When he woke the next day, Hyūga Neji heard that the Branch House's clan assembly the night before had failed to select any Branch faction to replace the Main House.
Seven or eight different factions had argued themselves red in the face.
In the process, some Branch members who couldn't accept what was happening followed Neji's example and left the meeting halfway through.
After all, not every Branch House shinobi coveted the Main House's seat.
That morning.
Hyūga Neji did not accompany Hyūga Hinata to the Ninja Academy; he no longer needed to act as her "guard." Arriving alone at the academy, Neji vaguely sensed that some students were staring at him with strange looks.
He realized at once that word of what had happened in the Hyūga clan had spread. Most likely, all of Konoha knew.
Sure enough—
Snatches of hushed whispering drifted into Hyūga Neji's ears.
"I heard… he's the one who brought Uchiha Keizumi to the Hyūga. Then Uchiha Keizumi arrested every last member of the Main House and threw them into Konoha Prison."
Neji's brows drew together. That one had clearly heard wrong—there were still a few innocents left in the Main House.
"I think his name's Hyūga Neji, right? A prodigy in second year. Even as a second-year, he can fight to a draw with sixth-years who are about to graduate. He's pretty incredible."
"Better not go near him. If he can bring Uchiha Keizumi to the Hyūga, who's to say he won't bring Uchiha Keizumi over to our clan next?"
"Speaking of which, there's a first-year at the academy named Hyūga Hinata—they say she's the Main House's young lady. Do you think the Uchiha Police Force grabbed her too?"
"Wanna go ask that Hyūga Neji?"
"Like hell I'm asking. A guy who betrays the shinobi clans—who knows if he'll stab us in the back?"
"…"
Some of Konoha's rabble had the makings of rabble from childhood.
They always managed to ostracize everyone equally with their whispers behind people's backs.
Listening to the furtive talk, Hyūga Neji's expression didn't change. In pursuit of [Absolute Justice], he could afford not to care what anyone said about him.
He had long since steeled himself for this.
After all…
In his mind, Uchiha Keizumi-sama had once been isolated by the village's opinion too. Compared to what Neji was facing now, Keizumi-sama had suffered it even worse. Under those circumstances, why should Neji care?
Without realizing it, Neji had already begun, by instinct, to emulate Keizumi.
"Hey! Hyūga Neji!!!"
A familiar shout came from not far off, and when Neji turned, he saw Uzumaki Naruto with half of a nearly expired rice ball clamped in his mouth, calling around the food, "Slow down—wait up for us!"
Behind Uzumaki Naruto came Uchiha Sasuke's unwilling, exasperated mutter as he followed, not wanting to be seen making a scene: "Dead last, could you swallow the rice ball before you talk?"
Neji suddenly noticed that behind the two of them trailed a girl with light blond hair.
"Hyūga Neji, let me introduce someone."
Naruto gulped the rice ball down whole, then stepped aside, revealing Yamanaka Ino behind him.
"Yamanaka Ino!"
Grinning, Naruto said, "She's actually one of the devotees of [Absolute Justice] too! She even got there before Sasuke and me!"
…There's a piece of nori stuck between his teeth.
Hyūga Neji silently repeated the thought in his mind.
Then he turned his attention back to Yamanaka Ino and asked, "The Yamanaka clan?"
"Yes."
Ino nodded lightly. Her gaze flicked around the surroundings as if only half aware, then she said to Hyūga Neji, "You don't need to pay any mind to the talks in the Ninja Academy. Their moral outlook has been corrupted by the sick world of shinobi and remains warped and twisted. If they don't change in the future, one day they will fall into the abyss of sin and pay the price."
Whether it was Neji's imagination or not, he felt that this girl called Yamanaka Ino seemed more mature than Naruto and Sasuke.
"I know," he replied.
…
In a hallway of a Konoha inn, an unremarkable man dressed like an out-of-town merchant walked past Shizune without changing his expression.
His nerves were taut and every muscle in his body was tense, drawing a curious look from Shizune as he passed.
However, Shizune didn't detect anything overtly strange about him for the moment, and it would be odd to stare at a stranger for no reason, so she withdrew her gaze, picked up Ton-ton, and left.
The man entered his room and closed the door.
"Phew… actually ran into Tsunade's disciple." He breathed out slowly, and from inside his sleeve a small white snake writhed out.
He hurriedly bowed his head and apologized to the white snake: "I beg Orochimaru-sama's forgiveness. This subordinate failed in my duty and nearly let Orochimaru-sama's white-snake manifestation be discovered by Tsunade's disciple."
"Hehe, it's fine — it wasn't discovered, was it?"
The small white snake spoke in human language; its voice matched Orochimaru's exactly in tone, with a hint of sinister rasp.
