"Insolence!"
Homura Mitokado shot to his feet, slamming the table as he shouted at Uchiha Ren .
"Uchiha Ren , do you have no respect for seniority or authority? How dare you spout such nonsense here!"
Everyone in the conference room was stunned.
Since the founding of Konoha decades ago, Uchiha Ren was the first person who had ever openly pointed at the Hokage and the village elders and berated them in such a setting.
Ren snorted lightly and replied calmly, neither humble nor arrogant.
"When those in power are unjust, they deserve to be criticized."
"Konoha is not your personal kingdom."
"And I, Uchiha Ren , am not someone who takes a beating without striking back."
He paused, then added with a faint smile,
"Borrowing a phrase from the Third Hokage—since I am dissatisfied with you, perhaps you should also look for the problem within yourselves."
"If there were nothing wrong with you, why would I feel dissatisfied in the first place?"
Homura Mitokado was so angry he began stammering.
"This is rebellion! Rebellion! Are the Uchiha trying to turn the heavens upside down?!"
Ren sneered.
"You exaggerate, Elder Homura."
"The Uchiha clan has no intention of rebelling."
"And besides—"
"You are not the heavens of Konoha."
"Enough!"
Just as Homura was about to argue again, Hiruzen Sarutobi slammed the table with a dark expression, cutting off the confrontation.
He glared at Ren .
"Uchiha Ren … what exactly are you trying to do?"
Ren spread his hands innocently.
"Third Hokage, that's an interesting question."
"From beginning to end, I've only been answering your questions."
"So it isn't about what I want to do."
"It's about what you want to do."
Hiruzen forced down the anger rising in his chest.
"Stop avoiding the point."
"Speak directly."
Ren smiled.
"Very well. Let's return to the main topic."
"Third Hokage, do you believe that Uchiha Fugaku allowing the rumors to spread unchecked constitutes negligence?"
"…Yes."
Hiruzen nodded through clenched teeth.
"But as I said before, the responsibility cannot rest entirely on Fugaku."
"And this minor mistake alone is not enough to remove a department head from office."
Although Hiruzen no longer wished to continue arguing with Ren , this exchange had made one thing clear—
Uchiha Ren was extremely troublesome.
If Ren were to lead the Uchiha clan in the future, it would be very bad news for them.
So despite his anger, Hiruzen still intended to protect Fugaku's positions as both Uchiha clan head and Chief of the Konoha Military Police Force.
"That's fine," Ren replied calmly, as if he had expected this.
"This is merely one example among many of Fugaku's failures."
"Now let me mention another."
"But before that, I would like to ask the Third Hokage a question."
"When the Konoha Military Police Force was first established, did the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, and the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, grant the Military Police the authority to formulate, revise, and amend the village's daily regulations and laws?"
Although the Military Police had been proposed by Tobirama Senju, the real authority in the early days of Konoha still belonged to Hashirama Senju.
That was why Ren attributed the authority to both Hokage together.
"…Yes, that is correct."
Hiruzen had already sensed something was wrong.
He felt Ren was preparing another trap, yet these were well-known historical facts. He could only acknowledge them.
"Good."
Ren nodded in satisfaction.
"As I mentioned earlier, there are indeed many conflicts between the Uchiha clan and the village's civilians."
"But these conflicts are not about personal gain."
"They are the result of conflicts between the system and reality."
"When Konoha was first established, the village needed to rapidly increase its population in order to grow."
"So the village accepted anyone willing to join, without strict screening."
"As a result, quite a few unscrupulous individuals entered the village."
When Ren said the words "unscrupulous individuals," he looked directly at the Konoha's Council of Elders on the platform and deliberately emphasized the phrase.
The implication was obvious.
The faces of the four leaders immediately turned pale and dark by turns.
Yet before they could respond, Ren continued.
"At that time, the village didn't just take in refugees struggling to survive."
"It also absorbed bandits and former criminals."
"Furthermore, during the Warring States Era, the clans had accumulated numerous grudges against each other."
"As a result, the early days of Konoha were extremely chaotic. The people were rough and quick to violence."
"Fights broke out in the streets almost every day—sometimes over something as trivial as a market stall."
"To curb this chaos, the village—under the leadership of the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju—established the Konoha Military Police Force."
"At the same time, a strict legal code was created."
"As the saying goes: When a household has steady work, even hunger cannot defeat it; when a nation has consistent laws, even danger cannot bring disorder."
"That legal code laid the foundation for Konoha's long period of peace and development."
"But laws should be stable—not stagnant."
"As time passed, Konoha's population continued to grow, and disputes within the village increased."
"The old laws that were written decades ago have now become outdated and insufficient."
"They can no longer guarantee fairness for everyone."
"In such circumstances, conflict between the Uchiha as law enforcers and the villagers was inevitable."
"Yet as the Uchiha clan head, Fugaku allowed this situation to continue unchecked, planting the seeds of conflict between the clan and the village."
"And as Chief of the Konoha Military Police Force, he never attempted to revise the outdated laws to ease the conflict between legal codes and reality."
"Is that not negligence?"
Ren 's words struck directly at the heart of the issue.
Many people in the conference room found themselves nodding in agreement.
Some of them had long noticed that Konoha's current legal system was outdated, but since it did not concern their own interests—and the village leadership had always suppressed the Uchiha—they chose to remain silent.
Now that Ren had openly pointed out the problem, they could not help but look at him with newfound respect.
It seemed that the Uchiha clan had finally produced a truly intelligent leader.
However, Hiruzen was now concerned about something else entirely.
He couldn't help asking,
"Uchiha Ren … from the way you speak, it sounds like you intend to revise the village's laws."
"Correct."
Ren admitted it without hesitation.
"Last night was not only the Uchiha Clan Assembly."
"It was also an internal meeting of the Konoha Military Police Force."
"And after unanimous agreement among all members of the Military Police…"
"The **Konoha Military Police Force has decided to initiate internal reforms—"
—and to revise the village's current legal code."
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