Gen began disappearing from pivotal occasions.
He had not left the clan district.
Nor had he stopped taking part.
He simply no longer stood where he was easiest to see.
Fugaku presided over the clan meetings.
The Konoha Military Police Force formally submitted requests to the Hokage Building.
Shisui supplemented the review findings concerning spatial anomalies in his capacity as an eyewitness.
Itachi was tasked with compiling assessments of the Anbu question bank and evaluations of minors.
Gen stayed further in the background.
He wrote brief statements.
He wrote questions.
He wrote down traps to avoid.
Then he let these become other people's judgments, feeding them into different procedures.
At first, some within the clan struggled to adjust.
They were used to looking to Gen at critical moments.
Young as Gen was, his last few judgments had been so accurate that many instinctively wanted to wait for his opinion.
Fugaku quickly put a stop to that habit.
"The Uchiha cannot rely on a child to sustain their decision-making."
His words carried considerable weight.
They were also meant for outsiders to hear.
If someone was watching Gen, then let them see that he was not the sole driving force.
The decisions truly came from the clan leader, the Military Police Force, Shisui, Itachi, and the entire system of internal procedures that had already changed.
Sure enough, the Masked Man frowned when he received the new intelligence.
Gen was appearing less often.
But the Uchiha's responses had not fallen into disarray.
They continued questioning sources.
They continued their witness procedures.
Work on the spatial anomaly files continued.
Alternative answers were still kept out of the evidence.
This pointed to two possibilities.
Either Gen was not the driving force.
Or he had realized he was being watched and begun retreating into the background.