Rewinding time for a moment.
When Hizashi Hyuga used his Byakugan to search for the owner of that voice, he actually saw Neji lying in his room, looking very peaceful.
However, because his mind was entirely focused on Yun Chuan Hyuga who made the sound, he ignored the anomaly right before his eyes.
Normally, after Neji vented the resentment in his heart, he would always toss and turn in bed for a long time, unable to fall asleep.
But tonight, after bandaging the wounds on his hands, Neji Hyuga lay on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, and soon felt a strong drowsiness wash over him like a tide.
After closing his eyes, the world was as dead silent as if it had died.
Before his eyes was a heavy darkness, like a boundless black ocean.
Until, an ethereal voice seemed to come, seeming to come from far away.
“…”
Neji Hyuga opened his eyes in confusion.
Before him was a dilapidated vermilion torii gate, with rotting rafters thrust diagonally into the dirt.
In front of him were slippery stone steps covered in green moss, and that ethereal voice was coming from the distance.
Neji Hyuga subconsciously raised his foot and walked up the stairs, passing the torii gate and the ruined Komainu stone statues on both sides.
Walking up the stairs and passing through the bluestone path with swaying tree shadows on both sides, the view in front of him broadened.
A dilapidated shrine came into his view.
The rotting Shimenawa rope hung down and swayed, the faded wooden plaques knocked against each other in the wind, and the words written in vermilion lacquer were illegible.
In the wide, empty space in front of the dilapidated main hall, four children were holding hands in a circle.
Two children whose faces couldn’t be seen clearly let go of each other’s hands and each reached out a hand towards him.
Neji Hyuga walked over uncontrollably.
The moment he held those two hands, a sense of cheerfulness rose involuntarily.
A smile appeared on Neji’s face, and a laugh that didn’t sound like his escaped his throat.
He looked at the blindfolded, black-haired girl who was surrounded by him and the other four children, kneeling in the middle with her head bowed.
[Kagome, Kagome (Kagome, Kagome)]
The four children started spinning cheerfully, singing the nursery rhyme in their tender voices, and Neji also sang along somewhat ignorantly.
[Kago no naka no tori wa (The bird in the basket/cage)]
The blood-like glow of the setting sun cast their shadows on the ground, enclosing them and that girl in a cage like a bamboo basket.
[Itsu itsu deyaru (When, oh when will it come out)]
The singing sped up, the children quickened their pace, and the long shadows of the bamboo cage strangled the blindfolded girl in the center.
[Yoake no ban ni (In the night of dawn)]
[Tsuru to kame ga subetta (The crane and the turtle slipped)]
[Ushiro no shoumen dare?
(Who is facing you from behind?)]
The four children stopped in their tracks and looked at the girl in the middle in unison.
“…”
Neji Hyuga also looked at the blindfolded girl in the middle.
Looking at the girl’s strange yet familiar back, his originally chaotic thoughts gradually became clear at this moment.
The nursery rhyme sung by tender voices was still echoing.
Set against the dilapidated scenery here, the originally cheerful and tender lyrics seemed exceptionally eerie.
Especially the bone-piercing chill coming from his two hands, which made a surge of fear well up in Neji Hyuga’s heart.
He suddenly understood the gameplay and meaning of this song and game.
—If the girl guesses who the person behind her is, then the person guessed will take the place of the bird in the cage as a scapegoat.
“…”
The blindfolded girl raised her head, her pink lips parting slightly.
“Neji…
Hyuga…” she said softly.
Hearing her say his name, Neji Hyuga’s entire body trembled uncontrollably, and the two children beside him gently let go of his hands.
“No!
I don’t want to!”
He uncontrollably raised his foot, walked up to the girl, and knelt down.
The four children gathered around, their gazes pious and enthusiastic, as if witnessing a ritual.
Finally, the girl raised her joined hands and gently stroked Neji Hyuga’s face, but her thumbs pressed against his eyes.
Squirt!
Thick, crimson blood gushed out, flowing heavily onto the ground with a loud sound.
“Ah!!”
An incredibly shrill scream came from Neji Hyuga’s mouth.
It was as painful as a red-hot steel rod being thrust into his brain.
But after he put on the “blindfold,” the four children joined hands and started spinning again.
The swaying shadows sewed him into the cage, and the bizarrely cheerful nursery rhyme sounded again.
[Kagome, Kagome (Kagome, Kagome)]
[Kago no naka no tori wa (The bird in the basket/cage)]
[Itsu itsu deyaru (When, oh when will it come out)]
The tender voices gradually turned into an indistinct, bizarre language.
A massive amount of noise filled Neji Hyuga’s retinas, and distorted images began to flash before his eyes.
Gradually, the scene before his eyes began to change.
He saw countless people with ugly curse marks carved on their heads.
He saw them standing in front of figures without curse marks.
He saw them dying one after another on the bloody battlefield.
He saw a person with a Caged Bird mark whose face couldn’t be seen clearly, slaughtering.
He saw that person continuously gouging out other people’s eyes.
He saw that person rolling on an altar, covering their eyes and screaming silently.
He saw that person step down from the altar, carve something onto a stone tablet, and walk out.
Whether they were people carved with curse marks or without, anyone who tried to stand in his way was slaughtered completely with a raise of his hand.
Even if someone raised their hand to activate the curse mark, it still didn’t stop that person’s footsteps.
Neji Hyuga saw that figure walk into an ancestral hall.
The surviving people gathered outside the ancestral hall, not daring to enter.
The silent air seemed filled only with the overlapping sounds of heavy breathing.
Soon, the magnificent ancestral hall was engulfed by flames.
That figure walked out of the firelight, the flames licking their cheeks.
And in that person’s hand, they carried an aged head with fear lingering on its face.
A pale, crimson spine dragged on the ground, leaving glaring dark red bloodstains wherever it went.
That person stopped.
The blood pooled on the ground into a dark red mirror, reflecting the panicked and terrified white eyes of the others, and in those white eyes, that person’s blood-stained eyes were reflected.
Those were eyes different from the Byakugan.
Those were deep blue eyes.
Neji Hyuga stood at the very back of the crowd, unable to move or make a sound, watching as a bystander the whole time.
Having just experienced the pain of becoming a “scapegoat,” and now witnessing this slaughter with his own eyes, he genuinely felt a sickly sense of satisfaction from the bottom of his heart.
However, the next moment, that figure raised their constantly lowered eyelids and actually made eye contact with Neji Hyuga.
Neji Hyuga suddenly had a feeling.
That person saw him.
He saw two streams of thick, bloody tears flow down from those eyes, gradually sliding down that indistinct face.
“Such an ugly family has no need to exist.”
That person slowly raised a hand.
The palm seemed to grasp a sword, and golden light extended upwards, piercing through the dark clouds in the night sky.
“Purge the impurity and raise the pure,” the person said softly.
“Golden Wheel…
Reincarnation Explosion.”
That golden light descended, illuminating the pitch-black night, materializing the fear of death.
Bang!
Faced with such real death, Neji Hyuga almost subconsciously used all his strength to dodge, but only abruptly opened his eyes, and before he could react, he rolled out of bed entirely.
“…”
He looked blankly at the ceiling.
The slight pain coming from his body finally pulled him back to reality.
“What’s going on?” he muttered.
“Who was that person?”
“And, those eyes…”
(END CHAPTER)