Chapter 184: Fugaku: "Ikeizumi, What Have You Done?"
Hyūga Neji looked up at the dejected Hiashi.
Neji himself felt completely numb. It felt like a wonderful, illogical dream.
But the faint pain from the cheek Jirō Tachibana had poked told him otherwise.
Only reality could be this illogical. The cage the Main House had placed on the Branch Family had been removed so easily.
Neji couldn't help but look at Uchiha Ikeizumi again.
He noticed Ikeizumi's expression was unchanged. There was no look of triumph or relief on his indifferent face. It was as if he had completed an unremarkable, uncelebrated small task.
"This is the momentum of Justice." At this point, Ikeizumi's voice rang out. Neji realized the Uchiha was speaking to him and quickly perked up his ears.
"When Justice is strong enough... sometimes you only need to speak a few words to whip up a crushing momentum that overwhelms all evil."
"The prerequisite is that you must remember that your actions are truly for Justice. Not using power to commit evil in the name of Justice."
Saying this, Uchiha Ikeizumi glanced down at Hyūga Neji.
He continued, "If you are interested in Justice—if you feel you can understand it and possess the determination to execute it, and the conviction to shoulder its responsibility and duty..."
A look of shock instantly flashed across Neji's slightly swollen face.
And beneath the shock, there was a trace of undisguised joy.
"From now on, follow Naruto and Sasuke."
With that, Uchiha Ikeizumi withdrew his gaze. Turning away, with his back to the Main House members, he told Hiashi: "Take the clan members I named to the Military Police Force headquarters. You may, of course, choose to resist Justice."
Hiashi felt that if he chose to resist, he would be the one who died next.
The entire Hyūga Main House might be massacred.
Uchiha Ikeizumi was absolutely capable of that!
"...Yes."
A short time later.
A grim-faced Mitokado Homura returned to the Hokage Tower with the five ANBU squads. He gave a detailed account of every event that had transpired in the Hyūga Clan that day.
Hiruzen's movement of holding his pipe froze as he listened.
"The entire Hyūga Main House was taken away?" After a long silence, Hiruzen's expression became even more complicated than Homura's.
Homura shook his head. "Not all Main House members were guilty. Ikeizumi spared some of the very young ones."
"For example... Hiashi's two daughters."
Hiruzen nodded. "That is indeed Ikeizumi's style of conduct. He is always able to clearly distinguish who is relevant to a matter and who is not. He won't spare anyone involved, but he won't look twice at anyone who isn't."
Homura sighed. "While stopping Ikeizumi from massacring the Main House is a welcome outcome, the punishment Ikeizumi meted out still feels too severe."
"Especially some of the Main House Chūnin and Jōnin. Ikeizumi said he would lock them up for seven or eight years, even ten or twenty years. Losing this many Hyūga Main House shinobi weakens Konoha's strength."
"We can only hope that the large number of Hyūga Branch Family members produce some geniuses to fill the void left by the Main House."
Hiruzen took a puff from his pipe. "Ikeizumi may imprison them for ten or twenty years, but I can release them from prison early. However, necessary suppression is essential. Let those Main House members stay in the Konoha Prison for a while to blunt their arrogance and temper their pride."
"What Ikeizumi did today is actually a good thing for Konoha. He accomplished what I couldn't do for decades."
As he said this, Hiruzen's expression grew more complicated.
The Will of Fire had failed to achieve something for decades, yet Absolute Justice achieved it with a harsh and merciless hand.
Where did things go wrong?
This wasn't the first time Hiruzen couldn't figure it out.
Konoha Cemetery.
"Itachi..."
Staring at Uchiha Itachi's simple gravestone, at the words "Grave of Uchiha Itachi" carved upon it, Fugaku, standing alone before the tombstone, couldn't help but take a deep breath.
He found himself still unable to calmly accept the murder of his eldest son.
But on second thought, this was only natural.
Furthermore.
Uchiha Itachi was his most outstanding son, the one upon whom he had placed all his hopes.
In contrast, Uchiha Sasuke, who chose to believe in Absolute Justice, was, in Fugaku's eyes... a presence who had strayed from the clan and caused him profound disappointment.
Especially after Ikeizumi killed Itachi, Sasuke still chose to follow Absolute Justice.
This complicated Fugaku's feelings.
And deepened his disappointment in Sasuke.
"Captain Fugaku!" Just then, a Uchiha Military Police Force shinobi rushed over.
