Chapter 329: Calamity

Chapter 329: Chapter 329: Calamity

"’Caged Bird Cursed Seal,’ huh..."

The corner of Hyuga Kagami’s mouth curled upward, a faint trace of disdain appearing on his face.

For an ordinary member of the Branch Family, the Caged Bird Cursed Seal was the very "fate" that Neji constantly spoke of in the original timeline—something they were powerless to resist and could only helplessly accept!

But to Hyuga Kagami, the Caged Bird Cursed Seal was nothing worth worrying about.

As long as he activated the Tenseigan, Hyuga Kagami could use the overwhelming power of those eyes to suppress the Caged Bird Cursed Seal restraining the nerves in his brain, rendering the seal temporarily ineffective.

So far, this was also the only method Hyuga Kagami had discovered to break free from the Caged Bird Cursed Seal aside from death.

However, Rei’s words did remind Hyuga Kagami of something.

While he himself had no reason to fear the Caged Bird Cursed Seal’s control, Rei had no way to resist it. If the Main Family were to use Rei as leverage against him, then aside from completely slaughtering the Main Family, he truly couldn’t think of any effective countermeasure in the short term.

Rei continued, "But Lord Hizashi also said that since you’re an ANBU directly under the Hokage, even if the Main Family suspects you, they’ll still have to take Lord Hokage into consideration. So as long as you’re careful, you should be able to get through this without too much trouble."

Hyuga Kagami shook his head and let out a soft sigh.

Hyuga Kagami had long since experienced firsthand the Main Family’s habit of bullying the weak while cowering before the strong.

Previously, Orochimaru had attacked Clan Head Hiashi for the sake of Hyuga Kagami’s experiment. Yet because of Orochimaru’s sensitive identity, the Main Family had chosen to sacrifice Hiashi’s prestige as clan head and quietly let the matter die.

Later, during the Gloya incident, if Hyuga Kagami hadn’t intervened, then given the Main Family’s nature, they would inevitably have made the same choice as in the original timeline—sacrificing Clan Head Hiashi.

When that happened, the brothers Hiashi and Hizashi would have been forced into the agonizing choice where one of them had to die.

On top of that, the Main Family clearly knew that the Byakugan they had lost had fallen into Kirigakure’s hands. Yet out of concern for diplomatic relations between the two villages, they didn’t dare send experts from the clan to infiltrate Kirigakure and retrieve the stolen Byakugan.

All of this clearly demonstrated the Main Family’s true nature: they bullied the weak and feared the strong.

As long as the external pressure was great enough, the Main Family had no bottom line whatsoever. They were even willing to abandon the clan head himself.

Therefore, Hizashi’s reasoning wasn’t without merit.

As long as Hyuga Kagami didn’t do anything too outrageous during this period, his status as an ANBU would serve as his shield.

Seeing that Hyuga Kagami seemed somewhat distracted, Rei pouted. "Kagami, were you even listening to what I just said?"

Hyuga Kagami smiled. "Alright, stop worrying so much. Didn’t Lord Hizashi say it himself? I’m an ANBU directly under the Hokage. Even the Main Family has to take Lord Hokage into consideration."

Rei nodded.

She had absolute confidence in Hyuga Kagami’s abilities.

Over the years, no matter how troublesome the situation, Hyuga Kagami had always managed to resolve it with ease. And with each passing year, both his strength and status continued to rise.

The clansmen might not say it openly, but Rei knew very well that the overwhelming majority of them had already come to regard Hyuga Kagami as the representative figure of the Hyuga Clan’s new generation—the very face of the Hyuga Clan.

Moreover, Hyuga Kagami even had the achievement of defeating Uchiha Shinichi in a spar.

Although Uchiha Shinichi had yet to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan at the time, that victory was still very much real. As a result, it had become one of the few things the Hyuga clansmen could boast about whenever they compared themselves to the Uchiha.

After seeing off the still somewhat worried Rei, Hyuga Kagami began thinking over the entire incident.

