"These are the people we need to kill."
In Yuji's home, the two of them sat facing each other. Sasori waited until he was certain no one was watching, then placed a stack of documents on the table for Yuji to review.
Backgrounds, positions, relationships between key figures across the village's institutions and departments.
Yuji hadn't expected Sasori to have moved this efficiently. He had only been in the Anbu a short time, and he had already mapped out enough of the internal structure to produce something this detailed.
The names he had flagged were all part of the faction supporting the Third Kazekage. Clearly, Sasori had not been idle while Yuji was on the coast.
Yuji turned through the pages and stopped.
He picked up one sheet and looked at the name on it, then looked at Sasori.
Chiyo.
In Sasori's assessment, changing the Hidden Sand Village required removing her as well.
Yuji set the sheet down and was quiet for a moment.
Chiyo was part of the same leadership structure, operating with the same general disposition as the Kazekage. In the original story, Rasa's decision to seal the One-Tail into Gaara and Pakura's death had both carried her authorization.
She had made real mistakes at the highest level. But she was not rigidly committed to a dark path the way the Kazekage was, and she was capable of recognizing when something had gone wrong, even if slowly.
Beyond that, her value to the village as a Puppeteer and as a Medical Ninja was difficult to replace. And then there was her relationship with Sasori himself.
None of it added up to putting her on the list.
"The death of a single Kazekage would already have enormous consequences for the village," Yuji said carefully. "If Grandma Chiyo were to pass away at the same time, the Hidden Sand Village would have almost no prominent figures left in the eyes of other hostile villages." He coughed slightly.
"Our overall standing among the Five Great Villages is already at the bottom in terms of economy, population, and military strength. Even the Hidden Mist has an edge on us in several of those areas. We cannot afford to create that kind of vacuum."
"I understand," Sasori said. "These people cannot all be removed at once without leaving a gap in the village's combat power that enemies could exploit. My thinking is to take them out one by one over the coming period. Several years of gradual transition.
Let the power structure renew and iterate slowly, completing the reshuffle without producing a single visible break."
Yuji looked at him with mild surprise.
He hadn't expected that from Sasori. The always cold, direct, uncompromising Sasori had arrived at a considered and patient strategic position. Given that the plan they were executing now was considerably more complex than Sasori simply assassinating the Kazekage, as he had done in the original story, this kind of thinking was necessary. It was also not something Yuji had assumed Sasori would arrive at on his own.
"You did well," Sasori said, redirecting. "The Kazekage will probably give you a formal appointment soon. Have you thought about which department?"
Yuji was a Medical Ninja. The Medical Department was the obvious answer. Taking over the village's entire medical system was not beyond his current qualifications, and no one with any awareness of his record would seriously object.
Sasori's own path had involved constant mission accumulation, building a resume through volume and frequency. Yuji had come back from the coast having repelled a Hidden Mist incursion and engaged Yagura Karatachi directly, an outcome that had spread through the operational zone and reached the village before he did. The military merit attached to that alone guaranteed a meaningful appointment from the Kazekage.
Their two and a half years on various battlefields had not been wasted.
"I want to join the Council of Advisors," Yuji said, smiling.
Sasori was silent for a moment.
"Why?"
The Council of Advisors was, by most practical measures, the department with the least direct power in the village's structure. Its function was to assist the Kazekage across various areas and provide suggestions, which were not necessarily adopted. A think tank, essentially.
Its membership tended toward older and more experienced figures, and some were not even shinobi, just people with specific expertise in areas like trade and development who had participated in significant reform efforts in the past.
A few had served under the Second Kazekage and been part of the structural changes the village had undergone in that era.
There were exceptions. Ebizo held real influence within the Council, but that influence came from his personal military history and his standing within the Chiyo family rather than from the position itself.
His voice carried weight because people had seen what he was capable of and because his reputation was beyond challenge. The position alone would not have produced the same result for anyone else.
If Yuji joined the Council of Advisors, the higher-ups would consider what he said. They would not treat it the way they treated Ebizo.
Ebizo held the Advisor title but was effectively responsible for managing the village's intelligence and espionage operations. That was where the real function of his position sat.
For anyone else, the Council of Advisors was an institution for accumulating seniority and building profile over time. Given Yuji's age, entering it would likely mean spending years as background presence while older and more established voices occupied the actual space of the room.
Sasori knew Yuji wasn't doing this without a reason.
"I need to find out exactly what the village's situation looks like from the inside. Population birth rates, finances, assets, labor capacity, trade routes with the outside. That level of detail only exists in the Council's records. Other departments don't touch these administrative affairs and don't track them closely."
Yuji smiled. "The village lockdown has been lifted for a while now, but you can feel it as well as I can. The current situation is not optimistic. I need to find a way to improve things and push the village's economy forward during this relatively quiet period.
And there's another reason. Only by becoming an Advisor do I get regular access to the Daimyo's Mansion, which means contact with the Daimyo of the Land of Wind." He paused. "I'm doing it for that relationship. It has nothing to do with the Kazekage."
Sasori said nothing for a moment.
"If you take the initiative to request the Medical Department from the Kazekage, our plan becomes easier. Some of these people could die in a hospital without drawing any particular attention."
"There's no rush for that. Sometimes we don't need to take risks ourselves." Yuji looked at the documents again. "Pay attention to the relationships between these figures. They all belong to the core faction supporting the Third Kazekage, but that doesn't mean they're unified.
There are almost certainly tensions within that group. The most obvious pressure point is Rasa. His rise represents the new generation, and anyone with eyes can see that once the Third steps down, Rasa is the most likely successor.
I find it very hard to believe that none of the old guard around the Third Kazekage feels any unease about that. Someone in that circle is probably already working against their own allies. The closer people are to the center of power, the more intensely they want it.
If the Hidden Sand Village were truly pulling in one direction, the village wouldn't be in the state it's currently in."
He set the documents down.
"We haven't paid enough attention to this aspect before and don't know enough about it yet. Now is the time to analyze it carefully.
People are fundamentally self-interested. Fan the right flames and let them create problems for each other."
Yuji laughed.
Sasori was quiet.
"Is something wrong?" Yuji asked.
"No. You've simply confirmed my assessment of you once again."
"Which assessment?"
"You are very sinister."
"..."
..
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