Chapter 7 — Erasing the Main House from the Flesh Itself
"Damn it, Takuma, you said everything I was going to say! What am I supposed to add now?"
The long-haired girl standing beside him scowled and drove a sharp punch into Takuma's back. The blow sent him stumbling forward with a grunt — her strength was nothing to underestimate.
"Akiha!" Takuma yelped, wincing. "Can you not hit like that?! You nearly broke my spine! And another thing— don't go copying Arima and calling me Takuma! You could at least show some respect and call me big brother! "
The girl, Hyūga Akiha, shot him a look of pure disgust.
"Big brother? Please. You're just Takuma. Don't act like some saintly senior. Everyone knows you hang out in the adult section of the bookshop."
"I— I— how do you even know that?!" Takuma froze, color draining from his face.
Arima snickered, unable to resist. "The better question is — who doesn't know?"
Takuma's face went white — white enough to match his Byakugan.
"Enough!"
Ritsu pinched the bridge of his nose, exasperated. His friends might be loyal, but together they were chaos incarnate. At any other time, he wouldn't have minded their antics. But tonight was not for laughter.
At the sound of his voice, the three fell silent immediately.
In their small circle, Hyūga Ritsu's authority was absolute.
He looked over them — Takuma, loud and proud; Akiha, sharp-tongued but fierce; Arima, reckless yet devoted. These three were his people — the only ones he trusted enough to stand beside him now.
"Takuma. Akiha." His voice steadied into something cold and deliberate. "You already know what happened on the eastern front. Even Arima's heard the rumors — so I won't waste time repeating them. The short version: the Main House wants me to take the fall."
He let that hang in the air.
"They're accusing me of delaying the rescue, of sabotaging a Main House mission, of betraying the clan — all to cover up their own incompetence."
Takuma's jaw tightened. "Those Main House bastards… They always do this! The moment something goes wrong, it's our fault — the Branch!"
Arima slammed a fist into his palm, face red with anger. "They'll twist anything just to make us look weak! Every time, it's the same story—!"
"Quiet," Ritsu said, his tone sharp but calm. "Anger alone won't change anything."
He stood, the faint lamplight glinting across his pure white eyes.
"The Main House built this cage to keep us divided — and for generations, we've accepted it. They can kill us with a thought, destroy our honor with a word, and the Branch just bows its head."
His gaze hardened. "That ends now."
The air grew tense — a quiet, electric stillness.
Akiha frowned slightly, catching the edge in his tone. "…Ritsu. What exactly are you planning?"
Ritsu's eyes were like polished steel.
"Not rebellion." A faint, humorless smile touched his lips. "Rebellion means you're still trying to take back something from your oppressor. I'm not interested in taking back anything."
He stepped forward, his shadow falling long across the floor.
"I'm going to erase the Main House — completely. From blood to bone. From the flesh itself."
The words dropped like stones into water, rippling through the silence.
Even Takuma, usually brash, could only stare at him.
"…You mean— kill them?"
Ritsu didn't answer right away. He let the question hang, his eyes drifting toward the distant clan compound beyond the paper doors — the symbol of centuries of oppression.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, almost serene.
"No. I mean to free them — from the illusion of their own divinity."
"And if that means killing them…"
He turned, the faintest smile crossing his face.
"Then yes — I'll start from the flesh."
Akiha ground her teeth, hatred all over her face—none of the composed grace she wore in public remained. She was Ritsu's cousin. Her father—Ritsu's uncle—had been sent on a mission six years earlier alongside a Main House team. Because the Main House commanders fled in the face of the enemy, Akiha's father was ambushed and killed. The Main House survivors pinned the blame on him, calling him reckless and power-hungry. Only after a non-Hyūga teammate, unable to bear the lie, quietly told Akiha's mother did the family learn the truth.
Since then the straight-forward, righteous girl had nursed a burning hatred for the Main House.
"Ritsu—tell us what to do," she said, eyes blazing. "I know you didn't come back to take the blame for them. Don't explain—just tell us what needs doing."
Because Ritsu's parents had never awakened the Byakugan, he learned the family's Gentle Fist from his uncle—the same uncle Akiha had lost. Though cousins, the bond between Ritsu and Akiha was closer than that of most siblings. She knew him well: the boy branded a prodigy from an early age wasn't someone who would swallow insults and accept punishment meekly. He would never quietly bear the Main House's framed guilt.
"First, I'll show you something." Ritsu said simply.
"What?" Akiha asked.
"You'll see." He removed his forehead protector.
"Your head? What am I—" Akiha began, then froze. "Ritsu—Ritsu, where's your Caged Bird mark? Where did it go?!" Her voice almost broke.
Arima—an orphan the family had pushed to the compound's edge after his parents' deaths—had been placed in this very residence to live. That's why Ritsu hadn't returned home first; he'd come straight here so no curious neighbors would overhear. The yard was private, and with no one nearby, they could speak freely.
Takuma and Arima stared as if their eyes might pop from their sockets, fixed on Ritsu's smooth, unscarred brow. Disbelief filled their faces.
"How—how did you do it?" Akiha demanded, grabbing his forehead and rubbing it hard.
"Careful, Akiha—don't peel the skin off." Ritsu shoved her hand away with an impatient half-smile and then went serious. "Takuma, Arima, Akiha—you all see it. I've broken the Caged Bird seal. The Main House can't hold me with that mark anymore."
He paused, then grinned with a flash of white teeth. "I'm going to destroy the Main-and-Branch system that's soaked in our blood. I'll tear the Caged Bird seals off every Branch member's brow."
Akiha punched the air and shouted, "Let's do it!" She wanted nothing more than to march to the Main House and smash those nauseating faces into the ground.
"Ritsu, tell us what to do!" Arima's fists were ready. He'd been pushed to the margins after his parents died and still wore optimism like armor—blind loyalty to the one he called brother. If Ritsu ordered him to cut down a pillar of the clan, Arima would not hesitate.
Takuma, the oldest and the calmest of the three despite his foolish habits, rubbed at his temple. He'd been promoted to jōnin at fourteen and was reliable in the field. "How exactly are you planning to do this?" he asked, trying to temper the heat of the moment with reason.
Ritsu's answer was blunt: "Simple. Eliminate the Main House members physically."
He spoke as if stating a fact. Institutional change was not achieved by pleas; the powerful never voluntarily gave up privilege. Gentle reforms would fail. Violence was the only tool that could smash the old system and make space for a new order.
Takuma's eye twitched. "Isn't that a bit extreme?" he muttered. "Even if most of the Main House are useless, they still have fighters like Lord Hiyasu. And many Branch members would die defending the Main House. There's no way the four of us can just wipe them out."
Ritsu's gaze hardened, the edges of his resolve cold as steel. The quiet that followed felt like the eye of a storm — small, charged, and about to break.