Stories from Solitary Shinobi
Collections of long talks with select shinobi around the world.
My home. Kirigakure no Sato. A fucking miserable cesspit where there's more funerals than puddles every day. Oh, and you can just forget any of the things you've heard about us. "The Bloody Mist", "The Land of Bloody Rivers", every stupid little pun a civilian can think of. Discard it all. You can discard every nickname legend story about any Shinobi village ever. We are at war. And information is power.
Civilian films are all the same. Some foolhardy Genin from a civilian family goes up against the evil ronin with the help of a dorky clan heir and a cute girl that turns out to be an infiltrator. The few that don't share the same storyline are often ones that slipped past through their land's media censors and whose directors 'mysteriously die of uncertain circumstances'. Doesn't fool anybody, but keeps the dumb ones happy.
Talk to any Shinobi now and they'll tell you the real stories. Anyone that's worth any thing will tell you the same thing. It's war. From the moment you're born in one of the Villages to the moment you die infiltrating another, you are at war. It isn't out in the open of course. If any of our Shinobi were to be found in Iwa's borders they'd accept the usual ronin excuse. Any less would throw the entire board off the table and plunge the world as we know it into a chaos worse than the Clan days.
So, let's clear up some misconceptions. No, before the fucking Sellout became a national goddamn hero we did not actually force the lower shinobi to kill each other. It was a way to keep out the little prissies and find the kind of psychopaths shinobi need to be. No, people with Kekkei Genkai are not treated any worse than any other new recruit. It's just that they're often reluctant to give the full details of their abilities and that makes them an unforgivable liability for any hidden village.
Almost every hidden village's Academy is the same. Sure the curriculum is all about how to infiltrate each other and how to tell friend to soon-to-be-dead, but the only outlier is goddamn Konoha. Konoha is the only major village to keep using the 3 man team system after graduation, and what's scary is that it still works. Every hidden village's best researchers have attempted to find out what exactly do they do to keep their Genin from dying on their first day out. I mean, a Genin isn't stupid. They should know the basic Three (Bunshin, Kawarimi, and Henge). They should also know to run like hell If they run into anything bigger than themselves. But put a group of Genin together? They'll die faster than Iwa nin in Konoha!
Hahahah, oh yea. Anyways, most normal Villages keep Genin separate after graduation. They're expected to make the most out of their own skills and grow with a handler (Usually a bored Chunin waiting for their promotion) loosely overseeing. Konoha instead wastes their Jonin's valuable time teaching little shits whose only purpose is to die for their geniuses. Side note: Konoha actually doesn't have a significantly larger amount of shinobi geniuses than other villages. They just let theirs run around more freely.
Here's my damn question. How the hell did Konoha manage to make it so they're the good guys? I've seen them throw 9 year old Genin just out of the Academy and throw them into literal slaughter pits while telling them their 'teamwork' could get them through. And they'll come back and ask for more! Seriously, here's the damn thing about Konoha. You don't fuck with them. Ever. It isn't like with Kiri. You know you'll die If you try. Hell even with the other Great Villages. Even Amegakure. But with Konoha you kill one of them all of them will come after you. There's nowhere, nowhere remote or deadly enough for you to hide from a pissed off Konoha nin. And they'll throw kid after kid at you until either: 1. You're too old to fight them off, or 2. You're dead. It's their damn PR I swear. You get one cool fucking fuinjutsu master and suddenly you're the saint. There's a damn reason we wiped out Uzushiogakure.
Anyways, here I am. Speaking to you. I'm nothing special. You'll never see my name in the newspaper or whispers in the back of bars. I'm just another Rain nin with a Water specialty. But you see, "Deiton! Jiban Deika!" The surrounding area's dirt suddenly becomes mud. I've got a mission to fulfill.