A House, Just Like That

"Fencing?" Neji looked a little confused by what Takasaki meant. "Is that a kind of swordsmanship?"

"Tell me in detail why you came to apologize. Honestly, I don't think you owe me anything."

He'd already gotten his fill of barbecue and his stomach was full. With his hunger taken care of, Takasaki figured it was time to get down to business.

Besides, if Neji wanted to fence with him, there was no way he'd agree.

Even if Neji asked him to pay for the barbecue, he wouldn't.

He could always run.

"It's like this. After you left my house, Hinata and I practiced together, and I unexpectedly discovered that she could last three minutes against me..."

Sitting on a low stool, Neji explained everything in detail.

At first, Takasaki was a little confused, but gradually he understood, and felt somewhat more at ease.

All the while, he didn't forget to wolf down a few more skewers and drink a couple of beers.

By the time he'd finished his third beer, Takasaki had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

In short, Hinata's strength had improved by leaps and bounds over the past month. When Neji and Hyuga Hiashi asked her why, she said Takasaki had inspired her.

So Neji thought it was a good thing for Takasaki to spend more time with Hinata.

Even Neji himself had been inspired by Takasaki's hard work, which was why he'd come to apologize in person.

"How did I inspire Hinata? I'm still just a dead-last myself." Takasaki waved a hand and smiled, feeling a lot more at ease.

He was actually curious himself about why Hinata's strength had improved so quickly. After all, in the original story, her strength had grown little by little.

Still, while Takasaki was curious, he wasn't particularly bothered by it.

No matter how quickly Hinata improved, she couldn't improve faster than him. Not everyone had a diary-system cheat.

Later, once he married Hinata and brought her home, he could pull the covers over their heads and make her tell him everything in a hundred different ways.

The key thing was that Neji hadn't come to challenge him to a fencing match. He had a perfectly valid reason to thank him, and that was what mattered most.

As for why Hinata had said Takasaki inspired her?

It didn't matter. He could ask her about it in private later.

"Takasaki, you're no dead-last. You've already learned the Three Body Technique. Right now, the only dead-last in class is Naruto."

Neji said earnestly, "And I've seen how hard you work. When I came to apologize, I saw you through the window, still practicing the Clone Technique. You must have put in an incredible amount of effort where the rest of us couldn't see."

"Stop praising me, or the skewers will get cold."

Neji's praise made Takasaki feel a little guilty.

It seemed that in Neji's eyes, he'd become someone who secretly worked hard to grow stronger, only to astonish everyone one day.

To be fair, he'd only started working hard two days ago. He'd only gotten his system cheat a few days earlier, after all.

Then again, there was something pretty nice about just starting to work hard, only to have a young master of the Hyuga Clan witness it and shower him with praise and admiration.

After chatting for a while,

Neji and Takasaki grew more familiar with each other. When Neji saw Takasaki accept the deed to the house he'd given him, the weight finally lifted from his heart.

It seemed Takasaki really had forgiven him.

That meant he'd fulfilled the Clan Head's instructions.

All that was left was to ask Takasaki how he could change his fate.

For some reason, Neji felt that Takasaki seemed a little different from before, as if he were hiding some kind of secret.

Neji understood the importance of social graces.

He was already a ninja who had graduated from the Ninja Academy, but he still couldn't drink alcohol until he turned twenty. So he substituted a soft drink for the booze and clinked glasses with Takasaki.

Takasaki had drunk nearly all the beer Neji brought, leaving just one bottle, and polished off the skewers until his mouth was slick with grease.

Takasaki was practically ready to sing a song about brotherhood with Neji.

It was clear he couldn't hold his liquor; he was drunk enough to reek of alcohol.

Once the mood was right, Neji finally spoke. "Takasaki, there's actually something I'd like to ask you about."

"Oh? Let's hear it." Takasaki lifted his eyelids and pretended to gnaw on a chicken wing skewer. The haze of drunkenness in his mind cleared by half.

Neji really was hiding something from him.

"It's about this."

Neji's expression grew serious. He set down his glass and unwound the bandages tied tightly around his forehead, layer by layer, revealing the green mark on his forehead.

The Caged Bird mark.

"Can my Caged Bird mark really be removed?" Neji asked solemnly. "I remember you said something at my family's mansion earlier. You seemed to have a way to remove the Caged Bird mark."

So that was what he was here for. Takasaki suddenly understood.

Earlier, at the Hyuga Clan mansion, when he'd used the Three Body Technique to toy with Neji, he really had hinted that he knew how to remove the Caged Bird mark.

At the time, he'd only wanted to provoke Neji and make him lose his cool.

After all, he'd already gotten into a fight with Neji, but he couldn't beat him. His only option was to get the better of him with words.

Could Takasaki actually remove the Caged Bird mark?

Of course not.

At least, he couldn't right now. That didn't mean he wouldn't be able to in the future.

Maybe the diary would reward him with a way to remove the Caged Bird mark one day. Who knew?

So Takasaki didn't extinguish Neji's hopes completely. Instead, he kept him dangling. "There's definitely a way to remove it. I just don't know how yet. I once dreamed about a way to do it, which is why I said that to you earlier."

"You dreamed about it?"

Neji looked a little dazed.

Takasaki patted him on the shoulder, a little tipsy, and said, "Neji, we've become friends through fighting. From now on, what's yours is mine. Your sister is my future wi—my sister too! The people have their faith, and the nation has its strength. We're all students about to graduate, and we all have a bright future ahead of us. Who knows what the future holds? Anyway, if I ever figure out how to remove the Caged Bird mark, you'll be the first to know!"

Takasaki knew how to make connections.

He was a commoner with nothing to his name, living in Konoha, where the class system was deeply entrenched. If he didn't get stronger fast enough, he'd be better off making connections and finding someone powerful to protect him.

The Hyuga Clan was an old, prominent family dating back to the Warring States Period.

Getting on the Hyuga Clan's good side couldn't hurt.

Neji nodded firmly. "From now on, you're my partner!"

It wasn't that Neji was so foolish he couldn't tell Takasaki was stringing him along.

It was just that removing the Caged Bird mark was crucial to him, and he had to seize even the slightest hope.

Even if there was no hope at all, he still thought it was worth keeping on good terms with Takasaki, simply because Takasaki had helped inspire Hinata to grow stronger.

After Neji left,

Takasaki glanced around his living quarters. They were so shabby that even a burglar would leave in tears after dropping two hundred ryo.

He took out the deed and the front-door key Neji had given him. "My future brother-in-law has already prepared the new house Hinata and I will live in after we get married. How could I not move in? Time to pack!"

Calling it moving was a bit of an exaggeration. Takasaki only packed a few clothes and toiletries.

The new house Neji had prepared for him was a fully furnished apartment on the village's central commercial street. It already had all the furniture, so all he had to do was move in.

He'd sleep comfortably tonight, then write a diary entry tomorrow to thank his future wife, Hinata.

If Hinata hadn't made such incredible progress, his future brother-in-law wouldn't have treated him so well.

"By the way, what exactly made Hinata stronger? Why did she say I inspired her?" Takasaki wondered as he headed out with a backpack on his shoulders and a suitcase in tow.