News that Itachi had refused the Anbu's single-handler assignment soon spread through the clan.
Some people breathed a sigh of relief.
Others grew even angrier.
"The village really does want Itachi to spy on us!"
"Shisui nearly fell victim to Eye Theft, and now it's Itachi's turn!"
"What are we waiting for? Do they have to take every last one of our geniuses first?"
Before the clan meeting officially began, a crowd had already packed the area outside the Meeting Hall.
The younger clan members were especially loud.
It wasn't that they weren't afraid.
It was precisely because they were afraid that they found it easier to shout their anger.
Fugaku sat at the head of the hall, his expression dark.
In the past, he would have suppressed them.
With his authority as clan leader.
With warnings about the dangerous situation.
With orders not to act without permission.
But Uchiha Gen knew very well that, with matters having reached this point, suppression alone was no longer enough.
Anger that was suppressed would not disappear.
It would only be rekindled by someone else in the shadows.
So this time, Gen started with the seats.
The seating in the Meeting Hall was rearranged.
The clan's jonin no longer all sat at the front.
Representatives of the younger clan members were placed in the first row on the left.
The Moderate Faction, Conservative Faction, and Radical Faction each had designated places from which to speak.
The recorder sat in the center, no longer attached to any one faction.
As soon as the seats changed, many people's expressions changed too.
This was no small matter.
The old seating order at clan meetings was itself a form of power.
Who sat at the front, who spoke first, whose words the recorder wrote down in full,