Creak… creak…
Hyūga Kumokawa walked slowly along the road as the wind and snow howled incessantly.
The violent storm from yesterday finally exhausted itself before dawn, but it left behind a thick blanket of snow on the ground.
Thud! Thud!
From the distance came a series of muffled sounds, torn apart by the howling wind and snow. The closer Kumokawa drew, the clearer the noises became.
All the footpaths the pedestrians had used were completely covered in white; only Kumokawa's footprints marked the surface.
It was as if Konoha had been washed clean overnight.
But the sky was an oppressive leaden gray, stingily leaking a pale morning light that fell on the snow with a deathly chill.
Hyūga Neji stood alone in the middle of that white, deathly still world, astonishingly still wearing a thin black mourning robe.
His youthful face was expressionless as he hammered again and again on a wooden training post.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
He'd abandoned the refined techniques of Gentle Fist entirely, using the most primitive, brutal force: punching over and over, each blow sounding with a dull, teeth-grating thump.
The skin over his knuckles split and curled back; bright red beads of blood soaked the wooden post, forming glaring patches of dark crimson.
With every strike, fine threads of blood flicked through the air and spattered on the pure white snow below, blooming like a crimson plum blossom.
Clearly, the boy was pouring his sorrow and anger into the wooden post through a self-destructive, masochistic training.
"How pitiful."
Kumokawa leaned against the gate with his arms crossed, watching the unmoved Neji and smiled. "This meaningless venting — do you expect me to pick you up and coo, 'Don't hit anymore, it's all past now'?"
Neji's actions suddenly froze. He slowly turned and looked at him; his white eyes swam with resentment.
"What would you know?" Neji's voice was hoarse to the point of being raw. "You couldn't even protect my father's corpse. You're just a useless piece of trash!"
Kumokawa felt not an iota of anger at the pouty words of a child.
Still, simply unleashing rage and hatred on a silent wooden post was indeed pointless.
"The prodigy of the Hyūga branch family." Kumokawa asked with a smirk, "Care to bet with this useless waste — me?"
Neji did not answer at once; he merely stared at Kumokawa in silence.
Kumokawa placed both hands behind his back, inclined his head slightly and smiled at Neji. "Use both your hands, Hyūga prodigy."
As if provoked by his disdain and mockery, anger finally flushed Neji's otherwise calm, childlike face.
He did look down on Kumokawa — from the presence of that venerable Lord Hiashi and from his father, he felt omnipresent pressure.
From Kumokawa he felt nothing.
And yet this widely ridiculed waste within the clan had the gall to brag he could take both of Neji's hands!
"You—!"
At the word, Neji lunged at Kumokawa, instinctively using Gentle Fist technique.
Kumokawa dug his toes into the snow; as Neji's raised hand came down, Kumokawa flicked the settled snow at his face. In an instant, a white gust struck like a blinding storm.
Neji's left hand slammed through the falling snow to clear his eyes, but Kumokawa's figure had already vanished. Reflexively, Neji swung his palm to the right.
Thud!
Neji's guess was right.
His palm collided with Kumokawa's raised lower leg; the force struck like a wave crashing against an immovable cliff.
Snow around their feet exploded outward; Neji staggered back, uncontrollably leaving two trails in the snow.
"What's the matter, prodigy?" Kumokawa dropped his leg, narrowed his eyes and sneered. "Can't even take this much force?"
What was happening?
The returned force — he felt it snapping back at him.
Looking at Kumokawa, Neji's previous contempt evaporated, replaced by a creeping seriousness.
But unfortunately, that seriousness didn't last long, because the fight ended in the next instant.
Neji's right calf felt as if hit by an iron rod; he half-kneeling, not yet recovered, and before he could rise a knee ballooned in front of his face with brutal speed.
Bam! Crack!
Kumokawa had stepped in to bend Neji's right leg, then sprang up and drove a fierce knee into Neji's face.
With the sick snap of a broken nasal bridge, Neji was sent flying; blood sprayed through the air.
He hit the ground with a dull thud, dislodging clumps of snow from the eaves that slid down with a soft whisper.
"Ugh."
Dazed, he pressed his right hand to the ground to stand, only to have it stomped upon without mercy.
"You're worthless — only good at self-harm," Kumokawa's voice chilled. "I think you don't need that hand anymore. Stay inside your cage like a pet bird put on display."
"No!" Neji cried out, shocked, but he couldn't free his arm.
"What's wrong — being a bird in a cage — what's so bad about that?" Kumokawa tightened the pressure slightly, and spoke in a cold voice. "Who are you trying to show that pitiful, powerless rage to? You think fate has branded you a 'caged bird' and that your inexplicable destiny cannot be changed — that you must be dominated by the exalted main family."
Neji's lips moved soundlessly; cracked, bleeding lines formed on them and the cold air quickly froze the moisture.
He shook his head as he struggled.
Bullying the weak is immoral, of course.
Too bad Kumokawa had no morals to be bound by.
He had no time to wait for Neji to have an epiphany — he had to kindle desire and delusion inside him again.
Plop.
Kumokawa suddenly raised his foot; Neji, unable to brace in time, tumbled face-first into the snow.
"Fate is a tyrant's means to bind thought, a fool's excuse to comfort himself." Kumokawa looked down at the wretched Neji and spoke in a calm tone: "If you truly want to resist, then stomp those arrogant bastards underfoot hard enough that they taste what it's like to have their dignity and freedom toyed with — the humiliation and despair."
"Not just wallowing here in self-pity, venting impotent rage!"
Huff! Huff!
Neji struggled and rolled over, his cheek pressed to the bone-piercing snow, panting.
White breaths dissolved in the wind. Tears finally burst from his eyes.
Paths part and people say goodbye — those who leave are not as grief-stricken as those who stay.
The deepest terror of death is that it brushes past us, leaving us alone.
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Chapter 53 is an announcement, so I skipped it.