Half an hour later.
Inside the grand reception hall of the Clan Head's estate, the remaining members of the Uchiha Clan gathered. These were the last holdouts—the diehard Moderates and a few Neutrals who had not yet defected to the Radical Faction. Whispers of anxiety filled the room, their faces pale and drawn.
Fugaku sat at the head of the room, his expression equally grim. He looked at the assembly and felt a wave of profound bitterness. Just a month ago, this hall would have been packed with hundreds of loyal clansmen waiting for his command. Now, he could count his actual supporters on two hands.
"Enough whispering," Uchiha Yashiro, a prominent Moderate Elder, interrupted the murmurs. He had always advocated for appeasing the village, but his patience was wearing thin. His own faction had been decimated by defections. "Fugaku, everyone is here. Deliver your news. If this wasn't an emergency, I would not have come."
The rest of the room fell silent, looking at Fugaku with hollow eyes. The respect they once held for their Clan Head was entirely gone. To them, he was a commander in name only.
Fugaku's fists clenched under the table. 'If I had known Jin would dismantle my authority so thoroughly, I would have assassinated him the day he formed the Radicals,' Fugaku thought, his heart burning with regret. 'But it is too late for 'what ifs'. I must fix this now.'
Taking a deep breath, Fugaku forced his voice to project authority. "Uchiha Jin has just reclaimed our ancestral land."
'Hiss!'
A collective gasp echoed through the hall. Everyone understood the magnitude of that statement. The ancestral land was the prime real estate in the center of Konoha, stripped from them under suspicion of treason after the Nine-Tails attack.
Before the shock could settle, Fugaku leaned forward, his tone urgent. "Do not celebrate! This is an unmitigated disaster! You all know how fragile our relationship with the village leadership is. By extorting the Hokage and forcing the return of that territory, Jin has pushed us past the point of no return. He is actively provoking a war!"
Fugaku swept his gaze across the room. "We must unite! We cannot allow Jin's reckless arrogance to destroy our clan. We have spent years trying to ease the village's suspicions. We must find a way to stop him from ruining everything!"
He waited for their rallying cries. He waited for their agreement.
Instead, he was met with absolute, suffocating silence.
No one moved. No one spoke.
Fugaku blinked, bewildered. 'Why are they not reacting? Do they not understand the danger?'
After a long, uncomfortable minute, Uchiha Shiming, an Elder of the Neutral Faction, sighed heavily. "Fugaku, your logic is sound. Provoking the Hokage is dangerous. But there is a glaring flaw in your plan: we have no power left to stop him."
"He is right," Yashiro added, shaking his head. "Look around, Fugaku. Accept reality. Aside from the people in this room, the rest of the clan has defected to the Radicals. Even if we wanted to fight Jin, we lack the military strength to do so."
Uchiha Shikata, a Jonin who had remained silent until now, scoffed bitterly. "I warned you, Fugaku. Weeks ago, I begged you to authorize defensive patrols like the Radicals did. But you hesitated. You refused to set up barriers because you didn't want to 'offend the village' while Danzo's Root assassins slaughtered us in our sleep. The civilians don't care about your grand political strategies. They just wanted to live. You gave them a choice: stay with you and die, or defect to Jin and survive. Of course they left."
The room erupted into murmurs of agreement. Their grievances against Fugaku were finally spilling over.
Suddenly, the oldest man in the room spoke.
"Quiet."
It was Uchiha Amano, the Great Elder. He was a relic from the era of Madara Uchiha, long retired and acting mostly as a symbolic figurehead. But now, his ancient eyes pinned Fugaku to his seat.
"I do not blame the civilians who defected," Amano rasped, his voice cutting through the tension. "They fled because you failed your primary duty as Clan Head: you failed to protect them. Do not preach to us about the 'greater good' of the village. If you were truly selfless, would you offer your own wife and children to Danzo's butchers to maintain the peace?"
Amano sneered, exposing the ugly truth. "Do you know why the people in this room did not defect? It isn't out of loyalty to you. It is because everyone here is an elite Jonin. We stayed because we possess the individual strength to survive Root's nocturnal assassinations. The weak did not have that luxury."
Amano slowly stood up, leaning heavily on his cane. "I am tired, Fugaku. Jin commands the loyalty of the masses. He is the future. Therefore, I am defecting to the Radical Faction."
Fugaku's face drained of color.
Amano looked down at the Clan Head one last time. "I will leave you with this final truth, Fugaku. Your fatal flaw is your crippling indecision. This current crisis? It is the exact same mistake you made years ago."
Amano's eyes narrowed. "During the Nine-Tails attack, the Uchiha were ready to deploy and assist the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze. But Danzo ordered us to stand down and guard the perimeter. Instead of following your instincts and saving the Fourth, you hesitated. You obeyed Danzo. Minato died, the village blamed us for the attack, and we were banished to this district. You have never been fit to lead. Step down."
Without another word, Elder Amano turned and walked out of the hall. Several Jonin immediately stood up and followed him out.
The silence that followed was deafening. Amano had ripped open Fugaku's deepest shame.
Yashiro stood up next, his face hardened with newfound resolve.
"I am leaving as well," Yashiro announced. "I never liked Jin's extremism. But I have watched him for the past month. He built a barrier. He repelled the Anbu. He stopped the assassinations. And now, he has achieved the impossible and reclaimed our ancestral land."
Yashiro looked at Fugaku with pure pity. "I must choose between a leader who submits to execution, and a leader who fights for our survival. Jin's methods might provoke a war that destroys us, but at least we will die fighting. I have Uchiha blood in my veins. I would rather die standing than live kneeling."
Yashiro walked out. The rest of the room fractured, dozens of Shinobi standing up and following him to the Radical zone.
When the doors finally closed, Fugaku was left sitting in a nearly empty room. Only two Elders—Shiming and Shikata—and thirteen Jonin remained by his side.
Fugaku's breathing was ragged. His eyes burned with a dark, suffocating hatred. 'Jin... Because of you, I have truly lost everything.'
Suddenly, the doors swung open again.
Shisui Uchiha walked in, fresh off his Anbu shift. He looked around the vast, empty reception hall, his brow furrowing in deep confusion.
"Clan Head?" Shisui asked, blinking in surprise. "Where is everyone? I thought we were holding a war council to plan our counter-offensive against Jin and the Radicals. Where are the Elders?"