"Move aside," Neji Hyūga said calmly.
"Neji, you can't touch Hinata," Aoi Hyūga said sternly, her body tense. "If you harm Hinata again, there really will be no coming back!"
"I said, move aside," Neji Hyūga's voice suddenly dropped to freezing point. "This is the final warning!"
"Otherwise, you'll die by my hand, just like the Main Family members upstairs!"
With that, he slowly raised his hand, stained with thick blood, and pointed his palm at Aoi Hyūga, who was shielding Hinata Hyūga.
The bloody smell in the air seemed to instantly become heavier and more pungent.
"What did you say?"
Hearing this, Aoi Hyūga's face suddenly changed. A strong, ominous feeling instantly squeezed her heart.
"Neji Hyūga!"
Homura Hyūga, slumped in a pool of blood against the wall, let out a hoarse, twisted roar. Blood continuously gushed from his mouth. "Cough! Cough, cough! What... what did you do to the Main Family?!"
"What did I do?"
Neji Hyūga slightly turned his head, glancing at the dying Homura Hyūga, a look of unconcealed killing intent on his face.
"Since I've already moved against Hiashi Hyūga, do you really think I would spare their lives?" he said.
This sentence crashed into the minds of Aoi Hyūga and Homura Hyūga.
Despite their suspicions, hearing this cold admission firsthand struck them like lightning, their blood instantly freezing.
"Why?"
Hinata Hyūga, hiding behind Aoi Hyūga, could no longer distinguish between fear and the fury ignited by this cruel truth. Her voice trembled. "Why would you do that..."
"Naturally, for these eyes!"
Neji Hyūga cut her off, his hand slowly rising to gently stroke his eye socket with a half-mad, feverish intensity, bordering on the macabre.
"Didn't you know?"
"The Byakugan, just like the Sharingan, can evolve through extreme emotional stimulus if the talent is great enough!"
"These eyes are called the Tenseigan!"
His expression gradually became frantic and hideous, his lips curling into an arc of near-madness.
"So, I killed Hiashi Hyūga! I killed those old fogeys of the Main Family! I killed them all!" His face radiated a sickly, intoxicated delight as he sneered.
"With their blood and their lives, with all the accumulated rage and hatred in my heart! I finally obtained it—this mighty power that can break free from the cage!"
This was, of course, a lie.
Neji Hyūga still remembered his father's final instruction. He was not a madman like Itachi Uchiha and would not target Hinata or other innocents just to awaken the Tenseigan.
However, the power of these eyes was too strong, too tempting. Even in its current incomplete state, his strength had surged.
If the Branch Family or outsiders knew that the true method to awaken the Tenseigan only required the so-called Ōtsutsuki bloodline and a large number of Byakugan, then all members of the Hyūga Clan, including Hinata, would face endless assassination attempts.
Thus, he could only lie, claiming that the Tenseigan awakening method was similar to the Mangekyō Sharingan, relying on intense emotional stimulus.
The only difference from the Sharingan was that it relied more on the explosive release after intense emotional suppression, rather than the Uchiha-style method.
Since only he knew of the Tenseigan's existence, and only he had evolved the Byakugan, he was the sole authority on the explanation. Even if others suspected, it would be useless.
However, the three people present did not know he was lying.
Seeing the genuine savagery and madness on Neji Hyūga's blood-splattered face, and hearing the twisted yet internally consistent logic in his words.
A piercing chill shot from the soles of Aoi and Homura's feet straight to the top of their heads; their very souls seemed to tremble.
The Hyūga Clan's Byakugan can also awaken a greater power through extreme emotional stimulus, just like the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan?
Why was this never recorded in the clan's ancient texts?
Why did the successive Main Family leaders never mention it?
How did Neji Hyūga discover this?
At this thought, Aoi Hyūga suddenly seemed to realize something. The shock on her face receded, replaced by uncontrollable fury. "It was you!"
"All those Main Family members who died periodically—you killed them all!"
"That's right," Neji Hyūga admitted candidly. "I originally snuck into the Forbidden Scroll Library to secretly learn the Main Family's secret techniques, but I unexpectedly stumbled upon the secret of the Tenseigan!"
"Then, that old fool saw me. I had no choice but to use his life to verify the truth of this secret!"
"Cough! Cough, cough! You bastard! You animal!" Homura Hyūga coughed up blood, using his last strength to curse. "You are destroying the very foundation of the Hyūga Clan!"
Neji Hyūga's smile abruptly vanished, leaving only cold, obsessive killing intent. He said chillingly, "Itachi Uchiha could do it, so why can't Neji Hyūga?"
"My only regret is that I wasn't extreme enough, that my hatred for the Main Family wasn't deep enough. I'm still just a step away from the true Tenseigan!"
"Do you want the tragedy of the Uchiha Clan to be re-enacted in the Hyūga Clan?"
Aoi Hyūga's face was dark, her voice trembling with anger. "The rage, fear, and resentment of those dead clan members..."
"Will all turn into nourishment for the 'Hollows' after they die! The entire Branch Family, the entire Leaf Village, will be dragged down by your madness!"
"That's right!" Homura Hyūga, driven mad by the immense shock and the despair of impending death, cursed and spat out the words. "You butchered your kin and defied human decency!"
