Chapter 151: Why Doesn’t The Main Family Engrave The Caged Bird Seal? The Sin Disguised As Tradition!
With a “thud,” the face of the head that fell to the ground was frozen with the lingering terror and plea from before death.
When Hyuga Hiashi glanced over imperceptibly, he seemed to still read a trace of confusion in the other’s eyes.
Before his death, Hyuga Kenjiro seemed deeply confused as to why Hyuga Hiashi, as the Hyuga Clan Leader, did not stand up for him.
Why not take a firm stance? To protect the Main Family clan members?
Why allow a Uchiha Clan ninja to “randomly” kill people inside the Hyuga Clan Compound?
An indescribable guilt filled Hyuga Hiashi’s heart.
He could give no answer or explanation to the other; a thousand words could only turn into a sigh from the bottom of his heart.
Shortly after.
Facing the abnormal gazes of many surrounding clan members, Hyuga Hiashi looked up and met Uchiha Ikeizumi’s eyes. But just less than a second into the eye contact, Hiashi suddenly recalled Uchiha Ikeizumi’s Mangekyo Sharingan, which seemed to possess an unthinkable weird power.
The former Root Organization leader Shimura Danzo had once fallen under those eyes without the slightest ability to resist.
And moreover… the other was suspected of also possessing Wood Style Bloodline Limit.
Wood Style plus Sharingan plus Lava Release.
What strange combination was this?
Hyuga Hiashi suddenly had a bizarre idea—if one day Uchiha Ikeizumi closed and opened his eyes, only to find they had become Byakugan, he might not even find it strange.
Harboring abnormal thoughts and feeling somewhat uneasy in his heart, Hyuga Hiashi imperceptibly shifted his gaze a bit.
He did not continue to meet Uchiha Ikeizumi’s eyes.
“Ikeizumi, the Hyuga Clan has no objections to the「 absolute justice」 you carried out today.” Hyuga Hiashi lowered his head, yielded, and endured: “Hyuga Jin Fu’s actions from many years ago indeed violated justice. Hyuga Kenjiro’s cooperation with Kato to transport contraband drugs also broke the Land of Fire’s laws.”
“This father and son pair should pay the corresponding price for their actions. And as clan leader, my failure to notice their wrongdoing is also my fault; I will reflect on it.”
Hearing Hyuga Hiashi’s words, Neji Hyuga was momentarily stunned.
Was this the lofty Main Family?
Was this the majestic and inviolable Hiashi-sama, who could make Father suffer immensely with just a single seal to activate the Caged Bird Seal?
In the face of Uchiha Ikeizumi’s「 absolute justice」, the Hyuga Main Family turned out to be nothing special.
The Main Family, which was superior within the Hyuga Clan, repeatedly yielded outside the Hyuga Clan and repeatedly bowed to others.
In a daze, the filter in Neji’s heart about the Main Family’s superiority seemed to develop fine cracks.
But at this moment, Neji suddenly heard Uchiha Ikeizumi speak.
“You say you’ve reflected? That’s pretty funny; it almost made me laugh.”
Whether Neji or Hiashi, both were momentarily stunned.
Neji Hyuga looked up at Uchiha Ikeizumi’s back with considerable confusion. In his view, the words Hyuga Hiashi had just said could indeed be considered a concession and reflection, right?
After all, Hyuga Hiashi was the Hyuga Clan Leader; wasn’t saying those words a concession? It even counted as being a bit cowardly!
Uchiha Ikeizumi’s gaze fell on Hyuga Hiashi’s face.
For some reason, it made Hyuga Hiashi feel somewhat tense.
Only to hear Uchiha Ikeizumi continue: “You only admitted that Hyuga Jin Fu’s actions from many years ago were indeed a sin, but you did not admit that what he did last night was wrong.”
“This shows that in your heart, within those deeply rooted corrupt family rules, the Branch Family Elder Hyuga Yokogari, who tried to break the Caged Bird Seal… deserved to die.”
“You think Hyuga Jin Fu tormenting him was correct. Hyuga Yokogari died because of it only due to bad luck with his old ailment recurring.”
