Chapter 181: Wiping Out the Main House?
Was it true that I... and every member of the Hyūga Branch Family... had been brainwashed by the Main House's centuries-old rules?
Kijirō's 's words spun incessantly in his mind.
Hyūga Neji couldn't help but search his own heart.
He realized he couldn't refute anything the ninja cat had said.
Because the facts spoke for themselves!
If he hadn't been brainwashed, if he hadn't developed this ingrained mental habit... why would he still hold onto a shred of hope for the Hyūga Main House? They treated the Branch Family with zero fairness, merely enslaving them—so why did he always lean toward supporting the Main House in his heart?
All the doubts in his mind were answered in that single moment.
—The Hyūga Main House's long-term ideological indoctrination of the Branch Family had trapped them in a spiritual cage even more terrifying and shocking than the Caged Bird Seal itself!
Had it not been for an outsider's wake-up call, the Branch Family, lost in its own confusion, wouldn't have even realized they were in a cage.
Neji couldn't help but look up at Uchiha Ikeizumi, who stood alone confronting the Main House Elder and Clan Head Hiashi.
The internal struggles of the Hyūga Clan should have nothing to do with an outsider.
Yet, this man insisted on intervening.
He didn't seem to care about offending the Main House at all.
Was this...
...justice?
"Uchiha Ikeizumi..." The Main House Elder's slightly strained expression carried a hint of barely concealed resentment. He spoke, "You are aggressively overbearing toward the Hyūga Clan, even seeking to change rules passed down for hundreds—even a thousand years—as an outsider. No one in the Hyūga Clan will support this behavior!"
"How does my intention to change the Hyūga Clan rules concern the Hyūga Clan?" Ikeizumi's single question left the Elder utterly speechless.
He had lived for so long and never met anyone so arrogant and headstrong.
Did this Uchiha junior simply not understand common sense?
"Who says no one supports it!" Neji suddenly stepped forward from behind, his gaze locked on the Elder. "I am a member of the Branch Family, and I support changing the Hyūga Clan rules!"
The Elder's forced composure finally shattered.
He shifted his gaze to Hyūga Hiashi, hoping the Clan Head would speak some strong words now. He didn't want conflict with Ikeizumi, but he definitely didn't want Ikeizumi meddling in Hyūga affairs.
He wanted Hiashi to drive the Uchiha away without completely offending him.
Hyūga Hiashi: "..."
Whew!
Hiashi felt immense pressure. On one side was the desperate hope of the Main House shinobi for their leader, and on the other was the sheer force of Uchiha Ikeizumi's Absolute Justice.
In a daze, he felt he could physically experience what Uchiha Fugaku's situation was like within the Uchiha Clan.
"The Hyūga Clan... will consider it." After a full ten seconds of silence, facing Ikeizumi's cold stare and the Elders' shocked eyes, Hiashi ultimately didn't dare to be firm.
"If the clan rules have indeed caused dissatisfaction among many clan members, the Hyūga Clan will attempt to cautiously revise them."
Hiashi looked crestfallen as he spoke.
After those few sentences, Hiashi felt his spirit drained. He also acutely sensed that many Main House shinobi were looking at him with disappointment.
Hiashi felt deeply ashamed, knowing he had let down the Main House members, but he felt he had no other choice.
Hiashi had a premonition.
—If the Hyūga Clan continued to wrangle with Uchiha Ikeizumi, the Uchiha might instantly lose patience. A frustrated Uchiha Ikeizumi was arguably the most terrifying ninja in Konoha. The Hyūga Clan, fragmented and unprepared, couldn't possibly withstand his might.
"Hiashi..."
The grim-faced Hyūga Main House Elder tried to say something, but the words caught in his throat. He could sympathize with Hiashi's current difficulty, and in the end, he could only sigh.
"Uchiha Ikeizumi, just as our Clan Head said, the Hyūga Clan will carefully address this matter. We will discuss a solution that satisfies both the Branch and Main Families, and we will send that proposal to you afterward."
The Elder's hands, hidden in his sleeves, were clenched into fists. He spoke with a sullen, aggrieved tone: "Are you satisfied now? Has your Absolute Justice fulfilled its so-called duty? Is it over? Isn't it time for you to leave?"
The Main House...
...really retreated!
Many Hyūga Branch Family shinobi watched the whole event with wide eyes. They had initially thought the death of Hyūga Yokaru, a Branch Family Elder who died from a reaction to the Caged Bird Seal, would simply be swept under the rug by the Main House with a few casual words.
Yet, an outsider like Uchiha Ikeizumi had burst into the Hyūga Clan to stand up for them.
He had even forced the Main House to concede!
This was, without a doubt, the greatest concession the Main House had ever made to the Branch Family!
None other.
