The Will of Fire

"Hinata, did you see that? This is your little sister, and she has already surpassed you in Gentle Fist. What exactly have you been doing?" Hyuga Hiashi looked at Hinata in displeasure, his tone stern.

"Father." Hinata lowered her head, too timid to offer any defense.

"Ah..." In the end, Hiashi could only sigh helplessly. His eldest daughter really was hopeless.

The Caged Bird Seal... perhaps it is time to make a choice. Watching Hanabi hold her own in the sparring match, then glancing at his eldest daughter standing with her head bowed, full of unease, Hiashi felt the scales in his heart begin to tip.

I will wait a little longer and see whether she improves after graduation. If she does not, I will have no choice but to place the Caged Bird Seal on her. For the Hyuga Clan, this is a necessary sacrifice! Hiashi's eyes were cold.

Before long, the young Hanabi ran out of stamina. Panting for breath, she could no longer keep up with Neji at all.

"That is enough. Come back, Hanabi." After calling Hanabi back, Hiashi turned to Neji. "Neji, you will be graduating soon. Do not disgrace the Hyuga name on your missions!"

"I understand, Clan Head," Neji answered with his head lowered.

Hiashi was very pleased with Neji's obedience. In his eyes, activating the Caged Bird Seal back then had done its job. Neji had never been this submissive before.

After the three of them left, Neji went through the motions of practicing Gentle Fist for a while before leaving as well.

Neji had long since mastered every Gentle Fist move available to the Branch Family. He simply lacked enough chakra to bring out the full power of some of them.

He had even worked out the core principle behind Rotation, which only the Main Family was permitted to learn. Truly mastering it would take only another few days.

These Gentle Fist moves are not that complicated. Why practice them endlessly all day? Is there any need? Neji felt that time would be better spent practicing something else. It was not as though the Hyuga Clan could not fight using ninjutsu.

"Neji!" As he walked, Neji suddenly heard someone call his name.

Neji turned and saw a member of the Main Family, a man who appeared to be in his forties.

"Elder Keisuke." Neji bowed without any change in his expression.

The Main Family member, Hyuga Keisuke, immediately addressed him in an accusatory tone. "Neji, I hear you have been getting quite close to that orphan from the Uchiha Clan lately?"

Neji replied calmly, "Yes, Elder Keisuke. I consider him a worthy opponent, someone who allows me to gauge my progress."

Hyuga Keisuke stared coldly at him. "Hmph. What could a mere Uchiha orphan who has lost his clan's teachings possibly amount to? Neji, stop associating with him. The Uchiha Clan is a cursed clan. Nothing good comes of befriending one of them. Do not drag the Hyuga into trouble because of your own affairs."

"Elder Keisuke, I understand." Neji forcibly suppressed his anger.

"You had better truly understand. You would not want another taste of the Caged Bird Seal, would you?" Hyuga Keisuke gave him a cruel smile.

Neji kept his head lowered and said nothing. Only after Hyuga Keisuke left did he slowly make his way home.

Once home, the veins on Neji's face bulged. His anger had activated his Byakugan, and his teeth ground audibly together.

"The Caged Bird Seal! Fine, fine, fine. Not one of you will get away!" Neji's eyes were filled with murderous intent.

After several months of living as a slave, the anger bottled up inside Neji had reached a breaking point.

He even felt that he was no longer himself. His former self would never have entertained such thoughts.

"Sure enough, your surroundings can really twist you..." Neji sighed, not particularly concerned that his personality had become warped.

Who in this Shinobi World had a normal personality, anyway? Wasn't everyone a little sick?

The seriously sick ones were people like Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Obito. The milder cases were people like Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki as they were now.

Neji's current condition could hardly be called severe. It was merely average.

Besides, although he was nominally a member of the Hyuga Clan, in reality, he was nothing more than its slave.

What could a mere slave do? Neji could no longer accept the comforting claim that they were all one family.

More importantly, whenever Neji saw that arrogant, superior look on a Main Family member's face, uncontrollable violent emotions and thoughts surged within him. He wanted to brand every one of them with the Caged Bird Seal, torture them mercilessly, and then crush their heads underfoot.

After the Main Family's warning, Neji had no choice but to reduce his contact with Sasuke Uchiha.

They did not cut ties. They simply moved their interactions out of the public eye.

Neji stopped making frequent visits to the Uchiha Clan's training ground. Instead, he used his Byakugan to find a rarely visited training ground where he could practice medical ninjutsu.

There was no denying that possessing the Byakugan made learning medical ninjutsu much faster. Starting from scratch, Neji took less than a month to master the B-rank medical ninjutsu, the Delicate Illness Extraction Technique, and the C-Rank Accelerated Healing Technique.

At the very least, his limb transplant operations on the small animals at the training ground went smoothly.

Time flew by, and soon it was the day before graduation.

Their homeroom teacher, Omori Kyohei, was giving the students their final lesson.

"For this final lesson, I hope you will all remember Konoha's Will of Fire: wherever leaves dance, fire burns on. Its light will continue to illuminate the village and allow new leaves to sprout. It is this dazzling Will of Fire that guides generation after generation of Konoha's people forward!"

Listening to their homeroom teacher's speech, the students below were brimming with joy and excitement. They were about to become true inheritors of the Will of Fire!

As Neji listened to his teacher, he could only put a little joy and excitement on his face. He could not remain expressionless and indifferent. This was a necessary show.

In truth, he had no interest whatsoever in the Will of Fire. It was nothing more than pretty words.

The so-called Will of Fire explicitly spoke of protecting children, yet in practice, children were sent onto the battlefield.

If the Will of Fire encouraged people to love one another and become one family, why did it allow the Hyuga Clan's traditions to continue? Did the Hyuga Clan stand above Konoha and the Will of Fire? Or were only members of the Main Family considered people of Konoha? Were Branch Family members not Konoha ninja?

As someone treated as a slave, Neji had no right to join this so-called Will of Fire and love anyone.

They constantly preached the Will of Fire and proclaimed that Konoha was one family, so why did the Hyuga still have a tradition like the Caged Bird Seal that turned people into slaves? Why had Konoha imposed no restrictions whatsoever? Was it incapable of doing so?

Of course not. Wasn't the Uchiha Clan far stronger than the Hyuga Clan? Yet Danzo had still used Uchiha Itachi as his blade to slaughter them all.

Danzo had also said that even if Uchiha Itachi did not act, Konoha could easily wipe out the Uchiha.

Treating people as slaves was clearly not something a family should do.

For Neji and the Hyuga Branch Family, the Will of Fire was something to hear and nothing more. If anyone took it seriously, Neji could laugh at them for two and a half years.

Whenever Neji gave it even a little thought, he felt that both Konoha and the Hyuga Clan were utterly disgusting.

The only difference was the degree.