The next morning, sunlight trickled through the shoji screens, painting soft golden lines across the wooden floor.
Haruki blinked awake, face still smushed against his pillow. His hair was a wild mess, like he'd wrestled a bear in his dreams — and lost.
For a while, he just lay there, limbs sprawled like a tossed ragdoll. Then his eyes cracked open a little wider.
Today.
He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes. Today's the day Father said he'd start training me…
A tiny thrill zipped through his chest, chased by a nervous flutter.
He hopped off the futon, wobbled a little, and padded out of his room barefoot. As expected, Neji was already up. His futon was neatly folded, and he was sipping tea beside Hizashi at the low table.
"Morning," Haruki mumbled, eyes still half-lidded.
Neji looked up. "You slept like a rock."
"You snore like a rock," Haruki shot back, plopping down cross-legged with a yawn.
Neji rolled his eyes. Hizashi chuckled softly.
"Eat first," Hizashi said, pushing a tray toward him. "Training on an empty stomach is a mistake even seasoned shinobi regret."
Haruki perked up. Rice, grilled fish, miso soup, pickles. No argument. He started shoveling food in with gusto.
"So… what kind of training are we doing?" he asked through a mouthful. "Is it cool? Am I gonna throw shuriken? Explode stuff?"
"You're going to sit very still and breathe properly," Hizashi said.
Haruki froze mid-bite. "…That sounds like something Neji would enjoy."
Neji smirked and took a sip of tea. "I do enjoy it."
"Ugh," Haruki groaned, flopping forward. "I was promised training, not napping with extra steps."
Hizashi chuckled, but his eyes remained sharp. "Control comes before strength. We begin with chakra."
Haruki tilted his head. "...I don't have any yet, right?"
"You do," Hizashi said gently. "You've had it since the day you were born. But today, you'll learn how to feel it."
Haruki straightened. Even Neji's expression quieted.
After breakfast, Hizashi led Haruki to a secluded inner courtyard — soft grass, the shade of tall trees, and a gentle stream winding along the edge. Unlike the rigid Hyuuga training grounds, this place felt calm. Safe.
"Sit," Hizashi instructed, kneeling on a straw mat. Haruki mimicked his posture, still bouncing a little with excitement.
"Chakra," Hizashi began, "comes from two sources — physical energy from the body, and spiritual energy from the mind."
Haruki blinked. "So like… muscles and feelings?"
Hizashi raised an eyebrow. "Not exactly, but… close enough."
Haruki grinned proudly.
"You build physical energy by using your body — running, training, pushing your limits."
"Did that yesterday!" Haruki chimed in.
"And spiritual energy comes from focus, wisdom, experience."
Haruki's grin faltered. "That part sounds harder."
"It is," Hizashi agreed. "But it's why we start early. Before you throw a kunai or form a hand seal, you must first know what's inside you."
Haruki nodded slowly.
"Close your eyes," Hizashi said.
Haruki obeyed.
"Now breathe. Slowly."
Inhale. Exhale. Again.
Haruki's thoughts flitted like butterflies — was Neji watching? What's for lunch? Could frogs wear armor? — but he kept breathing.
"Picture a spark," Hizashi said. "Deep in your belly. Faint, flickering. That's your chakra."
Haruki furrowed his brow.
"Try to feel it. Don't force it. Just... listen."
At first, he felt nothing but the grass at his ankles and the breeze in the trees.
Then—
A flicker.
Faint. Barely there.
But warm. Like a tiny lantern behind his ribs.
His eyes flew open.
"I felt it!" he gasped.
Hizashi gave a small nod. "Good. That's the beginning."
Haruki beamed. But then, a shiver crawled across his skin. Not cold — something else.
The air shifted. Subtle, like a ripple in still water.
It passed in an instant.
Hizashi's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Did you do anything just now?" he asked.
Haruki blinked. "I dunno. I just… tried to grab the spark."
"Grab it?"
"I didn't mean to," Haruki added quickly. "It felt like it was slipping, so I held on."
Hizashi didn't answer at first.
"…I see."
He didn't explain what he saw.
When they resumed the breathing, his voice was softer. But his gaze didn't leave Haruki's face.
By late morning, Haruki was flat on his back in the grass, panting like he'd run laps.
"Ughhh," he groaned. "Sitting is hard."
Neji appeared at the edge of the courtyard, arms folded. "Told you. It's not just 'sitting.'"
"Yeah, yeah…" Haruki muttered. "I found the spark though. I win."
Neji tilted his head. "Oh?"
"He felt it on the first day," Hizashi said. "That's uncommon."
Neji looked surprised — then smiled. "Nice. I think it took me a week."
"Ha!" Haruki said triumphantly. "I beat you!"
"For now," Neji said, crouching beside him. "Don't get cocky."
Haruki grinned. "No promises."
They sat in silence a while, sunlight warming their faces.
Then Haruki asked quietly, "Do you think I can really do this? Even without the Byakugan?"
Neji blinked. The question came out soft, uncertain.
He glanced at Hizashi, who had turned away, giving them space.
"…Yeah," Neji said. "You felt your chakra already. That means you're on the path."
"But people say—"
"I don't care what they say." Neji cut in firmly. "You're my brother. And you're already stronger than most of them realize."
Haruki didn't answer.
But he smiled — small, real.
The spark inside him was still there.
Still his.
The next few days passed in rhythm — morning sessions, walks with Neji, quiet dinners, and Hizashi's silent observations.
Haruki thought nothing had changed.
But it had.
He began feeling a subtle hum in his belly during idle moments, like chakra pulsing gently. Sometimes, his hands tingled, or the air around him felt heavier — humming, unseen but real.