The white snake continued, "The Hyūga Main House has almost all been rounded up by Uchiha Keizumi… hehe, this actually gives me the best chance to collect the Byakugan. Because with no Main House clan members marked with the Caged Bird, there are no Branch House guards for them."
The man was taken aback. "Orochimaru-sama, do you mean you want me to break into Konoha Prison and hunt the Hyūga Main House Byakugan?"
The white snake glanced at him coldly. "Why hunt for Byakugan in the prison? Outside Konoha Prison aren't there a few pairs of Byakugan lying on tables, 'waiting to be butchered'?"
"There must still be some Main House shinobi who weren't arrested, right? For example… the two daughters of Hyūga Hiashi."
Orochimaru was not only interested in the Sharingan.
He was equally interested in the Byakugan.
He had long felt that these two different dōjutsu might share certain similarities; this bloodline limit, passed down for more than a thousand years, might hide secrets he did not yet know. For the sake of his studies on immortality, Orochimaru was willing to try and research anything.
In the past he had found no opportunity to seize the Byakugan.
Main House Hyūga rarely went to battle, and Main House shinobi were generally protected by Branch House guards.
Those brainwashed, ignorant Hyūga Branch members truly were willing to sacrifice their lives to protect the Main House's Byakugan.
But today, Orochimaru saw an opportunity!
The Hyūga Branch could no longer protect the Branch House members who had fallen from the sky into the abyss; the two daughters of Hyūga Hiashi would certainly no longer have Branch guards protecting them.
"You have a new mission," the small white snake said in a sinister whisper, "seize the Byakugan of Hyūga Hinata and Hyūga Hanabi. Alive or dead — it doesn't matter. The Byakugan is what counts."
The spy, pretending to be an out-of-town merchant, felt a chill run through him.
"Yes! Orochimaru-sama!" he answered.
…
[Pfft—]
The Kubikiribōchō severed a bandit's head. Biwa Jūzō thrust the heavy blade into the ground and looked at Uchiha Keizumi's wooden clone with utter helplessness.
He couldn't help asking, "We could have reached the Land of Rain if we'd kept moving at full speed for another hour. Why interfere and bother with these bandits?"
The wooden clone pulled the kunai from the bandit leader's chest.
It shook the blood from the blade and replied expressionlessly, "[Absolute Justice] cannot ignore evils within its reach that can be eradicated."
Then Uchiha Keizumi's wooden clone turned to Biwa Jūzō and said, "Free all the innocent people who were kidnapped in the bandit nest."
Biwa Jūzō: "…"
He was one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist! An elite jonin of Kirigakure! A newcomer to the Akatsuki!
Brought here to deal with a gang of bandits — fine — but to be ordered about by a wooden clone? Impossible.
He widened his eyes slightly and stared at the wooden clone.
Standing motionless, he realized the wooden clone was ignoring him entirely and was already moving deeper into the bandit den. Biwa Jūzō snapped back to himself — oh, the clone wasn't ordering him to be free labor; it only wanted him to lend a hand.
Should've said so earlier!
Biwa Jūzō cleared his throat, hoisted the Kubikiribōchō, and followed without showing it.
Breathing in the faint metallic tang of blood in the air, they entered the bandits' lair.
Biwa Jūzō froze.
He stared in shock at the prisonlike buildings before him. In those cramped, low wooden cells were many men and women wearing little to no clothing. Looking around, he estimated there were over thirty people here.
He also saw two or three corpses already dead inside the cages; the bandits had not removed the bodies. The corpses had rotted and stunk, emitting a nauseating odor.
If Biwa Jūzō hadn't crawled out from the heaps of dead at the Blood Mist Village, the acrid stench would have made him vomit what he'd eaten that morning.
"Most bandits in the Land of Fire engage in robbery, theft, and the slave trade," the wooden clone said softly. "Or rather, most bandits in the shinobi world engage in those vile deeds. Few people pay them any mind because there are too few shinobi and the world of shinobi is too vast. Many of them collude with local nobles, and the samurai those nobles keep would never come to root out bandits."
It asked Biwa Jūzō, "You arranged to give me a chance to go to the Land of Water before, which shows you can't stand the oppressive Blood Mist policies under Kirigakure's rule and you despise all the evil acts that challenge your moral sense."
"If you encountered bandits like this in the Land of Water, if you knew what they were doing and knew ordinary people of the Land of Water were being persecuted by them, would you still consider it a bother?"
Biwa Jūzō fell silent for a few seconds.
"I can roughly understand why your reputation in Konoha is so polarized," he said with a sigh. "Those whose consciences are helped by your justice will support you. Those who resent your meddling and have something to hide would gladly see you choke on a sip of water."
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