As he pushed open the door, every gaze in the main hall turned toward him.
"Oh, it's Neiki. It's so noisy outside—what's going on?" an elder asked kindly.
"Can't you see we're in a meeting? What are you barging in for?" another frowned.
Some elders who had already broken free of the Jutsu of Tranquility and understood the truth could only curse Neiki hoarsely, but their insults were crude and repetitive—"traitor," "bastard," "you'll pay for this"—their faces twisted with rage, just like Hyuga Hiashi's had been before Neiki broke his spine.
If not for the chains binding them, even with their arms broken, they looked ready to lunge forward and tear a chunk of flesh from Neiki with their teeth.
Eight, nine, ten… fifteen.
Neiki silently counted the survivors in the room.
Three elders.
Twelve representatives from the main and branch families.
Most of them carried high-purity Byakugan.
Perfect.
Truly the pillars of the Hyuga clan, qualified to sit and hold a meeting in the main hall.
Neiki smiled, satisfied.
"Everyone's talking to you," Hyuga Hisaku said with a frown. The branch family genius seemed unusually rude today.
"Oh, I just developed a new genjutsu. I wanted to demonstrate it for the elders," Neiki replied.
Some elders looked surprised.
Some scoffed.
So many important figures present, and he wanted to show off? What did he think he was?
And a genjutsu, of all things. Was the Hyuga clan's Gentle Fist not enough for him to master?
Before any of these complaints could be spoken aloud, Neiki snapped his fingers.
In an instant—
The world changed.
All fifteen survivors in the room, including Hisaku, froze in place.
The grand and pristine main hall turned dark and ghastly, as if the color had been drained from it.
Spiderwebs clung to every corner. Dust blanketed the floor. Insects crawled over the tatami. The bright red "paint" on the main doors had congealed into thick, lumpy streaks, filling the air with the stench of blood.
What unsettled Hisaku most was the sight of the elders—including Clan Leader Hiashi.
They were hideous.
Their hair and beards had grown wild and filthy, as if they hadn't been groomed in a month. Chains extended from the walls, buried through their ribs, so every tiny movement made the metal clink.
Their eye sockets were hollow and dark, their faces matted with dried blood.
They turned their heads toward Neiki, cursing him from the seat of honor.
Before Hisaku could make out what they were shouting, he saw Neiki wordlessly draw his sword.
Shing.
A flash of steel.
Hisaku watched his own hands fly away.
Blood arced beautifully through the air.
The cut was so fast his body hadn't even reacted yet. All he felt was a cool numbness at the stumps of his wrists.
He looked up in blank confusion.
The scene before him was utterly unfamiliar.
Someone cried out, "This genjutsu is incredible!"—only to be cut down by Neiki a heartbeat later.
Others, still unaware of what was happening, had their throats opened in an instant.
The Hyuga clan's "loyal guardian," Neiki, pulled his blade from the back of a main family member's skull, then moved on to kill another and another.
Screams echoed through the hall.
Even the disheveled elders beside Hisaku were not spared.
"Run… run…"
Hisaku saw one elder staring at him, lips peeled back around broken teeth as he roared at him to flee.
When the last body fell, the hall finally went quiet.
Hisaku's expression was dazed. Then he forced out a strained laugh.
"Neiki… that's enough. Enough, you can stop the genjutsu now…"
"This is… far too realistic…"
"My… my arms are even starting to hurt…"
He kept urging Neiki to dispel the illusion, convinced this "massacre" was just part of Neiki's outrageous demonstration and not something to be taken seriously.
Neiki tilted his head and gave him a puzzled look.
He glanced at the sword dripping blood in his hand, then back at Hisaku, thinking for a moment before reminding him gently:
"Is it only your arms that hurt?"
"Didn't you notice your neck starting to feel strange too?"
Hisaku paused, as if only now sensing it, then nodded repeatedly.
"You're right… it does feel a little itchy…"
He raised his arm and rubbed at his neck.
The itch grew stronger.
He kept rubbing—
And rubbed his own head clean off.
Neiki met almost no real resistance this time.
Reality is not something everyone has the courage to face.
Most of the fifteen high-ranking Hyuga in the hall never truly reacted, even after Neiki shattered the Jutsu of Tranquility.
