Deep in the night, the Hyuga residence was steeped in silence. Moonlight filtered through the paper-latticed windows, casting hazy shadows across the tatami.
Hinata moved barefoot through the estate. The pounding of her heart was clearly audible—once, then again—like it wanted to break free of her ribcage.
Even though she had done this twice in the simulator, now that she was truly here in person, she still couldn't stop waves of nervous tension from rising.
At last—Father's study.
She pushed the door open. Inside was pitch-black, with only a thin sliver of light seeping in from outside, barely offering any illumination.
Hinata leaned back against the door and drew in a deep breath. Veins rose at her temples, and the vessels around her eyes surfaced as well. Walls, floor—the structure of the entire room became clear at a glance, including the hidden entrance to the secret chamber.
Following the structure's guidance, she found the switch and pressed it lightly.
Click! A square seam appeared in the floor. Then a deep, bottomless black passage revealed itself.
Hinata held her breath, steadied herself, and stepped inside.
Behind her, the wall slowly sealed shut, cutting off the last trace of light. The tunnel instantly plunged into absolute darkness—no light at all, no visible lamps or fixtures.
Fortunately, for Hinata with her Byakugan active, every obstacle was as clear as daylight.
She moved quickly, and before long she reached the end.
The secret room was only about ten square meters, simply furnished, with several scrolls stacked inside. There was clearly no ventilation underground; the air was stale and heavy—she had to leave quickly.
Hinata quickly found her target scroll, tucked it into her clothing, and turned back without hesitation.
Back in her room, she immediately unrolled the scroll.
But there was nothing on it.
Hinata froze, flipping through it again and again. She even leaned in and examined it closely—still blank.
How could that be? Did she take the wrong one?
Impossible. There were many scrolls in the secret room, but only this one had given her that strange pull—the same pull she'd felt in the simulator.
She frowned, thinking—then a thought flashed through her mind.
With a shift of intent, she activated her Byakugan again. When she looked at the scroll now, lines of black ink seemed to seep into existence, forming clearly on the previously empty surface.
The writing was still blurry, but she could definitely see more than before.
[The Byakugan bloodline descends from the Sage of Six Paths' younger brother, named Ōtsutsuki—who later dwelled long within the moon palace, as—]
[Our clan split into two branches: one remained on the earth, the other migrated to the moon to follow the ancestor and shoulder a mission—if—then—]
[Later, the Sage of Six Paths founded Ninshū and bore two sons. To avoid the conflict of Ninshū, the clan that remained on earth changed its name to "Hyuga," meaning "the land that faces the sun"—]
Hinata read further, but the next section became completely illegible. No matter how she used the Byakugan, it was nothing but chaos.
She guessed it might be related to the Sage of Six Paths and Ninshū.
So she skipped that part and read what came after.
[In the beginning, the Hyuga were few in number and did not distinguish between one another. But the Ōtsutsuki clan on the moon was numerous, and to carry out the ancestor's will they voluntarily divided into two houses: the main house pursued the ancestor's will, while the branch house protected the main.]
[Yet after the ancestor's death, the clan multiplied, and hearts grew different. Suspicion grew between the two houses, rifts deepened by the day, and both forgot the ancestor's will.]
[One day, someone saw in the ancestor's notes that the Byakugan had a path of evolution—called the "Tenseigan." After years of study, the branch and main each obtained a method.]
[Method one: take Byakugan, gather the power of many eyes into one—seeking qualitative change through quantitative accumulation.]
Killing to take eyes… piling up numbers to force a transformation—
As she read that, a chill crawled up Hinata's spine. She forced herself to continue.
[Method two requires blood as pure as the ancestor's—]
[Later, the branch and main finally entered open conflict. To destroy the main house, the branch voluntarily gouged out their own eyes, merging countless eyes to forge a giant "Tenseigan." Yet the number of Byakugan required was unknown. When newborns grew to a suitable age, their eyes were taken and cast into it. Even so, the day of completion remained far away.]
