Uchiha Jie gently laid the sleeping Hyuga Hinata on the soft bed and tucked her in. Then he pushed aside the flowers on the windowsill, sat down, and looked out at the little hot spring pool.
The water was always hot, but now it was even hotter. Steam spread through the whole courtyard, glowing a warm yellow in the setting sun.
Sarutobi Kou liked to smoke, but he didn't. He only liked the feeling of being surrounded by smoke, as if he were hiding inside it, where no one could see what he was doing.
Hyuga Hinata was in the mist now, but it wasn't harmless steam. It was miasma—the poison that generations of the Hyuga Clan had built up. Now it had spread, enveloping her.
She had never been able to touch it or see it. But now Uchiha Jie had told her that she was the eldest daughter of the Hyuga Clan. Hyuga Hiashi had already tasted this poison, and it had killed his younger brother. Now it was her turn.
He had shown her a path.
She could leave the poison behind and never look back at anything that happened in this little mountain hollow. She could abandon the rotting corpse of the Hyuga Branch Family, as well as her sister and father, who were still trapped in the miasma, and go far away, never to see them again.
That was what he had done this time. He had brought Hinata to the edge of the hollow, where she looked down at the poisonous fog spreading through the Hyuga Clan's home. The setting sun was behind her, and hell lay before her.
She told Uchiha Jie that she wanted to go back.
"Oh? Go back? What can you do? Breathe in the poisonous fog with your tender little lungs and hope there'll be less poison?"
Uchiha Jie fixed his Sharingan on Hinata. The stubbornness of the girl before him made him laugh, but he couldn't help marveling at the innocent idealism unique to the young.
They naively believed things were always that simple—that if she only had the Caged Bird Seal placed on her, she could use her flesh and blood to shield the crows from their sharp beaks and claws.
But he suddenly realized he couldn't talk the girl out of it.
Her gaze was exceptionally firm. She met his crimson Sharingan without hesitation. This was the first time he had seen Hyuga Hinata so strong. He wanted to persuade her, but the words simply wouldn't come.
It was his own gaze that wavered.
"Why?" he asked softly.
"Because you're a good-for-nothing, just like me." A cool voice suddenly rang out in the empty white space.
Uchiha Jie jumped in fright. This was his Genjutsu—how could there be a voice he didn't control? And that voice...
"Sister Yue?" Hyuga Hinata asked quietly.
Hyuga Yue stepped out of thin air, dressed in a white robe. She was barefoot, with no Ninja sword at her waist, and even the Forehead Protector on her brow had vanished. The ugly Caged Bird Seal was exposed before Hinata.
"He doesn't have the resolve you do. He's a cold-blooded animal who watched the Uchiha Clan get wiped out." Hyuga Yue stood in front of Hinata.
"Hey! I did plenty of things you don't know about!" Uchiha Jie's voice rose. "And how did you get into my Genjutsu?"
"You used my blood and saw my memories. You won't even let me leave a clone here? Remember, we developed this Genjutsu together." Hyuga Yue tilted her head, her voice full of scorn.
Seeing that Uchiha Jie was about to say something else, she waved him off and said impatiently, "Get out. Don't cut off the chakra. I want to talk to little Hinata alone."
Uchiha Jie returned from the white space to reality. His Sharingan was still slowly turning, drawing chakra from him all the while.
Hyuga Hinata was still sitting where she was, asleep.
"How did those two sentences take so long..." Uchiha Jie watched the sunset turn from warm yellow to deep red. He got up from the windowsill and stood beside Hinata's bed. He reached out, pinched her little nose, then poked her cheek.
Then he suddenly noticed that the chakra his Sharingan was putting out had dwindled. He cut off the connection to the Genjutsu himself.
"Mm..." Hinata's face twisted, and she let out a pained sound before opening her eyes.
The instant she opened them, the veins beside her Byakugan stood out. Hinata sat bolt upright and turned her head this way and that. Then her little face suddenly flushed red.
"Hey! Hinata! That's not how you use the Byakugan!"
Uchiha Jie immediately realized what had happened. He covered his vital parts with one hand and pressed down on Hinata's head with the other, trying to make her turn away.
But then he remembered that the Byakugan gave her a 360-degree field of vision. Turning her head wouldn't help.
It was Hinata's first time activating the Byakugan, and she couldn't get used to the unusual shift in perspective. After only a few seconds, her head began to spin, and her chakra drained rapidly. After a brief dizzy spell, her vision returned to normal.
She tried to stand, but toppled onto the carpet. Uchiha Jie hurriedly caught her, then noticed that she was covered in wounds.
Faint bloody marks covered almost her entire body, and she also had plenty of bruises and lumps. Yet his Genjutsu couldn't inflict any real damage.
What had Yue done while he was away from the Genjutsu?
"Those... those were left by Sister Yue." Hinata lowered her head. In the Genjutsu, she hadn't just exchanged a few words with Sister Yue. She had gotten a thorough beating.
"Crows don't need a swan to save them. Besides, you're a little cygnet who hasn't even grown all her feathers yet."
Hyuga Yue's clone didn't have any chakra or a Ninja sword, but she was still a ninja with the strength of a Jonin.
She could have easily killed Hinata in the Genjutsu, but instead she knocked her down again and again in different ways, watching as Hinata got back up, only to be knocked down once more.
She watched Hinata get back up yet again and stubbornly tell her that she wanted to protect her—that she wanted to protect the crows who wanted to tear the swan to pieces.
"Sister Yue smiled!" Hinata said as Uchiha Jie applied ointment to a bruise on her leg. She looked delighted, as if being beaten had lifted her spirits and made her more cheerful.
"She looked so beautiful when she smiled, just like her mother," she continued. "And Sister Yue acknowledged me! She thinks I really can save the family."
Uchiha Jie laughed, too. He patted Hinata on the head and poured cold water on her hopes. "She was just teasing you. Do you know why I kidnapped you instead of Hanabi?"
"Because she thinks more highly of your little sister."
But Hinata seemed completely unconcerned. "Sister Yue also told me to become your student."
"She wants you to become my student?" Uchiha Jie's expression turned strange. "Does that mean she really acknowledges you?"
"Yes, yes! Sister Yue said she'll teach little Hanabi well!"