ALL NOVEL 103. Recent Socio-Political Climate Of The Kirigakure
A few days after his successful escape, Hikari finally received the complete analysis from the intelligence personnel, he just met with covertly behind the generally established front line of Konoha, concerning the elite Jonin he had captured and sealed during his mission from a squadron specialized in these kinds of post-mortem brain inspections of hostile shinobi.
The results turned out to be even more significant than he had anticipated. The individual he had defeated was none other than the patriarch of the Hozuki clan, a figure of considerable influence within Kirigakure and a close associate of the Third Mizukage currently in power.
This revelation underscored the strategic value of his mission's success. The patriarch's high-ranking position meant that he was privy to confidential information not only about Kirigakure's current military campaigns but also about the internal political dynamics of it.
Such information was exceedingly rare and valuable, especially given that village's overall secretive nature, making it the most isolated and the least-known village in the shinobi world.
After deciphering the intelligence from the captured Hozuki patriarch, Hikari now gained deep insights into Kirigakure and the Land of Water, in general, and their complexities, and with his own logical thinking skills he further managed to deduce many things from that.
The Land of Water, an archipelago, was marked by rugged terrain and diverse, fiercely maintained local traditions, which had big federal levels of autonomy, making the Kirigakure something more akin to a 'confederation' of many smaller island territories, managed by their nobles, than a truly unified country as the other four main countries of this world were.
Additionally, even that level of unification was pretty hard to achieve for the Land of Water, and it was only recently that all of the territories truly united in that kind of fragile union.
Kirigakure itself, located on the Main Island of the country, was also established over time similarly to other hidden villages, 'following the trend of times', and 'peer-pressure' but still struggled with unifying the diverse clans, from the country, under its rule - many of them now still living outside of the Kirigakure in other parts of the Land of Water overall territory.
Therefore, throughout its history, the Land of Water has been plagued by numerous civil wars, more so than any other nation. This strife was primarily fueled by conflicts among the lords and nobles of the local islands, a situation possibly exacerbated by the archipelago's divisive and dispersed geography, which naturally encouraged separatism and regionalism, in Hikari's analysis.
Furthermore, the most significant overarching conflict involved the various local factions battling against the most powerful noble family from the Main Island. This family, which eventually rose to become the official Daimyo family, managed to secure a precarious victory that led to the unification of the country to some extent.
Additionally, the civil wars in the Land of Water frequently involved clans with bloodline limits, who were often hired as mercenaries by various political factions due to their formidable strength.
Even after establishing the one-country-one-hidden-village system, many of these clans, along with the Kirigakure village administration, found themselves entangled in conflicts initiated by different civilian leaders within the Land of Water. This occurred during peacetime, with the village only presenting a united front against foreign enemies during the ninja world wars, like the current one.
This persistent internal strife is a key reason why Kirigakure and the Land of Water adopted such an isolationist stance. Consumed by internal conflicts and deep-seated divisions, they simply could not afford to extend their focus beyond their borders, dedicating most of their resources and attention to managing and resolving their numerous issues.
However, over time, those large clans with special bloodlines were scapegoated for the ongoing strife, leading to widespread persecution of them.
After all, like everywhere else, people naturally, especially, civilians, are pretty simple-minded so they feared, hated, and envied those more powerful than them, who often also possessed those "strange" abilities, in Hikari's opinion.
This blame and the subsequent treatment cast them as bringers of misfortune, turning public sentiment against them everywhere they would go inside the Land of Water from civilians.
However, as the civil wars subsided over time, as the external pressure increased, some kekkei-genkai clans like one with a Boiling Release, or another one with Lava Release, for example, and many others, were already fully decimated, other clans were badly damaged, thanks to the decades-long persecution from the Kirigakure and the entire general public.
Hikari surmised that this war might temporarily delay the demise of the Yuki and Kaguya clans, drawing on his knowledge of future events from the original story he knew from his previous life on Earth. He was aware that both the Yuki and Kaguya clans would eventually be decimated by Kirigakure, leaving very few descendants.
Only those clans that aligned with Kirigakure's political future—backed by the Daimyo from the Main Island—and chose to reside within the village, like the Hozuki and Hoshigaki, managed to avoid severe persecution.
By integrating into Kirigakure's structure, these clans not only survived but also thrived. They became, alongside the Seven Swordsmen, central to the military might of the Third Mizukage, who was notably antagonistic towards clans with those bloodline limits.
Hikari now had a nearly complete understanding of Kirigakure's complex socio-political landscape.
He realized that while the village's internal situation was fraught with strife due to the massacre of valuable bloodline-holding clans—viewed by many as harbingers of doom—it hadn't yet reached the extreme state it would under Obito's secretive control.
Obito, driven by a vendetta to avenge Rin, would later intensify the village's already extremist policies, further fueling the fear and discrimination that plagued Kirigakure.
The notorious "kill another student" graduation exam, a grim marker of Kirigakure's brutal culture, was already in place before Obito's influence but became even more rigorous under his regime.
This policy not only underscored the village's moniker, "the Village of the Bloody Mist," but also highlighted the harsh realities of its shinobi training.
However, Hikari understood that these severe practices and the pervasive discrimination against Kekkei Genkai holders were not new developments brought about by Obito alone.
