Otherwise, Our Grievances Would Never Be Laid to Rest

Hyuga Hiashi silently looked at them, then turned his gaze outside and closed his eyes.

The atmosphere felt strange. The Main Branch clan members present exchanged puzzled glances.

Just then, a heavy stench of blood reached their noses. Their expressions changed, and they all turned toward the doorway.

Hyuga Hiashi sighed. "I never thought you'd be the first to arrive, Miyuki."

At the entrance to the meeting room, a figure paused mid-motion, but quickly regained her composure and gently pushed the door open.

"Hyuga Miyuki, what are you doing?!"

Through the open doorway, the Third Elder saw two guards lying in pools of blood in the distance. He rose and shouted angrily, "Are you trying to betray the clan? Your parents died gloriously fighting for the Main Branch. Do you want to disgrace them in the afterlife?"

Obvious fury appeared on Hyuga Miyuki's cold face. Before the Main Branch clan members could react, she appeared behind the Third Elder at an astonishing speed and drove an enraged punch straight into his chest.

Hyuga Hiashi, the only one capable of stopping her, merely watched without moving.

The Third Elder's aged body and combat instincts, dulled by years without a fight, left him unable to mount even the slightest effective resistance. Her fist punched straight through his chest, leaving a gaping hole. His body swayed and fell.

Thud...

"..."

Silence lasted for a few seconds. The Main Branch elders' pupils contracted as they all used the Body Flicker Technique to put distance between themselves and Miyuki, watching her warily.

"Glory? Is this so-called glory that even after they died, I, their daughter, still wouldn't be treated kindly?"

Hyuga Miyuki gave a scornful laugh.

"I don't want that kind of glory!"

"Now that you've said your piece, there's nothing more to discuss. Since the Caged Bird no longer has its punitive effect, have you forgotten your place?"

The Second Elder raised his hands and sneered. "Then I'll make you remember with your life that you'll always be a Caged Bird—"

He had already activated the Caged Bird technique, but Hyuga Miyuki was still standing there. The Second Elder cut himself off, frozen in place.

"The Caged Bird didn't work? How is that possible?"

"Did Tsunade remove it for you?! Does that old bastard Sarutobi Hiruzen really intend to wipe us out?"

Several elders looked at the Fission Technique resting in front of Hiashi, a chill shooting through their minds.

How many people had had the Caged Bird removed? What were they doing now?

Only the First Elder kept his eyes on Hiashi, seeming to understand. His voice was filled with complex emotion. "You saw this coming, didn't you, clan head?"

"I didn't want to understand, but looking at all of you, I knew this day would come sooner or later."

Seeing the Main Branch elders panic and lose their bearings, Hiashi felt a pang of sorrow. Yet, after seeing the Third Elder's corpse, he was strangely filled with satisfaction.

He looked at Hyuga Miyuki. "You didn't come alone. There are plenty of guards on the way to the meeting room. They couldn't all have betrayed us, and you couldn't have made it in here so quickly by yourself."

"Your insight is as keen as ever, clan head."

A calm voice arrived at the same time as the sound of hurried footsteps.

Led by Hyuga Yuki, several Hyuga shinobi entered the meeting room as if no one else were there.

The Fourth Hokage and Hyuga Hane's group used the Flying Thunder God to reach the front lines. Minato spoke with them for a while, then sent Rin to the medical unit before taking the others to the command center.

A stern-faced man was waiting for them there.

"Clan Head Fugaku, where are Lord Orochimaru and Lord Jiraiya?"

He was Uchiha Fugaku, the current clan head of the Uchiha Clan.

"Lord Orochimaru is scouting the forces led by the two Jinchuriki. Lord Jiraiya is waiting for you in the command room, Fourth Hokage."

Seeing the Hokage cloak on Namikaze Minato's back, Uchiha Fugaku smiled sincerely.

Hyuga Hane watched Uchiha Fugaku, his expression calm.

So many people of this generation had been born at the wrong time.

The Fourth Hokage was one. Uchiha Fugaku was another.

Had the Second Hokage really given the Uchiha no chance to integrate into the village?

The Uchiha were one of Konoha's shinobi clans, part of its strength. He couldn't have wanted such a clan destroyed; that would have meant Konoha's decline.

The Military Police Force certainly made enemies, but at its heart, this situation had arisen because of the Uchiha clan members' personalities.

At least in the beginning, there was no sign that Obito was disliked by the villagers or his peers.

The Second Hokage had hoped the Uchiha Clan would produce more people like Kagami, people who sincerely integrated into the village. If it didn't, the Military Police Force would become an obstacle to the Uchiha becoming Hokage and entering the village's upper ranks.

Not having the people's support... those four words were enough in most cases.