Naturally, the first person Hyuga Kagami suspected was the spy hiding within the Hyuga Clan—the same one who had previously passed information to Kumogakure.

The other party seemed to possess some kind of secret technique similar to the Spirit Transformation Technique. Therefore, theoretically speaking, they were fully capable of successfully launching a surprise attack on a Main Family elder and infiltrating the forbidden archive.

"Snake venom..."

Frowning, Hyuga Kagami thought to himself, "Why use snake venom to assassinate a Main Family elder? Could Orochimaru be involved as well? Or did they deliberately use this method to frame Orochimaru and throw the Main Family’s investigation off course?"

If they dumped the blame on Orochimaru, who had already defected from the village, there really wasn’t much the Main Family could do about him.

Therefore, Hyuga Kagami couldn’t rule out the possibility that the culprit was deliberately framing Orochimaru.

What concerned Hyuga Kagami most, however, was the culprit’s objective.

"Why would he suddenly do something like this? Could he really be confident that he can steal the scroll containing the Caged Bird Cursed Seal?"

In the original timeline, after this spy cooperated with Kumogakure to frame the Hyuga Clan and ultimately forced Hizashi to his death, he never made another move.

Yet in this timeline, he had actually attempted to steal the scroll containing the Caged Bird Cursed Seal.

"Perhaps in the original timeline, after forcing Hizashi to his death, he realized that the Main Family was even willing to sacrifice the clan head himself, and that their ruthlessness wasn’t directed solely at members of the Branch Family. That might have caused his resentment to fade, leading him to abandon his revenge against the clan.

"But in this timeline, because of my intervention, Kumogakure’s scheme failed. So he’s still obsessed with taking revenge on the clan..."

Hyuga Kagami quickly arrived at a reasonable hypothesis.

"Looks like I’ll have to find a way to drag this guy out into the open..."

At this thought, Hyuga Kagami’s gaze gradually turned cold.

Hyuga Kagami had his own plans for how to reform the clan, so he had no intention of allowing someone to suddenly appear halfway through and disrupt those plans by intensifying the conflict between the Main Family and the Branch Family.

......

Hyuga Clan Compound.

Inside a hidden chamber, a shadowy figure took out an ancient book with yellowed pages and began carefully studying it.

After reading for some time, the figure stopped turning the pages and seemed to sink into deep thought.

What was recorded in this ancient book was none other than the origin of the Hyuga Clan’s Main Family and Branch Family system.

This system had not existed within the Hyuga Clan from the very beginning. Instead, it had emerged only after the clan experienced a great calamity.

Following that calamity, a remarkably talented clan head, together with several of the clan’s most powerful experts, exhausted themselves developing a cursed seal capable of protecting the Byakugan from being freely removed. From that cursed seal, the system of the Main Family and Branch Family gradually evolved.

In other words, the entire Main Family and Branch Family system had been built upon the foundation of this cursed seal.

And according to the ancient records, the original intention of the Hyuga ancestors who developed this cursed seal had never been to control or enslave their fellow clansmen.

It had been created to prevent a certain calamity.

As for what exactly that calamity had been—what could have driven the Hyuga ancestors to exhaust all their efforts developing a cursed seal capable of preventing the Byakugan from being freely removed—the ancient records contained no detailed explanation.

Even the few passages that mentioned it were deliberately vague or brushed over the matter in only a few words.

It was obvious that the Hyuga ancestor who had written this ancient book had regarded that calamity as an extreme taboo.

However, as time passed, the Main Family, who held control over the cursed seal, modified it several times, strengthening its ability to control those branded with it.

Gradually, it evolved into the Caged Bird Cursed Seal of the present day, becoming a cage that imprisoned every member of the Branch Family.

After finishing the entire ancient book, a question arose in the shadowy figure’s mind.

"Just what exactly was the great calamity that drove our ancestors to develop this cursed seal in the first place?

"And why was the clan so afraid of that calamity that they were unwilling to even mention it...?"