The large conference room in the Hokage Building was packed that day.
Representatives of every prominent family in Konoha sat on both sides of the long table, bringing disputes they had refused to air for years into this brightly lit room, with people lining all four walls.
The Hyuga sat on the east side, Ino-Shika-Cho in the middle row, the Aburame beside the Inuzuka Clan, and the elders of the Sarutobi generation farther in.
Mikoto had come as the named representative of the Uchiha.
Kiyoshi sat behind her.
He was seven, seated on a raised chair, his feet dangling some distance above the floor. He let them hang there without a sound.
No one asked him to speak, so he said nothing.
He had arranged the order of the stack of evidence spread across the table.
Arranging it required no words from him. He only had to put everything in order at night, then let others read it out in that order during the day.
Danzo sat opposite them.
He wore prison clothes, without a forehead protector, his hands resting flat on his knees.
No one had put him in shackles, and no one had laid a hand on him.
He simply sat there, waiting to hear others read out what he had done, one deed at a time.
Some of the families in this room had grievances with the Uchiha; some had received favors from Root. Yet today, the same old affair had brought their chairs together on either side of one long table.
No one moved first.
No one whispered to a neighbor, and no one spoke before their turn.
The daylight outside faded, but no one left or interrupted the proceedings.
The families had brought more than people. They had also brought old files they had kept