Chapter Summaries

After returning to his childhood before receiving the Caged Bird curse mark, Neji challenged Hizashi’s teachings about the Hyuga Clan’s hierarchy and promised to protect his father. Neji explained his memories of the future, and Hizashi began considering how to secure his son a place in Daren Yi’s organization.

• Hizashi instructed young Neji to show respect to Lady Hinata and follow Hyuga Clan etiquette at her birthday celebration.
• Neji rejected calling Hinata “Lady Hinata” and denounced the Branch Family’s status as slaves to the Main Family.
• Hizashi smashed the tea table in anger, then broke down crying after Neji confronted him with the truth about their family’s position.
• Neji comforted Hizashi and promised to protect him and prevent the tragedy from happening again.
• Neji recounted his future experiences, including meeting Daren Yi, becoming the Hyuga Clan’s future Clan Head, and returning through the Bitter Tea of the Mortal World.
• Hizashi questioned Neji about the Branch Family and the organization’s membership assessment, then focused on obtaining an official position to help his son escape the Hyuga Clan’s suffering.

Neji spent a joyful day reconnecting with Hizashi, then told him about the dangers awaiting the Shinobi World and his plans to protect the family. The next morning, Neji found Hizashi dead and discovered a farewell note explaining that Hizashi had chosen to sever the cage of family.

• Hizashi and Neji spent the day together, laughing and talking about Neji's life and the future calamities he had witnessed.
• Hizashi questioned Neji about the Hyuga clan, Clan Head Hiashi, and Neji's companions, then recorded his thoughts late into the night.
• Neji reassured Hizashi and went to bed, while Hizashi stayed in the study and wrote a note.
• Neji woke to the smell of blood, rushed into Hizashi's study, and found his father dead in his chair.
• Neji picked up Hizashi's farewell note, which said he had died to sever the cage of family that bound Neji.

After reading Hizashi Hyuga’s suicide note urging him to escape the Hyuga Clan’s invisible constraints, Neji vowed to remember his father’s wishes. He then publicly challenged Hyuga Hiashi during Hinata Hyuga’s birthday ceremony, leaving the clan facing an open confrontation.

• Neji read Hizashi Hyuga’s suicide note, which warned him not to let the clan bind him through affection and obligation, and urged him to pursue his potential freely.
• Neji wept over his father’s words and swore to remember them and never cry again.
• On Hinata Hyuga’s third birthday, the Hyuga Clan gathered for a ceremony honoring her as the future heir.
• Neji arrived dragging a black iron coffin holding Hizashi’s body and demanded that Hyuga Hiashi die on behalf of his father and the Branch Family.

Neji confronted Hiashi over the Hyuga Clan's rules, and Hiashi ordered him captured after Neji refused to submit. Neji revealed Sage Mode and killed two Branch Family Jonin with a Sage Art attack, leaving Hiashi and the gathered clan members stunned.

• Hiashi resolved that Neji had to die to preserve the Hyuga Clan's order and declared that the two of them could not reconcile their opposing stances.
• Hiashi ordered Hiromu Hyuga to capture Neji, then learned that Neji had already knocked Hiromu and his subordinates unconscious.
• Neji activated Sage Mode and warned that he would kill anyone who stood in his way.
• Two Branch Family Jonin moved to confront Neji, and he recognized their killing intent as a final act of kindness toward him and Hizashi.
• Neji struck both Jonin with Sage Art: Eight Trigrams Empty Palm, killing them instantly and shocking Hiashi and the clan members.

Neji used Sage Art: Gentle Fist Style: Ascension: Life Burn: Fury Domain to overwhelm the Hyuga Clan, and his body transformed as his hair turned white. The Hyuga Clan Elders mistook his injuries for signs that he was dying and urged the branch family ninjas to attack him.

• A Clan Elder condemned Neji for attacking a fellow clansman, but Neji ignored the elders and advanced toward Hiashi with the black iron coffin.
• Neji’s Sage Mode pressure overwhelmed the gathering, and Hiashi caught Hinata when the mental shock knocked her unconscious.
• Neji unleashed Fury Domain, pushing his body beyond its limits and injuring himself as he fought to refine the technique.
• Neji’s injuries healed rapidly, while his hair turned white and his body and eyes began transforming as they absorbed Chakra, Nature Energy, and Emotion Power.
• Neji considered his changing body and the Hyuga bloodline, then resolved to force his potential to grow even at the cost of his sanity or life.
• The Hyuga Clan Elders declared that Neji was near death and ordered the branch family ninjas to besiege him.

