Hyuga Hinata's Birth

"That's right, just like that. Keep your breathing steady. You're doing great, Xia."

After explaining the three-step breathing technique to Hyuga Natsu, I began my morning run.

Watching Xia keep pace with me without much effort, I was a little surprised. I hadn't expected her stamina to be this good.

On second thought, it made sense. Hyuga Natsu wasn't as delicate as she appeared; she often helped her mother, Hyuga Mikoto, with chores and errands.

Living alone with her mother, a widow and her daughter, couldn't have been easy.

As for Xia's father, even she didn't know much about him. It seemed her mother had always kept something from her and was unwilling to speak of him.

"Are you two running? Can I join you?"

A young boy suddenly spoke up from the side.

I had seen this boy before. During my previous runs, he had been observing me from the sidelines, so I had taken note of him.

I agreed immediately. We were all members of the Hyuga clan, and it wasn't a big deal. Besides, I felt there was no need to ask; the road didn't belong to my family.

After three laps, I slowed to a stop. I had only planned for three laps today.

"Xia, you were amazing. I really didn't think you'd be able to finish."

"Brother Dongyi, I'm very strong, you know."

No sooner had she finished speaking than she wanted to stop and rest.

"Yes, yes, Xia is the strongest. Let me help you walk it off. You shouldn't sit down immediately after running; you need to walk, or it'll be bad for your body."

I took hold of Hyuga Natsu and we started walking forward.

"By the way, what's your name?"

I noticed the young boy had decent stamina; he was only slightly out of breath.

"Hyuga Natsuo."

The boy's answer was brief.

"I'm Hyuga Gen. If you want to run with us again tomorrow, you can wait for us here, but you might need to be a bit earlier."

With that, I helped Hyuga Natsu walk toward her home.

From then on, Hyuga Natsuo woke up early every day to wait and join our morning runs.

In the blink of an eye, a month passed.

One morning, I woke up early as usual to go for my run. When I pushed open the window, I couldn't help but shiver; the world outside was blanketed in white snow.

"Truly, 'like the spring breeze arriving overnight, thousands of pear trees bloom'—achoo! It's really cold today. But the run must go on. Maybe I shouldn't wake Xia in this weather."

After a moment's thought, I went to Hyuga Natsu's door anyway. "Strange, she's not home today." After calling out a few times and getting no response, I headed out alone.

"I didn't expect this guy to be so persistent," I thought to myself, seeing Hyuga Natsuo already waiting there.

"Come with me to the clan leader's house later," Hyuga Kamen said to me just as I finished breakfast.

I looked at my father, puzzled.

"The clan leader had a daughter last night. We're going to offer our congratulations. She might be the next clan leader," Hyuga Kamen explained.

I nodded.

So, Naruto has been born, and the future 'First Lady' is a few months younger than him. It seems Hinata was born last night, I speculated inwardly.

As the head of the Hyuga clan's finance department, Hyuga Kamen naturally had to pay his respects. That's right—I was a bona fide second-generation rich kid, or rather, a third-generation one.

However, in my eyes, Kamen lived quite modestly as the finance minister. People always said the Hyuga clan was filthy rich, but I saw none of that in him.

Then again, the clan rules were strict, and there was that lethal weapon, the Caged Bird Seal. It was all too easy for the main branch to dispose of someone.

Based on my understanding of Hyuga Kamen, he wasn't the type to embezzle. The clan was everything; that was carved into his very bones.

Snow was falling heavily. It hadn't been snowing during my run, but now it was coming down in thick flurries. Fortunately, the clan leader's house wasn't far.

"Uncle Kamen, you've arrived," someone greeted him as soon as we reached the gate.

"Ah, Hizashi."

"Is this Dongyi? I can't believe how much he's grown in the blink of an eye." Hyuga Hizashi took the gift from Hyuga Kamen and patted my head.

"Hello, Uncle Hizashi," I said obediently. I had to play the part; it was only right to address him this way, as a child should.

"What a good boy. It's cold out here, Uncle Kamen, please come inside and have something to warm up." He led us in.

Watching Hizashi's back, I sighed inwardly. According to the plot, due to the incident where Hinata was kidnapped, Hizashi would eventually commit suicide to appease the Cloud Village's anger and prevent a war.

The whole affair had nothing to do with Hizashi, yet he was the one who suffered an unjust fate and died a stifling, forced death. It was truly tragic and lamentable.

Thinking of how Hyuga Hiashi often boasted, "The Hyuga are the strongest clan in Konoha," I found it laughable. They couldn't even protect their own brother, letting him die in such a humiliating way, and yet they had the nerve to claim they were the strongest.

The people from the Cloud Village had coveted the Byakugan and acted with malicious intent by kidnapping Hinata, only for Hiashi to kill the culprit with a single strike. That man had deserved it. Yet, the Cloud Village used that as a pretext to demand the killer and threatened war. I have to admit, the Cloud Village played that hand beautifully.

In the end, the Konoha higher-ups caved, and they actually forced Hizashi to his death. I bet the Cloud Village laughed themselves awake at night, realizing just how weak Konoha was.

Thinking of the Third Hokage, while his strength was indeed formidable, I felt he was completely unfit to be Hokage because he was far too soft.

When Orochimaru defected, he had the chance to kill him but let him go, which eventually led to his own death at Orochimaru's hands. That was the price of his soft-heartedness.

Regarding the incident where Hyuga Hinata was nearly abducted, if he had been a bit more assertive, Hyuga Hizashi likely wouldn't have been forced into such a stifling, suicidal death.

"No wonder I didn't see Natsu this morning; so she ran off here," Hyuga Gen thought, smiling back at Natsu as she tilted her head and blinked at him.

Hyuga Hiashi was up at the front delivering some polite formalities, thanking everyone for coming and so on. The turnout wasn't massive, but it wasn't sparse either, and for once, a rare smile graced the face of the usually stern Hiashi.

The atmosphere wasn't particularly warm; there wasn't much genuine sentiment to be found. Thinking of the Caged Bird Seal, it was likely a thorn in the heart of every branch family member present.

He suddenly recalled Neji's words: that one's destiny is determined the moment they are born. Having lived two lifetimes, he felt that this statement was more than half true, with only a small fraction of people managing to slip through the cracks.

Some are born in Rome, just like Hyuga Hinata. If she were to become the clan head in the future, the lives and deaths of most people present would depend entirely on her whim.

Thinking of the Konoha 12, most of them were also from prestigious families. Even the protagonist, Naruto, was undeniably from a prominent background; while his ninja way and his hard work were undeniable, that was still the case.

But if he weren't the son of the Fourth Hokage, and if the Fourth Hokage hadn't sealed the Nine-Tails within him, Hyuga Gen felt he wouldn't have achieved such immense success.

This was simply reality, though it was perfectly normal. The children of officials become officials, and the children of the wealthy remain wealthy; it was all quite standard.

With such favorable conditions, you might only need a moderate amount of effort to succeed, whereas an ordinary person would need ten times the effort just for a chance at the same result.

"I'll avoid attending these whenever I can in the future," Hyuga Gen thought upon returning home. It was incredibly dull; he would much rather be training his body and studying taijutsu to bolster his own strength.

However, it wasn't without its gains. At today's banquet, he had witnessed the terrifying power of the Caged Bird Seal, triggered simply because one person felt a flicker of resentment and let slip a trace of killing intent.

Hyuga Gen suddenly realized that he had been thinking too simply before; he still needed to strive to improve his strength.

Life springs from sorrow and calamity, and death comes from ease and pleasure; he would have to be careful from now on.