"Edo Tensei really is the perfect jutsu for the Main House…"
Hyuga Yuu murmured the line like an offhand joke.
Across from him, Hyuga MeiYuu's face twisted into something feral. But no matter how furious he was, he couldn't break free of the reanimation's restraints. He could only speak through clenched teeth.
"As Branch House, protecting the Main House is your duty. Harboring treasonous thoughts deserves death!"
"The Caged Bird was created for people like you!"
His fingers trembled as he raised them—forming the sign to activate the Caged Bird Seal.
Yuu arched an eyebrow, smiling faintly. "You still don't understand the situation. The Hyuga Main House doesn't have the kind of rule it did in the Warring States era."
And because Yuu didn't stop him, MeiYuu truly activated it.
But—
Nothing happened.
Yuu didn't even flinch.
MeiYuu's pupils constricted violently.
"Most sealing techniques and curse marks," Yuu said, voice calm, "ultimately rely on the target's chakra, not the caster's."
His fingers flicked.
A coffin rose behind MeiYuu. The reanimated Hyuga was dragged backward, unwilling, forced into it as the lid began to slide shut—while Yuu's voice continued, steady and cruelly patient.
"Nothing is more efficient than making your enemy limit themselves."
"And the Caged Bird is no different. The chakra that destroys nerves and the Byakugan… was always the Branch House's own chakra."
"But it seems the seal's ability to command chakra…"
Yuu's sky-blue Byakugan gleamed.
"…is weaker than this pair of eyes."
As the coffin lid neared closing, MeiYuu caught a full view of those abnormal eyes.
And in that instant, an ancestral warning surged up from the depths of memory—one passed down for generations.
Cold terror shot through him.
He wasn't hunting Hyuga out of revenge.
He was trying to awaken the Tenseigan.
The Hyuga Yud created the Caged Bird Seal to prevent the moon's Ōtsutsuki from stealing their eyes—
But now…
A Branch House brat knew that secret?
Who was he?
An Ōtsutsuki?
A moon Ōtsutsuki wearing human skin?
Doubt and despair drowned MeiYuu as his consciousness fell back into sleep.
The Hyuga are finished…
Yuu recalled the reanimated shinobi and vanished from the area without leaving a trace.
Truthfully, even he was surprised.
If the Caged Bird was going to fail, it should have required a true Tenseigan. He didn't expect a "half-step" evolution to already interfere with it.
It's not a complete solution, Yuu noted internally.
When MeiYuu activated the seal, my Byakugan's ocular power was forced into suppressing it. It affects my output.
If the Caged Bird disrupts me in the middle of a real fight, that could be fatal.
Yuu's eyes narrowed.
I still need to remove it completely.
…
Five kilometers away from the scene, Yuu's Byakugan caught two shinobi moving down the street.
He halted mid-step and shunshin'd away.
When he reappeared, he was standing near a street-side izakaya.
A moment later, the two shinobi and a ninken trotted past.
One was a male shinobi who kept glancing around. Spotting Yuu's Hyuga features, he frowned and started to approach—
Only for a kunoichi with the ninken to stop him with a hand.
She shook her head slightly and looked to the dog.
The ninken lowered its snout, sniffed toward Yuu, then shook its head.
The kunoichi immediately led the man and dog away.
The man held it in for a while, but eventually couldn't resist.
"Inuzuka-senpai… that Hyuga kid was standing out there this late—"
The Inuzuka kunoichi cut him off gently. "Tomorrow is the day the Hyuga clan re-engraves the Caged Bird onto the Branch House."
The man instantly understood—and his expression changed.
"So the village really… isn't going to remove it."
He hesitated, then added quickly, almost defensively:
"Sorry. I'm not saying I disagree with the village. It's just… I have a friend in the Hyuga Branch House."
"I get it," the Inuzuka kunoichi said quietly. "But it's clan business. Even the Hokage doesn't really have the authority to interfere."
"..."
The air turned heavy.
Then suddenly, the Inuzuka kunoichi broke into a mischievous grin.
"By the way—did you notice why that kid's face looked so awful?"
"Because of the Caged Bird?"
"Nope." She giggled. "That might be why he came out for air, but his expression was awful because he's not old enough. Hahaha!"
The man blinked—then burst out laughing once he got it.
…
Yuu watched the two patrol shinobi disappear into the night, his expression unchanged, and walked into the izakaya.
Then—
He was thrown out.
"Kid," the owner said with a kindly smile, "come back when you're an adult."
Yuu stared at the man's warm face with a deadpan look, said nothing, and turned around.
Seriously.
Between his previous life and this one, how old was he now? And he still couldn't enter an izakaya.
He clearly remembered that two of the Sannin—Jiraiya and Tsunade—weren't exactly "well-behaved." Tsunade, especially, had been gambling since she was small. And no casino ever seemed to stop her.
So what—because the person who corrupted Tsunade was the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, no one dared to assign blame, and the gambling halls just gave up entirely?
Even now, you could still hear stories in Konoha about the "Big Fat Sheep" from her childhood.
With his mood complicated, Yuu used the Byakugan to avoid the shinobi investigating the recent incidents. Only after he reached his underground training room did he finally sit down and examine his own growth carefully.
His chakra had doubled—exactly as expected.
After all, his chakra reserves had already been far above Miyuki's. Even before this, he was several times above an average jōnin.
Roughly… four Kakashis.
Yes—twelve-year-old jōnin Kakashi. Yuu had seen him about a month ago, alongside Minato, the Fourth Hokage-to-be.
Which meant…
He was now at "eight Kakashi" chakra.
Not enormous.
But definitely not small.
Naruto had four times adult Kakashi's chakra even as a child, but Uzumaki were chakra monsters. That comparison didn't count.
After feeling the fierce swell in his reserves, Yuu concentrated chakra into his Byakugan.
HUM—!
The air shook. Fine cracks even spread across the floor.
"So that's it… I didn't notice before."
"This is Byakugan—pressure."
A technique Kaguya Ōtsutsuki had used.
After examining it, Yuu nodded to himself.
A decent ability.
It turned ocular power into a chakra flow that pressed down on the enemy and environment like gravity—an oppressive, crushing force.
But the gap between him and Kaguya was absurd. This "pressure" would only have a noticeable effect on chūnin.
Against Kage-level opponents… whether it mattered would depend on his experience and timing.
"And finally… this."
Eight Gates—Fifth Gate: Gate of … open!
He opened the Fifth Gate and thrust out his palm.
"Air Palm!"
The chakra surge from the Eight Gates fused with the increased chakra density from his Byakugan evolution, and the resulting Air Palm hit with far more force than anything he'd produced before.
BOOOOM—!
The reinforced underground wall collapsed, a huge hole blasted clean through it.
"Still nowhere near the destructive output of Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack," Yuu muttered.
"My chakra density still needs to rise."
"And if I don't use the Eight Gates," he added, voice quiet, "I can't even produce an attack like that."
The Gentle Fist was perfect against humans.
But against massive chakra constructs—tailed beasts, Susanoo-class defenses—its raw destruction was limited.
Minato's squad had already moved to the Iwagakure front.
And the time until Obito became "Madara's pawn"…
wasn't far.
A long road remained.