Although Fugaku was still the Uchiha Clan Head, the Military Police shinobi no longer addressed him as such.
The shinobi first gave Itachi's grave a clearly undisguised look of distaste, then looked away, as if out of sight, out of mind, and told Fugaku: "Uchiha Ikeizumi has brought many criminals back to the Military Police Force. The number is over thirty!"
Fugaku's eyes flashed with a complicated expression upon hearing the name "Uchiha Ikeizumi."
But he quickly suppressed it. He didn't mind not being called Clan Head; his authority had plummeted after the last clan meeting.
Fugaku frowned and asked, "Over thirty people? That many? Who are they?"
"They are all Hyūga Clan shinobi!" the MPF shinobi replied. "Including Hyūga Hiashi, the Hyūga Clan Head!"
Uchiha Fugaku: "???"
He realized the severity of the situation. Who would have thought Uchiha Ikeizumi wouldn't rest!
After killing Itachi, Ikeizumi went after the Hyūga Clan, and even arrested their Clan Head!
Fugaku placed a white flower before Itachi's gravestone.
Then, he said no more.
He rushed back without hesitation.
The Uchiha Military Police Force shinobi, left alone, glanced again at Itachi's gravestone.
He scoffed disdainfully.
"Died so easily..."
"The ungrateful wretch got off too lightly."
Fugaku, who rushed back to the MPF headquarters, indeed found the building packed with Hyūga Clan shinobi!
There were almost more Hyūga shinobi in the building than Uchiha shinobi.
After all, most MPF shinobi were out patrolling the village, and only a few were left to guard the headquarters.
Moreover, Fugaku keenly noticed that none of these Hyūga shinobi had the Caged Bird Seal on their foreheads.
In other words...
They were all members of the Hyūga Main House!
This...
Did Ikeizumi perhaps arrest every single shinobi in the Hyūga Main House? More importantly, why were the Main House shinobi being so cooperative? Weren't they resisting?
Fugaku already felt a sense of dread.
Ikeizumi's actions were going to plunge the relationship between the Uchiha and Hyūga Clans to a freezing point!
And it would cause the Hokage to once again suspect the Uchiha.
The Hokage certainly knew that many Uchiha felt a favorable inclination toward Absolute Justice. Ikeizumi's Absolute Justice essentially represented the Uchiha now.
In the Hokage's eyes, if the Uchiha Clan could arrest the entire Hyūga Main House today, could they arrest the Hokage tomorrow?
"Ikeizumi!"
With these thoughts racing through his mind, Fugaku immediately spotted Ikeizumi's back. He swiftly strode forward, blocking Ikeizumi's path, and demanded with a dark expression.
"What exactly is going on here?"
"What have you done?"
...At the same time.
In the Hyūga Clan Compound.
"It still feels like a dream..." A Hyūga Branch Family shinobi muttered, looking at the sparse Main House members, now only women and children. "Did our Branch Family truly manage to stand up?"
A Branch Family Elder's expression was one of barely concealed excitement. "Yokaru's death was not meaningless; his death brought Uchiha Ikeizumi, and Ikeizumi's arrival silenced the Main House completely!"
Saying this, he walked over to Neji and lamented, "Neji, your father, Hizashi, would be proud that you knew to involve Uchiha Ikeizumi in this matter."
Just as Neji was about to say something, he suddenly heard a Branch Family shinobi nearby say:
—"Most of the Main House will be locked up for over ten years; it's impossible for them to come out anytime soon. Doesn't that mean the positions left empty by the Main House need to be filled? A bloodline needs to carry on the inheritance of our Hyūga Clan's pure Byakugan, right?"
Neji couldn't help but freeze.
He heard someone else speak.
"And the position of Clan Head is now vacant. Who should we choose as the new Clan Head? How about my father? He's highly respected and is a Branch Family Elder; he absolutely has the qualifications, right?"
Neji then heard the Branch Family Elder standing before him say with a gentle smile, "Neji-kun, the Hyūga Clan still needs to select a bloodline capable of shouldering the main responsibility to replace the Main House."
"That way, when the Main House members come out of Konoha Prison, they won't have the authority to claim to be the Main House anymore. Neji-kun, you are Hizashi's son, and you brought Uchiha Ikeizumi into this; you have a certain degree of influence."
"When the clan meeting starts tonight, remember to vote for me, Neji."
This... the Main House fell, but they want to install a new Main House?
Why did the situation feel different from what he had imagined?
Neji was confused.
...
...
(End of Chapter)
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