How Could It Be Willing to Return to a Small Cage?

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"You..."

The intensely seductive words reached his ears, startling the dazed Hizashi Hyuga. He instinctively staggered back a step, nearly stepping into empty air.

"What exactly are you?" Hizashi's scalp tingled as he looked at the Black Robe beside him. He could not help asking in a trembling voice, "Why are you telling me all this?"

"I am merely pruning away pests while waiting to see what sort of flower will bloom."

As Hyuga Yunchuan spoke, although Hizashi could not see the face hidden in the shadows, he seemed to see a pair of eyes—eyes harboring profound malice.

It was like a fire burning. Not fierce, not spectacular, merely flickering silently.

The other man did not care what his fire would ignite or destroy. As the Branch Family Head, he was nothing more than firewood to feed the flames.

Hizashi Hyuga fell silent.

"The Main Branch of the Hyuga Clan is the root of the Hyuga Clan. So long as the root remains, it does not matter whether the branches and leaves wither or flourish."

That was what his father, the clan head, had drilled into him since childhood.

Yet when he recalled Hinata's frail, weak form during training, riddled with openings, all sorts of dark thoughts began to surge uncontrollably into his mind.

"With Neji's talent, he could clearly become a powerhouse of the Hyuga Clan. Yet because he was born into the Branch Family, he had the Caged Bird Cursed Seal planted on him, losing his freedom completely and living beneath the Main Branch's shadow for the rest of his life..."

"Yet the Main Branch's uselessly timid daughter could sit back and reap the benefits, naturally enjoying Neji's protection and making him offer up his life..."

As a father, having to personally deprive his own child of freedom was simply too pathetic.

For a brief moment of freedom, he could choose to die humbly.

But he wanted Neji to live more freely—to live as a flesh-and-blood human being.

Not as anyone's subordinate, much less burdened by so-called fate.

"Believe me. There is nothing shameful about selling your soul to the devil."

Hyuga Yunchuan said softly, "The shame is in failing to sell it for a good price."

"...What can you do?"

After a long silence, Hizashi Hyuga finally spoke. "What must I pay?"

"I can grant you the power to break free from the cage." Hyuga Yunchuan continued calmly, "You must offer everything you possess—your name, your future, your life, your soul..."

"You..." Hizashi Hyuga froze for a moment, then could not help asking, "This deal is completely unfair."

"Is that not what devils are like?" Hyuga Yunchuan's tone was utterly candid. "So, what is your answer?"

Hizashi Hyuga's breathing gradually became ragged. Even so, even knowing full well the other man's malice, he found himself unable to argue.

The other man had truly stripped him bare. Like a devil who saw through human desire, he meticulously shaved away his flesh inch by inch, laying every ounce of his desires upon the table.

After a moment, he clenched his teeth and shook his head. "I do not believe you can help Neji and me break free from the cage. Nor do I believe anyone can."

So long as the Caged Bird Cursed Seal existed, Neji could never truly escape the cage.

But even the Main Branch's head had only a method to activate the Curse Mark, not one to remove it.

"Fine." Hyuga Yunchuan did not mind his doubts. He nodded and extended an arm from the shadows beneath his black robe. "Then experience it once for yourself."

At the same time, he silently recited in his mind, "Manifest item—Caged Bird Cursed Seal removal, ten seconds."

[Spend 300 Reality Points. Manifest?]

"As expected, without asking for a removal method, merely removing it for ten seconds does not cost much." Hyuga Yunchuan's eyes flickered as he answered inwardly, "Manifest."

Hearing him, Hizashi Hyuga froze. Watching the two fingers held together extend toward his forehead, he felt as though the blood throughout his body stopped for an instant, and he instinctively tried to take a step back.

But in the next moment, those two fingers stopped before his forehead, and a sudden tremor surged through his heart.

It was as though a crack had opened in his forehead. A clear spring flowed in from outside, splitting into several thin streams that washed through every blockage in his brain.

Hizashi Hyuga even heard the sound of invisible shackles breaking apart. The veil covering his eyes seemed to slowly lift.

The world had never been so clear.

Hizashi Hyuga's pupils trembled. His first reaction after recovering his senses was for veins to bulge around his eyes.

"Byakugan, activate!!"

It was gone?

It was really gone.

The blind spot in his vision was truly gone!

How was that possible?!

Hizashi Hyuga could not believe what he was feeling, yet a crazed grin of ecstasy gradually spread across his face.

"Hahahaha!"

Was this what freedom felt like?

Lightness, clarity, joy...

All sorts of sensations filled every part of his body. It was as though some hidden restraint had been lifted, and the entire world had become bright at that very moment.

Hizashi Hyuga completely lost the composure he had always maintained. His laughter was wild and unrestrained, so crazed that tears even gathered in the corners of his eyes.

Others could never truly understand this feeling—the feeling of having once possessed something, only to have it ruthlessly taken away, of having one's life held in another's hands at every moment, and then suddenly regaining what had been lost.

Yet soon, the faded Caged Bird mark on Hizashi Hyuga's forehead returned.

And in his once flawless, jade-like 360-degree Byakugan vision, a blind spot once again spread out directly behind his first thoracic vertebra. The world became dim again.

"What happened?"

The joyful expression on Hizashi Hyuga's face instantly froze, and even a hint of bewildered pain appeared in his eyes.

But he quickly remembered that this had only been an "experience."

"You!" Hizashi Hyuga suddenly grabbed the arm of the man beside him and asked impatiently, "What do you want me to do?"

Hyuga Yunchuan was neither surprised nor eager to answer. Instead, he asked, "You and Hyuga Hiashi are identical twins in appearance, correct?"

"...Yes."

Seeing him nod with a gloomy expression, Hyuga Yunchuan continued in the same calm tone, "I need you to become Hyuga Hiashi, and for Hizashi Hyuga to die from this day onward."

"What?" Hizashi Hyuga's pupils contracted as he blurted out, "Impossible!"

This man wanted him to fake his death, then replace his older brother?

How could that possibly be done?

"You said you could." Hyuga Yunchuan looked at the hand gripping his arm, raised his own hand, and gently pried it open with slight force. "You only need to obey orders."

Moonlight cast the two men's shadows onto the ground, where they swayed amid the shifting shadows of the surrounding trees.

"..."

Thinking of everything he had just experienced, the overwhelming desire nearly crushed him. Hizashi Hyuga gritted his teeth. "Fine! I'll do it!"

Seeing him so distraught, Hyuga Yunchuan chuckled inwardly.

A bird that had lost its freedom briefly regained it, soaring once more through the vast sky.

How could it be willing to return to a small cage?

However, Hizashi Hyuga was merely a supporting character he had chosen.

The truly important chess piece...

Hyuga Yunchuan's gaze shifted slightly toward a deathly silent residence in the distance.