At the Uchiha Card Room, Chiri leaned against a lounge chair, weighed down by worries, and gazed at a wall in the distance, its surface gleaming white in the summer sun.
The glare was a little harsh. Her eyes shifted slightly, and she noticed that one of the Flame Gunbai displayed in neat rows on the wall seemed to have been painted incorrectly.
The fans had all been painted bright red, standing out against the white wall.
Chiri shifted in her seat, feeling the softness behind her, and sighed. Young people these days were getting more and more careless. They might as well leave such a simple job to the old folks. Her generation would have done it perfectly.
"Quit sighing and come play Fight Senju. You're the only one missing." The white-haired Uchiha elder, slowly waving a palm fan as he sat on a low stool beside her, urged her to join.
The room echoed with eager agreement, accompanied by the soft rush of fans stirring the air. The sounds drifted to Chiri as she rested in her chair.
"I win most of the time. It's no fun."
Resisting the irresistible allure of the card game her good grandson had invented, Chiri brushed the silver hair from her forehead and continued gazing listlessly out at the clan compound.
The people in the room, shuffling cards and moving chairs, caught the unspoken meaning in her words. Someone guessed, "Did that brat Rikusei make you mad? I'll teach him a lesson with my cane."
"My good grandson comes up with new ways to cheer me up every day. I love him too much to be angry with him," Chiri replied lazily from her lounge chair.
"Then tell us what's wrong!"
Second Granduncle waved his fan harder. Its whooshing blades sent a cool breeze across him, easing the agitation in his heart.
"I remembered when we were young and you borrowed a batch of Explosive Tags from me. You still haven't paid me back."
The silver strands on Chiri's forehead fluttered in the breeze, obscuring her view. She glanced at the red blur of the fan and felt her sealed memories stirring. Bracing herself against the chair, she stood.
"That was ages ago! Why bring it up all of a sudden?" Second Granduncle stopped waving his fan and raised his head, speaking with utter certainty. "Besides, I returned half of them after the battle was over."
Standing beneath the eaves, Chiri looked toward the tower rising in the center of the village and murmured, "I can't stop worrying about my grandson at the Ninja Academy."
"The Ninja Academy has been open for months," Second Granduncle reminded her softly from his stool.
"Shut up!"
Chiri lowered her head and stared at the person who'd spoken out of turn. Her clenched fist cracked. Even at her age, she could still punch someone hard enough to put them in the hospital.
"Yes, ma'am," Second Granduncle replied at once, deftly steering clear of trouble.
"Are you worried about the Senju Clan? They're already starting to disappear," someone in the room reminded her. Just a few days earlier, the old-timers had been discussing the same thing, impressed by the courage of the Senju Clan in this era.
"But Hashirama and Tobirama are still around. The hatred between our clans won't disappear that easily."
The summer breeze lifted Chiri's shirt, and its plain collar fluttered gently like a white cloud. Beneath it, monstrous scars, like centipedes, could be seen across her aged skin.
"That was all a matter for the older generation," Second Granduncle said quietly, gently swaying his fan as he, too, sank into memories.
"Is that so?" Chiri lowered her head, lost in thought. Then she suddenly pulled a deck of cards from behind her and shouted, "Enough talk! Come on, get over here and meet your doom!"
Second Granduncle watched Chiri return to her usual lively self.
From the shifting expressions on her face, he understood that she had come to terms with growing old. What came next was no longer any concern of theirs, the old-timers.
He knew Chiri still clung to her obsession with defeating the Senju Clan. He and Chiri had gone together to the Senju Clan Compound to deliver the challenge for the Dance Competition.
Things were no longer as simple as they had been, when it was just one clan against another. Now the village made everything far more complicated. They were gradually falling behind the times.
Seeing that Chiri had changed her mind, Second Granduncle shook his fan and slowly walked back inside, relieved.
"Next, let's hold a Fight Senju tournament with the other clans!"
Second Granduncle, who had just been looking relieved, hurried over and tried to talk Chiri, now buzzing with excitement, out of it. "We should change the name!"
"Shut up! You won't even listen to your big sister?" Chiri said, proudly shuffling the cards.
