Two nights later, the Uchiha clan meeting convened as scheduled.
The night wind chilled the stone steps outside Naka Shrine.
The clan members arrived earlier than usual.
No one spoke loudly.
Yet the oppressive silence was more unsettling than any clamor.
Everything that had happened since the Night of the Nine-Tails seemed to have been piled at the entrance to this Clan Meeting in advance.
The falsified accounts.
The authorization slips.
The fire at the old warehouse.
The Chunin on watch who had been threatened.
And the sealed Provocation Letter.
Uchiha Gen stood at the shrine's side entrance, watching the clan members file inside.
Itachi stood beside him.
Shisui remained hidden in the distant shadows of the trees, his gaze sweeping over everyone who paused, looked back, or spoke in hushed tones.
"Something's off with a few of them."
Shisui's voice was very quiet.
Uchiha Gen did not turn his head.
"The letter got to them?"
"It's more than that letter."
Shisui said, "They were already dissatisfied. That letter just gave them a reason they could voice aloud."
Uchiha Gen nodded.
That was the most dangerous part.
The enemy did not need to create despair out of nothing.
They only needed to find an existing crack and drive a blade into it.
Once the Clan Meeting began, Fugaku took the seat at the head.
He did not start with the authorization slip case.
Nor did he begin with the Hokage Building's authorization.
He had Uchiha Makoto read through the sealing records and the account of how the evidence had been discovered.
From Morikawa Osamu handing over the coded note, to Uchiha Shin discovering the Provocation Letter, to Shisui confirming unusual chakra disturbances beyond the courtyard wall.
Every statement followed the records.
Nothing was embellished.
Nor was the village outright branded an enemy.
That only made some clan members more dissatisfied.
Uchiha Inabi was the first to stand.
"Clan leader, how much longer are we supposed to endure this?"
The moment he spoke, murmurs of agreement rose from several places in the shrine.
Uchiha Inabi looked around at everyone.
"On the Night of the Nine-Tails, the village suspected the Uchiha."
"We helped with the rescue and kept records. They called it observation."
"We cooperated with the reforms. They called it authorization."
"And now? Falsified accounts to frame us, authorization slips to clear the way, and outsiders knowing the time of our clan meeting."
His voice grew heavier.
"The more the Uchiha cooperate with procedure, the more the village thinks we're easy to bully."
Some of the younger clan members clenched their fists.
Uchiha Shin sat toward the back, his face pale.
He was no longer as impulsive as he had been that day.
But the words in that letter clearly still weighed on him.
Another hard-line clan member stood.
"I agree with Inabi. These so-called reforms are nothing but making us stick out our necks so others can measure them. Today we write records, tomorrow we submit reports, and the day after that, will even what we say at our clan meetings have to be reviewed by the Hokage Building?"
The atmosphere inside the shrine instantly tightened.
Itachi instinctively looked toward Uchiha Gen.
Gen did not speak at once.
He was waiting.
Because these things needed to be said.
Suppressing anger would only turn it into deeper despair.
Fugaku did not interrupt immediately either.
Not until a third young clan member stood and said hoarsely, "If the village will never trust us, why should we keep trying to prove ourselves?"
When those words fell, the shrine went quiet.
Quieter than before.
Uchiha Gen finally raised his head.
This was what that letter wanted to hear.
Not anger.
But giving up on proving themselves.
He stood.
Several gazes immediately bore down on him.
Some held expectation.
Others held hostility.
Uchiha Gen first looked at that young clan member.
"You're right."
A stir ran through the shrine.
Even Uchiha Toru froze for a moment.
Uchiha Gen continued, "The village truly does not trust the Uchiha right now."
Those words cut deeper than a rebuttal.
Because they did not evade reality.
He looked at everyone present.
"If someone tells you that writing a few more records, saving a few more people, and enduring a few more provocations will make the village immediately trust the Uchiha, they're lying to you."
Many clan members' expressions changed.
