After the Daimyo of the Land of Wind stormed out of court, the other ministers exchanged uneasy looks. Some regretted showing such disrespect to their ruler, but this was no longer a question of respect. The Land of Wind had reached its most dangerous moment, facing a crisis unlike any it had seen since the Five Great Nations had taken shape.
As the minister had said earlier, all of this was, to some extent, the result of the Daimyo of the Land of Wind's reckless misrule and his decision to launch a war on his own authority. Although many of them had agreed to the war when it began, they now refused to acknowledge any fault of their own and dumped all the blame on the Daimyo.
They would not normally have shirked responsibility so completely. The reason things had reached this point was precisely what the Daimyo of the Land of Wind had sensed before leaving: a movement to overthrow him had already begun spreading in secret among the country's nobles.
The Former Daimyo had died suddenly, and the current Daimyo had resorted to some unsavory maneuvers to ensure his swift succession. Whether or not the Former Daimyo had been murdered, his death had never been properly explained.
With the circumstances unclear, people could secretly speculate that the current Daimyo had been behind it. Whether he actually had been or not, many had begun to believe it—or perhaps they simply needed an excuse to overthrow this reckless ruler.
Konoha's Anbu had helped encourage this idea. Under Kazemori Masaki's orders, they had first spread rumors in the Capital that the current Daimyo had murdered his predecessor, then secretly contacted nobles of the Peace Faction and made it clear that his removal was one of their conditions for a ceasefire.
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