Under Currents

"Zongzhi, has there been any news from the Main House lately?"

Neji recalled that Kosuke Hyuga had not come looking for trouble for over a year, and he felt puzzled. Could he have misjudged him? Had that bastard gotten scared? Surely he had not turned over a new leaf.

"There doesn't seem to be much happening in the clan, but I heard that a Main House member involved in the border patrols is returning. He's a Jonin from the Elder's faction," the chubby boy replied.

"Border patrols... What does that have to do with Kosuke Hyuga? They can't be sending a Jonin to teach me a lesson, can they? ...I should prepare early. Tonight, I'll find out what Kosuke Hyuga is up to." Neji pondered inwardly.

"Bye, Brother Neji."

Before he knew it, they had returned to the Hyuga Clan District. After saying goodbye, the chubby boy turned and ran off.

Neji pushed open his front door and saw Xiao Xi waiting by the dining table. Warmth filled his heart. No matter how people schemed outside, at least he was not too lonely once he came home. Humans were creatures of emotion; if one remained isolated for too long, one's nature would inevitably change. In the end, one would either destroy others or destroy oneself.

"Young Master Neji, you're back. Come eat."

"Okay, Sister Xiao Xi. Thanks for the meal."

After washing his hands, Neji picked up his bowl and chopsticks and ate with care.

The Purple Ox meat had been stewed until tender. Once it entered his stomach, it melted into a warm current that spread throughout his body. His Macrocosmic Orbit began circulating on its own, while a faint swelling pain came from his Dantian—it had been filled to its limit.

Neji finished eating without betraying any reaction. Setting down his bowl and chopsticks, he said, "Sister Xiao Xi, I'm done. I'll go train now."

With that, Neji returned to the study and slowly circulated his Qi, dissolving the Qi flooding his meridians and dispersing it into his flesh and blood to nourish every cell in his body.

After being nourished day after day, Neji's physique might not compare to the Uzumaki Clan's Yang Release, but the vitality radiating from his body was as striking as a candle flame.

"With this level of vitality, Tsunade probably won't be able to ignore me..." Neji muttered. A faint golden gleam seemed to flash through his eyes, concealing countless schemes.

Moonlight lay across the Main House's upturned eaves like silver silk. Neji moved along the shadows at the base of the walls, occasionally vaulting over them, his breathing blending into the night wind. The Breath Concealment Art continued to operate as strands of Qi sealed away his aura and fluctuations, thinning his presence into that of a fallen leaf or a stone.

Wrapped head to toe in black fitted clothes, Neji turned into an afterimage as he crossed the seventy-foot corridor like a bat. When the tips of his toes touched the duckweed floating on the pond, he did not even disturb the sleeping koi below.

Neji had visited the Main House compound a few times before. This time, his target was Kosuke Hyuga. Without lingering along the way, Neji carefully avoided the night patrols, only to discover that Kosuke Hyuga was not in his residence.

After considering it, Neji turned and headed for the shrine. Since he was already here, he might as well kill two birds with one stone. He had been eyeing the shrine for a long time, and since he would have to investigate its secrets sooner or later, it might as well be tonight.

Thin smoke from incense drifted out of the Main House Shrine, mixed with a familiar herbal scent. Moonlight passed through the carved window lattice and cast two elongated shadows upon the paper doors, while curse-mark-like patterns wound across the ground.

Neji did not dare approach too closely. The markings on the ground filled him with a sharp sense of lethal danger.

The Elder was in the shrine as well. That old man treated it like his lifeblood, staying here whenever he had nothing else to do. All of Neji's plans came to nothing because of it.

"If I want to infiltrate the shrine, I'll have to find a way to lure the Elder away. Heh, perfect. I refuse to believe that if something happens to your precious grandson, you'll still have time to play the miser here!"

Thinking of a certain possibility, Neji silently bared his teeth in a smile. Then he mobilized Qi around his ears, amplifying the sounds inside the shrine.

"Next month's clan competition will be the best opportunity." Kosuke Hyuga's voice hissed like a venomous snake. A scroll lay open before him, its densely packed curse inscriptions glowing with a pale green light beneath the moon. "The Modified Caged Bird can not only seal the Byakugan, it can also..." His finger traced a pattern resembling a brainstem. "Erase unnecessary thoughts."

"Do not act rashly. If Hiashi Hyuga discovers it, the internal conflicts within the Main House will become impossible to reconcile. This vicious method was shelved after being created by our ancestors. It can only be used against rebels with the unanimous approval of all elders and the clan head."

The Elder's tin staff struck the ground with a dull thud. The memorial tablets of the successive clan heads enshrined within flickered in the incense smoke.

"I made an exception by allowing you frequent access to the ancestral shrine. I gave you so many resources, let you read secret technique scrolls as you pleased, and spoon-fed you the insights of our predecessors. Yet you are still this disappointing. Rather than thinking of defeating that Branch House brat fair and square, you dug up this thing from some dark corner. You have truly disappointed me!"

The Elder looked at his grandson's twisted expression with bitter disappointment and could not help questioning the guidance he had given over the years.

"Grandfather, I'm your only grandson. Besides, it's time for someone else to sit in the clan head's seat. Hiashi Hyuga has spent half his life exhausting his fortune, yet he only has two daughters. Grandfather, this opportunity cannot be missed! Hiashi Hyuga has played his cards well—he actually wants to bind Neji with familial affection, keep him around to clear the way for Hinata Hyuga, and nip any threat in the bud. Otherwise, with Neji's talent, it won't be long before even you can no longer restrain him."

Kosuke Hyuga's eyes flickered with an unsteady dark light beneath the glow of the incense.

"You... Shut up!"

The Elder's rebuke echoed through the shrine's empty rafters, but the knuckles gripping his tin staff had turned white.

After a long while, he said, "Fine. Ryota will return in a few days. Once he does, find a way to send that Branch House brat to the border with him. Acting out there will be safer than acting beneath Hiashi Hyuga's nose."

The Elder's tone gradually turned cold.

"But Grandfather, he hasn't even graduated from the academy yet. The Hokage won't agree, will he?" Kosuke Hyuga asked doubtfully.

"It doesn't matter. The Hokage will still show the clan some respect. As for the clan head, doesn't he hope Neji can grow stronger? There is no nourishment more effective than a battlefield..."

Neji's nails dug into his palms as chakra rampaged through his acupoints. The bronze wind chimes beneath the eaves suddenly rang without wind, and the voices inside the shrine abruptly stopped. He instantly leaned backward against a corridor pillar, pushing the Breath Concealment Art to its limit as Qi wrapped around the sound of his heartbeat and sank it into his Dantian.

The instant Kosuke Hyuga pushed open the door and stepped out, Neji saw the Qi at the other man's heart glowing. It was the Soul-Seizing Needle he had planted during their spar a year ago, resonating.

"Was that an illusion..." Ripples spread through Kosuke Hyuga's Byakugan as his three-hundred-sixty-degree vision swept over the courtyard. Neji infused Qi into the roof tile beneath his feet, and a Night Owl suddenly burst up from behind the roof ridge.

Watching the patrol team get drawn toward the eastern wing, Neji slowly retreated and left the shrine.

At a quarter past the Tiger hour, Neji crouched in an ancient tree at the edge of the Main House estate.

As morning mist drifted in from the Nanga River, he formed the Horse Seal toward the rising sun. The Qi needle hidden in Kosuke Hyuga's Governing Vessel suddenly spun in reverse, and the acupoints representing pain on the chakra meridian map lit up red one after another.

When the first scream tore through the dawn, he was standing at the edge of the training ground, watching the Main House residence descend into chaos.