The Mitsugo were a different peoples, that much was certain.
In Fumiyo's eyes, it was as if they were a fully functioning society without the actual different parts of a society. It was all one family yet it behaved as if it were disparate entities.
They even looked different, different enough that she had a difficult time telling who was Mitsugo and who wasn't, it didn't look like they had defining characteristics at all. The other "families" on the other hand all appeared like separate and distinct entities, all of them being special in their own way with their own specific realms that they ruled over.
From what she could see of them, the Mitsugo had the Minds which generally sort of advised/ruled everything. Triplets that had gotten so old that their bodies were decrepit, but their minds were still extremely active. They used their intelligence to predict future trends from reams of information, advised the council, and made themselves useful before they died of old age.
The council came next, a collection of the various families that she had seen and noted down in an intelligence report back to Konoha. The distinct groups served as different "department" heads, as well as a majority of the staffers, but they also drew upon other more "minor" families for numbers. The department's that she could remember were the Sanitation, Internal Security, External Security, Homestead, City, Hydroponics, Agriculture, Military, Arbitrative, and many more minor department's.
It was a hodge podge of different topics and surprisingly it all ran very smoothly, no problems at all which was naturally very surprising… given just how damned big it all was.
Fumiyo had gaped at the tour of the bureaucratic offices of the Hydroponics department, a department that dealt with all the food produced inside of the villages and cities themselves. The massive trees that she saw supporting the entire city also provided for it with a vast array of different fruits. There were even full farms up here that required a trained ninja at all times utilizing their chakra in order to grow the plants. Each was hovering little balls of what looked to be slightly greenish water, green as in a light green, not green as in algae green. The balls themselves fed what she had been told an entire array of pipes that fed every farm in the area, ensuring each was given the correct dosage for maximum efficiency.
At the same time, she could see how each and every piece of food that came out was itemized, measured, and then cataloged, all of it being apparently what she had been told was an attempt to breed the perfect fruits and the perfect vegetables.
They would breed multiple different plants of the same family together, get them all working and then show off what she assumed was… a green strawberry?
Regardless it was extremely impressive and she had been assured that every other department was like this. She could see her uncle now tearing his hair out over the tiny amount of paperwork on his desk… and the Mitsugo had people who lived for paperwork.
It was rather… worrying to see grown men act like they had been fed a feast after being given a new pile of paperwork to sort through.
The next level below that of the council was the family itself. Some families managed the department's as she had seen earlier, but others still managed districts inside of the city, villages, or vast stretches of farms themselves. Just what they did she didn't know, but apparently they were given quite a large deal of autonomy and given specific instructions as to what to do regarding very specific circumstances. For example the planting had to be done according to whatever department ruled over that specific little ruleset, but the rest of it was up to them.
They could build their towns how they wanted (so long as it followed the rules), how many casinos they wanted, and so forth. It was all very strange and she had wondered why it had not devolved into anarchy when she was told of the Arbitrative department that rules over all of them. It heard complaints and dealt with them in a fair manner, that made sure people weren't just skirting the rules for their own gain and adding new ones if it was a chronic problem.
It was a very interesting system all up and she was surprised that it worked the way that it did.
Then there were the normal citizens, they who weren't part of the Mitsugo but lived… well, in all of their housings. The Mitsugo were everywhere… everywhere. You couldn't step foot inside of the Rice Nation without seeing one, and the number of non-Mitsugo only decreased every year as they were married into the Mitsugo or just plain died of old age.
They were extremely prolific with their whole producing triplets all the time thing, and honestly, she was a little creeped out by that, they had lots of triplets. So many in fact that it was strange to walk around and not see one. In fact, Fumiyo felt herself changing… the way she assumed there would be triplets everywhere, the way she thought that anywhere without one was strange…
So very strange.
Regardless, the next level of consideration was they who were like Konoha, the embassies, the branch families, the emigres, whatever you wanted to call them. They were given partial rights as Rice Nation citizens, notably pertaining to defence. The Rice Nation had a very specific little protocol that they had, one that had all of the foreigners wear little bracelets at all times. If they came off at any time, or a random chakra pulse discovered that it was in fact, a clone or a fake, the person would be hunted down immediately and either rescued or killed.
It was there to prevent kidnappings from other groups and it worked surprisingly well, nobody wanted to deal with the thousands of Mitsugo ninja that were inside of Rice City.
As for their rights, while they were given rights that would ensure that they would be protected at all times by the shinobi and the guard of the Rice Nation, they were also restricted in just what they could and could not do. In particular, they were restricted in that they were unable to educate their children in the manner of the Rice Nation children, both a security concern and a practical one. Being unable to even learn the jutsu when the hand seals apparently were arbitrary did not help in the slightest.
Fumiyo was just the smallest bit annoyed at the restriction on entering and leaving the city as well. They would need to be checked by the shinobi of the Rice Nation if they ever wanted to leave or enter, something that would make just simply going in and out a pain.
Not that she really ever needed to go out, the city was massive enough that she could explore all of it and still find new things wherever she looked. There was adequate room for her to train in all manner of different environments, the Mitsugo somehow able to manipulate the trees and the like to resemble rainforest, jungle, forest, bush and more. It was rather amazing and she was just the slightest bit glad that she was here, the food notwithstanding.
Her Uncle could do the same with his Wood Release but he… he wasn't very imaginative when it came to making anything except a forest. Would it have killed him to maybe have something just a little different? Every time she had seen him doing his thing, it had been just boring old brown wood and green leaves. Where was the sense of adventure? Where was the awesome stuff like purple leaves or white trees? Or maybe even like tipped leaves instead of the dull round ones. Ugh, so much potential wasted.
As for the Mitsugo, they liked their variety, not just with designing things… but their food as well.
The food was amazing, they bred their animals, their plants to the highest standard and food made with those ingredients stood head and shoulders above anything else that she had tried.
Her enhanced taste buds had simply cried out with delight when the devoured even the simplest of foods, the simplicity of the meal allowing for the flavours to shine through. In the complex meals the melding of different flavours always brought a smile to her eye. Lots of subtle little notes that blended together to tickle her taste buds.
Which brought up another of her concerns, just what about fire? The possibility that there would be a fire that would devastate the entirety of the city was a concern that she had raised and their answer had been a rather surprising one. The fact of the matter being that there was earth intertwined with the trees to give them some resistance, while their shinobi were all trained in the ability to summon water, like uncle Tobirama's water release but on a smaller scale. Which didn't matter as much when there were hundreds of them doing it at the same time.
As long as they cooked in the stoves and such made available there should be no concerns which… alleviated her concerns and replaced them with new ones.
But there was time for that, time to consider just what she had gotten herself into.
She had not thought that it would be possible… but her… boyfriend? Potential partner/mate? Was a triplet, or rather he was one of 3 triplets.
As in he had 2 brothers who all exhibited the same kind of personalities that drew her to Jancis in the first place.