Uchiha Fugaku wasn't assertive enough. He had been indecisive over the coup and Itachi, but judging from the fact that he had built a good relationship with the Fourth Hokage before Minato rose to power, his instincts had initially been right.

Unfortunately, the Fourth Hokage had died.

And Hyuga Hiashi... had also been born at the wrong time.

"I understand."

Minato returned Uchiha Fugaku's smile, then turned to the others. "Hane, come with me to the command room. Kushina, take Kakashi and the others and help them get familiar with the area."

Looking into Hyuga Yuki's determined eyes, Hyuga Hiashi sighed.

"After what you've done today, you won't be able to stay in Konoha."

"We were never welcome here. I came to get the Fission Technique."

With the guards' blood smeared across his hands and face, Hyuga Yuki remained cold-faced. "Please have the sense to hand it over. Then perhaps your death won't be so painful."

"I see... You still haven't completely removed the Caged Bird?"

The First Elder frowned deeply and activated his Byakugan. He saw that the Caged Bird mark remained behind the Forehead Protectors of all ten Branch Family members, including Hyuga Miyuki and Hyuga Yuki.

But the Caged Bird marks on Hyuga Yuki and the others seemed to have been sealed. A complicated sealing formula covered the location of the cursed seal.

Hyuga Miyuki's mark, however, seemed different.

"It hasn't been removed?"

The elders, who had been about to denounce these traitors, froze. Then they were overjoyed. The Second Elder immediately said to Hiashi, "Clan head, destroy it quickly! We can't let these traitors remove the Caged Bird."

As he spoke, he had already moved toward Hiashi, wanting to destroy it himself while putting himself somewhere safer.

As the current clan head, Hyuga Hiashi's strength was no less than that of an elite Jonin. These Branch Family members who had betrayed them lacked the Main Branch's secret techniques and weren't strong enough. They might not be able to defeat Hiashi.

With the likes of them backing him up, the traitors wouldn't be able to kill them!

As the Second Elder reached out with a vicious grin to seize the Fission Technique, Hiashi abruptly stood and struck. His palm landed on the Second Elder's head with swift force, splattering blood and snuffing out his life in an instant.

Blood stained Hiashi's kimono. He coldly watched the Second Elder's corpse fall to the ground, then knelt back down.

The sudden turn of events left the Main Branch elders and Branch Family members staring at him in shock and disbelief.

Only the First Elder let out a deep sigh, knelt back down, and closed his eyes.

"Take it."

Hyuga Hiashi picked up the scroll and tossed it to Hyuga Yuki, then took another scroll from inside his clothes and handed it to him.

"You'll probably want to take quite a few people with you. If you remove the Caged Bird, the Shinobi World will covet them, and you won't be strong enough to protect yourselves. If so, you'll need this cursed seal."

"It's a technique I asked the Third Hokage to refine, a method for the Main Branch to protect the Byakugan. You can decide for yourselves whether to use it."

Having Tokuma infiltrate Root was what the Third Hokage had paid in return.

It had every function of the Caged Bird, except that no one else could control the wearer's life or death!

Perhaps... this was what the Caged Bird should have been all along.

"The special order from the Third Hokage is in there too. It'll let you leave Konoha safely."

He was one of the Third Hokage's contingency plans. The special order gave him the authority to mobilize the Hyuga shinobi freely in an emergency, a trump card to resist Danzo.

Unfortunately, Hiashi had never intended to protect the Main Branch. He had left the Sarutobi Clan with a pale face simply to put on a show for the Third Hokage.

If Danzo's hand could be used to deal with some of them, Hiashi could carry out reforms. But since the Branch Family had made the move themselves... so be it.

After speaking, Hiashi closed his eyes just like the First Elder, leaving the other elders to stare at them in panic.

Looking at the two scrolls with a complicated expression, Hyuga Yuki said in a low voice, "That person said someone would live through today. I thought we'd overlooked something. So you were the one he meant."

He looked at Hyuga Miyuki too, then, seeing the same conflicted look in her eyes, spoke coldly.

"After today, the only ones left in the Hyuga Main Branch will be you and your wife..."

"..."

The First Elder's eyes snapped open. "Does it have to be this way?"

"Otherwise, we... would never be able to lay our grievances to rest!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the Branch Family members who had been standing quietly behind Hyuga Yuki grinned with bloodlust and charged at the Main Branch elders, madness in their eyes.

Screams and wild laughter echoed through the cramped meeting room, carrying far, far away, but no living person heard them.

Only Hyuga Meigoku witnessed it from a distance. Grief, shock, and countless other emotions welled up in him, leaving his expression deeply conflicted.

In the future, there would be no Hyuga Main Branch... The Main Branch had already existed in name only.