Chapter 42: In Bad Taste

Throughout all the greetings that were exchanged and minor talks of cooperation with a few of the production focused clans, Keitaro while keeping an ear open to listen mostly spent his time looking around at the members of the Hyuga clan who where sprinkled around the room.

He especially kept an eye out for Neji who had arguably been one of his favorite characters back in the day.

He wasn't disappointed as not long after he started looking around, he was able to spot a young Neji shortly after arriving. He had been standing next to his father, who himself was standing behind Hiashi Hyūga, the current head of the Hyuga clan.

Seeing Neji's forehead covered by a piece of cloth was both an expected but saddening sight.

With Hinata reaching the age of three, all of the younger members of the branch family would have had their cage bird seal placed on their foreheads as was the tradition of the family.

It wasn't lost on him how while all the members of the Hyūga where dressed quite extravagantly, with ceremonial robes and such, there was still a very clear divide amongst the many Hyūga clan members present today.

Those who had their foreheads covered at such an important family function even if it might have been considered rude could only have been those of the branch family. While those whose foreheads where unobscured were from the main family.

Reading about it was one thing, but seeing it in person still left a bad taste in Keitaro's mouth.

Why the Hyuga had decided on placing such a prominent marker on their branch family, especially in such a prominent and conspicuous location had always bugged Keitaro.

Sure it might have been to ensure that the seal activated immediately upon the death of a side branch member, but why not put it on the back of the head or even to the side of the head instead?

Simply shave their heads when they are young, apply the seal, then allow them to grow out their hair again to cover up the seal all together.

Not only would the seal still function since it was still in close proximity to the brain and eyes, but it would also be a lot less humiliating than to have to walk around with a massive brand on ones forehead.

If given the chose between being bald and having short hair for a few years, verse having to constantly cover ones forehead in fear of being pointed at and ridicules all the time…was there even a need to ask which option was better?

But at no point in time had such an idea ever been considered by the main family.

Why should they care about the feeling about the side family when it didn't inconvenience them in any way what so ever?

In Keitaro's opinion, the location of the seal was intentional on the part of Main Branch.

The same way that the seal always being in a visible state for any and everyone to see was most likely also intentional on their part.

It was very much possible to make a seal fade away from sight when it was applied to a person's body. There were lots of cases were a seal was hidden away until it was either activated or was about to become undone.

Jinchūriki were a perfect example of this.

In Naruto's case the seal that was placed on him to deal with Kurama was usually hidden away from sight unless Naruto's emotions were in an unnaturally heightened state and he was unconsciously accessing Kurama's chakra as a result.

If even a seal as important and powerful as his could be hidden away until it was in use, then so too should the Hyūga Clans cage bird seal also be able to be hidden away as well.

But it never was.

Instead it was always visible on their foreheads, forcing them to have to wear coverings on their foreheads at all times to hide the brand from others. A constant reminder of the Branch families 'lower' position in comparison to the main family.

Keitaro soon looked away from Neji as he couldn't stop his feelings of disgust from building up.

If he was ever placed in such a position as Neji, he wasn't sure how he'd feel, but he knew he would do everything in his power to escape such a result.

He instead looked at the young figure of Hinata. She looked quite shy as she stood next to her father, peeking out from behind his legs as persons kept eyeing her from time to time. She was quite cute, as her eyes swiveled around at all the people who came forward to greet her father from time to time.

Even though this was supposed to be her birthday celebration, most of the people simply handed her a gift before focusing on speaking with Hiashi. If anything, she appeared to be more of a after thought in the grand scheme of things rather than the main reason for the celebration.

Keitaro soon threw thoughts of Hinata and Neji to the back of his mind as he continued linger around as Tsume and her family made small talk with others.

While he didn't do or say much, simply being introduced as one of the younger members of the clan that showed promise, he was more than happy to be treated as nothing much.

Overall Keitaro had been quite disappointed in the event so far. While it was indeed a gathering of important people, there simply wasn't anything for him to do!

He had half excepted to see a scene where some big shoot young master appeared to challenge all the clan youth before some good ole fashioned face slapping ensued. Or maybe some of the Uchiha would crash the party. Swaggering in as if they owned the place all while looking down on the other shinobi present.

Yet none of that occurred in the slightest.

Bored out of his mind, Keitaro instead made his way out of the main room and instead made his way towards the outer courtyard in order to get some air. He was a minor character that wasn't worth anyones attention afterall so no one would be bothered by him disappearing for a bit.

What surprised him was that in the outer courtyard, he wasn't the only one.

At some point and time he had lost track of his brother who had wondered off on his own. He had simply assumes the Kentaro had been mingling around with the other Inuzuka members, so he was surprised to see his older brother with a smaller group of children his age in a heated conversation of sorts.

They seemed to be in a some sort of dispute and with nothing better to do, Keitaro made his towards the group.

"I'm telling you guy's, this is a chance for us to shine! If we do well now there a chance we might catch the eye of someone important."

Keitaro managed to catch what one of the children were saying but since he wasn't privy to the previous conversation he was slightly confused.

"What do you mean" He asked as he stood next to his brother.

The other children glanced in his direction and upon seeing the jacket that he wore with the Inuzuka Clan symbol they nodded their heads.

"He was talking about the activities that are going to happen after the meet and greet that's been happening so far is over." Explained one of the girls from the Nara Clan based on the clan marking on her blouse.

"Activities?" question Keitaro, as this was the first he had heard about any activities occurring.

One of the boys wearing the Aburame Clan's signature oversized coat and glasses responded softly.

"Of course, there's no way that the Hyūga wouldn't have prepared anything. This sort of thing happens all the time when any of the prominent clans have large celebrations like this. Our clans are also going to have celebrations when the children of our heads reach a certain age as well and they almost always follow the same pattern.

 They'll have their met and great which then segways into having a few friendly games arranged to show off a bit of the clans prowess and to allow others to take part in the games to show off as well.

 If we mange to out perform the Hyuga representatives then we get rewarded by the Hyuga clan. Not to mention that depending oh how well you perform, you'll also bring prestige to your own clans as well in the process."

"I though there would be spars between the different clans, I didn't realize it was just games." Muttered Keitaro, but was immediately embarrassed when the other older children began to chuckle at him,

"I think you might be confused about something." Said a boy that Keitaro recognized from the ninken selection day when his older brother had received his ninken.

"While we call these things games, they really aren't simple games like capture the spy or resource protection that kids your age play. The things that we'll be competing in are pretty serious, and while there's no danger to our lives, we can still get injured if we're not careful."

"What kind of activities are there going to be anyway." Asked Keitaro as he became very interested in the upcoming activities.

"Well from what we've been able to piece together, there's going to be some basic stuff like shuriken throwing, and obstacle course clearing. There also going to be a knowledge based contest based around herbs and plants that can be beneficial in the field."

Keitaro made a mental note about the knowledge contest as that would be the only one that he might be able to enter and have a decent showing in.

"Once those are finished, there's going to be the most important tai-jutsu contest. Of course given that it's the main focus of the Hyūga Clan, they are going to put a lot of focus on it. Regardless, it's still going to be pretty exciting to see all of the different styles of tai-jutsu employed by the different clans on display."