After Fugaku left, Uchiha Nobunaga looked at his nephew and felt a wave of relief. Without this kid, things might have cracked beyond repair. Once a fissure forms, patching it is never easy, especially with a son as proud as his. To peers, he respected no one except his big brother.
"Uncle, you can probably guess my thinking. We have to bring little Fugaku into real decision making now. This concerns the rise and fall of the Uchiha.
"If he takes the wrong road, it will be a clan killer. We sent him out of the Police because Jiraiya truly is a good teacher, and because we wanted to show goodwill to Konoha, not because we wanted to raise an obedient puppet of a clan head."
Just then Fugaku returned. He knew this would be an important meeting, so he had sprinted back without wasting a breath. It was the first time his father had allowed him to sit in on high level decisions.
He was no fool. The clan had been acting very differently lately. The elders praised his big brother to the skies. There was no doubt that Renji had become decisive in steering the clan's future.
His big brother was an all round monster talent. Even politics came to him instinctively. If the Uchiha had even one or two like him in past generations, they would not be so passive today.
Their bloodline had made the clan strong. Too strong. Most Uchiha, himself included, stopped using their heads, pouring everything into training. That might make for great fighters, but it doomed the clan's politics. Only now, when they reached senior ranks, did they try to bargain for political interests, with brains filled only with jutsu. Thank goodness this generation had his big brother. Otherwise things would be far worse.
Renji nodded when his brother entered. "Good timing. I was just analyzing the current board with Uncle. Listen in. It will help when we shape our plan." He pointed to a chair.
He smiled to his uncle and continued. "The Uchiha look strong, yet we are walking on thin ice. Even during the honey moon period there was a rabid Danzo watching us. Their surveillance and pressure never stopped. It only eased for a while, which let us mistake it for success.
"Now the pressure restarts. Thanks to our recent moves, their old isolation tactics cannot run smoothly. Not smoothly does not mean not possible.
"People forget fast. Civilians and other clans alike. If the Uchiha stay under constant pressure, they will forget everything we did and slip back into herd thinking.
"Did no Uchiha ever sacrifice for Konoha before us? They did. In every generation. In the First and Second Great Wars we bled more than any clan except Senju.
"Yet nothing truly changed. Short term wins are not victory. We are far from real success.
"Our people love deeply. We crave to be understood and accepted. We have given generation after generation of the clan's best. In return we got cold shoulders, isolation, slander. We already did enough. Why then do the high ups still treat us like this?
"Because our bloodline gives us ridiculous power. An Uchiha who opens his eyes can fight at least at chunin. With two tomoe, the average is jonin. With three, elite jonin. With Mangekyo, near Kage. Beyond that, invincible.
"Do you think any ruling group would not fear that? Especially one that has hurt us more than once. They fear revenge. They fear that if we gain power we will settle accounts.
"If they do not suppress us, based on the quality of our people, Konoha would become an Uchiha village within two generations and never change. They themselves destroyed the only clan that could balance us, the Senju.
"With Senju gone, the Uchiha have no rival at the clan level. We are not bragging. They can fight for second place. If they do not gang together and push with all their strength, they will be ruled forever.
"An Uchiha unshackled, backed by the Land of Fire's resources, Konoha's population base, and its vast library of jutsu, is something the world cannot imagine. Unbeatable. The stuff of our enemies' despair."
Nobunaga and Fugaku both drew in breath.
At that moment, Nobunaga felt like a junior before this young man. The logic was simple, but he had failed to see it clearly for decades. Not just him. Generations of Uchiha had not.
Fugaku was stunned. His father had called his big brother a once in a century political genius. The riddle that had gnawed at him for years, why the high ups mistreated them, what they did wrong, what could make them accepted had all been sliced open in a few sentences.
They were not wrong. If there was a mistake, it was being too strong while others were too weak. Unless the vast Uchiha tribe was cut down to a handful, a clan this large would never be accepted.
To the abyss with the Will of Fire. To the abyss with Jiraiya's talk of peace and prophecy. Lies.
Fugaku's eyes spun to full three tomoe. His body trembled. Renji blinked. The plan had barely begun and his brother was already at boiling point.
