Minato: He Was Afraid of Me

A little earlier.

After attending his student Uchiha Obito's funeral, Namikaze Minato ran into Hyuga Ritsu, the Branch House's top genius, hurrying down the street, looking travel-worn.

At the time, he hadn't thought anything of it. He'd simply assumed Hyuga Ritsu had been sent back from the front to rest in the village.

But—

When he got home and sat staring into space on the sofa, his wife, Uzumaki Kushina, tried to cheer him up and distract him by telling him about some recent events in the village.

"Wait. You're saying the Mist Shinobi stole a Byakugan from the Hyuga Clan's Main House, and they blamed Hyuga Ritsu for failing to provide backup? So Clan Head Hyuga Hiashi and the others went to the front to punish him and take back the Byakugan the Mist Shinobi stole?"

Minato sat bolt upright and, staring at his startled wife, quickly summed up what she'd said.

"Uh, yeah, more or less."

Uzumaki Kushina nodded without thinking.

"The Hyuga Ritsu you're talking about is the one who's said to be the Hyuga Clan's top Branch House genius, the one Lord Hiruko took on as his student, right?"

"Uh... There isn't another Hyuga Ritsu in the Hyuga Clan, is there?"

Kushina was starting to doubt herself after her husband's questions.

Still,

she wasn't wrong.

She'd never heard of another Hyuga Ritsu in the Hyuga Clan.

"Minato, what's wrong? Why do you care about this? Is it because of Lord Hiruko?" Kushina asked, puzzled.

"I ran into Hyuga Ritsu earlier."

Minato frowned, his expression grave.

"Huh?"

Kushina was quick-witted, too. In an instant, she realized what Minato was worried about. It was indeed alarming that a talented Branch House member of the Hyuga Clan, who should have been at the front being punished, had suddenly appeared in the village.

"Maybe Lord Orochimaru sent him back? Lord Orochimaru and Lord Hiruko were classmates, too. It's possible he used this method to protect Lord Hiruko's student, isn't it?"

Kushina guessed.

But Minato shook his head. "If the plan was to keep Hyuga Ritsu from being punished by the Hyuga Clan's Main House, they shouldn't have sent him back to the village. They should've assigned him a secret mission and sent him far away. Coming back to the village would be like walking right into a trap."

"That's true."

Kushina thought it over, then nodded in agreement.

Her guess did have a flaw.

"Then what's going on? Is it serious?"

"Hard to say. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but..." Minato mused, recalling his encounter with Hyuga Ritsu. When they first met, Ritsu's body had been tense, as if he were ready to exert himself at any moment. But that was normal; everyone was like that after coming back from the battlefield.

The part that seemed off was what happened when Minato asked about the situation on the eastern front. Hyuga Ritsu had suddenly relaxed, as though he'd let out a sigh of relief.

"He was afraid of me!"

Minato murmured.

"What?"

"When we ran into each other earlier, Hyuga Ritsu was afraid of me at first. It's very possible he came back to the village without official orders. He returned on his own..."

Minato put a hand on Kushina's shoulder. "Kushina, I'm sorry, but I have to go out again and report this to Lord Hokage. Wait for me at home. I'll be back soon, and when I get back, we'll make dinner together."

"Take an umbrella—actually, take your raincoat. It looks like this rain could start any minute."

Kushina hurried to her feet, found a neatly folded, bright yellow transparent raincoat in a tote bag, and handed it to Minato.

"I'll be back soon."

Minato took the bag and smiled at Kushina. The next instant, he vanished from the house and appeared on the rooftop terrace of the Hokage Building.

He pushed open the unlocked rooftop door and hurried down the stairs, soon arriving outside the Hokage's office.

"Knock, knock!"

Minato raised his hand and knocked on the door, which had been left ajar.

"Come in."

A slightly hoarse, gravelly voice came from inside.

"Lord Hokage."

Minato pushed open the door and went in.

Smoke swirled through the spacious office. Its source was the Third, Sarutobi Hiruzen, seated behind his desk with a pipe in hand, still puffing away.

"Minato! What's happened?"

Seeing Minato walk in, Sarutobi Hiruzen smiled.

"I heard that a Byakugan belonging to the Hyuga Clan's Main House was stolen on the eastern front, and that the Main House has blamed Hyuga Ritsu of the Branch House. What exactly happened?"

Minato walked farther in and stopped in front of the desk.

"What? Are you here to plead Hyuga Ritsu's case, Minato? That won't be easy. The Hyuga Clan is one of the village's major clans. The First allowed them to handle their own internal affairs, and they've been insisting this is a family matter. It's not exactly convenient for us to interfere."

Sarutobi Hiruzen looked troubled.

"No, Lord Hokage, I'm not here to plead anyone's case. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but after Obito's funeral earlier, I ran into Hyuga Ritsu on my way home."

"Hmm? You ran into Hyuga Ritsu?"

"Judging by your reaction, you didn't know he'd returned to the village?"

Minato furrowed his brow.

Crack!

Lightning flashed outside the window, followed by a rumble of thunder.

A moment later, rain poured down, fat droplets striking the floor-to-ceiling windows and splashing into great sprays.

Sarutobi Hiruzen's expression darkened.

He said coldly, "Someone!"

In the next instant,

an Anbu member wearing a mask appeared in front of the desk.

"Find out when Hyuga Ritsu returned to the village."

"Yes."

The Anbu member answered, then disappeared in an instant.

Sarutobi Hiruzen took another couple of hard drags on his pipe. "Minato, what do you think Hyuga Ritsu came back to the village for?"

"There's too little information to make a—"

"Take a guess."

"The worst-case scenario is that Hyuga Ritsu intends to defect. He risked coming back to the village to take his parents with him. I've interacted with Hyuga Ritsu quite a bit. He's devoted to his parents; he wouldn't abandon them and defect on his own."

Minato offered his conjecture, based on what he knew of Hyuga Ritsu.

"That's about what I thought, too. If Hyuga Ritsu isn't willing to accept punishment from the Hyuga Clan's Main House, defecting is his only choice... What a headache. The Hyuga Clan is such a mess!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed helplessly.

Konoha now had two great clans.

One was the Uchiha, who possessed the Sharingan Kekkei Genkai, and the other was the Hyuga, who possessed the Byakugan Kekkei Genkai. The former had extreme personalities and were especially prone to going to extremes. According to the Second, they were a clan born evil.

The latter had more stable personalities and had never produced a dangerous figure like Uchiha Madara. But the Hyuga Clan had a Main House–Branch House system unlike any other in the Shinobi World. To outsiders like them, the Branch House members were little more than slaves to the Main House. If the Caged Bird Seal hadn't controlled the Branch House members' lives and deaths, the Hyuga Clan would probably have erupted into civil war long ago.

Of course,

it was precisely because the Caged Bird Seal existed that they all judged the worst-case scenario to be Hyuga Ritsu defecting with his family.