Leo Mitsugo wasn't a real triplet. Rather he had been born from a father that had been a triplet but his mother was an immigrant to the Rice Nation.
Still, as a Mitsugo he was given duties in the various different villages, towns and the main city in the Rice Nation. He had been raised as part of the Mitsugo clan and he had the skills that came with that. His ability to remember anything he saw was one of them, something that had to do with their chakra being different from other clans if he remembered his lessons correctly. Something about the other clans having Chakra that came from the Sage of Six Paths, while they used Chakra that was elemental in nature, they called it "arcane chakra" for some reason.
Not elementally attuned Chakra, but rather they had elemental Chakra that came in what was described as something that wasn't elemental at all.
He wasn't sure honestly how it worked, but they had the elements of Arcane, Cold, Earth, Fire, Life, Lightning, Shield, and Water.
He wasn't sure how cold, arcane, life, and shield were elements but he wasn't going to be questioning the elders, that usually resulted in a swatting.
Still, he had chakra and he was expected to use it on behalf of the village in what he assumed was an act of fighting off the attackers? That and making sure everything was working properly.
It wasn't like he had found any of them but he would be sure to alert the world if he did.
He was a "single" which meant that he wasn't the same as those of the Triplets and he had less power as a result. They moved in groups of three and able to attack with overwhelming power as a result of this.
As for him, he was part of the Nation's guard class. The Mitsugo clan members who were not ninjas… but rather the bureaucrats of the Nation itself. Whereas the triplets served as their offensive and defensive arm of the Rice Nation, the singles and those who married into the family were those who ran the bureaucracy.
Which in itself was extremely important given how much of it there was. Their nation was so powerful not because of the Mitsugo clan's triplets, but rather because of the amount of resources under their control and ready to be sold across the continent for tremendous profit.
Leo himself knew that, his ability to use the life element allowed for him to quite literally use his chakra to breathe life into plants, to act as fertilizer and in doing so he was able to grow crops in a fraction of the time that a normal plant would take to grow, without damaging the soil while he was at it.
He could even use the earth element and combine it with the life element to create fertiliser.
It was ridiculous now that he thought about it, the way their clan just blatantly broke the rules of reality.
Sure chakra itself allowed for people to do that, but to do it in a way that allowed them to cheat at real life was something the other clans weren't able to do. Sure they could create fireballs, and make like walls and stuff, but to grow a limitless supply of food, food that could feed you so you can grow more food? It was a cycle of brokenness and he hoped his clan appreciated this fact.
In fact, it was one of his main jobs, just using his grow Jutsu on the crops for them to increase in size. He would do this once a day to all the fields under his purview, which at his chakra level was around 30 fields. Each one was approximately 25 meters squared, a large chunk of space to be sure.
In a month the rice would be ready to harvest and then came the hard part. Replanting all of the rice so that he could cast the jutsu all over again.
Joy.
He was able to get away from it by paying the village kids to do it for him. He had grinned at that, he was just older than they were so he could get away with it. He had reached adulthood last year after all and was still not quite good enough at everything to be trusted with anything besides just mindlessly casting Life Jutsu on the crops.
He had been given a chance to join in the training by the Mitsugo clan itself but he had declined. He preferred the easy life of being a bureaucrat, of where he just needed to worry about paperwork, making sure that shipments were being sent out on time and enjoying his life.
He knew where his strengths lay and he pursued them with reckless abandon.
"Hey, Leo! What'chu doing?" Came the voice behind him. Ah. The Green Trio. It was easier to label a trio by their defining attribute due to the fact that they were like one entity, to begin with. It was hard to tell where one started and where one ended. Unless the were one of the male/female ones, it was just easier to call them by group instead of name. That and… they didn't actually have names. They just called themselves by what they thought should be their name and everyone else just called them that as well, easier than trying to figure out who was who if they referred to them as units instead of individuals.
In this case, the Green Trio since they had dyed their hair green at one point and the name had stuck, even if it was red now.
"Sup Green!" Leo replied, taking a break from the casting to wave hello at the Trio.
They were returning from a mission it looked like. A few cuts here and there, a few rips in their clothes. A little bit of ice, a little water, some earth, a little arcane and there we go. Leo patched up the rips in their clothes.
It wouldn't do for them to walk around looking so unkempt.
"Thanks, Leo." Said the right one.
"No worries, just tending to the crops. How did you delivery go?" Leo asked, they were meant to be shipping a few hundred kilograms of rice to the border and to the guys at the Nation of Rock with their storage scrolls. Payment was in minerals if he remembered correctly.
