Main House Shrine

As blue tiles and white walls emerged and vanished in the morning mist, Neji left home and headed for the Main House estate. Today was his day to train at the Main House.

A message had come from the Main House yesterday: he was to go to the shrine this morning to receive instruction. Neji circled around the residence where the clan head lived and arrived behind the Hyuga Main Estate.

The Main House servant leading the way pushed open a three-meter-tall black-lacquered gate. The bronze Eight Trigrams on its knocker suddenly glimmered faintly.

The boy instinctively activated his Byakugan and discovered that the entire wall had been cast from metal. Those seemingly ordinary white walls flowed with pale cyan sealing runes in his penetrating vision.

"Young master of the Branch House, this way, please." The servant's voice was like spider silk dampened by morning dew, lightly winding around Neji's steps.

He stepped onto the tortoiseshell-patterned stones of the entranceway and suddenly heard the soft chime of golden bells mingled with running water. Five paces away, a bamboo deer scarer struck the bluestone, startling three-tailed crimson koi across the pond's surface.

As he passed through a covered corridor beneath three layers of gabled roofs, Neji caught the scent of pine resin.

Twelve carved wooden doors stood open in succession, each lintel engraved with a different trigram. As he passed the "Kan" door, he saw his reflection warp in the crystal mirror set into its frame, as though countless Caged Bird curse marks were flickering through the air.

The sight of the shrine awakening in the morning light reminded Neji of the jade pendant his father had crushed in his hand before dying, and a sense of fated ruin welled up within him.

Seven-tiered stone lanterns surrounded a dry landscape garden. Between the wave patterns raked into the white sand, grains of different colors had been arranged into a diagram of the human meridians. When he looked closely, a single grain of red sand was slowly moving along the path of the Hand Shaoyin Heart Meridian.

"Watch your step," the servant suddenly warned.

Neji lowered his head and found the tip of his shoe hovering above a golden inlay shaped like rippling water. This finger-width ring divided the courtyard into the yin and yang dualities, and he was standing at the edge of an evening primrose bed representing yin.

A bronze bell at the training ground hummed in the distance. Thirty-six straw dummies stood arranged in a Heavenly Stems Formation. Neji's pupils contracted slightly—the dummies were not ordinary training tools. Each wore the standard gray hemp practice clothes of the Branch House, with talismans bearing birth dates and times nailed to their throats. The dummy at the very center had a dot of vermilion on its forehead, swaying gently in the morning breeze.

"Those are tools the young masters of the Main House use to practice striking pressure points," the servant explained, following his gaze. "The dolls are woven from Vengeful Spirit Grass. When their vital points are struck, they let out real screams."

As they went around a cluster of hydrangeas, Neji suddenly stopped.

Twelve life-sized white marble statues stood in the mist, each bearing the likeness of a past Main House clan head. They each held a different opening stance of the Gentle Fist. The chakra gathered at their fingertips seemed not to have dispersed even after centuries, forming tiny whirlwinds around the statues.

On the pedestal of the seventh statue, he saw the name of his ancestor, Hyuga Tennin—the man who had improved the Caged Bird curse mark into its current form.

Before the entrance to the main hall, two century-old pines twisted into the shapes of coiling dragons. Neji noticed that their trunks were covered in dense, tiny holes, each still bearing traces of chakra needle strikes.

When the hem of his white robe brushed past the roots, a pine needle suddenly shot toward him and crumbled into powder the instant it touched his sleeve—an automatic defensive barrier arranged by the Main House.

"Please wait here." The servant knelt before a paper door painted with a Taiji Diagram. Neji stared at the bronze mirror hanging above the doorway. The instant its surface reflected the curse mark on his forehead, dense chains of curse script suddenly emerged within the mirror, binding his reflection so tightly it could not move.

When the paper door slid open, the current of air carried out a wave of sandalwood incense. Neji saw twelve layers of pale teal curtains fluttering one after another in the morning light.

Each gauze curtain was embroidered with Eight Trigrams in silver thread. When the final curtain bearing the "Qian" trigram was lifted, the veins around Neji's eyes bulged uncontrollably—three hundred and sixty glazed lamps on the domed ceiling formed a complete celestial star chart, while the jade inlaid into the floor formed the Hyuga Clan's seven-hundred-year genealogy.

At the very edge of the genealogy, he found his father Hizashi's name. That name, pieced together from shattered jade, was being sliced apart by drifting patches of light, just like the body that had been shattered at the Main House days ago.

"Branch House brat, look up."

An aged voice came from atop the nine-step jade platform. As Neji raised his head, a drop of morning dew fell from the Horn star position in the dome and splashed into a faint glimmer at his feet.

The Great Elder's silver hair appeared and disappeared behind a crystal curtain. His bamboo cane lightly tapped the floor, and the tiles throughout the hall suddenly turned transparent—thousands upon thousands of scrolls slowly revolved three meters below, each wrapped in chains bearing curse marks.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" The Great Elder's laughter made the crystal curtain chime. "All the Hyuga Clan's forbidden techniques are sealed here, including the original curse formula of the Caged Bird." His bamboo cane suddenly pointed at Neji. "And what flows in your veins is merely the shadow of that glory."

Morning light filtered through the carved window lattice, casting trigram-shaped shadows across the floor. Standing on the flame pattern of the "Li" position, Neji suddenly understood that every detail of this splendid courtyard was an exquisitely crafted cage.

He lowered his eyes toward the forbidden technique scrolls slumbering underground, but sneered inwardly.

Trying to intimidate me?

Neji deeply despised the Main House's display. They enjoyed the Branch House's offerings, yet acted as though they were bestowing charity by passing down teachings to the Branch House.

And I'm supposed to be endlessly grateful?

Ordinary clansmen might have been filled with reverence for the Main House after being subjected to such rituals, but Neji was not among them.

There might be good people in the Main House, but absolute power led to absolute corruption. Over a thousand years, how many filthy deeds had taken place here?

"Take it. Train well. This is what your father fought to secure for you."

As he spoke, the Great Elder took a scroll from his sleeve and handed it to Neji.

"Yes. Thank you, Elder, for passing down the technique."

Neji accepted it expressionlessly. A glance from the corner of his eye revealed that it was merely the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, making him despise them even more.

So stingy and petty. This clan's generosity goes no further than this!

Neji grumbled inwardly for quite a while.

If the Main House had passed down the Rotation Secret Technique this time, Neji might have thought more highly of them. He had begun training in the Sixty-Four Palms long ago at Hizashi's request; there was no way the Main House did not know that.

Yet they had done this anyway. They simply wanted to use the opportunity to humiliate and suppress him, the Branch House genius. The message was clear: no matter how talented he was, the Branch House would always be the Branch House. Only what they chose to give him was his.

Neji could not help thinking of that clan on the moon. Once he had enough strength, he truly wanted to follow their example and wipe out this ridiculous Main House.

Good thing I'm such an upstanding young socialist. If it were someone else, they'd wipe out your whole clan sooner or later.

Neji smiled faintly, rose, and took his leave.

The wind chimes beneath the eaves suddenly rang in unison, startling swallowtail butterflies from the evening primroses. Before turning away, Neji cast one final glance at the genealogy. His father's name glowed faintly within the jade-inlaid meridian diagram, like a spark buried deep underground.