Why Didn't You Have the Caged Bird Carved Into Yourself for Protection?

"Damn it! Damn it! Why did the Mist Village ambush us here?"

Hyuga Hisanobu raced through the forest in a sorry state. His Byakugan was already activated, and as he watched the Kirigakure Ninja closing in behind him, despair showed on his face.

As a member of the Hyuga Main Family, he had resented the clan elders' overprotectiveness. So he'd brought his guards and headed to the battlefield between Konoha and the Mist Village.

At first, things had gone just as he'd expected. Already a Special Jonin, he'd made a name for himself here. The Hidden Mist Technique, which Kirigakure excelled at, was useless against the Byakugan. His many comrades had praised him, satisfying his vanity.

But today, he'd received a mission to rendezvous with some comrades.

And that was when the nightmare began.

When he reached the rendezvous point, his comrades were nowhere to be seen. Instead, eleven Kirigakure Ninja were waiting for him, including three Jonin!

The enemy had hidden far beyond the Byakugan's range. By the time he sensed them, they'd already completed their encirclement.

If the two Branch Family guards he'd brought hadn't held off the three Jonin with their lives, he wouldn't even have had a chance to escape.

But he'd only been promoted to Special Jonin because of the Byakugan's unique abilities. As a member of the Hyuga Main Family, he had almost no combat experience. How could he possibly defeat the elite Kirigakure Chunin behind him, hardened by the battlefield?

As he watched the distance between them steadily shrink, Hyuga Hisanobu's expression shifted.

The Kirigakure Ninja hadn't gone for the kill yet. Otherwise, he wouldn't have made it this far. And he knew exactly what they were after.

"The Byakugan..."

Hyuga Hisanobu drew a kunai and held it to his eye several times, but couldn't bring himself to strike.

Just a little longer. The distress signal was already out. Maybe a nearby Konoha Ninja would come to help!

When the Kirigakure Ninja were fifty meters away, despairing Hyuga Hisanobu finally saw a glimmer of hope. A familiar chakra signature appeared in his Byakugan's field of vision.

"Hane!"

That chakra signature raced hundreds of meters in the blink of an eye and appeared before them. Hyuga Hisanobu, once again stopped by the Kirigakure Ninja, couldn't hide his joy.

"Stop them! I'm a member of the Hyuga Main Family. You have to protect me with your life!"

At that moment, Hyuga Hisanobu had never been more grateful for his status as a member of the Main Family.

The newcomer was a boy of about fourteen or fifteen, with the same Byakugan as him. But their status was different!

He was Main Family. Hyuga Hane was a member of the Hyuga Branch Family.

So even though, as far as he knew, Hane was also only a Special Jonin, he had no choice but to protect him with his life!

Overjoyed at the prospect of survival, Hyuga Hisanobu overlooked one thing: if Hane was a Special Jonin with the Byakugan, why was he alone, without teammates, on this battlefield?

Hyuga Hane landed beyond the enemy's attack range. At the command, a strange smile tugged at his lips. After using his Byakugan to confirm that no one was coming within two kilometers, he murmured to himself:

'Eight Inner Gates, Fifth Gate of Limit, open! Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Vacuum Palms!'

In an instant, a vast surge of chakra burst from Hyuga Hane's palms, forming sixty-four shock waves that struck several Kirigakure Ninja!

The wary Kirigakure Ninja stared in shock. They had no time to dodge. All of them coughed up blood and were sent flying, crashing to the ground without a sound.

"Huh?"

Hyuga Hisanobu had been about to run. Now he stared at the scene, dumbfounded.

That was the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm... No, was it the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms combined with the Vacuum Palm?

How was that possible?

The Branch Family wasn't allowed to learn the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, let alone wield them with such power. And then there was the green steam rising from Hyuga Hane...

"Ah!!!"

A surge of pain snapped Hyuga Hisanobu out of his thoughts. Only then did he realize that his arms had been torn off by the attack just now.

"To keep you from activating the Caged Bird, the first thing I did was cripple your arms."

As Hyuga Hisanobu stared at him in disbelief, Hyuga Hane fixed him with the look of someone studying a lab rat and smiled.

"How lucky. Those two Branch Family guards put up such a fight. I thought I'd have to work harder."

"I've been looking forward to this day ever since you came to this battlefield."

"My first experimental subject from the Main Family, Hyuga Hisanobu."

Several minutes later, three Kirigakure Ninja arrived at the battlefield. They exchanged frowns, reluctantly gathered the bodies, and hurried away.

Ten more minutes passed before a squad of Konoha Ninja finally arrived. Hyuga Hane was among them!

'The real me succeeded.'

After a single glance at the traces left behind, Hyuga Hane understood everything. Keeping his expression solemn, he said:

"Captain, there are traces of the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm here."

The Jonin, Uchiha Kotaro, frowned. He gestured for the others to guard the area and search for clues, then motioned for Hane to continue.

"Judging from how badly the ground was cracked, the Hyuga Ninja who used the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm was far stronger than I am. He was probably a Jonin from the clan."

Hyuga Hane's Shadow Clone studied the ground and trees damaged by the Vacuum Palm and calmly analyzed the scene.

"As far as I know, there are only two Hyuga Jonin on the Mist Village Battlefield."

Jonin were elite members of any ninja clan, not cabbages. If Hyuga Hisanobu hadn't insisted on coming, those two Branch Family Jonin wouldn't even have been here.

After all...

Hyuga Hane glanced at his captain.

Many Ninja from Konoha's strongest clan, the Uchiha Clan, had been sent by the High Command to the Mist Village Battlefield!

Hyuga Hane thought it was ridiculous to pit the Uchiha, who specialized in Fire Style, against the Mist Village Ninja, who specialized in Water Release. But the Konoha High Command had made plenty of bizarre decisions before.

The Hyuga elders didn't want to draw attention to themselves or compete with the Uchiha over their bloodline advantages and needlessly offend them. So they'd sent only enough Hyuga Ninja to get by, and they weren't particularly strong.

Uchiha Kotaro's expression darkened.

The two Branch Family Jonin had been protecting that Hyuga Main Family member all along. If the Byakugan had fallen into Kirigakure's hands, they'd be in trouble!

"Captain, there are severed arms from one of our village's Ninja over here."

Just then, a Chunin who'd been keeping watch spotted two severed arms on the ground. One hand was still clutching a kunai.

Hyuga Hane and Uchiha Kotaro used the Body Flicker Technique to reach the spot and examine the arms. "Judging from the wounds, they were both severed by brute force at the same time. The victim had no time to react. Someone strong enough to do this, yet who only severed both arms..."

A trace of sorrow crossed Hyuga Hane's face, and his companions fell silent.

The worst had happened.

Ninja battles were usually decided with a single lethal strike. The enemy would only deliberately cripple someone to take Hyuga Hisanobu alive.

The Main Family member hadn't killed himself. The enemy had captured him!

How ironic. Because of the Caged Bird Technique, the Hyuga Main Family controlled the Branch Family. But as a result, the Branch Family's Byakugan couldn't be stolen, and no one would target them.

As for the Hyuga Main Family... A useless weakling who wasn't strong enough to fight insisted on coming to the battlefield to serve as a target!

Uchiha Kotaro glanced at Hyuga Hane, then at the severed arms, and cursed under his breath.

If you were going to come to the battlefield, why didn't you have the Caged Bird carved into yourself for protection, like the Branch Family?!