[Ding—]
The kunai stabbed deep into the ground, less than ten centimeters from Hyūga Jinsuke's heels. A fraction closer, and it would have skewered his foot clean through.
Jinsuke lifted his gaze in terror, staring at Uchiha Keizumi ahead.
His frail, aging body instinctively staggered back a step.
"How… how is this possible…"
He had already confined every Hyūga shinobi within the compound, making sure no Branch House ninja could drag Keizumi into the matter, all to buy himself more time to withdraw from Konoha.
So why—
Why had Uchiha Keizumi appeared anyway? And not only that—he was standing right there, blocking Jinsuke's path at the very moment he stepped out the door!
Wait!
"Hyūga Neji!!!"
Jinsuke's eyes shot wide as he suddenly saw Neji standing behind Uchiha Keizumi—and beside him, another Branch House youth. Recognition stabbed through him. That boy… he was the grandson of Hyūga Yokogari, the Branch House elder who had died just last night!
And then it all clicked.
In an instant, he understood.
—Hyūga Neji and Yokogari's grandson had joined hands, and together they had revealed everything to Uchiha Keizumi!
Jinsuke's old, wrinkled face twisted through a storm of emotions—
Fury and resentment toward Neji, mingled with shock and dread at the sight of Keizumi. Even as a Hyūga Main House elder, standing before Uchiha Keizumi he had not the slightest shred of confidence or security.
"Hyūga Neji! You betrayed Elder Jinsuke?!"
At that moment—
The Main House special jōnin assigned to guard Jinsuke shouted in disbelief at Neji, his voice sharp with anger: "Do you even understand what you're doing?! The fate of the Branch House is to protect the Main House! And you, brat—you've turned to plotting the murder of a Main House elder!"
"What is your status within the Hyūga Clan? What rank do you hold? Did your father never teach you, while he was alive, how a Branch House shinobi must selflessly protect the Hyūga Clan?"
Hyūga Neji's face, which had been expressionless, immediately darkened with a trace of hatred at those words.
He drew in a deep breath.
Once, he had believed that fate could never be escaped.
Until the day he saw with his own eyes how Uchiha Keizumi, through overwhelming power, forced the entire Hyūga Clan to bow their heads.
It was from that moment that the tightly bound Neji felt a rebellious thought stir within him—the destiny and cage imposed on the Branch House by the Main House could be broken!
And after he sought to understand Absolute Justice for himself, Neji came to realize an even deeper truth: the act of the Hyūga Main House binding the Branch House with the Caged Bird was itself an act of injustice!
Neji did not know the full meaning hidden behind the Caged Bird. He only knew what he had seen and heard—that Branch House shinobi lived under its weight, crushed with suffering and humiliation.
The curse mark left every Branch House shinobi gasping for breath—
—without even the courage to give rise to thoughts of resistance.
Once—
His father had merely shown a fleeting trace of killing intent toward Hinata, without the slightest thought of acting upon it, when Hyūga Hiashi decisively activated the Caged Bird curse seal.
"So this so-called selfless protection means generation after generation serving as the Main House's scapegoats? Generation after generation trapped in a cage, like birds that will never fly free?"
Neji clenched his teeth and slowly pulled the bandages from his forehead—
—laying bare the Caged Bird seal for all to see.
"I didn't come here to argue your Main House rules or so-called doctrines." Neji turned his head toward the young Branch House shinobi beside him. "This man—the one who killed your grandfather—isn't that right?"
"…Yes."
The boy nodded timidly.
Neji exhaled and, gritting his teeth, declared: "I came here to demand justice for the Branch House elder you murdered! What right did you have to take his life? In the eyes of the Main House, are the lives of the Branch House nothing but consumables?"
He paused, then said firmly: "And I believe Uchiha's Absolute Justice will judge every evildoer! It will restore fairness for the innocent—and allow them to rest in peace within the Pure Land."
Neji's words made Hyūga Jinsuke and the Hyūga Main House jōnin's faces twist with ugliness.
Who could have imagined that the one dragging Uchiha Keizumi into this mess would turn out to be a mere Hyūga child still attending the Ninja Academy?
That brat Neji spoke as if he stood on some lofty moral ground, making his words sound righteous and just.
But in their eyes, Neji was nothing more than a child lashing out in resentment, still harboring hatred toward the Main House over his father's death.
That was the only reason he would act this way—to exact revenge upon the Hyūga Main House.
'That ungrateful little wretch siding with outsiders! Has he forgotten the name he bears?!
'What were Hizashi's dying words to him?!'
'If he can betray the Main House today, he can betray Konoha tomorrow!'
After cursing inwardly a few times, Hyūga Jinsuke's wary gaze locked on the expressionless Uchiha Keizumi. The fear he had already felt only deepened; in that instant, panic swelled within him. Wrinkles carved across his face glistened with cold sweat.
Driven by a desperate will to survive, he struck first, speaking rapidly to Uchiha Keizumi: "Uchiha Keizumi, will you really believe the nonsense of a boy who hasn't even graduated from the Academy? With those eyes that can see the evil in people's hearts, surely you've already seen there's no trace of sin upon me!"
He quickly added, "The Branch Elder who died last night, Hyūga Yokogari, was already old and afflicted with hidden ailments. Our Hyūga clan has already investigated his cause of death."
"He died entirely from disease within his body!"
