The courtyard was deathly silent.
Everyone's eyes were fixed on the half-meter-deep pit.
Half of Uchiha Retsu's body was buried in rubble. Bloody froth from his mouth covered his chin.
His broken neck left him like a heap of mud. Even his gasps were growing weaker.
Dozens of Uchiha ninja were huddled together.
The legs of several young Genin in the front row were shaking like leaves.
Clang.
A Chunin's sword slipped from his hand and hit the gray bricks.
The Chunin shuddered in fright and hurriedly bent down to pick it up.
The moment his fingers touched the hilt, he met Shu Shiraishi's gaze.
The Chunin snatched his hand back as if burned and fell on his backside in the muddy water.
"What?"
Shu Shiraishi kicked aside a bloodstained piece of brick at his feet.
"Did you all think I was going to kill every last red-eyed freak among you?"
No one dared answer.
When the gate had been kicked apart just now, they really had thought this tyrant had come to wipe out their clan.
After all, the Uchiha were used to throwing their weight around the village and had offended too many people.
Shu Shiraishi looked at the terrified crowd.
They worshipped strength. It was a vile trait engraved in the Uchiha's bones.
Trying to reason with them or talk about the Will of Fire was a waste of breath.
Only by crushing what they were most proud of with one hand would he make them lie down like dogs.
"Kagami Uchiha."
Shu Shiraishi called out a name.
A stir ran through the back of the crowd.
Kagami Uchiha pushed past the clansmen in front of him and strode out.
He stopped at the edge of the pit, just two steps from Shu Shiraishi.
Then he dropped to one knee.
His knee struck the gravel with a dull thud.
Kagami kept his head bowed, both hands resting flat on his thighs.
"Lord Hokage."
Shu Shiraishi pointed at Retsu in the pit.
"This old bastard is finished."
He looked down at the top of Kagami's black-haired head.
"From today on, you're the head of the Uchiha Clan."
Several suppressed gasps came from the crowd.
A few elders opened their mouths, glanced at the grisly sight in the pit, and swallowed their words.
In the face of absolute violence, no one dared speak of rules.
Kagami bowed his head even lower.
"Yes. I won't let you down."
"Get up."
Shu Shiraishi clapped his hands.
Kagami rose and stood a little behind Shu Shiraishi.
Shu Shiraishi looked at the Uchiha clansmen filling the courtyard.
"During the meeting at the Hokage building, I said I'd send you into the steel mill's blast furnace."
He paused.
"I was just trying to scare that old bastard."
The Uchiha ninja abruptly raised their heads.
A glimmer of hope flashed in their eyes. We're not going to be boiler workers?
"Konoha's heavy industrialization isn't a joke."
Shu Shiraishi raised two fingers and pointed at his eyes.
"Your Sharingan have the best dynamic vision in the entire Shinobi World. Using them to tend boilers really would be a waste."
He lowered his hand, his voice carrying across the courtyard.
"The Akimichi Clan will be hauling cement at the construction sites. The Sarutobi Clan will be digging sewers and mixing mortar."
"The Hyuga Clan will be mining at the border."
"Those pampered ninja will surely try every trick they can to slack off at manual labor."
Shu Shiraishi stared at the Chunin in the front row who had dropped his sword.
"You Uchiha are losing the Military Police Force name."
"Starting tomorrow, you'll be called the Urban Management Brigade."
The Urban Management Brigade?
The Uchiha clansmen looked at one another. They had never heard the term before.
"To put it simply."
Shu Shiraishi picked up the sword that had fallen to the ground. He flicked a finger against the back of the blade.
It gave a soft hum.
"I want you to take your swords and supervise the workers at every construction site."
Breathing in the crowd grew heavier.
"Your Sharingan can see the flow of chakra. They can see the slightest movement."
Shu Shiraishi casually tossed the sword back into the Chunin's arms.
"Keep an eye on them for me."
"See whether the Akimichi Clan is using the Multi-Size Technique to its full potential. See whether the Sarutobi are cutting corners with their Earth Release."
Shu Shiraishi raised his voice.
"As long as you're at a construction site."
"You Uchiha are the rules. You are the law."
The commotion in the crowd grew louder.
This was power. Absolute privilege that placed them above every other major clan.
"If anyone dares carry bricks without using chakra, whip them."
