Visiting Kasuga

In the end, Izuna and Mokushō did not immediately keep Hideki.

After receiving the instruction that "you may leave," Hideki's red hair swayed in the morning breeze of the Training Ground, his face filled with relief. He bowed and hurriedly took his leave, his steps so quick as if afraid they would change their minds.

Mokushō chuckled, "Next time we meet, he won't have it so easy!"

Izuna ignored him, picked up the gold and silver treasures, and turned to walk out of the Training Ground.

He still had several more places to visit and didn't have time to linger here, so the things Mokushō won could be given away as gifts.

Izuna picked out some fruit and alcohol in the Commercial Street, while Mokushō, taking advantage of his Ordinary People status, swaggered alongside him.

Walk through the bustling Commercial Street and pass through several alleyways that are under reconstruction.

Some villagers who recognized Izuna greeted him on the way, but his gaze merely swept over the air beside Izuna, and his expression remained unchanged.

Izuna had also helped organize a funeral in modern times.

It was the death of an elder relative from a distant family. He followed the adults in the family, helping with the funeral arrangements, and roughly knew what the process was like.

Wearing mourning clothes, hanging black and white curtains, setting up altars, chanting scriptures and praying. That's all there is to it.

But it was for his own family, and no matter how busy he was, his elders would take care of things, so he only needed to run errands.

Now, as Konoha High Command, he will walk alone into the families who have lost loved ones, knock on their doors, and ask the deceased if they have any unfulfilled wishes.

This kind of thing doesn't happen often. He didn't show it on the surface, but he was actually extremely nervous.

He asked for directions to the Kasuga family's residence at the entrance of the Hyuga Clan Compound. The Hyuga clansman guarding the gate recognized him and politely gave him directions.

As he passed through the Hyuga Clan Compound, several children playing in the alley saw him and called out "Lord Izuna" from afar. He smiled, waved to them, and continued walking.

After passing an old house and crossing a narrow stone path, Kasuga home is just ahead.

When he finally arrived at Kasuga's house, his good mood, where everything seemed pleasing to the eye, suddenly vanished.

Kasuga's house was not large, the walls were plain, and the stone path in front of the door was covered with a thin layer of dust and a few withered leaves blown by the wind.

It looked... a bit more desolate than when he had come before.

Kasuga's father happened to be sitting in front of the door.

Before Izuna could say anything, he nodded to him, then got up, opened the door, and went inside.

Izuna understood that the father didn't want to talk at the moment, so he simply followed silently into the house, took off his shoes, and stepped into the Genkan.

Mokushō didn't follow them inside. He quietly squatted by the gate, teasing a lizard that crawled out of a crack in the stone with his finger.

The room was quiet and looked empty.

On the low table in the living room sat a pot of tea that had gone cold, and two teacups, one of which was empty, with a thin layer of tea stains on the bottom.

He went inside and saw a woman in the room next to the living room.

The woman was kneeling in front of a Buddhist shrine.

Inside were two memorial tablets, with Rice Balls and incense offered in front of them.

One of the memorial tablets was inscribed with the four characters "Hyuga Haruhi" (Hyuuga Haruhi), one by one.

Clearly, the woman with slightly gray hair was Kasuga's mother.

She seemed surprised to hear footsteps, turned her head slightly, and after seeing that it was Izuna, she turned her head to look at the Buddhist shrine.

"Kasuga," she said softly, "And we have guests."

Then she slowly turned around and saw Izuna standing at the door, a very faint smile appearing on his pale face.

"You are... Lord Izuna."

"I apologize for the intrusion." Izuna and Kasuga's father, Takayuki, walked to the low table and sat down.

Izuna dared not look too closely at the family's room, fearing it would be disrespectful. He glanced at the couple's faces, took a deep breath, and said solemnly, "On behalf of the Konoha administration, I've come to confirm something with you two. It concerns Kasuga's belongings, and whether he had any unfulfilled wishes."

He had silently repeated these words to himself several times when he left the Hokage Building, and now that he said them, his tone was calm and his wording was appropriate, exactly as he had expected.

Only after he finished speaking did he realize how stiff his businesslike rhetoric sounded to parents who had lost their son.

But he wasn't familiar with Kasuga, and had nothing else to say to these two elders, so he could only remain silent.

Kasuga's parents did not show any signs of being offended.

Takayuki poured a fresh cup of tea and pushed it in front of Izuna, saying, "Lord Izuna, thank you for coming."

Kasuga's mother also bowed slightly to Izuna. Her pale face did not show the overwhelming grief Izuna had expected; instead, it carried a strange calmness.

"I'm sure you'll be very happy to Kasuga," she said.

Izuna's fingers unconsciously traced the rim of the teacup, unsure how to respond.

He was prepared to be questioned, prepared to be indifferent, even prepared to cry, to listen to long monologues, and even to feel hatred, but he was not prepared to accept gratitude.

"You don't need to make that face." A tenderness, something Izuna couldn't decipher, lingered in Kasuga's mother's eyes. "We know you and Kasuga aren't very close, but we're still very happy to have you here."

"Because we want to tell you. Not as a family member of the deceased, but as Kasuga's parents, we want to tell you what kind of child he was."

Izuna immediately sat up straighter, his expression serious.

The couple smiled with relief upon seeing this.

"Hyuuga Haruhi, he wasn't like this from the beginning." Takayuki's voice was like a pebble falling on water, rippling outwards.

He was once a child whose name matched his Kasuga.

Born in spring, her smile is like a newly sprouted blade of grass, soft and warm.