"Off, without a hitch, some sand guys tried to ambush us, taught them what for though." Said the left one, all of them grinning at that.
"Well, why don't you go report back and get some sleep, you look like you could use it," Leo said shaking his head at them.
Something else about the Trios was how they were all laser focused into a single thing. Just focused on it to the exclusion of all else at times or at least until they forgot minor things like eating. The Branch family, or the "Singles" were there also to look after them. It was a symbiotic relationship really. The Trios protected the Clan, the Clan in turn, looked after their Trios.
It was why the Triplets weren't doing the bureaucratic work, they were either literally incapable of sitting in one place for an extended period of time, or they would be so focused that they would generate more paperwork for themselves to do in a never ending cycle. One triplet working, the other generating, one marking and it would just repeat with changing roles occasionally.
Best to send them out so they wouldn't all go insane.
Leo smiled at them as they waved to him and got to walking in the direction of the… town.
Dammit.
"Green!" He shouted. His voice carrying over the field.
"What?!" Came, the distant reply.
"That wasn't a suggestion! Get some sleep before you fall apart!" Leo called out to the distant figures, who were even now… just sort of wandering off into the distance.
"Fine." He heard distantly. Sometimes it really was kind of hit or miss how they dealt with things.
Sometimes they were perfectly ok with being left on their own for extended periods of time. Other times they just… fell apart and required the assistance of the rest of the clan to get along. Those that lost one of their set usually were called "Duos" and were generally given the most difficult and insane of missions, they were just a danger to the Nation otherwise. Their stability just degraded slowly over time.
It was from what Leo had heard, like having a very large wound that just refused to close and over time would just fester. It was best to simply have them removed from the village entirely rather than trying to work it out with them lest they go berserk. There was the chance they could stabilize but it was very rare.
As for their children, the female members of a Trio were able to produce further Triplets making the entire clan a matriarchal one, while at the same time, the males could only produce a single child for the first, but the children afterwards were all triplets for some unexplained reason. All of the children had the Arcane chakra that the Mitsugo Clan was famous for, but at the same time they were very different in their personalities.
The Trio sacrificed what looked like the ability to comprehend higher tier human social interactions in exchange for what seemed to be their links to each other. They understood what was happening but on some level, they just were not able to fully understand them. It was in essence, their greatest flaw and the reason why the Branch family had the power that they had at all. Someone needed to guide the Trio or else things tended to not end so well if the first expansion of the village had been anything to go by.
It had been generations ago, but the bodies of the original expansion had been enshrined so that the Branch family would never forget what happened when the Trios were left on their own without a guiding hand.
Entire villages had been wiped out, their inhabitants, their guards, regardless of age or gender, they died to the Trios. Their answers when questioned, was that in doing this they were enhancing the efficiency of their operations, a logical answer in face of a very illogical and bloody action.
The Branch family had debated briefly with the main family before coming to an understanding. While they were not the ones with the power, they would be the ones that would give orders and guide the Trios in order that their "excesses" were kept in check. It would not do after all to have a Trio cause a massive incident because of their lack of checks and balances.
What was more efficient in the short term was definitely not in the long term, but if the were looking at the long term then their actions were different again.
The handler system was therefore put in place and each Trio was then assigned a Branch family member who would coordinate them and give them orders. In essence combining the human mind with the power of the Triplets themselves.
It was an effective method and it was where the Branch members who wanted to be combat trained would eventually end up. Leo had declined it since that would just be a large amount of responsibility that was going to eat away at his own mind.
He was just too lazy to want the responsibility of dealing with the Trios. Sure they could survive on their own, but they would push themselves too far, too close to the margins for it to be safe. The most efficient of methods was often a method or route that would do nothing but cause them pain and death down the line. Having just a little bit more in reserve, or someone pulling them back so they didn't go all out an insane was important.
Leo just wasn't ready to be doing that on his own and the logistical corps had been his pick when it came down to it. He certainly enjoyed just relaxing, doing basic paperwork, growing the crops, and generally having a good time of life.
There was a distinct lack of responsibility on his shoulders and while he was trained in basic combat, he wouldn't be in the thick of it like the others were.
Enough to raise the alarm and maybe escape if attacked, not much else.
Not that it mattered, anyone trying to attack the Rice Nation would have to be insane, they had what was essentially a ninja population that rebound in size every time there was a birth wave.