Time rewound a short while earlier.
When Hyūga Hizashi activated his Byakugan to search for the owner of that strange voice, he had actually already seen Neji, lying unusually still inside the room.
However, because all of his attention was focused on Hyūga Y Gin, the source of the sound, he overlooked the abnormality right before his eyes.
Normally, every time Neji vented the resentment buried deep in his heart, he would lie awake for a long time, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
Yet tonight, after bandaging the wound on his hand, Hyūga Neji lay flat on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Before long, an overwhelming drowsiness surged over him like a tide and swallowed him whole.
Once his eyes closed, the world became deathly silent.
Pitch-black darkness stretched endlessly before him, like a boundless sea of night.
Until—
a hollow, distant voice seemed to drift in from far away.
"..."
Hyūga Neji opened his eyes in confusion.
Before him stood a dilapidated vermilion torii gate, its paint peeling, its wooden beams rotted and skewered into the earth at odd angles.
A set of damp stone steps covered in green moss lay ahead, slick and treacherous. That hollow voice was coming from beyond them.
Without thinking, Neji stepped forward and climbed the stairs, passing beneath the torii and between two shattered komainu stone statues.
He continued onward, crossing a cracked stone approach where shadows of trees swayed on both sides, until his field of view suddenly opened up.
A ruined shrine appeared before him.
The shimenawa rope hanging from the shrine was rotted and sagging, swaying weakly in the wind. Faded wooden plaques clacked against one another, their vermilion inscriptions blurred beyond recognition.
On the wide, empty ground before the shrine's main hall, four children stood hand in hand, forming a circle.
Two of them—faces obscured—released each other's hands and extended one hand toward Neji.
Unable to resist, Neji walked forward.
The instant he grasped their hands, a strange joy welled up inside him. A smile crept across his face, and a laugh spilled from his throat—one that did not sound like his own.
He looked toward the center of the circle.
There, kneeling with her head bowed, was a black-haired girl with her eyes blindfolded.
Kagome, kagome…
(Caged bird, caged bird…)
The four children began to spin cheerfully, singing the nursery rhyme in their young, innocent voices. Neji, dazed, found himself singing along.
The bird inside the cage…
The blood-red glow of the setting sun cast their shadows onto the ground, forming the shape of a bamboo cage, imprisoning both the children and the girl within.
When, oh when will it come out?
The tempo quickened. The children sped up, the elongated shadows tightening like bars around the blindfolded girl.
On the night of dawn…
The crane and the tortoise slipped…
Who is the one behind you?
The children stopped.
All four turned to face the girl at the center.
"..."
Neji stared at her as well.
Her back looked unfamiliar—yet strangely familiar.
As the nursery rhyme echoed through the ruined shrine, the once-cheerful lyrics took on a chilling, unnatural tone.
Especially when the hands he was holding radiated a bone-piercing cold, sending a surge of fear through his heart.
Suddenly, Neji understood.
He understood the meaning of this song.
He understood the rules of this game.
—If the girl guessed who stood behind her,
the one she named would replace the bird in the cage.
The scapegoat.
"..."
The blindfolded girl lifted her head. Her soft, pale lips parted slightly.
"Hyūga… Neji…" she whispered.
The moment she spoke his name, Neji's entire body began to tremble uncontrollably. The two children beside him gently released his hands.
"No! I don't want this!"
Against his will, he stepped forward and knelt before the girl.
The four children gathered around them, their gazes devout and fervent, as if witnessing a sacred ritual.
Finally, the girl raised her clasped hands and gently touched Neji's face.
Her thumbs pressed down over his eyes.
Splurt.
Thick, crimson blood burst forth, splashing heavily onto the ground.
"AAAAAH!!"
Neji screamed—a shrill, agonized cry, as though a red-hot steel rod had been driven straight into his brain.
Yet once he had been fitted with the "blindfold," the four children clasped hands again and resumed circling him. Their swaying shadows stitched him into the cage, and the cheerful-yet-horrifying nursery rhyme rang out once more.
Kagome, kagome…
The bird inside the cage…
When, oh when will it come out…
The childish voices gradually dissolved into distorted, incomprehensible sounds. Visual noise flooded Neji's vision as fractured images flickered in and out before his eyes.
Slowly, the scene began to change.
He saw countless people with ugly curse seals engraved on their foreheads.
He saw them standing in front of others who bore no such mark—shielding them—only to die one after another on a battlefield of flesh and blood.
He saw a figure marked by the Caged Bird Seal, its face impossible to discern, slaughtering without mercy.
He saw that figure tearing out the eyes of others.
He saw the same figure writhing on an altar, clutching its own eyes, screaming silently in agony.
He saw the figure descend from the altar, carve something into a stone monument, and walk away.
Anyone—sealed or unsealed—who dared block his path was slaughtered with a single raised hand.
Even activating the curse seal failed to stop him.
Neji watched as the figure entered a shrine. The survivors gathered outside, not daring to step inside, the air filled only with overlapping, ragged breaths.
Moments later, the grand shrine was engulfed in flames.
The figure emerged from the inferno, fire licking across his cheeks.
In his hand, he carried the severed head of an elderly man—terror frozen on the dead face. A pale spine trailed behind, scraping against the ground, leaving streaks of dark crimson blood.
The figure stopped.
The blood pooled into a dark red mirror on the ground, reflecting the terrified white eyes of the Hyūga, and within those eyes—
Were reflected his own bloodstained gaze.
They were not Byakugan.
They were deep blue eyes.
Hyūga Neji stood at the very back of the crowd, unable to move, unable to speak—forever a mere observer.
Having just endured the pain of becoming the "scapegoat," and now witnessing this massacre, a twisted sense of exhilaration rose within him.
Then—
The figure slowly lifted his lowered gaze.
Their eyes met.
Neji felt it instantly.
That person could see him.
Thick, reeking blood streamed from those eyes, sliding down an indistinct face.
"Such an ugly clan," the figure said coldly.
"There is no need for it to exist."
He raised one hand, as if gripping an invisible sword. Golden light extended upward, piercing through the clouds and tearing open the night sky.
"Let the impure be cleansed."
"Golden Wheel… Reincarnation Explosion."
The golden radiance descended, illuminating the pitch-black heavens as the fear of death took tangible form.
BOOM!
Faced with utterly real death, Neji instinctively tried to dodge with all his strength—
Only to snap his eyes open and tumble off the bed.
"..."
He stared blankly at the ceiling. The dull ache spreading through his body finally dragged him back to reality.
"What… was that?" he murmured.
"Who was that person?"
"And those eyes…"
End of Chapter