Chapter 98: Naruto 12

In the end, it took a lot of talking to convince Minato, Kushina, and Hizashi to wait another week. That time would allow them to get themselves back into fighting form, get equipped with the amazing gear that his Dragon Flight provided, and spend time reading his intelligence reports so they would be caught up on the current world.

And it allowed him to go recruit Tsunade, Shizune, and Tonton, who also had their relatives restored to them. But not before he used his medical treatments to make Tsunade the same age as her lover Dan would be. One less obstacle that would hold her back from achieving her happiness.

Carl accomplished a lot in that week while the three resurrected ninja were preparing to take Konoha by storm.

He had retrieved another summoning contract that fit the needs of his scenario in a mountain cave. It was for the Chameleon clan.

Carl looked at the plans they had created for Konoha, and was quite happy about the anticipated changes. He had made the decision that his blood clones would accompany the various important people as they stormed Konoha. It was important for him to go to his summons clan to fulfill his scenario.

So while it was abrupt, he felt it was something he needed to do. Carl left his blood clones in charge of things while he reverse summoned himself to the Chameleon clan's land to introduce himself to them.

It was an easy going time. The Chameleon lizards were pretty chill. They had a martial art that depended on shifting the colors to distract and confuse their enemy's sense of depth perception, as well as a weird series of back and forth or side to side moves that disguised where and when the attacks would come from and when they would begin.

Unlike the Snake clan, they didn't have him partner with anyone in particular, but they did have him promise to help them train their young Chameleons over the years so they could get stronger. Carl naturally agreed to their stipulations and was working hard to learn their martial art style; so he was able to start his Senjutsu training in the Chameleon style after only a couple months.

But that was long after a lot of things happened, both in New Uzushio and in Konoha.

Dan and Nawaki were going to stay in New Uzushio with Tsunade, Shizune, and Tonton. After their own touching reunion, Dan and Nawaki expressed their understanding of how Tsunade didn't want to go back to where she had such horrible memories just yet, so they would work on her for now. They were hoping that with time she would be willing to go back home with them, eventually.

The accepting and understanding way that Dan and Nawaki accepted the new Tsunade caused some tears to flow. Despite how tough she was, Tsunade had been away from her family too long. The easy way that her family accepted her, despite all her faults, and followed her, touched something deep inside her and started the healing process.

Carl didn't mind where ever Tsunade and her friends were, in the end. Either they were affiliated with the Silver Dragon Flight through New Uzushio, or they were connected to him through Konoha and the Hyuga Clan. He was just happy to see her come to acceptance of her new life and start to grow once more.

Over the week after he brought several people back from the dead, Carl saw that the initial impulse of Minato, Kushina, and Hizashi to basically storm the gates of Konoha were put on hold for another couple days while they planned in detail everything they would do. They still planned to storm the castle, so to speak. They just wanted to be smart about it.

While they had been studying Carl's intelligence feed they had realized that there were a lot of changes in their village and problems that they would have to deal with. Not least of which being declared un-dead. Er…re-alive. Well, they were living and breathing ninja, so they needed official standing and recognition with their country and village.

Not to mention that while the internal running of Konoha was pretty much up to the Hokage, there was a lot of politics that connected them to the court of the Daimyo of the Land of Fire. So it would be for the best to get all their ducks in a row before crashing Konoha and blowing the minds of everyone present with the news that their fourth Hokage was once more alive.

"I don't care what kind of hot bed political issues we have to deal with!" Kushina raged at Minato one day in their planning sessions. Carl, Hizashi, Dan, Nawaki, Tsunade, Shizune, and Tonton sat back and watched the fight, not interfering. "I will not allow my daughter to know that we put the political situation first, before her! She's been alone all her life! We are sneaking in to Konoha tomorrow so I can finally meet my daughter! I've been patient enough, but I won't…"

"You're right." Minato sighed as he stood next to his wife and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "You're absolutely right. We'll figure something out for the politics, but you're right that we need to reunite with Naruko, first."

Carl cleared his throat, getting everyone's attention.

"Why don't I just bring her here for the reunion this evening? I can leave a decoy in place, or just have her take a "sick day" from the academy tomorrow. That way you have all the time you need to talk and get to know her." He offered the couple.

"Thank you very much, Heir Hyuga." Minato nodded.

"Yes, thank you Carl. That would solve the problem wonderfully! I can't wait to see my baby!" Kushina, on the other hand, almost danced around the room at the prospect of seeing her daughter, finally.

It was a bit funny to him that Minato, the highly respected fourth Hokage, was being so respectful to him, the nine year old Hyuga heir. But it made sense that he would be respectful to the nine year old powerful ninja that had hundreds of years of memories of his past lives and could do amazing things, like bring him back from the dead.

Kushina was a bit more casual and forward than Minato; she never became the Hokage, so she never had the need to practice her diplomacy. Not to mention that Carl was one of her daughter's friends and had been telling her stories of Naruko. So she didn't see the need to be overly formal or polite.

Truth be told, Carl kind of preferred Kushina's attitude of casual friendship over the overly polite attitude of Minato.

Carl hadn't told any of them about the details of the Jump Chain just yet, he had stuck to his story of past life memories awakening. He would wait until he had a year or two left in the world and see who among his best friends and allies would be willing to subordinate their clans or families to the Hyuga clan or the Silver Dragon Flight and join him on a trip through the multiverse.

So much was happening right now that one more heavy revelation would be more than they needed to think about. Especially Minato and Kushina, they really should focus on settling all their issues before they found out about all the stuff that doesn't matter while he was in this world. Not to mention that Hizashi had a son to get back to, and Tsunade and Shizune had family they were reunited with.

"And if I'm bringing Naruko here, I don't see why we can't make this a family gathering." Carl added on with a significant look at Hizashi when he saw how hard his uncle was working to keep from exploding like Kushina had earlier. The relieved smile of gratitude that Hizashi sent him made Carl smile. "Besides, uncle, we need to plan with father how to go about changing our clan so we don't have to rely on the Caged Bird seal to keep the branch house down and enslaved."

"What do you mean, Carl?" Hizashi asked, puzzlement and hope fighting each other in his eyes.

"Well, I've come up with an alternate seal that can be placed on the upper back of all Hyuga that will protect our bloodline and eyes from being stolen. It does not have the painful control methods that the Caged Bird seal has, so our clan will have to adjust how it does business if it wants to keep everyone together." Carl offered the important information up with an easy smile.

From the way that Hizashi's mouth was gaping like a fish, the information that Carl already had an alternate seal ready to go was quite important.

Carl began walking toward the door, planning to go replace his blood clone in Konoha to get the visit organized.

