What was better than a quiet and windy Saturday? Nothing. The previous night was long and tiring. Atsuya returned home just at the crack of dawn from a mission that required him to work the entire night. The mission itself was nothing more than basic genin work, just simple guard duty for a weapon store. As most guard duty missions went, nothing really happened aside from the occasional late night drunk passer-by… in other words it was utterly boring. Nothing more than wasted time. Missions like those were a prime example of why the young Hyuga hated doing non-combat related missions; it was a complete waste, not to mention a mockery, of his abilities as a shinobi… or so he believes.

Now here he was; the young Hyuga was in no other place than in his beloved room. With the cool breeze of the wind entering his window and him lying in a comfortable bed everything was perfect. The quiet ambience of his room was perfect for someone who had been up what was the entirety of the night prior. Missions like those were mundane. There was only one way for him to get the actual missions he wanted and that was to get promoted. It was only high time he got promoted, being a Hyuga alone should have already gotten him promoted… it was stupid and so were the jonin that refused to promote him. Clearing all thoughts from his mind everything returned to its peaceful state. Slowly his eyes closed and his consciousness began to fade. Ah sleep… nothing right now would have made him happier.

CLINK! DONG! THUD!

Noise?  A continuous stream of loud noises pulled the young Hyuga from the depths of his sleep. Naturally he was enraged. Who, or what, the hell had the audacity to get in the way between him and his beloved sleep? What, or whoever, it was they were lucky he had no energy to burst out in rage. Atsuya forced his eyes shut… hopefully no noise would interrupt him. “Argh!” A scream? The sound of agony filled the empty mansion… a fight? What was that?  The sounds continued and now Atsuya was worried. Wasting no time the young Hyuga shot up from his bed. Like a bullet he sprinted across the hallway outside his room. Before going to the unending noise he had to make sure a certain someone was safe. A quick turn of a doorknob and opening of door alleviated half his worries… his sister was safe and peacefully sleeping. Good. Knowing she was safe, the young Hyuga rushed to the noise. The sounds came from the living room, that part was obvious. Just as Atsuya reached the place the sound of what seemed like glass breaking filled the place followed by the immediate sound of silence.

The sight that greeted the young Hyuga wasn’t at all peaceful to the eyes. It seemed as if the entire living room was in the wake of a typhoon. In the middle of the living room lay a woman… Atsuya’s aunt. With concern and fear written all over his face, Atsuya rushed to her aid. The young Hyuga crouched down to his aunt’s level and lifted the back of her head slightly to support her. Blood… blood gushed out of her face. The blood came from three slash marks that fitted across her face. The look on his face was now purely fear… fear of losing family… fear of losing someone he cared for. Slowly her eyes opened, a small and weak smile shaped on the corner of her lips. “Atsuya, chase after her… please.”  After those few words her eyes closed yet again… “Hanako?...Hanako?...” Atsuya was terrified. The young Hyuga began shaking his aunt’s seemingly lifeless body hoping she would wake up. “Hanako?!...Oba-san?” Yet again her eyes opened… relief filled Atsuya. “Shhhhhhh… too noisy.” Huh? She wasn’t making any sense. “Oba-san we need to get you to a doctor.” Naturally he was worried she was family and she was badly hurt... or at least that’s what it seemed to him. “Shhhh… go chase the cat Atsuya.” Cat? From fear, an expression of confusion filled the young Hyuga’s face. “What cat? Who did this to you?”… “The cat that did this to me… I uh… I bought a ninneko. She was too cute to not bring home, but she doesn’t like me so she ran away and scratched me a bit…”

…

Thud.