“Your true inner thoughts are exactly the same as Hyuga Jin Fu’s before his death, because your mindsets are fundamentally identical.”
“In your eyes, the lofty Hyuga Main Family riding over the heads of the Hyuga Branch Family is not wrong at all.”
“Am I right? Hyuga Hiashi.”
Hyuga Hiashi froze in place, while Neji Hyuga’s whole body stiffened.
Neji suddenly snapped back to reality.
Yes!
Hyuga Hiashi had not said that “Hyuga Jin Fu tormenting Hyuga Yokogari to death due to his old ailment recurring” was wrong!
What Hyuga Hiashi was reflecting on wasn’t this point at all, meaning he had never empathized with the Branch Family ninjas even a little!
Yet he had naively thought just now that the other had truly reflected and realized he shouldn’t treat Hyuga Branch Family ninjas this way.
He had actually held an indescribable “hope” toward Hyuga Hiashi, hoping the other would treat the Branch Family a bit better.
Hoping the other would admit that Branch Family Elder Hyuga Yokogari was not wrong.
‘When did I set my expectations for the Hyuga Main Family so low? I bear the hatred for Father becoming the Main Family’s scapegoat; why am I inexplicably siding with the Main Family?’
As Neji continuously questioned himself inwardly.
Hyuga Hiashi, taking a deep breath, finally spoke: “Ikeizumi, you don’t understand the Hyuga Clan’s situation. Hyuga Jin Fu deliberately tormenting Hyuga Yokogari for a full half hour was certainly not good, but he was just acting on an excessive impulse within reasonable punishment.”
“Or put it this way… his handling of Hyuga Yokogari according to Hyuga family rules was correct, but his overly extreme deliberate torment was wrong. I admit that point.”
“I don’t think Hyuga Yokogari deserved to die, and I regret his passing, but that doesn’t mean Hyuga Yokogari didn’t make a mistake.”
“The Caged Bird Seal is the foundation that has allowed the Hyuga Clan’s bloodline to continue for hundreds to nearly a thousand years without interruption. Hyuga Yokogari trying to break the Caged Bird means he was digging at the Hyuga Clan’s foundation.”
“The Main Family cannot tolerate such behavior that attempts to destroy the Hyuga Clan’s bloodline continuation.”
Hyuga Hiashi paused, as if regaining a bit of confidence; his face solemn and serious as he said: “Hyuga Jin Fu was wrong, but Hyuga Yokogari was also wrong—this is my firm view.”
Naruto, standing behind Uchiha Ikeizumi watching the spectacle, felt his head ache enormously.
He couldn’t help poking Sasuke beside him, leaning over and whispering: “Hey, do you understand what he’s saying?”
Sasuke glanced speechlessly at Naruto and replied in a low voice: “He thinks their Hyuga Clan’s family rules are above everything. Even if not entirely, they’re at least on par with the Land of Fire’s laws, Konoha’s rules, and the order of absolute justice—these three.”
Naruto was stunned, muttering suspiciously: “How can you understand?!”
Sasuke was silent for a moment, then said: “Because he’s like some very stubborn people in the Uchiha Clan. I even think he’s more stubborn than those in the Uchiha Clan.”
“In these people’s eyes, a ninja clan’s rules are the greatest rules. If a ninja clan’s rules conflict with absolute justice’s rules, they’ll think the ninja clan’s rules are the ones to follow.”
Sasuke added: “Even if they conflict with Konoha’s rules, they’ll think and act that way.”
Sasuke, from a major ninja clan, naturally understood these kinds of people well.
After all, they weren’t a minority in the Uchiha Clan either.
It was just that the Uchiha Clan’s stubbornness wasn’t as severe as the Hyuga Clan’s. After all, Sharingan itself was naturally somewhat extreme and rebellious; it was impossible for everyone to rigidly follow outdated family rules.
But Sasuke noticed that the Hyuga Clan seemed to revere their family rules extremely from top to bottom.
Hmm…
Especially this Hyuga Main Family group.
Even the oppressed Hyuga Branch Family was the same.
