The old fart literally radiated contentment. The coalition had been preparing, planning, attracting all possible votes to remove the Third Hokage from office without bloodshed, by a majority vote, and on the eve of the culmination of the action, he just announced his resignation under a reasonable pretext, which, among other things, was going to be used by his political opponents. As they say, "it's a small thing, but it left an unpleasant residue".
- The bastard," Mito Uzumaki, who had been waiting for the day when Hiruzen's face could be smeared in the mud, snorted unhappily, "decided to leave the last word to himself?
- I don't know what you're talking about, Uzumaki-san," the former Hokage and current head of the Sarutobi clan snorted, "and I'm also announcing the nomination of my student Orochimaru as a candidate for the next Hokage.
- We'll see who gets elected as the Fourth Hokage," the beauty nodded, her face returning to a neutral expression.
- The vote will decide everything," Hiruzen agreed and announced, "Since there are no more topics to discuss, I'm not holding anyone else up, Homura and Koharu will bring the news to all walks of life and notify everyone whose vote will be counted of the upcoming election.
Standing up, Sarutobi nodded and left as quickly as he had come. We didn't linger either, leaving the Hokage Tower at Shenesu's sign instead of staying and exchanging views with the other heads as we had done so many times before.
- Shenesu, does this change anything for us? - Akamichi asked, following the leader of the alliance habitually.
- Nothing at all - Hiruzen only got a little moral satisfaction by going off on his own, but it was clear to everyone that he would have been ousted at the Daimyo's reception tomorrow," his uncle shrugged, "politically, such a move was highly likely to be the least reputationally damaging and the old man had been in politics too long not to realize that.
- Simply put, it was a small farce to demonstrate that he decides how and when to step down, not us," I summarized.
- That's about right," confirmed the head of Nara.
- Waste of time! - I snorted and waved my hand at the shinobi - who were clearly intent on having a little get-together, judging by their purposeful movement toward the nearest fat restaurant - and jumped up onto the nearest rooftop and hopped toward the clan quarter.
I'd better send the kage bunshin, honestly.
I've got more interesting stuff on patreon (+ 200 chapter)
patreon.com/Chill76