Last Resort
"Inform the councilors that I want them present for a meeting at five o'clock in the evening tomorrow. Tell Yashamaru that he needs to be there too. And have the people on this list report to me at three in the afternoon."
"Yes, sir."
There's something the Kazekage's noticed about the advisory council and its members over the years. When they still served as active shinobi, they were men of action. They were the sort who could make a decision quickly and carry it out with equal speed. It's hard to believe these were once the same men who led troops into battle and could come up with sane decisions and sound battle strategies on the quick, to listen to them now.
He's not sure what it is. Maybe the years of sedentary life has robbed the councilors of their capacity to come to a consensus quickly. But what he's come to realize over the years is that these men are incapable of coming to a conclusion without arguing about it for hours on end. They debate, they squabble, they argue about things that aren't even tangentially on topic for the meeting at hand, and they resent all attempts to keep them on topic. Meetings that ought to take fifteen minutes at the most often end up running longer than an hour; it's ridiculous.
However, the fact that the councilors also often tend to forget that their leader is even in the room with them gives the Kazekage time to think.
"Why aren't you stopping him?" a councilor, Goza by name, demands of Yashamaru, glaring at the medic. It's obvious to whom Goza is referring. "You're the boy's caretaker; can't you control him?!"
Yashamaru has never been present for a council meeting before—usually, the only people allowed in the council chamber while the council is in-session is the Kazekage, the councilors, and, when need be, the councilor's aides—and he sits, uncomfortable, in one of the high-backed stone chairs. "Gaara is a child, not a dog," Yashamaru points out defensively. "I can't control him the way you control an unruly beast."
He's roundly ignored, and the room descends into cacophony once more.
While the council argues amongst itself, the Kazekage goes over plans in his head. He's recruited several dozen ANBU and jonin to stage an evacuation starting at two in the morning tomorrow. It's estimated that it will take at least eighteen hours to get everyone out of the village. Now if he can just keep Gaara from noticing what's going on…
"What was it the daimyo said in his last letter?" Kouhei asks, grimacing hideously and rubbing his forehead. "Funding to the village will be cut if our profits continue to slump!"
"If the village's standing forces continue to dwindle, Sunagakure will be weakened beyond hope of recovery!" Goza shouts. "We must have a trump card when bargaining with the other nations; something has to be done about the Shukaku!"
At this point, Ryusa, another councilor, speaks up, far more calmly than Goza; as a whole, he's one of the few members of the council who almost never loses his composure. However, given the views he tends to espouse, that isn't always a good thing. "Since the jinchuuriki is useless, we'll simply have to rely on the development of new jutsus and the gold trade to keep the village afloat. As for Gaara…"
The hard tone in Ryusa's voice makes it clear where he's going with this. Yashamaru stiffens, his jaw locking up, and the Kazekage decides that this is just as good a time as any to cut Ryusa and the rest of them off before they can start trying to impress upon him the importance of having Gaara "eliminated"—again.
"Gentlemen." The Kazekage stands, and some of the councilors blink as though they've just now noticed that he's in the room with them. "I have already made my decision as to what to do with Gaara." A couple raise their voices, but he raises his hand to silence them. "I have made my decision. The discussion is closed. You all will receive an evacuation notice some time tomorrow; I expect you to obey it. This meeting is adjourned."
Hopefully that will satisfy them for now. Judging by the way some of them nod among themselves as they leave, they seem to have taken his vague instructions as a decision in favor of assassination; either way, they seem satisfied that their leader's finally stopped waffling over what to do with his wayward son. Yashamaru remains seated even as the chamber starts to empty. Going by the strained look around his mouth and eyes, having listened to all the concerns raised by the councilors, having listened to them point out the daimyo's "concerns", he seems to have grasped the reality of the situation Suna (and Gaara) finds itself in.
Good. I don't think he'd realize the gravity of the situation unless he could hear all this for himself.
"Yashamaru." He looks up, startled to be torn from the privacy of his own thoughts. The Kazekage motions for him to follow him out of the council chamber.
Once they're in the privacy of the Kazekage's office, the silence gives way to talk of the matter at hand. "I take it you understand the situation?" he asks, from his place standing at the window. The sun is setting over the dunes and the steppes and the cityscape of Sunagakure. Rooftops are doused in a ruby haze and the always bronze-tinted skies gleam gold. Hexagonal shadows scatter on the floor from the terracotta lattice over the window. The crowds have begun to thin out as shops close up for the night. They've started closing up a bit earlier than usual, of late.
Yashamaru hesitates before answering, the measure between his drawn breath and his words forming a palpable entity made up of all his negative emotions. "…Yes." Another pause comes; he can hear the moist, smacking sound of Yashamaru licking his lips. "Yes, sir, I do."
