Yunchuan Hyuga said nothing more and only waved his hand lightly. This time, no words were needed.
All the Branch Family members received the silent command. They took one last look at Yunchuan Hyuga, their eyes filled with the warmth of having found a pillar, then turned and dispersed in an orderly way.
Under the moonlight, their departing backs were no longer bent or humble, but straight and upright.
After a while, under the pale moon, only patches of dark red blood remained on the ground, silently telling what had just happened.
"It is already late," Yunchuan Hyuga said as he glanced at Hizashi Hyuga. "Hiashi Hyuga sir, please return."
Hizashi Hyuga's eye twitched slightly, but in the end he only sighed and vanished from the spot.
Yunchuan Hyuga then turned and walked toward the gate of his residence.
"Wait."
Hyuga Aoi's voice came from behind. Looking at Yunchuan Hyuga's back, she opened her mouth as if to say something, but swallowed it and only said in a low and complicated tone, "I will tell my father your warning."
"Thank you, Miss Aoi," Yunchuan Hyuga replied calmly.
With that, his figure disappeared from Hyuga Aoi's sight, and the door was closed by the wind.
kacha.
Dragging her heavy steps, Hyuga Aoi entered her family's residence at the center of the clan grounds, grand yet cold. The living room was unlit, with only bleak moonlight from outside casting a cold glow on the floor.
A figure sat upright in the shadows of the living room, back to the door.
"You still know how to come back?"
Hizashi Hyuga's voice sounded cold and hoarse, like rusted iron scraping. Hyuga Aoi stopped in the shadow of the entryway and said nothing.
She could clearly feel the fury on her father that seemed ready to burn everything.
With a snort, Hizashi Hyuga turned around sharply. His old face, gloomy under the moonlight, was now filled with anger.
"Aoi, listen carefully."
He stared at his daughter, his voice trembling with rage. "From today on, stay away from that cursed guy, as far away as possible."
"You are not allowed to have any contact with him."
"And you are absolutely forbidden from harboring any unrealistic fantasies about him."
"He thinks that stirring up a mob can oppose the Main Family and resist the fate of the Branch Family? Delusional."
"He is seeking his own death. It will not be long before he pays for his arrogance."
The more Hizashi Hyuga spoke, the more agitated he became, venting all the humiliation and frustration he had suffered tonight by belittling and cursing Yunchuan Hyuga.
Yet facing her father's near roaring warnings and curses, Hyuga Aoi was unusually calm. She stood in the shadows without rebuttal or agreement, only silent.
Those clear Byakugan eyes watched her furious father calmly, lacking the former reverence and obedience and instead holding a complex look.
After Hizashi Hyuga finished venting and panted heavily, Hyuga Aoi finally said in a flat tone, "Father."
"After you left, Yunchuan Hyuga said some things."
"...What?"
Hizashi Hyuga narrowed his eyes sharply, a sense of danger seizing him at once, and he asked in a cold voice, "What else did that person say?"
"He said..."
Hyuga Aoi spoke as if she were stating something unrelated to herself. "Every one of the Branch Family members who was present today, if they die because of the Curse Seal, or die in an 'accident'..."
"This blood debt will all be placed on your head."
"He will come personally to take your life."
"And likewise, if he dies, there will be others who come to take your life in his place."
"One life for one life."
At that point, she paused, her gaze falling on her father's stiffened face, and continued, "He also said that the Main Family, aside from the Caged Bird Seal..."
"Have nothing at all."
"Fragile and worthless."
The last four words were spoken softly by Hyuga Aoi, yet they were like the sharpest ice spikes, piercing straight through Hizashi Hyuga's already crumbling mental defenses.
The living room fell into a deathly silence.
Pale moonlight illuminated Hizashi Hyuga's face, which instantly lost all color.
The muscles on his face twitched violently as he stared at his daughter, his lips trembling, yet he could not force out a single word.
What had he just heard?
That damned Yunchuan Hyuga.
That rebellious Branch Family he had always treated like an ant.
He actually dared to threaten him so openly?
Using the lives of all Branch Family members, using this kind of mutual destruction, this savage method of trading Sui for survival, to bind his life to theirs?
And those words, nothing at all, fragile and worthless.
Those words tore away the polished surface of his identity as a Main Family Elder, exposing the inside that had been rotted through by arrogance, riddled with holes, and long since stripped of any real strength.
Anger mixed with the shame of being exposed, along with cold fear and helplessness, surged together.
It made Hizashi Hyuga feel as if an invisible hand had seized his heart.
Then squeezed hard.
"Puh!"
Without any warning, Hizashi Hyuga suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.
The bright red mist bloomed under the pale moonlight, splashing across the front of his dark kimono and splattering onto the floor in a shocking crimson.
His body swayed violently as one hand clutched his chest in pain and the other braced against the tea table to keep him from collapsing.
He hunched over, gasping heavily.
"Yunchuan Hyuga!"
A hoarse scream filled with hatred and unwillingness burst from deep in his throat, echoing through the empty living room.
"I will kill you!"
"I will kill you!"
Yet this murderous roar sounded hollow and weak in the empty room, like the howl of a defeated dog, filled with furious embarrassment.
Hyuga Aoi stood quietly in the shadow of the entryway, watching her father's crazed, blood-spitting display, a complicated look flashing through her Byakugan.
She did not step forward to support him, nor did she offer any comfort.
She only took one last deep look at that figure under the moonlight, which appeared especially aged, weak, and unhinged, then silently turned and left the living room without a sound.
All that remained were Hizashi Hyuga's increasingly heavy breaths and the dark red bloodstain slowly congealing under the moonlight.
If Hyuga Aoi were still there, she would have seen Hizashi Hyuga's eyes gradually turn cold and grim.
Those people in Root did not understand what Caged Bird meant, nor did Root understand what the Main Family truly meant.
The Main Family were, in fact, a few bloodlines preserved from long ago with the purest heritage.
As long as those lines continued to branch out and one person with the purest blood was chosen from their descendants to carry on, it would ensure that the Hyuga Clan would never lose the Byakugan due to dilution.
But if this continued erosion by the Branch Family went on, sooner or later the entire Hyuga Clan would fall to the same state as Kohinata.
They would possess the blood of the Hyuga Clan, yet so thin that they could not even awaken the Byakugan, vanishing completely from the history of the Ninja World.
So...
"No matter what, I, Zetsu, will not allow Yunchuan Hyuga and those damned people to continue overturning the legitimate status of the Main Family!" Hizashi Hyuga said coldly to himself.
Even if they banded together, so what. No one could remain as calm and rational as Zetsu in the face of death.