Neji Week 2021

Day 3: Roots/Flight

Neji Week day 3

June 29, 2021

Prompt: Roots

~

He tried not to show his tedium as the sensei for that class explained that the project for that month was going to be to make a family tree of everyone. He found uninteresting any of the classes that were not directly focused on improving his skills or gaining knowledge that was useful.

Knowing the basics of ninjutsu, how genjutsu worked, the different weapons and types of fights with these, even learning the geography of the continent and the political relations between the different kages. That was important, his future career as a shinobi demanded him to know all that, not to be making ridiculous papers and even less a family tree.

His last name was known to all, they had to live under a rock not to know that he was Neji Hyūga and many were beginning to refer to him as the "genius Hyūga". One more reason to find the teacher's assignment irrelevant.

Neji would still do the assignment, his grades were perfect and he would not allow them to slip because of such stupidity.

He paid no attention to the classmate who complained because she had no parents and did not know where to get the information the teacher was asking for. That was not even remotely his problem, and the moment the bell rang that the day was over he got up to leave.

Neji went to the clan's library after lunch, they had been given a whole month to complete the task but he did not plan to dedicate more than that afternoon to it. After all, in the library he could find a book with all the information, they were an old family that was proud of their roots and therefore everything was properly recorded.

He wrote down the information in his notebook and prepared to forget the subject until the due date. Dedicating himself to continue training and perfecting his techniques, it was his last year at the academy and he was already looking forward to graduating.

The day to present the homework finally arrived and one by one sensei called them to review them, congratulating some of them for the hard research they had done. When he called him, he stood up and proudly showed what he had done.

"And the rest?" Asked the professor and Neji confusion was evident

"There is all the information, we are one of the noble clans of the village and the information of my grandfather's ancestors is true."

"I didn't say that what is written there is false," the man pointed to the page. "But half of what I asked for is missing," he did not understand, the task was the family tree and that was what he had done. "You didn't do anything on your mother's side."

He was silent, - on his mother's side? He saw the page where only his mother's name was joined by a low line to his deceased father and a line in the middle of them descending towards him. Kiyomi, that was it. Well, Kiyomi Hyūga to be more precise, but there was no upward line from that name because the history books made no mention of her.

"I'll give you a 6," sentenced the teacher making the grade with a red pen in the corner of the sheet.

"What?" He asked in complete disbelief, Neji had never in his life gotten a 6. His minimum grade had been a 9.

"You didn't do the whole assignment."

"It's the Hyūga family tree," no one else in that room had more than 2 generations written down, he was the only one in the class who could boast his family name and his lineage went all the way back to before the village's foundation.