Kawasaki's public counting of the votes on stage was solely to let everyone know that the Third Hokage was guilty of embezzling funds.
And there were still more secrets yet to be unearthed.
The Third was already on the verge of stepping down. Exposing these things now would only tarnish his legacy in his final years. There was little else one could do to him.
But that was precisely Kawasaki's goal.
A Third Hokage retiring as a respected and venerable elder held a different kind of influence than one retiring tainted by political darkness and accusations of election fraud. The latter's words would carry far less weight.
At the very least, under the pressure from the council of elders, the Third Hokage would have to relinquish his power swiftly and without complaint. Otherwise, he would face a collective backlash.
Kawasaki's reason for wanting to thoroughly expose the Third was simple. He wanted to rip off Hiruzen Sarutobi's mask of hypocrisy.
The Third Hokage was a truly devious man, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Although Danzo had collaborated with Hiruzen over the years, he had also secretly undermined him, and the two were locked in a constant political struggle. But Danzo always operated in the shadows, afraid of being discovered by the Third.
Hiruzen, on the other hand, could commit evil acts, and you would still believe he had nothing to do with it.
Perhaps Danzo's only victories were framing the Third for the infant experiments and successfully concealing the existence of Tenzo, the successful test subject.
Throughout the years of Hiruzen's reign as Hokage, large sums of money had gone missing.
For example, where did Kushina and the Fourth Hokage's inheritance go?
Why was there nothing left of the Senju clan's vast fortune?
And for how many years had the Sarutobi clan been padding their payroll? It was the only way to explain how the clan had grown to such a size.
As one of the preeminent villages among the Five Great Shinobi Countries, life for the common people of Konoha was quite stable, especially when compared to the war-torn smaller nations or impoverished lands like the Hidden Sand. The happiness index of Konoha's villagers could be considered very high.
From the day Hiruzen Sarutobi took office as the Third Hokage until the present, he had enjoyed immense prestige among the general populace. After all, their village was far more prosperous than any other.
As for the deaths of Nawaki, Dan Kato, the White Fang, the Fourth Hokage, and Kushina, such events were too distant for the common folk to care about. At most, they felt a fleeting sadness when the Fourth died, but most were consumed by the grief and outrage of the Nine-Tails' rampage.
The Third Hokage controlled a large contingent of ANBU, monitoring every word spoken by the common people. Any hint of discord was snuffed out at its source. The villagers were, for the most part, ignorant and blindly followed their leader. Under the tight control of propaganda, their days were filled with peace and celebration.
Danzo was not only outmatched by the Hokage in life but also in death. The reason was simple: he looked like a villain. If he just showed his face in Konoha a few times, any nefarious deed could be blamed on him, and no one would question it.
A true villain was like Hiruzen Sarutobi—a great deceiver who appeared loyal. His exterior was kind and affable, as if he always had others' best interests at heart. The entire village trusted him implicitly. But if one dug deeper, they would discover that Hiruzen Sarutobi was far from simple.
Setting aside the events of the past few decades, let's look at recent history. If Kawasaki had not been here, the Uchiha clan would have already been massacred.
Everyone knew that Root and Obito were involved in the clan's annihilation, but that was not the crucial point. The real story began two years before the massacre.
Danzo, wary of the Uchiha's power, ambushed Shisui and stole his right eye.
An injured Shisui fled and found Itachi, placing the heavy burden of stopping the massacre on the shoulders of the mentally immature boy before taking his own life. Itachi was only eleven years old at the time—an age where, in Naruto's era, he wouldn't have even graduated from the Ninja Academy.
If Shisui's suicide was a result of a desperate situation, then Itachi's decision to annihilate the Uchiha clan was orchestrated entirely by the Third Hokage.
In the two years between the ages of eleven and thirteen, Itachi's mindset underwent a drastic transformation. Despite having accomplished nothing himself, he began to resent his own clansmen, viewing his family as useless and its members as fools.
During these two years, the relationship between Itachi and his father, Fugaku, grew increasingly strained, with almost no communication, let alone any heart-to-heart conversations. The arrogant Itachi became even more disdainful of interacting with other clan members.
So, why did Itachi become this way?
It was due to the manipulation of Hiruzen Sarutobi and the other village elders.
Regarding the conflict between the village and the Uchiha, Hiruzen constantly delayed, his most frequent line being, "I will come up with a perfect solution."
And then… he did nothing.
What he did do every day was relentlessly brainwash Itachi. His methods were remarkably subtle. He constantly fed Itachi lines like: "It is thanks to you that the village and the Uchiha have not gone to war." And, "Thanks to the intelligence you've provided, many civilians have been spared from the flames of conflict."
Meanwhile, the other elders played the part of the black hats, continuously eroding the Uchiha's image in Itachi's mind. This fostered a sense of superiority and arrogance in Itachi, a "holier-than-thou" complex that made him believe he alone could save the Uchiha.
But in the end, Itachi found himself powerless to resolve the conflict between the village and his clan. Communicating only with the Konoha leadership, he was completely unaware that his thoughts had been guided into a dead end.
He was a failure, but he refused to admit it. An unending sense of mission drove him to the brink of madness. By then, Shisui had been dead for two years, and the clan's coup d'état was imminent.
It was then that Danzo appeared. Danzo's "brilliant plan" offered Itachi, who was about to collapse under the weight of his self-imposed mission, a new path.
"Massacre the Uchiha clan." This would permanently and completely resolve the conflict between the Uchiha and the village. By "shouldering the sin" himself, he could soothe his own failed and empty heart, immersing himself in the self-deception of sacrifice and self-aggrandizement.
Imagine it.
A madman, driven to the verge of collapse by a mission he had forced upon himself, comforting himself after completing the horrific deed.
"I succeeded! I successfully prevented a civil war in the village! I stopped the war!"
"I fulfilled my best friend's last wish! I have shouldered this sin."
"I am an unsung hero! I am a true shinobi!"
"Shisui, I didn't let you down, did I?"
"Sasuke, you'll understand me too, won't you?"
This was Itachi at thirteen—a hysterical madman.
It was only years after leaving Konoha that Itachi began to re-evaluate himself, and not until the moment of his final death in battle did he finally see himself clearly. After being reanimated by the Edo Tensei, he could at last bravely confront his own incompetence and failure. Only then did he understand the true meaning of what Shisui had entrusted to him.
Unfortunately, even with his repentance, the Uchiha clan was already gone, scattered to the winds. No matter how strong the remaining Sasuke became, he could never single-handedly restore the Uchiha's glory. This is also why Itachi gave Sasuke his final admonition.
Itachi's thinking matured over time; the young Itachi and the adult Itachi were two different people. When he was young and had just joined the ANBU, he was most frequently exposed to Hiruzen Sarutobi's teachings. In fact, Hiruzen had begun grooming him with praise even earlier.
And what was Hiruzen's greatest feat? He orchestrated the Uchiha massacre from start to finish, yet he managed to keep his own hands completely clean. In the end, Sasuke only believed Danzo was the true culprit.
Hiruzen employed similar tactics in the White Fang incident, the Wood Style replication experiments, and even Orochimaru's eventual defection. On the surface, they all seemed to be Danzo's handiwork, with the Third being guilty of, at most, negligent oversight.