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The face reflected in the mirror, set against a deliberately imitated cold expression and the gradually forming "Caged Bird Seal", slowly overlapped with the face of his father, Hyuga Hizashi, from Neji's memories... No, it was almost identical!
Hiashi and Hizashi were twin brothers, and they had always looked extremely similar.
At this moment, having deliberately restrained the composed demeanor unique to the Main Branch and drawn the "Caged Bird Seal" on his forehead, Hiashi, in Neji's eyes, trance-like, seemed to merge with the figure of his father who had long since passed away—the father in his memories who was always gentle yet carried hidden pain.
Neji stared blankly, forgetting how to speak, forgetting his questions.
Time seemed to flow backward at this moment, and yet, it also seemed to twist.
He watched his "father" face the mirror and draw that mark of shame and pain upon himself; his heart felt as if it were being tightly gripped by an invisible hand. Bitterness, pain, shock, confusion... a surge of various emotions rushed over him, almost making him unable to stand steady.
He had never seen his uncle like this, nor had he ever imagined that he would "see" his father's appearance while he was alive in such a way—at such close range, and almost indistinguishably real.
Hiashi focused on the drawing in his hand, seemingly unaware of Neji's shock.
Not until the final stroke was finished, and a complete, realistic "Caged Bird Seal" appeared on his forehead, did he put down the brush and carefully examine himself in the mirror for a moment.
The "Hizashi" in the mirror had cold eyes, and the curse Seal on his forehead was jarring.
Hiashi slowly turned his head to look at Neji, who was standing frozen in place with dilated pupils.
At this moment, his voice was also deliberately lowered, erasing his usual composure and authority, and taking on a hoarseness and coldness that matched this attire. He even subtly imitated the tone his brother Hizashi used at certain moments in his memory: "Neji, do you see clearly?"
He pointed to the realistic green mark on his forehead.
"From now on, until dawn... I am not Hyuga Hiashi."
He stood up, and his black demon cloak fluttered and fell with his movement; the demon head on his shoulder armor seemed to be roaring silently.
Under the dim light, the "Caged Bird Seal" on his forehead seemed to faintly shimmer with an ominous glimmer.
"I am Hizashi."
He said, his voice imbued with a deep, long-suppressed pain and determination.
"A person who... has long since 'died', an avenger returned from the Pure Land."
"What do you mean by this?"
Neji's voice was extremely cold and hard.
What did Hiashi mean by this? He was originally one of the culprits who caused his father's death.
His father had died in his place; now he was here putting on an act.
Hiashi sighed as he looked at his nephew: "Accusations, resentment—that's all fine. Your father died because of me; I will not deny that. But before that, Neji... it is time to let you know the full circumstances of that time."
"It is not the understated 'dying for one's brother' in the clan genealogy, nor is it the fragmented pieces you have heard from others."
"It is everything, including the compromises in the light and the transactions in the darkness."
He sat back down, and as he moved, the demon patterns on his cloak writhed like living things; the fake curse Seal on his forehead seemed even deeper.
"Fifteen or sixteen years ago."
He began to recount, his voice sinking into the mists of the past.
"At that time, Konoha's 'yellow flash', Minato Namikaze, emerged, stunning various nations with speed and power that no one could match. He eventually succeeded as the Fourth Hokage, bringing a brief, hopeful shot in the arm to the Village. However, the cornerstone of peace was far from solid."
"Although the smoke of the Third Great Ninja War had gradually dissipated, the post-war negotiations were like tangled threads. The nations pulled back and forth endlessly, unable to set a tone that satisfied everyone."
"Twelve years ago, disaster struck. The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox appeared in Konoha without warning, and in those tyrannical beast eyes... the pattern of the three-tomoe Sharingan was clearly reflected."
Hiashi's voice lowered, carrying a hint of the heaviness unique to survivors of that era.
"Many people saw it being controlled by the Sharingan. The Fourth Hokage and his wife, in order to protect the Village, paid with their lives to re-Seal the Nine-Tailed. Heroes fell, and Konoha was severely damaged."
"Because the Nine-Tailed was controlled by the Sharingan, the conflict between the Village and the Uchiha intensified, and both sides did not trust each other. This resulted in Konoha's already limited power being unable to effectively deter surrounding nations, as it was focused on preventing internal strife."
"The already difficult post-war negotiations were indefinitely postponed due to the accumulation of various reasons."
"Among them, the Hidden Cloud Village was the most cunning and arrogant. Seeing Konoha's weakness, they dragged out the treaty that should have been settled long ago for three years."
His gaze seemed to traverse time and walls, landing in the night of the Hyuga mansion nine years ago.
"Nine years ago, that night."
"The Kumogakure delegation officially visited. On the surface, it was to renew the peace treaty, but secretly, they coveted our Byakugan."
"A thief, relying on superb stealth techniques and bold reconnaissance of the Hyuga Clan Compound, seized an opportunity to sneak in with a clear goal—to abduct Hinata, who was still young and the heir of the Main Branch."
Neji's fingers tightened abruptly, his knuckles turning white.
He knew this beginning, but he had never heard such a detailed description from the perspective of the person involved.
"I pursued after I noticed."
Hiashi continued to recount, his tone as calm as if he were telling someone else's story, but a cold light flickered deep in his eyes.
"I caught up at the border and struck him down from the air with an Eighty Trigrams Empty Palm. I controlled the force, intending to knock him out and capture him to investigate the mastermind. However... when I landed to check, the man was already dead."
"What was even more shocking was that after removing his disguise, we discovered that he was actually one of the official members of the Kumogakure delegation."
"We immediately knew it was a conspiracy, a conspiracy aimed at the Hyuga Clan."
"The Kumogakure delegation immediately launched an attack, biting back and claiming that their envoy was killed for no reason by the Hyuga Clan Chief during 'friendly negotiations'. They demanded that Konoha severely punish the murderer and hand over my life, otherwise, it would be considered a tearing up of the peace treaty, and war would break out again."
"At that time, Konoha had just caught its breath from the trauma of the Nine-Tails Attack. The void left by the Fourth Hokage had not been completely filled, and the Third Hokage, who had returned to power, was under immense pressure."
"At the high-level meeting, the clouds of war made it impossible for everyone to breathe."
"The wolfish ambition of Kumogakure was clearly revealed. They perhaps planned from the beginning to use the death of the envoy as an excuse—either to eliminate me, the murderer who killed the Kumogakure envoy, to plot for the Byakugan, or to force Konoha to make concessions and seize huge benefits."
"The elders of the Hyuga Clan held an urgent closed-door meeting."
Speaking to this point, Hiashi's voice was stained with an extremely complex emotion—mockery, sorrow, and deep powerlessness.
"They came up with a so-called 'best of both worlds' solution: for my twin brother, Hyuga Hizashi, your father, to die in my place."
"Using our almost identical appearance, we would hand over Hizashi's remains to Kumogakure, and publicly announce that the murderer who killed the Hidden Cloud Village envoy, Hizashi, had committed suicide to apologize."
Then Hiashi paused and dryly stated the result of this matter:
"Your father agreed, and he committed suicide. The last words he left for me were, 'I am not dying because I am fulfilling the duties of the Branch House; I am willingly dying for my older brother as a younger brother.'"
"This is the truth of the matter."
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