"Well, I'm going to be headed out to Konoha and bring our people here for a reunion." Carl called out, smiling at the still energized Kushina, the gape mouthed Hizashi, and the amused looking Tsunade and company.

As he was making his way through the building to his rooms, he gathered up a memory packet of the meeting and pushed it down the link he had with his blood clone in Konoha so he would know to begin gathering his family and Naruko for a visit to New Uzushio.

Carl tagged out his blood clone in the evening before dinner, which allowed him to join his family for dinner. As usual, they ate in silence, but he was preparing to drop the bomb after everyone had finished eating. He didn't want the revelations and reunions to make everyone go hungry for the evening.

It was nice actually being present with his family in this world instead of just getting the memories from his blood clone. His father and mother were sitting next to each other, looking quite healthy. Himari was pregnant again, which was amusing to him. Hanabi was coming along great at four years old. She was quite an energetic and happy little girl, what with having two older sisters. Hinata and Naruko sat next to Hanabi and he was amused to see that Naruko, like usual, was whispering to Hinata every now and then.

When he said their meals were usually eaten in silence, that was true up until Naruko joined them. They still didn't have a lot of conversation during meal times, ninja were very active and so they were usually very hungry and focused while eating. Naruko was especially energetic, so she had a hard time not joking and talking with Hinata and Hanabi.

Neji was sitting next to him on his side of the table. While he wasn't the fate obsessed emo that he was in the original story, he was still a naturally quiet guy, so he usually didn't talk a whole lot.

"Father, mother." Carl called out when it looked like his parents were about to get up and leave the dinner table. "There's some important things I need to…discuss."

Hiashi and Himari exchanged curious looks. It wasn't often that their unusual eldest son brought up something while sounding so serious. He was usually quite laid back.

"Speak, Carl. What is the issue?" Hiashi settled back down and waited for him to talk.

"Ah, don't leave yet, Neji." Carl prompted when it looked like Neji was about to depart. His sisters and Naruko, on the other hand, looked curious and weren't about to leave. Neji settled back down with a curious look on his face. "Neji, this concerns you too. Well, first off, let's take care of not being overheard."

Carl placed a hand on the ground and black seal script crawled out from under his hand in four different directions, marching along the floor and up the walls and over the ceiling. Once the seal script met back up on the ceiling, it flashed a silver blue color, then faded back to a subtle glow.

Everyone else was looking at the display with wide eyes.

"What was that, Carl?" Hiashi asked.

"Well. About that." Carl coughed into his hand.

"Come again? It sounds like you just said that you learned the sealing arts and that this was a privacy seal." Himari gave him the gimlet eye. She knew they had told him just how dangerous the sealing arts were, and here he was, fiddling around with it.

"Yes, well." Carl smiled a bit nervously. It was funny how even though he was quite old, he still felt like a nervous boy in front of his mother. Even though he had several mothers before, it was kind of an ingrained behavior at this point. Once he accepted them as his mother, then he behaved as a son.

"That's one of the things I wanted to talk to everyone about." Carl eyed everyone's expressions as they stared at him expectantly. "So, I know we never talk about it, but Father and Mother must remember how I awakened some of my life's past memories just in time to save Mother and Hanabi from the poisoners betrayal." Carl half asked.

"What?! Poison?!" Naruko half yelled.

"Mother was poisoned?!" Hanabi fully yelled. She was just being born at the time, so obviously she didn't know anything about it.

Neji had already been told about the poisoning attempt shortly after, so that didn't surprise him. But hearing that Carl had regained memories of a past life certainly did come as a shock.

"Yes, we remember." Hiashi nodded gravely. That had been a particularly hard time for him, almost losing his wife, and then discovering the plot against his whole family. "But we never talked about it since we didn't want that information to leak to any enemies."

"It's okay now, Hanabi." Himari was meanwhile comforting his sister who had gotten quite upset at the thought of their mother being poisoned. "The traitors didn't get away with it, we caught them and cured the poison, so we're all fine now."

"The sealing array I put up gives us complete privacy. No one can overhear what we're talking about or use their Byakugan to read our lips." Carl announced once everyone had settled down from the revelations. Everyone was suitably amazed at his sudden skills with seals. "Some of my past lives memories and abilities helped me gain proficiency in seals and other things." Carl explained in a simple manner. "It seems many things are connected to my soul and travel through different lives with me, even some amazing objects and relics. One of those relics helped me heal the poison everyone was afflicted with."

After the poisoning affair was explained, Naruko was quite shocked to hear how their family had been plotted against. She felt an undercurrent of great anger at whoever tried to hurt these wonderful people who took her in and made her feel wanted. Too bad she couldn't be the one to punish them!

"Why are you telling us this now, son?" Hiashi finally asked after everything had been explained to those at the table who didn't know and everyone settled down from the excitement. When everyone looked at him, Hiashi briefly smiled and explained his reasoning. "Well, everything has been routine, so to speak. What suddenly changed that made you decide to talk about it tonight?"

"Yeah, something has changed. A big something!" Carl smiled at the group's expectant faces. "Well…how to say this? Hmm…I discovered some special shadow clone techniques that are based on blood that allowed me to make practically permanent copies of myself. So…I might have gone and refounded Uzushio, gathered together a bunch of people, including some lost Uzumaki clan members, and…"

Carl was interrupted from finishing by the shouts of excitement and disconcertment.

"You founded a village!?" A couple of Carl's family shouted something along those lines.

"I'm part of a clan!?" Naruko exclaimed loudly, the ideas of having family out there being something she had only dreamed of.

"You…made permanent copies of yourself with a very dangerous kinjutsu?!" Yeah, Carl's parents didn't seem too thrilled with that one.

"Eh…hehe." Carl chuckled a bit, seeing all the excited faces as they stared at him, demanding explanations. "Yeah, pretty much. I made some clones and sent them out to take care of some things."

"Carl, even if you made clones of yourself, they wouldn't be any more powerful than you yourself are." Hiashi gritted out. "How could you possibly have founded a village then?"

"And why would you take the chance to do such a dangerous kinjutsu? Don't you know what the results could have been?" Himari demanded with tears in her eyes.

"Mom, you know I have that healing bed. I was perfectly safe…"

"Safe!" Himari once more interrupted him.

Carl sighed. This was taking longer to explain than he wanted. Seriously, this was probably why so many of those people in stories avoided getting themselves families or telling their secrets. The need to explain to your fifth set of parents that you weren't being as reckless as they thought you were was somewhat irritating.