Neji dragged Hizashi’s coffin through the Hyuga compound while killing the branch-family ninjas who tried to attack him with long-range Sage Art strikes. He halted when the Caged Bird Curse Mark was activated on ordinary Hyuga clansmen, leaving them writhing in pain and humiliation.

• Neji advanced through the compound, sniping attacking branch-family ninjas with modified Eight Trigrams Empty Palm strikes.
• The clan elders watched in terror, and Hiashi froze under Neji’s pressure, afraid that any movement would get him killed.
• Several elders withdrew while Neji continued dragging Hizashi’s coffin without reacting.
• The Caged Bird Curse Mark was activated on Hyuga clansmen hiding nearby, causing them to collapse and writhe in agony.
• The curse’s pain stopped, but the clansmen remained helpless on the ground, and a young girl wept after losing control of her body.

Neji watched two Branch Family members die and confirmed that the Hyuga elders could activate the Caged Bird Curse Mark. After the elders threatened to kill every marked Hyuga if he killed Hiashi, Neji killed Hiashi anyway.

• A Hyuga girl died by smashing her head against a pillar, and a boy who tried to avenge her was killed by the Caged Bird Curse Mark.
• A Hyuga elder warned Neji that the elders could kill Branch Family members and revealed that they had also killed the unmarked infants and children.
• The elder declared that killing Hiashi would trigger the deaths of every remaining Hyuga, while Hiashi ordered the elders to stop.
• Neji used Sage Art: Eight Trigrams Empty Palm to pierce Hiashi's chest and kill him.

Neji’s plan ended with the deaths of every member of the Hyuga Clan, leaving him alone in the compound with an unconscious girl. Overwhelmed by grief, he pushed his life-burning cultivation further, transformed into an Otsutsuki Demonic Body, and accepted that his shortened lifespan might kill him unless he could transform again.

• The Hyuga elder threatened Neji and declared that the Branch Family were slaves, while the activated Caged Bird Curse Mark killed every Branch Family member in the sealed compound.
• Neji admitted that he had deliberately allowed the massacre to happen, and sensed that only he and an unconscious little girl remained alive in the Hyuga Compound.
• Grieving over the corpses, Neji drove his Ascension Life Burn Gentle Fist Style beyond its limits and recklessly consumed his vitality.
• Neji’s body transformed further: his skin and flesh grew pale, his hair gained a blue tint, and two small horns appeared on his head.
• Neji named his new state the Otsutsuki Demonic Body and accepted that his life might end in his forties unless he reached another transformation.

After wiping out the Hyuga Clan, Neji reflected on the limits of severing human bonds and embraced the idea of founding a Demonic Sect to fight the Otsutsuki. He asked Hiruzen Sarutobi to destroy Konohagakure and join his cultivation, and Hiruzen prepared to fight.

• Neji concluded that death could not sever human bonds and that breaking the cage within the heart was harder than breaking the Caged Bird.
• Neji's Shadow Clones lifted the barrier around the Hyuga Compound, and Hiruzen Sarutobi arrived with others to investigate the silence and stench of blood.
• Neji told Hiruzen Sarutobi that he had wiped out the Hyuga Clan and acknowledged his Ascension Life Burn Gentle Fist Style as a dangerous forbidden art.
• Neji resolved to found a Demonic Sect and recruit powerful ninja to cultivate demonic arts against the Otsutsuki Clan.
• Neji asked Hiruzen Sarutobi to annihilate Konohagakure and join his sect, and Hiruzen summoned Monkey King: Enma to prepare for battle.

Neji defeated Hiruzen Sarutobi and tried to take him from Konohagakure, but the village's ninja surrounded them, so Neji prepared to use them as cultivation materials. Daren Yi finished recounting Neji's history, while Hinata struggled to accept her circumstances and slapped Naruto after he tried to comfort her.

• Neji's Mountain Crusher devastated the Hyuga Compound, killed many Anbu, and left Hiruzen Sarutobi and Enma mortally injured.
• Neji refused to accept Hiruzen's answer and announced he would take the Third Hokage away from Konohagakure.
• Konohagakure's ninja arrived, surrounded Neji, and refused to let him leave; Neji thanked them for becoming materials for his cultivation.
• Daren Yi told Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata that Neji had spared civilians and weaker ninja while protecting Konohagakure from other villages.
• Sasuke asked whether Neji's demonic arts could increase strength, while Hinata questioned whether she was real and Naruto assured her that she was.
• Hinata slapped Naruto and pulled away from him, as Daren Yi and Sasuke clapped at the scene.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Daren Yi learned that Iruka was Konohagakure’s acting Hokage and decided to offer its remaining residents refuge in Sasuke’s world. At the Hokage Building, they found Iruka fighting Mizuki over the Hokage position, though Sasuke dismissed both as weak Chunin.

