21 Chapter 21: Truth

"I have a condition, though. If that's okay." - (Gaara) said.

The siblings looked at each other and nodded.

"Let's hear it first." - (Ebizo)

…

"Since the formation of our village, the council was created in order to support and help the Kazekage in different matters and decision making. It's also effective in keeping the Kazekage in check but time has proven that it can cause polarization from a simple 'yes or no'. Because of different opinions and views, having many brains to solve a single problem can cause more conflicts than resolving it." - (Gaara)

"So you're saying that you want to dissolve the council and have all the power to yourself?" - (Chiyo) said as she narrowed her eyes.

"No. You said earlier that several factions that you knew nothing about suddenly appeared at the same time after the death of my father. After I met the daimyo in our meeting at the palace and my father's death, I already did my own investigation on this matter. The people that you thought of as a hero were already brewing something in the background while you're all occupied thinking about what to do the the war and my father.

At first, the council members seem like they did all of that for the people but they have other goals in mind. Well, not all of them. Only Hizuchi. The rest of them were just swept up in his plan to suck up on daimyo's butt. It's true that the evidence they presented to the daimyo came from our people but the results were all manipulated. Since they conducted the surveys secretly at the pretense of hiding it from my father, no one doubted it. All the responses came from Hizuchi's people. Do you really believe that the villagers were prepared to risk their and their family's lives just to give a response to a stupid survey that may caught my father's attention?

Even the daimyo was smart enough to not believe a measly survey as the evidence or the reason for overthrowing my father. But nonetheless, he went with the flow which almost cost his own life since my father was growing out of control. So after recovering my strength from my battle with my father, the daimyo asked me to investigate all the council members.

It turned out that Hizuchi has long created a faction secretly, mostly made out of ordinary people and some shinobis, that's why it avoided suspicions since everyone was more focused on investigating the people in power. He knows that the voice of the civilians are very valuable and cannot be ignored so he used that to his advantage.

After seeing an opportunity, he created a plan to push my father to his limit and show his true color. He ordered his people to start a commotion… and that's the real purpose of the protest. He doesn't even care if his people were killed, as long as he achieves his goal. Unfortunately for him, he died before realizing it. He didn't think that the daimyo would call my father in the meeting as well, and so he died like a cockroach.

Now, his faction is in turmoil after his death. They were in panic so they hastily made their move. And you know what happened next, they exposed themselves and some of the details of their plan in order to temp the daimyo at the meeting yesterday." - (Gaara) explained.

"S-so you mean, that the daimyo already knew about this even before our meeting and just waited for them to expose themselves and let us investigate ourselves?" - (Chiyo) said in disbelief.

*Tok! Tok!*

At this time, a knock on the door was heard.

"Come in." - (Ebizo) said.

The door opened and Baki entered.

"Chiyo-sama, Ebizo-sama. We have already finished investigating the woman named Mikazuchi, who's the Civilian Representative, and the faction she mentioned in the meeting yesterday. It turned out that they were connected. If it's not for the daimyo not agreeing with their views, we would have been done for.

They plan to present Sunagakure to the daimyo and control our village themselves under his name. Thanks to the council member's death, named Hizuchi, all their plans went to smoke so they tried to do an alternative approach which failed." - (Baki) said.

"Here's the rest of the investigation about their plan to control Sunagakure." - (Baki) gave the documents to the siblings.

They read through the papers and were shocked about the detailed plan.

First, Hizuchi plans to disguise himself as a good person doing a service for the village in order to gain the trust of the people, specifically the council members that will serve as his main cover and the civilians that he will use for his plan. These civilians think that they are part of his plan but in reality they were just his pawn.

Second, he needs to make it look like the Kazekage is the villain and the main reason for the village's nearing collapse. But he didn't expect that Rasa was already thinking like a crazy person. He confirmed this after presenting very reasonable proposals to Rasa to which he rejected for no apparent reasons. So for him to start a war which Hizuchi knew would probably fail, he's just doing him a huge favor and skipped some of his preparations. To accomplish his second objective, he ordered his men to start a protest after the war was disclosed in order to reveal to the people what Rasa trully is.

Third, he will overthrow Rasa from his seat and personally make a proposal to the daimyo. The main content of the proposal is to present Sunagakure to the daimyo as a token to show his loyalty. He's literally going to sell his people for his own gains, including the civilians who followed him. Not only that, he has another proposal that will benefit both him and the daimyo.

"I can't believe I worked with him in researching puppet for decades. So this was the reason he quitted the project without explaining." - (Chiyo) said after reading the plan of the person she thought she knew.

What made her say that was the second proposal Hizuchi had planned.

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