In what light there was, if one looked very, very carefully, or perhaps if one had an activated Byakugan, one would have seen the increasingly tangled thin threads that ran from branch to ground, from leaf to blade of grass. However, one thread was even thinner than a strand of hair and more importantly, you could not feel them at all.
Hiashi Hyuuga never activated his Byakugan. He never felt the need to as he followed his daughter's leisurely tracks. The forest was dark; for even though the moon was out, the canopy blocked what little light there was on the ground of the forests of Konoha. Hiashi Hyuuga never felt afraid, though. He was not head of the Hyuuga for nothing.
Hinata's father soon heard the water before he saw it. And he remembered Neji saying that Hinata trained on water. He watched his daughter's tracks and went on.
"There is little effect," hissed Neji. His Byakugan, unlike Hiashi's, was activated. And the long-haired jounin was, for the first in a long while, becoming increasingly nervous.
"Hold on," Shino said. He sounded as if he was talking through gritted teeth, but with his hood, it was only Neji's eyes that could see it. Sweat was rolling down the bug-user's back. "Next! Tell me where next…"
Neji turned toward his uncle, sweating, as well. They had to be far for Hiashi not to sense them, but not far enough that Neji could not see with his Byakugan. Even so, this was hard going. "Three centimeters above this fingernail…." Neji was holding up his hand at a height, "gently…now!"
And the two worked on.
But both we're thinking the same thing: they were too slow. Slow enough that Hiashi would get to the waterfall before they could accomplish the technique…
"Next!" Aburame said.
"15 centimeters, here…" Neji trailed off.
"Hyuuga!" Aburame whispered fiercely.
Neji's mouth had drawn to a grim line. "He's suppressing his chakra!"
And although Shino said nothing, his shoulders slumping were eloquent enough.
Hiashi felt nothing strange as he suppressed his chakra and went beyond the boulder. The waterfall was gushing loudly now. Hiashi could see the glittering spray of the water. He really had become curious to what Hinata was doing in her solitary training…
The world slept. Foxes and raccoons huddled in their spaces. Owls hooted. Crickets sang.
Hiashi stood rooted to the spot.
It was as if somebody had stitched up the water that his daughter was…dancing on and made it into a kimono for her to wear. Hinata was moving her arms in straight, graceful lines and her body was flexible enough that, at times, she would bend backward to spilt water droplets with chakra, her hair falling in waves.
She whirled on her feet, and a kick would launch her into the air to spin, and she would land gracefully, her body folding, before she would shoot up straight into another pattern. And Hiashi recognized somewhat the forms, although Hinata had changed them so. Fish Takes to Air. Splitting Cloud. Flower Pushes Through. Some might have said that they had been bastardized, but it looked beautiful to Hiashi. They looked so naturally fluid. His daughter was water and moonlight, and moonlight and water was she.
And for a moment, Hiashi felt a pain that a father might have in seeing the back of his child getting smaller, as his child walks away. Perhaps, it was too late to feel this now; now, when his daughter was finally too old to need him so, he would feel melancholy and maybe wish that she was three again, holding his robe, hiding behind him.
"Enough," he murmured, satisfied with her training. He turned around, and went into the village's direction.
Kurenai-sensei walked, held up by Aburame and Neji.
"We thought you weren't going to make it," Aburame said. "We barely managed to set up the trap."
Kurenai-sensei simply raised an eyebrow. "I," she said, her tone definite, "am going to allow the two of you to treat me to barbecue. I have just come back from a mission, tired. I've had to race to get here after receiving your bug message, Shino-kun. Then, when I do get here, I have had to do three very subtle genjutsus layered on one upon the other. I assure you, it is no mean feat."
Aburame bowed his head. "Forgive me, sensei."
Neji grunted. He was tired to the bone. The teamwork and physical labor it had taken for all the genjutsus to work was extremely tiring.
"Aburames use bugs, not spiders."
All three, Kurenai-sensei, Neji, and Aburame, froze.
Hiashi stepped out from behind the tree calmly. He eyed the three of them coolly. He was not the head of Hyuuga for nothing.
"How?" Shino said softly, sounding puzzled. "We did it perfectly."
"The threads were very clever," Hiashi acknowledged, "But like I've said, I thought the Aburame clan use bugs, not spiders,"
"They aren't spiders. They're special silkworms. I cultivated them, brought them from when I went into a mission with Kurenai-sensei two years ago. Instead of actual threads of silk, they form cocoons of chakra thread that are so thin, they are almost invisible."
Hiashi nodded. "The first stage to the tri-layered genjustu. You set up these…silkworm threads across the forest and you and Neji positioned yourselves from where I could not sense you. But you stayed near enough that Neji could use the Byakugan and see my chakra system. Using the threads that tangled around me, you used your chakra, with Neji directing you, to insert very thin tendrils of chakra into my system. The same has probably been done to my daughter. To start controlling my senses. By the time, Kurenai Yuhi, genjutsu specialist, arrived to perform the genjutsu, I was ripe to fall into it."
"It was not one genjustu, Hyuuga-sama. Three separate genjutsus that were laid upon one another," Kurenai observed.
Hiashi's eyebrows rose. "Impressive. Let me guess, one genjutsu was for Hinata. She saw nothing out of the ordinary. The second genjutsu, I assume, was for me. The third must have been her move—"
"That was Hinata, and Hinata alone," Shino's voice cut in, hard.
"Aye." Kurenai said, removing her arms from around the shoulders of the two young men standing on either side. She straightened, smiling slightly, "the third was hyper reality. It was hard work, too, to make that genjustu not feel like a genjutsu."
Hiashi thoughtfully gazed at them, looking intrigued. "So, Hinata's forms was no show," he murmured. He gave them a nod, "hyper reality. Stimulating our senses to make up for any falsity in reality that a genjustu might have. Blending in genjustu and reality. That is impressive." He looked sternly at Kurenai, "Neji-kun, the Aburame boy, I almost—not quite—but almost understand. Yuhi-san, however…You are a talented jounin-level ninja and a former Academy teacher!"
Kurenai opened her mouth to speak.
"Who are we to take it away, Hiashi-sama?"
Kurenai's and Hiashi's eyes swiveled to Neji. He was staring down at the ground. When he looked up at them, some indefinable emotion raged in his face.
"What do you mean, Neji-kun?" Hiashi said softly. He had not seen his nephew this way since the Chuunin Exams three years past.
"She is strong!"
Hiashi's eyes widened.
"I have never seen Hinata-sama that confident, that free—why should we stop that? She has become—"
Kurenai stopped Neji's flow of words with a hand on his shoulder. "You did not release the genjustu, Hyuuga-sama. Even though you knew it was a genjutsu."
And the silence rolled over the path.