Hiashi listened in silence, his fingers gripping the sword hilt so tightly that his knuckles turned slightly white.
Behind him, Neji listened as the elders he had once regarded as the embodiment of authority and rules tore into one another so hideously and slandered his uncle.
They even maliciously tried to drag Naruto and his two cousins into the disaster. Whatever stirring his uncle had inspired in his heart had long since given way to intense nausea, anger, and bone-deep contempt for the people before him.
So rotten, cowardly, selfish, and vicious!
As the final wailing cry of "Take it up with the ones responsible!" faded, a brief, suffocating silence fell over the tea room.
Only heavy, frightened breathing and stifled sobs remained.
Then Hiashi moved.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised the Great Sun Calamity Cutter in his hand all the way up.
Under the mingled lamplight and moonlight, the blade gleamed with a bone-chilling cold, aimed steadily at the terrified old faces behind the tea table.
There was no furious roar as they had expected, nor any impassioned condemnation.
Only a terrifyingly calm voice, seemingly rising from the depths of the underworld yet strangely familiar, broke the suffocating silence in the tea room:
"It seems I, Hyuga Hiashi... really am unwelcome among you elders."
His voice was quiet, yet it exploded like thunder in the five elders' ears!
"You actually took advantage of my absence to pin everything... on me."
Hiashi finished the rest of his sentence evenly. The Great Sun Calamity Cutter in his hand did not so much as tremble.
The five elders froze where they stood, as though struck by a paralysis technique.
The tears, snot, and terrified contortions on their faces all froze.
Eyes wide, they stared in disbelief at the figure in the