With one quick motion Atsuya released his support of his aunt’s head. The back of her head crashed to the wooden floor at a height of five centimeters. “Ouch! What the hell Atsuya?” After a sigh of relief, all fear and worries left Atsuya’s body… to be replaced by anger. “Are you stupid?! Do you even know how sca-…“ scared I was to lose you? Managing to stop himself at the last moment the young Hyuga rose back to his feet. “You are the most idiotic adult to walk this earth.” Now with his fears gone, the young Hyuga scanned the room. The glass shattering noise seemed to have erupted from a broken window… no doubt the cat escaped through there. “So…uh…can you go after her?” Atsuya shot her a cold, almost frightening, glare. He was furious, and rightly so. Losing someone close to him was something he rather not experience ever again. “I’ll give you a prize!” Obviously he wasn’t pleased by this, instead the young Hyuga simply intensified his glare… even narrowing his eyes a little to seem more threatening. “Pleeeease?” Hanako spoke in an almost scared and quiet voice. “You owe me for this.” With his words she seemed to be filled with joy. Almost forgetting about the blood gushing from her face, Hanako raised her arms as if to exclaim her ‘victory’. “I haven’t named her yet, but she’s a yellow cat with a violet collar. I'm sure she'll be easy to find!” After huffing just so show how angry he was at the situation, the young Hyuga exited the place through the same broken window the cat passed through.

A trail of bloody footprints were scattered all over the place. This’ll be easy. Naturally the Hyuga trailed the footprints as his search for the missing cat began. The footprints led him to dark alleyways, rooftops, and eventually Konoha’s public park. The trail ended at a pond in the middle of the park. The cat seemed to have washed the blood from its paws… clever. With that the trail went cold and, frankly, Atsuya needed a break.  The young Hyuga led himself towards a line of vending machines, filled with an assortment of drinks. Taking a soda in one hand, he sat by a nearby bench. This was mundane… why did he even agree in the first place? He still had yet to sleep.

1166

Jogging with weights. Why was this even a thing. He didn't need to work on speed, and while he was extremely frail, his overall endurance was decent enough for his age; so why was his father forcing him to do this? Just another in a long line of confusing training that Kenta was forcing on him, and while Michizuka was... sympathetic to his son's plight, he was also firmly in Kenta's camp with it. It was just Hiroyuki's refusal to see the other side of the coin in the matter that was the problem; the boy didn't want to physically work because it was so much harder for him, and unfortunately his sisters had done a good job when they where much younger of discouraging him from wanting to get better on that front; so the boy had spent nearly a decade pouring all of his energies into his mind, where he could be the best without having to try, so trying as hard as he did put him into realms of ability and power that where rarely seen. In some ways, he was trying to compete with his father's on a field he was able to; he would never be as physically strong as Kenta, but he could be as fast; and while Michizuka was extraordinarily strong mentally, the Inuzuka blood that ran in Hiroyuki's veins gave him protections and aspects to his mind that gave him a limitless capability within the sphere of the psychic world. He didn't want to go back to the place that he wasn't instantly the best; because Yuki and Temaki and Kenta and Michizuka where so far ahead of him physically that he couldn't compete. Add in Uncle Naota and Aunt Amaya and Cousin Aisling and everyone else and it was just too daunting.

Hours had passed, and he was exhausted, but he knew there where dogs following him, so he'd have to continue. However, there was nothing wrong with a break for hydration; it was a needed thing during training, so he'd be able to get away with a few minutes of sitting so long as he slowly sipped at a 'proper' source of liquids. A sports drink or water or something. Maybe even a can of soup, cause energy. Energy was good. There was always the excuse of 'but I am the tiny, and I need the foods'. He might have even used it, had it not been for a series of problems that arose when he made it to the little cluster of vending machines in the park he'd been working his way around. It was a public park, full of walking and jogging trails, so seeing someone in the middle of moving across them was extremely common, even more so to find the runners and such congregating at that spot, as it was near the conflux of several of the trains, and a good spot to start from and stop at. The issues where thus: he was extremely shy around new people, he refused to eat or drink around them outside of a given restaurant or food stall type environment unless he absolutely had to, and he just didn't want to risk Aki or something going weird around him. Shit, though, now that he was thinking about it, he was parched beyond belief. Damn it, psychosomatic reactions drove him crazy, but with the power of his mind it meant that his body overreacted every single time. Wonderful. Well, might as well just get this over with. This in mind, he strutted up toward the machine, fishing around a pocket for a couple of coins to place into the machine that dispensed waters and energy drinks; the latter of which he'd avoid with a dying passion as that shit would easily kill him. He needed water, not liquid sugar caffeine. He approached the machine with his head respectfully lowered, the other was older than him, if not by much, and likely wasn't any higher ranking in the village than he was; but given who he was, it was better not to start problems. He was nearly a clone of his father, after all, even if his eyes where wrong and his overall coloration was slightly off; anything he did reflected on his parents, so he was going to follow etiquette whenever possible. As he reached to insert his coins into the machine, he offered a soft, "Hello." and nod of his head toward the other male, using his actual voice; he caught himself before he projected his thoughts thankfully; and began to select his drink. A simple bottle of water, which was retrieved as he quickly scurried toward a bench to settle down for however long he could get away with before Aki or Yuki decided to push him along.

