Did you make a mistake?"

"Not exactly... Rotation is a secret technique of the Main Family. As a member of the branch family, I'm not qualified to learn it."

Hizashi Hyuga's tone was calm, as if he were stating a fact that had nothing to do with him, but Baiye still caught the mockery in it. "I just watched the Main Family—my twin brother, that is—practice Rotation from the time I was little, and figured out a little of it on my own. I can never get the Chakra I release to join together. This half-finished thing can't be called Rotation at all."

"Are you saying members of the branch family can't learn it?"

Hizashi Hyuga untied his Forehead Protector, revealing a bluish-green cross and two Hook Markings facing opposite directions.

"The Caged Bird Seal. A special Cursed Seal the Main Family places on the branch family to control them. With this mark, a member of the branch family can never defy the Main Family, and it takes only a thought for a member of the Main Family to kill one of us... I suppose it also restricts the Byakugan."

Hizashi Hyuga looked down at his bandaged arm. "The branch family can never fully master the Byakugan's true power."

Baiye did not argue. He simply continued treating him.

He knew the Caged Bird Seal was not the reason someone could not learn Rotation. In the original story, a member of the branch family had taught himself Rotation and even Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms.

Through Reiatsu Detection, he could see something unusual above Hizashi Hyuga's soul.

It was a mass of illusory mist, floating above Hizashi Hyuga's soul in the shape of thorns and always keeping a certain distance from it.

That was probably the trace the Caged Bird Seal left on his soul.

But another detail concerned him more. The part of Hizashi Hyuga's soul facing the Caged Bird Seal was constantly contracted inward. At first, he had thought a piece of the soul was missing, but closer observation revealed the truth.

The Caged Bird Seal itself was still some distance from his soul. The thorn-shaped mist had always hovered above it and had never actually touched it.

Hizashi's soul had not been deformed by some kind of pressure. It had contracted into that shape of its own accord.

Perhaps the Caged Bird Seal had never been what bound him.

The green light of Medical Ninjutsu continued to cover the wound steadily. Beneath that green light, the light of Kaidō quietly appeared and flowed to the soul, gently touching the inwardly contracted edge. It stopped that old indentation from contracting and allowed the edge of the soul to stretch out again.

Hizashi Hyuga's shoulders trembled slightly.

"What is this?"

An unprecedented feeling of ease welled up inside him. It was as though a corner of a veil he had always known was there, but had believed he could never remove, had suddenly been lifted.

"Now, try using Rotation."

"What?"

"Right here, right now. Try it."

Baiye's insistence made Hizashi Hyuga suppress the sense of absurdity he felt.

Still doubtful, he walked to the center of the cave and took a deep breath. Chakra burst from the acupoints all over his body, and he began to spin.

The Chakra gradually began to join together, but unlike before, the process no longer felt like an unreachable void, no matter how hard he tried. Under the Byakugan's gaze, everything was so clear and natural. With almost no effort, a complete, smooth, rapidly spinning hemisphere of Chakra took shape.

He spun faster than he ever had in practice, and the Chakra's density and uniformity were closer to perfection than in any demonstration he had seen. Fragments of stone falling from the cave ceiling were caught in the spinning barrier and flung away on contact, embedding themselves in the walls. The gusts swept up the dry grass and dust on the ground, forming a spiraling vortex inside the cave.

The rotation stopped. Hizashi Hyuga stood where he was, looking at his hands. His pale eyes widened slightly, and his lips moved for a long while before he managed a complete sentence.

"So this is the true Rotation?"

"Congratulations."

Hizashi Hyuga raised his head and looked at the thirteen-year-old boy before him. His expression was as calm as ever, as though he had just performed an ordinary treatment on a wound.

"What did you do? How did you do it? You can actually strengthen the Byakugan?"

"No. Your Byakugan has always been this powerful. You just couldn't get past the barrier in your own heart."

None of it felt quite real to Hizashi Hyuga, but the ease he felt when using his Byakugan constantly reminded him that this was indeed his own power.

But he also knew that if Baiye had not helped him understand all this, he might never have been able to use the full power of his Byakugan in his lifetime.

He thought of the file he had read before setting out, his initial contempt and prejudice, and the Third's words: "Take only Gekkō Byakuya with you to Kikyo Castle."

"Baiye." Hizashi Hyuga's voice was steadier than before. Facing Baiye, he bowed his head solemnly. "Words cannot express my gratitude."

Baiye returned his Tachi to its sheath and turned toward the cave entrance. "You're welcome. Teammates should help each other."

Hizashi Hyuga straightened up and watched Baiye's back disappear into the light at the cave entrance. A rare, brilliant smile crossed his face, and he stepped forward to follow.