What if I said you weren't the killer?

No one present had expected this turn of events.

Hyuga Hiashi stared blankly at Hyūga Kiyomo, who was kneeling on the ground and confessing his crime.

He had originally thought the Uchiha Clan was deliberately making trouble for the Hyuga Clan.

Using an arrest warrant to seize someone without concrete evidence was clearly against procedure.

It was most likely a conspiracy targeting the clan.

But now, it seemed that was not the case. Someone in the clan really had committed a crime.

Hizashi Hyuga secretly breathed a sigh of relief at the sight.

Fortunately, he had stepped in to stop his older brother just now and kept him from clashing with the other side.

Otherwise, Uchiha Jin would certainly have charged him with harboring an accomplice!

It would have been trouble if the clan head had been detained over that.

Uchiha Sumitsugu, who had come along to watch the spectacle, fell silent.

He had thought Uchiha Jin was simply making a mess of things. How could he arrest someone without evidence?

Even if he did have a suspect, he needed to gather evidence in secret.

Who went straight to making an arrest?

Arresting someone was easy. Proving their guilt was hard.

If they brought someone to the Konoha Military Police Force Troops but could not prove they were the killer, or if they arrested the wrong person...

That would be a very serious law enforcement incident.

He had already imagined the scene of Uchiha Jin paying the price when he failed to produce evidence.

And now he was being told the suspect had simply confessed?!

He had not even presented any evidence!

Were criminals these days really that unable to withstand psychological pressure?

Uchiha Sumitsugu, with decades of law enforcement experience, stood utterly bewildered in the wind.

Of course, the two clansmen behind him were no different.

They could not understand it. They really could not.

"I'm truly sorry for accidentally killing the housekeeper. I shouldn't have dumped her body, either. I should have reported it and explained what happened."

Pain showed on Hyūga Kiyomo's face, his eyes red from crying.

"I'm willing to take full responsibility."

"Captain, you're amazing!"

Admiration filled Uchiha Xi's face. So the captain had not been boasting. He really could see evil!

Didn't that make him the clan's best law enforcement officer?

No evil could escape his eyes.

Just by following the captain around without doing anything, they had perfectly solved two murder cases.

It looked like she had a chance of becoming a permanent member!

Uchiha Xuan's face was equally full of admiration.

The captain was simply incredible.

He was practically his idol. Just one look at the corpse had allowed him to pinpoint the killer.

If he could learn a trick or two from him, wouldn't rising through the Konoha Military Police Force Troops be as easy as drinking water?!

Uchiha Jin stared expressionlessly at Hyūga Kiyomo kneeling on the ground.

A flicker of understanding crossed his eyes.

So the Hyuga Clan making branch family members take the blame was not an isolated case...

The killer was clearly Hyūga Seigen, yet they had pushed Hyūga Kiyomo forward instead.

Scapegoats really were a Hyuga Clan tradition.

It made sense, when he thought about it. The branch family had slave Cursed Seals placed on them starting at the age of three.

Of course they had to serve the Main Family well.

Otherwise, wouldn't those Caged Bird Seals have been placed on them for nothing?

"Wait."

Just as Uchiha Xuan and Uchiha Xi took out handcuffs and prepared to lead Hyūga Kiyomo away, Uchiha Jin stopped them.

The two team members looked at their captain in confusion, not understanding why he had stopped them.

Uchiha Jin walked up to Hyūga Kiyomo and stared down at him.

"Hyūga Kiyomo, tell me. Are you really the killer?"

Everyone froze at those words.

Hyūga Kiyomo had voluntarily confessed. If he was not the killer, what else could he be?

What exactly was this brat playing at?

The Main Family elder's and Hyūga Seigen's pupils abruptly contracted at his words, and both had a bad feeling.

He had to be joking!

No one was more shocked than Hyūga Seigen.

When he had accidentally killed Miyamoto Nao in a fit of anger, only he and his younger brother had been present.

In other words, apart from his younger brother, no third person could possibly know who had killed the housekeeper.

But Uchiha Jin's words made him feel as though thorns were digging into his back. He kept feeling as though the man had seen through everything he had done.

He was a monster!

It was a bluff. It had to be.

Uchiha Jin was deliberately bluffing Hyūga Kiyomo. As long as his younger brother stubbornly refused to admit it...

There was no way suspicion could fall on him.

As for whether his younger brother would betray him?

Hyūga Seigen was very confident about that. The Caged Bird Seal on his younger brother's forehead was not just for show.

He trusted that his brother could tell the difference between a few years in prison and brain death.

It was just as he had thought.

Although Hyūga Kiyomo desperately wanted to tell Uchiha Jin that he was not the killer, he understood that if he really said that and caused his older brother to be arrested...

What his life in the clan would become was easy to imagine.

Even though he resented it, he could only swallow his suffering.

He had been born into the branch family, after all.

"Yes, I'm the killer!"

He raised his head and met Uchiha Jin's scrutinizing gaze without flinching.

"I'm willing to accept any punishment."

If an ordinary Uchiha faced a situation where a suspect voluntarily confessed and there was no other evidence at the scene pointing elsewhere...

They would usually choose to close the case.

But Uchiha Jin was different. He had a system that could directly identify the killer.

In other words, he did not need evidence to enforce the law. He only needed to track down the murderer in the end.

Although others might criticize this, he did not care in the slightest what they thought.

After all, in some matters, evidence could not tell the whole story.

Like the situation before him...

"What if I said you weren't the killer?"

Uchiha Jin bent forward slightly, staring into those clear Byakugan eyes.

Everyone present froze again.

This fellow simply would not stop saying shocking things.

Hyūga Kiyomo had already admitted he was the killer. Could the killer actually be someone else?!

Uchiha Xuan and Uchiha Xi exchanged glances.

Could there be more to this case?!

Unlike the others, they trusted Jin completely and unconditionally.

Whatever the captain said went.

The final result would prove that the captain's choices could not be wrong.

The confidence Uchiha Jin exuded from deep within made people instinctively believe him.

A shadow flickered through Hyūga Seigen's eyes.

How exactly had this fellow noticed?

Only he and his younger brother knew what had happened that day.

Could Kiyomo have told him himself?!

Impossible. That fellow had been meek and submissive all his life. He would never have the nerve to inform on him in secret.

Where exactly had things gone wrong?

"Do you think I'm right?"

Uchiha Jin stopped paying attention to Hyūga Kiyomo kneeling on the ground and instead looked at the Main Family youth standing behind the elder.

"Hyūga Seigen."

"Uchiha Jin, stop joking. My younger brother has already confessed."

Hyūga Seigen's expression was somewhat stiff as he spoke in a half-joking tone.

"We were classmates, at least. There's no point in making this kind of joke."

Uchiha Jin had indeed been Hyūga Seigen's classmate for a time.

Later, war had broken out, and the students had all been sent to the battlefield.

"You think I'm joking with you?"

Uchiha Jin remained expressionless, with no intention of exchanging pleasantries.

"Everyone who knows me knows that I never joke."

The smile on Hyūga Seigen's face froze completely.

Damn it, his younger brother had already confessed.

Was that bastard Uchiha Jin determined to keep coming after him?!