"Anyway." Carl plowed on, ignoring for the moment the imprecations and punishments his parents were muttering about. "The whole reason I brought this up is that recently I figured out how to use seals to do a forbidden summoning jutsu ritual. So, long story short, I summoned out of the Pure Lands the souls of Neji's dad and Naruko's parents. They are alive again and looking forward to meeting you all tonight at New Uzushio."

Silence.

Carl looked back and forth expectantly at the faces of his family, but it seemed that he broke them, a little bit.

"Right. So before you recover and start yelling and demanding answers, I think it best that we simply move locations so you can meet them. Yamato, beam us over to New Uzushio, if you please." The group disappeared in a flash of white light.

The seals of privacy on the room would remain until Carl took them down, and the added magic ward would ensure that no one in the clan would think it strange that Hiashi was nowhere to be found.

The group appeared sitting down in another room in the village of New Uzushio. Opposite them were another group of people.

Neji's attention immediately zeroed in on his own father, sitting opposite him with his white kimono and dark jacket, sporting a forehead clear of the caged bird seal.

"Oh, and Neji?" Neji didn't even look at him, but Carl could tell that he had his cousin's attention. "I've also got a seal array to remove your Caged Bird seal." Neji's shocked face whipped over to look at him. "But we can do that after your reunion with your father."

Carl shrugged at the look on Neji's face. Well, maybe throwing him too many shocks at once wasn't a good thing. He smiled. Neji was a tough guy, he'd regain his equilibrium soon.

Carl then looked over and saw that Naruko, with tears streaming down her face, was being hugged by an equally crying Kushina while Minato had his arms around the two. Hinata was hovering nearby, making sure her best friend was doing fine.

Hanabi plopped herself down next to his left side, Himari following her a second later and leaned against his right side.

"This is amazing, Carl. I'm shocked what miracles your past life's memories have brought us." His mother commented while watching her husband hover near the reunion that was happening with Hizashi and Neji. Hiashi really wanted to reconnect with his twin, but knew that the father son duo needed the time to connect more, so he was waiting nearby.

Tsunade, Dan, Shizune, Nawaki, and Tonton moved from the table they had been waiting at and congregated near him.

"Yeah, your mom's right, brat." Tsunade refused to call him anything else. He was tempted to call her granny in retaliation, but figured that was more Naruto's schtick. Tsunade was holding Dan's hand and watching the reunions with a small smile on her face.

"Yeah, it's pretty awesome that you brought us back. Now I get another chance to work on my goal of becoming the Hokage." Nawaki gleefully whispered to Carl. The 12 year old boy had only just become a genin when war broke out and he died early in some skirmish in the opening phases of the war.

"Well, you've got your work cut out for you, that's for sure." Carl muttered back. "Who knows, maybe your sister will become the next Hokage just so she can ensure the medical program gets made. Then you'll have to beat your sister to get the hat."

"No way, brat." Tsunade declared, obviously having overheard Nawaki and Carl's conversation. Not that Carl expected any different. Tsunade wasn't distracted enough to ignore her brother's whispering from that close. "Minato gets to grab the hat back. Me and Dan are going to kick the medical program in the rear and get it up to standards."

"And if anyone can do it, it's our Tsunade, the peerless princess medic kunoichi." Dan teased his fiancé with a laugh and with such warm feelings that Tsunade actually blushed a bit.

Carl kind of tuned the couple out as they continued flirting with each other. It hadn't been as hard for the two to get back to where they were in their relationship all those years ago as one might have expected. Which was heartwarming.

"I think they are going to be at this for a while." Hanabi stated while she leaned against Carl. He had placed an arm around his little sister when she leaned against him. The way she talked indicated that she was a bit bored and craved distraction. She was still only four.

"Well, what would you like, Hanabi? A story book, a puzzle game, or training your Byakugan?" Carl asked the cute little bored munchkin.

"A story book sounds nice."

Carl pulled out a special book that he had designed recently. It was a special picture story book that required the Byakugan to be able to read. It was training disguised under an interesting story. And there were more than one story hidden in it which appeared based on which aspect of the Byakugan eyes was used to read it.

After Carl explained the book and how she could read it, he passed Hanabi the book. She was instantly engrossed in the tale and using her eyes to read it.

He then caught sight of his mother's pleased smile on his other side.

"Did you design those books, Carl?" Himari asked.

"Yes. I thought back to the guided play that was done for us when we were just starting our training, and thought that it would be helpful for our clan's children to have something similar for training the usage of their eyes." Carl admitted.

"Oh, my talented baby boy is growing up!" Himari announced with a proud smile while pinching his cheeks in glee. Shizune and Tonton started laughing behind him at seeing him being handled in such an undignified manner, and unable to retaliate against his mother.

"Urr. Mummm. Shtop eet." Carl muttered indistinctly as his cheeks were being stretched out in a painful manner.

"But I can't help it if my precious son is so grown up he goes off and performs kinjutus, building villages, and summons the dead back to life behind my back. I've got to treasure every. Moment. Of. His. Life." His mom emphasized each word at the end by a particularly sharp twist of his cheeks.

The twisting of his cheeks didn't really hurt him at all, but he could understand the feelings and emotions behind it. His poor mother in this life was doomed to have a "reckless" son that grew up too fast. At least she didn't become afraid of him because of his skills and "past life memories". It would hurt him inside if she took him as some kind of cuckoo bird that replaced her "real" son.

It wouldn't have even mattered that in a million, million universes, this was the only one where she actually had a son that was the twin of Hinata, and that he wasn't a replacement for any such non-existent son. He was glad that she accepted him as strange as he was. So he endured her little "punishment" that would make her feel a bit better.

But he was definitely going to prank Shizune for laughing at him.

'Oh, yes. Vengeance will be mine!' Carl darkly thought.

In order to give everyone all the time they needed for the family reunions, Carl brought them into the Time Pearl to give them a couple extra weeks to get to know one another. This also gave Hiashi, Hizashi, and Carl time to remove the Caged Bird seal from Neji and plan how to revamp the Hyuga clan.

The "morning" after Naruko reunited with her parents, he was ambushed by her in the morning with an uncomfortably tight hug outside the breakfast room.

"Thank you!" Naruko whispered fervently to Carl for the return of her parents, for making friends with her and bringing her into his family, for everything he did for her.

"You're welcome, Naruko." Carl answered. "So, how do you like your parents? Pretty cool?"

"They're brilliant! My mom has been telling me about her pranks back when she was in the academy because everyone called her a tomato because of her hair." Naruko finally released Carl from the hug and started "I don't get it though, her hair is beautiful! How could anyone make fun of it?"

Carl smiled at his friend's obvious infatuation with having parents, so that everything about them was perfect and wonderful.

