Hyuga elder Sōchō returned to the compound and couldn't stop sighing.
Hiruzen had made it sound like he cared about the clan, but the message was clear: the village was in trouble, so the Hyuga needed to take the hit and back down.
How far were they supposed to bend?
Koharu's solution was simple—swap in Hizashi, the branch family twin, and let him die in Hiashi's place. Just one branch member. Everyone knew branch family lives didn't count for much.
But Hizashi was still his son.
Even if Sōchō had never liked the boy much, blood was blood.
"What else can I do?" he muttered, staring at the sky.
After a long silence, his eyes hardened with guilt.
"I'm sorry, Hizashi. This is for the clan."
When Cloud received the body, Xi went from excited to confused to furious in seconds.
"Why the hell is there a caged bird seal on him?"
He stared at the corpse.
"They swapped him at the last second? They'd rather kill their own than let us get the Byakugan?"
The face and clothes had been perfect. Cloud hadn't noticed until it was too late.
"Xi, what do we do now?" Killer B asked.
Xi clenched his fists. They had no proof the kidnapping ever happened, so they couldn't keep pushing. But giving up without the eyes felt like total failure.
"We can't leave like this," he muttered. "Not yet."
Hiashi sat alone in his room, staring at nothing.
His mistake had killed his own brother. Hizashi had taken the fall for something Hiashi had done.
"It wasn't my fault," he whispered, trying to convince himself. "Cloud broke in. They went after Hinata. I was just protecting my daughter…"
But the guilt wouldn't leave.
Young Neji watched everything from the shadows. For the first time, the difference between main family and branch family hit him like a blade. One brother died so the other could live. Main family stood above everything. Branch family died like servants.
A bitter smile crossed the boy's face.
Hiruzen was satisfied with how it ended. No war with Cloud, no lost Byakugan, just one branch family member sacrificed. Small price.
"This should be the end of it," he thought.
He was wrong.
A new issue of the Ninja World Big Events Weekly hit the entire ninja world like a bomb. It directly attacked Hiruzen's fake Kakashi stunt with three clear points:
1. The real Kakashi always uses Chidori.
2. The real Kakashi copies techniques with his Sharingan.
3. The real Kakashi can summon the Eight Ninja Hounds.
Hiruzen's face darkened the second he read it.
"That damn Rasa never lets anything go," he growled. "He's still obsessed with Kakashi. Does that mean the real one is actually in Sand right now?"
He slammed his fist on the desk.
"Danzo… you screw up again and again, and I'm the one who has to clean it up."
The fake Kakashi—the ANBU using Transformation Technique—rushed into the office, pale.
"Lord Hokage, what do I do? I can't use Chidori. I don't have a Sharingan. And I sure as hell can't summon those dogs."
Hiruzen thought fast.
They could get the summoning scroll for the Eight Hounds. They could teach Chidori to someone with lightning affinity. And Danzo still had plenty of Uchiha eyes from the massacre.
But that wasn't the real problem.
"The Leaf can't keep letting Rasa lead us around by the nose," Hiruzen muttered. "A full war isn't an option right now. But we can send Jiraiya with a strike team to ambush Sand forces. Hit them hard. Cause real damage. And if he can take down Rasa himself… that would knock the arrogance right out of that desert rat."