It… it was rather worrying, having to choose between the 3 of them, knowing that it was a choice she would regret since there were 2 others… but that changed when she was told she could just take all 3. As in she could… all 3.
Fumiyo's mind refused to comprehend just what was going on at that point and it had taken more than a little coaxing by the other girls for her to reveal what had happened. There was both joy and dismay at that and they had no idea how it was going to work. Or rather they knew how it was going to work but not how everything else would work.
Thankfully it had been explained to her by Leo, Mitsue's partner. It was not a matter of the concern for them since the triplets were considered to be a single entity by the Minds, and subsequently everyone else. So if they were to partner themselves with a single set, they were doing so as if it were an individual instead of 3.
Just the slightest bit confusing but the legalities, at least within the Land of Rice were simple enough and she had received word that the negotiations regarding them marrying a Mitsugo had gone ahead. She could have children with them…
Of course, the children would be possibly indoctrinated into the Konoha ideology, but that was a concern for the future. Perhaps these children would not, but their own children would? A concern and something that would need to be dealt with.
She didn't want her children to be turned into weapons but she was a ninja and she knew her duty.
That and the fact that she would possibly not survive her duty? The idea that she was going to bear the children of 3 different men… Fumiyo shook her head at that one.
It was a good thing she was a Senju because that would probably kill her otherwise.
Still, it certainly explained the different groups she had seen, one male or female between the 3 triplets as they walked around the city.
Those not in uniform of course, the Mitsugo teams appeared to consist of 4 members as was standard, a single set of triplets and what she thought was probably their support. She hadn't been briefed and she would have thought that it would have been strange if she had.
As it was Fumiyo had a date to prepare for… one that involved all three of them, her first and it was definitely going to be a surprise to see how they would work out.
Fumiyo hummed to herself, this was not perhaps what she had expected when she was assigned to the Land of Rice, but it was certainly something that she could enjoy the perks of. She felt like she deserved it after having to deal with the vast numbers of alternate clans in the Land of Rice who had arrived after the Konoha delegation had.
If she was going to get a grand romance out of it then good, she deserved it.
The Mitsugo were becoming powerhouses not just in terms of their food but in the diplomatic sphere.
Whereas the other Hidden Villages (of which the Mitsugo one was not hidden at all), all did their diplomacy through cables and the like, sending messengers to courier messages and requests, out of necessity more than anything else. The most trusted ninja were those of the same bloodline, yet bloodlines were valuable enough to steal and kill over.
As such they were extremely limited on what they could and could not do in regards to diplomatic channels. Sure they could send regular ninja, but if they were attacked, their chances of doing anything were much smaller than that of the bloodlined shinobi who had extra tools to call upon.
It was a difficult situation and one where there was no real easy answer for they of the hidden Villages.
On the flipside, that of the nations, they too were restricted by the simple fact that they were human and lacked the technological know how to develop a fast communications network. The fact that they were still nominally in conflict served to restrict that further. No continental communications networks, not when they had to go through hostile states, no guarantees that they wouldn't be listening into their conversations, no guarantees that there wouldn't be a rogue actor simply cutting the networks down when they had felt like it.
It was severely limiting them in terms of what they could and could not do and it was not purely limited to they of the Nations. The ninjas, after all, did not have their own method of doing anything faster than perhaps lightning. A few ninjas could move at ridiculous speeds, but in all honesty, the idea of using them as messengers was met with the derision that deserved. The fact of the matter being that if they could move that fast, they would not be serving as messengers but rather playing key roles in the internal matters of a hidden Village.
Like that of hunting down defectors or trying to seek and destroy threats before they could threaten the village. The faster a shinobi, the more ground they could cover after all.
It was into this therefore that the Rice Nation stepped. It was into this that they rose to prominence, that they offered something that could not be found anywhere else. A something that was incredibly valuable, yet also incredibly off limits. The Mitsugo had played their cards well, they had known just how much their food shipments were worth, and they knew just how much each and every nation would be willing to do to keep those shipments coming, the Mitsugo were with their cheap food bankrolling the rapid expansion of each nation's military and economic power.
The fact that there was so much cheap food meant that people were much more willing to have more children than they otherwise would have done, children that in turn depended on the Mitsugo's supplements to the foodstuffs produced by the nation itself. In turn, this meant that if the Rice Nation ever pulled their support, then there would be a large part of the population that would starve and likely see those that had provoked such a reaction as the enemy.
Which in this case would be their own leadership faction.
And so the Mitsugo bloodline was safe, they who would seek to kidnap one being faced with the very problem that in doing so they might doom themselves, doom their entire nation, their hidden Villages and more. They would in essence, be destroying everything they worked towards and so it was highly ill advised for them to be doing anything resembling that of trying to steal bloodlines, especially from the Mitsugo who would not take kindly to their act of kindness being repaid in such a manner.
The Mitugo after all, had their triplets, triplets that had the ability to communicate across vast distances of space, they had no actual limits from what had been tested. The Triplets therefore, being able to serve as intermediaries for all the different nations, for all the different factions. For a modest fee, of course, the Mitsugo were able to provide instantaneous communications regardless of what was in between, a way to potentially avoid many conflicts and more. A way to prevent war with a simple question as to what was happening, or at the very least communicate with allies.
The fact that the Mitsugo were going to be neutral in all matters was a given, especially after what they had done in regards to the fact that they were hosting the various delegations of the different hidden Villages inside of the City of Rice. All the different delegations being kept safe by the fact that the Mitsugo took any challenges to their authority very seriously, and had the numbers to back up any threats that they made.
Those that had tried were faced with the thousands of Mitsugo ninjas that were inside of Rice City, all of them very capable of killing most other ninjas when they had so much support behind them. In fact, the ninjas themselves had worked out an ingenious method to prevent the kidnapping of the delegates under their authority, a system that ensured the safety and continued neutrality of the Mitsugo in all things politics.
In regards to their own bloodline, however… well, that was where things got a little strange.
What made things particularly strange was that the Mitsugo were actually very willing to share their bloodline, matching any and all who requested it a chance to find a mate, and even if they did not if the initial delegations were any indication. The Rice Nation having married off what was nearly the entirety of the delegations to their own clan members, or at least possibly married off. There were many triplets involved and the legalities of triplets marrying the same person had to be worked out.
The negotiations between all the different hidden Villages had said that the children would grow up as part of the Mitsugo clan, but they would still nominally be part of the clans of their other parents. The Mitsugo after all, claimed neutrality in all things, and so their children would still be able to be part of both factions with little trouble but they were forbidden from engaging the other villages. The children must be neutral in all things, unless they desired otherwise, in which their chakra would be forcibly aligned to that of the chakra that the rest of the ninja world used, their memories of the Mitsugo techniques wiped from their minds. They would not be using Mitsugo techniques to break their neutrality.