"Neji," he whispered one morning, "do your hands ever feel buzzy?"
Neji gave him a skeptical look. "No?"
"Mine do," Haruki murmured, staring at his fingers. "Like they're waking up."
"You probably just slept on them funny," Neji said, going back to his leaf practice.
But Hizashi noticed.
During meditation, Haruki grew stiller, his breath deepening, his form steadier. Despite his usual fidgeting, he entered focus unnaturally fast — the kind of stillness that took older children months to reach.
One morning, Hizashi watched as Haruki instinctively placed his hands in the correct mudra for chakra focus — a technique he'd never been taught.
Even Neji hadn't reached that level of instinct yet.
Then came the seventh day.
During breakfast, Hizashi reached over to correct Haruki's slouch. The moment his hand touched the boy's back, he paused.
There it was.
A pulse. Gentle but deliberate. Not passive. Not random.
Chakra — coiling and responding.
Haruki looked up with a mouthful of rice. "Whuh?"
"…Nothing," Hizashi murmured. "Sit up."
Later that night, Hizashi sat beneath the lanterns outside, gaze lost to the stars.
Neji had awakened his chakra at nearly five — early for Hyuuga.
Haruki was barely three.
And his chakra wasn't just active.
It was aligned. Harmonized.
It moved like it already knew how to flow — as if he was born into it.
An anomaly.
No… a mystery.
Hizashi leaned against the tree and smiled faintly.
"You're full of surprises, Haruki," he whispered. "Maybe the elders were right…"
"…You really aren't normal."
The days that followed were quiet but revealing.
Hizashi remained patient in his guidance — steady breathwork, slow internal focus, nothing flashy. Neji occasionally teased from the sidelines, proud but smug.
Haruki, for all his energy and loud opinions, became focused in those moments. Lips pressed, brow furrowed, hands trembling in effort as he chased that inner glow.
By the fourth morning, Hizashi expected nothing new.
Haruki sat cross-legged, declaring the patch of dirt his "chakra circle." The sun had barely risen.
Then it happened.
Without warning, the air shifted.
No sound. No blast. But something changed.
Hizashi felt it — like a ripple beneath the earth. A stone dropped in still water — from within.
Haruki's body jolted. Eyes snapped open.
"Ah—!"
A faint, translucent ring shimmered around him for a heartbeat before fading. Just for a moment — a circular pulse around the ground, like warped air bending light.
Hizashi's eyes widened.
This wasn't just chakra.
It was balanced. Controlled. Too precise.
And spatially aware.
Haruki swayed slightly. "That… felt weird. Like something stretched in my tummy and snapped back."
Hizashi moved quickly, kneeling beside him, scanning for signs of stress.
But Haruki looked more amazed than tired.
"I—I think I did it! It felt real this time!"
Hizashi didn't respond.
Because he didn't understand what he had just witnessed.
That night.
The house had gone still.
Only the faint rustle of wind stirred the paper screens, and beyond them, the garden sat under a veil of silver — moonlight catching on every leaf and pebble. Hizashi stood alone in the corridor, arms folded behind his back, unmoving.
Inside, the boys had long since fallen asleep.
Neji's steady breathing echoed softly from one room, precise and even — just as expected of a child already shaped by duty.
Haruki had dozed off mid-sentence, sprawled sideways over his blanket, a book still open beneath one hand. The boy had looked so proud earlier, babbling about how the chakra "buzzed like a lightning bug" in his chest. He didn't understand what had happened.
Not fully.
But Hizashi did.
What he'd felt this morning hadn't been a simple spark. Not the hesitant flare of a beginner, nor the unfocused pulse of a child first learning to sense chakra.
It had shifted something. Quietly. Precisely. Like space had folded inward for a breath before snapping back into place.
The chakra wasn't unstable.
It was refined.
Centered.
Too much so.
And it wasn't the Hyuuga way — not in nature, not in resonance, not in lineage.
Hizashi drew in a long breath through his nose, then let it out slowly.
Neji had awakened his chakra early. By Hyuuga standards, he was gifted — prodigious, even. But his fate had already been sealed. The Caged Bird mark rested invisibly on the horizon of his future, waiting like a shadow stretching toward him with each passing year.
Haruki, on the other hand…
He had no seal.
Not because he was free — but because he didn't qualify.
No Byakugan. No place in the clan's ancient doctrine. No space in their records or rules for a child like him.
The system had nothing to offer him.
And no idea what to do with him.
That made him vulnerable.
The clan wouldn't overlook a child with such potential forever. Even without the Byakugan, that kind of chakra didn't go unnoticed. If the elders caught wind of what Hizashi had sensed today… if word reached beyond the compound walls…
Haruki would become a subject.
A tool.
A threat.
Or worse — an opportunity.
Hizashi's jaw tightened.
There would be no seal to hide behind. No predetermined role to shield the boy from scrutiny. Neji's fate, painful as it was, was at least a known one.
Haruki's?
Unwritten.
And that, in the Hyuuga clan, was more dangerous than any curse mark.
"Two sons," Hizashi murmured to the empty night. "One bound by tradition… and one unbound by anything at all."
The wind stirred the edge of his robe.
He looked up at the sky — not for answers, but for quiet.
One born to the cage.
And the other outside it entirely.
His hands relaxed slowly.
But even as the house slept, Hizashi did not.
He would guard them both — the one trapped by blood, and the one untethered by it.
Until he understood what this new spark truly meant.
And what price it might one day bring.
.........
So… what do you think is happening to our little Haruki?
His eyes may not see like the others, but maybe — just maybe — he's starting to feel something far deeper. Any guesses?