10/10
When she first found out she was pregnant she knew it would be a girl. The thought had come and settled in her mind like a drifting seed. Once her mind is set on something woe to the person who beset to change it. Minato had doubted her, the few times he ever did.
How could you possibly know? He asked, though in the manner in which he asked why a seal might function the way that it does or why the earth rotates and why the sun sinks below the horizon and why the moon never abandons its place in the sky.
She had just smiled at him and pointed at herself. Because I'm the mother. That was answer enough for him.
This girl will be her mother's daughter through and through, Mikoto had commented one summer evening at a local tea shop, fresh from childbirth herself. Kushina never failed to complain about the way her child kicked and kicked at her stomach, though with a mother's pride. It was an inside joke among their circle of friends.
Oh yes, Mikoto had laughed, a slither of sunlight dancing on her lovely face, this girl is her mother's child.
But even Kushina had had her doubts. She spent countless afternoons wondering if perhaps it was a boy, wondering if the child would even look like her, and she wondered if it would be a curse if the child did.
Never, Minato had answered in earnest, kissing her deeply. He rubbed and rubbed at her belly. A blessing, he whispered.
What would she have done without him?
She had come to Konoha in the spring, (barely a girl let alone a woman) where everything was green and dull, a far cry from the topless towers of blue and gold and every bright audacious color her people could get ahold of. Where beautiful birds of every flock graced clear skies and children danced along the shores of white-sanded beaches, kissed by the tides of a clear blue ocean. People smiled freely there and the air smelled of freshly cut fruit and salt.
Konoha smelled of pine and soil, and the towering trees devoured the sky and the only birds were crows. Whenever she looked up there was a building skewing her view, and the monument that overlooked the village was overwhelming. It felt like those stone eyes were following her everywhere, condemning her as a foreigner, as an outsider. You don't belong here, they seemed to say. And you never will.
She'd hated it there. She had wanted to go home. She never would.
Minato had gotten her through it, in his own way, no matter how much she had resented him for it as a young girl. She loved him for it as a woman, still loves him for it now. Always getting them through things, in his own way, even when death is near.
It was in the autumn that she learned she was to leave her home. And it was in the autumn that she learned she would never be able to return to it.
Such is the way of the world. Kushina had learned that lesson early. That autumn is where things go to die. It is her first thought at the beginning of her death and her daughter is her last. She chuckles a little, though in her ears it sounds like a scream.
I knew she would be a girl.
An Address to the People (That Never Came to Pass)
10/08/XXXX
The Warring States Era is a bloody stain on the history of our founding, that is often quickly dismissed, forgotten, and buried in the archives. Safely kept from the prying eyes of our youth. My hope is to rectify that.
The Shogun Wars that predated this period had created a power vacuum that would bring forth an era of constant warfare. Clans kept to themselves and served only their interests.
When the empires fell, as empires always do, the land splinted into a thousand pieces, land filled with game and rich soil for crops. It was all up for grabs. It's no wonder then, that the Senju came to the Land of Fire, though no one is quite sure where from. Perhaps from the disputed lands between Earth and Lighting, or from the islands where their sister clan once presided. It is all up for speculation. But when they came, they came with religion and riches and power. They appealed to the self-styled Daimyo of the time (who must have been as impressionable then as they are today) but owned little more than ¼ of the land that they own now.
At the time, the majority of the land belonged to powerful clans, but none more so than the Uchiha clan who'd taken precedence over the land since the dawn ages, descendants of the offspring from the indigenous people and migrants whose identity remains ambiguous...and who might have carried the genetic mutation known as the Sharingan or as the Lord Second would have called it, the Curse of Hatred.
(Minato pauses in his writing, massaging his temple. There is a dull throb there and it only grows in pain as he looks at the scattering of dusty scrolls and books he'd taken from the archives. He sought to compress all of that knowledge into a journal with no more than two hundred pages. He looks at the clock, a quarter past midnight, before continuing.)
Though for the sake of realism, the myths and legends will be left where they belong. Buried and dead. After all, the Shogunate Period was a period where many old bloodlines (most of which are now extinct) developed or mutated into new bloodlines.
The alliance between the Senju clan and Daimyo was a herald for the wars to come and would lead the world into the Warring States Era.
During the era of the pre-warring state, the Senju grew in numbers and popularity, while the Fire Daimyo began to gain political acclaim after being officially elected as the authority of the country by the civilians and clans alike, save the Uchiha clan, who remained steadfast in their solitude way of life and ancient Shinto religion.
Religion must have been one of the numerous causes of friction between the two powerful clans.
The Senju began to influence the Daimyo with ideologies and theologies, in hopes of spreading their religion: Ninshu, and for the most part, they were widely successful. There isn't a village in this country where you won't find a temple dedicated to the Sage.
The Senju also made fast allies with the Sarutobi clan and other clans (who may or may not still exist) while forming neutral treaties with the Akimichi, Nara, and Yamanaka. They started offering protection to towns and villages in exchange for goods, services, and revenue. The Senju must have looked more favorable in the eyes of society than the distant and sometimes hostile Uchiha clan, or so history claims, which in turn caused villages and clients to turn their allegiance toward the Senju (who would bring in the new world) in lieu of the Uchiha (who most felt were stuck in the old one). Yet another cause of conflict between the Uchiha and Senju.
