Although the Hyuga Clan guarded the Byakugan with extreme vigilance, they had never truly ensured that not a single one leaked out. The ninja world teemed with strange secret techniques; even the Caged Bird placed on the heads of Hyuga branch family members might not be impossible to break.
And even if the Caged Bird could not be broken, what about the people bearing it? If a Hyuga branch family ninja were captured, persuaded to defect, and willingly cooperated with the enemy to undo their own Caged Bird, it might not be ineffective—at the end of the day, the Caged Bird was merely a Cursed Seal. Konoha had the Seal of the Dark Seal for dealing with Cursed Seals, and Kirigakure had its own methods as well.
Even the Hyuga Main Branch, who rarely took the battlefield, might not be completely safe.
First of all, even a rigid clan like the Hyuga Clan did not actually have a rule imprisoning Main Branch members and forbidding them from going to the front lines—the Hokage would not permit such a rule to exist either. Clan law above village regulations? They might as well go out and establish a new Konoha.
Thus, there were still Main Branch Hyuga who risked their lives on the battlefields of the ninja world. It was just that they would usually have Hyuga branch family members protecting and supporting them both openly and in secret—protecting those utterly unguarded Byakugan that were like a seventeen-year-old girl traveling alone through India on a shoestring.
Ao did not feel particularly proud of how he had obtained this precious Byakugan on the battlefield years ago. But this eye was, after all, an important strategic resource to both himself and the village. Therefore, he had always cherished it dearly, recording every realization and