They stared blankly at the transformed surroundings.
They watched Neiki kill someone.
Watched him kill someone else.
Watched him walk toward them—
And only when the blade entered their bodies did some dim realization finally flicker to life.
But by then, it was too late.
No one had ever considered the possibility that Neiki would slaughter his kin. No one imagined that the clan meeting they had attended was actually being held inside an abattoir, with themselves as the next livestock waiting to be butchered.
The gap between the illusion and reality was too vast. The mind recoiled from it, making reality feel farther away than the dream. Neiki's speed gave them no time to bridge that gap.
From the moment he drew his sword to the moment the last head rolled, only a few breaths had passed.
It was over.
[Essence Collected: 96.7%]
"Neiki, are you done?"
From the head seat, Hiashi—the chains creaking as he turned his ear toward the sound—asked as if they were co-conspirators in some great enterprise.
"It's done," Neiki answered, still sorting through his spoils.
This raid alone had pushed his Byakugan essence progress to 96.7%. With the branch family members almost fully harvested, he only needed a few more main family Byakugan essences to advance his eyes to their final stage.
The process had been bloody, but overall, smooth. From the moment he tricked Clan Leader Hiashi and seized control of the main house, today's ending had been nothing more than a scheduled conclusion.
With the Jutsu of Tranquility in place, Neiki had gained the power to sway the entire Hyuga clan single-handedly. But simply controlling them wasn't enough. His real focus was how to gather all Hyuga into one place, avoid Konoha's retaliation for as long as possible, and maximize his harvest while still inside the village.
"You've accomplished a great revolution for the Hyuga clan. Although your methods were brutal, these were necessary sacrifices. The ancestors will understand. From today on, the Hyuga will no longer be shackled by the Caged Bird," Hiashi sighed.
Neiki understood that Hiashi was trying to wrap this massacre in the cloth of "reform" rather than rebellion. Hiashi had already spoken at length on such things—political creatures were always obsessed with legitimacy.
Neiki himself didn't care, but he did indeed have no intention of letting the Caged Bird system revive under his rule.
At least, not under that name.
Caged Chicken, Caged Duck—something like that.
Of course, it wouldn't be to "protect the clan's bloodline," but purely as a tool to control others.
And his targets would no longer be limited to the Hyuga.
They would be everyone.
In that sense, Neiki was quite generous.
He didn't intend to enslave people for generations as the Hyuga main family once had. Compared to the Caged Bird's hereditary oppression, his method was a kind of progress—cold and ruthless, but more honest.
"Has the war between the Uchiha and Konoha broken out?" Hiashi asked. Neiki had predicted this earlier.
"Yes. The Uchiha can't win," Neiki replied lightly. He had gone to the trouble of helping them avoid a massacre at Itachi's hands; he at least hoped they'd put on a decent show.
"Konoha can't win either." Hiashi shook his head. "It will be a mutual mauling. After this, Sarutobi might wish to retire, but he'll have to stay. Once the Fourth Great Ninja War begins, they'll need an old Hokage to hold things together. Without the Uchiha and Hyuga, Konoha will be weaker than ever. The other villages will not let this opportunity slip. This will be a life-or-death struggle for Konoha."
Neiki glanced at him.
It didn't take a genius to foresee this, but for someone who'd been chained in a sealed mansion for a month, Hiashi's political instincts were still sharp.
Unfortunately, that sharpness was wasted.
"Why say all that?" Neiki asked casually.
"I just feel relieved that you're leaving Konoha. Even if Konoha falls, the Hyuga clan will live on," Hiashi said, speaking more than he had in days.
Neiki thought for a moment, then nodded slightly.
"So… just like you made arrangements, Fugaku likely did the same. Whether the Uchiha lose here or Konoha fails in the Fourth War, Konoha is no longer a safe place. Even if Sarutobi doesn't hunt them down, Fugaku must have sent at least one Uchiha out of the village by now."
"Yes. That would be the thinking of most clan leaders," Hiashi agreed. "The clan must survive, no matter what happens to the village."
Konoha was a sinking ship—a hole Neiki and the Uchiha had carved together.
"So… where do you think that Uchiha would go?" Neiki asked.
