“Lord Patriarch, this is the complete account of the young lady’s outing today.”
Inside the main administrative study of the Hyūga compound, Hyūga Natsu knelt respectfully on the tatami mat.
She kept her head bowed, her voice soft and light, though laced with a barely dissembleable tremble.
Seated behind the desk, Hyūga Hiashi held a cup of hot tea with his brows slightly furrowed.
“She went to Ichiraku Ramen?
And ran into Uzumaki Naruto?”
“Yes…”
“And she even treated that kid to ramen?”
Hiashi scoffed softly.
“That girl Hinata just suffers from an overabundance of sympathy.
Forget it, it’s only a bowl of noodles.
How did she eat, herself?”
Natsu swallowed hard.
A bead of cold sweat broke out on her forehead.
Closing her eyes, she reported at the top of her lungs:
“The young lady…
she ate twenty bowls of the special pork bone chashu ramen!
All extra-large size!”
“Pfft— Cough, cough, cough!”
The gulp of hot tea Hiashi had just taken sprayed straight across the scrolls on his desk, entirely abandoning his usual dignified composure.
“What did you say?!”
Hiashi’s pure white eyes widened so far they threatened to pop out.
His voice actually cracked as he grabbed the edge of the desk.
“Twenty bowls?!
Extra-large?!
Say that again—how much did she eat?!”
“T-Twenty bowls…” Natsu shivered violently.
Meanwhile, eavesdropping just outside the door, Hinata felt as though lightning had struck her straight on the crown.
Holy crap!
Hinata roared mentally.
Natsu-nee!
You big-eyed, big-busted cutie, you’re actually a traitor?!
What happened to being my loyal personal maid?
What happened to sisterly love?
You sold me out completely the second you turned around!
A backstab!
A literal backstab!
“Hinata!
Get your butt in here!”
Hiashi’s muffled, fury-suppressed roar thundered from inside the study.
Hinata flinched, realizing there was no dodging this bullet.
Taking a deep breath, she instantly summoned the full strength of her lifelong acting skills.
“Waaaaah…
Chichi-sama!”
The sliding door was slammed open.
Hinata rolled into the room like a pink meatball, landing with a wet splat right at Hiashi’s feet, locking her arms tightly around his leg.
She peeked up, her sky-blue eyes brimming with big golden tears, her small mouth pouting like a deeply wronged little steamed bun.
“Chichi-sama…
Hinata didn’t mean to eat so much…
But, but Hinata really can’t get full at home!”
Crying as she threw her tantrum, Hinata rubbed her tear-streaked face frantically against Hiashi’s pant leg, complaining in her most innocent, milky voice:
“The portions at home are so teeny-tiny!
Every time Hinata just starts to taste the food, it’s already gone!
Hinata has to train so hard every single day, and my tummy feels so empty and awful, waaaah…”
This rapid-fire combination of crying, pitching a fit, and acting cute instantly plugged up the lecture Hiashi had been preparing.
Hiashi sat frozen in his chair, staring down at his tearful daughter.
His brain worked in overdrive as his inner world suffered a massive shock.
She isn’t getting enough to eat?!
The corner of Hiashi’s mouth twitched violently.
And the future heir to the Main House is going hungry in her own home?!
If word of this gets out, what will the other clans think of me, Hyūga Hiashi?
If I can’t even feed my own daughter, how can I show my face as patriarch?!
…But still, twenty extra-large bowls of ramen!
Hiashi subconsciously touched his own stomach.
Forget twenty—with sea-bowl sizes like that, even he would be too stuffed to walk after two!
She’s only three years old.
How in the world does that tiny stomach hold so much food?
Hiashi sank into deep thought.
He recalled the terrifying level of chakra control Hinata had demonstrated in the dojo, as well as her seemingly boundless energy.
Could it be…
Hiashi’s eyes suddenly lit up.
Is it because her extraordinary chakra quality and those mutated sky-blue eyes demand a massive amount of calories just to sustain her physical output?
Yes!
It must be because a genius has a body different from ordinary people!
This isn’t just a big appetite—this is proof of her extraordinary natural talent!
Having completed a flawless self-justification, Hiashi’s perception of Hinata was thoroughly refreshed once again.
He took a deep breath.
The cold, rigid lines of his face softened, and he reached out to pat Hinata’s short, dark-blue hair.
“All right, stop crying.”
Hiashi’s voice carried an unprecedented trace of gentleness.
“If the household meals aren’t to your taste, the kitchen will prepare separate meals for you from now on.
Eat as much as you want.
The Hyūga clan will never let its future head starve!”
“Really?
Thank you, Chichi-sama!”
Hinata’s tears instantly turned into a beaming smile, though inside she was practically rolling on the floor with laughter.
Hahaha!
The old man is so easy to fool!
From now on, I can finally gorge myself out in the open!
“Natsu-nee!” Hinata turned around, shooting the kneeling maid an unmistakable ‘I’ll deal with you when we get back’ look.
“Quick, carry me back to rest.
I’m tired!”
With that, Hinata grabbed Natsu and sprinted back to her private courtyard like the wind.
Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, a month passed.
Year 51 of Konoha, December 27th.
Heavy snow drifted down from the sky, blanketing the entire village of Konoha in pure white.
But inside the Hyūga compound today, there was no warmth or festive joy—only a suffocating aura of gloom and dead silence.
Today was Hinata’s third birthday.
Yet, according to the Hyūga clan’s cold, cruel, thousand-year-old law, the third birthday of the Main House heir was always accompanied by another ceremony—one that made skin crawl.