[Branch members unwilling to offer their eyes fled the moon and went to the world created by the Sage of Six Paths, seeking "Hyuga" protection. They changed names and developed the "Caged Bird" technique to protect their eyes and sever the main house's pursuit.]
[Yet the "Hyuga" of that time believed themselves safe and refused to apply the curse. Then Ninshū collapsed, the ninja world's wars began, and "Hyuga" imitated the moon clan's division of roles, establishing a main house and a branch—]
[—After that—no further contact—The outcome on the moon is unknown.]
Hinata slowly lowered the scroll.
The information was too immense, too heavy—pressing down on her chest until she could barely breathe.
As Kiyonari had said: from Father's standpoint, what he sought was the Hyuga clan's survival and development. But how many years had this ancient clan gone without change?
True "development" was far from easy. That was exactly why Father had retreated from "seeking progress" to "seeking stability."
Hinata's original plan had been to find the secret of Byakugan evolution within this scroll and use it as leverage to negotiate with Father—no, to communicate.
But now, an extremely bold idea surfaced in her mind.
If—somehow—the Ōtsutsuki on the moon reappeared in the ninja world, and they came with the purpose of hunting and seizing Byakugan…
Then the main house would panic, fearing they would become prey. And if the branch lacked the strength to protect them, then—at that point—they might even actively seek the protection of the Caged Bird seal.
…
The next day.
Hinata gripped the scroll tightly, took a deep breath, and knocked on the wooden door.
"Come in."
Hiashi's low voice came from inside. Hinata pushed the door open and entered.
"Hinata? You're here so early. What is it?"
"Father… last night—somehow, I felt a strange summons…"
"A summons?" Hiashi frowned. "What summons?"
"I can't explain it… but the calling was very clear—like a voice coming from deep within my eyes…"
Hinata lifted her head and met her father's eyes directly.
"Following that sensation, I came to your study—and then… I found the secret room."
"You went in?!" Hiashi sprang to his feet, staring sharply at her. Despite the intensity, his eyes were strangely calm—there wasn't much true rage.
"Father, please look at this first."
Hinata stepped forward and slowly unrolled the scroll on the desk, revealing the aged, yellowed paper.
Hiashi stared at it, his anger shifting to confusion.
What… is this? I've never seen it—no, how could there be something in the secret room that I don't know about—
But in the next instant, a foreign yet "familiar" memory flooded into his mind.
A childhood scene: he followed his father into the secret room—his father solemnly handed him a black wooden box, warning it was a secret only successive clan heads could know—he opened it and saw this ancient scroll—only a few scattered words on it—Hyuga—
Sage of Six Paths—bloodline—
No—this memory—when did I—
New and old memories collided violently. Yet in a single moment, the "older" memory completely overwrote the new.
The scroll had always been in the secret room.
Every clan head had known it existed.
It recorded only scattered words stating the Hyuga were descendants of the Sage of Six Paths.
These "facts" rooted themselves in Hiashi's mind. He felt no strangeness, no suspicion.
His confusion vanished, replaced by an even, matter-of-fact calm.
He spoke slowly. "Only successive clan heads know of this. But it contains only a few scattered words—saying only that the Hyuga are descendants of the Sage of Six Paths. Nothing more."
"Father—this scroll doesn't only have those words."
Hiashi frowned. "I have seen it. It really only has—"
"The contents can only be seen with the Byakugan," Hinata cut in. "And— the more advanced the eyes are, the purer the bloodline, the more you can see."
Hinata took a deep breath and began recounting the story she had crafted all night.
"According to what the scroll says, our Hyuga bloodline descends from the Sage of Six Paths' younger brother. And—at the very beginning, we didn't live in the ninja world. Our ancestors originally lived on… the moon."
"The moon?!" Hiashi was stunned—just as Hinata had been when she first learned it.