"Who said it's over?" Ikeizumi's indifferent remark nearly made the Elder choke on his breath.
Ikeizumi continued, "Are you ignoring the wanton oppression of Branch Family members using the power of the Caged Bird Seal? Are you entirely pretending that this wicked behavior, carried out under the guise of twisted, pathological, and conservative clan rules, doesn't exist?"
The Elder and Hiashi suddenly had a terrible premonition.
"Ikeizumi, what are you going to do?" Hiashi asked.
Uchiha Ikeizumi stated, "The judgment standard will be the severity of each individual's oppression of the Hyūga Branch Family. Those with severe offenses, such as Hyūga Jinsuke, shall pay with their lives, executed immediately. Those with serious offenses shall receive sentences of ten to twenty years. Those with moderate offenses shall receive sentences of three to ten years. Those with minor offenses shall be detained for at least three months."
As shock visibly registered on Hiashi's usually stoic face, Ikeizumi made his stunning pronouncement: "Murder is not the only evil, nor is only the most extreme form of wickedness deserving of the chastisement of Justice."
"In my eyes, scarcely anyone in the entire Hyūga Main House is 'innocent.' The vast majority of you have, at some point, used the Caged Bird Seal against a Branch Family member."
"Including you."
"Hyūga Hiashi."
A bead of cold sweat involuntarily traced a path down Hiashi's forehead.
He finally understood why people in the village called Uchiha Ikeizumi so extreme, why he was branded the 'Uchiha Plague God,' and why he acted like Konoha's 'street-cleaning tiger.'
Uchiha Ikeizumi simply didn't care if you retreated or compromised!
He wasn't interested in making deals.
Uchiha Ikeizumi only wanted to execute Justice! A completely ruthless, uncompromising, and absolutely iron-blooded Justice, devoid of any social courtesy!
He was going to use the Hyūga Clan as an example!
The Hyūga's compromises, retreats, and weakness were all useless.
They earned not a shred of mercy from Justice.
"What kind of joke is this!" A sudden voice rang out, making Hiashi curse silently, but it was too late to stop it. A Main House shinobi gritted his teeth and shouted, "Just using the Caged Bird Seal on the Branch Family counts as a crime? Who made that rule? Was it you, Uchiha Ikeizumi?"
"If that's the case, at least eighty to ninety percent of the entire Main House will be locked up in the prison! Who will pass down the Hyūga bloodline then? Do you want our clan's pure Byakugan bloodline to go extinct?"
"Your extreme version of Justice is the real evil! You don't care about the consensus of the majority; you only care about your own selfish so-called Justice. You are the minority here!"
Hiashi was drenched in sweat.
He recognized the voice—it belonged to a young Main House shinobi. He was considered a prodigy in the clan, having become a Konoha Jōnin at just nineteen, naturally possessing the arrogance befitting a young Main House genius.
But the problem was...
...he clearly didn't know when to hold that arrogance back and when to let it out.
"You... don't have the right to call yourself the majority of the Hyūga Clan!"
The person who suddenly spoke was Hyūga Neji. Though young, he clenched his jaw and looked at the Main House genius: "Look around! Look at the so-called Main House and the so-called Branch Family—which side has more people? Which side is the true majority?"
"They are only silent because they fear you will activate the Caged Bird Seal on them! They have simply developed a rotten, ingrained thought process from your years of oppression."
"That doesn't mean they stand with the Main House! The Branch Family has always been the majority of the Hyūga Clan—there are hundreds of them! Does the Main House even have forty people combined?"
"You just can't bear to give up the Main House's privileges! Or maybe you're afraid that without the Caged Bird Seal, countless people with greater talent will surpass you and trample your self-proclaimed genius title beneath their feet!"
Neji realized this was the only chance to get justice for his father, the only chance to break the cage.
He absolutely couldn't let this opportunity slip away.
He couldn't let the Main House gloss over this.
"You..." The nineteen-year-old Main House Jōnin, rebutted by Neji, felt his forehead veins throb. He suddenly raised a hand and performed a hand seal that made Neji's pupils contract.
Neji remembered that seal...
It was the same seal Hiashi had performed to trigger the Caged Bird on his father years ago.
"Stop!!!"
Hiashi's face changed. He spun around, trying to knock the other man's hands apart.
But he didn't expect...
...someone to be faster than him.
Shhh—
No one saw how Uchiha Ikeizumi drew his sword.
They didn't even see when Ikeizumi used the Body Flicker Technique.
They could only make out a blurred afterimage that flashed before their eyes.
Then, a glint of steel.
An arm flew high into the air.
Blood sprayed!
"Hyūga Horio, confined to the Konoha Prison, twenty years imprisonment." The utterly cold voice finally brought everyone back to their senses.
......................
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