Even before his time, such extremist exams and widespread killings of bloodline holders by civilians and fellow shinobi were common.
These actions reflected deep-seated fears and prejudices that had been part of Kirigakure's culture for generations, contributing to the village's notorious reputation long before it was officially led by Obito.
With this historical context in mind, Hikari could see that the roots of Kirigakure's issues were deep and multifaceted, involving more than just the influence of any single individual, even one as impactful as Obito.
This understanding provided him with valuable insights into the underlying tensions and conflicts within Kirigakure, which could be strategically significant in navigating the ongoing war and planning future interactions with the village.
Hikari's newfound knowledge of the deep divisions within Kirigakure gave him a clearer perspective on the fragile state of its internal politics, even surpassing the divisions he knew within Konoha.
Unlike the more integrated clans of Konoha like the Hyuga and Uchiha, major clans such as the Kaguya and Yuki in Kirigakure lived on the fringes of the village's direct control, often outside its borders.
The political landscape of Kirigakure was split between two primary factions. One was led by the Third Mizukage, who allied with the larger clans that did not possess kekkei genkai, such as the Hozuki and Hoshigaki.
These clans were well-integrated into the village's structure and held significant influence within its governing bodies.
In stark contrast, the other faction was led by the Kaguya clan, known for their formidable bone-manipulation abilities and recognized as the strongest clan in the Land of Water. They were joined by the Yuki clan, masters of the Ice Release kekkei genkai.
This faction was characterized by their independence from Kirigakure's central authority and their distinct bloodline abilities, which set them apart both culturally and politically from the main village.
This schism created a complex web of loyalties and conflicts that often erupted into open hostility, affecting not only the ninjas themselves but also the broader political strategies of Kirigakure.
Understanding these dynamics, Hikari recognized potential leverage points for his war campaign and next political goals. Notably, the Kaguya and Yuki clans, along with their vassal forces, were not just distant from Kirigakure's central authority—they were actively hostile towards it, having engaged in open conflict with the village on multiple occasions.
This was a big contrast to the internal but more restrained tensions between clans like the Uchiha and Hyuga with Konoha. Moreover, the Kaguya and Yuki clans were in a significantly more precarious position, giving Hikari a unique opportunity that excited him more and more.
He planned to explore ways to align with these disenfranchised groups, potentially using their grievances and ambitions to his advantage in the ongoing conflict with Kirigakure, or better said against the extremist, strict, hardline, unitarist, and even possibly discriminatory Third Mizukage and his Faction spearheaded by the '7 Swordsmen', Hozuki and Hoshigaki.
However, it was not like the hijutsu major clans got well against the major Kekkei Genkai clans, even without the Mizukage's influence, as also seen in Konoha, between the Uchiha and Hyuga against the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi. That's why the Hozuki clan Patriarch was one of the leading figures in the persecution of the other Kekkei Genkai big clans.
For example, also in the Kirigakure, only the ice-wielders of the Yuki Clan were willing to challenge the Hozuki clan, historically, many times, even during the Warring Clans Era, because they naturally 'countered them' and the animosity between these two was huge.
In Hikari's analysis, the Kaguya and Yuki clans stood out as exceptionally powerful, second only to the Uchiha and Hyuga clans in the ninja world. They were worthy allies to have.
It was just that the Kaguya and Yuki clans were partially positioned on a sub-front inside Yugakure, on the Land of Water's side, directly opposing Takumi's sub-division of Konoha's Eastern Front, not Hikari's sub-division, which was led by some of the '7 Swordsmen' from the Kirigakure's side, as sub-commanders, Hikari learned that also from that man's brain.
Meanwhile, the Kaguya and Yuki clans were not only active on the front against Takumi's subdivision but also engaged on a separate for the Land of Water, where they were assigned by the Land of Water political consensus, positioned to counter threats from Kumogakure.
From the intelligence extracted from the Hozuki clan patriarch's brain, Hikari gleaned some intriguing insights. It appeared that the Third Mizukage may have negotiated a covert deal with Kumogakure.
The nature of this deal seemed to involve Kirigakure using Kumogakure to strategically eliminate some of those shinobi from the two clans before the Mizukage finished the two clans off after this war.
In return, Kirigakure would assist Kumogakure in their conflicts against Iwagakure, providing support that could shift regional power balances. After all, Kumogakure was already at war with both Iwagakure and Konoha, so even though they were the second most powerful village, they didn't want another full-on enemy in the Kirigakure who mostly remained passive in the past and they didn't have many negative developments between them.
This all meant that shinobi from those two large clans were not on the same sub-front as Hikari and his current forces presently were on the southern sub-front on the outskirts of this continent, meaning that he had no direct means of contacting them at the moment.
'No! Wait, maybe I should relay all of this information to Takumi-sensei next instead and then let him discreetly set everything up with them if viable and they agree. After all, they are all probably already full of engagements, between them, therefore, with a full possibility of establishing some form of contact... By the looks of it, that frontline remained very passive, almost as if the two clans already understood the Third Mizukage's plan to use Kumogakure against them in the future, so they concentrated all of their efforts on that front. So all of this means that we have a great chance of success in getting an alliance with them, after all, they are in a very deadly position currently....', Hikari thought and quickly decided his next steps.
