Building the Clan Affairs Hall

The Second Shinobi World War raged on, and many Konoha families were overcome with grief after losing loved ones.

Meanwhile, plenty of people in the Uchiha Clan Compound still felt like singing and dancing.

The Uchiha Clan controlled the Police Force and didn't have to leave the village to fight in the war. To many shinobi clans and civilian families, this was deeply unfair.

If someone stirred up public opinion, the Uchiha would soon be met with jealousy and resentment.

Naraku had noticed all of this, but he had yet to consolidate power within the clan. Though he bore the title of clan head, he was merely a puppet leader in name. Two mountains still loomed over him.

The Uchiha Clan Affairs Hall was built very quickly. In the shinobi world, many things could be handled with ninjutsu, and shinobi were strong enough to carry things quickly, too.

It took only a few days to put up the Clan Affairs Hall. A large stone stood before its entrance, bearing the Uchiha Gunbai emblem. It marked this as an important building within the Uchiha Clan.

Naraku sat in the clan head's office, feeling somewhat at ease. The room next door was the elders' office, where the Great Elder worked.

The Great Elder controlled the clan's funds, overseeing a total of two billion ryo. An A-rank mission paid at most one million ryo, while S-rank missions had no upper limit and weren't a useful point of comparison.

The Great Elder's funds could pay for at least two thousand A-rank missions.

Of course, there was no way they would actually do that. Why would you need money to serve the clan? Wasn't that simply your duty?

At present, Naraku's only capable assistants were Uchiha Yashiro, Uchiha Rettou, and Uchiha Ken: two jonin and one Chunin.

"The Clan Affairs Hall is finished. We need to establish the relevant departments. Departments under the hall will be called institutes. Uchiha Ken, the Guard Institute will be responsible for security within the clan. I'll leave it to you.

"Our clan has several thousand people. Recruit twenty or thirty clan members as guards. No one in Konoha dares provoke the Uchiha, so we don't need powerful shinobi. Recruit people and set up guard posts as you see fit, just to keep watch. I'll have the Great Elder provide the funds."

"As for their pay, offer each person between twenty and fifty thousand ryo a month, as you see fit. Use C- or D-rank mission pay as a guideline. Ten people would cost two hundred to five hundred thousand ryo a month. Recruit within that budget. We don't need elite shinobi to guard the clan. No one in Konoha would dare provoke the Uchiha anyway."

After he finished, Naraku continued, "Uchiha Rettou, you'll be in charge of the Sanitation Bureau and the Craftsmen Bureau. You can hire ordinary clan members; these minor tasks don't need shinobi. Pay them ten to thirty thousand ryo a month. Remember, ordinary clan members are all you need!"

"Yashiro, you'll manage the Administration Institute. Its employees will be clerks, responsible for collecting mission commissions from clan shinobi and overseeing work related to the orphanage, retirement home, and the like."

"This will be a demanding job, and you're meticulous, Yashiro. You can take charge of this work for the benefit of the clan. The Administration Institute needs to hire plenty of clerks and finance specialists. You can recruit them—no more than ten people. They don't have to be shinobi; ordinary clan members will do. Offer the same pay as before: twenty to fifty thousand ryo a month."

"Let those ordinary clan members earn a living, too, instead of having to depend on us. Some of our descendants may not be suited to becoming shinobi."

Naraku spoke softly. Every department except the Ninjutsu Academy, which needed elite shinobi, and the Guard Institute, which needed ordinary shinobi, had little use for shinobi.

The Clan Affairs Hall had been built quickly. All that remained was to recruit staff and fill the positions.

The Great Elder's authority had originally been considerable. Now, with the Clan Affairs Hall in place, clan members would come there to handle missions, funds, and other matters. The Great Elder still controlled the money, but his other influence would gradually diminish, making it easier to bring authority under the Clan Affairs Hall and the clan head.

