Konohagakure.
From Yamanaka Ryōshin, Sarutobi Hiruzen learned that Uchiha Keizumi had gone to the Hyūga clan.
"Homura, are you sure the Hyūga have handled this matter properly?"
Hiruzen frowned as he asked Mitokado Homura.
Homura sighed. "The Hyūga Main House believe they have dealt with it. Their method was to force Hyūga Jinsuke into retirement, removing him from the clan's center of power and exiling him from Konoha."
"Hiruzen, you know as well as I do—an eighty-year-old man leaving Konoha, who can say whether he'll even live to return two or three years later? At that age, death could come at any moment."
"So they're choosing to sweep it quietly under the rug?" Hiruzen muttered. "The Hyūga Main House's method might suppress the Branch House's anger and keep a full conflict from breaking out within the clan…"
"But with the way Keizumi handles things, he would never accept that kind of paper-over 'solution.' If he has judged Hyūga Jinsuke guilty, what he wants is Hyūga Jinsuke's life."
At this point, Sarutobi Hiruzen felt a headache coming on.
He feared he now understood Uchiha Keizumi even better than he understood the Will of Fire itself.
"If Hyūga Jinsuke had taken my warning seriously, he would already be at least several dozen kilometers away from Konoha. Keizumi would most likely have come up empty."
Mitokado Homura said flatly, "If that makes Keizumi pursue beyond Konoha's borders, then Konoha can use the chance to catch its breath."
Hiruzen blinked, momentarily taken aback.
…
"Hyūga Kenjirō."
Uchiha Keizumi spoke the name of Jinsuke's second son. Under the man's stunned, furious, and bewildered stare, Keizumi's tone remained cold: "In partnership with Gatō, you have operated a sea route smuggling contraband from the Land of Water into the Land of Fire—over ten years, you brought in hundreds of tonnes of illegal drugs."
"Nine years ago, you brutally murdered a Branch House shinobi who tried to dissuade you from this black market trade, then used the excuse 'he was assassinated by enemy shinobi' to deceive the Hyūga clan head."
As he expressionlessly read out line after line of blood-red script, the face of Hyūga Kenjirō changed.
The shock-darkened face of Hyūga Hiashi, who had only moments ago witnessed Jinsuke's death, suddenly tightened. He couldn't help but look toward Kenjirō, his expression turning stern as he barked, "Nine years ago? That Branch House clansman who died so miserably—was it you who killed him?!"
"And you've been trafficking contraband into the Land of Fire under the Hyūga name, in league with the notorious merchant Gatō?"
Drenched in sweat, Hyūga Kenjirō flatly denied it. "Hiashi-sama, that's only his side of—"
Keizumi's voice listing the charges cut him off again.
Crime after crime piled on, and Hyūga Kenjirō began to panic.
His father had mentioned that this Uchiha Keizumi possessed eyes that could see the 'evil' within others, and that many had already fallen before those eyes.
It… was actually true.
Because no one knew better than he did whether the charges Uchiha Keizumi had listed were true or false.
"Two months ago, you resold several tonnes of contraband to Uchiha Hayata and two others, allowing several tonnes of illegal drugs to flow into Konoha."
This… was the final count Uchiha Keizumi read out.
Under Hyūga Neji's gaze behind him, Uchiha Keizumi slowly drew the ninja blade at his waist. The snow-silver edge reflected the terror in Hyūga Kenjirō's eyes—and the faint hesitation on Hyūga Hiashi's face.
Although Hyūga Kenjirō was a special jōnin,
the blood and shredded flesh of his father on the ground told him clearly how terrifying the Uchiha before him was.
He was no match for this Uchiha madman.
"Uchiha Keizumi! Th-this is the Hyūga compound—Hiashi-sama is standing right beside me!" Kenjirō clutched at Hiashi's sleeve like a drowning man grabbing a lifeline, refusing to let go.
"Are you really going to—right in front of Hiashi-sama—"
But just then, he felt Hiashi jerk his arm, wrenching free of Kenjirō's grip.
Kenjirō stared, stunned.
He heard Uchiha Keizumi question Hiashi: "So—you intend to shield him, Hyūga Hiashi?"
"…" Hiashi was silent for a moment.
Under the eyes of Main and Branch alike,
he let out a long, deep sigh. The taut authority of the clan head deflated in that instant.
Though he gave no answer in words, the silence spoke louder than any reply.
Everyone understood the answer Hiashi had given.
"W-wait! Hiashi-sama, I'm Main House! My father is a Main House elder! Are you going to abandon me? You can't abandon me! The money I made by… special means—I turned part of it over to the clan!"
"Hiashi-sama?!"
"Hiashi-sama!!"
[Shhk—]
The head shot skyward. Blood splashed across the right half of Hiashi's face, and crimson blossoms dotted the clothes along his right side.
Kenjirō's falling head struck Hiashi's shoulder with grim precision.
That single impact crushed Hiashi's spirit, plunging it to the very bottom.
With a dull thud, the severed head hit the ground; the face still wore the frozen trace of the terrified pleading from just before death.
When Hyūga Hiashi cast a furtive glance down, it seemed he could still read a flicker of confusion in the man's eyes.
In the instant before he died, Hyūga Kenjirō appeared not to understand why Hyūga Hiashi—head of the Hyūga clan—wouldn't stand up for him.
Why didn't he take a hard line? Why didn't he shield a clansman of the Main House?
Why would he allow an Uchiha shinobi to "recklessly" kill people inside the Hyūga compound?
