Disclaimer: Original Naruto Concept © Masashi Kishimoto, and is used without permission. Original Storyline Concept © Silent Magi, and is used with full permission.
Author's Note: The original story that 'Collared' is based on, known simply as 'Collar' and written by Silent Magi, was a loose cross-fusion of Naruto with the concepts and some elements of the original version of the recently restarted Collar Six web comic, written by Fiona Wallace. The original 'Collar' ended abruptly due to the writer quitting fanfiction writing.
I was co-writing the story with them at the time, and this is intended to be a new version of the concept of 'Collar', removing material blatantly copied from Fiona Wallace's work, as well as other minor fanservice elements that didn't serve to help the story in general.
Collared
Prologue: The War Against The Syndicate
It all began when abruptly, in the middle of one of the greatest conflicts within the early Elemental Nations, the great World Tree, Datara, acted, and several million people ceased to live, the armies of all sides practically wiped out. The Sage Of Six Paths, Haguromo Otsutsuki, declared that Datara's act was a wake-up call for the world, and declared that the traditional armies would be declared illegal, and that the hostile actions that lead to Datara's cull of humanity needed to stop now.
He instated a form of compulsory indentured servitude, where a lord could, for all intents and purposes, buy the lifetime services of those people who wished to continue to fight for them, with similar contracts being drawn up for trusted assistants and the staff who worked for a land owner. While it was, to put it politely, still legalized slavery, It was regulated, and allowed for the careful management of human rights and needs.
However, These early contracts only covered the Daimyos and feudal lords, with a movement within the populace pointing out that it meant the lords had ultimate say over anyone's status. A group rose up within the ranks of the populace, claiming that it allowed those wealthy land owners to continue to keep private armies and control the populace
This created resentment with the poorer population, who felt that nothing would stop the feudal lords from making it compulsory outside the labour types covered by Haguromo's requirements. As a result, the regulations were reworked, and brought under what was soon named the Master's Guild, giving control to a group of elected officials from all walks of life.
Part of the Guild's new polices was to allow for any person who employed at least one person for more than six hours a day to approach the Guild and become a Master, with the same regulatory oversight and agreements about the treatment of staff, which nullified the issues that the populace had with the expanding remit of the laws.
What happened next unsettled Haguromo, as the feudal lords began asking why he was allowing such a broad spectrum of people to claim ownership of their employees, which meant that many people no longer were potentially under their remit, their contracts rendered null and void. He could see conflict brewing, no matter what he did.
Haguromo then bought out as many military contracts as he could afford, forming a group, made up of predominantly kunoichi, who became the first Enforcers, intimidating combat-trained personnel, neither slave nor master, as a group known as Guild Security & Judgement, or GSJ, a globally active police force who answered to no-one.
The Enforcers authority outstripped anyone, and could, without prior notice, deploy one or more officials to an area that was showing signs of anti-Guild sentiment, GSJ's first mission being to find out why it seemed like nothing could placate the people, and why it seemed like, despite Haguromo's demands, war was still brewing.
What Haguromo suspected, and GSJ confirmed, was that these pockets of abrupt unrest were not accidental or coincidental. They were caused by the Syndicate, a self-proclaimed 'protest group' headed up by Kaguya Otsutsuki.
They approached those slightly inconvenienced by whatever policy changes he did, before spreading exaggerated and untrue statements about what the policy change really meant, which spread quickly and created the troubles that had dogged him so much, and forced him to make changes to placate those the Syndicate persuaded to complain.
If he favoured the feudal lords, talk spread through Syndicate mouthpieces of him planning to give the lords more authority, including the outright false claim that he'd downgrade the rights of the civilian masters as a result. When he then went over to the civilians to deal with their problems, implications were spread that he was giving with one hand and taking away with the other, burying Haguromo under dispute after dispute after dispute.
This would have remained as such, if it wasn't for GSJ. The formation of GSJ freed him from such disputes, and brought the Syndicate's true plan to light. Due to Haguromo spending so long dealing with political in-fighting within the Guild strongholds, weaker coverage areas had their Guild-appointed governors assassinated and replaced by fakes whose only purpose was to stir up unrest and suspicions about the guild.
Within Syndicate infiltrated areas, the fake governor and their supporters were the only ones to own or trade in slaves. Common rights were taken away, while regulations were drawn up that persecuted and punished the general populace, giving them the feelings that the Guild was squeezing them for every penny they owned to cover Guild expenses.
A Syndicate operation made it seem like a contract denied any further payment to the seller, was often far below the realistic value of the person, and denied them any money outside of bare essentials, while the Guild, in comparison, was actually overly generous, giving large amounts of what the owner of a slave expected to make to those who sold the slave, as well as paying the slave generous wages. Several people had actually bought out their own contract since the payments were so generous within the Guild.
