"Hey, my dear apprentice, your dad Hiashi won't be coming." Uchiha Jie held a letter, smiling broadly.
After getting up that morning and guiding Hyuga Hinata through half an hour of training, he had gone out to buy breakfast. When he returned to the Hot spring inn, he found a black Ninja Cat rolling around in Hinata's arms, looking utterly blissful.
When it saw him push the door open, the Ninja Cat sprang up and spoke in a human voice.
"Hey, little Jie-Jie! Little Yue-Yue sent me to deliver something!" As it spoke, it pulled out two envelopes. The Sealing Techniques on them were enough to give anyone a headache.
"All right, all right. I won't be sending a reply." Uchiha Jie took the letters and waved a hand, ready to send the messenger cat back.
"No! Yue-Yue dragged me out to deliver letters before I'd even had breakfast! I want compensation!" It bounced around, circling Uchiha Jie incessantly, and only began to settle down once he walked farther into the room.
But when it saw what Uchiha Jie brought out, it started making a fuss again.
"No dried fish! No canned dried fish! I'm sick of all of it!" it shouted.
"Yue-Yue doesn't know how to feed a cat! She gives me this stuff every day. I want milk!"
Uchiha Jie took out some milk and poured it a small bowl while pondering the letters he had just received.
Of the two letters, one had a very simple Sealing Technique on it. He fed in just a little chakra, and the envelope opened.
The other proved considerably more difficult. He frowned at the Ninja Cat.
"Isn't this one from Yue?" he asked.
"It is Yue-Yue's letter, but she wasn't the one who put the Sealing Technique on it." The cat lapped at its milk, carefully keeping its sleek black fur from getting wet.
"Lu Yu should be pretty busy lately, shouldn't she?" Uchiha Jie scratched his head. He knew who would play this sort of trick on him, but he was more concerned about the letter's contents.
"Yes, yes. Little Lu Yu hasn't even had time to play with me lately. At night, all I get is for her to hold me while she sleeps." The Ninja Cat finished every last drop of milk in its bowl, then vanished into a puff of smoke with a bang, nearly making Hinata jump.
"It's fine. It just dismissed the summoning."
Uchiha Jie opened the breakfast boxes one by one and picked out a few things for himself. Everything else was Hinata's breakfast. His little apprentice could eat far more than Yue had as a child.
Yet Hinata had nearly finished breakfast by the time he finally undid the Sealing Technique and began reading the contents. It contained follow-up details on some matters they had discussed beforehand.
"I was actually looking forward to fighting Hiashi and showing him just how strong his daughter's new teacher is," he continued with a smile.
Hinata looked up, her cheeks bulging and a steamed bun still between her lips. She wanted to say something, but all she could manage was a muffled "Mmph, mmph."
"Don't worry. Aside from Hatake Kakashi, nobody was hurt because of this incident." Hearing Hinata's muffled sounds, he turned and explained, "Kakashi does have a Sharingan, after all. That's the price of having it."
"This one's for you." He took out the other letter, which he had yet to read. Hyuga Yue's handwriting on it instructed him to give the envelope to Hyuga Hinata.
Hinata struggled to swallow the bun in her mouth, cleared the table, and wiped her hands thoroughly with a little towel decorated with a pink rabbit before opening the envelope.
There was no letter inside, only a few photographs. Just from seeing Hinata's trembling hands and the Byakugan she had unconsciously activated, Uchiha Jie could more or less guess what the photographs showed.
He silently walked behind Hinata, rested his hands on her shoulders, and lowered his head to look at the photographs in her hands.
The photographs were so bloody that even Uchiha Jie felt the urge to censor them.
They showed two Hyuga clansmen who had just finished undergoing punishment: Hyuga Toshio and Hyuga Chio.
Hinata turned her head, tears shimmering in her Byakugan.
"This is what you want to change, isn't it?" Uchiha Jie's voice was soft, and his grip on Hinata's shoulders was gentle. Yet to Hinata, everything felt so heavy that her little hands could barely hold that thin photograph.
She gently set the photograph down and picked up another.
The person in this photograph was Hyuga Yue. She stood with her back to the moonlight, her shadow stretching long across the ground. The waist of her white dress had been stained blood-red, and the deep blue Ninja sword at her hip bore a trace of crimson.
Her gaze was calm. Through the photograph, she looked straight at Hyuga Hinata, and straight at Uchiha Jie as well.
In the midst of that silence, a sudden bang erupted in the room. The Ninja Cat that had just left appeared again, baring its teeth in a grin.
"Yue-Yue guessed right! You really are looking at the pictures. What do you think of my photography?" It patted its chest with a little paw, only for Uchiha Jie to grab it by the scruff.
"Do you have any other business?" Uchiha Jie asked through slightly gritted teeth. Why had he ever made a contract with such a stupid, blabbermouthed cat?
"I really do! I really do!" The black cat flailed all four paws in the air and shouted, "Yue-Yue told me to tell you that although Hyuga Hiashi won't be coming, the Hyuga Branch Family has already started moving!"
Uchiha Jie let go. The black cat flipped over and landed steadily on the floor. It blinked and continued, "She also wanted me to tell you that every member of the Hyuga Branch Family gets seven days to operate outside the village. If they don't return to Konoha within seven days, the Main Family will activate the Caged Bird Seal."
"Yue-Yue said that with her pulling the strings, the Hyuga Branch Family members she personally sends out can get an extra three to five days outside the village."
"That's not much time to work with." Uchiha Jie frowned.
What human experiment didn't require a long period of accumulated research and repeated attempts? If the subject changed with every experiment, the conclusions would be difficult to put into practice.
"Little Jie-Jie, that's your problem. I'm just passing along the message." The black cat grinned. Seeing Uchiha Jie stumped always made it happy.
"Oh, right! The Hyuga Clan has put up a really, really big bounty, too. Not just in Konoha, but at the Money Exchange as well," the black cat continued. "Even I'm tempted by that price."
"All right, all right, I understand. Anything else?" Uchiha Jie waved a hand, only to realize that the black cat hadn't dismissed its summoning with a bang as it had before. Instead, it stared at him with wide feline eyes, its head tilted.
"This is my own business." The black cat looked rather bashful. "I haven't seen little Hua-Hua in ages. Cat Granny misses her a lot, too."
"Hua is helping Izumi right now. Wait a little longer, and I'll take you to see her," Uchiha Jie replied with a smile.