Winter gave way to spring, the sun rose and set, and as the new year of Konoha Year 52 passed, the Third Great Ninja War finally came to an end.
The First Great Ninja War. The Second. The Third. They sounded like they spanned an eternity. In reality, all three had occurred within a single fifty-year window. Three continent-wide conflicts crammed into half a century. It was almost funny in a grim sort of way. Almost. If you thought about it for more than two seconds, it just made you cold.
With the new year behind them and peacetime finally within reach, Konoha could breathe again. But for some people, the end of one war was the start of another.
"Whew... Congratulations, Iruka. You finally passed after, well, all those attempts."
"Th-th-th-th-thank you, Sandaime-sama!"
Spring, two years later. Inside the Hokage's office, a young man with a shy scar across his nose was accepting a chuunin certification from the Sandaime, his eyes shining with excitement.
Two full years had passed since the agreement with Kumogakure. The wartime edge had long since faded from Sarutobi Hiruzen. He looked more and more like a kindly old man with each passing season.
Heh. Konoha's really been humming along these past couple of years. Peace is a beautiful thing.
After seeing off the latest batch of newly minted chuunin, Hiruzen leaned back in his Hokage chair and stretched, his expression utterly content.
Peacetime shinobi still ran missions ranging from S-rank to D-rank, sure. But for a man who'd lived through two great wars, these assignments felt like playing house. Comfortable. Easy. Almost relaxing.
He'd originally planned to groom a successor and step down within a couple of years. But then he'd realized that being Hokage during peacetime was actually pretty cushy, and there wasn't an obvious candidate anyway, so he'd just... kept going.
Retire? Retire? He wasn't going to retire. Not a chance. He couldn't write books like Jiraiya. The only thing keeping him going was this chair, this office, this routine. Walking through the door every morning felt like coming home. Honestly, the office was better than home. Everyone here was talented, the conversation was always good, and he genuinely enjoyed it.
While the Sandaime was humming to himself and sipping sake in his office, out in the forests on Konoha's outskirts, a small figure was hammering away at a thick water barrel with palm strikes.
Hah... hah... hah... Damn it. It's just Juuken. Why is it this hard to learn?
Hyuuga Miyuki, now five years old, stood in front of the barrel in his training clothes, frustration written across his face.
From the night of the kidnapping incident onward, Miyuki had been training under Hiashi in the Hyuuga's traditional fighting style, Juuken. Two years in, and he'd only managed to grasp the fundamentals.
Logically, that shouldn't have been the case. In the original story, both Neji and Hinata had learned Juuken successfully. With Miyuki's mental maturity and learning ability far exceeding any normal child his age, there was no reason he should be struggling.
After a short rest, Miyuki shifted into a Juuken stance, settled his weight, and drove his palm into the face of the barrel. A dull thud resonated through the wood.
The barrel was specially made. Absurdly thick. Even with a basic grasp of chakra manipulation, no five-year-old was going to crack it with brute force.
But the instant Miyuki's palm connected, the water inside the barrel told a different story. The still surface erupted into a wave that surged from the point of impact to the far wall of the barrel, slamming into it hard enough to produce a sound louder than the palm strike itself.
The force transmitted through the water was greater than the force of the direct hit. In other words, the energy that passed through the medium far exceeded the energy of the surface contact.
That was Juuken in a nutshell. Strike the surface, but the real damage travels inside.
A person hit by Juuken wouldn't show any external injuries. The harm was internal. Organ damage. Disrupted tenketsu pathways. All caused by the penetrating force injected through the palm.
In a normal world, developing the ability to push force through flesh and bone like that would take a lifetime of training. But in a world where chakra existed, the technique became far more accessible.
Strike the target with your palm, and at the moment of impact, channel chakra through the tenketsu in your hand directly into the target's body. Damage that can't be blocked because it bypasses every external defense.
Simple to describe. Brutally difficult in practice.
Miyuki could release chakra through his palm now, yes. But two problems remained. His chakra reserves were still too shallow, and the release wasn't smooth enough. Too much power dissipated during transmission. By the time it reached the target's internals, the force was a shadow of what it should have been.
A Juuken strike this weak wouldn't meaningfully threaten anyone's organs even if it connected cleanly. In short, it was still a failure.
"Still at it? Don't push yourself too hard. Rest when you need to."
A familiar voice appeared behind him while he was mid-practice.
Miyuki didn't even need to turn around. The only person who'd show up unannounced out here was his glacier-faced, Byakugan-eyed father and current Juuken instructor, Hyuuga Hiashi.
"Father, I..."
"I don't know what's driving you this hard, but for a five-year-old, your progress is already exceptional. Rushing won't get you there faster. Don't burn yourself out for nothing."
Watching his eldest son train like his life depended on it, Hiashi genuinely couldn't figure out what was pushing the boy.
When he'd first started training Miyuki two years ago, Hiashi had prepared a regimen that would have been brutal even for a normal three-year-old. Miyuki had torn through every single benchmark with sheer willpower.
As of today, at just five years old, the boy had fully mastered chakra extraction and picked up the fundamentals of Juuken. Even by Hyuuga historical standards, that was exceptional.
At this rate, Miyuki might be ready to begin learning advanced techniques like the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms and Rotation within four or five years. He'd be around ten. In Hiashi's estimation, that was remarkable.
Of course, "remarkable" was Hiashi's assessment. From Miyuki's perspective, it was nowhere near enough. Nowhere even close.
"By the way, Mother is due soon, isn't she?"
After another round of instruction, the two of them were walking back from the forest toward the Hyuuga compound when Miyuki brought it up.
Hiashi's wife, Hyuuga Aoi, was at full term. Any day now, the Hyuuga would have a new addition. Which meant Miyuki was about to become a big brother.
In the original story, the child born this year should have been Hyuuga Hanabi, the second daughter. But since Miyuki had displaced the eldest daughter's slot, the baby should logically be the original firstborn, Hyuuga Hinata.
"Mm. Should be any day now. Would you prefer a brother or a sister?"
Hiashi's public persona was ice and formality, but around his son and his wife, the warmth showed through. Subtle, but real.
"A sister, obviously. And if it is a girl, what are you thinking for a name?"
Already knowing the answer, or at least thinking he did, Miyuki asked with a hint of mischief.
But what came out of Hiashi's mouth caught him completely off guard.
"Well." Hiashi thought for a moment, then smiled. "According to the Hyuuga family registry naming conventions, if it's a girl, she'd be called Hanabi. Hyuuga Hanabi."
Miyuki's face froze solid.