They would all be raised in the Rice Nation for their formative years before being allowed to spread out to their alternative homelands in control of their chakra. The Mitsugo weren't afraid of their special techniques being spread out due in part because of the fact that their techniques were only taught to the most trusted of their ninja, or at least those mind-probed for loyalty.
There was consideration of having Mitsugo delegations in other villages and cities in order to have children closer to "home" as it were. No need to have the children isolated inside of Raisu when they could be home and learning as well. The Mitsugo weren't evil after all.
The only stipulations that had been continued were that the firstborn of every subsequent generation, even those outside of the Land of Rice would be kept within the Land of Rice, raised as their own, while the other children, the triplets would be allowed to be raised outside of it once they were of age. A strange stipulation considering that the triplets were seen as the source of their strength but one that was accepted with eagerness by the other nations. Even then it was only those that were Arcane, those who had been 'naturalized' as they called it wouldn't need to be sent across.
To have the bloodlines of the Mitsugo without needing to fight for it? It was certainly something that the other Clans were very willing to accept, regardless of how much it looked as if it was too good of a deal.
Then again these were the children, just how much of a threat could they be? They were malleable, easily taught as they of the hidden villages knew, just how many of their own had been trained to fight and kill even before they could walk? How many children had been sent to the front line to die?
It was not a strange thought then that they would be able to take in these children and train them to be loyal to their own nations, their own villages. Perhaps even using them as spies into the Land of Rice when they affirmed their loyalty.
It was just too good of a deal and for the price of a firstborn? It was ratified by the villages immediately and succession rights were changed. It was no longer the right of the firstborn, having it given to one that was loyal to the Land of Rice would be unacceptable, yet at the same time, it could not be the second… since they were triplets. Triplets that by all reports were indistinguishable from all the others. A major concern.
It was something that had to be troubled over later, the time was still early, the children had not yet been conceived, or at least they had not been given reports that there had been any children that had been conceived.
They hoped that the delegations, or rather the branch families would at least have the decency to be married before conceiving children but that looked like it might be a concern given the reports they had received to the contrary. Legal status, after all, was always in question if the child was born out of wedlock, they needed that lock if they wanted their own breed of self replicating ninjas.
The Mitsugo were playing matchmaker and what was more, they were doing it well. It was as if they wanted their clan's offspring spread throughout the continent. As if they didn't care that their different chakra and what made them special was being spread out with little care in the world.
It wasn't as bad as it should have been since the Mitsugo practised some very strong operational security when it came to their jutsu. Only those trained were given the important aspects, and only the natural borns would have it. Making it so that the triplets being born outside of the clan were forced to choose the chakra of their non-clan families. The Mitsugo had told them that if the children did indeed choose the different chakra, they would not be able to ever again gain the Mitsugo "Arcane" Chakra they were calling it now. Only by interbreeding again would that be possible.
What use they would be therefore was up for debate, but it was certainly an issue that had to be considered. Then again even if they had no use, the fact that each family was guaranteed to produce triplets every time was a significant factor, each of the children being a weapon that could be aimed at their enemies. Breeding large numbers of ninjas in conjunction with the large numbers of foodstuffs that the Mitsugo were selling certainly made them rather dependent upon the Mitsugo in the first place.
In time perhaps they would gain the strength necessary to stand against the Mitsugo and take their lands, but it would have to be very far off in the future. The Mitsugo were only going from strength to strength and they were not looking to slow down anytime soon.
The might of the nations and that of the hidden villages were simply unable to penetrate the fortress that the Mitsugo had made of the Land of Rice.
At the same time… well, the Mitsugo did not appear to be attempting anything on a larger scale. They were content with selling food to all nations, guarded by teams of their own ninjas and that of the ones picking up the delivery. The sanctity of the Mitsugo rice convoys was one that was respected by all clans and all nations. To attack a convoy full of triplets that could communicate instantly with those left behind, well to do so would be to expose their faces for the world to see.
The very real threat therefore that the Mitsugo would recognize them and forever forbid the sale of food to that particular nation, a threat that was insidious in scope given just how much death and destruction would follow that. Their peoples starving, their nation's crumbling.
And so it was that the Mitsugo through threat, through diplomacy, intermarriage and trade had secured themselves safety and an immense network spun through all the nations guaranteed them power.
The Mitsugo clan, synonymous at this point with the Rice Nation was growing in strength and becoming something that was in turn, becoming as institutionalized and as powerful as the other nations and the other hidden villages despite their… greater efforts during the Warring States Period.
Or maybe it was because of what they had done that things had turned out the way they did. For the Mitsugo learned early on that attempting to expand territory using force was something that in turn provoked force from the opposing factions. In turn, this meant that both sides lost bodies, lost lives, and more importantly, lost valuable production.
Rather than using force like the Kiri, the Mitsugo planned something else for their expansions.
In response to this revelation, the Mitsugo decided that if they were to expand, they would so peacefully if possible. It would allow for both factions to keep their military strength and thus ensuring that the Rice Nation would be powerful enough to resist those that came thinking this would be yet another easy conquest, yet another strike for their drums. They who had thought that since the Mitsugo had expanded, they would be weak from the fighting.
The response of the 2 still intact forces prior to that of the absorption allowed for them to fight off those that would threaten the nascent Rice Nation. With the power of the Mitsugo with their chakra, it was easy enough for them to begin to dominate the conversation regarding production, politics, economics and more due to the importance that each individual clan member had, let alone all of them.
Simply absorb then over time phase those who had been absorbed into either irrelevance or more likely than not, to marry them into the Mitsugo.
If the Mitsugo were to be anthropomorphized, they would look like a twisted melding of many different bodies with three heads on top. The numerous little clans and families that married in were over time repurposed and made into something functional within the whole.
They did not bicker for each had their specialties and they excelled in them in no small part thanks to their children. There were many of those… naturally. Each as talented as the other on a base level.
Those who ran the accounting were all distinctively white haired, those who ran the internal security had their sharp noses, those with the diplomatic corps had their pronounced cheekbones and so forth. The Mitsugo were all at this point related by blood, yet they were still different enough that they had their own little factions as well. What with the "accounting", "internal security", "hydroponics", teams and the like.
While it was not something that was damaging to the Rice Nation as a whole, it could get a little heated, to say the least. They with the most outspoken opinions often expressing them in the loudest ways.
Regardless, they were all of the Mitsugo now and they were all well accepted into the Rice Nation, all of them being connected in some way.
The entire clan had grown so large that it could spread out its members throughout the entirety of the Rice Nation's villages and cities, ensuring that the hand of the Mitsugo would be visible at all times.
Further, the Mitsugo were not merely strengthening their internal power, but the external as well. In response to the coming decline into conflict, a lull that the Minds had predicted would happen, the Rice Nation began a massive expansion plan. The war was inevitable regardless of what they did, but it could be mitigated they had said, the Mitsugo would play a key role in ensuring it did not expand and threaten their own interests.