An indescribable guilt flooded Hyūga Hiashi's heart.
He had no answer he could give, no explanation he could offer; a thousand unspoken words dissolved into a single sigh from the depths of his chest.
After that—
Under the strange, sidelong gazes of many clansmen, Hyūga Hiashi lifted his head and met Uchiha Keizumi's eyes. Yet not even a second into their stare, Hiashi abruptly recalled that Keizumi's Mangekyō Sharingan seemed to harbor some unfathomably eerie power.
Shimura Danzō, the former leader of Root, had fallen under those very eyes without the slightest ability to resist.
And on top of that… the man was suspected of possessing Wood Release as a kekkei genkai.
Wood Release plus Sharingan plus Lava Release—
What kind of bizarre combination was that?
A strange thought flashed through Hiashi's mind—if Uchiha Keizumi were to close his eyes and open them again one day, and those eyes turned out to be a pair of Byakugan… he might not even find it surprising.
With that unsettling notion stirring, an uneasy Hyūga Hiashi shifted his gaze ever so slightly.
He did not continue to hold Uchiha Keizumi's eyes.
"Keizumi, the Hyūga clan has no objection to the [Absolute Justice] you carried out today." Hiashi lowered his head. He backed down. He swallowed his pride. "Hyūga Jinsuke's deeds from years ago did indeed violate justice. And Hyūga Kenjirō's collaboration with Gatō to transport contraband also broke the laws of the Land of Fire."
"Father and son alike should pay the corresponding price for what they've done. And as for me, as clan head—failing to notice their wrongdoing is also my fault. I will reflect on it."
Hearing Hiashi's words, Hyūga Neji was momentarily stunned.
So this was the exalted Main House?
This was the awe-inspiring Hiashi-sama who, with a single seal to trigger the Caged Bird cursed seal, could reduce Father to unbearable agony?
Before Uchiha Keizumi's [Absolute Justice], it turned out even the Hyūga Main House wasn't much at all.
The Main House, so lofty within the Hyūga clan, outside the clan repeatedly shrank back—and repeatedly bowed its head to others.
In a daze, Neji felt the glossy filter that had enshrined the Main House in his heart crack with a web of fine fissures.
Just then, Neji heard Uchiha Keizumi speak.
"You say you've reflected? That's pretty funny—almost made me laugh."
Both Neji and Hiashi froze.
Neji looked up, bewildered, at Uchiha Keizumi's back. To him, what Hiashi had just said clearly counted as backing down—and as self-reflection, didn't it?
After all, Hyūga Hiashi was the clan head. If even he could say such things, how was that not yielding? You could even call it a little cowardly, no?
Uchiha Keizumi's gaze settled on Hyūga Hiashi's face.
For some reason, that stare actually put Hiashi a little on edge.
Keizumi went on, "You only admitted that what Hyūga Jinsuke did years ago was indeed evil—but you did not admit that what he did last night was wrong.
"That tells me that, in your mind—shaped by those rotten clan rules that have taken root—the Branch House elder Hyūga Yokogari, who tried to break the Caged Bird cursed seal… was someone who more than deserved to die.
"You believe Jinsuke was right to torture him. You think Yokogari died only because his luck ran out and an old illness relapsed."
"Your true thoughts are exactly the same as Jinsuke's were before he died, because the two of you think in the same way."
"In your eyes, the exalted Hyūga Main House sitting on the heads of the Branch House is not wrong at all."
"Am I right, Hyūga Hiashi?"
Hiashi stood there, stunned; Hyūga Neji went rigid from head to toe.
Neji snapped back to himself.
Right!
Hiashi had never actually said that "Hyūga Jinsuke's torture of Hyūga Yokogari, causing an old ailment to relapse and kill him," was wrong!
What Hiashi claimed to reflect on wasn't this at all. In other words, he hadn't spared a shred of empathy for the Branch House shinobi.
And yet I, moments ago, naively thought he had truly reflected—that he had truly realized one should not treat the Branch House like this.
I even held an indescribable "hope" for Hiashi, wishing he might treat the Branch House a little better.
Wishing he would admit that the Branch House elder Hyūga Yokogari was not in the wrong.
When… did I start setting the bar so low for the Hyūga Main House? I carry the hatred of my father becoming a scapegoat—so why, without knowing why, did I lean toward the Main House?
As Neji pressed himself with these questions, Hiashi drew a deep breath and finally spoke. "Keizumi, you don't understand the Hyūga clan's situation. It was certainly bad that Hyūga Jinsuke deliberately tortured Hyūga Yokogari for 30 minutes, but it was merely an excessive impulse on top of a reasonable punishment."
"Or put it this way… in handling Hyūga Yokogari according to Hyūga clan rules, he was right; in that overly extreme, deliberate torture, he was wrong. That much, I acknowledge."
"I do not believe Hyūga Yokogari deserved to die, and I regret his passing—but that does not mean he did no wrong."
"The Caged Bird cursed seal is the foundation that has allowed the Hyūga bloodline to continue for several hundred—nearly a thousand—years without interruption. Hyūga Yokogari's attempt to break it meant he was digging at the Hyūga clan's roots."
"The Main House could never allow actions that seek to destroy the continuation of the Hyūga bloodline."
Hiashi paused, as if he had regained a bit of confidence. With a solemn, earnest expression, he said, "Hyūga Jinsuke was wrong, but Hyūga Yokogari was also wrong. That is the view I stand by."
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