It was a remarkable scene. After the jonin vote, all four candidates with wildly differing vote counts somehow felt they still had a chance.
Those in the lead felt victory was already theirs, while those temporarily behind believed they could still turn things around. The villagers' voting stage had been burdened with hopes it was never meant to bear.
Unlike the jonin vote, the number of villagers was more than a hundred times that of the Konoha Jonin Corps. Looking across all of Konoha, the only place capable of holding so many people at once was the large plaza near Hokage Rock.
What?
You said Training Ground No. 44—the Forest of Death—could work too?
Well...
Were you trying to use this election to kill every single villager in Konoha?
The villagers' voting process was somewhat more complicated than the jonin vote.
First, after the first round of voting, the four candidates with the most votes would give speeches atop Hokage Rock, in descending order of their vote totals.
Why take the top four rather than five or three?
Why have them speak in order from most votes to fewest?
Because these rules had been designed specifically for Haruno Mebuki!
After the speeches, the villagers would write the numbers one, two, three, and four on paper to indicate whom they supported.
After the count, those votes would be added to the weighted value of the first-round totals to determine the final result.
Under Torifu Akimichi's direction, the first to speak was Fugaku Uchiha.
The middle-aged man, deep nasolabial folds carved into his face, stood atop the Second Hokage's stone head and called out to the villagers below:
"I am Fugaku Uchiha, patriarch of the Uchiha Clan. The Uchiha Clan is the only one of the two clans that founded this village