At first, Naraku divided clan affairs into the following departments:

Administration Institute: Managed clan members' household registrations, recorded information on clan shinobi, collected commissions, provided compensation to clan members, managed finances, and oversaw the other departments, especially the retirement home, orphanage, and Ninjutsu Academy.

Guard Institute: The security department. It didn't need powerful shinobi; no one in Konoha dared challenge the Uchiha. Guards only needed to take shifts and man a few posts.

Sanitation Bureau: Cleaned the streets within the clan compound and helped clan members clean their homes when needed.

Craftsmen Bureau: Built houses and helped clan members repair their furniture.

Retirement home: Cared for elderly people who had lost their children and had no one else to look after them.

Orphanage: Cared for children who had lost their parents and other relatives.

Ninjutsu Academy: A place where clan shinobi could learn ninjutsu, with lessons on how to use the Sharingan.

Advisory Institute: The former Uchiha elders would serve as advisers. They had the right to make suggestions and authority over certain affairs.

The Administration Institute had the broadest responsibilities and oversaw the most affairs. Naturally, the greater the authority, the heavier the responsibility.

Most departments didn't need shinobi as staff; ordinary clan members would do. This also helped ordinary clan members and those with little talent for being shinobi find work.

The clan's shinobi paid their commissions into the system, with the process gradually shifting from the Great Elder's home to the Administration Institute in the Clan Affairs Hall. Their habits would change slowly, and the funds would be consolidated under the Clan Affairs Hall.

The Uchiha's old structure had several elders wielding great authority. Each elder was the core figure of their own household. In effect, the Uchiha Clan was made up of multiple Uchiha elders—or clan heads—united under the name Uchiha, with the Great Elder serving as their spokesman.

But in reality, no elder knew exactly how many people or shinobi the Uchiha had. They only knew that the Uchiha were powerful, a great clan with a thousand years of tradition.

Now the Great Elder was clearly handing authority over to Uchiha Naraku. As Naraku developed every aspect of clan affairs in a thorough and comprehensive way, the elders, who had originally only put forward a nominal leader, were drawn into building the Clan Affairs Hall.

In particular, the establishment of the Advisory Institute made every elder an adviser to the clan head. Their so-called authority as elders remained; the only change was that an elected clan head now stood above them.

Uchiha Naraku's plans and proposals won the support of the Uchiha elders. As a result, the Clan Affairs Hall was built and staffed at remarkable speed.

One month later.

"Yashiro, do we have 853 shinobi across all ranks? A total of 1,231 households and 2,565 people?"

"Yes, Clan Head." Uchiha Yashiro had been extremely busy during this time. Recruitment, statistics—the past month of working around the clock had left him exhausted. The terms "996" couldn't begin to describe Uchiha Yashiro's workload.

"If we count three people per household, 1,231 households would mean more than three thousand people. Yet we only have 2,565. That clearly means there are many elderly people without family and many orphans. Once we've investigated properly, make sure they're taken into the Uchiha orphanage and retirement home. Their relatives were heroes of the Uchiha, and they were heroes of Konoha, too."

"Yes!" Yashiro was thoroughly impressed by Naraku's leadership. Under Naraku's management, so many things that had once been overlooked were now handled comprehensively, with no one left out.

Among the many Uchiha Chunin and Genin, especially the lower-ranked shinobi who had lost family, the Ninjutsu Academy had jonin teaching them ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, swordsmanship, the Shuriken Manipulation Technique, and other shinobi skills.

Seeing Naraku's remarkable ability to get things done, the Great Elder and the other elders had finally agreed to relinquish their authority. They now put their efforts to work in the Advisory Institute of the Clan Affairs Hall.

In the past, although they were elders of their own families, they could only manage their own households' younger relatives and shinobi. Some factions consisted of only a few families, while the largest, the Great Elder's faction, comprised several hundred.

If even the Great Elder was willing to hand over his authority, the other, lesser elders had no reason to cling to theirs. For the glory of the Uchiha, they threw themselves into building the Clan Affairs Hall.