What GSJ had discovered was that the Syndicate leadership were forcing places they controlled to, by Syndicate law, sell a certain number of slaves every week. These slaves were not recorded in any books, and any books seized by GSJ sting operations only listed the tribute payments, and the area's financial wealth. Haguromo was worried about the financial security of those places, and the fact they breached several regulations wilfully and with deliberate intent to deceive.
A couple of smaller communities that had been caught up in this 'false flag' operation were deserted ghost towns, Haguromo entering one to be pelted by rotten food, with the people shouting for him to return their families, their money and their livelihood, with Haguromo noticing that the shops weren't just deserted, they were empty, and had been for some time.
A check with the customs office had the clerk there state that the Guild had stopped all trade traffic into the area due to a balance shortfall, and the area was as good as bankrupt. A check with a blacksmith's shop had the old man in charge glare at the leader of the Guild, for him to approach in befuddlement.
"I had a son and daughter, training them in the trade, Nothing wrong with that..." The man stated, Haguromo nodding slowly, "Your lapdogs didn't think so. They fucking cut off my metal shipments, pretty much leave me bankrupt, then, when I can't cover my tribute, my kids are sold for peanuts to some foreign Master! They were skilled kids, and you gave me a few weeks before you drained even my cut of the sale! How is that a fair system? I almost think you made sure I could only just pay a month!"
Haguromo looked over the receipts from the tribute and sale of his children, frowning. The marks were very good fakes, but still fakes. He studied the valuation, and the man looked confused as Haguromo waved to one of his attendants, handing the information to the woman, who put on a pair of glasses, her fingers dancing over some kind of device strapped to her arm, She then took out a pen, scribbling something on the valuation, before handing it back to Haguromo.
"These valuations are faked, My associate here did her own valuation, and, with the skills listed for your children, they were undervalued, and certain information concerning their grading is missing." Haguromo stated firmly, "This has been happening more and more in remote areas I am unable to oversee myself regularly, where below-quality valuations are offered, ostensibly as they cover your debt to the Guild. I wish to state one thing..."
He went into one of his scrolls, adjusting some seals before he took out a thick stack of ryo, squaring it off before leaving it on the table in front of the man. "While we were not the ones who sold them, we will repay the money effectively stolen from you by those who bore our name," Haguromo stated, the man counting the notes in confusion, before realising what Haguromo meant.
"You're giving me a small fortune for my kids… Why?" The man asked, "That's far in excess of what I got for them..."
"Sales fee for a Skilled Bronze Lineage Slave, adjusted to take into account the valuation, plus… One year's payments to you as the person listed as the previous 'owner'," The woman stated, "We have had to estimate the payments, due to not having a proper ledger of sale. Admittedly, The day we find one of those, this wouldn't happen..."
A few weeks later, GSJ located the children, and they were returned, thankfully having remained unsold, due to the Syndicate broker, being the usual greedy mercenary, inflating their price a bit too much, the man horrified at how much he'd been paid but the broker had offered.
"He gave me fucking peppercorn compared to what he was taking!" The man growled, "Barely one percent of his take, and you say that what you gave me was the Guild rate?"
"The valuation he'd given them was, as common with Syndicate sales, akin to an Expert Silver Lineage Slave within the Guild," Haguromo stated as he met with the man, "The highest ranking members of the Syndicate have billions in ryo. The Queen Of The Syndicate is said to have a personal fortune of several trillion..."
"So, they force people like me to pay through the nose, sell our kin for vastly inflated prices after paying us a cursory payment..." The man questioned.
"They want as many people as possible to resent the Guild. Protest leads to conflict, conflict leads to war, war leads to death..." Haguromo declared.
"I heard something like that being muttered by the guy who took my kids..." The man offered.
"Syndicate motto. Their god, Datara, wiped out a hefty amount of the people of the Nations because they were engaged in pointless conflict..." Haguromo declared, "For all it's a god of peace, it's followers just beat the war drums and profit off it,"
The family moved to Uzushiogakure, the compensation payment covering the medical aid the family needed. Meanwhile, their village was recovering, with GSJ now being wary of areas that 'went dark' over trade and other market traffic. So far, they'd managed to close down several Syndicate operations following the same pattern.
By the time Haguromo passed away, the Guild was the defacto ruling caste of the Elemental Nations, the most powerful men and women of each nation signified by their personal employment of a small contingent of Enforcers, strictly required by Guild law to only draw a weapon in defence of the Guild's interests, nothing more.
While the ranks of Enforcers swelled, this regulation meant that, even though every nation employed a small army of them, there had been no need, at the time, for the Guild to go to war. There were still areas affected by the Syndicate's ongoing attempts to stir up unrest, to draw the Guild to deploy it's Enforcers in a war footing, which they knew would just draw the ire of Datara, and cause the world to be forfeit once more.
The ongoing rumours the unrest was since the Syndicate believed that Datara should have 'finished the job' were kept behind closed doors. No-one wanted to think of what they meant.