This Caged Bird incident had made every member of the Branch Family realize that waiting for change would change nothing, and neither would enduring it.
The Main Family and Konoha had never regarded them as comrades. Their resentment, even their resistance... was only natural.
"Don't provoke the Branch Family any further. I've already discussed it with Lord Hokage. We'll get them to put their anger aside."
As he spoke, the Hyuga Clan Head passed them a ninjutsu scroll to look over.
After reading it, the Second Elder's expression changed.
"Clan Head, so the Fourth Elder died for nothing? And this technique..."
The clan head shook his head, his gaze cold.
"It's only a temporary compromise. Besides, even if we find the one who killed the Fourth Elder, we can't kill them for now."
As the day for inscribing the new Caged Bird drew closer, the Branch Family's anger continued to build. If no one resisted, it would be nothing more than impotent rage. But with someone leading the way, there was no telling whether someone might do something reckless.
To the Branch Family, the ninjas acting in secret were heroes who dared to resist. Killing them would set off the powder keg that was the Branch Family.
The war had reached a critical point. If they drove the Hyuga Branch Family into rebellion, they would not only become a laughingstock to the other villages, but might also provoke the Cloud Village, which had already ceased hostilities, into attacking again.
Just as it had at the start of the Third Shinobi World War.
Using the Sand Village's loss of the Third Kazekage as an excuse, the Raikage had claimed that they were willing to generously take in the Sand Village and let him serve as its Kage as well. Then he launched a surprise attack on the Sand Village.
If not for the Fourth Kazekage's efforts, it would have been an open question whether the Land of Wind could have continued to exist after that attack.
If the Fourth Raikage was as shameless as his father, war with the Cloud Village would break out again.
As if seeing the others' unwillingness to accept it, the Hyuga Clan Head snorted.
"Don't think about purging the Branch Family. That would be no different from weakening our own strength."
"From now on, the Main Family's individual abilities need to improve as well. Ultimately, the Fourth Elder died because he let his guard down."
With those two statements, the clan head set the tone for the meeting. He and the lamenting elders went on to discuss the arrangements for inscribing the new Caged Bird.
By the time the meeting ended, it was already the next morning. The Hyuga Clan Head walked home alone, where two Hyuga ninjas were waiting for him.
Hyuga Hiashi.
Hizashi Hyuga.
They were his two sons, but their fates would be very different.
"Clan Head." *2
The Hyuga Clan Head nodded at the brothers' bows. "From now on, you, Hizashi, will be in charge of the Branch Family. Don't disappoint me."
"Yes!" Before his father, Hizashi bowed his head deeply.
Seeing this, the Hyuga Clan Head looked at Hiashi with indifference. "Hiashi, I shouldn't have to remind you what you're supposed to say today, should I?"
The morning sun rose as usual, its light spilling through the window. Hiashi felt as though his father's shadow had fallen over him, and his eyes lowered.
"I understand."
The Hyuga Compound was vast.
The Main Family lived at its center, with the Branch Family's homes spread out in every direction around them.
The differences in the areas they occupied and their elevation showed the distinction between the Main and Branch Families.
That wasn't all. The graves of the Branch Family's ninjas and those of the Main Family's ninjas were also separate.
Because the Main Family's Byakugan didn't disappear immediately after death, but instead decayed slowly, their cemetery was placed at the heart of the Hyuga Compound to prevent anyone from stealing the Byakugan from their corpses.
The Branch Family's cemetery, on the other hand, was at the edge of the compound.
Hyuga Miyuki stood before her parents' gravestones and bowed to them.
I'm sorry, Mom and Dad.
Even if my hands are stained with the blood of my clan, I don't want our people to keep living on their knees.
"Miyuki, is that you? Are you here to visit your parents, too?"
As Hyuga Miyuki stood in sorrow, a voice came with the sound of approaching footsteps.
She turned and gave a quiet nod.
"Long time no see, Hane."
She had carried out missions with the fellow clan member before on the Mist Village Battlefield, so they knew each other fairly well.
In her impression, he was one of the few Special Jonin among the Branch Family on the Mist Village Battlefield. He was quite capable and exceptionally hardworking.
Most importantly, he wasn't biased toward the Hyuga Main Family!
Hyuga Miyuki folded her hands over her stomach and quietly watched as Hyuga Hane placed the flowers he had brought before the two gravestones.
He pressed his hands together and bowed.
Only after Hyuga Hane had finished did Hyuga Miyuki ask softly:
"Are you worried about today's Caged Bird ceremony, too?"
"Yeah. The way our clan members have been acting lately has me worried."
"Are you worried someone might lose control today and kill a member of the Main Family?"
Hyuga Miyuki didn't beat around the bush. She asked in a low, direct voice.
By now, every Hyuga ninja understood the situation.
"No," Hyuga Hane replied calmly, glancing at her. "I'm worried about Lord Hokage's decision."
Hyuga Miyuki breathed a sigh of relief, then furrowed her brow as well.
It was true. It was all too quiet.
Even if they hadn't found the culprit, the Hokage and the advisers shouldn't have been this quiet.
Lately, more and more members of the Branch Family had been unable to hold back from acting. Even though the higher-ups had suppressed the news, rumors had begun to spread through the streets and alleys. Yet the higher-ups seemed determined to ignore them.
They had only increased patrols at night, deployed more Anbu to investigate, and reduced the casualties.
Although it had indeed made her own actions more difficult, that was only because she still didn't want to harm her comrades.
The ones she had killed before had also been members who were close to the Main Family.
Now that her Byakugan had evolved and she could faintly sense that the Caged Bird no longer worked on her, she had even wanted to turn her sights on the Main Family.
So Hyuga Miyuki couldn't help feeling uneasy about the higher-ups' strange attitude.
"It should be fine, right? They're going to inscribe the Caged Bird on us again."
Hyuga Miyuki touched the Cursed Seal on her forehead, hidden by her Forehead Protector, and said softly, "Maybe Lord Hokage just wants us to reach an agreement among ourselves."
Hyuga Hane saw the confidence and unyielding resolve in Hyuga Miyuki's eyes. His brow twitched as he guessed what she was thinking.
Kill every member of the Main Family, then defect?
Now that she was strong enough, and believed the Caged Bird wouldn't affect her, did she want to solve the problem with force?
That really did sound like something the Hokage would do...
Sasori of the Red Sands had been a puppeteer. When he was weak, he had ambushed the Third Kazekage and turned him into a Human Puppet. Once he had grown stronger, he started acting recklessly, brazenly wiping out a nation and challenging his own grandmother.
Nagato had endured humiliation and bided his time until he had gathered the Six Paths of Pain before seeking revenge on Hanzo. But later, he simply attacked Konoha by himself.
Konan had secretly gathered hundreds of millions of Explosive Tags to guard against Obito without being discovered by Black Zetsu and White Zetsu. Yet when she faced Obito, she never considered working with Naruto, who had offered to reconcile with him.
Looking across the Shinobi World, people could usually lie low when they lacked strength. But once they felt powerful enough, they all started courting death, trying to solve every problem with force.
Where did they get that confidence?
Hyuga Hane shook his head to himself and added the girl before him to the ranks of Nagato and the others as a cautionary example.
Even Master Dai could kick this body to death with the Eight Gates open. He simply couldn't be as confident as those people.
"Miyuki, you haven't been paying attention to what the village is saying lately, have you? His name is on everyone's lips."
As Hyuga Miyuki looked at him in confusion, Hyuga Hane raised his head toward the blue sky.
"Konoha's sun has returned."
Before you continue