WC: 816

The young Hyuga stood in front of the vending machine, deciding what beverage to buy. Normally he would have gone with something akin to that of juice, or something that was both healthy and actually tasted good. Today was an exception… anything that could keep him up a second longer was good enough. At the end of his decision making he decided to just go with anything. After hitting a random button, a can of soda dropped down the vending machine to be caught by Atsuya’s hand. A faint yawn came from the young Hyuga’s mouth. Sleepy was an understatement; it had been more than twenty four hours since he had last slept… a gruesome twenty four hours to add to that. Now here he was hunting a cat of all things. His decision making must have been terrible for him to actually agree to catching that damned ninneko.

"Hello." A young boy greeted Atsuya as he approached the vending machine. Strange. He didn’t even see nor heard the kid… sleep deprivation was definitely dangerous; had this been a mission and the boy been an enemy then the young Hyuga would have both died and failed. Atsuya slapped himself mentally. Sleep later, find cat. Not quite in the mood to talk, but it was rude to let the kid’s greeting be left unanswered. “Hello.” Atsuya, not paying much mind to the child, moved away from the vending machine to sit on a wooden bench. The sound of fizzling made the Hyuga aware of the type of beverage he had ordered… a soda?… he really needed sleep. Atsuya downed the drink in one go after making an almost frustrated sigh. It tasted like crap, but at least it gave him what little energy he now had. For what little time he could the Hyuga admired the weather. He had been awake for more than a day, he, at the very least, deserved to slack off a little bit. The day was bright and sunny, perfect for a day of training or a day of relaxation. Atsuya would have to make it the latter once he finds that damned ninneko. Slowly a small figure approached him and he focused his gaze at its direction.

The young boy from earlier sat down beside of him, and like him he too had a drink in hand. Did he want something? Atsuya took a deep breath to keep himself awake just before returning his eyes to whatever it was that was in front of him. His eyes were in front, yet he was looking at the child. Even without his byakugan he still had a pretty keen peripheral vision. It was best to know those close to oneself even if it was just in a physical manner… for all Atsuya knew this child could have been an assassin of sorts, or perhaps that was just the sleep deprivation talking. The young Hyuga was instantly made aware of one fact… this boy was an Inuzaka, or at least that’s what the red mark on his cheek suggested. Those marks always bothered Atsuya… it was as much of an exclamation that one was part of a clan as the Hyuga’s white eyes. It was stupid. If one were ever caught in combat the opponent would immediately know one’s abilities… perhaps not the whole entirety, but a good amount no less. In combat information was a heavy key to winning. For Hyuga clan members concealment of one’s clan wasn’t much a choice. White eyes couldn’t really be hidden unless one were to take contact lenses and that could potentially hinder one’s sight in combat. The marks for an Inuzaka members were different in the sense that they were simply face paint… or at least that’s what the Hyuga assumed they were.

The Hyuga continued watching the child in his peripheral vision. Training weights strapped on legs? An old timer’s way to increase speed. The kid must’ve gotten the idea from a parent or someone significantly older. Well, he was no assassin. Atsuya took a sip from the can of soda he held before taking out a small zip lock plastic bag containing yellow locks of cat fur from his pocket. “Child, you are an Inuzaka correct? I’d greatly appreciate it if you gave me a general direction of where this scent is strongest.” With that Atsuya handed the child the plastic container. The Hyuga was more than aware of the Inuzaka’s heightened sense of smell… it would have been a waste to simply ignore that fact and continue on with his search blind.

