Kakashi failed to notice the change in Ao's mood.
Mostly because Ao was wearing a mask.
The reason he had slipped away from the group earlier was that he spotted a member of the Hyūga clan among Might Guy's team.
As the only shinobi in the world known to possess a Byakugan taken as a trophy from a member of the Hyūga main family, Ao had decided—for the sake of friendly relations between Konoha and Kirigakure—to find a special mask that blocked the Byakugan's vision.
That way, there would be no unnecessary conflict.
Unfortunately, with the mask covering Ao's face, Kakashi could not read his expression.
No matter how sharp Kakashi's observational skills were, posture and other small details alone could only tell him so much.
Even if Kakashi did notice something strange, he probably would have assumed Ao was frightened of Neji.
"Don't worry. I can ask him about it for you. Maybe this is all just a misunderstanding."
Kakashi's voice gradually weakened as he spoke.
Because suddenly, he remembered something.
There had once been a rumor that Hyūga Neji had secretly used his Byakugan to watch Boruto helping Naruto through some kind of ....physical examination.
And in the Limited Tsukuyomi world, wasn't Neji literally a pervert who loved using the Byakugan to spy on people?
Could it be…
Was the Limited Tsukuyomi world somehow beginning to influence reality?
Kakashi immediately shook his head and threw that thought away.
Impossible!
It had to be a coincidence.
At the very least, the real shinobi world had not yet developed a tradition of treating Tailed Beasts like attractive furry creatures.
Neji should still be—
"Stop!"
A voice suddenly came from Kakashi's side while he was lost in thought.
At some point, Neji had quietly approached them.
Ao, terrified that Kakashi might have some ulterior motive toward him, had been preparing to slip away.
Neji's shout stopped him in his tracks.
"Don't push this too far! Kirigakure welcomed you as guests, and yet you people…"
Ao misunderstood the scene completely.
He assumed Kakashi and Neji had already coordinated their actions.
Nervously, he moved both hands behind himself, prepared at any moment to defend against a surprise One Thousand Years of Death from Kakashi.
"Please don't misunderstand! Neji, what the hell is going on? Explain yourself!"
Kakashi's headache doubled as he hurriedly urged Neji to speak.
But Neji seemed not to hear him at all.
Veins bulged around his activated Byakugan as he stared fixedly at the masked Ao.
Kakashi could only panic helplessly.
He knew Neji's character.
Guy was his closest friend, and Neji was Guy's student.
Kakashi firmly believed Neji was a perfectly respectable young man.
If Naruto had been caught secretly watching someone, Kakashi could almost accept that.
But Neji?
Absolutely impossible—
"Dad!"
Neji suddenly shouted the word.
Kakashi's thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
His brain crashed.
Ao's did too.
After several seconds of stunned silence, Ao felt a wave of nausea and horror crawl over his entire body.
"Stay away from me! If you people keep acting this shamelessly, I'm going to scream—"
Ao was beginning to despair.
Because he suddenly realized that even screaming probably would not save him.
The only other Kirigakure shinobi nearby were Chōjūrō and Kurosuki Raiga, and Raiga had only recently returned to the village.
Even if Ao screamed for help, the somewhat slow-witted Chōjūrō would probably get stopped by Raiga, who would assume that Konoha was simply using some bizarre method to help Ao unlock the Sage Mode shortcut.
Just another form of training.
"You hesitated!"
Neji's eyes widened.
"I was right, wasn't I?! Take it off!"
Seeing Ao react like that, Neji seemed to become even more obsessed as he kept advancing.
Of course, Neji had not actually awakened some bizarre preference and started calling strangers "Dad."
He genuinely suspected that the masked man in front of him was his father, Hyūga Hizashi.
Neji had learned the story of Kakashi and Obito from Guy.
Uchiha Obito had supposedly been a war hero who died years ago.
Yet somehow, he turned out to still be alive.
Not only alive—he had fallen into darkness and started wearing a mask.
If that could happen…
Could Neji's father still be alive too?
And then, on the very day Neji arrived in Kirigakure, he immediately saw a masked man.
A mask that even the Byakugan could not see through.
To understand the Byakugan well enough to create equipment specifically designed to counter it, the person responsible would almost certainly need access to the Byakugan themselves.
And while Ao's mask blocked Byakugan vision, that created another obvious problem.
If it completely covered both eyes, then Ao himself would be blind.
So the mask had an opening.
That opening exposed Ao's normal eye.
But from certain angles, Neji had still managed to detect the other eye hidden behind it—
The Byakugan.
This was almost exactly the same as the Obito story Kakashi had told!
A mask.
One special eye.
And both of them had ended up in Kirigakure.
After everything came to light, Hyūga Hiashi had already shown Neji a letter his father had left behind.
In it, Hizashi explained that he had not died for the main family.
He had died for his brother.
If Neji approached that statement from a conspiracy-theory angle, perhaps Hizashi had written it against his true feelings solely so Neji would not seek revenge.
But the same sort of sentiment had originally come from Hanabi during the Chūnin Exams.
She had said that she was sacrificing herself for her older sister, Hinata.
Neji personally did not think Hanabi's situation really counted as a sacrifice—she seemed perfectly happy after leaving with Makoto—but it did at least prove that bonds between siblings could genuinely matter.
Perhaps his father truly had loved Hiashi the same way Hanabi loved Hinata.
Neji had once thought that way and finally made peace with the past.
Then the story of Kakashi and Obito surfaced.
And Neji's imagination started running again.
If the war hero everyone remembered as cheerful and optimistic as Naruto could somehow become a dark, twisted villain…
Then maybe his father could have changed too.
Neji had already constructed an entire story in his head.
His father had been betrayed by the village and by the older brother he loved.
On the verge of death, Hizashi activated some hidden technique.
Maybe the Hyūga clan had something similar to Izanagi, allowing them to sacrifice one Byakugan to escape certain death.
Hizashi survived.
Then, like Obito, he hid in the shadows of the shinobi world, waiting for the chance to take revenge on Konoha and the Hyūga clan.
Or perhaps he wanted to overthrow the entire shinobi system and create a world where brothers would never again need to be handed over to enemy villages as sacrifices for political compromise.
"Neji, calm down! Don't do something you'll regret!"
Kakashi finally shouted hard enough to stop Neji from advancing.
Ao, meanwhile, was terrified beyond belief.
When Neji shouted "take it off," he obviously meant the mask.
Though Ao could not understand why the boy had chosen that wording instead of simply saying "remove the mask."
Either way, the phrase sounded unbelievably threatening in Ao's ears.
Like a steel fork stabbing directly into his soul.
Ao desperately racked his brain for some way to save himself.
Then suddenly—
Inspiration struck.
A legendary strategy surfaced in his mind.
Drive the tiger to devour the wolf!
"Stop right there!"
Ao forced himself to calm down, cleared his throat, and faced Neji with an extremely serious expression.
"I'll tell you the truth."
"The person I love is Kakashi!"
"I know Kakashi already has a partner, but I'm willing to watch him quietly from afar."
"I would rather remain alone for the rest of my life than accept anyone else."
"So stop saying things like that to me!"