They would ensure that the Mitsugo would be able to provide food to every single city on the continent, or at least in such a way that everyone would be able to recognize the name "Mitsugo". All the better to at least mitigate the desperation of a war with a starving populace to care for.
To do this, the multi-levelled cities and villages had been developed, all to increase the amount of land available for more… exotic crops while also ensuring that the people, in turn, could live on a smaller allocation of land, leaving more of it open for more farming. In doing all of this, in conjunction with increasingly widespread use of their Jutsu to produce more crops, the Mitsugo were able to export at least some food to every nation on the Continent.
The price of which had them asking for more, more which the Mitsugo gladly procured. It was not the short term game that the Mitsugo were playing. No, for them it was all about the long term.
In producing so much food, it was easy for them to infiltrate the markets of so many different countries, making them all dependent on the food being shipped out by the Mitsugo in the first place. Right now they were all still starving, their lands devastated by war, their peoples hungry, their leadership unstable.
By providing food, they would be stabilizing the entire continent, allowing for the nations to form faster, while also securing a direct line to the leadership of said nations. The Mitsugo were willing to help in a time of crisis and that would be remembered down the line. Even if it was not, they could wring concessions out now, which would increase their power regardless. Monopoly rights in regards to food was possible… but… morally bad. Very bad.
Rather what would be happening was that they gained the rights to sell in the markets of the different nations at the price of the lowest local vendors as chosen by the Daimyos and Kages. It would in turn, allow for the people to feel more charitable to the Mitsugo, while also giving the leaders a measure of power, a feeling like they were in control of the relationship. It was a good plan all things considered and the Rice Nation was ready to exploit it. After all, each nation had their own specific… staple foods.
For those that nobody grew, well there was no way to compare the pricing and they could at any moment flood the market with alternative, but cheap foods. Foods that in turn could be taken away after farmers stopped selling food since they couldn't compete on the market.
Which in turn could cripple the economy and cause a serious crisis for the various leaders.
Not a bad plan at all.
At the same time, it would continue to generate profits for the Mitsugo that in turn would boost the power of the nation. More money meant better weapons, armour, infrastructure and the like. All of which could be leveraged to ensure that they got the best of everything, their armies more capable than those on the outside.
By the same token, the military of the Rice Nation, both their ninjas and those that were of the more mundane origins, were deployed in great numbers. The Mitsugo apparently having made it their mission to become as well recognized as possible.
However they did not act like the other ninja clans, rather their ninjas acted much like that of scavengers and treasure hunters.
Diving deep into heavily fortified areas to steal rare herbs and plants, punching their way through enemy lines to take crops, fighting off waves of enemy shinobi in order to accomplish their goals no matter the cost.
It was in a word.. Very strange. Their own strikes to retrieve grain and the like being done while leaving no permanent casualties, nor did they do anything else but take the grain, no sneaking intelligence or anything of the like. The lack of fatalities had turned it into more of a game than actual hostile actions, pitting their own against the Mitsugo as a sparring match.
The other clans did not know what the Mitsugo had hoped to achieve with their actions until it was too late and the Rice Nation began to grow crops descended from those that had been stolen from them in the first place.
The Mitsugo in terms of their military had not offered themselves as a military, rather they were the very same as that of the Rice Nation, any attacks by the Mitsugo would be considered an act of war by the Rice Nation itself. As a result, their ninja served not as weapons for the various factions in their bid to gain territory and the like off each other, but rather as observers and the like.
While they did not engage directly as to not provoke retaliation, they did act to protect their own sovereignty in many cases.
When the Rice Nation was attacked in any way, the Mitsugo would be deployed and due to their natural ability to reproduce on a massive scale, were able to weather losses several times that of other clans without repercussions.
The children of the Mitsugo were famed for being born in 3, each of the children being linked together as a quirk of their bloodline and it only served to increase their combat potential as they could quite easily communicate and act as a single body. In contrast, the other clans were forced to train their own shinobi to a much higher level if they wanted them to cooperate as fluidly and as well as that of the Mitsugo.
While the Mitsugo were a young clan, one that used a different kind of chakra that in turn made them much less advanced in terms of Jutsu. They were forced to discover each and every Jutsu on their own, some of the natural chakra based Jutsu had not yet been given equivalents, the Mitsugo still trying to experiment and discover what would make up their own version. As a result of this, the Mitsugo while possessing less overall combat capabilities, did possess the numbers and the coordination that allowed for them to resist the forces arrayed against them.
After all, it was no secret that the Rice Nation was one of the most fertile pieces of land in existence… on the continent at least.
If they were able to secure it for themselves, it would quite simply allow for the various different nations to develop at a tremendous pace compared to that of the other nations. Having more food and more importantly in the Warring States Era, a stable supply of food was a tremendous advantage and no doubt many clans would seek to join them on their own accord. As such, attempts were made by many of the surrounding nations, particularly that of the Iwagakure, the hidden village of the Land of Earth to take control of the Land of Rice.
The benefits were simply far too many for them to contemplate doing otherwise. It was a simple fact after all that if they did not take the land, then their continued development both as a hidden village and as a nation would be far more constrained than it would be otherwise. The Land of Earth was not a prosperous one, to the west was a vast ocean of stone and a desert, their own living being one that was eked out through tremendous effort and bloodshed. Thousands of bodies had been necessary to build the various infrastructure needed to form the buildings, the structures, the everything.
It had created a people that were like stone and to see the prosperity of the Land of Rice was to gaze upon what could have been with extreme envy.
To take it would give them a tremendous advantage over that of the Land of Wind, giving them a strategic advantage that would allow for them to finally crush the Sunagakure beyond repair, giving them the space they needed to expand without needing to worry about such matters as constant raids from the south.
The Land of Fire and the Konohagakure also tried at one point or another to strike out against the Mitsugo, seeing them as a very large potential threat to the north. The Land of Fire after all, did not have much to worry about in regards to the South, their main problems being that of the Suna to the West and the Land of Water and the Land of Lightning to the East.
The threat of a new faction to the north was a grievous one and the Land of Fire sought many times to secure the area to fortify themselves, something that was rebuffed by the Mitsugo as the overstretched Konoha ninja fell back from the overwhelming forces arrayed against them.
Regardless, the Mitsugo had demonstrated to the world their economic prowess, all behind a wall of their military that in turn was one of extraordinary might, their numbers and the small amount of land that they actually had concentrating it to a fine edge.
And in time as the lands settled down, as the Warring States Era grew to a close, the Mitsugo only grew in strength. Leading into the new era of the Nations and the Hidden Villages, the Mitsugo were both, and as the First Great Shinobi began to draw ever closer, the Mitsugo who had remained fiercely neutral following the establishment of their state lines began to slowly move.
Jessine Mitsugo was a ninja. She was also the ninja in charge of Team 890, which in turn meant that she had to corral a set of triplets about the place and ensure they didn't… do whatever it was that they were planning.