1947

Comfortable bench is comfortable; that was all he could muster by way of thoughts for the longest moments. His body was tired, and that aching weakness that came with it dragged his normally pinprick sharp mind down with it. There just wasn't enough left in his energy reserves to fuel his mind at it's normal levels, while maintaining the amount of physical exertion he was pushed into. He saw the major problem with this, that disadvantage and weakness would get him killed on a mission, or in a situation where danger arouse even off duty. If he had to use his body, he'd lose his mind, but if he used his mind he'd never be able to physically do anything. The trade off would be fine if he was high ranking already and could just demand a spot as a teacher or in one of the less... savory areas of ANBU; say the interrogation division or somesuch. Then again, he hated the concept of using his mind like that...

Wait. Words. Words spoken to him. What was being said?

“Child, you are an Inuzuka correct? I’d greatly appreciate it if you gave me a general direction of where this scent is strongest.”

Oh. Oh right. His fang marks. The marks that confused people daily. Well, they weren't wrong, he was an Inuzuka in name, and he had the bloodline, it just wasn't all that active in him. However, that didn't stop him from having razor sharp senses, even if he was physically weaker than his siblings and cousins, and unable to use the normal Inuzuka ninja skills. A simple enough request, and one that was rather commonly asked of his packmates. An item was being passed toward him; yellow fur? Feline, by the look of the of it, it had that visual texture of cat fur anyway. The idea of a puzzle, even one as simple as a scent and track, pulled some energy back into his form; he perked up a bit, and his eyes seemed to brighten as he fell into himself in a way, bringing his other senses in and focusing the energy into his nose to boost that particular sensory ability for a few moments. He cracked the seal on the container and brought it a bit closer to his face, it was habit more than anything, the same way that most people would lean closer to a picture or image on a screen trying to see smaller details even when it wouldn't otherwise help. A leftover from a lifetime of doing so when seeing something directly with their eyes, human's most dominant sensory ability was their vision after all; however with most Inuzuka it was their olfactory or auditory sensory. In him, it was the latter, but the former was still razor sharp, more so than even his own father.

Oh yeah, that was cat. The smell hit him like bricks, feline and chakra. Ninneko, likely. No wonder a Hyuuga; if those white-lavender eyes meant as much as his own fang marks did; was having trouble tracking it. 'Normal' felines could be difficult enough to track, but a feline with human levels of intelligence? There was a reason why the animal and animalistic clans were all well known as trackers, scouts, and ambush hunters, after all. He had the scent, now he needed to focus outward again; eyes closing to block out visual input, a trick within his mind shutting down his conscious auditory input as well. The world in his mind was defined by smells now, and the trail of the feline in question shone brightly, a splotch of yellow leaving a trail across the world. Hmmm... sticking to the trees and any solid ground where prints wouldn't be left. Easy enough tactic, even more so within the populous parts of the village where many streets and walking paths where paved for the ease of the civilians. However, there was a general direction... east? Yes, east, toward the center of town. Likely trying to vanish into the markets; a trong of people and animals and just general commotion that would hide it effectively.

"Go toward the main market... if you are quick, you might catch it..." He was closing and handing the bag back as emerald eyes opened and he came out of himself mentally, while still seeming to fold back in on himself at the same time. He was allowing his senses to return to their projected state, but also letting his mind return to the low-powered state he physical exertion was leaving him in. Once the fur was taken, he downed the rest of his drink and moved to his feet, "it isn't moving very quickly, you shouldn't have an issue catching it. Just remember to look up, it's moving along the pipes and rooftops, from what I can sense..." He needed to get back to his running, he could see Yuki giving him the look, and he didn't want to deal with giant angry dogs. If Yuki was visible, then it would be the larger Aki punishing him, and that didn't sound like the kind of life he was about at the moment. "I must return to my run, please excuse me..." He allowed for a polite few moments before moving to act again.

WC: 905

905 + 816 = 1721