It was the day the children of the Branch House were branded with the “Caged Bird” curse seal.
Hinata didn’t stay inside her warm courtyard.
Wearing her pure white fox-fur cloak, she walked alone down the long corridor leading to the Main House’s central courtyard.
She had even dismissed Natsu, who was usually glued to her side, with the excuse that she “wanted to be alone for a bit.”
The day has finally come, after all.
Hinata stopped in her tracks, looking at a pine tree in the courtyard bent under the weight of the snow, and sighed quietly in her heart.
She knew all too well what the words “Caged Bird” truly meant.
It was the ultimate source of evil—depriving freedom, controlling life and death, and reducing living human beings into slaves of the Main House.
In her past life, watching the anime, she had merely thought of it as a cruel plot device.
But now, standing inside this very compound, breathing in this oppressive air, she felt the sickening reality of a system designed to devour people.
Just then, a series of heavy, almost faltering footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor.
Hinata turned her head.
A tiny figure was creeping forward, relying on the wall for support with every slow step.
It was Neji.
Little Neji wasn’t wearing his usual clean grey training uniform today; instead, he wore a thin white undergarment.
Thick white bandages wrapped around his forehead, and along their edges, faint traces of blood oozed out, stark and shocking to the eye.
Neji walked very slowly, his body shivering in the early winter wind.
But what broke the heart most was his eyes.
No light, no focus.
Nothing remained except endless despair, resentment, and a brokenness that looked as though his soul had been torn away.
At four years old, he had experienced the darkest hell of his life today.
From this moment on, his life and death lay entirely at the whim of the Main House; his proud spirit had been forcibly branded with the mark of a slave.
“Neji-niisan.”
Hinata didn’t back away.
Taking small steps forward, she walked up to meet him through the wind and snow, her crisp voice ringing out clearly.
Hearing her voice, a faint flicker finally passed through Neji’s hollow gaze.
He stopped, slowly lifting his head to look at the delicate, beautifully dressed young lady of the Main House standing before him in her luxurious fox-fur cloak.
“H-Hinata-sama…”
Neji’s voice was terribly raspy, as if his throat were filled with sand, each word carrying a heavy metallic taste of blood.
He tried to bow as he usually did, but the slightest movement triggered a soul-rending wave of pain from the fresh curse seal on his forehead.
“Ugh…”
With a muffled groan, Neji’s legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the icy wooden floorboards.
He bit his lip hard to suppress a scream, but two lines of humiliating tears slipped uncontrollably from his eyes anyway, splashing onto the snow at his knees.
Inside, Neji’s mind was far from calm; it was a volcano suppressing raging magma.
Why?
Why is fate so unfair?
Just because my father belongs to the Branch House, must I become her slave for generations to come?!
Neji’s fingers dug fiercely into the wooden floorboards, his fingernails bleeding from the sheer force of his grip.
Hinata watched him quietly.
In her sky-blue eyes, there was no pity, nor was there sympathy.
She knew that for a proud genius, sympathy was the cheapest form of insult.
Taking a deep breath, Hinata stepped forward.
Reaching out with her small, chubby hands, she grabbed Neji firmly by the shoulders.
To Neji’s utter shock, she pulled him up from the cold floor using sheer strength.
“Neji-niisan.”
Hinata tilted her head up, meeting Neji’s pain-filled, resentful eyes head-on.
She didn’t use her usual soft, spoiled tone, nor did she feign timidity.
In this moment, the soul of a twenty-four-year-old adult man shone through the three-year-old girl’s sky-blue eyes, radiating an intimidating majesty and resolve.
“Neji-niisan, lift your head up and look at me.”
Hinata’s voice wasn’t loud, but in the quiet corridor, it struck like a heavy bell, reverberating deep in the chest.
“I know what you’re thinking right now.
You hate this family, you hate this unfair fate, and…
you even hate me.”
Neji trembled violently, instinctively wanting to avert his gaze from those sky-blue eyes that seemed to peer straight into his soul.
But Hinata held his shoulders fast, refusing to let him shrink back even an inch.
“Listen to me!”
Hinata spoke word by word, her tone packed with an unquestionable, overbearing arrogance:
“I, Hyūga Hinata, will never spend my whole life hiding under the protection of the Branch House as a useless piece of trash!”
Facing the swirling snow, Hinata let go of his shoulders and pointed toward the overcast sky.
Her small silhouette suddenly seemed impossibly grand in that moment.
“One day, I will become the strongest person in this world!”
Hinata turned back around sharply, the corners of her lips curving into a smile of absolute confidence:
“Neji-niisan, one day, I will become strong enough to change all the rules!
Main House, Branch House, the Caged Bird seal—I will shatter every last one of them with my own hands!”
The wind and snow whipped up fiercely around them.
Neji stood frozen on the spot, completely forgetting the throbbing agony on his forehead.
He stared blankly at Hinata, his pupils trembling wildly.
Astonishment.
Total, unadulterated shock!
Four-year-old Neji felt his mind go completely blank.
Is…
Is this really the three-year-old young lady who usually seems so weak, who knows nothing except how to cry and act spoiled?!
She actually said…
she was going to change rules that had lasted a thousand years?
She was going to shatter the Caged Bird?!
What an arrogant, treasonous oath!
And yet…
Looking into those sky-blue eyes shining brilliantly amidst the blizzard, a faint, fragile—yet fiercely blazing—spark ignited uncontrollably in the depths of Neji’s dead-grey heart.