A cold cruelty colored Shu Shiraishi's voice.
"If anyone dares fight back or defy your orders."
"Break all four limbs and throw them straight into the steel mill's blast furnace for fuel."
"No need to report to the Anbu. Act first, report later."
When he finished speaking.
The atmosphere in the courtyard changed.
The despair and fear of impending annihilation vanished completely, like a receding tide.
In their place came a strange, feverish excitement.
The Uchiha Clan was usually responsible for public security, and they had long since had enough of the great clans telling them what to do.
When members of the Sarutobi or Hyūga clans caused trouble, the Military Police Force had to watch the higher-ups' reactions even to make an arrest.
But now?
The Hokage himself had given them the authority to enforce the law first and report afterward!
Discipline the great clans who usually looked down on everyone?
Whip the Akimichi? Break the Sarutobi's legs?
That kind of privilege was far more tangible than the empty title of Konoha's greatest clan.
Several young Uchiha ninja exchanged glances.
Their chests heaved.
The black pupils in their eyes shifted.
One-tomoe and futatsudomoe emerged against the blood-red whites of their eyes.
It was excitement. Fanaticism at its peak.
Shu Shiraishi took it all in.
This was the art of ruling.
Smash the idol they took such pride in to pieces with a single blow. Then toss them a bone dipped in someone else's blood.
They would become the most rabid of vicious dogs.
"Understood?" Shu Shiraishi asked.
Kagami Uchiha was the first to react.
He abruptly drew the short blade at his waist and drove its point hard into a gap between the gray bricks.
He dropped to one knee.
"The Urban Management Brigade accepts its orders!" Kagami's voice was resolute, tinged with fanaticism.
A clatter arose.
Like a row of toppling dominoes.
Over a hundred Uchiha ninja in the courtyard dropped to one knee in unison.
Their armor plates scraped together with a uniform metallic sound.
Pairs of scarlet Sharingan lit up throughout the crowd.
Not for battle. But to swear loyalty to the tyrant before them who had crushed everything in his path.
"We swear to serve Lord Hokage unto death!"
The roar was deafening. It shook dust from the rooftops.
Half an hour ago, they had been cursing Shu Shiraishi in their hearts as a commoner stray dog.
Half an hour later, they saw Shu Shiraishi as a true god who could lead the Uchiha to the very top.
Such was the combined allure of strength and power.
Shu Shiraishi looked at the red-eyed vicious dogs kneeling before him.
"Treat the injured today. At eight tomorrow morning, go to the Hokage building to collect the construction site maps."
He turned and walked across the broken wood covering the ground toward the ruins of the gate.
"Anyone who's late will end up like the old bastard in the pit."
"Yes!"
A unified response came from behind him.
Shu Shiraishi walked out of Uchiha territory.
The morning sun was fully up, shining on the flagstone street so brightly it was hard to keep one's eyes open.
He casually wiped the sweat from his neck.
With the Uchiha subdued, the village's machinery of violence was completely in his hands.
Next, he would break up the great clans one by one and send them into the factories to mix mortar.
He had just passed a street corner and turned into an alley.
A harrowing scream suddenly tore through the morning calm.
"Aaaah-!"
The voice had gone shrill, filled with the despair of someone near death.
Shu Shiraishi stopped.
He turned to look down the alley.
A boy of around ten was rolling wildly on the ground.
The boy wore a coarse gray cotton kimono. It was the standard dress of the Hyuga Branch Family.
He clawed desperately at his own forehead with both hands.
He had already torn off his green cloth Forehead Protector.
His fingernails had broken the skin on his forehead. Blood ran down his eyebrows and into his eyes.
The boy's body was taut as a fully drawn bow. The blue-green, cross-shaped Cursed Seal on his forehead glowed with an eerie light.
"It hurts... help me... aaah..."
The boy had screamed himself hoarse. His legs kicked wildly against the ground, overturning several wooden buckets of slop beside him.
Before the boy.
Three men in clean white kimonos were approaching at a leisurely pace.
The man in the lead was in his thirties.
His eyes were pure white, without pupils. The Byakugan of the Hyuga Main Family.
The man looked down at the boy rolling in the slop.
His right hand formed a strange hand seal.
There was no expression on his face. He was as cold as ice.