Hyuga Riyue

Konoha, at the Hyuga compound.

The weather was clear. A few white clouds drifted lazily across the deep blue sky. A breeze swept through the thick forest, and sunlight streamed through the leaves, scattering golden threads across the road. At its end lay a bustling village surrounded by trees: Konoha.

Three enormous faces had been carved into the iconic Kage Rock, silently bearing witness to all the trials and tribulations Konoha had endured since its founding. Below the steep, rugged rock sprawled houses of every style, fanning out in a semicircle from the Hokage Office Building. The streets were wide and clean, lined with shops displaying a dazzling array of goods. Many civilians strolled leisurely along the streets, enjoying an ordinary day. Everything was peaceful and serene.

The Hyuga Clan was one of Konoha's major families, with considerable influence in the village. Naturally, its residential grounds covered a large area, with mansions and courtyards arranged in neat rows. In a secluded courtyard within the clan compound, a four-year-old boy sat quietly on a stone bench beside a pond, staring blankly at his reflection in the water.

His black hair fell naturally, and long bangs swept across most of his forehead, though the distinct green, swastika-shaped mark there was still visible. His large eyes had pure white irises. His smooth, fair skin was almost bloodless, making him look pale. With his round, tender cheeks, small, straight nose, and sharply defined brows, he already had the makings of a handsome young man.

He folded his arms across his chest, his brows furrowed and his expression grave. Along with the troubled look on his face, it gave him a maturity far beyond his age. Anyone who saw him like this would have thought he was a little adult.

He held up his hand and looked at his small, pale fingers. "Sigh..." The boy let out a heavy breath.

"I, Zhao Ming, actually transmigrated... and into the world of Naruto, no less..." Zhao Ming propped his chin on his hand, trying to piece together the still-jumbled memories in his mind.

Zhao Ming had been an ordinary modern man whose parents had died early. Independent from a young age, he had been determined to become a doctor. After nearly twenty years of relentless effort, he had finally achieved that dream. At twenty-nine, he was a top cardiac surgeon, the hospital's star operator in cardiothoracic surgery, and a well-known figure at medical school. He had been appointed a visiting professor before turning thirty. Before transmigrating, all he remembered was performing two major operations back to back, working for fourteen hours until he was utterly exhausted. Before he could even leave the operating room, his vision had gone black, and he had collapsed beside the operating table.

He had no idea how much time had passed. When Zhao Ming woke, his head was splitting with pain. He found himself lying in an old, wooden house, surrounded by unfamiliar things, and his body had become that of a child. Most of his memories were missing, as if he could remember nothing at all.

"Who am I? Why does my head hurt so much? Where is this?" Whenever he tried to think about it, his head throbbed, and his mind turned to mush. Fortunately, after lying on the tatami for many days, he gradually remembered who he was and what had happened before.

But then new memories surfaced in Zhao Ming's mind: he was a four-year-old child... Those childhood memories were short, but felt incredibly familiar, as though he had just lived through them. By contrast, his memories of the more than twenty years before felt strangely distant. After carefully reviewing the child's memories, Zhao Ming realized there was a serious problem: he had transmigrated into the world of Naruto.

Zhao Ming had always felt a deep attachment to Naruto. Since college, whenever he had free time in his dorm, he watched all sorts of anime. He had followed Naruto since he was nineteen—a devoted fan for ten years. Although he felt reluctant to leave his old world behind, he was also excited to have landed in the world of Naruto. It was a dream for many people, and one he had once indulged in himself. But after combining that excitement with the memories of his current life, he could no longer feel happy about it.

Hyuga Riyue was Zhao Ming's name now. He was a member of Konoha's Hyuga Branch Family, and a distant cousin of the brothers Hyuga Hiashi and Hizashi. Hiashi wasn't the head of the Hyuga Clan yet; his grandfather was. So for now, Hiashi, Hizashi, and the other descendants of their grandfather's direct line all belonged to the Hyuga Main Family. Some of the elders and their children were also considered part of the Main Family and had the right to inherit the position of clan head. Riyue's branch had long been a collateral line of the Main Family, so he naturally belonged to the Hyuga Branch Family.

Riyue's mother, Senju Naoko, had been an ordinary member of a branch of the Senju Clan. She was a doctor who had worked at Konoha Hospital, but died in childbirth. His father, Hyuga Den, was a Jonin of the Hyuga Branch Family. Two years ago, he had left Riyue behind and gone to the battlefield, never to return. Based on his memories, Zhao Ming deduced that the battlefield in question was the Land of Rain during the Second Shinobi World War, and that his father had likely been killed in action. His uncles and aunts had simply kept it from young Riyue. It wasn't hard to fool a three- or four-year-old, but Zhao Ming wasn't a three-year-old. Thinking of Riyue's dead parents, Zhao Ming felt a pang of sorrow. It seemed he was destined to be an orphan in both lives.