The Kazekage nods. "Good. Then you also understand the position I'm in, I suppose."
"Y-yes, sir." Yashamaru audibly swallows. "You're going ahead with the assassination, then?" He sounds sick. He sounds like a man on the edge of tears, distraught enough to break the age-old taboo against wasting water. And he sounds… He sounds vaguely disgusted. Or not vaguely, and the depth of his emotions can't be expressed through the thickness in his voice.
He turns to look at his brother-in-law briefly. "Not exactly." Yashamaru's face brightens like the sun deciding that maybe it won't set so soon after all. Somehow, that makes this even harder than it was going to be to start with. "I have a job for you."
Yashamaru frowns warily, instead of accepting it immediately as he might have done under less dubious circumstances. "What kind of job?"
The Kazekage sighs wearily, turning his gaze back out the window. "I need to know if the Shukaku can still berserk in its current state—and I need to know if Gaara still possesses the self-control needed to keep it from going berserk."
From the faint, blurry reflection in the glass, he can see Yashamaru nod. "If it could be proven that Gaara still has that much control over the Shukaku, that might be enough to convince the councilors that he doesn't need to be killed." He stiffens, starting to fiddle uncomfortably with the bandages at his wrist—a bloody memento, along with his bandage-wrapped forehead, of Gaara's last attack. "but where do I fit in to this?"
I suppose he wouldn't come to that conclusion right away. But it would have been so much easier if he had. If he already understood what I need him to do…
"I… I suspect that the only way we could discover if the Shukaku still has the capacity to berserk is to subject Gaara to a severe emotional shock. I don't think that simply trying to kill him would do the trick. Do you understand what your part in that is to be?"
If someone is to test Gaara's emotional control by stretching it to its breaking point, that tester absolutely has to be Yashamaru. No one else is close enough to Gaara for a psychological attack to make any impact. But at the same time, though it's the only way to forestall an otherwise inevitable assassination, he doesn't really like this plan. It seems such an underhanded thing to do to them both. But it's the only way. It has to be done. He finds it easy to quell any pangs of conscience when he considers the alternative.
Yashamaru shifts his weight; even with the window's vague reflection, the Kazekage can see dawning realization make its stamp on the medic's rapidly paling face. "But Gaara is just a child," he puts forward as a weak protest.
Yes, I'm well aware of that. I could hardly fail to notice that about my own son. He doesn't answer Yashamaru right away, instead staring beyond Yashamaru's reflection out to the wastelands beyond. He briefly catches sight of his own face in the glass, hard, stern, perhaps too much so. Perhaps trying to hide his own uncertainty about this and everything. He tears his eyes away from that familiar countenance.
With his kind, sentimental heart—how does such sentimentality thrive in the heart of an ANBU agent?—Yashamaru wouldn't want to subject Gaara to such a test. With the love he feels for his nephew, Yashamaru wouldn't want to do anything that would carry even a remote risk of breaking him emotionally. Well, he can understand that. The risks that come with such a plan make him want to balk. But it's the only way.
And there's another danger, as well. As the Kazekage recalls, Konohagakure and certain other villages use seals on their jinchuuriki that are designed for the express purpose of keeping the bijuu locked up tight. If the bijuu fully manifests, that means that the seal has failed and the jinchuuriki is dead. However, that's not the case for the seal used on the jinchuuriki of the Ichibi, Shukaku.
The seal used in Sunagakure was designed to allow the Shukaku to fully manifest without killing its host in the process—after all, it's pretty hard for a jinchuuriki to be a living weapon if said jinchuuriki dies every time they unleash the full extent of their power on the enemy. The seal functions as an open-and-shut valve. It opens when the jinchuuriki performs the False Sleep jutsu to unleash the Shukaku and shuts when the Shukaku runs out of chakra (It could also, theoretically, shut when the Shukaku decided it was done rampaging and killing things, but to the best of the Kazekage's knowledge, that's never actually happened).
However, there is a risk to allowing the Shukaku to manifest under anything other than completely controlled circumstances. Chiyo and other authorities on sealing have studied the past jinchuuriki hosts after they let the Shukaku rampage without first having utilized the False Sleep jutsu, and they surmised that this causes the host's personality to fragment and be absorbed by the bijuu's massive consciousness at an accelerated rate. If the Shukaku rampages out of control for too long, by the time it's subdued and the host is allowed dominance again, there could very well be nothing left of the host's original personality.
"A psychological attack will have to be accompanied by a physical one," Yashamaru presses. "It won't carry much weight otherwise. These days, when Gaara is confronted by a physical attack the sand does not just defend him; it aim to kill the attacker. I could be killed before I could even administer the "test" to him. There would be left no one…" His voice cracks and he swallows hard "…no one who would be willing to care for him. Sir, he really is just a boy."
