"Kill every last Main Family dog!"
Shinichi's cry echoed through the night, then abruptly died away.
Dead silence filled the square before the ancestral hall.
No one responded.
Not one of the forty or fifty Branch Family members standing below stepped forward.
Some lowered their heads, staring fixedly at the fingers gripping their kunai.
Some quietly retreated half a step under cover of darkness.
Several other Branch Family ninjas turned to look at the eldest uncle standing to one side.
Shinichi neither looked back nor urged them on.
His expression calm, he descended the ancestral hall's stone steps one at a time.
The Branch Family members blocking his path silently withdrew to either side, opening a passage for him.
Shinichi walked straight through the crowd without pausing.
Tightening his grip on his kunai, he headed toward the Main Family compound alone.
The Main Family compound's gates stood ajar.
The Branch Family ninjas who usually kept watch at the entrance had all been summoned to the ancestral hall that night.
Two white paper lanterns hung beneath the gatehouse, with not a single guard at the entrance.
The main hall directly opposite the gates was still brightly lit.
Shinichi reached the entrance, raised a hand to push open the heavy wooden gates, and walked straight inside.
Behind him, the Branch Family ninjas had followed at some point.
Keeping several dozen paces away, they stopped firmly outside the compound walls. Not one dared take a single step through the gates.
Someone in the crowd silently pulled down the white cloth around their forehead and was the first to activate the Byakugan.
Then, one Branch Family ninja after another brought their hands together.
Veins instantly bulged around dozens of pairs of eyes outside the walls.
Forty or fifty pairs of eyes with the Byakugan activated stared through the high walls, fixed on Shinichi's figure in the courtyard.
Shinichi stepped onto the courtyard's stone path.
A wooden door beneath the corridor to the right creaked open.
A Main Family elder in white robes emerged.
Shinichi recognized him.
A moment of carelessness by the body's original owner during a mission had left this old man slightly injured.
The old man had formed hand seals on the spot, leaving the original owner clutching his head and rolling on the ground for nearly an hour.
Rubbing his eyes, the elder spotted Shinichi, who had barged in during the dead of night without even wrapping white cloth around his forehead.
The old man's expression darkened.
"You're from the Branch Family. Don't you know you can't enter the Main Family compound without permission?"
The elder raised both hands, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and immediately formed the Caged Bird Seal's hand sign.
Shinichi stood where he was without so much as blinking.
Nothing happened.
The elder froze, his hands suspended in midair.
Refusing to believe it, he pressed his fingers together again and forcefully repeated the hand seal.
Shinichi remained standing, completely unharmed.
The elder's expression changed, cold sweat instantly seeping down his forehead.
Chakra erupted around Shinichi's eyes.
An eerie, deep blue light bloomed in his previously clear eyes.
Looking into Shinichi's blue-glowing eyes, the elder slipped and stammered as he backed away.
"Some..."
Before he could shout, Shinichi raised his right hand and opened his palm.
An irresistible, immense suction erupted out of thin air.
Before the elder could even react, his entire body left the ground and hurtled toward Shinichi.
Holding his kunai in his left hand, Shinichi swept a cold gleam through the air.
An exceedingly faint slicing sound rang out.
The kunai precisely slit the elder's throat.
The elder slammed onto the floor, both hands clamped around his neck. Blood spilled between his fingers, and he died without even a groan.
Shinichi did not spare the corpse another glance. He flicked the blood from his kunai and continued toward the brightly lit main hall.
At that very moment, outside the Main Family compound's walls.
The Branch Family members with their Byakugan activated saw everything clearly.
Through their Byakugan, the chakra erupting from Shinichi was as vast as an abyss, several times stronger than even Clan Head Nissei Hyuga's.
Not only that, but although the Main Family elder had activated the Caged Bird Seal twice, the chakra in Shinichi's brain had not been disturbed in the slightest.
Outside the walls, a pin drop could have been heard.
The eldest uncle clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug deep into his palms.
Dozens of Branch Family members stood outside the walls, staring blankly into the courtyard. Still, no one took a step forward.
Three Main Family members charged out of the side rooms.
One white-haired old man and two middle-aged men.
The white-haired old man's eyes instantly reddened when he saw the corpse on the ground.
He raised his hands, pressed two fingers together, and immediately formed the Caged Bird Seal's hand sign toward Shinichi.
Shinichi stood where he was without so much as blinking.
One of the middle-aged men beside him reacted extremely quickly, instantly activating his Byakugan and spotting the Branch Family members outside the walls.
He immediately turned his hands, directing his hand seal toward those outside, and shouted harshly:
"Take one more step forward, and I'll activate the Caged Bird Seal and kill you on the spot!"
