The summer noon sun was dazzling.
As Uchiha Anlan stepped out of the room, he narrowed his eyes slightly against the light.
"Yashiro. Talk while we walk."
Standing at the doorway, Uchiha Yashiro looked at the young man before him.
Dressed in the high-collared dark uniform of the Uchiha, Anlan stood tall beneath the sunlight, full of vigor and authority.
He had now formally inherited the leadership of the hawkish faction.
Suppressing the excitement rising in his chest, Yashiro replied loudly.
"Yes, Lord Anlan!"
The two walked one after the other along the bluestone path inside the Uchiha compound.
Half a step behind, Uchiha Yashiro organized the information he had gathered and reported concisely.
"This clan meeting at the shrine was called by the clan head. According to reliable sources, aside from discussing the Third Great Ninja War, it will also address the selection of the next clan leader."
Hearing this, Uchiha Anlan did not slow his pace.
He simply chuckled softly.
"Looks like our old clan head can't sit still anymore."
Ever since Uchiha Madara left Konoha, the old clan head had taken over the position and remained there ever since.
By age alone, he was even older than Uchiha Setsuna.
Few elders who had survived from the Warring States era had lived as long as Konoha's current leadership.
In the future era, people in their seventies and eighties would still stubbornly cling to the seats of Konoha's advisory elders.
Meanwhile, the three leaders of the Uchiha factions had already entered the twilight of their lives and were preparing to pass down their authority and responsibilities.
Now a clan meeting had been convened at the family shrine—one that only Uchiha who possessed the three-tomoe Sharingan were qualified to attend.
Combined with the current situation of both the ninja world and the clan itself, using the position of the next clan head as leverage to encourage the hawkish faction to actively participate in the war was hardly surprising.
After all, over the years, Uchiha Fugaku—ten years older than Anlan—had suffered quite a few losses at Anlan's hands.
With Uchiha Anlan openly aiming for the position of clan head, Fugaku could not rely on strength alone if he wanted to regain the advantage.
He needed war merits.
More precisely, he needed to lead the Uchiha in gaining greater influence within Konoha and thereby secure more support inside the clan.
This had always been the strategy of the clan head and the dove faction—seeking to integrate the Uchiha into Konoha through peaceful means.
Uchiha Yashiro was one of the pillars of the hawkish younger generation and frequently discussed clan affairs with Uchiha Anlan.
With both experience and talent, he naturally understood the complexity of the situation.
Frowning slightly, he spoke with concern.
"In ordinary conflicts, with the strength of the clan head and the dove faction, handling things wouldn't be difficult."
"But this time they want us to board the same ship."
"That alone shows how much pressure the Third Hokage has placed on the clan head."
"And who knows what kind of benefits the Hokage promised him."
At that point, Yashiro hesitated, as if there were something more he wanted to say but could not.
Uchiha Anlan immediately understood his concern and snorted coldly.
"With the old clan head's habit of siding with the Hokage, I'm afraid we might get sold out before we ever see much of those so-called benefits."
Trading the clan's interests in exchange for vague promises from the Hokage was something the clan head and the dove faction had practiced for years.
In their words—
Once the Uchiha eventually became Hokage, all of Konoha would belong to them anyway, so there was no need to worry about temporary losses.
To Uchiha Anlan, this logic resembled the ultimate spineless simp from romance novels.
Watching the heroine repeatedly cheat with her so-called "true love" while he continued sacrificing his own interests for her sake.
Then discovering that the heroine was pregnant—with someone else's child.
After that would come heartbreak.
Then powerless rage.
Finally, he would shout about rising in rebellion—
Only to quietly slink away in the end.
That kind of idiotic thinking always led to a miserable ending.
Uchiha Anlan found it utterly absurd.
Enduring small losses in order to gain greater benefits later was not inherently wrong.
But it had to fit the circumstances.
One could not simply assume that everything would unfold according to one's own wishes.
One also had to consider whether Konoha's leadership—who belonged to the Senju faction and had long harbored hostility toward the Uchiha—would ever allow an Uchiha to become Hokage and threaten their existing power.
Furthermore, the Sharingan of the Uchiha clan often awakened through the intense emotional shock of losing love.
Because of this, many members of the clan were stubborn—sometimes even obsessively rigid.
Within the clan, a culture had formed where strength was respected above all else and hierarchy was strictly enforced.
Because of this environment, Uchiha Anlan spent most of his energy strengthening himself while uniting the hawkish faction.
Unlike the fanfiction novels he had read in his previous life—where a few persuasive words could supposedly recruit Uchiha from other factions—
Reality was far more complicated.
That kind of thing was nothing more than fantasy.
Ninjas might not be experts in politics—
But they were extremely obedient.
Orders flowed downward, and discipline was strictly enforced.
Konoha itself was essentially a massive military organization.
Meanwhile, the various ninja clans functioned as smaller military factions within it.
Just like the Hyūga clan's strict separation between the Main House and the Branch House, the Uchiha clan's three factions were also clearly divided.
Except for a handful of high-ranking members, people from different factions rarely interacted freely.
Even casual conversations were approached with caution.
Over time, even the children began to sense an invisible barrier between them.
In some ways, the divisions within the Uchiha clan were even more severe than those within the Hyūga.
The elders of the clan were not blind to this problem.
But by the time they realized the severity of it, the clan had already grown too large to easily change course.
They themselves were no longer in their prime.
All they could rely on was their long-established prestige, hoping to prevent the stubborn middle-aged and elderly members of the clan from negatively influencing the younger generation.
They placed their hopes for uniting the clan into a single force upon the youth—
Just like in the era when Uchiha Madara had once led the clan against the Senju.
In a Naruto world without Uchiha Anlan, Uchiha Fugaku would have been the only candidate.
But the arrival of a transmigrator changed everything.
Even the dove faction's Great Elder, Uchiha Huohe, had begun wavering between the two.
Under the dove faction's inherently pro-Konoha stance, that hesitation already meant leaning toward the hawkish faction's younger and more talented candidate—
Uchiha Anlan.
Naturally, this made the old clan head anxious.
It also pushed him toward a desperate gamble.
As the two continued talking, more and more members of the hawkish faction began gathering behind them.
Uchiha Tekka.
Uchiha Inabi.
And more than twenty other young and capable Uchiha.
After hearing Uchiha Setsuna's decision through Yashiro's quiet explanation, the respect in their eyes when they looked at Uchiha Anlan deepened.
Dozens of clan members sharing the same bloodline gathered together.
Their presence gradually merged into a powerful current as they advanced toward Naka Shrine.
Naka Shrine stood at one end of the Naka River.
The river, named after the shrine, flowed through the entire village of Konoha.
It had witnessed the brutal conflicts between the Uchiha and Senju during the Warring States era.
It had also witnessed the birth of the hidden village system.
With the speed of Jōnin, it did not take long for them to leave the vast Uchiha compound located near the center of Konoha.
They soon approached the primitive forest where the clan's ninja conducted daily training.
Following a forest path opened through ninjutsu, they quickly arrived at Naka Shrine, hidden deep within the woods.
The ancestral shrine of the Uchiha clan did not differ much from ordinary shrines.
After climbing the stone steps and passing through a torii gate engraved with the Uchiha fan crest, a spacious plaza appeared before them.
Standing at the shrine's entrance were the clan head and two Uchiha members from the dove faction.
After bowing to Uchiha Anlan, Uchiha Inabi stepped out from the group and took position at the gate to stand guard.