Konoha Hospital
Hizashi Hyuga had spent half the night tossing and turning in his hospital bed before exhaustion finally dragged him into a shallow slumber. But even in sleep, a stray breeze against his skin felt like a premonition.
When he opened his eyes again, he wasn't in a ward. He was kneeling in the Hyuga Clan's meeting hall, where flickering candlelight cast long, distorted shadows against the walls.
"Konoha no longer has the strength to continue the war with the Cloud. We must give them an explanation..." Hiashi Hyuga sat at the head of the room, his voice echoing with a heavy, hollow resonance.
The gathered elders of the Main House and the shinobi of the Branch House looked on in shock.
"Why?! It was the Cloud who kidnapped Lady Hinata!" a Branch House Jōnin barked, his voice laced with indignation.
"Because we cannot afford another war," Hiashi replied. He looked as though he were aging decades in a single moment.
The pressure of the entire village was bearing down on the Hyuga shoulders. The hall erupted into a cacophony of whispers until a Main House elder spoke from the shadows, his Byakugan glinting:
"What are their terms?"
The room went cold. Everyone turned toward their Patriarch.
"A culprit," Hiashi said.
The silence that followed was absolute. The terms were impossible to swallow. The Cloud Head Ninja had trespassed, kidnapped the heir of a noble house, and been killed in the act—yet the victim was being asked to hand over the executioner?
"The Patriarch need not step forward," a Main House elder said, his gaze drifting toward Hizashi in the Branch House seating. "If they simply want a body, one will suffice."
Hizashi tried to shout, 'What about the masked stranger from last night?!' But his body moved without his consent. He watched himself stand up, walk toward his brother, and kneel.
"Let me go, Brother," his own voice said. "The value of the Branch House is to protect the Main House. As the Patriarch, nothing must happen to you."
'No! That's not how it happened!' Hizashi felt as if his soul were hovering outside his body, watching this cold, detached version of himself speak those words. 'There was a masked man! Pin it on him! Use the stranger!'
But the ninjas in the hall were deaf to his ghost-like screams. He watched as the dream-version of himself struck Hiashi—a final act of defiance to force his brother to accept the sacrifice—and then he watched his own death.
He stood by as a spectator at his own funeral. He saw his wife and his son, Neji, huddled together, wailing in grief. A numbing chill seeped into his very bones.
'No... this is a Genjutsu!'
'It's fake! All of it!'
The sheer emotional trauma acted as a catalyst. Hizashi realized the inconsistency and began to churn his chakra, trying to disrupt the flow and break the illusion.
But the world wouldn't shatter. The darkness rushed in, and suddenly, he was back in the hospital.
Hizashi bolted upright in bed, gasping for air. His bandages were soaked through with cold sweat.
"Was it... a dream?" he panted, wiping his brow.
"Not a dream," a cold voice answered from the corner.
Hizashi stiffened. He turned his head to see a figure leaning against the window frame. Clad in a dark robe and wearing a white, three-eyed fox mask, the stranger stood bathed in the pale moonlight.
"You!" Hizashi tried to lung out of bed, but his limbs felt as though they were bolted to the mattress.
"Still an illusion!" Hizashi's heart hammered against his ribs. To maintain such a multi-layered Genjutsu was a feat beyond most Jōnin.
Step.
Menma hopped down from the windowsill and began to walk toward the bed.
"Who are you?! What do you want?!" Hizashi struggled, but no matter how he disrupted his chakra, the world remained solid.
"Truly pathetic," Menma said, stopping at the foot of the bed. "Everything you just saw... that was your destined end. If I hadn't interfered last night, that is exactly what would have happened."
Hizashi shook his head, his voice trembling with denial. "Impossible! Even without you, the Cloud kidnapped Hinata. Their death was justified—"
He stopped mid-sentence. A sudden, icy realization washed over him. Sakumo Hatake—the White Fang—a ninja of legendary status, had been hounded to his death by the village's "public opinion." What was a Branch House member of the Hyuga compared to that?
"See? Deep down, you've already accepted that fate," Menma's voice was deep, carrying a trace of melancholy. "That's why I call it pathetic."
"The original purpose of the Caged Bird was to protect the clan. Yet, you've allowed it to turn the majority of your kin into nothing more than high-grade slaves."
"What do you know?!" Hizashi snarled. "The seal... the Branch House... it exists to—"
"Do you want to see?" Menma interrupted. "The truth of the Caged Bird."
The fox mask leaned in close. Menma reached out and pressed his palm against Hizashi's forehead. A surge of violent, dark chakra invaded Hizashi's mind.
The hospital vanished.
Hizashi found himself standing in the center of a vast, open battlefield. Two massive armies with unfamiliar banners were locked in a horrific struggle. Everyone wore strange clothing, and while their features were slightly different from the people of the Land of Fire, one thing stood out that made Hizashi's blood run cold.
Every single person on that battlefield possessed the Byakugan.
The scene shifted.
He saw ninjas in Warring States era gear, the Hyuga crest on their backs, being hunted down like animals. The killers were one of the factions from the previous battlefield. Hyuga after Hyuga fell, their eyes gouged out before the mysterious attackers vanished into the void.
The scene shifted again.
Two armies faced each other. One side fought with their eyes tightly shut, sensing the world through their minds alone. In the center of their formation stood a massive tower. Atop it sat a giant, eye-shaped stone, bound by runic chains.
The commander waved a hand. The stone eye erupted with a blinding, violet light. A pillar of energy swept across the charging enemy forces.
Wherever the light touched, thousands of shinobi were erased from existence.
"This... what is this..." Hizashi watched as the victors gathered the Byakugan from the fallen, merging the eyes into that horrific stone sphere. The shock was bone-deep.
"This," Menma's voice echoed through the vision, "is the reality behind the Caged Bird."
The battlefield dissolved, replaced by a row of Hyuga clan members, the green seals on their foreheads glowing with an eerie light.
"Fake! It's all fake!" Hizashi roared. Twenty years of clan indoctrination fought against the images. "These are just illusions you've woven! You're trying to drive a wedge between the Main and Branch houses!"
Inside the Genjutsu space, Hizashi was bordering on a breakdown.
"Is that so?"
Menma appeared directly in front of him and wove a single hand seal. A specific frequency of chakra rippled out from Menma's body, striking Hizashi with pinpoint accuracy.
"AAAGH!"
Hizashi collapsed, clutching his head. It felt as though ten thousand needles were being driven into his brain simultaneously.
The Caged Bird seal was reacting.
"How..." Hizashi gasped through the agony, his Byakugan wide with terror. "How can you... activate it?"