• Hinata told Naruto and Sasuke that Iruka had become acting Hokage and that the Uchiha Clan had disappeared.
• Naruto proposed moving Konohagakure’s remaining residents to Sasuke’s world, and Sasuke agreed.
• Daren Yi warned Hinata that she would perish with the world if she refused their help, then led the others toward the Hokage Building.
• Iruka and Mizuki fought over the Hokage position, each declaring that the loser would leave Konohagakure.
• Daren Yi explained Mizuki’s history to Naruto, while Sasuke mocked the fighters’ weak combat skills.

Sasuke used Perfect Susanoo to silence Konohagakure and order everyone to prepare for relocation. Daren Yi opened a gate to Sasuke’s world, where Sasuke announced that eleven Konohagakures would merge with the one there, leaving Orochimaru and Obito curious and uneasy.

• Daren Yi asked Sasuke to quiet the fighting and explain Konohagakure’s relocation, so Sasuke summoned Perfect Susanoo.
• Sasuke frightened Iruka, Mizuki, and the villagers into silence, then ordered everyone to pack and line up for the move.
• Sasuke demonstrated Susanoo’s power by slicing distant mountains in half and asked whether anyone objected; no one spoke.
• Daren Yi opened a giant gate connecting worlds, and Sasuke recognized the landscape beyond it as Konohagakure in his world.
• Sasuke told the Police Force ninja to notify Shikaku Nara and prepare for eleven Konohagakures to merge.
• Orochimaru and Obito watched the gate from the crowd and wondered what lay beyond it and what the merger meant.

Ino Yamanaka and a group from her world crossed through a gate into a vast canyon, where they met people arriving from other worlds. As they admired the scenery, Shikamaru Nara struggled with everyone treating him as a wish-granting creator of their world.

• Ino Yamanaka reassured Sakura Haruno that they would meet many versions of their friends and themselves in the other worlds.
• Tsunade teased Ino about her world existing because of her, while the group noted that Naruto had captured Hiruzen Sarutobi for Neji’s experiments.
• Ino and the others emerged into a majestic canyon and admired its towering cliffs.
• Shikamaru Nara questioned whether the busy streets and Konohagakure symbols meant the canyon was inside the village.
• Choji Akimichi complained that Shikamaru had not made him thinner, and Shikamaru recalled the many impossible wishes people had asked him to grant.

The two teams from different worlds met, and Shikamaru tried to escape the burdens of being named Konoha’s hope by assigning his other self more work. The reunion left the groups bonding across worlds, while Jiraiya eagerly imagined meeting twelve Tsunades.

• Ino greeted Shikamaru and Sakura, delighted to meet their counterparts, while the other Shikamaru quietly tried to retreat from the crowd.
• The Shikamaru burdened with Konoha’s expectations urged Tsunade to make his counterpart handle all the village’s official duties, prompting the other Shikamaru to head for the gate in despair.
• The two Might Guys and two Rock Lees reunited and vowed to train against themselves, while the Tentens worried about the prospect of even more green-clad duplicates.
• The two Jiraiyas exchanged research plans and fantasized about the twelve Tsunades who would appear in the future.

Sasuke welcomed Konohagakure’s visitors from another world and proudly showed them the gorge he had carved into the village. After describing the village’s booming tourism and population, he faced Jiraiya’s question about what had happened to Hiruzen Sarutobi.

• Sasuke appeared in Hokage robes and welcomed the visitors alongside Daren Yi and Naruto.
• Tsunade thanked Sasuke for taking them in, then greeted Daren Yi, while the Inos and Sakuras rushed toward Sasuke before Tsunade pulled them away.
• Shikamaru questioned whether the dramatic mountain-and-waterfall landscape was really Konohagakure, and Sasuke explained that he had reshaped the terrain.
• Sasuke claimed every resident supported his decisions and said tourism, migration, and rising property prices had made Konohagakure wealthy and rapidly expanded its population.
• Jiraiya asked how Sasuke could be the Third Hokage and where this world's Hiruzen Sarutobi was.

Sasuke defended his transformed Konohagakure, while Daren Yi compared him favorably to the disasters in Naruto’s and Neji’s worlds. The visiting Hinatas met a hardened version of themselves who vowed to stop being Hinata, as Obito wondered whether the gathering was an Infinite Tsukuyomi dream.

