Main World, Konoha Year 16, late winter.
Hokage Building, second-floor reception room.
Tobirama Senju stood at the window with his back to the people inside, his silver hair gleaming coldly in the thin winter sunlight.
He wore his signature blue layered armor, his hands clasped behind his back, his posture straight as a pine.
Kagami Uchiha knelt several feet behind him, his back perfectly straight. Beneath his lowered eyelids, however, his scarlet Three-Tomoe Sharingan shifted slightly with unease.
He did not know why his teacher had suddenly summoned him, but tensions had been running high in Konoha lately, and the fighting at the front was fierce. For his teacher to meet him alone at a time like this, it probably was not anything simple.
"Kagami." Tobirama Senju's voice was level, as though he were stating a fact.
"Yes." Kagami answered immediately, raising his head slightly.
"How old are you this year?"
Kagami froze for a moment, not understanding why his teacher had suddenly asked his age, but answered honestly nonetheless. "Teacher, I was born in Konoha Year 8. I'm eighteen this year."
"Eighteen." Tobirama Senju turned, his red eyes settling on Kagami, his gaze sharp as a blade yet devoid of emotion. "An adult. It's time you started a family."
Kagami stiffened slightly.
Start a family?
He had never considered the question. After his father Yuanguang died, he had been marginalized in the Uchiha Clan Compound, and even finding somewhere to live had become a problem-the little house he rented leaked whenever it rained. He had patched the cracks in its walls with old newspapers again and again, but they still could not keep out the winter wind.
Without the clan's support or a steady source of income, he barely scraped by on his teacher Tobirama Senju's help and the