-Hiashi-

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"Ah, Naruto-san, have you had enough?"

Naruto grinned with a glint in his eye.

"Nope!"

Hiashi hid a sigh and watched his guest continue to messily tear into his food. Really, Hiashi expected this, but the elders were rather insistent that he didn't lose to the Uchiha. Their clan was already at a disadvantage in this odd sort of tug-of-war with the Uchiha over Naruto, and Naruto was shamelessly taking advantage of it for free food and whatever else the elders felt was worth sacrificing to this pointless game. Which was a lot. Seriously, did the elders forget that the entire clan was terrified of this kid?

Although it was rather amusing to see their faces as Naruto continued to abuse their farce of a competition with no regards for manners or tact. Hiashi had rather pointedly suggested that they attend this dinner they had insisted Hiashi invite Naruto to, and watching those stuck-up elders attempt to socialize with a brat who couldn't care less about their standards was well worth the terror that came with any sort of interaction with the menace. And it was certainly a treat to listen in on the conversation.

"So Hinata told me you use this seal to protect your bloodline, right? I'm learning a lot about seals, so I asked her about it and she said a lot of stuff. It actually seems pretty ineffective to me. Fuzzy and I had a whole big long talk about it, so I wanted to talk to you guys to give you some pointers!"

One elder, clearly a bit miffed at the idea of being given "pointers" by a seven-year-old and the Kyuubi, of all things, cut in.

"Pointers? Our system works well enough."

"Sure, if by 'well enough' you mean really bad."

"I beg your-"

"Hey, I didn't finish! I thought you Hyuuga people liked your manners, or whatever! That's really rude, you know!"

The elder clamped his mouth shut with a sour face. Hiashi glanced scathingly (how a glance can be scathing is a mystery, but the Hyuugas tend to have judgemental looks down pat) at the elder and motioned politely for Naruto to continue. Which he gladly took as a sign to launch into the rant born of a full night of debating between him and Kurama.

"So your seal destroys all the genetic markers of the Byakugan after death, right? Great idea. It takes away reasons to mess with corpses, which is always a plus. But what about before death? Anyone with half a brain will take a blood sample or something before killing a Hyuuga, and then the whole seal was pointless. And it's pretty stupid to think that no one's ever gonna get a living Hyuuga as a prisoner. It's not a fun thought, but anything can happen. It's pretty much standard for every major village to spy on every other major village, and infiltration missions are pretty common, especially during wartime. Someone's gonna get their hands on medical records at some point, or even kidnap a Hyuuga kid. Then your whole seal's pretty pointless."
Another elder started to butt in, only for Naruto to just pick up his volume and carry on like he didn't even care enough to listen. Which he probably didn't.

"You guys sort of tried to fix that with the whole 'use the seal to subjugate the branch families', but that's a pretty stupid solution. How can forcing obedience stop someone from being kidnapped? If anything, limiting the branch families makes you more vulnerable because they're easier to overpower and take prisoner. Or literally just one rogue main branch member would totally devastate the whole clan."

"We won't be so easily subdued! We have the most powerful taijutsu-"

"What have I said about interrupting! Honestly, you guys are almost as bad as me!"

Stunned (and more than a little tense) silence filled the room.

"Thank you! And about your taijutsu - it's stupidly simple. How long has it been since you guys tried to innovate? Fuzzy took one look at a sparring Hyuuga and instantly knew exactly what he was doing and what his strategy was. And Fuzzy knows even less about taijutsu than I do, and that's because he doesn't even have a human body to know how movement actually works! Most powerful taijutsu? More like most outdated. And that seal isn't doing any favors for your taijutsu. It discourages individual thinking, which discourages innovation, which discourages any improvement to your style. You like to say you're the most powerful clan in Konoha, but the Uchiha are easily rivals for that spot, and they don't need a 'protective seal' to do it."

And that was the last straw. Elders started screeching in a pandemonium that could almost rival Naruto's singing in sheer pain for the unfortunate listener's ears. Naruto took that as his cue to sit down and keep eating like a totally polite houseguest.

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-Neji-

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Normally, branch members stay away from dinners between main family members. Mostly because it was really annoying listening to their impressive combination of arrogance and stupidity, and partly because avoiding main family members is just a good survival strategy for the branch members. But today there was a rather conspicuous number of branch members who just happened to have chores or errands to run that were in earshot of the coincidentally open dining room door.

Naruto was here today. And while that usually causes unspeakable terror in the whole clan, today it is a source of great amusement. After all, the elders were likely the only ones in the clan who didn't realize just how terrifying that monster truly was.

Just about everyone was excited to hear their "esteemed elders" feel the monster's wrath. No one expected such a thorough deconstruction of their entire clan's philosophy and way of life.