"You will be punished! You will pay the most agonizing price for this! The vengeful spirits of our dead will definitely kill you!"
In addition to anger and madness, his face held an intense jealousy—jealousy that Neji Hyūga had managed to break free from the cage!
Why? Why could Neji Hyūga obtain such power? Why could Neji Hyūga break free from the fate of the Caged Bird?
Why wasn't it me?!
"You speak of punishment?"
As if hearing the most absurd joke in the world, Neji Hyūga first let out a low, suppressed chuckle. "Heh heh heh... HAHAHAHA!!!"
The laughter grew louder, more frantic, turning into an ear-splitting, mocking, and grief-stricken roar of madness that sent shivers down their spines!
Neji Hyūga's laughter suddenly cut off, his blood-soaked eyes bursting with hatred and resentment as he screamed at Homura Hyūga: "Punishment! Punishment!"
"If there truly exists a so-called punishment in this world, if there truly exists a God who can dispense impartial judgment..."
"Why did He not punish the ancestors who developed and instituted this Caged Bird Seal and its rules?"
"Why did He turn a blind eye to this centuries-long, sanctimonious oppression? Why did He allow such evil to continue under the name of 'tradition' and 'customs'?"
"WHY?!"
Boom!
He stomped forward violently, and his raised fist, transformed into a shockwave, smashed into Homura Hyūga's body.
"Aah!!" Homura Hyūga let out a sharp shriek. His body was deeply embedded into the cracked stone wall. More blood and fragments of internal organs poured from his mouth.
"Why must the children of the Branch Family be branded with this accursed slave seal?"
Boom!
Neji punched again, cutting off Homura Hyūga's scream, leaving only broken, rasping gasps.
"Why was my father, merely born a moment later, pushed out by those old fools to be Hiashi Hyūga's scapegoat?"
Boom!
Crack, crack! Snap!
With one punch, the sound of intricate bone fragments breaking rang out within Homura Hyūga's body.
"Why could those wastes, simply by being Main Family, comfortably enjoy the best resources, live off the peace purchased by the Branch Family, and order us around like dirt?"
Boom!
Pfft!
With one punch, Homura Hyūga's body deflated. Large torrents of blood spurted out like a fountain, splashing onto the wall and floor—a horrific sight.
"Why did I have to strive and train with everything I had, only to be unable to break out of this cage of innate baseness? Why did I have to pay the price of losing everything just to get this far?!"
"WHY?! Tell me!"
Boom!
Like bursting a human-shaped bag of red liquid, the stored fluid and solid matter exploded with a bang across the wall. Blood and shattered tissue sprayed everywhere!
"..."
The passage fell into a suffocating silence.
Only Neji Hyūga's heaving chest and heavy breathing, and the thick, nauseating smell of blood, permeated the air.
But soon, a cold, ominous aura suddenly erupted from Homura Hyūga's corpse, which was pinned to the wall!
Buzz!!
A chill carrying endless malice and hatred instantly spread out!
This sudden change caused Aoi Hyūga, who was rigidly standing far away and fully alert against Neji Hyūga, to turn pale.
At the same time, in the underground secret room of Hiashi Hyūga's estate.
"Hoo-ho! Hoo..."
Hiashi Hyūga, his limbs cruelly shattered and his body sprawled on the ground like a pile of mud, had long lost his human form.
His tongue had been ripped out by the roots, and his nose and ears cruelly sliced off. At this moment, he could only produce broken sounds filled with despair and hatred from the depths of his throat.
His face, exposing white bone, was twisted and hideous from unspeakable pain, showing only raw suffering and a desire for death.
Beside him, the corpses of the other three Main Family elders were laid out in an equally gruesome manner—all four limbs severed, ears, nose, and tongues cut off. They had clearly endured inhuman torture before death.
"Hoo..."
Danzō Shimura, leaning on his cane, stood before Hiashi Hyūga. His sole eye glinted with cold light as he gazed down at the "mass of flesh" that was still faintly twitching at his feet.
Finally, he clearly felt a cold, foul aura, filled with immense negative energy, frantically gushing from the bodies of Hiashi Hyūga and the other four corpses!
"It's done! It's finally done!"
An excited smile suddenly erupted on Danzō's face. He hissed at the mass of flesh, which was gradually being enveloped by dark energy, "Come! Turn into a 'Hollow'!"
"Let me kill you with my own hands! Let your resentment, your despair, all your unwillingness, become the power that sustains me!"
Aoi Hyūga's mood was the complete opposite of his excitement.
"This is bad!"
Looking at the corpse that had begun to transform, her face became extremely ugly. She glared at Neji Hyūga, grinding her teeth. "Neji Hyūga, you've really doomed us this time!"
But Neji Hyūga seemed not to hear her anger.
As if sensing something, he slowly raised his head, his gaze seemingly piercing through layers of walls and rock, looking toward the sky.
An instinct rooted in his soul drove him to slowly raise his hand, pointing toward the ceiling of the passage above...
Boom!!
The rock ceiling above violently exploded!
Amidst the flying debris, a black shape seemed to be guided downward, landing in his hand!
It was a strikingly shaped, unsheathed tachi (long-bladed katana).
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