The instant his fingertips touched the withered remains, Hyuga Xiao's vision was completely torn apart.
It was not sight.
It was memory.
A wail of grief and despair spanning a thousand years turned into a raging torrent, flowing backward through the nerves in his fingertips and crashing viciously into his mind.
"Ah—"
Hyuga Xiao let out a muffled groan. Veins bulged across his forehead, and the Byakugan veins around his eyes burst open uncontrollably. Everything in his vision twisted, spun, and shattered.
He saw—
The Hyuga Ancestral Shrine of a thousand years ago, not yet as solemn and majestic as it was today. It had been a crude altar built on the edge of an enormous crater. There were two moons in the sky, one large and one small. The smaller one hung so close to the ground that it seemed within arm's reach.
He saw—
A group of Branch House shinobi in white haori, their foreheads branded with the Caged Bird Seal, being escorted to the center of the altar by Main House elders. Their Byakugan were forcibly removed, becoming glistening crystals that floated above the altar. Those Branch House members who had lost their eyes did not die immediately. The power of the Curse Mark kept them clinging to their final breaths as they watched their eye power being extracted and poured into some bottomless darkness beneath the altar.
He heard—
Inhuman roars came from the depths of the altar, like some ancient creature greedily sucking away.
"To preserve the purity of the bloodline..."
"To resist the Lunar Main House's surveillance..."
"The Branch House's sacrifice is a necessary honor..."
The Main House elders' cold voices echoed above the altar.
Hyuga Xiao's breathing grew more and more ragged.
He saw the memories from before these remains died—he had been