It actually made Neji feel oddly angry. If the system is so ineffective, then all of his suffering to "protect the secrets of the Byakugan" was pointless! Even more infuriating was that it was his fate to spend his life protecting such a system!

Perhaps it was this anger that gave him the sudden burst of foolhardiness. He confronted Naruto the moment he left the dining room. He gave his whole speech, the whole spiel about why fighting fate is pointless, and how the branch families were unjustly but unchangeably forced into service for the main family.

And Naruto just blinked in confusion and cocked his head.

"How does that change anything?"

Neji stared uncomprehendingly until Naruto decided he might need to elaborate.

"Why should believing in fate make you think you can't make anything change?"

The anger returned.

"I know my fate, and I know it is pointless to resist! Fools like you try to defy fate, and you only end up caught in its will!"

"Ummmm, that's not really what I meant. How do I explain this... oh! Look at the warring clans period! If you talked to literally anyone from that time, wouldn't they say the clans would be fighting forever? No one would think they would start to band together and make villages! Maybe it was because they went against fate, but if you believe in fate you'd say that they were just fated to do that. Which means that you can't really predict fate, or if you do, you've got a decent chance of predicting it wrong. So why are you saying that this is your fate, when you know you can't predict fate?'

Naruto paused and stared expectantly at Neji. It took a second to realize that Naruto was waiting for an answer, but Neji didn't really have an answer to give. Anything he could think of just boiled down to "This is different", and Neji had a feeling that wouldn't satisfy this weirdly philosophical child. Fortunately (Or maybe unfortunately? Neji isn't sure at this point), Naruto eventually took Neji's silence as a signal to keep talking.

"Do you believe in a set timeline? Like, everything that has ever happened and ever will happen has already been decided? Who decided? God? Are you a religious guy? Oh, if the timeline is set, would time travel be possible? But if you traveled to the past, you'll change something and that would kind of mess with fate, wouldn't it? Or would that be fate recognizing something that went wrong in the past and sending you to fix it? Ummmm, that's actually kind of getting off topic. If you think you're fated for something, so you act like that's the end goal of your life, but you end up somewhere else, then were you wrong about your fate or did you mess up your fate by acting the way you thought you were supposed to instead of acting the way you would've without your whole fate belief? Like, if I thought I was fated to be Hokage, so I didn't work hard for it, so I didn't end up being Hokage, was I just not fated for it or did I mess up my fate by not working hard? I guess you'd say that I wasn't fated for it. But then I was wrong. Which is the whole point! Even if you believe in fate, trying to guess what your fate is would be kinda pointless because you just can't!"

Neji was officially lost. How long could Naruto ramble about philosophical stuff? Neji needed to go take a long nap and spend the next day contemplating life. Thankfully, Naruto seemed to pick up on that and started to wrap up his impromptu essay of a speech.

"I guess the point is, you just gotta do your best. You can believe in fate, but you can't predict it so why give up before you even start?"

And Naruto ditched Neji with a grin. Why he was running back towards the elders' rooms, Neji didn't have the brain power left to figure it out. He left to take a nap.

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A/N - longer, but it's four in the morning at the time of writing this and I felt like writing a sleep-deprived philosophical essay

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Also, thanks to the guest who's consistently reviewing my commentary to tell me which chapter ideas sound good. I've got a duplicate document where I've been highlighting all the ones you point out! I'm trying to give those ones priority, but I want to make sure they're good quality so part of my decision will always be the ones that most inspire me at the moment

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Also, I've been informed that I'm not giving the Jyuuken and the Caged Bird seal enough credit. Which I'm probably not. I'm taking inspiration from another fic that I mentioned in an earlier author's note (The Uzumaki Scrolls), where the Jyuuken was certainly formidable, but also very predictable. This was because the main branch was so stuck in pride and tradition that they thought they had a perfect style that didn't need to be improved, which meant that it stagnated and could be countered with enough creativity and the right strategy. The point I'm making is not supposed to be that the Jyuuken is weak or ineffective (far from it), but that the Hyuuga are so convinced that they're the strongest clan with the best strategy for maintaining their power and protecting their bloodline that they're prone to stagnation and exploitation. And also I'm annoyed about something at work and I'm sleep deprived so I felt like ranting. This isn't really the first time I've thrown a technique under the bus (chakra control techniques) because I felt like giving Naruto and Kurama a reason to call people idiots. The intention is not necessarily to paint all main branch Hyuuga as stupid jerks who torture their own clan for the heck of it, but to point out the flaws of their system. Also, keep in mind that this is from the perspective of Naruto (who is a literal child, learning this from the perspective of a friend who is mistreated by her father, the clan head) and Kurama (who doesn't care about politics or the protection of a bloodline, and in general thinks shinobi are idiots)