"Little brother, you alright? Want to step out for air? Maybe another day…"
Nobunaga cut him off. "No stepping out. Let him hear it. Better to be clear in here than muddled out there."
Fugaku nodded hard, eyes red. "I am fine. Big brother, keep going. Do not worry about me."
Renji shrugged. "Then I will continue."
"Continue," father and son said together, then nodded to each other.
"What happened last night connects to this. The clash with Root. It looked like the Police against Root. In truth it was Uchiha against Root.
"Root is filled with shinobi from many clans, plus many gifted civilians. Fighting Root means clashing, more or less, with their families and the clans behind them.
"Who can make sure those shinobi do not go home and dump their resentment on their families. They cannot talk missions, but they can curse us. Their families will be taught to hate us. How many times can we eat that. How many clans does Konoha even have.
"Rotate waves of such shinobi to bump us and you will see prior harmony crumble into mutual distrust. Civilians we do not even know will spread hatred one household at a time. Why. Because their family member quarreled with us, got shoved by us, felt wronged by us.
"Think about our own reactions when a relative comes home and says they were bullied. Others feel the same. We can take our own face back on the street. They cannot. They stew and hate. Slowly we fall back to the old stalemate.
"This is their favorite tactic. Use the crowd to surround Uchiha. Make everyone hate us. Drown us in a village wide tide of rejection.
"My plan breaks that game. They set the board. We flip the board. I call it the Fallow Soil Plan. The name is unimportant. The content is everything.
"We give up sole control of the Uchiha Police. We bring other clans and civilians inside. We build an organization with civilians as the body, clans as the limbs, and Uchiha as the head.
"I mean civilians, not civilian shinobi. Civilians manage civilians. Clans rotate shinobi into mixed units. Uchiha serve as unit captains and company leaders, mid and upper levels. Of course, give other clans real promotion paths.
"Benefits. One, civilians policing civilians saves manpower and reduces civilian resentment toward us.
"Two, multi clan participation instantly shatters their isolation plan. Tobirama's policy turns to scrap.
"Three, our youths have spent most of their teen years patrolling streets and training. Let them go out. Let our three tomoe lead teams into the wider world so their minds do not stay naive and easy to sway.
"Four, most important. We show other clans that we are stepping back. We are handing over a unique cake. We want to stand with everyone. We want to share.
"So why block us. If you block this, it is not that Uchiha refuse to blend in. It is you who do not want us among you. That difference in nature is critical. It flips us from being actively hated to being passively hated, and that is a world of difference.
"Danzo will never agree. He only sees how this hurts his plan and blocks his long running suppression. He will try to stop it or sabotage it in the shadows.
"Hiruzen, the skilled politician, will not oppose it. Because opposing it becomes a verdict on their past crimes. It becomes proof that they harmed their own shinobi clans.
"He would lose the people's faith, the thing he cherishes most. That is why he always appears righteous and compassionate in public. He hands all the dirty jobs to Danzo. That is why Root exists at all. The Anbu would be enough otherwise.
"Danzo carries the black pot as the rival for Hokage. Hiruzen ropes in the mild Homura and the slightly hawkish Koharu as advisors and makes a triangle.
"Hiruzen stands in the light. Danzo in the dark. The other two stir the soup. When there is conflict, Hiruzen plays arbiter. If a decision hurts his benevolent image, these three become his scapegoats. He was forced into it.
"His image is preserved. The others are tarnished. When he wants to cut rivals, he lets Danzo run wild, sometimes even hints at it. He knows what Danzo wants to do and barely lifts a finger, at most sending Anbu to watch so people think it was all Danzo acting alone.
"After the deed, he steps out, scolds Danzo, trims his power, then soon returns it. He needs someone to take the heat.
"Our plan exploits exactly this. Hiruzen will know it is our counter. He will still help us complete it and even stand up to buffer Danzo's pressure.
"Let the enemy cheerfully help us crush their own scheme. Once again, we win with an open tactic.
"Fallow Soil. Let the Police sprout flowers of friendship. Let trust take root and grow into trees. Let the Police cultivate our own people."
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