"You wretched people really need to be taught a lesson!"
The Great Elder formed Hand Seals, channeling the power of his eyes into them.
"Stop!"
Hyuga Hiashi tried to stop him, because he recognized that seal too. It was the Hand Seal used to activate the Caged Bird against Branch Family members during executions!
The Great Elder was actually trying to activate the Caged Bird against every member of the Hyuga Branch Family behind Shinichi Hyuga.
This time, Shinichi Hyuga wasn't the only target!
The scene fell silent!
Some people clenched their fists. This only strengthened their resolve to support Shinichi Hyuga.
Only Shinichi Hyuga could give them the future he had promised. They had completely lost faith in the Main Family.
Blue light shone from the one eye Shinichi Hyuga had left.
He stared at the Great Elder, who had already been driven to fury.
The man had gone so mad that he was trying to make them submit with the Caged Bird. If they refused, they would die!
Invisible ocular power clashed in midair.
Buzz~~
A wave of air appeared above Shinichi Hyuga's head, and a pale-blue barrier shielded the people behind him.
"Shinichi Hyuga, so you've been planning to rebel all along! Hiashi, activate the Caged Bird with me. I refuse to believe he can withstand both of us!"
The Great Elder formed the Hand Seals again and again.
This time, the seal was no longer meant to simply torture. It was meant to kill!
He knew that he couldn't break through the barrier with his own power alone.
That pale-blue ocular power made him feel both oppressed and compelled to submit.
He growled at Hyuga Hiashi.
"I..."
Hyuga Hiashi was torn. He didn't know what to do.
Beads of sweat rolled down the Great Elder's face. Shinichi Hyuga's gaze had awakened the fear in his heart.
It was like when he had been forced to his knees at the wedding!
He felt as if he'd returned to the battlefield in Kumogakure.
Back then, Shinichi Hyuga had been fighting the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki, who had undergone Partial Tailed Beast Transformation, while he activated the Caged Bird.
He had sealed some of Shinichi Hyuga's vision, causing a misjudgment that had cost him his right arm.
Shinichi Hyuga maintained the barrier without taking any further action. He wanted to see what Hyuga Hiashi would choose.
"Main Family...?"
"Why...?"
"..."
A string of pained, feeble voices reached Hyuga Hiashi's ears.
The Hyuga Branch Family jonin behind him had been caught in the crossfire of the now-mad Great Elder.
The blood vessels in their eyes burst, destroying the surrounding tissue.
Chaotic chakra invaded their brains and shredded the brain tissue as their life force faded.
These dozen elderly Hyuga Branch Family jonin had no protection from Shinichi Hyuga, and the Caged Bird's mark had affected them.
As the Caged Bird tortured them, they lost their lives!
"Uncle...? You...?"
The sight shocked Hyuga Hiashi. He hurried to one of the old men.
He held the old man's body in his arms. This man had protected Hyuga Hiashi when he was a child and stayed by his side as he grew up. Now he had died beneath the Cursed Seal of the Caged Bird. How ironic.
Two streams of tears ran down Hyuga Hiashi's face. He didn't know whether he was crying for himself or for the old man who had cared for him all his life.
He stood there, stunned and helpless, unable to hear anything.
"Your rules have been trampled. From now on, we'll follow my rules!"
Shinichi Hyuga formed a Hand Seal with one hand. Pale-blue chains sprang from the ground beneath him, the same color as the Caged Bird mark on his forehead.
They sealed off the entire Ancestral Hall, forming a gigantic Cursed Seal.
From above, it looked like a huge X—or, rather, it closely resembled the Caged Bird Seal on Shinichi Hyuga's forehead.
Pale-blue chains coiled around the Great Elder's legs, binding him into a human cocoon.
Hyuga Hiashi went through the same thing.
The pale-blue chains vanished in an instant, merging into their bodies.
"What did you do to me?"
The Great Elder looked terrified. His features twisted as he frantically waved his hands around his head and roared at Shinichi Hyuga.
"You should have figured it out by now!"
Shinichi Hyuga pointed to his own forehead, then gestured for the Great Elder to look at Hyuga Hiashi.
Hadn't he been waving his hands around to check the blind spots in his vision?
A pale-blue Cursed Seal appeared on Hyuga Hiashi's forehead.
Its X shape and Tomoe-chain design were unmistakably those of the Hyuga Clan's Caged Bird Seal.
"No~~"
The Great Elder's voice rang throughout the Ancestral Hall. If not for the barrier Shinichi Hyuga had set up, it would probably have carried across the entire Hyuga Clan compound.
He kept shaking his head, testing his theory.
His vision should have given him a full three hundred and sixty degrees without a single blind spot. Now, a large section of it was missing!
That was what happened to members of the Hyuga Branch Family who had been marked with the Caged Bird Seal.
Now it was happening to him.
"I've been marked with the Caged Bird?"
"I've become a lowly member of the Branch Family? Ha!"
"How could I have the Caged Bird marked on me?"
The Great Elder kept asking questions, his voice growing more and more frenzied.
His eyes grew wild. He clawed at his forehead, leaving bloody scratches, but couldn't damage the Cursed Seal there.
Shinichi Hyuga looked at the Great Elder, now gone mad, without the slightest pity.
Someone carried all the way to the mountaintop by others would have a much worse fall if he lost his footing!
He had enjoyed all the wonderful fruits of the Hyuga Branch Family's labor, yet looked down on the very people who had truly struggled to create them.
He had always been the one deciding who lived and who died. Now, his life and death rested on another person's whim.
That was the immense reversal Shinichi Hyuga wanted him to experience.
"Hyuga Muneoka, I hereby declare you guilty of treason against your clan and murdering your fellow clansmen!
"Sentence: death!"
Behind Shinichi Hyuga, all the surviving members of the Hyuga Branch Family formed a white tide as they closed in on the Hyuga Clan's Great Elder.
The tide of events could no longer be turned back. This was the cry of a thousand years of oppression within the Hyuga Clan.
Hyuga Muneoka, who had always called himself the Great Elder, only remembered his own name at that moment.
After he became part of the Hyuga Main Family, his name had been replaced by the title of Great Elder. Now, someone had spoken it again.
Hyuga Hiashi sat there like a heap of mud, silently watching everything unfold before him.
A dangerous gaze had locked onto him. The moment he made a move, he would surely be killed.
Shinichi Hyuga glanced at him. As expected, those who sided with the Third were all "clever men who knew which way the wind was blowing!"
No wonder that, in the years to come, even when people from Kumogakure tried to wipe out the Hyuga Clan, he still chose to compromise!
How could a man like that deserve to be clan head!
Shinichi Hyuga formed Hand Seals with his only remaining hand, channeling ocular power and chakra into them as he activated the Caged Bird mark.
"Ah!!!"
The Great Elder clutched his head, twisted onto his side, and rolled on the ground!
"That mark! It's the Caged Bird mark!"
Hyuga Hiashi shouted inwardly.
He had formed the seals with only one hand, but they were indeed the Cursed Seal that activated the Caged Bird.
Before you continue