"He—"
Before Jinsuke could finish, Uchiha Keizumi's cold voice cut sharply across his words: "Hyūga Jinsuke. Fifty-seven years ago, you were implicated in the rape and murder of a female member of the Hyūga Branch House. You killed her husband as well, dismembered both their bodies, and threw them into the river for the fish to devour."
The chill in his tone laid bare sins of the past, striking Jinsuke like a thunderbolt.
Suddenly, his memory stirred—he really had done something like that back then.
But that was before Konohagakure even existed, when the shinobi world was chaos and disorder. Back then, acts like his weren't even considered wrong, not even a matter of morality.
"Uchiha Keizumi, that was a different time! Concepts of morality and justice must be judged by the era in which they existed!"
Jinsuke cried out in desperation: "Besides that incident, I have never again committed evil. Ever since, I have dedicated myself wholly to the Hyūga clan and Konoha's interests!"
Yet he never realized that every word he spoke passed through Keizumi's ears like meaningless wind.
"Last night, you used the Caged Bird curse mark to torture Hyūga Yokogari. Even when Yokogari begged for mercy, swearing he would no longer attempt to research a way to break the curse seal, you did not stop. You kept the technique active and tormented him for half an hour."
Uchiha Keizumi's gaze upon Hyūga Jinsuke carried no trace of emotion.
It was not the gaze one gave a living man, but the cold regard one gave a lifeless object.
His words made the victim's grandson's eyes widen in shock.
The young Branch House member of the Hyūga clan fixed an unfathomable gaze upon the utterly shocked Hyūga Jinsuke.
"So it's true…"
He muttered, "You tortured my grandfather for half an hour."
Cold sweat soaked through Jinsuke's back. He tried desperately to explain: "How was I supposed to know if he wasn't just deceiving me at the time? Besides, shinobi bodies are far sturdier than ordinary people's. Even in old age, enduring thirty minutes of the Caged Bird curse mark's punishment is well within reason! If he couldn't withstand it, he would have died midway through!"
Half an hour…
Withstand it?
Neji suddenly found the claim absurd. Back then, when Hyūga Hiashi triggered his father's Caged Bird curse mark, it had lasted no more than a single minute. Yet in that short time, his father had suffered immense agony, his entire body drenched in sweat.
Neji could not even begin to imagine what thirty minutes of the Caged Bird curse mark felt like—truly a fate worse than death.
This went far beyond the bounds of disciplinary punishment.
It was deliberate torment.
Proof that the Main House placed no value on Branch lives as human lives at all.
But Uchiha Keizumi shattered Jinsuke's excuses, delivering the final judgment on his actions: "After half an hour, you ended the technique. But that prolonged torture triggered the relapse of Hyūga Yokogari's old ailments, causing a fatal heart attack. Your actions dragged you down into the abyss of sin."
Jinsuke's pupils quivered.
"[Absolute Justice] renders its final judgment on your two sins—life for life!"
Hyūga Jinsuke's whole body trembled.
In that instant, his frail, aging frame erupted with the last reserves of strength. He shoved aside the Main House jōnin blocking his way and bolted toward the Hyūga compound without hesitation.
"Save me! Save me!!"
"Hiashi! Clan Leader!!"
"Come quickly, save me!!"
His shrill cries, thick with fear and despair, quickly roused many within the Hyūga compound.
Branch House shinobi rushed out to see what was happening—only to find that the man screaming for help was none other than Hyūga Jinsuke!
Main House shinobi also hurried forward, some asking kindly, "Elder Jinsuke, what has happened?"
Even the clan head, Hyūga Hiashi, stepped outside without delay.
"Elder Jinsuke…"
Just as Hiashi frowned, preparing to meet him and demand why he had not left at once—he suddenly noticed several figures walking straight into the Hyūga compound.
Hiashi froze.
His steps halted, the words about to leave his lips cut short.
"Keizumi…"
"Hiashi! He said I must pay with my life!" Jinsuke, spotting Hiashi, looked as though he had found salvation. He rushed toward him in desperation, completely ignoring the sudden tautness in Hiashi's expression.
"Hiashi! That brat Neji is a traitor—he's turned against our Main House!"
"Hiashi! Uchiha Keizumi, he—"
Before Jinsuke could finish his panicked cry, he abruptly felt the ground beneath his feet trembling ever so slightly, as though something strange was about to burst forth from beneath the earth.
Just as he looked down, several thick roots suddenly burst through the earth, swiftly coiling around his legs.
"This is—"
Less than ten meters away, Hyūga Hiashi's pupils contracted sharply. He immediately activated his Byakugan, and in that instant he saw clearly—the only person whose chakra was fluctuating abnormally was Uchiha Keizumi!
The roots entangling Hyūga Jinsuke climbed with visible speed, snaking their way up toward his neck.
In less than a single breath, the massive roots wrapped him completely, like constricting pythons.
"Hiashi… save—"
Jinsuke's desperate, choking plea cut off abruptly.
All the Hyūga present heard was a heavy bang!
The thick roots tightened mercilessly, shredding everything below Jinsuke's neck. Literally bursting him apart! Blood and flesh exploded outward in a rain that splattered across the compound, droplets spattering even the robes of Hyūga Hiashi.
The crimson-stained roots, still strung with fragments of flesh, stood tall in the Hyūga compound's courtyard—
—a grotesque, blood-soaked "architectural spectacle."
His intact, severed head rolled across the ground, turning several times before coming to rest. The elderly face was frozen in a mask of despair and agony, drenched scarlet in blood.
The Hyūga compound fell into utter silence.
Only the steady drip of blood from the roots remained.
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