Triplets tended to think in the long term and she was sure Iwa would not survive whatever it was that they planned.
They were being sent out as a communications middle men, as well as that of teachers. They would assist the land of Iwa to develop their own food supply in such a way that they wouldn't be so reliant on war to get things done. It would be particularly egregious of them if they allowed the Iwa to start and force them to go to war. They were neighbors after all and nobody wanted a hostile neighbor.
At the same time, a secondary purpose was to gather intelligence upon the Iwa in such a way that it would be useful for those in charge back home. Iwa after all, bordered the Nation of Rice, but unlike the Land of Fire to the south, they did not have ample natural arable land. Land that would sustain the village in times of crisis. They were vulnerable to external pressures like that of a trade embargo, blocked supply routes, or even climatic change, shocks that could destroy their economies.
It was because of this that the Land of Rice had proposed multiple different treaties which would of course, allow for them to assist the Iwa and make it so that any potential wars were ones that did not have a distinct air of desperation to them.
It was only natural after all to be worried about the food supply of their own peoples and focus on their survival above all else. If they did not do this then they did not deserve the prestige that came with being a hidden village.
As such the Jessine was here to offer their services as part of the accord for the continental communications network that relied on the Rice Nation's Mitsugo clan. Or more specifically on the ability of the triplets to communicate over vast distances.
There was the distinctive problem that had come about because of this, however… that the triplets were… erratic this spread out.
Regardless it would happen anyway.
The second reason that they were here was as part of the offer to the Iwa about establishing an area if the Land of Earth that would function in a similar way to that of the area 51 of the Land of Fire. (Or rather for Konoha, they had not gotten to sharing the proceeds with the Land of Fire citing that they were doing so for the development of the village so that it might protect the Land of Fire more efficiently. The Nation would be getting their own offer shortly, a way to ensure that the Village and the Nation were in a state of equilibrium.)
It was a smart offer, one that would ensure they of Iwa would always have a food supply and ensuring that they did not need to become desperate when food ran short because of things like famines and environmental changes.
At the same time, it would create a buffer between the Land of Earth and the Land of Rice, a way to help obstruct any attempts at invasion or at least get forewarning of it.
The Iwa ninja would be allowed to patrol alongside that of the Mitsugo to ensure that they weren't being cheated out of their portion of the produce, as well as to provide added security against raids by marauders or other villages.
Food security for Iwa by offering to assist them in an effort to produce food more effectively using the Mitsugo shinobi's specific talents.
At the same time that this was happening in Iwa, delegates were being sent out to the other nations in an attempt to achieve the same as they had with Konoha. A way to ensure that wars would not be as devastating, or perhaps to avoid them entirely.
Should they succeed the power of the Nation of Rice would only ever increase. They who produced were king in matters of peace after all. In war, they would benefit as well, what with the need for food being a universal constant for all humans. But in peace, they would consume much more than they would otherwise, especially in crops that were more profitable than that of simple staple foods.
A war economy spent big, but when it came to food only the cheapest, the most durable and that which would last the longest would be considered. In effect increasing volume of trade, but not profits. The population would be decreasing after all and they would be purchasing in bulk early on to avoid inflation, using things like storage seals and the like to ensure the long term edibility of their products.
So many different things that had to be considered, the impacts of which would be wide ranging and devastating should they allow for it.
After all, it was food that was the matter of discussion, anything that had to do with food would have extraordinarily overly proportional effects in the long term. A simple price hike might be a blip in the radar, but it could severely influence national stability if it was not followed by a wage hike of the same manner. So many little things that had to be considered and the Rice Nation was the one standing there, ready to adjust the variables as they saw fit.
If necessary it would be entirely possible for them to manipulate an entire nation into going to war with just a minor out of tweaking, able to force an otherwise pacifist population into committing atrocities.
They who became reliant on the Rice Nation to secure the future of their peoples became reliant on the goodwill of the Rice Nation, believing that it would not exercise the power that it had over them.
What made matters worse was that the populations would not consider it the fault of the Rice Nation if they did it properly, rather it would be the fault of their own nations for failing so badly.
It was devious, it was evil, it was first year economics at the advanced Shinobi Academy for all those who wanted to lead a team. They had to understand the influence that they had. Miss one shipment it was not an issue, miss a few? Necks would be feeling a little tight. Miss more? Heads would be rolling.
Knowing the stakes of what they were planning certainly helped contextualize just how much it was vital that they finish their mission in this case. They could not afford to fail, not if they wanted to secure the future safety of the Raisukure, as it had become known over time, the Land of Rice.
It was with this in mind therefore that Jessine was moving through the Iwa lands, her eyes scanning for the delegation that was supposed to be meeting them. They would go through the typical diplomatic rigmarole and then they would get down to brass kunai. As for Jessine, she wouldn't be doing much, she was after all the muscle of this particular exercise alongside that of the other teams that had been deployed for this particular mission, one that called for their personal attention to the variety of little things that might be worth consideration for a delegation.
Like the possibility of an ambush sometime soon, a natural thing to be worried about, they were ninja after all, but being extra vigilant never hurt anyone. Except those that wanted to attack them, it certainly hurt them rather badly once the Mitsugo were through with them.
As for what was happening now, she was looking at what… what was a rather big delegation that popped out of nowhere. At the forefront of it looked to be the one that was called Ishikawa Kamizuru, the Tsuchikage of the hidden village of the nation that they were trying to gain access to.
It was going to be a complicated little effort that they were trying to pull off here.
Trying to give food to the hidden village via the shared lands treaty was a measure that would separate the village from the nation at least partially. A way to ensure that the village would be able to operate at least partially independently without the worry about the nation cutting them off from their food in retaliation for disagreements of opinion. Reducing the amount of power that the nation could call upon in trying to subdue their own village while also replacing that influence with that of the Raisu's. It was a gambit that could only work this early on with the relationships between the various nations and their villages being so tenuous.
The plan was a two pronged one. They would be creating the buffer zone in which they would farm and feed the population as they had done with the village of Konoha that would benefit the Land of Earth primarily, the food being sent to them directly. At the same time, the delegation that Jessine was part of would be attempting to open up the Iwa to the possibility that they in turn, could have their own zone either inside of the village, or somewhere else nearby. That way it became very obvious that the Land of Earth could not object to their influence over the Iwa dwindling because they in turn, had their own supply. On the face of it, it was something that would benefit all 3 parties, but in reality, it benefited 2 parties disproportionately.
It was genius and the Minds were rather happy with their little idea. What was more, was that the communications system was being given to both factions, giving the Iwa a secure line of communication that was separate from that of the Daimyo's. Again giving them more independent, they in turn, would now be allowed to have dialogue with the other villages and more importantly the other Daimyos without alerting anyone to it.
