Nearly every member of the Hyūga branch family served a specific member of the main family. They were called "attendants," but in reality, they were servants.
Not every main family member was as gentle as Hyūga Hinata. If you were unlucky enough to be assigned to one with a bad temper, your role as a "servant" came with the added bonus of being a "training dummy."
As it happened, the main family member Hyūga Kumokawa served was exactly that kind of person, one who didn't see branch family lives as human lives.
And the man before him was just a loyal hound.
The smile faded slightly from Hyūga Kumokawa's face. He ignored the clansman's deliberate provocation and simply continued walking towards the gate.
The man clearly hadn't expected Hyūga Kumokawa—who had always endured gossip and humiliation passively—to ignore him. His face darkened. "Hyūga Kumokawa! I'm talking to you!" he barked, dropping any pretense of formality.
Hyūga Kumokawa still paid him no mind, walking on. Might Guy saw this and just shrugged, following along.
"You failure! I said STOP!"
An angry shout came from behind, followed by the sharp whistle of something cutting through the air.
The man had actually reached out to grab Hyūga Kumokawa's shoulder, putting no thought of kinship into the force behind the grab.
Might Guy stopped, his brow furrowing, ready to intervene.
But the moment that hand landed on his shoulder, Hyūga Kumokawa's body shook with a sudden, powerful tremor, like a sturdy pine shaking off heavy snow. A penetrating force instantly traveled from his core to his shoulder, making the Hyūga clansman's hand go numb.
In the next instant, before the shocked clansman could react...
Without even turning his head, Hyūga Kumokawa bent his arm, stepped forward with his left foot, his body shifting in a smooth, circular motion. The hem of his white shirt fluttered lightly with the movement, briefly revealing the well-defined lines of his abdominal muscles as his palm shot out.
From the clansman's perspective, his right hand was first knocked away. Then, Hyūga Kumokawa seemed to vanish with near-Shunshin speed, dropping low and pressing his palm against the clansman's abdomen.
Then, a force far beyond his imagination, one that completely overwhelmed him, surged from that palm like a tidal wave.
THUD!!
The terrifying power exploded within half a centimeter. Force enough to shake stone hammered into the clansman's body, bending him over as if struck by a battering ram.
Just as a mouthful of blood was about to gush from his lips...
"It wouldn't be good to draw blood," a calm, almost offhand voice remarked.
Hyūga Kumokawa's right hand, palm up and elbow down, expressionlessly delivered a light tap under the man's chin.
A crisp crack sounded. The mouthful of foul blood that had surged up his throat was forced back down.
"Cough! Cough, cough!!"
Pain twisted the Hyūga clansman's face. Clutching his throat and abdomen, his body went limp, and he collapsed to his knees before Hyūga Kumokawa.
"You dare...!" he rasped, his Byakugan bulging slightly, veins popping around his eyes as he glared up.
But meeting those calm, indifferent eyes, the rest of his words died in his throat. An inexplicable chill shot through him.
It was a baseless chill, slithering over his skin like a venomous snake, pressing down on him with its icy weight.
Was he… afraid?
Afraid of this failure? Impossible...
Hyūga Kumokawa looked down at him, the smile returning to his face.
He gave the man's trembling shoulder a light pat, then walked past him and out of the compound with Might Guy, ignoring him completely.
"I never expected you to go that far!"
As they walked, Might Guy's tone remained light. He was merely curious about Hyūga Kumokawa's actions.
He had naturally heard the rumors about Kumokawa's past "exploits," but Kumokawa was a friend he recognized. He felt there was more to him than the "failure" of the rumors.
If nothing else, that unique taijutsu he had just displayed—which seemed to blend the Strong Fist and the Gentle Fist—was, in Guy's opinion, far superior to the rigid techniques of those hidebound Hyūga clansmen.
He just didn't understand why Kumokawa had always ignored the rumors before.
"My apologies for the unsightly display, Senpai. After all, they are my clansmen. I didn't want to go too far," Hyūga Kumokawa said apologetically.
Might Guy shook his head, grinning widely. "You did nothing wrong. Youth must not be tarnished."
[Ding. Your lie has been judged as [Fabrication]. Might Guy experiences slight emotional fluctuation, reaching the state of [Utter Conviction]. 200 Fulfillment Points acquired…]
It was, of course, a lie.
As for why he had ignored them before…
On one hand, his plan targeting Orochimaru hadn't succeeded yet. An image of a harmless "failure" was more useful to him then.
On the other hand...
'When the dogs at the village gate bark, the other dogs will join in, but they don't know why they're barking.'
'If I had to stop and throw stones to chase away every howling stray, I'd never get anything else done.'
Hyūga Kumokawa smiled inwardly.
He felt no emotional fluctuation whatsoever towards that utterly forgettable extra.
Taking action served two purposes: one, to test the new technique he had conceived; two, to lay the groundwork for his next plan.
Only rats spend all their time hiding in sewers. No one would believe a word from a "rat."
If Shimura Danzō said something, villagers would just wonder who the old fossil was. But if Sarutobi Hiruzen casually said something, no matter how outlandish, people would instinctively doubt their own understanding first.
A lie only becomes an indisputable truth when spoken by those who hold power and authority.
The transformation wrought by the bloodline was happening from the inside out—from intangible perception and talent to the tangible strength of the flesh.
Without external interference, this remodeling and purification of the body by the bloodline should be a long, slow process, a gradual strengthening over time.
Hyūga Kumokawa couldn't wait that long. He needed more Fulfillment Points, which meant approaching other high-value targets. He needed to appropriately reveal his abilities to increase his own perceived value.
The "resistance" just now was only the first step.
As expected, news of his "human experimentation and modification" by Orochimaru would soon reach more ears.
Hiruzen had likely already taken in "Tenzo" (codename "Yamato"). As one of the only two surviving test subjects from Orochimaru's labs, both Hiruzen and Danzō would undoubtedly turn their attention to him for probing and testing.
With this thought, Kumokawa's mind returned to his eyes. A glint passed through them as he silently commanded: "Manifest Item—Pure Byakugan that can unlock the Tenseigan upon fusion."
[Cost: 10,000 Fulfillment Points. Manifest?]
'To have exactly enough for the manifestation?' Kumokawa hesitated for a moment. Playing it safe, he tested further: "Manifest Item—The method to fuse a pure Byakugan with pure Ōtsutsuki bloodline to unlock the Tenseigan."
[Insufficient Points.]
"..." Hyūga Kumokawa's face immediately darkened. "As expected, I'm still missing something."
Good thing I didn't fall for this crazy system's trick.
If he had impulsively spent his entire fortune only to end up with a useless pair of Byakugan, he would have nowhere to cry.
"In that case, only the second method is relatively safe and reliable," Hyūga Kumokawa frowned.
The Hyūga clan's Byakugan should be purer than those of the moon-dwelling Ōtsutsuki branch. The only problem was the sheer quantity was far inferior to the Ōtsutsuki clan, which had occupied the moon peacefully for millennia. He wasn't even sure if excavating the eyes of the entire clan would be enough to fuse a Tenseigan...
"Ahem."
The thought surfaced, and Hyūga Kumokawa couldn't help but cough, hurriedly muttering "sin, sin" in his heart.
Gouging out all their eyes was far too evil. He wasn't that bastard Uchiha Itachi, after all.
He would only need to take the eyes from the Hyūga members who had awakened theirs. Those who hadn't awakened were ordinary people anyway; their eyes would be useless.
Of course, this task… couldn't be done by his own hand.
He had a better candidate in mind.
Now, he just needed to wait for those old fossils to show their ugly faces.