Creak.
The wooden floor let out a sharp groan that made Neji's teeth ache. He pushed himself up with both hands, sitting straight on the bed. The alarm clock by his bedside read 2:00 AM. The room was still dim and hazy.
Instinctively, he turned to glance out the window, only to see a figure quietly standing there, its silhouette soaked in moonlight, radiating loneliness.
Neji, still shaken by the remnants of his dream, flinched for a moment. But soon he recognized the face, calm yet full of melancholy.
"Father?"
His uncertain voice broke the silence. Hyūga Hizashi blinked and turned from the window, his distant gaze refocusing on his son.
"Had a nightmare?"
His tone was gentle, though his eyes carried a complicated emotion. He smiled faintly and reached out to ruffle Neji's hair.
"I… wouldn't exactly call it a nightmare."
Neji frowned slightly, pressing his temple as a dull ache throbbed beneath it.
He tried to recall the dream, but it was already melting away like snow beneath morning sun. The details slipped from his grasp like fine sand between his fingers, vanishing into the wind.
When he opened his palm, only a few grains of memory remained, an eerie lullaby sung in a decayed shrine, the terror of becoming a "sacrifice," and above all, those magnificent blue eyes… and that golden light that split the night sky.
"Father," Neji said, clinging to those fragments. "Is it possible for anyone in the Hyūga clan… to have eyes other than the Byakugan?"
Hizashi paused, glancing at him with mild confusion before answering, "If the bloodline isn't pure enough, it's possible they'll never awaken the Byakugan at all. Their eyes would remain… ordinary, like any other person's."
He hesitated, then added, as if recalling something, "Actually, there's a distant branch of our clan known as the 'Ko-Hyūga.' Their bloodline has thinned so much that none of them possess the Byakugan anymore." (This was mentioned in Itachi Shinden.)
"Of course, if any among the Ko-Hyūga were ever born with the Byakugan, they'd immediately be brought back into the main family, branded with the Caged Bird Seal and placed among the branch members.
"I see…" Neji murmured, his lips dry. "So it was just… a dream?"
Everything told him it was only a dream, yet the image of that man walking out of the fire, carrying a severed head, and the memory of those dazzling blue eyes were seared deep into his mind.
He could still recall the halo-like light within those eyes… and the terrifying brilliance of the golden beam that had cleaved the heavens.
"What happened before that?"
Neji furrowed his brows, struggling to remember, but the memory refused to return. He only knew it mattered.
The dream had been far too vivid, so vivid it didn't feel like a dream at all. So vivid that his heartbeat still trembled.
'If I could have that kind of power… could I also…'
He said no more. Hizashi didn't press the issue either. The room fell into a deep, uneasy silence.
Both father and son were lost in their own thoughts.
The son's heart was quietly sprouting a seed of determination, and desire he himself hadn't yet realized.
The father's heart lingered on the taste of a brief, forbidden freedom.
And both, unknowingly, had those feelings planted within them, by the same person.
[Ding! Your lie has been classified as [Bluffing], [Bewitching], [Luring into the Trap]. Hyūga Hizashi has experienced strong emotional fluctuations, reaching the level of [Obedience]. You gain +600 Reality Points.]
[Ding! Your lie "Hyūga's Death" has been classified as [Deception], [A Dream of Nanke]. Hyūga Neji has experienced strong emotional fluctuations, reaching the level of [Birth of Delusion]. You gain +1600 Reality Points.]
[Remaining Reality Points: 11,193]
"Two achievements gave me more points than three combined?"
With a puff of smoke, the shadow clone dispersed. The black robe melted like liquid into the floor's darkness, revealing Hyūga Arata's thoughtful face.
"As I thought… only the most bizarre lies yield the most points."
After manifesting his Shadow Cloak, he had 10,293 points left. Lifting Hizashi's Caged Bird Seal for ten seconds only cost him 300 points, but constructing Neji's dream had taken 1,000.
This time, though, Arata didn't complain about the system's stinginess.
After all, only by manifesting even a trace of the Tenseigan's true power could he brand that vision so deeply into Neji's mind, and pave the way for even greater deceptions ahead.
"Worth it. Totally worth it," Arata said, grinning.
He changed clothes and sat down at his desk, pulling out his "diary."
As he scribbled meaningless daily notes, his mind turned over every detail of what had just transpired, checking for mistakes, planning how to use his newly earned points.
He still wasn't strong enough.
Despite Hizashi's submissive posture toward Hiashi, in truth, Hizashi's combat ability ranked among the top in the clan. His experience far outstripped the head of the main family.
Only someone truly mad would dare stand before him, suppress him to near breaking point, threaten and toy with him… and live.
If he hadn't chosen Hizashi's own home as the stage, if he hadn't projected such calm and overwhelming power…
If he hadn't built that suffocating atmosphere, or chosen the solitude of the night…
If he hadn't used Hizashi's concern for Neji against him, or understood his psychology so deeply.
Any single misstep, and Hizashi would've seen through it. Then escape would've been impossible.
Even as he reviewed it all, Arata couldn't help but marvel at his own audacity, and yet, somewhere within, he felt a twisted thrill.
"I'll be more careful next time. Strength first. No more risks like that."
He nodded to himself with determination.
Yes, next time, for sure.
[Ding! Your lie has been classified as [Self-Deception]. Hyūga Arata has experienced minor emotional fluctuation, reaching [Saying One Thing, Meaning Another]. You gain +1 Reality Point.]
"...I'm not even going to dignify that with a response."
Veins twitched on Arata's forehead as he ignored the system's mocking tone.
Inwardly, he whispered, "Manifest Ninjutsu, Lightning Release Armor."
[Cost: 1000 Reality Points. Proceed?]
"So expensive? That'll drop me below 10,000!" He gritted his teeth.
He wasn't exactly stingy, but like a hoarding hamster, he had a deep need to store.
Watching his total creep toward five digits gave him a strange sense of security.
So, reluctantly, he hesitated.
But before he could decide,
A soft "meow" drifted through the night.
Meow~
It was faint, barely audible beneath the chorus of insects, a sound not at all unusual in this mating season.
But Arata's gaze froze. Then, a faint smile curved his lips.
"Heh. Looks like the points are coming to me on their own."