"He's not just a boy!" the Kazekage snaps, glaring at Yashamaru out of one eye and damning the pleading note in the younger man's voice in his mind. "He is the jinchuuriki of Sunagakure. Even as he is now he has obligations that go beyond that of the ordinary shinobi, as do I, and as do you. I can not afford to treat him as I would a normal child, as I would if he were both my son and not the Shukaku's host. Nor can you afford to treat him as though he was both your nephew and a normal boy. This must go forward, regardless of the consequences."
Yes, he's aware that if Yashamaru dies, Gaara will be left without a caretaker, and that even if he doesn't, it's unlikely that Yashamaru would be able to continue as his caretaker (Which for Yashamaru might qualify as a worse fate). The Kazekage doesn't relish the thought of Yashamaru dying. They've never been friends, but he does respect him. Yashamaru's a good medic, a good ANBU agent, and he's tried his best to be a good parent to his troubled charge. If Yashamaru dies, he loses a medic, a member of ANBU, and the only shinobi in the village who is both qualified and willing to take care of Gaara. I can't afford to lose any more shinobi than I already have over this. We lose enough to missions gone wrong, to illness and injury. But if this can keep me from having to kill him…
"When you confront him, speak of his mother. Say whatever you feel you have to in order to make this a proper test of his control. If he does not lose control even then, I will refrain from having him dealt with."
Yashamaru's demeanor changes, eyes growing ever sharper and face waxing pale until he more resembles one of the dolls sold in the shops below than a man. "My sister," he echoes softly, abstracted. Then, he demurs in a low voice, "I don't think that's wise, sir."
What Yashamaru gets in response is the "pleasant" sight of his leader shooting a cold glower in his direction. "I know damn well it isn't wise," he retorts, curling his lip. "Nothing's more likely to set him off than that. I'm well aware that he adores his mother. But as a jinchuuriki, he must be able to endure even that loss!"
They're both aware, intimately aware in this moment, of the insanity at the heart of what he's suggesting be done. Subjecting such a young child to this test carries a high likelihood of failure, and even if it does not, will change the boy's relationship with his home village drastically. But they're both equally aware also that if this plan isn't carried out, all hope of sparing Gaara death will be lost. No words need be passed to know that.
Yashamaru nods, jaw set, glassy gray eyes gleaming with an odd, almost feverish light.
With that, the atmosphere in the office goes from tense to strictly businesslike. "Good. I have to ask you not to go ahead with it until at least ten tomorrow night, or later, depending on how long it takes to evacuate all the villagers and get them a safe distance from the village itself. There will be nine groups; those in charge of each group have been instructed to light a signal flare when they're safely away from the village. I will be here, in case things go wrong. Now, if you could keep Gaara from noticing…"
Yashamaru shakes his fair-haired head. "I don't think I'll have to do that much, sir. Gaara has barely left his room at all since he came home last night. That's how it usually is after one of his "attacks." If he tries to leave before then, I'll just ask him to stay inside."
The Kazekage nods, crossing his arms and turning his gaze back to the window. "If you understand, then you're dismissed."
Yashamaru's light footsteps barely echo across the floor as he starts to leave.
"Yashamaru?"
The footsteps stop.
"If… If you do die, tell your sister that she was right."
"Sir?" The suggestion of confusion laces the word.
"She'll understand."
I know it seemed like, in the anime, Gaara attacked those kids at the playground and was attacked by Yashamaru within the span of a few hours (at least it seemed that way to me), but the information we got in chapter 547 necessitated me altering that a bit to fix the problems with continuity and plausibility that created. Namely, the issue of the evacuation. The fact that there was anyone around when Gaara tried to give that kid ointment means that the evacuation either hadn't taken place yet or wasn't finished (And somehow, I don't think shinobi would actually give anyone a choice about evacuating or not evacuating).
Now, the total evacuation of Sunagakure's going to take more than a couple of hours. If you go by the Naruto wiki Kaze no Kuni's got the smallest population of the five main nations, but my guess is that Suna's got the largest population in relation to the five main hidden villages themselves; after all, there's not a whole lot of places in Kaze no Kuni where anyone can actually live comfortably. And since there's no cars, everyone who's evacuating will be doing so on foot, while carrying the provisions (food, water, and such) that they'll need to survive for as long. They'd have to stagger who's evacuated when to keep from clogging up the gates, and would have to get far enough away from the village that they'd be relatively out of danger if the Shukaku manifested. My guess is that all of this will take at least eighteen to twenty hours, if not longer.
And as for Gaara not noticing the mass migration (even if he is in his room the whole time) and the fact that the village is mysteriously empty once he does decide to venture out of the house? He's a mentally unstable six-year-old with a demonic voice in his head. Anything's possible.