At the same time, in Hizashi Hyuga's eyes, Neji Hyuga had stolen the library's unsealing only to learn Ninjutsu. Yet at this moment, he was searching for a book he had never seen before.
Inside the vast but low stone chamber, shelves rose to the ceiling, packed tightly together. The stale smell of old volumes mixed with dust in the air.
This was the forbidden library deep within the Hyuga Clan ancestral hall. It stored clan secret histories, incomplete Ninjutsu, and many dark secrets unknown to outsiders.
"I247.5, L632… I247.5, L632…" Neji Hyuga murmured softly as he moved soundlessly through the long shadows cast by the shelves, dressed in clothes suited for night movement.
His Byakugan filtered the mountain of ancient scrolls and heavy books before him. His cold fingertips brushed over rough spines, sweeping away layers of accumulated dust.
Time passed little by little. Neji Hyuga's heartbeat grew faster, and even he could not avoid a trace of tension upon stepping into this core forbidden ground that symbolized the authority and countless secrets of the Main Family.
Finally, deep on the bottom shelf in an unremarkable corner, his fingers touched an unusually thick volume, and his steps came to a sudden stop. Seeing the code "I247.5·L632" on the book, Neji Hyuga's heart jumped sharply.
This was it.
"So that person wanted me to read this book?"
Neji Hyuga swallowed and carefully slid the book out. The cover was tough but covered in Lie-like patterns, as if it had been tanned from some kind of animal hide. It felt cold and ancient in his hands.
"Let me see what it actually contains."
Neji Hyuga took a deep breath and opened the mysterious book. After flipping through more than a dozen pages, all he saw were obscure symbols that looked like meaningless scribbles.
Neji Hyuga frowned and forced himself to keep turning pages. What followed were even older records, clan history so ancient that he could barely piece together the sentences. The content described how a certain Main Family Elder of the Hyuga Clan once mediated a trivial internal dispute, using three full pages to praise his "wisdom and valor."
"This is the secret he hinted at so seriously, something supposed to overturn my understanding?"
Neji Hyuga's face darkened as his fingers pressed against the page, his fingertips turning pale. He had risked severe punishment or even death to sneak into this cursed place, only to find a hollow and meaningless book.
The anger of being fooled and the sense of losing Wang gradually replaced his earlier tension and anticipation. Was that person taking revenge on him, or just mocking him?
Thinking of this, Neji Hyuga instinctively wanted to put the useless thing back. He did not have much time, and the Main Family elder guarding the Forbidden Techniques Vault would return soon. At that moment, however, an image suddenly surfaced in his mind, the brief flash of brilliant color in Yunchuan Hyuga's eyes that day, like a fleeting illusion.
"…"
Neji Hyuga paused, pressed his dry lips together, and lowered his head to look at the book again. This time he read with full focus and directly activated Byakugan, veins like twisted cords rising around his eyes. Under Neji Hyuga's Byakugan vision, the scene before him instantly changed.
Beneath the scribble-like characters, hidden images and text emerged like reefs revealed after the tide receded. His breath caught as a dull pain spread through his strained eyes.
"What is this?"
He read the words revealed under Byakugan, using his already limited grasp of the language to decipher them. His face quickly drained of color, then flushed with a sickly red.
He snapped the ancient book shut. In that brief moment, cold sweat had already soaked through his back.
Neji Hyuga stood there with his back against the cold wall, his body rigid. The surroundings were deathly silent, broken only by the pounding of his heart echoing in his ears, each beat bringing a heavier rush of heat.
A Branch Family member. A Branch Family member branded with the Caged Bird Seal. Such a person had slaughtered clan members during a sacred ancestral ceremony that the Main Family regarded as untouchable.
So the reason the Main Family now had only five pure bloodlines left was because that person had nearly wiped them out long ago. And the reason the Main Family treated the Branch Family so harshly today was also because of the shadow left by that massacre.
All of this seemed possible. What terrified Neji Hyuga most was the strong sense of familiarity this scene gave him. "Could it be those eyes that appeared in my dreams?" he murmured hoarsely.
One detail troubled him deeply. If the Branch Family recorded in this secret history could nearly kill all members of the Main Family, did that not mean the Caged Bird Seal had been broken? How had it been done?
Neji Hyuga's gaze swept over the short lines again and finally stopped at the sentence about the eyes being gouged out. Others might see this as revenge or venting hatred, but he knew more than that.
"Those eyes…"
Neji Hyuga muttered in a daze as a bold and terrifying guess surfaced in his mind, making his body tremble. To possess those eyes, would it require many Byakugan?
What Yunchuan Hyuga had guided him to was not just a buried secret. It was a cold and bloody example meant to tell him that the cage of the Caged Bird could be broken, and that the Hyuga Clan still hid unknown power.
A life once bound by the Caged Bird suddenly felt as if a solid door had been shaken loose. A beam of light shone through the crack, letting Neji Hyuga see that there was still another path he could choose.
Yet the door was still locked and needed a key. And that key seemed to require the blood of his own clan.
"Cough, cough!"
A violent coughing sound suddenly echoed through the silent Forbidden Techniques Vault, so harsh it sounded as if the vocal cords would tear and bleed. In the entire Hyuga Clan, there was only one person who coughed like this.
The Main Family elder guarding the forbidden library held an extremely high seniority within the clan. The sound snapped Neji Hyuga out of his shock.
"Why is he back so soon?!"
Footsteps followed, light and dragging, slow with the stiffness of old age as they approached. In an instant, countless thoughts churned in Neji Hyuga's mind as fear clenched his heart, and his eyes dropped to the book in his hands.
The twisted characters seemed to glare back at him once more. His grip tightened as a fierce impulse spread through him.
He had to avoid being discovered. Zetsu could not be discovered. This old man had to disappear.
Neji Hyuga instinctively lowered his body and pressed himself deeper into the shadows. Dim candlelight stretched a human silhouette across the floor.
The elder approached slowly with a flickering lamp in hand, the light revealing those cloudy Byakugan eyes that had almost lost all shine. He noticed nothing unusual, or perhaps he never imagined anyone would dare intrude into the forbidden library, especially someone from the Branch Family.
He was simply making his habitual rounds through the place where he had spent the latter half of his life. Finally, he swayed to the bookshelf where Neji Hyuga was hiding.
One step, then another. As he drew closer, Neji Hyuga's body stiffened and hesitation flickered.
Then he remembered his father who had become a scapegoat. On Neji Hyuga's tense face, veins standing out, a look of fierce hatred flashed.