Uchiha Gathering

The heart of the Uchiha Clan Compound.

Uchiha Dojoma walked ahead, with Baiyu following behind him, casually surveying their surroundings.

Pine trees lined a four-meter-wide stone staircase that climbed upward as far as the eye could see.

Unknown flowers and plants bloomed beneath the pines.

The steps were smooth and free of fallen leaves. Huge slabs of bluestone stretched across them, giving the place a sense of weighty history.

At the top of the steps stood a tall red wooden gate. Beyond it was a vast open courtyard, with several small buildings around it.

Straight ahead stood a wooden stilt house. Four or five stone steps led up to its entrance.

A huge Uchiha Clan Crest was painted above the doorway.

"Is this the temple where the Uchiha worship their ancestors? It's much more luxurious than where I live. Anyone who gets to live here must be a high-ranking member of the clan!"

Baiyu murmured to himself. The dead had better accommodations than the living.

People even came to clean and make offerings on a regular schedule.

The entire public housing complex wasn't as large as this courtyard, let alone the small hill at its center.

When he entered the ancestral hall, Baiyu saw he wasn't the only one who had come.

Dozens of clansmen were already seated in the main hall.

Baiyu glanced at Uchiha Dojoma and saw that the man had already slipped into the crowd and taken a seat.

That business about Fugaku summoning him had probably been a lie. Whose orders was he following? The Uchiha leadership's? Or Konoha's?

Was it deception or betrayal?

Baiyu hated liars and traitors most of all!

The rotten Uchiha leadership were the ones responsible for dragging the ordinary clansmen to their doom.

Baiyu held grudges!

"One."

Toma's name was crossed off the list.

A quick look around the hall revealed at least forty or fifty people.

In just that brief moment, several hostile gazes had swept over him.

Baiyu had been standing in the doorway for too long, drawing attention, so he went to sit on the floor in a corner.

"Huh? Wooden sw—"

As soon as he sat down, a contemptuous voice came from beside him.

"Get lost. Don't sit with me, you worthless piece of trash."

A man in a black cloak with a spiky hairstyle and a scar running across half his face looked at Baiyu with disdain.

Baiyu ignored him, making the man's face flush with anger.

The man also held a long sword.

Was he a swordsman?

No.

He was a ninja who knew swordsmanship.

Only among the samurai did a few swordsmen still remain in this world.

Ninja were tools whose main purpose was to complete missions.

Swordsmen were not bound by the ways of the world.

Baiyu sat in silence, taking the wooden sword from his back and resting it against his shoulder.

He silently counted, "Two."

The rotten Uchiha needed blood to change!

From the corner of his eye, Baiyu noticed Uchiha Dojoma whispering something to a clansman beside him. The clansman hurried outside.

Just as Baiyu was wondering whether to follow, someone in front of him suddenly turned around and said,

"Hey, don't take it personally. A lot of people in the clan have bad tempers. Just ignore him."

Only then did Baiyu notice that the person sitting in front of him was a fat man.

He had squeezed all his flesh into a mass beneath a specially made black suit of armor. It looked deeply uncomfortable, but his cloak concealed it well enough to fool everyone present.

When he turned around, his round face and large ears gave away his true appearance.

And this fat man was sitting all alone.

"Are you from the Akimichi Clan?" Baiyu asked, puzzled.

This was a Uchiha gathering. How had someone from the Akimichi Clan gotten in?

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm a Uchiha, okay? T^T!" the fat man protested.

As they spoke, quite a few clansmen shot them disdainful looks.

The fat man seemed immune to their gazes. He smiled at Baiyu. "Looks like you're not popular either."

"How can you tell?"

"You came in behind that bastard Toma, and nobody's said a word to you since. Anyone sitting in a corner like this is pretty much in the same boat. I'm Uchiha Madoka, from the intelligence department."

"The intelligence department? The clan has one of those?"

Baiyu asked. He had always been on the outskirts of the clan, and this was his first time entering its heart. He knew little about its inner workings.

"Yeah. You didn't know? You don't have a summoning animal yet, do you? I wonder how they do things. Every jōnin in the clan should have a Ninja Cat to relay information."