Back then, he would chase Butterflies from the front yard to the back yard in the Kasuga, tuck wildflowers he picked into his mother's hair, and give his father a big hug when he returned from the war.

At that time, he had an older brother named Akiyuki.

Akiyuki was four years older than Kasuga, and was named Akiyuki because he was born in autumn.

The Akiyuki is a source of pride for the Branch Family.

His Byakugan is extremely pure, and his Gentle Fist talent is outstanding among his peers. He has been training with the Main Family members since childhood and has been cultivated as the Main Family's bodyguard.

Kasuga is completely different.

He developed his eyesight a year later than his peers, his Taijutsu skills were mediocre, and he kept forgetting the moves of the Gentle Fist.

But he was never upset about it.

He liked to stand on the edge of the Training Ground, holding a towel and a water bottle, and stand on tiptoe to look at the center of the field.

Every time Akiyuki a beautiful attack that sends his opponent flying, Kasuga jumps up and shouts, "Brother, you're amazing!"

He didn't care whether he was a genius or not; he had his older brother shining ahead of him, so he only needed to stand behind and watch.

He even seriously discussed it with his mother, saying, "Mom, I don't think I'm suited to be Ninja. Do you think I could learn to cook and then work in the Logistics Division to cook for everyone?"

His mother laughed so hard she bent over, saying, "When your father comes back, you can tell him yourself. He'll definitely say you're useless."

Kasuga stuck out her tongue and said, "I won't talk about it now. I'll talk to my brother when he becomes the person in charge. Then, with my brother protecting me, Dad won't dare to scold me."

Akiyuki also doted on him.

Every time he returned from a mission, he would bring something back for Kasuga.

Sometimes it's a bag of Konpeitō) bought from town, sometimes it's a smoothly shaved wooden knife, and sometimes it's just a strangely shaped stone picked up by the roadside.

In Kasuga, he would put all those things in a small wooden box under the bed, and whenever he had the chance, he and his brother would take them out and play with them.

Akiyuki died in the winter of the year Kasuga was eleven years old.

It was a small-scale skirmish, but the opposing side had hired a missing-nin skilled in Water Release.

Akiyuki's squad was ambushed, and the task of covering the rear fell to him.

He could have escaped unscathed with his Strength, but the leader of the Main Family panicked and used the Caged Bird Seal Curse during the retreat.

The curse wasn't meant as punishment; it was simply because, in his fear, he instinctively clenched the only thing he could hold onto—the fate of the Branch Family's division.

Akiyuki was overtaken by the enemy while suffering excruciating pain from Caged Bird Seal.

His teammates heard a muffled thud from behind as Water Release Ninjutsu slammed into the ground.

When they returned to the battlefield after defeating the enemy, Akiyuki was already dead. His body was covered in water stains from the impact, his heart was damaged, his Byakugan were still open, all the blood vessels on the surface of his eyeballs had burst, and his eye sockets were filled with blood.

Such a gruesome corpse and such a talented Ninja caused an immediate uproar when they were brought back to the clan.

The Branch Family Ninjas were outraged and demanded an explanation from the Main Family did indeed provide one.

However, his conclusion was simply that it was a "battlefield decision-making error."

The Main Family chanted the incantation was confined for Half a Month, and that was all.

Those who Branch Family didn't dare to resist. Which of them hadn't suffered from the Cursed Seal? None of them wanted to experience that kind of excruciating pain. So, after receiving the result, they simply let it go.

Kasuga did not shed a single tear at Akiyuki's funeral.

He stood at the front row dressed in white mourning clothes, watching his brother's coffin being buried in the ground, without shedding a single tear from beginning to end.

After the funeral, he locked himself in his room for two whole days, refusing to answer the door no matter who knocked.

On the morning of the third day, he pushed open the door, went to the kitchen, scooped out a bowl of cold rice, and sat on the porch to eat it quietly.

Then he said to his father, "Father, teach me Gentle Fist."

From that day on, the Haruhi who chased Butterflies and whine that she didn't want to be Kasuga Ninja completely disappeared.

He began training relentlessly, leaving home before dawn and returning only after dark. His palms were covered in blisters that would scab over and then break open again, a process that repeated several times until thick calluses formed on his palms.

He stopped laughing, stopped chatting with anyone, buried his head in his food while eating, and went to the Training Ground as soon as he finished.

He would answer if someone asked him a question, his tone normal and his words polite, but there was no emotion in his eyes, as if he were having a conversation with a world that did not exist.

He began to study Eight Trigrams Palm and Rotation martial arts technique) with great enthusiasm. Since no one in the Branch Family could teach him, he figured it out on his own.

He borrowed all the Gentle Fist techniques he could find from retired Ninjas in his clan, wrote them down one by one, and pasted them on the walls of his room.

Every night, he would trace the words on the wall over and over again until his fingers trembled.

Two years later, he used the complete Rotation technique during a clan drill.

Three years later, his Eight Trigrams Palm could cover all the moves of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms.

He became a renowned expert in the clan.

Even so, the Main Family never allowed him to join the core team.

Because he hated the Main Family.

Every time his Byakugan landed on the Main Family, the silent, undisguised hostility made everyone feel like they were being pricked by thorns.

Even so, the Main Family was unwilling to waste such a high-level combatant, so Kasuga's situation became very awkward.

The Main Family dared not employ him, Branch Families dared not approach him.

He gets the tough tasks, but never the easy ones.

From then on, he became an isolated island.

Takayuki paused here, and after a moment, he said, "We thought his life would end like this, until... that day, you called out his name on the street."