Hinata Hyuga Is Born

"Right, just like that. Keep breathing. You're doing great, Natsu."

After teaching Hyuga Natsu the three-step breathing technique, he began that morning's run.

Watching Natsu keep pace beside him without slowing down, Hyuga Gen was a little surprised. He hadn't expected her to have such good stamina.

But on second thought, it made sense. Natsu wasn't as delicate as she looked. She often helped her mother, Hyuga Mikoto, with housework and errands.

Living alone with her mother, just the two of them, couldn't have been easy.

As for Natsu's father, Natsu herself didn't know much about him either. It seemed her mother had always kept something from her and didn't want to talk about it.

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

A little boy suddenly spoke up beside them.

Hyuga Gen had seen the boy before. During an earlier run, the boy had watched him from the sidelines, so Gen had taken notice of him.

Hyuga Gen agreed at once. They were all members of the Hyuga Clan, and it wasn't a big deal. He figured the boy didn't need to ask in the first place. It wasn't as if the road belonged to him.

After running three laps, Hyuga Gen slowly came to a stop. He'd planned to run only three today.

"Natsu, you're amazing. I can't believe you managed to finish."

"Big Brother Gen, I'm really strong."

As soon as she finished speaking, Hyuga Natsu wanted to stop and rest.

"Yes, yes, Natsu's the strongest. I'll help you walk for a bit. You shouldn't sit down right after a run. You need to walk around, or it's bad for your body."

Hyuga Gen helped Hyuga Natsu along, and they walked ahead.

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

Hyuga Gen noticed that the little boy seemed to have good stamina. He was only slightly out of breath.

"Hyuga Xiao."

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 have to get up earlier."

With that, Hyuga Gen helped Hyuga Natsu toward her home.

After that, Hyuga Xiao got up early every day and waited there to join them for their morning run.

A month passed in the blink of an eye.

That day, Hyuga Gen got up early as usual, ready to go for a run. He pushed open the window and couldn't help shivering. He saw that snow had blanketed everything outside.

"It's just like that line, 'Overnight, the spring breeze arrived, bringing pear blossoms to thousands of trees'—achoo! It's really cold today. But I still need to keep up my morning runs. Maybe I shouldn't wake Natsu. It's so cold out."

After thinking it over, Hyuga Gen still went to Hyuga Natsu's house. "That's strange. She's not home today." He called out a few times, but no one answered, so he went alone.

He's got a lot of perseverance, Hyuga Gen thought as he saw Hyuga Xiao waiting there.

"Come with me to the clan leader's house later," Hyuga Kamen said to Hyuga Gen after breakfast.

Hyuga Gen looked at his father in confusion.

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

Hyuga Gen nodded.

That's right, Naruto's already been born. The princess was born a few months after him, so Hinata must have been born last night, Hyuga Gen guessed to himself.

As the head of the Hyuga Clan's finance department, Hyuga Kamen naturally had to go offer his congratulations. That's right—Hyuga Gen was a bona fide rich second-generation kid. No, more like a rich third-generation kid.

But in Hyuga Gen's eyes, Kamen's life seemed pretty ordinary for a finance minister. Everyone said the Hyuga Clan was rolling in money, but you'd never know it from looking at Hyuga Kamen.

Then again, the Hyuga Clan had strict rules, and the Caged Bird Seal was a powerful weapon. It was all too easy for the Main House to kill someone.

From what he knew of Hyuga Kamen, he wasn't the sort to embezzle money. The clan came first—that belief was ingrained in him.

Snow swirled everywhere. It hadn't been snowing during the morning run, but now flakes were falling thick and fast. Fortunately, the clan leader's house wasn't far away.

"Uncle Kamen, you're here," someone called out to Kamen as they reached the gate.

"It's Hizashi."

"Is this Gen? I can't believe how much he's grown." Hizashi Hyuga took the gift Hyuga Kamen had brought and ruffled Hyuga Gen's hair.

"Hello, Uncle Hizashi," Hyuga Gen said obediently. He had to put on an act, and it was only right to address him that way. Children were supposed to act like this.

"What a good boy. It's cold out here, Uncle Kamen. Come on in and warm up with something to eat," he said, ushering them inside.

Watching Hizashi's retreating figure, Hyuga Gen sighed inwardly. According to the story, after Hinata was kidnapped, Hizashi would take his own life to appease the Cloud Village and prevent a war, saving his older brother in the process.

Hizashi had nothing to do with the whole incident, yet he became an innocent victim and died an unjustly tragic death. It was truly lamentable.

Thinking of the line Hyuga Hiashi often repeated—"The Hyuga are Konoha's strongest clan"—Hyuga Gen found it ridiculous. He couldn't even protect his own younger brother, who died such a humiliating death, and he still had the nerve to call the clan the strongest.

The Cloud Village had been plotting to seize the Byakugan and, with ill intent, kidnapped Hinata. Hiashi killed the culprit with a single palm strike, and the man had it coming. Yet the Cloud Village used the incident to demand that the killer be handed over, threatening war in the process. They had played that move very cleverly.

The Konoha High Command went along with it, and in the end, they really did force Hizashi to his death. The Cloud Village must have been grinning in their sleep. They'd also seen how weak Konoha was.

Thinking of the Third Hokage, Hyuga Gen acknowledged that he was very powerful, but didn't think he deserved to be Hokage. He was far too weak-willed.

When Orochimaru defected, he had the chance to kill him but let him go. In the end, Orochimaru killed him. That was the price he paid for being softhearted.

If he'd stood firm during Hinata's kidnapping, Hizashi probably wouldn't have died such a humiliating death.

No wonder I didn't see Natsu this morning. She came here instead. Seeing Natsu tilt her head and wink at him, Hyuga Gen smiled back.

Hyuga Hiashi was standing up front, giving a few polite words of thanks and the like. There weren't many guests, but there weren't too few either. Hiashi, who was usually stern, wore a rare hint of a smile.

The atmosphere wasn't especially lively. There wasn't much genuine warmth in it. Thinking of the Caged Bird Seal, Hyuga Gen figured it was probably a thorn in the heart of every branch-family member.

He suddenly remembered what Neji had said: a person's fate was decided at birth. Having lived two lives, Hyuga Gen felt that was mostly true, with only a few exceptions that slipped through the cracks.

Some people were born with everything handed to them, like Hinata Hyuga. If she became clan leader someday, then the lives and deaths of most people present would depend on her whim.

Thinking of the Konoha 12, most of them came from prominent families. The protagonist, Naruto, was undeniably from a distinguished family too. There was no denying his ninja way or his hard work.

But if he hadn't been the Fourth Hokage's son, and the Fourth hadn't sealed the Nine-Tails inside him, Hyuga Gen didn't think he would have achieved such great success.

That was probably just how the world worked. It was normal. Officials' children became officials, and the rich stayed rich.

With such favorable circumstances, you might only need to work a little to get ahead, while an ordinary person might have to work ten times as hard just to have a chance at succeeding.

I should avoid attending things like this whenever I can. Back home, Hyuga Gen thought it had been incredibly dull. He would have been better off training his body and studying Taijutsu to grow stronger.

Still, he had gained something from it. At the banquet, he'd seen how powerful the Caged Bird Seal was: all it took was one person showing the slightest discontent and letting a hint of killing intent slip.

Hyuga Gen suddenly realized he'd been thinking far too simply before. He still needed to work hard to improve his strength.

Born in hardship, doomed in comfort. I'll have to be careful from now on.