And judging by the Main Family's attitude toward him, Zhao Ming felt his father's death was no simple matter. As soon as his father went to the battlefield, the elders of the Hyuga Main Family had marked Zhao Ming—or rather, Hyuga Riyue—with the Caged Bird Seal. The Main Family members also bullied him regularly. For instance, Hyuga Nisshin, the son of clan elder Hyuga Hideyoshi, was said to be one of the candidates to become the next clan head, and a rival to Hyuga Hiashi. Eight years older than Riyue, Nisshin would beat and humiliate him whenever he felt like it. The hatred and hostility in Nisshin's eyes made it clear to Zhao Ming that this was more than a child picking on someone weaker. His father, Hideyoshi, had put him up to it. That intense animosity had to have come from an adult. Zhao Ming suspected that when Riyue's father was sent to the battlefield, Elder Hyuga Hideyoshi had been pulling strings behind the scenes. Someone might even have been involved in his father's death.

A little over a month ago, Nisshin and his lackeys had beaten Riyue until he was covered in bruises. The original Riyue had merely glared at him, but in a fit of rage, Hyuga Nisshin activated the Caged Bird Seal on Riyue's forehead. Riyue's head throbbed as if it would split open; the agony was unbearable. At last, gritting his teeth, he slammed his head against a pillar. Blood splattered everywhere.

Zhao Ming figured that four-year-old Riyue had died then, and that his own soul had happened to transmigrate into the little body. His soul had merged with Riyue's memories and given his body one more breath, bringing him back to life. Of course, this was simply the most reasonable explanation Zhao Ming could come up with. Later, members of the Hyuga Branch Family had arrived in time and rushed him for treatment, saving his life. After waking, Zhao Ming had spent more than twenty days in bed before he could get up and walk.

In the original Riyue's memories, that moment had been truly dark. A fist had smashed into his face, and amid the surrounding jeers and insults, Riyue had collapsed to the ground. Then the blows rained down on him.

"Hyuga Riyue, you good-for-nothing!"

"Trash! You don't deserve the Hyuga name!"

"Your dead old man isn't coming back! Hahaha..."

"Hm? What's that look for? Are you trying to attack me? Let's see how you like the Cursed Seal!"

"The Caged Bird is a dog collar for Branch Family trash like you!"

"Hahaha! You can go join your dead old man..."

The memory of his head nearly splitting apart was so vivid that Zhao Ming felt as though he had really experienced it himself. The pain left by those fists seemed not to have faded. Humiliation, hatred, and resentment felt like wounds in Zhao Ming's own heart, and every time he remembered them, rage flared inside him. Riyue must have lived a miserable life. Looking at the tiny figure in the reflection, Zhao Ming clenched his fists.

"They actually taught a child how to activate the Caged Bird Seal. Those people in the Main Family really want me dead. And Nisshin hasn't been punished at all, nor has anyone apologized to me. What kind of world is this?" Zhao Ming furrowed his brows.

"Other people transmigrate and get the Rinnegan or Wood Release. Come on, at least give me Red Eye! If not, Crystal Release, Swift Release, Dark Release, Ice Release, Magnet Release—anything like that would do. But no, all I get is cataracts! And if getting cataracts weren't bad enough, I have impure Branch Family blood and a Caged Bird Seal on top of it. Worst of all, the Main Family wants me dead! Heaven, are you trying to kill me?" Zhao Ming couldn't help pointing at the sky and complaining.

As everyone knew, the Byakugan gave the Hyuga Clan excellent perception. With the Byakugan, a ninja could already serve as a scout and sensor. But Hyuga Clan members generally had no chakra nature, so they couldn't use any of the five major nature transformations. Their specialty was Gentle Fist Taijutsu, and they rarely studied swordsmanship, kenjutsu, Medical Ninjutsu, Sealing Jutsu, Barrier Ninjutsu, or genjutsu. The one Cursed Seal Technique they did have was formidable, but they only used it against their own people. Aside from Taijutsu that complemented the Byakugan, the Hyuga Clan had given up on nearly every other technique.

That left Hyuga ninjas with weak long-range offensive capabilities. Even Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm only partly made up for their lack of ranged attacks. Imagine being a high-level radar operator who should be stationed in the rear, but having to rush to the front and fight enemies hand-to-hand. Just thinking about it gave Zhao Ming a headache. He also remembered a time in Naruto when Neji had been repeatedly attacked by returning projectiles controlled from a distance. All he could do was use Rotation to defend himself, with no way to counterattack. Then Neji had been mercilessly battered from afar by Kidomaru of the Sound Five with his bow and arrows. That was what happened when you had no long-range combat ability.

