The face reflected in the Mirror, framed by a deliberately Cold Expression and the gradually forming Caged Bird Seal, overlapped more and more with the features of Hyuga Hizashi—Neji's father—in Neji's memory… no, it was practically identical!
Hiashi and Hizashi were identical twins; their looks had always been extraordinarily alike.
Right now, Hiashi—who had purposely shed the Main Branch's trademark composure and painted on the Caged Bird Seal—blurred in Neji's eyes into the figure of his long-dead father, a man whose gentleness had forever carried a hidden ache.
Neji stared, dumbstruck, forgetting how to speak, forgetting the questions in his heart.
Time seemed to flow backward in this instant, or perhaps to twist.
He watched his "father" face the Mirror and paint that emblem of shame and agony upon himself; it felt as if an invisible hand clenched his heart. Sourness, pain, shock, bewilderment—emotions surged in, almost robbing him of the strength to stand.
Never had he seen his uncle like this, nor imagined he would "see" his father's living likeness in such a lifelike, intimate way.
Hiashi focused on each stroke, seemingly oblivious to Neji's astonishment.
Only when the final line fell did a complete, lifelike Caged Bird mark appear upon his forehead. Setting the brush aside, he studied the Mirror for several breaths.
In the glass, "Hizashi" gazed back with icy eyes, the seal on his brow a livid brand.
Slowly Hiashi turned, facing the stunned Neji whose pupils trembled like an earthquake.
Now he deliberately lowered his voice, stripping away the usual calm authority and replacing it with a hoarse hardness that matched the guise—subtly imitating tones his younger brother had used in certain moments.
"Neji, do you see clearly?"
He tapped the convincingly Green Mark upon his forehead.
"From this moment until dawn… I am not Hyuga Hiashi."
He rose, the black demon-cloak falling about him like a tempest, the ogre masks on his shoulder guards seeming to snarl in silence.
Under the dim light the Caged Bird on his brow glimmered with an ominous sheen.
"I am Hizashi."
A deep,The pain and resolve that had been suppressed for too long wove through his words.
"A man long since 'dead,' an avenger returned from the Pure Land."
"What do you mean, Uncle?"
Neji's voice was hard as flint.
Hiashi was one of those who had caused his father's death; he was the very reason Hizashi had died in his place.
And now he staged this charade.
Hiashi sighed at his nephew's look. "Blame me, hate me—whatever you need. Your father died because of me; I won't deny it. But before that, Neji… it's time you learned the full story.
Not the Family Register's terse 'Died in His Brother's Stead,' nor the Scattered Fragments you've overheard.
The whole truth—its Daylight Compromises and its Shadowed Bargains."
He sat again; the demon patterns on the cloak seemed to writhe like living things, the false seal on his brow deeper than before.
"Fifteen or Sixteen Years Ago."
His voice sank into the mists of the past.
"Back then Konoha's Yellow Flash, Minato Namikaze, burst onto the world stage. With speed and power Unmatched he Cowed Every Nation and ultimately became the Fourth Hokage, giving the Village a Brief, Heady Dose of Hope. Yet peace's foundations were far from solid.
The smoke of the Third Great Ninja War was thinning, but the Post-War Negotiations tangled like knotted thread, each state tugging in its own direction, unable to settle on terms that satisfied them all."
"Twelve years ago Calamity Struck. The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox appeared without warning inside Konoha; in its Savage Pupils the three-tomoe Sharingan pattern was clearly reflected."
Hiashi's voice dropped, carrying the weight only a survivor of that era could feel.
"Many saw it being controlled by the Sharingan. The Fourth Hokage and his wife gave their lives to re-seal the beast, Heroes Fell, and Konoha was left Grievously Wounded."
Because the Nine-Tails had been manipulated by a Sharingan, distrust between the Village and the Uchiha flared; each side eyed the other with suspicion. With part of Konoha's limited strength tied up preventing Civil Strife, the Village could no longer project effective deterrence against its neighbors.
The already difficult post-war talks were Postponed Indefinitely, one stacked reason after another.
Chief among the opportunists was Kumogakure—Cunning, Overbearing. They seized on Konoha's weakness and dragged out what should have been settled at once, forcing the treaty to hang fire for three full years."
His gaze seemed to pierce through time and walls, falling upon the Hyuga Estate nine years earlier in the dark of night.
"Nine Years Ago, that night."
A Hidden Cloud delegation arrived, ostensibly to renew a peace accord, but in secret they coveted the Byakugan.
One Thief, relying on Superb Stealth and Bold Reconnaissance of the Hyuga compound, slipped inside and struck at his clear target—the Young heiress Hinata."
Neji's fingers clenched white.
He knew this beginning, yet had never heard such detail from a participant's lips.
"I sensed it and pursued."
Hiashi went on, calm as if recounting someone else's tale, though a cold glint flickered deep in his eyes.
"At The Border I caught up, striking him from the sky with an Eighty Trigrams Empty Palm. I held back, intending only to stun and capture, to learn who was behind it. Yet… when I landed and checked, the man was already dead."
Stripping away his disguise, we found to our horror that he was a Formal Member of the Hidden Cloud delegation."
"We knew at once it was a plot aimed at the Hyuga."
The Cloud envoys instantly turned the tables, howling that their envoy had been murdered without cause during 'Friendly Talks.' They demanded Konoha Punish the Killer and hand over my life, threatening to tear up the peace pact and Restart the War."
Konoha at that time had only just begun to recover from the Nine-Tails disaster; the void left by the Fourth had yet to be filled, and Sandaime, back in office, labored under crushing pressure.
In council the Specter of War hung so thick no one could breathe.
Kumogakure's Wolfish Ambition was plain: using the envoy's death as pretext, they would either Remove me—the one who'd slain their agent and coveted the Byakugan—or Force Konoha to Yield and Extract Huge Concessions."
The Hyuga Elders convened in haste behind closed doors."
At this point Hiashi's voice carried a swirl of mockery, sorrow, and deep helplessness.
"They hit upon a so-called 'perfect' solution: let my identical twin, Hyuga Hizashi—your father—Die in My Place.
Using our Mirror-like faces, they would hand Hizashi's body to Kumogakure and proclaim that the murderer of their envoy had taken his own life in atonement."
He paused, then forced out the outcome in a hoarse voice:
"Your father agreed. He took his own life. His last words to me were: 'I'm not dying to fulfill some branch-house duty; I'm dying gladly as a younger brother for his Elder.'
That is the Full Truth."