The bluestone ground before the ancestral hall had already been soaked through with blood.
Ko Hyuga knelt on one knee in a pool of blood. The wound in his left shoulder was deep enough to expose bone, blood streaming down from his shattered forehead protector and dripping onto the stone slabs engraved with the Main House crest. Behind him, thirty Branch House Elite Ninja turned stiffly like puppets on strings, the hollow Byakugan reflecting the afterimage of the hand seals Hyuga Hiashi had formed.
"Caged Bird Seal... just as I thought..." Ko's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper scraping together. "You won't even let us choose how we die."
Hiashi stood on the ancestral hall steps, his broad sleeves utterly still in the night wind. Behind him, the Main House Guard had re-formed their ranks, the tips of their kunai gleaming coldly beneath the moonlight.
"The Branch House's destiny is to bleed its last drop for the Main House." Hiashi's voice was terrifyingly calm. "Ko, you could have become the head of the Branch House and helped me govern the entire clan. Unfortunately, you chose the most foolish path."
Ko slowly raised his head.
The Caged Bird Seal on his forehead was glowing, its blue-black patterns writhing like living things as they spread through his veins toward his eye sockets. Yet deeper within him, another force was resisting—the cold chakra brought by the Watcher Seed, now fighting the Caged Bird for control of his body.
"Help you?" Ko laughed, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. "Keep watching you send Branch House children into laboratories? Keep watching you use our clansmen as bargaining chips just to curry favor with Leaf Village's upper ranks?"
He pushed himself to his feet. The muscles in his left leg twitched, but he stood