Madoka grumbled. He hadn't expected someone at this meeting to still be without a Ninja Cat summon.

Baiyu smiled without answering, giving off an air of mystery.

"Then don't go saying anything foolish later. The clansmen are getting more and more dissatisfied with the village. They might make a move soon. You're still so young—don't let them pick you!"

"Pick me for what?" Baiyu asked, his eyes flashing.

This fat man worked in intelligence. He must know plenty of the clan's secrets.

"I'm not sure. The clan lost quite a few people on missions a while back. Maybe the clan head is planning to confront the Third Hokage.

"Personally, I don't think we have much chance of winning if we pick a fight with the village. If this stalemate continues, it'll only lead to an even bigger conflict."

"Shut up, you fat bastard!" someone suddenly roared. A clansman seated in front of Madoka sprang up and swung at him.

Baiyu's expression didn't change. With a flick of one hand, he sent the wooden sword's hilt flying to block the punch, while half its blade remained in the sheath.

"Interrupting someone is rude," Baiyu warned coldly.

He could tell that this fat man was one of the Uchiha's exceedingly rare members with a relatively rational mind.

Baiyu had never seen a fat man in the clan before. This was the first time he'd met one.

To be this fat and still be a jōnin, he had to be capable.

"It's a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding! I shouldn't have said that. Sorry, sorry!" Madoka said awkwardly, easing the tense atmosphere. He had none of the Uchiha's arrogance; instead, he seemed remarkably smooth and worldly.

The man who had swung at him gave Baiyu a long look, snorted, and turned away.

Only after things had calmed down did Madoka lean close to Baiyu and whisper, "His older brother died in that last incident. He's awakened the Three-Tomoe Sharingan. Don't provoke him."

Madoka was worried Baiyu might get hurt. There were plenty of Uchiha jōnin, but those who had awakened the Three-Tomoe Sharingan were extremely rare and powerful.

Each one was a pillar of the clan.

Most clansmen had one or two tomoe.

Many ordinary clansmen hadn't even awakened their Sharingan.

"It's fine," Baiyu said with a soft laugh, not taking the man seriously.

"Three."

He had three targets, three extreme representatives of the Uchiha, and suitable opponents to test his strength against.

For now, Baiyu didn't want to provoke the village or push it into taking action against the Uchiha. But he needed to show his strength if he wanted the higher-ups to take him seriously.

People weren't so easily sacrificed once they became important enough.

Being on the same team as Shisui gave Baiyu no sense of security.

He needed to become a jōnin as soon as possible, even if only a Special Jōnin, and leave Shisui's team.

Assigning jōnin was the village's responsibility. Killing Root members was one thing, but he couldn't attack Anbu—not for now, at least.

That left the Uchiha leadership. He could find a few fools there to make an example of.

These three unlucky people had been chosen by Baiyu.

Madoka gave an uneasy grin and said no more. Every Uchiha was arrogant, and he thought Baiyu was the same kind of fool. Trying to get even with a clansman who had the Three-Tomoe Sharingan was a pipe dream.

In his eyes, how could a newly promoted jōnin possibly take on a veteran, especially one who had awakened the Three-Tomoe Sharingan?

No one understood the terror of the Three-Tomoe Sharingan better than the Uchiha.

Baiyu didn't know what Madoka was thinking, and even if he had, he wouldn't have cared. If the man had possessed the Mangekyo, Baiyu might have been a little wary. But he didn't fear an ordinary Uchiha with the Three-Tomoe Sharingan in the slightest.

He was just that overconfident.

A wandering swordsman never turned back.

He'd been looking for someone to hone his swordsmanship against. Bring on a few, and he'd take them all on.

A few more clansmen filed into the hall, filling the empty seats around Baiyu.

Nobody spoke to him, and Baiyu couldn't be bothered to talk either. He hugged his wooden sword and closed his eyes to rest.

After a while, the noisy hall suddenly fell silent. Baiyu opened his eyes and saw Uchiha Fugaku entering, followed by several others. Most were middle-aged, and two were old men.

They were all members of the Uchiha leadership.

Uchiha Fugaku walked to the main platform with a cold expression. The other leaders behind him took seats in the front row.

The Clan Meeting had finally begun.