So long as the trusted the Raisu that is, which at this point in time was a given. The Mitsugo, and by extension the Raisu had demonstrated just how neutral they were in all matters, they would not act unless provoked and they would not attempt to wage war without at least some kind of provocation. It was just how they were and it was proving to be something very useful indeed.
They sought economic power, not power that came from domination of land.
"Good morning. I am Ishikawa Kamizuru, you are the Raisukure delegation?" Boomed the bigger man.
"We are." Said one of the triplets of Red team, standing in front of the delegation as part of a wedge, naturally, defensive while also placing the lead of the delegation in a position of prominence.
"Good. Follow me."
He looked at them rather suspiciously, which was a given. They were offering quite a bit and were planning only to take a little. He was trying to figure out just what exactly their plans were and what they were trying this at all.
But at the same time… it was something that concerned him greatly. His peoples were already suffering the effects of being inside of the mountains, their food supplies were precarious at the best of times and their economy mainly came from what they could mine and sell, outside of shinobi missions of course.
The Raisu offered him a way to gain independence from the Land of Earth in such a way that they would not need to rely on the food shipments, and thus were no longer slaves to the Land of Earth, but instead were going to be held by the scruff of their necks by ink on paper.
So long as the Raisu followed the words of the contract then they were safe, but if they decided to instead break the contract, it would cause almost irreparable damage to the Iwa. They without food would be desperate and in turn willing to do almost anything.
Dangerous.
Very much so.
Yet… there was little they could do here.
Deny the offer and make their village dependent on the Land of Earth for their very survival… or accept and trust the Raisu's famed neutrality and professionalism.
The hope being that the Iwa delegation in the Land of Rice had reported back that they were marrying into the Mitsugo, so the hope was there that it would happen here as well once the Mitsugo delegations settled in.
Perhaps then they could have some of their own ninja working on the problem, saving the village from being too dependent on the generosity of a single faction. Ishikawa nodded and signed, in one pen stroke he had either doomed his people or saved them.
It was far too difficult to know which at this point in time.
He hoped he had made the right decision.
It would not be for several generations yet but he hoped he would be there to see it.
The possibility of there being a war in the future was weighing on his mind, but it would not be for a time yet. Each side posturing against each other, like randy bulls in a pen. A need to establish the pecking order as each nation became a nation and each village became a village. All of them eager to prove themselves.
It would not be this year, nor the next 5 years, or even 10. But it would happen, just as the sun rose in the morning and the rocks rolled downhill, there was going to be war.
Enough time for the farms to establish themselves and his peoples to be secured before the hostilities initiated.
Homika Honda was a ninja of Konoha, a shinobi, a warrior and whatever names were needed to define her.
She was a weapon to be pointed at the enemies of the village, of the Land of Fire and an embodiment of the Will of Fire.
She was also a person that needed money and the job board had guard duty, C-Rank at the Mitsugo compound for the night.
For her that was an easy way to make money, half-awake Jutsu, allowing her to stay up despite the efforts of her brain otherwise, a way to get half the required sleep so that she could be more efficient at a later date, and more.
It was a great idea and sometimes she thought that maybe she should use it more often, only then she remembered that it tended to make people go insane. Or rather her… she hadn't told anyone of the Jutsu yet, they would probably be annoyed at her if she did… and maybe stop her taking more sentry missions.
Because free money was money and dammit she wanted that new set of armour.
And so it was that she was in front of the Mitsugo compound, looking rather bored and staring up at the sky.
What fun that was.
Oh yes.
What fun indeed.
Her mind was slower than usual, the Jutsu sapping off her attention and turning it into quality sleep, but she would be able to respond to questions as easily as if she were actually fully awake.
Sure they were often incoherent, but seriously, who ever actually responded coherently after 6 hours of sentry duty?
She responded just well enough that they would think she was just a little tired.
Genius.
Still… the Mitsugo. They had been around since forever. Nobody even really knew when they had first appeared, but then they went and took the land north of the Land of Fire, made it theirs, all the way to the coast bordering the Iwa.
It was the first time that a ninja clan had secured land for themselves… and held it. The Mitsugo bred like rabbits and they anchored themselves down hard. Usually, it took a few clans that worked together to settle a village but even then it was just a village, not an entire nation. The fact that they had done so made them unique out of the all the different nations, one that was both a hidden village land, a nation, and a clan land.
Even the Senju and the Uchiha together couldn't break them the few times that they had tried, growing the border all the way to the sea to protect the northern flank.
Sure they killed off hundreds of the Mitsugo, but there were so many of them with their special Jutsu that Konoha had to break off. They just didn't have the numbers to fight against that.
They were ninjas, not suicide troops.
So the Land of Fire called off its invasion, the Land of Rice as it was then called or the Raisukure just… stayed there. They never invaded anyone, sure they attacked but to steal crops… not to damage infrastructure or anything like that, just staying neutral the entire time, never accepting a contract. It was kind of suspicious… until they showed off what they were doing.
Food.
Lots and lots of food.
Ridiculous amounts of food.
All different kinds too, meats, seafood, vegetables, grains, fruits.
If it existed, the Mitsugo sold it.
It had been kind of crazy to hear about it at first, to hear that the Mitsugo were selling it at dirt cheap prices and all year round? That was insanity.
To hear that they would be making monthly deliveries to the different nations and villages as long as they weren't attacked? Madness.
Homika was a pretty good ninja if she said so herself. That said, she never accepted a mission to defend a convoy of food, A-Ranks all of them and that was just from Raisu down to Konoha, she couldn't imagine heading out to the Land of Mist or something like that. They were meant to be off limits, but the ones where the Konoha nin were transporting the food? Those needed experienced teams of ninja at all times. The sheer amount of the food was amazing and the raids against them would all be profitable if they succeeded in getting just one scroll.
Still, the food was arriving, it was selling and Homika had gotten addicted to the pancake. It was a little thing, a little wheat flour (and wasn't that a luxury, clean wheat flour), water, a little rising powder, a griddle and boom.
Fluffy food from the Kami.
She was damned happy that it had existed and that it was being sold at all. To think, a poor shinobi like her would be able to eat like a Kage, dreams did come true.
Now however the Mitsugo had set up shop inside of Konoha for some reason. It was all hush hush but they had their compound that was inside of Konoha on the south side, forcing them to go all the way around if they wanted to head back to Raisu. She guessed it was a way to make sure they could check all those that were coming in, but they were ninja, if they wanted couldn't they just hide?
Then again they did have the Hyuga right next door and they were probably there to make sure nothing happened with the Uchiha on the northern tip to catch anyone trying to make it past.
Not bad… not bad at all. Even if it was a little overkill in her humble opinion.
As for the guard duty, Homika was just standing still outside of the main gate. She was here more as an ornament than anything else, a C-Rank to defend the Mitsugo? Get real.
"Hey, Honda! Back again are we?" Came a voice to her right, the little door inside of the main gate itself.
