Chapter 10: The Truth of the Caged Bird

Inside Konoha Hospital.

Hyuga Hizashi tossed and turned on his hospital bed for most of the night, eventually dragged into dreams by sheer exhaustion.

In his sleep, Hizashi vaguely felt the sound of wind.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in the Hyuga clan’s council hall, where candlelight flickered.

"Konoha no longer has the strength to continue the war with Kumogakure. We must give Kumogakure an explanation from the Hyuga clan..." Hyuga Hiashi knelt at the head of the room, his silhouette elongated by the candlelight.

Below him, the elders of the Hyuga main house and the ninjas of the branch house were all astonished.

"Why! It was clearly that Kumogakure agent who kidnapped Lady Hinata!" a branch house Jonin said, filled with dissatisfaction.

"Because we cannot afford another war." How could Hyuga Hiashi be willing to accept this?

But now, the pressure from all of Konoha was forcing the Hyuga clan into a corner.

The hall erupted in an uproar. A main house elder’s Byakugan flickered in the shadows

"What terms did Kumogakure demand?"

Yes, with Kumogakure being so aggressive, could it be that they wanted...?

The Hyuga ninjas in the council hall turned their gazes toward the clan head at the head of the room.

"A murderer." Hiashi’s answer caused the air to suddenly freeze.

As Hiashi’s words fell, the murmurs in the council hall grew even louder.

Neither the main house nor the branch house ninjas could accept such terms.

It was clearly the Kumogakure envoy who had run into the Hyuga compound to kidnap the clan’s young lady and was killed on the spot, yet the victims were the ones expected to hand over a person?

"There is no need for the clan head to step forward. If they only want a murderer, giving them one will suffice." The elder of the main house looked deeply toward Hizashi in the branch house seating with his Byakugan beneath long, thick eyebrows.

Hyuga Hizashi wanted to say: 'What about the mysterious person from last night?'

But he found his body standing up uncontrollably, walking toward Hiashi on its own, and kneeling down: "Let me go, brother."

"The value of the branch house's existence is to protect the main house. As the head of the Hyuga clan, you must never come to harm."

'No! It’s not like this!' Hizashi felt as if his soul had left his body, standing to the side and watching 'himself' say these words with a cold expression.

'What about that mysterious person? Isn't there that mysterious person? Just pin the death of the Kumogakure envoy on him!' Hizashi shouted at 'himself' from the side.

But the Hyuga ninjas in the council hall seemed unable to see him, still discussing the feasibility of the plan.

Hyuga Hiashi wanted to say something more, but was punched by 'himself,' who demanded he take responsibility as the head of the main house.

Next, Hizashi watched as 'himself' spoke his final words to his son, Neji, before gladly going to his death.

With the Hyuga clan handing over the 'murderer' who killed the Kumogakure envoy, Kumogakure had nothing more to say.

Hizashi, as a bystander, watched helplessly as 'himself' walked toward death, watched his wife and son sobbing in each other's arms at his funeral, and felt a bone-chilling coldness throughout his body.

'No! It’s a genjutsu!'

'It’s fake! It’s all fake!'

The intense emotional stimulation made Hizashi realize something was wrong, and he began to manipulate his chakra to interfere.

But he could not break free from the genjutsu.

Suddenly, everything went black, and Hizashi was back in Konoha Hospital.

He bolted upright from the bed, cold sweat pouring off him, soaking his bandages.

"Was it a dream?" Hizashi gasped, his right hand touching his forehead.

"It wasn't a dream." Suddenly, a cold voice came from the side.

Hizashi shuddered and turned to look, only to see a mysterious figure in a long robe, wearing a white three-eyed fox mask, leaning against the window. The bright moonlight shone on the mask, casting a cold, faint glow.

"It's you!" Hizashi felt as if he were facing a formidable enemy and tried to get out of bed to fight, only to find that he felt restrained, unable to leave the bed.

"Still a genjutsu!" Cold sweat continued to stream down Hizashi's forehead. Even average Jonin might not be able to master such multi-layered genjutsu.

