The horrific screams sounded like a rusty saw blade grinding against bluestone.
The shops lining the street slammed their wooden doors shut.
A woman selling vegetables hoisted her shoulder pole and ran. Radishes fell from her baskets and rolled into a filthy gutter, but no one dared pick them up.
Several passing Genin lowered their heads and hurried away by another route.
No one dared intervene.
The Hyuga Clan's Main Family was disciplining a dog of the Branch Family. That was normal in Konoha.
Anyone who interfered would only bring trouble on themselves.
Shu Shiraishi stopped.
He frowned, then changed direction. His black military boots treaded over the slick bluestones as he walked straight toward the screams.
In the cramped alley.
Two overturned slop buckets lay across the middle of the road. A sour stench filled the air.
A boy of about ten from the Hyuga Branch Family lay among rotten cabbage leaves, rolling wildly.
Both hands gripped his forehead.
All ten fingernails had split, and blood mixed with black mud smeared his face.
In the center of his forehead, a blue-green, cross-shaped Cursed Seal throbbed.
It looked like a parasite living beneath his skin.
Three paces away.
A Main Family man stood upright in a spotless white kimono.
His right index and middle fingers were pressed together and held before his chest, forming the hand sign that controlled the Cursed Seal.
"Know your place as a member of the Branch Family."
The man looked down at him, his voice ice-cold.
"If you dare use your Byakugan to spy on the Main Family's training again, I'll turn you into an idiot next time."
He didn't think the punishment was enough yet.
He was about to channel a little more Chakra through his fingers.
"Bang!"
Without warning, a black military boot caked with dried mud kicked him behind the knee.
The blow came too fast.
The man's hand sign instantly fell apart.
His kneecap broke with a sharp crack. He lost his balance and fell heavily to his knees in the puddle of slop.
The hem of his white kimono was instantly soaked in dirty water and stained with a layer of yellow-brown grease.
The Cursed Seal released him.
The boy on the ground opened his mouth wide, like a fish hauled onto shore.
His chest heaved like a bellows as he gulped down air.
Tears and saliva covered his face.
"Who was that?! Do you have a death wish?!"
The Main Family man flew into a rage.
He pushed himself up with both hands in the dirty water and glared at the newcomer with his pure white eyes.
Blue-green veins bulged around his eyes.
The moment he saw the man's face clearly.
His roar of anger caught in his throat.
A black, high-collared, short-sleeved shirt. A cold, hard jawline.
This was the new Hokage who had just cut off Sarutobi Sasuke's head in the square.
The veins around the man's eyes receded instantly.
He hurriedly took half a step back, his sole skidding on the slippery cabbage leaves. He nearly fell again.
"L-Lord Hokage."
He steeled himself and lowered his head, but immediately put on the airs of a noble clan again.
"This is a private matter for the Hyuga Clan. This boy broke clan rules, so I was merely punishing him a little."
Shu Shiraishi didn't look at him.
He walked over to the boy and nudged his shoulder with the toe of his military boot.
The boy curled up in terror, clutching his head and trembling uncontrollably.
"A private matter?"
Shu Shiraishi turned his head and looked at the filthy white kimono.
"I just gave an order at the Hokage building."
"The entire Hyuga Clan will go prospecting at the border for me tomorrow."
Shu Shiraishi pointed at the Branch Family boy, who was still twitching on the ground.
"He now belongs to the village as a labor asset. He's my living radar for prospecting coal mines."
"If you scramble his brains with that lousy seal and ruin his Byakugan,"
"Who's going to dig holes in his place?"
The Main Family man stared in disbelief.
Labor asset? Living radar?
What kind of damned excuse was that?! Did this man really see a member of the esteemed Hyuga Branch Family as no different from a shovel or a pickaxe?
"My lord, this is the Caged Bird Seal."
The man raised his head, trying to reason with him.
"It's to prevent the Byakugan from falling into outsiders' hands. For hundreds and thousands of years..."
"Smack!"
Shu Shiraishi backhanded him across the face.
The slap cut him off.
His face jerked to the right. Two bloodied molars flew half a meter and struck the foot of the wall.
Five purple-red finger marks instantly swelled up on one side of his face.
"Damaging public property. That's your warning."
Shu Shiraishi shook out his wrist.
"If you dare mention hundreds and thousands of years in front of me again, I'll twist your head off."
The Main Family man clutched his face and drew a sharp breath.
He gritted his teeth and didn't dare make a peep.
The commotion at the mouth of the alley had grown too loud.
Hyūga Tensō, who had just left the meeting, was leading several Main Family elders back to the clan compound.
After hearing a report from a clan member, he hurried over, pushing through the crowd.
The cold sweat on Tensō's forehead had yet to dry.
In the meeting room, he had watched Mitokado Homura get dragged away to mine coal and Utatane Koharu get smashed into a wall.