• Sasuke insisted he was the Third Hokage, and Daren Yi argued that Sasuke was comparatively gentle because he had only given Konohagakure a new look.
• Daren Yi revealed that Naruto had destroyed his world and that Neji had wiped out the Hyuga clan and most of Konohagakure’s strongest fighters in his world.
• Konohagakure migrants from other worlds arrived, including five Hinatas who gathered together.
• The hardened Hinata criticized the others for relying on Naruto and urged them to depend on themselves, then declared that she would no longer be Hinata despite having no new name in mind.
• Obito watched familiar figures emerge from the gates and wondered whether he was inside an Infinite Tsukuyomi dream and had already completed the Moon Eye Plan.

At a gathering of Hokage from twelve worlds, Neji discussed his life-burning Gentle Fist cultivation technique and its deadly risks. He revealed that multiple Kage had died testing it, while Naruto asked when others could begin training.

• The Hokage and their officials met in the rebuilt Hokage Building, where Iruka endured ridicule over his infamous draw with a Hokage.
• Daren Yi praised Neji’s transformed appearance and described how his new demonic art combined Gentle Fist with several other techniques.
• Naruto thanked Neji for the gift he and Sasuke had prepared and asked whether the revised technique was ready for cultivation.
• Neji explained that the technique suited Byakugan users trained in Gentle Fist and could kill others who lacked their precise chakra control.
• Neji reported that Hiruzen Sarutobi, Fourth Raikage A, Rasa the Kazekage, Yagura Karatachi the Mizukage, and other Kage had died during testing, with Rasa dying on the second day.

Neji explained that he had persuaded his test subjects to master the demonic arts by promising they could kill him and avenge their villages, while accepting that his own sacrifice could help end the Dark Upheaval. As the conference room reacted to Neji’s astonishing beauty, Daren Yi considered its appeal across different species and wondered whether it reflected a higher form of beauty.

• Neji told Naruto that his test subjects could kill him if they surpassed him, and that whoever did so would inherit his responsibility to face the Otsutsuki Clan and quell the Dark Upheaval.
• Naruto felt a deep connection with Neji’s determination, and the two recognized each other as comrades.
• Ino, Tenten, Sakura, Sasuke, Rock Lee, Might Guy, and other shinobi reacted to Neji’s beauty, while Rock Lee swore to protect his companions and activated the complete Eight Inner Gates Formation Technique.
• Daren Yi teased Neji as the Number One Beauty Under the Starry Sky, and Neji blushed and insisted that he was a boy.
• Daren Yi recalled Kaguya Otsutsuki’s legends and theorized that Neji’s beauty appealed to every species, unlike Tsunade’s human beauty, but he could not yet explain the phenomenon.

Naruto proposed a Konoha Supreme Council to govern the twelve relocated Konohagakures, but negotiations over resources and authority continued until lunchtime. As the group left for the Uchiha banquet, eleven Neji Hyugas asked the young Neji to teach them his Ascension Life Burn Gentle Fist Style, alarming the assembled clan heads.

• Naruto proposed a twelve-seat Konoha Supreme Council and suggested adding seats if more Konohagakures arrived.
• The Hokage and clan leaders argued over resettlement, clan lands, subsidies, industries, and the division of assets and spoils.
• Fugaku invited everyone to the Uchiha Clan banquet, while the gathered Uchiha clan heads showed their unity and the Hyuga clan heads considered doing the same.
• In the corridor, eleven Neji Hyugas asked the young Neji to teach them the Ascension Life Burn Gentle Fist Style.
• The eleven Hiashis begged Neji not to teach them, and Fugaku reassured the shaken group that they had Sasuke to rely on.

Kabuto Yakushi spoke with Hinata about losing their identities as shadows of people from another world, and he tried to draw closer to her by sharing his own confusion. He left to help at the Orphanage, planning to use his usefulness to earn the favor of Hinata, Naruto, and Neji.

• Hinata watched Neji from the corridor until Kabuto Yakushi approached and asked whether she felt lost.
• Kabuto explained that he was a shadow of the real Kabuto Yakushi and described how losing his name had left him unsure of who he was.
• Hinata considered whether she might visit the Orphanage, but she concealed her thoughts behind a distant reply.
• Kabuto left to help the Orphanage staff and reflected on how being useful had helped him survive Danzo's Root Organization.
• Kabuto planned to ease Hinata's confusion and earn the favor of Naruto and Neji, hoping to secure a powerful backer and perhaps become a Hokage.