“What the heck are they babbling about, meow?!” The abrupt strange tone made Hyuga Hiashi involuntarily pause.
He couldn’t help directing his gaze to the orange ninja cat at Uchiha Ikeizumi’s feet, the one speaking human words.
Kijiro lifted his disdainful eyes to meet Hyuga Hiashi’s: “Next, are you going to say the Main Family is the Hyuga Clan’s true inheritor? That the Branch Family is just the Main Family’s guardians?”
“That Branch Family members must adhere to their guardian duties, without overstepping the Main Family’s bottom line even slightly? And once they do overstep, feeling the pain of the Caged Bird Seal is only right?”
Hyuga Hiashi said nothing, because this ninja cat had said everything he was about to say.
It was just that the ninja cat’s tone was very unfriendly; Hyuga Hiashi always felt this orange ninja cat wanted to curse him.
The next second, he didn’t expect his feeling to come true.
This rude ninja cat really spewed vulgarities at him!
“Meow! How disgusting, Hyuga Hiashi!”
“What inheritor, what guardian—almost made me laugh. You so-called Hyuga Main Family ninjas are just using the Caged Bird Seal to enslave Branch Family ninjas, coercing them with death and pain to make yourselves superiors!”
“Byakugan with curse mark and Byakugan without are your markers for distinguishing superiors from inferiors! Stop pretending to be Hyuga Clan bloodline inheritors; I see your Hyuga Main Family has inbred so much your brains are about to go wrong.”
As Kijiro spoke, perhaps feeling it wasn’t satisfying enough, it suddenly turned its spearhead toward the Hyuga Branch Family.
It directly jumped onto Neji’s shoulder, its weight nearly causing Neji to topple over.
Kijiro harshly poked Neji’s cheek: “And you Hyuga Branch Family folks, really brainwashed by the Main Family, huh? He just said a few words, and you almost thanked him on your knees? Even the dogs in the Inuzuka Clan aren’t as easy to train as you, and besides, dogs get better treatment than you Hyuga Branch Family.”
“At least Inuzuka Clan dogs, if they try to break a contract, the Inuzuka Clan ninjas will caringly ask them: Why break the contract? Did some clan member mistreat you?”
“You Hyuga Branch Family? Just for trying to break a Caged Bird you never wanted carved on your head, you’re tormented to near death; they don’t see you as people or even dogs, meow!”
Neji’s young face immediately flushed red.
“Just one sentence!” Kijiro said: “The so-called Hyuga Clan family rules are a deformed product born from the twisted pathology of the ninja world; the ‘Caged Bird’ is the most extreme of those deformed products.”
“Meow, talking about it almost pissed me off.”
Kijiro, having cursed to his heart’s content, muttered dry-mouthedly.
The entire Hyuga Clan Compound was deathly silent.
No one expected a ninja cat to openly criticize their Hyuga Clan in front of so many Hyuga Main Family and Branch Family members.
Even mixing in vulgarities occasionally.
Hyuga Hiashi thought his choice to yield was calm enough.
But after Kijiro’s words, subtle ripples appeared on Hyuga Hiashi’s taut face. He realized that if he didn’t speak up, it would mean he, as clan leader, tacitly endorsed the ninja cat’s words.
If these words spread…
The Hyuga Clan would absolutely lose face.
And the Branch Family ninjas would surely be provoked by them.
Because Hyuga Hiashi had keenly noticed many Hyuga Branch Family ninjas with faces flushed red from the verbal stimulation.
In the end, it was very likely to escalate into conflict between Main Family and Branch Family, with the rift between them growing larger.
Even evolving into armed conflict!
In armed conflict, even if the Main Family could use the Caged Bird Seal to arbitrarily control the Branch Family, they wouldn’t slaughter all Branch Family members, right?
“The Caged Bird Seal is not for enslaving the Branch Family, nor does the Main Family intend to be superiors.”
Hiashi said in a deep voice: “Byakugan, as a bloodline limit, is naturally coveted by enemies. Before the Caged Bird Seal was created, many Hyuga Clan members had their eyes taken by enemies. To protect clan members, a Hyuga ancestor created the ‘Caged Bird’ curse mark.”