"Well, some kids are just dumb, right? Like all those fangirls that go gaga over the Uchiha." Carl threw out.

"Oh my gosh! I know, right? Those bunch of airhead morons are so dumb!" Naruko shouted out.

"Who's dumb?" Hinata asked as she, Hanabi, Neji, and Nawaki joined them at the breakfast table. So far most of the adults seemed to be sleeping in. With the promise that they were in an artifact that came along with Carl that compressed time and that they wouldn't be missed the next day, they were enjoying their vacation to the fullest.

"The stupid fangirls that are always chasing the Uchiha bastard!" Naruko announced, causing Neji to snort in amusement while Nawaki looked back and forth in confusion.

"Fangirls? What fangirls?" Nawaki asked, which caused Naruko and Hinata to go into exposition about all the stupid things the fangirls do, even as nine year olds trying to get into Sasuke's pants.

"So, how you doing Neji?" Carl asked his cousin after putting in an order for the automated system in place to cook up some breakfast for their group.

"I'm…great." Neji said with a smile. An actual smile! "Thank you for returning my father to me, Carl."

"Anytime. It was completely wrong what was done to our family. I'm glad to see him back with us." Carl dismissed any hint that Neji was putting out that he owed Carl. Hizashi was family.

"What? One of those bimbos broke her legs trying to chase the Uchiha bastard? That's so funny!" Carl returned his attention back to the other conversation just in time to hear Hanabi repeating Naruko's words from earlier.

He just laughed along in amusement. His little sister was smart enough not to use words like that around their mother if she didn't want her mouth washed out with soap. And he was her brother, not her nanny, so there was no reason for him to chastise her for language, especially when he sometimes used expletives too.

Soon enough the adults wandered in and joined them at the table for breakfast. It was an unusual breakfast for the Hyuga, since the meal was filled with jokes, laughter, and conversation.

'It's a pretty good change up, actually.' Carl thought as he looked around the room at all the cheerfully conversing people that he cared for.

"Whoa! Your teeth are blue, Shizune!" Naruko laughed loudly at the sight of the older woman's bright blue teeth.

'Oh, yes. Vengeance is sweet indeed.' Carl thought as he sipped his tea with a smile on his face while Shizune covered her mouth in embarrassment.

Once the short vacation in the Time Pearl ended, everyone of their group knew each other a great deal better and were now close friends. Even though Nawaki was two years older than Neji, and three years older than Carl, Hinata, and Naruko, he enjoyed spending time with them in training.

Carl made sure that everyone got one of his special training assist belts that monitored their health, healed, and increased gravity and resistance training. The adults especially rhapsodized in bliss about how amazing the training aid was for helping them return to their peak condition and actually improve beyond it.

Tsunade nearly grabbed him by his shirt and demanded to learn the seals for the medical diagnostic and healing. She really was a nut for anything to do with medicine, biology, and healing.

With Carl's learning experience when he was researching seals, a primer was soon compiled to teach those interested in the sealing arts. The rest of the children were prohibited from learning seals anytime soon, even Nawaki. Even with what he had learned about seals and the lesson plans, seals were still an inherently dangerous topic to learn.

So everyone was prohibited from learning seals until they fulfilled two criteria. They had to be at least 15 and they had to be able to produce a shadow clone to do the practical work for them. It was just an extra safety measure to ensure that their loved ones wouldn't accidentally turn themselves inside out. Or smear their bodies across several different dimensions. Or any number of horrifyingly possible results.

After they left the Time Pearl, it was still early evening of the day they entered. So Carl gave them the tour of New Uzushio. Kushina, over the time she had been there, had been quite sentimental about seeing the rebuilding of her childhood home. It wasn't the same as it used to be, but it was a nice tribute.

Carl made sure to introduce Ali and Karin Uzumaki to Naruko, so she could see that there were more Uzumakis out there. And since Karin and Hanako Yuki were best of friends, Naruko and Hinata also met the two girls.

The stare-off that resulted from the four girls meeting confused Carl a bit. He saw that there was some feelings of possessiveness towards him from all four girls, as well as the feelings of defending their territory.

Inside he was rolling his eyes at the girls. He wasn't a completely blind idiot when it came to women, and he had seen how the various girls he was interacting with were looking at him. But the girls in Konoha, Naruko, Yakumo, Sakura, and Ino, were all only 9 at the moment; and Karin and Hanako were only a couple years older. So there was no way anything was developing for at least another 7-8 years. And in the meantime he was playing clueless boy that kept missing any hints the girls sent him.

It wasn't that he was averse to more female company. He was living the fantasy dream in this Jump chain. But there was no way he was going to acknowledge "romantic" overtures from nine year olds!

For the position he was being put in, he blamed the world in general. Damned freaking chakra making people mature faster than they should be. And more specifically, he blamed the damned gold digging whores of Konoha. Both the civilian men and women that were gold digging whores and were trying to take advantage of a grieving, mentally broken orphan. But their actions were making all the kids around them hyper aware of relations between the sexes long before they should.

If those disgusting civilians weren't doing all they could to get Sasuke's bank book by convincing their eight year old daughters to act in ways they should never encourage, then his friends that were girls would never have caught the idea for at least another four years. At least.

Eventually some unseen signal or message passed between the four girls and they suddenly went from a Mexican standoff to chatting like they had been friends for all of their life.

Carl scratched his head, rolled his eyes, and went on his way. Even with his perks telling him what happened, he still didn't quite understand the inner workings of the female mind. Ultimately it wasn't something he needed to worry about, so he didn't.

After the tour of New Uzushio, everyone that was going back to Konoha gathered together for another transport back. Tsunade, Dan, Shizune, Nawaki, and Tonton were staying behind. For now. They did have plans to go crash the Konoha medical community and force changes to happen.

The group of Hiashi, Himari, Carl, Hinata, Hanabi, Hizashi, Neji, Naruko, Minato, and Kushina appeared in their dining room in a flash of white light only a few hours after they disappeared, of the same night they had left. It was pretty much bed time.

Carl reached out and undid the seals and magic ward on the room. Hiashi and Hizashi went to gather their most trusted members so they could start work on overriding the elder's influence and finally changing the clan for the better.

Himari arranged a room next to Naruko for Minato and Kushina.

The rest of them went to bed to get some rest, since it would be a busy day tomorrow.

Carl continued his normal training and academy routine while the adults went and got things started that would shake the foundations of Konoha.

First things first, Hiashi, Hizashi, Minato, and Kushina went into a closed meeting with Hiruzen, the third Hokage, to prove that they were back from the dead and that they were who they claimed to be. While their paperwork was being worked on, they explained the plan to the third Hokage.