Homika felt herself drifting awake as the Jutsu wore off just as she had planned, the spike of adrenaline shaking it off. Turning she regarded the speaker and lo and behold… it was someone she recognised. That was certainly unexpected… not.
Damned triplets had been disturbing her sleep for who knew how many days in a row.
"Yes. What is it Bubbles." She said. She didn't know why their names were like that and when she had asked they had blown her off.
It wasn't like it was operational intelligence or anything, if that had been the case she would have understood… but Bubbles? Seriously?
What was worse was that it was Bubbles A, Bubbles B, Bubbles C, they didn't even have their own names, the triplets just shared one, and switched letters or numbers whenever they were bored… which was all the damned time.
For Homika she had been putting up with the triplets for a week now, why they kept coming over to bother her she didn't know but dammit it was getting old.
"If you want to see me so much just ask me out on a date already." She said… woops. She hadn't ever seen them properly before, they always wore masks and baggy clothes, what if they were super ugly?
"Sure, see you at tree 23 tomorrow at 4!" He said… vanishing.
Dammit Homika.
Homika waited in front of tree 23… at 4 like Bubbles had said to.
She was dressed in casual wear. The kind of stuff that she wore underneath her uniform, or at least her armour. They didn't quite have a set uniform when it came down to it, not yet at any rate.
So she was dressed and she was waiting, waiting for Bubbles to show up so she could then… do something. She wouldn't reject him right away because that would be a terrible thing to do… but it wasn't like she was going to be all happy about it either.
She would just use the time old female technique of being female.
Genius.
"Honda!" Came the voice of Bubbles.
That idiot.
Turning around, Homika was ready to expect yet another indistinct little blob that resembled a human only if you squinted at it. But what was actually there… well, it was something worth looking at. As in very worth looking at. He cleaned up very nicely indeed.
Sharp jaws, strong eyes, hair that was surprisingly neat… this was something else.
Sure it was a little shallow but who could blame her? The man was hot. And since he was part of a triplet set… his brothers were going to be the same.
This… this was something she could do.
She let herself smile at the approaching Bubbles as he ran up… like a puppy. Was she a bad person for thinking that? He certainly resembled one if you allowed yourself to squint a little at him while he did that face of his. She could understand now why he kept himself hidden, he was too damn innocent.
Waving slightly, Homika raised an eyebrow as he came close… closer than what was usually acceptable. Personal space was a thing you know.
Eyebrow inching ever higher, Homika looked down at Bubbles and took a deep breath. Only to realise she had made a mistake.
Woops.
She breathed in the scent and realised that dammit, there was more to him than his bloody looks wasn't he?
Little Homika was very much happy about this and she was a terrible judge.
It looked like they were very compatible after all.
Homika shook her head, damned Bubbles.
Homika had worked hard to ignore Bubbles. Sure he made a partner… all 3 of him, but he was also rather insane, like all triplets she was discovering.
Each of them was a single entity, just spread out over 3 people she was discovering. Or rather there were 3 people but they were so bound together that they might as well be a single person. One would start a sentence, another would finish it. One would say something ridiculous, another would giggle manically at it.
Homika had been confused in those early days but she got over it. It wasn't as if it was difficult to ignore them if... she tried hard enough… very hard.
Homika wondered sometimes if this had been such a good idea until one of them gave a particularly nice back massage, or took the kids somewhere.
And hadn't that been a surprise… children. A ridiculous number of them.
She was glad that there were 3 of them since she could skip out on looking after them for an hour or so a day. The fact that they were so… childreny meant that they related very well to their own.
Also, she had 9 children.
Nine.
3 "singles" as they were called with 2 sets of triplets and one more on the way.
She was like a… woman to pump out more children.
More and more potential ninja for the clan.
They would be given the chance of either joining Konoha if they wanted or Raisu. Either way, they would be potential soldiers, their ability to produce a guaranteed number of children and their fertility meaning that they were going to be seen as resources for the different villages and Homika didn't want her children to be seen that way.
She had moved herself to Raisu when given the chance, forcing Bubbles to give his mission to someone else. If she was going to be having children, she wanted to have them somewhere where they would not be turned into weapons to be used for whatever goal it was that people had for them.
At least in Raisu they had the chance of being something else. In Konoha, the fact that they had so much potential would mean that they were going to be forced likely to make more children "for the good of Konoha". It was expected, they were a hidden village and needed to do whatever was necessary to ensure that they maintained their power.
While it wouldn't be overt, the fact of the matter is that they were going to be pressuring the triplets and the "singles" to produce as many children as possible to bolster the defences of Konoha.
Even though they weren't going to be able to use the Mitsugo's arcane chakra if they were part of Konoha, they were going to be at the very least very good record keepers, invaluable on the battlefield with their ability to transmit knowledge, and serve as foot soldiers.
Their numbers working against them and Homika didn't want that for her children, not at all. She had never been as dedicated to the culture of sacrifice that Konoha had, it was all kind of weird in her opinion and out in Raisu, where the culture was simple to "make as much stuff as possible", well she certainly enjoyed it much more.
Her children would grow up, they would be happy, and she was going to be enjoying all the nice food that Raisu had to offer.
The First Shinobi War had broken out. It was a war that one could say would end all wars… if they really wanted to. It wasn't going to be true… but it certainly would feel like it at least.
The First Hokage of Konoha had given out the tailed beasts as an attempt at mitigating the effects of war, in a mutually assured destruction manner of speaking.
The problem came from the fact that the nations were still nascent, each of them still unsure of their place in the new world order.
While they were not facing the problems that came from a food shortage, the Mitsugo providing all that they could ever want or need, they were not however, secure or safe. The fact of the matter being that their territory was also a concern, territory that was still flexible, territory that was still undefined in a concrete manner of speaking.
Which naturally meant that the ninja would be doing their level best in ensuring that they could grab what they wanted, or at the very least grab more.
They would not be grabbing just any land however, they would be grabbing the most important land first, the land that was in the center of the Continent, the land that was arable and extremely useful, what for growing food, for supporting citizens that were very useful in all manner of different things, like making clothes, and serving as meatbags on the battlefield.
For those of Iwa and Suna, the immediate objective was to secure as much land as possible. To get in the land of the Land of Fire to secure for themselves as much of the arable land as possible, both as a means of expanding land, but also to wean themselves away from the Mitsugo, the fact of the matter being that the products of the Mitsugo were becoming ubiquitous in all walks of life, at least in matters pertaining to food.
It was becoming increasingly obvious that the Raisu had an extremely large part to play in their affairs, holding them all effectively to ransom. In short, they would be unable to attack the Land of Rice in this war, to do so would endanger their populations. If the Mitsugo cut off their food supply in the midst of a war, it was highly likely that they would be on the losing side, out of attrition if nothing else. One side having food and they didn't? That was a sure sign that they were on the losing side.
