"Wait, hold on. If we're going by the family registry, shouldn't a daughter be named Hinata?"
After a solid few seconds of stunned silence, Miyuki blurted out his confusion. In his mind, since he'd taken Hinata's place as the firstborn, the least the universe could do was let her show up as his little sister. She wasn't just going to stop existing, right? That would be way too cruel.
"Oh, you've looked at the family registry? Hinata is the name designated for the firstborn girl of your generation. If you'd been born female, that's what you'd be called. But for a second daughter, the name changes."
The Hyuuga were an ancient clan. Their history predated Konoha itself. And with that kind of lineage came an extensive set of internal traditions, including a strict naming convention for the Main House's direct descendants. You didn't just pick whatever sounded nice.
So Hiashi was completely correct. His children's names followed a fixed pattern. Firstborn son: Miyuki. Firstborn daughter: Hinata. Second daughter: a different name entirely.
You're kidding me. Hanabi's cute too, but without Hinata it feels like something's missing...
Honestly, ever since learning he'd been born into the Hyuuga Main House, Miyuki had been looking forward to Hinata's arrival more than almost anything.
"Onii-chan, take Hinata outside to play, okay?"
"Onii-chan, the thunder is scary... can Hinata sleep with you tonight?"
"Hinata loves Onii-chan the most! Let's always be together, okay?"
The mere thought of a soft, gentle little sister toddling along behind him calling him Onii-chan was enough to make his soul ascend. Pure bliss.
But if that sister was Hanabi instead of Hinata... still cute, sure. But the flavor was off. Like reaching for one cola and getting the other. Not bad, just not quite right.
It wasn't that Miyuki disliked Hanabi. She was gorgeous in her own right and plenty capable. But her personality ran hotter. More assertive. She didn't have that soft, yielding sweetness that made Hinata who she was. Better to save the Hanabi slot for the third kid.
"So, uh, Father. Can we talk about something?"
"Talk about what?"
"If Mother has a girl... could we name her Hinata? And then the next one can be Hanabi."
"'The next one.' You say that like it's guaranteed. Why are you so fixated on this name?"
Hiashi stared at his son, genuinely puzzled by the sudden intensity. It was just a name. What was the big deal?
"Would you believe me if I said I just really like it?"
"Sure. In that case, how about we rename you Hinata? It works for boys too."
"No no no, why would you rename me? It's a girl's name."
"Doesn't mean a boy can't use it. Settled, then. Starting tomorrow, Hyuuga Miyuki ceases to exist. Hyuuga Hinata, reporting for duty."
"Father. Please stop. This isn't funny."
Hiashi had apparently discovered the art of messing with his son over the past two years, and he'd gotten terrifyingly good at it. Miyuki was left completely speechless.
"I don't know why you're this attached to the name Hinata, but it's not impossible to use it for your sister."
Wait. Really? Just when Miyuki thought he was about to get shut down, Hiashi pivoted with surprising flexibility.
The Hiashi from the original story would never have been this easygoing. But two years of living with a genius son who was also a complete weirdo had apparently rubbed off on him. The ice king was developing a sense of humor.
"You're five now, Miyuki."
"I think we're both aware of how old I am. So?"
"Generally speaking, children start attending the Ninja Academy around this age. I hear the Uchiha's second son is enrolling this September. So..."
"So you want me to go sit in a classroom and play house with a bunch of little kids?"
Miyuki swallowed. He'd specifically told his father before that he didn't want to enroll early.
The Ninja Academy had been established during the Nidaime Hokage's era as a training institution where young shinobi could learn the fundamentals in a structured environment. Think of it as a regular school, except the curriculum involved kunai instead of calculus.
Enrollment age wasn't set in stone. Most kids entered around five or six, though dragging it out to seven or eight wasn't unusual either.
After graduating, students were sorted into three-person cells paired with a jounin instructor, easing them into the dangers of real shinobi life at a manageable pace.
From that perspective, the Academy was a genuine achievement. Compare it to the era of Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara, when five-year-olds were thrown onto actual battlefields alongside adults with zero protection. Surviving to adulthood back then was a miracle among miracles.
But from Miyuki's standpoint, there was no reason to enroll this early.
His abilities already far exceeded his peers. Juuken wasn't complete yet, but he could extract and weaponize chakra at a level that no Academy student could touch. The Hyuuga specialized in taijutsu anyway. They rarely bothered with ninjutsu or genjutsu. So what exactly was the Academy going to teach him?
If the goal was just to graduate, he could enroll at eight or nine, coast for a few years, grab his certification, and get assigned to a squad. No need to waste prime training years starting at five.
In the old days, graduation age had been flexible. Prodigies like Itachi and Kakashi had finished in a year or two. But after the Third War, the Hokage had revised the rules. Nobody graduated before twelve now. Which made early enrollment even more pointless.
"The Uchiha have been going around telling everyone that their second son, Uchiha Sasuke, is some kind of super genius. On par with Uchiha Itachi, who made chuunin at ten. I refuse to believe every prodigy in this village comes out of their compound."
Hiashi's voice carried a familiar edge. The one that only appeared when the Uchiha came up.
"So your plan is to send me to the Academy alongside Sasuke so I can put him in his place?"
Are we really doing this? Miyuki was used to his father getting competitive whenever the Uchiha were mentioned, but dragging Academy enrollment into the rivalry felt a bit much.
The Hyuuga and the Uchiha were Konoha's so-called "two great clans." On paper, they were semi-independent powerhouses within the village. In Miyuki's assessment, they were two groups of idiots who'd been played by design.
He didn't know which Hokage had originally coined the "two great clans" label, but whoever it was deserved credit for a brilliant political maneuver. By positioning the Hyuuga and Uchiha as eternal rivals, they'd guaranteed the two clans would spend their energy competing with each other instead of cooperating. And if the Byakugan and Sharingan ever joined forces, even the Senju's deep-rooted influence might not have been enough to maintain control. But with both sides locked in a perpetual contest of pride, that alliance was never going to happen. Konoha's political architects had been playing the long game, and playing it well.
"Enough excuses. Just tell me: are you going or not? If you go, your sister can be named whatever you want. If you don't go, she's getting named... Tetsusui. Hyuuga Tetsusui."
"You just said she'd be Hanabi! Why would you name a girl that?!"
"Because her older brother has no sense of clan pride. So her name gets picked at random. You clearly don't care what anyone's called."
Heh. Think you can outplay me, kid? Behind that stone-cold expression, Hiashi was grinning internally. He'd found the leverage, and he was twisting it.
Hyuuga Tetsusui... Hyuuga Tetsusui... PLEASE NO.
"Onii-chan, take Tetsusui outside to play, okay?"
"Onii-chan, the thunder is scary... can Tetsusui sleep with you tonight?"
"Tetsusui loves Onii-chan the most! Let's always be together, okay?"
What is this, a horror movie?! Are we doing Fullmetal Alchemist now?!
In a corner where nobody could see him, Miyuki let out a silent scream that only he could hear.