Since Carl had already enslaved Danzo and was dismantling his ROOT forces a bit at a time, there was very little chance that the meeting was being spied on. He had also enslaved the two Hokage advisors, Homura and Koharu, so they weren't making a nuisance of themselves by being Danzo's yes-men.

And during the previous year his Silver Flight Trading Consortium had been making amazing progress with Danzo's aid in taking over a lot of the businesses that had been funding ROOT and other such suspect organizations. The money and services that the civilian council members relied on to throw their weight around in the council was on a very shaky foundation without Danzo's backing, since Carl's trade consortium could step in at a moment's notice and replace them.

Hiruzen was especially appreciative to find out that the civilians no longer had the solid political might they previously had from their threats of financial repercussion. Previously, they had used their political block to put him in a bad position of damned if he did and damned if he didn't with regards to certain hot topics. Like the curriculum of the Ninja Academy, Naruko's treatment, or the fate of the Uchiha heir.

After a full day of planning, the Hokage scheduled a meeting for the next morning of the Ninja clan heads, the civilian council, and the Daimyo's representative. There they would start establishing the turnover of the Hokage seat to Minato. Changes would start to be implemented all across the board, especially starting at the Academy and taking back the power and authority the civilian council had been grabbing up.

And when Hiashi, Hizashi, Minato, and Kushina returned after their long day of meetings and establishing identities, they found a nice dinner waiting for them with the kids present. The relaxed atmosphere and conviviality did a lot to restore their energy to them.

After the meal was finished, Carl had everyone follow him out from the clan compound to another compound that was just outside the Hyuga's.

"Ever since I discovered records of certain jutsu, I've been planning to bring you all back." Carl commented as the large crowd was following him to the compound whose gates were just outside the Hyuga's. "So I instructed my Silver Flight Trading Consortium to prepare a place for you to live. Tadaa!" Carl finished with a flourish which revealed a name plaque on the door.

Namikaze-Uzumaki Clan.

"So, I didn't know how you wanted to call it. If Minato was marrying into the Uzumaki clan, or a joint one, or what. So you can change it if you like. But I figured you'd like a place of your own to be a family." Carl finished saying as he looked at the two blondes and one red head. One of the blonde's and the redhead had tears streaming down their face, showing how touched they were. The other blonde, Minato, simply grinned down at him.

"Wait. So you're saying that the Silver Flight Trading Consortium is yours?"

"Yeah, it is." Carl didn't expect the question to come from Hinata, but answered the question.

"So all those amazingly delicious cinnamon buns I bought from their store, I could have got for free?" Hinata asked with a fiery look in her eye.

"All those chocolate cupcakes could have been mine for the asking?" Naruko joined in, flanking Hinata as they stared at him.

"And all the ice cream too?" Hanabi asked from where she had jumped on Carl's back suddenly so she could join in with her big sisters.

"Uh…Well, you see…" Carl paused, and then reset and centered himself. "So, would you all like to go for desert to the Silver Flight store, then? I'm buying." Carl asked. He was answered by cheers from the girls. Looking at the amused adults, he saw they were interested as well. "Yes, I'll cover everyone's deserts. There's a delicious one called Death by Chocolate that is to die for, so I hear." Carl knew he was condemning himself by offering to treat them, but it was amusing, and he couldn't bear to deny them treats.

'Well, at least my budget can withstand the hit it'll take from handing out free treats to my friends.' Carl amusedly thought as he followed the three cheering girls towards their chocolate and sugar fix. 'All in all, not a bad end to the day.'

Walking into the sweets shop several streets over, Carl noticed a particular woman in the corner with a pile of wooden sticks on the plate in front of her. She had black hair with blue tints tied up in a spiky ponytail, a mesh body suit, dark orange mini-skirt, and a tan overcoat with a high collar.

Her name was Anko Mitarashi. She was once on the genin team lead by Orochimaru. Later she became an apprentice to him, and even later a science experiment as he practiced putting his Cursed Seal of Heaven on her. He abandoned her after putting the cursed seal on her, and she stayed behind in Konoha while Orochimaru went missing nin.

While Carl's group was ordering and he was paying for the snacks (it would set a bad precedent if he continually got free items from the store, even if he owned it) he was thinking about her and the issue with the cursed seal he had learned from reading the reports his bots had copied from Konoha's archive.

The seal was a black tattoo looking three tomoe mark on her neck. When the seal was activated, it would increase the user's physical capabilities and chakra levels, but it also corrupts the person's mind while it was active. Orochimaru could also exert a certain amount of control over those who have the seal, so Anko would not be able to fight against Orochimaru, and could actually become a liability in a fight against him.

Anko had also been held back from being promoted many times because of her past connection to the traitor Orochimaru, so it caused her to have a great hatred for the traitorous Sannin.

Carl had always intended on contacting Anko eventually and removing the cursed seal from her to free her from Orochimaru's taint. But now that he was sitting on the other side of the room, he could feel and inspect the cursed seal, and he was very, very amused.

He had dealt with something like it before, in the Harry Potter universe. Orochimaru had apparently found a way to break off a small piece of his soul and place it in the cursed seal, which is how he had a connection to everyone who had his cursed seal, and explained how it was able to taint anyone with the cursed seal.

And Carl was incredibly amused by that information because it was very foolish of Orochimaru to leave an undefended piece of his soul just lying about. Who knows who might come across the piece and snag it for a ritual or two?

Carl had to work hard to keep his smile normal and not burst out laughing that the sneaky snek Orochimaru had practically gift wrapped the means of his defeat by leaving the cursed seal on Anko here in Konoha.

He decided not to be hasty or precipitous though, and continued enjoying the company of his family and friends as they all enjoyed their sugary snacks. He would talk to his father tonight, who would pass the message to the Hokage, who would convince Anko to come to him to get rid of her cursed seal.

Carl continued eating his ice cream, joking around and enjoying his evening.

"So, you're the one who claims they can get rid of this cursed seal." It was more statement than question that greeted Carl as he entered into the room that the third Hokage provided two days later.

Carl looked steadily at the woman who was only about two inches taller than him. She was hopeful, distrusting, trusting, nervous, angry, and depressed all at once, not to mention hints of a few other emotions. In other words, she knew how important this meeting was for her and was hoping something good would come of it, even though she really didn't expect it.

"It's me." Carl agreed simply. "My name is Carl Hyuga. And you're Anko Mitarashi, the one who was screwed over by Orochimaru."

"The bastard." Anko agreed and spit to the side to indicate how little she thought of her former teacher. "So, are you really going to be able to do anything about it, or is this another waste of my time?"

