"So, are you going to take my eyes today as well?" Hiashi asked.
"Of course."
After tonight's near-exposure risk, it was no longer impossible to leave Hiashi's eyes on the clan leader's mansion.
Neji nodded, about to take action.
"If you're going to do it, can I be the one to do it?" Hiashi shook the chains on his body, looking at Hinata, unaware of the imminent danger, and said.
Neji blinked, understanding what Hiashi meant. Considering the dozen Byakugan, he nodded slightly:
"No problem, as long as you don't damage my eyes."
He had long regarded Hiashi's eyes as his own.
With the last hope shattered, Hiashi became particularly cooperative. He nodded, indicating he would be careful.
Then he made a beckoning motion to his daughter, his dislocated hand hanging limp like boneless."Hinata, come here."
Although she had been hurt once by this disheveled man, Hinata was obedient and kind. She lifted her head, looked at the man, and then at Neji.
"Don't you want to know where I took your father?"
"Come here."
"I'll tell you."
Hinata didn't sense any malice from the man's gentle words and…
She looked at the chains entwining him, hesitated momentarily, then slowly approached.
She wanted to know where her father had gone.
She wanted to know why her mother died.
Why did the house become so dirty?
She had too many questions to ask.
"Do you really know where my father went?" Hinata asked softly.
"Yes, come closer and I'll tell you." Hiashi sounded like a wolf luring Little Red Riding Hood.
Hinata looked back at Neji, seeing no reaction from him. She gathered her courage and stepped forward.
"Sorry, my daughter." Hiashi apologized.
All the suffering the Hyuga clan would face in the future was because he was too weak as a clan leader.
The pain his daughter Hinata had endured so far was also because of his incompetence as a father.
His spirit was already dead… but he couldn't die yet.
He still had things he had to do.
He slowly reached out his hand just as Hinata felt something strange yet familiar from the man before her.
The next moment, a blue light flashed and disappeared.
Splash!
Blood spurted.
Hinata's left eye, wrapped in a cloth, was quickly taken out by Hiashi.
"Ah—"
The girl was pinned down on the desk in excruciating pain.
Hiashi handed the extracted eye to Neji with one arm while pressing the struggling Hinata on the table with the other.
"This is the left eye."
He said.
Previously, Hiashi and Hinata exchanged their left eyes to let Hinata see through the illusion. Now that Neji wanted Hiashi's eyes, he needed to swap them back.
After Neji took the eye, Hiashi's palm emitted chakra again, like threads, extracting Hinata's left eye from his socket and returning it to the terrified Hinata's left eye socket.
Thud.
Hiashi released his grip on Hinata, letting her roll onto the ground.
With no expression, he used the same method to extract his remaining eye.
"This is the right eye."
He said.
Neji took a small portable container from his pocket and put Hiashi's two eyes into it.
Hiashi wasn't dead yet. His Byakugan still had some vitality, making it temporarily difficult to absorb the Byakugan essence.
This was why Neji couldn't just take the eyes; he had to kill him.
Looking at the writhing Hinata on the ground, Neji shook his head. If it weren't for Hiashi's cleverness, she wouldn't have had to endure such pain. The blame lay entirely with Hiashi.
"You have quite the heart," Neji said. "Aren't you afraid she'll hate you forever?"
"Even so, it's better than her hating you forever." Hiashi calmly said.
With his eyes gone, his world was void, sparing him the pain of seeing his daughter's suffering.
"The truth will come out, she'll surely blame everything on me in the future, hating both you and me together—though it's true I'm the real cause of her pain. When she comes for revenge, I won't hold back."
Neji shrugged, not optimistic about the effect of Hiashi's actions.
The hatred of annihilating a clan and destroying a family wasn't something that quickly shifted.
Even his brother Neji was bound to hate him for his actions, let alone the Hyuga clan's eldest daughter, Hinata.
"Shifting a bit of it is something," Hiashi said, having done all he could and feeling the weight of the chains lighten somewhat.
"And Hinata is gentle by nature, with average talent, she probably won't have the chance to seek revenge."
Neji shook his head, knowing that such a drastic family upheaval would inevitably change Hinata's character, and her talent was far from average.
Hiashi hopes to preserve the Hyuga clan's legacy by temporarily letting the surviving members forget their hatred, but this seems overly optimistic.
Neji didn't continue the topic. Instead, he stared at Hiashi's hand, from where the chakra threads had shot out earlier.
"You…"
"You're wondering how I could use chakra despite having my chakra points sealed?" Hiashi sensed Neji's gaze and tilted his head.
"Remove your transformation jutsu and take Hinata to bandage her wounds, and I'll tell you."
"Alright."
Neji knew this was part of Hiashi's effort to alleviate Hinata's hatred towards him.
Neji didn't mind complying with a dying father's futile but well-meaning attempt.
"You must have never seriously studied the Gentle Fist or truly utilized your eyes," Hiashi declared. You have great talent, but you've wasted it on other useless skills when the Hyuga clan's heritage is the strongest!"
Neji found it hard to agree, looking at the sky. This so-called useless skill—the Hell's Abyss Jutsu—had turned the central family into his hunting ground.
"Your genjutsu has fatal flaws; it won't last long. How can it compare to the Hyuga clan's Gentle Fist? You know this yourself." Hiashi said.
Imprisoned for so long, he had seen through the workings of the Hell's Abyss Jutsu, and thinking about how he fell into such a flawed jutsu, leading to the clan's downfall, made him even more critical.
"No matter how much I don't want to admit it, your bloodline doesn't lie. You are Hizashi's son, a member of the Hyuga clan. Even if you become a rogue ninja, you are still a rogue ninja from the Hyuga clan. I won't let you tarnish the Hyuga clan's name!" Hiashi said.
"You suddenly become enlightened." Neji smiled faintly.
"I indeed realized it. The Caged Bird system should have been abolished long ago, or we wouldn't have today's disaster." Hiashi sighed, but it was too late to realize this.
"The main family legacy is meaningless without any survivors. The world can do without the main family, but it must have the Hyuga clan!"
"Since you've plotted this far, no one can stop you now. I'll pretend you're a reformist within our decayed clan, aiming to abolish the Caged Bird system during a clan meeting to establish a Hyuga clan free from its oppression."
Neji didn't care about the name given to his actions of clan destruction, though they were indeed part of internal Hyuga clan strife.
"I don't care which side succeeds in the end, but the true legacy of the Hyuga clan must be passed on, so listen carefully, Neji." Hiashi's voice grew serious.
Neji folded his arms, curious about what his defeated clan leader had to say.
As if forgetting the boy in front of him was the enemy about to destroy the entire Hyuga clan, Hiashi calmly explained his view on the Hyuga clan's legacy.
"The kekkei genkai—Byakugan—is often our biggest advantage in battle. Seeing the chakra pathways, penetrating obstacles to spot hidden enemies, are just the basic uses of Byakugan."
"Since the rules of the world's workings are laid bare before us, what we should do is not just describe the present."
"But to summarize the future…"
Neji's brows furrowed. This old guy seemed severe.
As he said, Hiashi realized that the path lives on even if one dies.
Though Neji's current actions were heinous, his son and grandson would eventually return to the Hyuga legacy or establish a new Hyuga clan.
Flowing water doesn't compete to be first but strives to be endless.
In the long scale of family succession spanning thousands of years, such crises would happen every few hundred years. A century later, Neji's actions would just be a line of text on the ancestral hall wall.
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