Winter, year 9 of Konoha.
The New Year had only just passed. The smell of firecracker smoke still lingered in the air, along with an indefinable tension.
The Meeting Hall in the Uchiha Clan Compound was livelier than it usually was at this time of year, and colder, too. Every clan elder, key member, and prominent representative of each family branch who could attend sat in a dense crowd. No one spoke. Only the charcoal occasionally crackled in the copper braziers, scattering a few sparks.
The head seat stood empty. Elder Xuan's "old injuries had flared up," and he had not come. Uchiha En occupied the first seat to its left, his face as rigid as a slab of iron, his fingers unconsciously rolling a string of prayer beads polished bright with use around his wrist. Diagonally opposite him, on the right, Yinglang-no, he should now be called Toyotomi Yinglang-sat composedly, his dark blue clan robes impeccably arranged. A cup of tea, long since cold, rested beside him. His face betrayed little as his calm gaze swept over the clanspeople's varied expressions.
What had to come could not be avoided. With the New Year celebrations just over and people unsettled, with most of Tobirama's attention tied up in the problems left behind by the Nine-Tails, it was time to lay his cards on the table.
The meeting's original agenda had been to discuss the coming year's allocation of clan missions and the training of younger members. But half an hour of going in circles had yielded no conclusion. Elder Yan complained that the village's pay was growing stingier while the missions remained dangerous; several elders managing clan properties lamented this year's poor yields and high expenses; the younger elites subtly voiced their discontent over limited opportunities for advancement and unfair