Carl didn't let her bitterness bother him. It had been quite a few years and a number of sealing "experts" that had no idea how to get the cursed seal off her failed, causing her hope to fall to rock bottom. So he couldn't blame her for the way she felt. But he knew she would be singing a different tune within a short time.

"Well, first we'll have to run a diagnostic on the little seal." Carl ignored her question and got to work. The annoyed look on her face told him she didn't like it, but she kept her opinion to herself for now.

Carl pulled out a storage scroll from his larger than they appeared pockets and unsealed an examination table that was liberally scrawled with seals.

"Why don't you hop on up on the table. Take off your outer jacket, but you don't have to remove anything else." Carl ordered, and waited for a few moments while he watched the struggle on Anko's face. She hadn't questioned his relatively young appearance yet, having been told by the Hokage that Carl's skills were amazing, no matter what age he was.

"Fine." Anko finally sighed, folded up her tan coat and left it on a chair, before lying on the table.

Carl didn't waste any time in banter with the 20 year old woman and started the diagnostic table. Naturally there were some technological scanning equipment built in, not just seal work. The feed of the scans was being transmitted to the Yamato's VI and he was watching over the inspection and the breakdown by the VI through his mind connection.

It only took about ten minutes for them to figure out what they needed to do to pull the cursed seal off of Anko safely, not to mention capturing the essence of Orochimaru to do some further rituals.

"Okay, take a seat for a moment while I prepare the next step." Carl ordered Anko, who looked like she wanted to ask questions but Carl was already pulling out ink and brush and scrolls to start work on the solution to her problem. She decided to play along for now and sat in the corner, watching him like a hawk.

Carl's hands were steady and quick, inking in various symbols in a long program of seal work that would vacuum up the piece of Orochimaru's soul and remove the cursed seal from Anko. He had come a very long way from back in the Harry Potter universe when he had to practice hard to better his handwriting and penmanship to be capable of carving a rune without blowing himself up.

With the main portion of his mind he focused on his calligraphy and the seal work in front of him, while another portion of his mind thought back to those days where he was going to magic school with Hermione and Luna; and then later when Fleur joined them.

Even though he had learned a lot of magic in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe, it was all haphazard spells, rituals, and fighting demons. There was just something wonderful about learning in a safe-ish school where they only had to worry about tests and being the best mage he could be.

The time spent studying with his girls and friends back then seemed quite innocent to him now. He hadn't yet participated in Empire wide counter-coups. He hadn't built himself a galaxy wide empire yet. He hadn't used questionable methods like enslaving suicidal idiots to force them to do their jobs or to stop being evil pricks.

'Well, just one more world to go after this one, and then I'll go on the tour gathering up my girls and loved ones to join me on this madcap adventure.' Carl faintly smiled at the thought.

Carl finished inking in the needed seals, did a double check, and then turned to look at Anko.

"Well, you ready to lose the cursed seal?" Carl asked with an encouraging smile.

"Hell yes." Anko bluntly stated.

"Okay, then lay down in this spot andwe'll get started." Carl indicated where she should position herself around the scrolls and seals he had laid out. "I wouldn't doubt if it might sting a little bit, but bear with it and try not to thrash around." Carl had already included seals to restrain her if she was unable to control herself, so he wasn't worried about his work being ruined if it hurt her too much for her to stay still.

"Do it." Anko demanded.

Carl applied chakra to the seals, getting the process started. And then he sat back monitoring the situation with the Yamato VI feed and his own senses.

The seal script on the scrolls did their crawling along the ground thing as they formed a ritual circle around Anko. Three branches in particular crawled to her neck and surrounded the cursed seal. Then the seal lit up in the silvery blue that indicated his own chakra at work.

And Anko began screaming in pain.

'Uh, hope she doesn't take it too personally that I downplayed it as a little sting.' Carl shook his head. 'How was I to know how much it would hurt her? It's not like I've done this before.'

After a few moments, Carl saw the glowing seal script surrounding the cursed seal on Anko's neck began pulling away from her. It was pulling a large thing out of her neck. It looked like a wriggling snake with pale cancerous skin, not scales. Looking at the thing made him vaguely nauseous. When the wriggling snake thing that was part of Orochimaru's soul was pulled out, it looked to be about four feet long, and had a miniature version of his face in place of a snake's head.

Anko looked over and down at what had come out of her neck and began heaving, thankfully not actually puking all over herself. She looked away and soon mastered her visceral reaction.

The seal script dragged the Orochimaru thing away from Anko and put began stuffing it into one of the scrolls he left there for that purpose. Once it was fully stuffed into the scroll, the seal work then marched onto the scroll surface and settled down. Carl scanned Anko and smiled at the success of the procedure.

"Absolutely no presence detected of the cursed seal. You're clean, Anko." Carl announced.

"Good." And without warning, Anko made a few hand signs and breathed in deeply.

Carl saw what she was about and couldn't let her succeed. Moving as fast as he could he scooped up the scroll a second before Anko breathed out a fireball from her mouth that would have incinerated the scroll and released the part of Orochimaru's soul that he had captured.

"Why did you save it!" Anko demanded, glaring at him and looking like she would attack him if she wasn't already completely exhausted. It had taken supreme effort to just do that fire jutsu, she didn't have much left in her.

Carl had the scroll teleported up to the Yamato, he didn't want to store a piece of soul in his dimensional storage, and then began a healing jutsu on Anko's throat. It was somewhat damaged from the screaming she did earlier during the cleansing as well as forcing a fire jutsu through when she was in no condition to be doing so.

"If you had destroyed my scroll, it would only have released the piece of Orochimaru's soul that I had captured. It would have returned to rejoin him, and may very well have given him knowledge of what we did here." Carl sternly reprimanded Anko for her impulsive actions. "Aside from the fact that I really don't want the Snake Sannin to know that I can remove his cursed seals so that he would target me, it would ruin my plan to use that piece of Orochimaru's soul to perform a ritual that may very well kill the bastard."

Carl finished healing up Anko's throat and ran a diagnostic on her. He was slightly amused at her abashed open mouthed expression.

"Sorry." She finally stated. "It's just that I hate him so much." She muttered.

"I get that. He's done a lot that he needs to be held to account for." Carl smirked at Anko. "And if you're good, I may just invite you to witness the ritual I do so you can see the end of him." His smile grew a bit wider as he saw Anko's expression change to be obviously over the top flattering. Carl chuckled a bit at seeing the begging expression. "Yes, fine. I'll invite you."

"Yes!" Anko cheered and then clumsily hugged him. "Thank you for getting rid of it. I feel a thousand times better."