Hyuga ninjas were formidable as Genin and Chunin. After all, the Byakugan's keen perception and the advantage of their point-striking attacks spoke for themselves. But at the Jonin level, most started to fall behind. The majority became scout and support ninjas. Reaching Kage Level was practically out of the question. In several decades, the Hyuga Clan had produced just one genius—Neji Hyuga, the first of the Konoha 12 to die, and the only one.

When Zhao Ming watched the anime, he hadn't thought much of the Byakugan. Compared to the Sharingan and Rinnegan, with all their absurd abilities, the Byakugan simply wasn't that powerful. And Riyue already had the Caged Bird Seal, making him subject to the Main Family. The Byakugan had a blind spot, too. What frustrated Zhao Ming even more was that he couldn't learn the Main Family's secret techniques at all.

"Techniques like Kirin, Majestic Destroyer Flame, Hard Vortex Water Blade, and Rasenshuriken are out of the question. I can learn the Shadow Clone Technique, since that only depends on chakra distribution. I should be able to learn Medical Ninjutsu, too, since it uses Yang Release rather than any of the five major natures. But it requires strong physical energy and precise chakra control. I'll think about Sealing Jutsu and Space-Time Ninjutsu later. I don't even know whether I can learn them. I should be able to train in the Rasengan. It's the pinnacle of shape transformation and has nothing to do with nature transformation. But anything beyond the Rasengan involves nature transformation, so that's out. What a waste..." Zhao Ming continued pondering.

"The Byakugan can evolve into the Tenseigan, and the Tenseigan is absurdly powerful... The problem is, I'm not a descendant of Hamura Otsutsuki with a powerful body of the Sage, and I don't have pure Byakugan blood. The Main Family has pure Byakugan, but I can't bring myself to steal the eyes of innocent people. Heaven, could you send me an Apollo 10 lunar spacecraft? I could go to the moon and find Hamura Otsutsuki's descendants. Maybe I could get a Tenseigan." Zhao Ming smiled helplessly, joking at his own expense.

"Heaven! My demands are pretty simple... It'd be fine if you didn't give me cultivation techniques. At least give me a Kamehameha or a Spirit Bomb as a cheat power! Or you could send me a Zanpakuto. It doesn't have to be that powerful—just something like Ryujin Jakka or Kyoka Suigetsu. And how about a Devil Fruit? There aren't even that many seas in Naruto..." Zhao Ming looked up at the deep blue sky, as though negotiating with heaven. But only the clouds drifted slowly across it. No one answered his "simple" request.

"Sigh. I transmigrated into the world of Naruto and wanted to stick to my old profession and just be a doctor. But the people in the Hyuga Main Family want me dead. I can't even keep out of it! I, Zhao Ming, am not someone anyone can push around. If they want a fight, then I'll give them one!" As he spoke, the little boy slowly stood up, his gaze growing utterly resolute.

Zhao Ming remembered what he had been like when he first studied medicine: poring over books every day, doing endless experiments, learning foreign languages, and reading foreign-language research papers. He was constantly running between the library and the lab. After starting his clinical training, he worked just as hard to gain experience. To hone his skills, he had even volunteered for a humanitarian medical team in Africa, treating and saving people in every kind of difficult environment. Each operation saved a life while also pushing him to his limits. By his twenties, he already had more clinical experience than many veteran doctors. He had studied surgery, internal medicine, and both Chinese and Western medicine. In cardiothoracic surgery, he had reached the very top. When it came to hard work, he wasn't afraid of anyone.

He pointed at his reflection in the water. "Since heaven let me live again, I'm going to make the most of this life! I'll live for the original Riyue, too. Now that someone wants me dead, I can only work harder and live even better!"

"So what if I have the Caged Bird Seal? So what if I can't use nature transformations and can only use Gentle Fist? So what if the Branch Family can't learn the Main Family's secret techniques? So what if I'm a thorn in the Main Family's side? Are Branch Family members destined to be weaker than the Main Family? If the Main Family oppresses the Branch Family, are we supposed to just let them slaughter us without fighting back? Can the Byakugan never become the most powerful Kekkei Genkai? Can the Hyuga Clan only become 'Konoha's strongest clan' once the Senju and Uchiha are gone? Hmph! You've underestimated me, Zhao Ming!" Zhao Ming nodded firmly. It was hard to imagine a four-year-old boy possessing such presence.

"From this day on, I am Hyuga Riyue! From now on, no one gets to bully me!"