Outside the walls, a Branch Family ninja instantly screamed, clutched his head in both hands, and dropped heavily to his knees.
Through his Tenseigan, Shinichi clearly saw the chakra inside all three men.
The chakra had only just gathered in that middle-aged man's fingers.
Shinichi swept a hand, unleashing an immense repulsive force that blasted the middle-aged man away and slammed him into a wooden pillar of the main hall.
The man died on the spot, and the person kneeling outside the walls clutching their head immediately caught their breath.
The remaining middle-aged man and the white-haired old man's expressions changed drastically, chakra just beginning to stir at their fingertips.
Shinichi had already appeared before the middle-aged man.
His kunai swept sideways. Blood flashed, and the man fell.
The white-haired old man had only just raised his hands when Shinichi opened his palm and pulled him straight toward him.
The kunai pierced his heart with precision.
In the blink of an eye, three more corpses lay in the courtyard.
A figure slowly appeared at the main hall's entrance.
At the entrance to the main hall in the Main Family compound.
Clan Head Nissei Hyuga stood before the main hall, with an elder in white robes behind him.
Nissei Hyuga glanced at the corpses scattered across the ground, his gaze abruptly darkening.
He turned his head and stared fixedly into Shinichi's deep blue eyes.
"Those aren't Byakugan."
Holding his blood-dripping kunai, Shinichi looked at him calmly.
"The Hyuga Clan has already joined Konoha. I've already sent someone to deliver a message to Lord Hashirama. He'll be here in three days!"
Nissei Hyuga spoke coldly.
"Stop now, and I can act as though none of this happened."
"If you kill me, Konoha will never tolerate you."
Shinichi did not so much as blink.
"What does whether Konoha tolerates me have to do with you?"
The elder behind Nissei Hyuga quietly raised his hands. Chakra abruptly gathered at his fingertips and headed straight for the Branch Family members outside the walls.
Shinichi's gaze turned cold, and he swept a hand.
A violent repulsive force blasted out of thin air, flinging the elder sideways into the main hall's wooden doors and killing him on the spot.
Seizing the opening, Nissei Hyuga darted forward, his hands blurring as he struck straight at the major chakra points on Shinichi's chest.
The deep blue light in Shinichi's eyes blazed, allowing him to see the chakra's trajectory in every one of Nissei Hyuga's palm strikes clearly.
He shifted slightly sideways, dodging several strikes in succession, then brought his kunai up against the force of Nissei Hyuga's palm strike toward his throat.
Nissei Hyuga abruptly chopped a palm downward. Shinichi tilted his head aside to dodge, simultaneously releasing a fierce repulsive force from his left palm.
A bang rang out.
The immense force sent Nissei Hyuga flying backward into the main hall's doorframe, smashing the wooden frame to pieces.
Gritting his teeth, Nissei Hyuga struggled to prop his upper body up amid the shattered wood, blood continuously seeping from the corner of his mouth.
He saw the coldness in Shinichi's eyes and knew he had no chance of surviving that day.
Clenching his jaw, he abruptly turned toward the Branch Family members outside the walls and raised his trembling hands to form the Caged Bird Seal's hand sign.
Even if he died, he would take a few Branch Family members with him.
Shinichi's Tenseigan clearly saw chakra rapidly gathering at Nissei Hyuga's fingertips.
Shinichi gave him no chance, opening his left palm toward Nissei Hyuga.
An immense suction instantly erupted out of thin air.
Before Nissei Hyuga could bring his newly raised fingers together, his entire body was forcibly dragged before Shinichi.
Shinichi tightened his right hand around his kunai and thrust forward.
With a wet puncturing sound, the cold blade pierced straight through Nissei Hyuga's chest.
Nissei Hyuga shuddered violently, his eyes bulging. His lips moved, but before he could utter a single word, he collapsed limply before the main hall's entrance.
The Hyuga Clan's head had been killed by Shinichi!
Outside the courtyard walls, dozens of pairs of eyes with the Byakugan activated saw the entire scene clearly through the high walls.
Dead silence spread through the night.
A kunai slipped from someone's hand and clattered onto the stone paving.
Someone raised a trembling hand and instinctively touched the thick white cloth around their forehead.
The Branch Family ninja with a scar on his face stared fixedly at the corpses beyond the gates and let out a heavy breath.
No longer hesitating, he was the first to stride forward and cross the threshold of the Main Family compound.
The second followed, then the third.
Forty or fifty Branch Family members gripped their kunai tightly and poured into the Main Family compound in silence.
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