Carl patted Anko on the back in a comforting manner.

"Glad to help." Anko eventually let him go. "Now, the diagnostic jutsu says you're suffering from chakra exhaustion, so get some rest. Your control might be somewhat shot for a while, now that you're not constantly fighting the taint of his cursed seal. You'll definitely want to retrain yourself before you go on any mission. Here, this should help you get back into fighting trim." Carl handed her one of his nice training belts and a manual for her to read.

"Thank you so much." Anko said with a real smile, not one of her sadistic mask smiles. "If only you were older, I'd thank you all night long." She muttered, then clapped her hands to her mouth.

"I'm flattered." Carl laughed, patting her on the shoulder before getting up to leave. "Maybe if you're still single in another seven years I'll take you up on that." Carl muttered himself as he left the room.

If Carl had been focusing his vision backward he would have seen an interested gleam enter Anko's eyes. But even Hyuga who were talented in the Byakugan can't focus in all directions all the time.

The large gathering hall was surprisingly silent despite the many people filing in. There were already chairs set up in a half circle auditorium type seating. Without ado, the adults began seating themselves.

Carl looked out at the Hyuga clan members that were filing in. He noticed that the branch members that had their foreheads covered were automatically seating themselves in the back. The main branch members, the few that there were compared to the total number, were seating themselves in the front.

Hiashi was seated next to Carl on the stage, stoically looking out at his family as they filed in. This was the day that he never really expected to happen. There were just so many obstacles and problems in his way to achieving this day. Even though he had the status as the clan head, there had been no real way for him to override the Council of Elders and get rid of the barbaric custom of branding the branch members with the Caged Bird seal. Not without setting off a civil war that would have seen the entire branch family dead before the dust settled.

But now, with the amazing skills in sealing that his son had already displayed, the day had finally come where the injustice and slavery of a larger part of his family by the other part could be ended. It almost brought a tear to his eye, if he wasn't already trained by years as a ninja and clan head to avoid open displays of emotion in public.

Eventually everyone filed in and the doors were closed and locked. Looking out over the crowd, Carl did a quick headcount and saw that the 178 members of the clan were all present. With everyone else present, Himari, Hinata, Hanabi, Hizashi, and Neji all filed out of the back room and joined Carl and Hiashi on their seats on the stage. By this time Carl had already removed the Caged Bird seal from Neji's forehead to show his father and uncle that he could accomplish the task. His entire family had received the seal that he had created to protect their bloodline and Byakugan eyes.

The new seal was a tightly packed tattoo of seals the size of a quarter on the upper back. It had a number of features that would protect their bloodline. First of all it would ensure that any DNA, blood, sperm, or eggs that were extracted forcefully would be rendered useless, so no cloning or artificial insemination.

Once the Hyuga member died or their eyes were removed from their body without permission, their eyes would be rendered inert. They could still donate their eyes to someone else, but if an enemy tried to steal their eyes and implant them in themselves, they would get an eyeful of acid. Quite an unpleasant experience, in Carl's opinion.

And the final function of the seal was that it would prevent any type of behavior control seals like the Caged Bird seal from being tattooed on them. Carl felt that after so long of being enslaved, the members of his clan needed the assurance that it wouldn't happen to them again while they got used to the new status quo of freedom.

They could still be bound by magical contracts that they chose to enter into, and other such agreements. But they could no longer be enslaved.

Hiashi stood from his seat, looking out at the crowd.

"What are we all called here for?" An arrogant voice called from the front row before Hiashi could begin speaking.

Carl frowned at the Hyuga Elder that seemed to be making some kind of power play, attempting to undermine his father's role as the Head of the Clan. Even though they had gotten rid of the traitorous elder that poisoned his family, it didn't mean that all the subversive or power hungry elements were rooted out.

Hiashi stared down the elder with such icy disdain that the man who thought he could chip away at the prestige of the clan head started squirming in his seat.

"The Hyuga clan is one of the founding clans of Konoha." Hiashi began talking, looking out once more over the crowd. The way he didn't verbally respond to the elder's question and showed such disdain for him was answer enough for his attempted power play. "We have been around for a great many years. We have a very prestigious history."

While he was scanning the crowd, Carl saw many of the faces of the branch family turn bitter at Hiashi's words. They, among everyone, had reason to be angry at their "prestigious" history.

"And yet, throughout almost all of our history, we have been living with a despicable, shameful legacy." Hiashi dropped the bomb. "I'm of course talking about the Caged Bird seal that has been used to enslave, punish, and even kill our own family members."

There was a great stir at Hiashi's words. No matter what, these were topics that were practically verboten among the Hyuga. If the branch family members were ever caught talking about this topic, they would be punished by causing the Caged Bird seal to induce pain in the guilty party's head.

So the branch family members that were present were quite restless at hearing such a forbidden topic. The main clan elders that didn't back Hiashi were suddenly furious, standing up indignantly to berate Hiashi. The children in the crowd, while not understanding the undercurrents, found the behavior of the adults around them strange and fright inducing.

"How dare you speak of this topic, and belittle our clan, Hiashi!" Several elders cried out variations on the same theme. Their prestige, power, and standing in the family was completely predicated on using the Caged Bird seal to enslave others and profit, so they weren't pleased to hear Hiashi decry the practice.

"Silence!" Hiashi almost yelled, his own face twisted by anger at the selfishness of those elders. The elders shut up, shocked looks on their faces that he would dare do so.

Ever since he was a youth and his twin brother was marked by the Caged Bird seal, making him a slave, Hiashi had been trying to end the despicable practice of placing the slave seal on the branch family. And he had been stymied all these years by these same clan elders who couldn't ever see beyond their narrow focus on their own pitifully small powerbase. So his anger was completely evident when Hiashi yelled at these small minded men.

Carl shook his head at the elders whose world was so small. The Hyuga clan was less than 200 members all together, at least those of the blood. There were hundreds of others that were support for the clan; servants, merchants, and subordinate ninja. But the actual numbers of their bloodline was incredibly small compared to the thousands of ninja that were in Konoha alone, let alone the rest of the world.

Just in the five hidden ninja villages of the elemental nations the Hyuga made up less than 0.01%. Among the population of the entire world, they were less than 0.00001% of the population. The amount of power they could command among the elemental nations alone was miniscule. Their finances were tiny compared to the world.

In other words, the Hyuga clan elder's outlook was confined down to a clan that had less than 200 members. They couldn't see just how small their outlook and world was. They were so afraid of losing the pitifully small amount of power they had over their own family members, they couldn't navigate the greater waters. They couldn't envision building up their clan to be something great. They were stuck in the mindset of ruling over their little sandbox.