Hinata nodded and continued. "Back then, our clan was called 'Ōtsutsuki,' and it was also divided into a main house and a branch—for the ancestor's will and a mission."
"A will? A mission? What is it?"
"That… I don't know. Maybe my eyes still aren't advanced enough to see that part."
Hinata drew in another breath and went on. "Later, the main and branch houses went to war. Someone discovered in the ancestor's notes that the Byakugan could evolve—and that this evolved power could be used to fulfill their mission."
"One method was to merge vast numbers of Byakugan into one. So—for greater power, to win the war, to fulfill the mission—the Ōtsutsuki began… killing each other."
Her voice trembled. Weaving half-truths and half-lies made her nerves extremely tight—her fingertips even dug into her palm. Yet given what she was describing, that tension also felt "natural."
Hiashi's brow knotted. "We were originally branch family?!"
Hinata nodded. "But that no longer matters. What matters is that the Caged Bird technique was created then—to prevent the moon clan from hunting them down."
"But later, war erupted in the ninja world, and under growing pressure, the Hyuga clan split again into main and branch… and gradually forgot this history."
After a long silence, Hiashi raised his head, fatigue filling his eyes.
"Hinata… even if all of that is true, so what? Those were events from hundreds—perhaps even thousands—of years ago. The moon would have been one clan at most. Those people can't still be alive."
"Father," Hinata's voice suddenly became heavy, solemn. "That is why I was summoned."
"That's impossible!" Hiashi snapped his head up, glaring at her.
He didn't believe it. A summons—this was all too absurd.
But Hinata continued, calm as if stating simple fact—and that calmness made Hiashi's heart waver.
"The war on the moon is about to be decided. Soon—they will turn their eyes back toward the ninja world and resume the plan they never completed: forging the legendary Tenseigan from a vast number of Byakugan, to fulfill their mission."
"The Tenseigan?"
"That is the ultimate evolved form of the Byakugan," Hinata explained. "It's said to be power equal to the Sage of Six Paths' Rinnegan—power that can rewrite fate itself."
Hiashi's face grew darker and darker, cold sweat beading at his temples. If what Hinata said was true, then the Hyuga clan—no, only the main house—would suffer first.
But if taking the eyes of all main-house members still wasn't enough to forge a Tenseigan—
"You."
Hiashi took a deep breath, forcing calm. He still didn't believe it—because he couldn't see it.
"What makes you think they'll come? A so-called summons? Hinata, do you understand how absurd this sounds? People living on the moon? Coming to kill and steal eyes? It sounds like a child's story!"
"How do you prove any of this is real?!"
Hinata stared at her father in silence. Something complex flickered across her eyes—then she spoke four calm words.
"Because of this."
Boom!
The instant the Byakugan activated, a terrifying pressure exploded from Hinata's body.
It wasn't chakra fluctuation.
It was power itself—condensed into a visible, tangible force.
In the next moment, everything before her—desk, furnishings—burst apart, fragments scattering violently.
Hiashi felt a mountain-like weight crushing down from all directions, pressing him so hard he could barely breathe. If he weren't strong enough, he would have been blown backward outright.
Rumble—
The entire room shook. Fine cracks spidered across the walls, and dust rained from the ceiling.
Hiashi's legs went weak. If he hadn't been bracing against the shattered remnants of the desk, he would have dropped to his knees. He tried to rise, but his body felt like it had been filled with lead—unable to move. Then his vision darkened.
Right—Byakugan—use Byakugan—
Hiashi instinctively tried to activate his own, but chakra throughout his body was as if frozen, sluggish and unwilling to flow.
Even though his overall strength far exceeded Hinata's, in this moment—before the absolute difference of pure bloodline and ocular power—he was like a lesser being facing a higher one, unable to muster even a hint of resistance.
Is this… what the Byakugan's true power was meant to be?
Is this… the posture the Hyuga clan was meant to have?
~~~
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