Still, the country had been no bigger than a large island, with more than half belonging to the Uchiha. Pieces of land that the alliance coveted, and pieces of land the Senju began to gradually claim.
The land was perfect for agriculture, with nearby rivers and lakes, and more towns and villages could be established under the Daimyo's jurisdiction, thus expanding the Fire Country not only in name but inland as well. In return, the Senju would be rewarded with riches, lands of their choosing, and titles. A formality really, considering the Senju already had that. I suspect what they really coveted was the Fire Daimyo's ear and esteem. They were very ambitious, in a way some clans could only hope to be, and it's an ambition I respect, despite the decades-long ramifications of that ambition.
In the Daimyo's name, the Senju were given the authorization to go to war with the Uchiha, and since the Uchiha refused to acknowledge the Daimyo's authority it was quite easy to brand them as enemies of the state. It didn't help that they were seen as strange outsiders worshipping a dying religion. Other clans, both shinobi, and civilians, began waging war against their own adversaries.
This war, in both the politicians' and historians' eyes, was good. It yielded more political acclaim to the Daimyo to have an army fighting in his name, which in turn yielded more authority and power to his rule in the eyes of the other nations and people within the nation.
Not only did war break out in the Fire Country but in the other elemental nations as well, between other powerful clans. Thus began the Warring States Period.
The period lasted five hundred years resulting in short lifespans and child soldier casualties. In the end, the Uchiha eventually surrendered and formed an alliance with the Senju, in hopes of ending the strife, though almost a century later little has changed in the way of short lifespans and child casualties.
The bureaucrats in the capital have made sure of that, though the Kages who fuel the war machine have not helped either.
(Minato himself was guilty, and if he were to be put on trial for his crimes he knows he would be a dead man. He thinks of Obito and Rin who he failed, and Kakashi who he is still failing. A dead, dead man.)
A nation built on blood is a nation guaranteed to collapse in on itself. Such a nation simply cannot survive. History has shown this time and time again and yet humanity has not learned the err of their ways.
This is a nation that thrives off of the war machine, a nation that fights its wars in foreign lands in hopes of laying claim on it, a nation that turns children into soldiers fighting for a war based entirely on greed. And that is not even the end of this nation's crimes.
Despite the alliance between the Senju and Uchiha, the prejudice held for the clan carried on into the common era. This sprung discriminatory laws and statues that unjustly regulate, segregate, and ostracize one of our founding clans, and most of these laws and statues have been in place since Konoha's founding, and have only increased in number.
They are not the only group of people who are facing this treatment. You'll find that in almost every nation there is a stigma against bloodline clans (look to the Land of Water, now known as the Bloody Mist, for their infamous genocide on all clans containing a bloodline), immigrants, orphans, and jinchuriki (who have been ostracized since their creation).
These laws, codes, and statutes enable economic disparities and systematic injustice via work, education, and living environments, which were specifically designed to target certain demographics within Konoha, none more so than the Uchiha clan. To make matters worse the ramification for these actions passed by former leaders and powerful politicians has bled into the social interactions of Konoha's citizens. The people have been taught to hate and fear what they do not understand.
This terrible truth is the bedrock of Konoha's society, on which ideologies are built off of, but a truth that is oftentimes forgotten or deliberately hidden and ignored.
A great injustice has been done, continuously perpetuated, and left uncorrected. An injustice that needs to be addressed, a wound left festering that needs to be healed. If not I fear-
(Minato did not want to write what he feared but the first step to healing was confronting.)
I fear we will once again descend into an era of constant warfare of a magnitude we have not seen since the Warring States Era and not only will we be facing external forces but ourselves, those who we would have otherwise called brethren.
A monster of our own making.
A few years before the present
If there was anything that history taught him, it was that people never learned from the mistakes of the past.
The night was black, so black that the mountain ranges looming large in the distance took on a stark shadowy form against the backdrop of the dark sky. The air was thick with the smell of petrichor and the stony ground was slippery from the rain and blood.
He'd handled the Iwa shinobi with ease and now it was only a matter of setting the stage for the performers. He'll place their corpses at someone's border, and whichever nation he chose would catch the blame from the hunter-nin.
For so long the world had danced to the tune of his song, as he pulled their strings from the shadows. He'd made them gorge on lies, poisoned their blood with deceit, had rekindled the hatred that'd simmered in their hearts for generations until now… it will all come to heel, in due time.
For months now he's been sending out chaos agents to cause skirmishes along the borders. War dogs he'd personally trained to cause conflict. Some disguised as shinobi of villages with a history of enmity to attack unsuspecting ninja with every intention of letting a few survive the conflict. They would run to their leaders and tell the tale Tobi had weaved.
The funny thing though, is that their bloodlust and warmongering ways are already there, and like a fish eyeing the worm on a hook, the leaders will fall for the bait every time.
One would wonder why he goes through all this trouble to stir havoc if the endgame is all the same. In truth, Tobi just wants to watch the world burn before he creates a new, better one.