His fear of Shu Shiraishi had sunk into his bones.
But when he saw the Main Family member on the ground, clutching his face.
Then looked at the Branch Family boy beside him, gasping for air.
Tensō's heart sank.
He was going to move against the Caged Bird Seal.
He was digging up the Main Family's ancestral graves.
If this system were abolished, which of the thousands in the Branch Family would still be willing to serve as dogs? The comfortable lives of the hundreds in the Main Family would collapse in an instant.
Tensō bit the tip of his tongue, using the sharp pain to stop his legs from trembling.
"Lord Hokage!"
He hurried forward and bowed deeply, bending low at the waist.
"If you want the Hyuga Clan to mine, my lord, we have no objections whatsoever. We'll set out first thing tomorrow morning."
Tensō straightened up.
His hands were tucked inside his wide sleeves, gripping the fabric tightly.
"But this Caged Bird Seal is the Hyuga Clan's lifeline."
He humbled himself, trying to bring the village's greater good to bear on him.
"It prevents our Kekkei Genkai from falling into the hands of enemy nations. It is the absolute defense left to us by our ancestors."
"Please understand the Hyuga Clan's painstaking intentions, my lord."
Shu Shiraishi looked at Tensō's wrinkled face.
Only a few dozen minutes ago, this old bastard had kowtowed on the mahogany table to pledge his loyalty, not daring to utter a word of refusal.
Now, to preserve his power to enslave his own clan, he was trotting out the same old pretext of hundreds and thousands of years.
"Absolute defense?"
Shu Shiraishi sneered.
"The Senju Clan had Wood Release too. Now, who besides the First can use it?"
"You treasure some rotten rules from centuries ago. No wonder you can only serve as other people's bodyguards on the battlefield."
Shu Shiraishi went past Tensō, not even interested in wasting words on him.
He simply strode forward.
Fifty meters ahead stood the Hyuga Clan's towering white-painted gates.
"Abolish that lousy seal. Now. Immediately."
His military boots struck the bluestones with a dull echo.
Tensō panicked.
He turned around, spread his arms, and blocked Shu Shiraishi's path.
"My lord! You can't do this!"
Tensō's voice rose an octave, trembling with desperation.
"The Caged Bird Seal existed before Konoha was founded! It's a rule of the Shinobi World!"
Shu Shiraishi stopped.
He looked at the two arms blocking his way.
He reached out and seized Tensō's wide right sleeve.
His fingers tightened, and he gave it a sharp yank.
"Rrrip!"
The fine silk let out a shriek.
The entire right sleeve was torn off, exposing Tensō's scrawny arm.
Tensō lost his footing and stumbled, nearly falling to one knee.
"You tether people like dogs and carve a cross into their foreheads, and you call that a rule?"
Shu Shiraishi casually tossed the scrap of fabric into Tensō's face.
It covered half of Tensō's terrified face.
"On Konoha's land, the only rules are mine."
Shu Shiraishi's voice came down like a hammer.
"Not your traditions."
He shoved Tensō aside.
Then strode toward the Hyuga gates.
Inside the gates.
Dozens of Main Family experts in pure white kimonos poured out.
They stood shoulder to shoulder on the steps.
Like a white wall, they blocked the gates.
Tensō pulled the scrap of fabric off his face.
The veins on the backs of his hands bulged one by one.
There was no retreating now.
If Shu Shiraishi crossed those gates and abolished the Cursed Seal, the Main Family would be finished.
A few hundred people could never suppress thousands of Branch Family members with awakened Byakugan.
Even if they had to take a beating, they had to stop the Hokage outside the gates!
Tensō bit through his lip.
The metallic sweetness of blood spread through his mouth.
He spun around and pointed at Shu Shiraishi's upright back, roaring.
His voice cracked, like a cornered beast driven to the edge of a cliff.
"For the glory of the Hyuga!"
"Form up! Stop the Hokage!"
The moment the words left his mouth.
The dozens of Main Family experts on the steps stepped forward in unison.
"Hah!"
Their unified shout shook dust from the gatehouse.
Dozens of hands rose at once.
His left palm faced forward, his right palm toward the sky.
His legs bent slightly, his center of gravity lowered.
The standard opening stance of the Gentle Fist.
Joining together into an airtight defensive net.
The fallen leaves on the ground were pushed aside by currents of Chakra, swirling through the air.
"Byakugan! Activate!"
A series of low rumbles from erupting Chakra burst through the air.
Blue veins bulged instantly around dozens of pairs of eyes.
Like blue centipedes crawling across the corners of their eyes and temples.
The pure white pupils showed no trace of humanity.
Dozens of pairs of Byakugan, accompanied by waves of resolute Chakra.
Locked firmly onto Shu Shiraishi.