Chapter 612: Strangeness within the Hyuga n


    At the same time, in the secret library of the Hyuga n.


    “Sure enough… the rtionship with the Kaguya n was exactly as I had assumed…”


    Looking through the genealogy of the Hyuga n, Kuroto found that during the Warring States Period, there are records of marriages between the Hyuga n and the Kaguya n, although it’s quite strange that only the women of the Kaguya n got married to the men of the Hyuga n, not the other way around, it was perhaps done to prevent the outflow of Byakugan…


    Anyway, after reading these records of marriage, Kuroto can indeed confirm that the Hyuga n and the Kaguya n had a close rtionship and that the two ns are blood rtives that are descendants of the same ancestral origin.


    But with the establishment of Konoha, Kirigakure, and other Shinobi Viges, and several wars that took ce that led to the death of countless shinobis, the rtionship between the Hyuga n and the Kaguya n became distant, estranged, cold, and tense because of the enmity and hatred between the two Shinobi Viges.


    All this information was already within Kuroto’s expectations, so it did not surprise him all that much and he continued to go through the history of the Hyuga n with the hope that he will find something that would help him reach an answer to his question.


    “This is…!”


    And not long after he did stumble upon something…


    As he was looking at the records of the poption of the Hyuga n, Kuroto quickly noticed that in the millennium year-long history of the Hyuga n, the poption of the Hyuga n was mostly maintained in the numerical range of three thousand to four thousand, there were even times when the poption of the Hyuga n reached as high as five thousand to six thousand… that was perhaps the most prosperous time for the Hyuga n, and during those times, the Hyuga n wasparable to the Senju n and the Uchiha n, in terms of poption at least…


    But for some inexplicable reason, after reaching the peak value of 5894 about three centuries ago, the poption of the Hyuga n started to decline and has been decreasing since then.


    The decline is so serious that at this point in time, the number of Hyuga nsmen alive is only about seven hundred, including all the men, women, and children from both the main family and the branch family.


    In just three centuries, the poption of the Hyuga n has decreased from 5894 to 1200… this is a highly concerning matter… this decrease in poption of the Hyuga n may not have attracted that much attention considering the decline was slow and steady and happened over a period of three centuries, but when Kuroto read entire Genealogy in ten minutes, he felt this slow and steady decline quite strange…


    “Is it really because of the war?” muttered Kuroto with a thoughtful expression.


    The war between ns and nations has always been the major cause of the decline of the poption among the Shinobi ns… The former greatest n, the Senju n is the prime example… After the establishment of Konoha Vige, during the first great shinobi war, and second great shinobi war, the shinobi of Senju n took lead in all the battlefronts and suffered most casualties, the death rate of the Senju n reached such a high point that the number of men in Senju n declined heavily and male to female ratio was greatly affected…


    Low male to female ratio along with the policies implemented by Shodaime Hokage with the intentions of thoroughly integrating the Senju n into Konoha resulted in arge number of intermarriages between the women of Senju n and ordinary vigers, which further lead to the dilution of the Senju blood and the decline of Senju n.


    The decline of the Senju n is so severe that today Senju n exists in name only, and Senju Tsunade is the only member carrying the entire n on her shoulders… In a few years from now, when she will pass away, the Senju n willpletely cease to exist.


    After all, Tsunade-hime doesn’t seem to have any intention of leaving behind a descendant, so no one will be left to carry forward the Senju n, or maybe, that won’t happen considering the fact that Shimizu Naomi’s niece Mika also carries the Senju blood… even if Mika is only a quarter Senju, she is a Senju nheless, and may carry the banner of the once greatest n in the future… but that is a matter to be discussed another time…


    Coming back to the main topic, Kuroto firstly spected that the cause of the decline of the poption of the Hyuga n is also war, after all, all the deaths have happened in the wars between ns and viges, but after thinking over it, he denied it…


    The reason is that after rereading the entire history of the Hyuga n, Kuroto found no record of too many deaths at once, except one time where several hundred Hyuga nsmen died due to a mysterious cause.


    Although the mysterious cause that led to the deaths of hundreds of nsmen is a matter to be frowned upon, Kuroto decided to not focus on it at this very moment.


    Coming back to the topic, he only saw that the number of Hyuga nsmen dying every year were within an eptable range, and not too much that would cause a decline of the entire poption.


    But this is also natural, considering that the Hyuga n had no major enemies during the Warring States period.


    During the Warring States Period, the rtionship between each Shinobi n was tense, and a fight between shinobis of different ns was amon urrence, but even if that was the case, it never reached the point where two ns were mortal enemies, except the Senju and Uchiha ns, of course.


    This means, even if Hyuga n had several conflicts with the shinobis of other ns, the scale of conflict with other shinobi ns should have never reached such a degree that would result in a drastic decline in the poption of the n.


    Since this is the case, the cause of the decline of the Hyuga n’s poption is not war, nor is it the coup d’état from the branch family… then what is the cause?


    Upon further research Kuroto soon noticed one more detail…


    “This is it… The number of births in the Hyuga n has also decreased with each year…”


    The cause of the decline of the Hyuga n poption is not the increased death toll caused by wars, rather it is the decreasing ratio of the number of birthspared to the number of deaths per year.


    If the number of children born in the Hyuga n is decreasing every year, and along with it, the ratio of the number of deaths to the number of births is decreasing, then obviously, the poption will decline.


    Although this is quite understandable, why exactly is this happening? Why is the number of newborns decreasing each year?


    The decline in the poption of the Hyuga n over time appears to be so smooth that at first nce it doesn’t even attract any attention… it feels as if… as if someone is secretly controlling all this…!


    After figuring out the cause of the decline of poption, the doubts in Kuroto’s heart not only did not decrease, rather they became graver and graver.


    In the cognition of ordinary vigers, the Hyuga n has the highest number of Shinobipared to any other n, even more than the Uchiha n, this is another reason why everyone thinks that the Hyuga n and Uchiha n are rival ns. Even if Uchiha n has some shinobi who are quite strong, Hyuga n is able topensate for thatck of strength with its advantage in numbers.


    However, this is just their misunderstanding for they don’t truly understand the Uchiha n.


    Indeed, the number of Uchiha Shinobi is lesspared to the Hyuga n, the number of Uchiha Shinobi is half as much as the Hyuga n, but this doesn’t mean that the overall poption of the Uchiha n is lesspared to the Hyuga n. On the contrary, if the entire poption of the Uchiha n is taken into ount, then it is definitely twice the number of the Hyuga n…


    The issue with the Uchiha n is that not everyone in their n awakens their Kekkei Genkai Sharingan, unlike the Hyuga n in which almost everyone awakens the Byakugan. This is why, the ordinary Uchiha, who are only ordinary vigers and have no qualification of bing shinobi are sometimes forgotten by everyone, which is obviously not the case in the Hyuga n, since everyone awakens the Byakugan.


    The demise of the Senju n happened because of the decisions of Shodaime Hokage-sama, and Nidaime Hokage-sama… the demise of the Uzumaki n was the result of fear that the other shinobi viges had, the demise of the Kaguya n happened because of their curse… now only the Uchiha n and the Hyuga n are left…


    It is said that, after Uchiha Madara left Konoha, internal strife broke out within the Uchiha n for the position of the Uchiha Patriarch… this infighting disyed ‘Izanagi’ quite a few times, and led to the development of ‘Izanami’. This infighting led to arge number of casualties in the Uchiha n, however, if Kuroto sees now, the overall poption of the Uchiha n did not decline because of the internal fighting and remained stable…


    “Then why is it that the number of Hyuga nsmen are decreasing? This is too strange!”<!--


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