Carl had once built an empire that stretched several galaxies, so the incredibly ignorant, small minded, and cruel behavior of these elders personally offended him. They somewhat reminded him of the Maesters of the Game of Thrones world, how they strove to never let anyone rise to greatness, just so they could maintain their power. No one was allowed to pull themselves out of the muck, because it would make them look bad, or cause them envy, or whatever passed through their nasty small minds.

All these thoughts ran through Carl's mind quickly while he was enjoying the sight of the clan elders being shocked into silence by his father actually raising his voice at them. He decided to help out a bit and with a bit of magic made sure that the clan elders returned to their seats and were silenced so they could no longer interrupt until his father had his say.

"I have long despised the horrible and demeaning practice of branding our own family members." Hiashi continued with a glare at the elders when he saw they wouldn't be interrupting him. The branch members were sitting in disbelief, having never expected to hear such words from the clan head of the very clan that branded and enslaved them. "But I have been powerless to do anything about it until now."

Looks were exchanged among all those present. What did the clan head mean? Did he now have the power to do something about the issue? Could it be that they would soon be free?

"But that ends now. We have developed a far more secure seal to replace the Caged Bird seal. It will protect our bloodline without the pain compliance aspect. No more will we enslave our own with the threat of pain or death. Everyone in the clan will receive this seal and it will keep our eyes and bloodline safe. Our bloodline will be even more secure from now on, since at the moment only the branch family is 'protected' by a seal." Hiashi paused as he evaluated the reactions of the people who heard his announcement.

Carl released the elders from his silencing spell, since he wanted to see what they would say. He was hoping they would actually open their big mouths and condemn themselves given half a chance. He wouldn't mind stripping them of what influence and power they had.

One way or another, before he left this world, he would carefully vet his clan members. He had no desire to have a power hungry problem maker in a position of authority. He wasn't going to just have a knee jerk reaction and strip them all of their powers immediately. But he wasn't going to be putting up with anyone who wouldn't be on board for the changes they were making.

"How dare you go against our clan's traditions, Hiashi!" The elder that tried to make a power play earlier was the first to open his big fat mouth. Carl smirked a bit seeing as he would likely serve as an example for the others at the rate he was going. "The traditions have kept our clan safe and in power! I won't let you spit on it!"

"The traditions may have gotten us to this point," Hiashi scoffed, "but that's no reason to cling blindly to such outdated and despicable traditions when we have an alternate method to secure our bloodline and safety. We have an opportunity to rise above them and make this clan something to be truly proud of. You'll just have to accept that this is the direction our clan will be developing in."

The elder's face was showing a truly astonishing amount of anger. Carl thought it was pretty funny. The elder looked around at his fellow elders, angry that he was the only vocal one to protest what Hiashi was saying.

"You can't stand by and allow him to do this." The elder demanded of the other elders.

"I agree, Hiashi. You can't unilaterally change the clan." One of the other elders flatly stated.

"I'm with Hiashi on this. I think it is past time to change the way we have been doing things."

Carl watched as the dozen elders split up into their respective sides. He noticed how on the edge of their seats the branch family members were, even though they weren't saying anything just yet. The final tally was that three elders were standing with Hiashi, and nine were against him.

Quite a few of the branch family members were feeling despair at seeing the split. They had been feeling some hope that their situation would actually change. But seeing that nine of the elders wanted to keep them down, even with a better method available, they felt like their chance was being taken from them.

"I don't want to live in a Hyuga clan that doesn't allow me the freedom to live!" One of the younger branch family members yelled out passionately, not being able to hold himself back anymore.

"Then I'll just have to grant your wish to not live anymore!" The first elder hatefully glared at the 16 year old boy that had just yelled out and formed his hand in the sign needed to channel his chakra in the specific method need to activate the Caged Bird seal that would punish the boy with pain until his brain liquefied.

Carl's smile grew a bit bigger at the sight because a few moments later, nothing had happened. The young Hyuga was staring in disbelief. He knew what that hand sign meant, but nothing was happening to him.

"Why isn't it working!?" The elder cried out in disbelief while the youth laughed in giddy relief that he was still alive and not having his brain boiled.

"That's just a little sealing method we added to the room to make sure that nothing could be done like what you tried. Fool." Carl stated out loud with a mocking laugh at the impotence of the elder. "What? When we said that we developed new seals to protect our bloodline, did you really think that's all we had developed?"

Carl smiled at his father who actually rolled his eyes at him. So what if he was proud of his seal work and wanted to brag a bit to mock the dumb as a stump elder?

His Tenseigan eyes that allowed him the use of Yin-Yang release element had led to him researching seals that could negate chakra usage within the area of the seals. Only those who had the specific "key" seals on their person could still channel their chakra like normal. He had plenty of time before the meeting to prep the room so that no accidents could happen.

"Indeed. My son is quite the genius when it comes to the art of sealing." Hiashi gave a proud smile.

"Take them!" The elder that was so vocally against Hiashi yelled out suddenly.

Several Hyuga, including some branch members, ran forward, pulling out kunai.

A signal from Hiashi caused designated ninja guards to appear from the roof and swiftly descend on the attackers. A short time later they had detained, disarmed, and bound the attackers and the nine elders that had opposed Hiashi. The attackers never had a chance since they didn't have access to chakra. Without chakra to enhance their muscles, they were slow and easy targets.

Carl just shook his head at the branch family members that still followed that elder's commands, even though they had seen that the punishment from the Caged Bird seal didn't work there. He felt saddened at seeing their conditioned to slavery behavior.

Those who were captured would be imprisoned and pushed through a reeducation program sometime soon. Maybe they could change their attitudes and rejoin the new and improved clan in the future. If they were hopeless causes then they would be put under slave seals to keep them from causing strife in the clan and allowed to live out their natural life span. Hopefully their relatives would take them as an object lesson and make different choices.

"While no one will be leaving here today with the Caged Bird seal, or without the new bloodline protection seal, there is one more thing we need to cover." Hiashi brought everyone's attention back to him and off the detained elders. "We need to cover the new rules of the clan and discuss how we will work together in the future. The duties of the member to the clan, and the duties of the clan to the members will be carefully laid out. The important thing to remember is that the clan is here to protect and enable our member to live the lives they hope for, not to repress them for our own power. So there will be many changes from how we've done things in the past…"

Carl sat back in his chair next to his sisters that were giggling together now that the tense situation had been resolved. He would soon start pulling out his prepared scrolls for applying the new seals and removing the old ones. But for now he looked over the faces of the various clan members who were finally realizing that things would actually change.

The hope blossoming in their faces gave him warm fuzzy feelings.