Uchiha Inabi frowned.
"Then why are you still telling us to follow this path?"
"Because the other path looks much more like what the enemy wants."
Uchiha Gen's voice was not loud, but it silenced the noise in the shrine.
"Anger isn't wrong."
"When your loved ones have died, when you've been suspected and framed, not being angry would be abnormal."
He paused briefly.
"But despair is different."
"Despair makes you feel that every explanation is useless, every piece of evidence is useless, and every moment of waiting is weakness. Then you push yourself past the point of no return with your own hands."
Uchiha Shin's fingers trembled slightly.
He remembered the letter.
Waiting for you to quiet down means waiting for you to be separated and dealt with one by one.
Those words had enraged him at the time.
Now, they sounded more like a hand pushing him forward.
Uchiha Gen looked around at everyone.
"What the person who wrote that letter truly wants isn't to reclaim the Uchiha's dignity."
"He wants the Uchiha to believe that dignity can only be won by overturning the table."
No one in the shrine spoke.
Uchiha Gen continued, "But once we overturn the table, there'll be no need to investigate the falsified accounts, no need to investigate the Gray-Robed Ninja, and no need to investigate how the time of our clan meeting was leaked."
He raised a hand and pointed outside.
"Everyone will remember only one thing."
"The Uchiha really were planning to rebel."
Those words hit like a splash of cold water.
Many clan members briefly went pale.
Uchiha Inabi gritted his teeth.
"So all we can do is wait for them to keep pushing us?"
"We won't wait."
Fugaku finally spoke.
He stood, his gaze sweeping across the room.
"Starting today, every objection raised at a clan meeting will be entered into its records."
An uproar swept through the shrine.
An older clan member immediately said, "Clan leader, even our internal disputes have to be recorded?"
"Yes."
Fugaku said, "If we don't record them, outsiders can write them for us."
Uchiha Makoto had already opened his writing board.
His hands did not tremble.
Fugaku continued, "Inabi opposes the current course of reform because he fears the village will use procedure to continue suppressing the Uchiha. Shin was influenced by the Provocation Letter and has doubts about the safety of our Clan Meeting and the village's trust in us. Record every opinion clearly."
Uchiha Shin jerked his head up.
Fugaku looked at him.
"Being influenced is not a crime."
"But treating an impulse born of that influence as the decision of the entire clan is."
Uchiha Shin's eyes slowly reddened.
He lowered his head.
"I understand."
Itachi stood to the side, watching this unfold.
For the first time, he saw that a clan meeting could do more than suppress disagreements.
Disagreements could also be written down.
Acknowledged.
Verified.
Instead of being taken by people lurking in the shadows and spun into "an Uchiha conspiracy."
Shisui's gaze passed over several young clan members.
Some were still unwilling to accept it.
Some were still angry.
But that most dangerous undercurrent had been held in check for the moment.
It had not disappeared.
It simply was no longer sliding toward a dead end.
By the time the Clan Meeting ended, the night was already deep.
The clan members left the shrine one after another.
Uchiha Gen stepped outside and was about to compare records with Shisui when Shisui suddenly raised a hand.
"Wait."
The air went still for an instant.
Beneath the shadows of the trees beside the shrine, space seemed to twitch, as though tugged by an exceedingly fine thread.
The distortion lasted less than a breath.
So briefly that an ordinary clan member would never have noticed it.
But Shisui saw it.
Uchiha Gen saw it too.
That was no ordinary Body Flicker Technique.
And it looked even less like the way Konoha's Anbu moved.
Shisui's gaze turned utterly grim.
"Someone was watching the clan meeting just now."
Uchiha Gen stared at the shadows beneath the trees, now calm again.
He did not pursue.
Because if that person really was who he suspected, giving chase now would only reveal too soon that they had noticed.
He merely said quietly, "Record it."
"Spatial anomaly."
"Appeared after the clan meeting ended."
"Not to be made public for now."
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