*Step—*

Uzumaki Menma jumped down from the windowsill and walked slowly toward Hizashi.

"Who exactly are you! What is your goal!" Hizashi was still trying to struggle, but no matter how he disrupted the flow of chakra in his body, he could not break through this illusory world.

"How pathetic." Uzumaki Menma arrived in front of Hizashi: "Everything you just saw, if not for me, would have been your ending."

Hearing this, Hizashi shook his head, trying to refute: "Impossible! Even without you, the Kumogakure envoy kidnapped the Hyuga clan's young lady; being killed was just..."

As he spoke, Hizashi suddenly stopped, feeling as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.

Even a top-tier ninja like the White Fang had been driven to his death; what was impossible about him, a ninja of the Hyuga branch house, being used as a scapegoat?

"See? In your heart, you actually accepted such a fate." Uzumaki Menma's voice carried a trace of sorrow amidst its depth.

"That is why I say it is pathetic."

"The original intention of the Caged Bird was to protect the Hyuga clansmen, yet it turned the majority of them into servant-like inferiors."

Hizashi instinctively retorted: "What do you know! The existence of the Caged Bird! The existence of the Hyuga branch house! It is all for..."

"Do you want to know?" Uzumaki Menma interrupted Hizashi.

"The truth about the Caged Bird." The three-eyed fox mask slowly leaned in toward Hyuga Hizashi.

Menma reached out and slowly pressed his hand onto Hizashi's forehead.

A violent, dark chakra invaded Hizashi's brain.

In an instant, Hizashi saw a different scene.

On a vast battlefield, two armies with different banners were confronting each other, followed by the outbreak of a fierce war!

Hizashi stood in the center of the battlefield, watching the enemies slaughtering each other around him. They wore strange clothing, and their race had subtle differences from the people of the Land of Fire, but what Hizashi found incredible was that everyone in this war possessed a Byakugan.

The scene shifted.

In the ninja world, ninjas wearing Warring States period attire with the Hyuga clan crest on their backs were being slaughtered en masse, and the perpetrators were one of the sides from the previous confrontation.

Countless Hyuga clansmen were massacred, their Byakugan gouged out, and then these mysterious people vanished from the ninja world.

The scene shifted again.

Two armies faced off, but one side had all its soldiers with their eyes tightly closed, perceiving only through their mind's eye.

A tall tower was pushed out from the army formation, and atop the tower, an eyeball-shaped stone was bound by various runic chains.

The commander of this army waved his hand, and the eyeball-shaped stone erupted with blinding light, a purple beam of energy blasting toward the charging enemy army.

Wherever the purple beam swept, explosions followed one after another!

Thousands of enemy troops were wiped out just like that.

"This is... this is..." Hizashi watched as the victorious side scavenged the Byakugan from the defeated side and fused them into the eyeball-shaped stone, his heart deeply shaken.

"This is—the truth behind the existence of the 'Caged Bird'."

As the mysterious figure's voice fell, the battlefield around Hizashi changed again.

Before him were Hyuga clansmen, and the conspicuous 'Caged Bird' curse mark on their foreheads.

"Fake! It's all fake!" Hizashi roared in a rage. Over twenty years of clan education made him unable to accept such a fact.

"These are all illusions you've woven! They're all fake! I can tell! I can tell!"

"Don't you dare try to sow discord between the Hyuga main house and the branch house!"

Inside the genjutsu space, Hyuga Hizashi denied it, bordering on madness.

"Then, what about this?" Uzumaki Menma appeared before Hizashi in the genjutsu space and performed a hand seal with one hand.

A wave of chakra radiated from Uzumaki Menma's body, hitting Hizashi with precision.

"Ah!" The next moment, Hizashi's brain felt as if it had been pierced by ten thousand swords, causing excruciating pain.

The 'Caged Bird' curse mark activated.

"Why... how could you..." Hizashi clutched his head, his face twisted, his Byakugan filled with shock and fear.