They had no other way of trying to secure the food supplies of the Mitsugo themselves, all of it dependent on the Mitsugo's special abilities, abilities that had not materialized in the children that they had made with the Mitsugo with their own delegates inside of the Land of Rice, or those in their own nations which had produced children of their own.
That they were denied the chakra of the Mitsugo denied them the abilities that allowed for them to dominate the food markets of the continent in the manner in which they had already.
There was no way around it, the Mitsugo and by extension Raisu, was untouchable. Not if they wanted to be on an even playing field. That also included the various special zones that the Mitsugo shared with the different nations and clans, places where they could raise food for the different nations themselves.
They were allowed free travel rights, the Mitsugo were not going to deny them that, but the fact that the Mitsugo had the ability to allow them anything was galling. Regardless, things would need to be done… in some way. Raisu itself was off limits, but the various areas were perfectly fine… for the shinobi of whose land that were stationed there, nobody else.
There was no real plan as of yet but there should be no doubt that one was in the works. Anything to break themselves free of the Mitsugo. Sure they were neutral, but in a time of war? They couldn't be trusted. If they threw their lot in with a single faction, it would be a simple matter for that nation to roll over every single one of the others.
This war was one that was going to occur with or without the Mitsugo, it was one that was inevitable in some way. The nations needed to define themselves, the hidden villages needed to both prove themselves, to rank themselves against each other and to demonstrate that they would not be pushovers.
It was a war that was in essence, a war that was going to be particularly devastating, what with Hashirama giving everyone a tailed beast of their own. The Rice Nation had accepted one, the three tailed beast, one that looked… like a floating scorpion/ turtle thing. It was… eh. It was ok.
The tailed beasts that were sealed inside of the different nations, the use of jinchūriki having been only for a few specific nations. Ones that had decided that it would be better to have them on the front line and in control. Others kept their beasts as weapons of mass destruction, ready to unleash them when necessary into the world.
Raisu had used their tailed beast called the Isobu in a rather… creative manner. They offered the beast all the food it could want for its cooperation, in turn using it to create a large coral reef off their shores in order to allow for even greater fish production, boosting their economy yet again.
The tailed beast in essence, was treated as an honoured guest and as something that was naturally a turtle… well, it was slothful if given the chance.
It would only ever do something if absolutely necessary such as opening its mouth for more food, or creating more coral in the ever expanding oceanic farms of the Raisu.
As for the rest of the nations, they were going to war while the Raisu played farmer and it was ramping up dramatically. Hashirama having been killed some years previously, his brother Tobirama taking his place as Hokage.
He had been a divisive one, at least for the Uchiha. The manner in which he had created for them the Konoha Police Force and confined them into it was something that was seen as the first step to the end for those of the Uchiha. The Senju were enacting their chance at revenge and there wasn't much that they could do without destroying the heritage that they had wrought and returning to a clan at war.
They had resolved to bear with it for the time being but in their minds, they were muttering about taking revenge upon the Senju, not or later. It would be only a matter of time before they accomplished it.
But there was a ray of hope, that of the Raisu and the way they had accepted the Uchiha delegation and even now were… producing Uchiha children. They were young yet, their ability to use the Sharingan unknown, but they did exist and they were growing plentiful, more as a result of the fact that they were producing triplets than anything else. If one of their number was to join with a trio, they would be expected to produce a child from each of them, at least 4 children, oftentimes many more.
It was a good thing then that the Mitsugo had learnt how to use their jutsu to heal, otherwise, the women would have likely died from their bodies being overworked.
The Uchiha had an escape, they did not need to fight the rest of the village, but rather were allowed a path out of their situation if things did become too… tense for them. After what they had seen regarding the Mitsugo policy for merging new families and clans, the Uchiha were sure that they would be able to at the very least make a case to join the Raisu while remaining at least nominally part of their ninja cast.
As for Konoha itself, their goals for this were very simple, as was everyone else's. The Land of Fire had the misfortune to be the largest of the nations in terms of arable farmland, while also being in the middle of what was essentially the continent. Surrounded on all sides (except the South) by that of the other nations and their hidden villages. What this meant for Konoha was that they had to defend their land on all fronts from incursions by those that would want the land for themselves. While the other villages would be looking to strike at Konoha, pushing in from their own lands, the other villages adjacent to them would be at the same time seeking to perhaps cripple their nearest neighbours, thus creating space for themselves and security.
A deadly game where one would attack, the others would take the opportunity to gain what they could and strike at the now vulnerable nation.
There were possible alliances but in a time like this when nations were still nascent, when things were still settling, when every opportunity to expand had to be grabbed with both hands, the nations of the continent were not willing to give up any advantages, not even if they could get some more from being alone.
Each a lone wolf lashing out against the other.
As for the smaller nations, the smaller factions, the ones in danger of being swallowed up by the bigger nations with their hidden villages, each a collection of different ninja serving together to increase their chances of survival as well as to increase the amount of money that they could make.
Economic, social and political security in a time when there was little of any to be found.
But for they of the smaller factions and nations, they were very much at risk. They possessed land and land was what each nation was trying to secure. They were very much at risk at this time and the threat of being destroyed was an ever present one.
Something would need to be done and that something came very surprisingly from the Mitsugo.
First was an offer for all of them that if they were ever to be overrun, their peoples would be welcome inside of the Raisu itself where they would be given the chance to integrate into the Mitsugo to preserve their peoples.
That and they offered each and every faction regardless of their size, number, power, or even of their previous agreements 5 entire teams of ninjas. They Mitsugo were neutral in this war, but they were determined to profit from it in both the monetary sense as well as the practical sense.
Their ninja were being sent out not as a means of trying to even the balance as much as it might have appeared that way, but rather as a means for them to test out their own ninja, their own Jutsu, and to bring back practical experience to the Mitsugo to define their next experimentation efforts. The Mitsugo knew that they were always at threat of being overwhelmed and so long as the other shinobi were advancing in their Jutsu, in finding new ways to use Jutsu and the like, they too could not rest on their laurels.
They had to stay one step ahead of the game, their advantages in numbers would mean nothing if the enemy had an overwhelming advantage that was for certain.
The 5 teams that each faction were offered, would serve to grant the Mitsugo that experience so it was not a totally selfless deed however, the smaller clans grabbed onto the offer with both hands. They needed the Mitsugo if they wanted to survive and if the Mitsugo offered, then they were going to accept. To do otherwise was the height of foolishness.
The larger factions also accepted the offer, the fact of the matter being that free ninja, notably 20 free ninja was not something to turn their nose at, it was certainly a boon that could be taken advantage of, what with their own Mitsugo children not being of age where they could serve on the front line.
Them being still too young to have chosen which faction that they wished to join. The larger nations had been reluctant at first but it became rather obvious as to the utility of these ninja and accepted them into their ranks very quickly after the demonstration of their ability in the smaller nations.
And so it was that the First Shinobi World War as it would later be known broke out and in doing so, it set the tone for the rest of the continent for the next century or more.