Chapter 13 — I'll Be Clan Head. Who Opposes Me?
Dead.
Hyūga Masamune lay there as if felled like a dog — struck down in the street.
Everyone stared, stunned, at his body. His pure white Byakugan eyes gaped up at the sky, empty and terrible. An invisible shackle seemed to shatter in the chest of every onlooker — the sound of chains breaking rang inside their hearts.
Thunder split the clouds.
Rain began to fall in fat, stinging beads. The long-brewing storm had arrived, and the downpour washed the blood from Masamune's corpse in a cold, hissing sheet.
"Run! Scatter! Get out of here!"
The septuagenarian elder Hyūga Mizuki finally snapped out of his paralysis. The chill of rain and the cold, clinging clothes told him this was no nightmare but a brutal, waking reality. Panic and regret gnawed at him like worms.
"Find the Hokage! Bring the Third Hokage here to judge this!" he screamed, driven by a sudden, desperate clarity. They had miscalculated — they should have brought Konoha's authorities in as soon as Ritsu returned. Now it was too late.
Ritsu's voice, distant and cold, answered him. "You really think you can run from me? I said I would destroy the Main-and-Branch system. You relics belong in the trash heap."
Three precise strikes of the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm cut through the rain and found their marks — Hyūga Shunsuke, Hyūga Taiga, and the agile old veteran Hyūga Atsushi collapsed where they stood. Their bodies hit the ground, lifeless. The avenue was suddenly littered with motionless forms. Only Hyūga Mizuki remained standing.
"You'll die miserable deaths!" Mizuki roared, stumbling forward on shaking legs and flinging himself at Ritsu as though to stop him with the fury of a cornered man. It was a hopeless, heroic lunge.
But the old man's body could no longer summon much power. Ritsu sidestepped easily, amused, and spoke as he moved: "Mizuki, you were probably counting on the clan head and the elders to bring me down. Too bad — they're not capable of that. In fact, they'll soon be joining your friends down there."
The palm wrapped in dense, azure-lion chakra struck the elder's chest. His life left him in a single instant.
Not one Main-house adult remained alive on the compound. Branch members stood drenched in the rain, rooted to the spot, unable to decide whether to rush Ritsu and avenge the Main House or to flee and tell the Hokage the truth of what had just happened. Instinct recoiled from both choices.
Around them, the most faithful Main-house adherents writhed — the Caged Bird seal flared in their brows, agony tearing them into the dust. They couldn't rise; they could only howl.
"Takuma, Arima, Akiha — tie up these brainless fools," Ritsu ordered. "I'll go clean up the remaining threats from the Main House."
He leapt back toward the Main-house estates. There were seventeen Main-house seats in total. Four — including the clan head Hyūga Hiyasu — were at the eastern front. Five, including Masamune, had been killed by Ritsu. That left eight Main-house members inside the compound — none of them jōnin.
In a short while Ritsu returned, carrying four heads dripping with rain and blood — three middle-aged men and one elderly man. With that, every grown Main-house member had been wiped out; only children remained, and the wives (who were not Main-house by status) were left alive.
"The Main House is finished," Ritsu declared, standing above the stunned crowd. "I will replace Hiyasu and become the leader of the Hyūga clan. Who opposes me?"
Hyūga Ritsu stood in the rain, clutching the severed head, and shouted his challenge into the storm.
Silence answered him. No voice dared to rise. Only the sheets of rain fell, as if the heavens themselves had burst, soaking everyone to the bone.
Ten seconds passed. Ritsu wiped his face and was about to speak when a large man from among the Branch families stepped forward.
"Hyūga Ritsu—do you really mean it when you say you'll never brand our children with the Caged Bird seal again?" he called.
Ritsu's gaze hardened. Faces around them registered surprise. The man who had come forward was Hyūga Hizashi, the younger brother of the clan head Hyūga Hiyasu. Though technically a Branch, Hizashi carried a weight no ordinary branch member did; even Main-house elders treated him with an unusual measure of restraint.
Ritsu smiled and answered loudly, clearly: "Of course. The Caged Bird seal is the cornerstone of the Main-and-Branch system. I said I would crush that rotten system—so I will never allow our children to be marked. I'll even have my teacher Hiruko continue researching a way to break the seal — I'll help anyone remove it."
"How did you get the seal off?" Hizashi demanded.
"I used a forbidden jutsu," Ritsu replied. "It can't be replicated or mass-produced."
"A forbidden jutsu…" Hizashi narrowed his eyes. That answer made sense; if the Caged Bird could be undone so simply, the whole thing would be a lie. He didn't press for details. Instead he asked the question everyone feared: "It's true the seal reduced outsiders' appetite for the Byakugan. If the Caged Bird is gone, and you claim the clan head's position — how will you stop people from trying to steal our eyes?"
Ritsu scratched his chin and grinned brighter. "Simple: we become stronger. When we are strong enough, anyone who dares covet the Byakugan will be crushed. I'll kill whoever threatens it."
A palpable, lethal aura radiated off him — the same hard, honed killing intent he'd developed fighting the Mist. It would intimidate inexperienced genin. Hizashi wasn't one to be cowed lightly, but he had just seen the Main-house's supposedly invincible techniques shattered — and that image lingered. It made Ritsu's words feel terrifyingly possible.
"One last question," Hizashi said, fixing Ritsu with his gaze. "Does my brother die as well?"
"Do you take me for a bloodthirsty man?" Ritsu smiled softly. "The children of Masamune and the others will live. But Hiyasu's men — Hyūga Hishō and Hyūga Taisho's line — they must die. Those elders are rotten. As for Hyūga Hiyasu himself…"
He paused, then continued plainly, "Because he has not oppressed the Branches and has, at times, protected them, if he does not stubbornly resist, he will be spared."
Ritsu spoke with authority and offered his promise.
At that, Hyūga Hizashi—brother of the current clan head—kneeled before Ritsu in full view of the gathered Branch families, single knee pressed to the wet ground.