Second Granduncle stood meekly behind her, making faces and frantically signaling for the others to say something, too.
"We really should pick another name, Chiri."
"Exactly. That name won't do for a competition with the other clans."
The solidarity of the elderly didn't disappoint him. Sure enough, everyone spoke up.
"Then what should we call it?"
That question plunged the roomful of people, whose ages added up to more than three hundred, into deep thought.
"How about Uchiha Card Brawl?"
"No. Too much of a clan-specific name. Next!"
"Fifty-four Cards, Three-Way Brawl?"
"Who came up with that?"
Chiri poked her head around, searching for whoever had spoken. If she caught them, they'd be in for it. Such a blunt name would bring shame on their card room.
"Konoha Poker?"
"Fight Hokage?"
"Fight Daimyo?"
Second Granduncle gave Chiri a complicated look. "Fight Hokage? Is that the sort of thing a Konoha Ninja would come up with?"
Chiri hid her smile behind her fan, then shook her head to show she was retired and hadn't received a new Forehead Protector.
"Then let's call it Fight Daimyo." Chiri lowered her fan and addressed the others. "Konoha Poker is a good name, but it doesn't roll off the tongue as well as Fight Daimyo."
Compared with the lively Uchiha Card Room, the Konoha Izakaya was much quieter.
The leaders of the Ino-Shika-Cho clans sat together, sipping liquor and chatting with bleary eyes about their experiences since joining the village.
They had finally had a chance to relax after taking care of all sorts of business, and they wanted to make the most of it.
The man in a blue robe, the Nara Clan crest emblazoned on his back, burped and refused the sake his friend offered. "Choku, don't push it. If I drink any more, I'll get a beating when I get home."
"Come on." Akimichi Choku didn't mind. He downed the sake in his hand and asked, "Is the Nara Clan mainly in the Administration Department and the Cipher Department?"
Shikahira nodded to confirm it. After glancing around, he lowered his voice and replied, "Your Akimichi Clan joined the Logistics Department, too. Don't steal from your own department. If you're planning anything, let me know."
Akimichi Choku only smiled at his friend's joke, then patted the shoulder of the man beside him, who was quietly drinking. "Inoritsu, you're drinking your worries away! Tell us how the Yamanaka Clan is doing. Ino-Shika-Cho stick together!"
Yamanaka Inoritsu stopped what he was doing. His green eyes gazed at the sake, which reflected his troubled face. "It's not that I want to hide anything. I just get a headache thinking about reading the jumbled memories of other ninjas."
"Yeah, and I have to help Lord Hashirama handle all sorts of matters on top of my regular work." Nara Shikahira drained a cup of water and spoke in an easygoing tone. "Still, it's a good thing we have Lord Tobirama. Otherwise, it'd be a nightmare. The village has only just been founded, and the ninja files and all the incoming information are already piled higher than a mountain."
Shikahira swept his arms in a wide circle, exaggeratedly sketching shapes in the air as he complained about the stacks of paperwork. His antics were too funny to resist.
Akimichi Choku's shoulders shook as he burst into uninhibited laughter.
It was as if he had returned to his childhood, when he first met Shikahira in the Nara Clan Compound. Back then, Shikahira had been drawing all sorts of patterns in the dirt with a stick, just like he was doing now.
"Well, it's better than living in an era of constant slaughter," Yamanaka Inoritsu said softly, his gaze distant. "We can sit here in peace now thanks to Lord Hashirama and Lord Madara."
Shikahira and Choku nodded in agreement.
Then Shikahira corrected him. "You mean Lord Hokage and Lord Madara."
"Hic! Lord Hokage's ambition was incredible. After founding the Hidden Village, he even wanted to capture the Tailed Beasts." Akimichi Choku's head was spinning from the drink, and he slurred his words.
"That's not right." Sober, Shikahira shared what he knew. He'd learned plenty of secrets in the Administration Department. "It was the Uchiha Clan that suggested it."
Yamanaka Inoritsu stopped what he was doing and drained his sake. Remembering the figure, godlike and demonic, in the chaotic memories he had read, his eyes cleared. He murmured, "Uchiha Madara?"
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