Parting

By the time Hyuuga Nen returned to the Samurai Garrison, dusk had fallen. He stood by the entrance for a while, lost in thought, then finally went inside.

Hyuuga Nen went to Yamamoto Yuuichirou's room and said to the two samurai guarding the door, "Excuse me, I'd like to see Teacher Yuichiro."

Before either samurai could answer, Hyuuga Nen heard a familiar voice from inside the room. "Come on in, Nen."

"Teacher Yuichiro."

Hyuuga Nen entered, greeted him, and sat down across from Yuichiro, who was making tea.

Yuichiro merely nodded without saying anything. Instead, he studied Hyuuga Nen's expression. When he saw it, his usually stern, unsmiling face seemed to grow even more severe.

"Your mother..." Yuichiro looked at Hyuuga Nen with concern.

"My mother passed away last night," Hyuuga Nen said, looking at Yamamoto Yuuichirou.

At his words, Yuichiro's hands stopped as he made the tea. In a solemn voice, he said just two words:

"My condolences."

"I'm all right. Thank you for your concern, Teacher."

Yamamoto Yuuichirou wasn't good at comforting people, so the two fell silent.

After a while, Yamamoto Yuuichirou continued, "I've heard of your mother. She was an excellent doctor."

"Yes, she was an excellent doctor."

Yamamoto Yuuichirou hadn't meant to be sarcastic at all. He was simply saddened by Rika's death.

But as Hyuuga Nen told Yuichiro that Rika had been an excellent doctor, he heard a note of sarcasm in his own words.

My mother was an excellent doctor, that's true. But she died so young.

After another stretch of silence, Hyuuga Nen said to Yamamoto Yuuichirou, "Teacher, I'd like to request permission to go away and train for a while. I hope you'll approve."

At Hyuuga Nen's request, Yamamoto Yuuichirou furrowed his brow. "You want to go away and train? Then what's your reason?"

"There are two main reasons. First, my swordsmanship has reached a bottleneck. I need to fight more samurai and see more styles of swordsmanship if I'm going to make a breakthrough."

"I've actually been thinking about this for a long time. I kept putting it off because of my mother's health."

"The second reason is that I want to leave the town where I've lived all my life, see somewhere else, and clear my head."

After he finished, Hyuuga Nen looked at Yamamoto Yuuichirou with a serious expression.

"Hmm, those are reasonable reasons. Your swordsmanship has already reached a high level, and you can't keep training in isolation. It would do you good to see the world. How long are you planning to train?"

"One year."

"One year? That's a long time, but I can approve it." Yamamoto Yuuichirou looked at Hyuuga Nen's serious expression and sighed.

"Thank you, Teacher!" Hyuuga Nen said earnestly.

When the subject turned to samurai, Yamamoto Yuuichirou set aside his earlier silence. As he and Hyuuga Nen drank tea, he explained the requirements, precautions, and taboos involved in leaving the country to train.

"Every few years, a number of samurai defect from the Land of Iron. Some of them leave under the pretext of going away to train." Yuichiro's words seemed to carry an unspoken warning.

Hearing this, Hyuuga Nen froze for a moment, then said, "Don't worry, Teacher. I'll come back as soon as the year is over."

Hyuuga Nen changed the subject and asked Yamamoto Yuuichirou, "Why do those samurai defect?"

"Some have broken the laws of the Land of Iron. Others are pursuing power, and most of those samurai belong to the New School Samurai."

"The New School Samurai?" Hyuuga Nen asked.

"That's right, the New School Samurai. As you know, like shinobi, they wield chakra. But in the Land of Iron, there's no way to learn ninjutsu."

"Obsessed with gaining power, they choose to defect from the Land of Iron and become rogue shinobi or bounty hunters. They risk their lives to obtain some second-rate ninjutsu, but most of them meet a bad end."

Hyuuga Nen showed his disdain for people like that, and Yamamoto Yuuichirou agreed with his attitude.

"Do you know why there are no shinobi in the Land of Iron?" Yamamoto Yuuichirou asked him another question.

Hyuuga Nen thought for a moment, then replied, "Because of the Five Great Shinobi Nations. They won't allow it."

"That's right. The Five Great Shinobi Nations would never allow it. If the Land of Iron became a nation of shinobi, nearly every small country would follow suit. That would threaten the interests of the Five Great Shinobi Nations and could multiply the number of their enemies."

"So the Land of Iron has samurai and no shinobi. If it weren't for that, the Land of Iron would become another Land of Rain."

"The Land of Iron is a neutral country. It can only be a neutral country!"

Hyuuga Nen sensed Yuichiro's resentment in his final words and tried to comfort him.

"Even though the Land of Iron is neutral, at least it's unlikely to be affected by war. Compared with the small countries caught on the battlefields of the Five Great Shinobi Nations, it's already much better off."

"That's true. The Land of Iron is better off than many small countries. What more can we hope for?"

As Yamamoto Yuuichirou said this, he gripped his teacup tightly, revealing the turmoil in his heart.

At the end of their conversation, Hyuuga Nen used having drunk too much tea as an excuse to slip away to the bathroom. There, he performed the Hand Seals for the Seal of Delay and cast a technique. Then he went back out and said his final farewell to Yamamoto Yuuichirou.

As he reached the door, Hyuuga Nen turned back and looked at Yamamoto Yuuichirou. His lips moved as if he were saying something.

When Yamamoto Yuuichirou met Hyuuga Nen's eyes, his expression went blank for an instant. Then he nodded.

Hyuuga Nen had cast a suggestive Genjutsu on Yamamoto Yuuichirou. Through the Genjutsu, Yuichiro would gradually forget all his memories of Hyuuga Nen. The process would take a long time—about six months to a year.

Though this technique worked slowly, it was extremely subtle. Once it was complete, even members of the Yamanaka Clan would find it difficult to detect.

Hyuuga Nen went to the room where he usually stayed, gathered his belongings, and erased the traces he'd left behind. When he came out, he saw Miyaichi waiting by the entrance.

Before Hyuuga Nen could speak, Miyaichi said, "Nen, I heard you're going away to train. Is it true?" He looked envious as he spoke.

"That's right. Don't slack off on your training while I'm gone, or the gap between us might get even bigger."

"Just you wait. I'll catch up to you." Miyaichi looked unconvinced.

Then he asked cautiously, "I heard about your mother. Are you all right?"

"I'm all right. Don't worry."

Hyuuga Nen patted Miyaichi on the arm and said encouragingly, "I hope you'll become an excellent samurai by the time I return." Then he said goodbye.

Hyuuga Nen said goodbye to Miyaichi and the samurai he knew, one by one, casting Genjutsu on each of them along the way.

Though Yamamoto Yuuichirou and Miyaichi had chakra, they'd never been trained to resist Genjutsu, so Hyuuga Nen had no trouble casting it on them.

The day before, Hyuuga Nen had already cast the same Genjutsu on Rika's friends, neighbors, and long-term patients.

At last, Hyuuga Nen went to the records room in the corner of the compound. After searching the room, he found the scroll about himself, which recorded some personal details and the missions he had completed.

Hyuuga Nen took out another scroll he'd prepared and switched it with the original. The ink on the new scroll had been specially treated; after a year, it would evaporate completely, leaving the scroll blank.

Hyuuga Nen walked out through the gates of the Samurai Garrison and looked back at the imposing building.

Everything that needed to be taken care of is done. In about a year, time will have buried every trace of my mother and me in the Land of Iron. This parting may be forever.

Hyuuga Nen remembered taking the samurai examination in front of the building for the first time, and his first fight with Miyaichi. He silently wished them well, then turned and left without looking back.