Hiashi didn't question his intent. He simply imagined what he would do if he were the Uchiha patriarch.
"The Land of Tea or the Land of Waves, perhaps. Far from the war fronts, with no major shinobi villages—and the Uchiha have long had thoughts of founding their own hidden village."
"I see." Neiki tucked these names away in his mind, then looked up after absorbing the last harvested Byakugan. "I'm done. Any last words?"
He thought Hiashi still had some use left, so he deliberately emphasized the phrase last words.
"I almost forgot something."
"Hinata, come out and bring the clan ring," Hiashi called loudly.
At his shout, a small side door creaked open. Hinata walked out, eyes tightly shut—likely on Hiashi's orders, to keep her from seeing the carnage or Neiki's face.
She almost tripped over a corpse.
But somehow, step by step, she made it to Neiki and held the ring up in both hands.
Neiki, utterly uninterested in the Hyuga's "legacy," didn't take it. His gaze fell instead on the fresh mark on her forehead.
"What is this supposed to mean?" he asked.
He had no need for symbolic gestures.
Understanding what Neiki was really asking, Hiashi smiled faintly.
"I told the elders that Hinata's talent was lacking, so I decided to have Hanabi inherit the position of clan head. As tradition dictates, Hinata would then become a branch family member. In the past, no matter how much the elders pressured me, I would never have agreed. They're my precious daughters. But now… this is my way of protecting her."
On Hinata's pale forehead, the brand-new Caged Bird Seal was still faintly reddened. It had been etched by one of the elders Neiki had just killed.
The eldest daughter of the once-glorious main family had been demoted to branch family status, just like Neiki.
Although, from today onward, there might no longer be a main and branch distinction in the Hyuga clan.
The Caged Bird mark would limit Hinata's potential, but Hiashi never expected her to be an exceptional talent.
He had arranged the seal precisely to prevent others from coveting her Byakugan—lowering the risk that she would be targeted and harmed.
"Are you sure you don't want the ring?" he asked one last time.
"No need."
"Very well. Hinata, since he doesn't want it, take it back and put it away."
Hinata shuffled back, careful not to step on anything.
"I'll make it quick," Neiki said, lifting his sword.
"Wait until my daughter is a bit farther away…" Hiashi asked softly.
Neiki didn't mind, so he nodded.
…
One clean stroke.
Head and chains fell together.
Neiki walked across the blood-red floor, sword in hand, into the sunlight.
The trees in the courtyard swayed lightly, their roots drinking deep from the bodies beneath the soil.
Neji, dazed, stepped over corpses as he walked past.
Under the lingering haze of the Jutsu of Tranquility, he didn't notice Neiki passing him. Only Hanabi at his side seemed to sense something, turning to glance in Neiki's direction.
Neiki stepped over the last body and reached the estate's entrance.
Suddenly, laughter echoed across the compound.
He turned back.
The colossal Byakugan projection above the rooftop slowly twisted, reshaping itself into a single massive character—
"Memorial."
Inside the main house, a grand funeral was underway.
The coffins were filled with clothes only, not bodies.
Above them hung a black-and-white portrait of Hizashi.
At some point during the ceremony, a boy seated in the front row suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter.
An elder had scolded him angrily:
"Neiki! Your father is dead—what are you laughing at?!"
But the laughter wouldn't stop.
It had echoed on and on.
Even now, four years later.
…
Neiki, what are you laughing at?
…
Me?
I am laughing at Heaven's rule of fifty, with one path left open.
At this razor-thin chance that fate left for me.
It was hard to seize.
The price beneath it is the mountain of your bones.
This cage of a thousand-year-old clan—this prison of generational servitude—
—will be shattered by my sword.
This ancient clan will be overturned by my hand.
And the tightly locked door to the sky—
—at last, I hold the key.
…
Neiki smiled, turning his gaze away from his younger self and stepping onto a new road.
The memory of Hizashi's funeral crumbled with the end of the Jutsu of Tranquility.
The illusions fell away, revealing the reality beneath:
Under the evening sky, a funeral for the entire Hyuga clan.
Birds cried overhead, mingling with the boy's laughter from four years ago, echoing together for a very long time.
PS:
Hyuga Clan Ring - Symbolic ring representing the authority of the Hyuga clan head.
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