“As long as someone tries to extract Byakugan, the Caged Bird Seal will automatically destroy it. Over time, much of the ninja world realized the Hyuga Clan’s Byakugan cannot be taken. This protects clan members from being hunted.”
“Phew! That’s the explanation for why the Caged Bird Seal is carved. The Caged Bird is not the oppression and exploitation you outsiders see.”
“Is that so?” Uchiha Ikeizumi asked very flatly: “Why don’t Main Family members carve the Caged Bird on themselves?”
Hyuga Hiashi instinctively replied: “Because the Branch Family already serves as the Main Family’s guardians, the Main Family naturally doesn’t need to carve the Caged Bird.”
As soon as these words left his mouth, the scene fell silent again.
One by one, Branch Family ninjas looked at Hyuga Hiashi in considerable shock.
“Why?” The somewhat childish voice sounded particularly abrupt.
Neji Hyuga spoke up, looking straight at Hyuga Hiashi and gritting his teeth in confusion: “Why must the Branch Family be the Main Family’s guardians? Why must they die for the Main Family? As this Ikeizumi-sama said… if the Main Family also carved the Caged Bird on themselves, there’d be no need for the Branch Family to be guardians, no need for the Branch Family to be the Main Family’s scapegoats…”
Neji had been provoked by Kijiro’s words; he didn’t know where he got the courage to pour out all his inner thoughts.
“The Hyuga Clan has had Main Family and Branch Family divisions for hundreds to nearly a thousand years.”
A slightly hoarse, deep voice rose from the side; a Hyuga Main Family Elder slowly walked over: “Neji, as Hizashi’s son, don’t you understand this principle?”
“It’s one thing for outsiders to misunderstand the Hyuga Clan, but do you misunderstand too? Even Clan Leader Hiashi will one day divide his two daughters into Main Family and Branch Family.”
“As long as Hyuga blood flows in one’s veins, no one can escape the family rules, and no one can break the ancestral laws.”
“Ancestral laws cannot change—this is the Hyuga Clan’s ninja way.”
By this point, the Main Family Elder had stopped, his gaze fixed on the two bloodstained heads on the ground.
He took a deep breath, his facial wrinkles twitching slightly, but he didn’t erupt; instead, he calmly said to Uchiha Ikeizumi: “Uchiha Ikeizumi, your absolute justice duty is to eliminate ninja world sins; our Hyuga Clan’s family rules aren’t within your purview, right?”
“You’ve already completed your duty by killing two ‘Hyuga villains.’ The rest is not for your absolute justice ninja way or the Uchiha Clan to interfere with.”
However.
This Main Family Elder was shocked to find that Uchiha Ikeizumi completely ignored him.
The extremely dangerous young man suddenly turned his head and asked Neji Hyuga coldly: “Kid, what do you think ‘justice’ is?”
The sudden question seemed somewhat disjointed; not only were Hyuga Hiashi and others confused, even Neji himself was momentarily dumbfounded.
He hadn’t expected Uchiha Ikeizumi to speak to him directly.
“Justice…”
For some reason, words Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke had once said to him suddenly popped into Neji’s mind.
Those were upright theories of justice that had left a deep impression on him.
But before Neji could hurriedly answer, Uchiha Ikeizumi’s voice rang out again: “Order, fairness, justice, morality, punishing evil, promoting good… etc., do you think that’s justice?”
“Yes!”
Neji answered quickly this time, afraid of being interrupted again before he could speak.
“Have you seen fairness and justice in the Hyuga Clan?”
“Do you think the Hyuga Clan’s order is a positive one?”
“Is the moral view you’ve seen or followed correct?”
A barrage of questions accompanied by an icy voice was thrown at Neji.
These questions made the Main Family Elder and Hyuga Hiashi’s expressions clearly off.
“I…”
Neji felt many people staring at him, including Hyuga Hiashi and that Main Family Elder.
Was the Hyuga Clan fair? Just?
He couldn’t help touching his forehead, recalling Father becoming the Main Family’s scapegoat; thinking of Hyuga Yokogari, tormented in pain just for trying to break the Caged Bird; and Kijiro poking his face while speaking to him.
Definitely unfair!
Definitely unjust too!
The moral view the Hyuga Clan followed was definitely wrong too!
The Hyuga Clan members, as insiders, might not feel it much, but when scolded loudly to his face by a ninja cat, Neji suddenly realized some of his ideas might have been polluted by the Hyuga Clan’s twisted moral view.
What restricted him from believing in absolute justice wasn’t his hesitation or instinctive fear of Uchiha Ikeizumi.
It was Konoha’s others’ starkly different, deeply rooted Hyuga Clan-exclusive moral concepts binding him!
If the Caged Bird was a physical cage, then the deeply rooted moral concepts were a mental cage.
Binding Father… and himself…
Making it hard to escape!
“Your answer is already written on your face.”
Uchiha Ikeizumi withdrew his gaze, flatly glancing at the slightly tense Hyuga Main Family Elder.
“Justice’s duty is not just to arrest or judge the guilty. When seeing twisted thoughts and pathological rules that violate justice, justice has the responsibility and obligation to correct them. Otherwise, such twisted pathological phenomena will breed massive sins.”
“So.”
“Are you going to obstruct justice’s execution?!”
……
“The situation seems a bit off…”
Kakashi’s forehead beaded with sweat.
He had thought Uchiha Ikeizumi would leave after killing the two villains.
But now, from the tense atmosphere, it was clear Uchiha Ikeizumi’s purpose this time wasn’t just to eliminate villains.
He actually wanted to openly interfere with the Hyuga Clan’s centuries-old family rules!
He even wanted to meddle in the Hyuga Clan’s traditional ideologies!
Hiss…
Wasn’t this overreaching a bit? Even past Hokage couldn’t change some Hyuga Clan views, let alone interfere with their family rules.
Could Uchiha Ikeizumi really do it?
With his powerful strength?
And his absolute justice?
“Those Hyuga Main Family ninjas’ looks toward Uchiha Ikeizumi are off.”
Knowing full well Hyuga Clan ninjas had surely spotted him, Kakashi still persisted in secretly observing, muttering to himself.
“They’re all beneficiaries of the family rules; how could they willingly carve Caged Bird Seals on their own foreheads like the Hyuga Branch Family?”
Actually, many Konoha ninjas could see the Hyuga Clan’s internal issues crystal clear.
Just like they could see the Uchiha Clan previously definitely plotting something in Konoha.
The Hyuga Main Family was thus not well-liked in Konoha; otherwise, the Young Mistress of the Main Family wouldn’t have been bullied by rabble.
Even so, the Hyuga Main Family still refused any change…
Showing just how obstinately stubborn they were.
Who wouldn’t want to be served and guarded by the Branch Family?
Who’d want to breathe the same air as Branch Family mudlegs?
Moreover.
The Main Family, elevated for so many years, if one day truly “fell to earth,” it was unimaginable what the repressed-for-centuries Hyuga Branch Family would do to the Hyuga Main Family.
“Phew, feels like trouble’s brewing. Should’ve had Yamanaka Yoshinobu call the Hokage too…”
Kakashi muttered.
……
“See that, kid?” Kijiro, squatting on Neji’s shoulder, poked Neji’s cheek hard again: “Even an ‘outsider’ like Ikeizumi-sama cares more about your Branch Family’s situation than your Hyuga Main Family, meow.”
“In Ikeizumi-sama’s justice values, the Hyuga Branch Family doesn’t need to kneel to the Hyuga Main Family. The Hyuga Main Family has no right to make you kneel for hundreds to nearly a thousand years.”
“Meow, don’t get brainwashed by ‘sin’ disguised as rules!”
“Hyuga kid!”
Whether Uchiha Ikeizumi’s words or Kijiro’s, they rang deafeningly in Neji’s ears.
……
……
PS: Ah! Forgot to check typos in the last chapter before posting; woke up this morning, glanced at the comments, and the sky fell（ crying）
